A Killer for a Song

by John Gardner

  When he began to take interest again, Boysie swore internally. He had come within an ace of getting it together, but Castervermentes and Chiliman had a full house, a very full house once Frelon had crept quietly back.

  His head felt like it had been amputated, and even Zizi’s hand, cool on his forehead, could not stop the pneumatic drills which were being operated by Wimpey gangers inside his skull.

  He tried to sit up, but the moment he raised his head the people from Wimpey got cracking with a miniature steam shovel.

  “ ‘Eet’s okay, Boyzee,” crooned Zizi. She looked terrible, with the bruises and swellings.

  “Bastards,” murmured Boysie. “Sorry.”

  “You were most brave,” she said, and he thought he could detect tears in her eyes, which was not surprising because when you get thumped in the eyes you tend to leak from the lachrymal passages.

  “Whasatime?” He managed to prop himself on one elbow, gritting his teeth against the pain.

  Zizi took hold of his hand and squinted down at his watch.

  “Your clock says twelve,” she tried to smile.

  The memories came back in a rush. No wonder he felt half dead: the swim and his one man act of vengeance. This place looked uncompromisingly secure. If they were going to get out they would need some of Houdini’s magic. Depression. Boysie thought, mentally banging his head against the stone to find a way out. But his thought processes seemed to be clogged. There was no obvious way. The cellar was desperately cold which meant his senses were getting back to normal. With the cold he remembered Lyric and what Zizi had said.

  “I wonder why they didn’t finish me off,” he mumbled. “Like Lyric. Tell me about Lyric.”

  “I only know what I ‘eard, Boyzee. Last night zee one called Edgar was talking to Henri - ’ee was zee one who ...”

  “Who got hold of you at Chalon.”

  “Yes. I ‘eard them talking last night and Edgar said something about the girl’s body in the car. Henri said it was a pity about ‘er, but Edgar said she knew too much. I only know zey talked about the girl Lyric because zey were saying zat ‘er name was pretty.”

  “You said she sounded like cheap soap.”

  Through the bruises and swellings, Zizi looked sad, “Did you,” she began, “did you care for ‘er?”

  “I hardly knew her. I met her brother once. He’s dead as well, now.” Privately he wondered what had happened to Griffin. “They put her in the sea, you said.”

  “When zey talked zey said later zey would put ‘er corpse in the sea.”

  Boysie did not have to think much further than that. He had screwed it and implicated Zizi. They would undoubtedly end up with Lyric, very dead and very wet. Sea food. The refrain of an old scatty pop song of his youth came seeping into his head, unwanted -

  Hold tight, hold tight,

  Hold tight, hold tight,

  Foodly-yacky-zacky,

  Want some sea food,

  Mama.

  Shrimps and rice,

  They’re very nice.

  He was the last on Chiliman’s list and, presumably, they were only keeping him alive until the last moment in case they had to barter. He thought again and realised this was unlikely also. Chiliman had been utterly ruthless and there was no reason to believe that he would be anything else now. The one slim hope lay in nasty little William Edith and his merry men, but they would not make a move until dusk: and dusk was a long time away.

  They lay there for the best part of an hour. Cold, wretched and with Boysie wishing someone had an aspirin.

  At last there was the sound of a key turning in the lock, up the steps.

  Castervermentes came down with the man Boysie recognised as Henri Frelon.

  “Don’t get up,” said Castervermentes flashing his gold teeth. He was flashing the Colt which Boysie had intended to use on him.

  “Do it now,” said Boysie wearily.

  “Not quite yet. We will soon be going and it will be done before we leave. There is one piece of information we would like.”

  “Name, rank and serial number,” said Boysie. He had heard them do that in old movies on television. It sounded right.

  “Your friends at the Negresco,” Castervermentes continued undeterred. “We would like to know if they plan anything, or if you were their one man army.”

  “Screw you.”

  Castervermentes shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. We could have done a deal.”

  “Not interested in deals,” Boysie heard himself say, puzzled that he could say anything so stupid.

