Quentin Bates - Chilled to the Bone

“Baddó.”

It was a familiar voice, and not a welcome one.

“I thought I’d be able to live the rest of my life without hearing you wheezing in my ear again. What the fuck do you want?” Baddó asked without turning around.

“That’s not a nice thing to say to an old friend who has your best interests at heart, is it?”

Baddó wondered if the best move would be to simply abandon his beer and walk out, but a sneaking curiosity as to why Hinrik the Herb had made the unwelcome effort to find him held him back.

“Tell me what you’re looking for. You have as long as it takes to finish this beer, and then I’m out of here.”

Hinrik beckoned to the barman, who scuttled over as quickly as his feet would carry him, ignoring the line of people already waiting to be served. “Vodka, neat, and not the piss you give the usual customers.”

“You run this place, do you?” Baddó asked, curiosity getting the better of him. “Come up in the world, haven’t you?”

A smile that made Hinrik’s narrow face look even more menacing appeared briefly and then vanished. “Let’s say I have an interest in this place, as well as a few others.” He sipped the vodka that appeared at his elbow. “Insurance,” he explained modestly.

“You mean you’re running a protection racket?”

Hinrik shrugged. “Call it what you like. It works. The people who run this place don’t get any trouble, and we get a cut of the profits. Pre-tax, of course,” he said and the menacing smile reappeared.

Baddó drained his beer and banged the glass down on the bar. “Well, a pleasure to see you again, Hinrik. Let’s leave it another ten years before we catch up again, shall we?” he suggested, turning to go.

Hinrik’s hand descended on Baddó’s forearm, and he made to shake it off impatiently as a second glass of beer appeared in front of him.

“What’s the hurry, Baddó?” the silky voice asked. “It’s not as if you have work to go to.”

“And what the fuck does that have to do with you?”

Baddó looked at the beer in front of him and put a hand toward it. He knew that taking a sip would mean listening to whatever Hinrik the Herb had sought him out for. As he lifted the glass he had the feeling he was watching a mistake being made.

Hinrik looked into his eyes and raised his vodka. “Cheers. Welcome back,” he said, and threw the spirit down his throat in a single fluid movement that saw the empty shot glass return to the bar before Baddó had even wet his lips.

“There are people around the city who don’t like your face, Baddó, and they have long memories.”

“Meaning what?” Baddó flashed back, the old fury rising inside him. “I’ve paid my debts. There’s nothing I owe anyone.”

“I didn’t say there was, did I? Don’t jump to conclusions.” He paused. “Don’t forget your beer,” Hinrik reminded him. “A free beer doesn’t come anyone’s way too often.”

“Like a free lunch?” Baddó sneered. “They say there’s no such thing as a free lunch, and in your world there’s no such thing as a free drink.”

“Your world as well, Baddó. It’s your world as well.”

“Not any more,” he said with decision, draining the glass and putting it back on the bar upside down. He glared at the barman, who was already at the pump, waiting to pour him another.

“That’s where you might be wrong. There’s some work for you if you want it, and I think you do.”

“How much?” Baddó asked quickly, and immediately regretted it.

“That’s more like it.” Hinrik crooked a little finger toward the barman and down at the two empty glasses. “Six-fifty.”

“And the job?”

“Find someone.”

“Not for six hundred and fifty thousand.”

Hinrik frowned. “Baddó, you’re not in a position to negotiate. But for old times’ sake, I reckon we could stretch it to a million.”

“Yeah, that means you’ve already negotiated a couple of million from whoever it is who wants someone found,” Baddó said and saw the first flash of anger on Hinrik’s otherwise impassive features.

“Whatever. You know well enough how business works,” Hinrik retorted and reached into the inside pocket of his leather jacket. He extracted an envelope and pushed it along the bar with one finger. “You might want to start your enquiries over there,” Hinrik said, the cruel smile returning to his face as he jerked his head toward the bar’s long window and the imposing bulk of the Gullfoss Hotel across the street. “It’s part of a chain now. A customer of mine works there, name of Magnús; he drives a beaten-up old black Golf. Ask him. But don’t ask him too hard, y’know. I don’t want to lose any trade. Of course, a successful outcome could also wipe out any past misdeeds, don’t forget.”

“What are you looking for? Name, address, shoe size, bank accounts, or what?”

“A name will do nicely. An address would be worth a bonus.”

“And an advance,” Baddó decided just as two glasses appeared on the bar.

“Meet me here at the same time tomorrow and there’ll be cash,” Hinrik said, raising his vodka aloft. “Cheers. Welcome home.”

On the main road she joined the stream of lights heading out of town at a steady pace through the falling sleet that had made the road treacherous. Once past Mosfellsbær, the traffic thinned and Hekla kept her speed to a manageable and unobtrusive seventy as she followed a truck rolling through the dark in front of her. As the truck slowed going up an incline, Hekla took the opportunity to signal to the less patient traffic on her tail and pulled onto a slip road leading to an unused roundabout with turnoffs heading to outlying districts of the city that so far existed only in plans.

She rolled down the window and lit a cigarette, with the car parked and ready to roll down the slip road and back onto the main road. It was a relief at last to have the cigarette she’d been denying herself all day, and she savored each drag as she hauled them deep into her lungs, flicking ash out of the open window as she thumbed a text message into her phone.

She looked carefully about her and, with a swift movement, her ink-black hair was pulled off to reveal a short mousy crop that nestled above the tips of her ears. She quickly ran a hand through it, relieved to be free of the day’s second itchy wig.

The cigarette butt was dropped into the slush at the side of the road and she pulled away and joined the stream of traffic again, blindly following the car in front along the busy but unlit road, with cars bound for the city flashing past and wheels throwing up a constant barrage of wet spray that the wipers struggled to clear.

A few kilometers before Kjalarnes, Hekla wound down the window and looked in the mirror to see that the driver of the nearest car behind was too far away to notice anything falling from the vehicle in front. A handful of credit cards and receipts fluttered into the darkness to be crushed and lost in the frozen sleet on the road’s surface.

IT WAS STILL cold outside, but a miserable damp cold, as if winter were deciding whether to stick it out or give way to spring a few months early. It was the kind of insidious chill that ate its way into your bones, he felt, as he longed for summer and sunshine. Jóel Ingi huddled into his coat and turned up the collar. Then he turned it down as he felt it made him look ridiculously suspicious, especially as he had left the building to make a surreptitious phone call.

“ Hæ . It’s me,” he said as the phone was answered. “Any news?”

“No, not yet. Look, you can’t expect results just like that,” the voice on the other end replied irritably.

“But you said you’d get onto this as quickly as you could, didn’t you?”