Jon Grimwood - End of the World Blues

He’d been given three hours. After that it was out of the Brigadier’s hands and Neku took her chances with an extraction team. Kit didn’t believe the bit about it being out of the Brigadier’s hands, though it had been repeated several times.

Having knocked, Kit counted to ten and began to walk away. The door to Bar Poland opened before he’d taken five paces.

“Oi,” said a voice. “You Mr. Flyte?” A teenage boy with cropped skull, checked shirt, and tight jeans stood sneering in the doorway.

“What do you think?” said Kit.

“You got Mr. de Valois’s stuff?”

“All sixty kilos of it,” said Kit. “Vacuum packed, grade A…”

The boy scowled, then glanced round in case Kit’s comment had been overheard, which it undoubtedly was, and taped as well, not to mention filmed from between the slats of blind covering a window high on a wall behind his visitor.

“Better let me in,” said Kit.

The young man stepped aside, slowly.

As Kit walked into Bar Poland, he heard the door shut behind him and the click of one lock after another. As a final touch, a steel bolt was slammed into place.

“Scared of burglars?”

The boy hit Kit hard, from behind.

Red carpet, with a worn strip down the middle where endless feet had headed towards velvet curtains beyond. On the far side of the curtains was a sound system, turned way up. Kit knew this because its bass line was loud enough to shake the floor next to his ear.

“Up you come.” Hands dragged Kit to his feet. It was the boy, only now his sneer had become a smirk. He was rubbing his fist, although it was probably unnecessary, as the shot-weighted leather glove he wore looked designed to offer protection. “We’ve got your girlfriend dancing,” said the boy. “She’s pretty good.”

“You’ve got…”

“Hey,” he said. “Be grateful. For Mr. de Valois that’s mild. It could have been so much worse.”

Could it? “I’ll bear that in mind,” Kit said.

Matters of great concern should be treated lightly. Matters of small concern should be treated seriously. So said the book Mr. Oniji gave Kit in the hospital. It said other things as well, but the most important of these he had worked out for himself. Regard yourself as dead already.

An old Killers track blared from hidden speakers. It was before Neku’s time and quite possibly before de Valois’s too, unless his youthfulness was just a trick of the light and a good surgeon.

“Ah, Ben…so you came.” Mr. de Valois smiled, his eyes visible behind lightly tinted shades.

“I wouldn’t miss it,” said Kit, reaching behind him.

“Kenka shinaide!”

“What?” demanded de Valois, then added, “Keep dancing.”

Neku did as she was told.

So did Kit, who stopped reaching for his gun and wheeled his case across to Mr. de Valois instead. “It’s all here,” Kit said.

“I certainly hope so.”

No way will I look at her, Kit told himself, then glanced anyway. Seeing a half-naked child draped in the glare of a cheap spotlight that lit every scowl on her face.

“Search him,” demanded de Valois.

The crop-haired man found the Colt the first time, only finding the ankle gun when de Valois told him to search properly.

“Anything else?”

Kit shook his head.

“You sure?”

He nodded. “I’m positive.”

“Good,” said de Valois. “So you won’t mind when Alfie breaks her arms if we find something, will you?” He raised his eyebrows at Kit, who shrugged.

De Valois laughed.

“Check the cases,” he told Alfie.

Sixty individual bags of heroin. More oblivion than Kit could imagine. Each one heat sealed along its edges and then wrapped again, in polyethylene so thick it looked like oiled paper.

“Well?”

“It’s all there,” said Alfie, in a South London accent obvious enough to remind Kit of black and white films he hadn’t even seen.

“Call Robbie down,” Armand ordered. “Tell him to test it.”

A few minutes later a dreadlocked Rasta ambled from the shadows, holstering a gun as he came. His hair was thinning and had turned to grey. His red shirt had sweat marks under the arms. He looked almost as unhappy with life as Kit felt. So Kit guessed he was the man who’d been shitting in a bag.

“Ah,” said Armand. “My friend…”

Producing a scalpel from his pocket, the Rasta chose a package from the middle and slit it open, carrying a little of the powder to his tongue. “Well,” he said. “It’s the real thing.”

Without needing to be told, Robbie slit open another five bags and carried them to a table near the stage. A small gas cooker, a glass beaker, and a handful of bottles appeared, along with a small pair of scales. Although, in the event, the only pieces of equipment Robbie used were a laptop, a glass of water, and a small white box with a glass lid.

“Residual alkaloids, some methaqualone, also traces of diazepam,” said Robbie, amending it to, “Afghani, sixty-five percent pure,” when Mr. de Valois looked irritated. “Also, sugars for bulk.”

“It’s been cut,” Kit said, “ready for market.” This was what he’d been told to say. “And I’m really sorry about the misunderstanding. I obviously had no idea…”

“That I was still alive?”

Kit nodded.

In the background Razorlight replaced Kaiser Chiefs and were replaced in turn by a dance track with a single looped vocal and an idiotically simple synth line. Golden oldies, what the patrons would expect; and behind Robbie’s table, apparently forgotten, Neku circling her pole in time to the music.

She’d lost weight again. Kit could see ribs beneath her skin and watch the muscles in her shoulders slide across each other as they propelled her round and round the same tight circle of misery.

“Pretty,” said de Valois. “Isn’t she?”

“She’s Kathryn O’Mally’s granddaughter. You know who that is?”

It was obvious he didn’t, and equally obvious that Robbie did. So Kit suggested the Rasta tell Mr. de Valois, who listened in silence to a bullet-point breakdown of Kate O’Mally’s life, while Alfie looked increasingly impressed in the background.

“This woman. She knows you’re here?”

“Of course,” said Kit.

Mr. de Valois shrugged. “Not my problem.”

Kit caught the exact moment Alfie looked at Robbie; crop-haired thug and grizzled Rasta, whatever passed between them, it passed in silence.

“All the same,” said de Valois, gesturing towards Neku. “The kid’s good. Where did she dance before this?”

“Dance…?”

“She has the moves, even has a couple that are new. I was just wondering where she’s been.”

“Tokyo.”

“Ahh,” said de Valois. “That would certainly help explain her lack of English.” He glanced at Neku, his gaze sliding over her naked breasts and tiny G-string. “I think it would be good if you asked her to join me for a drink.”

Perhaps Kit was wrong to treat this as an invitation, because Mr. de Valois’s smile froze at his counter-suggestion that perhaps Neku and he should think about getting home, now that Mr. de Valois had his consignment and Kit had made his apologies.

“Not yet,” said de Valois. “You see, we still need to agree on a price.”

“There is no price,” Kit said. “The consignment is yours. All I’m doing is returning it.”

Armand de Valois’s laugh was loud enough to make Neku flinch. “Not a price for me,” he said, with a grin. “For you, for causing me problems in the first place.” He nodded towards Neku. “Also her, if you want her back I will require a transfer fee.”

“She’s Kate O’Mally’s granddaughter.”