Gridlock (22 page)

And so Deborah sat by the lifts of the 'Accountancy and Contracts' floor of the Global Motors building and waited for an executive. Non-executives came, and non-executives went, until eventually her patience was rewarded.

'Say, listen, can you let me back in this thing?' she said as a purposeful man with a key approached the unmarked door. 'They have a fax up on the top tomatoes' floor which seems to be getting messages from Mars, and kinda enigmatic ones at that. They let me in at reception, but I goofed and got out here.'

They seemed to like their executives rude at Global. The man did not even answer Deborah, he simply nodded her into the lift and then followed her. He punched the top floor button for Deborah but himself alighted on the next floor up from Accountancy and Contracts. Deborah did not attempt to thank him, the man clearly was not in the mood for small talk.

The executive floor was rather luxuriously carpeted. This was a bit of a blow for Deborah as carpets slow wheelchairs right down, also, unless the carpet is extremely securely fitted, it is very easy to drag the thing up into a ruck whilst turning. Still, there was nothing she could do about the interior design. Deborah had a job to do and the job was to unearth Sam Turk, confront him and wrest from him Geoffrey's design. A tall order indeed, but Deborah, who regularly had to do battle in the supermarkets of Swiss Cottage, knew a thing or two about tall orders.

'Excuse me, I have to check some phone wiring in the corridor outside Mr Turk's office,' Deborah said to a passing executive-level secretary . . . 'His automatic dial keeps ringing the Finchley Road Pizza Shed and they're threatening to sue.'

'Well I haven't heard of—' the secretary attempted to say, but Deborah interrupted her.

'It's just in the corridor, I have to run a volto-joule reverse-current meter over it,' she said, holding up a big cooking thermometer on a spike that she used once a year for roasting the Thanksgiving turkey. Deborah always celebrated Thanksgiving. She considered herself an American (US) first and a Jew a very very long way second. The thermometer, a highly credible piece of technology, was sufficient to convince the hesitant secretary and she pointed the way to Turk's office.

It was only now that the full terror of the situation began to weigh a little upon Deborah. Shortly she was going to have to act, only a wall separated her from her prey. She felt a little like a mouse stalking a lion and an almost overwhelming desire to make a bolt for it welled up inside her.

'Courage, Deborah,' she whispered to herself. 'Courage, you schmuck. If more people would'a had courage, Hitler would'a stayed a corporal.'

All her life Deborah had been taught that those who fail to stand up for what is right share the guilt for the wickedness of the world with those who actually champion evil.

'Easy to say, Poppa,' Deborah whispered to herself as she positioned her wheelchair by an electric wall socket. 'But these people blew my pal's head off with a sawn-off shotgun. You come stand up to 'em.'

The memory of Geoffrey's demise lent an equal measure of both courage and fear to Deborah's emotions, so all in all, the memory of Geoffrey's demise was not a lot of help.

Deborah could hear discussion going on inside Sam's office, so she knew that she would have to wait. Tackling one able-bodied murderer would be difficult enough, she did not want him surrounded by henchmen. Slowly but surely, the room began to empty as earnest-looking executives emerged from Sam's office door. They passed Deborah, who was earnestly waving her turkey thermometer at an electric plug socket and scratching her head with a screwdriver. They all gave her a little smile, feeling rather proud that Global, unbeknownst to them, pursued such an equal opportunities policy. Deborah prayed that Sam himself would not emerge and depart for some fifteen-course executive lunch, leaving her with the necessity of pretending to be fixing a telephone line in an electric plug socket with something that belonged up a turkey, for hours on end.

Eventually, Sam's meeting seemed to be over. No-one had emerged from the office for a full ten minutes and Deborah could hear no talking from within. With sinking heart she realized that Sam was alone, the time had come to do it.

'If I'm going to take this mother,' Deborah said to herself, attempting with little success to stiffen her resolve with tough talking, 'the time is now.'

