Bad Men (28 page)

But then May said, "You bleeding fuck," and Flash realised he'd imagined it all wrong, somehow.

"What the fuck's happening, May?"

"I twatted him a beauty," she said.

"You punched him?"

"Nutted him."

Fuck's sake,
hermana
. "Right, well, brilliant. Now leave the dog. Get out of there. You'll have really pissed Wallace off now."

"Good," May said
into the phone. Flash shouted at her, so she put the phone on the passenger seat. She couldn't make out what he was saying.

The horse tosser had shot at the window, shattered it, stuck his hand inside, unlocked the door and clambered in.

Thought he was in charge, with his fucking smoking gun in his hand.

She'd thrown herself forward. Didn't think about it. Last thing he'd expected. Hit his chin with the top of her head. It felt swollen already.

Now Wallace was sprawled half-in and half-out, dribbling blood from his neck wound. He was lying face-down on the driver's seat, head twisted slightly to the side, and she couldn't see the gun anywhere.

He wasn't moving. This was her chance to make absolutely sure she was going to get out of this alive.

She peered down at him, looking for the gun. God knew what had happened to the knife. There wasn't a weapon of any kind in his good hand. Couldn't see his other hand, though.

Oh, fuck. She'd been here before and she wasn't taking any chances this time. She'd run. But if she ran, he'd wake up like some baddie from a horror movie and chase her. She'd never make it to safety. The only way to stop him was to put him permanently out of action, wasn't it? Which is what she should have done before.

She got out of the car. Stepped round to the driver's side, ready to sprint if he so much as twitched. His hand was empty. He must have dropped the gun. No sign of it on the ground. It must have slid under the car and she wasn't crawling under there looking for it, cause she'd be trapped if he woke up. Okay. What was she going to do?

Put him out of action. Properly. Right. She didn't want to touch him, but she knew there was no other way of doing this. She forced herself to grab hold of the back of his belt. He was heavy. She had to jerk hard to get him to move at all, but eventually he slid towards her, face dragging on the leather upholstery, until he was almost entirely outside the car, only his forehead resting on the seat.

Good. Everything was nicely lined up. Yep. What she was about to do would put him out of commission for sure.

She yanked back the door and slammed it hard. On his head.

And, fuck, if that didn't wake the bastard up.

He sat bolt upright. Just like he'd been messing around and playtime was over. He looked pretty dazed. And then his eyes narrowed.

She turned, started running. But she hadn't gone more than a few steps when the noise of the engine turned her knees to liquid.

She glanced behind her. He'd crawled back into the car and was sitting in the driver's seat, wiping blood from his eyebrow.

She was in for it now. Unless she could outrun the car.

Like she said, she was in for it now.

Pearce uttered words
of encouragement as Jesus rocked back and forward once again, yelling with pain as his palms thrust against the nailheads.

The cross bounced off the wall, slapping against the egg cartons.

Jesus wept, but he was a tough wee fucker.

Pearce tried talking to him again, but his brain was clearly too fried. But fried or not, Pearce was sure Jesus had some inkling of what he was trying to achieve. He was trying to topple the cross over.

Okay. Maybe he wasn't. Hard to tell. Maybe he was just doing what his body felt like. Did he have a plan? Did he know why he was rocking backwards and forwards? Surely, he must do, however fucked up his head was. Otherwise, he wouldn't inflict that kind of pain on himself. Or maybe that
was
his purpose, to inflict pain on himself, somehow use the pain to keep himself sane.

Well, regardless of whether Jesus knew what he was doing or why he was doing it, enough momentum and he'd tip over. And that would be something. Pearce wasn't entirely sure what, but he knew they'd both get some sense of achievement out of it.

"Come on, J," Pearce said. "Put your back into it."

Jesus roared as he threw himself forward once more.

That was the spirit. Maybe he couldn't speak, but he knew what Pearce had just said.

To Pearce, it seemed to happen in slow motion. The cross left the wall and hovered there, not knowing whether it was going to fall forwards or backwards. Jesus didn't appear to know either. He leaned forward again, and that was enough, finally, to topple himself and the cross towards Pearce.

Shit. Planned or not, Pearce noticed the big fucking flaw in it right then. As eight or nine stones of admittedly undernourished Jesus, nailed to a couple of solid planks of wood, tipped towards him, Pearce realised that he had no means of protecting himself. He was going to take a solid hit. He turned his head to the side, braced himself.

Which was just as well. He took a blow to the side of the head. And another where Jesus's chin hit him midway between his stomach and his balls. Could have been worse. Could have been a foot lower. Or smack into his side, where his ribs still nagged at him.

Jesus hadn't got off so lightly. He was screaming into Pearce's shirt, his breath warm and wet.

It sounded as if something had snapped. Maybe bust a bone in his arm, maybe a rib or two. A mattress cushioned the bench Pearce was strapped to, but Pearce was solid and unyielding and Jesus had been in no better position to protect himself than Pearce.

Jesus was making a phenomenal racket. Not good. He had to deal with the pain or this was simply a pointless exercise. Which it might be anyway, but Pearce wanted to find out what was next.

