by M T McGuire
His jellied legs didn’t take much persuading to dump him on his knees again. He had to think straight. Denarghi yanked his head up by the hair and looked into his eyes. Yep, he definitely had to think straight! He had to persuade Denarghi to let go, otherwise his secret eyes were in danger of being discovered, and then Arnold in heaven knew what they’d do.
“Have you any idea how much that hurt?” he gasped, “and this is unnecessary.” He rolled his eyes upwards to indicate the tuft of hair Denarghi was clutching, “You haven’t knocked me out yet, I can still hold my head up on my own.”
“I am making a point,” said Denarghi, shaking The Pan by the hair to accentuate each word. He did let go when he’d finished, though, and The Pan heaved a sigh of relief. The temptation to look down for a moment was almost overwhelming but he didn’t dare in case it precipitated another bout of hair-grabbing.
“Alright, you and me then, Denarghi, sir, we can go and get the loot,” he said wearily. There was a cough from somewhere behind him, “With Big Merv,” he added hastily.
“Even if that were possible and we could mount a search, it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack,” said Denarghi. “As it is, the entire area is cordoned off with half the Grongolian army crawling all over it.”
Ah. Whatever that stuff was, it must have mattered then. Oh dear.
“So the artefact is lost to us,” said Denarghi. “No matter, it is also lost to the Grongles and now we must make the best of our situation. The bounty on your heads will more than compensate us for our time and trouble, not to mention your carelessness.”
“You’re not really gonna to hand us over to the Grongles are you?” asked Big Merv incredulously.
“I might, it’s up to you,” said Denarghi smugly, “if you are lying, now is the time to admit it. There are winners and losers in this world and you, my friend, are a loser. We have won.”
“Why you snivelling, cheating—” Big Merv snatched up the weight chained to his ankle and ran at Denarghi. Three of the four guards attempted to restrain him with little effect until the other heavy stepped into his path and put the muzzle of his shotgun to his chest. He stopped struggling abruptly.
“That’s right. I’d give some thought to my actions if I were you,” said Denarghi, “you are Big Merv and these are the Mervinettes. The famous gang, identified beyond doubt; signed, sealed and delivered. Do you know how badly Lord Vernon wants you, how much you’re worth? More than we could ever earn if we set you to work for us. Without the loot you have nothing to contribute to my organisation. None of you have skills enough to outweigh the bounty on your heads,” he glanced at The Pan, “not even your driver. I have little to gain from keeping you here, so if I was in your place, I would show some more respect. It’s up to you to convince me you are worth keeping.”
Two of the guards were still holding Big Merv’s arms. He shrugged them off but made no move to brave the sawn-off shotgun and continue his attack. His antennae were sticking straight up, as if they were statically charged, a sure sign his anger levels were at the dangerous red-alert-coloured end of the dial.
“We’ll see who’s a winner you rat-faced little runt! Gimme the name,” he growled, “I ain’t stupid, I know when I’ve been sold down the river and you’re gonna tell me who squealed.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Yeh?”
“What’s the problem? Can’t see the grass for the trees?” sneered Denarghi.
“I have standards in my organisation and the way I keep those standards is by making sure that people who grass me up pay,” said Big Merv.
“Ha! The honour of thieves! I have heard so much about this supposed code yet, if it exists, why have I never seen any evidence?”
“Maybe you’re too stupid to notice it,” said The Pan quietly.
“Silence! You and your kind are the same scum whether it’s us in power or the Grongles,” said Denarghi. He seemed to be waiting for a reaction, but despite his obvious rage Big Merv stayed silent. “Big Merv,” Denarghi spat, “not so big now are you? Perhaps somebody in your organisation is smarter than you and knows who the winners are in this world, because we are the winners around here. Trained, committed freedom fighters—not some bunch of chancers robbing banks for kicks.” He waved an imperious arm at Frank and Harry. “Bring them,” he told the guards and they were dragged away. When he reached the door, he stopped.
“I’ll deal with you two later. I may sell you or, if you can convince me you are worth my time and effort, I may keep you here. I don’t think you’ll be going anywhere in the meantime.” With that, he turned on his heel and left. The guards closed the door behind him and locked it, leaving The Pan and Big Merv on their own.
