Shooting Sean

by Colin Bateman

  She frowned. Either she realised she'd never met me or she got a whiff of Victor facking Dalgetty's cheap facking aftershave. It had said Calvin on the bottle, but was probably a cheap Filipino copy, like his animation. Calvin and Hobbes. She shook her head and said, 'Nah.'

  I moved on. I saw Robert de Niro. I pointed a finger at him and said, 'You lookin' at me?' and laughed and he gave the kind of pained expression that generally precedes a vasectomy. I repeated the Sean question wherever I went but nobody had seen him, or was admitting to it. I returned to reception and said, 'Have you seen Sean O'Toole?'

  He was small and swarthy and in his forties. There was a hint of a squint, like he should be wearing glasses but his vanity wouldn't let him. 'I have not seen him this evening, Monsieur Manilow.'

  I paused. My brain started to whirr. The first instinct, obviously, was to smack him. I gripped the top of the desk; he didn't look down; if his eyesight had been up to it he might have seen my knuckles whiten in anger. I forced a smile. The whirring stopped at Plan B and I said, 'Can I have my key?'

  He smiled and turned, he checked the key rack and then turned back, the smile still in place, although the key obviously wasn't. 'I'm sorry, Monsieur Manilow, you . . .'

  'Stolen, give me another.'

  'Of course.'

  He opened a small safe and removed a key. I thanked him. As he passed it across he said quietly, 'I hope you do not mind me saying, but I think ze nose, it is much improved.'

  'You mean, you thought it was big?'

  'No . . .' he began, flustered. 'Only now it is . . . smaller.'

  'What room is Sean O'Toole in?' I snapped.

  ''E 'as a junior bachelor suite in our Eden Roc wing, Monsieur Manilow. Very close to your own. Number thirty-seven,'

  'Is he in?'

  He checked his key rack again. "Is key is not 'ere, monsieur, he may be . . . but these . . . well, sometimes they forget . . .'

  'I didn't forget mine. It was stolen.'

  'Of course, monsieur.'

  I lifted my key, I nodded, and turned away from the desk. On the way out of reception there was a mirrored column and I paused for a moment to study my reflection. What if his eyesight wasn't that bad and I really did look like Barry Manilow? Or even worse, I was turning into him.

  I strolled out of the main building and down towards Eden Roc. If anybody stopped me and asked me for a quick rendition of 'Copacabana' I would kill them, then myself. I swung the key ring in my hand so anyone who was inquisitive would know I was a resident. The Eden Roc wing was situated directly above the rocky coastline. There was a private landing pier with two medium-sized yachts tied up; and even at this late hour there were a few guests splashing about in the water and one rattling past on a jet-ski. There were wooden cabanas close to the shore with sun decks and easy chairs, but few were occupied.

  Manilow's bachelor suite was on the third floor. Four doors along was Sean O'Toole's. My hands were shaking. Even for your family, killing is a big thing. I decided on a drink first, just to settle myself. And it was a good thing. As I slipped the key into Manilow's door, Sean O'Toole's opened.

  I slipped into Manilow's suite. In the moment I took to check, I saw that it was brightly lit, spacious and there was no indication that an international singing sensation was at home, or even Barry Manilow. There were footsteps outside. I let them pass, then opened the door a fraction. Sean. Shadowed by four of the heaviest heavies this side of heavyville. I cursed, quietly. They were waiting for the elevator.

  Slip out and take out as many as I could?

  Or bide my time, time my family didn't have?

  I cursed again.

  Sean was in evening dress. A white suit, black bow tie. He was in Cannes. He was going to a premiere. He would be going up those blue-carpeted steps outside the Palais des Festivals, there would be TV cameras and thousands of screaming fans pressing in on either side.

  Just the time to take out a gun and pump him full of lead.

  Behind me a nasal twang sounded from the bathroom, Is that you, Paulie?'

