The Hit

  “Yeah, OK. Whatever you say, Lizzie.”

  “Sleep with as many girls as possible. Two or three at the same time,” she read. She glared at him. “Three girls at once. You think I’m going to do that for you, do you?”

  Adam hesitated. “Haven’t you ever wondered?”

  Lizzie’s pencil hovered in the air above number two.

  “Look,” said Adam. “This week. It’s got to be a total experience. Two hundred percent going for it. It’s not like normal; it’s like, everything. All the stuff you would have done if you went to uni, or if you’d gone to war, or if you married and had kids, or just went crazy. You know? You might say you don’t want a threesome now, but what about forever? Because that’s what this is about — forever.”

  “Forever in a week,” said Lizzie. She shook her head. “Suppose I say no?” she demanded. “What then?”

  “Then — I’ll keep trying to convince you.” He grinned weakly. “I could become a pain.”

  “Become? Huh. And if I say yes? All this — we have to do all this. That’s the deal, is it? I have to do everything you want?”

  Adam looked at the list. “We can go through them one at a time,” he suggested.

  “Thanks.” She scanned down it again. “Kill someone?” she exclaimed. “You want to leave me with a murder charge?”

  “No!” Adam shook his head. “OK, I hadn’t thought it through. I mean, only if it was someone who really, really deserved it. Hitler or someone.”

  “Hitler’s dead, Adam. We’re not going to meet Hitler.”

  “A serial killer, then. We’d be doing everyone a favor.”

  “Except me. It’s not up to us to decide who lives and who dies.” She shook her head. “I want to be able to say no.”

  “Yeah. Yeah. No problem. We only do it if you agree.”

  “We go through these things one at a time.”

  “Yeah! I mean, you’re in on it, too, right?”

  “Right.”

  Adam looked at her. “You’re saying yes.”

  “No, I’m not,” she snapped. But she was, and she knew it. She turned to look at him sitting next to her, smiling and … hopeful? No. Hopeful wasn’t big enough. It was like his whole life, his whole world, his whole being depended on her answer. She held all that in her hand. That was it. He had put himself, all of himself, body and soul, into her keeping. It took her breath away.

  “I love you, Lizzie,” he said.

  Love — what was that? It wasn’t like tripping over a brick and falling on your face in the road. Of course it had to be the right person — but you had to go for it, too, didn’t you? You had to be prepared to jump in and drown. Someone, that special person, they didn’t just come to mean everything to you by accident. Somewhere along the line, you had to give yourself to them, completely give yourself, be prepared to sacrifice everything for them. That was what Adam was offering, and that was what he was asking in return. That’s what love was, wasn’t it? Like Romeo and Juliet. Like Bonnie and Clyde. Your true love had to be worth more to you than life itself.

  He’d climbed the wall to her window. He had one week to live and he’d come to her. He was going to take her places she’d never even dreamed of going. She was going to fall in love. It was going to break her heart. It might even kill her.

  “Say yes, Lizzie. Please say yes.”

  And he was gorgeous, wasn’t he? Gorgeous and doomed and mad and so, so sexy. And yes, sometimes she felt she was going to go out of her head with boredom and … and …

  “I can walk away whenever I want, right?”

  “Anything.”

  “I can say no.”

  “Anything.”

  “We do it one thing at a time.”

  “One at a time. Anything!”

  “And …” She paused. Adam was beaming at her, just beaming like a light had been turned on in his heart. She was that light.

  “I love you, Lizzie,” he said again.

  And she could have said, Oh, come on, or Grow up, or Please! Or just I don’t believe you. But instead, she jumped up and wrapped her arms around him and hugged him so hard, and he picked her up and spun her around in circles and crowed like Peter Pan.

  “And I love you,” she said fiercely. She pulled him to her and snogged him, stark naked there in her room with the comforter on the floor. And … Yes! she thought. She was going to help him have the time of his life.

