“Of course I read the articles,” said Bunny. “That’s why I’m trying to be all incognito and that, like.”
“Great. Well, if I die in a hail of bullets, at least I’ll know why.”
“Ara, don’t be so dramatic.”
“You know, Diller had a point about you.”
“How’s that?”
“When he said you have a tendency to try to solve your problems with violence.”
“Hold your horses there, cowboy. If my memory serves, he said we both did that.”
Smithy ran his hands over the wheel. “Yeah, he did, but I mean, c’mon…”
Bunny sat up and leaned forward. “You think you’re less violent than I am?”
“Well…”
“You do!”
“I mean, you said it yourself, Bunny. You were in an altercation with those guys just last week.”
“They tried to mug me!”
“And you ended up with a wad of their money.”
“I didn’t say it had gone well for them. A man is entitled to defend himself.”
“I’m just saying.”
“Alright then, Mahatma fecking Gandhi – honestly, when was the last time you were in a scrap?”
“That’s not important,” said Smithy.
“Really?” replied Bunny, gleefully. “I bet it is.”
“My point was, overall, you have a tendency to get into more fights than I do. That’s all.”
“Right,” said Bunny, “let’s settle this.” He extended his hand through the open partition. “A bet. First person to use violence to resolve a situation loses.”
“Are you expecting me to give you odds?”
“No. Evens.”
Smithy whistled. “I hate taking your money. Or rather the money of whoever you took it off.”
“Who mentioned money?”
“Yeah. Probably best not to.”
“No,” said Bunny. “I just mean we should really make it interesting.”
“OK.”
“Cheryl,” said Bunny.
“Woah,” said Smithy, holding his hands up. “I’m confident of winning, but I’m not betting my girlfriend. I mean—”
“Would you shut up? You know that’s not what I mean. What I’m saying is the loser, whoever he may be, has to perform at her club.”
“When you say ‘perform’?”
“I mean do some of that pole dancing – spangly outfit, the lot.”
“I’m not sure they’ll have something in your size.”
“Well, I doubt they make them outfits in children’s sizes for you either, but we’ll have to find out.”
Smithy narrowed his eyes and gave Bunny a hard look. There were some buttons you didn’t press.
“What’s wrong?” asked Bunny, all mock innocence. “Are you losing that temper of yours? Thinking about smacking me a wallop in the chops?”
Smithy took Bunny’s extended hand and shook it. The handshake was as relaxed as an Israel–Palestine peace conference at a BBQ Shack. “It’s on.”
“Great.”
“Fantastic.”
“Superb.”
“Amazing.”
“Tremendous.”
“Monumental.”
“Magnifi—” Bunny was interrupted by Smithy’s phone chirping – just in time, as he was running out of adjectives.
“Hey, Dill,” said Smithy, putting the phone on speaker. “Perfect timing. Bunny and I are having a bet and—”
“He’s on the move,” interrupted Diller. “He’s just exited the church and he’s heading south.”
“OK,” said Smithy, starting up the engine. “He might be going over to see that old lady on Roper again.”
“Probably,” agreed Bunny. “But keep your eyes open, Diller.”
“We’ll sweep around the block and pick him up at the crosswalk,” said Smithy. “You hang back and—”
“Holy shit!” yelled Diller over the phone.
“What?” said Smithy and Bunny in unison.
“A van just pulled up and then – this guy was walking down the pavement, and he – I saw him earlier, but I didn’t—”
“Diller,” said Smithy, “tell us what’s happening.”
“Happening? That’s what I’m telling you – somebody’s just kidnapped the priest!”
Chapter Eight
With a squeal of tyres and a loud honk from a car they pulled recklessly in front of, Smithy had the cab out of the space. It was just after 3pm, so traffic was reasonably busy but moving, people pushing it to get wherever they needed to be before the rush-hour gridlock.
“Where are they now?”
They lost whatever Diller said under the engine noise. Smithy tapped the button to send it to his Bluetooth headset while using his other hand to guide the cab around a truck that had double-parked outside a store to make a delivery.
“Dill, say it again – where are they?”
“They’re on Weston Avenue – about fifty yards ahead of me.”
“OK,” said Smithy. “We’re a couple of blocks away. Keep ’em in your sights but stay back.”
Smithy swung a sharp left, which caused Bunny to tumble across the back seat and two lanes of traffic coming the other way to slam on the brakes.
“Jaysus!”
“Put your seat belt on.”
“What’s Diller saying?”
“Not much. Panting. Sounds like he’s pedalling hard.”
“I am,” said Diller. “They just took a right. Onto – I don’t know the street name.”
Smithy tried to construct a map of the area in his head. “OK. Tell me what you see, Dill.”
“We’re passing a 7-Eleven.”
“Too generic.”
“There’s a club – Gossip.”
“Cool. I got you.” Smithy had passed that on the drive over.
“Take a right,” said Bunny.
“Shut up,” said Smithy. “I know what I’m doing. No backseat driving.”
Smithy took the right – which he was going to take anyway.
