Authors: Colum Sanson-Regan
Chapter Thirty
When Henry gets home that night he sees that money has been transferred to his account.
The following evening he is sitting at his table, naked but for a towel around his waist. His chalk skin is drawn tight over his skeleton and he is eating cold tuna from a tin, waiting for his sheets to finish drying. He picks up the phone and dials Kramer.
“Bloomburg. What have you got?”
“Nothing, Kramer. I’ve got nothing. I’ve got a memory of something horrific, beyond horrific. I’ve got a voice that speaks to me, but no way to trace it. I’ve got a nobody that lived at Lomax road. I can’t find who was there. Did you get anything from Lomax?”
“Same as you probably. Just an absent landlord. The place looks like someone’s been in it, but it’s a mess, like a nest. There’s no records. The landlord lives on the other side of the country, doesn’t know a thing. Nothing traceable in the place. Some printed paper with what looks like some stories on it.”
“Can I have it? What’s it about?”
“It’s in midtown station. Go check it out if you want. I haven’t seen it but the boys say it’s pretty shoddy work. Something about someone falling down a well. Bloomburg, this voice, what’s it saying to you?”
“You don’t wanna know Kramer.”
“Well, listen, just remember why you left us. Don’t let shit get under your skin, you don’t want to go back there.”
“I appreciate your sentiment Kramer. I gotta go.”
He puts the phone down and spoons the cold fish into his mouth. His phone rattles and rings on the thin wooden counter. He doesn’t recognize the number.
“Bloomburg. It’s Spike.”
“Spike. You didn’t kill me.”
“And you didn’t kill me. You could have.”
“So what’s this?”
“She’s gone. I need you to find her. Maya’s gone.”
“You want to employ me? You want to kill me, then you want to employ me?”
Henry looks from his window to the alley below. Some cans and plastic bags. He goes to the apartment door and looks through the peephole. The corridor is empty.
“Why are you really calling me?”
“I need you to find her.”
“Usually when people go like that it’s because they want to go and they don’t want to be found. I don’t want to help you find her if she doesn’t want to be found.”
“That’s not how it works. Last night you said, someone calls you and you take the job. Take the job. I need you to find her.”
“Spike, I’m—”
“Bloomburg, you could have killed me. You had me and you let me go. I’m not a fucking psychopath. I need her back more than I need you dead. She can cause more damage to me if she wants. And I love her. I’m going to text you an address. Come to this address tonight at ten and we’ll talk about it, you have to help me.”
“You think I’m going to come to you? Spike? I’m not going to be—” but Spike hangs up.
Henry sits down and keeps eating. A few minutes later his phone rings again. It’s Maya. Henry picks it up.
“Hello Maya.”
“Did you get the money?” Her voice is creaky.
“Yes, thank you.”
“I want to give you more.”
“Really.”
“I want you to kill Spike. I want him dead.”
“Maya, I don’t do that.”
“I don’t care how much it costs, I want him dead.”
“You’ll have to do it yourself.”
“I’m going to text you an address and I want you to come tonight and we’ll discuss it.”
“Maya, I’m not going to do it.”
“Come tonight at ten, I will pay you whatever you want, just come.”
“I’m not going to—” but she hangs up.
Henry puts his phone back on the table and finishes his tuna. The drone of the dryer stops and beeps. He puts the empty tuna tin in the bin. There’s another rattle on the table, followed by another as the two texts come through. They are addresses on either side of the city. He could go and finish Spike and get more money. He could send Maya the address which Spike has sent, so that she can go and kill him, or send Spike Maya’s address, so that he can go and find her. He doesn’t want to do any of these. It’s a mess. Love makes a mess. There’s a story in midtown station. A story from the centre of his mystery. He takes the hot sheets out of the machine. The hot clean linen feels good against his naked body. He goes to redress the bed.
* * *
When Lucy wakes up she is in Kayleigh’s bed. It’s daylight outside. Her head hurts. Kayleigh is lying next to her, breathing deep and slow. She sits up slowly, waiting for her mind to catch up with what her body is doing. On the sheets she sees dried foam and chocolate smears. She looks down. On her breasts are chocolate smears. She remembers last night. She and Kayleigh had made a thick hot chocolate and smeared it on each other, licking it off. She remembers Spike coming in, going back out and coming in again.
