Christal
Cooper 6,092 Words (including ten page
excerpt)
Scripted Interview
With Crime Novelist NICK SWEET:
On His Crime Novel FLOWERS
AT MIDNIGHT,
His Love of Books, and a-ten-page excerpt from
FLOWERS
AT MIDNIGHT
1 How was the idea of FLOWERS AT MIDNIGHT first
birthed/conceived in your mind?
I’m not sure that it was.
Truth is, I’ve written other books since FLOWERS (some of which are still at
the drafting stage), and once I’ve finished work on a book strange things seem
to happen in my case. First, I wonder if I’ll ever write another book, and
then, once I start working on a new one, I forget the one I wrote before.
But so far as I can
remember, I had an idea to do with blackmail and I developed it a little, and
that carried me through the first few chapters, but then I kind of ran out of
steam and started to wander off the plot a little. I remember at one point, I
just figured that was it, that the book had sort of died on me, which isn’t a
nice feeling to have…but then somehow I got a second wind from somewhere and
the rest of the book just sort of wrote itself somehow. Very hard to explain
how this happens.
Like most writers, I read a
hell of a lot, and I tend to forget half of what I’ve read soon after; but anyway,
I read somewhere recently that a writer has to reach the point of no return,
the point where you know once you’ve got there that there’s no going back. You
know when you’ve reached that point, because that’s when the book starts to
feel utterly real to you, and from then on it can, if you’re lucky, just sort
of carry you along with it…that’s to say the book practically writes
itself. It’s like you’re waiting on the
platform for the train to come and you start to lose confidence that it ever
will, and then, if it does, whoooooosh, you find yourself being swept along at
a hundred miles an hour.
2 What was the step-by-step process (in great detail)
of completing FLOWERS AT MIDNIGHT from
the moment it was first thought of in your mind until final form?
I didn’t really pre-plan the plot at all, beyond the idea for the opening chapters. Now that probably makes it sound like I was going in for a sort of free jazz affair, when in fact FLOWERS AT MIDNIGHT is a crime novel which adheres very closely to the plot structure that underpins and drives it. For me, you see, if you’re writing a genre novel—in fact any novel, really—then plot is of great importance. By that, I mean that every scene needs to be there for a reason. And by that, I mean that something needs to happen in every scene that develops the plot, or is at least closely related to it in some way.
I don’t know if you’ve read
that essay by Raymond Chandler. The Art Of Murder, I think it’s
called. He puts the case in there for the need to write crime novels that can
be read scene by scene. Of course he hardly needed to write the essay because
books of his like The Long Goodbye show exactly what he means.
3 How long did it take you to write the novel?
Not long once I got that second wind, once I’d reached that point where it started to feel real. I mean, I felt as though I knew the characters. They’d ceased to be characters and become people, you could say—so far as I was concerned, anyway. I was teaching every day and writing in the evenings and at weekends, but even so I think the whole thing was probably finished in about six months.
4 Where did you write most of the novel and can you
describe the area as detailed as possible?
I was living in a small room, a sort of caretaker’s hut on a rooftop in central Seville, when I wrote the book. I’d left my family back in London to go over to test the water first. So I took this small room above a hotel, and I remember I’d sit out on the flat roof and look across and see the Giralda glowing away in the distance. It was one hell of a view. It was on Calle Alhondiga, in the Campana district, which is to say the Old Quarter or casco antiguo.
I remember my wife Belén came
over with our youngest child, Edu, and we only had to go down into the street
to find ourselves bang in the middle of the processions in Semana Santa. It was
like nothing I’d ever seen before, almost otherworldly.
5 When you wrote the novel did you write it during the
nighttime, daytime, listen to certain music, drink a certain drink, and eat a
certain food?
Most of it was written in the evenings, although I would have worked on a morning sometimes during holidays and at weekends. I love music, but never listen to it when I write.
I was in Seville, so I was
eating Spanish cuisine, the fare they serve up in the bars I went to: lots of calamares, cod or bacalao, jamon Serrano or
Serrano ham, olives, salads, plenty of Rioja and beer or cerveza. But perhaps I should also say that I never drink before or
when I am writing, always after.
