by Preston, Ken
Walk far enough in any city and you could find the shitty parts.
Gilligan took a right at the end of New Street and cut through the Bullring. Down the broad stone steps and past St Martin’s Church.
On towards Digbeth.
The buildings were more industrial down here. The brickwork dark from years of pollution. Gilligan ducked down a side street. There were no houses here, no shops, just manufacturing units.
Gilligan stepped just inside the cover of a brick archway and waited. Made sure to keep his shoes out of the black puddles of oil.
When he saw Mitch, Gilligan grabbed him and hauled him into the archway. Shoved him up against the cold, brick wall.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing then, eh?’ Gilligan hissed. ‘You’ve been on my bloody tail the last few days, following me everywhere like I’m a bloody mother hen. Now just what the fuck are you up to?’
Mitch wrenched himself free of Gilligan’s grip. ‘Feeling a little paranoid are you, Gerry?’
Gilligan stepped back, eyed Mitch warily. ‘Now what gives you the right to use my first name, like we’re all friends or something?’
Mitch straightened his jacket. ‘What would you rather I called you? Peaceful?’
‘Where’d you get that name from?’ Gilligan said.
‘It’s amazing what you can find out these days, especially if you know where to look.’
‘And what the fuck does it matter to you what my name is?’ Gilligan took a quick glance at the street behind him. He’d been stupid, confronting Mitch like this. For all he knew, Mitch wasn’t the only one tailing him. And how did he know his old nickname, from his days back in Belfast?
‘Ah come on Peaceful, relax,’ Mitch said. ‘It’s not like you’ve got a guilty conscience or anything, is it?’
‘What are you talking about, soldier boy? You’re not making any sense now, are you?’
‘It’s just a shame you haven’t got your old mate Brendan with you, maybe you’d act like a man then instead of a fucking pussy,’ Mitch said.
Gilligan eyeballed Mitch, but he was shorter than the ex-soldier and had to look up to keep eye contact. Mitch was using his size to gradually force Gilligan out of the shadows of the archway and onto the street.
‘You’re talking out of your arse, soldier boy, making noise and nothing else,’ Gilligan said.
‘Is that right?’ Mitch said, leaning in closer, his voice low. ‘How about this for making noise then? I know you murdered Karl Edwards, and I’m going to keep on your tail until I’ve got enough I can go to the cops and get you put away for a long, long time.’
Mitch shoved Gilligan out of his way and began walking away.
Gilligan stared at his back, imagining holding up a gun and shooting a single bullet into the back of Mitch’s head. How the fuck did he know about the newspaper editor? And what was it to him?
Emma Wylde. It had to be. That stupid bitch had hired Mitch, like he was some kind of private detective, to find the dirt on Gilligan. But how did she even know him?
Angellicit. They were both there that morning, soldier boy even went and rescued her, like some fucking prince in shining armour. No, she hadn’t hired him, they were an item weren’t they?
‘Oi, soldier boy,’ Gilligan shouted.
Mitch paused, turned around.
‘When you see your girlfriend tonight why don’t you ask her how she enjoyed having my cock in her mouth? And think about that when she’s tonguing you.’
‘What did you say?’ Mitch shouted, walking back down the alleyway towards Gilligan.
‘You heard me,’ Gilligan said. ‘Your girlfriend’s a slut, but she gives good head I’ll tell you that.’
Mitch threw a punch at Gilligan, who dodged it. He didn’t see Mitch’s other fist coming for him until it smashed into his nose and sent him reeling backwards on his heels. He staggered, thought he was about to fall as his world grew dark and warm blood poured from his nose and over his lips and chin. Mitch saved him from falling, grabbing Gilligan by the shirt and punching him in the face again.
This time he did fall over, skinning his hands on the rough tarmac and banging his elbows. Mitch got in close, raising a foot to give Gilligan a good kick in the side. This time Gilligan was ready and hooked his feet around the leg Mitch was standing on. The ex-soldier hit the ground hard next to Gilligan.
Before Gilligan had a chance to take advantage, Mitch was up on his knees, his one hand at Gilligan’s throat and the other raised and clenched into a fist.
