Come Clean (1989) by Bill James Page B

only one. What numbers can do to you. If I don’t finish him, he’ll finish me, no question.’
    ‘Pre-emptive,’ Norman said, re-folding the paper.
    ‘Most likely,’ Loxton replied. ‘Leo’s had a try. Well, you know – a try at me twice, one very near.’
    ‘Only luck you’re still with us, Benny,’ Macey told him. ‘Leo been difficult, no argument.’
    ‘With dum-dum bullets. I mean, is that civilized?’ Loxton asked. ‘Them hit you, hole as big as a frisby and more colourful. Can I go on risking something like that? And him so
sweet-talking and worried after, saying he heard about the “dastardly attack” – that’s his words, “dastardly” – and wanted to offer sympathy. Oh, sure
Leo’s older now, but that don’t make him no kinder. He knows how to run his firm and how to give the orders. Somebody went out and bought them dum-dums, and somebody wrote out the
shopping list. And who named the target? That what they call the fucking old school tie? So, it’s just like Mrs Thatcher says, the market place – only the sharp ones survive, simple as
that. Yes.’ He nodded a couple of times, thoughtfully.
    ‘Leo wouldn’t be weighing up the rights and wrongs the way you are, Benny, if he had a real chance to finish us,’ Macey told him.
    ‘Leo Tacette and his missus going to be at this occasion tonight?’ Bobby asked.
    ‘Leo, charity? You crazy?’ Loxton replied. ‘Leo worries about the whale? I’m telling you he probably never spent even five seconds all his life considering whales, or
even the needy. Anyway, who’d let him into a class affair like this? Leo in a penguin suit? You ever seen his collars at all? I seen cleaner coalmen. Leo would be like a fish out of water, a
whale out of water.’
    Macey laughed first, then the rest quickly afterwards.
    ‘A whale out of water in a penguin suit,’ Bobby said. ‘Deep-sea fancy dress.’ He was solid, going plump, his fair hair cut very short, fresh-faced and clean-shaven,
around thirty-five.
    Loxton said: ‘It would be pitiful to put Leo into a decent social do, cruel to him, and Daphne. Socially, Leo don’t even get started, and Daphne less, scratching her arse in public.
The only one from our line who might have got there beside me was Tenderness Mellick, he was really working hard on the mixing, and inviting non-rough elements and even genuine titles and OBEs for
amontillado sherry and
vol-au-bits
to his big, smart, debt-heavy house up the Enclave, and so on. But this time he can’t get away from Gartree, I understand, nor for about twelve years
after, even with remission.’
    ‘That’s friend Harpur, also,’ Macey said.
    ‘He knows too much, thinks too much. Always have,’ Loxton agreed. ‘But, listen, I didn’t want it to get to this situation, having to see off a local boy like Leo, or even
blot his sons. And then, losing a good kid like Justin, what seemed a good kid, anyway. I mean he was no age at all, and he knew about numbers, very good.’
    ‘There’ll be others, Benny,’ Macey said. ‘Others, maybe not so leaky.’
    ‘He was talking to Lamb? We know that? I mean, know it.’
    ‘Well, no, not hundred per cent sure,’ Macey replied. ‘What we know is he used to call him. Like I said, Norman found the number at Justin’s place when he had a bit of a
look and turn-over up at his place, and traced it to Lamb.’
    ‘No problem,’ Norman said.
    ‘You spoke to him?’
    ‘I rang him, but no talk. Speaking didn’t seem a good idea, Benny, not at the time.’ Norman was about forty, thin, lined, with receding grey hair and rimless glasses. He spoke
quietly and looked like someone arguing out a tricky point about gays or lady vicars at a serious, top church meeting.
    ‘No, you could be right,’ Loxton said. ‘That means we don’t know whether he’ve told him about the silver wedding arrangements, nor how many leaks he give Lamb in
the past.’
    ‘Well, we aren’t certain whether he leaked to him