Author of Pain- Minor Mayhem Read online

  That had always rung true with Larry and in moments of vulnerability, like now, more than ever. Still as no one he had ever known had the balls to pull some of the stunts he had over the years, Larry had attained a kind of mythic status amongst the underworld, not just here but in Europe too, which he had always enjoyed, probably too much in fact, because it had worked well enough as long as his friends had outnumbered his enemies. But somewhere along the way his list of friends had grown shorter and his enemies alarmingly longer, until he'd had no choice but to play his last card and get the fuck out of Dodge.

  His famous black book, (which was in fact, rather less glamorously, half a dozen tatty folders crammed full to bursting, and a cheap flash drive) that was his ticket out of here. It was a stroke of genius and safely tucked away ready for its big entrance. The thought of the chaos it would cause never failed to lift his spirits. And when the shit hit the fan he would melt quietly way somewhere hot. Somewhere a million miles away from here so all this would be just a distant memory, if he would be able to recall it at all.

  And then he knew the legend of 'Lucky' Larry McCulloch would be set in stone. He imagined there would be books, maybe even a biopic, yeah he would like that.

  And so with images of media immortality buzzing around his head, Larry got out of the shower and dried himself off.

  Once he had changed into some clean clothes, Larry felt a million times better and even felt up to another round of moronic conversation with his so-called protectors, that coupled with the smell of freshly delivered pizza tempted Larry downstairs.

  As he got to the hallway he could see Peroni through the living room door, mobile in one hand and a slice of Pepperoni in the other. She was pacing the floor speaking Italian again in between nibbling on the pizza, although he couldn't speak much Italian he knew whomever was unfortunate enough to find themselves on the other end of the phone was getting a tongue lashing, hopefully about this shit-hole they were staying in.

  Hearing voices from the kitchen Larry wandered through to see Lewis sitting at a cheap plastic topped table munching on some garlic bread while Jeff was in a corner studying two monitors which occasionally flicked between different parts of what Larry assumed must be outside the house. At least they had some sort of security system in place.

  Lewis jumped up theatrically from his seat seeing Larry enter. "Don McCulloch, take a seat. What can I get you, Sir? We've got Pepperoni, Ham and pineapple and for our veggie friends Margarita."

  Larry ignored him and eyed the pizza boxes on the table, he opened one and took a slice of Margarita. "Anything to drink?" He asked, taking a bite.

  "Tea, coffee, it's freshly brewed, and I think there's some bottled water in the fridge." Offered Lewis.

  "Anything stronger?" Larry said in between chewing.

  Jeff looked up from the monitors. "I've got some shandy. I know I shouldn't while on duty but what the heck." This won a smile from Lewis but just more contempt from Larry.

  "Coffee," Larry grunted and took a seat on one of the mismatched chairs opposite where Lewis was sitting.

  Lewis poured Larry a mug of coffee and sitting back down slid it across the table to him. Up close it smelt burned.

  "How was your shower?" Jeff asked.

  "The water's freezing," Larry said, he sipped the coffee and winced at the sour taste. He gestured around him. "Is this really the best you people can come up with?"

  "Government cut backs," Lewis said shrugging apologetically. "You know how it is?" He then picked up another piece of garlic bread and proceeded to feed his face.

  "Yeah," Jeff said, leaned back in his chair and stretched. "Here, Larry, there's been something I've been meaning to ask you. Seeing as all the trouble you're now in, didn't anybody ever tell you, crime doesn't pay? At school maybe?"

  "Be fair," Lewis said. "That was a long time ago."

  Larry was about to answer when Peroni poked her head around the door. "Arh, good you're eating, Larry. How was your shower?"

  "Cold, like his heart," Lewis said glancing mischievously at Larry.

  The Italian ignored the comment. "I'm off then, keep in touch, I should be back tomorrow sometime."

  Lewis nodded. "Will do chief, see you later."

  "Any problems Larry, see Lewis until I return. Bye for now." She disappeared again.

  This pleased Lewis no end. "I think he's got a list." He said.

