Screwed dm-2

by Eoin Colfer

  I follow the jangle and find a ring of keys, a valet ticket and a phone. No car key.

  “These are house keys, Freckles.”

  “It’s the key ring McEvoy. Remote starter.”

  Now that is convenient.

  “That is convenient,” I say, pocketing the keys, ticket and phone.

  I can see the attraction of robbing folks now. You just go around with a gun and take what you want.

  “So are you going to shoot this little prick?” presses Freckles. “He’s killing the business.”

  Shea takes a handful of hummus and smears it across Freckles’s cheeks. “You go straight to fuckin’ murder? We couldn’t talk it over?”

  The kid is still in cloud cuckoo land. I should shake him up a bit to make him think twice about coming after me should he survive. I take two rapid steps around the desk and force his head into his carton of food, mashing it in there.

  “Like you were talking it out with me?” I say. “Is that what you mean?”

  “I was trying to scare you,” he protests.

  “Bullshit. As far as you were concerned, you were talking to a dead man.”

  “You were totally dead,” Freckles confirms. “We had the plot all picked out, McEvoy. This prick wanted to shoot you himself, make his bones, like anyone even says that anymore.”

  I got one guy with his head on a table and another with his arse in the air. This is unsustainable. I need an exit strategy.

  “Okay, over by the window, both of you.”

  “But . . .” says Edward Shea, so I crack him on the crown with Freckles’s silencer.

  “Shut up, kid. Talking just gets you dead faster. By the window.”

  They go, glaring and elbowing like two kids. Freckles is all mutter and bluster but he knows I could give him his gun back, put one hand in my pocket and still beat the bejaysus out of him, so he’s gonna bide his time.

  The effect by the window is what I’d hoped for. Sunlight blots out their features, makes it difficult to see who’s who.

  “Okay. Now drop your pants.”

  Freckles has some balls, and he doesn’t want to show them to me.

  “Fuck yourself, McEvoy. I ain’t going out with my pants down ’less I’m getting blowed by Jennifer Aniston.”

  It’s a nice ambition but Freckles has gotta accept that it’s aspirational to say the least.

  I cock the weapon. “I’ll call Jenn. You get yourself ready.”

  Freckles goes to work on a buckle in the shape of the classic Playboy bunny silhouette, which I’m sure would impress the hell out of Ms. Aniston.

  The one where the superstar blows the Paddy mobster.

  “What about you, kid? You got any conditions?”

  “Sure. Why don’t you blow me?”

  All credit to the kid. Maybe he has some moxy too.

  But he wiggles out of his little hipster jeans and holy shit I cannot believe it, the two of them are wearing matching underpants. White y-fronts with yellow piping.

  I’ve been teetering on the brink of hysteria the whole day and this sends me tumbling over the edge. I cough through ten seconds of ragged laughter and wipe tears from my eyes, because blurry eyes when you’re covering hostiles is for amateurs.

  “You gotta be kidding me. I don’t know why you guys are fighting, you have a lot in common.”

  “I’ve been wearing these shorts for years,” says Freckles sullenly. “Not this exact pair.”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” says Shea. “I broke into your house and stole them.”

  “I don’t fucking know, do I?” says Freckles. “Who can understand kids, these days. I saw a movie the other day where this Saw guy was peeling faces. What kind of shit is that?”

  Freckles is showing initiative by trying to appeal to me as a fellow oldie, but it’s having zero impact.

  “Now, hold hands,” I order, stony faced. I know they’ll object, which I have no patience for, so I shoot a hole in Shea’s stool, knocking it over backward. The falling stool makes more noise than the bullet.

  “Hold hands, girls. Squeeze fucking tight.”

  What choice do they have? They hold hands. I wonder would they kiss, if I insisted?

  The clatter brings a goon to the door. He raps gently.

  “Eh, boss? Everything okay?”

  “Don’t call me boss!” screams Shea, impulsively I guess.

  “Sorry, Mr. Shea. You all squared away in there with the guy . . . situation?”

  I wiggle the gun a little and Shea gets the message and calms down.