Chapter 51
There was a thud as Big Merv angrily threw his ankle weight to the ground. The Pan couldn’t help noticing how easily he had done it; he could hardly lift his.
“Pompous little twot! The small ones are always the worst,” Big Merv muttered, before turning slowly towards The Pan. “It’s your friend who grassed us up. It has to be,” an ominous pause, “or was it you?”
“Get a grip Merv,” said The Pan heavily, “if it was me I wouldn’t be stuck in a cell with you, would I? I’d be home free, with the loot, the reward and everyone else’s cash.”
“Listen, sonny. It’s you what got us into this mess. What’s to stop me taking this ball and chain and smashing your head open with it?”
Clearly, Big Merv felt like thumping somebody. The Pan could hardly blame him, but Arnold’s armpits! Why did he have to be the only thing around to hit? “Not much.”
“Well?”
“Well, what, Big Merv?” said The Pan. It was difficult to speak, his jaw ached where he’d been punched and his mouth had gone dry. “Go ahead! Be my guest. The way I feel it would be a blessed release. I told you we shouldn’t do this job.”
“Yeh, I hear you, mate, I weren’t happy about it neither. But your old gimmer’s paying us good money.”
“If we live long enough to receive it.”
“Yeh. Sell us, an’ he gets his job done free, don’t he?”
“That’s a horrible thought,” one The Pan had been trying, expressly, not to have.
“Yeh, ain’t it?” The conversation lapsed for a moment. “You know what, I reckon that fluffy-arsed nonce wants me to smash your face in. ’S why they’ve left us alone, so you ain’t gonna be able to escape—on account yer injuries—before they hand you over to the Grongles.”
“Very possible. Or they want us to talk so they can listen,” said The Pan, “I expect they want to double-check we really bunged the loot,” he winked at Big Merv and realised, with surprise, that his boss was looking a little shifty. “They’re probably hoping you hid it in the MK II or somewhere near the crash site and that you’re going to tell me,” he added.
Big Merv looked even more uncomfortable and The Pan began to suspect he might have inadvertently hit on the truth. However tough The Big Thing was, he was a rubbish liar and earlier, in the MK II, when he’d first showed them the box, something had been rattling about inside. The second time he had held it up, moments before pitching it out of the window, it hadn’t made a sound. So. What if he had palmed the loot? He wasn’t the type to betray his colleagues but then, he hadn’t had a chance to tell them what was going on and he was even less the type to go to all the trouble of robbing a target as heavily defended as the Bank of Grongolia, only to chuck his prize into the sea. If he suspected The Pan or the old man had betrayed him, he might have held it up so the others would know it was empty and realise what he’d done. True, the Resistance had searched the Mervinettes but only a quick pat down for weapons. They hadn’t found The Pan’s thimble so if the loot was similarly small and easy to conceal, there was a chance Big Merv had managed to keep it hidden.
“Yeh. ’S a shame. I wish I had hidden it in the MK II,” said Big Merv resignedly.
“Not that it would change anything,” said The Pan.
“Nah, it’d have been blown up instead, so we’d still be up the creek.”
There was a long silence during which The Pan thought he heard a resigned sigh and a squeak, the type of squeak a small metal plate makes when it’s being slid into position – over a spyhole for example. He wondered if Big Merv had heard it too and gave him a quizzical look.
“Nice to stick a spanner in their plans, eh?” said Big Merv. As he spoke, he passed his hand over his face and down across his chest. The Pan thought he caught sight of something glinting in his palm for a moment, even though when he held both arms out in front of him immediately afterwards, his hands were empty. He sat down on the floor and settled back against the wall.
“We’re in for a rough ride mate,” he told The Pan, “you should have a lie down, get some shut eye. A fresh mind—”
“Is a nimble one. Yeh, thanks Merv, you sound like my dad. Unfortunately, abject terror isn’t conducive to sleep.”
“Suit yerself,” said Big Merv. “’S no point being afraid though, it’s a waste of energy.”