“Tell him to describe the van.”
That was actually a good idea. “Dill, what’s the van look like?”
“It’s a white panel van.”
“Anything written on it?”
“No.”
Not good. That was the most generic of vans, picked to fade into the background.
A thought struck Smithy. “How are they driving?”
“What?” asked Diller.
“Are they running lights or anything?”
“Oh. No.”
“Good. That means they don’t think they’re being followed.”
They might just have a chance to catch up.
“Traffic’s heavier here,” panted Diller.
Smithy pulled a sharp left and… “Damn it!”
He punched the wheel in frustration. They were on a road with cars parked either side, leaving just enough room for two cars to pass – or for one large garbage truck to block all traffic in either direction.
Two garbage men were lackadaisically picking up trash cans and lobbing the contents into the compactor at the back of the truck. Smithy laid on the horn, which only had the effect of getting a broad smile and a flip of the bird from one of the garbage men.
Smithy checked his rear-view. Three cars were now backed up behind them.
He tried to reverse but the VW Beetle directly behind them wouldn’t play ball, its owner laying on her own horn instead and adding to the hand signals.
“Shite,” said Bunny. “We’re fecking screwed.”
“Hang on.”
Smithy jerked the car left, losing a Camry its no-claims bonus as, with a screech of metal, the cab managed to squeeze between two cars and up onto the pavement.
“You’re paying for any damage.”
“Fine,” said Bunny.
A mother and young child dived into a doorway in front of them. As they passed the garbage truck, a trash bag landed on the windscreen and burst
open.
“Oh, for…!” Smithy turned on the wipers, which only had the effect of distributing the garbage more fully over the windscreen. A diaper, banana skins, potato peels, cardboard packaging, wet kitchen roll and magazines cluttered up his view, then jammed under the wipers to leave them stuck halfway across, juddering and whining in protest.
Smithy bobbed his head up and down, looking for a gap. “I can’t see a thing.”
Behind him, Bunny stuck his head out the window, like a dog excited to be going to the beach. “You’re OK. Keeping going straight.”
Smithy resisted the urge to mention backseat driving again.
“Keep going straight,” shouted Bunny.
Smithy kept going straight.
The car hit something.
“That’s just a trash can.”
Someone screamed.
“Nowhere near her.”
A loud scraping noise as something gouged the left side of the car.
“Just a scratch. Ah, for fuck’s sake!”
“What?!” Smithy slowed down.
“Keep going,” said Bunny. “I just got some of the garbage in my mouth.”
The whining noise stopped as the wipers gave up the fight.
While primarily focusing on trying to see around the debris, Smithy couldn’t help but notice that the magazine jammed under the wiper appeared to be gay porn. It was the twenty-first century – what kind of weirdo didn’t just get their pornography online like everybody else?
“Right, we need to get back on the bit for cars. Get ready to go right,” hollered Bunny.
“Say when.”
With a crunch of metal, the cab came to a juddering halt.
“When,” said Bunny, sounding sheepish. “It was only a tree. Back up.”
Smithy did as he was told.
“Now go right.”
The car bounced as they made it back onto the road once again.
“Assholes!” hollered a voice, which may well have had a very good point.
“What’s going on?” asked Diller.
“Never mind,” said Smithy. “Where are they now?”
“They took a right; they’re on Bleacher.”
“OK.”
“I think they’re heading for—”
“Stop!” yelled Bunny.
Smithy slammed the brakes on. The back door opened and Bunny clambered out. He grabbed the magazine and a few of the larger chunks of garbage from the windscreen, revealing a woman pushing a stroller, standing in front of the car, her eyes wide and mouth hanging open in a picture of inexpressible rage.
“Jesus!” said Smithy.
Bunny gave her a wave. “Sorry about that, love, we’re on a mission from God.”
Bunny got back into the passenger side, and before he’d even closed the door hollered, “Floor it!”
The mother rushed out of their way and Smithy did as instructed. They were coming up to another big junction.
“Oh shit,” said Diller in gasping breaths in Smithy’s ear. “I think they’re heading for the on-ramp to the freeway.”
“Damn it,” said Smithy. “They get there, they’re gone.”
“What’d he say?” said Bunny.
“Seat belt,” said Smithy in lieu of an answer as he pulled the car into the left-hand lane, the one traditionally reserved for traffic heading in the other direction. One such vehicle turned the corner and made the wise decision to pull quickly out of the way.
The traffic lights hanging above the junction were red, which was why the lane they had just departed was full of stationary traffic. The junction controlled the flow of vehicles onto a street that had three lanes of traffic in both directions.
“Red light,” said Bunny.
“No shit,” said Smithy. “Hang on.” And then he floored it.
There was a logic to it. If you were going to attempt to cross a road where six lanes of unsuspecting traffic were going about their business, you would want to do it at the highest speed possible, so that you were in any one place for the least amount of time possible in order to minimise the already high risk of something hitting you. That was just physics, probably.
“SHITTING NORA!” screamed Bunny.