She stands out of the bed and goes into the living room, where the cushions are off the sofa and Spike’s huge body is taking up the floor. She has a flash of dancing in the kitchen with Kayleigh turning the lights on and off and the sound of both of them laughing. Then turning the lights off-on, off and on, off and the next time they flicked on, Spike was there, huge and angry, and she and Kayleigh started screaming.
She pours a glass of water from the tap and Spike sits up. Even sitting on the floor his huge bulk is intimidating, nearly as tall as she is.
“Is Kayleigh awake?” he asks.
Lucy shakes her head.
“Have you heard from Gregor?”
She shakes her head again. He stands up and throws the cushions back on the sofa.
“When you do let me know. And put some fucking clothes on.”
He goes into Kayleigh’s room, closing the door behind him. Lucy stands in the kitchen. Her short blonde hair is tussled, she has red rings under her eyes, her body and breasts are smeared with chocolate. She drinks glass after glass of water. The time is coming, she knows.
* * *
When Gregor arrives, she’s in the shower. She stops the water as soon as she hears his voice. He is asking Spike,
Where? What happened?
Spike is saying,
It was a big truck that came straight at him. He had to swerve, hit a wall, the car is finished, but okay. A few bruises, but okay. No, the truck didn’t stop. No, no police were involved, Buddy at the Workshop towed the car.
Gregor’s voice is getting more and more tense, the volume rising.
It’s all still going ahead.
Spike tries to interject. A chill runs through Lucy as Gregor shouts him down; he doesn’t care,
there is nothing linking Ali with Stranstec, everything is going to go ahead as planned.
Spike is saying,
you should put it off until you’re sure.”
Then it will never happen,
shouts Gregor.
Lucy dries herself and pulls on her clothes.
She waits for a silence and then steps out of the bathroom. The men step away from each other and Gregor smiles, but there is something in his face that grabs at her guts with a cold hand. He goes to her and she puts her arms around him and they kiss.
“You okay?” he says
“Yeah.”
“Very good, let’s go.”
“I want to say goodbye to Kayleigh.”
“Kayleigh is asleep, leave her,” says Spike. To Gregor he says, “What time do you want me on point?”
“No,” says Gregor, “tonight I want you right next to me, all night.”
Spike’s face registers surprise. Lucy is gathering her clothes from around the room.
Spike asks, “Who’s on point?”
“Some boys in blue on the payroll. Get some sleep.”
Then he and Lucy are out of the door and down onto the street. Lucy asks as he starts the engine, “Are we going home? Is it safe now?”
“Safe. Yes, for you it’s safe now.”
The traffic is heavy, the roads are full and they travel at a slow walking pace under a sky heavy with cloud. There are lines and lines of cars, vans, taxis, and trucks, all travelling so slowly, just waiting for the chance to speed off into the distance. All of those engines, all of that raw power restrained, growling and throbbing like a demon child come of age in the steel womb.
She says, “Spike said he was going to bring me back to the house. I don’t think he wanted you to come to the flat.”
“It was all taking too long. What did you take yesterday?”
“Are you angry?”
“I just want to know, what did you take yesterday?”
“I don’t really know. Spike gave it to us, a blue pill.”
“Spike gave it to you?”
“Yeah, to us both.”
“A full pill?”
“Yeah. We were off it all day and most of the night.”
“Do you remember everything?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been getting flashes. I remember … well …”
“Was Spike there all the time?”
“Not all the time, but when he was, well he … he …”
“He what?”
“He fucked me and Kayleigh. I remember that.”
* * *
That night Gregor and Spike drive back to the docks. The moon is full and the river is swollen, running fast and smooth out of the city, widening as it winds through this forgotten landscape. They don’t speak and the shadows in the car rise and fall as they pass through the quiet streets. Spike’s not used to being in the passenger seat and doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He ends up sitting on them. He hasn’t spoken since he got in the car.