She took from her bag a neat little sign that she had made. It said DO NOT DISTURB UNLESS YOU WANT YOUR BUTT KICKED CLEAN TO DETROIT' and was signed, Turk. Deborah had done enough research to have a vague handle on Sam Turk's way of communicating. Very gently she hung her sign on the door handle, of course she was aware that this was not the usual method by which executives ensured that they were not disturbed. Under normal circumstances, when a top dog required absolute privacy, if, for instance, they wanted to shag an employee or prise up a floorboard and count their ill-gotten tax concessions, they would bark curtly into an intercom and the door would instantly be guarded by a stern-faced private secretary with a severe bun and an armour-plated brassiere. None the less, Deborah, whose whole strategy was based on bluff, thought that there was a fairly good chance that any minion, faced with her little sign, would think twice before disobeying it.

Deborah took a deep breath, reminded herself one more time that if the worst came to the worst she must remember to keep her legs apart, and opened the door.

Inside the room Sam Turk was sitting with his back to the door, and as it happened he was communicating curtly via an intercom with a stern-faced private secretary with a severe bun and an armour-plated brassiere.

'If anyone from the Union of Oil turns up you send them straight through, OK? No coffee, no how are yous, nothing, just send them through.'

The stern-faced private secretary in the outer office was rather surprised at this instruction. In the past she had noted that Sam was rather irritated by her stern manner. In Detroit Sam had been guarded by a blonde Californian called Farrah who gave off such a positive charge she could wipe the data off a floppy disk. Everything in Farrah's world oozed with sun-drenched enthusiasm, she could never have simply offered someone a coffee, rather she would announce that she had some
great
coffee . . .

'I also have great decaf, plus I have sugar. I have half sweetener, or I have whole sweetener, and I promise no bitter aftertaste, I use it myself. I have great cream which is in this cute jug here, but I also have great milk, skimmed, or full if you prefer. The pot's hot so just yell for more. Enjoy.'

By the time Farrah had finished offering you a cup of coffee you felt like you'd had a massage. It is a little known fact that the reason for the dramatic reversal in fortunes of the awesomely powerful US economy is that they simply let their language get out of hand. So much time is spent greeting each other, describing the coffee and sending out for 'those great chocolate-chip diet muffins they have at Bronski's', that there is no time left to keep up with the Japanese.

Sam heard the door and swung round.

'What the hell do you want? My phones are fine, get out,' he barked.

'I ain't no telephone engineer, Mr Turk,' said Deborah. 'My name is Mary Hannay. I'm with the FBI.'

'Sure you are, little girl, why and I bet you have a Superwoman costume on under that cute blouse,' answered Sam, and, having no time to deal with lunatics in wheelchairs, pressed the button on his intercom. 'Miss Hodges, could you please—'

'The Bureau is kinda interested in your hydrogen engine, Mr Turk,' snapped Deborah. Sam Turk looked at her thoughtfully.

'Forget it, Miss Hodges,' he said, taking his finger from the button. Sam looked at Deborah thoughtfully some more, he did not know what to make of her. She certainly did not look like a federal agent.

'So what is the FBI doing rolling around in wheelchairs dressed up as telephone engineers?' he asked, not unreasonably.

'We have no authority in this country,' said Deborah, desperately improvising. She knew this nonsense would not lead her far, but she needed to get a little closer to him.

'I guess that's so,' said Sam, walking round to the front of his desk. He did not know who this woman was, but there was one thing of which he was already certain: she was no FBI agent. If the FBI wanted to talk to him they would knock on the door and say 'Hi, it's the FBI' and they certainly would not send a smartarse chick who looked barely out of her teens. However, as she had mentioned the engine, Sam knew that he must tread a little carefully.

'Kind of an inconvenient cover, ain't it?' he enquired, leaning against his desk. 'A wheelchair.'

'The wheelchair isn't a cover, Mr Turk, I'm paraplegic. The FBI is an equal opportunities employer,' answered Deborah.

