Bad Men

by Allan Guthrie

So Flash wasn't going to remind him and, you know, there were other things Flash had to focus on now. "Yeah," he said. "We should be going."

  Rodge looked relieved.

  The sooner Flash got his plan in motion, the better.

  Outside, he grabbed Norrie by the arm and whispered, "We need to talk."

  Norrie was still on holiday from the factory, so he offered to spend some of his free time watching Pearce so Flash and Dad could do the bodyguarding job on May, who was well freaked out by what had happened to Rodge. Flash had asked Norrie to get a handle on Pearce's routine, which Norrie did for the next two days. Strange guy, Pearce, it seemed. Didn't have any emotional ties, very much a loner, didn't visit anybody, nobody came to visit him. In fact, it was almost like he didn't know anybody. Flash knew Pearce had a phone cause he'd called it, but he wondered why Pearce bothered cause he couldn't imagine Pearce talking to anyone on it, not for a chat, anyway. Maybe he did have some friends, but even then, he wasn't the talkative sort, probably just grunted hello and grunted goodbye and hung up. Probably his friends were guys he met in prison, anyway. He didn't have a job, just had the stupid yappy three-legged dog that, according to Norrie, he took on regular walks down to the beach.

  Which was fine. Flash had a fair idea of how he was going to play this.

  Third day, Flash changed places with Norrie, which was a relief, cause as much as Flash trusted him, he knew that Norrie wasn't completely reliable on account of the accident. Lost it sometimes, you'd be talking to him and you knew he was somewhere else.

  Anyway, it seemed Pearce had changed his routine. He'd gone out, visited the library. God knows what he was up to in there, cause obviously Flash hadn't wanted to follow him inside because he didn't want Pearce to notice him, did he? Flash took a seat on a bench round the corner, where he could keep an eye on the library entrance. Problem was, the bench was across the street and along a bit from the police station and Flash felt exposed. Still, not a lot he could do other than try to avoid looking at the uniforms going in and out of the station. He tried to spot guapas instead.

  Spotted one straight away, but she was a guapa in police uniform, so she didn't count. Spotted a few after that, a lot more than he'd expected. It was still warm, even though the air was much cooler now than it was this morning, you could feel it, and the warm weather always brought them out, although he couldn't explain his attraction to the policewoman, which was worrying. Never thought he'd find a cop attractive, not in uniform anyway with those clumpy shoes and the daft hat. It'd be different if she was bare-arsed, wearing just a Kevlar vest and maybe toting some of the hardware accessories, cause they kind of had an S&M appeal, handcuffs and baton and the like, yeah, he could definitely find a use for them.

  He looked towards the library again, saw the dog still tied up, no sign of Pearce.

  The bench jostled under him and he turned to see a large wheezy woman waggling her buttocks into a comfortable position. He instinctively moved over even though she had plenty of room. She took out a packet of fags and offered him one and he said no, so she lit up and told him her name was Virginia but that her husband had always called her Vagina and his name was Rick so guess what she called him?

  Flash said nothing but she asked him again, so he told her to shut up and she said aye and asked him his name and he told her and she said aye, but what was his real name, and he got fucked off and stood up.

  She said something else to him but he didn't catch it cause Pearce came out of the library, couple of books tucked under his arm, bent over, untied the mutt from the railing. He looked up and frowned as he stared towards the bench Flash had just vacated.

  Flash turned, thinking he was a bit obvious stood here like a prune right enough, knew he should sit down, keep his back to Pearce, pick up his conversation with Vagina where they'd left off, but he couldn't bear it. He knew what he was going to do and had a fair idea of when, so, hoping to Christ Pearce hadn't clocked him, he stuck his hands in his pockets, started to walk away, feeling Pearce's eyes on his back. Shit. Had the fucker seen him? Flash started walking quicker and quicker, and by the time he'd reached the crossroads, he'd broken into a jog.

  Flash headed towards the beach at a slow jog, then he looked around for a good five minutes but saw no sign of Pearce. So Pearce hadn't been following him, most likely hadn't spotted him back at the library. Flash found a shop selling ice cream and got a double scoop and sat on the beach wall, plucked his phone out of his pocket and called Dad.

