Two-Way Split

by Guthrie, Allan

  He shrugged. When they reached the bar, he placed his elbows on the counter. "You want a drink?"

  She held up her hands and pushed her palms through a ribbon of smoke. "Let me handle this."

  Two barmen and a barmaid looked busy behind the counter. A couple of minutes passed. The girl was first over. White blouse. Tartan skirt. Striped tie. Hair in pigtails. She said, "Can I get you?"

  Ailsa said, "We're here to see Joe-Bob."

  "Nice." She was chewing gum. "Can I get you?"

  "Can you let him know we're here?"

  She placed her hands on her hips and strolled over to one of the barmen and whispered in his ear. After a while, he came over. He said, "Can I get you?"

  Ailsa repeated what she'd told the girl.

  He said, "And you are?"

  "Ailsa."

  "Right. And your friend?"

  "Pearce." Pearce held out his hand.

  The barman looked at it, then held out his own. "Roy," he said, squeezing Pearce's fingers. He leaned over. "Follow me. Joe-Bob's waiting for you."

  Roy led them through an arched doorway into a wide corridor. Laminated plastic signs indicated that toilets were straight ahead. Roy turned left. He ducked under another arch and stepped into a cramped space. Benches lined opposite walls, with only a couple of feet between them. The ceiling was low enough to force Pearce to keep his neck bent. He got a good view of the seven or eight flattened cigarette butts littering the floor. Somebody had been kept waiting. Roy fished in his waistcoat pocket, found a key and unlocked a door marked Private. One after the other, they stepped into a small, square, unfurnished room with a dark blue curtain draped along one wall. The other walls were white and bare. Roy pulled the curtain to one side and revealed a brass-studded oak door. He rapped on it.

  While he waited for an answer, he said, "Just out of interest, I don't suppose either of you would be interested in buying a live lobster?"

  "Not for me." Pearce looked at Ailsa. "How about you?"

  She thought for a second. "Nope."

  Pearce said, "What kind of a question is that, Roy?"

  Roy said, "Mate of mine's got a couple of dozen lobsters he's trying to shift. Said I'd ask around."

  The door opened inwards.

  A man's head appeared. Shaved at the sides, a two-inch wide strip of dyed red hair running down the middle. A Mohican minus the spikes. His face had the well-fed look of a chipmunk and his stomach spilled out over his belt. He was breathing hard. Climbing the stairs had knocked the wind out of him. He took a handkerchief out of his shirt pocket and wiped his forehead. He said, "Ailsa," and smiled.

  "Joe-Bob." She smiled back and stepped through the doorway into his arms. They hugged and pecked each other on the cheek. Ailsa said, "I like the Mohawk." Roy beckoned to Pearce that he was leaving them. Probably off to check on his lobsters. Pearce nodded.

  Ailsa pulled away from Joe-Bob's embrace and said, "Joe-Bob. This is Pearce. Pearce. Joe-Bob."

  Joe-Bob's fingers dipped once again into his pocket and surfaced with the handkerchief. He mopped his head, transferred the handkerchief to his left hand, and extended his right. "Any friend of Ailsa's," he said.

  The correct response was, "Likewise." Pearce said, "Cut the crap, Blowjob. You got the ammo?"

  "I see," Joe-Bob said, withdrawing his offer of a handshake. He dabbed at either side of the red strip of hair on his otherwise bald head "I see. Would you close the door, please?" He turned and began to walk downstairs, planting each foot securely before daring to shift his considerable weight.

  Ailsa followed Joe-Bob. Pearce brought up the rear, quietly humming "Stand By Your Man." He began to see why Joe-Bob's progress was so slow. It wasn't the fact that he was a fat bastard. The steps were worn and narrow and weren't designed to accommodate Pearce's steel toe-capped work boots. Even with his feet placed sideways, the rim of his boots hung well over the edge. He couldn't help thinking that this would be a good place for an ambush.

  "Is all this subterranean shit necessary?" he shouted downstairs.

  Joe-Bob's voice floated up to him. "I was in prison once. Never again."

  "Thought you'd have liked it. All those naked men."

  "Pearce. Christ. Sorry, Joe-Bob. My friend has a thing about drug dealers."

  Joe-Bob said, "I'm not a drug dealer."

