The Hit

by Melvin Burgess

  Experimentally, he ran through the gears with the clutch pushed down to the floor. He’d had a few driving lessons and a bit of practice sitting next to his mum in the family car. It was a long way from having a license, but Adam wasn’t likely to let a detail like that get in the way of a chance like this.

  He’d just got it into first gear when the doors to Julie’s block of flats burst open and the huge figure of Vince came rushing toward him.

  The guy who’d beaten him up at the party. This was his car?

  With a scream, Adam slammed his foot on the accelerator. Crunching and snarling, the Porsche lurched off down the street, jumping forward in fits and starts like a crippled pig. The big man screamed at him and launched himself at the car, landing on the hood, his face gnashing at Adam through the windshield.

  The Porsche stalled.

  “Nooooo!” Adam started it up again and bounced along the road, swaying from side to side. Vince, lying full-length on the hood, swung a fist at the side window on the passenger side. The glass crazed and turned opaque. At the next blow, his huge fist came straight through and started groping at Adam’s throat.

  Adam leaned away from him and revved the engine; the car shot forward — and stalled again. Vince fell off. Adam got it going once more, forced the gears accidentally into third, and crept forward at a snail’s pace over something in the road. Vince? The screaming indicated that, yes, it was. Finally, he got the gear/accelerator ratio right, and shot off like a bullet, the car roaring and swerving violently from side to side. He struck a glancing blow at a parking meter, a Jag, and a garbage truck in quick succession — and then he was away, shooting forward in a cloud of black smoke and the stink of burnt rubber.

  Behind him, Vince got to his feet. Adam had driven over his forearm. Even worse, he had crashed his car. Vince loved his car almost as much as his body. He let out a scream of rage. He was going to kill that guy very, very slowly, and he was going to enjoy every minute of it.

  * * *

  Adam had no idea what to do next. He had Vince’s car. Great! But what next? He pulled over and went through the glove compartment and rooted on the floor and in the backseat, looking for clues. He found several bars of chocolate, which he ate, but there was nothing in there to tell him what he was supposed to do next. He tried ringing Julie again.

  No answer.

  He sat there, chewing his nail. What was he supposed to do? She obviously thought this was going to help him. Did she think he already knew where Lizzie was being held? There had to be a clue in here somewhere.

  He looked around the car again. CD player, GPS, map in the back. He flipped though the map. Nothing. He turned on the GPS. It was a posh one.

  “Where do you want to go?” a voice asked him.

  “Er … to Christian’s,” said Adam.

  “Going to … Christian’s,” said the voice. It was a woman, with a Salford accent. In fact, it was Vince’s mother’s voice — a birthday treat for her boy.

  “Turn the car round, son,” she said.

  Adam did.

  “OK. Next right. Off you go. And don’t go too bloody fast this time!” the voice snapped.

  Ignoring her advice, Adam pushed down on the accelerator.

  * * *

  Lizzie’s day had started off well enough with breakfast in bed — scrambled eggs and smoked salmon, coffee and croissants, made by Christian with his own fair hands. They had a pleasant chat, watching breakfast TV. The news was all about Death, the riots, and the growing demos in the cities, calling for the government to resign. They toasted the big sales in Death with their coffee cups, scoffed at the Zealots for their revolutionary fervor, and shook their heads at the weakness of the police in not getting tough on the streets and sorting it out.

  Lizzie had been practicing her girlfriend act, and felt that she was getting the hang of it. Some of it was pretty traditional — stuff like sitting in bed filing your nails, talking about your next hairdo, or trying on new clothes in front of your boyfriend. In other ways, Christian was rather more modern. A good girlfriend, in his view, should be independent, smart, funny, and sexy. The trouble was that Christian considered himself the very epitome of all those things and, as a result, he expected her to be in agreement with him about whatever he wanted to do.

  It was a hard act to get right. The worst part was when he tested her girlfriending skills by closing his eyes and waiting expectantly for her to announce his own desires to him. It was terrifying. At best, she was only putting the next beating off awhile. No matter how attentive she was, Christian was going to make a fool of himself sooner or later — and Lizzie was going to get the blame.

