Plugged

and got off with a beating. .’

He doesn’t need to say any more. That kind of rumour could be disastrous. A wave of welshers and con artists would rise up in the morning.

‘Don’t worry about that,’ I say soothingly. ‘One word from Zeb and I will deliver him to you myself.’

One of Mike’s men is not taking this negotiation well. His face is drawn tight with outrage. I know the type, a bully with a gun. This guy is going to be whispering in Mike’s ear how I have to die. Soon as I’m out the door, his jaw starts flapping.

I look him in the eye and wince.

‘You got something wrong with your face, McEvoy? You in pain?’

‘Not me,’ I say, and shatter his kneecap with my heel. It’s a funny thing to see a leg bend the wrong way. Not funny haha. The guy goes down sideways, like a black-and-white movie drunk, snapping off shots as he goes. One hits his partner, the Scotland/Ireland guy, in the gluteus maximus. He drops to his knees, gasping.

‘Go, Dan,’ coughs Zeb. ‘Just kill them all. We’d be better off in the long run.’

I put Irish Mike between me and the shooter in the other room, who can’t do much except holler. But then another muscle man, the driver, comes barrelling in the back door. This throws me off altogether. Presumably this guy was out for the count, but now he’s obviously awake and pissed. How pissed?

Without saying a word, the guy shoots Zeb in the shoulder. Suppressor on the pistol too. Classy.

‘Scheherazade,’ blurts Zeb as he falls backwards in the chair. As far as I know, Scheherazade is a character from Arabian Nights, and I have no idea why Zeb would say this. Maybe I misheard.

While I’m thinking about this, Irish Mike spins and demonstrates why he’s the boss, unleashing a massive uppercut that takes me squarely under the chin. My feet actually leave the ground, then I’m on the floor, my head between Zeb’s knees and the stiletto six feet away.

Stars are blinking before my eyes and it’s all over. Two seconds, maybe three.

‘Neck punch,’ shouts Mike, eyes bright with triumph. ‘How’d you like that, laddie? You had it coming. Fuck you and fuck you again.’

What was I thinking? This was never going to end well; too many unknowns. My unbelievable winning streak had to peter out sometime. A pity it had to be with my head between Zeb’s legs.

My ears are wet with the sticky flow of Zeb’s blood and something clicked when I took the blow. My jaw? A couple of teeth? The pain is too big to pinpoint its origin.

Be nice to have a flashback now, hear some inspirational music, turn into a super soldier.

‘Your head is on my balls, man,’ complains Zeb, who isn’t dead yet. ‘That’s embarrassing. I don’t want to be found like this.’

Me neither. I don’t want to be found at all.

The clinic is whirling and I feel sick to the pit of my stomach. I smell blood, sweat, maybe urine. .

‘Zeb. You piss yourself?’

‘Screw you. I’ve been in this chair for ever.’

How can we be bantering like this in the face of oblivion? Is this the most important thing after all? Communication?

We lie in a tangle of limbs, like discarded mannequins ready for the bonfire, and I feel certain that this is what Mike has in mind. One little inferno and all the evidence goes away.

I crane my neck, relieving the pressure on Zeb’s testicles, and looking into my friend’s eyes. I have to know, before I die.

‘What the hell is Scheherazade, man?’

‘That just came out. It’s a safe word,’ says Zeb shamefacedly. ‘Sometimes the S and M hookers ask for a safe word in case things get a bit out of hand. I wouldn’t even be telling you this if we weren’t about to die and I wasn’t riding the painkiller wave.’

Christ. A safe word. They don’t work outside of cathouses or Dungeons and Dragons.

My breathing seems loud and there are screams bouncing off the walls. The butt-shot guy and the busted- knee guy are yelling up a storm. I can’t even hope for a quick death now.

Mike is shouting something, but it’s like he’s in a Perspex booth. His voice seems muffled and far away.

‘. . let you live. Why would I do that?’

Okay. I’m tuning in now. Why would he let me live? There is a reason. I almost have it when Mike stamps on my knee. No break, but painful as hell.

‘You like that, McEvoy? Huh? Isn’t this what they call poetic justice? I do to you like you did to my man. I am going to kill you slow, laddie. Not your friend, though. He gets patched up to keep an eye on my new hair.’

Zeb finds himself a set of brass ones. ‘Screw you, Madden. You kill Dan, you better kill me too.’

‘Let’s see if the horrific torture you’re about to witness can change your mind.’

‘Yeah,’ mutters Zeb. ‘Torture might do it.’

Mike embraces the shooter. ‘Calvin. That was outstanding work. One shot on the move, takes out the doctor and creates a diversion. You pricks see that?’

The pricks in question are writhing on the floor, but still they make time for a yes, Mister Madden.

‘That was quite a punch you threw, Mister Madden,’ says Calvin, who is no idiot.

‘Yes, laddie. We make a good team. You are my new number two. Barrett is dead, long live Calvin.’

All this lovey-dovey gangster talk is giving my brain time to stop vibrating. I had a Plan B, in case everything turned to crap. Plan B.

And then I remember. Tommy Fletcher, my ace in the green hole.

‘Ballyvaloo,’ I blurt before my mind loses it.

‘Not much of a safe word,’ notes Zeb.

But it means something to Irish Mike. He quits hugging his new number two and walks towards me with a face like thunder.

‘What did you say?’

‘Ballyvaloo,’ I repeat, spitting blood on my shirt. ‘What the fuck is a ballyvaloo?’ wonders Calvin.

I rub my tender jaw. ‘Not what, where.’

Mike raises his foot to stomp on me, then thinks better of it.

‘Tell me what you’ve done. Tell me!’

‘Nothing. Not yet.’

Mike is a reasonably smart guy. It doesn’t take him long to make the leap.

‘Let me guess: if I kill you, then my mother is murdered, blah blah blah. You’re bluffing, McEvoy. You haven’t set anything up. You looked me up on the internet and found that I bought my dear mother a retirement cottage in Ireland. Period. Shoot the fucker, Calvin.’

I stare Calvin down. ‘Pull that trigger and Mummy is dead.’

Calvin is conflicted. Do what the boss says, or possibly be indirectly responsible for killing the boss’s mother.

‘One phone call, Mike. Then do what you like. Look in my eyes and tell me I’m lying.’

It’s a stupid line, but at this moment I am as serious as a shattered kneecap or a bullet in the arse. Mike glares into my eyes, snuffling like a hungry dog, and apparently finds some truth in there.

‘One call, McEvoy. If you have harmed my mother. . if you have so much as disturbed her supper. .’

If I have to endure one more diatribe.

‘Yeah yeah, give me my phone.’

Irish Mike tosses me my phone, which is actually Barrett’s phone. It takes me three attempts to get the number in. Tiny buttons, big blood-slicked fingers, not a good combination.

‘It’s international,’ I say, trying to sound conversational. ‘So I don’t want to stay on too long.’

Mike’s stare could strip paint. ‘Put it on speaker, shithead. For all I know, you could be calling up your bookie.’

Fair point. I find the speaker button and twist my little finger into it. A shrill double brrrrp blasts from the phone.

‘Weird ring,’ says Zeb, now totally in the Paramol’s clutches. ‘It’s like brrrrp and then another one exactly the same.’