Painkiller (15 page)

Arnie fell silent, and for a moment Dominic thought he was thinking about what he said, but Arnie was just waiting for him to stop.

‘So. You feeling better now? You got everything off your chest? Because I got other people to see besides you. I got a couple of beardies in Streatham who need a few bags of fertiliser and some pruning shears, if you catch my drift.’

Dominic nodded.

‘Good. Now let’s do this.’

‘OK.’

‘Remember. I leave, you count to twenty.’

Arnie left. Dominic counted to twenty.

They got in Arnie Terminator’s car, a dirty, aged Mondeo. Before Dominic got in, he had to pick up half a dozen magazines from the passenger seat, and when he did some cans of Coke decorated with Arabic writing rolled over his feet. Arnie picked one up and waved it in his direction.

‘Do you want a Coke?’ he said. ‘My mate’s a lorry driver. He gets one free with every asylum seeker he brings through the Chunnel.’ He pulled the tab and drank. ‘Joke,’ he added unnecessarily.

Dominic shook his head.

The car puttered off and Arnie squinted through the windscreen, holding his steering wheel like an orang-utan clutching a tyre.

‘Now I’m only mentioning this in passing,’ he said, casually, ‘but you don’t have to put yourself out. If you catch my drift.’

‘I don’t. What do you mean?’

‘You could get someone to do it for you. I know some blokes. Won’t cost you too much. You’re gonna be the obvious suspect, after all, and hiring someone makes it easy for you to put some distance between you and the dirty deed. Make it easy for you to get yourself an alibi, if you catch my drift.’

‘I’m catching your drift,’ Dominic said.

‘And they wouldn’t be that expensive. After all, I hardly think doing your missus would be a challenge. Would it? From what you said, she’s a bit of a sitting target.’

Dominic closed his eyes wearily. ‘I suppose not. But it’s personal, you know. We’ve been through a lot together. I wouldn’t want anyone to do it but me.’

Arnie shrugged, the car did a little wobble.

‘Suit yourself,’ he said. ‘It’s your funeral.’

They drove along narrow little roads framed with shops and houses, all equally broken and neglected. Arnie seemed to take right and left turns at random and the longer the journey took, the more nervous Dominic got. He wondered if the whole thing was an elaborate joke and he was being taken somewhere quiet to relieve him of his life and the fat money-engorged envelope sitting in his jacket pocket. Dominic found himself fiddling with the door catch, flapping it gently with the edge of his fingers, as if his left hand had already decided to plan a daring escape from the moving vehicle.

Finally, they drove into a car park, a barren piece of land surrounded by aged tower blocks. The car trundled up to one of the garages. Parked outside one was an old blue Transit van; rusting and ugly.

Arnie unlocked the back of the van, opening the doors up to reveal nothing but a black canvas bag. He clambered inside, clicked on a mechanic’s lamp hanging from the roof of the van and pulled the bag out. He dropped it at Dominic’s feet.

Arnie unzipped the bag and held up a handgun, holding it delicately between three fingers and pointing it to the ceiling. Dominic was expecting him to rattle off a list of statistics about the gun, the serial number, range, how many bullets per second it could fire, how many millimetres the barrel was, with decimal points, but Arnie wasn’t into any of that.

‘There,’ he said. ‘Point and pull the trigger. You put the bullets in there. If you want any more then find them somewhere else.’

Dominic produced the envelope. ‘OK. Here’s the money. What we agreed.’

‘Pleasure doing business with you, professor.’ He held his hand out but Dominic held the envelope even more tightly.

‘Just a second,’ he said. ‘How do I know it works?’

Arnie’s expression froze. ‘What?’

Dominic realised things had suddenly taken a wrong turn, that he had said something wrong. He thought of a lie to smooth the situation over. ‘Look, I tried to do this once before, but it turned out there was no gun.’

‘What?’

‘I tried to buy one before, years ago, but I got cheated. They took my money and it was just a pipe wrapped in a towel.’

‘What?’

‘So… I just… want to, you know…’

Arnie Terminator stared at Dominic with wide eyes, mouth open. ‘What – the – FUCK?’ He slammed a fist into the van. ‘What did you just say? What did you – just – SAY?’

