The Bad Fire (29 page)

The man and the girl stepped on to the platform beside him. Billy shivered. His lips were numb. The night, although warm and wonderful if you were out on the town, felt arctic and spooky to him. He'd never been this cold. Well, maybe once, when the train in Cowcaddens went over his leg and he thought he felt the sub-zero chill of death settle on him as the ambulance-men raised him on to a stretcher.

‘Up up and away,' the man said. He tugged on a rope and the platform began to rise.

‘
On my beautiful balloon,
' the girl sang.

‘Oh Jesus,' Billy said.

The platform swayed as it rose. It shoogled from side to side like an old Glasgow tramcar. Billy grabbed one of the ropes. There was nothing else to hang on to. No protective barrier, no handrail, just this sodding bloody rectangle of wood rising in the dark by means of ropes.

‘Anything you want,' he said. ‘Listen to me. I can give you each a hundred K cash. Just set me down on the ground and let me go.'

‘
Would you like to fly, on my beautiful balloon,
' the young man croaked.

I am going to throw up, Billy thought. ‘Two hundred each. Two hundred grand. Best I can do.'

The girl punched him in the stomach. The pain snatched his breath away. The platform continued to rise. Up and up, brushing close to metal girders, passing sheets of plastic, tendrils of unconnected electric wires that dangled and sometimes brushed the side of Billy's face. The air smelled of paint and fresh concrete and dry metal and epoxy.

The girl sang, ‘
On the roof where everything is free.
'

The young guy lit a cigarette. ‘Great fucking view,' he said.

Billy looked, saw lights everywhere. The city was a triumph of the electric arts, yellow lamps, lights that shone on radio masts, traffic on motorways. Great view, completely terrifying.

Up and up, swaying, the creak of the pulley. He shut his eyes, but that was worse. How high was this tower? Height was an abstraction, the distillation of his fear. You couldn't measure it in feet or metres. You couldn't weigh it either. His body felt weird and buoyant.

‘Must be great up here when there's a big wind blowing,' the young guy said.

I can only imagine, Billy thought. ‘I can get you more money mibbe, if you give me a day or two.'

‘Think you can buy anything you like, eh?' the young man asked. ‘Sometimes that's not possible, McQueen.'

Suddenly the platform plunged six feet downward – and Billy thought, oh Jesus, this was the moment, this was when death came and took you. The grinning skull:
You're mine, sucker
. He was trapped in an airless space. The girl laughed, the platform swung away from the building, then the contraption levelled itself and the ascent continued as if nothing had happened, but Billy's heart was like that of a man wired to an electric chair and the clock is only seconds from the throw of the final switch. Oh sweet mother of Jesus, he thought. I'll do anything to get off this thing – and still it was rising, up and up for ever into a cosmic darkness.

Then the contraption stopped. The night was still and eerie.

‘Step off,' the young guy said.

‘Step off? Are you fucking mad? Step where?'

‘Get off,' the girl said. ‘End of the line.'

Billy saw only darkness stretch in front of him. The door of eternity. ‘I'll fall, for Christ's sake.'

Suddenly a light went on inside the unfinished tower, a high-powered lamp at the end of a thick black cable. Billy blinked.

The figure who held the light said, ‘Nice of you to come all this way, Billy.'

‘Haggs,' Billy said. Oh Jesus.

‘The very same, Billy. Now step off the platform and move towards me.'

‘You're out of your mind, Haggs.'

The girl thumped him casually on the back of his skull. ‘Do as you're told.' She said to Haggs, ‘I think he wet his nappy on the ride up.'

‘He's challenged in the lower limb department,' Haggs said. ‘You need patience and understanding sometimes. Generosity towards your fellow man.'

‘Aye, right enough,' the girl said, and snorted.

‘Come on, Billy,' Haggs said. ‘There's a good strong wooden bridge between you and me. No funny spaces. No loose planks. The support girders are magnificent. The building isn't going to fall down. Come on now, get your arse over here to me. It's only ten feet and there's bags of room. Nothing to be afraid of. We'll have a nice little chat.'

‘Oh, this is standard practice for you, is it, Haggs? Hauling people a thousand feet up in the air for a meeting?'

‘Just move, Billy,' Haggs said.

