Jaggy Splinters (8 page)

‘Fuckin’ cunt. Fuckin’ cunt.’

Jyzer kicked viciously at Parlabane until eventually he rolled clear, then threw the door open to see his prisoners fleeing and the armed cops kneeling down to take aim. He slammed it shut again and pushed a table up against it, then backed into the room, indicating to Parlabane to crawl over against the wall to his right. Jyzer knelt down a few feet away, the gun pointing halfway between his prisoner and the door, his eyes shuttling between both targets.

‘We’ve still got a hostage in here,’ he shouted. ‘Any o’ yous cunts tries this door and we’ll do ‘im, right? We still want that fuckin’ helicopter.’

‘Okay, okay, everybody stay calm,’ appealed a voice from the other side of the door. ‘Everybody just calm down. I’m pulling my marksmen back to outside the shop, so don’t panic and do something we’ll all regret.’

‘I wouldnae regret shootin’ you, ya cunt,’ Jyzer hissed at Parlabane, who just smiled.

‘Sorry Jyzer, but in case you’ve no’ worked it out, the last thing you can do is shoot me – I’m your only hostage. Soon as I’m out of the equation, it’s you versus the bullets. That’s unless you professionals can take out a team of trained marksmen with your stove-pipes there.’

Frustration was writ large in Jyzer’s eyes. He clearly wished he could blow Parlabane away, or at the very least, finally silence him with a telling one-liner. He settled for: ‘Fuckin’ shut it.’

Then he called out to the cops. ‘We’re aw calm in here. Yous keep calm an’ aw. An’ get on wi’ gettin’ that helicopter.’

Tommy was hectically hunting through drawers and cupboards, having tried the handle on the only other door in the room.

‘I cannae find the keys, Jyzer,’ he gasped in a loud whisper.

‘Well they’ve got tae be here somewhere. Keep lookin’.’

‘Couldn’t possibly be on the person of one of your erstwhile hostages?’ Parlabane suggested.

‘Aw fuck,’ Tommy sighed.

‘Keep at it Tommy, there’ll be another set somewhere. Dinnae listen tae that cunt.’

‘What were you wanting from the stationery cupboard, anyway?’

Parlabane asked. ‘Checking there’s no eh, Insurance Bonds mixed in wi’ the dug-licence application forms?’

‘Would ye fuckin’ shut it aboot the bonds. They were meant tae be here. Scottish Widows changed the delivery. They’re worth thousands. Nae ID needed. Good as money.’

‘That’s right, they’re transgotiable,’ Tommy contributed.

‘Shut it Tommy, that’s no the word. Keep lookin’. An’ as for you, big-mooth, that’s no’ any stationery cupboard. Behind that door’s the thing that’s gaunny make you eat every wan o’ your smart-cunt words.’

‘What, proof that Madonna’s got talent?’

‘Naw. That door leads tae the underground railway. Belongs tae the Post Office, for sendin’ stuff back and forward. Runs fae here doon tae the main sortin’ depot at Brunswick Road, which is where we’ve got a motor waitin’. They’ll still be coverin’ the exits up here while we’re poppin’ up haufway doon Leith Walk. And wance we’re there, you’ll have outlived your usefulness, ‘lived’ bein’ the main word. Aye, ye’re no so smart, noo, are ye?’

Parlabane shook his head, squatting on the floor against the wall.

‘Underground railway?’ he asked, grinning.

‘Aye.’

‘I’ve got two words for you, Jyzer: Insurance Bonds.’

‘An’ I’ve got two words for you: fuckin’ shut it. Tommy, have ye fun’ thae keys yet?’

‘Sorry Jyzer. I don’t think there’ a spare set.’

‘Fuck it,’ Jyzer said, getting to his feet. ‘You watch him Tommy.’

Jyzer walked over to the locked door and pointed his shotgun at the metal handle.

‘No don’t do that!’ Parlabane shouted, too late.

Jyzer pulled his trigger and blasted the handle, then reeled away from the still-locked door, bent double and groaning.

‘AAAAYAAA FUCKIN’ BASTARD!’ he screamed, falling to the floor, blood appearing from the dozens of tiny wounds where the pellets had ricocheted off the solid metal and back into his thighs, hands, wrists, abdomen and groin.

‘STAY OOT!’ Tommy shouted to the cops behind the door. ‘STAY OOT. The hostage is awright. Just a wee accident in here. Just everybody keep steady, right?’

‘Let’s hear the hostage,’ called the cop. ‘Let’s hear his voice.’

Tommy, looking increasingly like the least steady person on Earth, waved the gun at Parlabane and nodded, prompting him to reply.

‘I’m here,’ Parlabane shouted.

‘You okay, sir?’

‘Do you really want me to answer that?’

‘I mean are you hurt?’