6 Did you write it in pen/paper, pencil/paper, or
directly on laptop?
I wrote it on a laptop, then printed out the first draft and edited it using a pen. Basically, I’m trying to think like a surgeon who’s cutting away flab from a body. For flab think padding, scenes that don’t seem to be going anywhere, any sentences, paragraphs, dialogues, scenes etc. which are too wordy, or that just don’t work or sound right.
7 Are parts of this novel autobiographical or
biographical?
No, absolutely not. My writing is never autobiographical. I remember reading Professor Bradbury (author of The History Man, to name just one of his works) writing somewhere that the narrator in a novel is never the writer, not even in the case of someone like Proust, in Remembrance Of Things Past, where he’s written this enormous book, or sequence of books, that appear to be presented as sort of extended and rather intellectual trip down Memory Lane, and which feature a first person narrator whose name is Marcel…even then, Bradbury argues, Proust’s ‘I’, his ‘Marcel’, should never be confused with Marcel Proust himself; and for my money Bradbury was dead right.
Having said that, a
writer’s experiences do sometimes inform his or her work. For instance, I once
took a job working as doorman at a strip club in Soho, London… I was working as
a schoolteacher in a pretty tough state school in north London at the time, and
I was finding it hard to live on the money and had got myself into debt.
Nothing too extreme, just three or four hundred pounds. I remember a man at the
bank took the trouble to sit down with me and try to work out a repayment plan.
He asked me what I earned and what I spent, and made two columns and totaled
them up, then ended up concluding there was no way I could possibly repay the
debt without taking on a second job. A friend of mine was working as doorman at
this club in London’s West End at the time and somebody pulled a knife on him
and, rather sensibly, he demonstrated a great respect for his own person and
well-being by taking evasive action.
Anyway, he told me there
was a job going, and he said it might be right up my street; the sort of job
Raymond Carver or someone might or ought to have taken…and the idea sort of
appealed to me. I figured I could kill two birds with one stone as it were: get
some experience of life on the streets in the West End at night and also earn
the money to pay back my loan. I only kept the job for four months, but that
was long enough for me to see what was going on, and by the time I left I was
well into the black again. I guess I earned it, because I worked the door in
Soho from about 6.30 through to midday six nights a week, and then I’d have to
be up before 7 a.m. to get the bus to school.
8 Did you model
your characters after other people, actors, or other characters from books?
No, not at all. I really don’t know where my characters come from. They just seem to come to life. It comes back, I think, to what I was saying in answer to the first question, that whoosh feeling… I mean, you can spend a lot of time filling up paper and feeling like your characters aren’t real and your story’s going nowhere, that you’ve got nothing to say and no characters of any interest to say it with. You can reach the point where you have all but managed to convince yourself that you really ought to do yourself a favour and pack up writing and buy that trumpet you’ve had your eye on (even though you secretly know that you’ll probably turn out to have no talent as a trumpet player, and even if you did, well, it’s too late now; and besides, you don’t get good at anything without going the extra mile, and going the extra mile always hurts, even if the thing you’re doing, whether it’s playing the trumpet or writing or whatever, started out as fun…)…and then, just when you’re in this state of mind, suddenly, sometimes, if you’re in luck, things can start to take off… But before you get to that point, you probably have to put in a fair bit of time just filling up paper with words that you’ll end up cutting out later, and while you’re doing that you’ll probably feel like you’re useless…
And of course, even if the
book you end up writing isn’t too bad, and some people who read it like it, the
chances are it won’t really sell much—not unless you’ve got a great agent
anyway, and so you’ll end up feeling like you’re pretty useless in the end
anyway. And that, I’m afraid, is the lot of most writers nowadays. Fact is,
there are just a hell of a lot of us out there—writers, I mean. And it’s hard
not to get the sense that more than half the time the baby is being thrown out
with the literary bath water, if you catch my drift. .. But hey, speaking of
drifts, have I drifted off the point a little…?
9 Can you give a short literary analysis of what the
book is about?
Politician’s blackmailed by an exotic dancer and her boyfriend who work the door where she dances. Then the MP’s brother, who works for MI5, gets involved and basically manages to track down the blackmailers and then scares the shit out of them…and then there’s the subplot.
