Come Clean (1989) by Bill James

quite probable. I’m very happy to help. I don’t
mind turning out in these tiddly clothes, and the smiling at everybody and bent raffles, as long as no chamber of trade jerk turns witty and aloof, you know, smart arse, snide remarks about my
business interests, where the money comes from, all that, like they was so spotless, all looking after each other, turning blind eyes. Historians will tell you three-quarters of the House of Lords
was bandits or pimps a couple of centuries ago. Only time have given them the nice accents and prize rhododendrons in their grounds. But it upsets Alma if these pricks get uncivil, I can tell you.
Is that humane, to load rough pain on to someone as sensitive as Alma?’
    ‘Diabolical. But you can handle it, I know, Benny. What you give them is that gentle but biting repartee? It seems gentle but when they have a think really it’s biting. Everybody
says these sort feel that more than smashing their nose with a head-butt. Known as sophisticated.’
    ‘Maybe, maybe,’ Loxton replied. ‘Tell me about our boys handling the operation.’
    ‘This model’s no good for showing it, obvious, Benny, but here you got a long window, high up near the ceiling of the hall, above the little stage,’ Macey pointed. ‘Our
boys are in an eight-floor office corridor next door, higher, looking right down on to that window and the stage. They’ll be firing through two lots of glass, but no trouble. Couldn’t
be better. It’s going to be night, so nobody in the office building except an occasional bit of sketchy security. We can handle that, I mean, handle it in a subtle way, we don’t want no
tangle with security. We don’t want any tangle at all, because this is a maximum precision job and the boys will need quiet. The darkness is all right, because the targets will be fully
illuminated on that stage, like a spotlight.’
    ‘Bobby and Norman,’ Benny said.
    The two men nodded.
    ‘Well, you know there’s not many people better with a rifle and telescopies,’ Macey declared.
    ‘Nobody,’ Loxton agreed.
    ‘That’s why we brought in Bobby Lentle, obvious. They both say it can be done and they can handle it and get out afterwards. It’s going to be a lot neater than Lee Harvey
Oswald.’ Macey signalled to the two men, inviting them to speak, and went to sit on a low-backed settee while they took over. He was about thirty, big-jawed and powerfully made, with
remarkably deep-set eyes that gave him a look of hair-trigger menace. Loxton valued Macey, but had learned to keep him in the background except during bad crises, because he upset people. Of
course, there were times when people needed to be upset, or more than that, like Leo and his boys, and then Macey earned his keep. His dark hair was always very well done – skilfully cut and
obviously clean – and he spent a packet on clothes, good clothes in fashion, not bin ends, fine suits and such, but he still looked what he was, someone who had shoved his way up from street
fighting and chickenshit villainy to . . . Well, to Loxton’s prime operations. Somewhere during that career Macey had lost all his front teeth and received a set of false ones that fitted all
right but which shone too white and were too even, except for an old Hollywood glamour boy movie, say some pretty moustache like Douglas Fairbanks Junior. Loxton found the teeth a bit of a laugh,
but not a laugh he let Macey see.
    ‘Yes, it’s on,’ Bobby told them. ‘We had a dry run. The sighting’s perfect.’
    ‘All three? You can do all three?’ Loxton said.
    Macey stood again and replied for them. ‘The weapons they got, they’ll be putting God knows how many shells into that little circle in only a couple of seconds. How many is
it?’
    Norman said: ‘We’ll be using –’
    ‘I don’t want to know,’ Benny told him. ‘None of the technicalities. If you say it’s all right, it’s all right. All I got to say is this is going to be the
only chance