She answered right away.
"Thought you might have fallen asleep," Carlos said.
"As if that's likely. Did you find out what you were after?"
"Maybe," he said.
"Just maybe?"
"I can't talk on the phone."
"How did Maggie take it?"
"Not on the phone, Mama!"
"Okay," she said. "You want me to leave now?"
"Yep. And stay in your car."
This time of night it'd be only a ten-minute drive from here to the patch of wasteland they were headed for. Carlos could have driven for hours like this, the whole city to themselves. He rolled his shoulder, his neck stiff, aware that the prickling inside his head wasn't normal.
Carlos cruised along to the stretch of wasteland down by the waterfront. The redevelopment round here was a pain. Hadn't been quite the same since the gasworks were demolished. But it was the best place for the job in hand. This was where joyriders came to burn their rides. He veered off the road, onto scrub and hard dirt, the headlights picking out a straggle of stunted bushes.
He selected his path, turned off the headlights. A few feet on the bumpy terrain and Jordan was jolted awake. Carlos listened to him moan, mutter something about bed.
"We're here," Carlos said, and the kid snapped to it when he realised where they were and that his job wasn't finished yet.
He stretched, shivered, and Carlos eased the van to a stop.
Now? Jordan said.
"Wait till Mum gets here."
Carlos climbed out of the van, the darkness smacking him in the face.
Jordan followed him. He yawned once. What do you think she'll say?
Carlos couldn't see Jordan, just heard the voice coming from the other side of the van. Carlos stared at the lonely lights flickering in the distance, wondered what their game was, why they flickered.
Well? When Jordan spoke again, he was just a couple of feet to Carlos's left.
Carlos's hand crept behind his back, fingered the Glock. He could see Jordan now, just, pale face above a shadowy outline. Carlos said, "Why do you care what she'll say?"
Maybe I don't. Just wondering what you'll tell her.
"I don't know," Carlos said. "What should I tell her? Why did you shoot Maggie?"
Can I have one of your cigs?
"Thought you didn't like smoke."
Not in the van. Different outside.
Carlos offered him the packet.
Jordan slid a cigarette out, leaned in for a light.
Carlos lit it, watched Jordan's face glow.
That night, Jordan said, straightening up. My dad was dying. There was a sword and… the fire…
"I know," Carlos said. "Richie's dad took a match to the place, right?"
That's what everybody thinks. Not true, though. It was my dad who set the place alight. He paused. Then he was run through with his own sword. And set on fire by the blaze he started himself.
"Tough way to go."
That's not how he went.
"No?"
I couldn't let him burn. He sucked on his cigarette, the end glowing. I shot him.
Carlos didn't know what to say.
He was in pain. Stabbed through the middle. On fire. I shot him. I stopped the pain.
"Sounds like that was — "
You know how I feel?
"I don't — "
No, you don't. Jordan's glowing cigarette butt arced to the ground, the cigarette not even half-smoked.
"What are you trying to say, Jordan? I'm sorry for what you had to do. But what does it have to do with Maggie?"
Maybe that's your mother. Jordan pointed towards the headlights approaching along the road that led to the waste ground.
"Why Maggie?" Carlos said.
You really have to ask? It needed to be done. And you didn't have the balls to do it yourself.
"She said it wasn't her who'd taken out the contract on my mother."
Maybe, but what about our other dead friend? Bob was there to carry out a contract on you.
"You don't know that."
It's how it looked to me.
"Maggie thought I'd killed my mother."
And that makes it okay?
The car pulled to a stop. "Better check that's Mum," Carlos said. He took out his phone, his thumb stabbing at the phone to light the display.
"I can't make out a thing," Carlos's mother said. "Is Maggie there?"
"She left us to it." His mother would find out sooner or later, but Carlos needed to work out what he was going to tell her first. Later was infinitely preferable to sooner. "Not too happy with the stunt we pulled on her."
"Didn't think she would be. How did she get home?"
"I don't know. Probably flagged down a taxi."
"You just let her wander off?"
"Didn't have much choice."
"You spoken to her since?"
"Been too busy."
"I hope she got home okay. Want me to call her?"
"Don't worry about Maggie." Carlos paused. "It wasn't her."
"You mean…?"
"Yeah."
"I didn't think so."
She was always so fucking right.
"Well," Carlos said. "Better get on with this, I suppose. Be with you soon." He hung up, said, "Come on," to Jordan and together they went round to the back of the van. Carlos opened the back doors, removed a can of petrol and set it on the ground. He took a plain white t-shirt, a can of spray paint, a couple of pencil torches and a box of cooking matches out of the hold-all.
He handed the spray paint and a torch to Jordan. "Write something," he said.
What's the point?
"Make the police think it's joyriders."
But once it's burnt, nobody'll be able to read it.
"They will," Carlos said. He remembered what Maggie had told him. Heard her say, "The heat burns the paint into the bodywork or something. Whatever you write, the cops'll be able to read it once the fire's out. So Bob says."
Fuck, that's weird.
"Fire's weird."
Jordan didn't move.
Carlos turned on his torch, shone the beam at him. "You going to get on with it?"
What should I write?
"Use your imagination."
Jordan moved away.
Carlos stuck his torch in his mouth, soaked the t-shirt in petrol.
When he'd finished, he walked over to watch Jordan's handiwork. Jordan had written FIREMEN on the side of the van and was standing staring at it.
He noticed the beam of Carlos's torch, stepped back. I'm stuck.
"Suck," Carlos said, around the torch.
No, stuck.
Carlos took the torch out of his mouth. "Suck," he said. "Add 'suck'."
Okay. Jordan shook the can, sprayed out the word. 'Firemen suck.' Sounds a bit lame.
