Transgressions

by Ian Rankin (ed)

  Jimmy Slim remembered his first kill. The skinhead. The Code says the Dragon kills by fire and in Jimmy Slim's time that has always meant guns. Since Hsinshu became Emperor he has allowed knives and machetes because his energy is Metal. As he recalled his first kill Jimmy Slim reflected on the fact that perhaps his present predicament was inevitable. The power of his own energy was an irresistible force. Once the skinhead was unconscious he had taken him to the canal and dropped him in. Stood on the bank in the dawn light and watched the water do his work. He recalled the white face of the skinhead bobbing gently beneath the surface of the oily water.

  A gust of wind struck the window of the flat on the fourteenth floor with such force that Jimmy Slim jumped, and felt sweat rise across the surface of his body. He did not like wind. This night was unlucky. Then he checked himself. You are the power of Water. You can work with the wind. Go with it. Don't fight it. Wind and water. Against each of these Fire, which is the energy of the Dragon, is defenceless. In combination you will have the power to survive.

  * * * *

  Hsinshu rose and leaving his phone waiting on the table turned to face the dartboard which hung on the wall at the back of the red room. He focused on it. Meditated on his target. Then when he was ready he strode to collect three arrows. Standing ready before the target he placed his left hand inside his shirt to rest on the Chinese character for power that was tattooed in black in the lower jia, just beneath his umbilicus. He took his energy to his right hand. He breathed deeply, then threw the arrows. All three reached the House of Twenty simultaneously, and stood together in the board as close as Siamese brothers. Hsinshu smiled to himself; he was a true leader. And it was no surprise to him therefore that at that moment his phone began to ring.

  * * * *

  Dot wished she knew more about the pulse. She had her index finger pressed against the radial artery of Jean's left hand. The pulse seemed very fast, banging away in fact. She knew from television dramas that you should count the number of beats in a minute. She glanced at her watch, but what was the point? She didn't know how many there should be.

  Jean took another gasp. Her chest cracked, as if somewhere deep inside her a drawer was being banged shut. Then she lifted her head, was suddenly clearly awake. She grabbed Dot's arm and raised herself a little. “Why?” she gasped into Dot's face. “Why did you make me do it?” The effort was too much for her and her head flopped back onto the pillow, but she wasn't finished. “Twice,” she managed to moan before closing her eyes and turning her head away from her sister.

  Dot used a tissue to clean from her face the flecks of mucous that had flown out with her sister's words and discovered that she was wiping tears away too. She knew exactly what Jean was talking about. The twice left no room for doubt. She wiped her hands, rubbed another tissue over the face of her watch.

  After all these years. Out of the sediment of their past. And these may have been her last words. Dot's own pulse was racing now and she recognised the urge to shake Jean, make her talk to her—about anything but that. Those should not be the last words Dot would have to remember.

  It was the abortions. Of course it was. When Ray was inside, Jean used to have the occasional fling. She tried to keep them quiet but Dot was always able to wheedle it out of her. They were nothing serious until she met Derek Wilkes, a foreman at Longbridge. That went on for years. Twice Jean became pregnant and both times she had wanted to pass the child off as Ray's. But Dot wouldn't let her. She wasn't going to have Ray treated like that, left to bring up somebody else's kid, think it was his own, love it as his own. So she threatened to tell Ray everything she knew if Jean tried that one. Derek was married with a family and he wasn't going to chuck that over. So Jean got rid of them.

  "I think you'd have left Ray for Derek if he'd have had you.” Dot found she was speaking out loud to her sister. She expected no reaction to her words and she got none. Just the gasping. “Another good looking bloke, Derek. You always got the good looking ones.” Often when Dot saw Gary Lineker on television she was reminded of Derek Wilkes. It was the smile. But there had been something special about Ray when he was young.

  After all this time, and now right at the end, it was the abortions. You made me. It was true, she had. And perhaps it was wrong. But—and she tried not to continue the thought, but it was too late—if it was wrong, I've been punished, haven't I? Well and truly. Horribly. You never knew your children, well they weren't children at all. But Lee, he was nineteen. Nineteen. And Dot was sobbing. Reaching for another tissue.

