The Barbershop Seven (249 page)

'Come on then,' she said, 'you serial killing super-genius. Spit it out, Margie Crane. Fucking Sweetlips,' Monk added with scorn.

'Fuck you,' said Sweetlips, then she looked around the room. On the point of spilling the beans, and Simon recognised it. Middlesex had no idea what was going on; Garfunkel was desperately praying to someone who just so happened to be sitting three yards away from him; Bethlehem was still confused, trying to come to terms with just how much he'd been fooled. That and the fact that he'd been sleeping with Margie Crane for six months and he'd always thought she was a dog. Barney was watching Simon, knew what was coming.

'You keep your mouth shut!' barked Simon.

'Fuck you 'n' all,' said Sweetlips. 'I'll say what I damn well please.'

Whatever else happened, Simon knew that he couldn't let Sweetlips spill the beans. If he had to sacrifice himself for others, then so be it.

Papers down in front of him and suddenly he was leaping hugely across the table, surprising agility in the man given his height, but then he was ex-RAF.

Suddenly the room was all movement, as Monk rushed towards the warring parties. Too slowly. Simon was on Sweetlips in the blinking of an eye, but Harlequin Sweetlips was not slow.

Knife out and up, so that as Simon descended upon her, he was to fall hideously onto her blade. She stepped to the side, and let him crash unhindered to the ground. Withdrew the blade, then brought it down into his back, as Monk came upon her seconds too late.

Sweetlips whipped the knife from Simon's back, then pirouetted out of the way, as Monk crashed down onto the floor beside the stricken body. Sweetlips was beside her, perfectly positioned for the kill, but she wasn't interested in Monk, not yet at any rate.

Middlesex had stood up and backed off, Garfunkel beside him. Sweetlips was flowing round the room, her movement balletic.

God was watching, now more or less disgusted with what His finest creation was stooping to. Bergerac was eating popcorn. Barney Thomson had leapt to Monk's side, only concerned with her and none of the others. Most of them seemed to be getting what was coming to them.

Middlesex showed fear. Garfunkel showed abject terror. Sweetlips swung the blade, a beautiful flowing movement, slit Middlesex's throat, and the man would never lie again. She grabbed him by the head, swung his limp body round just before it collapsed, and thrust it at Monk as she leapt up off the floor.

Monk was knocked to the side, giving Sweetlips enough time to karate kick Garfunkel in the chest, stab him in the eyeball as he fell back, and then safely pirouette to the corner of the room, where she turned to face the rest of the assembled company.

Her breath was coming in short, excited gasps. Her hair was dishevelled, her make-up smudged. But the look on her face was one of triumph.

She knew not the explanation for the presence of God and Bergerac, but she knew that they would not interfere. It was just the police officer, Thomas Bethlehem, the object of her hatred, and the continuing chimera that was the mysterious Barney Thomson.

'Sweetlips!' said Monk, moving towards her. 'You're under arrest. Hand over the knife. Now!'

'Settle down ... ' muttered Barney. 'She's not handing anything over.'

'Fuck you,' said Sweetlips, 'and your dog.'

They watched her closely, the three of them, Monk, Barney and Bethlehem, thinking much the same as all those who'd died at BF&C. She might be a killer but she's not getting me.

––––––––

'Y
ou,' said Sweetlips, pointing the knife at Monk, 'are fucking dead.' She then turned it on Bethlehem, who had swivelled in his seat to better take in the action, now that she was behind him. 'You are so fucking dead it's not true. And you,' she concluded, looking at Barney, 'I don't want to kill you but you've got it coming. How could you betray me like that?'

Barney did a
look at yourself in the mirror
kind of thing, and she scowled in return.

She glanced at Bergerac and God, still unsure of what to make of them. God looked tired and fed up, His head resting in the palm of His hand. Bergerac was slurping noisily from a large cup of Pepsi Max.

'Jesus,' said Monk. 'You know, I don't think I even want to listen to your
why I did it
speech. You're such a fruitcake.'

'You're first,' said Sweetlips.

'It's not like I care,' said Bethlehem, 'but how did you manage to get all the lads in the firm to go out with you?'

'That's getting into dangerous, why I did it, Scooby Doo-type territory,' said Monk, which was a good point.

Sweetlips laughed, a bit of a cackle. She was getting less cool with every second.

