by Rob Grant
He waited as long as he could bear, and then he croaked: 'May I speak now?'
'It's your turn.' I nodded. 'What do you think?'
'What do I think? Two things: first, you lost me my space on the bed when you lifted me off it. Second, you ripped my shirt, which is more than a little frustrating, because I may have to wear the damned thing for the rest of my natural life.'
'Didn't you hear me? None of that matters. With the worst luck in the world, you'll be out of here in twenty-four hours.'
'It took me seven months to get that space on the bed.'
He hadn't heard me. He was in denial. Understandable enough. His entire life for the past three and a half years had been focused on the injustice of the bungling that trapped him here; it had become the only thing that kept him going. He'd given up long ago entertaining any serious hope of release, because it was the only way for him to hold on to some kind of sanity.
'Winton, you're going to walk out of here. Don't you understand?'
'Don't you understand? I can't commit a crime. I'm not a criminal. It's not in my nature.'
'Are you kidding me? You can't avoid committing a crime in Europe, now. You can't walk across the road without breaking forty-seven city ordinances, two federal laws and a pan-European international edict. That's the Union's greatest achievement: it's made criminals of us all.'
I was starting to get through to him. 'What? What crime? What crime could I do?'
'What's it matter? Buy a bootleg cigarette and smoke it in the toilet. Make a disparaging remark about Hinduism. Pick your nose and don't put your pickings in a bag. Ask a female guard for a date, for chrissakes. They'll have you in official lock-up quicker than a reincarnation of Jack the Ripper for sexual intimidation.'
Hinton's face was locked in the half-smile, half-grimace expression, but his eyes were sparkling strangely. 'Just one little crime...' he was beginning to believe '... and I'll be out of here?'
'Easy as that. Course, you'll probably have to stump up a fine, or even serve a short custodial sentence, depending on the particular offence you commit. But you'll get a proper meal, at least. And a whole bed to yourself. And you won't have to spend one more day wearing underpants that are old enough to be attending pre-school.'
'A whole bed?' He cast his eyes upwards. 'All to myself? Is it possible it could be that simple?'
A low, throaty grumble spread towards us from the pen door, and feet began to shuffle. Another internee was being herded in to join our happy band. Before I could stop him, Hinton was fighting his way through the crowd towards the door. I had a good idea what he had in mind, and it wasn't pretty. I tried to get through to him before he caused himself unnecessary pain. But Hinton was skinny, not to mention extremely well practised at moving through a static crowd of incarcerated flesh. By the time I was in sight of the door, he'd already assaulted the guard. I caught a last glimpse of his face as it disappeared under a storm of electronic truncheons. Even as the shocks were juddering through his body, he tipped me a jagged smile, clicked me a spasming wink and yelled a heartfelt, if painful 'Thaaaaaaaaaanks.' Then he disappeared beneath a flurry of unnecessary blows.
NINETEEN
With Hinton gone, I struggled my way back to the bed and made enough space on it for an entire buttock. Bliss.
What now?
I didn't have my watch, but I figured it must be around ten, ten thirty. I wondered if Gina would still be in the bar, those long, heavenly pins wrapped magnificently round the legs of some lucky bar stool, playing boredly with the maraschino cherry that garnished her fourth highball, and dreaming up wonderful new ways of hating men in general and me in particular.
Who was I kidding? She was probably showing her appreciation of the bar steward's cocktail mixing skills by forcing him to remove a martini olive from inside her netherwear with his bare teeth, while the band struck up 'La Vida Loca'.
If I was lucky -- and why wouldn't I be? -- I'd be arraigned before a magistrate some time tomorrow, and, if there were sufficient evidence to warrant the charges -- and why wouldn't there be? -- I'd be handed a trial date and sent to grown-up prison. Wow. There's a handsome schedule to titillate you with a tremble of anticipation. By Friday night, if I was lucky -- and why wouldn't I be? -- I could be the unwilling bride to a dozen or so homicidal lifers with an over-abundance of Y chromosomes and facial tattoos reading: 'Death To Mother'. By the weekend, I could be gainfully employed as a full-time human toilet. What treats I had in store.