  Pearce made it to the foot of the stairs and looked around. A fold-up chair sat in front of a trestle table. On the table sat a half-full cafetiere, a mug, a saucer with two chocolate biscuits resting on it, a pearl-handled gun, and a light-blue box with orange and green borders. Behind the table, half-a-dozen more chairs were stacked against the wall.

  Joe-Bob sat down and picked up the gun. "Help yourselves to a seat," he said.

  "I'll stand," Pearce said.

  "I see." Joe-Bob waved the gun at Ailsa. She flapped her fingers at him and gave a little shake of her head. "You going to kill somebody, Pearce?" Joe-Bob asked.

  "None of your business."

  "Fair enough. Ailsa said you wanted bullets for her Tokarov pistol. There they are." He pointed to the box on the table. "Hope you know what you're doing."

  Pearce stepped forward and picked up the box. It said 50 naboju/cartridges. Bullet/Strela. Type FMJ. 7,62X25 Tokarov.

  "Nice gun," Joe-Bob said. "You know the Tokarov's a dangerous weapon?"

  "It's a gun. It fires bullets. Of course it's dangerous."

  "I don't mean that. It doesn't have a safety. You have to half-cock it."

  "Speak English."

  "You got the gun with you? I'll show you." Joe-Bob laid his own gun on the table.

  Pearce reached behind his back and extracted the Tokarov from his trouser belt. He hesitated for a second. Joe-Bob already had a gun. If he wanted to shoot Pearce he could have done so by now. Pearce handed over the Tokarov.

  Joe-Bob demonstrated. "That's the slide and trigger locked. See?"

  Pearce nodded. "And when I want to fire it?"

  Joe-Bob showed him.

  Pearce nodded again. "Okay. Load it for me."

  Joe-Bob sighed. "Your mum never teach you any manners?"

  Anger ballooned inside Pearce. He banged his fist on the table. The saucer rattled and Joe-Bob's pearl-handled gun spun a couple of inches anticlockwise.

  Ailsa grabbed Pearce's arm. "Don't." Coffee sloshed from side to side in Joe-Bob's mug.

  Joe-Bob said, "I'm loading it, for crying out loud." He popped the clip, opened the box and started shoving bullets into the clip.

  "You okay?" Ailsa asked Pearce. He nodded and she let go of his arm.

  "You got eight rounds," Joe-Bob said. The bullets clicked in place.

  "More than enough," Pearce said.

  Joe-Bob pushed the last bullet home and slid the clip back in the gun. "Happy killing." He offered Pearce the gun.

  Pearce reached out his hand.

  Joe-Bob snatched the gun away. "Money, first," he said.

  Pearce dug in his pocket and dropped a pile of notes on the table. "That enough?"

  "If you weren't Ailsa's friend," Joe-Bob said, running a hand along his single strip of hair, "I'd take exception to your attitude."

  "Gee," Pearce said. "I don't think I'll sleep tonight."

  Joe-Bob picked up the notes and started counting. He dropped two tenners on the table and put the rest of the cash in his jacket pocket. "Get out of here," he said.

  Ailsa said, "Thanks, Joe-Bob." She turned to go. Pearce followed her.

  Joe-Bob said, "The money on the table's yours."

  Pearce didn't look behind him. He said, "That's your tip, Cowboy."

  1:30 pm

  Since arriving back home, Hilda Pearce's stink had faded. When Robin held his face in his hands, it was Carol's White Musk he smelled. He shivered as he got off his bed, feet crunching broken glass. The pictures he'd destroyed earlier were strewn across the floor. He walked through the debris to his sitting room and banged on the wall with his fist. No good. The rumble of gunfire continued. M
aybe he should go next door and kill the deaf old bastard. "Turn it down," he yelled.

  Stuffed with money, the holdall lay on the table. Robin kept telling himself that having all that money was a good thing, but it didn't seem to matter. He didn't care any more.

  Banging on the wall made no impression. He kicked the skirting board and a black scuffmark appeared on the white paintwork. He shouted, "Turn the damn bastard TV down." He was a bit sensitive at the moment and the constant racket was driving him mad. He couldn't live here any more. Home shouldn't be like this. He'd have to start looking for another flat. Hang on a minute. Slow down. Within the last twenty-four hours he'd killed two people. Why was he whining about a blaring television set? He laughed aloud at the ridiculousness of it all. He was losing his sense of perspective. Bad news. Loss of perspective led to bizarre acts like holding up petrol stations with water pistols. Anyway, if he moved, where would he go? Share with Eddie again? Bugger it. It wasn't important.

