54
August 2018
Greg, Maxim, Alex, Vickey, Leon
Slowly going down two flights of stairs, Max and Greg found themselves in the carpark. As soon as Max and Greg, racked by pain, appeared in the doorway leading into the carpark they heard the sound of a car’s engine roaring to life. A white Solaris pulled up in front of them and a young, skinny guy with blond hair leapt out.
“What happened?” asked the guy, frightened.
“Later, later!” roared Greg, overcoming the vicious pain that had already begun fettering his body.
The blond opened the back door and Max pushed Greg, groaning, in. Then Max quickly got in the front seat, the blond jumped behind the wheel and the car hurtled off. The Solaris arched its way around the carpark and drove outside.
“Don’t rush!” Max told the driver.
The guy immediately slowed down.
“Keep it calm, don’t attract any attention!” Max ordered again. “Open your window, turn the radio up loud.”
The blond obeyed unquestioningly.
“How are you?” Max asked, turning to Greg.
“One went straight through the side, that’s ok, but the second one got me in the stomach,” whispered Greg.
Max turned round and looked at the car’s rear window. Behind them it was all calm. They were approaching the gates. As they’d planned, no one was on guard and they were able to calmly drive off the Design School’s territory without attracting any attention.
Greg slumped right across the back seat of the car and gave no signs of life.
“Greg!” Max shouted at him, climbing into the back and slapping Greg around the face.
Greg, coming back to his senses, opened his eyes.
“Max,” whispered Greg.
Max didn’t answer. He quickly looked in the direction of the approaching gates.
“Drive calmly,” he told the blond. Max realized immediately that this guy was just a pawn and taking control of him wouldn’t be difficult. “Greg must have promised the blond ten grand, no more. That would have been more than enough for this runny-nosed kid to do a simple job – all he had to do was drive for a couple of miles. But Greg would have taken a full cut of the loot from us for that,” Max thought to himself.
“I don’t want to die, Max,” Greg wheezed from the back. Max didn’t answer.
The Solaris drove up to the gates. They were open. The blond calmly drove over the speed control bumps and off the School’s territory.
“Turn right, but calmly. Calmly – you got that?” hissed Max.
“Yes, yes,” the guy answered quickly.
Max looked at him.
“You got a gun?” he asked.
“No,” the blond answered.
“Take the second on the left,” ordered Max.
The blond obeyed. The Solaris slowly turned down a small alley.
“Now the third on the left and the first on the right,” commanded Max.
Years of experience in the police force, dirty work with Greg, the continual fear of being caught, a fear that was covered up with bravado, criminal slang, drinking, a faked brutality, a hatred for anyone who studied, worked, achieved anything, wore clean, ironed shirts, looked good and had good relationships – all this, this entire symbiosis of feelings, the main component of which was fear, was now hammering away inside Max’s head.
He didn’t think through his future actions. He simply knew what he would do now. If it hadn’t been for that last red line, if he hadn’t crossed his own, personal Rubicon by shooting that man and probably killing him, if it hadn’t been for that last straw, there would have been a chance that Max might have done something for Greg, he might have tried to save him. But he’d crossed that invisible red line. When his finger pulled on the trigger of that unregistered Walther that Greg had given him just before they went on the job.
“Take my money,” wheezed Greg. “Max. Brother.”
Max didn’t answer him. Greg understood everything. He knew what Max was about to do. He understood that he would do the same in Max’s shoes. Greg was still fighting for his life, begging Max to help him, although with what remained of his consciousness as it seeped away, he understood that it was no use. He understood that he was losing his dignity, helplessly trying to cling on to life, a life that was now just a few coarse daubs running before his eyes. Just a few daubs because his life hadn’t amounted to much. He hadn’t achieved anything in normal life, and having set out on the path of crime he hadn’t achieved anything of any significance there either.