'Your lovely band of hired hands were all working for me. All of them. They knew I was plotting to overthrow you, and I conspired with each and every one of them individually. They all thought they were going to get their name on the front door. Pathetic.'

'Yet, it was me you hated,' said Bethlehem, smugly, 'and I'm still in charge of the company. You always were a screw-up, Marge.'

'I've killed your people!' she screamed.

'I don't care,' said Bethlehem slowly. 'Really, I don't give a shit. Go back to London and kill some more of them. I'll give you their addresses if you like.'

'So,' said Monk, 'Middlesex hired you to market some Anglican thing, and we all know that any change in the church is going to have a lot of people pissing in their pants.'

'Exactly,' said Bethlehem, before Sweetlips could get in with any of her wild cackling. 'There was all sorts of weird religious shit going on, that I didn't really get involved in. This guy,' he added, waving a slightly offended finger at Middlesex's corpse, 'was always talking about judgement day and the end of days, and all that stuff. The end is nigh, for goodness sake. He thought that Christianity should present a united face at the time of their final judgement, wanted to reunite with Rome.'

'As if that would help,' said God bitterly.

Monk turned and looked at God. She recognised Him from somewhere.

'And you,' she said, turning back to Sweetlips, 'were working with Bethlehem, but at the same time you were hired by this other party to spike the deal. So you started committing murder, didn't matter who, but it suited you for it to be at Bethlehem's firm. The plan was that you'd work with Simon to implicate Middlesex as a murderer, so that ultimately this breakaway thing he was doing would fail.'

Sweetlips smiled, but now the smile seemed more psychotic than sweet. Harlequin Psycholips.

'Well, aren't you just the right little Inspector Fucking Morse?'

'Why didn't you just kill Middlesex in the first place?' said Bethlehem.

'That would've made him a martyr. The plan was to ruin him, turn him into a murdering scumbag, to crush his ideals at the same time as crushing him.'

'Whose plan was it?' asked Bethlehem. 'To scupper the deal?'

Sweetlips laughed. 'The queue was this long,' she said. 'No one likes that amount of messing with the establishment.'

Suddenly there was a loud sucking noise as Bergerac drained the bottom of her giant cup. Everyone turned.

'What?' she said. 'Don't mind me. This is like watching the last five minutes of Miss Marple.'

'And Jesus,' said Bethlehem, 'who are you going to turn out to be?'

'Well, I'm not Jesus ... ' said Bergerac.

'Ain't that the truth,' said God glibly, cutting in.

'And where did you get the popcorn and medium diet drink?'

Attention distracted, Sweetlips saw her chance. His head turned from her, Bethlehem was a sitting duck. Despite knowing it was inevitable, Monk still did not see it coming, as Sweetlips suddenly took the ultimate revenge she had been plotting for years, the revenge which she had put herself through so much to be able to enact.

In a flurry of arms and legs she was on top of Bethlehem, wielding the knife with vicious strokes, scything side to side, flailing wildly, composure gone with the hedonistic act of ultimate retribution. Bethlehem yielded to her fury, his head an instant spurting mass of blood. Monk lunged across the room at Sweetlips, forcing her from him, throwing her to the floor. As she did so, the body of Bethlehem toppled off the seat, a slow, beautifully silent movement, until his bloody head smacked dully off the table and he crumpled horribly onto the floor.

Immediately Sweetlips was on her feet, her clothes covered in Bethlehem's blood. Finally called into action, Barney leapt over the table to protect Monk, lest she be next in line; Monk struggled to her feet, breathing hard, poised for the fight. Sweetlips backed off, so that she was standing by the door, a few yards between her and each of her combatants.

A few seconds while they all assessed the situation. Four down, two to go. Sweetlips covered in blood, a wild and crazy woman, capable of anything. Monk wanting to bring her down. Barney, once more in the midst of carnage and mayhem, yet suddenly he could see the Clyde stretching dull and grey before him as he stood at the window of his small barbershop, watching the gulls. And he relaxed, which was probably stupid given the situation, but he knew that was where he was going next. Not that far from where they now were, but a million miles away from the Harlequin Sweetlips and the Thomas Bethlehems and the Jude Orwells of this life.

'Put the knife down,' said Barney.