  38

  I closed the apartment door, blocking out my intended victim. Service in the hotel was probably wonderfully fast, but the elevator was tediously slow. I was trapped between a rock and a bouffant hairstyle. The question from the bathroom was repeated, then the door started to open. I nipped smartly across and took hold of the handle and forced it closed again; the surprise of it meant there was little resistance.

  'Paulie?' the voice came again. I had no way of knowing if Paulie was manservant, bodyguard or the man who provided the flowers that lent a sprightly odour to the suite, or all three, but he certainly wasn't me. From outside the door came the ping of the elevator arriving.

  'Paulie, are we playing a game?'

  I didn't reply. I held tight.

  'You know I'm stronger than you, Paulie, you can't win.'

  And the door began to move inwards. There was nothing I could do about it. All that personal trainer shit was more effective than it appeared. So I gave him a hand and slammed my shoulder into it. There was a crack from behind as it flew back, and suddenly I was looking into the bathroom at a star on the floor holding his broken nose and looking up at me through a handful of blood and tears.

  'Who the hell are you?' he cried.

  'Security,' I said. 'I thought you were an intruder.'

  'You stupid fuck! You broke my nose! It's my best feature!'

  'Jesus,' I said, 'you're in trouble.'

  He began to pull himself up. 'I'm going to speak to the goddamn manager about this . . .'

  Before he could raise himself any further I thumped him on the jaw and he sagged back onto his knees.

  'What the hell was that for?' he cried.

  'Nothing,' I said, and thumped him again. 'But that was for "I Write the Songs That Make the Whole World Sing".'

  If he heard it, there was no indication. He was flat out on the tiles, oozing blood. In time he would recover, and the tabloids would speculate on his expensive rhinoplasty and the fact that it gave added lustre to his voice, thanks to improved breathing. Before I left I cleaned his wallet, but there was little to take. He was too rich to carry money. But there were keys to a red Ferrari. I hesitated. If I took it I would be sticking out like a sore thumb, but I'd be a fucking fast sore thumb. I went to the window. Sean and his bodyguards had emerged from the Eden Roc wing, but instead of turning back up towards the main building they were heading down to the sea. Dressed like that, he wasn't going for a swim. They stepped onto the jetty and walked towards the yacht I had noticed before. A sailor in white saluted, then ushered them on board.

  That settled it.

  Ferrari time. It was a summer's evening and the roads leading into Cannes would be chocker. The sea was calm and virtually empty. I needed to make up every minute I could.

  Before I left I hurried into the bathroom and turned him into the recovery position. He gurgled a little, but he was breathing freely. It was the least I could do. An untimely death would only lead to an explosion in his popularity and I'd do double time for that.

  I ignored the elevator and hurried down the stairs. Outside I gave the keys to a bellboy and he hurried away. I retained my shades and my silence. There was no need to explain or justify, he knew bizarre behaviour went with the territory. The kid, not more than seventeen, came roaring back. I gave him two hundred francs and climbed in. Then I kangarooed the mean machine up the path towards the entrance. I checked the mirror to see if the bellboy was smirking, because the tip could easily be reclaimed, but he remained gravel faced.

  For several hundred yards I continued to drive like Stevie Wonder. I lost one wing mirror to a gate post and managed to inflict a long scrape along the right-hand side thanks to a protruding rock, but by the time I pulled out onto the open road I had mastered the beast. Not bad for a Ford Fiesta jock.

  I was cruising, until I hit the traffic.

  It would have been quicker to swim. I got as far as the top end of t
he Croisette then was turned away by the gendarmes; they'd declared gridlock and nobody else was getting through. I didn't protest, or shoot them. I found a backstreet and parked. I left the keys in the ignition. Happy birthday, somebody.

  There was a gun in my pocket and one thought in my mind. I stopped at the Petit Carlton, a pub version of the larger seafront hotel and the focus of most British drinking activity in Cannes. It was full to overflowing, as were the drinkers. They crowded out onto the pavement and the road. I slipped through them into the pub so that I could peruse the dailies, the freebie trade newspapers that kept everyone up to date on the deals that were being made and what was being shown, where and when; they sat unread on a table squashed into the corner. It only took a moment to check. If Sean was attending a competition film at the Palais des Festivals, then he was attending his own.

