Public Enemy Number Two

BIGED

There were three of them in the car. I was in the backseat wedged between two of them. The third drove. There was a nodding dog on the ledge behind me. Only it wasn’t nodding anymore because somebody had pulled off its head. That was the sort of people they were. The sort who could visit the Chamber of Horrors and upstage the exhibits.

The driver was a punk. He had close-cropped, bright green hair and two studs in his ear. There was a scorpion tattooed on the back of his neck. He was chewing gum and every time he moved his mouth the scorpion writhed like it was trying to find a way out of his skin. That was all I could see of him from where I was sitting. It was enough to make me wish that I was sitting someplace else.

The two other men—they were both in their thirties—could have been brothers. Or sisters. They were somewhere in between. The fat, unshaven cheeks, the enormous biceps, the beer guts, and the balding heads . . . that was all definitely masculine. I wasn’t so sure about the handbags and the floral dresses. One of them had a scar running from his eye to his cheekbone. He’d tried to hide it with a dab of powder, but it needed something more. A large paper bag for example.

Nobody said anything for about five minutes, by which time we’d crossed the river, heading southwest. I shifted in my seat and one of the heavies dug an elbow into my ribs.

“Keep still, pretty boy,” he said in a voice so deep that it seemed to come from his knees.

“Where are we going?” I asked. “Who are you guys working for?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

The punk giggled, making the scorpion dance. I gritted my teeth. This wasn’t the first time I’d been taken for a ride. But if I didn’t make a move soon, it could well be the last. It didn’t seem fair. I was too young to die. And to be murdered by two men in women’s clothes! What would my parents say?

I made my move when the car slowed down for a red traffic light. I thought I’d timed it perfectly. We were in heavier traffic. One of the thugs was staring out of the window. The other was sitting back with his eyes half closed. Grab the handle, slam the door open, and I’d be out before they knew it. That was the idea.

But I’d underestimated them. I lurched forward. My hand moved a fraction. Then one of them grabbed me. I tried to shout out, to get the attention of the other drivers. I hadn’t even opened my mouth before something hit me, hard, on the side of the neck. I think it was a handbag. The car spun. I thought of the nodding dog. Then I was out.

When I came to, I was back behind bars—but not exactly in a prison. It was a long narrow building that wasn’t quite a building but was somehow familiar. My head was hurting and there was a nasty taste in my mouth. Otherwise I was more or less okay.

There was a sound outside. A rush and a shudder and a loud clinking. It told me what sort of building I was in. I should have known from the bare planks, the metal grille, the corridor almost as narrow as my prison cell, the square windows, and the communication cord. This was the guard’s van of a train. But it was a train that wasn’t moving. So where were we, then? Victoria Station?

I sat there for about two hours. It had been almost dark when I woke up, but now it was darker. I could see the light fading behind the screens that covered the windows. I expected the train to jolt forward at any time, but it never did. I was getting hungry. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and I was beginning to hope that a guard might wander through with a sandwich when the door opened and the punk appeared in the corridor.

He was still chewing gum and giggling. He had a safety pin in his nose and it wasn’t just there for decoration. It was holding the whole thing together. He had the sort of face that looked like it could fall apart at any moment. Chalk white and rotten.

He produced a bundle of keys, unlocked the door, and slid it open. I got to my feet. “If you’ve come to check my ticket, I haven’t got one,” I said.

He giggled.

“Do you speak English?” I asked.

He jerked his head back the way he had come. He didn’t speak at all.

I followed him out of the guard’s van and across the coupling to the next carriage. The windows were uncovered here, and looking out, I saw that we were parked in a siding, next to some sort of stockyard. A tall stack of wood obstructed most of the view, but I could also see coils of barbed wire and oil drums. The yard was fenced off. There was nobody in sight.

We reached the second carriage. It was blocked off by a plain wooden door that looked out of place on a train. The punk knocked and opened it. We went in.

Classical music. That was the first thing I heard. Bach or Vivaldi played on an expensive stereo system. The whole carriage had been revamped by an interior designer with expensive tastes. Silk wallpaper, silk curtains, two more chandeliers . . . the furniture could have come straight out of Woburn Abbey. A cocktail cabinet stood beside the door. One of the walls was lined with books. There was a fireplace at the far end with one of those artificial fires blazing artificially.

The two charm sisters from the car were sitting together on a chaise longue. One of them was reading a romance novel. The other was knitting. There were two other people in the room. One was a woman, wearing a satin dress that was tight in all the right places and tighter still in some of the wrong ones. Her hair was the sort of vivid blond that can only come out of a bottle. The other was a man. I guessed he was in charge.

