Maxim Jakubowski - The Mammoth Book of Best British Mysteries 6

So Johnny took this gun, this police special with six chambers and he let me and KC hold it and said we could have two shots each. We got a rock and scratched the shape of a naked lady on the side of the wall, then we each took a couple of shots at her. When the gun went off, it was real loud, like thunder, so loud that we were sure someone would come running, but no one did. Johnny walked half a mile away. He fired twice and got the woman smack in the nipples. It was like he was Clint Eastwood or somebody.

“Where’d you learn to shoot like that?”

“We had a ranch in Oklahoma,” said Johnny. “That’s where my folks come from. We used to shoot at things all the time. I can drive a car, too.”

“No fucking way,” said KC.

Then it was my turn to shoot. The gun went off before I was ready and I didn’t hit a fucking thing. KC laughed but he didn’t do any better. I had one more shot and I fired it straight into the ground because I felt like it. Johnny said what I’d done was a waste of ammunition. “What?” I said. “But it ain’t a waste to shoot at a picture of some tits?”

Later we went back to Johnny’s house and he let us in, said his dad was out and wouldn’t be back until late.

“Like how late?” I said.

“Who knows?” said Johnny.

“Wow,” I said. “You could stay out until midnight if you wanted.”

I could see KC looking pretty surprised. Me and him usually had to be home by ten, on the fucking dot, or we got grounded. And there’s Johnny coming home to an empty house. The place was a fucking mess, though. There was this thick layer of dust on the TV and the kitchen looked like someone had been throwing soup at the walls.

Johnny took the gun back to his dad’s room then got us some cold beer from the icebox. We couldn’t believe it. It was real German beer. He got out a CD, someone called Martha somebody. “Listen to this, she swears her head off in it.” It was a boring song, except at the end when this woman calls someone a mother fucking asshole. She sang it about six or seven times. Man, we rolled about laughing. When the song was over, we played it again just to see if we’d heard it right the first time. After one can of beer each we were all pretty drunk.

Johnny got us another beer, even though he’d said we could only have one each. Then he put on another song we hadn’t heard. It was some really old party record called The Monster Mash. On account of the song being about monsters, KC had the bright idea that we should listen to it in the dark. I knew what he was planning. I fucking knew. Sure enough, next thing he was asking Johnny if he had a flashlight. Johnny said sure. So KC asked Johnny to aim the flashlight at him while he did a dance to the record. In no time at all, Johnny was pointing the spotlight at KC while he flashed his big white ass in the dark. Jesus, it was funny. Johnny was laughing so much he was crying. KC wasn’t laughing, though. His face was all serious, like he was concentrating on giving an artistic performance.

Then the light turned on and Johnny’s dad was standing there. From a distance, he’d looked like the main villain in a gangster movie. Close up, he was just a normal looking guy, average size, ordinary hair and clothes and his belly starting to bulge, like any dad from anywhere in the world. He just looked at us. No expression on his face or nothing.

KC tried to pull up his pants, his belt buckle rattling. Johnny’s dad walked over to him and pushed him. KC did this sort of hopping dance, still holding onto his pants. Then he fell over. Johnny tried to get up off the sofa, but his dad got to him first and held him down with one hand over his throat. I thought he was going to hit Johnny, but no. He just kept on squeezing his throat like he wanted to strangle him. I said: “Stop.” That’s all I said. Johnny’s dad turned and slapped me on the ear so hard I could hear humming.

Now Johnny was turning red, trying to knock his dad’s arm away. But he was too little and weak. He was making clucking noises in his throat. And what was really scary was that his fucking father still hadn’t said a goddamn word. Both me and KC felt sure he was going to kill his own kid. We kept yelling at him to stop but he was like a maniac. The guy was so mad his forehead was throbbing.

KC was crying his eyes out. He picked up the shitty dusty old TV and used it like a battering ram, slamming Johnny’s dad in the side of the head. Johnny’s dad looked confused and blew out air like he’d just done ten push-ups. Then he fell over. KC smacked the TV down on top of the guy’s skull. The TV didn’t break. The guy’s head did. When he was lying down, all three of us started kicking his head and stamping on it. There wasn’t nothing mean about it. We were just scared shitless of what the bastard might do if he ever stood up again.

When we’d finished stomping, it was pretty fucking obvious the guy wasn’t much of a threat to anyone no more. He wasn’t moving, his eyes were wide open and his tongue was hanging out. He looked like a dog I saw once that had been hit by a car.

“He fucking deserved it,” said Johnny.

“He really fucking did,” I said. Even my voice was shaking.

KC hadn’t stopped crying the entire time. “You dumb fucking bastards,” he kept saying. “Now we’re all going to get lethally injected, just like that guy Griff told us about.”

I was scared and trying not to show it. “They won’t kill us. We’re minors.”

“They wait until you’re eighteen and then they fucking do it,” said KC.

“They won’t do nothing,” said Johnny. “Because they ain’t gonna find out. My dad had no friends. He never spoke to nobody. Who’s gonna know?”

“The body’s gonna stink,” said KC. “It fucking stinks already.”

“There’s a big old freezer in the garage,” said Johnny. “We can put him in there.”

“I ain’t gonna cut anyone up,” I said.

“We don’t need to,” said Johnny. “We just take the frozen stuff out and lift him in.”

“Someone’s gonna know,” I said. I was shivering just like Scott of the Antarctic. “You can’t live here on your own without someone knowing.”

“This is America,” said Johnny. This kid was calm as anything. I think he was even relieved. “Long as you keep paying bills, no one cares about you. I lived in lots of places, that’s how it works. People only knock on the door if you owe them money or they want you to join their church. I’ll keep going to school, just like normal. I’ll pay the bills and sign checks while the money lasts out.”

The more we thought about it, the more it seemed like the ideal solution. Even KC could see the sense of it. We wouldn’t admit to killing Johnny’s dad, we’d just pretend he was alive. It wasn’t such a big lie, anyway. Most kids spend their entire childhoods pretending their parents are alive.

“Hey! That’s my fucking bag, you fat junkie bitch.” Nice mouth on her, for all her expensive gear and fancy-looking Prada handbag. The handbag that was now in my possession as I legged it across the concourse of Central Station. Serves her right for putting it down on the seat beside her. Everyone knows that Central is like a well-stocked buffet of Glasgow’s junkies, pickpockets and lowlifes. I considered it teaching her a lesson.

I could hear her stilettos pecking away like a crow on steroids as she tried to run after me. I wasn’t worried that she would catch me – the shoes were too high and her skirt too tight. As I dodged startled passengers hurrying for their trains, I heard a shriek followed by the thwack of a bony Versace-clad arse hitting concrete. Excellent. Now I just had to avoid the cops. Half of Strathclyde’s finest hang around Central Station. It’s an easy way of meeting their arrest targets for the month. Just nip into Central and huckle a few likely characters – the nylon shell suits and Burberry baseball caps are a dead giveaway.