  To lose your only child at nineteen. God, if she'd done wrong, she'd been well and truly punished and so had he. She could not control her sobs and their noise deafened her to the sound of her sister's struggle for breath and the terrible wind beyond the window.

  * * * *

  When Hsinshu had pronounced the sentence of death upon him Jimmy Slim was prepared. He knew the Code. The sentence was inevitable. Only a weak leader would have delivered a lesser penalty. He had felt no fear, was sure he would meet his end honourably. When the Squad came for him he did not hesitate, but rose to meet them. He noticed the crimson blindfold trail from Feiyang's pocket. It meant nothing. Jimmy Slim was ready to play his part in what was about to be enacted.

  Then the great wave rose up in him. He jumped them at the car and made for his motorbike. He saw Shuko, the bonebinder, step from the shadows. He heard the shots he fired die in the wind. Jimmy Slim ran like the wind and he ran with the wind and when he reached his bike he rode in the same way, like a surfer.

  Now though, sitting crouched in the darkness, he had become stagnant. He must resurrect his energy. Mental level. He must think before he acted. They had taken his phone, his gun, his knife. He had only himself. It was a phone he needed now. He had friends in the Doberman Crew, he had done good work for them. They could save him. Time was tight but they were clever. The black men could save him. They would like to wound the Dragon, destroy it if they could, take over the spoils. This could be their moment. That is how he should present it. If he had a phone he could call Strombo. They were clever, they could be here in minutes.

  Jimmy Slim rose in the empty flat. There must be a thousand phones in this building. He looked out of the window. When he had arrived here the sky was black, now it was blue. A fierce, proud blue reflecting the light of the city. Then he looked down and saw the Squad's car crawling slowly towards the building. He saw Shuko, the bonebinder, step from beneath the swaying trees into the street light. The car stopped before him. The squad got out, and Jimmy Slim saw there was a back-up Squad coming to a halt behind them. Arched against the wind, their feet planted apart, their heads bent in close, they talked with Shuko. Then they straightened, turned to look at the tower. Moved towards it.

  * * * *

  Dot couldn't get Lee out of her mind. Not that he was ever really far away from it. Alf seemed to have coped much better. Father and son were quite close when Lee was a boy but as he grew and became a bit wild there was a tension between them; Alf was always too quick to criticise, and Lee wouldn't stand for it.

  The coroner had given a verdict of death by misadventure. But she knew it wasn't that. They said he must have got into a fight, or hit his head on something and then had fallen into the canal. No. Someone had put him in that water, she knew it. And she had lost count of the times she had prayed that whoever it was would pay for it, would meet a terrible end. Alf had used his contacts, even in the police, to try and find out what had really happened, but nothing came of it. Sometimes she thought she had learned to live with it, but she never would. Every so often something would happen to bring it all back, and the pain, and the desire for revenge, were as powerful in her as ever.

  She tried to get her mind back on Ray, tried to see him handsome and smiling as he was when she first met him. She hadn't told Jean about him when she took her with her to the dance at the Unicorn all those years ago, this chap she'd seen about, so well-dressed, so good-looking, who smiled so nicely. I
f she had done would it have stopped Jean? Of course it wouldn't. As soon as she saw him she went for him. Though to be fair it was Jean, and not her, who Ray was interested in, right from the start.

  Still, as things turned out ... But perhaps with her he would have been different. Poor Jean. This terrible gasping was doing Dot's head in. She couldn't let it carry on like this. She must do something. The pillow, perhaps. It would only take a minute. The trouble is they might do an autopsy. Then she could be the one doing time, and longer than Alf ever did probably. But surely they wouldn't. The doctors knew she had cancer. She was only here because she wouldn't stay in hospital, wouldn't go to the hospice. Kept telling them she'd manage with the district nurses. Poor Jean. “You never did know when you were beaten, did you, love?” Dot told her sister.

  * * * *

  It was moments like these that Shuko lived for. He would never be a leader, but as a loyal and true servant to Hsinshu there were times when he was able to assume his master's authority. This was such a moment. He stepped out from the cover of the fir tree and raised his arm. The wind thrashed at him but he stood firm as any tree or tiger and raised his arm in the headlights.