Enough said, I think. I
wouldn’t want to ruin it for you guys and gals out there…take a read for
yourselves why don’tcha? And if you do, then please feel free to post a review
on Amazon or Goodreads or wherever and tell yours truly what it was all about.
I’d be truly interested to hear what you have to say. I mean, I do believe
there’s a sense in which once a writer’s published a book then he needs just to
let go and let the readers make of it what they will. Up until the book is
published it’s the writer’s, in the sense that it’s a private thing, his
personal property…but the act of publication is almost by definition a public
act, and as such you cross a certain line as a writer. Then you need to say
goodbye to the book and just hope readers enjoy it. Of course the problem
nowadays is publicity, because without that then not enough people are going to
get to hear about the book in the first place…
The great Thomas Mann once
said…well, I can’t quote exactly, but it was something along the lines of this:
that a writer’s a person who puts words down on paper without really having
much idea of what he’s doing… He’s right there, I think, because when you’re
being creative there’s always a sense in which you are watching or waiting to
see what’s going to happen, you’re wondering what’s going to come out, how it’s
all going to take shape…
10 Which character did you like the most and why?
I don’t really think in that way. I mean, I don’t think in terms of liking or not liking my characters. I think in terms of making them come to life.
11 What were some things that happened in the novel
that surprised you?
Basically everything that happened in the novel after I’d developed the initial idea to do with blackmail through the first four or five chapters came as a big surprise. I mean that whole feeling I had, which I’ve described in response to earlier questions, when the story and the characters suddenly just started to feel real and kind of flow…all of that, everything I wrote after I had that feeling, surprised me…
12 Were there portions you had to delete and why and
would you share them with us?
Yes, absolutely. I’ve said in answer to one of the previous questions that I believe in cutting away the flab, as it were…so yes, I cut quite a bit. Sorry, I can’t share the bits I’ve deleted with you for the simple reason that there’re in an old draft that’s stored away somewhere so that I don’t currently have access to it. But anyway, I didn’t cut things out because of their content—I mean, I didn’t cut where the subject matter was too shocking or anything like that…no, I only cut where I felt the writing was weak, flabby…that is, where I felt I could improve it. Of course there may be lots of places where somebody else may feel they could improve it, but that’s a different matter. We see what we are capable of seeing, and we do what we are capable of doing. A different writer would probably have made cuts in different places, kept in bits that I took out, and therefore ended up with a different book. Writers are individuals, and every individual is different. No two of us think alike, and that’s a good thing I would say.
13 What was the publishing process like?
Smooth. I sent off the opening thirty pages or so to Moonshine Cove (http://moonshinecovepublishing.com). They responded about a week later asking for the rest of the manuscript. I duly sent it on, and they replied, again about a week later, and said they would like to publish it. I agreed and was duly sent a contract to sign; then the editor sent me a proof. He made only minimal changes himself…in fact, if my memory serves me right, I think he only changed two sentences in the entire book. I made a number of further changes myself however, and, fortunately, the editor agreed with me that the changes I made all helped to improve the book. I flatter myself that I am a fairly sharp editor of my own work.
This is because of two
things: firstly, I read a hell of a lot, and have been doing so since I was in
my late teens, and so I’ve come to develop an idea of what I think good writing
is.
Secondly, I’ve come to
develop a pretty well defined idea of what I want to do in my own books. Of
course this may sound contradictory, as it appears to run counter to the
comment I made earlier about my agreeing with Thomas Mann’s quote about writers
being people who put words on paper without knowing what they are doing…
Let me explain. When I
write a first draft, I’m often pretty much in the dark, until the thing
(hopefully!) starts to take shape in my imagination. But when I get to edit my
work it’s as if I’m a different person. I mean, to put it rather crudely, if Mr.
