Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 124, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 757 & 758, September/October 2004

The second man is tall, slim, and black as night, with shiny dreadlocks hanging around his shoulders. He has a blowtorch in one hand and a Bic lighter in the other. Hooper. He strides catlike to the foot of my bed and thumbs the lighter. The flame snaps the blowtorch into a steady, icy-blue tongue of fire which hisses like a dragon in the silence. I can feel the heat from six feet away. Hooper smiles.

I hope it’s a social call. Hooper is so far off the wall even the Yardies threw him out for being too violent. Now here he is in my bedroom.

“I suppose knocking’s too much to ask?” I say. I don’t know these two all that well, but I’ve heard it’s best not to back down too quick. They respect that, for some insane reason.

Patrick drops the curbstone on the bed and jerks a massive thumb towards the door. “The Chairman wants to see you.”

“It’s three in the morning,” I point out.

The flame comes nearer as Hooper advances round the bed.

“I’ll get dressed.”

I hop around looking for socks and stuff while Patrick watches and Hooper plays the flame of his toy across a glass-fronted picture of a Paris street scene. It was a present from a former girlfriend who thought I needed cultural improvement. For some reason, she thought I was artistically bland. She didn’t last long after that, but the picture stayed. I like it, actually. Very... moody.

The glass pops and cracks while I pull on my shoes, and I figure I’ll get Hooper back for that. One day when he isn’t looking.

“What does he want?” I ask conversationally as we drive west towards the Chairman’s office. We’re in a black Toyota Land Cruiser, which is inappropriate for the city, but Patrick needs a big vehicle, otherwise he’d have nowhere to keep his collection of curbstones.

“He’s got a job for you.” Hooper turns round in the passenger seat and stares at me. “Gainful employment.” The words come out slow and singsong, and a gold tooth glints in his mouth, reflecting the streetlights. I reckon he’s pissed I didn’t put up a fight.

“I’ve already got a job,” I tell him. I do, too. I deliver things for people. Small packages, mostly; papers, diskettes, certificates, contracts, that sort of thing. Anything small, light, and of high-value importance. You want it there, I’m your man. Guaranteed. Not drugs, though. I don’t touch drugs. I’m old-fashioned about wanting to keep my freedom.

Hooper sneers. “Courier shit, man? Don’t make me laugh. That’s for pussies.”

I debate shoving Hooper’s gold tooth down his throat, but decide it will keep. Patrick would probably take a spare curbstone out of his top pocket and cuff me with it.

Instead I sit back and ignore them both, and consider what I’m about to get into.

The Chairman — if he has a real name nobody uses it — is a fat slug who runs a business and criminal empire said to stretch across half of Europe. Some say he’s Dutch, and was kicked out of Rotterdam because he gave the local crims a bad name. He set himself up in London instead and proceeded to knock out every other syndicate in the place, allowing only a tiny network of small-time gangs to remain. It was a clever move; in return for letting them be, he allows them to tender for doing his dirty work. He has a small group of direct employees — people like Hooper and Patrick, to protect his back from anyone who thinks he might be easy meat — but other than that, he believes in lean and mean. Especially mean.

Like I say, clever move. He controls the whole criminal shebang, while letting some of the dumber members think they’re important. It’s a franchise, only the penalties for infringing the rules are more permanent.

I’ve done a couple of jobs for the Chairman before, but only out of desperation. They were simple fetch-and-carry assignments, the main risk being if I failed to deliver. I didn’t enjoy them because I didn’t feel clean afterwards, and the last time he’d called, which was about a month ago, I’d declined. Politely.

I wish I had Malcolm with me.

Malcolm’s my little brother. I use the word little only in the age sense; he’s three years younger than me, but way, way bigger. He caught our grandfather’s bit of the gene pool, while I’ve been blessed with Grandma’s. Granddad — a rough, tough stevedore back in the days when they still had them — was apparently a shade under six-ten, with shoulders and hands to match, while Grandma was normal.

At six-eight, and weighing in at two fifty, Malcolm can pick me up with one hand. He’s also good-looking, with twin rows of pearly-white teeth, naturally swarthy skin, and eyes which can bore right through you. Apparently it works wonders with the girls and means he never gets to go home alone.