The Hit

by Melvin Burgess

  “I’m a Zealot. It happens. Self-immolation. Suicide bomb if I’m lucky.”

  Adam was struck dumb for a moment. It was unbelievable.

  “When?” he croaked.

  Jess shrugged. “Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week. Soon.”

  “But it’s stupid! It’s pointless,” raged Adam. “What good will it do? No one’s going to change their mind because you set fire to yourself, or blow yourself up …”

  But Jess was shaking his head. He’d heard these arguments a hundred times. Adam wasn’t going to change anything by going over it again.

  “The Zealots,” Adam spat. “So you’re helping them make Death, is that what it is? And it was you lot handing Death out in the square that night, was it? That’s great, isn’t it? All those innocent people dying. Did they volunteer as well?”

  “It’s a war, Adam!” insisted Jess. “There’s always collateral damage. And it’s working. Have you seen the crowds in Manchester? People are heading out in the hundreds of thousands. This Friday, one week after Jimmy Earle died, it’ll be the biggest protest yet. Maybe more than just a protest this time. The police are coming over to our side, even some of the army. It could be a revolution.”

  “They’ve brainwashed you,” said Adam.

  Jess made a dismissive gesture. “That’s what they want you to believe,” he said. “But it’s you who’s been brainwashed. The government is running scared. They know their time is up. I’m prepared to die for what I believe in. That’s not being brainwashed. Maybe one day you’ll believe in something, too.”

  “And what about Mum and Dad?” said Adam. Although, in his heart, what he wanted to say was — What about me?

  Jess gave him a thin smile. “You want to make it hard for me. You can’t make it any harder. I’m doing what I believe in, Adam. The human race is going down the plughole. People have been abandoned so a handful of investors can make more billions while the rest of us sink into the mud. There’s enough capacity in the world to feed, clothe, and educate everyone, but it’s all spent on banks and weapons. This is war. People get lost in war. Families get broken up. It happens.”

  “It’s not war,” insisted Adam. “You’re just saying that to make it sound OK. You didn’t have to go. You wrecked my life, Jess, you bastard. I trusted you, and you wrecked my life …”

  Tears of self-pity filled his eyes, but Jess was having none of it.

  “Oh, don’t start. How did I wreck your life? By making you get a job? You were always going to get a job. Stopping you getting a place on a football team? You were never going to get a place on a football team. Did you think I was going to spend my life working like a slave so you could dream about being a big star? Wake up, Adam. Sorry it was me who rang the bell. Smell the coffee. It stinks. What did you expect?”

  Adam was aghast. Was that what his brother really thought?

  “It’s called real life,” said Jess furiously. “Welcome to it. They’re not my rules; they don’t have to be yours, either. Mum and Dad choose to follow them. I’ve chosen to fight back, and you know what, Adam? There’s nothing to stop you from fighting back, too. You have a choice, same as me. Same as everyone. We can all fight.”

  “And desert Mum and Dad like you did?”

  “Then do your bit and work for them! There’s no space for dreams anymore, not unless you’re prepared to make them come true. Look around you!” Jess swung his arm up, no longer bothered if people heard him. “People are dying. People are wasting their lives working for loveless bastards who own nearly everything already and still want more. Society is dying, three-quarters of the world is starving — and you want to play football.” He spat the words out in disgust.

  Adam had no idea all this venom was in him. “You never said …”

  “I said all the time. You didn’t listen. None of you ever listened.”

  Suddenly Jess grabbed hold of Adam and held him in his arms. “I love you,” he said. His breath was hot on Adam’s face. “Don’t ever forget that. And I know you’re going to work this out and do what’s right.”

  Jess hugged him hard until Adam pushed him away and stood there looking savagely at him.

  “OK,” Adam said. “OK.” He was panting with emotion. He had one last card to play — the trump. He played it. “That missing pill. What if I told you I had taken it?” he asked. “What then? Then you’d have to come back.”

  Jess frowned and peered into his face. “And did you?” he said.

  “I did. I took it. So what now?”

