Vin of Venus (15 page)
"What're you doing?" Turnbull said. "We've got to scarper.
Now.
"
Each page was more precious than a thousand-pound note. Vin clutched the dripping mass of paper against his chest. "Let's go."
Turnbull walked hunched over. Rusty blood was pouring from the wounds in his side. The factory's interior had fallen tomb-silent, the workers vanished, doubtless crouching behind cover or lying prone. But it would only be moments before someone reached for a cellphone. If they hadn't already.
"Are you alright?" Vin asked, hurrying after Turnbull.
"Of course I'm not fucking alright. I've got two bullets in me." Turnbull tore keys from his pocket. "Serves me right for not wearing my vest."
"We've got to get you—"
"Fuck that, Vinnie. You know better. I've got a safe house a couple miles from town. We'll make for that."
Turnbull handed him the keys. Vin slung the man's arm over his shoulder and the two of them tottered out of the old factory, towards the coupe. Vin thought he could hear the faint keen of sirens in the distance.
Turnbull crawled into the passenger's seat. Vin tossed the file onto the dashboard and got the car started. Servos whined as he raised his left arm to grip the steering wheel, but Turnbull didn't seem to notice. A bad sign. His eyes were glazing over.
"Who were those guys?" Vin said, starting the engine.
"Fuck if I know. Could've been sent by a dozen different people, couldn't they? Not like we've made a lot of friends. It wasn't Pender's lot, that's for sure."
Vin swerved the car around and got them back on the road. He hadn't driven in months, but like a lot of other skills he seemed to have the knack for it.
"Make for the Northern Bypass Road," Turnbull wheezed. "We'll take that all the way out. Keep your speed down. We can't afford to be pulled over by any 5-0's."
Blood dripped over Turnbull's seat, pooling on the floor mats. Vin pretended not to notice. For several minutes there was only the purr of the coupe's engine and Turnbull's ragged breathing.
"Vinnie, all that alien crap Pender was going on about. None of it was true, was it?"
Vin kept his eyes on the road. "I was just stringing him along. I wanted to see how much he might offer."
"That's what I thought." Turnbull made a faint noise that could've been a chuckle. "
Aliens.
"
Vin's gaze kept drifting back to the bloodstained pages on the dashboard. Part of him wanted to pull over and start reading, right there and then. He fought the impulse. None of the information would help him in prison.
He'd fallen into danger and out of it, only to find himself in a far worse situation. Still, he finally had some answers. And new allies, it seemed.
He glanced over at Turnbull. The man's eyes were fluttering shut.
For the moment, anyway.
PAUL D. BRAZILL
Crime Factory
,
BEAT to a PULP
,
Needle: A Magazine of Noir
,
Noir Nation
,
Pulp Ink
,
A Twist of Noir
and
The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime
8 and 10. He's also had two small but perfectly formed e-book collections published:
13 Shots of Noir
(Untreed Reads) and
Snapshots
(Pulp Metal Fiction). His novellas
Guns of Brixton
and
The Gumshoe
will be published in 2012. Paul has edited two anthologies,
True Brit Grit
with Luca Veste (Guilty Conscience) and
Drunk on the Moon
(Dark Valentine Press). He regularly contributes to
Pulp Metal Magazine
,
Mean Streets
and
Out of the Gutter Online
. Paul is a member of International Thriller Writers and The Hardboiled Collective.
Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine
,
BEAT to a PULP: Round Two
,
Needle: A Magazine of Noir
,
Blood and Tacos
,
Pulp Modern
, and
Battling Boxing Stories
. Look for his novella "The Shunned Highway" later this summer in Alec Cizak's
Uncle B's Drive-In
. You can follow him on
Twitter @TonyAmtrak
.
ALSO AVAILABLE ON KINDLE
and other poems
PO Box 173