Deborah always made a habit of confronting every assumption she came across regarding the incongruity of a paraplegic being somewhere or doing something. On this occasion it was unfortunate, because Sam remembered something. 'Paraplegic' is not a word one encounters all the time, but Sam had come across it only a few days before. It had cropped up in a conversation that he had conducted over a scrambled telephone with the head of Euro Despatch after the successful conclusion of Sam's commission regarding the despatch of a certain gerbil named Geoffrey Peason. Euro Despatch were an efficient firm and they offered a degree of background information on the jobs they carried out. Sam had learnt that the gerbil Peason had eventually been discovered at the home of a young female American paraplegic student and a young black traffic warden. He even remembered her name.

'What do you want, Deborah?' Sam asked, but Deborah was too astonished to answer.

'Sure I know who you are, kid,' Sam continued. 'You're the friend of a guy I may have had a little business with recently. But you have nothing on me and you know it, or you wouldn't be here, you'd be with the law. So what do you want?'

'Well I . . .' For a moment Deborah experienced a sensation almost unique in her experience, that of not having anything to say.

'Go home, little lady. I'll get them to order you a cab.'

Sam was acting very casual and unconcerned but that was only because he did not wish to have to have Deborah killed in his office. That would be extremely inconvenient, especially on the day before his monumental deal when the situation was tense enough. However, underneath he was hugely put out. How on earth had this girl worked out his connection with the engine? She must also know about his connection with the death of her friend. Given time to think, Sam would probably have remembered the article in the
Sunday Word
and figured things out from that, but, for the moment, the girl in the wheelchair seemed almost clairvoyant, and terrifyingly so. Of course Sam knew that she could prove nothing, not unless she had another copy of the engine plan. None the less, the whole situation was pretty disconcerting. Sam resolved to get her out of his office immediately and then to contact Euro Despatch to arrange her murder that very afternoon.

'Miss Hodges,' said Sam again, touching the intercom button.

'I have a plan of the engine!' blurted Deborah. 'He drew up another before you had him killed, and your thugs didn't find it!' Deborah's mind was racing, she was running out of ways to stall him, she just had to get him close enough, but how?

'Forget it, Miss Hodges,' said Sam again, taking his finger off the intercom button. 'You have another copy?' he asked very quietly, all his dreams of unimaginable wealth hanging on how he dealt with this girl.

'Yes, I have it right here in my blouse,' said Deborah.

Sam could scarcely contain himself, the relief was incredible. He leapt forward joyfully to tear the supposed plans from Deborah's clothing. Sam Turk never imagined that he could possibly be in any danger, but he was. He was the mouse and Deborah was the lion.

Crack! Geoffrey's dead fist in the shape of a small Victorian flat iron leapt out of the arm of Deborah's chair and swung hugely and horribly into the side of Sam Turk's head, the spindly anglepoise arm delivering the sort of blow that no human arm could muster – no matter how many steroids were pumped into it. Sam Turk folded up like a deck chair, i.e. in a confused heap with everything bending the wrong way.

'Jeez, Geoffrey,' muttered Deborah, addressing her dead companion at arms, 'I hope this guy has a thick skull. He's no use to me dead.'

Sam was not dead, he lay at Deborah's feet, the side of his face a throbbing purple tribute to the awesome ballistic power contained within an anglepoise lamp arm, an old flat iron and a couple of Bullworker springs. The weapon now lay collapsed and limp across Deborah's lap. She leaned forward, painfully doubling herself up over it, and stretching down in front of herself with all her might. Clutching at the turn-ups of Turk's trousers, she finally managed to get a hold of his feet and pulled them up onto her lap. Producing some of the telephone cable that had played a prop part in her brilliant portrayal of the telephone engineer (she accepted that the FBI agent had been rather two-dimensional, but she was proud of the engineer), Deborah proceeded to tightly secure Sam's feet. This done, she felt a little safer.

'That's evened the score a tad, bud,' she muttered to herself, perhaps a little vindictively. 'Now neither of us can walk.'

