DEATHLOOP (7 page)

He leant on the broken sink and gazed at his reflection in a cracked mirror, then he ran a tap, splashed a little water on his face, and flicked it off, no such thing as paper towels here - you were lucky to get toilet paper, but when he looked back, his eye caught a flicker of movement behind him. Zack swung round, alarmed, fear making him breathless, but there was no one, he was still alone.

As the door of the gents closed behind him, Zack turned off to the left. He had never gone this way before, the staircase back up to the club was the other way. He turned into another corridor, and another. The walls were painted uniformly red, and all the doors and their frames were painted with the same emulsion, as if to make doubly sure they didn’t open. Zack found himself wondering what lay behind them. After he had turned three corners he stopped. A very long corridor stretched out in front of him, exactly the same as the others, but unlike the others this one was not empty. Right at its end, propped up against the wall, a stout middle aged man sat on the floor, his legs splayed out wide, making him look like a toy left out of its box.

When Zack came to rest in front of the man, in an instant, he froze, his breathing suspended and like a butterfly pinned to a board all he could do was stare down at this puffy Buddha, grotesque and bloated in his helplessness. The man’s lips were pulled back, a spider of dark blood crawling out between them, his eyes like pure white marbles nestling loosely in his baggy sockets.

“Zachariah… you’re here, I knew you’d come. Help me.”

Despite the deadlock the man’s grin broadened momentarily and his face lit up like the target of a search light. Then, as though in response to a far off starting pistol, all at once he sagged, a squelching sounded in his throat and his head shrunk into his chest that deflated like a punctured beach ball, dispensing with procrastination once and for all, death was swift.

Zack’s body, still rigid, denied his brain’s command to flee, the horror that sped through him exacerbated by his inability to escape from it, and the very real possibility that he would die here, a reluctant waxwork, like a once living creature set in formaldehyde, doomed to be eternally inert.

Then, as decay crept steadily through the blackened corpse oozing at his feet, Zack slowly began freeing up, there were the stirrings of movement, and a thaw. First his lungs swung out, greedy for oxygen, then sweeping up from his feet his joints released until he could move again and he was able to run.

Free of his invisible restraints Zack raced off along more corridors than could ever exist in one building, all punctuated with those red doors that he knew would not open. He ran wildly through the labyrinth until his legs gave up on him, as desperate as a hare in a coursing circle to find his way out. But then, when panic had almost defeated him he turned into a different corridor, a big black door standing right at its end. As he raced towards it he noted that this door looked serviceable enough, as though it actually provided access in and out. Zack sent up a little prayer as he threw himself against it, and it gave, and he barged outside… hauling air inside him, luxuriating in the simple act of breathing. He darted along a back street to a connecting road where Veronica was waiting, as though at some point in the evening their meeting had been arranged.

“Come on,” she said, “we have to be quick.”

From a distance the boyfriend saw them and shouted out, which prompted Veronica and Zack to move faster. They jumped into a cab, engine running, door open. The cab did a U turn and as they drove past the boyfriend and their eyes met, Zack saw him recoil in shock, his eyes full of fear, then Veronica’s boyfriend crossed himself.

Under normal circumstances Zack would have regarded the presence of Veronica French in his flat enormously exciting, as it was he would have preferred it had she just left her phone number and gone.

He had tried to calm down in the cab, but he was still jumpy. Once or twice he caught the eye of the driver in his rear view mirror and this spooked him. Why had the cab been waiting there? Why was the engine running and the door standing open as though the driver knew they only had a few seconds to shake the boyfriend off? How did Veronica know he’d be racing along the alleyway and be there in exactly the right spot to meet him? Who was the old boy in the club, and most of all how come he was witness to another death of another stranger who seemed to know him?

“This is the most amazing view,” she said, turning to the window.

“Better than TV, certainly, but then, hey… what isn’t these days.”

She looked at him, wondering whether he regretted agreeing to this, it was as though he didn’t want her there at all.

“Listen, maybe I’d better leave you to it,” said Veronica, “I feel like I’m intruding.”

