Angel Touch (35 page)

I scuttled to the edge of the box and saw the gun barrel emerge. I think I yelled in frustration and swung a kick, almost overbalancing and falling right under his gun.

It put him off, though. I was sure that shot went wild. Then I was going wild, leaping and yelling a warning to Werewolf that I knew he wouldn't hear over the engine noise.

He slewed Armstrong to a halt about 30 yards away, killed the engine and got out.

‘Get down!' I yelled.

‘What the fuck is ...?' he shouted back. Then Cawthorne shot him.

 

I saw Werewolf clutch his right leg and go down, but after that I think all I saw was red mist.

‘I'm up here, you bastard!' I yelled down.

‘Don't worry, you'll get yours, shitface. You're dead. Dead!'

The gun barrel reappeared, pointing upwards this time, and he fired, but the angle was far too steep and the bullet zipped away harmlessly. I wondered how much ammo he had left, or how much coke.

Then I remembered the thunderflash stuffed in the back of my jeans, except it wasn't a thunderflash, it was a smoke stick. Well, that's what it said it was, and just above where it said ‘Made in Korea' was printed ‘Twist top and pull.'

I did just that, and pungent orange smoke began to pour out. I knelt down and, holding my breath, leaned over the edge of the box and stuffed the thing through the nearest slit.

Cawthorne shouted ‘You fucker' and burst out coughing. He fired once more, wildly, anywhere. Then I was off the roof and running towards Armstrong.

Werewolf had rolled right underneath and had propped himself up against the front wheel arch so he had the engine between himself and the pillbox. I scrambled round the bonnet and threw myself down beside him.

‘This is definitely not in the fucking rules, man,' he said.

‘How bad is it?' I asked, not really wanting to look.

He held his leg with both hands, just above the knee.

‘Flesh wound,' he said.

‘You're supposed to say “It's nothing, just a flesh wound,” like they do in the movies.'

‘It hurts like buggery, but they don't say that either. It went straight through. I heard it go into the door.'

He saw my expression change.

‘Oh, that's nice. Best mate turns up and gets shot and you don't turn a hair. The pigging cab gets scratched and ...'

‘Oh, shut up, you great nance. Let's get out of here.'

‘What was it you threw in there?'

‘A smoke flare.'

‘I've got something better in my bag, if you can get it.'

He rolled over so he could look under the chassis.

‘We're gonna need it,' he said.

I got down and looked too. Cawthorne had thrown the smoke stick out of the box, but not more than a few feet. It was still spewing out orange clouds, which drifted to and fro around the pillbox.

The gun appeared at the end of Cawthorne's arm and he fired. I ducked instinctively, but the shot was aimed higher than ground level, and the result was a tinkling crack.

‘He just shot your wing mirror,' said Werewolf. ‘He's going to take it out on Armstrong if he can't get us.'

‘Maclean!' shouted Cawthorne, then he coughed again. ‘It's time we did a deal.'

I looked at Werewolf and he looked at me. We must have taken too long about it, as Cawthorne fired again, and the tinkle this time said he'd hit a headlight.

‘Okay, okay. What did you have in mind?'

I peeked under Armstrong. The orange smoke was wafting away from the pillbox if anything. I could see the gun quite clearly. Which meant he could see us.

‘If you try and drive that thing,' he bawled, ‘I'll shoot your eyes out. You know I can.'

Werewolf shuffled closer and whispered, ‘Keep talking, but get my bag out.' He motioned to the passenger door and I squirmed over him and grabbed the handle.

‘So we wait here until somebody comes, Cawthorne. You got time, haven't you?'

I had the door open. There was a large Aer Lingus flight bag on the floor where a passenger seat would go in a normal car.

‘Has your friend?' Cawthorne replied. ‘This place is closed up. Nobody will come here and nobody will say anything about the noise or the smoke. They're used to it round here. Can your friend wait it out? Just how bad is he hurt? I know I hit him.'

I had the bag out and the door closed now.

‘What did you have in mind?'

I slid the bag towards Werewolf and he unzipped it. Some socks, a paperback and a couple of packets of Sweet Afton spilled out.

‘I need to get out of here,' shouted Cawthorne.

‘He does,' I told Werewolf. ‘He has a ferry to catch.'

‘So what?' I shouted.

Werewolf reached into the bag until he found what he was after. It was a clear glass bottle with a plastic stopper and a hand-printed label proclaiming ‘Kerry Mist.' He handed it to me and went back to holding his leg. His green cords were well soaked by now and his face pale.

‘So you let me out of here and you go your way, I go mine. Simple as that,' came Cawthorne's offer.

‘Poteen,' whispered Werewolf. ‘Hundred and twenty proof if it's a day.'

‘It's a bit early, even for me,' I whispered.

Werewolf sort of snarled. ‘Tell him to throw the gun out and give us that pack of Kleenex.'

‘Lose the gun,' I yelled, handing Werewolf a pack of paper tissues from his bag. ‘Then we'll work something out.'

He fired again and something metallic bounced on to Armstrong's bonnet. The radio aerial.

Werewolf took a handful of tissues and scrunched them into a wad. He pulled the plastic stopper from the bottle with his teeth and splashed the clear liquid over the tissues, then crammed them into the neck of the bottle.

‘A de Valera cocktail,' he said. ‘Light the blue touch paper and run like stink.'

He reached into his jacket and fumbled out a disposable plastic lighter.

‘Get up close and bung it through a slit, then hit the ground.' He winced again at the pain in his leg. ‘Don't forget to light it.'

‘All right, Cawthorne,' I screamed. ‘That's enough. I'm coming out.'