What were the chances of my making Vienna by Thursday?
A number so far below zero, it existed only in the fifth dimension.
Plus, I had to place my contact ads tomorrow, if they were going to hit next week's deadline. Those messages didn't appear, alarm bells would start ringing. I missed that deadline twice, my cell would be closed down, permanent, and I would cease to exist. I'd drop off the map. No identity, no history, no background. I'd become the Cartesian antithesis:
I would think, yet I would not be.
Well, there was nothing I could do about any of it, right now. Maybe there'd be a window of opportunity to stage some kind of escape en route to the magistrate's court. That would probably be the point where security would be at its weakest. I mean, who would be expecting some idiot on an impersonation charge to be reckless enough to make a bolt for freedom from a van-load of armed cops?
On top of which, I might get lucky -- and, hey, why not? -- I might even get a police escort who suffered from Nonspecific Stupidity or some such. Or a quadriplegic courtroom guard.
It could happen.
Right now, I needed sleep. It had been a very long and strenuous day, and my engine was running on fumes.
Ever tried catching a few Zs with one cheek perched on the corner of a bed, surrounded by one hundred and twenty noisy, smelly men in a room built for thirty?
I'd have told you it couldn't be done.
But I'd have been wrong.
It took a while, and I didn't think I was going to pull it off at all. But I must have, because I was awakened the following morning by some kind of kerfuffle in the pen. A guard was approaching the cell.
I tried to straighten up, but I couldn't. I realised I'd dropped off at some point in the night, and started using my neighbour's shoulder as a pillow. He, in turn, had used my head as a pillow, and someone else above us both had used his. I was trapped under a human pyramid of snoring flesh.
The guard tapped on our perspex with his truncheon and called out, 'Harry Pepper?'
I shouted, 'Here!' and struggled free of my sleepover buddies. Without me to prop them up, they collapsed into a painful heap, and a few curses and some friendly blows were exchanged.
I squeezed my way through the reluctant, grumbling swamp of flesh towards the door.
The guard said, 'Harry Pepper?' again.
I told him, yes, I was Harry Pepper.
He consulted his clipboard, then looked up again and said, 'You're coming with me.'
He unlocked the pen door and I spilled out. He jabbed his stun stick at a couple of desperates who were prepared to take a few bolts of crude electrotherapy just for the chance to stretch their legs and breathe something more closely approximating air for a few meagre seconds. He got them all penned up again, and bolted the door behind me.
He pointed his stick towards the stairs, then he pointed it back at me, to show me he was prepared to use it copiously, should the need arise, so I held my hands up to show him I was all meek and mild and full of love for all mankind, and headed in the direction he was wanting.
'What's this about?' I asked him.
'You'll see,' is all he said back. A man of infinite jest.
I asked him the time, and he told me.
Five forty a.m. seemed a strange time for a magistrate's court to be operating. Though, for all I knew, there were thousands of them all over the city working right round the clock. They'd probably have to be if they wanted to process even a small proportion of the bodies in these cel
ls in any kind of humane time span.
Still, if this were a trip to the courtroom, I doubted they'd be carting us off one at a time. I figured maybe I was being taken away for a beating party, but, frankly, I didn't much care. A hail of blows from some professionally wielded rubber tubing would constitute welcome light relief after a night in those holding pens. It would be like a Caribbean holiday.
Something on my head was feeling strange. I put my hand to my hairline, and it came away gooey. My sleepover buddies had given my forehead a nice thick coat of their sleep spittle drool. Smashing. I'd have to remember to thank them for that, next time I could lay my hands on a heavy-duty cosh and enough room to swing it in.
We'd climbed up nine flights of stairs before my death wish kicked in big time, and I'd started to contemplate wrestling away the guard's truncheon, stripping out the safety and finding out what a diet of two hundred thousand volts could do for my peace of mind, when we took a left turn, instead of a right, and I was herded into an elevator.
Obviously, they were building downwards so fast, they hadn't had time to construct a lift shaft all the way to the bottom. Or maybe they couldn't build one that came so deep, for fear of giving the passengers the bends.