Sweetlips, breath coming hard through wild nostrils and lips that were no longer sweet, stared at him with a crazy smile. There was no way she was leaving this room in the company of anyone. From the off she had intended being the only one to walk out alive, and the fact that there were two strange guests that she wouldn't be dealing with had not changed her conviction.

'Do what he says,' said Daniella Monk. 'Put the knife down, and we can talk about this.'

All right, thought Monk, as Sweetlips burst into a really annoying cackle, that was a pretty stupid thing to say. When there's blood everywhere and a still-pumped lunatic with a blade, you don't talk about it. At least, the still-pumped lunatic with the blade doesn't talk about it.

'You're next, sweetlips,' said Sweetlips, looking, as she said it, at Monk's lips, and thinking that, right enough, her lips were sweet. Then she looked sideways at Barney, who had taken a step or two towards her. 'Don't even think about it, Barn,' she said. 'It could be just you and me, you know. I've spared you so far. We could rule the world!'

Barney gave her a what-the-fuck-are-you-talking-about look.

'How are you going to do that?' he asked. 'You going to murder everyone on the planet so that it's only the two of us left?'

'Don't, Barney!' she shouted at him.

'Well,' he said, 'that's like the stupidest thing I've ever heard any of you muppets say. Put the knife down and stop talking pish.'

That's the way to do it. Make 'em feel small, that'll sort 'em out.

She finally cracked, the smooth and elegant and graceful Harlequin Sweetlips having completely given way to the out-of-control monster, and with it, having given away her advantage. She charged at Barney, anger-driven, forgetting everything that had so far allowed her to dominate men, to kill them even when they threatened to fight back.

Barney braced himself. Sweetlips lunged towards him, knife raised. Then with a sudden whack from the side, Sweetlips was reeling and Monk had knocked the knife from her hand. Sweetlips fell towards Barney and he did not hesitate in thumping her firmly in the face, a beautiful closed-fist punch that knocked her head back, as she fell to the ground. Face bloodied, Sweetlips spun away from them. Monk charged. Sweetlips was barely on her feet, then Monk was on top of her again, punching viciously at her head and throat. Sweetlips swung back, but she was on the defensive.

Barney leapt across the room, lifted the knife. Knew what needed to be done. There were no half measures with someone like Harlequin Sweetlips.

Monk planted a superb head-butt, middle of the face. Sweetlips' head jerked back, smacked off the floor. Monk grabbed her by the collar, setting her up for another forehead to the nose. But Sweetlips was too good for that, too good to have her arms allowed free. With massive force, she brought her hands up from the floor, the hard edges of her fists hitting either side of Monk's neck. Monk cried out, hands automatically going to the weakened area. Sweetlips pushed up, lifting Monk off her, and then reciprocated the head butt, a fabulous blow to the nose, splitting Monk's face apart, blood instantly leaping from the open wound.

Monk fell back, two blows and almost defeated; Sweetlips jumped on top of her, hands reaching for the neck. Harlequin Sweetlips could snap a neck in two seconds; trained by the appropriate Americans.

Then, as her hands found their way round the defenceless, bruised neck of Daniella Monk, Sweetlips jerked upwards, her grip turning limp, as her own knife was thrust powerfully into the top of her spine. She spun round as the knife was removed, so that when Barney thrust down with the follow-up jab, it was into her neck. Sweetlips, her eyes locked on Barney Thomson, the man whom she had spared and who had finally stabbed her in the back right enough, fell away, and slumped down dead onto the floor.

Barney stood over her, breathing hard, eyes cold, his heart strangely calm. Made sure she was dead, lolled her head from side to side with his foot. Bent down, checked for breath, which he knew was not going to be there. Yet he felt that Sweetlips was a woman of that quality. You might never be sure.

He contemplated another thrust of the knife, decided against. The woman was dead. He looked at Monk, who had sat up, blood and tissue spread across her face, one hand on her nose, the other at her neck. She looked down at Sweetlips, stricken at last.

'That went about as well as could be expected,' said Barney, and Daniella Monk gurgled a painful laugh through the blood.

The sound of the hand clap was slow and quiet and filled with derision. They turned quickly, expecting to see the laughing face of Bergerac.

There was no one there. Bergerac was gone. The man whose name they had never learned was also gone. Barney and Monk were alone with five dead bodies, and all that remained was an air of malice and of unfinished business.