The Dark Place (15 page)

“A
nd you simply lost it?” asked Willie suspiciously, staring at Karl, who was desperately searching for an inconspicuous parking space. “How could you simply lose a gun?”

“Simple. I simply lost it. I’m a simple person,” stated Karl, bringing the car to an abrupt halt outside a closed café.
Oh, I lost it in an old church while having a yarn with Jesus, and a woman was possibly murdered with it.

“Well, I’m not getting you another one, if that’s the cavalier attitude you have.”

“Look, you’re right, Willie. I should have been more careful. I’ll make it up to you, somehow.”

“Just hope it’s not one of your notorious horse tips,” replied Willie huffily.

“I’ll think of something nice, for Isabel. Okay? Now, come on. We’ve got to get moving before it gets bright.”

A waxy moon resting its chin on the scabby rooftops cast an eerie shadow over husks of buildings, as Karl and Willie entered the area. Jaundiced streetlights spilled long shadows. The echoing street, the handbills blowing by and the absence of any sign of life – not even the ghostly reflection of an onlooker in the dodgy nightclub near the end of
the street – all managed to convey a strong sense of abandonment and loss. Only the large distribution centre for Royal Mail held a semblance of activity.

“The street’s not exactly buzzing, is it?” said Willie, more to himself than Karl.

“It’s almost three in the morning. What else would you expect?” offered Karl, suddenly pointing at a battered-looking building. “That’s our place.”

“Looks like it’s ready to collapse.”

“Don’t jinx us.”

“And you don’t know what’s inside, what the building’s being used for?”

“Nope. Not an iota. Only that Mister Bob Hannah has been seen frequently emerging from it. Could be a warehouse or storage area, even his home.”

Karl’s immediate impression of the building reinforced the casual wariness he felt along the narrow, bare-bone street flanked by skeletal remains of derelict shops and offices. Beyond the measurement of night, the ugly-looking building had the intimidating structure of a large concrete phoenix ripping through the ground, reinforced with iron-barred windows and daunting metal doors. Only the mansard roof gave some semblance of shape. A coagulated growth of corrosion had collected on the building’s drainage, overlapping down the side, as if haemorrhaging rusty blood in tiger stripes.

“C’mon. Let’s head to the back of the building, see if we can find a way in,” said Karl. “The front is too exposed.”

The lack of proper lighting added caution to the greyness of the night, making it difficult for Karl and Willie to manoeuvre casually, forcing them to stumble constantly over discarded wood and old bricks from a nearby building site.

“Careful you don’t break your bloody neck on all this crap,” advised Karl.

“So dark. Are you sure your friend got the address right?” said Willie, tripping over a piece of protruding timber.

“Yes,” assured Karl, anything but assured.

On the waste ground, a child’s discarded bike was balled into a metal fist and formed parts of a gluey, catarrhal bondage of dried muck and powdery, cemented dust. Numerous other pieces of junk, mostly old furniture and plastic crates, were strewn haphazardly in a heap. Empty booze bottles and used condoms were everywhere, mixing with sticky, water-damaged pages from porn magazines. Black-painted zodiac and hex signs scarred every available wall, mingling with badly spelt words praising Satan and all things dark. Corpses of dead rats, flattened and bloodied by breezeblocks, resembled strawberry pancakes. But it was a gutted lifelike sawdust doll, its damp intestines vomited on the ground, that gave Karl the shits. Its weird eyes seemed to be daring him. They were godless and disconcerting.

“Nice area. The kind of place that gives Willie the willies in his willie,” whispered Willie, clutching a tiny leather bag to his chest like a talisman. “Tomb Street. You can’t make these things up. Wasn’t there a graveyard or something like that here at one time, years ago?”

“No, it’s because by the time the mail gets delivered to your door, you’re a long time dead,” replied Karl, omitting that he believed the graveyard was actually beneath their feet.

“Is that a dead chicken, over there beside that weird doll? It
is
a dead chicken, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know if it’s dead or not, only that there won’t be any more eggs popping out of its arse any time soon. Anyway, it’s probably just the antics of bored kids with nothing better to do,” claimed Karl, trying to sound calm and casual. “It makes them seem dangerous and daring.”