  They needed to act sooner rather than later, cause every day they did nothing was another day Wallace might carry out his threat, although the jizzwad was unlikely to do anything else so soon after fucking up Rodge, but still. Wallace was tough to predict. Anyway, Flash knew what he was going to do and he didn't need his old man's advice, not really, but sometimes it was good to get some feedback, just to confirm that you were doing the right thing. Dad answered, agreed wholeheartedly.

  It was on.

  Of course, Flash wanted to discuss it with Rodge, too, but Rodge couldn't know about all this, it'd upset him too much, so even if Rodge had wanted in on the plan, Flash couldn't have said a word, which was a pity, any way you looked at it, you know, cause Rodge could use some cheering up and this would have done the business, no doubt. The situation with Rodge was confusing him no end. Thing about hospitals was they made you depressed, even if you were perfectly healthy, which was a bit like churches if you can imagine being locked up in a church for weeks on end with all that morbid music wailing through the speakers. Anyway, hospitals were fucking grim enough places even as a visitor so God knows what they felt like when your knees had been shot to fuck and the more you thought about it the less surprising it was Rodge hadn't smiled since Wallace had shot him and it was really not surprising in the least that it hurt Rodge to talk, was it?

  Flash took a good long lick of his ice cream. That was a narrow escape from Pearce back at the library and he couldn't afford to be seen again, so there was nothing for it now other than to get prepared, get the few bits and bobs he needed, scout out the territory for a good hiding place and make his move tonight.

  Yeah. Tonight was the night, definitely, and a bonus factor, the

  fog starting to roll in, cause it wouldn't get properly dark till well after ten.

  Bring it on.

  Flash knew the plan was unlikely to persuade Pearce to help protect May, but what he hoped was that it would make Pearce keen to beat the shit out of Wallace and that was a second prize Flash was more than happy to take.

  So much more than happy, in fact, that he almost dropped his ice cream.

  A chill touched Pearce's cheeks and made him smile. He could taste the haar in his mouth. And with it, this time, a much-needed cooling off. When the temperature dropped, Scotland was more like it ought to be. If you wanted heat, you'd move to sunnier shores. You wouldn't stay in Scotland. Not unless you were one of those arseholes who just loved to complain.

  "An end to the good weather, eh?"

  Like this guy jerking towards him, straining to control a weird bastard of a mutt – head like a Bull Terrier and a body like a Great Dane – at the end of a short lead. The dog had stumpy legs and a tail that looked capable of taking your head clean off with a single swipe. Its mouth hung open, tongue practically dragging along the sand.

  Its owner was the only other person on the beach, at least that Pearce could see. Mind you, he couldn't see very far. The mist was pretty thick.

  Pearce said, "You don't like it, then fuck off and live somewhere else."

  The miserable tosser glanced at him, maybe considering having a go. But he decided against it. Not brave enough, even with the ugly dog as backup, and once he'd made up his mind that tonight wasn't the night to commit sudden acts of violence, he seemed happy to let the dog pull him away at a trot.

  Having said all that, about complaining about the weather, Pearce himself had a definite complaint. This year was pretty bad. He couldn't take much heat. Even in win
ter he'd go around without a jacket, often without a jumper. Didn't feel the cold like other people. The heat had been causing him the odd sleepless night lately. Last night he'd resorted to a single sheet, nothing else, but even then he had to cast it aside after a while. And lying on the bed naked was no way to encourage sleep, not when he got the occasional nocturnal visit from Hilda. Sneaking through from the spare room. Last thing Pearce wanted was to wake up to find Hilda licking his balls. Jesus.

  Pearce had suffered from insomnia all his life. Didn't sleep particularly well in prison. Other people in the room capable of killing you while you slept, definitely didn't promote deep slumber. But even as a kid he'd lie there awake, night after night. He used to have this thing about moths. Funnily enough, it didn't apply to other flying insects. Just moths. And it was based on nothing at all. At least, he couldn't remember ever having swallowed a moth or anything like that. But he was utterly convinced that if he went to sleep, a moth would fly into his open mouth and choke him. He was the only kid he knew who went to school not having slept at all the night before. Which meant his concentration wasn't always too good. Which meant that adults thought he was a bit slow.