  “Yeah, it’s all cool. Come in here, both of you. There’s a little heavy lifting to be done.”

  I back up, keeping one gun on the window and the other on the door. This is the tightrope bit, keeping the balls in the air, to mix my circus metaphors. It’s all smoke and mirrors and windows. And two douche clowns outside.

  The clowns walk in with that tough-guy, rolling-shoulders nonchalance and stop dead in their tracks when they catch sight of what is framed by the window.

  “What . . .” says KFC.

  “The fuck?” completes his partner with comic timing that would make Ferrel and Rudd crap themselves.

  I feel myself waiting to see how these two would interpret the situation so I decide to jump in.

  “Okay, boys. Guns on the table.”

  KFC moves a little faster than I’m expecting, jinking left and diving for cover, with the result that I shoot him in the calf rather than the foot, and he face-plants into the desk, stunning himself. His partner is frozen by indecision and stands there shuddering until the opportunity has passed. His massive shoulders hitch as he begins to sob, disgusted with himself, and he takes his gun out and meekly lays it on the table. I frisk KFC and find a single pistol and a knife. I keep the knife hoping I don’t have to go through a metal detector anytime soon as I am fast becoming a walking arsenal. The gun I place on the office table.

  I grab KFC’s collar and drag him to his feet.

  “You better belt that,” I say, pointing to the bullet wound.

  “You’re dead, man,” he says, but it’s just for show. His face is pale and he’s already halfway into shock, but he has enough motor skills left to remove his belt and tie off the wound.

  When I have everyone by the window, I give them my speech.

  “Let me summarize the situation. You guys are some kind of hooligans. Drugs, money, whatever, I never heard of you.”

  “Mostly drugs,” says KFC, a little addled by his situation. “And we off folks and shit.”

  “Great. Okay. We’re all on the same page. So here’s what happened; I got dragged into the middle of a gang dispute. Freckles here was gonna shoot the kid, and set me up as a patsy.”

  KFC raises his hand. “What’s a patsy?”

  I was not expecting interruptions. “It’s a stool pigeon.”

  “No,” says KFC. “You’ve lost me.”

  I think maybe this guy is playing me with my own dumb act.

  “Are you taking the piss?”

  KFC is wounded. “Nah, man. You shot me. My mind is a little fuzzy with the pain and whatnot.”

  Whatnot? I like this guy.

  “Okay. The deal is that Shea and Freckles want to kill each other. Is that clear enough?”

  Everyone nods. Even Shea and Freckles.

  “So you people have a schism in the ranks.”

  KFC’s hand goes up. I do not have time for this.

  “A split,” I tell him. “A split in the ranks. Okay?”

  KFC leans on his bloody knuckles. “Yeah. I got it. You couldn’t shoot me in the arm? That’s my career fucked?”

  “I could shoot you in the arm now. Would that shut you the hell up?”

  KFC realizes that there is no right answer to this question and so wisely decides to keep quiet.

  I get back to the point. “The point is that this group is not working as a unit. I don’t know who’s loyal to who, but you guys need some private time to sort it out. You kn
ow, brainstorm or make a graph or whatever. This has nothing to do with me so I’m gonna absent myself.”

  Shea gets a little antsy. Probably wondering if Freckles has paid off his boys.

  “Take the guns, McEvoy. You need to protect yourself.”

  I shrug. “I got plenty of guns. I’m gonna leave those two on the table there. I don’t like to overstock in general. I only kill what I can eat, like the Apaches.”

  Shea is sweating now. “You can’t leave me here. I’m not one of these guys.”

  The kid is good as dead and he knows it. I wonder will I feel guilty about this? Probably. But if an Irish Catholic made his decisions based on guilt avoidance then he wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning, and he certainly wouldn’t play with himself while he was in bed in the morning.

  I back away from the group, mentally assigning survival odds to each one. My money would have been on Freckles but he gets a handicap on account of the dropped pants. KFC is shot in the leg but his hand is already on the table. Shea is getting dead unless he jumps out the window or gets abducted by aliens in the next ten seconds, and the other guy is still blubbering. So overall, I gotta stick with Freckles.