“When I was a kid, rapping someone’s door and running like hell was considered dangerous and daring,” mumbled Willie, suddenly coming to an abrupt halt at the back door, extracting a miniature torchlight from his pocket. A few seconds later the tiny beam of yellow focused in on its intended target: a large brass locking system on an impressive,
graffiti-scarred
iron door.

“Well?” asked Karl, impatiently. “Can you do it?”

Willie shook his head. “It’s a mother-in-law bastard of a lock. A Claymore DX with Scandinavian oval cylinders.”

“For fuck sake.” Even the name impressed Karl, sounding like the
tag for a machine-gun.

“These things take security to the next echelon, offering the highest possible level of protection against unlawful key duplication,” praised Willie. “This bastard differs from a normal lock, in that it has at least one thousand key indents, an anti-drill plate
and
anti-saw rollers in the bolt. Not forgetting a security curtain and anti-pick defences.”

“An awful lot of anti in there, Willie. Why am I not hearing too many uncles?”

“This lock is almost impossible to pick and the bull’s balls to drill. It’s a virtual Fort Knox.”

“That’s that, then? You’re more or less telling me that our short excursion in the night is over?” Already Karl was running his eyes over the building, trying to gauge any possible weaknesses that could be exploited to help facilitate access. A last resort would be trying the front. He dreaded the thought of it, the unnecessary exposure it would bring.

“I said
almost
impossible to pick. Hold this flashlight. We’re not leaving here without a fight,” insisted Willie, rummaging through his bag, removing a family of tools and a device shaped like a tiny horseshoe. “I designed this little by-pass tool a few years ago. Cross your fingers that it works.”

“I’ll cross my toes and legs as well if it helps to –”

Suddenly, Karl felt the hairs on the back of his neck beginning to tingle in a bad way. A
very
bad way. His haemorrhoids began aching. Glancing slowly over his right shoulder, he watched the lone vehicle cruising towards them at snail’s pace, its lights dimmed suspiciously.

Oh fuck. A squad car
. He wondered if Willie had spotted it; wondered how to alert him without causing panic. He quickly turned the flashlight off, plunging everything into darkness.

“What the hell are you –” Willie managed to say, before Karl’s hand clasped his mouth.

“
Cops
,” whispered Karl, his stomach doing tiny somersaults as he removed his hand from Willie’s mouth.

“Some sneaky bastard must have seen us,” muttered Willie sneakily.

The menacing-looking car came silently to an abrupt halt, its dimmed
lights extinguishing completely. It sat there in the dark like a block of distorted plastic.

“What the hell are they up to?” whispered Karl.

“Calling reinforcements, no doubt.”

Seconds turned to minutes before the car’s door opened. A cop stepped out.

From the advantage of diluted light, Karl could see the
bloated-nosed
cop devouring a sandwich in such a way that it looked like he was playing a harmonica.

“He’s staring straight at us,” insisted Willie, practically reading Karl’s mind.

“Keep quiet, for fuck sake. He’s walking in our direction.”

Thoughts began rushing Karl as the cop neared:
If he’s on his own, we could make a run for it, across the waste ground. By the time he manoeuvres that squad car, we could create a good distance between us. How is Willie’s ticker? Could he manage to sprint across all that rubble without collapsing in a heap? Get serious. You’d be attending his funeral on Friday. Explain that to Isabel.

The cop stopped a few feet away, wiping his hands on the sandwich’s wrapper before tossing it on the ground. Suddenly, he seemed to freeze, his head tilting back slightly as if a pungent stench had attacked his nostrils.

He is staring directly at us,
thought Karl, shoulders tightening with crosshair tension. A rush of unpleasant heat began foresting up through his face. His mouth went completely dry. He couldn’t swallow.

The cop made a movement, his right hand reaching for the
obscene-looking
gun on his hips. Seconds later, the sharp sound of a zip could be heard, and then something like a drizzle followed by a more confident burst. The piss hissed and steamed on dead leaves. A loud fart sounded, followed by a sigh of relief. The cop re-zipped his zipper and then turned before quickly walking back towards the squad car, farting twice more in the emptiness of the night.