  "Be nice!" Peroni called back before the front door slammed shut. Jeff checked one of the monitors and followed her as she walked down the garden path and in to the car and once she had pulled away, repositioned the camera so it was covering the front door once more.

  "She'd be attractive if she removed that rod from up her arse." Larry said and finished his slice of pizza.

  "Don't knock the boss, Larry. She's a gem" Jeff said playing with a camera control. "She will keep your sorry backside alive if you let her."

  This won a snort of derision from Larry.

  "Sooo, Larry," Lewis said pointing a half-eaten piece of garlic bread at him. "How did a high roller like you end up in a place like this?"

  He gave Lewis a bored look, but thought, what the hell, a bit of banter might make the time go quicker. "You goody-goodies tell me crime doesn't pay?"

  "Just an observation, Larry taking into account your current situation," Jeff said, turning to face them both.

  "Alright smart guy," Larry continued. "Tell me this. Where will you two dickheads be this time next year, eh? Shall I tell you?"

  "Go on," Lewis said.

  "Nowhere, that's where." Lewis and Jeff exchanged a mock quizzical look. Lewis made to speak but Larry continued. "You'll be risking your lives, stuck in a dump like this, guarding some other wanker who doesn't care if you live or die. And you know where I'll be?"

  "No," Jeff said. "But I'm sure you're going to tell us."

  Pausing for dramatic effect, Larry took another sip of bitter coffee before he spoke. "In the sun mate, in the fucking sun, living it up in Rio for the rest of my pampered life. Now tell me crime doesn't pay."

  Lewis leaned back in his chair he raised his eyebrows and gave Larry a look something akin to pity, which riled him instantly. "Larry," he finally said. "Just because you've agreed to testify against all your so-called gangster mates, doesn't mean you're going to be able to walk away from all you've done. It doesn't work like that anymore I'm afraid. You're fast out of friends." He gestured to Jeff. "We're all you've got left. Now how sad is that?"

  Larry gave Lewis his best smug look. "Queen's evidence is a wonderful thing my friend. Once I give your bosses the shit they want, the ones who I haven't got dirt on that is, I walk, scot fucking free."

  "He's got you there, Lewis." Jeff interjected.

  Unruffled, Lewis got to his feet and walked over to the sink, where he began washing out his mug. "Arh," he said. "The famous book. You really do live in your own little world, don't you?"

  "He's a legend in his own lunch time," Jeff spun on his chair and glanced at the monitors. Then happy all was well he spun back.

  "Huh, yeah," Lewis continued. "He's just going to walk away from all he's done," he clicked his fingers. "Just like that. The infamous Lucky Larry McCulloch, huh?"

  Larry drained his cup, which made him wince at the taste. "You know, why anybody would want to be a bodyguard in this day and age is beyond me."

  Lewis turned around, suddenly serious which took Larry aback slightly. After all this was just harmless banter, wasn't it? "You don't know anything about us, Larry."

  The kid Jeff however was still in fine form. "But they give us guns Larry, guns!" He pulled his jacket aside to reveal a shoulder holster.

  Larry glanced at it then back to Lewis who was staring at him intently, frowning slightly. So, Larry thought, a chink in the armour. Lewis hated him, that much he already knew. But he hated having to risk his life for him even more. Thanks for the ammo, kid.

  As if feeling the tension, Jeff said; "Guns!" again, to which Lewis nodded and p
atted his own gun under his jacket.

  "Huh," snorted Larry. "You lot have to fill in a million forms just to shoot one of those things. God forbid you should actually hit anything."

  "Not like when you were a lad, eh Larry?" Jeff said with a sarcastic wink Larry happily ignored, but nodded all the same.

  "In my day," he said. "If I wanted some twat shot, all I had to do was pick up the phone." He made his hand into a gun and 'fired' it at Lewis. "Bang!" Then he hit the table for dramatic effect.

  This raised a slight smile from Lewis. "And just think, now someone is going to do the same for you," he said, then softly added; "Bang?"

  Larry held his gaze, refusing to be intimidated. "Don't worry about me," he said.