“Yes, I appreciate that but I can’t seem to get it through to my brain, it will keep dwelling on the doo-doo we’re in and my stomach, it will keep churning and my knees, they will keep knocking.”
“Will you shut it, you daft tart?” said Big Merv, not unkindly.
Yep. He had the loot alright; there was no way he could be that relaxed unless he was confident of his bargaining power. The question was, did Frank and Harry know and more to the point would they crack? The Pan wiggled his foot and felt the reassuring, if painful, presence of the thimble in his boot; he didn’t want to lose it. He thought about the old man, who didn’t seem the type to grass people up. In fact, The Pan was sure he hadn’t; all he knew about the old man was that he was in league with Gladys and Ada, and to The Pan, that counted for something. Anyway, the old boy looked so much like Their Trev he had to be a relative – or worse an old flame. Big Merv obviously hadn’t grassed them up. If he had, he wouldn’t be hanging onto the loot. The Pan knew he hadn’t blabbed to anyone, so that left Frank and Harry, which didn’t make sense either.
The Pan remembered how the old man had known pretty much everything about the gang, mostly things he couldn’t have known without physically being with them at the time the events had taken place. He thought about what the old man had said to him when he’d asked how he knew. So had the old man used his thimble to watch the Mervinettes the way The Pan had used his to watch the girl? And if The Pan, a novice, could get a picture, was it possible that the old man, a seasoned pro, could get sound? If there were more than two thimbles, could somebody else be watching them, too? What if the Resistance had one, or worse, the Grongles? Even if the Resistance hadn’t a thimble up to now, The Pan thought morosely, they soon would have because they would search him more thoroughly and find his. He looked across at Big Merv. They’d find the loot, too.
That couldn’t happen. It would be proof they’d lied to Denarghi and make the outlook even bleaker than it was now. For Big Merv to strike a deal, the loot would have to be somewhere else.
“Merv, we have to get out of here.”
“Yeh, well you’re a slippery little bleeder, but if you can get us out of this I’m a big pink skipping rope,” said Big Merv.
The Pan couldn’t blame him for being cynical, but he had hatched a plan. He took off his boot.
“What are you doing now?” asked Big Merv.
“Sore foot,” said The Pan, “I think I got a stone in my shoe during all that trudging about. Either that or there’s a nail sticking up somewhere.”
“And you’ve gotta fix that now?”
The Pan gave him what he hoped was a look of subtle meaning and said, “Yes, Merv, I have to fix it now.” He held up his boot and put his hand inside, slipping the thimble into his palm as he did so. “Nope,” he held the boot right up to his face and peered in, “nothing there.” Thimble still in hand, he put the boot back on.
Now he was ready. He thought about the Parrot and Screwdriver; more specifically, he thought about his stash of loot in the cellar, and under the guise of ostentatiously rubbing his eyes, he looked into the thimble. He couldn’t see much – it was dark in the cellar, but with the tiny cheam of light spilling through from The Pan’s surroundings – he could make out a couple of gold sovereigns and the box which had once contained the ring worn by forty generations of Architraves.
By The Prophet! He must stop thinking about the ring. He’d sold it and nothing could alter that now. It was merely another item on the list of things he regretted having done, but he wasn’t going to let the thimble go the same way. It was his only link with the girl, reason enough to hold onto it, but he suspected it was also important, just as the ring had been. It was his only link with the old man, too, which might be another reason he should keep it – even if, right now that seemed like a good reason to let it go. He rubbed his temples.
“What?” demanded Big Merv.
“If we’d managed to keep the loot, would you have trusted me enough to let me stash it?” asked The Pan.
“Where?”
“Where I keep my own.”
“Depends where that is.”
“Nowhere anyone’s ever found it.”
OK, so that was a lie, but nobody had admitted finding The Pan’s loot. It was just that he knew Gladys dusted it once in a while, when she spring-cleaned behind the barrels in the cellar. Gladys was a cleanest-front-step-in-the-street kind of woman, and so was Ada.
“How are we gonna get from here to the loot and from there to stashing it?” asked Big Merv.
“By combining a little imagination with the wonders of quantum physics,” said The Pan smugly.
