The Network - Jason Elliot [14]
And now all I know is that I have been alone for a long while in my ill-lit tunnel, and Billy and the Face are striding towards me with a new look of determination on their faces. Whatever is coming next, I have had enough. Nemo me impune lacessit. Or to put it more colloquially, nobody fucks with me and gets away with it. I will put my elbow into Billy’s groin, headbutt the Face and sink my teeth into whatever part of him I can. Then I will take his pistol and get away, because I have no reason to believe, Section 29, ‘that this custody is lawful’.
I’m being lifted up on both sides, but not roughly this time.
‘Come on, Captain,’ says the Face in a tone I haven’t heard before. ‘Let’s get you in your carriage before it turns into a pumpkin.’ The hostile banter has dropped clean out of his voice, and the effect on my plan is disarming. His voice is real. My feet are dragging under me. I pass through another smaller room and then outside into darkness and feel the cold air on my face. Hands manoeuvre me into the back of a car, where I lie on my side and the pain in my rib flares up and leaves me gasping. The engine is running.
‘Jesus, what have they done to you?’ Through the drunkenness of exhaustion, I recognise the voice.
‘I cannot answer that question,’ I mumble.
‘Turn that heater up now,’ says the voice I recognise. It dawns on me it’s H, who gets into the back of the car, props me up and brings a small hip flask to my lips filled with his blessed Glenlivet. ‘Easy does it,’ he says, ‘end-ex, mate. You’ve done it, you bastard.’ He’s taking off his coat and sliding it behind my back and over my shoulders. ‘What d’you say we get you home?’
I can’t stop shivering, but there’s an electric warmth spreading across my chest, and I’m so relieved I can’t speak, and upset that I can’t speak. I try to wink at H, but my eye’s already closed, and the effort makes me wince instead. I see the Face come to the rear door, and H lets down the window. The Face rests his arms on the door frame and sighs.
‘All yours, skipper,’ he says. ‘Not a word. Top notch. If he ever gets bored send him over to us, why don’t you?’ Then Billy appears beside him and passes the ziplock bag with my possessions through the window.
‘Give him a fucking fag, then,’ says Billy with a look of outrage. The Face hands Billy a cigarette, who lights it and reaches inside the window to put it in my mouth. The smoke goes straight to my head and makes me dizzy.
‘You can’t whistle for shit, Billy,’ I tell him.
‘And you’re a stubborn cunt, and all,’ he replies. And Billy is grinning from one side of his face to the other, like a boy who’s made a new friend.
I sleep a whole day and a night, and wake up in the unreal luxury of a clean and warm bed. H has brought the local doctor to me, who doesn’t normally make house calls, but the two of them go back a while by the look of it. It’s not the first time he’s been to the house to look at a minor injury that’s never been properly explained by its owner.
‘You have been in the wars,’ says the doctor as he looks me over.
‘Only two, actually,’ I say.
He tells me there’s not much to do for a cracked rib except patience and painkillers, which will