  I back out the door, holding my guns steady.

  “Nobody moves until I’m in the elevator, after that you make your own decisions.”

  It’s a tense situation. Freckles is trying to hitch up his pants with knee flexes and KFC’s hand is crabbing toward the weapons. I shoot a hole in the desktop to stop him jumping the gun.

  “Nu-uh,” I say, like a kindergarten teacher to an impatient toddler. “Wait for the elevator door.”

  Shea is sobbing uncontrollably, squeezing Freckles’s hand like the guy is his prom date. I try to feel sorry for him but the kid has got food on his face, which counts against him. I realize with a jolt that I am more pissed off with Shea over the hummus than the attempted murder.

  Shit. That is messed up.

  But there’s whole lot more to eating with your mouth open than just the chewing involved. It says: I am arrogant. I don’t give a shit. I care so little about you that I can’t even be bothered to close my mouth.

  In my opinion if you see a person eating with their mouth open, then that person is probably psychopathic at the very least.

  I need to do a little more research before I publish.

  I knuckle the elevator button and I can hear the car cranking and the cables working in the shaft. Not far, I’m guessing. Maybe one floor down.

  “You got options,” I tell the foursome. “You can all just walk away.”

  It’s bullshit, I know, but I am trying to kid myself that I’m not passively murdering at least half of these people. I’m separating myself from the bloodbath that is about to happen. It’s like the Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon game, except in reverse, with homicide and only one degree.

  The elevator sighs and I skip smartly inside, jabbing the lobby button with my silencer. The gun battle commences before the mirrored doors slide across and give me a look at myself when I’m not expecting it. I flinch with every shot, like they’re shooting at me. But also I flinch because in that unexpected reflection I catch myself looking like my father.

  I try to deflate the swelling in my head with a zinger.

  “You should have kept your mouth shut, kid,” I mutter at myself.

  I Am Not So Bad. No no, I am not so bad.

  My arse.

  The valet barely glances at me, I suppose one Mick tough guy looks much the same as another after thirty years of facial hardship. He just scans the ticket with his handheld gizmo and five minutes later I’m buckled into a Cadillac that has more kit than the USS Enterprise.

  Freckles’s phone synchs with the on-board computer, which asks me if I would like to send a message, and this gives me an idea that could buy me a little time. I dictate a text from Freckles to Mike Madden that reads simply: It’s done, partner.

  Hopefully Mike will embark on the traditional celebratory shit-faced binge and will not know what hit him, when I hit him, as I now must. Maybe once upon a time I would have simply pointed the car westward-ho and kept my foot on the gas until the radiator split, but now I have taken responsibilities upon myself.

  Sofia. Jason. Even Zeb. They have all wiggled through cracks in my armor.

  If my armor was actual physical armor I would be bringing it back to the armor store and having stern words with the armor salesman.

  It would be standard counter-surveillance procedure for me to tool around SoHo for a while and shake off any tail that I might have picked up. For all I know the Feds are up on Shea’s people and I could be popped driving a vehicle stuffed to the door panels with contraband, but I don’t have time for spy games. People are in danger because I didn’t lie down and die like I was supposed to, so I gotta deal with the threat.

  I ask the car to call Sofia and it says:

  “Call Sofia Dominatrix?”

  Dominatrix? Freckles won’t have my Sofia in his phone. But he has been busy in his downtime.

  “No. Negative. Cancel call,” I shout, in my eagerness to not get into a row with a leather-clad hooker.

  “Canceling call,” says the car, in a voice that takes me a second to recognize as Clint Eastwood’s.

  Wow. Freckles is/was a tough guy. Even his software kicks ass.

  I dictate the number as I swing the Caddy into the Holland Tunnel and drum the steering wheel waiting for Sofia to pick up.

  Three rings, then:

  “Welcome to the House of Jesus. Can I interest you in our latest publication, Living Rent Free in the House of Jesus?”