Billy McQueen stepped on to the wooden bridge. He felt wood under his feet, but it didn't fill him with a sense of security. The planks shifted a quarter-inch or so under his weight, and creaked, and he sensed the long drop, the horror. He thought he felt the tower sway. He looked down at the wooden crosswalk, judged it to be six feet wide, so if he stayed in the dead centre away from the edges he'd be fine, just fine, yes indeed. He stared into Haggs's lamp. It blinded him.

‘Well done, Billy,' Haggs said.

Billy stopped about two feet away from Haggs, aware of movement on the bridge behind him. The girl and the young man stood on the walkway.

The girl said, ‘Wheeee, it's magic up here,' and she balanced on one leg.

Haggs put an arm round Billy's shoulder. ‘You can see all the way across the city. The lights over there? That's Castlemilk. You can see Rutherglen and Pollokshaws and Cathcart and if you look just to your left you'll notice the lamps round the City Chambers –'

My turf, Billy thought. My penthouse. Where I belong. Not out here on thin wood suspended between metal girders God only knows how high above the earth.

‘There's Central Station and Buchanan Street – and look at all the bridges across the river and the way light reflects in the water. Can you see the Moat House Hotel, Billy?' Haggs had a certain proprietorial enthusiasm in his voice.

‘I see it. Why am I here, Haggs?'

‘Straight to business, eh? Don't like the spectacular panoramic view of our fair city?'

‘I'm not fond of high buildings,' Billy said.

‘Are you shivering, Billy? On a warm night like this?'

‘I'm scared to fucking death,' Billy admitted.

Haggs clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You've been hard to find. Why's that, I wonder? Troubles, Billy? Problems?'

‘Oh, the usual business stuff. You know.'

‘I think it's a wee bit different this time. Right? It's not your normal situation, is it? Speak to me about Gurk.'

McQueen shook his head.
There
. He was sure he felt the tower sway. It was one of those jerry-built affairs with cheapskate reinforced concrete, a corner-cutting operation, a fly-by-night cowboy piece of work. He wished he had something firm to hang on to. He wished he had a Velcro safety suit and could attach himself to a receptive surface.

‘Gurk, Billy,' Haggs said. ‘Talk. I am all ears.'

‘Gurk. Right. Here's what I did. Mallon had some capital he wanted to invest. Sometimes I put people in touch with one another. One man has commodities, another man money. I get a commission.'

‘Fuck's sake. Spare me your job description, Billy. So Mallon had money and Gurk had a commodity.'

‘Right,' Billy said. He was morbidly drawn to peer over the edge of the walkway. He saw girders crisscrossing in the reach of Haggs's lamp; they were the colour of a battleship. Then you couldn't see the steel ribs, only dark, a big mouth waiting to be fed.

‘What was Gurk's … commodity?'

‘Don't ask me, Haggs. I only bring people together. I don't want to know what's passing from place to place. I only want my commission based on the total amount of the transaction, usually ten, sometimes fifteen, per cent –'

‘I don't have the slightest interest in your fees, Billy. I'm asking you a simple question for the second time. What the fuck was the commodity Mallon wanted from Gurk?'

‘I don't know. I didn't ask. The less I know the better. That's how I operate, Haggs. It also makes the principal parties feel better about doing business. Secrecy, confidentiality. They value that.'

‘Twiddie.' Haggs nodded.

The planks of wood creaked. Billy was aware of movement from behind. His throat was seized in a fierce lock by the man Haggs had called Twiddie. Billy didn't have the strength to resist. Twiddie forced him to his knees then released him. Billy remained in this position, a supplicant before Roddy Haggs.

Haggs said, ‘What you're telling me is you put Mallon in touch with Gurk, but you don't have a clue what was transacted between them?'

‘Only in the fiscal sense.'

‘Fuck fiscal!
Twiddie
.'

Twiddie's boot went into Billy McQueen's back. Billy felt a serious jolt of pain rush ruinously from spine to skull, and he fell forward on his face.

‘I'll ask again, Billy. The commodity. The package. Whatever the fuck it was.'

‘I told you, I don't ask questions like that.'

‘Maybe you should. Maybe you should be more interested, Billy.
Twiddie.
'

Billy McQueen braced himself for more pain, but it didn't happen. Instead, Twiddie caught him by the shoulders and swung him round until his head dangled off the walkway and he was looking down into the void. How many storeys below, how far to fall? Billy shut his eyes, fought back a scream.

