Holly had known my father, and he’d seen me shoot a few times. He was by this time long out of the armed forces and working in what he called a ‘security capacity’ for a number of countries, though he couldn’t name them. In fact, he was a mercenary, leader of a gang of about a dozen men who could be bought, who would go anywhere in the world and train any rag-tag rabble for a price. Mad Dog was on the lookout for fresh blood.
I told him he couldn’t have mine, and explained why.
‘Is that all that’s stopping you?’ he said. ‘Christ, you could still be useful to me.’
I asked him how.
‘Sniper, my boy. Sniper. Put you up a tree and leave you there. You’d be nice and cosy, no cuts or bruises, nobody’d know you were there. All you’d do is pick ’em off as they came into sight.’
‘Pick off who?’
‘The fucking enemy, of course.’
‘And who would they be?’
He leaned close to me and hissed whisky. ‘Whoever you like!’
I turned down his offer, but not before he’d introduced me to a few people who were later to prove useful. See, at this time I was a military groupie. I liked to hang around with squaddies and old soldiers, with anyone who shared my background and belief system. I knew which pubs and clubs to go to, which gyms. I knew where some weekend shoot was going to be. These shoots, they weren’t paintball or grouse or a few hoary old foxes. They were held in secret, far away from humanity, where you could make a big noise and nobody’d hear you. I used to take bets. They’d place a coin upright on the bonnet of a car, and there’d be someone in the car with his hand by the bonnet-release. At a given signal, I’d have to hit the coin before the bonnet sprang open.
Everyone loved me. But I knew I was turning into a sideshow. Worse than that, I was becoming a freak. So I did something about it. I made myself a life plan. It didn’t happen overnight; I read books and went travelling. I knew three things: I was bored, I was poorer than I wanted to be, and I had a skill.
I started small, shooting a few rats I bought from a pet shop. That wasn’t very satisfactory: I’d nothing against the rats, and nothing to gain from shooting them. I found I actually liked them better than I liked most of the people around me. I don’t like people really, I’m just very good at pretending. I did some hunting in the USA, and that was better than shooting rats. Then one night in New York, I picked off a junkie from my darkened hotel room. They were standing in an alley six floors below me. I reasoned that they didn’t have long to live anyway, the life expectancy of a junkie on the New York streets being slightly less than that of your average rat. From then on, it got easier.
I went back to see Mad Dog, only he was somewhere in Africa, and this time he didn’t come back. But I knew other people I could talk to, other people who knew what I needed to know. It was six months before I got my first contract. They were expecting me to hit the victim on the head and bury him in Epping Forest. Instead, I took him out from four hundred yards and created an immediate news story. My employers decided this was okay, too. I was paid, and my name was passed along. I knew I wouldn’t be working for the Salvation Army. But then I wasn’t killing any nuns and priests either. It was only after a few hits that I decided anyone was fair game. It isn’t up to the executioner to pronounce guilt or innocence. He just makes sure the instruments are humane.
I noticed that Bel was sitting like a block of stone beside me.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘But I’m not telling you anything you didn’t already know.’
‘Michael, you’ve spoken for so long, and yet you’ve said almost nothing.’
‘What?’
‘Can we go get something to drink?’
‘Sure.’
I told the driver to take us back now. We passed another carriage on the way. There were some Japanese tourists in the back. While the drivers exchanged bored looks, the Japanese videoed us, waving and grinning as they did. We looked like a couple weary of their life together, and reeling from yet another spat.
‘You know,’ Bel said, ‘you’ve never asked me about myself. That’s strange. When I’ve gone out with men before, they’ve always ended up asking me about myself. How old are you, Michael?’
‘My passports say thirty-five.’ We were lying in bed together. We hadn’t made love, our bodies weren’t even touching. The silent TV was playing.
‘And you’ve never been married, never had a steady girlfriend?’
‘There’ve been a few.’
‘How many?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘A few hundred? A few dozen?’
‘Just a few. Christ, Bel.’ I threw off the cover and stood up. The air conditioning was whirring away, blowing cool air over me.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘I’m not... I never said I was much good at this... this sort of thing.’
‘Do you hear me complaining?’
‘Okay, I’ll ask you something about yourself.’
She smiled sadly. Her eyebrows were beautiful. Her lips were beautiful. ‘Don’t bother,’ she said. ‘Ask me some other time when I’m not expecting it.’
Then she sat up and started watching TV, disappearing back into herself.
The next morning we flew to New Mexico.
I wasn’t going to buy a car in New York. Nobody buys a car second hand in New York if they can help it. The cars are rustier than elsewhere, with more miles on the clock (even if they show less miles) and steeper price tags. You either buy on the west coast or you buy in New Mexico, Texas, somewhere like that. We bought in Albuquerque.
Bel was right: the blond man and his team might have no trouble picking up our trail again. From flight and hotel information, they could trace us as far as New York. But Michael West, not Michael Weston, had paid for the flights to Albuquerque, and the name on his companion’s ticket was Rachel Davis. I was taking all these precautions when all the blond smiler from Oban had to do was head directly to the Olympic Peninsula and wait for us there. That was okay; I just didn’t want him intercepting me. This way, I might get at least one good shot in first.
We didn’t linger in Albuquerque. My New Mexico ID and a bundle of cash bought us a fast car. It was a Trans-Am, just right for the trip ahead. I’d picked up a few small ads and car ads magazines from the first newsagent’s in town, and we sat in a diner while I scoured them. I ringed half a dozen and went to the pay-phone. The first number I called, the owner was at work and his wife said I’d have to see the car when he was around. I hit the jackpot with the second number. I was talking to a drawling mechanic called Sanch who was mad about ‘shit-kickers’ (his term for fast cars) and was selling this Trans-Am because he wanted to buy a beautiful old Firebird with a paint job ‛to die for, man’.
He was so keen to sell, he picked us up outside the diner in a pickup truck and took us back to his three-storey house along a dirt road in what seemed a nice middle-class neighbourhood.
‘I fix all the neighbourhood cars, man, they bring them all to me.’
It looked like half the neighbourhood cars were parked right outside Sanch’s house, mostly in bits. He kept his best models in the garage, including another, highly-tuned Trans-Am. I’d rather have had this one, but the one he was selling sounded sweet too. I looked at the engine, and we took it for a spin. It was white, and the interior was a bit grotty, plus it was missing quarter of a fender. The engine was clean though, and it had a hi-fi. He brought the price down another $1,000 for cash and I asked if I could use his bathroom.