Death & the City Book Two (18 page)

"Hey," says Connor, as I tip out the contents. "Wash your hands first."

"God, yes all right, Dad," I mutter, too late before recalling that it winds him up. But he just tickles my waist as I get up and pass him to go to the sink, doing as he says. When I turn back round, drying my hands on a paper towel, he has just put a bottle of saline on the table next to the lenses, out of the First Aid kit. "Thank you."

"No problem," he says shortly, and passes me an apple from the bowl on the back of the worktop as well, taking one for himself and rubbing it on the sleeve of his sweatshirt. "I told Special Unit on the phone, if they come across asking to borrow anything, they better have brought food. Compensation for work last night."

I put the new lenses in, having dubious memories of what Charlie and Sparky consider to be
Food
. Generally, stuff wrapped in tinfoil and left under the bonnet of the van, with the engine running, was their idea of eating a decent meal while on a stakeout when we were teenagers. I daren't think how many different carcinogens found their way into our bodies back then. I recall Sparky once saying, probably not as bad as stuck making fireworks in his shed, breathing in chemicals and magnesium dust the rest of the time.

I dry my eyes with another sheet of paper towel and let my eyesight adjust. Connor's back in his more familiar off-duty clothes, wearing a blue cyber skull-robot t-shirt under his black hooded sweatshirt, and dark jeans with a skull patch sewn onto one leg, in an oddly random position. I wonder abstractly if it was used to repair a hole.

"Have you ever been shot at?" I ask him.

"Maybe," he remarks. "If I have, they all missed so far. There was a chimp got hold of a ranger's gun once out of his jeep. Shot the windscreen and the petrol tank before the stupid thing decided to see if it was edible as well, blew the back of its own head off. That was probably the most dangerous thing ever happened."

I guess Connor's a little more de-sensitized and detached regarding his job as runner than I am, due to his previous working experience. Contract hit-men aren't much more than animals to him. Pests to be dealt with. It makes me realise, I have at times felt it was a bit too personal to me, probably because of my mental ability to engage, or identify with, or psychologically read a target. Tell myself stories about them. Whereas when I deal with customer issues at work, I don't spend that long thinking about it.

Just another example of my personality assigning job roles to my disorders inappropriate to type. Nightclub customers to me are like shoals of fish. Some bright and exotic, some out spawning indiscriminately, some predatory, some snapping pike, and some the old trout variety. All variably either hungry, horny, in distress, or following each other around short of anything better to do. I know for a fact that I can identify with the mentally disturbed as individuals, better than those 'enjoying themselves' under the influence of alcohol.

It's not unusual for me to be standing at work staring into space knowing that I'm in the wrong job. In between throwing people out knowing that I'm in the right, at least regarding the licensing laws, because my lifestyle doesn't mean I then spend every night I have off work getting hammered in a bar being a hypocrite. I know I'm not the best person to face off to, when an angry customer tries to appeal to my human side, and get me to identify with either their situation or their predicament. So maybe I shouldn't be surprised that Connor has been trying to deconstruct me looking for a human background story as well.

If only I could tell how he goes about identifying with people himself in day-to-day life. And whether it's still about finding the answers in books, or if he has an autopilot for it, hidden away in some other aspect of his identity, away from his forfeits-style games of interrogation and negotiation. Which he's probably decided is what works on me because I'm not the type to talk openly all the time, what with my trust issues, or whatever he thinks I have.

"Have you?" he asks. "Been shot at?"

"Yeah, a bit," I admit, making an effort to over-ride my habitual evasiveness. "From the beginning, I think. I'm not sure. My first job on a contract taker was very trigger happy. I think that's what made me creative. And gave me the habit of disarming them, and stealing their guns. I used to put them in the amnesty bins - then I started keeping them, once the last amnesty ended, and they just seemed to stockpile around me. By the time another amnesty came around, I wouldn't exactly have been able to sneak them down to the police station in a Scamways grocery bag. Would have raised a few eyebrows among Neighbourhood Watch, with me popping down there to dispose of stuff twenty times a day to clear the backlog, for a start."

Connor laughs. I think it's the first time I've heard him laugh properly.

"Yeah, we love Neighbourhood Watch," he agrees. "They're not bad. They mean well. I like you dressed like that, by the way. I don't think I've ever seen you in just a skirt previously. Just fancy dress and uniforms, mostly. You even had jeans under your dress on our real date, didn't you?"

"Yeah, well remember this was technically fancy dress too. I look like a Hollywood hit-man," I tell him, but I'm not immune to the compliment so I try to suppress wanting to smile about it. "Your washing machine must be good, I can't see any bloodstains from last night."

"Industrial strength cleaning products. Trade secret stuff," he says, grinning back. He looks out of the window down the driveway. "You don't look like any Hollywood hit-man I've ever seen. Looks like Special Unit have brought their new toy."

I get up from the table and go to look out of the window next to him. A long-wheelbase Mercedes van, re-sprayed matt black quite recently by the look of it, is on the grass by the driveway. Apparently Special Unit have learned some manners if they're aware of leaving priority access clear on single lane routes nowadays. I remember the old former
Dyno-Rod
Transit, loaded with New Year's Eve fireworks, being used to block a wheel-clamper up an alleyway for three days, while Charlie and Sparky demanded money with menaces to let him back out.

As we watch, Sparky gets out of the driver's seat and jumps down, starting towards us. He's wearing his baseball hat, a tie-dyed t-shirt I reckon is original, because I recognise the burn holes from fifteen years ago, and sweat pants cut off at the knee.

