One of them left the room, his feet quick, bouncing in their fancy Nikes across the carpet. Vishinsky didn't move, sat with his legs crossed and the revolver on his lap as he stared at the mottled face of Moskolets, his body propped against the wall, a guard holding the palm of his hand over the bloodied cavity in the skull.
It was a black bag the other man brought back, the standard model. It must, I suppose, have been tempting for the Cougar to have his escutcheon printed on it in gold – he must have kept a supply of these things, for God's sake. The Russian-style syndicates, Croder had said, make the Italian and Sicilian operators look like harmless amateurs, yea, verily, in all sooth.
A dull musical note sounded, long-drawn-out and with a tone of finality in it as a guard pulled the zip-fastener shut on the bag.
'Two of you, take him to the forest.'
'Sure, boss.'
They lifted the body together, one at its shoulders and the other holding its feet. A third guard opened the door for them, closed it again, its sheet steel booming faintly like the echo of a prison gate. The fumes of the cordite hung on the air, bitter-sweet.
Vishinsky picked up one of the bullets from the carpet and slipped it into the chamber of the revolver and slapped it shut and threw the gun across to me.
'Now you,' he said. 'Play.'
11: SPIN
Sweat of a dead man's hand, chilling and intimate, on the butt of the gun as I caught it.
It was short-barrelled but heavy, a Taura 44 chambered to take a man-stopping shell, the scent of its last shot lacing the air.
It's no good pretending he was taking a risk, the Cougar. Yes, I could swing the chamber open and line up the cartridge and hit the thing shut and take aim and fire, drill him accurately between the frontal lobes, watch his surprise in the instant before the head snapped back under the impact. But they'd be on me like wolves, the three remaining bodyguards: he knew that, and also that I hadn't the slightest interest in ending his life and then my own in some kind of personal gotterdammerung.
I laid the gun on the floor.
'Pick it up,' Vishinsky said softly.
'One day,' I told him, 'you're going to look back to the time when I came into your life and showed you the royal path to great riches. You need to think ahead a little. You need to realize that I don't hold my life cheaply, and I'm ready to pay.'
He leaned forward an inch. 'Pick up the gun.'
I couldn't quite tell from his eyes whether the crystalline glitter was the lingering excitement of Moskolets' death or the anticipation of my own. But I could see that he was beyond linear thinking, oblivious to logic. He was all emotion now, with the forebrain shut down, the death of the hit man taking him into what we would call a feeding frenzy in a shark.
So I gave up the idea of appealing to his consciousness on the Beta level and thought about the situation instead. With two of the guards absent burying the hit man there were three left: too many. I would need to get control of four men within a time frame – call it a couple of seconds – far too narrow for success. And there was nowhere to run, no way out of here except for the heavy steel door: this was the seventh floor of the building and the windows were sealed.
'Pick up the gun.'
There might be a way of reaching Vishinsky through the emotions, but I doubted it. I didn't know him well enough to try probing his sensitivities.
I don't like this.
Shuddup.
It was a question, then, of choices. If I didn't give Vishinsky the death he craved in this way he'd take it in another, here or in the forest. Or he'd tell his minions to drag me across the room to the guillotine and start work, or to smash me into pulp before the coup de grace, whatever pleased him, whatever would sate his appetite.
'I'm giving you a chance,' I heard him saying, his tone sing-song again as if he were talking to a child, 'just as I gave that imbecile Moskolets a chance. That's very generous.'
'The risk's too big,' I told him, but it meant nothing. As long as we could talk, express ideas, there might be something I could do.
'There's a risk, yes, but you've got to take it. You have no choice.'
Perfectly true.
But you can't -
Oh for Christ's sake shuddup.
'You should leave room for logic, Vishinsky. You've heard of the goose and the golden eggs. If you let me live, I can -'
'Kaido,' he said to the guard nearest me, 'give him a little persuasion.'
I heard the man moving, and this was the point when I knew I'd have to take the only way out. I picked up the gun.
'There, now,' Vishinsky said, pleased.
The only way out was to rely on the odds. The Taura 44 was a six-shot but the odds weren't six to one: they were in fact infinite. Rely on that.
'Six times and I miss,' I said to Vishinsky, 'and I'm free to go?'
'Yes. You have my word.'
The air in the room was becoming still, pressing against the skin. The walls seemed to be contracting, an illusion triggered by the knowledge that I had no escape.
'I'd prefer to stand up,' I told Vishinsky.
'Yes? I've no objection.'
As I got onto my feet the guard nearest me closed in. I could smell the sweat on him. Either he thought I might try for some kind of action or he wanted to be near enough to catch me as I went down. I remembered Vishinsky - Mind the carpet – don't get blood on the carpet! A fastidious man.
'Play,' he said now.
Spin the chamber, yes, buck the odds, go for a winner. But the sweat had begun creeping on the skin. Trigger.
Click, and five to go.
Vishinsky was sitting back now, his long pale hands folded on the silk dressing-gown, his eyes filled with that unholy light I'd seen before when he'd been watching Moskolets do this.
I could feel the wall at my back, pressing against my shoulder-blades; in a way it gave me strength, a feeling of permanence. I watched Vishinsky. He watched the gun as I spun the chamber again and put the muzzle to my head.
This, or the forest. Take the chance.
Click, and four to go.
'Spin it,' I heard Vishinsky saying, and realized that time had gone by as my senses drifted away from reality, desperate for escape.
'What?'
'Spin the chamber.'
Yes. Concentrate. Four more. Wrong: not four. An infinite number of chances left; we only needed four.
That was fair odds and I spun the thing and put the muzzle to my temple and froze because even with infinite chances this could be the wrong spin.