Stiffed (18 page)

Fuck!

We enter the shop and head towards the back through racks of dresses and blouses.  I let go of Sally’s hand and push her towards the changing rooms.

‘Hide in there and I’ll come back for you once I’ve lost him.’

‘No!  Tadhg, don’t leave me.’  She’s gasping for breath, her face creased in fear.

‘Sally, just do it.  I’ll be back soon.
  I promise.’  We’re not going to outrun him as a pair.  The best thing I can do is lead him away.

‘Don’t leave me, Tadhg.’

‘Sally, we don’t have time, hide in the fucking changing rooms.  I’ll be back in a few minutes.’ 

Hopefully.

She finally relents and dashes off.  I sprint for the far end and a door marked fire exit.  I bump it open and wait for Juan to enter the shop.  As he turns the corner, I hold his eye for a moment then disappear into a service passage.

I hope to heck that he thinks that I let Sally exit before me.
I start to sprint towards the east atrium.  Behind me I hear the fire door burst open and then Juan’s footsteps as he sets off in pursuit.  After a few paces he slows to a stop. 

I glance back, but he’s already turned and is jogging back towards the shop.  He’s after Sally, not me.

Double fuck with bells on!

I skid to a stop and turn around, sprinting back. 
Welcome to amateur hour - how to rescue a damsel and then put her immediately back in distress.

All the doors into the stores look the same.
  I get back to where I think I exited and open the door.  It’s the wrong store, full of kitchenware.  I decide to go through the shop back into the main part of the mall to get my bearings.  It’s probably not a bad idea - if I went through the right back door, I’d probably be a sitting target for Juan’s waiting gun.

When I get back to the mall
thoroughfare it’s practically deserted.  Cowboy is making his way slowly down the middle, an enormous pistol gripped in his two hands. 

There’s a scream from the store next door.  Juan must have found Sally’s hiding place.

I’m just going to have to chance it.  I duck out of the store, dash the couple of meters to its neighbor.

There’s a loud
bang and the other plate glass window shatters, showering me with glass crystals.

I fall into the shop and speed crawl off to one side into a display of dresses
muttering curses.

I’m now trapped between Juan, who almost certainly has Sally, and Cowboy
who has a great big pistol.  All I’m armed with is a baseball bat.  Somehow I don’t think it’s going to be swatting bullets away to left field.

I crawl further into the store.

Cowboy shouts in from the entrance.  ‘I know you’re in here, Tad.’

There’s a shot and a grunt, followed by Cowboy moaning, ‘Fuck
!’

That about sums it up.

‘Stay where you are, Brett,’ Juan says, from somewhere in front of me and to the left.

‘Like I have a
... Goddamn choice ... you fucking traitor.’

‘Kiss my ass, Brett.’

‘I wouldn’t kiss your ... ass if it were covered in ... peanut butter and jelly.’

I start to crawl forward as carefully as I can.

Juan and Sally’s feet come into view, slowly edging forward.  She’s slightly to his left, but close in as if he’s got an arm round her waist or neck.

Sally is crying. 
Moaning that she hasn’t done anything; that he’s got the wrong person.

I move forward a couple of meters then kneel, raising one foot so that
it’s placed on the ground.  I raise the bat, holding it over one shoulder and wait.

Cowboy is cursing everything under the sun from the doorway.

Just as they almost draw level with me, Juan seems to get a change of heart, stopping his slow progress, deciding that maybe the back exit might be safer. Cowboy might be hit, but seems compos mentis enough to shoot a gun.

It’s now or never.  I swing the bat with as much might as I can.  It snags on a dress, but the momentum is enough that it crashes into Juan’s stomach.

He grunts and folds over. 

I stand and bring the bat down across his back and he slumps to the floor
groaning.  3-0 Crusaders!

I’d like to smash his head into next week, but instead
I grab Sally’s hand and start pulling her towards the back exit.  She resists for a moment, seemingly frozen to the spot, then she falls into step. 

‘I told you I’d be back for you,’ I say as we crash through the
rear fire door, trying to sound like the nonchalant action hero.  We both know, however, that it’s a minor miracle that we’re still alive and together; and that we’ve not yet made good our escape.

* * *

The wide passageway leads to a large roller shutter that is closed.  We tumble through a fire door to the right and find ourselves in the east atrium.  A few stragglers are being herded from the mall by anxious looking security guards. 

I drag Sally in that direction and we exit into the hot air, pushing our way through the confused
crowd, most of whom had been in the movie theatres and were unaware of the chaos in the food court and what caused the evacuation.

Sirens are approaching the site from several directions.  Cars are scattering across the car parks,
seeking exits.  We start jogging across the expanse of tarmac, heading for the main road.

We’re barely fifty meters out when there’s a shout behind us.

‘Tadhg!’

I glance over my shoulder
and we continue to run, Sally’s breath labored.  Kate is standing on the edge of the car park, pointing a handgun at us.

Will this never end?

I step up the pace, veering towards a slow moving car.  ‘We need to go faster, Sally.’

‘I can’t,’ she moans back.

‘Tadhg!  I’ll shoot,’ Kate barks.

I glance back again. 
Kate is still standing in the same spot, people scattering around her.

I prefer the odds of her shooting from distance than a meter away.  We keep running, aiming to intersect with
the car.

I
t’s going to glide past us.  It must be doing no more than ten miles an hour, following the designated speed limit for the mall car park.  I let go of Sally’s hand and dash into its path, waving my arms, the bat still in my hand.