  It shouldn't have surprised me.

  While my world had been falling apart, while people had been dying and getting thumped and dealing drugs and floating face down in pools, Sean had been working away, completing his film. Even though I was virtually certain that several of the cans of film I'd liberated from Paralog had ended up in a canal, he had evidently still been able to claw from the police what was left of his masterpiece and complete his post production in record time, and now he was ready for his moment of triumph.

  I checked my watch. The movie had started. His fans, and there were many, would have screamed for him as he entered, and I intended to give them an additional reason to scream as he left.

  They were forty-five minutes into the film already. The guide listed it as a three-hour epic. And after that there would be time for the standing ovations and the press conference; then, and only then, would he appear back on the Palais steps to acknowledge his fans and then leave.

  I had three drinks, two beers and a Smirnoff, just to settle me. I was thinking about a fourth for good luck when I saw Victor facking Dalgetty weaving through the crowd outside. I didn't know whether he'd kiss me or kill me, so I ducked out the side entrance before he saw me. I snuggled the gun in my pocket and started to walk. I'd had my last drink, perhaps for ever.

  It was a fifteen-minute walk to the steps of the Palais des Festivals. The road remained gridlocked. Tens of thousands of film fans were jammed on the sidewalks and pressed between the stationary cars; equally many stood penned back from the Palais steps by crash barriers. The whole scene was depicted on a giant video screen which dominated the front of the building. From time to time the focus of the screen would change from the Palais exit to the steps, and from there to the huge white stretch limo waiting at their foot. A double line of crash barriers had been set up around it and stretched for several hundred yards, allowing the vehicle to cut not only through the crowd, but also through the gridlock. If he wanted to, Sean could make a swift exit. But I knew him well enough to be sure that he would linger to milk the adulation. They wouldn't have seen the film, they didn't know if it was a classic or a piece of shit. All they were interested in was that he was a star, and just as they wouldn't have been able to guess from his demeanour that his wife was dead, neither would they be able to judge how his movie had been received.

  I eased into the crowd. I spent the best part of forty minutes working my way forward. An inch, a foot at a time; the nearer I got to the front, to the limo, the tighter it became. I was drenched with sweat. I stepped on toes. I kicked the backs of heels and looked away. I oozed, I eased, I pushed, I blew alcohol and farted ill wind. But I got there, because I had to. I would not be moved. My hands gripped the crash barriers. Just a few yards separated me from the limo. There would not be enough space for me to lever my body over the barrier when he appeared; I would be lucky to get enough room to remove the gun from my pocket and start shooting. There was excited jaw-jaw to my left and right and behind, and I understood none of it; maybe it was French, maybe it was English, nothing was getting through.

  My brain was gridlocked.

  Time stood still, or seemed to.

  My wedding day.

  Little Stevie.

  Walks in the park and laughs.

  Elmo in Grouchland at the cinema.

  There was moisture on my face, but it wasn't sweat.

  I had to kill in their name.

  He was not an innocent man, neither was he the worst in the world.

  But he would die, because it was the only chance they had.

  Some time later a roar went up. I glanced at the video screen and saw Sean O'Toole emerge.

  Camera flashes and screams filled the air. His face seemed to be sixty feet high, and the smile that filled it did not seem to be one of disappointment.

  I eased my hand into my jacket. He was coming down the steps. For once his guards were giving him a little space. It was contrary to the rules of security, but Sean was making his own rules. This was his moment. One of them, anyway. And perhaps his final one.

  My hand closed around the gun. My finger caressed the trigger.

  As Sean drew closer the roar around me grew in volume and pitch. The crowd pressed forward, edging towards hysteria. The security guards were pointlessly scanning the sea of faces for trouble: too many camera flashes, too many waving hands, too many manic faces.

  And then he was but a car length away.

  I removed the gun, kept it tight to my chest.

  He stopped, raised a hand, smiled, waved.

