DEATHLOOP Page 6

  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 humiliat
ed, 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.

  “Let me tell you what happened.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “No you can’t.”

  “I don’t want to know. I hate the place, it’s a dump, we only go there so you can pick up women.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “And there I am, surrounded by Muggers Anonymous waiting for some bastard who never comes back!”

  “Sam, listen to me, please… it happened again.”

  “I know it happened again, you don’t have to tell me!”

  “A stranger dying, and calling out my name…”

  Wrong footed, Sam did a double take, took a moment then sank down into his chair, begrudgingly waiting for the explanation.

  “I came out of the gents, and for some reason, I went the other way.”

  “What other way?”

  “I can’t explain it, but the staircase back up to the club is to the right, well you know that, but I went left.”

  “So you ended up in Never Never Land is that it?”

  “Then, the strange atmosphere again, heavy, airless, I could see something, way off, although at first I couldn’t make it out, but I couldn’t stop myself, or turn back, some old guy, calling out to me in such distress.”

  Now Sam was looking at his friend as though he was seriously worried for his sanity.

  “Just like before I felt my body seize, then it was like this guy was melting, right in front of me. After a while, I could breathe again, move again, but I was totally freaked out. Sam, I’m sorry mate, it wasn’t deliberate.”

  Zack chose not to tell Sam about Veronica, there was no need, not here, not now. A silence fell and he could see Sam trying to make sense of what he had just said, Zack was still trying to make sense of it himself.

  A sharp knock on the door made them jump. Rose stuck her head into the room. “The Wahlbergs are here, Geoff would like you to come in now.”

  Geoff’s office was massive and doubled as a boardroom sometimes, because the original board room had now been split into four to accommodate more staff. Patrick and another security guard, Gus, were always called upon to set up the vast table here whenever it was required, and Patrick very much enjoyed the task. For a few moments, while he was grappling with the huge pieces of wood he felt indispensable to the organization. Geoff had often commended Patrick, telling him that he had never seen the boardroom table assembled with such speed and with such dexterity, assuring him that as long as he worked at Emerson Buildings it would always be his own special job.

  This pleased Patrick no end and he often mentioned the accolade when writing to Genevieve in Awka Etiti. He also told his wife that setting up the table on the 9th floor was not his job really, and by rights he could have refused to do it especially as Geoff Turner did not offer him a penny piece for his endeavours, but Patrick did not mind too much because it was another skill that he could list on his CV for future employment opportunities.

  Geoff’s assistant, suburban, clumpy, super reliable Sharon Pearce, with droopy hemlines and droopy hair to match, checked the table for the tenth time: water, fruit, tissues, pens and paper, all present and correct. Coffee and pastries would arrive soon and she had ordered very elaborate sandwiches from the caterers in case things went on a bit, which they tended to do. Sharon smiled up at Zack and Sam as they took their seats opposite the Wahlbergs and their accountancy team, Jack and Simon Sugarman. They were ready to go.

  The Wahlbergs were big guns in the city, and were Nyman’s most influential clients, recently poached from arch rivals, Standard Rich and Company. They had an extensive property portfolio, commercial and residential, and were intending to move into retail with the acquisition of a string of shopping malls in the States. They needed a restructuring package, and had approached Nyman’s to get them the best deal. Geoff had asked Zack to step up to the plate and had filled the Wahlbergs in on Zack’s myriad talents, confident they would be duly impressed by their star player. For their part the Wahlbergs were aware of Zack’s reputation and were happy to have him batting for their side, keen to hear what he could come up with.

  The Wahlberg brothers, Francis and Clive, were in their fifties and had taken over the business from their father Aldo, who still took an interest in the company and who was here today just to see what Nyman’s had to offer. Aldo was nearly 80 now, but still sprightly with twinkling blue eyes that did not miss a trick. Francis was the intellectual, an opera buff and an expert on Japanese ceramics. Terminally pedantic and penny pinching, (he had been known to cross London on public transport to get a few pence off a pair of shoes). He had an assistant, Marjorie White, who had been with him for years, some said because she was actually too frightened to leave. Clive just rode roughshod over everyone. He prided himself on his ruthlessness, ruthlessness was next to Godliness in his book. He was always bragging about his hospitality boxes at Arsenal and Chelsea, but for the most part, he sat in them alone.