  After TV came sex, which rapidly disintegrated into violence as she failed miserably to get him excited. Getting hit was another thing girlfriends did and she had learned to take her beatings in grim silence. The fact was, she was relieved. Getting beaten was horrible, but it was a good deal better than rape, in her view — especially rape that she had to pretend she wanted. At least this time she managed to protect her face reasonably well — she’d found out how important that was on day one, when she had been beaten once for making a stupid remark, and then again for being ugly.

  After kicking her around the bed for a few minutes, Christian wandered over to the window to have a think, and decided, suddenly, that today was going to be a lazy day. Tomorrow he had to go pick up some more drugs from his father’s factory. Today they’d lie in bed, watch his huge collection of back episodes of EastEnders, and just … hang out.

  Great! enthused Lizzie. EastEnders. Amazing. Her favorite show.

  Christian beamed at her. “Mine, too! How amazing is that?”

  Isn’t it, thought Lizzie. Yes — she was definitely getting the hang of this. If only she could survive long enough to find a way to escape …

  * * *

  They were several hours into the afternoon when Vince rang. Christian was not happy about it.

  “This better be good. He knows not to ring when I’m watching ’Enders,” he muttered. Lizzie tutted sympathetically. He put the phone to his ear and listened.

  “She gave him your car keys?” Christian was most amused. “You’re not very good with girls, are you, Vince? I’ll have to give you a few tips. Me and Lizzie are here having a lovely day, aren’t we, Lizzie?”

  “Yeah — hush, not so loud, I’m trying to listen.”

  “Hear that?” exclaimed Christian triumphantly. “Someone likes watching ’Enders with me. See?”

  He paused the recording and listened some more, then turned red.

  “Might be coming round here? How do you work that out? The fucking GPS? You had my address on the GPS? What else do you have on it? The factory? The map reference where you put the bodies? You idiot. Jesus.”

  He sat there steaming for a bit while Vince rattled on. Lizzie sat next to him, filing her nails and listening in as hard as she could. Someone might be coming round? She had to hold on to anything that might help get her out of here …

  “Smack her about. Make her suffer. Then get your arse round here. In fact, get round here now. We can worry about Julie later on, when you’ve sorted this mess out. Jesus.”

  He ended the call, stared at his phone, then chucked it savagely at the TV. “Right in the middle of ’Enders,” he complained. “Calls himself a bodyguard.” He got out of bed and got dressed. “Guess what?” he told her. “Your old boyfriend is coming to rescue you. How about that?”

  “Adam?” A ray of hope shot through her. “That’s dreadful!” she exclaimed. “He must be … not accepting that we split up.”

  “I hate those sorts,” snarled Christian. “Some kind of weirdo stalker. We’ll have to kill him.”

  But he was looking at her suspiciously. Had she done something wrong? A thought seemed to occur to him, and he turned to her with tragic eyes.

  “Haven’t you told him about us yet?” he said. “When, Lizzie? When? You make it so hard sometimes.”

  “I have told him
! He’s just … won’t accept it. You know …”

  Christian slapped her round the head, but just once. Then he stalked off to make his preparations for Adam’s arrival.

  Lizzie pretended to weep into the pillow, but actually she was jubilant. Adam! Bless him. In her heart she knew he stood no chance. In fact, he’d probably just make it worse. But he was trying. He was trying and … you never knew. She had to hope.

  Christian came back into the room with a few items. A golf club. A pair of tights. Some handcuffs, ropes, chains, and a cigarette lighter.

  “Sorry, sweetheart,” he said. “It’s for your own good.”

  He got her out of bed, chained her tightly to a chair with her forearms and hands behind her back, and gagged her by stuffing the tights into her mouth.

  “This is the plan. If he turns up, we stay very, very quiet. Let him get in the house and creep around a bit. Then, when I give the signal, you scream as loudly as you can. He’ll come running up, I’ll take his feet out with the golf club, and then brain the little bastard. OK? Nod if you agree.”

