Rant (7 page)

‘What sort of “duties”,' I asked, more than a little nervously. ‘The sort of “duties” that involve guns and large sums of money turning up on your doorstep early in the morning? The sort of “duties” that involve making people's wives disappear? The sort of “duties” that involve cleaning up innocent bystanders after information has leaked out to them through no fault of their own?'

‘Look, just calm down,' he said, as I had begun waving the gun around in a way which was alarming to me, let alone him.

‘As I said,' he continued, still eyeing the gun as I lowered it slightly, ‘one of our jobs is to collect information and set up our own operations in order to help the police here and in our own country. Fairly small scale stuff usually. Now, one of the things we do is put information out onto the net and on the street that there are contract killers available—'

‘Ha!' I said, somewhat predictably, ‘I knew it, you're a killer! Now where's my wife, you bastard?'

I only meant to frighten him. When I shot. I aimed the gun a good six feet above his head and shot into the ceiling. So imagine my surprise when it took a tiny nick out of his left ear.

What a racket he made. He screamed like a goat with asthma on forty a day. Rubbish screaming, really. I'd have been drummed out of acting school for making a noise like that and claiming it was screaming.

‘Oh, calm down,' I said, halfheartedly, ‘I'm sorry. It's not like I did it on purpose...'

And so on and so forth. I kept on muttering to myself as I fetched towels and water and bandages and eventually got him cleaned up and us both calmed down.

‘Sorry,' I said again. And I was. ‘Really. That was unforgivable. I'll try to behave more like a civilised human being from now on, and if I do shoot you I'll aim to kill or at least maim you so dreadfully, that you lose consciousness.'

I grinned boyishly but he wasn't going to be won over that easily. ‘Oh well, have it your own way, you big girl. Now, you were telling me about your contract killing business.'

‘It wasn't a contract killing business, Mr Rancid,' he said, sulkily, ‘that's what I was trying to tell you.'

‘It's Rant,' I told him.

‘What the hell are you on about now, boy?'

‘My name is Rant. Mr Rant.'

‘Okay, we'll do this your way. If you don't want to listen, then you'll just have to figure it out for yourself…coming in here…shot… asshole…missing the basketball…fart…' He slumped in the chair, bottom lip poked out like a soup plate, not looking at me.

‘Oh, come on, Mr Grumpy,' I said, placatingly, ‘I said I was sorry.'

‘Rancid,' he said.

‘Grumpy,' I said.

‘Stinky,' he said

‘Do you want me to shoot you again,' I said.

‘You wouldn't dare, Stinky,' he said.

He was right. We both knew it.

‘Okay,' I said, ‘I'll give you to a count of three and then I'll shoot into the ceiling again and we'll both have to take our chances.'

He thought about this until the count of two and seven eighths and then continued.

‘All we do, Mr Rank, is take the names of people who get in touch with us looking to do business and then we pass it on to our offices and they contact the relevant authorities. Then they make arrests or monitor people based on the information we send them.'

‘So this happens a lot, then?'

‘No, not really.'

‘How many replies have you had to the adverts, then?'

‘Including this one?'

‘Yes.'

‘One.'

‘Well,' I said. ‘How lucky am I? You sit around on your big fat GIA arse for forty years and then on your first successful hit I get sucked in and my life turns to shit in twenty-four hours.'

He looked at my coat. Well, the homeless guy's coat. ‘And just how good was your life before?' he asked.

‘Don't get smart with me, Big Fat G-man,' I screamed. ‘I didn't want any part of this shit!' I retrieved the letter that I'd found in the kitchen and waved it at him, ‘Look. They've kidnapped my wife and they're going to kill her if we don't do something.'

‘Whaaaa—' he said as he struggled and squirmed and tried to avoid the finger that had been wrapped in the letter as it flew across and landed in his lap. ‘What in the name of God…?' he shouted.

‘I think it's my wife's finger,' I sobbed. ‘Like a ransom demand thing.'

He peered at the finger, looking slightly queasy.

‘She has very hairy knuckles, your wife,' he said.

