Killer Instinct tcfs-1 Page 3

  Tony was glaring furiously. He started forwards as soon as Susie and the man disappeared. I backed off rapidly, but he swept straight past me, muttering, “The stupid, dozy bitch!”

  Dave suddenly seemed to recover his powers of speech. “Hey Tony, looks like Susie really goes for the caveman approach,” he called after him.

  Tony spun round, eyes blazing. “And you can shut up an' all, you dickless little shit!” he yelled at him. “It's all a bloody fix, anyway!” and he stormed off.

  “Oh excuse me! What's the matter, love, haven't you been milked yet?” Dave returned, and laughed. After a brief hesitation, the crowd joined in, but they were laughing to cover their own uneasiness. There was no humour there.

  I went and gave Clare a hand down from the stage, finding her trembling. I cut dead Dave's solicitous remark and led her upstairs to one of the quieter bars. I left her at a corner table while I went away and came back with a non-diet soft drink.

  “Here, drink this,” I said. “It's only lemonade, but you need the sugar.”

  She took the proffered glass with a shaky smile. “I thought it was supposed to be brandy for shock?” she managed.

  “Yeah, well. For one thing I can't afford brandy in here, and for another I don't think Jacob would appreciate me letting you get nicked for drink driving in his motor on the way home.”

  We sat for a few moments in silence while she emptied the glass and set it down. She touched a hand to her face gingerly.

  “You're going to have a hell of a black eye in the morning, but the skin isn't broken,” I told her. “Some decent make-up should cover up the worst of the damage.”

  “Thanks,” she said ruefully. Even bruised she still looked glamorous, like someone out of one of those made-for-TV movies about marital abuse.

  “How do you do it, Charlie?” she asked suddenly, taking me by surprise.

  “Do what?”

  “One minute there was this loony grabbing at me, the next she was on her nose on the floor. Every time she came at you, you just knocked her straight back down again. She just came at me so fast I panicked, but you made it look easy. Maybe I should enrol in one of your classes. I could do with knowing how to throw the bad guys lightly over one shoulder.”

  “That's only a very small part of what self-defence is all about, Clare, and you know it,” I said hurriedly. “You are far more likely to be injured if you stand and fight. The best idea is to learn to spot trouble at a distance and then get well out of the way.”

  “Yeah,” she said with some asperity, “like you've just done, you mean?”

  I sighed and said nothing. I'd broken my own rules with Susie, and it didn't sit well with me. Once you decide that you have no choice but to fight someone, you have to go in hard and fast and finish it quickly.

  If she'd had any sort of training – and any sort of wits about her – I would have had big problems just by messing about with her the way I had done. I'd given her more than enough time to get the measure of me. Time to realise that she had to look past the surface illusion.

  To most opponents I don't seem like much of a threat. I just look ordinary. Nondescript shaggy hair, average height, medium build. Most of the time I don't set out with a confrontational stance; that's almost as bad as appearing weak. If you go looking for a fight, you'll probably find one, and you shouldn't be surprised about it if you do.

  I view self-defence like wearing an expensive watch. You don't keep flashing it about trying to impress people. Instead, you keep it up your sleeve, but in the back of your mind you have the confidence of knowing that you have the exact time whenever you need it. I felt I'd been waving my timepiece under Susie's nose, and it ruffled me.

  “Hey, Charlie! I can't leave you alone for five minutes before you're getting into trouble again, can I?”

  I twisted in my seat as Gary approached and sat down. He grinned at me, then noticed Clare's face.

  “Oh Christ, I didn't realise that little cow had actually managed to land one on you,” he said. “From what Dave's just told me I thought Charlie had got to her before she had a chance. Are you OK?”

  Clare drummed up a brave smile and nodded. She aroused this immediate, instinctive desire in the male of the species to protect and pamper. I wondered if she was even aware that she was doing it.

  “Look,” Gary said, “I'm really sorry about what happened tonight. I hope you won't let it spoil your view of the club. Things like that just don't happen here very often.”

