Enjoying our handiwork here, are we?
He wondered momentarily if, when the time came, there’d be a woman, any woman, to weep like this for him.
‘We don’t have all night,’ said the voice behind him.
Carl turned slowly, fear of the bullet prickling at the base of his neck. Time to see what the fuck had gone wrong.
Right. Like you don’t already know.
There was a tall man at the door.
A couple of others too, neither of them small, but it was this one who drew attention, the way you vectored in on colour in a drab landscape. Carl’s mesh-sharpened senses fixed on the heavy silver revolver in the raised and black-gloved hand, the bizarre, consciously antiquated statement it made, but it wasn’t that. Wasn’t the oily, slicked-back dark hair or the slight sheen on the tanned and creased white features, tell-tale marks of cell-fix facial and hair gel for an assassin who had no intention of leaving genetic trace material at the scene of his crime. Carl saw all this and set it aside for what really mattered.
It was the way the man stood, the way he looked into the room as if it was a stage set purely for his benefit. It was the way his dark clothes were wrapped on his body as if blown there by a storm, as if he didn’t much care whether he wore them or not. The way his tanned face had some vague familiarity to it, some sense that you must have met this person before somewhere, and that he had meant something to you back then.
Thirteen.
Had to be. Paranoia confirmed. Merrin’s back office crew, come for payback. It wasn’t over.
Beside Carl, the pool player spoke urgently to Elvira, finally succeeded in getting her to her feet, and shepherded her past Carl with an arm round her shaking shoulders. The same dazed mix of shock and incomprehension on his face as before. Carl nodded him past, then turned slowly to watch him half carry Elvira to the door. The new arrivals stood aside to let the couple out, and one of them closed the door firmly afterwards. All the time, the silver gun never shifted from its focus.
Carl gave its owner a sardonic smile and moved a few casual steps forward. The other man watched him come closer, but he didn’t move or make any objection. Carl breathed. He wasn’t going to get shot just yet, it appeared.
But it’s coming.
He took the bright flicker of fear, broke it and folded it away. The mesh, and a sustained will to do damage pulsed brighter.
Push it, see how far it goes.
It went almost to touching distance.
The tall man let him come on that far, even gave him a gentle, encouraging smile, like an indulgent adult watching a child in his charge do something daring. Close enough that Carl’s assessment of the situation began to flake apart, to leave him abruptly uncertain of how to play this. But then, a couple of metres off the muzzle of the revolver, the tall man’s smile shifted on his face, never quite left it, settled into something hard and careful.
‘That’ll do,’ he said softly. ‘I’m not that careless.’
Carl nodded. ‘You don’t look it. Do I know you from somewhere?’ ‘I don’t know. Do you?’
‘What’s your name?’
‘You can call me Onbekend.’
‘Marsalis.’
‘Yes, I know.’ The tall man nodded towards a nearby table. ‘Sit down. We’ve got a little time.’
So. Cool gust of confirmation down the back of his neck, down the muscles of his forearms.
‘You sit down. I’m fine right here.’
The revolver’s hammer clicked back. ‘Sit down or I’ll kill you.’
Carl looked in the eyes and saw no space there, not even for the snappy one-liner – looks like you’re going to do that anyway. This man would put him down right here and now. He shrugged and stepped across to the table, lowered himself into one of the abandoned chairs. It was still warm from its previous occupant. He leaned back and set his feet apart, as far off the table edge as he thought he could get away with. Onbekend glanced at one of his shadows, nodded at the door. The man slipped quietly outside.
The remaining back-up stood immobile, fixed Carl with a cold stare and folded his arms. Onbekend checked him with another glance and then moved across and seated himself opposite Carl at the table.
‘You’re the lottery guy, aren’t you?’ he said.
Carl sighed. It wasn’t entirely faked. ‘Yeah, that’s me.’
‘The one who woke up halfway home?’
‘Yeah. You looking for an autograph?’
He got a thin smile. ‘I’m curious. What was it like, being stuck out there all that time, waiting?’
‘It was a riot. You should try it some time.’
Onbekend didn’t react any more than a stone. The sense of familiarity grew – Carl was certain it was specific. He knew this face, or one very like it, from somewhere.
‘Did you feel abandoned? Like when you were fourteen all over again?’
Fourteen?
Carl grinned. The tiny piece of advantage felt adrenal in his veins. He cocked his head, elaborately casual.
‘So you were a Lawman, huh? Fortress America’s final set of southern fried chickens coming home to roost.’
Just there, just as tiny, but there nonetheless, there in the corners of Onbekend’s eyes. Loss of poise, siphoned sip of anger. For just that moment, Carl had him backed up.
‘You think you know me? You don’t fucking know me, my friend.’
‘I’m not your fucking friend either,’ Carl told him mildly. ‘So, there you go. We all make these mistakes. What do you want from me, exactly?’
For a moment so brief it was gone before he even registered it, Carl thought he was dead. The barrel of the revolver didn’t shift, but it seemed to glimmer with intent in the lower field of his vision. Onbekend’s mouth smeared a little tighter, his eyes hated a little more.
‘You could start by telling me how it feels to hunt down other variant thirteens for the cudlips at the UN.’
‘Remunerative.’ Carl stared blandly back into the other thirteen’s narrowed eyes. One of them was going to die in this bar. ‘It feels remunerative. What are you doing for a living these days?’
‘Surviving.’
‘Oh.’ He nodded, mock-understanding. ‘Playing the outlaw, are we?’
‘I’m not working for the cudlips, if that’s what you mean.’
‘Sure, you are.’ Carl yawned – sudden, tension-driven demand for oxygen, out of nowhere, but it played so fucking well he could have crowed. ‘We’re all working for the cudlips, one way or another.’
Onbekend set his jaw. Tipped his head a little, like a wolf or a dog listening for something faint.
‘You talk very easily about other men’s compromises. Like I said, you don’t fucking know me at all.’
‘I know you bought food today. I know you travelled here in some kind of manufactured vehicle, on city streets built and paid for in some shape or form by the local citizenry. I know you’re holding a gun you didn’t build from the raw metal up in your spare time.’
‘This?’ Onbekend raised the gun slightly, took the muzzle fractionally out of line. He seemed amused. Carl forced himself not to tense, not to watch the wavering weapon. ‘I took this gun from a man I killed.’