Dominic took a step back. ‘Arnie…’

‘You just said I was cheating you, you… fuck!’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘You FUCK!’

‘Arnie’ was working himself into a frenzy. Dominic felt his legs tremble, telling him to run. He didn’t know why he didn’t run. He felt he
couldn’t.
It all felt dreamlike, like he was floating above himself, watching this poor, flabby middle-class fool clutching his money and meeting his ridiculous death in a deserted car park.

Anyway, he was in advertising, and the one thing he knew about was the right of the consumer not to be sold a product under false pretences. He was the customer, and the customer was always right. By pure instinct and bloody-mindedness, Dominic stood his ground.

‘Well, it might not be real. I don’t know you, do I?’

‘You want to know if it’s real, do you? Do you, professor? Do you?’

He fired the gun at the ground; it was fitted with a silencer. It didn’t sound like the movies; more of a loud metallic click than a ‘pff’. Dominic jumped back, arm over his face, as slivers of concrete spewed out of the ground.

‘That’s how real it is, professor! That’s how real! Motherfucker!’

Arnie fired again, and Dominic screamed.

‘Now give me the money, professor. GIVE IT TO ME! NOW, YOU FUCKER!’

Dumbly, he handed Arnie the envelope, and he tried to tear it open with one hand. It was quite a tricky stunt and his eyes kept bobbing down from Dominic’s face to look at what he was doing.

Dominic realised that Arnie had had this scenario in his mind the whole time, or at least was entertaining the idea of taking his money and keeping the gun, as a possible outcome. He just needed a trigger – no pun intended – to justify waving the gun in Dominic’s face. The realisation hit Dominic like a hot wave, and he felt rage bubbling up inside his brain.

Arnie was still standing directly behind his van, and when he glanced down again Dominic – without even knowing what he was doing – slammed the doors onto him. Arnie fell back into the van, trapped by his knees. Dominic pushed with all his might, ignoring Arnie’s howls and his threats, and then his pleadings.

Arnie must have kept hold of the gun because there went the ‘click’ again and the high window of the van shattered. Dominic screamed, this time because there was a sharp pain by his ear. The world started whistling a tune with one high note and Dominic shouted at it to stop but he couldn’t hear his own voice. He crouched down and watched with detached amusement as holes appeared in the doors. He imagined they must have gone
thunk
,
thunk
,
thunk
, but he couldn’t hear; the whole world had a silencer now.

Something, a distant voice from deep inside the whistle, told Dominic that if he didn’t do something quickly the holes would start appearing in his chest. He grabbed hold of one of Arnie’s feet, still protruding from the bottom of the van. He twisted the ankle and Arnie screamed and struggled, wriggling to follow his foot as it revolved, but he was still pinned by Dominic’s weight on the door. Dominic twisted until Arnie’s screams reached a pitch, and he heard a satisfying ‘crack’ that came from between his hands.

Then he grabbed the other one.

This time he took his weight off the door, just slightly, and allowed Arnie to twist frantically over to avoid another ‘crack’. Once Arnie had struggled onto his belly Dominic launched into the van and allowed his weight to descend on the smaller man.

‘Yrr fkkrr. Fkkrrrr!’ was all Arnie could say, as his face got pushed into the metal floor of the van. Dominic twisted the gun out of Arnie’s hand, and Arnie gave another muffled scream.

Dominic could have made a million smart-alec comments, like ‘hasta la vista’ or something like that, but in the end he just said:

‘Fuck you, Arnie.’

He felt liberated, as if all the frustration and fury he had been bottling up for years had been released.

‘Frrrrrkrrrr!’ said Arnie.

Dominic stuffed his money back in his jacket, grabbed Arnie’s hair, pulled his head up and shoved it against the floor.

Then he shut the van doors, and ran. And ran. And ran.

And then he was on a high street, trying to stay calm and composed, trying to keep his walk slow and steady, trying not to run. Trying not to be conspicuous. Then he caught sight of his face in a shop window.

How ridiculous I look
, he thought.
Trying not to look conspicuous when my ear is hanging off and there’s blood down my face.

I can’t go back home like this. I can’t. I can’t explain this.
 

