Crocodile Tears - Anthony Horowitz [91]
“Excellent.”
“Are you going to tell me why I’m here?”
“All in good time.” McCain turned his head and for a moment the flames were reflected in his silver crucifix. It was as if there were a fire burning on the side of his face. “I am sure you will have worked out that I risked everything bringing you here. Your disappearance has already been reported on the English news and the police forces of the world are united in the search for you. But I am also playing for an enormous prize, Alex. It is a little bit like that poker game that first brought us together. All gamblers know that the greater the reward, the greater the risks.”
“I suppose you want to take over the world,” Alex said.
“Nothing as tiresome as that. World domination has never seemed particularly attractive to me.” He glanced up. “But it seems that dinner is about to be served. We can talk further as we eat.”
Two guards had appeared, carrying the dinner. They laid the food down on the table and disappeared. Alex had been served a barbecued meat, sweet potatoes, and beans. McCain had a bowl of brown sludge.
“We have the same food,” McCain explained. “Unfortunately, I am no longer able to chew.” He took a small silver straw out of his top pocket. “My meal has been liquified.”
“Your boxing injury,” Alex said.
“It wasn’t so much the injury as the operation that I underwent afterward. My manager decided to send me to a plastic surgeon in Las Vegas. I should have known it would be a botch job. His clinic was above a casino. I take it you are familiar with my past?”
“You were knocked out by someone called Buddy Sangster when you were eighteen.”
“It happened at Madison Square Garden in New York, two minutes into the middleweight championship. Sangster destroyed not only my hopes of becoming world champion, but my career. Then the surgeon made it difficult for me to speak and impossible to eat. Since then, I have only taken liquids, and every time I sit down for a meal, I remember him. But I had my revenge.”
Alex remembered what Edward Pleasure had told him. A year later, Buddy Sangster had fallen under a train. “You killed him,” he said.
“Actually, I paid to have him killed. An international assassin known as the Gentleman did the job for me. He also took care of the plastic surgeon. It was very expensive and, in truth, I would have preferred to have done it myself. But it was too dangerous. As you will learn, Alex, I am a man who takes infinite care.”
Alex wasn’t hungry, but he forced himself to eat the food. He would need all his energy for what was to come. He tried a mouthful of the ostrich. It was surprisingly good, a bit like beef but with a gamier flavor. He would just have to do his best not to picture the animal while he ate. Meanwhile, McCain had leaned down and was busily sucking. His own brown porridge entered his mouth with a brief slurping sound.
“I am going to tell you a little about myself,” McCain went on. “This is the third time you and I have encountered each other, Alex. We are enemies now and tomorrow, I’m afraid, we are going to have no time for idle chat. But I am a civilized man. You are a child. Tonight, under the Wolf Moon, we can behave as if we are friends. And I welcome the opportunity to tell my story. I’ve often been quite tempted to write a book.”
“You could have the launch party back in jail.”
“I would certainly be arrested if I were to make public what I’m about to tell you—but there is no chance of that happening.”
McCain put down his straw and dabbed at his lips with his napkin. His mouth was slanting the wrong way, as if it had been further dislodged by the food.
“I began my life with nothing,” he said. “You have to remember that. I had no parents, no family, no history, no friends, no anything. The people who fostered me in east London were kind enough in their own way. But did they care who or what I was? I was just one of many orphans that they took in. They were do-gooders. This was my first lesson in life. Do-gooders need victims. They need suffering. Otherwise they cannot do good.
“I grew up in poverty. I