  The smile on Lewis's face broadened. "Oddly enough, we don't." He replied.

  'Got ya!' thought Larry. "Hmm," he mused. "Yet you might have to take a bullet to save me and my precious book." Lewis's smile faltered ever so slightly, but Larry saw it only too well, so added; "How do you spell imbecile?"

  Lewis was openly frowning now, he sighed. "You know, you really aren't a very nice person, are you Larry?" Larry looked at him, amused. Lewis studied him for a moment, then added. "Ever heard the expression: 'What you sow you shall reap?'"

  "Very Biblical," Larry replied nonchalantly.

  "Or live by the sword, die by the sword?" Jeff added gleefully.

  Larry shook his head. The clock on the wall said 22:30 and he decided after the day he'd had and the way things were going down here that it was well past his bed time. He stood up. "You know if asshole could fly, this place would be an airport!"

  This made Jeff laughed out loud and it even raised a smile from Lewis. Jeff clapped. "Good one-liner, Larry," he said.

  Lewis shrugged. "Well it was more two than one, but good never the less."

  That was it, Larry threw his hands up and left them to it. "Enough of this bollocks," he said on the way out. "I'm off to bed."

  He got as far as the bottom of the stairs when Jeff shouted; "'Ere Larry, you should go into showbiz with a repartee like that."

  He couldn't help himself and shouted back; "A fuckin' airport!" He was about to ascend the stairs but he could still hear the two of them twittering on and stopped on the first step to listen despite himself.

  "Arh," It was Jeff. "Everyone a classic, everyone a pearl."

  "Yeah, watch out Bob Monkhouse, eh?" Lewis replied.

  "Bob Monkhouse is dead," explained Jeff.

  "Don't be daft, no he isn't." Countered Lewis.

  "He is!" Insisted Jeff.

  "Nar."

  "Well," concluded Jeff. "He must be flipping old then."

  "Old yes, dead no."

  Hearing this Larry trudged up the stairs in despair. He couldn't believe these clowns were his last line of defence. "Your life in their hands," he said out loud. All the coppers in the world, he mused ruefully and I get Laurel and fucking Hardy.

  THREE

  The young novice priest walked down the old corridor with only the sound of his footsteps bouncing off the stone walls for company. As he approached yet another set of stone steps leading down to the next level, (these would be the fourth, that meant once he was at the bottom, he would be four floors below ground level) he gave silent thanks that at least they had managed to get electricity down this far.

  He passed yet another ancient looking door but the brass plate on it named it as a store room, so he walked on and down the steep stone steps to the next level. One of the bare light bulbs hanging from the ceiling, which lit the way, had failed so the novice was met by a large pool of darkness once he reached the bottom.

  Now he knew why none of the other novices had volunteered to take the dusty old suitcase he was carrying down to the Vatican's historical research department. But despite the rumours that all the old priests that worked down here had gone mad through lack of sunlight, he had jumped at the chance to see the place for himself.

  Time seemed to have stopped still once he got below ground and despite the fact that apparently dozens of priests and nuns worked down here, he had yet to see another living soul.

  The novice put his head down and walked purposely through the darkness and didn't look up until he was back in the light at the other end. God how he was regretting his curiosity which was now fading with each step he took. Another door up ahead caught his eye and he offered up a silent prayer that he had at last gone as far as he needed. The nameplate on the door read: Research and Archive Department, which prompted an audible sigh of relief.

  The novice knocked hard on the heavy oak door but it seemed to make no noise at all. He waited a moment but couldn't hear anything from inside, so he moved to knock again. As he raised his fist the massive door swung open to reveal a young nun, with a lollypop stick hanging out of the corner of her mouth. She chewed it for a moment and looked the young novice up and down, her eyes settling on his fist, which was still in the air ready to knock. She raised her eyebrows at this and the novice quickly dropped his hand by his side and grinned nervously.

  He opened his mouth to speak but the nun turned and walked away before he could get a word out, leaving the door ajar. "I told you we need an intercom!" She bellowed. "Father Nichols, this one's for you."