  “Come off it, Gary,” I snorted. “You've got real security problems, and you know it. This place is a rabbit warren. Oh, you've got plenty of cameras dotted around the place, but it's no use having that kind of surveillance if either nobody's watching the screens, or they just don't react to what they see.

  “When it comes to keeping a lid on any trouble you're way understaffed. You haven't even got a man on every floor, and the guys on the door are so hyped up on testosterone they're more likely to start a fight than stop one. If Susie had been packing a knife she could have had Clare cold and melted away into the crowd before your lads got their act together enough to get their fingers out of their arses.”

  From up on my high horse I'd ignored the way Gary's eyes had started to bulge when I'd launched into my speech. The reason soon became apparent.

  “You seem to have a pretty low opinion of my club, Miss Fox,” said a deep voice from behind me. I didn't have to turn round to recognise the man in black who'd disposed of Susie for me. Oh shit. Ah well, attack to defend.

  “There you go,” I said to Gary, without breaking stride. “This is exactly my point. You've even got the boss man reduced to playing chucker-out. Now is that the best use of his time?”

  I heard the man chuckle as he moved into my line of sight, sitting down at the same table. It was starting to get crowded. Gary fidgeted nervously, like he didn't know whether to stay or go.

  “You have a certain style, Miss Fox,” the man said. He offered me a well-manicured hand, adorned with a signet ring. Fire flashed from the whole carat diamond set into the gold. “My name is Marc Quinn.” His grip was firm, but light. Obviously Marc was sure enough of himself not to feel the need to clasp hands like he was trying to crush a billiard ball. “I'm delighted to meet you properly, in slightly more conducive circumstances,” he added.

  “Me too,” I said. I introduced Clare and Marc made a gracious apology. He assured her that Susie was currently cooling her heels in the gutter outside, then strangely switched his attention back to me. Those pale eyes were disturbingly intense.

  “It's a few weeks since I was last here and I don't get round each of my clubs as often as I'd like,” he remarked. “Have you been to the New Adelphi before?”

  I laughed. “Oh come on,” I said. “You must be able to think of something better than the old "do you come here often?" line!”

  He allowed himself a tight smile. “If that's what I'd meant, then yes I probably could,” he returned coolly. “I was merely trying to find out if you'd noticed these problems with my club security over a period of time, or picked up on it all this evening.”

  I took a mental step back. “This is my first time at your club,” I said, making my tone as businesslike as his own. It would probably be my last, I didn't add.

  “In that case, you're very astute, Miss Fox,” he said. That incline of his head again, regal. He had his hair cut by a stylist, not a barber, but at least they hadn't managed to make him look like a football player.

  “I reckon we need someone like Charlie working here, Mr Quinn,” Gary put in eagerly, only to be silenced by a barbed glance from Marc.

  “It might not be quite up Miss Fox's street to throw out drunken troublemakers in a nightclub,” he pointed out dryly.

  “It should be. She teaches self-defence. Used to hold a class here before the place was altered. Isn't that right, Charlie?”

  I agreed that it was and could see Marc reassessing.

  “Really? I thought you handled
yourself pretty well back there,” he said. “Ever done any of this kind of work before?”

  “The odd time or two, nothing heavy,” I said. Just keeping the druggies out of the ladies' loo on disco night at a local pub. I'd learned some illuminating new swear words and a respectful caution when it came to dealing with fired up girls who had long fingernails.

  He sat back in his chair, considering. As he moved the silk shirt flowed like liquid. It would have cost me a week's money.

  “I'll be frank with you, Charlie,” he said, coming to a decision. “We do seem to be having trouble recruiting staff here. I try to use people I've worked with before, but getting them to stay in this area is proving difficult, to say the least. The ones I am getting simply aren't the right calibre. I came up yesterday to personally take care of two people I suspected were stealing from me.” He made it sound like they were now reinforcing concrete in a motorway bridge support somewhere.

  “Stealing from you?”

