The House of the Vegetable

by Frank Lamour

  Now he’d get his cut, maybe get out of town for a bit, maybe find a job in a shop down on the coast. Otherwise, go back to chilling, or whatever, it was done. He hadn’t thought he’d be able to pull it off, but here he was. It was done.

  Don dropped the bag down next to the intercom, dropping the pistol down on top of it. Then resting one hand on the gooseneck post to steady himself, he pressed the buzzer. He waited, imagining Lesley, stumbling out of bed in a rage. Maybe he’d just think it was kids and roll over, go back to sleep.

  Don pressed the bell again—a couple of times. He waited. No answer. Don straightened, looking up and down the street. The night now quiet, a gentle wind cooled the sweat on his face and neck.

  Don pressed the bell again. It was beeping and the little light next to the button was showing green. It seemed to be working. He pressed again several times, knowing this would most likely pee Lesley off to no end but surely when he saw the maize bag would forgive and forget.

  Don pressed his ear close to the intercom, straining to listen for a voice in case he’d missed it.

  He straightened again and scanned the road. No sign of any cars. This section of street was well lit, a streetlight just above and lots of security lights in the various houses. If a car did approach, he thought, there was nowhere close for him to hide. The nearest shadowy nook was a good half a block away. He looked up at Lesley’s gate. He could scale the thing if it weren’t for the electric fence.

  Don pressed the bell again now holding it down. How long had it been since he first rang? The awful possibility that there was no one home now dawning on him.

  Lesley lived alone and did party a lot and did travel from what he’d heard.

  No sign of cars but then they would be parked inside the garage.

  Don had to admit that with everything else going on he just hadn’t really considered the possibility that the damn fat bastard might be out.

  He pressed the bell again.

  Then he heard it. It was the same lumpy putter that had passed him not minutes ago, but now at the top of the road he was now on. They were heading back. They had just made a little loop and were damn well heading back.

  Don pressed the bell again, image of the female possible cop’s shattering head blazing in his mind.

  The bounce of headlight beams at the top of the road. What to do? What to do? Run or wait for someone to answer? He stood stupidly, frozen in indecision.

  Don picked up the Vektor off the maize bag and flicked up the safety. Perhaps if he just let rip a few rounds into the air, they’d see he was armed and back off. He had no real cover though if crackshot Mandrake decided to return fire.

  The headlights blinked into view at the top of the street. Don was just about to make a run for it when a small voice crackled through the intercom. “Who is this?”

  Don didn’t recognise the voice. He leaned over the intercom. “Open the gate! It’s, uh… Where’s Lesley?”

  “Who is this?” the voice crackled.

  “It’s Don! Open the gate!” Don shouted.

  “He isn’t here…,” the voice crackled.

  The VW drew closer, rumbling down the street towards him. There was no question he’d been spotted.

  Don abandoned trying to communicate with the person on the other end of the intercom. He picked up the White Star bag, flung it over into the yard and began clambering up the barrier, still clutching the pistol, decorative wrought-iron work assisting his ascent.

  Don reached the top of the gate and awkwardly manoeuvred over to the pillar to the right, now trying as best as he could to somehow navigate over the electric fence without touching it.

  The effort noble but ultimately doomed to failure. As one of the electrified wires caught him on the thigh, sending a muscle-seizing jolt coursing through him and setting the alarm off, Don made an animal grunt and pulled the trigger on the Vektor, sending a slug into the driveway, before falling forward crashing down to the grass on the other side of the wall, and bringing down a section of electric fence in the process.

  The VW had now pulled up to Lesley’s gate, its headlamps on bright, lighting up the garden. The intercom voice still crackling.

  Don was still recovering from the fall, back singing with pain and body refusing, for the moment, to get up and going again, Don could do little more than shade his eyes from the glare of the headlights.

  Out through the twisted ironwork, two vague figures were visible through the windscreen of the campervan

  Then behind him, the sounds of various locks disengaging and Don turned his head to see yellow light spill out on to the grass as the front door to the house opened. A silhouette in the rectangle of doorway.

