by Ted Lewis
Well, so will I.
THE SMOKE
“WELL, IT SEEMS QUITE apparent to me,” James said.
“Does it?”
“They’re going to extract their pound of flesh financially,” he said. “Quite bright of them, really. For them.”
“You think that’s what they’re going to do, do you?”
“What else? I hate to put it this way, but if they were going to do anything to Jean, they’d have done it, and the only phone call you’d have got would have been to tell you where to find the body.”
I poured myself another drink.
“Supposing they intend marking her?”
“I don’t think so,” he said.
“Why don’t you think so?”
“Partly for the same reason I don’t think they intend killing her; they wouldn’t bother to phone.”
“To make me sweat, that’s why they phoned.”
“If that was the real reason, it would have been far more effective not to have phoned at all, wouldn’t it?”
I drank my drink.
“I don’t know,” I said.
I poured myself another drink and sat down.
“Of course,” I said, “they could be using her to get to me. To make an exchange.”
“It’s possible,” James said.
“I hope so,” I said. “For her sake.”
“How much could you raise?” James said. “If my supposition is correct.”
“As much as necessary.”
“Good,” James said. “Good.”
The phone rang at nine o’clock.
“If you want her back, unmarked,” the voice said, “it’ll cost you three hundred thousand.”
“Is she all right?”
“What do you think?”
“Put her on.”
“Can’t at the moment,” the voice said. “Not convenient.”
“Listen—”
“No. You listen. You want to see her again, alive, unmarked, that’s the deal.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I take it you want her back?”
“Get on with it.”
“I’ll tell you the arrangements, then. You want me to do that?”
He told me the arrangements. I agreed to them and put the phone down.
“Just as I said,” James said. “They’re being very sensible.”
“They’ve never been sensible in their lives,” I said. “Why should they start now?”
James took a sip of his brandy.
“No,” I said, “it’s me they want.”
“If that’s the case,” James said, after a short silence, “what happens next?”
“I follow the arrangements. If they’re stuck to, Jean’ll be safe and out of it before they can get a crack at me. In the event that they’re successful, Jean knows what to do, as far as the business side’s concerned.”
James was quiet.
“I wonder if we ought not to consider this,” he said.
“What’s to consider?” I said. “If I don’t go, Jean’s dead.”
There was nothing even James could say to that.
THE SEA
I PUT ANOTHER FILM in the projector. Outside the window, dusk begins to collect at the top of the sky.
I watch the flickering images on the screen.
There’s been no phone call.
They can’t think I’m that stupid.
She dropped the hint though. So sure of my stupidity, so sure of herself, she’d risked that. But this. Giving me time.
I’m not wrong. It all fits. It’s all nice and neat. What are they trying to do, throw me somehow? And by doing that, throw their own plans out the window?
I switch off the machine and decide to go and talk to Eddie. I know I’ve got plenty of time, but I can’t stand killing it like this, being pissed on by a couple of amateurs.
I get in the car and drive into Mablethorpe.
When I get there it’s not quite opening time, so I park the car at the bottom of the ramp and walk up and onto the minimarina and sit on one of the benches at the base of the mound and look out across the half blue to the horizon.
About ten minutes later the lights go on in the Dunes. I turn my head and look at the flat rectangle the huge window makes on the sand.
Then I get up and walk along the mini-promenade and into the Dunes.
Howard is behind the bar, bottling up.
“Didn’t know you were opening up tonight,” I say to him.
“I’m not,” Howard says, straightening up. “I couldn’t be bothered to come in this morning.”
“What did you come in for anyway?”
“There’s some wrestling on tomorrow night. May as well get stocked up now. Anyway it’s something to do, isn’t it? Better than Stars on Sunday.”
He wipes two glasses and operates the optics.
“Go to the South last night?” I said. “After you’d cleared up here?”
“Yeah, for half an hour.”
“I hear Eddie was well pissed.”
“Doesn’t take much with him. He thinks he’s a boozer. Always throwing up.”
I sip my drink.
“Seen him today?”
“No thanks. Not yet.”
I drain my glass.
“Not stopping?” Howard says.
“Got to see a man about a dog.”
As I walk towards the end of the mini-promenade, a figure turns the corner from the ramp and begins to walk towards me, not quite so jaunty, but unmistakably Eddie.
“Eddie,” I say, as he gets close to me.
Eddie jumps slightly.
“Oh, hello, Mr. Carson,” he says. “I didn’t see you.”
“Where’re you off to?”
“I wanted to see if Howard was around. He keeps some stuff for hangovers.”
“Heavy night, I hear.”
“Not half.”
“Celebrating, were you?”
“I suppose I was, really. Well, because of the van, and Lesley.”
“Yes. Eddie, you got a minute? For a little chat?”
“A little chat?”
I indicate one of the bench seats.
“Yeah, sure,” he says.
We sit down.