He had hoped that this job, which he’d nurtured for so many years, would raise him up in the criminal world, it was the main job that he’d cherished and kept in mind every day when going through the humiliations of being a security guard, following all those menial orders, feeling, seeing that he was being treated like a second or even a third class citizen, even those young girls on the till, young, sweet, who didn’t see him as a man in that dirty, rumpled security guard uniform, girls he dreamed about at night, falling asleep on a cheap, creaking IKEA bed.
The Solaris drove down the quiet alley and stopped at building number four.
“Drive into the courtyard. Here,” Max ordered the driver.
“Yes, yes, I know, he showed me,” the guy said quickly, nodding in Greg’s direction.
The Solaris drove into a small, empty courtyard and stopped by two motor scooters protected from the rain by dirty coverings. A few yards away from them stood a short young guy. As soon as the guy saw the car with the blond sitting at the wheel he turned round and calmly walked off in the direction of the exit from the courtyard. Greg put him here to guard the scooters, a neat move, thought Max.
“I’ve got the keys to the locks,” said the blond.
Greg tried to say something from the backseat, but only managed a spluttering wheeze instead of words.
“Unchain the scooters,” Max ordered the guy.
The blond obeyed him. He jumped out of the car and started pulling the coverings off the scooters. Then he took some keys from the pocket of his jeans, opened the locks on their chains and started to pull them out from between the wheels.
Max turned round in his seat and looked at Greg. Tears had appeared in Greg’s eyes. He spat blood, wheezing, helplessly trying to stem the flow of blood from his wound.
“Take the money, bro. All of it. Mine and all the rest,” whispered Greg.
Max looked at Greg in silence, not answering him.
“The blond will take me to the emergency room, Max,” begged Greg. Tears were rolling down his coarse cheeks. Each word brought him unbearable pain.
Max took his handgun from his trouser pocket.
“Bro, I won’t rat you out,” Greg begged in a whisper. “I’ll do my time, I won’t rat you out, I’ll up my standing and …” Greg coughed up some blood and groaned loudly.
Max took a look around. There was still no one in the corner of the yard where they’d stopped. The blond unlocked the scooters and took food delivery cases, the kind used by couriers, out of the boot of the car. He straightened them out and set them up on the back seats of the mopeds.
Yes, that was a brilliant idea on Greg’s part. There were thousands of food delivery couriers in London, and nobody paid them any attention. The cops, who would’ve been alerted by now, would never suspect some young guys on cheap scooters out delivering pizzas.
“Max,” Greg groaned. “I swear on my mother’s grave: I’ll do my time and come out and start over. Max…”
Max was in a stupor. He felt no pity for Greg. They were both experienced in their work, they both understood the risks and they’d known what they were getting into.
An image of what had happened to them just five minutes ago flashed up before Max’s eyes. His accurate shot that took down the bank guard. The guy had clearly been a very good shot. He’d aimed at Greg’s chest, the biggest area of the body. He’d done it all right, that’s the way you should aim – at the largest area if the target’s in motion, especially if he’s surrounded by hostages.
Max’s thoughts flashed through his consciousness. So, Greg had made a mistake. Or he simply hadn’t known that there was a hidden shooter in the bank. Max suddenly sensed, or rather, again sensed the cold of the trigger on his handgun. From his memory bank, Max pulled out the fraction of a second after which he’d squeezed the trigger of his Walther.
That was it. Now he was an outcast. Forever. From that day onwards he’d shudder at every knock at the door. Now he’d be scared that they were coming for him. Now he was on the other side of the line. That line that separates people from outcasts. Max’s right hand squeezed the Walther.
Greg’s barely audible words, his begging, again began to get through to Max.
“Max,” whispered Greg, “take it all and go…”
He made the necessary movement before he could even recognize his action. Max thrust his left hand forward, grabbing Greg by the throat, and held him tight up against the seat. He pressed the gun to Greg’s heart, pushed the barrel in as hard as he could, and pulled the trigger.
The shot seemed to him to be quieter than he’d expected. As if the blunt side of an axe had fallen on a log and not even bounced back. It just lay flat on the piece of wood under the force of its own weight.