  AT ABOUT THE SAME TIME THAT ADAM WAS CLIMBING THE sheer wall to Lizzie’s bedroom, Garry, from whom he had stolen Death the previous night, was on the receiving end of a very difficult phone call with a man he knew only as Mr. B. It was the first time he’d dealt directly with Mr. B — usually he only got to speak to his underlings, but today he had been handed on to the big man himself. For that reason, he knew he was in some very serious, and probably very painful, trouble down the line.

  “I’m sorry,” he begged. “I got robbed. It was random. This guy turned up and did the house over. What can I do? Call the police?” He laughed weakly at his own joke.

  Mr. B waited a moment before he answered. “I’ll pop round tomorrow and we’ll discuss the situation.”

  “You?” said Garry in surprise.

  “I like to deal with any problems that arise personally.”

  “No need for that, is there?” No answer. Garry let out a high-pitched giggle out of pure nervousness. “I’ll have the money for you, Mr. B, just give me a couple more days. I mean, even if I still had the stuff it takes a while to sell it. You’re a businessman. You know that.”

  “Tomorrow, eleven A.M.,” said Mr. B.

  “That’s not fair!” cried Garry.

  “Be there,” said Mr. B, and he hung up.

  Garry sat still, staring at the phone in his hand. This was bad. He had been warned that Mr. B was dangerous, but he had been a poor man all his life, and the prospect of using his old Zealot connections to get his hands on some Death to sell had been too much to resist.

  “I’m out of my league here,” he muttered, chewing the ends of his beard. He was in a wheelchair. What was he supposed to do? Run around trying to hunt for the little shit? It took him half an hour just to get on and off the bus.

  He picked up the phone and made another call — a call he had been told to make only under very exceptional circumstances. He sat a long time listening to the phone ring, before it went dead. Then he rang again. And again and again. He’d been sitting there for half an hour before he got an answer.

  “This needs to be pretty important, Garry,” said a voice at the other end.

  “Thank God you answered,” burst out Garry in relief. “Something’s gone wrong. You’re not going to believe this.”

  Garry ran through his problem, aware that he was getting an unsympathetic silence, right up until he mentioned …

  “Adam?” asked the voice incredulously.

  “Yeah! The little shit. What am I going to do about that, then, eh?”

  There was a pause. “I can’t help you.”

  “Come on! I’m seeing that guy tomorrow. Mr. B. You know what they say about him.”

  “I can’t jeopardize everything we’ve worked on just for this.”

  “Just for this? This is my life we’re talking about. You’re making the stuff, for God’s sake. Just divert some my way.”

  “I’m a Zealot, Garry. I follow the rules. I’m not going to steal from my own organization.”

  “It was getting handed out for free the other day in Albert Square.”

  “That was an operation. Look, Garry, I’m abandoning my family for this. If I can do that to them, what makes you think I’m going to stick my neck out for you? I warned you what you were getting into when I put you in touch with Mr. B and you accepted the risk.”

  “I just wanted a life, you know …” said Garry.

  “I’ve given mine up,” said Jess grimly.

  “You had a life. Me, it takes me ten minutes just to go to the toilet in this stupid house. The stair li
ft keeps breaking; it gets stuck going up, it gets stuck going down. You try it when you’re dying for a shit. I just wanted a life. I just wanted things easy for a bit.” Pathetically, Garry began to weep. “Just have a word with Adam. How will that hurt?”

  “He thinks I’m dead. It’ll stir up all sorts of nonsense if he knows I’m still alive. What was Adam doing round at yours, anyway?”

  “He was looking for you, what do you think? He was in a pretty bad way — someone had really beat him up. He’s desperate, Jess, your whole family is desperate. What did you expect? They think you’re dead.”

  “I am dead.”

  “Please, Jess, please?”

  Jess sighed. He hated this so much. A gentle person, he had to push himself to be hard. “Maybe you just have to die, Garry. Quite a few of us are going to.”

  “But not like this,” begged Garry. “Anyway,” he said, a thought occurring to him, “what do I say to Mr. B? I know where Adam lives. Your whole family. I mean, you know, under torture? What about that?”

  There was a pause. “You’re threatening me,” said Jess.