  It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Eddie screwing Carol didn't matter. Hilda Pearce didn't matter. Death didn't matter. Carol was dead and it didn't matter. He was a murderer and it didn't matter. Carol was dead.

  Shit. His stomach was lined with ice.

  He walked over to the piano, opened the lid of the piano stool and took out the envelope containing the PI's photographs of Carol and Eddie. He'd hoped Carol might have found them. But why would she? She didn't know they existed, so there was no reason for her to have looked for them. He set the envelope on the piano stand. The pictures didn't matter. He didn't care any more. He wouldn't look at them. He sat down and punched a G minor chord. He hit it again and found himself playing the opening of "Dido's Lament" from Purcell's opera, Dido and Aeneas. The chromatics and suspensions collaborated to produce harmonies likely to break the heart of any normal human being. Not his. Oh, no. His hands hurt, but he didn't care. He sang along. "No trouble." The tension in the D/E-flat false relation was agonising. Didn't mean anything to him. Remember? He repeated the bar. "No trouble." His hands were on fire. NO. "In my soul." He brought his fist down on the keyboard. Dissonance clogged his eardrums. He slammed the lid shut.

  Lifting the envelope off the stand, he ripped it open. The photos fell out. Ten of them. He picked up the top one, which had landed face up. In it, Carol was holding hands with Eddie. Eddie was smiling for the photographer, crooked teeth displayed in his too-small mouth. She was looking into his eyes. Had she loved him? She was dead. What did it matter? He'd killed her. God help him.

  What was Eddie going to do when he found out? Most likely he'd be philosophical about it. Carol's dead? Hey, life goes on. This mean a two-way split?

  The holdall sat on the table like an ugly brown bag of conscience. A face with the fat cheeks of Hilda Pearce was starting to form on the damn thing. Well, Robin had had enough. It wasn't going to distract him any more. He had to stop this, force himself to concentrate and come up with a plan to kill Eddie.

  It was no good. He couldn't think with that thing staring at him.

  He hid the bag in the bedroom.

  Back in the sitting room he tried his hardest to focus on Eddie, but something else was starting to worry him. He'd done his best to avoid thinking about it, but it wouldn't go away. When he'd arrived home the door to his flat was open. Just as well, since he seemed to have mislaid his keys. For a moment, when he checked his pockets outside the main door, he had imagined he'd have to trek all the way back to Eddie's and get Carol's spare set. Of course, the police would have arrived by now, since the last thing he did before driving home was to call them and report a disturbance. It had taken him a hell of a long time to get home, though.

  Thankfully, the old Henderson woman downstairs had buzzed him inside. When he got upstairs he found his door ajar. Nothing was missing. He struggled to remember if he'd locked up when he left, but his memory was hazy.

  Luckily, he kept another set of keys in a drawer in the kitchen.

  Shit. He needed to relax. All this thinking was doing him no good at all. Just making his headache worse. There was a lot on his mind and it was no surprise that he couldn't remember leaving his flat. He must have forgotten to close the door behind him. That was all there was to it. Had to be.

  Relax. Let it rest.

  He lay on the floor and started humming Mozart's A minor Piano Sonata. After the first movement, he fancied a change of mood. Mozart was too camp. He sang some Bach. A couple of fugues followed by a two-part invention. Then Beethoven's "The Tempest" Sonata. Impossibly hard for an untrained voice like his, but he gave it a damn good shot.

  When the phone rang, he'd just reached the end of the first movement and had filled his lungs to begin the slow movement. Getting up off the floor required a huge effort. He contented himself with raising his head. The phone continued to chirp. Eventually, he uncurled himself and sat up. His muscles ached. He felt like he hadn't slept for a week.

  Slowly, he got to his feet and walked over to the phone. When he picked it up, something crawled out of the receiver and dropped to the floor. He jumped on the disgusting, black thing. Crushed it with his heel. Ground it into the carpet.

  He guided the phone to his ear. "Hello," he said.

  "It's me. Please don't hang up. I have something important to tell you."