“You’re cracking up aren’t yer?”
“But if I could do it, shift the loot somewhere safe, would you trust me?”
“Maybe,” said Big Merv.
“Shake on it?” said The Pan, giving his boss what he hoped was a meaningful look.
Big Merv stood up, picked up his ball and chain and sauntered over to where The Pan was sitting.
“Yeh. OK,” he said, sticking out his hand. The Pan shook it and felt the pressure of something cool and metallic in his palm, he turned his hand over to hide it and Big Merv sat down next to him. In his hand he could feel a small box. The loot. In his other hand was the thimble. All he had to do was combine the two, put the box through the thimble into his stash in the Parrot’s cellar. Gladys would find it eventually and when she did, she could hand it on to the old man. Box, thimble, stash – easy as one, two, three. Except it wasn’t. The Pan was so nervous he thought he was going to be sick. His hands were clammy and shaking. Big Merv was watching him intently which was making it worse. No, forget Big Merv, he must concentrate on what he was doing and be careful not to drop anything.
“It’ll be fine,” he muttered and taking a deep breath he jammed the box in his right hand into the thimble in his left. There was a loud sucking sound and lots of pressure, he could feel it trying to draw his hand in, as well as the box, before he remembered to let go. Then there was a pop, like a champagne cork, and it had gone. The Pan just had time to raise his left hand to his eye and check that the loot, their loot, was in the cellar of the Parrot and Screwdriver before the door opened and Denarghi walked in flanked by the ubiquitous sawn-off shotgun-toting guards. Big Merv was visibly paler but he collected himself admirably. The Pan wished he could explain – he hadn’t thought about the noise, he hadn’t thought about the fact that Big Merv was unlikely to have seen anything that bizarre before. He showed him his other hand, the empty one and hoped he would understand.
“Holy Arnold! What in The Prophet’s name was that?” said Big Merv.
“On your feet,” barked Denarghi, “now!”
“Don’t worry, long story,” said The Pan as they stood up.
“Oh, but we have plenty of time,” said Denarghi, who had heard. “Guards!” There was a loud click as the four guards aimed their
sawn-off shotguns in perfect precision. “You may begin, Hamgeean scum.”
Chapter 52
The Pan wondered where to start. There was no way he was going to flannel his way out of this one, he was going to have to tell them the truth, although maybe not all of it. He didn’t think Big Merv would like it or that Denarghi would believe him. The silence lengthened.
“Any time this decade will suit me fine,” said Denarghi, “I would advise you to speak up soon though. I have had enough of recalcitrant criminals today. Your mute friends have met with the fate they deserved and you will go the same way if you don’t start talking.”
“You shot Frank and Harry?” asked Big Merv, his natural colour all but disappearing. He was now beige, if he was any colour at all. “That’s worse than the bleedin’ Grongles. They ain’t done nothing to you.”
“They crossed me,” said Denarghi flatly, “they had a choice; they could join us, be sold to the Grongles or choose an honourable death—they chose death.”
“Merv,” muttered The Pan, “they’re the Resistance, they’re doing what they do; you chuck people into the river Dang all the time, it’s the same deal.”
“It smeckin’ ain’t, on account of the fact I don’t hardly ever chuck ’em in.”
“You mean Frank and Harry do it, er sorry, did it.”
“No! I mean it don’t get that far. It’s all about applying pressure innit? A little bit of pressure and they crack like you did, you great puff! Why would I waste blokes; deprive a family of a father or a mother of a son when with a little bit of nous,” he tapped the side of his head, “I can use ’em instead? I’m a civilised businessman, not an animal! Arnold knows the Grongles do enough killing.”
“But all the stories—”
“Are stories! Spin! Nothing more! By the eyeballs of The Prophet! No wonder you’re so scared of me! Whaddaya think I am? A monster? Lord Vernon? I have morals as good as the next man. Nobody wants a war, training ain’t that quick and lives ain’t that cheap. Where I come from, nobody dies unless they have to.” He glared belligerently at Denarghi. “We could have sorted this out between us. We’re men of the world! You didn’t have to top Frank and Harry!”