‘No. But Jyzer here just learned a valuable lesson about the magic of the movies.’

‘What?’

‘That’s enough,’ Tommy interrupted. scuttling over to check on his writhing companion. ‘What’s the score wi’ that helicopter?’ he called.

‘I think an air ambulance might be more appropriate,’ Parlabane said.

‘Fuckin’ shut it,’ Tommy hissed. It was the only part of Jyzer’s role he had been so far able to assimilate.

‘It’s over, Tommy,’ Parlabane said quietly. ‘Your pal’s in a bad way, there’s polis everywhere, and I’m afraid you’re three hundred miles from the nearest underground postal railway, which is in London.’

‘It’s no’. There’s wan here. We’ve had information.’

‘Is everybody okay in there?’ asked the policeman.

‘STAY OOT!’ Tommy warned again, his voice starting to tremble. ‘The situation’s no’ changed. Stay oot.’

Jyzer continued to moan in the corner, convulsed also by the occasional cough.

‘There’s no such things as Insurance Bonds, Tommy,’ Parlabane told him.

‘Shut it. There is.’

‘Where did you get this “information”?’

‘That’s ma business.’

‘Did you pay for it? Is someone on a percentage?’

‘Naw. Aye. The second wan.’

‘Never done anything like this before, have you?’

Jyzer moaned again, eyes closed against the pain..

Tommy shook his head. He was starting to look scared, like he needed his mammy to take him home.

‘Somebody put you up to it? Somebody force you?’

‘Naw,’ he said defensively. ‘We were offered this. Hand-picked. He gied us the information, an’ we’d tae gie him forty per cent o’ the cally efterwards.’

‘You been inside before? Recently?’

‘Aye. Oot six weeks. Baith ay us.’

‘And I take it you weren’t inside for armed robbery.’

He shook his head again.

Parlabane nodded. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his compact little mobile phone.

‘Whit ye daein’? Put that doon.’

‘Just let me call the cops outside, okay? Save us shoutin’ through the wall the whole time.’

‘Aye awright.’

He dialled the number for Gayfield Square, explained the situation and asked to be patched through to the main man on-site.

‘Are you sure you’re all right, sir?’ the cop in charge asked. ‘What’s your name? Do you need us to get a message to someone?’

‘I’m fine. My name’s Jack Parlabane. Yes, that Jack Parlabane, and spare me the might-have-knowns. I didn’t try to get myself into this, it just happened. Now, Tommy here’s not quite ready to end this, I don’t think. But I was wondering whether you might want to scale down the ARU involvement out there. I’ve got a feeling you’ll be needing them elsewhere fairly imminently.’

‘Too late,’ the cop informed him. ‘Somebody hit the Royal Bank at the west end of George St about fifteen minutes ago while we were scratching our arses back here. By the time any of our lot got there it was all in the past tense. We’ve been had.’

‘You’re not the only ones.’

‘What was that?’ Tommy asked.

‘Bank robbery, Tommy,’ he told him ‘A proper one. Carried out less than a mile from here while the police Armed Response Unit were holding their dicks outside a post office. Now who do you think could have been behind that? Same guy gave you “the information” maybe?’

‘But… but… we…’

‘You were right about being hand-picked, Tommy. And you can both take some satisfaction from the fact that you carried out the plan exactly as intended. Unfortunately, you were intended to fuck up. What were the instructions? Grab the mysterious Insurance Bonds, create a hostage situation, keep the polis occupied, then escape via the magical underground railway? And were you given a specific date and time, perhaps?’

There was confusion in Tommy’s eyes, but on the whole resignation was starting to replace defiance. Jyzer gave a last mournful splutter and passed out.

‘Don’t suppose you want to score a few points with the boys in blue by telling them who set you up so they can get on to his tail?’

‘Mair than ma life’s worth.’

‘Fair enough. But it’s still over, Tommy. Jyzer needs medical attention. The wounds might be superficial, but then again they might not. Come on. Put the gun down.’

Tommy looked across at the unconscious Jyzer surrounded by bloodstains on the beige carpet, then at the locked door, then back at his hostage.

‘Ach, fuck it,’ he rasped angrily, knuckles whitening as he gripped the gun tighter.

Parlabane took an involuntary breath, his eyes locked on Tommy’s.

‘The cunt’s name was McKay,’ he said with a sigh. ‘Erchie McKay. Met him inside. He got oot last month, same as us.’ Tommy put the shotgun down on the floor and slid it across to Parlabane. ‘Just make sure they catch the bastart.’

At eight-thirty that evening, the nightly performance of ‘Whoops Checkov’ was abandoned after a number of powerful stink-bombs were thrown through the door of the auditorium by an unidentified male. It was, the unidentified male admitted to the woman driving his getaway car, childish and puerile, but then so is much of the Fringe.