  As the figure drew nearer, getting lit up by the beams from the VW’s headlamps, Don saw it was a young guy, looking about fifteen. In boxers and Mr Price T-shirt, light hair, done in a (always stylish) bowl cut, a face Don thought might show traces of foetal alcohol syndrome and that also reminded him of a real ruffian kid he’d gone to primary school with.

  Don remembered that the ruffian kid at all of about six years old had used to carry a small ‘Stanley’ knife that he’d somehow rigged so that the blade would shoot out like a switchblade.

  The weapon that this bowl-cut kid now brandished, was not a craft knife but a huge ‘Tommy gun’-looking rifle.

  The Thompson submachine gun had been first manufactured in the twenties and was made familiar to Don by its appearance in the various gangster movies set in that era. This gun though, instead of having the nice walnut stock and grips of the Tommy, had a sheet-metal stock and plastic-looking grips. All black, black barrel now levelled at Don’s head.

  Chapter 26

  As Don sat on the grass of Lesley’s lawn, listening to the alarm, Vektor 9mm in his hand, between some kid with a Tommy-looking gun and Mandrake with rifle in the VW campervan, he had the momentary thought that he was still lying on the floor of the common room. deep in some drug trance. Or perhaps having blown his mind out on the drugs he was now in a padded room somewhere drawing on the walls using his feet to hold the crayons, like Inspector Clouseau’s boss at the end of one of the Pink Panther movies.

  He was brought back to the present by the harsh grinding of a transmission. The VW was being forced into gear and then its headlights were moving back and out into the street.

  The gears crunched again, the van lurched forward a bit and then was once again puttering off into the night.

  Maybe between the alarm and the kid with the Tommy-looking gun they’d decided to cut their losses. For the moment.

  Up on the grass the bowl-cut kid now yelled. “Drop it!”

  Don remembered he was still holding the pistol and did not hesitate to chuck it off into a nearby flower bed.

  “Up!” the bowl-cut kid ordered.

  Don could hear a quaver in the kid’s voice, but thought the dude still sounded tough enough—holding it all together surprisingly well under the circumstances.

  Don rose and without thinking, moved to pick up the maize bag.

  “Leave it!” the bowl-cut kid barked.

  Don straightened, raising his hands, trying his best to convey his lack of ill intention. He noticed now with some degree of dismay that kid’s finger was rested on the trigger of the gun.

  “What the actual fuck is going on?” the kid said.

  Don, still a little winded and jittery from the combination of electrocution and cardio, as well as just a general feeling of malaise from being beaten and shot at and now again held at gunpoint, nevertheless tried his best to keep his pitch low and cadence soothing in hopes of trying to minimise any trigger-happy tendencies the kid might have.

  “Let’s remain calm,” Don said before taking a deep breath and continuing. “My name is Don. I work at Lesley’s shop. I’ve been on another, er, side job for him. I… I was bringing him that.” Don pointed to the bag. “Things got a bit… uh… Where is he?”

  “Is that blood?” the bowl-cut kid asked gestu
ring toward the bag with the gun.

  The blood had perhaps darkened a bit getting dragged through the dirt and bushes.

  “I’ll fill you in on everything,” Don said. “But can we go inside and switch of the alarm? Look, where’s Lesley? Phone him. He’ll vouch for me.” Don still felt very vulnerable here out in view of the street. “Phone him,” Don repeated

  “Step back.” the bowl-cut kid gestured with the Tommy-looking gun.

  Don stepped back.

  The kid gestured him further. Don complied. The bowl-cut kid moved forward. Still keeping the weapon trained on Don, he knelt down by the maize bag and tentatively touched a finger to the blood stain. It was dry enough. Using a knee to keep the bag in place, with one hand he managed to work the knot loose, although it took bit of doing.

  The bowl-cut kid looked inside. He seemed to zone out for a second or two but then snapped back to his senses. He stood, picking the bag up and slinging it over a shoulder.

  “Alright, let’s get inside,” the bowl-cut kid said, the gun still trained on Don but finger at least no longer on the trigger. He gestured to the front door. Don with his hands still raised, made his way up towards the house.