  This was not good. This was not good at all. "Who are you?"

  "Stop pretending you don't know."

  "Go away. I don't know you."

  "Play it your way. How about Carol? You know her?"

  "Leave me alone."

  Robin dropped the phone. It lay on the floor but he could still hear the voice. He picked up the phone and placed it on the cradle and the voice disappeared. Clever. He picked up the phone again and listened. Two voices. Pure sound, communicating by maintaining a constant interval of a major third. Dial tone. The words sprang into his head. He shook the phone and was surprised when nothing fell out of it. He placed it to his ear again and listened. Same story. Dial tone. He placed the receiver back in its cradle.

  It rang instantly.

  Don was back. "Please don't hang up."

  "What do you want?"

  A short pause. "You think you killed her."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You didn't. It was Eddie."

  Robin's fingers formed a gun. It was a familiar shape. Someone else had done that. He said, "Bang. He's dead."

  "Not when I last saw him."

  "As good as. Why do you say he killed Carol?"

  "I saw it with my own eyes."

  "You're wrong."

  "I know why you might think that. After all, he told the police it was me. But he'd be unlikely to admit it to you. I tell you, Robin, I'm a witness."

  "A witness?"

  "I can confirm that Eddie killed Carol."

  "But he couldn't have. I did."

  "You have to help me, Robin. We have to help each other. The police think I killed her. God, this is such a mess."

  "I killed her. Not Eddie."

  Silence.

  Then Don said, "Try covering for him all you like, but you know you didn't kill her. Think about it. You saw her breathe just before you left. Remember? Eddie came back. Eddie killed her. Listen to me. I was there. I saw his fingers wrapped around her throat. He was choking your wife, Robin."

  "Why are you making this up?"

  "Why would I lie? Look, she was still alive when you disappeared. Do you believe that much, at least?"

  "Suppose it's possible."

  "Well, she's dead now and the man responsible is the same man who hit me on the head and knocked me out. Eddie."

  "What did you see?"

  "She wasn't making any sound, but her legs were moving. She was kicking. I tried to stop him." He sighed. "I failed, sorry. In the end, I thought he was going to kill me, so I ran away. He chased me and fired a couple of shots. I think he told the police I killed her. It's my word against his and I can't take the risk. I'm a fugitive. But you can help me, Robin. Together we can de
stroy the man who murdered your wife and tried to frame us for it."

  Robin licked his lips. Was it possible he hadn't killer her.

  Don said, "Will you meet me somewhere? Let me convince you I'm telling the truth."

  Robin said, "I'm going psychotic cooped up here. A minute ago I saw a leech crawl out of the telephone."

  "I hate when that happens."

  "I need to get out of here."

  "Sounds like it. Meet me for a beer?"

  "Never touch the stuff these days."

  "Coffee, then."

  "Okay, but you have to promise me one thing. You'll help me kill Eddie."

  "My pleasure."

  "Okay. Where do you want to meet?"

  "Filmhouse café?"

  "When?"

  "Soon as you can get here."

  When the phone rang again, Robin thought Don had forgotten something. He was surprised when Eddie's voice said his name."Who do you think it is?" Robin asked him.

  "There's a very fine question. Look, you're ill. I don't blame you. I got rid of her handbag. Hopefully, the police will take a while to trace her and it'll buy us some time. We've got to run. I need my money."

  "I've no idea what you're talking about." Right. Pretend you're my pal, take the money, and then kill me.

  "I'm talking about Carol, you twat."

  Robin didn't answer.

  "Can you meet me somewhere with the money?"

  Robin said, "Carol's dead."

  "She meant a lot to me. But if you just give me the money, I'll keep my mouth shut."

  "Did you kill her?"

  "The fuck are you saying, Robin? That won't wash. Your prints are all over her. You got the money? I'll settle for my share and Carol's. You can keep yours."

  Silence filled Robin's ear. It hurt.

  "I'm coming for the money," Eddie said. "You got it?"

  "Did you try to kill Don? Did you try to shoot him?"

  "Of course I didn't try to shoot him."

  "Why not?"

  "Because I wouldn't do that to you."

  "You saying you didn't try to kill him?"

  "That's exactly what I'm saying. What makes you think I did?"

  "I'm going out, Eddie."

  "Stay where you are. I think I should come over."