I fumble the key into the lock and twist it, about fifteen seconds before one of Zeb’s customers tries the handle.
‘Kronski, you asshole,’ she calls out, in a voice ravaged by thousands of cigarettes. ‘Your tablets gave me the shits. Twenty-six fifty for the shits? Open the door, dammit. I can see you moving.’
The woman’s silhouette trembles with fury, or possibly flatulence, and I’m starting to wonder if maybe I shouldn’t be letting Zeb poke holes in my scalp when he can’t even hand out the right tablets.
I play statues until the lady moves on, looking for a bathroom maybe, then turn my attention to Macey Barrett, lying blue faced and weirdly cross-eyed on the carpet. Looks like a vampire bit him. Poor bastard.
No. Not poor bastard. Murdering bastard.
Just like me.
No. Self-defence. Even God is okay with that.
Definitely Zeb’s voice. My subconscious has figured out something that I don’t want to face.
I have plenty of training in the art of killing but zero in the art of clean-up, and any jackass with a TV remote knows how important it is to get rid of trace evidence.
This is a problem. There are litres of blood soaking into the carpet, not to mention a two-hundred-pound family man lying deceased on the bloodstained carpet.
Move the evidence. All of it. No body, no crime.
It’s a big ask, but once I get my head around the job, it’s calming to have something to do. Army mentality: idle hands are the devil’s tools. Busy hands too in this case.
Zeb has a tiny supply closet in the rear. I liberate some scrubs, gloves and a mask. There’s a power bone-saw, but I’m not ready to face that yet. A key in the neck is one thing, dismemberment is another.
I pat Barrett down for his keys, phone, watch and wallet. All the things a thief would lift. The search is rewarded with top-dollar goods. Lexus keys, Prada phone, Omega watch and a stack of fifties thicker than a quarter-pounder.
The carpet comes away easily, just a few glue strings to stretch and ping.
Typical Zeb. Cheap everything.
I yank up the entire waiting room section, rolling Barrett in three layers. Tape around the carpet, trash bags over the tape, more tape. No blood on the tiles underneath, that I can see, but I give them a swab of bleach just in case. They got all sorts of UV lights now; even the criminals have them. There isn’t much you can’t purchase on eBay.
Now I have myself a Cleopatra carpet package that needs moving. It’s heavy, but I’ve humped a couple of bodies in my day, just not directly after killing them. I sling the burden over one shoulder, then take three quick steps out the back door to a white Lexus SUV, this year’s model, blacked-out windows, door even opens itself. Talk about convenient.
The enclosed car park seems deserted, but even if a curtain-twitcher spies me, all anyone can ever testify to is that a masked man rolled a rug into a car. Of course Michael Madden won’t care about due process or reasonable doubt.
I’m adjusting the driver’s seat for my legs when a text buzzes through on Barrett’s cell.
‘I’ll check that, shall I?’ I say to the corpse in the back. He doesn’t object, so I open the text.
It’s from Mike Madden. Irish M reads the caller ID. Barrett has his phone set to display a photo of his boss. This massive guy at an Irish wedding, looks like, stripped to the waist, two of his boys in sweaty headlocks. Mad eyes, flat tweed cap with a shamrock pin on the peak.
I shudder. This person is bad news. I know the type. Irish borderline alcoholic. Death before disrespect. I would be better off swinging by his house and putting an end to this right now. But I won’t, because this is not a war zone, there might be another way, and maybe Zeb is still alive.
I read the message.
Did you get it?
I sigh and pocket the phone.
Did you get it?
Shit. Zeb is most likely dead.
So who is this Zebulon Kronski guy? And how did I bump into him? That’s nearly better than the gunship story. Surprise, surprise, the answer to those questions lies back in the Lebanon, so I’ll keep it brief because this story is about now rather than then, although then seems to be pretty much a part of now most of the time. Someday I’ll tell the full then story when I can even think of a Russian bear without throwing up.
In a nutshell, the UN peacekeepers patrolled the border between Israel and the Lebanon, trying to keep the Israeli troops and the Shi’a Hezbollah and Amal from blowing themselves, each other and us to kingdom come. Those groups had been fighting for so long that they couldn’t even agree which kingdom they would get blown to. Our main objective was to keep civilians safe, but our main function seemed to be as human shields for the Shi’a to hide behind while they fired rockets up at Israeli encampments. Most of the time we wore camouflage, went on patrol and were baked by the sun until our skin cracked, but sometimes things got a little primal, which tends to happen when bunches of hot, grumpy men have loaded weapons and different ideas about God.
One weekend I’m on a supply run in UN headquarters with Tommy Fletcher and he insists on a little detour to Mingi Street, an organic souk that grows like a reef around HQ and where anything is available for the right price. At this point in our military careers I am the corporal and he is the sergeant so I have no choice but to follow his unexplained lead.
Tommy is being a little mysterious about what he’s looking for, so I am less reluctant to tag along than I pretend; curiosity has always been the cat that skinned me. Whenever I ask what we’re after, he just taps his nose and says that’s actually funnier than you’d think.
So we wade our way through the kids nipping at us like cleaner fish, we ignore the electronics merchants, the T-shirt vendors, the gold guys and hashish boys. I keep my finger on the trigger of my Steyer and thumb on the safety. It’s not that I didn’t like the concentrated life of these oven-like alleys, but just because you like a place doesn’t mean it’s gonna like you.
Tommy walks ahead of me, the thousand resentful stares bouncing off him like pebbles off a rhino’s back. With long strides he negotiates the souk, brushing through the hanging sheets of fine silks and elbowing past forests of rolled rugs. About ten minutes after I have totally lost any sense of place, he pounds his fist on a poster of Michael Jackson, which apparently has a door behind it. Michael’s eyes slide back to reveal another set behind and I cannot resist saying, ‘Oh for God’s sake, Sarge! You’re going to buy something from these people?’
But Fletcher is undeterred and passed a few dollars through the slot, which is enough to get us inside. The poster goes up like a roller blind and there’s a steel door behind, which is hilarious because the wall is made of plasterboard.
I’m laughing openly now. ‘You know what, Tommy? We should beat it. Yeah, this is bad. You know it.’ I draw the line at shamon, too obvious.
I follow Tommy into the low-ceilinged corridor and continue walking forwards, even when I see what looks like a waiting room full of locals reading US Weekly and Cosmopolitan. A large No Smoking sign dominates the wall, and amazingly for the Middle East, no one is ignoring it. A pretty nurse talks rapidly on the phone as we enter and ignores us until Tommy taps on her desk with the barrel of his weapon.
‘I need to see the doc,’ he says pleasantly.