“Of course not, it’s good that you’re here,” he said, without conviction.

In the cab, Veronica had told him that she lived with her boyfriend, Jean-Paul, but he had become impossible lately. Zack had wanted to say well what do you expect, he’s French, they’re all bloody impossible, but he didn’t, he just listened to a litany of mistakes the poor sod had made, making a mental note of each one so as not to repeat them. All pretty minor Zack concluded, but then you could say that Susan’s were as well. What it boiled down to was this: that when someone really starts getting on your nerves for whatever reason, it’s time to get a quote from the removal guys because it sure won’t get any better.

As they stood across from each other it occurred to Zack that Veronica might think they’d be having sex, but Zack was very old fashioned in that respect, grabbing someone and screwing them a couple of hours after you’d met, even if you had every intention of seeing them again, to him, suggested a very serious lack of imagination. He was aware this marked him out as a wierdo because other blokes had told him so. Their attitude was ‘make hay while the sun shines because generally it’s pouring with rain’, but Zack was different. Not only was sex easy for him, which diminished its potency to some extent, but it had to mean something or he couldn’t be bothered.

As a child he had vowed never to have sex at all as it sounded so bloody painful, and for his mother of course it was. As he approached puberty, he was bewildered as to why his peers were so obsessed with all things sexual and decided it was probably because they knew nothing about it, but unfortunately for Zack, he did.

Once, he returned home from school to find his mother and the bloke from the corner shop in the front room, stark naked, straddled across their dining room table. Zack stood for a moment in the doorway gazing with clinical interest at this hairy, spotty arse going up and down as though it was digging something up, it was a gruesome sight, and not helped by his mother, legs akimbo, thrashing away beneath it. (Zack found himself wondering if the Irish family were listening to the shenanigans from next door.) He also thought his mother had to be out of her mind to agree to this ludicrous display of behaviour, even chimpanzees set about copulation with more finesse.

Now Zack enjoyed sex as much as the next man, but it had to be right, exactly right, or it was just a bore. When he unwisely mentioned this to a mate at university, he said that he thought Zack was in need of psychological help and pronto. Zack slammed that idea down straight away saying he felt lousy about himself enough as it was, he really didn’t need two very expensive years on the couch to provide him with more grist to the mill.

“I’ll sleep in here,” said Zack, “you can have the bed.”

“I couldn’t possibly take your bed.”

“The sofa is actually more comfortable,” said Zack, “and I’m the one that wakes up with the view.”

So there they were rattling around in their own separate rooms, their heads full of each other, and neither able to sleep.

The following morning Zack stood gazing out of the window at a sky that was reassuringly grey and unspectacular. Zack was not like Clarissa, finding omens here there and everywhere, but this ordinary sky cheered him up no end. Inevitably, Zack started thinking about the deaths and simply could make no sense of them at all. The last time he had been presented with a similar conundrum was during his chemical days and a reason if he should still need one to steer clear.

Zack had gone a bit overboard with LSD, at Cambridge. He’d read about Timothy Leary’s exploits and was curious to say the least, so one day, after struggling to get his local dealer interested in his request to track down a few tabs, Zack found himself nagging Justin Dunsmore, a brilliant psychology student to try his hand at rustling some up.

Armed with his chemistry A level Justin was prepared to give it a go because Justin was in love with Zack and if he could do anything to impress him, he would. The stuff turned out to be dynamite and as most of Zack’s friends and acquaintances were involved with other stimulants at the time, Zack found himself with what seemed like an endless supply.

Sam became increasingly concerned and told Zack he must have a death wish because he was dropping tabs of acid like Victory V’s, so one night when he was off being crazy somewhere, Sam took his entire stash and destroyed it. Zack had come very close to killing Sam when he found out and barged off confidently to find Justin to make him some more, but Justin refused to make him anymore, and surprised Zack by bursting into tears saying he had no intention of speaking to him ever again.