‘Go on then, soldier boy,’ Gilligan said, spitting flecks of blood as he talked. ‘Go on then, give it all you’ve got.’
The fist descended, shooting towards Gilligan, filling his vision.
A moment of pain, shooting stars and vivid, yellow and orange explosions before everything went dark.
* * *
Shaw and Stut were dragging the body down the stairs. They had already wrapped it up in heavy duty tarpaulin. The corpse’s head banged against every step as they dragged it down by its feet.
Coffin watched them from the top of the stairs. He held a cigarette between his fingers, the white smoke trailing up and slowly dispersing.
‘Shit, this bastard weighs a fucking ton,’ Shaw said.
Thunk, thunk, thunk, went the head as it hit each and every step.
By his side Coffin held the sword. He had cleaned the blood and flecks of brain and bone from it.
‘What are you going to do with that?’ the Stig said.
Coffin took a drag on the cigarette. ‘Keep it. Put it on the wall to replace the one that used to be in there.’
‘You used to have a sword in your office?’
‘Mort did. A Japanese Samurai sword. I killed a vampire with it.’
‘Oh yeah, I heard about that,’ the Stig said.
‘Where’s Gilligan?’ Coffin said.
‘Don’t know, nobody’s seen him this morning.’
‘Get hold of him, we need to meet, talk about this Gosling situation. Tell Shaw, too.’
‘You going to go in with him?’ the Stig said.
‘Just get the others together,’ Coffin said.
* * *
The noise of the door slamming shut made Emma jump, and she accidentally flicked a blob of nappy cream from her finger and onto her top.
‘Shit,’ she muttered and grabbed a wipe and started scrubbing at the spot. Something else to go in the wash before the cream left a greasy stain.
Louisa May lay on her back on the bed, kicking her bare legs and chewing on a fist. Her cheeks were a fiery red again this morning, but she seemed reasonably settled at least. Emma grabbed the baby’s feet and lifted her up enough to slide a nappy under her bottom.
‘Hi Mitch,’ she shouted, as she fastened the nappy together. ‘I’m upstairs!’
Emma sat Louisa May up, holding her around her torso. The skin felt rough beneath her finger tips. Emma took a closer look. More eczema. She ran her fingers over Louisa May’s soft skin and the patches of dry blemishes.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Emma picked up her baby, holding her against her shoulder and turned around.
‘Mitch! What the hell happened?’
He stood in the bedroom doorway. A vivid bruise discoloured his left cheek, and the eye was swollen partially closed and bloodshot.
‘Why didn’t you tell me, Emma?’ he said.
His knuckles, too, Emma noticed. Bruised, bleeding in places.
‘Tell you what?’
‘He raped you, didn’t he? That bastard Gilligan, he raped you and you never told me.’
‘No, no.’ Emma shook her head. Her instinct was to go to him and hold him, but she had Louisa May in her arms, and she hadn’t washed her hands after changing the nappy, and she didn’t like the look in Mitch’s eyes, like he had lost his sense of what was normal, what was right and wrong.
‘He told me,’ Mitch said. ‘He told me every fucking detail. Until I made him stop.’
Emma glanced at his knuckles bleeding again.
‘What did you do to him?’ she whispered. ‘Is he . . ?’
‘No, the bastard’s alive.’
Emma started breathing again. ‘Mitch, he didn’t rape me, he’s messing with you that’s all. He. . . he tried to rape me, but I fought him off.’
Mitch continued staring at Emma, his brow furrowed.
‘You fought him off,’ he said after what had seemed like an eternally long pause. ‘You think that makes it all right then? You think he should just get away with it?’
‘No, of course not.’ Emma clutched Louisa May a little tighter. ‘It’s just, I don’t understand, did he attack you?’
‘No,’ Mitch said, and wiped the back of his hand across his nose, smearing blood over his cheek. ‘I went after him.’
‘You can’t do that, you can’t just go assaulting people, you’ll end up in jail.’
Mitch looked at the blood smeared across the back of his hand. ‘I’m going to have a shower.’