  “Mnng,” she replied. He looked at her. She nodded.

  “But the thing is, Lizzie — don’t deny it — I think you still have a little bit of feelings for that boy, don’t you? Oh, I know you do,” he insisted when she shook her head. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, but … well.” He flicked the lighter and waved the flame in her face. “Just in case you need a little help.”

  He snickered, went to the window, and leaned out, whistling a tune — “Whistle While You Work.” You had to hand it to him. No matter how mad he got, he always kept his sense of humor.

  Lizzie pulled at her bonds. It was hopeless. Whatever the next half hour brought, she was going to be spending it sitting in the chair, watching. But there was one thing she could do to help; she was not, under any circumstances, going to scream. When Christian got the gag off for her to yell, when the lighter flame flicked, she was going to shout to warn Adam. On that she was determined.

  * * *

  Adam was sensible enough not to drive straight up to the house, but Christian recognized the engine as it approached along the main road. Some minutes later came the soft swish and thud as Adam slid up one of the big sash windows on the ground floor. Next, the creak on the boards as he tiptoed around. Finally the different creak on the stairs as he began on his way up.

  Lizzie knew exactly what was going to happen and was prepared for it. Christian put the lighter under the soft flesh of her wrist in advance. As soon as he heard the creak of the stairs, he flicked the flame on with one hand, waited for the burn to get deep, then hoiked the tights out with the other.

  “AaaaRRRRRGGHHHH!” she screamed. It was impossible. It hurt too much. Christian shoved the tights back in her mouth and went to hide behind the door with the golf club before she could get out another word.

  “Mnng, mnng,” she groaned, shaking the chair from side to side. But it was too late. Footsteps thundered up the stairs, the door crashed open, and Adam rushed heroically in. Christian, stooping low to take the swing from up behind his head, swung the club violently down onto his shins. Adam yelled in pain and fell like a rock. Christian stood over him and — whack! Right on top of the head with the club.

  And that was that.

  * * *

  He came round to find himself tied hand and foot to a chair, his hands cuffed behind his back. His shins were ablaze with pain, there was blood trickling down into his eyes, and he had a splitting headache. Vince and Christian were standing by the window having an argument about something and Lizzie was sitting opposite on another chair. Her face was covered in bruises.

  “I uv ooo,” he said. He was gagged. She looked at him and shook her head. He tried again. “Ang … urv … oo.”

  “Shut the fuck up, will you?” said Vince. He came across and slapped him round the face with the back of his hand. “You stole my car,” he said in tones of disbelief, and whacked him the other way, knocking him out once more.

  When he came round again, the two men were still arguing, as far as he could tell, about what to do with Lizzie.

  “Mr. Christian, she is NOT your girlfriend,” Vince was saying. “A girlfriend does not have to be tied up and burned before she’ll lure her ex-boyfriend upstairs so you can brain him. A girlfriend would do those things willingly. She’d be happy to do that for you. You wouldn’t even need to ask — she’d offer. It would be her pleasure.”

  Christian was finding this difficult to follow, and he was grinning, grimacing, twisting about, unable to make his mind up. Finally, though, Vince managed to convince him.

  “OK! You’re right. The bitch has been leading me on,” he said. “Fucking cow, can you believe it? I could have been killed,” he said, and he bulged in rage at the thought. “Fine. Kill her. Kill them both. Let’s not waste any more time. Shoot them both, the little fucks, right now.”

  But Vince held up a hand. “Sir, that’s just more bodies,” he pointed out. “I’m always driving to and fro with bodies in the trunk. If I can suggest something else — how about a pill, sir? The boy’s already taken it. If we give the girl one now, we can drive them both out to the factory tomorrow, lock them up in a box … and that’s that. No one’s going to go digging about round there, Mr. Ballantine sees to that. In a week they’ll both be dead, and we can dump the bodies wherever we want. Everyone will think they’re just one more pair of Deathers.”