He was around fifty, wearing a dressing gown with wide lapels and a cravat. He had a shock of white hair, so white that it did look as if he’d had a shock. His eyes were almost colorless, too. He was smoking a cigarette in a long black holder and sipping a martini.

“Good evening,” he said. “I’m Big Ed.”

I shrugged. “You don’t look that big to me,” I said.

One of the sisters looked up from his book. He was the one who’d hit me. “You don’t talk to Big Ed like that,” he grunted.

“Why not?” I asked. I rubbed the back of my neck. “He gave me a big ’eadache.”

The punk giggled again. Big Ed flicked ash from his cigarette.

“Nicholas Diamond,” he said. He had a soft, tired voice that was almost a whisper. “It’s very nice to see you. I have to say that I was dying to meet you.”

“Shame you couldn’t do it sooner,” I said.

He ignored me. “I had my boys out looking for Johnny Powers,” he went on. “It was his good luck that they missed him. And your bad luck that they found you.” He put down the cigarette and swirled the olive in his glass. “We’ll catch up with him later. But the question now is, what do we do with his number two?”

“How about a drink and a sandwich?” I suggested.

He shook his head. “Oh no. You see, I had a gun sent in to Strangeday Hall. Three of my boys were going to rub Johnny Powers. It seems you got in the way. One of them was burned—Blondie’s his name. Now his own mother doesn’t recognize him. And the thing is, you see, she’s my sister. Blondie is my nephew.”

That was bad news. Uncle Ed wasn’t smiling anymore and there was a flicker of color in his eyes—a dull red.

“I’d like to know where Powers is,” he said. “I could ask you. But of course you wouldn’t say.”

“I don’t know,” I muttered. “We could come to some sort of arrangement . . .”

“I don’t think so.” His lips curled. “The only arrangements you should be thinking of are the ones for your funeral.”

He stood up. I thought of attacking him, maybe grabbing an antique lamp and going for his head, but I quickly forgot it. The punk was right behind me. And the two charm sisters had already shown how fast they could move.

“I’m going to get Johnny Powers,” Big Ed continued. “South London and East London will be mine. What’s the world coming to when you’ve got kids running the rackets? I don’t like kids. I don’t like you, Diamond. That’s why you’ve got to go.”

He waved a hand and I was gone.

The punk was the first to move, lunging forward to grab me from behind. “Take him out and do it, Spike,” he ordered. “Scarface and Tootsie—you go with him.” The two drag artists stood up. “Good-bye, Diamond,” he said. “Remember Blondie. Remember me. And have a nice death.”

I was dragged out of the carriage. It must have been double glazed because as soon as I was out in the night air I could hear the trains, clanking and rattling through the darkness. It had begun to rain. At first it was a light drizzle, but as I was pulled, kicking and fighting, through the stockyard and onto the rails, it came down more heavily. It was a real cloudburst. In seconds the four of us were drenched.

Because of the rain I saw little of my surroundings. I could just make out the lights of a station—it was Clapham Junction—blinking in the distance.

We crossed about six or seven rails, our feet crunching on the gravel. Once we stopped as an Intercity Express thundered past, the windows a blur of yellow. I thought someone might see us, but in the darkness and the swirling rain that was impossible. Then the punk pushed me between the shoulders. I stumbled and fell. Tootsie and Scarface seized my arms and legs, and before I knew what was happening, they were tying me down across the rails. The practiced way they worked made me think that they must have done it before. It took them less than a minute. But when they straightened up I was fixed as firmly as an oven-ready chicken. My hands were tied to one rail, my legs to the other.

My neck rested on the cold metal. My body slumped in between.

Then Tootsie squatted down beside me. His hair was all over his face and his makeup was running. But he was smiling.

“Only one more train runs on this track tonight,” he said. “It comes in about ten minutes. It doesn’t stop until it gets to Waterloo Station. It won’t stop for you.”

“Wait . . .” I began, but then he stuffed a handkerchief into my mouth. I tried to spit it out. He twisted another loop of rope around my head, gagging me.

“No one will see you,” he hissed. “No one will hear you. Ten minutes. Think about it, pretty boy. In ten minutes you won’t be so pretty no more.”

The punk giggled one last time. Tootsie stood up and adjusted his dress. Then, linking arms with Scarface, he walked away. I was left alone, spread out on the track. The rain was falling harder than ever.