Maid of the Mist (28 page)

'Think of it,' said the Barracuda. 'Every major drug baron on the face of the earth is here tonight. Every one of them responsible for misery and murder and corruption and poverty and . . .'

Corrigan looked from one to the other, incredulously. 'You mean, you're the good guys?'

The Barracuda smiled. 'That's one way of looking at it.'

Corrigan desperately tried to feel relieved. But he couldn't. His brow furrowed and the gun in his sock sat hard against his ankle. 'So you have the movers and shakers all in one place. You want me to arrest them? Is that it?'

The Old Cripple shook his head.

'What are you going to do then, give them a lecture on the evils of narcotics?'

'Actually,' said the Barracuda, 'he is.'

'And then,' added the Old Cripple, 'we're going to blow them all to kingdom come.'

Stirling was in work, as usual. He was trying to remain calm and composed, but his knee was shooting up and down under his desk with excitement. He tried to stop glancing at the clock on the wall, just to get on with his report, keep his head down, busy, but it was nearly impossible. The heavily swollen Magnificent Seven were ready for action and for the first time he felt quietly confident.

Dunbar had come in earlier, checked with his officers, then emerged from his office wearing a dinner suit. Somebody, trying to brown-nose, asked him what the occasion was and he said he'd been invited to the Horticultural Convention's closing-night dance. He wasn't looking forward to it, but it was expected of him.

Uhuh.

Stirling kept his head down. He was supposed to be preparing a departmental Christmas rota on his computer, but every few minutes, when he was sure no one was watching, he switched to a different file, the one in which he'd been keeping his account of the events of the past few days. It had started out as a purely factual police-statement kind of thing, but now he busied himself dividing what he had already written into handy chapters. He was sure the eventual publisher would appreciate it.

It was all down to Maynard.

Maynard had been out for lunch with his crew when they'd come across Madeline getting chopped down by the Big Circle Boys and waded in to rescue her, then looked on in dismay as the police had turned up and threatened to arrest
them
for fighting in the street. Maynard had just been able to stop his crew from having a go at the police. Once he'd got them back to the
Maid of the Mist
he'd been able to quell their anger by telling them about the Magnificent Seven and the convention.

He'd taken a chance.

On his friends, his crewmen, and their loyalty and their sense of fair play and patriotism.

And a rare chance to dress up and shoot at bad guys.

They were all keen to help out; not only that, but they took the
Maid
across the river to the American side and recruited
their
crew as well. And not only that, but one of the Americans was a National Guardsman and he reckoned he could get access to some uniforms and some weaponry to really make a show of it.

So they did.

And Stirling was more than happy.

He looked up from his desk as a figure appeared in the doorway, closing the computer file as he did so. 'Mmmm?' he said.

Bill stood there, bug-eyed, nervous. 'Mark, there are some Internal Affairs guys downstairs want to see you.'

'OK,' Stirling said. They would be new ones, looking for the old ones, still secure but stiff and smelling of urine in his garage. He stood up, pulled on his jacket. 'We go out the back way. You all set, Bill?'

'As I ever will be,' Bill said. He stood aside as Stirling came through the door, then hurried after him down the back steps to Bill's patrol car.

As they sped off the Internal Affairs guys came rushing down the front steps of the station shouting after them.

When they reached Skylon Tower, the team was waiting. Guns and guns and guns and fear and loathing in Niagara Falls. Bill steered his police car to the front of a line of five vehicles: three pick-up trucks, an Oldsmobile, and a Volkswagen. Madeline stood at the front, ready to video their departure and with her fingers crossed that they'd stop and wait for her to catch up once she had what she wanted.

'Well?' Stirling said, as Maynard strode up to the car. 'How many?'

'Thirty-five,' said Maynard. 'We got a couple of extra National Guardsmen.'

'Well done.' Stirling took a deep breath. He checked his guns. He had a Llama 8 automatic pistol, a .38 heavy-duty outdated police weapon, hard-hitting and accurate with a nine-shot magazine. He also had an Eagle Apache Carbine, a semi-automatic recoil rifle with a thirty-shot magazine. It weighed only about nine pounds. He had had both guns for ten years. Oiled and ready to fire at any time, but never fired in anger yet.

