The Wreckage: A Thriller (28 page)

“Hey, I told you to wait!” says Bernie, who is trying to repackage a CD player. “You got to stay out there—the other side of the counter.”

“How long wil you be?”

“When I’m ready, I’m ready.”

The Courier walks back to the service counter, sure now that Bernie is alone. The pawnbroker appears, wiping his hands on his thighs.

“What can I do for you?”

“I’m looking for a girl cal ed Hol y Knight.”

“Never heard of her.”

“That’s a shame.”

The Courier has taken a golf club from a two-toned Slazenger bag in the corner. He holds it in his fists, more like an axe than a seven-iron.

“They’re a fine set of clubs,” says Bernie. “Belonged to a pro golfer who retired.”

“Is that right?”

“You like golf?”

“Not even a little bit.”

The Courier waggles the club.

“Hey, if you’re not into golf, have a look at these.” Bernie opens a drawer ful of DVDs. “I got something for every taste in here. Fat Girls. Big tits. Nurses. Maybe you like them young.

This isn’t your typical East European shit. It’s American—better production values. No dubbing. They moan in English.” The visitor doesn’t take his eyes off Bernie. This is weird, thinks the pawnbroker; even the whacked-out crackheads and ice-addicts like porn, but not this guy. Instead he keeps grinning like he’s got dancing monkeys in his head.

Stil talking, Bernie edges along the counter towards the cash register where he keeps a sawn-off shotgun on a shelf.

“Buy one and you get the second one free,” he says, “and if you don’t have a DVD player I can fix you up with one.” His right hand drops below the level of the counter and his fingers touch the stock of the shotgun. Al he has to do is pick it up but for some reason he can’t do it. He’s staring at the smiling man, unable to focus.

“What do you want, mister?”

“You’re going to show me what Hol y Knight sold to you. Then you’re going to tel me where to find her.”

“I told you—I don’t know anyone by that name. Why are you grinning at me like that?”

The golf club shatters the counter and Bernie leaps backwards, knocking over a rack of second-hand CDs. His mouth flaps wordlessly.

“Where is Hol y Knight?” asks the Courier.

“She lives on the Hogarth Estate.”

“Not anymore.”

“Then I don’t know where she is.”

“What did she sel you?”

“Bits and pieces,” says Bernie. “Some of it I already sold.”

The Courier puts the seven-iron back in the bag and selects another.

“I mean, you’re welcome to the rest of it,” says Bernie. “I’l show you. It’s in my office. Upstairs.” Bernie lifts his chin to the ceiling.

The Courier waits for him to lock up the shop and fol ows him around the side of the building and up the staircase.

“Why are you so fat?” he asks.

“I eat too much.”

“You don’t exercise? Walk every day. Twenty minutes.”

“That’s what my wife says.”

“You should listen to her.”

Once inside the office, Bernie fusses over opening cupboards, clumsy with nerves. He hands over the briefcase, a laptop, digital camera and a mobile phone.

“What about the notebook?”

“Why would I want a fucking notebook?” Bernie opens his palms, trying to sound reasonable. “That laptop won’t be much good to you. When I booted it up I got an email. I opened it up and a window popped open, then another one. It was a virus chewing through the files—emails, the calendar, contacts, spreadsheets… I held down the power button and then rebooted but it was too late. I got the black screen of death. Al gone.”

The Courier glances around the office. Something bothers him. Maybe it’s Bernie’s wheedling voice. No, that’s not it. Then he notices the CCTV camera in a corner of the ceiling.

Careless. He fol ows the wire to a DVD recorder below the pawnbroker’s desk and smashes it with his boot heel.

“It wasn’t on,” says Bernie, one hand trembling on his temple. “I got no beef with you, sir. I gave you what you asked for.” The Courier turns towards the window where raindrops have left a pattern of dust on the pane.

“I got to figure out what to do with you,” he says. “Nothing personal, but you irritate me.”

“A lot of people say that,” says Bernie. “Even my wife says I’m irritating.”

