Crystal knew there and then that he wasn’t lying, but she was so overcome with a cocktail of conflicting emotions, she didn’t know what to tell him. Part of her wanted to kick him out on the street and have nothing more to do with the guy, but part of her wanted him to stay, no matter what that meant for their safety. She remembered the phone call.
‘What have you done?’ she almost whispered.
‘It’s... complicated. No it isn’t. The simple truth is I’ve stolen something from them,’ he whispered back, ‘I think I know too much, and it was beginning to spook them. They were testing me. And I failed. And your finger is bleeding.’
‘I know. You’re nothing…. I mean, it’s nothing.’
‘Let me look at it.’
‘No.’
‘Don’t be silly, let me see.’
He gently held her hand in his for a moment, then without a word, raised it to his lips to kiss it better.
‘Don’t. You don’t know where I’ve been.’ she said, half-joking, but when she felt his breath against the palm of her hand, and his lips brushing her wrist, something inside her became undone. She closed her eyes and gave in.
‘What are you doing Lek?’ she whispered softly in his ear.
‘What I should have done months ago.’
He kissed her then, and for a moment - all the money, all the drugs, Pechev and his gangsters – none of it mattered. He kissed Crystal Purcell as though his world might end in the next eight hours, and he wanted to imprint that kiss forever on his memory. Crystal fought back the tears pricking her eyes, and like a true professional, began to play the part she knew so well. She smiled coquettishly and stepping away from him, pulled her T-shirt over her head.
The lopsided grin fell away from Lek’s handsome face and his voice was suddenly sombre.
‘Who did that to you?’ There were three cigarette burns around her left nipple. ‘That wasn’t an accident,’ he said definitively, before she could lie.
‘Calabas,’ she sighed. ‘I gave him some lip yesterday, so he tied me up for an hour and put his fags out on me.’
‘I see,’ Lek nodded and picked the T-shirt up off the floor. ‘I think… I’ll have to… talk to him,’ Lek said, sounding as though he were simply balancing out a difficult equation in his head, rather than considering paying a visit to a violent pimp. But still, there was something in his tone, a certain resignation that left Crystal cold.
‘You don’t need to do that,’ she said. ‘I can fight my own battles. So look, just stop a minute for Ringo’s sake. Slow down. Let’s have a drink. Go and sit.’ She shooed him away, pulled her shirt back on and wandered into the kitchen.
Lek flopped into a big leather beanbag and picked up a newspaper. A prominent prosecutor had been found dead outside the New Old Bailey, having overdosed on Tiburon. It seemed he had undergone a particularly heated morning of intense cross-examination. ‘Reports suggest that he was seen ‘drowning in the air’’. Lek threw the paper on the coffee table, disgusted with himself. He lay back and looked at the ivy covering the ceiling. Instead of cutting it back when it started creeping through the woodwork of her window-frames, Crystal had cultivated it instead. He thought about his own place, further east along the river, with its clinical white walls and sterile stainless steel shelving units, adorned with a few ornaments and photos he would never see again. This place felt like a home though, and if things had been different, he would have asked to stay.
Crystal appeared with two glasses of Juniperus, set them on the coffee table and was about to sit down when the doorbell rang again. Lek sat bolt upright and Crystal’s stomach lurched. The man on the phone. He was here.
‘Are you expecting anyone?’
Crystal opened her mouth to explain, but Lek saw the look in her eyes and knew at once that she had betrayed him.
‘He said he wouldn’t hurt you. They just want to bring you in,’ her voice began to crack. ‘He said he would kill me if I didn’t help them,’ she was crying now, ‘He told me to keep you here,’ she sank into the corner of the room and buried her face in her hands.
Six floors up and no way out, Lek considered looking for something that would pass as a weapon, but a flash of inspiration hit him and he sat down again, seconds before Delić kicked the front door in and lurched into the room. He had already pulled a Meister out of its holster and pointed it at Lek’s head, when he noticed Crystal crouching against the wall.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ he said, by way of an introduction.
‘I’m the woman you spoke to on the phone,’ she answered between sobs.