“Look,” he says, “if it’s about the money, I’ll be—”
“No, it’s not about the money, Eddie. Not about that money.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said, not about that money.”
“What money, then?” he says.
“The money you and Lesley think you’re going to screw out of me.”
Eddie lets it filter through for a moment or two.
“I’m sorry,” he says, “I don’t get it.”
“That’s true enough,” I say, “you don’t. But you understand what I mean. Don’t you, Eddie?”
Eddie shakes his head, squeezes the bridge of his nose. “I’m not with you,” he says. “You think Lesley and I are out to screw you out of some money?”
“Now you’re with me, Eddie.”
There’s a short silence.
“Look,” he says, “you’re loaded. It’s obvious. And when you lent me the money, well, I figured it was because you fancied Lesley, and I must admit, I hoped, when we got going, you might invest a little bit in us, I can’t deny you. But I wasn’t trying to screw you, honest. Neither of us was. I mean, it wasn’t that way at all. You got it all wrong.”
“You’ve blown it, Eddie,” I say to him. “You may as well tell me all about it.”
“All about what?”
I take the gun out of my pocket and lay the barrel against his cheek. Eddie tries to look at the gun without moving his head, his left eye almost popping out on to his cheek.
“Everything,” I say.
Eddie’s mouth works for a while before any sound comes out. When it does, he says, “What’s going on?”
“That’s my question.”
“I don’t know what you mean. Honest.”
“Where does she live?”
“I told you. I don’t know where she lives.”
I take the gun from his face and shove the barrel into his ribs and give him time to get his breath back.
“Where?” I ask him again.
He shakes his head.
“I don’t know. Honest.”
“Listen, Eddie,” I say to him. “You know who I am. You know what I could do. Don’t you think you ought to tell me?”
“I don’t know what you mean. ’Course I know who you are.”
“Who am I, Eddie?”
“What you talking about? You’re Mr. Carson, aren’t you?”
He looks down at the gun that’s still sticking into him. “Honest, I’d tell you where she lived if I knew, I would, honest.”
I get up and point the barrel at his forehead, laying the metal lightly against his skin.
“What are you doing?” he says.
“Waiting for you to tell me what I want to know.”
He shakes his head and the gun vibrates slightly in my hand.
“I can’t,” he says, “I can’t if I don’t know.”
I press the gun a little harder.
“Don’t,” he says. “I don’t know what this is about. But don’t, please.”
I hold the gun there a moment longer, then let it drop to my side.
“All right, Eddie,” I say. “I believe you.”
Eddie stays the way he was, like a municipal statue.
“I apologise,” I tell him. “I made a mistake.”
He still doesn’t move, not one muscle.
I slip the gun in my pocket.
With that, Eddie’s off the seat, up the slope of the mound like a greyhound out of trap one.
I rush after him and it’s not until he’s almost at the top of the mound that I catch hold of him by his ankles, but even on his hands and knees he’s still trying to make it to the top. I heave myself on top of him and flatten him beneath my weight and when he’s given up I roll him over on to his back, keeping a grip on him by his collar.
“All right,” I tell him. “I’ve told you. I made a mistake. You’ve nothing to worry about. All right?”
Eddie just stares at me.
I feel in my jacket pocket and withdraw my wallet. Eddie watches my every move, and even when he clocks that the wallet isn’t the gun he still stares at it as though it is.
I let go of him and, still leaning on his chest, I sort two hundred quid out of the wallet and put the wallet back in my pocket.
“Look,” I tell him, showing him the money, “this is for you. You can have some more, next week. On one condition. You don’t talk to anyone about this. Anyone. Particularly the girl. Particularly her.”
He looks at the money, then at me, then back at the money.
“Because I’ll know,” I said. “If you tell anybody. You can be certain of that.”
He doesn’t say anything. I waft the money in front of his nose.
“You want this, Eddie?”
He nods, very slightly.
“You want some more, next week.”
He nods again.
I get up, and he gets up. I hand him the money. He takes it, and begins to back up to the top of the mound. I walk slowly up after him.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” I said. “I just made a mistake, all right?”
He nods, still backing away.
“I’ll see you in the week, about the other,” I tell him.
By now we’ve changed places in the sense that Eddie has reached the summit of the mound and is descending the side that faces the town, still backwards. I, on the other, now stand on the summit.
“Yeah,” Eddie says. “I’ll see you in the week.”
Then he turns and begins to scamper down the mound, not too quickly at first, but gaining momentum the farther down he goes.
“Hope your hangover clears up,” I call after him, but I doubt very much if he’ll be able to hear me, the way the wind’ll be roaring in his ears.
THE SMOKE
I TRUNDLED THE MOTOR along the track that led to the brickworks and parked next to the nearest of the disused kilns.
I put the shotgun across my knees and waited. The holdall was on the seat next to me.
The first car to appear was a Granada. It stopped about thirty yards away, on the other side of the open area, headlights floodlighting the middle of my motor.
