For Those Who Know the Ending

by Mackay, Malcolm

  Martin turned and looked at Usman, looking up at the taller man. There was sadness in Martin’s expression. He held Usman’s eyes for just a little bit longer than seemed right.

  ‘Home things,’ he said, and turned away again, thinking those two words ended the conversation.

  ‘Home as in where you came from, or home as in where you are now?’

  Martin sighed through his nose, the question unwelcome. ‘Where I am now.’

  Usman nodded. Strife with the woman, that was reassuring. If that relationship was falling apart then it would explain his mood. Might even cause him to take his eye off the ball tonight, something that might make this a little easier. Would also mean one fewer person to get worried about him disappearing, which might drive the number of people concerned down to a healthy round zero. Hell, if his love life was taking a dive down the toilet then maybe he’d leave Glasgow, leave Scotland and none of this would be necessary. Go somewhere else where he wouldn’t be a threat any more. No, that would actually be worse, Usman figured. If he left Glasgow he would still be just as dangerous but much harder to find.

  ‘Well, if there’s anything I can do,’ Usman said quietly.

  ‘There isn’t.’

  They sat in silence for another half-hour, both miserable and both wondering what was going through the mind of the other. Should have been around this time that Usman picked Martin up, but Martin had made it earlier, forced them into this tense, unpleasant time-killing exercise. Wanted out of the house, it seemed. Wanted away from the woman he was with.

  ‘We’ll head in then, yeah?’ Usman asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ Martin said, and nodded his head.

  Usman drove and Martin reached into the glovebox for the balaclavas and gloves that were stashed there. He slipped on his gloves, put his balaclava on the top of his head, like a badly chosen hat. About half a mile from the warehouse, Usman pulled the van over to the side of the road and put his own gloves on, his balaclava on the top of his head.

  ‘Should probably put these on a few hundred yards from the warehouse, eh, better to be covered up in advance so they don’t pick us up on any cameras they have on the street.’

  Martin hadn’t noticed any cameras out on the street, but it was a reasonable precaution. He pulled his balaclava down before they reached the last corner, covered his face, Usman doing the same. They drove the final few hundred yards in yet more silence, Usman pushing up against the speed limit the whole time. Nervous driving, something Martin didn’t like but wasn’t willing to criticize. Didn’t want Usman getting any more jittery, getting things wrong.

  They turned into the open yard and Usman swung the van round, reversing up to the front door. He pulled on the handbrake, cut the lights but left the engine running. The two men jumped out quickly, going round to the back of the van, pulling open the doors. There was a crowbar sitting in the back, which Usman quickly grabbed, nearly dropping it. They left the doors open, ready to receive the boxes.

  They would say nothing from this point forward, no noise that didn’t absolutely have to be made. That was professional, and a relief for two men who had nothing to say to each other. Martin stepped back away from the warehouse door and let Usman get close to it, the crowbar in hand. There was a brief second of eye contact, both faces hidden under balaclavas. Impossible to know what the other one was thinking.

  Usman was trusting Gully and Nate at this point. Trusting that there would be no alarm screaming at them when he cracked the door, that there would be no phalanx of police officers standing behind the door sniggering at him. That would be a hell of a set-up. Get them both punished for the robbery at the bookies by having them caught red-handed at the warehouse. Or there could be a dozen guys inside with far more than crowbars, waiting to batter them both senseless. But no, there wouldn’t be, Usman knew that. Men like Nate Colgan and Gully Fitzgerald didn’t go to this much trouble unless there was something big at the end of it. Killing Martin, that was big enough for them.

  He was trusting them to have made sure the warehouse was ready as well. Door locked but not so heavily bolted that even the crowbar couldn’t get them in. He wedged the end in against the doorframe, beside the lock, and started to twist, putting all of his weight into it. He was grunting, getting louder as he struggled.

  ‘Fuck’s sake,’ he wheezed quietly, just in time for the lock to crack and break out of the doorframe. The door was open, they were in. There was no screeching alarm, no shout or other surprise.