Letting Sam's feet fall from her lap, Deborah manoeuvred her chair towards Sam's hands. Of course the carpet rucked itself up under the wheels of her chair and as she struggled to free them, Sam seemed to stir. With a huge effort Deborah got herself into a position whereby she could lean forward and reach Turk's hands. First, though, since she wished to tie them behind his back, Deborah had to roll the big body onto its face.

'Why didn't that clutz Geoffrey think to fit a forklift onto this thing?' thought Deborah, as she leant over the side of her chair and attempted to heave the unconscious Turk over without toppling herself over, which would of course mean the end of everything.

'You never hear of Jane Fonda, you bastard?' Deborah enquired of the non-comprehending Turk . . . 'It wouldn't hurt to exercise a little, maybe cut down to fifty hamburgers a day.'

Eventually Deborah got the large car maker where she wanted him, with his hands and feet firmly tied, and, what is more, his tied hands tied to his tied feet. Deborah then got herself into position and threw a jug of water at his face.

When Sam Turk came round he could be forgiven for being a little surprised, he was in fact positively astonished. The very last thing he remembered was towering menacingly over a helpless girl in a wheelchair, and now, the very next thing, as far as he was concerned, was that he himself was being towered over. He was trussed up like the guest of honour at a sadomasochist ball, and his head appeared to have been used to stop a Network South-East train that was in danger of actually arriving on time.

More to the point, and point being the word, he was staring at the front end of the bolt on what appeared to be some kind of wheelchair-mounted crossbow. 'Don't move,' said Deborah, rather unnecessarily, considering the position that Sam Turk was in.

'Or say a word,' said Deborah, as Sam appeared to be opening his mouth to speak. In fact he had been trying to breathe properly. In consequence of the years spent wheeling herself around, Deborah had very strong arms, and she had trussed Sam extremely tightly. His shoulders were being pulled back and down, putting a considerable strain on his chest.

Deborah stared at him across the raised arm of the anglepoise, which now served as the bow of the weapon which Geoffrey had so ingeniously designed. She had the wire, which was stretched between the arms of her chair, pulled back tightly against her chest, a short arrow, or bolt, lying gently across the bow, its point fashioned from the thin, shining spike of an electrical screwdriver, the blade of which Toss had filed down to a vicious chisel-like edge.

'Now listen to me, suckhole,' Deborah said very slowly. 'You killed my friend, OK? I know you did, so don't deny it. You killed my friend who, with one twitch of his spastic shoulder, was worth more than every beat your heart ever made. Nothing beat my friend, nothing! At least not till you, you evil little fuck! He overcame everything life ever put in his way, and that was plenty. But he couldn't overcome you, could he? And you know why? 'Cos you're too low, that's why. My friend never looked anywhere but up, and to see a slime like you, you got to look way down low. Now I'm only telling you all this so you need have no doubt that if you don't co-operate with me, I'll kill you without even thinking about it. I mean it, I don't want anything more than to kill you and I could do it right now. Right now, do you hear! All I have to do is let go of this wire and you're dead! Nobody noticed me come in, nobody would notice me go. I'd be out of here. And I want to do it, Mr Turk, believe me, I really, desperately want to kill you. All I need is an excuse, and you can give me that any time you feel like it.'

'Why don't you then?' asked Sam, painfully.

'Shut the fuck up,' said Deborah, and Sam could see her thumb and forefinger quivering as she held back the bolt. He hoped she did not have sweaty hands. 'I told you not to say anything and I meant it. One more word, just one, unless I say so, and I'll kill you, you understand?'

Sam nodded as best he could from his difficult position.

'Now the reason I'm not killing you straight off is because I ain't a murderer, much as I'd like to be,' Deborah continued. 'Besides which, you have something that belongs to me, and I want it back. I want the designs of the hydrogen engine that Doctor Geoffrey Peason designed. He designed it for me! You understand! For me! I was his fucking inspiration! Have you ever inspired anyone, Turk? Maybe to puke up, I guess, that's about the best effect you could hope to have on anyone, to make people sick. But I inspired an engine and I'm taking it back, because you are never going to use it just to put a billion more private cars on the road.'