The Zombie Room (11 page)

Decker pulled the white Volkswagen up to the kerb outside Kang’s convenience store at 10.24 on Tuesday morning, and he and Mangle climbed out. Mangle wore a freshly dry-cleaned business suit. He checked through a list of points on his clipboard and casually glanced up and down the street. Decker, in black gloves and plain blue overalls, did likewise as he retrieved a toolkit from the boot of the car. An electronic beep sounded to announce their arrival as Mangle led the way through the door into the brightly lit store. Briefly checking his clipboard again, he approached the counter.

‘Mr Kang?’ Mangle asked the concerned-looking oriental man who was serving, as he flipped open a wallet displaying his photo ID.

‘I am Kang. What is this?’ he asked, jabbing a finger towards Decker with his toolbox. Decker also flashed an ID card, and looked around the store.

‘No need to be alarmed, Mr Kang, we are from G&E Utilities. This is simply a courtesy call to ensure your power supply is running optimally.’

‘All is fine, no need. Good day,’ Kang said, making shooing gestures with his hands as if trying to scare away a flock of pigeons.

‘This won’t take more than a few moments and we will be on our way,’ Mangle said, and smiled reassuringly. He turned toward Decker who was walking through a doorway at the rear of the store overhung with opaque hanging plastic flaps.

Mr Kang uttered something in Korean to a small child who scuttled off through a door behind the counter, and judging from the hollow thumping sound that followed, the child quickly ascended a flight of wooden stairs.

Decker located the electricity meter and examined it before opening his toolbox. Mangle stood beside him, again scanning over the printed sheets on his clipboard.

‘There are some broken seals,’ Decker said with a disdainful shake of his head.

‘OK, we’ll have to remove it then,’ Mangle confirmed.

Decker fished a large torch and cable cutters out of the toolkit, as muffled voices speaking quickly in Korean came from the floor above. Mr Kang stood behind Decker, stammering something about waiting for his brother, as Decker clicked on the torch, handed it to Mangle, and then flipped the breaker on the power supply, throwing the whole store into darkness.

The soft hum from the rows of freezers subsided and was replaced by nervous silence downstairs and echoing footsteps from above. Ignoring the panicked Mr Kang behind him, who had reverted to speaking in Korean, Decker clipped all of the cables going into the meter, detached it from the wall and put away his cable cutters.

The footsteps above reached the stairway and began their hurried descent, before darkness and gravity conspired to cause their owner to tumble down the remaining steps. Mr Kang fell silent behind Decker and Mangle, and then quickly took off through the store in the direction of the noise.

‘You got everything?’ Mangle asked.

Yep,’ Decker confirmed, and picked up the toolkit and the disconnected electric meter.

They walked through the now pitch black store, illuminated only by the circular beam of light from the torch that Mangle held, and the rectangular glass panel on the shop door. Decker walked back out to the car to start the engine as Mangle sorted through pages on the clipboard before picking the correct one to detach.

A creak sounded behind the counter and a different Korean man limped through the doorway, aided by the first man they had spoken to, and headed towards Mangle.

‘I am Mr Kang. This my store,’ he said to Mangle by way of explanation. ‘That my brother,’ he added, throwing a disparaging glare at his nervous-looking companion.

‘Hello, Mr Kang,’ Mangle said in an efficiently polite tone. ‘I’m afraid we discovered evidence of tampering on your electric supply and have therefore been forced to disconnect you.’

‘All my food go bad. I must have power on.’

Mangle slid the sheet across the counter and spun it around to face the owner.

‘Here is the contact number of my associate, Mr Lawrence, if you wish to speak with him. I will make sure a correct bill is sent out to you in the next day or two after the meter has been examined.’

‘Day or two – no. No good. Must have power back today.’

Mangle paused as if in thought before speaking again. ‘I’ll tell you what, Mr Kang. If I move some appointments around I can have the meter inspected and a correct bill delivered by courier just after lunch. As long as you clear the balance before the close
of business today, we can have your supply reinstated before this evening.’

‘Yes, yes. Thank you. Today, yes,’ Kang said to Mangle, before looking nervously towards the freezers.

Mangle calmly walked out of the gloomy interior and climbed into the car.

