Rat Runners (12 page)

She cast her eyes around, deciding this was a safe enough place to talk.

“I was talking to Brundle’s neighbors, digging up some information. You have a problem with that?”

“Move-Easy put me in charge. I don’t like it any more than you do—I prefer to work on my own—but that’s the way it is. I told you all to stay put.” He waved at her changed appearance, at the street around them. “This isn’t staying put.”

“Wow. Do you get paid extra for stating the obvious? No, I didn’t stay put. I’m getting on with the job. If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to get it done before my bloody hair turns gray. Move-Easy didn’t hire us to wait around.”

Nimmo stared hard at her. He dug his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a gray plastic disc smaller than a penny.

“Know what this is?”

She looked at it.

“It’s a bug. A microphone and transmitter. Short range, I’d say,” she replied.

“It’s a
WatchWorld
bug,” Nimmo muttered sternly. “I ran into a guy in Veronica’s apartment. I surprised him before he could get started, wrapped him up, but he was loaded with kit like this. Probably meant to put them in her clothes, shoes, her phone, everything. This is heavy-duty stuff—you can’t get this kind of kit in the underground, not that I’ve ever seen. I got a phone off him too, but it’s locked, so it’s not giving me anything. If the bill are monitoring Veronica, and they have a Safe-Guard hovering outside Brundle’s building, d’you think they might have eyeballs or ears on his neighbors?”

Manikin felt a tightness in her chest. What if they did? She’d walked right in there. Having got through several years of dodging the police, she might have planted herself right in their sights. They could have her face, her voice. She had been careful not to leave her fingerprints in the place, but it was very hard not to leave DNA without covering yourself from head to toe …

“I … I was just trying to—” she began.

“I know what you were trying to do,” he cut her off. “The same thing I was. And to be honest, I got lucky. I got in before they did. But the less we’re poking around without knowing the score, the better. And I don’t think I left any traces. What about you?”

“No—at least, I don’t think so,” she sighed. “But it’s a bloody murder case. If they’re looking hard enough …”

“It’s not a murder case,” Nimmo said, shaking his head. “They reckon Brundle’s death was accidental. Or they’re not treating it as suspicious, at least.”

Manikin felt a lift of relief. No crime meant it was less likely that there were cops hanging around. She hoped.

“How do you know that?”

“Friends in low places. Come on, let’s get back to your place—figure out what to do next.”

Manikin was about to nod in agreement when she frowned. “Hang on. What are
you
doing here?”

“Trying to get a view of our competition. Didn’t see anybody I’d connect with the guy I met in Veronica’s place, but I made two of Move-Easy’s drones and two I’ve seen before but don’t know: a guy with a bottle-bleach-job in a leather jacket at the bus stop and a redhead with a face like someone suckin’ a lemon.”

“Punkin and Bunny, yeah.” Manikin sniffed. “I don’t know what they’re doing here, but they’re not serious players.”

“Too small-time for the competition?”

“Time doesn’t get much smaller. But I’d steer clear of them. They’re just big enough to trip up everyone around them. See anything that might actually be
useful
?”

“I saw you. I stopped lookin’ around then.”

“What, did I distract you?” she asked with the hint of a smile.

“I just thought you looked familiar, and I don’t know any Environmental Health Officers. So … what is ‘FX syndrome’ anyway?”

Manikin turned to stare at him, a look of thinly disguised fascination on her face.

“Who the hell are you?”

“I was just thinkin’ the same thing,” Punkin asked from behind them. They turned to find him standing at the corner, his face raised slightly, his eyes holding them with a suspicious gaze. Bunny was behind and to one side of him, resting her chin on his shoulder.

“You,” he said, nodding towards Manikin, “you, I know from somewhere, I just can’t place your face. And you”—he looked at Nimmo—“I don’t know who you are, but I’ve seen you in one of the Voids. Tubby Reach’s, maybe? You’re a player. And here you are, hanging around the edges of a big game. And this trollop was right in there, pokin’ her nose around, if I’m any judge. What you doing here?”

