This scene takes place in Ning Dang Po’s premier hot spot, Ditzy’s. For it to make sense, I just have to briefly give you the set up and the main protagonists. Meet Deaf Marlon, Big Merv’s human bugging device—no-one can lip-read like Marlon—who is sitting watching Marcella, The Pirate, to see if she lets anything interesting slip (nothing so far, Marlon is very bored by this point). Outside the club, we have our friend, The Pan of Hamgee. He’s been sent by Big Merv to fetch Marlon since the information he’s watching for has been discovered elsewhere. Finally there’s Clark, the belagured brains of Marcella’s outfit, increasingly marginalised and ignored by his boss and her favoured goons, he is desparate to find a way out. We are about to witness his first aborted attempt to defect from Marcella’s gang to Big Merv’s.
Lastly, we also have Norm and Stan, the disgruntled bouncers who have just been outwitted by Clark into letting him in. They’re going to take out their outrage at this slight the only way they know how. By flexing their great power to allow or deny entry to Ditzy’s hallowed portals as irresponsibly and vindictively as they can, starting by barring Shanice, the last girl of a group filing in, and continuing with The Pan of Hamgee.
This whole episide was such fun to write but unfortunately, I had to bin it. I still have slim hopes I’ll be able to jemmy it in, if only because Shanice deserves her few minutes of fame.
Anyway, here it is. It’s long but I felt you needed the whole thing to make sense of it. Enjoy:
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Outside Ditzy’s Norm and Stan were still smarting from being humiliated by Clark earlier. They exorcised their irritation, not to mention a dash of mortification, by applying the dress code and other opaque rules of entry to the club with the kind of psychopathic zeal of which only certain door staff are capable.
Norm stopped the last female in a gang of eight who had all gone in.
‘Not you,’ he said.
‘Why not?’ she asked.
‘Skirt,’ said Stan.
‘What about my skirt?’
‘Too long,’ said Stan at the exact same moment that Norm said,
‘It’s a minge pelmet!’
‘What?’
‘OK, we’ll let the length go then,’ said Stan.
‘But you still can’t come in,’ said Norm.
‘S’right. Coz it’s pink. It’s Red Night tonight. You can’t come in on Red Night wearing pink,’ said Norm.
Her face crumpled, but she didn’t cry. ‘It’s my sister’s hen night,’ she said. ‘We’re all
wearing pink. You let them in.’
‘They didn’t look pink. Yours does,’ said Norm.
‘They’ve gone in without me. Can’t I go in and explain that you won’t let me in.’
‘Don’t be stupid. If you’re not getting in, we’re not going to let you in. That’s the whole point of not getting in innit? That you don’t,’ said Stan.
‘But they’ll think I’ve gone home.’
‘They’ll be right. Coz you’ll have to, now,’ said Norm.
‘Yeh. Think about it this way, you’ve saved yourself a mint not paying to get in there,’ said Stan.
‘Yeh we done you a favour,’ said Norm.
‘So get lost,’ said Stan.
If one thing was certain, Norm and Stan were not going to be letting just anyone into the club tonight. They were going to split parties and cause as much misery as possible and anyone delivering any messages? They could just do one, preferably after they’d queued for two hours with the other plebs.
****
The Pan of Hamgee, watching this exchange from a few feet away sighed. He suspected the outcome was a foregone conclusion, but he had to try and gain access to Ditzy’s by the usual channels first so he stepped up and asked, anyway.
‘Hi,’ he said.
Both the enormous Swamp Thing bouncers turned towards him.
‘What d’you want?’ said the largest. He was the one that The Pan thought was called Norm, from the conversations he’d overheard between them. Not that he was going to dare using the fellow’s name. He couldn’t help noticing how much taller than him both of them were and the way the one who’d spoken’s antennae were sticking straight up and hardly moving at all. Great. They were angry already and he hadn’t even started. He swallowed.
‘I’m here to deliver a message,’ he said.
They laughed.
‘That’s funny, right Norm.’
‘Yer, Stan. This bloke’s got a wicked sense of humour.’
‘I have?’ said The Pan.
‘Yer. Don’t tell us who it’s for! We want to guess. You’ve got a message for Marcella The Pirate.’
‘Arnold no!’ said The Pan. ’I need to speak to someone else. His name’s—’
‘Lord Vernon! You must be here to see Lord Vernon, then!’ the one that The Pan now knew was called Norm cut in. The other, Stan, doubled up laughing.
‘Yeh, you here for Lord Vernon?’ he asked.
