Killing the Lawyers

‘Of course I’m bothered about Zak!’ said Hardiman indignantly. ‘I put years into that girl, the important years. I’m looking forward to a good decade of watching her tear up the record books, and all the while I’ll be thinking, it was me who got you started, girl! And I’ll tell you one thing, Joe. Doesn’t matter what some nutter might be saying, once Zak gets out on that track, she’ll run to win. She doesn’t know any other way. I guarantee that, ’cos it was me that put it there!’

Good speech, thought Joe. But when you’re watching her winning Olympic Gold, won’t you be thinking, it should be me there at trackside, me she’s running up to with the big thank-you hug for all to see on worldwide telly?

He recalled vaguely that last summer when Zak had announced she was definitely heading west, some of the tabloids had tried to whip rumours of an acrimonious parting into a full-blown row. Both of the notional participants, however, had been at pains to play things down. Zak, looking so lovely you’d have believed it if she’d told you she could fly, had talked about her gratitude to Jim and his total support for her decision that the American option was best for her, both personally and athletically. And Hardiman had completed the smother job by announcing that he was taking up the post of sports director at the Plezz. ‘With Zak’s talent, coaching her was a full-time commitment and I was never going to be able to combine it with getting things off the ground at the Pleasure Dome,’ he’d said, cleverly suggesting that if any dumping had been done, he was the dumpster.

‘Now let’s see if I can find Zak for you. I think she’ll be in the café with the others.’

‘Others?’

‘Didn’t she say? Her agent, her Yank trainer, and of course big sister are all here.’

He made them all sound like a gang of freeloading hangers-on.

‘So what exactly happens on New Year’s Day?’ asked Joe as they set off walking once more.

‘Well, there’s an official opening of the stadium, flashing lights, boys and girls dancing, that sort of thing, followed by the competition, with Zak’s race as the highlight, of course. Then in the evening there’s a civic reception in the art gallery to inaugurate the other facilities, Zak will be asked to unveil a plaque, everyone will get noisily pissed, and the ratepayers will foot the bill. The luminaries of Luton are fighting for invites. If you don’t have a ticket, you’re dead.’

‘I’m dead,’ said Joe.

Hardiman laughed and pushed open a door which led into a self-serve café, gaily decorated in the bistro style and tiered down to a plate-glass wall which let every table have a view of the track below. There was no food on offer yet, but on the serving counter a coffee machine bubbled away.

‘Won’t this be the place to eat though?’ said Hardiman proudly. ‘Gobbling up your grub, while down there they’re gobbling up world records.’

‘Pretty optimistic, aren’t you?’ said Joe.

‘We’ve got the fastest boards and the most generous indoor bends in Europe,’ boasted Hardiman. ‘They’ll soon catch on, anyone after a world record, Luton’s the only place to be. There’s Zak down there.’

Joe had already spotted the girl sitting at a table on the lowest tier with three people, two men and a woman. These three were drinking coffee. Zak was sucking on a bottle of her beloved Bloo-Joo which she removed from her mouth and waved as they approached.

‘Hi, Joe,’ she said. ‘Glad you could make it. You guys, this is Joe I was telling you about. Joe, meet my sister Mary, my agent Doug Endor, and my coach, Abe Schoenfeld.’

Schoenfeld was late twenties, athletic of build and glistening with what looked like spray-on health. He said, ‘Hi, Joe,’ in a Clint Eastwood accent. Endor, who was about thirty, tall, craggily handsome, and wearing an eat-your-heart-out-paupers mohair suit, offered his hand and said, ‘Glad to know you, Joe.’ Sister Mary didn’t even look at him. She was shorter than Joe and muscularly built. He tried to see a resemblance to Zak and couldn’t.

‘Grab a seat, Joe,’ said Zak.

He sat. Hardiman said, ‘Catch you later, Joe,’ and walked away.

Sulking because he hadn’t been asked to stay? Or maybe you didn’t invite directors to sit in their own sports centres.

‘So tell me, Joe, what’s your line?’ said Abe Schoenfeld.

Joe glanced uneasily at Zak. She’d intro’d him as Joe I was telling you about. Presumably she’d given the agreed story about taking pity on the out-of-work uncle of an old friend. But what work was he out of?

Zak said, ‘Abe means, what’s your physical thing, Joe. He reckons everyone is some sort of athlete, even if it’s only second-hand.’

‘Like watching, you mean?’ said Joe. ‘I’ve got a season ticket for the Town.’

‘That’s soccer, right? You play?’

‘Used to kick a ball around when I was at school.’

‘But not now? Nothing else? Tennis? Maybe not. Rock climbing? Swimming?’

‘Go to a judo class,’ he said.

‘Knew there was something,’ said Schoenfeld. ‘You can always tell the guys who haven’t dropped right through. You should do weights. Right body shape, good shoulders, heavy legs.’

‘You’re right about the legs,’ said Joe. ‘Feel heavier every time I go upstairs.’

‘Abe is always looking for new talent,’ laughed Zak. ‘OK, you guys, I’m going to show Joe around, let him know what he’s going to be doing.’

She stood up. Joe followed suit. So did Mary.

Endor said, ‘Mary, doll, spare a mo? Couple of fings I need to talk over.’

Professional Cockney, Hardiman had said. Sounded real enough to Joe.

‘I’ll be back in the office next week,’ said Mary coldly. ‘Just now I’m on vacation, remember?’

She walked away with the faintest hint of a limp.

‘Mary works for your agent, does she?’ asked Joe as he followed Zak out of the restaurant area.

‘That’s right. Why do you ask?’

‘No reason,’ said Joe, surprised by the sharpness of her tone, ‘She don’t look very happy.’

‘Well, that’s her business, wouldn’t you say?’ said Zak coldly.

Joe took a deep breath. One of the early maxims in the so far very slim Joe Sixsmith Book of Advice to Would-be Detectives was, if you’re going to quarrel with your client, get it over with before the bill mounts up.

‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s my business if I’m going to work for you. I need to be able to ask you anything I like and get a straight answer.’

There it was. She was frowning. She was a nice kid but seeing her with her entourage had underlined that she was also, if not yet a queen, certainly a princess getting used to the deference of her own court.

Could be it was off-with-his-head time.

Instead she suddenly smiled and said, ‘OK. You do the press-ups or you change your coach. Right?’

‘Sounds reasonable,’ said Joe. ‘Talking of which, you did change your coach last summer. Or rather by going to America you cut off your connection with Hardiman. Any hard feelings?’

Always best to get all versions of a story.

‘You’ve been reading the wrong papers, Joe,’ she said. ‘No, it was pretty painless, the right move for both of us at the right time.’

‘Well, that was handy,’ said Joe.

‘Things sometimes work like that,’ said Zak, with all the confidence of one who hadn’t yet received too many half bricks in the neck from life. ‘If we hadn’t stayed good friends, you don’t think I’d be here now? When Jim heard I was coming home for Christmas, it was him got the idea of boosting the official opening of the Plezz by having an athletics meeting with me running an exhibition. I wouldn’t have done it for anybody else.’