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.

long brass pole, with a loop to one end… He glances up. “The projectile…” he

fascination. “You’ve done this

“Once or

an interesting life,

could say so.” He fiddles with the cord, smoothing over a kink. Then knotting cord to the loop, he loads the projectile into the front

“What is it the Chinese

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

“True.”

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

“One of them.”

but no-one blinked. Not even her own husband.

I have two wives.

for long seconds. Then, “And Jenny’s

one of

snaps the gun closed. “Stand back. Just because it spits line instead of bullets

“Why?”

similar. I have to get it up and over one of those brackets so the line will catch. Then we can follow on with a

just one of the brackets? Why not aim to straddle two or more if you

aims upwards, sighting along the length of the shaft, then

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

see. “Must

the brackets and

something shifts… a brighter patch

“Someone’s coming.”

at the last moment, we turn faces away from the

the glare of a torch, accompanied

was? I didn’t

did. Some

“Probably kids or crack-heads.”

pay us to

in the

cans flying as it goes. Then darting between

I’ll tell Finchby he needs to put down some

to

the trash, a small red ember

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

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

cord unravelling to follow behind. At

drops squarely over one of the

“Not two?”

and projectile touch ground, he’s already knotting one end of the cord to the rope, then hauling on the other, up and over the ancient bracket,

his full weight on it.

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

careful. With the

then, one hand over the other, feet propped against

watch as he

How old are you?

to be

you climb that wall like

vanishes into darkness, then the rope falls back. My bag next. That too is

climbing, several years in

as I crane upwards, the wall, sheer, vertical, smooth,

Crap…

voice hisses down. “Michael, move your

He did it…

So can I…

rope. Feet propped up against the wall, knees

the half-way point, biceps beginning to burn, I stop for

voice hisses down from above. “Michael, what the fuck

Smart bastard…

from my

my feet

in condensation, but the soles of my boots slide like some old slips-on-the-banana-skin joke, lose contact

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 to allegro in the space of a couple

Christ!

revealed as a mosaic of light and dark and grey which swirls under

The voice is a hiss

Gimme

“I’m coming down…”