  Usman paused and looked at Martin. He felt stupid, standing there with the crowbar, waiting for his victim to go in ahead of him. Martin returned his gaze, a hard look in his eye; it looked like frustration.

  ‘Hurry,’ Martin said, and gestured for Usman to go in first.

  Made sense, Usman supposed, he was the one with the crowbar in his hand. If there was someone in there, hiding in the shadows, he was the only one in any position to do something about it.

  A couple of careful steps, looking around for anyone or anything that might be a hidden danger. Nothing; just the darkness and silence of a warehouse after hours. If there were any dangers here then they were too well hidden to spot. There were metal shelves pushed back against the walls, most of them filled with large boxes, mostly plastic but some looked like cardboard that had seen better days. There was a surprising amount of space in the middle of the floor. A door on the wall off to the right-hand side that obviously led into an office.

  Usman turned back and nodded for Martin to come in with him. But Martin moved slow, stepping over the threshold and stopping again, looking at Usman. The inference was clear; this is your job so you lead the way. Usman turned, walked quickly across the floor, over to the far right corner where he had been told the boxes would be.

  Wasn’t supposed to have gotten this far, he was supposed to have had Martin in front of him by now. Get him inside the door, out of view of the street, and get it done fast. Don’t waste a second; but now seconds were ticking away and the crowbar was feeling heavier than ever in his hand.

  He stood in front of the boxes and tried to work out what to do next. Couldn’t pick one of them up without putting the crowbar down, the boxes were too big, too heavy. Usman slowly put the crowbar down on the floor with a clink and slid a box off the shelf.

  ‘Hold this,’ he whispered to Martin, turning quickly. Martin was right behind him, looking down at the crowbar. ‘You hold it, I’ll check it.’

  Martin took the box; Usman unclipped the top from the sides and lifted it open. Underneath a couple of layers of dog-grooming products, he found small plastic boxes of pills, all labelled. He lifted one out, showed it to Martin, waving it cheerfully in his face, and put it back into the box. He sealed the lid, relieved that it had been in there, that he had something to convince Martin with.

  ‘Take it to the van; I’ll get the next one.’ Speaking in a low whisper, looking Martin in the eye. They were supposed to have been silent throughout, but Martin was being awkward.

  Usman watched Martin turn, watched him take the first few steps away towards the door. In that split second he decided he couldn’t do it, that this was too tough, too much of a betrayal of a man who’d done him no wrong. Killing a person was too big a step for Usman Kassar. It wasn’t who he was and it certainly wasn’t who he wanted to be. He was a crook, yeah, but there was a limit to that. He took money, but he always left people breathing. Then he thought of Nate Colgan and Gully Fitzgerald. The sort of punishments they gave to people who let them down. Then he changed his mind.

  He leaned down slowly, picked up the crowbar without it scraping on the concrete floor. Martin was moving slowly and with an awkward gait, Usman was taller and faster. He took two steps in silence, realized he wasn’t closing the gap fast enough and ran the last three. Martin turned his head, just slightly, hearing the movement behind him, but he didn’t even have time to drop the box.

  Usman hit him hard, harder than he had intended, the momentum from his run-up carrying into
the swing. He watched Martin slump forward, dropping the box in front of him and then landing on it, rolling heavily onto the floor. He lay still, the sealed box beside him. Usman stood there, crowbar in hand, for what felt like a long time. Looking and seeing what he had done, taking it all in, wondering if he’d killed Martin with that hit, and wondering too how the hell he was going to manage to get through the rest of this night.

  Martin moved. Not much, but he tilted his head sideways on the concrete floor and groaned a little. He was still alive, and suddenly Usman wished he wasn’t. If he was dead from the blow to the head, this would be over already. Done; and he would be a big step closer to the worst night of his life coming to an end. But Martin was stubbornly alive, and that meant going through all the things Gully had told him to do. Think them all through, step by step.

  Before that though he wanted to check, wanted to know what damage he had done. He pulled Martin’s balaclava off and stuffed it into his pocket, lifted up his own so he could have a look at the head wound. There was a small cut, but it didn’t seem like much to get excited about. No dent to the skull, nothing that could turn fatal without outside assistance.