"Cock," Carlos said. "Add 'cock'."
Nice.
When Jordan had finished, Carlos said, "Beautiful. Now scribble something else on the other side."
Like what?
"I don't fucking know."
Jordan paused for a moment, then disappeared.
"You mind opening that door while you're there?" Carlos said. He opened the driver's side door himself. Apparently that helped get the oxygen flowing. Thanks, Bob. Nearly ready. Just had to wait for Jordan to finish his final touch of graffiti. Carlos picked up the petrol can, walked round to the passenger side to join him, and stood back, listening to the cshh cshhhp of the paint leaving the canister.
Done, Jordan said, finally, torchbeam directed at his graffiti. He'd written: BOB WAS HERE, placing the joyrider here committing arson rather than out in the country getting shot. Course, his body was in the van, clearly shot. As was Maggie's. But the more there was to confuse the police, the better.
"Inspired," Carlos said. "Chuck the spray can inside."
Jordan tossed the can.
"And your gun."
You think?
"Can't keep it. It's a murder weapon."
Yours too.
Carlos wrenched the gun out of his waistband, lobbed it into the van.
Jordan nodded, threw his in too.
"Out of the way," Carlos said.
He drenched petrol over the seats. Damn stuff stank. Not what you wanted to smell when you'd been up half the night and you'd just started smoking again and you'd had a bellyful of bloodshed. He went round to the back, jumped inside, splashed more petrol around the interior. Splashed it over Bob. Hesitated as the torchlight spilled from his mouth and onto Maggie. It didn't look like her. Not in the least. He poured petrol on it.
The can was feeling much lighter when he heard a voice say, "Oh, my God." The voice came from the darkness outside the van. But it was unmistakably his mother's. Mierda. He put down the can. Only then did he twist his head, caught his mother in the narrow beam, hands pressed over her mouth. What the fuck was she doing out of her car?
"Is that a body?" she asked.
It's Maggie. Jordan was suddenly right beside her. And a friend of hers.
The little fucker. Carlos clambered out of the van, feet thudded on the ground when he landed.
"Get back in your car, M ama," he said.
"Charlie?"
Carlos rubbed his forehead.
Jordan gave Carlos's mother his torch. Take a look.
"Don't do that."
"Let go of me."
Carlos let go of her and she stepped into the van. He grabbed Jordan's arm, steered him away.
"Why are you doing this?" Carlos whispered.
You know what you have to do.
"What the fuck are you saying?"
You haven't worked it out yet?
"The fuck do you mean?"
Your mother. She was the one.
"The one? You mean the one who set herself up? Like fuck she was."
Who else could it have been?
"Could have been anybody."
You don't believe that, though. If you did, you wouldn't have planned what we've done tonight.
"I didn't fucking plan — "
Yeah, yeah, it got a bit fucked up. But you planned on finding out the truth.
"I hoped."
You've just succeeded.
"Suppose I believed you. Why would Mum take out a contract on herself?"
To see how far you would go.
"She didn't know what I did. She had no idea."
Yes, she did.
"How would you know?"
Jordan waited a moment. Maybe I told her.
"You don't know her."
Maybe I found out about her.
"How?"
Not so hard.
Carlos thought about the Glock he'd tossed into the front of the van. He shone his torch at Jordan's face, made him blink. "Why would you go to the trouble?"
Squinting. Because I thought she should know.
"Nah," Carlos said. "I don't believe you. She was shocked when I told her what I did. She wasn't faking it."
Don't believe me. I don't care. But maybe it's the truth.
"What's the truth?" Carlos's mother said. She stretched out her arms, a gun in each hand. "You shouldn't leave dangerous weapons lying around."
"Mum," Carlos said. "You want to put those down."
"When I'm ready," she said. "They're loaded, I know. I checked. Maggie's dead, Charlie. I really didn't think you'd do it."
"It's not her."
"Charlie."
"It was an accident. Sort of."
"God knows I didn't have a lot of love for her and she certainly had none for me. But, bloody hell, you killed somebody. And not just somebody. You killed your wife."
Carlos looked at Jordan. "Tell her what happened."
Well, Jordan said and started to explain about the police car and Bob and how Maggie had run away and how Carlos had shot her. In the leg, he said. And twice in the body.
"You little fuck," Carlos said. To his mum: "He's lying. He's the one who shot her."
"Make sense, Carlos," she said.
"He's thirteen years old. He thinks it's fun. That's why he's lying."
"God help you, Carlos."
"I know what it's like to be thirteen. Doesn't take much."
Fuck you, Jordan said. You know what it's like? he spat. Just like you know how I feel? Fuck you. Second half of payment on completion of job. Right, Charlie? His arm shot out and there was a crack and a flash and Carlos's mother fell to the ground. Think I wouldn't carry a spare? He laughed. I knew you'd get me some piece of shit.
Carlos switched off his torch, dropped, rolled towards his mother and scrabbled about for one of the guns. His hand touched grass and earth and fabric and skin and something wet and sticky. He retched, just bile, swallowed it down, the taste lingering on his tongue.
He heard Jordan coming towards him.
Carlos's fingers traced down his mother's arm, to her hand. Empty. But right next to it he touched something metal. He grabbed it. Rolled. Turned on the torch.
Jordan was bearing down on him, gun pointed right between his eyes.
Just before Carlos squeezed the trigger, the smell of petrol hit him, and he wondered if there was some on the gun. He wondered if it would light up, the petrol on it igniting. Flames would spread over his hand, a fiery glove. He could feel it blistering his flesh.
But the gun fired its bullet and didn't burst into flames. Still, his hand felt like it was being held inches from a raging coal fire.