In an instant, Greg was transformed into a big, gray patch with a crimson liquid flowing from it.
Max could feel someone’s gaze on him. He looked round sharply, at the same time thrusting the hand holding the gun forward.
The blond was at the door to the car, afraid to make a move.
“Get in,” Max ordered the guy, who obeyed him in silence.
The blond wanted to say something, but Max beat him to it.
“Don’t make a sound!” ordered Max. He took a look around. There wasn’t a soul in the courtyard. Greg had chosen the ideal spot.
Max suddenly remembered that the guy hadn’t seen his face because he still had his disguise on. So he couldn’t identify him. The only trail that led to Max from Greg was Greg himself. And now that trail had been blocked. By a corpse. A corpse, now growing cold, that meant nothing and nobody needed.
Max had to make sure that the blond wouldn’t lead the police to him. He had to ask the guy a few questions. It would take a few seconds. There was enough time.
Thoughts pounded through Max’s head. “Ok, ok, I won’t kill him. I shouldn’t. I’m not a killer, after all. I was protecting myself against the shooter in the bank. And Greg signed his own death sentence. Time, time… It’s good that we’re not riding on the scooters down the main street. They’ll be blocking it right now because the guards will have told the cops that the car left the Design School’s territory. First, they’ll block the surrounding streets. They’ll work out the time and stop everyone a few miles from here. But we’ll go on the scooters through the courtyards and stay in this neighborhood. Better still, we won’t go anywhere for a few minutes, we’ll just stay in this quiet courtyard.”
The shock from the first two murders he’d ever committed, one after another, was starting to die down, but his head wasn’t any better for that. On the contrary, with each passing minute Max became increasingly aware of the position that he was in.
“You mustn’t delay though,” pounded in his head. “Some old woman could walk into the courtyard at any moment. You have to calmly and quickly sort out the blond and then disappear. From this courtyard, and then from this city.”
“I won’t kill you,” said Max. “But answer quickly. How do you know Greg?”
“He rented a room in my apartment in Streatham for a while a couple of years ago,” the guy answered quickly.
“When he was hiding out after doing a job?” asked Max.
“Yes. Probably,” the blond answered.
“All right – what was going on between you?” Max asked quickly.
“We watched football together, had a drink sometimes. We were just friendly,” said the blond, as if justifying himself.
“All right,” said Max. “Then what?”
“He popped up again recently and offered me this driving job,” the guy stuttered. “He said there was no risk involved. If anything happened, I’d just say I knew nothing. I don’t have a record, so they’d believe me. And he promised me ten grand.”
“Bastard,” thought Max, remembering that Greg had said that he’d give the driver an even cut. He sneered at his former comrade’s greediness. “So, no one’s seen you two together recently?” asked Max.
“No,” the guy answered. “He phoned and we met up in Streatham. And that’s it.”
“What’s my name?” Max asked sharply.
“I don’t know,” he answered immediately. “Greg didn’t tell me anything and he told me to leave town for a month straight afterwards. That was a condition.”
Max noticed that the blond’s leg couldn’t stop shaking.
“Can you ride a scooter?” asked Max.
“Yes, yes,” the guy answered, looking at Max plaintively.
“All right,” said Max, “I’ll let you have your life, but you’re going to have to earn it. Stick the car right in the corner of the yard and put the cover that’s in the trunk over it. I’ll put the bags in the delivery boxes on the scooters. We’ll go through the courtyards. You stay right next to me, and just a little in front until we get to the other car. I’ll let you go there. I’ll give you some money, but basically you’ve been reborn, you’re getting a second life.”
“Thank you,” the guy said, barely audibly.
“If you ever get in trouble with the cops and this deal comes up, you tell them I’m tall and fat, got it?”
The blond nodded quickly.
“And if you try to make a break for it on the scooter I’ll shoot you on the spot,” said Max. “I’ve got nothing to lose. You saw that.”
“I got it. I won’t let you down,” said the blond, shaking in fear.