Smithy kept his eyes forward, as there seemed no point in looking at what was about to hit them. Better to focus on the prize, which was the other side of the junction, where the crosswalk was blissfully free of pedestrians.
In his peripheral vision there was a blur of movement and then something clipped the rear bumper of the cab. Smithy tugged the wheel right with all his might to correct their course. A couple of cars zoomed past in front of them and then, incredibly, they were through.
“Jesus!” said Bunny.
Smithy’s heart was playing a Ginger Baker drum solo in his chest and he felt the irresistible urge to giggle. That had been spectacularly stupid – he couldn’t believe he’d done it. He also couldn’t believe it had worked.
“I think I’ve pissed meself,” said Bunny.
“Then you’re paying for the valet too.” Smithy raised his voice. “Diller?”
“They’ve stopped at the lights and then they’ll be at the on-ramp.”
Smithy pulled a sharp left too fast, the back end of the car sliding out of control temporarily as it fishtailed right before correcting.
“The junction is up ahead, I think,” said Smithy.
“I’ve got an idea,” said Diller.
“What kind of idea?”
“A really bad one.”
Smithy saw a white panel van turning left at the junction in front of him, about to get on the freeway.
Smithy assumed it was the van they were after.
This was confirmed a second later when it collided at speed with a figure on a mountain bike. Smithy watched in horror as Diller slammed into the windscreen and then rolled over the top of the van, landing in a messy heap on the road behind it.
Chapter Nine
Marky got out of the van because, firstly, if you’re trying to keep a low profile, you can’t just drive off when your van collides with a cyclist, and secondly, even if he’d wanted to drive off, there was a mountain bike jammed under the front wheels. They’d been hired for this job through the usual sources and it had seemed straightforward. Three of them to snatch one priest – how hard could that be?
Of course, as with anything, you couldn’t legislate for stupidity. He was looking between the bike at one end of the van and the unconscious figure at the other end, trying to work out what to do. A lot of people had stopped to watch, and a couple had come over. A morbidly obese man was leaning over the body.
“We need to put him in the recovery position.”
“No!” screamed a middle-aged woman with tightly cropped hair who was hurrying over, laden with shopping bags. “Don’t move him – he might have a head or spinal injury.”
“Seriously,” said the man, “I watch a lot of ER shows.”
“Yeah, well I work in one. Get away from him.”
She glanced at the line of stopped traffic behind them. Most of the drivers were out of their cars, looking on. “Can someone call 911?”
Sensing which way the wind was blowing, Marky moved over towards the unconscious man. “He… he came out of nowhere.”
The nurse ignored him, placing her bags down and leaning over to try to get a look at the cyclist’s face without moving him. “Honey, are you conscious? Can you hear me?”
“I gotta get going.”
This last remark earned Marky a glare from the nurse. “The hell you do.”
A cab screeched to a halt beside them.
“Diller!” A dwarf leaped out of the driver’s side and ran over to the prone body. “Diller, you OK?”
Marky felt something jab into his back. “That’s a gun – don’t say a fecking word.” A large man was standing behind him, a meaty hand laid on his shoulder.
The dwarf bent down. “Jesus, Dill, are you…?”
The nurse and the fat guy both gaspe
d as the man on the floor turned over and gave a big thumbs up. “Hey, Smithy. It worked.”
“It…? It worked? You stupid… I’m gonna run you over myself!”
The cyclist, who had miraculously recovered, got to his feet gingerly, the dwarf helping him up.
The gun jabbed into Marky’s back again. “Open the back,” said the voice.
“I can’t, I…”
The hesitation was met with another jab. “Do it – or I’ll shoot you and then I’ll do it.”
This was going to get ugly.
Marky grabbed the handle of the sliding door and pulled it across – ready to hit the deck to avoid the inevitable hail of bullets.
He stayed on his feet. Stephen and Clark were unconscious. The priest, his hands cable-tied together in front of him, was kneeling over their bodies. The priest looked over Marky’s shoulder at the large man behind him for a long moment, and then he nodded. “Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter Ten
Smithy took a corner a mite too fast.
“Alright, Speedy Gonzales, ease up there,” said Bunny. “We don’t want to look like we’re fleeing.”
“But we are.”
“All the more reason not to look it.”
Smithy took a breath and eased his foot off the gas. They were a few blocks away now and, seeing as they’d tossed the van’s keys, it was unlikely anyone was in hot pursuit. Bunny was in the passenger seat while Diller and the priest were in the back.
“I don’t understand what just happened,” said Smithy.
“Which part?” asked Bunny.
“All of it! Are you OK, Diller?”
“A few bruises, but I’ll be alright.”
“But you were hit by a van moving at speed!”
He watched Diller nod and smile happily in the rear-view mirror. “Yeah. I performed a Wandinky roll. The trick is to jump up at the right time. Had to get my feet free of the bike, hit the windshield and roll.”
“How the hell did you know how to do that?”
“I read it in a book.”
I Have Sinned Page 7