Whoev
er is behind the wheel is slow with their reactions.

Here we go again!

I jump up and land on the hood with my hip, rolling up onto the windscreen.

The car comes to a
sudden halt and I catapult forwards and tumble to the ground, landing on my back with a thwack.  Every bruise and ache in my body flares.  I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck, not tapped by a car.

Sally has grabbed hold of my arm with both hands and is trying to drag me to my feet.  She
’s babbling something, but it sounds like gibberish to me – like a voice yelling under water.  Somewhat reluctantly, I stand, unsteady on my feet.

Kate is walking
purposefully across the car park towards us, the pistol down by her side.  She looks like she’s casting for a role in a Terminator movie.

A little old lady has got out of the car, her face creased in concern.  ‘Are you …’

I push her out of the way.  ‘I’m sorry, Miss, but we need your car.’

‘I … I …’

‘Police business.’  As in we need to avoid the police!

I push her to one side and slip in behind the wheel.  Sally is running round the hood for the passenger door.

Shit!  I can’t do this!  I smash my open palm into the steering wheel and leap out again.

‘You drive,’ I shout heading for the trunk.

‘What?’ Sally shouts.

‘You drive!’

‘Tadhg!’  She turns on her heels, heading back to the front of the car.  ‘What the hell are you doing?’

I clear the end of the car and head down to the passenger door.  Across the roof I can see Kate running towards us, closing fast, the elderly woman backing away, looking lost.

I slip into the car. 

Kate is going to arrive in a couple of seconds. 

A moment later Sally plonks down on the seat, slamming the door behind her.

‘Drive
!’ I shout.

Sally shifts
into gear and slams her foot on the accelerator.  We jump forward just before Kate arrives where the trunk used to be.  A second later there’s another loud crack accompanied by a ping and whine as a bullet thuds into the car.

‘FUCK!’

‘Tadhg!’ Sally shouts.

‘Floor it!’

‘I am freaking flooring it!’

‘Well, floor it some more!’

We barely seem to be moving, the car struggling to accelerate.  Christ knows what heap of crap we’ve just stolen from the old lady.  It’s probably never been above the speed limit since it was bought.

There’s another bang and the back and side windows shatter.

‘Tadhg!’

‘Head that way,’ I point to our left.  The exits from the car park are choked with traffic.  There’s no point trying t
hem, we’ll be a sitting duck. ‘And swerve.  It’ll be more difficult to hit a moving target.’

Sally turns the car and sets off across the almost deserted car park, swerving left and right.

There’s two more shots, but nothing seems to hit us.  I glance back out of the shattered window.  Kate is standing with her legs spread, both hands on the pistol, pointing it at us.  There’s another bang.  Instinctively, I duck and turn back to face the front.  We’re almost on top of the shrubbery.

‘Sally!’

We crash through the low lying bushes, smash through a chain link fence, bounce across the sidewalk and land on the road with a loud crack.  I rise up out of the seat, smacking my head off the roof.

DAMN
!

I’m aware of Sally turning the wheel hard to try and get us pointing
in the right direction, the screeching of tires and a cacophony of horns, and the low rumble of a jet engine coming into land.

I glance out the back window to see the exhaust pipe clattering along the road, cars swerving to avoid it.

I catch a glimpse of a police car heading the other way, its lights swirling, siren blaring, as it makes its way to the mall.

‘You need to slow down, Sally.’

‘Go fuck yourself, Tiger.’

Despite the drama of the last few minutes our friendship seems to be back on its normal footing. 

* * *

The noise of the car without the exhaust is deafening
and exhaust fumes are being sucked into the interior through the smashed windows.

‘Left.
  Left!  We need to turn left.’

Sally ignores me
, continuing straight on.

‘
Where the hell are you going, Sally?’

‘The police department.’

‘The police department?  Are you mad!  There’s no way we’re going to the police.’

‘Give me one good reason why
not?’  She glances over at me, her mouth set in a determined hard line.

‘I’ll give you three. 
Annabelle, Jason and Paavo.’  I hold up three fingers.  ‘They’re being held hostage.  Aldo Pirelli has Annabelle; Barry White has Jason and Paavo.’

Okay, so there’s a white lie in there – Annabelle is probably free at this point –
but that’s beside the point. I need to win this argument.

‘Which is why we need to go to the police,’ Sally counters.  ‘This has gone too far; it needs professionals.’

‘Professionals?  Don’t make me laugh.  Aldo Pirelli has been running this town for over forty years.  If the police could have done something about him, they’d have done it by now.  They’re probably all in his pay.’

‘And what do you propose
?  That we take them on ourselves?  Wage a war?’

‘I just escaped and saved you, didn’t I?’
 

‘By placing hundreds of peoples’ lives at risk!
  Jesus, Tadhg, God only knows what the emergency services are finding back there.’

She has a point.  Things did get
completely out of hand; bullets flying all over the place, but I press on.  ‘You would have preferred it if I’d let them hand you over to Psycho-Bitch?’

‘No!  Yes! 
This has gone too far, Tiger.  It’s time to stand aside and let someone else have a go.’

It had gone too far shortly after midnight.
 

‘Sally, if we go to the police they’re going to spend hours questioning us.  They’re going to charge us with all kinds of stuff.  They won’t believe a word we tell them.  All that’s going to do is leave Jason and Paavo to their fate.  Those bastards aren’t going to stop until they get their million dollars.’