It was a slow elevator, and it had quite a trip to make. They should have provided us with some in-flight entertainment, or at least a seat, a magazine and some kind of inedible snack.
I tried to use the time to get myself centred. If this did turn out to be a trip to the courts, I'd need to be ready if an escape opportunity presented itself. I stood in the Wu Chi position and started some deep breathing. The guard ruined it all by turning his stun stick on full and zapping me in the arse with it, just for fun. Hysterical. This guy was a regular one-man comedy extravaganza. This guy was ready for his own TV show.
I was picking myself off the floor just as the lift arrived.
Zuccho was standing by the processing desk waiting for me.
'What are you doing down there, Pepper? Giving the guard a little head?'
Had it only been nine short hours since our last parting? How I'd missed the crazy bastard. I got to my feet and gave him my lovingest smile. 'Why, Captain Zuccho -- I didn't know you were the jealous kind.'
Zuccho craned forward. 'Shit, what's that?' He peered at my head. 'Looks like he finished off all over your hair.'
The French cops all laughed, humouring the old dirt wad. Even though Zuccho technically had no jurisdiction here, the locals were clearly walking on eggshells around him.
I wasn't going to let them think I was scared of the loopy son of a basket case. 'Hey, Zuccho: next time I'm in Rome, I think I'll take you up on that offer to nail your wife. Know anywhere they sell industrial-strength Viagra? Can I book in advance, or do I have to join the end of a very long queue?'
The French cops laughed, but not too much.
Zuccho did his lip-biting thing. 'You're a funny man, Pepper. I'm going to enjoy seeing them lock you up and eat the keycard.'
There was an odd lack of conviction about the threat. I got the feeling something had changed, and changed in a way that Zuccho didn't much like.
'But that's not going to happen, is it Captain? Because I'm walking out of here, right?'
Zuccho turned away and grabbed the edges of the counter. His neck was glowing bright red, and I could see the veins in it bulging like mooring ropes. He was using all his best temper management strategies. He was counting backwards from a million in threes. He was thinking of all his favourite things and trying to imagine me amongst them. He was visualising himself in his happiest place. He was breathing in deep, holding it, and letting it go. He was doing a hundred things to bring down his blood temperature from way off the scale to just above boiling point.
It took a time, but it worked. When he finally turned back, his face was hardly purple at all, and he only tore a couple of small, fist-sized chunks out of the countertop. 'Yeah. You're out of here. For now, you scum bucket.'
I walked up to the processing desk, trying to knock the gloat out of my step. Gloating is bad. Gloating never gets you anyplace you want to be. 'My ID finally checked out then?'
Zuccho shook his head. 'Fraid not, Pepperpot. You're in court Friday a.m. And I'm going to be there watching. Impersonating a fed? You can pull a ten-year stretch for that. By the time you get out, you'll have a sphincter that could accommodate the Orient Express. I'm going to spend the entire decade laughing.'
I didn't get it. 'Somebody bailed me?'
'Yeah, how about that? You've actually got an actual friend. I'm as surprised as you. It's probably your momma's pimp.'
The desk sergeant -- a new shift -- handed over the contents of my pockets, my belt and my watch. I slipped the watch on my wrist and started threading the belt through my trouser loops.
Somebody bailed me out? 'You got a name?'
'Yeah, I got a name. I got a name so I'd know who to hate. Lennox.'
Lennox?
'Terry Lennox. Ring any bells?'
I shook my head. The name sounded vaguely familiar. I thought an old-time boxer, maybe, or a footballer. 'What did he look like?'
'He was a she.'
A she? Therese Lennox? 'Young she or old she?'
'I didn't get to see the whore. She must like you plenty, though. She stumped up fifty thou to spring you. Money she could have spent having her gonorrhoea scabs removed.'
Fifty thousand euros? I don't know anyone who likes me fifty thousand worth. I don't know anyone who likes me fifty cents and a stick of gum. I had a secret admirer all right.
The desk sergeant handed over a pair of shoes. They were not my shoes.