  He was happy with that. He didn't much care what they thought. For the most part, it meant they either left him alone or indulged him. And as a kid, that was a pretty good deal.

  But he did care what Mum thought. She used to go on at him about making friends. But he could never understand why. What would he do with a friend that he couldn't have much more fun doing on his own? Eventually she realised he was perfectly happy and gave up. Told her cronies he was ‘solitary.' Which wasn't true, cause he did spend a lot of time with Muriel.

  But fuck it, what was he dragging all that up for? The two people he'd ever loved, both dead. His sister had junked up, fucked up and got fucked. The latter, literally. After she'd OD'ed. His mum got it in the neck. Literally. Trying to stop a post office robbery.

  He was there. He could have prevented it.

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He wasn't going to beat himself up about it. It was done. Nothing he could do to change anything now.

  This was the kind of introspective shit that crept up on you when you owned a dog. All these walks kind of forced you to think, and thinking really sucked.

  Introspection was for cissies and lags. Time to get the dog, go home, watch some mindless crap on TV. Or read his library books. He'd picked up a couple of American crime novels, having developed a taste for them while he was in prison. Anything to pass the time. Anything to forget about the past. Just get the fucking dog. Okay. Where was the little bastard?

  He'd run off when the Bull Terrier-Great Dane cross had appeared. Last Pearce had seen of him, he was scurrying about among some rocks off to the left. Playing with dead crabs probably (he liked to toss them in the air, then run after them, grab them, shake them to bits). Fooling himself into thinking he was some remarkable killing machine. Or maybe he was chasing ghosts in the mist. Pearce was too far away to tell what he was up to.

  The Fife coastline was gone. The island, Inchsomething, was gone. Pearce looked behind him. Orange glow through the mist all that was left of the town. "Hilda?" he said.

  Pearce might get some sleep tonight. Cool enough that he might even drag the quilt out of the cupboard. Ah, to sleep with something weighing down on him. And he didn't mean another body. Or bad thoughts.

  The bird was standing at the water's edge. Black and white, stretched-out-of-shape little body complete with beer-gut. Looked like a tiny penguin. It wasn't moving. For a second, Pearce thought someone had placed a statue in the sand. But the bird gave a tiny jerk of its head as Pearce approached. He kept expecting it to flap its wings and take off. But it sat there, as if it were stuck. Had it been facing the other way, it might have been engrossed in the task of watching for fish. But it was facing the deserted promenade. Looking towards the station, where there was nothing to catch other than a bus. In any case, the station was shrouded in mist and if you didn't know it was there, you'd be unable to tell. Tonight, even an eagle wouldn't have seen shit.

  He walked right up to the bird. It gave him a sideways glance. Then ignored him. He bent down, still expecting it to take off, and picked it up. It gave a half-arsed squawk, beat its wings a couple of times, kicked its legs. Then played dead again.

  So it hadn't been stuck in the wet sand. Hadn't sunk in there under its own pot-bellied weight. Hadn't dug its heels in. Hadn't been rammed in feet-first by a sadistic dog walker.

  Eleven o'clock, dark, the mist filtering out most of the moonlight. He used the light from his mobile phone to check that the bird wasn't injured. Its wings looked okay. Its legs seemed fine. Looked perfectly healthy, as far as he could tell. Like a bird ought to look. So why was it sitting there like a right sorry fuck?

  He put it back down. It stared towards the promenade, motionless. For all the world it appeared to have given up on life. Was it old? Was it sitting here waiting for the end, was that it? How did you tell how old a bird was? Was it tired? Just taking a rest? Nah, it would have summoned some energy from somewhere. Was it crazy? Did you get insane birds? He crouched down and spoke to it. Asked it the questions he'd just asked himself. After a while he realised that what he imagined was comforting to the poor creature was probably distressing the fuck out of it. And if it was already suicidal, maybe that wasn't the best thing for it. Should he go, just leave it alone? It was waiting for something to kill it. Birds probably found it hard to kill themselves. Can't very well pick up a gun, shove it in the old beak and pull the trigger. Should he help? Wring its neck? Smash its skull between a couple of big stones? Was that the right thing to do?