“She’s a very perceptive woman. Do you think she’d mind if you were dead?”

“I hope she would.”

The Courier takes the keys from Bernie and pushes him into the storeroom, hooking the padlock through the latch. He puts his mouth near the door.

“What are you going to do if Hol y Knight contacts you again?”

“I want nothing to do with her.”

“That’s the wrong answer, Bernie. You see, I know where you work and where you live.”

“I’m going to cal you.”

“Now we’re communicating.”

17

BAGHDAD

Luca finds Edge at a bar in the International Zone holding a shot glass of bourbon up to the light as if looking at a rare jewel. His right hand is wrapped in a discolored bandage and a Filipino woman is sitting on the stool next to him. Dressed in a halter top and denim shorts, she’s wearing spiked heels that don’t reach the floor.

“You look like you slept in the restroom,” says Luca.

“Not true. I slept with this little lady,” says Edge, almost inhaling the shot, before sipping a beer more slowly. “Say hel o to Marcel a. She’s a hooker.” Marcel a doesn’t appreciate the description. She swings her handbag at Edge’s head and cal s him an ape before tottering away on her heels, which make her legs look longer and her head smal er.

“Can I join you?”

“It’s a free country. Operation Iraqi Freedom—name says it al .”

The barman has left the bottle of bourbon so Edge can free pour. That’s one of the things the contractor hates about foreign countries—the measuring cups and penny-pinching.

Flexing his damaged hand, Edge picks up a cigarette. He has six of them lined up on the bar. Lighting up, he sucks on it like oxygen.

Luca narrows his eyes against the smoke. “What are you doing?”

“I’m getting drunk and then I’m gonna pick a fight.”

“In that order?”

“Yep. Which bit are you here for?”

Luca points at Edge’s bandaged hand. “Is that from your last fight?”

“I hit a wal .”

“Who won?”

“We both suffered superficial damage.”

Edge sips his beer.

“I heard about Shaun,” says Luca. “You want to talk about it?”

“Nope.”

“Might help.”

“That’s what the counselor said. I told him I wanted to turn this shithole country to rubble.”

“What did he say?”

“He suggested I take anti-depressants. I said I wasn’t fucking depressed. Depressed is when you can’t get out of bed and you can’t taste your food and you can’t laugh or cry.

Depressed is when you feel nothing at al . Right now I’d love to feel nothing.”

“You shouldn’t blame yourself.”

“I should have been there.”

“Then you’d be dead too.”

“Yeah, wel , I could have lived with that.”

Luca orders a beer. They sit in silence for a while. The bar is empty, except for a young man reading a newspaper near the window. Every so often he turns a page and glances at them. Tal er than average, with a short haircut and an expensive leather jacket, he looks American. It’s the teeth. An orthodontist winters in Florida thanks to those teeth.

Luca motions to Edge’s hand. “Is it broken?”

“Maybe.”

Edge gingerly unwraps the bandage as though expecting to see something green and gangrenous. Instead it’s bruised and swol en.

“Can you stil drive?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you hold a gun?”

His eyes brighten.

“Sure.”

“I need security.”

“Wil I get to shoot anyone?”

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t.”

Edge seems to teeter on the edge of a direct response, his eyes charged with a strange energy.

“What’s the job?”

“I’m trying to find out why Shaun and the others died.”

“How you gonna do that?”

“You remember Watergate?”

“Nixon and stuff.”

“An informant was feeding information to Woodward and Bernstein—they were the journalists who linked the break-in to the White House.”

“Deep Throat. Right? The guy in the underground car park.”

“You saw the movie—that’s good. Deep Throat kept tel ing them one thing, over and over.”

“What was that?”

“Fol ow the money.”

“That’s
my
sort of message.”

“I thought it might be.”

“When do we leave?”

“First light.”

The trucking camp is a makeshift township of tents, shipping containers and clapboard buildings five miles south-west of Baghdad on the main highway to Jordan. It’s a strange atavistic and tribal world, set amid a wasteland of stony desert, sand dunes, rocky islands and dried up riverbeds.