  “That's correct. A hand in the till, some computer equipment, wine from the restaurant.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw Gary's Adam's apple give a convulsive jerk at that. Marc went on without a flicker. “When they started getting blatant about it I decided the time had come to let them go. Now I find that the safety of the customers is compromised, and I have to act quickly. Would you be interested in meeting with me to discuss a possible part-time job here? Just Saturday evenings for now, Fridays later if it works out?”

  “OK,” I said. I couldn't see the harm in talking to the man further, whatever the final outcome. I didn't kid myself that the money wouldn't come in useful. Besides, he intrigued me.

  He reached into the single front pocket of his shirt and pulled out a business card with a designer look to it. There was a handwritten phone number on the reverse, local, by the first three digits, and a mobile. “That's where I can be reached for the next week or so. Call me – and don't leave it too long.”

  That slow smile again. He stood up, shook Clare's hand and mine, then got in one last shot at Gary. “By the way, when it says no denims in the dress code, it means it. If you work for me, you don't break my rules – not for anyone,” he said, and walked away across the bar.

  Gary waited until he was out of earshot, then let his breath out in a gush of relief. “Wow, Charlie, he must have really taken a shine to you.”

  “Hmm.” I looked at the card he'd left with me again, and stuffed it into the back pocket of my offending jeans. If I'd any idea of the trouble it was going to cause, I'd have borrowed Gary's lighter and set fire to the damn thing instead.

  Three

  I slept in until eight the next morning, but made up for it by working out before breakfast. I was inspired to take up weight training again when I moved into my current flat, which was once a gym. It stands on the increasingly fashionable St George's Quay – rented, I might add – overlooking the River Lune.

  When it had been a gym, it had never been a frilly sort of a place. Apparently the only women who used to go there were the owner's girlfriend, and a strapping wench who went in for Miss Great Britain competitions. It was a place for people seriously interested in building their bodies, not posing in a leotard.

  When I moved in all the previous owner had done was to haul out the fixed weight machines and benches. The walls are still peeling whitewash, except the one still covered full length in mirrors. The light bulbs and the floorboards are bare. I'd taken down the posters of oiled muscular men and women demonstrating the visible benefits of vitamin supplements, ripped out the urinals in the gents' changing room and put in some old kitchen units I bought cheap from the second-hand furniture place two doors along.

  The rest stayed more or less as it was. What was the office now houses my bed, and the main gym area has become my living room. I'd even hung my punchbag on the hook in the ceiling that had been put there for that purpose anyway. It swung elegantly in a corner, lending a certain sophisticated something to the place.

  People usually comment admiringly about the size of the flat, and how lucky I am to live there. They don't notice the creeping damp patches, or the collection of buckets for when the wind is driving the rain under the roof slates from just the right angle.

  I pay a pittance in rent, but with no written agreement. I knew full well when I moved in that the whole building was under sentence, and the landlord could chuck me out at any moment. Still, having viewed an increasingly depressing range of rat-infested bedsits when I first came to Lancaster, I figured that on the whole, it was worth the risk.

  When I'd had enough of the weights I dropped them in a corner and headed for the shower, stripping off my jogging pants and T-shirt as I went.

  While the roomy gents' changing room has since become my kitchen, the smaller ladies' room I use as a bathroom. I'm the only person I know with no bath but three showers. It still has the sign of a muscular female in a typical body builder's pose on the door. The only way you can tell the sex is that she has a bikini top stretched round her rippling upper torso. I leave her there to encourage me not to go over the top with the training.

  Afterwards, I dressed in jeans and an old shirt. Breakfast was toasted crusts, because I'd already eaten the rest of the bread and forgotten to get a new loaf. I dumped my toast plate in the sink and scooped the jogging pants into the washbag when I was done. Living on my own I have to be strict about being tidy, otherwise I'd never be able to see the floor.

  On a reflex I refilled the filter coffee machine and switched it on. Before long the whole place was filled with the heavy wafting scent of own-blend Java from the tea and coffee merchant in town.