  Castervermentes laughed aloud: a stagey kind of laugh suitable for baddies in B movies. “Not a deal for you, only for the girl. You were dead anyway, Oakes. We had our man in Nice. He would have hit you by now in any case, so you’re already living on borrowed time. The girl you could have saved.”

  Boysie glanced at Zizi, desperate to play for more time. “All right,” he said, making it sound sullen, “All right. I don’t know if they’ll try anything else. They were going to leave it alone anyway. Coming was my own idea, for the sake of the girl. There’s nobody backing me up and I’m not very important to them now, so I don’t suppose ...”

  “They’ve got fresh reinforcements,” chuckled Castervermentes. “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt though. Perhaps you don’t know what they intend. Nobody but an idiot would have tried it alone.” He started to back away.

  “You have about one hour. Make the most of it.”

  He had difficulty getting up the steps backwards. Frelon went up the proper way. The door closed again and the key turned in the lock.

  When Boysie looked down, Zizi was crying.

  There had to be some way. Gingerly he got to his feet. His thighs and arm muscles were stiff as rusty hinges and the gang from Wimpey in his head had been replaced by some demented dwarfs with buzz saws. They were working on all the most sensitive nerves. He retched; swallowed; squeezed his eyes shut and then open again, reaching out with his hand for support against the stone wine rack. The stones moved against his hand. Fresh interest sparked and then kindled.

  Boysie began to examine the wine rack. It was not a permanent structure, but an assembly of tiles laid over bricks. He reached up to the topmost tile and pulled. It came away easily, and he stood there, weighing it in his hand, his eyes moving between the bricks and tiles and the stone steps which led up to the door.

  It was very risky, but what the hell, you only die one time. As he thought it, Boysie knew that was not true either. In the years since he had known the late lamented James George Mostyn, he had died a thousand times.

  If he was going to stop it happening for real, he would have to be quick. There was a lot of work to be done and less than an hour in which to do it.

  XVII - SHANTY

  The work had to be done quickly, with as little noise as possible. Considering the exertions, his sapped strength, the egg on his head and the binding of his muscles, Boysie got organised with remarkable speed.

  Zizi assisted, not helped by the chill of the cellar, clad only in her underwear. It was also not conducive for work, as far as Boysie was concerned. In the end, he made her wrap one of the blankets around herself, tucking it tightly in just below the breasts. Boysie did the tucking, an exercise which proved to him once more that there was plenty of life still in him. It helped motivate the determination to survive.

  He first began dismantling part of the wine rack, dodging quietly up the steps, gradually building a loose pile of bricks and slates on the third step from the top: an unsteady and badly balanced pile which came level with the top of the step and leaned precariously outwards. Anyone putting a foot heavily on top of the pile would crash and slide forward with little chance of regaining balance in the narrow flight.

  Once the obstacle was completed, Boysie untied his right sneaker, took off his sock and pulled it over his right hand. Standing on tiptoe and leaning forward on the step immediately below the hazard, he could just reach the electric bulb which
lighted the steps. With the sock protecting his hand, Boysie removed the bulb.

  While the bottom steps were still illuminated by the small light in the cellar ceiling, the top steps were now in total darkness. True there would be some light from the open door, but that was a risk which had to be taken.

  Getting his sock and sneaker back on again, Boysie continued to dismantle the rack, this time using only the heavy bricks, building up a dry wall, two bricks thick at an angle where the steep stone steps ended and the rack itself began. The wall jutted out to the length of roughly four to five feet and, within half an hour, it had risen to a height of about three feet, giving a V-shaped sheltered area in which Zizi could crouch with comfort, her body shielded from any flying fragments of metal-like bullets.

  There was also just room for Boysie to squat down behind her and at least have the front of his body protected.

  With luck he reckoned the wall would not be necessary, but the work kept them warm and occupied. Throughout he glanced constantly at his wrist, watching the hands move steadily towards one. At five past they heard the key in the lock.

  “Down.” Boysie had already instructed her, and Zizi crushed herself into the shelter as if she was trying to burrow through the cellar wall. Boysie pressed close in on her back, his body turned to the left, his big right paw curled around one of the bricks.