Once he had left the room, Emma had to sit down on the bed before her knees gave way. The violence had radiated off him like a physical heat, like he might explode with fury at any moment.
Like he might have assaulted Emma?
No. No, he wasn’t like that. Mitch had rescued Emma from the vampires at the club. Had come for her despite the infection raging through his body, despite his wounds and the likelihood that he might die by attempting to save her.
Hurt Emma?
No, he wouldn’t do that.
* * *
They were back in The Punchline. Coffin, Shaw, the Stig and Gilligan.
Gilligan’s face was covered in scrapes, his nose red and swollen and his left eye was covered in an angry looking bruise and swollen almost completely shut. Coffin didn’t ask him what had happened. It wasn’t his business, and besides which he wasn’t interested.
Gosling was there, his bulk dwarfing the chair he was sitting on. The rolls of fat on his neck spilled over his collar and his fat face was slick with sweat. But his eyes darted around the room constantly, taking things in, assessing the situation, never still.
‘What made you change your mind, Joe?’ Gosling said.
Stilts arrived at the table with a tray of drinks and a bottle.
As the little man was handing out the drinks, Coffin took the bottle and said, ‘I’ll take care of this.’
Stilts regarded him in silence for a few moments before turning and walking away.
Coffin topped his whisky up with the bottle. ‘Not that it makes any difference to you, but the situation has changed. Looks like the Seven Ghosts are intending on coming back and making a play for Angellicit.’ He took a sip of the whisky. It was good. ‘And they intend to take me out as well.’
Gosling chuckled. ‘Is that why your man over there looks like he tried shagging a two hundred pound gorilla? Or maybe that’s just his wife?’
Shaw looked at Gilligan and burst out laughing. Gilligan stood up.
‘You watch your fucking mouth, now,’ he said.
‘Sit down,’ Coffin said.
Gilligan remained standing for a couple of moments, the tendons on his neck standing out, his dark purple bruises standing out against his pale skin. Finally he sat down.
‘Like I said, it’s none of your business,’ Coffin said to Gosling. ‘You wanted manpower, you got manpower.’
‘The thing is, I need to know what kind of manpower I’ve got,’ Gosling said. ‘I need to know you can do the job and looking at Paddy over there I’m not so sure of that anymore.’
‘You want me to come over there and show you what I can do?’ Gilligan said. ‘You might be a big man but you’re all lard, I could take you down in a second, I could.’
‘See what I’m talking about, Joe? The man’s got a hair trigger temper.’
‘Gerry, go take a walk outside,’ Coffin said.
Gilligan stood up, looking like a petulant child. Coffin was about to tell him again to go when Gilligan turned and walked away.
‘He’s got a temper on him, hasn’t he?’ Gosling said.
‘Tell me about the job,’ Coffin said. ‘Tell me how we’re going to do it.’
Gosling regarded Coffin for a long moment. ‘All right, Joe,’ he said, finally. ‘It’s simple, really. Widow Ullman lost another of her security firm last night. Walked out on her in the middle of the night. Not a surprise I suppose as I’m guessing she pays them peanuts. And if you pay peanuts you only get monkeys, am I right, Joe?’
Coffin said nothing. He wasn’t in the mood to chat.
‘So that leaves her with three rent-a-bodyguards. One to keep a presence inside the house, reassure the paranoid old biddy that there aren’t hordes of masked men beating the doors down or climbing through the windows.’
‘Seriously?’ Shaw said. ‘Is she that bad?’
‘Absolutely,’ Gosling said. ‘Nutty as a fruitcake is what she is. That leaves two more, who would normally be patrolling the outside of the house and through the gardens. I say normally because with two men down she has no one to attend the gated entrance, and no one to sit in the safe room with her cash.’
Shaw was shaking his head, grinning. ‘This is going to be like taking candy from a baby.’
‘You think so?’ Gosling said. ‘You might be surprised. All these men she hires are ex-mercenaries, soldiers of fortune. They’re tough bastards, sharp too.’
‘I don’t get it,’ Coffin said. ‘Why would these men be working for next to nothing? If they’re so pissed off about the pay that they walk off the job in the middle of the night, why would they take it in the first place? It doesn’t make any sense to me.’