Twenty minutes later they pulled into the maze of small industrial units they’d collected the Volkswagen from earlier that morning, where Tazeem was waiting for their return.

‘Everything go OK?’ Tazeem asked pulling down the metal shutter on his unit, after they’d parked the car up inside.

‘He panicked a bit, but other than that it went fine. Barely even looked at the IDs,’ Decker said, dropping the car keys onto a scuffed, paint-spattered wooden desk, and putting the toolbox and meter onto wall-mounted shelves behind it.

‘You gave him the sheet explaining disconnection, with the phone number?’ Tazeem asked, sitting down in a black swivel chair behind the desk.

‘I did,’ Mangle said. ‘I still don’t see exactly how this is going to work though.’

‘Well, my contact, Mr Lawrence, who actually works at G&E Utilities, will be on the other end of the phone should Mr Kang decide to call. He removed the customer record for Kang’s address from their system this morning and added his supply code to that of an existing supply to the factory over the road, so the power is still connected – or it was till you two turned up – but they won’t receive any more bills from G&E.’

‘OK, I’ve got it so far,’ Mangle said, sitting in one of two plastic chairs opposite.

‘Right. Well now his supply is off and he has a shit-load of frozen food that is gonna go really smelly really quickly, unless he gets the juice switched back on.’

‘Which explains all the flapping about when I flipped the switch,’ Decker said, sitting in the chair beside Mangle.

‘So now I have him sweat for an hour or two, then courier out what looks like an authentic G &E Utilities bill, except it won’t be their bank details on it but an account I’ve set up.’

‘So he pays that bill this afternoon … and then what?’ Decker asked.

‘You two go back to the shop today. You know how to rein-stall the meter, right?’

‘Yeah, fully qualified for all kinds of electric stuff courtesy of a course I took in prison.’

‘Well, once you’ve reconnected him, Mr Kang is a happy camper ’cause his food isn’t spoiled. He continues paying the bills that I’ll send out to him each month. Meanwhile, the shop’s electric supply is being paid for by the factory over the road, who have such a high consumption they won’t notice the increase.’

‘So everyone’s happy and it doesn’t even look like a crime has been committed?’ Mangle asked.

‘Exactly,’ Tazeem said, gleefully rubbing his hands together. ‘My friend at G&E gets a healthy slice of the pie and we take the rest.’

‘Wow,’ Decker said, shaking his head. ‘And what do we do after that?’

‘After that, my friends, we move on to the next one.’

‘But neither myself nor Decker have jobs yet. If we start earning money with nothing to show where it came from, then Probation will be on to us right away,’ Mangle said.

‘Just leave it with me,’ Tazeem reassured them.

Over the next few months Mangle and Decker worked to Tazeem’s plan and together they established a network of businesses that supplied them with a substantial regular income. Convenience stores, back-street garages and even modest high street shops were targeted, relieved of their supply on the pretence of tampering or a faulty meter. Amended bills were immediately dispatched, followed by quick payment and reconnection within the hour. They also attended their day jobs at e-Bit, Latif ’s computer store.
A probation officer visited twice to check up on them and was impressed with the positive reports he received from Latif.

‘What’s the name of the place, again?’ Decker asked, as he drove along the congested street looking for the shop Tazeem had assigned them that morning.

‘Eazywash Laundrette,’ Mangle said, reading from the paper in his hand. ‘There, park behind that van.’ He pointed to a vacant parking space just before the shop.

The sign above the door looked hand-painted and quite old. Inside was similarly unkempt, with unpolished floors and machines that appeared to be as old as the building itself and perhaps as old as the attendant. She wore a blue gingham uniform and had her grey hair pulled back in a net so tightly that her forehead appeared botoxed. She peered suspiciously at them through a cloud of cigarette smoke as they walked into the deserted store.

‘What do you want?’ she snapped at Mangle, whose suit apparently identified him as trouble.

‘Nothing to worry about Mrs …’ he said, but she didn’t fill in the blank. ‘It’s simply a courtesy call from G&E Utilities to make sure your power supply is working within regulated guidelines.’