  There was an irritated noise from the doorway above, and Castervermentes said something about the bloody light bulb going. Then movement.

  Castervermentes hit the brick and tile obstacle with his full weight. He gave a snort and a short yelp of surprise, then, as his foot slipped, he lost balance and came hurtling down the steps.

  Boysie vaguely heard the yell from above as he leaped forward onto the moving body as it landed, sprawling, at the foot of the steps. His hand went up, clutching the brick, then descended hard and fast, knocking the wind and consciousness out of the flailing Castervermentes.

  As before, he had been carrying the Colt. Boysie’s hand snaked out to wrench it from his grasp almost before the brick had done its work.

  Turning on the balls of his feet, acting totally on instinct, Boysie fired twice up the stairs: once from the hip as his hand moved up, then one aimed shot at the figure silhouetted in mid-spin in the doorway.

  The second bullet was not necessary. Frelon was already dying when it hit him, its only useful purpose being to stop the twisting body and send it flying away from the door.

  He was already halfway up the steps when Frelon hit the ground. Twice Boysie almost slipped on the rubble which was now strewn right down to the cellar floor. At the top step he paused, shouting back to Zizi. “Thump him with another brick if he wakes up.”

  Then he leaped into the hallway.

  Sore-headed Edgar was stumbling out of the main room with a revolver in his hand, his face masked in panic. Boysie did not have time to think. As far as he was concerned this was the practice range at the Department’s training centre. Anything that moved got blasted. Edgar got blasted, his face assuming a look of incredulity as he arched backwards in a graceful motion as though performing some clever dive from the top board.

  Behind the lifting body, Boysie glimpsed Chiliman and Gest, out on the patio, turned towards him, their faces white masks, frozen with the sudden event. For a second, the world seemed to petrify Edgar’s body in mid-air; Boysie, still with the shock waves tingling his arm; and the two others stone in the sunlight outside: a still life of violence.

  Then Gest moved, lunging to his left, an arm reaching out for something beyond Boysie’s vision.

  Boysie adjusted into a forward firing stance, legs apart and both hands on the weapon.

  “I’m going to mince both of you,” he yelled, his mouth dry. “They’re for starters, this is the main course.”

  As he shouted he realised Gest had got what he wanted and was rolling away to his left. For a second Boysie was indecisive, not knowing which target to choose.

  Then the shots ripped from Gest’s gun and Boysie had to drop flat, three, then four, bullets shattering into the hall, flaying plaster from the walls.

  Behind him something smashed. It sounded like a mirror. Seven years’ bad luck for Gest. There was the whine of a ricochet in the confined space and Boysie was well down, belly to the red tiles, snaking his way backwards towards the cellar door, firing twice without looking or aiming.

  He reached the steps and fired again. Two more shots answered him. Then another, tearing a chunk of wood from the jamb. Then silence.

  Panting, smelling the fear on him, Boysie lay just within the cellar steps. It took him a good two minutes to get his breath back and realise what was going on out on the sea side of the house. All the time Zizi was shouting from below in the cellar, shrieking to him and asking if he was all right.

  Slowly he rose to his feet and carefully looked out. No shots. He moved, crouching, forward into the living room. On the table he saw his spare magazines and grabbed one of them before moving out onto the patio.

  Below, on the smooth unruffled sea, Chiliman and Gest were bobbing in one of the pedallos, both pedalling hard and away from the jetty. Boysie smiled, knowing that at least they had not got the boat, then Chiliman turned and his hand came up and the bullets started to crack again.

  Boysie dropped, crawled back, raced into the house and up the stairs.

  He was almost at the top, his mind focused on the main bedroom with its balcony which would give him a wide arc of fire into the sea, when he heard the cry from the cellar, and the sound of scuffling and feet on the steps.

  Castervermentes was coming through the cellar door with Zizi in front of him, her arm locked hard behind her back, lips moving but no sound.