  The moment.

  Do and die.

  I raised the gun.

  I aimed, I fired.

  I did not drop the gun until six bullets had exited the barrel.

  I did not drop the gun until I saw blood explode first on his arm, then on his chest; once, twice, three times.

  I did not drop the gun until I saw him fall behind the car.

  I did not drop the gun until my job was done.

  39

  There is a silence of relief which comes with being locked in a cell after carrying out a heinous but necessary crime. It is not a real silence, because there are always phones ringing and footsteps on stairs and the cries of other prisoners, and there is also the memory of greater noise: of people screaming and sirens wailing and the thump-thump sound of fists into face; but it is still a kind of silence, a calm satisfaction that comes with having completed your task. That you have done everything you can, that you no longer have any control over what others might do.

  Hours.

  I was brought water, and peered at quite a lot through a peephole.

  The gendarme with the water said nothing, but did not seem especially unfriendly. Perhaps he was not French.

  I said, 'Has it been on TV? Are there reporters outside?' He put down the plastic bottle of Evian, raised his eyebrows a fraction and left.

  But of course there were. It was a stupid question.

  Sean O'Toole was dead. Film star. Cannes. Murder on the Croisette. Any moment now the door would re-open and Hercule Poirot would stroll in.

  Somewhere, somewhere else.

  Mouse was a reporter, it would have come in over the wires moments after I'd killed Sean O'Toole; if he was at home, they'd phone him, but he wouldn't be at home; he wouldn't just have left it to the police, he would be out with them, and if not, he'd be out there by himself, searching, following leads; he would not go home until he found my family.

  The Colonel, sitting in his bare cell, would be told, and he would think a while, then he would demand proof. They would show him a TV and he would know it was true because there would be nothing else but Sean O'Toole. That's showbiz. Hastily compiled obituaries and clips of his finest big screen moments. And then there would be pictures of me, from TV cameras and handicams and use-once-and-throw-away tourist cameras, pictures of me dragged and beaten by the mob and then rescued by the police. Grave-voiced commentators would refer to me as the man suspected of killing Sean O'Toole, when it was all too bloody obvious that I had done it.

  I was an assassin.

  Does France have the death penalty?

  I
couldn't remember. Probably not.

  But does it still have Devil's Island? Was I destined for some Papillon-like existence, dressed in rags and endlessly trying to escape? More likely I would get an agent, sign a book deal and sell the movie rights for many millions of dollars. That was the way it worked. Nanny child-killers and cancer-stricken bank tellers did it, so would I. My money problems would be over, once I had served my time, much reduced because of mitigating circumstances. We could spend the rest of our lives on a sunny island somewhere.

  We.

  I hammered on the door. 'I need to know about my wife! I need to know about my son! In the name of Christ tell me what's going on!'

  I thumped and kicked and slapped and cried and cracked my head against it.

  Nothing.

  Heartless.

  Cruel.

  I lay on the bed and buried my face in the pillow. It smelled of detergent.

  After an eternity the door clanked open again. I stayed face down. The voice said, 'Dan?' and it was Irish with a twinge of America and I turned and looked at Sean O'Toole smiling in. 'How're ya doin'?' he asked.

  I swung my legs off the bed. 'I'm asleep. You're a ghost.'

  'No, you're awake and I'm a critically acclaimed director. If we spin this out long enough they might even give me a posthumous Palme d'Or.'

  I said, 'What the fuck are you talking about?'

  He stepped into the cell, and then to one side as Maurice, my taxi-driving Interpol agent, entered behind him.

  I put my head in my hands. 'I don't believe this,' I said.

  Maurice crossed to the bed. I thought for a moment he was reaching out to shake my hand, but instead he passed me a mobile phone. 'It's Belfast. The Colonel has given the location.'

  I sat up straight, I held the warm plastic to my ear. 'Hello?' I said.

  'Mr Starkey?' came the response, slightly out of breath, with the sound of a roaring car engine and a siren nearly drowning him out. 'This is Inspector . . .'