Savage Night - Allan Guthrie [41]
"It's safe," Phil said. "Come on in."
Inside, Tommy stumbled. Hard to steady himself with his bag of money clutched to his chest. He kicked something solid and it skittered away. Felt like there was ice underfoot.
Phil took a bottle out of his pocket, screwed the top off. "From Worm," he said. "One for the road. Want a sip?"
Tommy shook his head.
Phil took a long swallow, sword tucked under his arm, then bent down, lowered the flame of his lighter so they could see what they were stepping on. Cigarette butts, beer bottles, condoms. Lots of condoms. A rubber carpet of them. No wonder walking was so tricky.
"Minging," Phil whispered. He straightened up and ambled round in a circle, poking things with the katana.
"What you doing?" Tommy asked him.
"Looking."
"Yeah, obviously. For what?"
"Wondering if there might have been an arrangement to leave the money tucked away somewhere in here."
They'd not managed to pinpoint the exact spot for the handover before Grant had tried to escape, but Tommy could only assume that Phil was shitfaced if he believed this was it. "Looks like it gets pretty busy in here," Tommy said.
"Not busy now." Phil carried on looking around as he swigged his beer. Crouched down again, scanned the debris on the ground.
Smith wasn't here. He'd gone home, fed up waiting for Grant. Maybe he thought Grant had stolen the money. Yeah, he'd be after Grant now. Definitely no point hanging around any longer. Tommy took a step to the side, barging into Phil.
Phil lost his balance, put his hand out to stop himself, dropped his beer. "Fuck," he said. "My hand's stuck in this fucking muck."
"Shouldn't have left your gloves in the car," Tommy said.
"You can be a real twat sometimes." Phil straightened up. "Could have hurt myself on your fucking sword, too." He elbowed Tommy out of the way and walked back outside, trying to shake the crap off his hand.
Making a noise now. Tommy could hear him. Thump, thump. Stamping his feet, the bloody child. Don't suppose it mattered now that they'd raised their voices. This whole thing was a waste of time. They weren't going to find out who Smith was, weren't going to get an opportunity to scare him into leaving Tommy alone. It was a stupid idea. If Tommy hadn't been in a daze from what had happened earlier, he'd never have agreed to come here in the first place.
He followed Phil outside, intent on dragging him home.
"Phil, we should go—" The blow blindsided him. First he knew, his head exploded with pain. Centre of the blast was just forward of the crown, and it radiated out to every millimetre of his cranium. Somehow, even in the darkness, his vision deteriorated. His eyes watered and he felt sick. There was something very wrong with him.
The bag of money dropped to the ground and he sank to his knees. It felt like his skull had shattered. He moved his head to the side and could feel the pieces of bone breaking loose inside. He hoped he was wrong about that.
Fireworks went off in his stomach. Vomit spurted out of his mouth in a couple of neat sprays.
He heard a movement behind him, and turned, head pounding with the effort, just in time to see Phil's claymore rushing towards him.
***
PARK WAS TWITCHING mad. Got like that sometimes so that his cheek muscles would start doing a kind of merry dance. Just happened, and then went away once he'd calmed down.
He'd waited for Grant at the cemetery, hoping no one thought he was hanging around for a quick bumming. Prime spot for a bit of buggery-pokery. But the place had been deserted. Too cold, no doubt, for that kind of thing. Although he'd had a very pleasant experience once with Liz in the snow. Anyway, he'd waited, hands in his pockets to keep warm, and Grant didn't show. After a while, Park began to get bad feelings about the whole thing. Something had happened, or Grant would have arrived with the money by now.
Grant had called him just after leaving the bus station. Said he was on his way to the car. He had the money. Said he'd drive around for a bit, make sure he wasn't being tailed, then head for