  Looking around for the chair. It was over near the door through to the office at the back, so Usman trotted across. Tried to walk faster than usual, the effort making him realize that his fear and nerves were doing funny things to his legs. He was wobbly, drunk without the good stuff. He reached the small chair and paused, taking a couple of deep breaths. No, don’t stop, don’t recharge your batteries and don’t congratulate yourself on a job well done when the job hasn’t been done at all. You don’t pause for a second until the gunman on the floor is tied to the chair and the danger he poses has passed.

  He started to move the chair across, holding it with one weary hand, dragging it so that the legs scraped noisily along the concrete floor. Pausing halfway back to Martin and realizing he didn’t need to be carrying the crowbar any more. He dropped it to the floor, grimaced at the unexpected clatter, and carried on over to his target. Usman placed the chair beside Martin and looked around, remembering his instructions. Detail, detail, detail, the obsession that every good professional shared. A metal hoop in the floor, the plastic cords in a box beside the front door. Remember the details, get it right. When you’re nervous, Gully had told him, the little things you need to remember most can be the first ones to go.

  He put the chair down beside the metal hoop and walked quickly across to the boxes at the door, finding the thin plastic straps in the first one he opened. He walked back across slowly, looking down at the straps in his hands and across at Martin, still flat on the floor. He needed to work out the best way of doing this, and he didn’t have time to think. Put the straps on now, or after getting Martin into the chair? Now, right now, he decided. Martin moved again, regaining another lost shard of consciousness. The straps had to be on before he woke up.

  Usman knelt beside Martin, pulled the gunman’s arms round behind his back. Looping the strap round the wrists and pulling it tight. Maybe too tight, he realized, as he saw them dig into skin, but it didn’t matter. Martin would be dead in an hour or two, it didn’t matter much if he got his wrist cut in the process. Discomfort was the least of his problems. Another strap around the ankles. This one not as tight, just enough to make sure it couldn’t slip off.

  He stood again and looked down at what he’d done. Martin lying on the floor, hands tied behind him, ankles bound, blood running from the cut on the top of his head where the crowbar had landed. He breathed heavily, building up courage to grab Martin, to lift him into the chair. Martin mumbled something, it wasn’t obvious what. Might have been in Czech, or it might have been an attempt at English from a brain still three steps away from functional language. He was waking though, and his next words could be hard to deal with rather than just to understand. Usman needed to get this done.

  He kneeled again, grabbing Martin under the arms and dragging him a few feet towards the chair. Martin didn’t struggle, didn’t seem to understand what was happening to him now. Another pause to gather strength into weary limbs, and Usman lifted Martin up. Nearly knocked the chair over, struggling to hold the weight of the smaller man. Martin slumped forward as soon as Usman let go, not making this easy. Usman shoved him back, angry, willing to hurt him now, hardly thinking of him as a person. He was nothing more than a lumpy burden. He was a dead man making the life of a living person much harder than it needed to be. There was no guilt in hurting a man who was already dead.

  He shoved Martin backward. The impact seemed to bring a little more life back to the gunman. At least enough to hold his weight in place, anyway. Usman dropped back down to his knees, taking another strap from his pocket and looping it through the metal hoop on the floor and the strap around Martin’s ankles. This one he pulled as tight as possible, a burst of energy rushing through him as he realized that he was finished. He had Martin in place, he had done it.

  Not finished. There was one thing left to do. The worst thing, the thing that would change his life forever. He stood in front of the chair with his hands on the top of his head, looking down at Martin. The gunman wasn’t aware of him, or didn’t seem to be. Sitting there, leaning back, head dropping forward, lips occasionally moving without saying anything. Now he had to go, leave Martin here and lose more time. The bit he still didn’t quite understand, resented. Nate and Gully staying away in case he botched this.

  He took backward steps towards the door, looking at Martin as he went. Thought about saying something, but he didn’t. There was nothing he could say that would mean anything now. Not after what he’d just done and not when he knew what he was going to do next. Martin was moving more, his head shifting slowly sideways, like a man waking. He owed him a quick ending. Martin deserved to be spared the torture of waiting for a death he knew was coming for him.

