The Drop

scotch. He found an empty glass tumbler and held it up to me. I shook my head. I realised that lately I’d not seen him without a glass in his hand.
    He took a sip of his whisky then sat down on his big old Chesterfield couch and took another mouthful.
    ‘I’ve know these men for years,’ he said, ‘right back to when we first started out. We’ve been through some stuff... ’ And he shook his head at the magnitude of it all, ‘and now someone’s killing them off, one by one, just like that.’ He clicked his finger and thumb together. I thought for a second he might even be getting a tear in his eye but then his face reddened like he was fighting his emotions, his teeth set into a snarl and he growled the words, ‘I want whoever is behind this dead.’
    ‘Of course,’ I said.
    ‘But I want to look them in the eye first,’ he told me, ‘I want them to suffer before they die. I owe Jerry Lemon that much.’
    ‘I think you should keep Finney with you for a while,’ I told Bobby, ‘until we get this sorted. I know you don’t like the idea of him moving in but look at it as extra insurance.’
    ‘I dunno,’ he said then fell silent, like he was affronted by the suggestion that he, Bobby Mahoney, might actually need a little extra protection.
    ‘Bobby, seriously, no one is saying you can’t handle yourself, but we still don’t know who we are up against and it’s my job to keep you secure. You used to say Jerry Lemon was a hard man but they got to him. Whoever did it knows if they can get you out of the way then they’ve won.’
    He thought about this for a long while, ‘okay,’ he said finally, but I could tell he still didn’t like it, ‘send him round - but what are you going to do for protection without Finney shadowing you?’
    ‘I figure it’s time Palmer earned his money.’
    ‘I hope he’s as good as you say he is,’ Bobby told me.
    ‘So do I.’
    ‘Trouble is, nobody in the city knows him.’ said Bobby.
    ‘And that’s just the way I like it.’
    I’d thought it might be a good idea to get the two of them together, sort of like a blind date for ex-squaddies but, after a shed load of beer I was beginning to wonder if it had been such a wise move. Both of them could drink, my brother Danny and Palmer. I mean really drink.
    Palmer and I had downed a few pints straight after Jerry Lemon’s funeral but I didn’t want to sit in my flat moping. We’d talked to everybody we knew in the city but we were still drawing blanks. Nobody had any info on our Russians, so we had to assume they were coming into the city to attack us then melting away somewhere. I was starting to think we would have to wait for them to show themselves again. The trouble being that, every time they did, our people got hurt or killed.
    We’d bumped into my brother in the Bigg Market and I just thought fuck it, let’s have a beer. Now it was late and we were back in my flat, with three stubby glasses in front of us, looking at a half-empty bottle of scotch.
    ‘I hear you were in the Paras?’ asked Danny, ‘before you joined the Regiment.’ Like Palmer, my brother never called it the SAS, only the Regiment.
    ‘Yeah,’ said Palmer.
    ‘How come you left then?’
    ‘Danny,’ I warned him.
    ‘It’s alright,’ said Palmer, ‘I’m not touchy about it. I got RTU’d.’
    ‘Oh,’ said Danny.
    ‘Don’t you want to know why?’ asked Palmer. Danny shrugged, ‘course you do. Everybody always does.’ Danny shrugged again but this time the twinkly little smile was an admission. ‘Okay, I’ll tell you, since we’ve had a good drink up,’ he sipped his whisky. ‘It was nothing spectacular though, quite the reverse in fact.’
    ‘Go on then,’ said Danny, ‘tell us. I could use a laugh.’
    ‘Fuck me,’ I said, ‘is this how you army boys discuss each other’s hardships?’
    ‘Aye,’ said Palmer, ‘that’s about right.’ He took another sip of his drink and said, ‘it was the daftest thing. Like you said, I was in the Paras, made a hundred and twelve jumps, no bother at all, never a moment’s hesitation. Then one day, I was out on a routine top-up jump to keep my wings. I shuffled up to the front of the line no different to normal, but something strange happened.’
    ‘What?’ asked Danny.
    ‘I didn’t jump.’
    ‘You didn’t jump?’
    ‘I didn’t jump,’ he repeated patiently.
    ‘Why?’
    ‘I wish I knew. To this day I can’t even explain it to myself. It wasn’t like I