Heathen/Nemesis

Seventy

‘Farrell, he’s dying.’

‘What do you want me to do about it?’

‘Help him.’

Brian Kellerman looked down at Frank Stark, then at Farrell.

Stark was lying on his back in the motel room, his shirt open to reveal the bullet wound close to his navel. Blood pumped slowly from the hole, which was tinged black and purple at the edges.

Kellerman himself looked bad. His nose was little more than a bloodied lump and the bruising around his left eye was so severe he could barely see out of it. He had two or three minor cuts and grazes on his cheeks; they looked as if someone had pulled a fork through the flesh.

On the other bed in the double room of the Travelodge David Ryker sat, head bowed, hands clapped to both sides of his skull. Every now and then he would spit blood onto the carpet. He had bandaged his cut hand so tightly his fingers were beginning to go numb. He touched his shattered front teeth with his other hand, feeling part of one smashed incisor come free. He spat out enamel and blood.

Farrell was sitting at the table in the room, thumbing 9mm bullets into two magazines for the UZI. Each held thirty-two rounds.

Fucking women, he thought, pushing the high calibre shells into the box magazine. Fucking bloody women. They were spoiling everything, those two troublesome cunts. He gritted his teeth, loading the bullets more quickly. Jesus, he’d make them pay. Especially Ward’s wife. That fucking bitch would wish she’d never seen the book or him or anything to do with it. He’d put a bullet in her brain himself. No, he’d put several in. Hold the UZI against the base of her skull and let rip. Blow her fucking head right off. Turn her face and head into confetti. He slammed the full magazine into the weapon and gripped it for a moment, the veins in his temple throbbing angrily.

On the bed Stark groaned loudly and clapped hands to the wound.

‘We’ve got to do something about him,’ snapped Kellerman.

‘Have you got any suggestions?’ Farrell wanted to know ‘Do you want to call the ambulance yourself? Why not call the police, while you’re at it? Tell them how he was shot. What he was doing when that crazy mare put three fucking bullets in him. Go on, call them.’ He banged his fist down on the table and glared at Kellerman.

‘We’ll have to leave him here,’ said Ryker, probing another loose tooth.

‘And when he’s found?’ Kellerman asked. ‘What then?’

‘We’ll be long gone,’ Farrell said. ‘There’s nothing to link him to us. We’ll take his ID with us so they won’t be able to identify him.’

Stark coughed, a sticky flux of phlegm and blood spilling over his lips. The movement made the pain worse and he groaned even more loudly.

Farrell regarded the man impassively.

‘I didn’t expect them to have guns,’ said Kellerman, gazing down at his stricken companion.

Farrell didn’t answer.

Ryker got to his feet and wandered into the bathroom. He inspected the damage to his mouth again, wincing as he saw just how much destruction Julie had wrought with the hammer. His lip was torn, a flap of skin hanging uselessly from it. The area between his gashed top lip and his nose was heavily bruised. Blood had congealed on his other front teeth; when he licked his tongue back and forth he could taste the coppery tang. He allowed a long streamer of mucus to hang from his mouth, watching as it struck the white enamel of the sink and trickled slowly into the plughole, leaving a crimson slick behind it.

‘So we leave him here?’ Kellerman protested. ‘Just leave him to die . . .’

‘Do you want to stay with him?’ hissed Farrell, turning the UZI on Kellerman. ‘Do you?’

Kellerman looked at the dying man, then stepped away from the bed.

‘What about the women? Do we go back there? Try again?’ Ryker asked, returning from the bathroom, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

Farrell shook his head.

‘We follow them. Let them lead us to it. Then we’ll take care of them.’ He stroked the short barrel of the sub-machine gun. His eyes strayed to the telephone. The other two men saw him looking at it.

‘What makes you think they’ll try to get it?’ Ryker asked. ‘After what happened tonight they might have had enough.’

‘This isn’t over until we’ve got that book. Besides, Ward’s wife will want to get her hands on it. She’s stubborn, like her fucking old man was. She won’t give up now.’

He looked at the phone again then lifted the receiver, aware that his hand was shaking.

He dialled the number and waited.