“Disgusting bastard,” whispered Willie. “If that had been me taking my truncheon out, pissing and farting in public, I’d have been arrested by the same dirty bastard. Bet he doesn’t even wash his hands.”

“Look on the bright side, Willie.”

“What would that be?

“Farting and pissing at the same time. Despite all the criticism directed at them, cops can multi-task, after all.”

The car’s headlights abruptly came on, chalking the waste ground with a half-moon wash before slinking away, just as slowly and menacingly as it had arrived.

Karl suddenly realised that for the last few minutes he had been holding his breath like a child passing a graveyard late at night. His heart hadn’t stopped thumping in his skull.
What the hell are you doing here, you big fucking eejit, getting Willie and yourself into all sorts of shit? If stupidity ever becomes a currency, you’ll end up becoming a fucking millionaire
.

“Tea break over,” said Willie, returning to his work in progress. “Hold that light.”

Five minutes turned to ten, but in Karl’s head it felt like hours. On the brink of surrender and searching for an alternative, two beautiful words suddenly brought redemption to Karl’s bones.

“Got it!” exclaimed Willie, easing the door open while nesting his by-pass tool triumphantly in the fat of his palm. “God, if I could legally patent this wee number, I’d make a fortune.”

“You really
can
open doors others can’t, you old rascal,” praised Karl, standing in the shadows, unmoving.

“C’mon. What are you waiting for? We’ve got to close this door quickly.”

“You’ve done enough, Willie. I’ll take it from here. No need to get involved any further.”

“What? You invite me to the party, force me to do all the hard work, and now you’re trying to prevent me seeing the fruits of my labour? Somehow, I don’t think so. Are you coming or not?”

Defeated, Karl shrugged his shoulders. “I guess we better get in before Officer O’Leaky returns with another full bladder.”

Inside, the building’s interior was heavily dark, funerary, like the lining of a painted jar. From his bag, Willie removed another torchlight – heavy-duty, this time – and began scanning its yellow circular beam over the entire area, bringing instant revelations.

“My God,” awed Willie. “It’s … it’s a movie house.”

Karl remained speechless, luxuriating in what the yellow beam revealed.

The movie theatre was decorated in a congregation of cardinal colours, inspired by ecclesiastical raiment: crimson, royal blue, amethyst, gold and silver. Large doors of mahogany and brass were lavishly decorated with sculptures and murals depicting various actors from the silent movies era. Framed original posters took pride of place. Classics such as F.W. Murnau’s
Phantom
, Joe May’s
Asphalt
, Clarence Brown’s
Flesh and the Devil
and G.W. Pabst’s
Die Freudlose Gasse
mingled with the controversial: Richard Oswald’s
Different From the Others;
Carl Theodor Dreyer’s
Michael
and William Dieterle’s
Sex in Chains
.

A separate poster of acclaimed Belfast actor Stephen Boyd, racing Charlton Heston in the famous chariot scene in
Ben Hur
, held pride of place in a separate alcove.

“Boyd used to work in this street when he was growing up, strangely enough,” supplied Karl, taking the heavy-duty torchlight from Willie. “From Tomb Street to Easy Street. Some jump, eh?”

“Doesn’t this place take you back to Saturday afternoons, slapping the arse off yourself after watching a cowboy movie?” smiled Willie.

“Not the fleapit I went to in Duncairn Gardens, known lovingly as the Donkey,” said Karl, a sharp ache of recognition in his gut, of a kind of innocence somehow irretrievably lost; of a distant memory suddenly recaptured with subtle elegiac quality. “This is almost like the Moulin Rouge.”

The seating arrangement was similarly elaborate and lush, with a sweeping crescent of a balcony directly overhead. But it was what occupied each second seat that sent a quick shudder up Karl’s spine: bizarrely lifelike mannequins decked out in the appropriate dress code of an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, staring frozen-eyed at the silent screen directly ahead.

“All we need is Mrs Fazackalee lovingly playing her piano accompaniment to a silent film,” smiled Willie.

“Who?”

“The old lady played by Margaret Rutherford in that classic Peter Sellers film,
The Smallest Show on Earth
.”

“C’mon. Let’s head over to the stairs,” said Karl, suddenly realising that time was slipping away. “That looks like an office of some sort, near the top.”