  I emptied the kitchen rubbish bin, a tricky operation because I never get round to doing it until it's way overflowing, and struggled down the stairs to dump a weighty black bin bag out on the pavement. They come first thing on a Monday morning and I always forget until I actually hear the council truck grinding its way along the quay, by which time I've usually missed them.

  I was just making sure the top of the bag was secure to prevent it being raided by the swat team that is the local semi-stray cat population, when I heard the heavy rumbling of a big diesel. I looked up to see the local mobile video man, Terry Rothwell, pulling his big Mercedes van into a parking space on the other side of the road.

  Everyone round here knows Terry. He'll never go down in the history books as a great thinker, but his heart's in the right place. I met him not long after I moved in, through his business partner, Paul. Paul runs a video shop in Abraham Heights, just back from the quay, and rides an old, but pristine black Kawasaki GPZ900R.

  It often works out that way. If you have a bike, everyone you seem to meet has one too. I think nearly all my friends in Lancaster have some connection or other to motorcycling.

  When I first arrived here, Paul and Terry were great. Helped me sort out the wiring and even found me a second-hand video player at right money. I may not own any carpets, but you've got to get your priorities right when it comes to life's luxuries. In my case it was hi-fi, microwave, video – probably in that order.

  Even if you don't hire out movies you can't miss Terry's van. It's green. Not a nice subdued British Racing, more Kawasaki Racing. A bilious shade of lime, bordering on fluorescent. On the side, in big pink letters, are the words, “The Big Green Video Machine'. I asked him once whose idea the nauseous colour scheme was. He proudly accepted full responsibility. “You may not like it,” he said, “but you sure as hell can't ignore it.” I had to agree he had a point, there.

  Terry himself is a pretty noticeable character. He's about six-foot four and rather rotund with rubbery features that make him look more like a caricature of somebody else than a person in his own right. His hair is also receding and he will insist on growing the remainder long and brushing it forwards to cover the inadequacies. Windy days make him comically nervous.

  He seems to do well out of the video game, though. The van was only two years old and when he's off duty I've seen him drivin
g round in a two-door Merc coupé with a private plate on it. Somebody once told me Terry thought driving a prestige car would help him pull the birds. No offence to the guy, but a crash diet, plastic surgery and a decent hairstyle would probably work better.

  By the time he'd eased his bulk out of the van I'd crossed over to meet him. “I'm glad you're in,” he said. “I've got that new Keanu Reeves film in we were talking about.”

  He unlocked the side door and slid it back. Inside are racks of the latest films. I leant against the door aperture while he scribbled in his book, scouring the shelves with my head on one side to read the titles. He has so many films I want to watch that I always come away with a crick in my neck.

  “You're in a good mood,” I observed, climbing in.

  “Well, I've had a very useful morning so far,” he said, shutting the book and giving me a satisfied smile. “Been round chasing a bad debt.”

  “Successfully, obviously.”

  “Oh yeah, the guy didn't have the cash on him, but I don't think I've done too badly out of it. He gave me this instead, look,” he said, and leant over into the front of the van to retrieve something from the passenger seat. I averted my eyes from the buttock cleavage that suddenly appeared at the back of his jeans. When he straightened up he was holding a rectangular object, about the size of a telephone directory. He flipped the lid open to reveal the neat screen and keyboard of a portable computer. It looked like a toy in his huge hands. “Well then,” Terry said proudly, “what d'you think of that?”

  “Neat,” I said, trying not to sound too nonplussed. I can't get over the uneasy thought that computers are something I really ought to get into and understand, but I just can't raise the enthusiasm. “Where on earth did you pick this up?”

  “Ah-ha! Like I said, I've been debt collecting. A customer who hadn't paid his video hire bill. Bloke from that new club in Morecambe, as a matter of fact.”

  It took me a moment before his words sank in. Then I suddenly remembered Marc's comment from the night before. A hand in the till, some computer equipment, wine from the restaurant . . .