Morton was standing off to one side, his fingers checking his own pistol, but his eyes turned up to the sky.

'You OK, Jimmy?' Stirling called across.

For a second it seemed that he didn't hear. Then he turned slowly and nodded. He had a faraway look on his face. Stirling presumed he was thinking about the Empire State Building or his dead wife and children.

Then Morton shook his head, as if he was getting bathwater out of his ears, and hurried across. He leaned into the car and said: 'Sorry, lost in space.'

'You've been down this road before,' Stirling said.

'Different road. But just as dangerous.'

'You remember the plan?'

'There's not much to remember. Smash down the front gate and arrest everybody.'

'That's about it.'

They looked at each other for several moments, then shook hands.

Madeline, videoing it, said: 'Aw, that's cute.'

'Fuck off,' Stirling said.

And then they set off. With tourists looking on and clapping as if it was a parade just for them; in a way, Stirling supposed, it was.

At first Corrigan struggled, then he relaxed. Struggling would only make the knots tighter.

Tied up. He had spent most of the past few days tied up. It had become extremely fashionable. There was a gun in his sock, but he couldn't quite reach it. Downstairs the Old Cripple was about to address drug central and preparing to explode a bomb that would kill everyone. Not just drug dealers. But waiters and waitresses and confused Indian princesses.

Then Corrigan struggled again because there was no point just waiting to be blown to kingdom come. He strained. He stretched. From far off he could hear the sound of music. But not
The Sound of Music.
The sound of Pongo. He threw himself to one side. He toppled over. He thumped his head on the carpet and lay there dazed for several minutes. Then he lay there fully conscious but no nearer freedom. The gun dug into his ankle. He shook his leg, trying to shift it; and then he thought suddenly:
what if ?

The chances were he would blow his foot off, but if he angled it just right there was a possibility. What was there to lose but his toes? What was another digit or two? Take the chance . . . live a little, before you die a lot. He banged his leg down on the floor with all the force he could muster. Once. Twice.
Crack!
The bullet shot out of his trousers, took the toe-cap off his shoe but left his toes unharmed, if shaken. The window shattered.

There was no one to hear it. They were all too busy enjoying themselves. Corrigan heaved himself across the floor, centimetre by centimetre, lugging the chair with him. In a minute he was lying among the jagged shards of glass.

He ground the rope down into them, felt his skin split, felt the warmth of his blood, but also, also the snap of twine, the steady snap, snap as he pushed into the glass. Then suddenly: snap, snap, snap and his hands were free and in a second he had squeezed out of the remaining knots. Blood was streaming down his arms, but the cuts didn't seem too serious, not to a man who had two fingers missing and a bullet hole to boast about.

He looked out of the shattered window, at the guards distantly patrolling the grounds, their faces turned to the house, thinking they heard something above the musical din from within, tracing the windows but seeing nothing untoward. Corrigan hurried to the door. He peeked out. The corridor was empty. He trotted along, dusting himself down. He hit the stairs. In moments he was just a face in a crowd of hoods schmoozing towards a party that would end with a bang.

The place was humming. There were handshakes and bearhugs and bows. There had been murders and maimings outside, but the convention itself had passed off without incident. The Old Cripple had done well. Deals had been done. Alliances forged. Territories assigned and feuds forgotten. If it had been a movie it would have secured top marks for generating the feelgood factor.

Corrigan slipped into the auditorium unchallenged and stood in the shadows at the rear, watching as the conventioneers sauntered confidently past, drinks in hand. He did not know what he was doing.

He was a policeman. If there was a bomb his first duty was to shout: 'There's a bomb!' and make sure everyone got out in an orderly fashion.

Except he was no longer a policeman and these were among the most evil people on earth. Nobody would thank him for saving them, not even them.

But there were innocents there and they had to be warned. But if he started shouting he would be clubbed to death and that would benefit nobody. He had to find the bomb.