He ducked out of the high street and lumbered along the side streets like Frankenstein’s monster, taking left and right turns at random, until he saw a grim sign above a terraced house.
WILLOWTREE
LODGE
.

A bed and breakfast. One that doesn’t look that choosy about its guests.
 

Dominic staggered into a faded, threadbare hallway. There was an old grey woman, small and curved. She was vacuuming the carpet, and she dropped the hoover when she saw him.

‘Oh goodness! What’s happened?’

‘Car accident…’

Her hand twitched over to the telephone, which was sitting quaintly on an occasional table under the kitchen hatch.

‘No… it’s fine.’ Dominic waved his hands to calm her. His bloodstained hands. ‘I’ve rung the police. They’ll be here soon. I just need a room to freshen up.’

‘Oh, yes… Of course.’

She scuttled to a desk and he loomed over her, slamming the envelope on the surface. The envelope was dark, stained with blood. It was also split, and the money inside could clearly be seen.

‘I need a room for a few nights,’ he said. ‘While I recover. And get my car repaired.’

She knew something was up. ‘Oh – of course. Where’s your car? We do have numbers of garages…’

‘No need.’

‘But if there was an accident…’

She was confused. Nothing Dominic was saying made any sense. ‘It wasn’t… Not exactly an accident…’ His mind was racing. He was aware that the gun was dragging against his pocket and the handle was starting to peep out from his jacket. He straightened up and turned his back on her, feigning embarrassment, and tucked it back inside.

‘I was in the car with someone who wasn’t… was not my wife. She got mad at me, something I said, and she wrenched the steering wheel and crashed us into a lamp-post.’

The old lady started to speak but he held up his hand. ‘She was fine. Airbag. She ran off, but I’ve got to get myself and the car sorted out before my wife finds out.’

That made more sense to her. Not complete sense, but her eyes were flicking to the blood-stained envelope. Taking his cue, Dominic peeled it open and started dealing twenty pound notes on the table. One, two, three…

‘I just need a few days to sort the car. Get my ear fixed, and mum’s the word. I’d be very grateful…’

Her eyes danced to Dominic’s face, to the growing pile of money, and then back to his face.

Sold.
 

Ten minutes later Dominic was in a tiny room. He lay on the bed and it sagged wearily.
Oh no, not another body to sleep on me,
the springs groaned.

His eyes traced the cracks up the wall, past the chipped dressing table and up into the ceiling, where it converged with many other cracks around the light fitting, like a threadbare spider’s web.

How did I get here? How did this happen?
 

That was when his mobile rang. It was Monica, thanking him for being wonderful. She was going to stay the night at Angelina’s.

He sat up, put his head in his hands, and pointed his eyes to the floor, watching the vague swirls of the denuded carpet through his fingers. He could feel the ragged remains of his ear with his thumb.

Thou shalt not bear false witness.
 

He remembered the sermons of Father Jerome in his dingy lime-green presbytery, the place where the radiator gurgled like the devil himself was coming up through the plumbing, where they stored the unblessed wafers and the garments and the unchipped crosses for the feast days; where the Father wrote the commandments out on a squealing blackboard and asked the boys about the lies they told in the last week, banging the board with the eraser and demanding examples.
‘Don’t think about it! Just say them out loud!’
It forced him to rack his brains for lies that weren’t too shameful. He thought about the stories, the lies, all mounting up around him, and he cried; for Monica, for himself, for both of them, and he did not stop crying until the room was dark.

With her long delicate fingers, Angelina pulls a couple of Rizla papers out of the packet, licks the edges and fastens them together. Then she takes a small cellophane-wrapped chunk from her bedside drawer, unpicks the wrapping and crumbles a bit of brown onto the paper, patting it into a thin line. Finally, she pulls a handful of tobacco from a tin, scatters it over the crumbs and rolls it up, jamming it into her mouth, lighting it and pulling a long grateful toke, eyes bulging and cheeks deflating.

She holds it in her mouth for five seconds before exhaling a thin stream of smoke, and she falls back on her beanbag. I’ve been given the ornate high-backed wooden chair, as beanbags and me don’t mix.

‘That is good shit,’ she chokes. ‘I knew I stayed with Clyde for a reason. I’d better make this last…’

She proffers the joint to me, but I shake my head.