More than fifty trucks are parked in bays, some with canvas awnings strung from the cabs and pegged to the ground. Other rigs are jacked up on cinder blocks undergoing repairs.

Most of the vehicles are stained with rust or scarred by bul ets and shrapnel.

The gatekeeper is smal and brown with a frayed coat and woolen hat the same color as his beard. Pressing his palms together, Luca talks in Arabic, wishing him good morning.

Springsteen is playing on a beatbox from within a nearby tent.

“That’s what I’l never understand about this place,” mutters Edge to Daniela. “These bastards hate us, but they watch our movies and listen to our music.”

“Maybe music doesn’t belong to anyone,” replies Daniela.

“Yeah, wel Springsteen doesn’t belong to these fuckers.”

Luca comes back to the Land Cruiser.

“Two hundred yards straight ahead, building on the right.”

The drivers are waking, emerging from their tents, stiffness in their bodies, shirts unbuttoned and belts undone, scratching navels or testicles. Most of them are foreigners, uneducated and poor, hapless and a long way from home. One of them urinates loudly on the side of an empty drum.

Edge parks near the largest of the buildings and watches Luca and Daniela walk across the dusty street and push through a doorway slung with a hessian curtain. Inside the air smel s of pea soup, eggs, rice and noodles. Large metal pots are propped on cinder blocks above glowing charcoal.

Four cooks turn in unison. Only one keeps his back to them, continuing to stir a pot. Luca bows and asks for Hamada al-Hayak.

Al-Hayak turns and wipes his left hand on a dirty cloth tucked in the rope that serves him as a belt. Instead of a right arm he has an empty sleeve, knotted above the elbow.

The cooks and dishwashers are focused on Daniela, whose headscarf has slipped back from her forehead. Self-consciously, she tugs it back in place. One of them is huge, in a checked shirt and overal s that are two sizes too smal and ride up over his ankles.

“Can we talk?” asks Luca.

Al-Hayak motions to the rear door. Stepping past a makeshift pyramid of gas cylinders, he leads them into a smal courtyard and storage area fenced in by shipping containers. A diesel generator chugs noisily, producing power for the fridges and the lights. Goats are tethered to wooden stakes, their eyes luminous and curious.

The cook turns on Luca.

“What sort of dumb shit are you? Coming here. Bringing a woman like that.” He motions to Daniela without making eye contact with her. “Some of these men wil look at you and see nothing but a reward.” He pinches one nostril and blows out the other. “Who gave you my name?”

“Jimmy Dessai.”

“You’re lying.”

Luca takes a fifty-dol ar bil from his pocket. “I need some information.”

Al-Hayak ignores the request and puts a cigarette between his lips, hunting in his shirt pocket for a match. Finding a light, he holds the smoke deep in his lungs like he’s trying to digest it. “So now you’re going to bribe me. How much is my life worth? What about my arm? What wil you pay me for my good arm?”

“What happened to your arm?” asks Daniela.

“What do you care? You wil go home one day soon and you’l cal this a victory and say you did your best.”

“You used to be a truck driver,” says Luca.

“When I had two of these.” He holds up his hand.

“What happened?”

“I lost my truck. They blew up the lead vehicle in the convoy, blocking the road and opened fire on the rest of us.”

“What were you hauling?”

“Diesel.”

“Ever take anything else?”

He shrugs. “Cigarettes, paraffin, wheat, cooking oil…”

“What about cash?”

Al-Hayak shakes his head, his mouth a tight line. The odor of cooking fat and wet nicotine rises from his clothes.

“I earn two dol ars a day serving food. With two arms I could earn five times that much. I’m a cook, not a criminal.” Luca pul s out another banknote, holding it between his index and forefinger. The gesture seems to reveal something in the cook’s eyes, a smal dul yel ow light burning in the corners like a parasite feeding. Taking the money quickly, he pushes it deep into the front pocket of his apron.