“Why then?”
“Because of what you did back there.”
“I was worried about you.”
“I care about you too, Ken.”
“Shhhh. Relax.”
Her tears dried up and she closed her eyes as if to sleep. As she rested there, an ugly thought came to mind. It was a question, really. One I thought I knew the answer to, an answer that, if correct, was more unpleasant than the question itself. I knew it was a question better left alone and unspoken, but when the St. Pauli Girl stirred it spilled out of my mouth.
“Why did you shoot with Stan?”
“Why do you think?” she said, pushing herself upright. “Why did you shoot with Jim?”
“Jim says the first time you shoot, you shoot with the person who trained you.”
“Then stop asking me questions you already know the answers to, especially if you don’t like the answers.”
“But why would you train Stan?”
“He had to be trained by someone.” Her voice was steady, cool, distant.
“But why you? Who picked who? Did Jim have anything to-”
“You sound jealous,” she said, a mischievous glint in her eyes.
“Maybe a little.”
“Only a little?”
I swung the steering wheel hard right and skidded to a stop on the shoulder. I undid my seatbelt, reached over, pulled Renee to me, and pressed my mouth onto hers, hard. My tongue was between her lips before she had a chance to breathe and my hand was undoing her jeans. She didn’t fight, but she didn’t help either. I didn’t care. Once I got my hand under her panties, she became decidedly less passive.
When we finished, the windows were fogged over and the car smelled intensely of sex. We sat back in our seats, half-naked, taking it all in. In Brixton, we could have been parked in the middle of the road for the lack of traffic. From the time I pulled over until the time I started back to the house, a half hour must have gone by and not one car passed us in either direction.
“I’m the third most experienced person, Ken,” the St. Pauli Girl said as I put the car in gear. “That’s why I trained Stan. That’s all.”
“It’s okay, I was just being an idiot. Who’s the second most experienced shooter?”
“He’s moved on,” she said, “so now I’m next in line.”
We didn’t say much more on the drive, but when we got to the house we let our bodies do the talking until we lost our voices.
I am sorry to inform you that due to a decrease in sales and a lack of demand over the past several years, we find it necessary to reduce and sell off our overstock of inventory of the following titles: Clown Car Bounce, The Devil’s Understudy, and Curly Takes Five. Prior to reducing the inventory, I can make copies available to you at the special rate of $2.60 per unit.
— TRENA KEMPTON, LIQUIDATIONS MANAGER
Seventeen
I went back to writing with a head full of plot ideas and a new determination. The story of Terry McGuinn was going to get told regardless of what Haskell Brown had to say about it. It might never get read, but it was going to get written. There was always the option of sending the manuscript out under a pseudonym, though that was much less appealing to me. And if it came down to it, I could always self-publish the thing; but one way or the other I wanted my name on the book as a kind of Fuck you! to the critics who had eagerly shoveled dirt on my coffin. After the St. Pauli Girl drifted off, Terry McGuinn was all I could think about: McGuinn dealing with a fool like Stan Petrovic … McGuinn in love with a girl like Renee.
McGuinn could sense their eyes on him as he and the lovely Zoe made their way along the street. He’d only spotted the one, the acne-faced boyo, in the bar proper. McGuinn’d kept an eye on the lad. The others, he supposed, must have laid in wait outside Ralph and Jim’s. He was being set up for sure, but for what? If this had been the Brits or Prods, if this had been some of his own come for him, Jesus would have already let go his hand that he might fall to hell. He would have been dead the second he walked out of the pub or into a shadow.
The fair Zoe stopped, turned, and kissed McGuinn hard. Her tongue was dancing inside his mouth, his in hers. It was soon hard to distinguish the one from the other. She stood back, took his hand, and led him down an alley. She stopped only a few meters in, pushed his back against a steel door, kissed him again, then dropped slowly to her knees. Ah, this skirt is a sharp one, McGuinn thought, smart enough to know he would never have followed her to the end of the alley where he would easily be boxed in.
As she undid him, he reached his right arm around behind him to where the Sig was stashed against the small of his back. He worked his fingers around the grip and slid the 9mm up from between his shirt and the waistband of his pants. He kept his gun hand behind him and waited for the ambush to be sprung. He didn’t have but a few seconds to wait.
There were three of them surrounding Zoe and McGuinn, men alclass="underline" the trouble boy, another lad of pale complexion-as fierce looking as a cripple-winged sparrow-and a well-built fellow with the look of an American footballer. McGuinn recognized the footballer’s face from the slaughterhouse. Didn’t know him by name, but had seen him about. He was the leader, this one, with bright copper eyes and a shrewd mouth.
Oh, and there was something else-each of the lads held 9mm’s aimed squarely at McGuinn’s head and torso.
“Seem’s you lads have caught me with me pants down,” he said to distract them.
It worked, for as they smirked, they relaxed their gun hands just enough to give McGuinn the time he needed. In a blur of lightning quickness, he pulled Zoe up from her knees, spun her around, and put the Sig Sauer to her neck. When he spoke, McGuinn spoke directly to the footballer, ignoring the other two.
“I don’t know what you’re playin’ at, fellas, nor who you’re accustomed to playin’ with, but I’d advise ya to drop yer weapons and let me be on me way. And do me the courtesy, will ya, of not pretendin’ the fair Miss Zoe is not a part of this? It will save us all a lot of bother.”
“There’s three of us,” the footballer said, his voice cool as a late fall evening. “I like our odds.”
“Then ya don’t know shite, lad.”
And with that, McGuinn shoved Zoe at the trouble boy, who stumbled backwards, shot the sparrow in his gun shoulder, and wheeled on the footballer. The footballer placed his automatic on the cobblestones and kicked it away, but as he did, he smiled the most disconcerting smile that McGuinn had ever seen.
“Well done,” he said to McGuinn. “You’ve passed your audition.”
“Now what kind of shite are you talkin’?”
“We’ll be in touch,” said the footballer.
“Like fook you will. Ya aren’t goin’ anywhere.”
“Okay, Irish, have it your way. We’ll wait for the cops and you can explain Joseph’s bullet wound away and tell the cops all about who you are and where you come from.” He smiled that smile again. The footballer had McGuinn and he knew it. “All right, son, take the juicer, yer wounded, the girl, and be gone.”
“No,” said the footballer, “I think we’ll stay. I don’t like being told what to do. Those sirens are getting louder, Irish. If there’s any running to be done, I think you’ll do it.”
One of the ways McGuinn had managed to survive this long was by knowing when defeat was at hand. He didn’t hesitate. He ran, hitching up his trousers as best he could while still holding on to the Sig. He turned to look back. They were nearly gone, but he did catch the briefest glimpse of Zoe. There was a sadness about her as disconcerting as the footballer’s smile.
I was feeling so good about myself, about the chapel, about getting back to work, about the St. Pauli Girl. But when Jim came by for our morning run it was like he was determined to test my resolve, like he wanted to make sure I knew my place.