In the corner of the shop, where the Bondage and Domination material was displayed, something rose from the floor. Maguire found it hard to focus in the intermittent light. Red, blue. Red, blue. But it wasn't Norton, nor one of the Perlguts.
It was a face he knew however, smiling at him against the background of 'Roped and Raped' magazines. Now he saw: it was Glass, clear as day, and, despite the coloured lights, white as a sheet.
He didn't try to reason how a dead man could be staring at him, he just dropped his coat and his jaw, and ran.
The door was locked, and the key was one of two dozen on his ring. Oh Jesus, why did he have so many keys? Keys to the warehouse, keys to the greenhouse, keys to the whorehouse. And only that twitching light to see them by. Red, blue. Red, blue.
He rummaged amongst the keys and by some magical chance the first he tried slotted easily in the lock and turned like a finger in hot grease. The door was open, the street ahead.
But Glass glided up behind him soundlessly, and before he could step over the threshold he had thrown something around Maguire's face, a cloth of some kind. It smelt of hospitals, of ether or disinfectant or both. Magure tried to cry out but a fist of cloth was being thrust down his throat. He gagged on it, the vomit-reflex making his system revolt. In response the assassin just tightened his grip.
In the street opposite a girl Maguire knew only as Natalie (Modeclass="underline" seeks interesting position with strict disciplinarian) was watching the struggle in the doorway of the shop with a doped look on her vapid face. She'd seen murder once or twice; she'd seen rape aplenty, and she wasn't about to get involved. Besides, it was late, and the insides of her thighs ached. Casually she turned away down the pink-lit corridor, leaving the violence to take its course. Maguire made a mental note to have the girl's face carved up one of these days. If he survived; which seemed less likely by the moment. The red, blue, red, blue was unfixable now, as his airless brain went colour-blind, and though he seemed to-snatch a grip on his would-be assassin, the hold seemed to evaporate, leaving cloth, empty cloth, running through his sweating hands like silk.
Then someone spoke. Not behind him, not the voice of his assassin, but in front. In the street. Norton. It was Norton. He'd returned for some reason, God love him, and he was getting out of his car ten yards down the street, shouting Maguire's name.
The assassin's choke-hold faltered and gravity claimed Maguire. He fell heavily, the world spinning, to the pavement, his face purple in the lurid light.
Norton ran towards his boss, fumbling for his gun amongst the bric-a-brac in his pocket. The white-suited assassin was already backing off down the street, unprepared to take on another man. He looked, thought Norton, for all the world like a failed member of the Klu Klux Klan; a hood, a robe, a cloak. Norton dropped to one knee, took a double-handed aim at the man and fired. The result was startling. The figure seemed to balloon up, his body losing its shape, becoming a flapping mass of white cloth, with a face loosely imprinted on it. There was a noise like the snapping of Monday-washed sheets on a line, a sound that was out of place in this grimy back-street. Norton's confusion left him responseless for a moment, and the man-sheet seemed to rise in the air, illusory.
At Norton's feet, Maguire was coming round, groaning. He was trying to speak but having difficulty making himself understood through his bruised larynx and throat. Norton bent closer to him. He smelt of vomit and fear.
'Glass,' he seemed to be saying.
It was enough. Norton nodded, said hush. That was the face, of course, on the sheet. Glass, the imprudent accountant. He'd watched the man's feet fried, watched the whole vicious ritual; not to his taste at all.
Well, welclass="underline" Ronnie Glass had some friends apparently, friends not above revenge.
Norton looked up, but the wind had lifted the ghost above the rooftops and away.
That had been a bad experience; the first taste of failure. Ronnie remembered it still, the desolation of that night. He'd lain, heaped in a rat-run corner of a derelict factory south of the river, and calmed the panic in his fibres. What good was this trick he'd mastered if he lost control of it the instant he was threatened? He must plan more carefully, and wind his will up until it would brook no resistance. Already he sensed that his energy was ebbing: and there was a hint of difficulty in restructuring his body this second time round. He had no time to waste with fumbled failures. He must corner the man where he could not possibly escape.
Police investigations at the mortuary had led round in circles for half a day; and now into the night. Inspector Wall of the Yard had tried every technique he knew. Soft words, hard words, promises, threats, seductions, surprises, even blows. Still Lenny told the same story; a ridiculous story he swore would be corroborated when his fellow technician came out of the catatonic state he'd now taken refuge in. But there was no way the Inspector could take the story seriously. A shroud that walked?
How could he put that in his report? No, he wanted something concrete, even if it was a lie.
'Can I have a cigarette?' asked Lenny for the umpteenth time. Wall shook his head.
'Hey, Fresco - ' Wall addressed his right-hand man, Al Kincaid. 'I think it's time you searched the lad again.'
Lenny knew what another search implied; it was a euphemism for a beating. Up against the wall, legs spread, hands on head: wham! His stomach jumped at the thought.
'Listen ...' he implored.
'What, Lenny?'
'I didn't do it.'
'Of course you did it,' said Wall, picking his nose. 'We just want to know why. Didn't you like the old fucker? Make dirty remarks about your lady-friends, did he? He had a bit of a reputation for that, I understand.'
Al Fresco smirked.
'Was that why you nobbled him?'
'For God's sake,' said Lenny, 'you think I'd tell you a fucking story like that if I didn't see it with my own fucking eyes.'
'Language,' chided Fresco.
'Shrouds don't fly,' said Wall, with understandable conviction.
'Then where is the shroud, eh?' reasoned Lenny.
'You incinerated it, you ate it, how the fuck should I know?'
'Language,' said Lenny quietly.
The phone rang before Fresco could hit him. He picked it up, spoke and handed it to Wall. Then he hit Lenny, a friendly slap that drew a little blood.
'Listen,' said Fresco, breathing with lethal proximity to Lenny as if to suck the air out of his mouth, 'We know you did it, see? You were the only one in the morgue alive to do it, see? We just want to know why. That's all. Just why.'
'Fresco.' Wall had covered the receiver as he spoke to the muscle-man.
'Yes, sir.'
'It's Mr Maguire.'
'Mr Maguire?'
'Micky Maguire.'
Fresco nodded.
'He's very upset.'
'Oh yeah? Why's that?'
'He thinks he's been attacked, by the man in the morgue. The pornographer.'
'Glass,' said Lenny, 'Ronnie Glass.'
'Ronald Glass, like the man says,' said Wall, grinning at Lenny.
'That's ridiculous,' said Fresco.
'Well I think we ought to do our duty to an upstanding member of the community, don't you? Duck in to the morgue will you, make sure - '
'Make sure?'
That the bastard's still down there - '
'Oh.'
Fresco exited, confused but obedient.
Lenny didn't understand any of this: but he was past caring. What the hell was it to him anyway? He started to play with his balls through a hole in his left-hand pocket. Wall watched him with disdain.
'Don't do that,' he said. 'You can play with yourself as much as you like once we've got you tucked up in a nice, warm cell.'
Lenny shook his head slowly, and removed his hand from his pocket. Just wasn't his day.