by Preston, Ken
‘You,’ Stump said, her voice slightly husky and hoarse from all the screaming. ‘You.’
The man placed his hands over his head and looked up at Stump as she slowly approached the cage.
He began shaking his head. ‘No, no, not me, no.’
‘Yes, you,’ Stump whispered. ‘You need to pay, you need to pay for all of it.’
‘Pay for what?’ the man said. A tear rolled down his swollen, filthy face. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Whatever it was, I didn’t work for her then, I wasn’t there, it wasn’t anything to do with me at all.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Stump said. ‘You work for her now.’
‘No, not anymore I don’t. Let me go, let me go and I’ll get out of here, I’ll go far away, you’ll never see me again.’
‘Look at him, Mr Corpse. Isn’t he pathetic? So full of bravado when we first brought you here, but now?’
‘I ruminink he mightbe wizztinkling his knickaloons soon, Mrs Stump,’ Corpse said. ‘I’m not determinating to disinclean that, it’s whiffouly.’
Stump pressed her enormous bulk against the cage and peered through the wire mesh at the man cowering against the other side of his tiny prison. She enclosed her hand around her mannequin’s wrist.
‘I can give you money,’ the man whispered. ‘So much fucking money you wouldn’t believe it.’
‘I very much doubt that,’ Stump said.
‘No, it’s true, I can! Mrs Ullman, she keeps all her cash in a safe room in her house. Briefcases full of it just lying around to be taken. Isn’t that what you’ve been after all along?’
Stump looked at the man in silence as though she was thinking hard about what he had just told her.
‘What do you mean?’ she said, finally.
The man looked over at Corpse. ‘The fucking undertaker over there, he told me all about it, about how you kidnap one of the security team every now and then. We all thought they just upped and left, because Ullman’s widow is so freaky-deaky, like dangerously screwy, that she couldn’t keep anyone employed for longer than a few months. But it’s you, you’ve been picking us off, one by one.’
Stump sighed and looked at Corpse.
‘I’m sorrogetic, Mrs Stump,’ Corpse said. ‘I didn’t contemnate to, I was growling disinattentivated, and you were divertitating yourself. I desirated jabberwocking.’
Stump turned back to the man. ‘You’re wrong, I’m afraid. The money has never been a consideration.’
‘Oh fuck,’ the man sobbed, and covered his face with his hands. ‘What’s this all been about then? Why are you keeping me here?’
‘To hurt you, Mr Morel, why else?’
‘Hurt me? But what the fuck for? What the fucking hell have I ever done to deserve this, this, from you?’
‘You work for that bitch!’ Stump hissed. ‘Isn’t that enough?’
Morel lifted his face, his eyes wet and pleading, a line of tear tracks running through the filth on his cheeks. ‘Then why the fuck don’t you kidnap her and keep her in a cage, instead of me?’
‘Because this is more fun,’ Stump said.
Stump grinned as she gripped the mannequin’s hand even tighter, her knuckles turning white under the pressure.
‘Fuck’s sake, I know the combination! I can get you in, and all that fucking cash is yours!’
Stump relaxed a little.
‘All of it?’ she said.
‘Yeah, all of it, every last fucking penny.’
‘In exchange for your life, is that right?’
The man bowed his head. ‘That’s right. All that money, in exchange for my fucking life.’
Stump remained silent for a few seconds as she considered this. The money would come in useful. And taking it would be another way of getting revenge on Mrs Ullman.
Stump stepped away from the cage and let go of the mannequin hand.
‘Well, Mr Corpse, it looks like we shall be paying Mrs Ullman a visit very soon, doesn’t it?’
Corpse nodded his head, and it bobbed up and down on his scrawny neck as though under the control of a mad puppeteer.
Corpse did so love trips outside for adventures.
pot kettle black
Coffin’s mobile vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out, took a look at the screen.
Emma Wylde.
He thumbed ‘Ignore’ and slipped the mobile away again.
‘Important call?’ Gosling said.
‘No,’ Coffin said.
‘Stilts here, he doesn’t say much on the phone either,’ Gosling said, and chuckled.
