Slammer (8 page)

'Guns're a sideline. Drugs are the mainstay. Need anything?'

Glass hesitated. 'I'm fine, thanks.'

'You don't dabble?'

'No.' He used to smoke a fair amount of blow. Everybody did. And he'd done the odd line of coke, and smacked out with some pills at parties. Speaking of smack, he'd even tried that once or twice. Three times, to be precise. Well, if he was being precise, it wasn't smack, but moonrock: a mixture of smack and coke. Only dabbled, though, as Mad Will would put it. Glass was fifteen the first time and his curiosity got the better of his good sense. Second and third times were on consecutive days, a year later, with a ginger-haired girl from Moffat. He left on the third day when she brought out her needle and invited him to feel God caress his insides.

But since he found out he was going to be a dad, he hadn't touched a thing. Mad Will didn't need to know any of that, though.

'Fair enough,' Mad Will said. 'If you change your mind, you know who to call.'

'Thanks,' Glass said again.

In the bedroom, someone was having sex, loudly. Whether it was a couple, or just a guy on his own, was hard to tell. But either way he sounded as if he was enjoying himself. If Glass hadn't had an illegal arms deal to negotiate, he might not have been able to focus.

'She's a nice piece,' Mad Will said.

Glass wondered how to respond but when Mad Will blew out a plume of smoke and picked up the gun Glass realised he wasn't referring to what was happening in the bedroom.

'Semi-automatic. Single action. Full chamber.' Mad Will pulled back the slide. 'And there's one racked for you.' He ran his pudgy fingers over the grip. 'Made in
Poland
, you know. Don't see many of those. What do you want to use it for?'

Something else Glass hadn't expected to answer. Thought he'd been through all that crap with Mafia. What business was it of Mad Will's what the gun was for? Nosy fuckers, these criminals.

Mad Will stared at him, smoke curling from his spliff. 'What's it for, eh?'

What the hell was Glass going to say? Shooting grouse? 'Defence,' he settled on. 'Personal defence.'

'For yourself?'

'My wife.'

'Someone giving her a hard time?'

He wasn't going to repeat his conversation with Mafia. Sod that. He'd said too much already.
 
Who'd have thought lying was so hard? 'No,' he said. 'It's just that there are a lot of nutters out there these days and my work takes me away from home a lot.' He shrugged. 'We'd feel safer if she had a gun in the house.' He shrugged again, wondering how artificial all this shrugging looked. 'In case.'

'Get a dog.'

Glass didn't have to stop and think. 'My daughter's allergic.' That much was true. Any contact with dogs and Caitlin's eyes swelled up and started weeping. Cats were no problem, which is why he kept asking Lorna if they couldn't get Caitlin a kitten. Thing was, Caitlin preferred dogs, in spite of the allergy. Lorna preferred dogs too. Glass was the one who liked cats.

The moans from the bedroom were growing more urgent.

Mad Will said, 'You have a kid?'

Glass swore under his breath.
Done it again.
He said, 'Yeah. What's that got to do with anything?'

'Don't look old enough.'

Glass said nothing.

'You don't want a gun in the house,' Mad Will said. 'Not with a kid around.'

Just his luck. A gun dealer with a conscience. 'I appreciate your concern,' he said, 'but it's my responsibility.'

'And it's for your wife, huh?'

He nodded. Good God. The guy in the bedroom sounded close to death.

Mad Will wasn't paying the noise any attention. 'If she fires this at someone,' he said, 'she'll probably go to prison.'

'Maybe. Depends on the circumstances.'

'Reasonable force, the law states.'

'I know.'

Mad Will topped up his coffee. Silence from the bedroom now. 'Guns aren't reasonable,' Mad Will said. 'By any stretch of the imagination.'

'And even if they were, this baby's illegal.' Glass paused. 'I know.'

'Worth thinking about.'

'Okay.' Glass waited a few seconds. Then: 'I've thought about it. I want to buy the gun. Do you want to sell it to me or not?'

'Absolutely,' Mad Will said. 'But I want to make it abundantly clear that it's not a toy. Owning this 'baby' can change your life.'

'Fine.'

'Well, if you're sure.' Mad Will made a sound with his lips, ran a hand through his straggly hair. 'Gun's yours.'

Finally. Glass laid a pile of notes on the table. 'That's what we discussed on the phone, right?'

Mad Will nodded.

Glass waited.

Mad Will looked at him, pointed towards the door. 'You can see yourself out, eh?'

*

In the corridor, Glass closed the sitting room door behind him and, as he passed the bedroom where the moaning and grunting had come from, he couldn't help noticing that the door was ajar.

Just a slit. But enough of an opening to see the girl's face.

She was gagged. Black mascara-bruised eyes. Tears rolling down her cheeks. She looked into Glass's eyes. If she hadn't, he might have been able to sneak past. But not now. She'd seen him.