Hyde writes the first draft then it’s Dr. Jekyll who starts to edit it and pull
it into shape. As a writer you need to be both Mr. H and Dr J, I think. And if
that sounds a little crazy, then, well, that’s probably because it is…
14 What is your career history?
I’m a teacher by profession. I went to a comprehensive school in Bristol and somehow went from the age of 11 to 16 without reading anything…and I mean anything…
Then I got into reading in
a big way: Shakespeare, T.S. Eliot, Hardy, Hemingway, Fitzgerald etc.…and then
all the trouble started, as it were. Sometimes I think somebody should have
warned me that books are dangerous, to be kept under lock and key along with
the liquor and the hard drugs…
15 When did you know you were a writer?
A difficult question, one that there are several answers to. At the age of seven, my teacher realized I enjoyed writing and so, in order to encourage me, as a sort of experiment I guess, she allowed me to spend an entire week writing a story. So while the other kids were having to do math exercises and whatever, I was working on my story. I spent the week in a kind of ecstasy.
When the time came to read
the story to my teacher, on Friday afternoon, it became apparent that the
noirish narrative I was struggling to beat into shape had got the better of me.
I remember my teacher saying that it might take me a long time to work out what
I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it. You could say that I’m still
trying.
16 What writers and books have influenced you the
most?
I try to express my own personality when I write, so I really don’t want to be too influenced by anyone. Having said that, if you’re a crime writer then you’re working in a tradition and so you need to become familiar with the tradition first and get to know its codes and rules, as it were. And of course you learn to write, or try to, by first reading others and working out what you think good writing is.
That said, the kind of
crime novels that would be at the top of my list are Raymond Chandler’s The
Long Goodbye, Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, and
just about anything that Elmore Leonard wrote from about 1960 up to, oh, I
haven’t really made a study of this but I’d say around the end of the 1990s.
These three writers weren’t
just great crime writers, they were great writers, great artists who just
happened to choose to write about crime. I’ve also read loads of contemporary
crime writers, and there are some very good ones out there, of course, but they
know who they are and don’t need me to talk for them.
I also read literary
novels, and I love Hemingway, particularly The Sun Also Rises, which has also struck
me as being just about word perfect, and some of his stories are great, too, as
is A
Farewell To Arms. I admire
Hemingway not because he’s supposed to be some kind of macho man, but because
he could write. With him, every word seems to be in the right place, in the
right rhythm etc, and, for me, his best work carries an enormous emotional
punch.
I recently reread
Fitzgerald’s Tender Is The Night and was extraordinarily moved by it,
even though it’s a book that seems to be flawed in all sorts of ways.
I love Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky,
too. I mean, they’re both so great that it’s not even worth talking about them.
Some while ago, I
discovered Carmen Laforet’s Nada. I’ve read it three times, I
think, each time in Spanish, and it’s a great book in my view.
I read a fair bit in
Spanish and admire Javier Cercas and Antonio Muñoz Molina, and Vargas Llosa’s
book on Trujillo (The Feast of the Goat) was a great read.
And then there’s Raymond
Carver, and I admire Don DeLillo’s Libra and Norman Mailer with The Executioner’s
Song and Oswald’s Tale, and, well, I could give you a list as long as
your arm…
I wouldn’t necessarily say
that any of these authors have influenced me, though. I mean, I don’t try to
write like them. I’d be a fool to try. The thing is, I just admire the hell out
of them.
Pages 41 to 51 are
excerpted from FLOWERS AT MIDNIGHT
Copyright granted by Nick
Sweet:
When
Martin got back to the flat there was no sign of Bella anywhere, so he went
into the bedroom to see if she was sleeping.
She
wasn’t.
But
then the light went on. Martin turned abruptly and saw a man he didn’t
recognize standing in the doorway.
“Seemed
like you was havin’ trouble seein’ what you was up to,” the man said. “So I
thought I’d better shed a little light on the matter.” He was a huge mountain
of a guy stuffed into a navy-blue tracksuit, with a shaved stone boulder for a
head, two rocks for hands and a lump of chipped granite for a face.
41
Martin
wondered who on earth the man could be. Was he a burglar? If so, then he seemed
to have a rather unusual way of going about things. No, he must be Bella’s
husband, Joey B. Bella had assured Martin that Joey B wasn’t due to be let out
of prison for another couple of years at the earliest, but even so Martin had
worried from time to time about what might happen if the man were to get out
early. Well, it seemed like he was about to find out.