  The novice gingerly stepped inside to what he assumed would be an office but to his amazement walked into what looked like a massive library. Rows upon rows of metal shelves crammed full to bursting with boxes, books and files stretched high towards the curved stone ceiling some thirty feet above his head.

  To his right, the nun who had answered the door flopped down behind a large desk, which was buried under piles of papers and files. The novice took a step towards her. "Excuse me sister..."

  She held up her hand to silence him, not bothering to look up from her work. "I'm not getting up again, my knees will be shot by the time I'm thirty," she said.

  He was wondering what to do next when a whistle rang out from the far end of the room and he turned to see an old priest, some forty feet away, leaning out from behind a filing cabinet waving to him. The novice returned his gesture and gratefully made his way across the room towards him.

  He glanced around as he passed several other priests and nuns sitting behind desks at intervals between the shelves working away, some at computers, which looked anachronistic in the extreme compared to their surroundings. Another ancient looking priest was chambering precariously up a ladder with an arm full of books, which he deposited on a high up shelf and then much to the novice's amusement slid back down the ladder without using the rungs, stopping a foot from the bottom and jumping the rest of the way with ease.

  "Hello, my Boy," said the waving priest as he finally reached him. "Found the place alright then?" He gave the novice a warm smile and slapped him on the arm.

  "Hello, Father, yes, thank you, quite a trip." He said.

  The Priest nodded. "They won't let us put a lift in, this being the Vatican and all. I think it may actually be sacrilege to try." He looked at the old suitcase. "That for us?"

  "Yes sir, some old files Father Perelli found, I think," the novice replied.

  The Priest held out his hand and took the case. He glanced around at all the clutter in the room with a wry smile. "Just what we need."

  "And, Father Nichols, I have a message for you from Cardinal Luppi..."

  The novice pulled out a crumpled envelope from his cassock pocket and was about to give it to the old priest when he held up his free hand and shook his head. "It's not for me, I'm Father Mendez," Mendez gestured to a small office with a glass front tucked away in the corner, and to a priest who looked in his early sixties with greying black hair who was sitting at a desk hunched over some papers. "That's Father Nichols, you'd better give it to him personally, just in case there's a reply."

  "Yes, Father, thank you." The novice replied and Mendez watched him as he approached the door, knocked and was waved inside by Nichols.

  Nichols looked up sternly as the novice entere
d but his face softened seeing how young and nervous he was.

  "F, Father Nichols?" The novice said weakly. "I, er, I've got a message from Cardinal Luppi."

  Nichols made a face and picked up the telephone. "What are the phone lines down again? Or is it top secret?" He said it in perfect Italian, but the novice picked up the hint of a long buried English accent.

  The novice look flustered. "I erm, I don't know, Father," he stuttered. "I mean, yes the phones are down, but I don't know about the message."

  The priest held the receiver to his ear and nodded, phone was indeed dead so he replaced the handset. "Don't worry." He looked at the novice who frowned and just looked at him blankly. Then, "well, the message?"

  "Oh, sorry, yes," he rummaged in his cassock pocket again and pulled out the envelope. "Sorry Father."

  Nichols took the note and began to read. As Nichols was reading the novice idly scanned the contents of his cluttered desk. Among the various books and paperwork, his attention was drawn to an official looking police document that was sticking out of a pile of folders tantalizingly half uncovered and begging to be read. His eyes flitted back to Nichols who was now frowning as he read, and then back to the paper, he had to resist the urge to tug on the paper out a little further to get a better view but instead craned his head so he could read the available text sideways on.

  It was a French police report, and although the novice's French was only passable he was able to make out the gist.

  It was a crime scene report from somewhere near Paris, two bodies found in a hotel mutilated almost beyond recognition. The novice could see the corner of a photocopied crime scene photograph attached to the report, he could make out a foot and part of a leg lying in a pool of dark liquid that could only be one thing. The fuzzy image made him shiver and although he had a morbid curiosity to see more, thanks to the words 'mutilated beyond recognition' he was glad he couldn't. But instead read on as best his French would allow.