“What are you farting about with?”
“It’s the bird’s eye. It’s blinking a bit.”
Ling tapped the screen between them and started fiddling with the controls.
“How old is this piece of junk, anyway?”
“Older than you but not so pretty.”
Ling grunted and spoke in his mike.
“Hey, Birdseye. How are you doing? We got a bit of flicker down here. Is it us or is it you?”
A thin voice filled the cabin. He sounded about fifteen years old.
“Fine up here, Groundhog. You’re not supposed to hit it with your fist. It won’t work better that way.”
Ling and Evans were patrolling Olmstead Farm, a Black Hole that was never a farm, and it was far past midnight. A Black Hole at night is very black as no one is going to pay for public lighting there, and tonight there was no moon.
It’s not good for the innocent to be out at night in a Black Hole. The curfew is not official but it’s very real. If you can, you stay inside with heavy doors, booby traps, yappy dogs and guns to hand. Most lethal surprises in a Black Hole are at night.
The police truck was silent, only its tyres making a sound on the rough road, and it had no visible lights except a faint dark red from inside the cabin. But patrolmen Ling and Evans could see fine. The truck had powerful infra-red lights facing every way with a special rotating camera on the roof.
Evans the driver could see how to drive because the windscreen display told him where the potholes were. Everything outside looked like an old negative in black and shades of silver-grey.
Ling’s job was to look around. He was wearing the magic glasses which almost hid his right eye behind a fine milky-white mosaic that was always moving. Wearing the things took a lot of practice because one eye was picking up a silvery grey heat-image of what was happening while the other eye was seeing the same thing naturally. Protocol said you had to switch the infra-red eye from left to right every fifteen minutes but most patrollers were too lazy.
They were hell on the eyes, though. Blinding headaches were the leading cause of sick leave, followed by epileptic seizures. It took months for the eyes to recover if that happened.
“How’s your boy doing?” said Ling.
Evans’ face lit up.
“He finishes next summer. Gets top marks and stuff. Clever bastard. More brains than his poor old dad. Wants to get into corruption. Lots of that, big money sloshing around.”
“He wants to go after the big boys?”
“Yeah, he’s a do-gooder.”
“Best of luck to him.”
“Yeah, that’s what I say. Best of luck to you, pal. You’ll be cleaning elephant shit with a spoon.”
A few minutes later, Ling said, “Where’s he going to work? You know?”
“I put in a word with the boss. He knows people. Can’t do better than that.”
“At least he won’t out here in this shit hole.”
“Yeah, I’m sick of it, too.”
Ling grimaced and looked around again.
“I don’t know why they don’t all kill themselves,” he said. “What’s the point of living here? Doing nothing forever and ever.”
“Shitty houses, shit food, shit beer.”
“Shit whisky.”
“If you can call it whisky.”
“Says so on the bottles.”
“Lies.”
Evans paused.
“Shitty drugs.”
“All drugs are shit, say I. Shit drugs for shit people.”
“Yeah, that’s the worst,” said Evans. “Shit people. Loads of shit people. I wouldn’t go out at night if I lived here.”
“So what would you do?” said Ling. “Stay at home every night with a diseased woman and poison brats who all want to kill you in your sleep? Share the infections? Share the madness?”
“I wouldn’t live here.”
They drove in silence for a while, bumping along the road, looking at crumbling black and white buildings with heavy front doors that never opened at night, the heaps of warm rubbish that only rats could love, and the occasional pile of drunks and druggies huddled together.
“And you?” said Evans. “What about your girl? Can she read yet? You said you were teaching her yourself.”
“Yeah, she can read little stories now.”
He smiled.
“Sits on my lap and reads out loud about Gladys the Good Witch and Beverley Bovington Bad.”
“Bad is she? What does she do?”
“She’s just bad. She wears black and she’s always pissed off. In her house where all the poor children live, no one is allowed to laugh or she hits them with a big cabbage.”
“Why cabbage?”
“Don’t know. But Trudy hates cabbage so that’s fine. The best bit is the end where the judge sentences Beverley Bovington Bad to pick cabbages all day. That’s good for a laugh every time.”
“Good story,” said Evans.
Ling laughed.
“For the first thousand times, yeah.”
They drove round what was once a decent square with a stone plinth in the middle that had a pile of people sleeping around it. Their dogs woke up to the sound of the truck but they didn’t bark. The metal statue on top had long gone.
“D’you hear what happened to Zadek and Johnson?” said Ling.
Silence, as Evans drove round a hole in the road bigger than normal. Ling started laughing.