‘I didn’t speak to nobody, lady. I’m only here for this prick.’ Delić focused his attention once again. ‘Lek, Lek, Lek....’ he said with a grin, and shook his head in a gently admonishing manner. ‘How are you Doctor? Wow… this is all a bit fucking dramatic for you, isn’t it? Not your typical day, I’d guess, playing with your test-tubes,’ he bent his head sharply to the right and Lek heard the vertebrae at the base of his neck crack. ‘Now, the word is you’re carrying 100,000 cred of the big man’s money, that right?’
In spite of the violence surrounding his work, Lek had never found himself staring down the barrel of a gun. ‘Not quite Delić,’ he said, weighing his options. ‘That is, I don’t have it with me. I’ve stashed it. Why? Is that all you want? The money?’
Delić snorted derisively. ‘No. You’re worth a lot more to me than a hundred K. Pechev is paying five times that to have you back in your rat-cage.’
‘Is that all?’ Lek asked, his eyes fixed on the gun. ‘Half a million? A measly five hundred thou, when I could offer you the keys to the whole city….’
‘Shut up shithead. Just get up,’ Delić sounded almost bored as he pulled a pair of mistress cuffs out of his raincoat.
Lek slowly got to his feet. ‘All I’m saying is, I can give you more than Pechev is offering...’
‘Right. You can give me more than half a million cred. You couldn’t make that much in a lifetime...’
‘Like I said Delić, the keys to the city…’
‘Don’t tell him anything!’ Crystal blurted out, and both men turned and looked at her, each as surprised as the other.
‘And why would you know anything about anything, sugar tits?’ said Delić.
‘Whatever you tell him Lek, you’re only getting yourself in deeper!’ she cried.
‘No, no, no. You’ve got me all wrong.’ Delić began, a smile playing on his lips. He gestured for Lek to sit down again, and turned to Crystal. ‘It’s not like that at all. Not. At. All. I work for Mister Pechev, see? So does your fella here. Only, unlike me, he seems to have forgotten that fact. Temporarily, eh Lek? I’m here to help him remember,’ Delić placed the gun on the table, put the cuffs back into his pocket, and withdrew an old-fashioned clasp-knife. ‘But I have to say, I am interested in hearing whatever it is you have to tell me, Lekky…’ he said, sitting down in the chair opposite and opening the blade.
Lek had to think fast. The words spilled out of his mouth before his reasoning was fully formed.
‘All I’m saying is this: I can give you access to more than 500 grand.’
‘Keep talking,’ Delić said, his interest piqued.
‘OK, OK,’ Lek took a deep breath, feigning resignation, ‘let’s say, hypothetically speaking of course, that there was…’ he shook his head and bit his bottom lip as though the confession were being dragged out of him, ‘…a book.’
‘A book?’ Delić looked amused. He’s probably never read one in his life, thought Lek.
‘Let’s say that this book contained all the formulae, all the methodology, the very recipes if you will, for producing all our best sellers – Tiburon, Equinox, Gorillamine, Chillax, Torox, Tigranol…’
‘Stop there. No way, dickhead,’ Delić laughed, ‘You must think I fucking came down with the last shower. Do I look like an idiot? A fucking ‘recipe book’?’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘OK, wise guy
, hypodermically speaking or whatever, are you trying to tell me you wrote all that shit down?’
‘Yes, Delić I wrote all that shit down.’ Lek spoke the words like he had a bad taste in his mouth. It was a stellar performance.
‘I’m still not buying it,’ said Delić, but his body language said otherwise. He leaned forward in his chair and waited for Lek to continue.
‘Now, a book like that would be worth millions, wouldn’t it?’
‘Maybe. In the right hands, I suppose. Maybe. Where is it anyway?’
‘Well, I can’t tell you that.’
Delić licked his lips and blinked slowly. He was thinking hard. Eventually he said, ‘Yes you can,’ and he lightly ran the blade of the clasp-knife across the newspaper without once taking his eyes from Lek’s. He licked his thumb and when he touched the page with it, the freshly cut strip of paper came away easily. ‘Yes you will.’
‘If you kill me, you’ll never find it,’ said Lek. The fear in his voice was genuine now, even if his words were a lie.
‘That’s true. But there’s always her,’ Delić replied nonchalantly, and he stood and walked over to where Crystal crouched in the corner, her beautiful eyes now wild with terror. She screamed Lek’s name as Delić bent over and touched her face with the knife. ‘It would be such a shame to spoil these looks….’
