I Love My Smith and Wesson (10 page)

Engine purring comfortably, the Rolls waited, completely blocking Pest's view of the main entrance. He got to his feet for a better look and saw the uniformed driver getting out of the car. Pest heard voices and started to walk, adrenalin wiping out the reassuring glow of the sulphate. The gun's handle and trigger were now slippery with his sweat. His legs felt unsteady as he raced round the side of the Rolls to perform his first-ever hit.

A short, wide-shouldered man in a gray suit was approaching the car. The chauffeur, stout and gray-haired, held the passenger door open for him. Pest brushed past the chauffeur and said, “Malcolm Priest Junior?” He had to be sure.

“Yes,” said Little Malc automatically, his eyes widening as he realized he'd made a mistake.

Little Malc saw the gun and stretched out the palms of his hands. As if he was Clark Kent and his hands could deflect a speeding bullet. The chauffeur, who could have intervened, hadn't yet worked out what was happening. Pest could feel his own heart bouncing around in his chest, like a bird trapped inside a room, crashing from wall to wall in its panic.

Time seemed to slow down. Pest thought,
This is it; I cannot fail. He's standing right in front of me. Now I shoot him. He's just fucking standing there. All I have to do is point the gun and squeeze the trigger. Don't snatch at the trigger; that'll fuck up your shot. Aim at the target and squeeze slowly. But oh, the gun feels heavy. So very heavy.

The thing was, Pest had never killed anyone. He'd slashed guys, burned and stabbed them, kicked them in the head. But he'd never deliberately pulled the off switch on another human being. It was a little harder than he'd expected.

Shouting and swearing, hands over his eyes, Little Malc threw himself on the floor and curled up in a ball, as if this would somehow protect him from a bullet fired at close range. The chauffeur was crouching behind the bonnet of the car. He was shouting, too. Pest was about to shoot Little Malc when he was distracted by someone walking toward him. It was the tall bonehead who'd been standing on the door.

Pest should have shot Little Malc there and then. But as the doorman drew closer, Pest saw he was holding an oversize revolver, the kind of weapon Clint Eastwood used in the Dirty Harry films. He appeared to be in no hurry. He moved like a man going out to buy a newspaper. His gun, held loosely in his right hand, was pointed at the ground. Obviously an amateur. Pest decided to shoot him first.

Pest fired. The tremendous ringing blam of the shot made him jump. There was more smoke than he'd expected. The smoke smelled sweet, like the cap guns he'd played with as a kid. Although Pest had aimed at the doorman's midriff, or thought he had, the bullet hit the Rolls, blasting a hole through the rear passenger door. The car rocked on its beautiful springs.

The doorman kept on coming.

Pest fired again. This time, the gun went
myoww
like a startled cat. The second bullet hit the wall beside the doorman's head, showering him with brick dust and sparks. The doorman did not flinch, merely raised his own weapon and fired.

The big gun made a noise like the earth cracking open. The bullet hit Pest in the chest, severing his aorta. He rocketed backward flying five feet through the air. He landed on his back, already confused and blinking. Two seconds later he was dead.

Six

He gives me wealth: I give him all my Vowes:

I give him songs; He gives me length of dayes

—“CANTICLE,” FRANCIS QUARLES (1592–1644)

When he heard the shots, Fats Medcroft ran upstairs to the gents' lavatory and hid. His departure was prompted by ambition, not cowardice. He was fat and old, his tits were getting bigger by the year, but Fats still dreamed of making something of his life. He was not about to get mourned for a man who paid him five pounds an hour.

After what seemed a long time but was in fact seven minutes, Fats heard footsteps on the landing outside. He flushed the toilet and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Under the naked bulb, his sagging face looked white and scared. His hair curled upward, vertically, like a dollop of whipped cream. The light was on in Little Malc's office. Fats could hear soft voices. Cautiously, he walked across the landing and stood on the threshold. Then he rapped softly on the door and peered into the room.

Little Malc, his chauffeur, and Abraham Stoker were inside the room. Stoker and Little Malc were sitting at the table. The chauffeur, Frank, was slumped on the sofa. He was in shock, twitching and shaking. He flinched at the sound of Medcroft's knock.

