Dead Heat by Nick Oldham

in his life other than in a criminal capacity and interviews for such positions were fairly unstructured at best. He looked across the table at the Spaniard, feeling himself bubbling with frustration.
    The Spaniard was a very important man. He was a scout on the lookout for business opportunities for his boss, a very big underworld figure based in Barcelona. Turner knew he was lucky to get to talk to him, to pitch his business. If he could get this guy’s nod, he would be going sky high.
    It was not easy. The guy was cagey and inquisitive. Questions, questions, questions – and he had done his homework on Turner, something which Turner found disquieting.
    Turner realized he had to keep his cool. Don’t get riled. Go with the flow. Answer the questions. Tell the truth where necessary, otherwise bullshit . . . but above all, do not lose it.
    â€˜Tell me about your organization,’ the Spaniard said. He was sitting with his back to the wall, sipping from a glass of chilled mineral water with lemon. He was casually dressed and came across as confident and knowledgeable, but Turner did not like the man’s mouth at all. It reminded him of something . . . then he remembered and became fascinated by the lips because he knew exactly what they looked like. Turner had once visited the Sea-Life Centre at Blackpool, just to see the sharks, but the stingrays had also caught his attention. The way they moved, the way they could actually rise out of the water and stay upright, showing their mouths and the white undersides of their bodies. They had pink, anaemic-looking lips, just like this Spaniard. Obscene, somehow.
    â€˜What do you want to know?’ Turner asked, masking the revulsion of the thought: this man had lips like a stingray.
    The pink lips turned down. He shrugged his shoulders a little. He was becoming irritated by Turner, who he thought was merely a small-fry time-waster on the make. He wondered how he had been duped into this meeting. He knew his boss would not be overly impressed with this one.
    â€˜Your structure. How does it work? Do you have firewalls in place?’
    â€˜What the fuck’s a firewall?’
    â€˜A firewall is a layer, or layers, of protection. It prevents leakage. It’s a safety mechanism ensuring that the people who need to be shielded are shielded, so that mistakes at a low level do not have repercussions further up.’
    â€˜Uh, right,’ said Turner numbly, failing to inspire confidence.
    â€˜So . . . your organization?’ the Spaniard prompted.
    Turner blew out his cheeks, stumped a little. ‘Fluid,’ he said. ‘Nothing formal . . . very loose, yet safe.’
    â€˜OK,’ said the Spaniard, ‘describe how you would get a consignment on to the streets. How would the consumer be dealt with? What’s your process from receipt to consumption?’
    â€˜Pretty simple, really. I’ve got several little labs dotted around the city. The goods would go into them for processing and packaging. They then get sold on to the dealers for street distribution. I got about twenty people doing the dirty for me around the north of the city. Some areas are well sewn up and I’m moving into others, expanding bit by bit.’
    â€˜A small operation then,’ the Spaniard observed. ‘Not as large as we were led to believe.’
    Turner felt his feathers ruffle. ‘I’ve been in this business over ten years. I’ve worked across Europe and the north of England. I’m a hands-on guy. I like to keep control, keep my finger on the pulse. I need to expand now . . . yeah, it’s a small operation, but it’s fucking profitable and I do very well, thank you.’
    â€˜Do you have any respect for the law?’
    The question threw Turner. ‘Eh? Do I fuck! Cops and courts mean nothing to me. I ran a cop down once. I shit on cops.’
    â€˜Interesting,’ the ray-lipped man remarked.
    â€˜Cops are frightened