My Brother

He had been gradually increasing the tempo. When he finished, with a rapid octave run upwards, Dixie went over to one of the high-backed chairs and sat down on the edge of it. His lined face was beaded with sweat.

“That’ll do,” he said. “Gawd, I’m done in — you pushed it at the end there. Let’s have a fag.”

Pudd’n unexpectedly winked at me. “Nah, yer slowin’ down, Dixie . Getting old. Ain’t that right, Mister Foss?”

“You’re bloody fools, both of you,” I said. “Get it into your heads. I’m not Leo Foss.”

“You’ll have to argue that one out with the boss. Want a cigarette?”

He didn’t seem nearly as unfriendly as Dixie . I shook my head, and he lit a cigarette for himself and turned back to the piano. “Like music, do you?”

“Well enough.” I realized he had no idea who I was. “So do you, and you’re good. You’ve had good training.”

He nodded, sucking in deep lungsful of smoke. “Too bleedin’ true. Twelve bleedin’ years of ’em, before I could get out an’ do my own thing.”

“You ran away from home?”

He shook his head. “Orphanage. Lessons every bleedin’ day except Christmas, then I had to play carols for everybody else.” His voice changed to falsetto. ” ‘Now, Thomas, the Good Lord God has given you a talent. It would be shameful and wrong for you to neglect it.’ They stuffed that into me with me breakfast every bleedin’ day since I was four, ’til I was sixteen an’ I could bugger off out of there.”

A sound of a car door slamming came from outside the window. Dixie grunted and stood up. “They’re here, Pudd’n. So stow it — I don’t know why you waste your time talking to him anyway.”

“Calm down, Dixie .” Pudd’n turned back to me. “Look, Foss, I’m goin’ to give you some good advice. You don’t know the boss, an’ I do. Answer his questions straight, an’ first time, an’ you’ll be glad of it in the long run. Ain’t that right, Dixie ?”

“Let him do what he likes,” said Dixie sullenly. “I don’t give a shit if he gets his head blown off.” I could hear footsteps approaching in the other room. No matter what Sir Westcott wanted, I could feel my pulse beating faster and I wouldn’t like to have taken any bet on my blood pressure. Pudd’n and Dixie both rose to their feet and stood waiting.

The man who entered was short, even shorter than Dixie . He was dark complexioned and swarthy, with black, straight hair and a prominent nose and chin. I placed him as Lebanese, or perhaps Egyptian. The woman who followed him was an inch or two taller, also dark haired and dark ski

As she came into the room she stared at me in a strangely intense way. She did not take her eyes off me, even to look at the others when they spoke to her. In other circumstances I would have found her strongly attractive. But now…

The man came over and looked at me curiously. “Gave us a lot of trouble, you did. Messed up two of the boys real bad — we might have to pay yer back for that.”

His voice was a surprise. It had a strong Liverpool accent — and I recognized it! He had been one of the two men in the helicopter; Scouse, the other one had called him. I took a quick look at their shoes, but — not too surprisingly — none of them wore the black leather, black-buckled footware that I could still see if I closed my eyes and thought about the crash.

I stared up at Scouse. “You’ve got something all wrong. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but I’m sure you’re making a mistake.”

“D’yer think so?” He laughed, a deep chuckle of satisfaction. “No, you’re the one making the mistake, Foss.” He turned his head. “Did yer search him, Dixie ?”

“Sure I did.” Dixie scowled at me, then held forward the pillbox to Scouse. “It’s not the thing we were looking for, but it proves he’s Foss all right. Take a look inside — nobody would be carryin’ Nymphs if he was just some ordinary person.”

Scouse shot me a swift, intelligent look. “Naw — an’ nor would Foss, if he had to go through Customs to bring ’em into the country. It’d be too dangerous. Use yer head, Dixie , he’d be mad to be carryin’ Nymphs.” He took the lid off the box and rolled a capsule into his palm. “I du

“They’re medicine,” I said. “I’m not Leo Foss, I’m Lionel Salkind, and I’ve just come out of hospital.”

“We’ve heard all that,” said Scouse absently. He opened the capsule with his thumb nail and poured grey-green powder into his open palm. He sniffed at it cautiously. “Here, Zan, what do you think?”

The woman took her eyes from me for a moment to take the capsule. She dipped her head and touched the tip of her tongue to the powder.

“No,” she said after a few moments. Her voice was deep and musical, a fine contralto. “I do not know what this is, but I feel sure we are not dealing with Nymphs.” Her words were heavily accented, and seemed to confirm her Greek appearance. “Maybe they are really medicine?”

“You’d be too old for them, anyway, Zan, if they were Nymphs,” said Dixie nastily. Then he saw her angry look and was silent.

“Mebbe it is,” said Scouse thoughtfully. I noticed that when he spoke the rest became respectfully attentive. “Mebbe it’s medicine. But there’s no sign of what we really want, an’ that’s the important thing.” He leaned forward and slipped the pillbox into my shirt pocket. His eyes stared into mine, dark and unblinking. “You see the problem you’ve given me, do you? You might want to help me solve it. I’m sure you’ll try.”

“I still have no idea what you’re talking about.” Those bright eyes made me more nervous than anything that had happened since I recovered consciousness.

“Ah, but that’s just what you’d say anyway — that’s the whole trouble, isn’t it? You say you’re not Leo Foss, I know that. You’re the twin brother, Lionel, an’ it was Leo died in the crash. I know, we’ve heard all that.”

He shot Dixie a quick look. “An’ the crash was bungled bad, so we didn’t have as much time as we needed there. Well, no matter, we took care of the lad who bungled that one, didn’t we, Dixie ? But we can’t afford another mess-up. Suppose you are Leo, now. Then you know where the Belur Package is. An’ I want to know that. An’ you have to tell me. Would yer like to do it right now, an’ save things getting messy?”

“I’m Lionel. Lionel Salkind.” My throat was dry again. “I don’t know anything about a Belur package.”

“I hear you.” His voice was still soft and thoughtful. ” Dixie , get his shirt off. Don’t untie him. Cut it away if yer have to.”

Dixie took out a sheath knife. The blade was sharpened to a wicked tip, and it gleamed in the light. He cut my shirt and undershirt efficiently from top to bottom, laying the cold flat of the blade lovingly against my skin as he finished. Scouse whistled when he saw the pattern of scars on my chest and stomach.

“Been through the wars, haven’t yer? Mebbe you need them pills after all. I’ve seen road maps with less lines on ’em than your belly. I bet you don’t want more there, do yer? I can understand that. But let’s do one little check before we start — just to make sure.”

He nodded. Dixie took his cigarette out of his mouth and applied it without warning to my shoulder. I yelled at the pain and tried to writhe away from the red-hot ash. I couldn’t move more than a few inches in any direction. Scouse nodded.

“All right. Just checking. Wouldn’t be worth doing anything to yer, would it, if you’d already had a go with the Belur Package? All right, now let’s have a little chat.”

He pulled a chair forward and sat down facing me. I noticed that the woman was standing absolutely motionless. Her cheeks were flushed, and she was biting her lip as though under some great tension.