  Shouting against the wind Shuko assigned tasks. He placed three men on the door. Three more would take the lift and work down from the top floor. Three would use the stairs in an upward sweep. They should take Jimmy Slim alive. Hsinshu did not want bullets left in the building. The two drivers should remain in their cars. If Jimmy Slim were to escape the building they should use the cars to kill him. Then Naokung, whose Element is Fire, shivered in the wind and stepping back looked upwards at the tower block. He laughed suddenly and loudly as those whose predominant energy is Fire are prone to do when taken by surprise, for he had seen the silhouette of a figure in a window two floors from the top.

  * * * *

  Jimmy Slim, energised now to violent movement, had to rise: it is the nature of Water under pressure, rise first, spread, fall. He sprinted the steps to the top floor, booted the first door he saw. It shook against his force. Booted again it flew open and sagged against the wall. Jimmy Slim surged through.

  Dot thought it was the wind. Perhaps the whole building was coming down. Recent images from television of hotels and beach homes being washed away swept through her mind. She jumped to her feet. She must escape. She made for the bedroom door. Jimmy Slim saw the black corridor open into blue like a subterranean channel of clear water. He made for it. It could have been a sea creature, but it was a fat old woman he met in the doorway. He saw yellow hair, grey painted lips. Dot screamed when the male shape surfaced from the darkness. Jimmy Slim took her by the throat. In his grip he walked her backwards into the bedroom. In the lesser dark he could see the glint of rings on the hands that tugged at his. He could hear her panting into his face.

  He flung her down onto the bed. Released from the collar of the man's fist Dot opened her mouth to scream again but only a stifled gurgle made it out into the room. She felt Jean's head beneath her back, dentures sticking into her. Above her stood the young man. Thin. Not very tall. But his anger and strength were greater and more dangerous than the howling wind outside.

  "Where's the phone?"

  Dot heard his words, or heard words, but they made no sense. She was swamped by his presence. His violence. This man was going to kill her. She had no doubt. Would he rape her first? She hadn't the strength to resist.

  He reached out and pulled her up towards him. “The phone,” he bawled in to her face. “Where's the phone?"

  "In the other room. Through there.” He flung her back, and as he did so a new darkness instantly descended.

  * * * *

  The lift stopped between the tenth and eleventh floor. The three men inside, poised and ready for action, were consumed by a shocking still blackness. Everything had stopped.

  In the stairwell Shuko cursed as the darkness fell. He cursed in Chinese. His curse was echoed by the other men. He would not be defeated by this. Naokung had seen Jimmy Slim on the fourteenth. They were now between the third and the fourth. Jimmy Slim could not use the lift. They merely had to continue to rise. He held on to the metal bannister for guidance and calling to the others to follow continued to climb.

  For the three men suspended in the dark at the centre of the tower block this was an impotent agony. They tapped the sides of the lift, located and pressed at the useless buttons. There was confusion. This building was bad luck. Where was the emergency power? A generator. There was irritation. This building was useless. A shit-heap. Then anger, then fear as they simply had to wait without direction or knowledge hanging in the dark.

  * * * *

  Jimmy Slim looked out from the window on the sixteenth floor and saw all the tower blocks were in darkness. A few headlights snailed away in the underworld below, but the sky was black and empty, occupied now by nothing but the wind. It was pointless searching for the phone, it would be dead too. Behind him the woman on the bed seemed to be crying. He smiled to himself. This wind may yet prove to be his saviour.

  Now in these moments of reprieve for Jimmy Slim the greed that was one of the flaws in his character asserted itself. He had seen the rings on the woman's fingers, the gold wristwatch, the pearls around her neck. Spoils you don't turn your back on. They may not be as valuable as they looked. What would they be doing in a place like this? But Jimmy Slim would trust his instinct. Old women were funny, they often held on to valuable items despite the circumstances in which they lived.

