Hot Revenge Box Set 2

The car drives into the night, taillights, glowing gold through the exhaust. Ross stands silently by.

“Time for me to go too.”

“Good luck, James. I’ll be listening.” He offers his hand and I shake.

Then, bag in hand, I set off down the dark streets.

*****

Michael

The night is icy, the ground slick with frost and a breeze, slight though it is, bites at fingers and ears, even through the gloves and the woollen caps both Klempner and I are wearing.

Slipping from one shadow to another, we skirt the luridly lit front entrance of Club Electric, moving around the side.

“Don’t slip on the ice,” mutters Klempner. “You’d end up in the canal.”

The water, black and unwelcoming, ripples sluggishly, assorted unsavoury-looking objects bobbing at the surface.

“No, thanks… How are you planning on getting inside? I’m assuming you weren’t planning on the front door.”

“No. He probably has the back covered too.”

“Fire escape?”

Klempner shrugs, noncommittally. “Maybe.”

“So, what then?”

He brandishes the wooden carrycase he’s been toting since he first arrived with his armoury.

“And that is…?”

He kneels, unclipping the case. It opens into two halves, lying flat, to reveal inside what looks like a gun, sort of, and various components, nested into hollows in packing foam.

“A harpoon gun? And you plan to use that how exactly? I know James talked about hunting whales. Not that I wouldn’t be happy to see Finchby with one of those through his chest, but…”

“It’s a line thrower.” Klempner raises eyes to high above.

There, above what would once have been loading access for, what was then, a warehouse, a mix of silhouettes and dull glints mark the rusted remains of ancient winch and pulley systems jutting from the wall.

Klempner strolls to and fro, apparently measuring height or angle by eye. “What are you like at climbing? Ever done any?”

“Klempner, that’s got to be, sixty… seventy feet…”

“Yes. Have you done any climbing?”

“A bit of rock-climbing when I was a teenager and of course some rope work in the gym. But nothing like…” I let my eyes slide upward: a solid wall of smoothly constructed brickwork, damp in the night air, slick in the winter freeze. “… nothing like that.”

“If you can climb a rope in a gym, you can do this. It’s just a longer stretch.” He cranes his neck, looking up. “Which of those looks the most secure, would you say?”

“You have got to be kidding. Trust our weight to one of those? They’re decades old. There can’t be more than rust and hope holding them together.”

“You want to get inside or not? We can’t use the entrances. There’s no windows at all for the first two stories and the ones above that are barred. Oh, and for the avoidance of doubt, we’ll be trusting my weight to it, not yours.”

“Your weight? Why yours?”

“You're heavier than me, by quite a bit. I'll go up first, get the rope anchored to whatever else I can find up there. Then you can follow.”

“Klempner, that’s just not…”

“Got any better ideas?”

“Since you ask, no.”

“Well then.”

“What’s your idea from there? Hoping there’s access from the roof?”

He shrugs. “There usually is for these places. Services shafts, ventilation… Whatever. And if there isn’t any ready-made, we might make an access. Through the roof tiles perhaps.”

He looks up again, sucking at his teeth. “If we’re pushed, I suppose we could tackle the bars on those upper windows, but I don’t much like the idea of dangling sixty feet up for the length of time that would take. Even in the dark, we’d be too visible if anyone came round.”

He extracts the ‘gun’ from the packing, assembling parts. It could be a shotgun except for the unusually short barrel and strapped below the barrel, a canister, loaded with coiled cord.

one end… He glances up.

in some fascination. “You’ve

huffs. “Once

led an interesting life,

He fiddles with the cord, smoothing over a kink. Then knotting cord to the loop, he loads the projectile into the front of the barrel where it protrudes, dangling the cord, then snaps fingers at me. “Pass me one of those

is it the Chinese

that...” He pushes the cartridge into the breech, clicking it home. “… But it’s

“True.”

to mine. “You going to tell me what the deal is with you and the Haswell woman? You’re supposed to be

“One of them.”

you and Beth Haswell? You seem pretty chummy with her, but no-one blinked. Not even her own

Charlotte has two husbands. I have two

says nothing for long seconds. Then,

one

closed. “Stand back. Just because it spits line instead of bullets it’s no less

“Why?”

those brackets so the line will catch. Then we can follow on with a rope to take real weight. This stuff’s good to one-twenty pounds. Not enough to

straddle two or more if you can, then there’s more

He aims upwards, sighting along the

upwards, trailing its cord. As it approaches its target it flies straight as an arrow, but then overshooting, rises above the roof

to see. “Must be a wind

misses the

my peripheral vision, something shifts…

“Someone’s coming.”

back against the wall, at the last moment, we turn faces away from the betraying beam as a figure comes

figures… Matched silhouettes, behind the glare of a torch, accompanied by floating red embers and the scent of

was? I didn’t

Some sort of

“Probably kids or crack-heads.”

us to find out isn’t

through the darkness, frozen fog a-glitter in the air

the bins, knocking one of the cans flying as it

Finchby he needs to put

to

won’t it.” He tosses his cigarette butt at the trash, a small red ember arcing through the darkness to fall

breath and then realise I'd been holding it. There’s a distant clunk and all falls quiet

already reloading: a fresh canister of cord; a fresh cartridge. He stands where he

to follow behind.

time drops squarely over one of

“Not two?”

have everything.” Klempner is already taking a coil of rope from his pack. As cord and projectile touch ground, he’s already knotting one end of the cord to the rope, then hauling on the

tugs experimentally, then hoists himself, his full weight on

go,” he mutters. “I’ll go up first. Once I’m up, I’ll re-anchor, then you send the bags up next.

the freeze, it’s

hand over the other, feet

as he

How old are you?

to be Charlotte’s

you climb that

of jerks, it rises, vanishes into darkness, then the rope falls back. My bag next. That too is hauled upwards and the end of the rope drops

climbing, several years in fact. The rope feels unfamiliar in my hands as

the wall, sheer,

Crap…

hisses down. “Michael, move your ass. We don’t have all

He did it…

So can I…

the wall, knees flexing as I ‘walk’ up,

biceps beginning to burn, I stop

the fuck are you

Smart bastard…

lungs again, I pull up from my right arm, reaching,

and my feet

condensation, but the soles of my boots slide

the rope slides, the leather of the glove hot against my palm and my heartbeat accelerates from andante to allegro in the space

Christ!

be a kind of uniformly black pit, is revealed as a mosaic

voice is a hiss from the darkness

iced. Gimme a

“I’m coming down…”