Martin
did his best to muster a smile. “We’ve never met, Joey,” he said, “but I’ve
heard a lot about you.”
“First
thing is, my name ain’t Joey.”
“But I thought . . . ”
“Look at
me.”
Martin had been looking at him all the while.
“Do I seem like the kinda
person’d give a rabbit’s
fuck
what you think or don’t think?”
The man brought out a gun.
If Martin hadn’t
been so afraid, the fact that this
mountain
of a man should reckon he needed a weapon, with just the two of them here like
this, might have struck him as a curious form a flattery.
“That
was a question, case you didn’t notice. I’m waitin’ for an answer.”
“N-n-no,”
Martin stammered.
“The fuck’d you say you was again, anyway—the
Scarlet
fuckin’ Pimpernel, is it, or what?”
“I’m Martin...Who are you?”
“They call me
The Dog. I bark’n people jump.”
It sounded like a funny name for a guy to have,
but
Martin
wasn’t about to argue the point. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to
leave.”
“I
ain’t goin’ no place—and you ain’t neither.” “Look, what’s all this
about?”
42
“We’ll
save the explanations for later.” The Dog jerked the hand he held the gun in.
Then he turned the light back off and marched Martin out of the bedroom, along
the narrow hallway and into the living room.
Newspapers,
magazines and articles of clothing of various kinds lay where they’d been
dropped, in the chairs and on the carpet. “Right,” The Dog snarled, “now you
just sit there’n shut the fuck up till Joey shows, you wanna live through this.
You follow my drift?”
“I’m
afraid we’re going to be waiting an awful long time.”
“What
d’you mean by that?”
“Joey’s in prison. He’s still got a lot of time to serve.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, ’cause the B man just got
out.”
“Are
you sure about that?”
“Never been surer of anythin’ in my whole
life.”
“But how can he have, if he hasn’t served all of his
sentence?”
“What
I ’eard, the man did a deal.”
“What kind of a deal?”
“One that involved rattin’
on his friends.”
“So that’s why you’re here.”
“That’s why I’m here,
but what about you? The fuck
you
doin’ in Joey B’s flat?”
“I’ve been living here.”
“What, moved in with the
man’s missis, did ya?”
“We were just about to move out, as it happens.”
“Somethin’ tells me you shoulda moved a little
sooner.”
Something
told Martin the man had a point.
“What makes you think Joey’ll be comin’ here
now?”
43
“It’s
the man’s home, right?” The Dog said. “And home’s the place where people go
sooner or later, when they get out of nick.”
Martin
reckoned the man had a point there, too. “So now what?”
“You
always axe a lotta
dumb fuckin’ questions?” Martin didn’t say anything.
“I
could always just shoot you now,” The Dog said, like he was thinking aloud.
“There’s
no need for that.”
“That’s for me to decide.”
Martin figured he’d better just
shut up and do as The
Dog
said. So they sat there for what felt like ages, neither of them saying a word.
And then, when they finally heard someone opening the door, The Dog put a
finger to his lips. At the same time, he aimed his blue-steel Model 27 Smith
& Wesson at Martin’s face. The gun had a four-inch barrel, and Martin knew
that if The Dog were to pull the trigger then the bullet would take his head
with it.
They
heard the sound of the key turning in the lock. Then of the door slamming
shut...footsteps out in the hallway... And then a man Martin presumed must be
Joey B walked into the room.
Joey
B had the air of a man who thinks he’s alone in his own home, until he saw The
Dog standing over by the wall with a big smile that wasn’t really a smile at
all on his ugly mug. Joey blinked a couple of times, like he couldn’t believe
his eyes. “Well I’ll be blowed,” he said. “If it ain’t The Dogman himself.”
“You
a fuckin mole or somethin’, Joey, you like livin’ in the dark?”
44
Joey
reached out and flicked a switch, and when the light came on Martin was able to
get a better look at him. The man stood at around six-four, his greased black
hair was swept back over his head, and he had shoulders the way Jayne Mansfield
had breasts. He was wearing newish Diesel jeans, a blue Lacoste polo shirt and
a black leather jacket. His shoes looked like they were Italian, probably
Gucci’s. The guy dressed with a certain style, and Martin figured some women
would probably find his swarthy looks attractive, in a gangsterish kind of way.
