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Somethin’ dangerous. People’ve wondered what you used to be before you came here. Now I think I know. Yeah, you’d kill Maurice in a heartbeat, no question. Only trouble is...”
    “What?”
    “I don’t care. Don’t care at all if he gets hurt. The stupid incompetent asshole.”
    Finisterre angled the Desert Eagle downward.
    Maurice managed to yelp, “Boss! No!” before Finisterre shot him in the kneecap.
    Maurice shrieked and sagged in Lex’s arms, suddenly dead weight. Lex, thrown off-balance, stumbled. He went crashing to the ground with Maurice on top.
    That saved him, because when Finisterre fired again, Maurice took the bullet, right in the chest. In the same instant, Lex dropped the razor and reached behind him for the SIG.
    His return shots had, perforce, to be quick and desperate. There was no time for luxuries like sighting, lining up, aiming for centre of body mass, any of that. He snapped off three quick rounds, scattering Finisterre and his men, none of whom had had any idea that Lex was packing a gun. He clipped one of the henchmen on the arm and managed to take out one of the Jeep’s side windows.
    Finisterre and his two men took refuge behind the car while Lex pedalled himself backwards with his heels, keeping Maurice on top of him. He was making for the house, using the now very dead bruiser as a shield.
    Finisterre’s Desert Eagle barked twice across the Jeep’s bonnet. Lex answered with the SIG, firing low under the car. The ricochets made the crooks dance and skip in panic. With a huge effort he hauled himself and the corpse across the threshold, then rolled Maurice aside and took up a kneeling position behind the front door. He squeezed off two more shots, destroying one of the Jeep’s wing mirrors and putting a hole in the rear nearside door.
    The Desert Eagle blasted the house, punching through windowpane and weatherboard. Finisterre emptied the magazine, and as he was reloading, Lex leaned out from cover and almost casually selected a target: a hand that was visible at the rear of the Jeep, supporting its owner in a crouch.
    The henchman screamed as two fingers were obliterated. A string of patois curses filled the air.
    Then, distantly, another sound filled the air. The whoop of a police siren.
    A neighbour, hearing the gunfire, had called the cops, and by some miracle a squad car had been close by.
    Finisterre swore. “We got to run, boys.”
    “But boss...”
    “I know. It’s only the Babylon. Nothin’ cash can’t solve. But I don’t need to be caught in the middle of a fuckin’ shoot-up. There’ll be paperwork an’ lawyers an’ maybe some prick of a reporter wantin’ to write a story. I don’t need that bullshit. Englishman!”
    “Yes?” Lex called out from behind the door.
    “This isn’t over, you know that? It’s far from over.”
    “I’m quaking in my boots.”
    “Don’t be so smug. Nobody crosses the Garfish an’ gets away with it.”
    “As threats go, that’d be far more effective if you didn’t have such a stupid nickname,” Lex said. “The Barracuda—now that’s a scary fish name. The Tiger Shark, that’s another good one. But the Garfish?”
    The three crooks were climbing into the Jeep. “I know where you live,” said Finisterre. “Sleep with one eye open from now on, because you won’t know where, you won’t know when, but I’m comin’ for you.”
    “You just told me, you daft git. My house, at night. I’ll be waiting for you.”
    “You goin’ to die. Slow an’ horrible.”
    “Oh, give it a rest.”
    The Jeep started up and roared away. Moments later, the police car came into view, siren blaring, lightbar flashing. Lights flicked on in windows up and down the street. Heads poked nervously out from behind window blinds and front doors.
    Lex sighed. What a monumental fuck-up. The perfect end to a shitty night.

 

    FIVE
    FOUR HUNDRED PER CENT
     
     
    L EX GAVE THE police a selective and largely inaccurate version of events. He