The Jackal's Share Read Free

in the eye, wondering for a moment what would happen if he were to bring his head down hard on that stubby, flattened nose.
    “I’m leaving now.”
    “If this deal doesn’t go through, you don’t get paid.”
    “If I don’t get paid, you break our contract, and I tell everyone about the company you keep. Now take your hand off, and move.”
    “You’d do that, wouldn’t you?”
    “If it was up to me I’d have done it already.”
    The boxer finally stepped back a full pace and Webster passed him, nodding to his colleague and thanking him politely for his time.
    •   •   •
    A FINE, cold spring rain fell as Webster walked back to Ikertu through old streets toward the Inner Temple, where warm squares of light glowed in the dusk. This whole block of London, half a square mile to the west of the City, was given over to the service of clients. The lawyers had been here for hundreds of years, and after them had come accountants and advisers and consultants of every stripe. And a certain sort of detective, Webster thought.
    In the rooms all around him lawsuits were being compiled, audits made, presentations pored over, efficiencies mooted, debts rationalized, strategies dreamed up by a legion of associates and directors and partners, all recording their hours, some their minutes, all billing at a healthy rate. It was its own world with its own etiquette, rituals, dress, but Webster, in his tenth year of this, still struggled to feel like he belonged. When he sent out a bill to a client and saw that they were paying thousands of pounds a day for him, he wondered first how it could be so much, then how any client could possibly afford to pay, then what possible value his work might have. He didn’t doubt himself; he knew that he was good at what he did. Rather, he watched the hours being worked and noted and charged and found it hard to believe that any of them were contributing much to the well-being of the world.
    There was a message for him from the office. Waiting at Ikertu was a new client who had dropped in unannounced, asked to speak to Hammer, and in his absence said that he was happy to wait for Webster’s return. The ones who didn’t make appointments were usually flakes, and Webster found himself hoping that it wouldn’t take long.
    His first thought, on seeing the strange figure across the Ikertu lobby, was that he must have been raised in the dark—forced, perhaps, in an unlit shed, and not yet colored in. He was rigidly monochrome: black hair, precisely parted against the palest skin; a white shirt framed by a black tie and suit; black socks, black shoes and beside him a briefcase, also black, which had folded over it a dark-gray macintosh. He read a newspaper at arm’s length and sat so still that he might have been set from a mold. An hour had passed since he had called but he seemed unconcerned, as if time, like color, was something worldly that he scorned.
    Sensing that someone was approaching he looked up and stood. He was a head shorter than Webster, insubstantial inside his well-cut clothes, and gave a strange, confusing impression of lifelessness competing with great energy. Webster couldn’t tell how old he was: forty, perhaps, or fifty.
    “Ben Webster,” said Webster. “Sorry to have kept you. I had a meeting.”
    The man’s hand was cool as Webster shook it, but dry, the bony grip weak. He held Webster’s for a moment and smiled an empty smile. Up close his skin was like wax, tight against his cheekbones and faintly translucent, and his eyes were a deep petrol gray, the fine red lines in the whites the only color in his face. But what was most striking as he talked were his teeth, which were little and sharp like a badger’s and discolored almost to blackness.
    “Delighted, Mr. Webster.” The voice was thin and slightly hoarse. He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a wallet and drew from it a business card which he handed to Webster. On the thick cream card were the