  “No!” insisted Garry, but he was. “Look, I’m not a bad man. I don’t want to do this, but he might make me. You know?”

  “Garry, you bastard, I did you a favor!”

  “Look, just … don’t make me do this, right? Now you know how it feels,” added Garry.

  “I need to think.”

  Jess put down the phone abruptly. Garry sat there awhile longer. He wouldn’t tell Mr. B where Jess’s family lived. He’d sunk low, but not that low. But if thinking he would got Jess out and trying to get those pills back, so be it.

  He wheeled himself to the kitchen under the stairs to make himself a cup of tea.

  * * *

  In a gym in the basement of a large house buried in a clump of woodland south of Manchester, Vince was lying facedown on a mat with Christian on top of him, studying the back of his neck. Both men were dressed in judo gear. Christian rubbed his finger down the vertebrae and counted under his breath while Vince waited nervously for him to finish.

  “Can I get up now, sir?” asked Vince.

  Christian stood and let him up. They bowed to each other, then battle resumed. Christian threw Vince around a bit, kicked his arse a few times, got him upside down on the mat, and punched him repeatedly in the back of the neck before he’d had enough.

  “That’s enough for today.”

  Vince got to his feet, panting.

  “You’re out of breath, Vince. You need to do some more work on your stamina,” suggested Christian. “You’re getting too easy.”

  “Sorry, sir. I’ll do a run this afternoon,” snarled Vince.

  “No.” Christian wiped his face on a towel. “I have a job for you.”

  “Is it the cripple the chemist put us onto?” asked Vince. “We should never have done a deal with him. Do you want me to sort it out, sir?”

  Christian shook his head. “I’ll deal with that. I have something else for you. I want you to get out there and find out where Lizzie’s gone.” He shook his head. “Running off like that. She could be in any kind of trouble.”

  Vince paused, not sure who they were talking about. Then he remembered — the girl at the party the night before. “Why are you worried for her, sir? She’s not exactly your girlfriend, is she?” he pointed out.

  “With that crazy ex-boyfriend of hers hanging around? I’m worried for her. Just do it. You can start with her friend who threw the party last night. Julie, wasn’t it? Her. Sooner rather than later, if you don’t mind, Vince,” he added when Vince paused, looking at him curiously.

  Vince shrugged. “I’ll get right on it, sir.”

  * * *

  Vince left his boss and went to his own room. Inside, he closed the door, stripped off, and went to look at the mirror. Magnificent black bruises blossomed all the way up and down his body, but the most serious injuries didn’t show up as much more than a puffy swelling on the back of his neck, where Christian had punched him at least once a day for the past nine months. Every time, the same thing. It was doing him damage.

  Christian was a nut-job. He’d have been in the Broadmoor loony bin years ago if it wasn’t for the fact that he was the son of Florence Ballantine. In effect, Vince was less a butler/bodyguard, as Lizzie had suggested, and more of a butler/prison guard. His job was to serve Christian hand and foot — including the procurement of “girlfriends,” when required — right up to the point where Christian went mad. Then — he should be so lucky — he had permission to restrain him.

  Man! He wanted to restrain him so bad.

  The big man finished his shower and went in to give Christian his afternoon milk before he left. There was the usual fuss. It went in phases. Just now, Christian was in a sulky phase. Vince would have loved it if he simply started refusing to drink it, because it was at that point that restraining measures might come into effect. So far, Christian had denied him that pleasure.

  Even so, and despite the fact that he stood and watched Christian swallow the meds in milk twice every day without fail, his boss’s behavior lately was beginning to worry him. This girlfriend thing, for instance. It was a worrying sign.

  Vince made his way out to his car, a classic model Porsche, and paused outside to make a quick phone call to his real boss.

  “Mr. Ballantine.”

  “Vince. How’s it hanging?”

  Vince paused, unsure how to put it.

  “It ain’t easy,” sympathized Ballantine.

  “He just beat me up on the mat again.”

  “Wow. I’ve heard about beaten wives, but a beaten bodyguard? Is there a support group or something you could join, you know? Share experiences, that sort of thing?”