  ◆◆◆

  Inside, Don headed through to the lounge, followed by the kid who on the way stopped to punch in a code on a keypad in the entrance hall. The alarm squeaked twice and fell silent.

  “Have a seat,” the bowl-cut kid said, still backing up his directions with the large gun. Don wishing he’d stop doing that, but decided it best to just go with the flow until the kid calmed down. Don headed over to one of the armchairs. His legs quivering when he bent to sit, he just about collapsed into it.

  The room was as he remembered it on his last visit here, the afternoon of his auspicious meeting with Les. Just the projector screen was now rolled into the ceiling, otherwise the same—walls plastered with violent B-movie posters that Don was sure wasn’t helping his current state of mind, a wall clock with a picture of gingerbread man and the words: Let’s Get Baked.

  A new addition though, Don now noticed for the first time, in the fur covered armchair directly opposite him, the fattest—and possibly oldest—cat he’d ever seen.

  The cat looked completely oblivious to all going on around it. Deep in a seemingly blissful slumber.

  Maybe on some level inspired by the feline, despite still having a massive firearm directed at his head, sat in the soft comfortable chair, Don began to feel a lot like just nodding off. The night indeed had been a bit of an ordeal, the week an ordeal—hallucinogenic plant juice and all—pushing himself further he was sure than he ever had before. The last hour or so he’d been firing on fumes. But he was at least off the street now and had to be thankful for that.

  He unfortunately though had pretty much messed up by giving away this address. The three (Or two? Who had been shot back during the altercation with the two in the BM?) in the campervan had backed off, but would they be back? What would the House’s next move be?

  The bowl-cut kid was just off to the left of the armchair, leaned back against a cabinet. He had the gun somewhat lowered now and seemed to be considering how to proceed.

  Don pondered idly if the weapon worked. Or was even real.

  The kid scratched his chin with the back of the hand holding the weapon, barrel wavering over in Don’s direction.

  Don shifted uneasily. “I don’t know what you still have that for,” he said. “I’m not exactly going to be breaking in with a bag full of cash.”

  “Shut it!” the kid said, jabbing the gun at Don. “Until I find out what the fuck is gaaning aan here…”

  “Is that even real?” Don asked.

  The kid looked down at the weapon. “What? Of course.”

  “Hmm,” Don said.

  “Of course it’s fucking real! It’s a Street Sweeper. A 12-gauge. My dad had one. A South African piece of shit.” He pointed it back at Don. “But it’ll still take your fucking head off!”

  Don shrugged and leaned back into the armchair.

  The bowl-cut kid looked up at the Let’s Get Baked clock.

  It was getting on towards six. He mumbled something to himself, then turned back to Don. “What was your name?”

  “Don,” Don said, and after considering, added, “You don’t need to tell him about that van though… or the fence.”

  The kid stared ruffian-facedly at Don for some time then waved the “Street Sweeper” at him again. “My phone’s in the room,” he said.

  Don had gotten very quickly used to the armchair and didn’t feel at all like rising, but he supposed his mission wasn’t over just yet. He sighed and pushed up.

  Just as he’d risen, what sounded very much like the doorbell chimed down the hall. Both the Don and the bowl-cut kid froze.

  “Security?” Don asked.

  The bowl-cut kid shook his head. “Fence isn’t connected to the main alarm.” He stood for some moments, just blinking, looking stupid, before instructing Don to, “Sit down. Stay there. Don’t fucking move!” then heading back through to the entrance hall.

  Without needing to be asked twice, Don collapsed back down into the armchair. He watched the kid nervously pick up a handset from the off wall in the front hall.

  “Ja?” the bowl-cut kid said into the receiver, then listened. “No. Not here… I don’t know.” He moved over to a window next to the door and pushed the curtain back, cupping his hands on the glass and staring out into the garden. “Not here,” he continued. “I’m… I’m not the owner. I’m, uh, cat sitting. Beppe. Beppe! Okay. Just give me minute.”