“Minding our own business,” Nimmo retorted. “You should try it.”

“Look at ’em, Punkin,” Bunny said in a whisper that everyone could hear. “They’re up to summink, I can feel it. They
know
summink. Nobody else has seen ’em yet. They’re
ours
.
This is good.”

Punkin nodded. He pointed towards a narrow alleyway that led off the side street they were standing in.

“OK, you two. Step into my office—we got some questions for you. Answer up quick and it’ll be easier all around.”

“Who are you?” Manikin asked, putting on an anxious expression, and gripping her console tightly to her. “Why would we walk into some alleyway just ’cos you say so? What’s going on here?”

Punkin sighed and held up his right hand. He twisted the silver ring on his thumb and from the back of his hand an eighteen-centimeter blade slid out of a sheath implanted beneath the skin of his forearm.

“Like Wolverine’s,” he said with a twisted grin. “Like it?”

“Wolverine has
three
blades,” Nimmo pointed out. “On each hand.”

“I could only afford the one,” Punkin snapped, looking somewhat hurt and defensive. “I’m savin’ up for the rest. Now that I’m workin’ for Mister Easy, I’ll have ’em in no time. This is high-end kit—slides right in along the bone so it’s hard to see on x-ray. It’s sharp enough to shave with.”

“That’ll be well handy … once you’re old enough to shave,” Manikin observed. Then, determined to stay in character, she added: “Who’s Mister Easy?”

“Into the alley,” Punkin growled. “We can be polite, or we can get nasty. It’s up to you.”

Bunny’s hair was pinned up in a loose bun, and she reached up to draw the two pins out and shake her hair loose. Each steel pin was nearly sixteen centimeters long. The way she held them made it clear she knew how to use them as weapons.

“What did you think of Chelsea on Saturday?” Manikin asked quickly.

“What?” Punkin scowled.

Manikin looked pointedly past him, towards the main road at the end of the street. He glanced back and saw the Safe-Guard walking slowly past on the far side of the main road. Bunny gave a soft gasp.

“Don’t fancy their chances in the semi-final, with their form,” Nimmo commented.

With its highly sensitive mikes, the Safe-Guard could hear what they were saying, but it wasn’t looking their way … yet.

“You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” Punkin said, hurriedly holding his knife down against his leg. “Chelsea are going all the way. They’ll take the Champions League this year.”

“In your dreams!” Manikin scoffed. “That bunch of hairdressers haven’t got a straight foot between them. They were lucky against Spurs—they’d have been trounced by a full-strength side.”

“You a Spurs fan?”

“Arsenal, till the day I die.”

“Poor choice of words,” Punkin sneered, casting his eyes back to check that the peeper had carried on down the street. He raised his knife again. “All right. Down the alley, and let’s have a chat. I want to know what you’re doin’ here. And if we’re not happy with the answers, Bunny here’s gonna start givin’ you the needle, you get me?”

Bunny brandished her stiletto-like pins with a disturbingly eager expression. Nimmo’s eyes met Manikin’s, and a silent signal of agreement passed between them.

“I’m done waitin’,” Punkin said through gritted teeth.

Nimmo shook his head and turned into the alley. Manikin followed. Punkin and Bunny followed them. They followed too closely.

Nimmo stopped abruptly. Punkin put his left hand on Nimmo’s shoulder and brandished the knife, to remind him of the threat. Nimmo scraped his foot down Punkin’s left shin, slamming it down onto the top of the Punkin’s foot. He deflected the knife strike he knew was coming, caught the hand and bent the wrist in hard against the forearm, forcing a cry of pain out of Punkin. Then he drove Punkin’s blade into the wooden door beside him. Punkin tried to pull it free, but it was stuck. With the heel of his right hand, Nimmo struck Punkin on the elbow to jam the blade in a bit more, then a couple of times in the ribs, knocking the wind out of him.