  Christian liked it. “Yeah, yeah, good idea. Let ’em die in a box, see how much fun they have then. But not the same box. We don’t want them to comfort each other, Vince.”

  “Certainly not, sir,” Vince agreed.

  “They can suffer on their own.”

  “I’ll fetch the doings, shall I?” Vince offered.

  “Yeah.” Christian grinned. “Good. The boyfriend can watch. Then I get to fuck her for the rest of the day — he can watch that, too. Cool, eh?” he said.

  “Very cool, sir,” said Vince.

  They did it with a funnel and water. Christian turned Adam around so he had to watch. He banged his chair and begged through his gag, but there were no offers he could make, no bargains to be struck. Vince tipped Lizzie’s head back as far it would go and pushed the funnel down into her throat until she retched. Christian dropped a pill in, then swilled it down with a glass of water. They stood there, holding her mouth shut tight and stroking her throat while she gurgled, turned red, and swallowed.

  “All your fault,” Christian said.

  Adam closed his eyes and wept. He’d failed. Lizzie was as dead as he was.

  “Orry,” he said. “Orree.” She didn’t answer. Christian tied her gag back on, and Lizzie bent her head and wouldn’t look at him. What could she say? It was, as Christian said, all his fault.

  While Christian was gloating over Adam and slapping him around a bit, Vince went to pick up his jacket from the bed, where he had put it out of the way as he worked on Lizzie. As he did so, he spotted the corner of a familiar box half sticking out from under the bed.

  He bent to pick it up. It was Christian’s meds. But what was it doing here? He kept the meds under lock and key.

  Vince smelled a rat. He tore off the cellophane and opened it up.

  The box was full of styrofoam. It was a mock-up. A very good mock-up. But what would Christian be doing with a mock-up of his meds … ?

  A light went on in Vince’s head. Christian’s increasingly bizarre behavior … false boxes of meds … The little git had been having fakes made up and swapping them …

  “You sneaky little shit!”

  Christian turned around from what he was doing, took one look, and knew he was caught. Vince shook the box at him.

  “How long have I been feeding you fakes? What was in those pills — sugar? It’s straight to the funny farm for you, you little dick.”

  “You’re talking complete nonsense,” said Christian smoothly, and without another word, turned and dashed for the door. Vince let out a bellow and sho
t after him, catching him by the collar before he got out. To his delight, Christian swung one at him.

  Vince had put some thought into how to do this. He couldn’t mark the little toad too much, or Mr. Ballantine would be onto him. He spun him around and delivered a series of knuckle punches to the back of the neck. Revenge, so sweet! One, two, three, four. Christian collapsed to the floor without a sound. Vince picked him up, punched him in the solar plexus — always a good number, because it hurt like hell, made you panic about your breath, and left very few marks. Then, he banged his head against the wall.

  Christian flopped to the floor like a doll. Perfect.

  Vince took out his phone and dialed Mr. Ballantine. It was time for a much-needed holiday. Where to? New York, Paris, the Bahamas? He smiled happily — but he had made a serious mistake. He noticed that both Lizzie and Adam were staring at a point behind him, and was just realizing what that meant when Christian, who had never lost consciousness, even for a moment, leaped on him.

  Vince was a good foot taller than him, and Christian had to more or less run up him like a monkey, getting footholds on his calves, then his bum, until he was able to bury his hands firmly into his hair and pull himself right up onto the big man’s shoulders. Wrapping his legs firmly around the big man’s neck, he pushed Vince’s head forward and down with one hand and, with the other, groped at his belt for that deadly, short-bladed little knife.

  Vince knew exactly what that meant. He let out a gargling bellow of rage and fear, and began dancing about the room and shaking himself like a bear, frantically snatching and groping at the deadly imp on his back. But Christian hung on tight and he couldn’t shift him. Desperately, he ran backward at the wall, crashing into it as hard as he could and knocking every ounce of breath out of his tormentor; but Christian had all the strength and passion of insanity and he clung on, snarling in his ear as they cavorted around the room: “I’m gonna quad ya, I’m gonna quad ya. C4! C4! Yeehaw!”