Only now, twenty years later did Zack admit that it was probably just as well because at the grand old age of 19 his brilliant mind was beginning to get a bit tangled.

Zack jumped when Veronica crept up behind him and swept a hand across his back, then turned to face her. They smiled a little shyly at each other.

“I can offer you coffee I’m afraid, but not much else…”

“Coffee as well?” said Veronica, straight faced, “goodness, I’ll come here again.”

“Promise me, promise me you will, Veronica,” said Zack.

“Of course I will,” she said, quite touched by the tone of his voice. “But we don’t know much about each other, do we?”

“I’d say we know everything we need to know,” said Zack, “but if you want to tell me how you finance your weekly shop in Waitrose, then go right ahead.”

“It can wait,” said Veronica.

“Yes,” said Zack, “it can.”

Patrick recognized Zack this morning in his usual Gucci suit and threw him an awkward smile, and Zack was in such a good mood that he forgave him for being so dim and unobservant yesterday, and so responded in kind.

“Oh, Mr Fortune this is for you,” said Betty, as Zack walked past, handing over a very dog-eared A4 envelope. “I’m not sure what it’s all about,” she said, when in fact the first thing she did when Jason gave it to her was to take a quick look inside, the envelope was in such a state, that coaxing back the once sticky tape and fixing it down again was simple.

“Okay, thanks Betty,” said Zack, as he started to move away.

“Er… Mr Fortune?” said Betty, popping out from behind the desk and catching him up, “I’m sorry to ask,” she said, dropping her voice to an emphatic whisper, “but this boy has been in here twice now, and to be honest, we’re not sure quite what to make of him.”

“Oh yes, in what way?”

“Well, the other day for instance, he told us he was your friend.”

“
My friend
?” said Zack.

“A client and a friend were his exact words. Well, he certainly doesn’t look like a client and neither does he look like a friend, so you can see our predicament.”

Zack threw Betty a tight little smile. “And you know what my friends look like, do you Betty?”

“Well
no
…” said Betty, a bit flustered now, and worried that she might have put her foot in it, “of course not, it’s just for future reference that’s all, we don’t want to do the wrong thing.”

“Just put in a call to the office, Rose will know what to do,” said Zack, as he went off, leaving Betty none the wiser.

This wasn’t what Betty was expecting at all. She had wanted Zack to sympathise with her at least, telling her that the boy was lying when he said he was his friend, and giving her permission next time they saw him to call the police. But he didn’t do that, and he seemed a little put out that she had brought the subject up at all. The more Betty thought about it, the more she thought that really, she should have taken her misgivings to a higher level. Geoff Turner would not be happy about an ASBO kid being anywhere near the place, she knew that for a fact, and neither was she. They were not running a halfway house for delinquents, this was a well respected centre of commerce and drug dealers were not wanted on the premises, full stop.

It was only as Zack passed Sam’s open door that he remembered that in all the excitement of the night before he had left his old friend high and dry. As though waiting for his footfall, Sam shot out of his office and confronted him.

“Oh, you’re
here,
” said Sam, “well, how good of you to drop in.
Remember me, do you, by any remote chance
?”

“Sam…
I am so sorry
, mate.”

“You have been led around by your cock for twenty five bloody years Zack Fortune and it’s beginning to look ridiculous. Grow up for fuck’s sake!”

Sam flew back into his office slamming the door behind him. He had made no attempt to keep his voice down and it was obvious by the silence that followed that he had been overheard. Rose popped out of Zack’s room but she didn’t engage eye contact, she just walked away.

Zack felt humiliated, not only because a fair amount of his work colleagues had obviously been privy to the dressing down, but because he knew Sam was right. He had an excuse last night, but he had often abandoned Sam in similar circumstances, chasing after some girl that he had fallen instantly in love with. Zack felt stupid, shallow and disloyal, and keen to make amends he took a deep breath and followed Sam inside.

Still flushed and grumpy, sifting through documents at his desk, Sam was expecting this. He knew Zack would start on the little boy offensive, but this time Sam told himself, he would make a stand.