Stoker was curiously relaxed and watchful. Little Malc was agitated. “Where the fuck were you?” he asked Fats.

“I needed a dump, Malcolm.”

“So did I when I saw that fucking gun pointing at me.” Little Malc jabbed his own chest. “I've just been shot at, I have. Some fucking nutter just tried to box me.”

“What? In the club?”

Quietly Rawhead told the story of the shooting.

Fats wasn't surprised. Anyone who puts a price on a hit man's head is crying out to be deeply mourned and sadly missed. Fats had told Little Malc as much to his face. “Don't do it, boss. You're endangering yourself and the lives of your family.” Then Little Malc had got angry and called Fats a white wog. Fats wasn't quite sure what Little Malc meant by this, only knew it was intended as an insult.

“So where's the body?” said Fats.

“In the boot of my fucking Roller!” said Little Malc. “That car was my dad's. Now it's covered in blood and shit.”

“And puke,” added Rawhead.

“That's right.” Little Malc pointed at Fats. “And you? Where were you? You big, fat Lady Boy.” Then he pointed at Rawhead. “I might be dead, if it weren't for this lad. Do you hear me? This brave bastard, who isn't even on the payroll, fucking shielded me! He did the job I pay you to fucking do!”

“Really?” said Fats. “That's funny. 'Cause when I saw this job advertised at the Job Center, I don't remember ‘human shield' being part of the fucking job description.”

“Don't be smart; it doesn't fucking suit you,” snapped Little Malc.

“I'd better ring my wife,” said Frank, the chauffeur. “She'll be wondering if I'm all right.”

“What're you on about?” demanded Little Malc.

“She'll want to know if I'm all right,” said Frank. “If she's heard about the shooting.”

Little Malc was incensed. He got up and shook his finger in Frank's face. “How could she have heard about the shooting, tug-boy? No one knows about this but us.”

“Bad news travels fast,” said Frank lamely.

“You'll travel fast in a minute,” Little Malc told Frank. “You'll travel right through that fucking window, headfirst.”

Frank looked stunned, so Little Malc punched him on the shoulder to underline the point. “You breathe one word about this, Frank, and I'm warning you. I don't know what I'll do…”

Everyone went quiet, apart from Frank, who started to blub. Little Malc poured brandy into a dirty glass and passed it to him.

“I don't drink and drive,” said Frank.

“Fucking drink it!” snarled Little Malc. Then he poured a glass for himself.

“So what do we do now?” asked Fats.

“Answers on a postcard to Strangeways Prison, No-hope-of-parole, Losershire,” said Little Malc, with some bitterness. “What a fucking night! Someone trashes the fucking DJ's car and it's
me
he threatens to sue. Then I end up with a body to hide.”

“You could ask Chef for help,” said Fats.

“No fucking way,” said Little Malc. “It was probably him that paid for the fucking hit!”

There was another long silence.

Rawhead cleared his throat. “If you'll forgive me, I've got a suggestion,” he said quietly.

*   *   *

Rawhead drove into rural Staffordshire and found a quiet leafy road. He opened the boot and attended to the stinking mutilated corpse. When he was satisfied that the dead man carried no ID, he dumped the body in a drainage ditch and drove away.

Normally, Rawhead took pains about concealing bodies, sometimes driving about with them in the boot of his car for days. But he guessed, rightly, that no one would be able to identify Pest's remains. The Staffordshire police would make a halfhearted appeal on
Crimewatch
and give up. Pest had no dental records. He had no dentist. Apart from his many creditors, no one would care that he was missing. People had wanted Pest to go missing for years.

*   *   *

Rawhead spent the rest of the day cleaning up the car and himself. He took out the carpet from the boot and dumped it at the local tip. Then he washed the Rolls by hand, scouring every inch of it for blood and tissue. He found quite a lot. When he'd finished, he phoned Little Malc on his mobile.

Little Malc asked Rawhead round to his house in West Didsbury, a nice three-story house on a desirable road. His neighbors were actors and TV personalities.

Rawhead rang the bell and Little Malc's wife opened the door. She looked stupid and pretty. She had kind eyes and a layer of brown mud on her face that Rawhead supposed was makeup. Two little girls ran into the hall to see who it was. They looked like their mother, only less used.