  This is a standard Sofia pickup. She has a whole ream of responses calculated to make the caller instantly hang up. Another classic: “This is an automated ordering service, please speak to be redirected to our credit card debit line.” My personal favorite is lifted from Ghostbusters. Sofia treats the unfortunate caller to ten seconds of harrowing screaming followed by the growled word, “Zuul.”

  Sofia calls this technique the Reverse Jehovah. I once asked her why she bothered keeping her line connected and she replied: “You are such a sad sack. Don’t you want to laugh whenever you can?”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  “I don’t leave the house much anymore,” she’d continued, poking my chest with a finger, backing me into a corner. “And you have that stupid goddamn casino. So all I do is take junk calls and do my look. You like my look today, baby?”

  I did like her look. She was done up in a leather coat belted at the waist, torn tights and earrings so big they could pick up stations from space. I think Paula Abdul might have been the inspiration.

  “You look great. You sure do.”

  Sofia stroked my cheek and I blushed like a virgin. “If look so great then why don’t you do something about it?”

  I ask what I always ask when something like this comes up.

  “What’s my name? Who am I?”

  Sofia’s gaze muddied and she stamped her kitten heels. “Why do you always ask me that question, Carmine? Ain’t we been married long enough? I make all this effort and you quiz me up and down. You shouldn’t be putting any questions to me unless the answer is ‘Oh baby.’”

  Sofia was up against me like a molten bar, her curves finding all my hollows.

  I’m only human for Christ’s sake.

  I needed to cool her down and I knew just how to do it.

  “Sofia, have you taken your lithium?”

  She pushed me away in disgust. “Lithium? You have all this jammed up on you, and you’re asking me about meds? Christ, Daniel.”

  And just like that the well was dry.

  How come I’m always Daniel when she’s not horny anymore?

  If Sofia is coming on really hot and heavy I ask her what happened to Carmine. That cools her down real fast and the only answer she’s ever given me is:

  The same thing that will happen to you if you don’t stop asking about him.

  Which doesn’t bode wel
l for our fledgling relationship.

  I speak into a little microphone on the visor, probably louder than I need to given the multidirectional specs of these things.

  “Sofia? It’s me, Daniel.”

  “What’s the code, Dan?”

  I had forgotten Sofia Delano’s paranoia. The weekly code was usually the title of an eighties dance-floor filler.

  “Sofia, darlin’. I don’t remember the code.”

  “Well then you better stop calling me or I’ll send some voodoo down this line that will shrivel your balls like raisins.”

  That is a graphic threat and the superstitious Paddy in me swears that his goujons are tingling a little, which jogs my memory.

  “The code is; When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”

  “Dan, honey,” Sofia says all treacle and promise now. “Where are you?”

  Girls putting on the baby voice usually make me wince, but Sofia does it with such need and conviction that it would break the hardest heart. If old Paddy Costello had met someone like Sofia he might have actually enjoyed his miserable life of untold wealth.

  “I am on my way over,” I tell the microphone. “I’ll be with you in ninety minutes max.”

  I’m coming up on the Newark Turnpike and traffic is slow but moving, which is about as good as it ever gets, so I might make it in an hour twenty.

  “Are you feeling hot, baby?”

  I think maybe Sofia Delano sincerely believes that sex is the only reason anyone would give her the time of day. This Carmine asshole screwed her up good. From what I can glean from her neighbors, Carmine was the jealous type who turned a vivacious young girl into a virtual recluse—think cat lady without the cats—and people will go to extraordinary lengths for attention when they have been systematically starved of it for years. I remember having a physical as a kid and half hoping the pain in my head was a tumor because fathers always love their sick kids, don’t they?

  So I understand, sort of.

  I tried to track down Carmine a couple of months ago to put Sofia out of her misery. I even put a computer genius friend of Jason’s on the case, but the guy has disappeared off the face of the earth, like aliens took a shine to him.

  A guy like that is mostly likely dead or locked deep in the bowels of a Mexican prison. I can’t help worrying about it though. Bad pennies have a habit of showing up.