“Why?”
“To equalize the pressure. Like on a plane. I told you, this is a loud gun. It’s going to blow your eardrums otherwise. You’ll be deaf for a month.”
I glanced around and checked. He had opened his mouth, but halfheartedly, like a guy waiting for the dentist to get back from looking at a chart.
“No, like this,” I said. I showed him. I opened my mouth as wide as it would go and pulled my chin back into my neck until the tendons hurt in the hinge of my jaw.
He did the same thing.
I whipped the Barrett’s barrel way up and around, fast and smooth, like a duck hunter tracking a flushed bird. Then I pulled the trigger. Shot my guy through the roof of his mouth. The giant rifle boomed and kicked and the top of my guy’s head came off like a hard-boiled egg. His body came down in a heap and sprawled. I dropped the rifle on top of him and pulled his right shoe off. Tossed it on the ground. Then I ran. Two minutes later I was back in my car. Four minutes later I was a mile away.
I was up an easy hundred grand, but the world was down an industrialist, a philanthropist, and a racehorse owner. That’s what the Sunday papers said. He had committed suicide. The way the cops had pieced it together, he had tormented himself over the fact that his best horse always came in second. He had spied on his rival’s workout, maybe hoping for some sign of fallibility. None had been forthcoming. So he had somehow obtained a sniper rifle, last legally owned by the Israel Defense Force. Maybe he had planned to shoot the rival horse, but at the last minute he hadn’t been able to go through with it. So, depressed and tormented, he had reversed the rifle, put the muzzle in his mouth, kicked off his shoe, and used his toe on the trigger. A police officer of roughly the same height had taken part in a simulation to prove that such a thing was physically possible, even with a gun as long as the Barrett.
Near the back of the paper were the racing results. The big black horse had won by seven lengths. My guy’s runner had been scratched.
I kept the photograph on my mantel for a long time afterward. A girl I met much later noticed that it was the only picture I had in the house. She asked me if I liked animals better than people. I told her that I did, mostly. She liked me for it. But not enough to stick around.
THE DEBT by Simon Kernick
Now I’ve got a cousin called Kevin. Just like in that song by the Undertones. Unlike in the song, though, the Kevin I know isn’t going anywhere near heaven. In fact, the no-good cheating dog’s far more likely to be disappearing through a trapdoor into the fiery underworld, and deservedly so too. In fact, if I could get hold of him now, I’d gladly give a helping hand sending him there. Only problem is, there’s a queue of people wanting to do just that, and I’m sitting opposite one of them now. None other than Jim “The Crim” Sneddon: gangland legend and all-round wicked hombre, renowned for his extreme cruelty to his fellow human beings, although they do say he loves animals.
The Crim leans forward in his immense leather armchair and points a stubby, sausage-like finger in my direction. I’m sitting on his “guest” sofa, a flashy leather number that’s currently covered in tarpaulin, presumably in case things turn nasty, and as you can imagine, not being either cute or furry, I’m feeling less than comfortable. The Crim’s thin, hooded eyes are a cold onyx, and when he speaks, the words come out in a low nicotine growl that sound like a cheap, badly damaged car turning over.
“A debt is a debt is a debt,” he rumbles, speaking in the manner of a Buddhist monk imparting some great metaphysical wisdom.
“I’m aware of that,” I say, holding his gaze, not showing any fear, because if you let them see your weaknesses, then you may as well throw in the towel, “but the debt in question is between you and Kevin.”
“No no no no,” chuckles The Crim, shaking his huge leonine head. “It don’t work like that. Do it, boys?”
There are two men in charcoal black suits flanking the sofa on either side, and they both voice their agreement.
To my left, blocking out much of the room’s ambient light, is one Glenroy Frankham, better known as “Ten Man Gang”, a six feet six, twenty-five stone hulk of a human being, with a head so small it looks like it’s been professionally shrunk, and hands that can, and probably do, crush babies. Such is his strength, he’s reputed to be the only man in British penal history to tear his way out of a straitjacket, although I’m surprised they found one that fit him in the first place. His belly looks like a storage room for cannonballs.
To my right stands Johann “Fingers The Knife” Bennett, so-called because of his propensity for slicing off the digits of uncooperative debtors while The Gang holds them in place. The going rate’s a finger a day until the money’s been paid in full. As you can imagine, The Knife’s somewhat “hands on” approach has an enviable success rate, and only once has a debt not been cleared within twenty-four hours of him being called in. On that occasion, the debtor was so broke they had to start on his toes before he finally came up with the money. The guy was a degenerate gambler and I still see him limping around sometimes, although he plays a lot less poker these days.
It’s poker that’s been Kevin’s downfall. That, and the fact that he chose to play his games against Jim the Crim, a man whose standards of fair play leave, it has to be said, a great deal to be desired. You don’t rise to multi-millionaire status in the arms and loansharking industries by adhering to the rules of the level playing field, or by being compassionate.
“It ain’t my fault, is it?” continues The Crim now, “that your cousin decides to take off into the wild blue yonder without paying me the thirty-four grand he owes.”
“You told me it was thirty-three.”
“That was Monday, Billy. Today’s Wednesday. I’ve got the interest to think about. It’s a lot of money we’re looking at here.”
“And I still don’t know why it’s suddenly mine and my family’s responsibility,” I say, thinking it’s time to get assertive.
The Crim bares his teeth in what I think must be a smile, it’s not too easy to tell. “It’s the etiquette of the matter,” he says, clearing his throat, then spitting something thick and nasty into a plate-sized ashtray balanced on one of the chair’s arms. “I can’t be seen to be letting off a debt this size. It would do my reputation no good at all. And since there’s about as much chance of your cousin reappearing as The Gang here taking up hang-gliding, someone’s got to pay. And that someone’s his mother.”
And this, my friends, is why I’m here voluntarily. Because it is my aunt Lena – my dead mother’s only sister, and the woman who brought me up from the tender age of thirteen – who is the person currently being treated as The Crim’s debtor, and this is a situation that, as an honourable man, I can’t allow to continue. She’s prepared to pay up too by selling her house, in order to protect her only son from the consequences of his rank stupidity, but I’ve told her to leave it and let me see what can be done to alleviate the situation, although I’m beginning to think that it’s not a lot.
“I understand your position, Jim,” I say, trying to sound reasonable, “but my aunt hasn’t got the money to pay you, it’s as simple as that. However,” I add, wanting to avoid a confrontation I know I can’t win, “I haven’t come here empty-handed. I’ve got five grand in my pocket. Consider it a deposit on what’s owed. Then, when I track down Kevin, which I promise I’m going to do, I’ll make sure I get you the other twenty-eight. You’ve got my word on that.”
“Twenty-nine, you mean, and I want the lot now.”
The trick in circumstances like these is always to have some room for manoeuvre. “I can get you ten by the end of tonight,” I tell him, hoping this’ll act as a sweetener.
It doesn’t.