Haggs said, ‘The leg, Rita.'

‘The leg?' Billy asked.

‘Remove the leg,' Haggs said.

‘Will do,' said Rita.

‘Hold on, wait a bloody minute,' McQueen said.

He heard a switchblade knife open and he tensed himself, expecting to be cut. But the girl didn't slash his flesh, only the material of his trousers, making a quick sharp slit to a point above the knee.

‘Undo the thing,' Haggs said.

‘Undo my fucking
leg?
' McQueen said. ‘Wait, Haggs. Please.'

‘Why? Have you got something to
tell
me?'

McQueen looked down into the black heart of the tower. He felt the girl's hand on his skin above the stump. ‘It's the way I always do business, Haggs. I swear to God. I couple parties who may have mutual interests, and that's all I do.'

‘Like a financial dating service, eh?' Haggs was quiet a moment. ‘The leg, Rita. Yank the fucker off.'

‘Please, Haggs,' McQueen said. ‘If I knew anything more, do you not think I'd bloody well tell you?'

‘The leg, Rita,' Haggs said.

The girl pulled on the exoskeletal prosthesis and said, ‘It's hard. I never touched one of these before. What's it made of? Plastic? Wood?'

‘It's a fucking peg leg and McQueen's Long John Silver,' Haggs said. ‘Just tug the bloody thing, Rita.'

Rigid urethane foam, Billy McQueen thought. An inner foam core, outer lamination flesh-coloured, a solid ankle cushion heel foot – a SACH – attached with a bolt.
I am a trans-tibial amputee
, he thought. Clutching the edge of the wooden walkway and gazing down into the hollow spine of the building, he felt the girl remove the attachment roughly from his stump, and there was a jab of pain, and he shut his eyes.

‘Toss it,' Haggs said.

‘Toss it where?' Billy asked.

Rita let the prosthesis drop from her hand. It struck the walkway and bounced off the edge and fell into the dark and Billy listened to it bounce against girders as it plunged and then there was a long silence and he knew what Haggs had planned for him and he didn't believe it.

Talk your way out of this, Billy. He had tears in his eyes. He turned his head, looked up at Haggs.

‘Don't, Roddy. Don't. Oh God, don't even think about it.'

Haggs put his foot on Billy's spine. A little pressure. ‘Here's the story, Billy. You only have to tell me what the transaction was about. That shouldn't be hard.'

‘Haggs, listen to me, please, a guy called Kaminsky phoned me from Zurich, and asked me did I know somebody with cash to invest, and about the same time Mallon had been asking me if I knew how he could make a good quick profit, something for his retirement, and all I
fucking did
, Roddy, was plug the parties into one another. Kaminsky's man Tommy Gurk and Jackie Mallon. That's gospel … Maybe it was drugs.' Think hard think fast, Billy, think like you never thought before.

‘Drugs? Jackie Mallon? Nope. He wouldn't touch narcotics. He considered them evil. Work of Satan.'

‘Okay, how about stolen property, antiques and stuff?'

‘He's got nothing but junk in that warehouse,' Haggs said. ‘Floor to ceiling shite. I've seen better antiques at a dump.'

‘He planked them somewhere else, a safe place.'

‘You know where?'

Think harder Billy harder. ‘Mibbe he rented an empty house and stored these antiques inside –'

‘And you have the address, Billy?'

‘No–'

‘You're guessing, chuck. And I'm wasting my time.'

‘Wait, Roddy –'

‘Ah, fuck this,' Haggs said. ‘Twiddie.'

Twiddie stepped towards Billy. Haggs said, ‘Send him in search of his leg.'

You're sending me nowhere, you bastarts
. Billy McQueen gripped the edge of the walkway as hard as he could. His fingers locked. His knuckles were like rivets. His body was bolted to the wood. Nobody is moving me. Not so much as an inch. Then Twiddie stepped hard on his hand. Billy heard bone crack and pain fuse through him and he hauled his hand out from under Twiddie's boot. And before Billy could think of a response that might save him Twiddie smashed the boot down on the other hand, and Billy yelped and felt himself being pushed towards the edge, shoe-horned into the brink of a long dark descent. Rita and Twiddie dangled him from the walkway. Rita held the stump, Twiddie the ankle, and Billy hung lopsided in the air.