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.

loop to one end… He glances up. “The projectile…” he explains, without waiting for

fascination. “You’ve done

huffs. “Once or

an interesting life, haven’t

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

its slot. “What is it the Chinese say? May you live

breech, clicking it home. “… But it’s not as though I’m cut out for afternoon tea with

“True.”

to tell me what the deal is with

“One of them.”

seem pretty chummy with her, but no-one blinked. Not even her own husband. And

two husbands. I have two wives. We’re a

long seconds. Then, “And Jenny’s happy

was one of

line instead of bullets it’s no less

“Why?”

for. It’s a line-thrower but it’s intended to be fired horizontally; for sea rescue and similar. I have to get it up and over one of those brackets so the line will catch. Then we

aim to straddle two or more if you can, then there’s more than a single support if one of

aims upwards, sighting along the length

target it flies straight as an arrow, but then overshooting, rises above the roof and

to see. “Must be a wind blowing

back, the cord misses the

something shifts…

“Someone’s coming.”

the last moment, we turn faces away from the betraying beam as a

behind the glare of a torch, accompanied by

think it was? I didn’t hear

did. Some sort

“Probably kids or crack-heads.”

they pay us to find out isn’t

swings through the darkness, frozen fog a-glitter in the air as it moves, then passes over

the cans flying as it goes. Then darting between the legs of the recoiling

he needs

it be better to poison the rats

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

I draw breath and then realise I'd been holding it. There’s a distant clunk and all falls quiet again. “Want to give it

reloading: a fresh canister of cord; a fresh cartridge. He stands where he stood before, then eyeing upwards,

projectile whistles upwards, the cord unravelling to follow behind. At the top of its arc,

and this time drops squarely over one of

“Not two?”

his pack. As cord and projectile touch ground, he’s already knotting one end of the cord to the rope,

then hoists himself, his full weight on it. Nothing much

first. Once I’m up, I’ll re-anchor, then

careful. With the freeze, it’s probably

nods, then, one hand over the other,

as he

How old are you?

enough to be Charlotte’s

that

jerks. Quickly I attach Klempner’s bag of tricks and tug. In a series 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

since I last did any climbing, several years in fact. The rope feels unfamiliar in my

wall,

Crap…

“Michael, move your

He did it…

So can I…

at the rope. Feet propped up against the wall, knees flexing as I ‘walk’ up, hauling myself, arm-over-arm up and ever up the brick

biceps beginning to burn,

hisses down from above. “Michael, what the fuck are you doing down

Smart bastard…

again, I pull up from my right arm, reaching, and pushing up from the feet

my

the brickwork is iced or just sheened in condensation, but the soles of

weight drops onto my single right hand. For a heart-stopping second, the rope slides, the leather of the glove hot against my palm and my heartbeat accelerates from andante

Christ!

below me, which I had taken to be a kind of uniformly black pit, is revealed as a mosaic of

The voice is a hiss

iced. Gimme

“I’m coming down…”