‘Lek!’ Crystal screamed again, trying not to move.
‘Alright! Alright. Just… leave her alone, for Lennon’s sake.’
‘Where is the book Lekky?’
‘It’s in a thumbprinted Smarte Locker in Victoria International. Listen, I’ll make you a deal…’
‘I’m listening.’
‘I’ll give you the book, and you let us go.’
Delić sucked his teeth and shook his head. Lek could see that he was slipping off the hook. ‘No. You know? Something just isn’t right here. I think we’ll just go and see Mr P, and I’ll take my half a mill, thank you very much.’
‘You can have the cash too.’
‘The hundred grand?’
‘Yes, it’s in the locker. C100,000 is a drop in the ocean compared to what you could make with those formulae, but it’s yours.’
‘OK, so tell me this, Mr smart-arse lab-rat Doctor Gorski, what’s to stop me killing you now, slicing your thumb off and taking it all for myself - the recipe book and the creds?’
Lek hadn’t considered that, but he felt he was on a roll and tried his luck.
‘Well, for one, Pechev won’t be too impressed if he ever finds out. And he would find out. Personally, I wouldn’t want to be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life. John Lennon’s ashes, I’ve only been doing it for a few hours and I’m already wrung out. But think, Delić - you’re a smart man - if you’re going this make this happen, you’re going to need somebody who understands extract conversion, grafting, DNA sequencing, scion-production – I could be your man on the outside. Quid pro quo. You know it makes sense.’
There followed a long drawn-out silence which Delić eventually shattered, ‘Stop fucking crying bitch! I’m trying to think here!’ He looked again into Lek’s eyes and was finally convinced. He saw a vision of himself playing old-school arcade games in Pechev’s office, standing on the balcony at night perhaps, smoking Castros and listening to the symphony of gang violence from the streets. He leaned across the coffee table and picked up a glass of Juniperus. He nodded warily, ‘OK, you’re coming with me. You’ve got a deal. But if you try anything…’ and he pointed at the Meister on the table…. ‘it’s you and her. Do you understand?’
‘I understand,’ said Lek, picking up the second glass, ‘What should we drink to?’
‘Do I look like I give a fuck?’ said Delić.
‘To the future then!’
‘Whatever, dickhead - the future,’ chorused Delić half-heartedly, before raising the glass in a parody of salutation and draining it in one mouthful.
Lek watched as a ripple of confusion clouded his expression, saw his jaw slacken and his pupils dilate, and without a word, Delić slumped to the ground and smashed his head against the tile-floor. He was out cold.
There was a few seconds’ silence before Lek explained, ‘I spiked the drinks while you were crying in the corner. Pure sloth extract. Good for insomnia. He should be dead to the world for a few hours.’ He threw an empty gel-cap vial onto the coffee table. ‘And I should never have trusted you.’
‘I just… wanted to keep you safe.’
‘Keep me safe! By handing me over to this guy?!’ Lek gave the unconscious Delić a soft kick in the ribs.
‘He had a knife to my face, for Ringo’s sake! A knife!’ Crystal fired back, suddenly furious. ‘And let me remind you, Lek Gorski, that I haven’t heard from you in months. And this is what you bring back? Why the fuck should I care what happens to you? Perhaps you might explain why you just vanished off the face of the Earth?’
‘Because they told me to!’ Lek shouted. He walked across the room and sat down again on the beanbag. ‘They had a… quiet word in my ear, a few months back. Told me that I shouldn’t be touching any of the company’s products, including you. Said I should keep my distance if I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life creating chemical cocktails one-handed.’ He shook his head despondently. ‘What a mess.’
Crystal wasn’t ready to let up. ‘And now you turn up, out of the blue, like some phantom in a tracksuit, saying you’ve stolen from them, that you’re on the run and… and… look at my fucking door!’
Lek wasn’t listening anymore; he was talking to himself instead, ‘But how did he find me? How did he find me?’ He turned to Crystal. ‘This wasn’t the same guy who called you, was it?’
‘No. The guy on the phone had a thicker accent.’
‘I’m guessing that was probably Vidmar. But then how did Delić know I was here?’