  Pearce turned, walked away from the bird. He didn't feel like killing anything today.

  What had he been doing? Oh, yeah. Acting on his plan for what was left of the evening. Fetch Hilda, go home, watch TV. Maybe drag the quilt out of the cupboard, hopefully get a good night's sleep. Where was the bloody dog? He hadn't seen Hilda for ages now. He called his name.

  "Are you sure you're doing the right thing?" his mum asked him. "Leaving that poor bird?"

  "You're dead, Mum," he said. "Give it a rest, huh?"

  Piece of piss. The buzz was pretty close to the buzz Flash got from a successful burglary because, okay, you always imagined you'd get away with it, otherwise you wouldn't take the chance in the first place, but there was usually a moment when you knew you'd pulled it off and this was it.

  Everything was cool and Dad would be pleased and Rodge, when he told Rodge, when Rodge was ready to hear about it, maybe he'd break into that long-overdue smile.

  Flash pressed down against the dog's head with one hand and started to pull the zip up with the other. His fingers were numb and he swore because he should have brought gloves, but who'd have thought that the mist would make it so friggin' cold? The dog licked his wrist, oblivious to the shrinking world over its head and the funny thing was it wasn't wriggling, wasn't kicking as much as a single one of its three legs and in fact seemed to be enjoying the novelty of being stuffed in a large sports bag, fucking freakshow of a creature.

  Flash left a small gap so the wee fucktard could breathe and he spoke to it continuously, just in case it decided to start barking and warned its owner of its whereabouts, although it seemed nice and relaxed, scarcely moving inside the bag, probably thinking it was bedtime or some similar kind of stupid dog thought, but then what did you expect, because something that small can't have much of a brain even though horses were pretty big and only had brains the size of a pea but were quite bright, so Flash had heard. Oh, well, that was one for the scientists.

  Flash got to his feet and peeked out from behind the mound of boulders where he'd been hiding for the past couple of hours and where if it hadn't been for the mist he'd have been just fine but, Christ, his balls were just about frozen solid and his legs were stiff and his back hurt when he stood up and he couldn't help but think that this is what it must feel like to be as old as Dad. Flash ho
ped somebody would shoot him before he ended up in a permanent state like this because quality of life, amigo, that's what it was all about and if you lost that, you might as well lose everything, like his Uncle Cam who went into hospital with a small lump on his shoulder and died within a couple of days. Cancer. No clue, other than a week or so before he'd had a strange experience when he lost all feeling in his mouth. Cam had been a mountain climber and everybody agreed it was as well he'd gone so quickly otherwise the misery in store for him if it had been drawn out, well, it didn't bear thinking about, did it, because if you're going to go, go quickly and don't hang around cause there's no point.

  Fifty yards behind Flash, waves crashed against the sea wall. There didn't seem to be any beach back there, but he didn't understand why that was, just that the sea slapped against the wall. There was more beach here, where he'd been hiding, maybe because the coastline curved inwards. Another one for the scientists.

  The bag tipped, the weight moving from one end to the other as the dog finally started to get jumpy, damn the little fucker, but as long as it didn't start making a noise everything would be okay. But it might start making a noise any minute, so Flash got a move on.

  The sand gave way under each of his footsteps and the dog was lurching from one end of the bag to the other but still didn't yap. Well behaved little pooch.

  Not much further.

  Flash crept towards the steps and started up them and it occurred to him that once he got onto the promenade, instead of taking the dog back to the car with him, he could head back to where the water was lapping against the sea wall and, well, drop the bag over the railing.

  Hang on, it wasn't something he'd actually do cause no, he wasn't a great dog lover, but there were limits, obviously, and it just occurred to him momentarily as being an easier option cause if he got rid of the mutt now, he wouldn't have to take it to Dad's and ask him to take care of it and all that shit cause Dad would probably tell him it was his responsibility and Flash wasn't looking forward to walking it and feeding it, and, anyway, he couldn't keep it in his flat cause his flatmates would object, so fuck that for fun.