I looked closer. He was right. I hadn't noticed that before.

‘And very large hands, for a woman.' He looked at me. ‘She's not a transsexual or something, is she? I mean, I don't mind, I just don't want to cause offence…'

But I was too busy laughing. When I calmed down I said, ‘It can't be hers. Look at the length of that nail. She's always biting hers, and then she complains about it. God, I was so worried for a second, but now—'

‘Can I at least see the letter,' he asked politely.

I put it on the table. He was right. Anna was still kidnapped and somebody's finger had been left behind. That couldn't be all good, now could it?

He looked at the letter spread out in front of him.

‘Nice penmanship,' he said, sucking his teeth. ‘What's this “we” business anyway? Why should I help you?'

I waved the gun at him again. ‘This is your shit, your party. I didn't ask to be invited and you're going to help me sort it out.'

‘Or what?' he asked, smiling.

‘Or…else.'

There was a long, tense silence. Though I have a sneaky suspicion he was only tense because he was trying not to laugh.

‘So what exactly did they send you?' he asked, eventually. ‘Before the ransom note thing.'

‘Just a gun. Some money.'

‘Nothing else? No name, no contact?'

‘Just a map of Mexico. I figured out it was probably a Mexican revolutionary thing. Do you think this could be some Mexican revolutionary thing?'

He gave me a look. ‘Have you got the map with you?'

I rummaged through my carrier bags and his eyebrows rose as I did so.

‘That seems rather a lot of money for one hit,' he commented.

‘I, er, yeah. I had an accident.'

‘What sort of an accident.'

‘I sort of robbed a bank.'

He stared at me again for a moment and then said, ‘“Sort of.” Hmmm. We'll maybe talk about that later. Show me the map.'

I did and he hummed and hawed and squinted at it and eventually said, ‘I see.' Which was more than I did.

‘What?' I asked, squirming on my seat.

‘Look at the reference number for the map. In the top left hand corner.'

I looked.

‘010172?'

‘That's right,' he said, speaking as though I was some kind of imbecile. Normally I would have taken offence but at that moment in time I found it was still a bit above my head. ‘It's a dialling code for a mobile phone,' he explained. ‘You get the rest of the number by getting the co-ordinates for the cross they've marked on the map. So it'll be…010172 563893. I think. Either of those 3's could be a 4.'

‘So what's it got to do with Yucatan?'

‘Nothing, probably. It's just the map they chose to use. It's a system we used to use a lot in the Intelligence Services back in the good old days. Terribly outdated now, of course. Generally only used by rookies and people in a bit of a hurry. Not in general use now as anyone with half a brain could figure it out.' He stopped and looked at me, a little embarrassed. ‘Er, you call that number and they give you the instructions as to what they want you to do next. Which is presumably to blow someone out of his or her socks.'

‘So I just ring them?'

‘Look, perhaps you should go to the police and let them sort it out.'

‘I can't,' I wailed, ‘they have my wife, remember? If I go to the police they'll probably kill her.'

‘Then you'll have to do what they ask.'

‘I can't do that.'

‘Then the police, and widowerhood for you, it is.'

‘But—'

‘Look, as things stand you're now the corpse.'

‘The what?' I shrieked.

‘The corpse. It's old service slang. You're basically the fall guy. The patsy? Look, the situation is this. They have you exactly where they want you and you have to do as they ask, and once you've carried out the mission they can just throw you to the police or special forces or kill you and no one will be any the wiser. Essentially you're the walking dead guy and you may or may not save your wife by doing what they ask but at this point in time you can't really do anything but follow instructions. At least you got cash up front. Corpses don't even usually get that.'

‘Thanks for clearing that all up,' I said sulkily, ‘I feel so much better than I did ten minutes ago. So what if I find these guys and somehow rescue Anna?'

He looked sceptical.

‘Then I can go to the police with the evidence and get this whole mess cleared up?'

‘These people are usually very good at covering their tracks. And as things stand the only one who seems to have committed any kind of crime is you.'

