They’d turned all the lights out on the bridge. After midnight then. He saw the last ferry creep towards the M Street Quay. As he came down off the bridge he took the South Side Highway to the promenade. The West Pier lay off to the right, crouching over the ocean, unlit. It had been years since there had been any life on the West Pier. He looked across at Jed and knew that it was Jed who’d chosen the place.
The turnstiles were shackled with chains, so they had to climb over. The city council had put up a sign: WARNING. DANGEROUS STRUCTURE. DO NOT PROCEED BEYOND THIS POINT.
They proceeded.
Nathan looked down through the gaps between the wooden slats. The ocean unrolled on the beach fifty feet below. He saw the water shatter into froth and then slide backwards fast, sucking at the metal pillars. He thought he felt the pier shake, but it was probably just that notice, the drugs still running in his blood, imagination.
‘Hands behind your back,’ Jed said.
Nathan stared at him. ‘What?’
‘You fucking deaf? Hands behind your back.’ Jed began to unbuckle his belt.
Nathan clasped one hand with the other, held them against the small of his back. Jed stood behind him. Nathan felt Jed knotting the belt around his wrists.
‘Why are you doing that?’
Jed slid the barrel of the gun against Nathan’s cheek. It was cold as toothache. It smelt of oil, his sleepwalking days. ‘We’re going to meet your lover,’ Jed hissed. ‘Don’t want you getting carried away.’
‘Oh for Christ’s sake,’ Nathan said. ‘You still don’t get it, do you? I’m on your side in this.’
‘Oh yeah,’ and Jed smirked, ‘I forgot.’ Then the smirk vanished and he slammed Nathan against the wall of the ticket booth. ‘Now listen, golden boy, and listen good. I don’t want another squeak out of you. Do you understand?’
Nathan nodded. There was no way of getting through to Jed. He knew that now.
They began to edge down the left side of the pier, Nathan in front, Jed just behind. DANGEROUS STRUCTURE was right. All the paint had flaked off or worn away, and most of what lay beneath had either rusted or rotted through. If you stood still you could feel the metal pillars totter, you could hear them wince and groan. It was no illusion after all. Nathan had to test every footstep before he took it or he could be plunging fifty feet into the ocean with his hands tied. Nor were the safety railings to be trusted. In some places they had buckled or bent. In others it looked as if someone had hurled themselves towards the ocean with such force that they had burst clean through; each gap had the ominous allure of a successful suicide atttempt. The West Pier was up for sale, he remembered. The asking price: $1. The catch was, whoever bought it had to spend a million restoring it to its original condition.
Nathan looked east, towards the City Pier. The casino was still open. Lights reached out across the water. If he slitted his eyes, the pier looked as if it was balancing on half a dozen golden springs. He wondered if Maxie Carlo was playing tonight. He stopped, cocked his head. Listened for the organ’s drone, the clip-clop of the drum machine. Instead, he thought he heard coins pulsing into a metal slot. A jackpot, by the sound of it. Somebody, at least, was winning tonight. Jed shoved him in the back and he moved on.
Halfway along the pier they passed close to a children’s funfair. They were about a hundred yards out now, and a warm breeze blew off the land, threading its way through the abandoned machinery, shifting anything that had come loose. The last curve of the helterskelter had snapped off; it hung at a curious angle, bent backwards, like a badly broken limb. The roundabout turned slowly, all by itself, as if ghosts were riding it.
At last they reached the end of the pier. An area of wooden slats with metal railings on three sides. On the fourth side, the side nearest the land, there was a weatherboard wall, once white, with a flight of steps rising to a balcony. This would be the back wall of the old ballroom. Nathan looked at Jed. Jed’s pants were too big in the waist. He had to hold them up with one hand.
‘Sure you don’t want the belt back?’ Nathan said.
Jed glared. ‘I told you to shut up.’
Nathan shrugged. He looked over the railings. There was a platform of studded metal below, and a winch that leaned out over the water. This was where you would’ve waited for your speedboat ride in the old days. Beyond that, just ocean. He turned back again, leaned cautiously against the railings, his numb fingers touching metal. Jed was standing with one hand in his pocket now. The other dangled next to his thigh, rose from time to time to scratch his neck, his ribs, the side of his face. Ten minutes went by. A clock struck something. One, probably. And as the last note warped in the air and faded, Nathan heard a faint clatter. Jed heard it too, and stiffened. Nathan eased forwards, away from the railings.
‘I thought you said it was just you and me.’
The voice had come from above. They both looked up.
A skeleton was standing on the balcony. It was Creed. He was wearing the suit of bones.
‘You must be out of your mind.’
Jed still hadn’t spoken.
‘To come back here?’ Creed slowly turned his head from side to side. ‘Out of your mind.’
He began to descend. The steps, though rotten, held. His eyes never left Jed’s face, not once. The bones clicked as he moved, like dice in a gambler’s hand. One throw. Death if you lose. Nathan glanced at Jed. Jed’s head moved in fractions of an inch, keeping Creed in his sights. He was shivering.
At the foot of the steps Creed stopped. He turned his eyes on Nathan. ‘This is a surprise.’ He didn’t seem surprised. But then nothing got to Creed’s face, not unless he wanted it to.
Nathan spoke up. ‘He thinks I’m working for you. He tied me up.’ And he turned his back, showed Creed his hands.
Creed just laughed.
Jed cut across the laughter. ‘Did you bring the money?’
Creed opened his briefcase and showed the inside to Jed. The money was stacked in neat, sarcastic piles.
Jed sneered. ‘You really think you can pay for what you did?’ He drew his gun.
Suddenly a hand reached through a gap in the slats and locked round Jed’s ankle. Jed tripped, fell. Creed stepped backwards, closing the briefcase, smiling. Then a man leapt over the railings, something black and springy in his hand. Jed twisted on the ground and fired at Creed. The sound of the shot was loud, contained, as if the night had walls. Then the wind snatched the sound away. Creed’s smile had shrunk, but he was still standing. The man struck Jed on the neck. A grunt and Jed’s head hit the wood. The hand holding Jed’s ankle vanished. A second man climbed through a gap in the slats. He was wearing a leather jacket and army boots. Nathan recognised him straight away. The Skull.
‘Hey, Angelo,’ the Skull said. ‘He dead?’
Angelo crouched over Jed’s body. ‘No. He’s just stunned.’
‘Good.’ The Skull reached into the bag that was slung over his shoulder. He took out a syringe. He tested it for air, then he rolled Jed’s sleeve and injected him in the arm. ‘That’ll keep him quiet.’ He looked up at Creed. ‘You all right?’
Creed was smiling, in a kind of trance. ‘I saw the bullet go by,’ he said. ‘It didn’t have my name on it.’
‘No bullet’s got your name on it,’ Angelo said. ‘He should’ve known that.’ Bending down he prised the gun out of Jed’s fingers and tossed it over the railings. A clang of metal on metal. A splash.