  Both Francis and Clive were divorced. Francis despised women almost as much as he despised homosexuals so he preferred to remain solitary now with three standard poodles for company. Clive had an arrangement with an Austrian woman who had inherited a very chic mansion flat in Maida Vale, it suited them both. At least Aldo enjoyed his money. He owned race horses, gambled quite a bit and sometimes sailed around the Mediterranean in his catamaran. But his sons, despite being millionaires in their own right, always looked as though the bailiffs were about to move in.

  Sam was distracted. After his conversation with Zack in his office he was finding it difficult to clear his head. Sam would go to the ends of the earth for Zack and Zack knew this, but he had always fought shy of weirdness and there was a time at Cambridge when Zack had become extremely weird, out of his head on LSD of all things, (trust Zack to dig up some fusty old drug like acid to get hooked on), but it fitted in with his super cool image, and the fact that he had got poor old Justin Dunsmore to provide him with a never ending supply only adding to Zack’s kudos.

  Sam told Zack that he had gone too far telling Justin that he was on the verge of turning gay to get him to make the stuff. But Zack found it funny and milked the idea for all it was worth, until out of kindness to Justin, the same day he destroyed Zack’s stash, Sam told Justin that it was just Zack’s idea of a joke, and that he was not about to turn gay any time in the near future, he was a confirmed heterosexual and always would be. Devastated at Zack’s treachery, Justin cried for seven days flat rejecting all attempts by Zack to talk him round, and although Zack had threatened to kill Sam at the time, Sam knew he would thank him for it one day.

  Sam glanced across at his old friend and inwardly smiled. Who would think it now? Who would think this stylish, professional, corporate lawyer could ever have been such a hopeless case? Sam was in no doubt that he had saved Zack’s sanity, if not his life, and although Zack had never said as much, he knew Zack thought so too. Sam often wondered if that was why Zack had remained so loyal to him through the years. And when Sam was feeling particularly fatalistic he wondered if that was why Zack had thrown him a lifeline all those years ago, knowing instinctively that at some point in the future, Sam, in his own way, would do the same for him. Sam prided himself on being the man responsible for Zack’s new found respectability at Nyman’s and on the surface – the boy done good - but deep down Sam knew that Zack was still capable of just about any kind of madness given half a chance.

  Zack too was distracted. As Geoff stood up
and welcomed the Wahlbergs, he found himself gazing out of the window at the dreary, but reassuring view. Geoff was speaking, but Zack was not taking in a word of it, it just sounded like a drone. Zack felt he had done a fairly decent job of keeping a lid on things with Veronica but when he saw the look in Sam’s eye just now, it threw him. Sam had picked him up more times that he cared to remember, but Zack knew that Sam was a little weary of it after twenty years, and who could blame him?

  Zack could honestly say that even at the height of his drug dependency, he had never been part of anything so completely bewildering as dying strangers calling out to him and asking him for help. He just could not make head or tail of any of it.

  “Would you agree, Zack?”

  No response.

  “Zack,” said Geoff, “can you help me out with this please?”

  Then there was.

  “No I can’t help you, you demon! KEEP AWAY FROM ME!”

  Grabbing the water jug from the table Zack hurled it at Geoff, catching him on the forehead with a nasty clunk. Geoff staggered a little as water drenched him, then the jug fell and smashed against the corner of the table spraying glass all over the floor. Next came a deadly, crushing silence. Everyone round the table frozen in shock, their eyes fixed on Zack as though they were in the presence of a madman and frightened that if they made a move the same would happen to them.

  “God, Geoff, I’m so sorry,” said Zack, breathless and mortified at what he had just done. “I thought you were… I thought… oh God, please forgive me.”