  Jess stood there awhile, thinking. Then he shook his head.

  “Then you’re a fool and I can’t help you,” he said. He laughed tiredly. He looked suddenly drained. “Just … at least make sure you get your full week in, if that’s all you have left.” He pushed his way past to the path. He was going. Adam had played his final card, and Jess was still going.

  “You don’t care about me. You never cared about any of us!” he yelled after him.

  Jess shook his head again. There was nothing more to say.

  “Jess — wait!” Jess paused midstep. Adam steeled himself to ask the million-dollar question. “Is there an antidote?” he asked.

  “It’s a one-way street, just like they say.” Jess looked at Adam one last time — a long, searching look. “I love you anyway,” he said. He paused a moment longer. “I wish I could help you, but I can’t.”

  He walked rapidly away. Adam stood and watched him go. At any moment, he thought, he’s going to turn around and come back and sort this out. That’s what Jess always did.

  But not this time. He walked along the path and disappeared behind some shrubs. That was it. Good-bye forever.

  Adam stood there awhile on his own. That’s it, then, he thought. Then he left and made his way back to meet Lizzie.

  * * *

  After leaving Adam, Jess made his way to Fallowfield to see Garry and give him the pills. It had broken his heart seeing Adam, but he wasn’t going to let that change anything. He had given himself to the Zealots a long time ago, and what hurt him or pleased him was no longer his own concern. Anna had convinced him that he should have at least a few hours for himself and not the cause. He wasn’t sure that she was right, but he had been unable to resist the temptation of seeing the drama unfolding in Albert Square — perhaps a foretaste of revolution itself, if things worked out. He had given his life for this. Wasn’t it right that he should have just a brief taste of it while he had the chance?

  It had been a mistake seeing Adam, though. It hurt too much.

  After Garry, he would go into town, meet up with Anna, and have his one night of glory in the square, watching the end of despair and the beginning of hope. Then it was back to the container terminal, where Ballantine would doubtless have the shit beaten out of him and Anna — if she came back, that was. He suspected that maybe she had already decided not to.

  As for his parents, he didn’t dare even think about them. Adam had been hard enough. He wasn’t strong enough to see them, too.

  He jumped onto the bus on Wilmslow Road and rode into town. He felt like crying. But what use were tears of sorrow when the most joyful day of all was just around the corner?

  JULIE’S SOLUTION TO THE CHRISTIAN PROBLEM WORKED out just right. She was going to lend Lizzie a city flat belonging to a friend of hers who was abroad for a few months. It was perfect — not just for Lizzie, but for Adam as well.

  The bus took ages and it was getting dark by the time she arrived in the city center. The shopkeepers were pulling down the shutters; the police were out and about, setting up roadblocks and forming lines outside important buildings. As she came down Portland Street, she saw a group of people wearing rat masks abseiling down the Bruntwood building. Outside, the police leaned on their cars and watched. You couldn’t even be sure what side they were on anymore.

  Julie had her own flat on Deansgate, and Lizzie met her there to pick up the keys before going on to meet Adam at Piccadilly Gardens. She had spoken to him ab
out his meeting with Jess earlier. He had sounded upset then, but by the time he arrived he was distraught — weeping, raging, ready to kill himself right then just to escape the knowledge of what he had done. Jess had raised his hopes — then snatched them away. Now he was staring right into the void. No more years, no more months, not even a whole week anymore. No going back; no going forward, either. Adam was a teenage Peter Pan. He would never grow up. Just a few days of now, and then oblivion.

  “It’s the ride, Adam, it’s the ride,” she kept telling him. He was living his whole life in one week — there were going to be lows as well as highs. Wasn’t that what it was about? She hurried him along, keen to get him off the streets before anyone guessed what was going on. Manchester was heaving — commuters hurrying to get away before things got rough, protesters everywhere — camping out in Albert Square and Piccadilly Gardens, marching up Deansgate, groups wandering round with banners or sitting outside the bars and pubs, waiting for the protest to start.