  In the background, Vince could hear raucous laughter. He shook his head and winced. “Always the neck. It’s dangerous. He’s going to do me an injury.”

  “Aw, come on, Vince. You’re a big boy. You can put up with a little pain.”

  Vince paused, unwilling to admit just how much he dreaded those daily sessions.

  “Did you really drag me away to complain about your working conditions, Vince? Is he still taking his meds? That’s the only thing that counts. Vince, please tell me he’s taking his meds.”

  “He is, Mr. Ballantine. It’s not that. It’s … there’s another girl.”

  “So what’s new? There’s always another girl.”

  “Yes, sir, but this one, he’s calling her his girlfriend.”

  There was a pause. “And is she?”

  “No, sir.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She keeps trying to get away, sir.”

  Ballantine thought about it. “Isn’t that the sort of thing girlfriends just do, though, Vince?”

  Vince sighed. Like father, like son. “Not if they really like you, sir.”

  There was silence. Vince could almost hear the shrug.

  “You know what,” said Ballantine, “there aren’t many things normal about Christian, but the fact that he likes girls is one of them. It keeps him happy. And if he’s happy, I’m happy. And — he’s taking his meds! So long as he’s taking the meds, it never gets that bad. Believe me — I’ve seen the results of no meds. You don’t want to know.”

  “It’s not nice, sir. I had to help him with the last one.”

  “Heheheh, it’s a tough job, eh? Vince, how much do I pay you?”

  “A fuck of a lot of money, sir.”

  “And how much does Christian pay you?”

  “A fuck of a lot of money, sir.”

  “That’s right. Now two fuckloads of money add up to … what? A fucking enormous amount of money, if I’m not mistaken. I’m using a technical term, here, Vince.”

  “I know, sir.”

  “How long have you been with him now?”

  “Nine months, sir,” said Vince. “Pretty much to the day.”

  Ballantine nodded. Secretly, he was impressed. That was a record. “Tell you what, Vin
ce. I’ll make you an appointment with my personal physician. Get the neck checked out. If it’s really that bad, maybe we’ll do something.”

  “A holiday would be nice, sir.”

  “Vince.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “You’re whining.”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “I’m sorry, too, Vince, because I have a whole lot on at the moment without having to listen to my son’s babysitter complaining to me about his very well-paid working conditions.”

  “Sorry, sir,” said Vince, but the phone was already off.

  Vince shrugged. You could only try. He cricked his neck and shook his hands. Pins and needles. Ah well. Meanwhile, he had a job to do.

  He climbed into the car and headed out to the M56 highway.

  * * *

  Just a few miles away, Jess was leaning up against the side of a shipping container in the company of Anna, the girl who had been beaten up the day before. Both of them looked the worse for wear — swollen eyes, fat lips, and bruises all over their bodies. Ballantine’s men were professionals. Of course, nothing had been done that would stop them working.

  Jess was seething. Anna listened sympathetically as he told her about Garry.

  “So what are you going to do?” she asked.

  Jess glared at her. “What can I do?”

  “Go and sort it out.”

  “I can’t, you know I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  “Even if I wanted to, we have our orders. Stay here until we get a new mission. That’s what I’m doing.”

  He fumbled in his pocket for his cigarettes. His hands were shaking, he was that upset, but he wouldn’t lift a finger to save his own brother. He was such a goddamn soldier, Anna thought. Always followed orders, never crossed the line unless he was told to. The Zealots were his whole life.

  “It’s your brother,” she said. “Don’t you care? And keep your voice down,” she added. She nodded sideways at the guard leaning up against a nearby container, who was watching them with interest. They’d started off as employees, on loan from the Zealots. Now, they were more or less prisoners.

  Jess took a breath and forced himself to speak matter-of-factly. “I’m not putting everything at risk just because my brother is an idiot,” he said. “I’ve made the break. That life is over. I’m dead as far as they’re concerned. What would be the point of showing myself to any of them? I’m going to be dead for real in another week or so.”