Eoin Colfer - Plugged

‘Dense. A lot denser than mine.’

‘I had a whole team working on Mike,’ mutters Zeb. ‘You get what you pay for.’

‘Prick,’ says Mike, and I can’t help agreeing with him.

One of Mike’s scabs is floating a little high, so I poke it with my thumb.

‘There’s your problem,’ I say, like I’m concerned. ‘Infection. You haven’t been taking your antibiotics.’

Mike’s eyes flick to his lieutenants. Guilty. ‘I wanted a few beers. You can’t drink on those things.’

‘Looks pretty painful, Zeb, this infection. Could it get nasty?’

Zeb catches on quick. ‘Sure. Balls nasty. Your whole scalp is gonna feel like a septic pimple. Transplants fall out and you got a head full of scar tissue. Looks like a third-degree burn.’

Zeb is full of shit, but Mike buys it. ‘Scar tissue, huh?’

‘You’ll be like an extra from a Romero movie.’

Mike is incensed. ‘This is typical of you service guys. You never hear the downside beforehand. It’s all roses until you hit an underground pipe, or you find a lump you weren’t expecting, or your fucking head explodes with pus.’

Time to wrap up my argument. ‘The point is, Mike, you need Zeb to keep an eye on you for a year. Make sure the wounds heal. Maybe put in a fresh crop. You kill him now, and it’s the public clinic for you. Try keeping that quiet.’

It’s a strong argument. Well put.

‘So that’s the case for him. What about you?’

‘Me? You could try to kill me, but your organisation is going to be a whole lot weaker afterwards. Face it, Mike, you have limited resources, and Macey Barrett was your number-one guy.’

I turn the stiletto a little to focus Mike’s attention on the subject. Guys like him have a hard time accepting their own mortality, unless it’s tickling their jugular.

‘Hey, okay. Jesus, laddie, you drive a hard bargain.’

I let him have that laddie .

‘So, we walk?’

Mike shrugs. ‘Sure. But I ain’t paying for check-ups.’

Zeb chews his lip, but manages a single grudging positive grunt.

‘And you cover Victor Jones’s debt.’

‘One-time payment. And I send one of my staff around with the monthly.’

Mike nods; any more and he’ll impale himself.

‘Fuck that. I collect myself, keep an eye on your operation.’

That’s good enough. ‘Good enough,’ I say.

I withdraw the stiletto, and a rivulet of blood flows down Mike’s neck, pooling in the cup of his sternum. He sponges it with a shirtsleeve.

‘This is not good for me. Making deals. If word gets out that this asshole tried to blackmail Irish Mike Madden 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 .