  What would the night bring? Lizzie wondered. She’d heard on the news that people were calling for the government to resign. At this rate, there wouldn’t be anything left to fall.

  They pushed their way through the excited crowds toward the Northern Quarter, where the flat Julie had found for them was. The crowds were thinner there, but as they turned off a main road into a small street, they heard shouting behind them. A window smashed, yells, a scream. Lizzie turned to see a wild crowd rushing toward them.

  It was young people, maybe a hundred of them, raging up the road, full of fury. Lizzie pulled Adam into a doorway. There was no mistaking the sense of power and violence hanging over them. An old man was knocked to the ground and trampled underfoot. A woman got caught in the rush; someone grabbed at her and pulled at her clothes, and she was dragged along after them. Their faces were twisted in rage — or was it despair?

  What was wrong with them? Lizzie had never seen anything like it.

  They drew level to the doorway Lizzie and Adam were hiding in, and stormed past. Lizzie buried her head and hid. Not me, she prayed, not me. They roared and screamed just a foot or two away — she was certain they’d rape her or even kill her if they caught her — but no one leaned in to grab her, and in just a few seconds they were gone. She waited a moment before she peered out, only to see Adam trailing up the street after them. She darted out and grabbed his arm.

  “Not there, Adam … this way.” She pulled him away, but he resisted and gazed after the crowd.

  “Deathers,” he murmured.

  Was that it? Lizzie stared at the pack as they tore their way up the road ahead of them. These must be the people who had taken Death in the square the night Jimmy Earle died. They’d gathered together somehow, and were roaming the city in a mob, tearing it to pieces.

  She shook his arm. “Is that what you want?” she demanded. “To be like that?”

  “They’re like me. All together,” said Adam.

  “I thought you wanted to be with me.”

  Adam looked at her, shook his head, looked back. A siren called farther up the street and a group of police cars sped past. Reluctantly, he turned away. Lizzie dragged him to the building where the flat was and took him upstairs. I’m a fool, she thought. I should have let him go.

  * * *

  Inside, Adam was inconsolable. He buried his head in her arms and wept like a child. “I just want to live,” he sobbed. She held his head and stroked his face. What could she say? There were no words of comfort for what was wrong with him.

  “You’ll feel better in the morning,” she said, and hoped it was true. He curled up next to her on the sofa, drank a bottle of wine that she found in the fridge, and gradually became still. End of Day 1 and they were both exhausted, distraught, miserable. Poor payment for a life, Lizzie thought. She woke him up long enough to get him to bed, then lay next to him, while he clutched at her and then, mercifully, fell asleep.

  She waited until he was still, then got up and went to sit in the sitting room, feeling deeply shaken. She had never seen true despair before. Adam’s eyes had been like black holes leading all the way to death. All the websites she’d checked out had mentioned this, so she was forewarned, but the intensity of it was shocking. There were going to be moments like this — more and more of them, she suspected.

  The Deathers on the street had been the real thing, she thought, the ones with nothing to lose and nothing to gain, ready to die. The trouble was, Adam wasn’t like that. On the contrary, he was just ready to begin his life. It was the selfishness of the suicide. Look at me! I’m going to die. Pity me. Be with me. Do what I want. Suicide — but with all the benefits of watching your friends mourn you.

  “It’s all about you, Adam,” she whispered.

  She got up and went to the sitting-room window. It was all going on outside, but she couldn’t see much — just police lights flashing blue somewhere and the glow of flames around a nearby corner.

  She flung the window open and it came rushing in on her. Shouting, screaming, chanting, singing, cars revving, the wail of sirens. And somewhere, not far away, the pop and rattle of gunfire.

  Lizzie felt a thrill. Was it really happening? The world had seemed frozen rigid, stuck in its old ways just a few days ago. Now, everything was melting and the future was being forged here, on the streets of Manchester, right before her eyes.

  Only one thing was certain. The government might fall, food and money might become common property, the new order might be cruel or kind, tyrannous or democratic — but none of it was going to affect Adam. His time was already over.