This was the standard line he used in these situations, which partnered with a flash of his credentials and a flash of his smile would allow them access to the meter. She shook her head and stubbed out the cigarette into an overflowing ashtray perched on top of one of the machines. Mangle again reached for his ID and presented it to her for further examination. She gave it barely a glance before again saying no.

‘You don’t seem to understand, Mrs …’

‘Ethel.’

‘Ethel, you have to let us inspect the power supply or your electricity may be cut off.’

‘I don’t trust those photo things,’ she said, and Mangle obligingly put it away.

She picked up a dog-eared copy of the Yellow Pages, licked a nicotine-stained index finger and began leafing through.

‘That’s perfectly understandable,’ Mangle said and removed a sheet from his clipboard. ‘Here is a letter explaining our visit and a phone number of my boss who will answer any questions you may have.’

He hoped Lawrence was alone and able to take the call. Usually they didn’t take this much persuasion.

‘I don’t want that either. Those high-up idiots never know what’s going on. It’s the people on the floor that really run things,’ she said, jabbing her bony finger on top of the machine she leant against and issuing a rattling cough. ‘You think my boss has a clue what to do if a machine breaks down in the middle of a shift? No chance. I’ll talk to the girl who answers the phone. She’ll be able to tell me what’s going on.’

Decker swapped his toolbox from one hand to the other, and looked anxiously at Mangle.

‘There’s no need for that Ethel …’ Mangle said, but she had found the number for G&E and begun to dial. ‘Look, this is obviously a bad time so we’ll call back when it’s more convenient.’

‘Hello?’ Ethel said into the receiver, and then to Mangle, ‘Don’t you go anywhere till I know what this is about.’

Decker had already opened the door and he and Mangle were through it before the overhead door closer snapped it shut.

‘We must have done twenty places already and we almost get sprung off a little old woman?’ Decker said, hurriedly starting the car.

‘She had nothing to lose by double-checking, I suppose. We just didn’t expect it as no one else had done that.’

‘So that’s the end of our run, then?’ Decker asked, after Mangle had explained to Tazeem what had happened.

‘No, we just need to go further afield and be more selective with the businesses we choose,’ Tazeem answered, unperturbed.

‘More selective in what way?’ Mangle asked.

‘It’s something I had planned on doing anyway. We’ll just step up the time frame,’ Tazeem said, leaning back on his chair and
crossing his right ankle over his left knee. ‘We only go for businesses that have something to hide. Places that don’t want anyone poking around.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ Mangle asked.

‘Yeah, let’s have some examples,’ Decker said, shaking his head.

‘Alright: clothing stores importing counterfeit goods, shops selling cigarettes smuggled into the country to avoid paying tax, frozen food outlets buying up cheap out-of-date stuff and changing the dates to resell. There’s any number of back-street businesses that don’t want anyone official looking too closely at what goes on. Removing their power will make them pay whatever bill we hold under their noses, to restore the status quo quickly.’

Mangle frowned and scratched his chin. ‘It sounds a lot more workable, but how are we gonna find out where these businesses are? I doubt they simply advertise the fact.’

‘Just leave that to me.’

Friday morning, and Decker and Mangle met Tazeem back at the lock-up at 07.30 a.m. as instructed. He’d arranged another job, but had remained tight-lipped about the details.

‘Good morning. Right on time – well done.’

‘Where we off to then, Taz?’ Decker asked, striding into the garage.

‘Here’s the paperwork,’ Tazeem said, handing the clipboard to Mangle. ‘It’s a wholesale food distributer.’

‘A cash and carry,’ Decker said.

‘Exactly.’

‘So what’s the situation with them? You said only businesses that have something to hide,’ Mangle asked.

‘This particular place is taking a shipment of wine courtesy of a stolen eighteen-wheeler that’s been getting a makeover for the last few days.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah, the truck has been rebranded to look the same as one that delivers from one of their regular suppliers, same plates and
everything. The wine will be stashed in the warehouse out back and collected by some of the manager’s more trusted customers, who will sell it on, and everyone makes a quick profit.’

‘So what’s our role, then?’

‘Same as usual: turn up and go through the whole electric company thing. The timing is crucial. If you arrive there and create a scene just before the delivery is about to land then the manager will pay anything to make the problem vanish.’