The second car was the Mercedes. It parked up by the Granada, but not pointing at me, at a right-angle to the Granada, parallel to mine.
One of the Granada windows rolled down and a loud-hailer was stuck out into the night. I rolled down my own window.
“Bring out the money, Fowler,” the voice cracked.
I shouted back, “Fuck off. First I see Jean.”
There was a short silence. Then one of the Mercedes doors opened and the figure of Jean emerged into the darkness, sealskin coat, new hair-do. The door closed and the figure stayed where it was. The loud-hailer came back.
“All right, Fowler?”
“All right.”
“Now fetch the money.”
“You think I’m stupid. Send somebody.”
“There’s a shooter on her, Fowler. You want to see that?”
“You do that, and there’s no money. If it’s the money you want.”
Silence.
“All right. Throw the bag out of the window.”
I heave the bag out.
“The minute your man picks it up, Jean starts walking,” I shouted.
Silence.
“Right,” from the loud-hailer.
Nothing happened for a moment. Then one of the rear doors of the Granada opened and someone got out of it and began to walk towards me.
From the outline, as the figure approached my motor, back-lit by the Granada’s headlights, I judged it to be Rich Shepherdson.
Maybe James had been right; they could have sent anybody out, if it was me and not the money they wanted.
Rich got as far as the holdall.
“Stop,” I said.
Rich stopped.
“He’s covered,” I shouted. “Jean starts. Then he can pick up the bag.”
Nothing happened for a few seconds. Then Jean began to walk forward.
“All right,” I said to Rich. “Pick it up.”
He picked up the bag and turned his back on me. It would have been so easy.
He began to walk away. Jean came closer. The minute they passed, Rich began to run, and the Granada’s engine gunned up, started to reverse. I daren’t shoot at Rich’s flying figure, because in their headlights Jean was a perfect target for them. Rich dived into the Granada.
“Run,” I shouted to her.
She stopped walking, looked back at the reversing Granada, as though she was confused.
“Run!” I shouted again.
She did. But in the opposite direction. Back towards the reversing Granada.
The Granada stopped reversing, shot forward, between me and the Mercedes. Jean was stark in its headlights.
“Jean!” I screamed at her, scrambling out of my motor.
The Granada swung across her path, broadside on. Another window rolled down.
The blast hurled her backwards and upwards, like a punch-bag when Frazier’s hit it.
I screamed and fired. All the Granada’s side windows shattered. Somebody else screamed, inside the Granada.
Then I became calm. Because I was now out of the headlights, I was no longer a good target. So while the driver was trying to sort out the gears I took out both the nearside tires. Doors began to open. I pumped shells into the chambers and fired at the figures emerging on my side of the Granada. They were no problem, those on this side of the Granada; it was those who’d got out on the opposite side, those that were making for the Mercedes.
I ran forward. The figures wrenched at the doors. I lay across the bonnet and fired and took out the one trying to get in on the passenger side. He was stil
l hanging on to the handle when the other one set the Mercedes off and began to scream it off into the darkness. I blasted out the rear window, but that was all I could do.
The Mercedes disappeared into the night, leaving everything very quiet and very still.
I ran back to where Jean was and knelt down beside her and lifted her up in my arms and looked into her face and the wig slid off.
It wasn’t Jean.
THE SEA
I CARRY THE CARDBOARD box back down into the basement and put back the ones I’ve already run through and re-fit the box with those I haven’t.
When I’ve done that, I light a cigarette and stare at the racks.
The section devoted to Jean is at the far end, near the foot of the basement steps.
Three shelves full.
Some of the boxes even have her picture on the outside.
I continue smoking the cigarette, and looking at the shelves.
When I’ve finished the cigarette, I tread on it, pick up the refilled box and walk towards the foot of the stairs.
When I get to the bottom step, I put the box down on the fourth or fifth step and straighten up and look at the shelves containing Jean.
Neat rows of boxes and cans.
Videos. Eight-mill boxes. Sixteen-mill cans. With sound.
I extend an arm.
At random, I take one of the eight-mill boxes off a shelf. It doesn’t have a picture of Jean on it. I put it in the cardboard box, on top of the others.
Then I pick up the box and walk up the steps and put the box down on the garage floor and close the trapdoor behind me.
When I’m back in the lounge, I pour myself a drink and look at the films as they lie in the box. They all sit neatly in there, except for the box with Jean in it. It makes an angled diamond on top of the straight lines of the other boxes.
It has to be done, some time.
But will I be able to bear it, after what happened to her?
To look at her again, the way she used to be.
Part of me is screaming for me to pick up the box. The rest of me is screaming, just as hard, not.
I reach forward, to pick up Jean’s box.
There is a tapping on the window.
I look up.
Lesley is standing there, twinned by the double glazing, illuminated by the room’s soft lighting.
There’s nothing I can do. All the movie equipment’s out. The cardboard box containing the films is in the middle of the floor.