‘I’ve been running on fumes for the past half-hour. The goddamn on-board computer is telling me I have a radius of two miles. So I am filling the hell up, unless you want the real cops to get hold of your steroids.’
‘And?’
‘What do you mean, and?’
‘I am sensing an and here, McEvoy. Do you want to tell me what it is, or, should I just go ahead and turn the thermostat down as low as it can go? See if we can’t freeze Deacon’s lingerie right off.’
So I give him an and, but not the real and. ‘Okay. All right. Take it easy. I picked up a few weapons from my locker in the bus station on the way out, and now I’m dropping them off. I bring ’em over to your place and they get confiscated, right?’
The secret to a good lie is to bury it in truth.
‘What’ve you got there?’ asks Faber, playing it cool like he could tell the difference between a Gatling gun and a Colt.45.
‘I got two phasers and a fart ray. What do you care? You’re getting your steroids. Maybe you should take a couple of them yourself, beef up that pointing finger.’
I can’t help it. It’s a curse.
‘Five minutes,’ says Faber gruffly, then hangs up.
I squeeze the steering wheel until the leather groans, then laugh a long, jagged laugh that chops at my throat like an axe hacking on a steak. When the fit passes, I buzz down the window and spit into the night.
You okay now? asks Ghost Zeb.
Yep. Fine. Peachy.
Just over seven minutes later, what I had to do has been done and I’m pulling around back of The Brass Ring thinking that the parking lot seems a little placid without canaries and praying I didn’t get any blood on my clothes.
One of Faber’s guys, Wilbur, is on the ramp cracking his knuckles, and I’m having a little chuckle over his shit-kicker name when I remember how eager Wilbur was to shoot Goran in the face. I’m thinking that Wilbur got teased a little too often in the schoolyard and is taking revenge on the world.
Wilbur throws me a nod that speaks volumes. Not good hey, McEvoy, let’s go grab a Cobb salad volumes, more see what I did to Goran? Well you’re next kind of volumes. I’ve had so many security guys giving me the hard face over the past few days that it’s getting kind of comical. I wonder, is that how the world sees me?
Bald and comical, says Ghost Zeb. That’s it exactly.
Screw you, Zebulon Kronski. Stay fucked, why don’t you?
Hey, come on. I’m kidding. Can’t a guy kid?
Keep a civil tongue in your head. No more bald cracks after all the money I paid you.
Understood.
It better be.
Wilbur comes down the ramp and is half trotting beside the Hilux before the vehicle comes to a full stop. I step on the gas a little just to piss him off, then reverse to the ramp.
‘What the fuck you doing?’ he huffs when I step down from the cab.
‘Sorry, Wilbur man. Overshot. Big truck, you know.’
Wilbur rests a ham hand on the wing mirror. ‘Where’s the stuff?’
That deserves an eye-roll. ‘Where’s the stuff? You see the two enormous white barrels in the back. What do you think?’
Wilbur pats something. Either his heart or a shoulder holster.
‘I wouldn’t play smart with me, Irish. I really wouldn’t.’
It’s too much. I can’t take it. So I punch that leaning-over bastard just as hard as I can in the kidney. Something splits inside him and my injured knuckle sings like a saw-fiddle.
Wilbur goes down gasping, wishing it was five seconds ago and he had kept his mouth shut.
‘You are a dick,’ I say, sparing time for a short lecture. ‘And a murderer. Of women. A female murdering dick. That’s why I burst your kidney. And also so you won’t be able to shoot me later, because of all the pain and internal bleeding.’
Wilbur chooses not to rebut, so I go on about my business.
There is a double drum caddy in the bay, which is handy. I won’t even have to make two trips. I roll and grunt the barrels on to the caddy and shoulder them up the ramp.
The club is quiet now. It’s a week night, so the entire zip code is still as the grave at this hour, except Wilbur, who’s writhing on the ground like an ageing break-dancer. I take a deep breath and wheel the caddy into the club itself, making sure to leave the doors ajar behind me. I trundle down a hallway with red velveteen wallpaper and brass portholes. If Faber was going for the Liberace’s yacht look, then he’s got it spot on. I didn’t notice much about the decor the last time I came in the back way on account of my body being full of all this extra electricity.
In between the portholes, the walls are lined with signed pictures of celebrities. As far as I can make out, these are stock head shots with nothing to suggest that Kevin Costner frequents The Brass Ring. This guy Faber just gets classier by the second.
I hear voices at the end of the corridor and so I trundle the caddy that way. It’s either Faber down there or the cleaning staff; I am almost past caring. My entire existence is getting a little dreamlike and I feel bulletproof and doomed at the same time.
I barge through the kitchen door, barrels first, catching Faber in the middle of an anecdote. Two of his guys are gathered round laughing heartily like he’s Bill Cosby in his heyday. While I’m waiting for the hilarity to end, I spot an AirPort wi-fi base station plugged into a socket by the door and I nudge it out with the caddy’s wheel.
‘So the guy gets off with eighteen months suspended,’ says Faber, raising his hands for the punchline. ‘And I get paid by all parties.’ Everybody laughs on cue, and one of those ass-licking goons goes so far as to repeat the punchline and wipe a tear. Shameless.
Faber lets the laughter die to let me know how unconcerned he is by this whole thing. He deals with bigger fish than me every day.
‘You finished, Jaryd?’ I ask him testily, pushing the caddy to the centre of the room. ‘You want to let the lady out of the freezer now?’
Faber turns around, making a big show out of being surprised that I’m even there.
‘Hey, Dan. Is that the time? Shit, I’ve been telling the guys a couple of war stories here, forgot all about our little situation.’ He suddenly spots the massive barrels in the middle of his kitchen and claps his hands. ‘You brought me a present.’
I keep on pretending that I’m doing this for the money. ‘You got one for me? Fifty thousand ones.’
Faber drops a huge wink at his boys. ‘Yeah, sure. I got your present right here. Why don’t we just have a look at my pills first?’
I push the caddy towards Faber’s biggest guy and he has to do a nimble little shuffle to save his toes.
‘Knock yourself out.’
Faber has his three guys get to work. One covers me with a pistol, another gives me the brisk-frisk while the third tips a barrel from its perch and pops the security lid. The drum’s mouth glows and the guy’s double chin is swabbed by crescents of blue light.
‘Holy fuck,’ he says. ‘This shit is radioactive.’
Faber digs his arm in deep and lets the pills run through his fingers, like he’s a pirate feeling up his doubloons. This is the point where my what I like to call plan could have been seriously derailed, but I got away with it. It was fifty-fifty and I picked the right fifty.
‘Score,’ he says.
‘Score,’ I say. ‘You like MTV, Jaryd?’
I might as well needle him. We both know what’s coming. At least what he thinks is coming.