  As he pulled the door shut behind him, Usman thought he heard something, a quiet voice. It spurred him to move faster, not wanting to hear his betrayal mentioned. Usman stepped outside, felt the cold air hit him and gasped. The fast intake of breath caught in his throat, the tiredness and the misery of the night, the churning in his stomach. He had to fight down the bile, take another gasp of air that didn’t help much. Usman got into the van and started driving.

  Usman knew where he was supposed to go. He remembered the details that Gully had given him, spelled out carefully. They were right at the front of his mind, and he was ignoring them. Driving the van back into the city, not aware of his speed, not aware of anything other than the need to throw up. He knew he was supposed to go straight to the pub and meet them. He knew he was going to piss them off by being late, but he knew too none of that mattered. Home wasn’t far out of the way, and he needed it. The chance to stop and breathe, to compose himself before the next step. He had to make a good impression, and he couldn’t in this state. And what were they going to do anyway? They wanted him to pull the trigger, and that meant waiting for him. They would just have to work to his schedule, this one time. He’d only be a few minutes late.

  Usman went into his flat, closed the door, and felt an urge rush through him to never leave the place again. You go out there and you have to kill a man. You go out there and you won’t be the same person, won’t live the same life. It all changes. Every single thing you think about yourself gets swept away, and you become a killer. He fought it down, felt his stomach turn another sloppy cartwheel and ran into the bathroom.

  He threw up, at least once, maybe twice. He couldn’t remember, for a few minutes, where he was or what was happening. He knew that his heart was thumping its way out of his chest, knew that he had never felt so suddenly exhausted in all his life. Those two things seemed so huge that no other thought could compete for space.

  There was nothing left to vomit now, so he dropped onto his backside and slid across to the bath, leaning against it. Dropped his head back and stared at the ceiling. Forgetting the rest of the world, focusing on breathing and not having a
heart attack. Never felt his pulse move that fast before, all the high-pressure situations he’d been in. He closed his eyes. Opened them suddenly a few seconds later, terrified that he’d fallen asleep.

  He hadn’t, his watch told him little time had passed and he’d only been in the flat for a few minutes. But he should have been at the pub half an hour ago. They’d be sitting there, the two of them, waiting for him with a gun. Waiting for him to do all the dirty work, them just along for the profits. He hated the pair of them in that moment, but he knew that would pass. His hatred would slowly morph into something else, something more professional. A tolerance of the men who made him kill, because they’ll become the men who make him money.

  Usman leaned his head back against the bath again, hating himself more than he’d ever hated anyone else, and he’d hated a few. He closed his eyes again, hoping that some of the lethargy would leave if he just gave it a few minutes. This time he did sleep, although he didn’t realize it. Was only for a few minutes, and it helped. He was mentally drained, physically weak, but he knew what he had to do. The fog was clearing and those careful details were elbowing their way back to the front. He knew that sitting back against the bath wasn’t going to get the job done.

  Up and through to the kitchen, taking a drink of water from the fridge to try and wash out the taste of puke. Over to the sink to splash a little tap water on his face. He was pouring with sweat and he knew it was going to show in his matted hair and stained clothes. He thought about changing, but decided against it. All this, finding little things to do that killed more time, was a pathetic delaying tactic. His brain finding reasons to dodge the effort his body had to make.

  Out to the van and driving through the street. His arms were so tired it was hard to even turn the wheel. He needed more time to get his head together. The van weaved across the road, Usman’s concentration weaving with it, pulling him back to reality just before he hit anything. There was anger in there now as well, bubbling up and telling him that this wasn’t his fault. This was Nate Colgan’s fault, and Gully’s fault. They were the professionals, why the fuck weren’t they doing this? They should have been there, should have been sitting outside the warehouse waiting for him to clobber Martin. They should have had a proper gunman there with them, or one of them should have done it. Fuck’s sake, this was their job, the thing they wanted more than he did. They should be the ones carrying the can for it. But no, not them. All the powerful ever had to do was clean up afterwards.