‘Just what are you doing here anyway?' I asked Werewolf, taking the bottle from him and pushing it down my T-shirt, cold against my chest.

‘I was coming down Stuart Street as you drove off. I told you I was getting the early flight. I was out of Thief row by half past eight and I got a lift almost to the door.' He tried to smile. ‘A young lady I met on the plane. You damn near ran me down in that cherry red Porsche. I knew whose it was straight away, and I guessed this was where you'd end up. Thought you might need help. He's not going to let it go, you know. It's him or us.'

Or Salome. If not now, then later.

‘I know. How did you get Armstrong going?'

‘The spare key you keep on that magnetic pad behind the nearside back wheel.'

‘How long have you known about that?'

‘Since the week you soldered it on. Why?' He looked genuinely puzzled.

‘Oh, nothing.'

I stood up and moved to the rear of Armstrong.

‘Don't shoot, Cawthorne!' I bawled. ‘I'm coming to open the door.'

Werewolf tugged at my trouser leg. He was offering me the lighter.

As I took it he said: ‘Massive retaliation. That's the plan. Okay?'

‘Yeah,' I said.

Rule of Life No 59: Get your retaliation in first.

 

 

 

 

 

I set off at a cracking pace. Once out from behind Armstrong, there was no way I was hanging around. I couldn't run, because I had the bottle of poteen balanced against my stomach like a bizarre pregnancy, but hopefully invisible from the front under the T-shirt. I was also convinced I was going to drop the lighter, which was slippery with sweat in my hand.

I headed straight for the pillbox door, knowing the closer I got, the worse became Cawthorne's angle of fire. Over the last few feet, I could see his dinner-jacketed arm and the gun hanging out of the concrete slit like a broken wing. It was a surrealist painter's dream, but my nightmare.

The gun weaved figure eights in the air.

‘Just unbolt the door ... That's all ... We can do a deal ...'

Cawthorne's voice was almost unrecognisable. He was flying now, but I wasn't trusting to it affecting his aim. And I wasn't trusting him at all.

I virtually jumped the last yard to the door and put my back to it. There were gun slits to my left and right at eye level, but because of the angles in the walls of the box, I was pretty sure I was in a blind spot. I took the bottle out of my shirt and put it on the concrete square at my feet, but I held on to the lighter.

There was a metallic clang behind my left ear. Cawthorne was beating on the inside of the door with something.

‘Open the fucking door ... Let me out!' He was shrieking now.

The orange flare had more or less petered out by now, or maybe the wind had changed. There was nothing to stop Cawthorne getting a clear shot at Armstrong at all. I could wait him out, I thought, until a few more snorts of electric snuff made sure he couldn't hit a barn door. But you never know with snow, as they say.

I didn't trust Cawthorne – let's be frank, I wouldn't spit in his ear if his brain was on fire. But I couldn't just blow him up, could I?

‘I'm going to pull the bolt, Cawthorne,' I shouted at the slit, ‘but I want to see the artillery out here first.'

‘Get stuffed!'

‘Nobody's going anywhere until you throw the gun out. That's the deal. Non-negotiable.'

I thought he might have liked that. Non-negotiable. It had a reasoned, businesslike ring to it.

He tried to shoot me instead.

His arm came right out of the slit to my left – he'd switched sides – and was holding the gun upside down, his wrist twisted, to get the angle. I saw the barrel and the foresight out of the corner of my eye and slammed myself back into the door, pretending to be no thicker than a coat of paint.

I'll swear I saw the bullet leave that barrel and fly across my face. I was so relieved it hadn't hit me, I would have signed affidavits admitting anything, from being Kurt Waldheim's PR man to having read and enjoyed the Booker Prize winner.

So why did I scream? Then my ears stopped ringing from the sound of the shot and I realised it wasn't me screaming, it had been Werewolf.

I couldn't see him behind Armstrong, but Armstrong had been in the direct line of fire. That did it. No more Mister Nice Guy.

There was no point in calling him names, no point in trying to talk him down.

Cawthorne had drawn back his gun arm and I could hear him working the action for reloading while he stumbled about inside the box.

I bent down and put the lighter to the tissue fuse and flipped the wheel. It caught immediately, and I swept up the bottle with my left hand and pirouetted through 180 degrees. Keeping the damn thing well away from my face.

It went through the gun slit sideways on and I was diving for the ground before it hit the concrete floor and exploded.

 

‘Are you all right?'

‘I might not make the Irish skateboard team.'

‘Where did he get you?'

‘In the leg, Dumbo.'

‘No, just now, when you screamed.'

‘Oh, he missed me by a mile,' said Werewolf through clenched teeth. ‘I only screamed so you'd have an incentive to torch the bugger.'

I stared at him for a minute without saying anything. I
didn't want to look back at the pillbox.

‘You'd better unlock the door,' he said. ‘It'll look suspicious if it's bolted when he's found.'

‘Yeah. Okay. You're right.'

I put my hands under his arms and helped him up. ‘You need a doctor,' I said.

‘Think we'll get a cab this time of the morning?' he asked with a sickly grin, resting his head on Armstrong's wheel arch.

‘This far south of the river? No chance.'

 

I tied my handkerchief around my face for the run back to the box. There was black acrid smoke coming out of the slits now, and more orange smoke from flares that were cracking and going off inside. Great whoofs of flame would billow out and bubble off into the smoky pall as things like the inking fluid for the fax went up. There were loud cracks, which I thought at first might be ammunition but were probably the plastic casings of the wrecked machinery flexing and snapping in the heat. The whole thing looked like an overheating Aga in a satanic kitchen.