  Beppe replaced the intercom receiver back in its cradle and for a moment stood staring at it.

  “Who is it?” Don asked.

  “Fuck,” Beppe said, not listening. He started casting around the little entrance hall, his gaze alighting on the door to the guest bathroom. Don watched as the kid dropped the maize bag and Sweeper inside the bathroom, took the key from the lock and locked the goods in.

  He then turned to stare at Don for a second before opening the front door and heading out into the yard.

  Don, sluggishly, pushed up again, ambled over to the entrance hall and drew back the curtain on a little window beside the door. Cupping his hands to the glass he peered out.

  The front garden was strobing a, by now, familiar cold blue.

  Bright headlamps projected harshly up the drive. Two figures stood in front of the vehicle outside the closed gate, silhouetted by the high-beams. Beppe shuffled down toward them.

  Don, despite having seen the kid lock the bathroom door, still went to test it. Indeed locked.

  Worth a try anyway. He returned to the window.

  Beppe was now communicating with the two figures—presumably police and presumably real. He was shaking his head. One of the cops gestured up to the top of the gate and the broken electric fence. Beppe waved about with his hands and shook his head again. Both parties conversed for a minute or so more before the two figures turned and got back in their vehicle. The flashing blue ceased, and the headlamps retreated out into the street, leaving the garden once more in relative darkness.

  Beppe stood at the gate until the cop van was out of sight, then turned and started to make his way back up to the house.

  Don let the small curtain drop and returned to his armchair. In a moment Beppe entered again, immediately retrieving gun and bag.

  “What did they want?” Don asked.

  “The neighbours heard the shot you fired and the alarm and reported it.”

  “What’d you say?”

  Beppe shrugged. “Nothing,” he said. “I said I was house-sitting, I heard a noise but it wasn’t here. They asked about the fence and I said it was like that since yesterday. They seemed a bit suspicious but…” he shrugged again.

  Don nodded.

  Beppe sighed. “Okay, let’s make the call,” he said and ushered Don out the room again with the Sweeper.

  Don pushed up and headed down the passage, through
to the room Beppe indicated, a strong marijuana smell hitting him as he entered.

  It was a guest bedroom, neatly furnished with a three-quarter sized bed, built in cupboard and a small colour TV on top of a chest of drawers. The TV was on; an anime cartoon playing silently. On the bedside table, a half empty bank bag, an ashtray, Rizlas, crumpled pack of Camels and a just about empty bottle of wine Don might have normally associated with cooking rather than drinking.

  Beppe followed Don into the room. “Make yourself comfortable,” he said and went to retrieve an old iPhone from the mess on the bedside table.

  Don sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to follow the action in the cartoon. Giving up he turned back to see the kid still staring down at his phone. Maybe just gearing himself up to chat with the fat man, he thought.

  Beppe thumbed the screen a few times then lifted the device up to his ear, Street Sweeper now in his left hand, down at his side. He looked up at Don, “Uh, what’s the name again?”

  “Don.”

  “Lesley,” Beppe said into the phone after a good few moments holding it up to his ear. “My man, it’s, uh, Beppe. Ja, I’m sorry… But something’s come up.” Beppe stepped out of the room, returned, pacing. “Ja… Ja. Don… Ja, that is affirmative.” Beppe looked over at Don. “Skinny, uh, balding…” looking at Don in the eyes, “umm… yes, that is affirmative.” He listened for a while, pacing back and forth in the small room. “Okay. Ja. Ja. I’ll see you then.”

  Don smoothed his hair down.

  Beppe hung up and put the phone back down next to the bed. “Okay,” he said. He looked at the gun in his left hand, then set it down, leaning it in a corner of the room. “You check out,” he said.

  “Where’d you get the gun?” Don asked.

  Beppe looked at the Street Sweeper. “I found it in the upstairs cupboard.” He shrugged. “Lesley said I must just stash this up in his room.” He picked up the maize bag. “He’s in CT till Friday, you can sleep on the couch. Stay as long as you like. I’m gonna put this upstairs. I’ll look for a pillow and shit for you.”