“Wipe the prints off the steering wheel and everything else,” ordered Max.
There were no more threads leading to Max from Greg. Only his cousin Leon, his childhood friend Alex and Vickey – all of them, despite the shootout in the bank, had acted in strict keeping with the plan.
Vickey, who’d managed her part in the plan well, was standing with her back to the door into the bank when she heard the first shot, and then the second. She shuddered. Then there was a third shot. Not knowing what to do, intuitively Vickey decided to stay where she was. She turned her head from side to side. There was no one around. Greg had planned everything perfectly. There were lectures going on in the School.
Vickey thought that fifteen minutes had passed when the bank’s door opened and Alex looked out, although only a minute had passed since the shooting.
“Everything’s going to be all right, kid. Just keep calm.”
It was as if everything that followed wasn’t happening to her. She remembered how Max came out of the bank, propping up Greg, how they went through the door to the stairway down to the underground carpark. She thought an eternity passed before Alex appeared, pushing Leon, who’d suddenly gone limp again, forward.
“There’s no one around,” Vickey said for some reason, although Alex could see that for himself.
“Walk calmly, don’t attract attention,” Alex said dryly.
Alex understood that only he could take on the main role now. In order to somehow get them out. In order to stand a chance. To survive. He suddenly understood how much he loved life. At times, strange and upsetting. With a heap of problems and misunderstandings between the people who you would think were the closest to one another. He suddenly wanted to cry. Like he had once with his psychiatrist when he’d spoken about his relationship with his mother. His eyes became heavy, as if a leaden dust had covered his eyelids with a cold, icy weight.
Alex suddenly noticed that he was supporting Leon under his forearm and immediately let him go.
“Are you all right, Leon?” Alex asked quickly.
“Yes,” Leon answered sharply.
“Vickey?” Alex asked, looking at her.
“Yes, yes,” Vickey answered just as quickly. “I’m fine, I’m fine. Don’t worry.”
They walked towards a little square at the end of which – they knew this for certain – lay salvation, a turnstile that only let people out into the street beyond.
Vickey was still carrying her file of questionnaires, hugging it to her chest. She looked just like a student. It was only now that Alex noticed that Leon had his rucksack on over his back. A thought briefly occurred to Alex: “So, Leon didn’t forget to take everything that was in the safety deposit boxes.”
Vickey and Leon looked straight ahead, as if turning their heads was forbidden by law. Alex drove away the fears that were circling him. He drove out the shivers, he refused to feel sorry for himself, he refused to break down in tears, to run away, to cry out at the top of his voice, asking for the clock to be turned back to the first time he met that vile Greg, so that he could have taken a different turn on that day.
They reached the square. In strict accordance with Greg’s plan. That meant they were nearly done. A twenty-five second walk at a calm pace to the gates.
Alex took a look around. No one was running after them. Students were sitting on a few of the benches, but they weren’t paying them any attention. That meant that the shot wasn’t heard on the other side of the heavy doors to the bank. That meant they’d got lucky. Now they’d turn down a path and they’d see the gates, their salvation.
Alex carefully turned round and looked back. The doors to the bank were still shut. The plan had worked. The bluff had held up. The clients and bank staff were still lying on the floor, scared of making a move.
A fat woman came from the direction of the doors to the carpark that Greg and Max had just entered. She walked in the direction of the bank. She reached her arm out to the door. Alex’s heart froze. The woman was about to open the door, but then she seemed to have seen the sign saying “Service break” that Vickey had stuck up on it.
As they turned onto the pathway leading to the gates, Alex saw the fat woman shrugging her shoulders, turning round and walking away from the bank. “Greg was right,” thought Alex. “Through the toned glass of the bank’s windows and the adverts glued onto them you can’t see what’s going on inside the bank. So, everything’s going to be all right.”
“It’s all working out, guys. Everything will be fine,” said Alex. “Max will sort Greg out. He’s got a doctor in the city that owes him. Everything will be ok.”