Coffin twisted around in his seat, looked at Stilts sitting in the back of the car with Gosling. ‘He takes the piss out of you all the time. Why do you put up with it?’
Stilts said nothing, just stared blank faced at Coffin.
Coffin turned back to the front. As usual, he’d had to to jam himself inside the car. Gosling had watched him and said it was like watching someone pack a sleeping bag back into its bag. But then Gosling had struggled to get in the back of the car.
The Stig was driving.
Shaw, Gilligan, Stut and the Duchess were in the car behind.
They took the Hagley Road out of Birmingham and headed for Stourbridge. The Stig swore when he took the wrong turn off the Stourbridge ring road and had to turn back on himself. Gosling laughed.
They left Stourbridge and headed out to the countryside. By the time they got to the Ullman’s place the sun was low on the horizon. The Stig drove right on past the gated entrance, followed by Shaw. They parked up on a pub car park half a mile further down the road. Two For One, the pub sign said. No name, nothing else. Just Two For One.
The Stig climbed out of the car and lit up a cigarette.
The Duchess, wearing black, figure hugging lycra, joined him. Any doubts that Coffin might have had about the Duchess’s gender had been dispelled at the sight of the skin tight outfit and what it revealed. Duchess wasn’t wearing a wig tonight, revealing his shaved head. But he was still wearing eyeliner and garishly bright yellow lipstick.
‘Fucking hell, Duchess,’ Gosling had said when he’d seen him. ‘You’re going to announce our arrival by lighting up the whole house wearing that shit on your lips.’
Duchess had laughed and blown Gosling a kiss before tottering off in his high heels. At least he had changed into sensible shoes before they left.
The Stig and Duchess stood and smoked together. The Stig didn’t seem at all fazed by Duchess’s appearance, and Coffin watched as the two men chatted quietly together.
‘Penny for them, Joe,’ Gosling said.
Coffin grunted, looked out of the window. Watched the cars driving by on the dual carriageway.
After ten minutes or so of waiting a car pulled into the car park and parked next to Coffin’s car. The black window slid down.
Gosling opened his window.
‘There’s just two of them on tonight, and one in the safe room,’ a craggy faced man said, all skin and bone and sharp cheeks.
‘Numbers are down again,’ Gosling said.
‘Yeah, Morel did a runner last week, and the old biddy hasn’t got around to replacing him yet.’
‘Morel?’ Gosling said. ‘I thought he was one of your more reliable employees?’
‘So did I,’ the man said. ‘Appears I was wrong.’
He passed a slip of paper through the open windows. ‘That’s the number for the gate at the entrance. Once you’re in the grounds, make sure you close the gate again and park somewhere out of sight of the main road.’ He passed a second slip of paper through the window. ‘You’re going to have to bust your way into the house, but once you’re inside, that’s the number for the burglar alarm. You have twenty seconds before it activates and calls a private security firm. If Stilts there wants to get his trousers down to do his customary crap in the vault, I suggest disarming the alarm.’
‘This private security firm, they any good?’ Gosling said.
‘They’re
better than good, and if you happen to be there and they make a visit, I hope you have a funeral plan in place is all I’m saying.’
‘They any connection with you?’
‘Nope. Mrs Ullman trusts no one, and she has different people handling different aspects of her business, especially when they overlap. When are you going in?’
Gosling checked his watch. ‘Another half hour.’
‘I’d leave it a little longer. The old witch has been antsy tonight, like she knows something is up.’
‘I don’t like it,’ Coffin said. He’d been looking out of his window, watching traffic shoot by while listening to the conversation. But now he leaned over so he could see the man in the car.
‘What’s not to like, Joe?’ Gosling said. ‘Old witchy bitch Ullman is a couple of men down, we’ve got the number for the burglar alarm and Stilts the master safe cracker.’
‘And don’t forget Duchess,’ the man said. ‘Every crack breaking and entering squad needs a transvestite to run around screaming while the real men get on with the job, right?’
‘You just said you lost another man, one of your best,’ Coffin said. ‘And you don’t know where they’re going or why? It makes no sense.’