Realisation dawned. He pulled out the two bundles of creds from the pockets of his sports suit – the C10,000 he kept back from the stash waiting for him in the Smarte Storage Locker at Victoria Station – and fanned though them. Sure enough, in the second bundle, he found another strip of clear plastic.
‘What is that?’ asked Crystal.
‘It’s another bug. A tracking device. That’s how he followed me here. They planted two bugs in the money, not one. Smart move. I’ve already dumped the first.’ Lek nodded with grudging new-found respect for Pechev. ‘And if this guy found me, then you can guarantee he isn’t the only one looking.’
He handed the plastic strip to Crystal, who took a moment to inspect it, before taking a cigarette lighter from her pocket.
‘No, don’t do that….’ Lek stared into middle distance, calculating something in his head. ‘Help me move the body out of sight.’
Together they shouldered Delić into the bedroom and left him sleeping like a baby.
‘What now?’
‘Like I said, we pay Danny Calabas a visit.’
Crystal looked perplexed but Lek continued, ‘We’ll take your car. I can’t keep wandering the streets while they’re searching for me. I’m playing right into their hands.’
‘My car’s in the garage – the biorg died a couple of weeks ago, and I haven’t got the money to get it fixed. Where’s your car anyway?’
‘Parked outside my flat. No way I can just walk back and pick it up. They’re bound to be expecting me to turn up there sooner or later… Ok, so we go to the garage first, then Calabas’ place.’
‘Hang on a minute. It’s you they’re after, not me. I could just let you walk out the door. Give me one good reason why I should come with you?’
‘I’ll give you three,’ said Lek. ‘First, whether you like it or not, you’re tied up in this now. I’m sorry about that, you can blame me, but that’s just the way it is. If they even suspect you of helping me escape, they’ll kill you.’
‘Go on…’ said Crystal, unmoved.
‘Second, do you really want to be here when sleeping beauty wakes up? I don’t think so.
’
‘Fair enough. What’s the third?’
‘I love you. I’m escaping from this hell and I don’t want to leave you behind. Ever again.’
Chapter 12
Cesar Pitres hadn’t been able to concentrate when he sat with Janine and worked though the month’s payroll. He called the meeting to an early end, complaining of a headache, and retreated to the comfort of his private bathroom. He pulled a fresh hypo out of his gym bag, clipped a scion into the chamber and eased the needle into the thick muscles at the base of his neck. If the drugs had any effect these days, it was only a placebo, but he welcomed the sensation all the same. He closed his eyes, hoping for some release from the morning’s events, but in his mind he only saw his old friend’s troubled face and heard his pleas for help. It was useless. Perhaps a spell in the gym would ease the tension...
Cesar worked the weights for a full hour, lifting double his bodyweight on the bench-press, before taking out his repressed anger on the heavy bag for thirty minutes. By the time he had finished, the hundred pound bag showed a dent the size of a bin lid, but Cesar had hardly broken a sweat. He stared at his reflection in the full length mirrors covering the wall. On the surface, he looked like an ogre plucked straight from the pages of a book of fairy tales, but beneath it all, Cesar knew he was still a man, still human, still capable of feeling emotion, if not of showing it. And what he felt at that moment was guilt. He shook his massive head, spun on his heels and dealt the heavy bag a final crushing blow.
***
Vidmar cursed as he cruised around the corner of Stormont Street in his Enzyme just in time to see Gorski and the woman walk out of the high-rise. Ten minutes earlier and it would have all been over. He took some solace in the fact that his suspicion had been confirmed. Gorski might be a sad little scientist, wrapped up in his own statistics and calculations but if he was planning on running, even he would have to say his goodbyes first. Human nature again. It was also some consolation that the Doctor was still alive – at least that idiot Delić hadn’t found him yet. He slipped into a parking space, stepped out of the car and watched them disappearing in the direction of Clapham. He straightened his suit jacket. A kid walking by stared open-mouthed at the jagged scar on his face, and Vidmar grimaced back, hoping to give him nightmares that night. He was hungry and it was affecting his judgement. He sloped into Ely’s Pie and Mash Shop, sat down at a greasy table, ordered a plate of Thames eels and considered his next move.
The Scioneer Page 6