Plugged - Eoin Colfer [80]
Orange flickers beyond the blinds. Could be a cop car; more likely a makeshift torch. Mike is going to burn us out.
I rack my brain for the thread of an idea. Something to reel sanity back in. Nothing. Just more lunacy.
Concentrate really hard and teleport. Dig an underground tunnel. Call the cops.
‘Brite-Smile,’ says Zeb.
Bright smile? Or Brite-Smile. Of course. Go through the dentist’s where I deposited Steve. I’m a little embarrassed that a punch-drunk surgeon came up with that before me.
I take two steps towards the jagged hole before the breeze chills the sweat on my forehead. There’s someone in there.
Then a voice. ‘Steve’s out cold. McEvoy took his gun.’
Steve? No way.
Irish Mike calls from outside: ‘We got the exits covered, McEvoy. You try to run and you’re dead.’
Maybe on my own I could make it, but not hefting Zeb.
I tap a finger on my temple, trying to focus. ‘Okay, Mike. You win. Let’s talk.’
Close quarters is my speciality. But I need to get them close before I can be special.
Irish Mike mulls this offer over for a minute. ‘Very well, laddie. Throw Steve’s gun next door, and your shoes too, then go stand in the corner.’
Shoes? What’s that all about? What does he think, I’m a sole ninja?
I toss the Colt through the hole, and my boots, then traipse into the corner behind Zeb, feeling like a naughty schoolboy. I bet Mike would be an arsehole to work for.
‘Pussy,’ says Zeb, his voice barely more than a whisper. ‘I held out for two days.’
If his ear was not crusted with blood and mucus, I would smack it.
‘You shut up or pass out and let me handle this.’
‘Yeah, maybe you can take off your pants. That’ll teach ’em.’
Zeb never lets up. At least when he was in my head I didn’t have to look at him.
And that is my best friend. Christ.
Irish Mike comes in the back door, flanked by two of his lieutenants. One is hobbling and the other is sporting a nose that wouldn’t look out of place in a boxing ring. Mike himself wears a sunburn of anger. A little less cocky, though, I think. They shuffle slowly forward through the blood tracks and the supplement boxes, never taking their eyes off me. A third heavy appears at the hole in the wall, squinting down the barrel of a machine pistol.
Mike swallows and gags. ‘You prick,’ he says, gingerly massaging his throat. ‘Who hits people in the neck? What kind of person are you?’
I don’t answer. What’s the point?
After a minute’s scowling, Mike is done feeling sorry for himself.
‘I’ll live, I guess.’ He lights a cigarette with a long wooden match, sucking hard, bending the flame. ‘So, McEvoy, where’s the disk?’
Zeb is whimpering softly; maybe he has the right idea. There are three criminals pointing weapons at us and I don’t have any good news for them. We are flanked in a small room with no hope of escape except if these people are sufficiently dim to relax their guard again.
‘Here’s the thing, Mike. There is no disk. Never was.’ I can’t resist rapping Zeb’s crown. ‘This gobshite tried to bluff you, then dragged me in when negotiations turned painful.’
Mike conducts with his cigarette. ‘Yeah, see that’s what the doc told me shortly after he told me there was a disk. So what’s true and what ain’t? I can’t tell.’
‘Trust me, Mike. I’m Irish. We’re Irish. I swear on the tricolour there’s no disk. This dick wouldn’t know how to use a camera.’
Mike reaches under his soft cap, scratching his head. ‘That’s touching, laddie, the Irish connection, but you know as well as I do that the Gaels have been cutting each other’s throats for centuries. It’s gonna take more than that. So what else have we got in common?’
‘We got that itch,’ I say, pointing a finger.
Mike whips his hand down like he’s been slapped by a nun. ‘What itch? What the hell are you talking about?’
‘Is that what this is all about? Irish Mike Madden got some new hair and he’s feeling a little sensitive about it.’
‘Fuck you,’ shouts Mike, then dissolves into a racking cough. Those neck jabs really take it out of a person.
‘Come on, Mike. This is the twenty-first century. Surgery is a positive