  He has started to undress me, Dot thought as Jimmy Slim pulled up her head and unclasped the pearls. Then he slid the rings from her fingers, removed the gold watch from her wrist. The room was full of her gasping breaths. It was not until he said “Where's your money?” that she realised she was being robbed, not raped, and found her strength. “I haven't got any money. I'm just visiting—” Jimmy Slim hit her. “In my bag. In the kitchen."

  There was no point stumbling around trying to find the kitchen, then the bag, just for a few pounds. He had the jewellery. Now he must get out of here. Back out into the wind.

  He found the stairwell door easily enough. Tugged it open with confident ease. He felt for the bannister rail and started to descend, and as he did so he could hear the rings tinkle in his pocket, a louder sound it seemed to Jimmy Slim then than the whip of the wind beyond.

  When Shuko heard the door open he stopped dead and listened to the descending footsteps. The men behind him did the same. Silent. Motionless. Hardly breathing. The Dragons stood listening to Jimmy Slim coming towards them in the dark. He stepped straight into Shuko's arms, and gasped his shock. The lights came on. A dim blue light showered the stairwell illuminating for Jimmy Slim his fate. Distantly he heard the chug of the lift resuming its ascent.

  They took Jimmy Slim back in to the empty flat on the fourteenth floor. An hour ago it had been Jimmy Slim's dark haven, now it was full of the shadows of men. Shuko was outside on the phone to Hsinshu. When he came in to the flat he took the crimson blindfold from Feiyang, but he did not tie it round Jimmy Slim's head as Jimmy Slim expected. Winding it round his fist he made a mitten of it and used it to protect the window lever from finger prints as he thrust it upward. Jimmy Slim understood now.

  The wind roared in and filled the room. It may have knocked Jimmy Slim from his feet had his legs not been grasped by Yihsi and Naokung. Feiyang and Shuko took him at the arms, and all four men lifted Jimmy Slim up and hauled him through the open window out into the waiting wind.

  * * * *

  As Jimmy Slim plummeted through the air Hsinshu was downstairs in the casino. He had just lost money on number fourteen. Shuko's call had distracted him. He had changed his mind at the last minute. Then he smiled. It was not such a bad thing for him to be seen by the punters losing money on the roulette wheel with good grace. It showed that we are all subject to fortune.

  Copyright © 2007 Mick Scully

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  THE RAINBOW KILLER by Gary W. Shockl
ey

  * * * *

  * * * *

  Gary W. Shockley and his wife Lori Ann White have just returned from a trip to South America. Among the highlights of the trip: a volcano in Ecuador spewing ash all the while they were in a small resort on its slope; climbing as high as they could, meeting the ‘volcano watcher’ who hangs out in an insane tree house and claims he can give a 20-minute warning of an eruption; the thing in the toilet, big as a hand, piecemeal illuminated by flashlight in a spooky game of hide-and-seek that went on for minutes, in the middle of a night in the Peruvian rainforest; a tarantula sleeping around the base of a kerosine lamp; putting his hand in the mouth of a tapir; photographing a wild owl monkey in the night as it emerged from a hollow (from two metres away) in the rainforest canopy. Gary and Lori (a writer herself) hope to tap these experiences for future stories.

  * * * *

  Gloria Whiting plucked the fabric of her dress away from the small of her sweaty back as she lugged her suitcase down the shabby hallway. She felt tired, sticky, and constipated after the long flight from Los Angeles and the bumpy cab ride into Houston's southside. The cabby had been alarmed when she told him to pull over ("Lady, you sure you know what you're doing?"), and now she was booked into room 14 of a sleazy hotel in a bad part of town.

  She half-dragged her suitcase down the garbage-strewn hallway. The fluorescents were broken, filled with web, and the numbers on the battered doors were barely readable. A deep knife gash ran along the wall, zigzagging to a frenzy of deep stabs in a door. To her relief, it was not hers. As she listed onward, she saw a slender black man in a white uniform dipping his way toward her, in rhythm to some internal song. At first she took him for a janitor, but his uniform wasn't all that clean, nor was he. In addition to his rhythmic dip, his whole body shook. She suspected his dipping motion was an attempt to hide it.