‘Of course I’m smecking not!’ snapped The Pan. Hang on, ‘Is he in tonight?’
‘Yer, he’s in,’ said Norm.
Smeck!
‘In … there?’ asked The Pan, just to check.
‘No he’s on the moon!’ said Norm and Stan snickered.
Ha smecking ha. Stan stopped snickering abruptly.
‘What’s it to you?’ he asked.
Uh-oh.
‘Nothing, believe me,’ said The Pan breezily. Stan’s eyes narrowed. ‘Look,’ gabbled The Pan, ‘I’m sorry alright. I thought Deaf Marlon was in tonight. If he’s not here then fine, I won’t waste your time, if he is, I have a message for him from Big Merv.’
Norm guffawed and put a heavy hand on The Pan’s shoulder. ‘Now you’re really making me laugh,’ he said through tears of ironic mirth. Well yes, that much was obvious.
‘What’s so funny?’ The Pan asked.
‘That you think you’re going to get in! That’s chuffing hilarious that is, right Stan?’
‘Yer!’ The other one clutched his stomach and doubled over, laughing fit to bust.
‘You really think we’ll believe you’ve got a message from Big Merv! He’s got standards in his organisation.’
‘Yer,’ agreed Norm starting to laugh again. ‘As if !’
‘But—’ began The Pan as Stan spoke over him.
‘Listen bud, if you don’t want a smack in the mouth may I suggest, politely, that you piss off.’
The Pan felt his shoulders sag as he looked up at the bouncers. He stared at them both for a moment but now they’d told him Lord Vernon was in there, he was getting cold feet anyway.
‘Fair enough,’ he said and walked away.
Deaf Marlon was in there and The Pan had to fetch him, but if Lord Vernon was also there he’d have to find a way to do it without being seen. Lord Vernon and The Pan had what Ada, at The Parrot and Screwdriver, would undoubtedly have called, ‘ahistory.’ Sargent Vernon, as he’d been then, ran a tin pot rural police station in Hamgee and because of one stupid, stupid act on The Pan’s part, had added The Pan and his family to the Government blacklist. The security forces had hauled the Pan’s father, mother, sister and brother off to who knew where. The Pan had only escaped because he was storming along the cliff path in a sulk after yet another row with his father.
Ever since that day The Pan had been on the run and Lord Vernon had been on the look out for him.
‘Discretion is the better part of valour,’ he muttered as he walked, although The Pan felt that in his case, the valour side of it was distinctly absent. Yeh, I’m all about discretion, he thought.
He chided himself for being a nutter magnet. He seemed be a red rag to every jumped-up jobsworth in Ning Dang Po. Yeh. Look at Smart Dennis. On the other hand, tonight it had done him a favour. The Pan knew, with a sinking heart, that he couldn’t go into a confined space with the recently enobled leader of the party. Marcella’s presence was bad enough, but if she saw The Pan she might decide to get antsy, security would throw them all out and he’d leg it and escape. If Lord Vernon recognised him it would be terminal.
Now what?
Plan B of course. He’d just have to give himself a minute or two to decide what it was.
There was no way The Pan could set foot in Ditzy’s via normal channels tonight, or at least, not without a disguise.
He rounded the corner of the building and stopped to take stock. While he did have some disguises in his snurd, he didn’t have time to change into one right now. On the other hand, he certainly couldn’t go in there wearing his father’s hat and cloak. Lord
Vernon would recognise him instantly. Yeh, nothing doing.
As a man who was unlikely to gain legitimate angry into any half decent venue in Ning Dang Po, The Pan knew the ‘back way’ into most places. Ditzy’s was no exception. The gents had a large sash window which was usually open a little bit, even on the chilliest nights and looked out onto narrow service lane at the back. OK so it was on the first floor rather than ground level but that wasn’t so much of a problem. He’d climb in there and then ask the first being who came to in for a wee if they’d fetch Deaf Marlon for him. Yeh. That’s what he’d do. Then he’d explain to Deaf Marlon that Big Merv wanted him back at his office and leave the way he’d come in. Deaf Marlon could leave whichever way he liked; through the entrance, like one of the normals, or via the back window with The Pan.
‘Right,’ The Pan said to himself, ‘that’s Plan B sorted.’ He almost felt smug for a moment. Rubbing his hands together, in a let’s get this done, kind of manner, he took one stride and stopped. There was someone there. Further along, in the shadows.
Smeck! This was turning out to be complicated. No, he mustn’t panic. He wasn’t necessarily about to get mugged. He tried a tentative, ‘Hello?’
