Aces and Knaves

Arrow said.
    "Why is it so important?" Michael asked. "No good can come of it now. And there are many other stories I can tell you."
    "It isn't important," I said. "And we would love to hear your stories."
    ***
    Michael drove us back to the hotel after regaling us with stories for two hours. Arrow had brought a tape recorder with her and made a great show out of recording what he said so that we could maintain our credibility.
    When he mentioned boys by name we asked him their current whereabouts. We also slipped in the names Elma had given us. According to Michael, one member of the gang was dead, one was in London, but none were still in northern Scotland. He said he had lost track of several others. Apparently, they were more adventurous than Elma had given them credit for.
    The hotel desk had a message for Arrow from Jock, saying that he had some information for us.
    "I'll call him from my room," Arrow said as we took the elevator—pardon me, the lift. "I want you to be with me."
    We went into her room and she called the number given on the message. Jock asked her to meet him; Arrow invited him to come for a drink at the hotel. Jock said he'd like her to go to his place; she said she would bring me along. They agreed to meet at eight.
    When she hung up she said, "He sounds horny and he's not my type. If you don't want to go we can cancel."
    "Did he say what kind of information he has?"
    "No, he just said that we'd find it very interesting."
    ***
    We drove our car to Jock's flat. Jock had offered to pick us up, but Arrow had said we'd drive and got very specific instructions from him. He said it was only five minutes from the hotel.
    His instructions turned out to be good and we arrived at his place without mishap. Jock let us into the first floor flat. Another man was there who Jock introduced as his roommate. I didn't catch his name. He was big, larger than Jock, and he had what seemed to be a permanent, slightly stupid grin pasted on his face. He couldn't take his eyes off Arrow.
    The room we entered gave me an uncomfortable feeling, the kind you get when you stumble on a slice of life that makes you think, "This could have been me." It wasn't just the messiness of the room and disrepair of the sparse furniture but a feeling that the occupants either had lost hope or didn't care.
    The ancient telly showed a British sitcom; Jock turned it off and offered us beer. We both turned him down. He and his roommate had mugs. I decided that we should get out of there as soon as possible and I knew Arrow felt the same way. She just barely perched on the edge of one of the few chairs. I stood.
    "Well, Jock, tell us what you found out," I said, hoping to make this short and sweet.
    "I have a friend with some connections," Jock said, relishing the word "connections." "He knows everything that goes on here."
    I felt like saying that couldn't be much of a job, but I held my tongue.
    "I ran the names of your three friends past him," Jock continued. "He recognized one of them."
    "Which one?" Arrow asked.
    Jock disappeared into the next room. Arrow tried to converse with the roommate, who was sitting opposite her and still grinning at her, but he only grunted in reply.
    Jock returned with two more bottles of beer and gave one to his roommate. He said, "Are you sure you won't have a beer?"
    Arrow and I shook our heads in unison.
    He took his time opening a bottle and pouring some beer into his mug, carefully, so as not to have any of the foam spill over the edge. My arms itched to shake his information out of him.
    Finally satisfied, Jock took a sip, set down his mug and said, "It was James Buchanan my friend recognized. He has been here in Wick within the past year."
    "What was he doing here?" I asked.
    "Before you kicked me out, yesterday, I heard Michael McTavish say that he had not seen any of them for 30 years. But Michael saw James Buchanan when he was here. In fact, they met at Mackays Hotel. So Michael is playing some sort of a game with you."
    "Are you sure?" Arrow asked.
    "Are you doubting my word?"
    I was inclined to trust Michael over Jock, but on the other hand I couldn't think of any reason why Jock would lie to us. We asked him some more questions, but he stuck by his story. He wouldn't tell us the name of his contact. He also didn't seem to have any more information.
    Arrow stood up and said, "Thank you very much, Jock. We appreciate you telling us this. We don't want to intrude on you any more so we'll leave