Pearce knew about pain and having to deal with it. The crossbeam was pinning his head to the bench and it was starting to hurt. Really badly. Flashing bright lights, no doubt similar to those Jesus was experiencing, but these weren't caused by drugs. Fuck, no, he was losing consciousness and that was no bloody good at all.

Jesus needed him. As much as he needed Jesus, in fact. A perverse kind of co-dependency.

The inside of
the car didn't honk of dog so badly now although that was probably on account of Flash having got used to the smell and his concern over May making him not give a shit what the stink was like cause all he wanted to smell was burning rubber.

He desperately wanted to put his foot down, but he knew if he wanted to find her he'd have to keep it slow.

He'd climbed up Ardmillan Terrace and was turning into Slateford

Road. According to May's recollections of where Wallace had been headed, the church ought to be around here somewhere.

"May," Flash said into the phone. "This church, does it have a big spire?" Then he'd see it no problem from the road so he could speed up, which is what he really wanted.

"May?" But May didn't answer. Flash thought he might puke and the feeling was so strong he lowered the window just in case.

The car crawled along, Flash saying his sister's name into the phone time after time while he scanned both sides of the road, looking for a church, a spire, a driveway, May, the dog, Flash knowing he needed to take it nice and slow, even though every sinew in his body was screaming at him to get a move on because every second was precious and she wasn't answering even though he kept saying her name over and over and he was telling himself to calm down now so he closed his mouth because that was the only way he could keep from screaming and he was thinking that it didn't help that he didn't know this area particularly well and why hadn't he ever paid attention when he'd been along this way before and he couldn't help himself, no, he shouted into the phone: "May. You there? May."

This time someone answered. A man's voice.

Flash felt sick again.

Wallace said, "May's got something to tell you. Listen up."

And Flash heard the engine rev and a thump and a scream and he shouted into the phone, swearing at the bastard fucker cunt and was quiet, oh, very fucking quiet, when he saw Wallace's Range Rover about to pull out of a driveway twenty feet ahead.

With a dented fucking bumper.

Wallace was at the wheel. Bloodstained, shirtsleeve ripped and wrapped round his arm, and looking like he was drunk.

Flash glanced to the right. A church spire.

He didn't think about it. Slammed his foot on the accelerator.

"You're a dead man," he yelled into his phone.

Which was a mistake because Wallace clocked him and pulled out into the road, tyres screaming.

Flash eased his foot off the pedal. He could have followed, and he had considered doing so for a second or two, too long to be proud of the thought, but he couldn't leave May.

His face was hot and sweaty and he gripped the steering wheel like he was squeezing the life out of it. He turned into the driveway and really surprised himself: he started to pray.

"Stop that fucking
racket," Pearce said out of the side of his mouth, his face flattened into the mattress. Maybe he was being too hard on Jesus. It was probably the racket that was keeping Pearce from blacking out. Ought to be grateful to him, but shit, it was hard to be grateful to someone when they were making such a ridiculous noise. And, Christ, did young Jesus smell bad.

Pearce decided that there were two choices. One: he could sing along with Jesus, cause his yowling was strangely melodic. Two: he could make a concerted effort to get the noisy, stinky bastard from off the top of him. It'd be nice to be able to breathe freely again and relieve this pressure on his head and he never had much of a voice, so the decision wasn't hard.

A man of action acts. He doesn't talk, or think. Doesn't repeat himself. Nope. Just acts. Is what he does. That's how you judge a man. Not by what he says but by what he does.

Yep.

So stop talking to yourself and get the fucker off you.

Okay, sir.

Now he was talking to himself.

Jesus was still yowling.

Pearce pushed with his neck and shoulder against the crossbeam. It hurt, but that hardly mattered. Just another bit of discomfort to add to all the rest. He pushed again, felt it shift. Once again, and it shifted a little further. Progress. He stopped for some air. Took a few gulps, the muscles in his neck smarting. Wondered how the foul air wasn't so foul anymore. Concentrate. One, two, three: another shove. Bingo. The crossbeam slid down onto his torso, which was great, but it dug into his collar bone, which wasn't so great.

A small victory, though.

And Jesus had finally shut up, which was a second small victory. Unless he'd died. There was no victory in that, small or otherwise. Pearce needed the bearded lunatic to help get him out of here. Unless he killed him in the attempt.

Oh, yeah, she
knew it was going to be bad, but she wasn't prepared for just how bad.

She didn't feel any pain. Not at first. Didn't happen like that. No, a light dazzled her. Weird. And no mistake.

And how weird was it when she realised she was seeing the pain? Not feeling it. Crazy, sure, but yet it made some kind of sense. The pain solidified into a thin bar that buzzed. Like a light sabre.

All in a split second.

She couldn't tell where she'd been hit. Base of the spine, hip. Must have been somewhere round there. But she could tell that she was airborne.

She braced herself for what was to come.

Couldn't feel anything. Maybe that meant her spine had snapped. But, no, she could see the pain still, it just hadn't had time to register yet, most likely.

She totally smacked off the windscreen. Shoulder first, then the side of the face.

Dropped to the ground. Winded.

Wallace drove off. Cutey-pie in the back.

She tried to breathe, but it was as if the car was parked on top of her chest. She was cold with panic. Never been so scared.