When Gregor picked Spike up from outside his house, the lights were all off inside. Gregor can usually sense fear, but there’s something in Spike which he senses but can’t place, as if some great mountain has crumbled within him and Gregor is feeling the slow shockwaves. Gregor doesn’t look at him. They pass a police car. Spike reflexively leans forward and touches the black sports bag between his feet on the floor of the car.
“Is that one of ours?” Gregor nods. They turn right and down a side street. Halfway down there are two cars already parked next to the big wire fence.
“This is it,” says Gregor. “Are you loaded?”
Spike nods and pats the gun beneath his jacket. They get out of the car.
* * *
Lucy sits at the big oak table, looking at her reflection in the double glass doors. Steam rises from the cup and she curls her hands around the warm porcelain. She wears her fluffy dressing gown and her silk black negligee underneath. When they came back there were more clothes in the wardrobe and another necklace, shining from a black velvet box on the dresser.
Gregor had kissed her and said, “I’ll be back with some good food later.”
“It’s not dangerous, is it? Is that why you want Spike there?”
“Don’t worry. It’s just business.”
That was hours ago. She had undressed and put on her negligee, held the necklace in her hands, watched how the light bounced from it as the girl in the frame held back her tears. Then she had taken her dressing gown from the wardrobe, wrapping it around herself as she passed the closed doors to the staircase.
Downstairs she had switched on the television and gone through what was recorded. Reality programmes and documentaries. She had thought of the movies she watched with Stranstec in her small city flat. Gangster movies and horrors were his favourite. She had never seen the point in horror movies until she watched them with him, and then she would cling to him on the sofa, with rushes of fear and excitement running through her. She had thought about how Stranstec would laugh when she tells him about Gregor’s favourite programmes. She could see him laughing. “Property programmes? Reality contests?” She had scanned through the channels, before turning it off again.
Then she went into the kitchen, and stood at the marble plinth. She looked at its alien surface and how the light reflected on it and thought how Stranstec had used that word too—business. She had made her coffee in a kind of daze.
Now she sits at the broad oak table. She wonders where Stranstec is now. She imagines him in his office. He’s smoking, moving people into place, setting it all up. She’s never been to his house, she doesn’t know if it is smaller or more grand than Gregor’s. She knows that there is life in it, not like here. Here there is evidence of life, but no beating heart. There’s an unnatural stillness. She feels uncomfortable moving, as if when she is in the house she should be moved rather than move herself.
When she has stared at her reflection until she has disappeared, she gets up and turns the light off. She sits again. Now the shapes of the garden in the night appear. There is the statue. Two bodies in an embrace, holding each other like dancers, joining from the waist down and rooting into the earth as one. She sips her tea, and lets her eye follow the statue from the ground up. Now it is one body, rising up, and from it two parts splitting apart, not in love, or in an embrace but in conflict, pushing each other away. The moonlight on the stone shows what was a loving hold to be a tortured grip, and the stone faces frozen in an eternal agony.
Stranstec. He will come and get her soon. She just has to wait.
* * *
Inside the abandoned warehouse Gregor and Spike stand. Two long strip lights run the entire length of the long room, illuminating the room with a harsh white light, like a movie set. Between these lights is the graffiti version of God and Adam, a diseased creator giving life to a sick and feeble shell, but no-one in the room will look up to see this. There are three men on the other side of the room. One of them has a briefcase. Spike has the sports bag over his shoulder.
One of the men asks, “Just the two of you?”
Gregor replies, “No. There are more.”
There is an echo in the big room, the last words ring for a second, repeating and decaying.
“Shall we do it then?”
Gregor nods, and Spike walks forward. As he does, the man with the briefcase steps forward to meet him. In the centre of the room they meet. The strip lights cast disfigured shadows on the dusty stone floor. Spike hands over the sports bag and takes the briefcase. As the two men check what has been exchanged, the dark squashed shapes beneath their feet make a monster and a disfigured child of them. But no-one is watching the shadows. The deal is done.
* * *
Driving away from the docks, Gregor and Spike are silent. The briefcase is beneath Gregor’s seat. As they drive alongside the reflection of the moonlight on the river, Spike says, “Something doesn’t feel right about that. Something’s not right.”