  “I’m getting to the car,” Castervermentes’ face was parchment grey and there was blood soaking down onto the shoulder of his white jacket. He began to back away, keeping Zizi between them, the woman’s face twisted with fear.

  There was a trick to this situation and Boysie had only the one chance. Castervermentes would be weak and groggy, even on the verge of panic. Boysie lifted the automatic and prayed there would be no ricochets.

  He fired twice, wide but close enough to make Castervermentes believe he was prepared to go the whole way. The Latin American let out a grunt and threw Zizi towards Boysie, as though thrusting her at the next shot, turning and starting to run for the main door.

  “Down Zizi,” he shrieked and, as she hit the tiles, he saw the blur of Castervermentes’ head and shoulders in his sights. He squeezed twice and gasped as the target’s head began to fragment in a horrible blossom of bone and gore, the red mist seeming to hang motionless in the doorway as the body swallowed out towards the gravel.

  Zizi gave a sobbing little cry and Boysie, arm limp now as though weighed down by the gun, leaned over the banister and retched.

  He wiped the back of his mouth and tumbled down the stairs to Zizi who lay in a little heap, sobbing.

  “I’m not going to let the others get away.” His breathing was bad so that he gasped the words out, fighting his pumping lungs. “You all right?”

  Zizi nodded, her lips clamped together.

  “I need your help,” he was slipping the empty magazine out of the Colt, slapping the new one in place. “You any strength left?”

  She nodded again, still tight-lipped, and Boysie grabbed her hand, half pulling and dragging her through the living room and out to the patio.

  Gest and Chiliman were still pedalling, their little craft moving steadily away towards the tip of the cape. The remaining pedallo bobbed against the jetty.

  “Come on.”

  Zizi took a step forward, realised she was hampered by the blanket and pulled it off. They ran down the steps and Boysie untied the pedallo, holding it for Zizi as she clambered in, before he leaped into the hard slatted seat behind the wheel. The pedallo bucked with the weight, then steadied on its floats.

  “You been in one of these before?”

  She nodded, �
��Eet’s very ‘ard work, Boyzee, eet, ‘ow you say, ‘eet knockers you.”

  “Knackers,” Boysie corrected, starting to pedal. “Too right, sweetheart; it creases you. Pedal.”

  He knew what the treadmill must have been like. For the first few minutes they appeared to make no headway as he strained and spun the wheel, setting their course behind the distant Chiliman and Gest who were now disappearing round the headland.

  Then, as they found a rhythm, the pedallo began to move, wallowing a little at first, then picking up speed. His thigh muscles seemed to have gone through some barrier and, while they still ached, Boysie was aware that strength was returning. At least, he considered, this would get rid of the weight problem.

  Zizi did not speak. He glanced at her a couple of times and saw the concentration on her face. But they kept the rhythm and, after what seemed an age, rounded Cap Martin.

  The rocks along the coast, he thought, always had a brutal beauty, the grey and red, and the hard dry earth with the now faded sun-cracked buildings. It was a coast of another age, a different time when you were rich on a few thousand a year and the Blue Train had that same magic as the Orient Express, and the food was real, not plastic-packed and lifted from a freezer.

  Yet the sun still sent refracted sparkles from the same sea which had been ploughed by hundreds of yachts owned by the far dead celebrities whose champagne, extravagance and dovetailed affairs still seemed to whisper spectrally when the Mistral carved down the Rhone valley and set you on edge.

  Chiliman and Gest had tired fast, as though once they were out of sight from the villa they had thought themselves safe. Boysie was amazed to find that only a hundred yards or so now separated them.

  “Keep going hard,” he panted, lifting the Colt from the waterlogged bottom of the craft, keeping one hand on the wheel and steadying the other to get the first shot.

  Neither Gest nor Chiliman looked back. They were plodding, pumping slowly through the water like a couple out on a joy ride, turning their pedallo inshore towards the beach.

  Boysie knew he would be lucky to get more than a couple of shots. The way they were turning it would not be safe, for the target would soon be backed by the beach which, while not crowded in the spring sunshine, at least contained a fair sprinkling of people, including children playing at the water’s edge.