Savage Night - Allan Guthrie [51]
They were. They'd never argued, not as adults anyway. She nodded.
He leaned in, spoke in her ear. "I have to tell you something."
She turned her head towards him. Said in his ear: "Tell me."
He did. At first she didn't believe him.
"A hit man?" she said. "Bumshite."
But he wasn't smiling. "Is that so hard to believe?"
"Yeah," she said. "It is. What're you playing at?"
"I'm serious," he said. And he looked it.
"Fuck, Richie," she said. "Fuck." She took a drag of her fag. "Fucking hell." Her hand was shaking. It wasn't that she was scared of him, though. She had nothing to fear from Richie. No, her hand was shaking with excitement. "How many?" she asked him. "How many people have you …?"
Turned out the one he wanted to tell her about, the one that had fucked him up a bit was the last one, hit #3.
"That's why I was in Manchester," he said. "Ugly hole of a place." This was way back in the days before the Arndale bombing. He'd done another hit there afterwards in '99 and said the place was unrecognisable. "The target worked in an Italian restaurant."
"Target? That the word you use?"
Richie shrugged. "Why not?"
"They use it on TV, in the movies."
"I know," Richie said. "I think that's where Carlos gets it all from."
"Who's Carlos?"
"Tell you later. Anyway, I tried to figure a way to smuggle in a handgun, hide it behind the cistern in the toilet."
"Like in The Godfather!" All movie-romantic like. He was young. Effie was a year younger, and knew exactly how he felt.
He smiled, his eyes lighting up. "Too many complications, though."
In the end, he'd opted for something much easier. At least, superficially.
"I befriended the target," Richie went on to explain. He looked away, stared at the wall for a bit, then said, "He was gay. I went back to his flat with him and suffocated him with his pillow." He looked at the wall again. "Afterwards. While he slept."
Yeah, Richie'd got naked with the guy. But that didn't make him gay. He'd just taken advantage of the best way to get the job done as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Effie said, "You got too close."
"I know."
"You won't make that mistake again."
"No."
"Tell me about Carlos."
He did. Spanish guy living in Edinburgh and arranging contract killings using a tanning salon as a front. She never believed in him completely till she met him a few months later.
"Tell me about the others," she said.
She was fascinated and had remained so. She knew that wasn't how she was supposed to feel, but Richie felt the same way and he said it was just the way their minds worked, that they were special. She wasn't sure about that. But they were different, no doubt about that. Maybe it was genetic. Their dad didn't think like anyone else she'd ever met either.
From that night on, Richie told her everything. After a while, it was almost as if she was there on every job. She'd asked him more than once if she could go with him, but he wouldn't let her.
Which was something she was glad of the time he nearly got caught in the woods at Almondell. She remembered him telling her about it, and she was so wrapped up in the story that when she moved her arm to brush his hair off his face, she realised she was sweating under her armpits, beneath her breasts, behind her knees—just as if she'd hightailed it through the woods too.
She didn't know at the time that the target was Martin's dad. But she did now. And she wished she didn't.
Living with the knowledge of who'd killed her boyfriend's dad carried a lot of responsibility. She'd had to tell Dad. There was no way round it. She just hoped he'd be able to keep his mouth shut.
If Martin knew ... well, he couldn't be allowed to. She couldn't tell how he'd respond. Maybe he'd blame Richie. She could see how that might happen. From a certain perspective, Richie