He paused while this sank in. The light at the end of the tunnel was beginning to dim. ‘And you can try to avoid the police, but I'm not sure you have much chance of that,' he said, looking past my shoulder. ‘It looks like you have visitors already.'

I turned and looked out the window, across towards the corner of the street, and saw three or four police cars pulled up outside my house and over the road. This didn't look good. On a scale of not looking good this was somewhere on a par with being caught in the goat enclosure at the local petting zoo with your trousers around your ankles. Not that I've ever done that, you understand. Honest.

‘Mike,' he said, in a thoughtful tone of voice which didn't do anything to ease my state of mind, ‘what did you do with the envelope that all of this came in?'

‘Put it in the bin.'

‘In the house?'

‘Yes. Or I may have left it on the settee. Anna always tells me off for not putting stuff in the bin straight awa—'

‘You
shit!
'

‘What? I'm not that bad. I do my share of cleaning and tidying.'

‘Look, man. How long do you think it will take the cops – who even as we speak will be wandering into your wrecked, bloodstained, unlocked place of abode and searching it with a fine-toothed comb – how long do you think it will take them to find that envelope, the one with my address on it, and mosey on over here to see why you have packaging addressed to me in your dustbin? Or better yet, on the settee.'

‘Hours?' (He shook his head.) ‘Minutes?'

‘If we're lucky. And please stop farting.'

‘Sorry. Look, have you got a car?'

‘In the garage.'

‘Keys, keys, come on.'

‘Michael,' he said quietly. Nobody calls me Michael anymore. Not even my mother.

‘What? What, what, what,
what,
WHAT?!'

‘It's not good to panic.'

‘I never said I wanted to be good, just alive. All right! I won't panic, I promise. But let's go. NOW!'

‘Stop. Deep breaths. Now. Do you have anywhere we can go?'

‘No. I just want to go away and hide. Please! Help me. I'll give you half the money. Three quarters. All of the money! I'll be your best friend.'

‘That's enough to make me want to shout out and fetch the cops myself, right now.'

‘Please!'

‘Shut up! Keep up that rumpus and they'll be coming over here before they find the address. Now we need to get as far away from here as possible. Is there someone we could stay with that you trust, say in Scotland or—'

‘We could go to London. I'd thought about going down there soon anyway. Simon lives down there and he's away for a few months and he said he'd leave the key in a flowerpot in the back garden so I could use the flat whenever I wanted and I wasn't sure ‘cause he's been a bit off with me lately after—OW!'

He had kicked me on the shin to shut me up.

‘That sounds perfect. Let's get out to the car and—'

‘Wait, you are coming with me, aren't you?'

‘Well, it would seem that you've rather blown my cover for the moment, so I'm going to need to move on anyway. I'll come with you as far as London and then we can go our separate ways.'

‘Oh please don't leave me, oh please, please, please…'

‘Look, let's just get moving and we can sort things out when we get there. Maybe I should stick around and see if we can get a lead on these guys.'

‘Definitely, definitely!' I was nodding like a toddler who's just been told he can have ice cream if he stops poking the cat with a fork.

‘Okay, I'm going to need a few items. Go upstairs to my room, open the walk-in wardrobe and you'll see a computer. Lift up the desk it's on, the whole top, and you'll find two suitcases. Bring them, and then get my car keys from the kitchen. They're on a little hook by the back door.'

I ran out of the room and upstairs. As is usually the case on these estates, I'm basically running through my own house – same layout, same fittings. I looked around as I went up and into the bedroom and couldn't help thinking that I liked what he'd done with the place. Nice use of colour. Not too overpowering. Bit of fancy artwork but nothing that swamped the narrow stairs. And the bathroom! Boy, it was a bathroom to die for. This man obviously had taste. The bath was—

‘Rant!' Sam shouted from downstairs. ‘What the hell are you doing? We need to get out of here! Now!'

‘Sorry, sorry,' I called back, hurrying into the bedroom. The “walk-in wardrobe” was actually the spare bedroom, a poky little room in all these houses, except that he'd walled it in and created a mixed sort of study-cum-storage area. Clever! I'd have to talk to Anna about that.