‘To be honest with you, Mr Vampire Killing Joe Coffin, I don’t give a shit,’ the man said. ‘I’m out of this game from tonight on, which is why I’m helping out Jim here.’
‘You’re giving him a cut of the money?’ Coffin said.
‘Don’t get your knickers all tied up, Joe,’ Gosling said. ‘There’ll still be plenty to share around, don’t you worry.’
‘And Ullman’s widow, you said she’s suspicious,’ Coffin said.
‘No, I said she’s antsy,’ the man said. ‘She gets like this sometimes. Besides, she’s an old biddy, what’s she gonna do? Run you over with her zimmer frame?’
The man and Gosling laughed.
‘I’ll get you your cut tomorrow morning,’ Gosling said.
‘Yeah,’ the man said, and his window hummed as it slid up, obscuring his features once more.
‘You’re wound too tight, Joe,’ Gosling said. ‘You should relax, this is going to be like stealing candy from a baby.’
Coffin’s mobile vibrated with another call. He took a look at the screen.
Emma again.
Coffin tapped ‘Ignore’ and put the phone away.
‘Someone’s keen to talk to you, Joe,’ Gosling said.
‘When we’ve done this and I’ve got my share of the money, I don’t ever want to see you again,’ Coffin said.
Gosling clutched his chest in mock pain. ‘Joe! Does this mean you’re leaving me? And here I was thinking we had something special going on.’
‘You’re nothing but trouble, Gosling,’ Coffin said. ‘And I should just walk away from this job right now.’
Gosling leaned his bulk forward so his head was just behind Coffin’s right shoulder. ‘But you can’t, can you? You need the cash, just like I do, and that’s why you’re here.’
‘Like I said, after tonight, we go our separate ways,’ Coffin said. ‘In fact, it might be a good idea if you leave Birmingham and go open one of your comedy clubs somewhere else, like maybe Brighton, or Portsmouth, somewhere far enough away I won’t ever have the bad luck to run into you again.’
‘You hear that, Stilts?’ Gosling said. ‘Anybody listening to this might get the impression Joe doesn’t like us much.’
Stilts said nothing.
Duchess appeared at Gosling’s window. ‘I’m bored. An’ this outfit keeps a’ridin’ up between me arse cheeks.’
Gosling stretched his arm out of the window and slapped Duchess on the backside and cackled with laughter.
‘Once we’ve got that money I’ll kiss your arse if you want me to!’ Gosling turned back to Joe. ‘Let’s go, Duchess is bored and I’m bored too.’
‘Your man said we should wait a little longer,’ Coffin said.
‘Sod that for a game of soldiers,’ Gosling said. ‘My blood’s up, I can’t sit in this bloody car any longer.’
The Stig climbed back in the driver’s seat. Glanced at Coffin. One look was all Coffin needed to see the Stig didn’t much like it either.
He put the car into first and they rolled out of the Two For One car park and back onto the dual carriageway where he put his foot down.
Within a couple of minutes they were back outside the gated entrance to the Ullman house. On the other side of the black, cast iron gate a gravel drive wound its way up a slight incline between trees and disappeared from view. The house couldn’t be seen from this vantage point, but Coffin had been here before.
He knew what the house looked like, inside and out.
Last time he had been here he had left a dead body on the living room floor, bleeding into the carpet.
‘Go type in the access code,’ Gosling said to Stilts.
The little man climbed silently out of the car, holding the slip of paper with the numbers on it, and walked up to the gate. He peered at the slip of paper and then up at the key pad. He reached up, stood on his tiptoes, but still the key pad was out of his reach.
Gosling chuckled in the back of the car.
A car door slammed behind them, and Gilligan came striding into view.
‘For the love of god, is this a fucking joke or what?’ he said, and snatched the paper from Stilts’ hand.
He punched in the numbers and the gates began their slow, electronic swing inward. The Stig inched the car forward and crawled through the gap as it widened, the tyres crunching over the gravel. He pulled over to the side and waited for Shaw to pull up behind him.
Stilts got back in the car.