'What are these?' I asked him.
'Going right out on a limb,' Zuccho answered for him, 'I'd say they were a pair of truly shitty shoes.'
I ignored Zuccho. 'These are not my shoes.'
The desk sergeant checked the label. 'This says they're your shoes.'
'Well, they're not my shoes. I had a pair of real leather shoes. Almost brand new.'
'Would you like me to check through the box for you?'
'I would be very, very grateful. Thank you.'
'Or maybe you'd prefer me to arrange a shoe identity parade with them all? You could maybe pick out your own pair from behind a one-way mirror at your leisure?'
'Listen, friend: I just want my own shoes back, is all.'
He leaned over the bar, real close to my face, and said, 'Fuck off.'
You've got to love those Paris cops. They could have their own vaudeville act. The Fabulous Flying Parisian Pigs. They could thrill audiences the world over.
I picked the filthy pair of parody shoes up and smelled them. I held them out to Zuccho. 'What do you think they're made of?'
He sniffed them. 'My guess? Pumpkin leather.'
I licked one of the toecaps. 'Good guess.' I nodded. 'Definitely a member of the squash family. I think maybe butternut.'
I slipped them on, trying not to think of that son of a bitch desk sergeant, who was, doubtless at this very moment, wearing my beautiful, beautiful shoes under the glittering mirror globe of the Lido ballroom, tripping the light fantastic like he was Fred A-fucking-staire.
I signed the docket. The desk sergeant gave me a piece of paper telling me not to leave the state, and which court I was to show up at. Nine o'clock, Friday morning. Right. Set your watches, people. I'll be there.
And just in case you're reading this and you're American, and you're having trouble wrapping your head around irony, I'll add the following:
Not.
With it now?
I thanked everyone for their kind hospitality, using only one finger, too, and turned to go.
Zuccho called after me. 'Hey, Pepperpot. Do me a favour. Don't show up Friday morning. I'd just love to come hunting you down like the dog you are so I can jam my Glock right up amongst your dingleberries and empty out the entire clip. That would make my life complete.'
I tipped him a grin. 'Can't wait, Zuccho. I'll keep a tu
b of Vaseline handy.' And I stepped out into the cool, free air.
TWENTY
I walked down the steps of police HQ and turned towards the hotel. It was just a little after six in the morning, but the roads were already starting to look jammed. Or maybe they were still getting unjammed from the night before, I couldn't tell.
I walked a few blocks, until I finally spotted Zuccho a little way behind, making a better job of tailing me than I'd have given him credit for.
I walked on a ways, until the inevitable happened, and Zuccho got himself involved in a violent confrontation with an innocent bystander who'd made the cardinal mistake of occupying a part of the boulevard at exactly the moment Zuccho wanted to walk on it.
I waited until Zuccho was fully distracted truncheoning the old lady to the ground with a sturdy cucumber he'd plucked from a convenient vegetable stand, then I slipped down a nearby alleyway and headed back in the opposite direction.
I couldn't go back to the Ambassadeur, of course. Even if Zuccho hadn't been watching it, someone would have been.
When I was confident no one was tailing me, I went up to my apartment. Like I said, it was pretty much four walls and a bed, but there was a tiny sink, and I did what I could to wash away the smells of my incarceration. I kept a spare set of clothes there, but that was all. Foolishly I hadn't thought to store a spare pair of shoes.
I picked up my IDs. I still had Cardew Vascular, Harry Tequila and, of course, Harry Salt. I didn't have a drop point in Vienna, so these would have to do me for the duration.
Vienna.
I'd be breaking the terms of my bail, and that would hit my secret benefactor in the pocket pretty hard, on top of which I'd be a federal fugitive, but all that was just too bad; I was going to make that date in Vienna, whatever the consequences.
Of course, if I'd known what the consequences were going to be, I would definitely have had second thoughts.
Vienna, then.
Question was: how was I going to get there? I couldn't risk using the airports. My likeness was probably posted all over the terminals as a flight risk. I didn't mind that too much; I'd had enough of air travel lately to last me a lifetime or twenty-four.