  It’s going to be so exciting, she thought. She wouldn’t leave Adam. She’d keep her promise. But it was hard, so, so hard, to be tied to someone already in the past, when the whole future was up for grabs. What a shame, she thought, that she was going to remember Adam as this selfish little beast, gobbling up everything he could, when just a short while ago he had been so sweet and kind. Which one, she wondered, was the real Adam?

  But then, what difference did that make now?

  MR. B RANG THE BELL TO GARRY’S DOOR AT NINE O’CLOCK sharp, which surprised Garry because he’d said he’d call at eleven. He knew who it was because the caller leaned on the doorbell for a good minute. Who else could it be?

  Garry was on the toilet at the time. He flung himself from the seat onto his crutches, levered himself to the top of the stairs, got in the stair lift, and started the thing on its way down.

  “Please please please please please,” he begged. Please let him be nice to me. Please let this go as smoothly and as quickly as possible. And of course, please make the stair lift work. Mr. B was the kind of person you didn’t want to keep waiting.

  “Coming!” he yelled, as cheerfully as he could manage. Halfway down, the stair lift predictably went into reverse and started on its way back upstairs.

  “No!” Garry jabbed at the button with a stubby forefinger. Why him? Why his legs? Why his stair lift? At last, after a series of desperate pokes and bangs, the thing ground to a halt and sat there sulking for a full twenty seconds before carrying on its way down again.

  Christian did not look amused.

  “Sorry, sorry,” Garry babbled. “The stair lift has a mind of its own. Up, down, all around. Heh heh heh,” he tittered, grinning like an overexcited puppy as he backed away from the door.

  Christian stepped inside. He tried not to look discomfited by the fact that the place was damp and dirty. That would be bad manners. Christian prided himself on being good-mannered and expected it in others. It was sad but predictable that Garry had left him standing at the door for so long before answering — an example of bad manners if there ever was.

  “Come in, come in!” chirruped Garry unnecessarily. “Sit down. Tea? Biscuits? Piece of cake?”

  “No, thank you,” said Christian, looking with distaste at the grubby kitchenette tucked away under the stairs. He himself only ever ate the very best quality takeout or ready meals at home, and his house was
littered with tinfoil trays full of half-eaten and flyblown meals. Compared to that, Garry’s place was almost clean. But there was a difference: Christian’s house was covered with rich dirt, while Garry’s stank of poverty. And poor dirt, as everyone knows, is so much dirtier and more contagious than the wealthy sort.

  The poor, the poor, Christian thought. They are always with us, but that doesn’t mean you have to do business with them. Vince was right. This man should never have been given access to expensive drugs.

  Garry sat there smiling up at him, thinking, The rich, the rich! Always on the make. Well, just you wait, pal. In a few days our time will come and yours will end.

  “Cup of coffee?” he suggested.

  “No. Just the money will do, thank you.”

  “Ah, the money! I can do better than that. Here …” Garry dug about in his pajamas, much to Christian’s disgust, and pulled out the polyethylene bag with Death in it. He beamed. “You know what? I’d prefer to give them back. I’m a bit out of my depth, to be honest. It’s just not secure enough here. I’m going to get myself into trouble.”

  “Yeah!” smiled Christian. And they both chortled briefly at the thought of how nearly Garry had got himself into trouble.

  “Just one missing,” said Garry. “And I have the money for that right here.” Digging into his pajamas again, he came out with a handful of notes.

  “Thanks for the offer,” said Christian. “But we have a contract. I provide the goods. You pay for them.”

  Garry flinched. “Contract?” he said. “You mean — legally binding?” He snickered weakly at his own joke.

  Christian nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “In a manner of speaking.”

  There was a moment’s silence. “Please,” said Garry. “I’m not ripping you off. I know when I’m out of my depth. I’m giving you the stuff back. Please.”

  Christian strolled around behind the chair and began to rub his fingers down the back of Garry’s neck, feeling his way through the flesh to the bones beneath. With the other hand, out of sight, he took a short-bladed knife out of his coat pocket.