‘It’s a shame for you, isn’t it?’ Gosling said, still chuckling. ‘Never mind, when you crack that combination on the safe, nobody will be laughing then, will they?’
Gilligan walked past, muttering.
‘Where’s your man going?’ Gosling said.
Coffin climbed out of the car.
‘Hey, over here,’ he said, and pointed into the cover of the trees. The drive was lined with mock Victorian gas lamps, shedding harsh electronic light everywhere.
Beneath the cover of the trees it was dark.
‘I’m glad I day wear me stilettos,’ Duchess said as he shut his car door. ‘This gravel’d ’ave bin murder on me ankles.’
Shaw opened the boot on his car and pulled out a bag. He carried it over to the trees where everyone was gathering and pulled back the zipper.
‘Take your weapon of choice,’ Coffin said.
The Stig and Shaw went for the handguns. Gilligan, Gosling and Stut went for the sawn-off shotguns. Stilts didn’t take anything.
Duchess had a good look at the remaining weapons. Picked out a handgun.
Coffin said, ‘Shaw, Stig, go round the back of the house. You’ll lose the cover of the trees before you get there, so be careful. If there’s security round the back, take them out as silently as possible. The hardware’s your last resort, and this goes for everyone. If anyone discharges their weapon, we call the whole thing off and get the hell out of here. Am I clear on that?’
Everyone nodded and murmured agreement, apart from Duchess and Stilts.
‘Gilligan, Stut, you come with me and we’ll take the front.’
‘What about us, Joe?’ Gosling said, grinning like he was having the best time in the world.
‘I don’t give a fuck what you clowns do,’ Coffin said. ‘As long as your master safe cracker is there to get us in when we need him.’
Coffin took the lead whilst Shaw and the Stig crossed the gravel drive and entered the gloom of the tree covering on the opposite side. Gosling and his companions followed Coffin.
They trod carefully and slowly between the trees, their feet sinking silently into the mowed grass. In daylight there wouldn’t be much cover here as the trees were spaced out enough to allow sunlight for the grass to grow, but at night it was perfect. As they drew further away from the driveway, Coff
in caught glimpses of the house between the trees. Security lights illuminated the front patio.
Coffin caught a glimpse between the trees of a body slumped over a garden table on the patio. He signalled the others to stop. He drew closer whilst taking care to remain under the cover of the trees. The man was sitting in a garden chair, his upper body lying face down on the table. There was a cigarette on the table. Most of it was one long column of ash. It had to have been there for a while, burning down on its own.
‘Now what do you think happened here?’ Gilligan whispered.
‘Looks like someone beat us to it,’ Coffin whispered back.
‘Is he dead?’
‘Don’t think so, I think I can see him breathing.’
‘You think they’re inside now?’
Coffin shook his head slowly, staring at the unconscious security guard the whole time. ‘Don’t know.’
‘What’s the holdup?’ Gosling said. He hadn’t seen the man at the table.
Coffin turned and held up his hand to shush him.
‘Now what’s the little bastard up to?’ Gilligan hissed.
Coffin turned back. Stilts was walking across the illuminated lawn as though he had every right to be there. He climbed up onto the raised patio, grabbed the security guard by his hair and lifted his face off the table.
The man started moaning, his eyelids fluttering.
Stilts produced a knife from seemingly nowhere and drew it across the man’s throat. Scarlet blood spurted from the slash in the guard’s neck and splattered noisily over the patio table. His hands jerked and twitched, and his feet kicked the flagstones as he died.
Coffin leapt from his hiding place and strode across the lawn. Grabbing Stilts by the shoulder he dragged the little man away.
‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ he hissed.
Gosling was right behind Coffin, chuckling softly.
‘You think this is funny?’ Coffin whispered, turning on Gosling. ‘He was just a kid, he was barely old enough to shave!’
‘Aww, come on, Joe!’ Gosling said. ‘Isn’t this a case of pot calling kettle black?’
Coffin grabbed Gosling by the throat and shoved him up against the patio table. Its feet scraped against the ground and blood poured over the edge and splattered on the flagstones.