That must have been what Bella saw in him.
Joey
was looking at The Dog. “Long time no see, man.”
“Thought
I’d come’n pay you a visit.”
“Who’s your friend?”
“He ain’t nobody.”
“Nice for
’im...well, it’s good to see you anyway,
Dog.
I appreciate it, you droppin’ in like this... Get you a drink?”
“Not
now.”
Joey
made what Martin reckoned was a pretty decent stab at a smile, all things
considered. “So what’ve you been up to?”
“Lotta
thinkin.”
“You always was a deep one, Dog.”
“Not much else a man can do when
he’s cooped up
like
I was.”
“No, I guess not.”
“No
thanks to you, Joey.”
“The
fuck you sayin’? I went down the same as you did, Dog.”
“That’s
right, you did...only you got out in three.”
“Yeah,
well I just got out today, as it happens. Seems like you managed to get out all
right, too, though, huh?”
45
“Yeah,
but only ’cause I ixcaped.... I didn’t do no deal or nothin like you
did.”
“What’re
you on about, Dog? Keep talkin’ in that canine fuckin’ language a yours’n there
ain’t no way I’m gonna be able to understand you, man.”
“I
always thought we was mates, Joey.”
“You’re
too fuckin’ right we are, Dog. So what’s with the fuckin’ peashooter?”
“Fuckin’
obvious, i’n it?”
“Well no, it ain’t to me, Dog.”
“Fuckin’ peashooter’s for
shootin’ fuckin’ peas with,
i’n’
it? Any little kid knows that much.”
“No need to take the piss, Dog.”
“Well
ain’t there now, Joey? Ain’t there really? Well
that
is a bit of a turn up, I must say, ’cause I thought that was what you’d
been kinda specializin’ in these past few years.”
“What
the fuck was it give you that idea?”
“Just
the way you been actin’ . . .the stunts you been pullin’, you know.”
“What
stunts is that you’re talkin’ about?”
“I’ll do the questions.”
“No need to
start comin’ on like a fuckin’ pit bull with
me,
Dog.”
“I don’t need you to tell me how I gotta start comin’
on
with you, neither.”
“C’mon, Dog, fuck me. It’s your old mate Joey B
you’re
talkin’ to. The fuck’s the matter with you, man? Somebody hit you on the head
when you was inside or somethin’, did they?”
“No,
nothin like that, Joey.”
“So what the fuck is it, then?”
“What’s the matter
with me is that I heard you been
talkin’.”
46
“Talkin’,
Dog?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“Talkin’ to who, Dog?”
“To some old friends
of yours.”
“Which old friends of mine might they be, Dog?” “Your friends in
blue.”
“Whoever told you that wants his fuckin’ head read.” “That ain’t the way
I heard it, Joey.”
“I dunno what the fuck you’re on about, Dog. I mean,
fuck
me, just take a look at you. You come round here’n accuse me of a thousand and
one different kindsa bullshit, all because some asshole who needs his fuckin’
head read’s fed you a pack a fuckin’ fairy stories. I mean, I just can’t
fuckin’ believe this.”
“What
is it you can’t believe, Joey?”
“This,
Dog, this fuckin’ bullshit you’re laying on me. This is fuckin’ unreal,
Dog. I mean, you just wanna stop and listen to yourself a moment, I tell ya .
. . I mean, what the fuck’s happened to you, anyway? I mean, hel-lo?
Dog? Is anybody in there? Or has somebody come along’n nicked your
old brain and left you with another one that don’t fuckin’ work too good? I
mean fuck me.”
“I
hear you talkin’, Joey.”
“Do
you, Dog? Well at least you ain’t deaf, anyway, which is somethin’ I suppose.”
“I
hear you makin’ with a lotta words, anyway, but the fing is, it’s practically
what you might call common knowledge round my way that you been keepin’
bad company.”
“You
must live in a funny area, Dog, ’cause anyone who knows me knows I don’t talk,
end of story. You know what they say, if you can’t do the time don’t commit the
fuckin’ crime. When I was inside, I didn’t talk to nobody, Dog. I always been
one to keep my nose clean, me.”