Little Malc was in the vast fitted kitchen. He'd just got up. He was wearing his dressing gown and nothing else. He had his father's tits and his mother's hips. A huge pan of bacon, eggs, and mushrooms was cooking on the stove. Little Malc asked his wife for a little privacy and shut the kitchen door.

When they were alone, he asked Rawhead what he'd done with the body. Rawhead told him he didn't need to know.

Little Malc nodded and narrowed his eyes. “Yeah? Something tells me you've done this kind of thing before.” Rawhead smiled politely. Little Malc dished the food out onto two plates. “You eating with me? You might as well. There's enough for two.”

Rawhead was hungry. He sat down at the table with Little Malc and ate. Little Malc finished first and got up to brew a pot of tea. As he waited for the kettle to boil, he stood by the window, serious and watchful, the veins showing in his pale ankles. “Maybe you could tell me what your real name is.”

“The name isn't important,” said Rawhead.

“So why are you here? You're not from Manchester; you've got a London accent. And you're certainly not a fucking doorknob. Are you?”

Rawhead continued to eat. When he'd finished, he looked at Little Malc and smiled. “It doesn't matter who I am. I think I could help you. You admit you need help?”

Little Malc blew air out of his mouth like a child playing puffer trains. “You shouldn't have been packing a gun. That was naughty. I told you not to. All I can say is thank God you didn't listen. Otherwise I'd be dead and me kids would be orphans. Well, I suppose they'd still have a mother. So maybe
orphans
isn't the right fucking word.… Anyway, you get me drift.”

“You want me to work for you?”

“Yeah. If you want it, you're guaranteed a job on the door of my club for life.”

Rawhead laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh.

Hurt appeared in Little Malc's eyes. “OK, then. Tell me what you want. Don't just fucking snigger. I've got half-shares in a restaurant, too, you know. The Moroccan in Deansgate. I'll give you a job there, if you'd rather. How does headwaiter grab you?”

“Listen. In a year or so, you won't have a restaurant. You won't have a club, either, if the drug dealing carries on.”

“What drug dealing?”

“Are you kidding me? Those scumbags the Medinas are playing you like a flob.”

“A what?”

“A flob. A flobadob. A flowerpot man.” Rawhead sighed to convey his immense weariness. “You're supposed to be in the Priesthood and you don't even know Priesthood slang?”

“Ah. But who said I was in the Priesthood? I'm not. I'm a business associate of the Priesthood.”

“You're nobody's associate, Malcolm.”

“All right. Fuck off, then. Don't work for me. See if I care.”

“No. I'll work for you.”

Little Malc looked distinctly skeptical. “What as?”

“I'm going to be your mentor.”

“What kind of mental? You mean like a spackhead?”

Rawhead wondered whether Little Malc was putting on an act or really was this stupid.

*   *   *

When Rawhead explained it, Little Malc grew to like the idea. Rawhead—or Stoker, as Malc knew him—would act as his bodyguard, his financial adviser, and his personal trainer. It sounded like value for money. “But it's the bodyguard bit that's important. How do I know you're any good?” he asked. “OK, you shot that crazy bastard. No offense, but it don't prove a thing. At that range, you couldn't have fucking missed.”

“OK,” said Rawhead. “Come with me.”

They drove into town, to an Irish pub called the Peggy Gordon. It was smoky and crowded. A sign on the door read:
NO BIKERS, LEATHER JACKETS, ETC
. When Rawhead and Little Malc walked in, the bar was full of men in overalls.

A TV above the bar was showing rugby. Rawhead ordered two pints of Guinness extra-cold from a barman who looked as if he was auditioning for
Darby O'Gill and the Little People.
He had red hair and a scar above his nose. When he saw Rawhead, his eyes darkened. He had worked rough pubs all his life and knew trouble when he saw it.

“What're we doing in this fucking shithole?” said Little Malc.

“Why? Don't you like the Irish?”

“I don't care one way or another,” mumbled Little Malc. “Protestants, Catholics, they can all blow the living fuck out of each other for all I care.”

“You think the Irish are a violent people?”

“No more than most.”