As he stepped out of the shadows he bumped into Tar McAdam. The leader of the Provisional IRA. Another time, Corrigan would have plugged him and thought about the fives he had saved, but this time he apologized. Not that it mattered. Tar was out of it. Staggering. Zonked. He might have wangled an invitation to the convention on the strength of the untapped Irish drugs market, but others would exploit it. Corrigan caught the looks of disdain, the sideways steps of other guests trying to get out of Tar's way, and the embarrassed hellos of those he shouted disturbed greetings to. There was a time and a place for doing drugs, and the end-of- convention knees-up wasn't it. They all knew it except Tar. All the deals they'd worked out would be worth nothing if the drugs led to a careless word or a bump at the bar or a vomit on the table.

Corrigan pressed on, looking, but trying not to look as if he was looking. He had no idea where to look.

The feelgood factor. Life as a movie. Except life lasts a little longer and everyone dies in the end.

Dying is easy, comedy is hard.

Comedy is easy, toffee is hard.

A hundred and fifty drug barons with assorted hired ladies, enjoying the best catering drug money could buy. There had been speeches of thanks outside, speeches of thanks for the thanks, and speeches of thanks for the thanks for the thanks. They were going home tomorrow. They were rich already, but they would be even richer in the days and months to come. And better people too. Travel did that. Broadened the mind and widened the nostrils. Now for the show.

Behind the curtained stage Pongo completed the final check on his equipment. He ran from monitor to monitor, screen to screen, he checked tapes and loops and drum machines, he checked the synths and guitars and the backdrop and the video screen. He gave a little blast of dry ice and then checked the trapdoor through which Lelewala would suddenly appear to hum the vital part of the
Legend of Lelewala.
She was down there. Beneath the stage. Underneath the convention. And she shivered. Worse. She had not yet encountered any of the guests. Pongo had kept her well away from them, but she could feel them. She could feel their evil. Something was building within her.

She closed her eyes. She tried to think of Hollywood and David Hasselhoff. One performance and she would be free. On the road. She would never have to have sex again. She could be a normal human being again. She could think about plumbing and mortgages and acting and the love of a good man who wouldn't have to leave money by the bed every morning unless he had something specific he wanted her to buy with it, like root vegetables. She could even start taking her medication again. She wouldn't have to think about Lelewala. She wouldn't have to be Lelewala. She could close that part of her mind for good. Nail down the trapdoor. She looked up. The door opened: 'Any time now,' Pongo said. She nodded. Nodded at his red eyes and flared nostrils and rouged face.
Any time now.

Pongo turned to find the Barracuda and his father. 'Like the make-up,' the Barracuda said.

Pongo grinned. It wasn't make-up. It was coke. He had intended to be clean for this, his greatest ever performance, his defining moment, but he was nervous, very nervous, he needed a little something just to calm him down. So he'd buried his head in the emergency nosebag he wore around his neck.
Now
he was ready. He had his guitar in hand. There was no backing band. There was no need for one. He controlled everything. This was his coming out. His rebirth. His moment.

'Knock 'em dead,' the Barracuda said. Beside him the Old Cripple looked out through a chink in the curtains. They were having a ball. But not for long. He turned to look at his son. It seemed a pity that he would have to die too, but there was no other way. The bomb would destroy the mansion and everything in it. Even the Barracuda, though he didn't know it yet. He was devoted to the Old Cripple, devoted by way of the huge amount of money he was paid and the huge amount he was promised in the will, and he was reconciled to the bomb and happy that he had a three- minute window in which to exit the building and make his way to his own palatial mansion and plead ignorance about it all or some of it, but maybe write a book if the right contract came along. The Old Cripple liked him. He had been a good and faithful servant all these years. It was only fitting that he should die with him. As would have happened in Ancient Egypt. The Old Cripple ran his fingers over the tiny controller he held in his left hand. So small, yet one little switch and they were all gone.

He was quite relaxed about it all. Twenty years of excruciating pain would come to an end. At last he would be at peace. He would be whole again. He would be able to walk and talk and run as he had not been able to since the Marines had destroyed his life.