“Perhaps,” said Diller, “the best thing would be to settle this in the ring, like gentlemen?”
Several voices rang out echoing his sentiment. The fact that Adolf’s wasn’t one of them became irrelevant.
Diller stood at the back of the crowd as the two men were escorted to the ring, Adolf protesting all the way but being roughly guided by multiple hands.
As the bell rang, Diller slipped away. He hadn’t even got around the corner of the large shipping crates before it was over. He’d glanced over his shoulder at just the right moment to see the crowd roaring on Darnell as he picked up his unconscious opponent, held him above his head and tossed him out of the ring.
Diller looked down at his clipboard.
“To do – lose chaperone. Check!”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Smithy had ended up with Zero and the guy with the disconcerting twitch as his minders. He wasn’t sure if he should take that to mean they saw him as the biggest threat of escape, or that they didn’t want to be on the receiving end of any more of Wilkins’s barbed remarks.
The two of them followed Smithy awkwardly as he clambered around the stacks of vehicles, opening the hoods of various wrecks to see if their engines looked useful. At one point, Smithy had found a lug wrench in the cab of a truck, which led to the twitchy dude mouthing off about him having a weapon. Smithy then reminded him that a lug wrench, despite being great for smashing some poor unfortunate over the head with, could also be used to remove the tyres from a vehicle, and they were going to need to do some of that. Twitchy had looked at Zero, who, after a moment, had given one of those nods he was so good at.
The wrench had come in handy when opening the hood on a Trans Am, which had brought Smithy face to face with two scorpions that didn’t seem happy to see him. They’d possibly been interrupted mid-coitus, or else one of them had been in the middle of attacking the other. Either way, they’d both turned their attention to Smithy, who walloped one of them and got the hell out of there before the other could lodge any further objections. From then on, Smithy followed a policy of beating a quick rhythm on any cars he was investigating and then stepping away, giving any wildlife the chance to remove itself calmly from the area.
As the trio moved on to the third row of stacked cars, Smithy’s enthusiasm was waning. So far, in the cars that still had engines, nothing had looked close to usable. In over an hour of looking he’d found only a wrench, a working jack and a crowbar. At each find Twitchy had expressed his reservations. For a man holding a sub-machine gun, he had a remarkably nervous disposition.
At the top of another pile, Smithy spotted a Volkswagen Beetle. He sighed and wiped the sweat from his brow. “Alright, I’m going to check that.” He walloped the door of one of the lower cars loudly with the crowbar and then dropped all the tools. “Can one of you keep an eye on my stash of weapons? I’d hate it if they were stolen.”
Twitchy sneered at Smithy as he began to climb. A couple of cars up, Smithy felt the pile lurch sickeningly towards him. He tried to jump down but his Hawaiian shirt was pinned between grinding pieces of metal.
“Fuck,” screamed Twitchy, correctly assessing the situation as he scampered heroically to safety.
Smithy clenched his eyes shut and then, after a moment, registered that the anticipated pain had not come. Instead, when he opened his eyes again, Zero’s immense arms were beside him, pushing the pile back into place. Smithy removed the tail of his shirt from where it was caught and looked across at Zero’s bullet-like head.
“Thank you.”
Zero gave him another of his trademark nods.
Smithy abandoned the Beetle as an unwise risk and moved on to the next pile, where he hit pay dirt in a Corvette. The engine looked great, and while he first needed to remove a rattlesnake using the crowbar and wrench as a pair of makeshift tongs, the fact that the reptile accidentally flew in Twitchy’s general direction did wonders for morale.
Smithy ignored the man’s expletive-laden diatribe as he inspected the engine.
“I mean, I’m no expert, but this looks like an engine to me.”
He glanced at Zero standing above him, who regarded it impassively.
“OK,” said Smithy. “Can someone go get Muroe, see what she thinks?”
Smithy looked at Twitchy.
“Screw you. That ain’t my job.”
Zero pointed in a way that made it obvious he felt otherwise. Muttering darkly to himself, Twitchy made his way down the aisle to go find the others. As he disappeared from view, Zero turned to Smithy.
“Thank God, you have got to help me!”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Smithy sat quietly while the big man stood there, hands on his knees, having what – to Smithy’s untrained eye – looked a lot like a panic attack. The whole thing felt incredibly awkward. What was he supposed to do? Climb up a couple of cars so he could reach across and pat the guy on the back?
“OK, just breathe,” said Smithy. He had no medical knowledge but that seemed like safe advice for almost every situation.
Zero looked at him, his face flushed. “I’m sorry, it’s just … This whole thing has been an absolute nightmare!”
Until this point Smithy had heard little more than grunts from the guy. His voice was unexpectedly high with a hint of a lisp to it.
Zero sat down against a car, causing the whole stack to judder alarmingly. “OK, I’m sorry, just …” He took a couple more deep breaths. “I have been trying to talk to you guys since you got here, but I could not find an opportunity.”
“Right,” said Smithy, still trying to get his head around this. “But you’re Chaz’s second-in-command?”
Zero looked as if he might faint. “He keeps calling me that! I got booked for this gig through my agent. I’m an actor.”
“You’re kidding me?”
“No. I mean, I also kinda do bodyguard work – sort of. Look, I follow rappers around to award ceremonies. People just like having a large guy to stand behind them. Y’know, for the look of the thing. I’m not actually protection. If you want that, you go get some discreet special-forces dude. I’m a bodybuilder. I don’t even carry a gun – I hate the things. And my name isn’t Zero – it’s Keith! I turn up here, thinking it’ll just be the usual. Y’know, follow someone about and look menacing, and then this Chaz guy starts calling me Zero and telling people he saw me twist a guy’s head off. I didn’t do that! I’m a Buddhist.”
Zero, or Keith as he should apparently be known, put his head between his legs. “Oh God, oh God, oh God! I only took this gig because my mom is behind on her condo payments.”
“But he’s been giving you orders,” said Smithy. “I’ve seen him.”
“I know!” squealed the artist formerly known as Zero. “He keeps saying things like, ‘Have the men been drilled?’ I don’t know! How would I do that? I’ll be honest, I’d have got the hell out of here once I realised how insane it was, but have you seen the guys around here? These monsters find out I’m not who he says I am and they’ll eat me alive. That’s why I’ve just been nodding and grunting. I’ve been bluffing the whole thing!”