“They pulled in a looney over the Hills a couple of days back. The guy was chucking stones at them, calling them whores of Satan, and saying they stuck their tongues in the Devil’s arse. Stuff like that. So they took him in.”
He laughed more.
“When he was in the back, he shit himself.”
Both of them were laughing now.
“The hostel was closed, so they had to drive the shitty bastard for an hour till they could dump him. All covered in shit, shit on the seat, shit on the doors, shit on the windows, and screaming at them all the time, saying the Devil sent them.”
Evans wiped a tear from his eye.
“And the great thing is, they get to keep the car. No one else is going in that thing. Zadek says it still stinks. Like driving a public toilet, he says. They got a perfume spray. You know, what the boy-boys like. Didn’t work. So they drive with the windows open. Better get shot, says Johnson, than puke all day.”
Ling stopped laughing, spun his head.
“Stop,” he said. Voice flat. “Three walkers. Don’t like them. Time for the bright light.”
He hit a big blue button on the dashboard. In a second the rooftop spotlight shone on the three men, blue and violet lamps flashed on and off, and the police horns began to wail for a moment. Ling spoke into the mike snaking from the dash.
“This is the police. Freeze.”
The men froze, shielding their eyes from the white glare.
Inside the police truck, a woman’s sing song voice came on the loudspeaker.
“On the left, Michael Vickers, known as Spike. Long record. Worst crime, assault with a deadly weapon. Total time inside, eight and a half years. No charges outstanding. Centre, with the scar down his face, is known associate for fifteen years, Zog Milton. Long record. Worst crime, the same. Total time, seven years. No charges outstanding. On the right, Andreas Whiting, known as Whitey. Worst crime, the same. Time inside, four years and a bit. No charges either. All associated with King Mulligan, who you guys know. Probable enforcers.”
“Thanks, señorita,” said Ling. “Spike, Zog and Whitey.”
He opened the firing window and aimed his short-barrelled shotgun. He spoke into the street mike again.
“Move two steps apart. Slow, nice and slow. Now face the light. Open your arms nice and wide. Show me your hands.”
His loudspeaker voice rasped in the street and woke people up. Dozens of eyes in the dark were looking.
“Hey, Spike. What are you bad guys doing?”
“Nothing,” said Spike.
“Can’t hear you. Hey, Zog, what about you?”
Zog shook his head.
“Can’t hear you, Zog. What are you doing? Nothing good, I bet.”
“Nothing.”
“Whitey? You want to help me out here?”
Silence.
“Hey, Spike. What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Can’t hear you, Spike. You’ll have to speak out.”
“Nothing. Fucking nothing at all.”
“Can’t hear you, Spike. You’re whispering. Tell me, guy. What are you bad men doing?”
Spike stood tall, eyes clamped shut against the glare, and breathed deep.
“NOTHING. NOTHING. NOTHING AT ALL.”
“Sure you did something, Spike and Zog and Whitey. Sure you did. Now we know you were here at this time. We’ll find something, guys.”
And the lights went off.
“Let’s go,” said Ling.
He kept the shotgun trained on Spike and his men although he knew it would take six to eight seconds for their eyes to adapt. The police truck was lightly armoured which meant nothing Spike’s men were carrying could penetrate, but why take the risk? Besides, said Evans many times. Some guys are a pleasure to shoot.
A few minutes later, the firing window closed, Ling tapped on the drone screen.
“Hey, Birdseye, what are those guys doing now?”
“They waited a couple of minutes then they split up.”
“Can you keep track of them?”
“I’ve already got tracking squares on them.”
Evans grunted.
“On the course, they didn’t call them tracking squares. They called them something else. Something stupid. A grit? Was that it? That’s right. A grit.”
Ling smiled.
“Graphical Representational Image of a Target.”
Evans laughed.
“That makes me real happy to know that. You know what? I think I’ll just forget it again.”
They drove on for a while in silence.
“Hey, Groundhog,” said the drone voice. “Your guys have gone inside to the same place. Different routes to the same building. And I put a tracking square on it. If anyone goes out again tonight, I’ll let you know.”
“Thanks, Birdseye,” said Ling. “Can you go back and see where and what they were doing before we saw them? Something about the guys I didn’t like.”
“Can do but not till shift’s over. I’m your guardian angel, remember.”
“Thanks, Birdseye. We love you forever.”
The squawker spoke up.
“Firefight at location 10-49-28-97. Say again. 10-49-28-97. Details not clear. At least two down.”
“This is Car 54,” said Evans to the controller. “We’re onto it.”
“Great,” he said to Ling. “Lights, cameras, action. Two scumbags less.”
Ling just nodded and checked his weapons.