His breath quickened as he leaned closer to the door and peered through the crack. Her hands were clamped together behind the bedpost. He couldn't tell if they were tied or cuffed.

A grunt, and then the back of a man's head came into view, a dark shutter falling down over the girl's face. Now was Glass's chance. He could no longer see her eyes pleading with him. Maybe he could get away. Escape.

There was the sound again, though. Grunting. Moaning. But it was different. Slightly higher pitched. As if … yeah, a different man.

As if to confirm it, someone said, quietly, 'That's it. Fuck the bitch, Jocky.'

Behind Glass, the sitting room door was closed. Mad Will couldn't see Glass in the corridor. Mad Will thought Glass had left the flat. And the men in the room didn't know he was there. Only the girl knew.

Glass could do this. He should do this. He had to do this. He couldn't do anything else. He backed away from the door until he felt the wall press against his shoulder blades. His mouth was dry.
Do it.
He couldn't just walk in there, hold them at gunpoint while the girl escaped. But if he didn't, she'd continue to get raped by Jocky and whoever else was in the room. He couldn't leave her to be gang-banged. Maybe killed afterwards. Humped and dumped, as the cons would say. Glass couldn't stand here thinking. He thought far too much. He had to act.

One step across the corridor, kick the door open, step into the room.

Easy.

Do it.

Done.

Just the two men, thank Christ. The girl was spread-eagled on the bed.

'Get off her,' Glass said to Jocky, gun arm stretched out, shaking. Felt like he might drop the weapon. Didn't trust his grip. He'd seen cops on TV. They used two hands. He did the same, his left hand supporting his right. Felt better.

'What the fuck is this?' the other guy said. He was standing up, naked, making no attempt at modesty.

Jocky's hips only stopped thrusting now. He raised himself and turned his head to the side. He had a moustache, thick and brown. Looked like a walrus. He said, 'Who are you?'

Glass licked his upper lip. Tasted salt. 'Get off her,' he said again.

'Christ's sake,' Jocky said. 'Are you for real?'

Glass stepped closer. Thrust his arm out. 'Last chance.'

When he'd stepped into the room he hadn't had any idea if he'd be able to pull the trigger if called upon. Now he knew. He couldn't. No way he could take a human life, no matter how despicable that human was. He just wasn't a killer.

Luckily, Jocky didn't call his bluff. 'Okay,' he said, and moved backwards, slowly, palms raised. Slid away from Glass, off the girl.

Glass caught a flash of her breasts, small and flattened, nipples puffy and wet. He tore his eyes away, watched Jocky, still hard, back off the bed. A big guy. Ridiculously big.

'Take off the gag,' Glass told him and wiped his forehead. It was hot in here. Stank of sweat and seafood. He kept his eyes off the girl. Away from her body.

Jocky bent over, muttered something to the girl and untied the gag.

The girl shook her head hard, spat. 'The fuck's going on?' she said to Glass. 'You can't just fucking waltz in here like you own the place, shithead.'

'I …' Glass said, staring at her breasts.

'Untie me so I can shove that gun up your fucking arse.'

This was hardly the reaction Glass had expected. She didn't seem upset. Well, she
was
upset. But with Glass, not with the guys who'd been raping her. And she didn't appear to be hurt.

Something was wrong here.

He didn't get it. It was as if he'd walked into another world, one where nothing made sense.

She didn't sound like she'd been crying, but he could see from her face that she had been. Those were tear streaks. Weren't they? Yeah. Well, what else could they be? Trickles of sweat?

'Thank God, Will,' the girl said.

Glass felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to see Mad Will right behind him.

'You said you were leaving,' Mad Will said.

'I thought …' Glass said. 'I thought she was …' And then he saw the tripod in the corner of the room, the camera perched on top. Oh, shit.

He'd stepped onto the set of a porno shoot.

He lowered his arm. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I'm really sorry.'

Jocky said, 'Can we use this?'

'Dunno,' the other guy said. 'I doubt it.'

'Fuck you,' the girl shouted at Glass. 'Now I have to do all that again.' She swivelled on the bed, arms still stretched behind her, and swung her foot at him. She missed by a distance. 'You think I like this? You want to get fucked for a living?'

Glass stepped back. He had no answer for her.

Mad Will said, 'You're lucky she's still tied up. Cause even with the gun, I wouldn't fancy your chances.'

'I'm sorry,' Glass said again. 'I'm really—'

'Yeah, yeah,' the girl said. 'Twat.'

'You better go,' Mad Will said. 'I'll see you out.'

*

The girl calls him a twat and Mad Will says, 'You better give me that.' He looks at the gun in Glass's hand.

Glass says, 'I paid for it.'

'Here,' Mad Will says, sticking his hand into his pocket, pulling out a wad of notes. 'A full refund.'