I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth. Or to put it more plainly, I haven’t quite been my usual care-free, smiley, mass-murdering self for a while now, and it’s starting to make me feel… a little lost.

There are a number of evident and plausible reasons for this.

When I look in the mirror, I no longer see the face my mind expects. This isn’t any pretentious and self-pitying psychobabble, I should stress: I paid a maxillofacial surgeon a shitload of money to ensure that I no longer see the face my mind expects; and that more importantly, I no longer see the face so very many people in so very many countries would dearly love to get into with a floor-sander and a bucket of hydrogen chlorate. I don’t look radically different. With the bruising and swelling gone, the features and proportions are halfway familiar, but the lines and contours seem softened; blurred almost, so that I resemble what could best be described as a Japanese anime version of myself. I look different enough, though, let me tell you. Walk into the bathroom for a pish in the middle of the night, catch a sideways glimpse of that in the mirror and you’re swapping your cock for a Glock, if you haven’t already jumped backwards into the bath. When it comes to undermining your sense of identity, having your own coupon replaced would do it every time.

But that’s not it.

I’m sitting, as I do most days, outside a bar overlooking the beach. Resting on my table are a beer and a book, though again, like most days, I’m too distracted by what’s going on in front of me to read it. Today, however, unlike most days, my attention is enticed by something other than the cornucopia of sun-worshipping females parading between the terrace and the sea. These last have captured my eye but not my mind, a pleasant and picturesque backdrop to my necessarily ugly reflections; soothingly incongruous, disposably irrelevant. I didn’t come here for the reasons everyone else does. I’m not on holiday and I’m not looking for parties, romance or even just sex. I needed to be somewhere fluidly transitory, where people come and go and the locals don’t bother learning your face because you’ll be history in a fortnight. I also needed to be in a place where wearing sunglasses from dawn to dusk does not look suspicious or even affected.

This is my life: for now, for as long as needs be. Forever, if necessary. Not so bad, you might think, and yes, I can afford it. Money is not an issue. I was always prepared for this possibility, every day, on every job, though I never considered it an eventuality, and certainly not an aspiration. I didn’t do the things I did so that I could afford to loll in the sand for the rest of my days. You lie in the dirt long enough later on; what good’s a headstart? I did what I did because it electrified me every moment I was awake, and I did what I did because I was the best in the whole wide fucking world.

I have killed more people than I could accurately count: four hundred at a rough guess. I have brought down aeroplanes, sunk cruise liners, even trashed a fully armed military base. I had the police of half the planet trailing in my wake, presidential sphincters tweeting at the mention of my name. So all things considered, it is not my idea of the good life to be just another nobody vegetating here in the sun, my back resting against a pile of cash, like a moron lottery winner or some Cro-Magnon Cockney gangster. This is my life now and it represents, to say the least, a bit of a come-down.

But that’s not it.

I am watching a man and a young child, little more than a toddler, play on the sand with a lightweight football. They are using a pushchair and an ice-box as goalposts, the child running up unsteadily to take a shot as his father crouches in the centre of the target. The child connects, giving it a clumsy but firm toe-ender. The ball wobbles in the air as it flies, lending plausibility to the man’s transparent attempt to appear wrong-footed. He collapses to the ground, flailing an arm as the ball bounces past him. The child jumps, hands raised. The man thumps the sand, feigning the anguish of defeat.

Here in the bar, there is no need to fake it. I have lost all that I have lost because I was – I am – defeated. In my line of work, you don’t lick your wounds then return to the fray with renewed determination; not when defeat means that the world knows your true name and your true visage. In defeat you may live, but not to fight another day. You may live to become faceless, to drink beer in a reassuringly crowded holiday resort, and to contemplate the person you will never again be.

The sting of humiliation fades with time, but the loss remains, joined soon by a colder, more sober process of recrimination. The apportioning of blame – so often an opportunity for deflection and plain old denial – was simplified for me in that none of my comrades survived. That only left myself and the man who laid me low. As my adversary he was responsible for my defeat but not for my failure, so, much as I detest him and much as I resent what he has done to me, I know it would be foolish and unhelpful to focus my anger upon him. Sitting in this bar, on this beach, I have come to understand that there occasions when the pursuit of vengeance is simply undignified. Yes, I could kill him, but what would that prove? That I am the bigger man? That he was wrong to cross me? No. Because the truth is that I crossed him, and no two ways about it, I got my arse felt. Twelve of us, professionals, armed and prepared, against… well, best not dwell upon the details. When you lose despite such odds in your favour, you have to accept that you humiliated yourself. Seeking vengeance only compounds it. Let’s be honest, there is no retribution for a humiliation of that magnitude. Nor is there possible reparation to those who were counting on you.