‘Bloody hell, Joe, that’s the most you’ve said all morning,’ Gosling said, chuckling. The rolls of fat around his neck quivered as he laughed. ‘You must be exhausted, have another drink.’
Coffin scowled at Gosling.
‘Seriously, Joe, I don’t know why the stupid sods are leaving. Maybe the old biddy is asking them for sexual favours, but does it really matter? The point is, they’re two men down right now and we can’t afford to miss the opportunity to go and get all that money that’s just sitting there waiting for us.’
‘All right, so we get past the security, take them out, whatever. How do we get inside the safe room?’ Coffin said.
‘Stilts here is our man,’ Gosling said, indicating the dwarf as he approached the table, as though he had been summoned. ‘Stilts can get us in anywhere, he’s world renowned for his locked room cracking skills. He once broke into the Zurcher Kantonalbank in Switzerland, ranked number one in the league tables of safe banks in Europe. He didn’t take anything though, just the opposite in fact. He left a deposit. Smack in the middle of the vault, a steaming pile of crap.’
Coffin looked at Stilts. ‘Comedian, safe cracker, you’re a multi talented man.’
Stilts returned Coffin’s stare. His features could have been carved from stone they were so still.
Gosling laughed. ‘He says even less than you, I’m surprised the two of you aren’t best mates by now.’
Coffin turned his gaze back upon the big man. ‘You’re full of shit. You expect me to believe all this?’
Gosling clutched his chest and rolled his eyes. ‘Joe! You’re breaking my heart! Would I lie to you? Maybe I was exaggerating a little about the Zurcher Kantonalbank, but the rest is true. This little fella, he can get you in anywhere you want.’
Coffin threw his whisky back and poured himself another. ‘If you can get in, then why do you need us?’
‘Muscle, Joe, I need you for the muscle. If we get into a fight, I need someone I can count on, someone tough like you. Stilts, he can kick people in the shins but that’s about all he’s good for in a scrap, and Duchess just flounces around screaming. But you, Joe. You and the Mob. You’re the ones I need on my side.’
‘What do you think?’ Coffin said to Shaw.
‘Come on, Joe, we’ve faced worse
than a few ex-mercenaries for hire. This’ll be a piece of piss.’
Coffin looked at Gosling again. Drummed his fingers on the table.
When it came down to it he didn’t have a choice. The Slaughterhouse Mob needed the money.
‘All right, we’re in,’ he said.
an empty grave
Steffanie gasped as Chitrita brought her to climax. She gripped Chitrita’s head between her hands, the vampire’s hair tangled around her fingers, shuddering with delight as Chitrita licked at her.
Michael stood passively watching them, gazing blank eyed at their writhing, naked bodies.
Steffanie cried out and Michael flinched at the sound of her voice.
Chitrita lifted her head and looked at the boy. Michael gazed back at her.
‘Does he never say anything?’ she said.
Steffanie, breathing heavily, turned her head to look at her son. ‘No, he only knows a few words. He was too young when he turned.’
Chitrita crouched on her hands and knees and looked down at Steffanie. ‘We should get rid of him. Kill him.’
‘Why?’ Steffanie said.
‘He slows you down, he will slow us both down.’ Slowly, Chitrita stood up. She walked towards Michael, her bare feet making no noise on the hard floor. ‘I don’t know why you keep him around.’
Steffanie yawned and stretched, her breathing slowing. Outside a girl screamed and then burst into a fit of giggles. A man joined her, laughing hard.
‘He does what he’s told, and besides, me having Michael tears Joe apart.’ She smiled. ‘And anything that torments Joe is worth having.’
Chitrita circled the boy, running her hand through his hair and down over his face. ‘Joe Coffin. Ever since I was pulled from the ground I’ve been hearing his name. Those two freaks who kept me in a cage and fed me never stopped talking about him.’
Steffanie sat up. ‘Stump and Corpse?’
‘Yes, do you know them too?’
‘They used to do jobs for the Slaughterhouse Mob sometimes.’