Coffin Dodgers (27 page)

"Detective Burke, then. I had the pleasure of his company quite recently."

"Pleasure?"

"Well, perhaps 'pleasure' is the wrong word. He told me that if I wasn't a good boy, Santa Claus wouldn't bring me any good presents. Something like that, anyway. He's a very imposing gentleman. I'm sure he can be very persuasive."

"Were you persuaded?"

Everett looks up with a wry smile. "Persuaded that my choice of business partners could be better? I don't need a policeman to help me come to that conclusion," he says.

"So what are you going to do now?"

"I don't know. I was thinking that I might --"

He doesn't finish his sentence. Sleazy Bob decides that this is the perfect moment to blunder red-faced into the hall, his hair and shoulders coated in something white. He's bumped into something in the kitchen or the utility room, flour by the looks of it, and he looks like a furious clown, or maybe a rosy-cheeked ghost. He doesn't look too sure on his feet -- concussion, probably -- but he's holding the shotgun perfectly steady, gripping it so tightly his knuckles are white.

"Robert --" Everett starts, but Sleazy Bob isn't listening. He points the gun at me and barks, "drop it."

I drop the wok.

"On your knees."

I kneel.

"Hands behind your head."

I clasp my hands together and hold them behind my head.

Sleazy Bob points the gun at my face. I try to ignore the enormous barrel and look straight into his eyes. They're watery, bloodshot.

Sleazy Bob sniffs and wipes his right arm across his face, quickly returning it to the grip of the shotgun.

"Robert," Everett says, standing up. "Robert, this really isn't necessary."

Sleazy Bob keeps the gun levelled at me.

"Robert. You can put the gun down. It's okay."

The eyes flicker towards Everett and then back to me. The hands tighten their grip on the gun.

"Robert."

Sleazy Bob's eyelids twitch.

Sleazy Bob's nose wrinkles.

Everett puts himself between me and Sleazy Bob, his right hand open, his arm outstretched.

Sleazy Bob sneezes.

The shotgun roars.

I hit the floor, hard.

My ears are ringing but I think my eardrums are okay. I can hear Sleazy Bob sobbing, and I can hear a noise coming from Everett that I know I'm not going to forget any time soon. My face is wet. I really don't want to think about that.

I look up. The soles of Everett's feet are right in front of me. Sleazy Bob's at the other end, on his knees, tears streaming down his face. The gun is on the floor beside him, forgotten.

I slowly rise to my feet. If Sleazy Bob notices, he doesn't react. I take one step. No reaction. Another. Still nothing. I start down the corridor, checking over my shoulder to see what Sleazy Bob's doing, but he's still hunched over Everett's body.

I make it to the front door. I throw it open and walk into a wall of blue flashing lights. I hear shouts, and engines, and crunching gravel, and I put my hands over my head, and Amy tackles me like a football player.

EPILOGUE

I'm lying behind a bush, the sun hot on my neck, watching a helicopter attack a bear. Which, let's be honest, isn't something you see every day.

The bear is doing his best to smash the helicopter, but the pilot is smart: after each swoop the helicopter soars into the sky, heading for the sun. Blinded, the bear can only wait for the next attack.
 

Amy is lying next to me. "I don't think this will ever get boring," she says, watching Barney the Bargain Bear shake his furry fists at the sky.

You know the bit in King Kong where he's being attacked by biplanes? Imagine that, but in front of a garden centre instead of on top of the Empire State Building.
 

"My turn," Dave says, grabbing the remote control from me.

We had the idea a couple of nights ago. We were in my apartment and we'd had a few beers when the advert came on yet again. Barney the Bargain Bear is coming to Garden Land, the voiceover yelled, explaining how Barney is on a mission to deliver bargains on absolutely everything. When Barney gave a big thumbs-up as the voiceover chuckled about "bear necessities" we knew what we had to do.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Dave asked.

"If you're thinking bear baiting, I'm thinking what you're thinking," I replied.

"Then you're thinking what I'm thinking," Dave said.

So this morning we bought a remote controlled helicopter, chose our spot and waited for Barney the Bargain Bear to turn up. We didn't start buzzing him immediately, though. Give us some credit. We bided our time and came up with a plan. Whenever there weren't any customers coming in or out of the front doors, we'd unleash the Kamikaze Kopter.

The name was Dave's idea.

So far we've buzzed him about twelve times, and the poor old bugger in the suit is getting pretty pissed off. We'd have buzzed him more often, but it's hard to control a helicopter when you're laughing. The score so far: I've buzzed him five times, Amy's got him once and Dave's hit him four or five times. Sunny was supposed to be here too, but she got offered a last-minute gig for a lot of money.

"Fair play to him," Amy says. "He's still doing his happy bear dance."

The happy bear dance is Barney's way of expressing the power of discount prices through the medium of dance.

"I wish the customers would disappear," Dave says. "We've got bears to hunt."

"Patience, my kamikaze friend," I say. "Wait a bit and he'll be all yours."

It takes four or five minutes, but eventually there's a lull. The helicopter drops like a stone, bounces on Barney's head and shoots skywards again. I can tell by the body language that Barney is becoming a very angry bear indeed.

"You know, I could do this all day," I say, taking the controls from Dave.
 

"Me too," says Dave. "Ah, shit."

Barney is talking to a security guard and pointing in our direction. The guard says something into his walkie-talkie and starts sprinting. He's heading right for us.

We run.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks very much for buying or borrowing Coffin Dodgers. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it. If you did, I’d be very grateful if you could tell somebody else about the book.
 

(If you didn't buy it or borrow it because you're one of those Evil Internet Pirates, you should do something to restore your karma. Call your mother. Do something nice for somebody else. Write a glowing review on Amazon. That kind of thing.)

I'd love to take all the credit for this book, but the truth is that writing is a team effort and Coffin Dodgers was beaten into shape with the help of an extraordinary bunch of people. Liz Marshall, David Marshall, Joseph Kynaston Reeves, Ruth Marshall and Paul Douglas all provided invaluable help with the manuscript, while the inimitable Ronnie Brown designed the cover with a bit of help from Stephen Paul and Alison Stewart cleaned up the copy.

Would you like to read more? I’m currently writing the sequel to Coffin Dodgers, which will be available in 2012. In the meantime I’ve got a short story, Malky’s Bottle of Christmas,
available for the Kindle here
. I’ve also put together a collection of my technology journalism, Bring Me The Head of Mark Zuckerberg, which you’ll find
in the Kindle Store here
.

If you'd like to stay in touch with what I'm up to, my website is at
Bigmouthstrikesagain.com
. You'll also find me on Twitter as @garymarshall.