Bunny let out a squeal of outrage, turning on Nimmo with the steel spikes. Manikin pulled a plastic and steel rod from the edge of her console and jammed the tip of it into Bunny’s side. There was a crackle, Bunny’s body went rigid, and then she collapsed back against the wall, dropping the pins.

“What was that?” Nimmo asked, as he pushed Punkin back into the same wall.

“One of my brother’s little numbers,” Manikin said, holding it up. “A shock-stick—gives you an electric jolt. You only get a few shots, but it’s not bad for what it is.” She looked down at Bunny. “Handy for prodding cattle too.”

He was about to respond when she put a finger to her lips, slipped the rod back into place in her console, and sat down beside Bunny. She straightened Bunny’s head up, and held up her console as if to show the stunned girl something on the screen. Nimmo glanced towards the main road and saw the Safe-Guard was walking past on the far side of the street. It was looking straight ahead, but if it turned, it could see right down into the alley. Punkin still had his blade jammed in the door, and Nimmo leaned back against the wall beside him to make it less obvious, blocking Punkin’s contorted face from view. Putting Punkin’s other wrist in a painful arm lock, he aimed his own gaze at Manikin’s console, pretending to show Punkin what was on the screen—just four friends discussing a picture or a piece of video. As the peeper passed by, it looked briefly in their direction, but then carried on down the road.

“Time to go,” Nimmo said softly.

“Bloody right,” Manikin murmured.

Standing up, she faced Punkin, who was still struggling to get his breath back.

“These two reesed us the other day. It was his left foot you stood on, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Nimmo said, as he released the wristlock that held Punkin in place.

Punkin squealed in pain as Manikin stamped on his right foot with her low, but sharp, heel.

“That’s for packing guns on a job, you monkey,” she snapped, knowing Easy was watching through the camera hidden in Punkin’s eyebrow piercing. “And for the caterpillar. You reesed the wrong chickens, wide-boy. This is the second time you’ve crossed me. Try it a third time and I’ll feed you your
eyeballs
,
you got me, you wazzock?”

Turning to Nimmo, she straightened her jacket and patted her hair down.

“Now,” she said. “Shall we?”

WHEN MANIKIN AND Nimmo got back to the warehouse on Brill Alley, they found Scope vacuuming the floor under the desks of the Hide, and FX making cries of protest.

“Stop!” he shouted over the noise of the vacuum cleaner. “There could be important stuff down there!”

“Then why would it be
lying around on the
floor
?” Scope sniped back, as she pushed the head of the nozzle in among the mass of wires and plug sockets.

“That’s just where stuff falls sometimes. Normally there’s no rush picking it up—it’s not going anywhere!”

“This place is a like a cattle shed! How can you live like this?”

“You’re talking about my home!”

“I’m talking about a bloody health hazard!”

“Will you please
stop cleaning up
!”

Manikin walked into the room, took one look around, and walked back out again. Nimmo hovered for a little longer, waiting to catch Scope’s eye. But she was too engrossed in her domestic mission. He blew his cheeks out and pulled his bag from his back. Looking at one of the printers, he saw that FX had printed out Move-Easy’s files on Veronica. Picking them up, he turned his back on the drama and followed Manikin towards the kitchen. She already had the kettle on. He dropped his bag beside the door, where he could keep his eyes on it.

“FX’ll need coffee after that trauma,” she quipped. “But then, he always needs coffee.”

“He seems a bit put out all right,” Nimmo commented, studying the files. “Scope’s a little OC—but it kind of comes with her job. Nothing here about what Brundle was working on. I didn’t find anything in the apartment either. If Veronica was involved in any way, I didn’t find any sign of it.”

“And I presume you didn’t find the case?”

“Hmm?” Nimmo looked up at her.

“The case? The box we’re supposed to be looking for?” Manikin pressed him, as she spooned coffee into two mugs, then remembered her visitors, and added another two mugs. “You didn’t find the case, I take it? You seem to be really interested in Brundle and his work and what happened to him. But it’s a pretty simple job we’ve got here—find the case, and get paid. We don’t need to know what Brundle worked on, or who killed him. We just have to find that box. You want coffee?”