He didn’t know why he was saying these words, but he felt that he had to say something in order to somehow cheer up the guys who were clearly growing despondent.
“In the dead zone, like we agreed, we’ll take off our disguises and change our clothing,” ordered Alex. “But then we’ll change the plan and go on together.”
Vickey nodded to him. According to the plan, he was to walk with Vickey to the florist’s and buy a bunch of flowers, acting as if they were lovers, and Leon was supposed to make his own way to Shoreditch. After what had happened, however, it made more sense for them to stick together, so that they could keep an eye on one another, so no one would do anything stupid and attract attention. Alex was worried about Leon most of all.
“Leon, give me the rucksack. The witnesses saw a fat guy with a rucksack,” said Alex.
Leon quickly took the rucksack off and gave it to Alex. Alex felt the heavy load in his hand. “That means Leon managed to open all the deposit boxes,” he thought.
They approached the turnstiles. On the right side, ahead of them, a long-haired guy entered the turnstile. He was pulling a small box on wheels for documents behind him. Having entered the turnstile he pushed on it with his hand so that it would turn with him inside, but he didn’t manage to get his heavy box in. The gates turned and got stuck. The guy, not noticing what had happened or why he’d got stuck in the gates, tried to push harder and resolve the problem with force.
Alex could feel his heart pounding right up to his Adam’s apple, hampering his breathing.
“Hey, you!” Leon started shouting, pointing the guy in the direction of his box which had got stuck.
Alex grabbed Leon by the arm.
“I’ll do it,” he said sharply.
When Alex got to the gates to help the guy with the box, out of the corner of his eye he noticed Vickey’s face, absolutely pale white. “I hope she holds up,” he thought.
“Your box has got stuck,” Alex shouted loudly to the guy and hurried over to the gates.
A few more people had come up to the gates in the meantime. Vickey felt like a huge crowd had gathered around her. She turned her head in Leon’s direction – he was standing there, rooted to the ground, staring at a single point in the distance.
Alex pulled the gate towards himself and pushed the box with its documents through.
“You can go through now,” he said to the long-haired guy and tried to smile.
“Oh!” the guy smiled in answer. “Thank you.” He picked up the box, pushed on the turnstile and passed through into the street.
“Guys!” Alex said loudly, looking at Vickey and Leon and reaching a hand in their direction.
Vickey pulled herself together and tugged at Leon’s sleeve as he stood on the spot, dawdling, not moving forward.
Alex let the students standing behind them pass and went up to Leon. The students went into the turnstile and out into the street.
“Leon!” Alex hissed in his ear. “Let’s go!” Then he turned to Vickey, “Go on!”
Vickey went through the turnstile and into the street. Alex, pushing Leon forward, reached the turnstile, pushed him in and followed him.
Finding themselves outside in the street, beyond the gates, Alex took in a deep breath of air as if he’d made a successful prison break. Vickey also cheered up. Only Leon was continuing to shiver with fright, only moving his legs with difficulty.
Trying to walk as fast as they could, but without running, they turned into a courtyard. This was the route that had been planned for Alex and Vickey, though there were three of them using it now.
In the corner of the yard was a small metal construction for garbage skips. Beyond that there was a small building, the local boiler house. The friends nipped into the space between the skips and the wall. All three of them took off their wigs. Alex and Leon ripped off their beards and moustaches. Alex took out a grey Nike sports bag that had been hidden in advance between the garbage skips, tipping the contents of Leon’s rucksack into it.
They took off their light coats and dumped them on the floor. In advance, they’d put tears in their jeans and then lightly stitched them up. In a few seconds they’d torn the cuts open again, and now they were standing in trendy, ripped jeans. They pulled strips of masking tape off their trainers, totally changing their appearance – now their footwear couldn’t be used to spot them. They stuffed their upper garments, wigs, the strips from their trainers and the emptied rucksack into a big Zara shopping bag and stuffed it deep down into one of the garbage skips. All of this took just thirty seconds. Repeated training had done its work. They were now unrecognizable.