47
The
Dog took a couple of steps forward and held his gun against Joey’s forehead. “I
take exception to havin’ people insult where I live, Joey. You should know that
of all people, seeing as you was born’n bred there, the same as me.”
Joey
swallowed hard and said, “I was only sayin’, Dog—”
“How
’bout sayin’ where my fuckin’ money is?”
48
Chapter
Seven
“What
fuckin’ money?”
“You
owe me’n you know it, so you can stop shittin’ me.”
“I
ain’t shittin’ nobody. Fuck it, Dog, you don’t know how much it pains me, man,
to see you distrustin’ me like this.”
“It
don’t cause you nowhere near as much pain as I will if I don’t get my
fuckin’ money.”
“You
must know the cops took it all. Man, you’re barkin’ up the wrong tree if you
think I got it.”
The
Dog kicked Joey hard in the nuts, then followed up with a fast punch to the gut
and, as Joey fell backwards, he punched him again, in the face this time. There
was a loud cracking noise and blood started to stream from Joey’s face as he
slid down the wall. Then The Dog dragged him out of the living room and into
the bathroom.
Finding
himself alone in the living room, Martin reckoned it was time to make himself
scarce.
He
hadn’t made it as far as the front door, before he was struck on the back of
the head by what felt like a block of cement. He lost consciousness and bit the
carpet.
When
he came to, a short time later, Martin was lying on the bathroom floor and he
could hear someone screaming. It took him a moment or two to work out where he
was and how he’d got there. He got to his feet just in time to see The Dog
shoving Joey’s head into the bathtub and holding it underwater.
49
Martin
tried to intervene, but The Dog stopped him in his tracks again with a hard
punch to the gut. He followed up with a punch to the jaw that sent Martin
crashing back down onto the carpet.
The
Dog turned his attention back to Joey. “Hey, Braincell,” he snarled, “you gonna
tell me what you did with my money or you wanna die in a lotta pain instead?
Choice is yours.”
Joey
tried to say something but found that he couldn’t.
“Can’t
hear you, man. Speak the fuck up.” “O-kay,” Joey finally managed to croak out.
“So come on, then, where the fuck is it?”
“In a bank.”
“Which
fuckin’ bank?”
When
Joey looked like he was having second thoughts about telling, The Dog grabbed
him by the throat. “Fancy playin’ some more water polo, with your fat fuckin’
head for the ball or the puck, or whatever the fuck it is they use, do ya?”
Joey shook his head and The Dog loosened his grip a little. “Okay, so we’ll try
again— where’s the fuckin’ bank?”
“Over
in Geneva.”
“You’re
gonna have to tell me more’n that.” The Dog held his gun against Joey’s crotch.
“Now this’s your last fuckin’ chance—either you tell me or you can say goodbye
to where you keep your brains.”
Joey
told The Dog the name of the bank.
“And the address’n the number of the
account?” Joey told him.
“Got anythin’ can prove to me you ain’t lyin’?” “In
the safe . . . in the next room.”
50
“Let’s
go’n open it, then—you go first and your girlfriend can go in the middle. And
remember my gun’ll be pointin’ at your backs all the way.”
So
Joey struggled to his feet and led them into the bedroom. He flicked the light
switch before he hopped onto the bed. Then he pulled the painting of the lion
back from the wall and started turning the dial on the safe this way and that.
He moved it without even bothering to listen for clicks.
Martin
could see that the man knew the combination by heart, as he watched him move
the dial then open the door and reach inside the safe. Then Joey spun around,
with a gun in his hand, and shot The Dog right between the eyes.
The
force of the bullet threw The Dog back against the wardrobe, and his blood
spurted over the magnolia- painted walls and beige shag pile. All this happened
without the shot making much noise, because there was a silencer on the gun. If
any of the neighbours heard it, they wouldn’t have given it a second thought.
Joey
went and stood over The Dog. He fired a second shot into the man’s head at
point-blank range, just to make sure he wasn’t ever going to get up again.
“The
Dogman didn’t even have a chance to bark,” Joey chuckled.
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Nick Sweet
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