"I'm only guessing, but I think he's going to be blagging overalls, and gardening gloves," Connor smirks. "Does he sleep like that?"

"I'm happy to say I wouldn't know," I tell him, which is true. Connor gives me a sideways look and grins.

"It was rhetorical, but thanks for telling me," he says, and looks back outside. "Hmm. Still think I might ask them to go back out for food, if it looks like a long job this morning."

He opens the window and leans out.

"Oy, Ev!" he shouts. "Can you say 'doughnuts'?"

Sparky nods the affirmative and points to the van, before gesturing at what he's wearing and raising his shoulders and arms helplessly, palms skywards. Connor gives him a thumbs-up, and shuts the window.

"Overalls," he confirms. "Come on, let's go take a look."

"I hope he doesn't think you want to see the van do a doughnut," I remark, heading back to the living-room for my boots. "Would make a real mess of the grass, or that gravel."

"Yeah, Charlie reckons he's already got it up on two wheels cornering on the road tests," Connor chuckles. "Top right-hand drawer in the office in front of you, grab yourself a negotiator. Just in case."

I pull on my boots and jacket, feeling in my pocket to check my phone for any messages, as I go into the office overlooking the park. Nothing. It's been a few days now since either Cooper or Joel tried to text, or ring. Must have got the message that I'm not a negotiable myself.

I put my phone away, and open the narrow drawer. There's a Beretta, some refills for Parker pens, and a block of coloured Post-Its.

I don't think he meant for me to take notes.

I check the inside pocket of my jacket and find my old skateboarding gloves. You might think of it as paranoid, but I just feel that unless I'm confiscating it permanently, it's rude to leave fingerprints on someone else's gun.

Not when they might need to take credit for using it. Officially, that is.

We follow the Merc across the grass towards the woods on foot, eating what Special Unit now consider to be breakfast out of the paper bag, before we catch up so as not to leave sticky crumbs on the evidence site. It's a combination of cheesy pickled egg and sausage pasties, cold Thai chilli fishcakes, and bear claw fruit Danish pastries. I'm quite impressed. I remember Sparky's recipes for party food including dyed blue vodka-infused popcorn, and lemon jelly with olives in, so it's not the most peculiar of combinations he could have come up with - and fills the breakfast hole satisfactorily. Luckily for us it hasn't been warmed up on the engine block either.

Speaking of hole, we're both glad we didn't grab a lift in the van, when it clips a cluster of molehills and almost immediately a big rabbit warren, taking off and making a considerable bang when it touches down ahead of us.

"There goes the suspension already," I remark.

"Either that or Charlie has finally shot himself in the foot," Connor agrees.

Special Unit jump out when they stop at the border of the trees, and neither look as though they sustained injury.

"Loosened a bit of panelling surfing the grass?" Connor greets them as we catch up, while both Charlie and Sparky pull on the overalls he has loaned them. "Or did you break a door hinge?"

"Maybe the front bumper," Charlie grins.

Connor throws the empty paper bag in through the window of the Merc, and trudges around towards the other van. I follow, with a very strange feeling.

I'm not usually the one visiting the site,
post mortem
. I'm the one leaving in the opposite direction, in a big hurry.

Connor checks his handiwork briefly. All three each took a shot to the head, with impersonal accuracy. He opens the driver's door, leans in past the third corpse to reach under the dash, and disengages the bonnet catch.

"Pop it," he says to me. "Make sure you stand to one side in case anything jumps out."

"Cheers," I say, and lift it up. Nothing nasty happens, and I check the battery connections for wiring infringements before propping it up. I scan the engine for damage.

"Should be spark plugs," says Connor, walking round behind me.

"Yeah," I nod. "Alternator would have done it."

"Was on the far side, plugs was easier."

"Do you reckon Warren and Yuri would want anything out of this crate?" I joke.

"Yeah. Warren would have all the mirrors, and Yuri, well - who knows what puts lead in
HIS
pencil," Connor smirks. "I think he's still holding out hope for a real live
Flux Capacitor
one day."

"Do you know what, I really hope it's got one. Just to see his face."

We head after the other two, who have gone into the woods, and find them both trying out shallow graves for size.

"Smaller than my fucking bathtub," says Charlie, with his head resting up on one end. Sparky has shunted his body the other way, so that his feet stick out, his ankles crossed and waggling them casually, head resting on his hands. Connor gets his phone out and takes a picture of them.

"Maybe that's the idea," I suggest. "Outdoor slow torture. Bury you up to your neck and put jam on your head to make the ants come for a quick nibble."

"You're the shortest," Connor tells me. "Jump in."

"I'm five foot eight in these cowboy boots," I say.

"Cowboys don't die with their boots on," he reminds me, and I kick them off before jumping down into the hole and lying down. I can lie flat with a few inches of headroom. It's oddly quite relaxing, lying on bare earth looking at the sky. "How tall are you?"

"Just over five six."

"Reckon these holes were dug with women in mind," he remarks, taking a picture of me as well. "Hopefully nothing smaller."

"We could bury her right now and save time later," Charlie comments suggestively, appearing behind him, and picking up one of the dropped shovels in a latex-gloved hand, to illustrate.

"Don't need to. Got photographic evidence now, if anyone asks," grins Connor, waggling his mobile phone.

I push my hands into the soil either side of me and flip over my own head, doing a lazy backwards roll out of the grave, landing on my knees on the edge and dusting earth off my hands.