In silence, they walked to a café. That took another four minutes, although to them it felt like an eternity.
A police car hurtled down a street that ran parallel to them.
“Just keep calm,” Alex said firmly. “Everything will be ok.”
Alex squeezed Vickey’s hand, never letting it go right up until they reached the café.
“Yes,” Leon said quietly.
Alex looked at Leon. He was starting to get a grip on himself, but still quivering all the same.
“Leon,” said Alex, “if they catch us because of your face being as white as a sheet I’ll throttle you…”
Leon looked at Alex pitifully and unexpectedly broke out into something that almost verged on a smile.
“That’s better,” said Alex. “We knew what we were getting into. What’s done is done. Now we have to get out of this sheet. Don’t speed up. We’re taking a calm stroll.”
Leon nodded. Alex looked at Vickey. She was behaving strictly in accordance with the plan. She wasn’t looking round, she was holding Alex’s hand, she wasn’t panicking.
“Come on, pull yourself together, fatty,” smiled Alex. “We’re going to buy you an apartment in Docklands.”
Leon unexpectedly beamed a smile.
Four minutes later they entered the cafe. They took a table right by the display case of cakes and ordered coffees and a slice of cake each.
There was no howling of police sirens, outside it was peaceful and calm. People walked past the café, cars drove down the street. “Greg planned everything well,” thought Alex. It was a quarter of a mile to the tube station from the café where they were sitting and eating French cakes. But the police would have sent their forces to the tube station. Because that would be the easiest place to get lost in a crowd. And nobody would be looking for a bag of disguises and clothing in a garbage skip. Greg really had thought everything through, down to the smallest detail.
Vickey and Leon were staring at their smartphones, looking at their Instagram and Facebook pages. After about ten minutes, Alex took out his mobile, opened a car service app and ordered an expensive Mercedes. Alex smiled to himself. An ideal plan. No one would think of stopping an expensive Merc. Bank robbers don’t make off in that kind of car.
“The car will arrive in six minutes,” popped up on the screen.
“How much?” Alex asked the girl at the till.
“Seventeen pounds fifty,” she answered. “Card or cash?”
“Cash,” Alex answered. Then he called out loudly to his friends, so that the waitress would hear: “Mom said if we’re not back in time for lunch she’ll give us a hiding.”
The waitress didn’t pay them any attention.
Alex looked at Vickey and Leon. Hot coffee and cake had clearly cheered them up. He really wanted to say something supportive, but Greg had strictly banned them from talking about the job anywhere public. Neither before, nor after the “main blow.”
The Mercedes took them to Shoreditch. As Greg had insisted, Alex had to pretend for the whole journey that he was talking to his mother on his mobile. He pretended that he was the son of rich parents.
“Yes, yes, Mom, we’ll eat at home … Yes, there’ll be three of us …. No, we’ll have to delay the trip to the Maldives by a week, Mary can’t go right now … Yes … All right, kisses … Do you want us to buy something on the way? Love you…”
They got out and went into a delicatessen and bought three bottles of Red Label and a big bottle of Coca-Cola. Greg had insisted that when Alex went through the entrance the bottles had to be clanking in the bag. “There are no details too minor in our business,” he’d said. “Nothing left to chance. If some old granny goes past you, she can go off thinking that you’re a loser wasting your life, but she mustn’t suspect a thing.”
When they entered Alex’s apartment and slammed the door behind them, Vickey hugged Alex, hanging off him. She began to cry. Vickey hugged him as if she was afraid, even for a moment, of losing him. She sobbed quietly. All of her resolve disappeared in that moment. She turned into herself, into a beautiful, weak girl who was desperately in love and afraid of losing what she cherished more than anything else.
Alex hugged Vickey, quietly calming her. He looked round to Leon, but didn’t immediately find him. Leon had slumped down against the wall onto the floor. He sat there, looking at the opposing wall in silence.
“That’s it,” thought Alex. “It’s all over. All of it.”