There was a hiccup.
‘Is there anyone there?’ he asked quietly.
There was a sniff this time as well as a hiccup and then the female from earlier, the one Stan and Norm had barred, stepped timidly out of the shadow. She’d been crying—not surprising really, The Pan reflected—and all her eye make up had run.
‘Sorry,’ another sniff, ‘I must look like a panda.’
‘It’s OK.’
The Pan was caught off guard but as someone who was on the receiving end of Smart Dennis’ petty vindictiveness day in, day out he could totally sympathise.
‘It’s my sister’s hen night,’ she said sadly. ‘She’ll think I’ve gone home.’
‘I know, I saw. I’m sorry.’
‘It’s OK babes.’
‘I doubt it’s red night in there, either.’
‘I got that,’ she said. ‘I’m not stupid.’
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to—’
‘S alright babes, I know.’
Before he could stop himself, The Pan found himself saying, ‘If you still want to go in there, I can get you in the back way if you want.’
What was he doing? This was no time to take pity on some daft woman. Never mind, it was too late now. She perked up at once.
‘You can?’
‘I think so.’
‘You’re not just saying that?’
‘No. I mean, it’s a gamble because I haven’t checked yet but usually they leave the window open in the gents.’
‘If it’s anything like the ladies, they have to,’ she laughed, pulled a handkerchief from her tiny handbag and blew her nose. ‘What am I like?’ she giggled and fanned her face with one hand.
‘It was your sister’s hen night. It’s only normal to feel upset. Although,’ a beat, ‘Are you sure you want to go back in. She didn’t come back out to find you.’
‘She can’t. They’ll make her pay to go in again.’
‘Blimey, that’s a bit steep. Are they allowed to do that?’
‘No but it’s happened before. Even if she does come out, they’ll say I went home won’t they?’
‘I guess. Right then, if you’re OK walking into a dark alley with me, we’d better get going. I’m in a bit of a hurry.’
‘Ha!’ she laughed. ‘I could knock your block off babes, no trouble.’
‘That’s very probable, most people could knock my block off,’ The Pan said. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Shanice.’
‘Well Shanice, shall we go and do a bit of breaking and entering?’ he said and the two of them headed off down the service lane that led to the back of the club.
****
‘What is it?’ asked Marcella as back inside Ditzy’s, Clark joined her.
‘Ma’am, Brutus has the notebook, Deaf Marlon has nothing on us now, I say we leave and cut our losses.’
‘No,’ said Marcella.
As the two of them watched, Marlon glanced over and ducked into the gents.
‘We are going to let him have it, broadside, now,’ said Marcella.
‘Wait. Ma’am. It’s the Gents lavatory. You can’t go in there.’
‘I can go where I like.’
‘You’re female. You’ll get yourself arrested. Let me go in and talk to him, I’ll bring him out, we can take him outside and bash him there.’
Marcella thought for a moment. ‘Aye, tis a good point well made,’ she said. ‘Do it, the others and I will wait here.’
Clark made his way round the side of the dance floor in as nonchalant and nonconfrontational a manner as he could manage, he played down his size and played up his nerdiness so it wasn’t difficult. His biggest worry was getting stopped before he went into the gents. He knew he was being watched by the club’s security and doubtless Lord Vernon had a security detail who were watching him, too, along with anyone who had any street smarts or gangland links. Pretty much the entire clientele of the club understood what was going down, Clark reckoned. On the up side, they’d only know that he, an employee of Marcella The Pirate, was about to have some kind of meeting with Big Merv’s employee. Clark hadn’t quite formulated his plan of action but he knew he was going to do something that was suicidally stupid if it went wrong. Clark didn’t care though. In that single moment he’d decided that he was done with Marcella, and if he played this right, he realised, he might be able to jump ship.
There was a large window in the Gents, he would help Marlon escape and go with him, return him to The Big Thing nightclub in safety and then Big Merv would be grateful, and Clark would throw himself on Big Merv’s mercy and tell him everything about the sausage scam and the Grongles’ involvement. He would explain why he believed Captain Zellon and his chinless posh boy boss Colonel Kay to be bad news for everyone in Ning Dang Po’s underworld. And because Big Merv had a mind like a razor and wasn’t Marcella, Clark knew he would listen. Clark had no idea why the Grongles wanted to set Marcella up as The Boss of the city, but he was convinced that nothing good could come of it. He would have to get this right but if he did, it wouldn’t just be his ticket out of Marcella’s organisation, it would be a chance to stop the Grongles’ plan, whatever it was, before it started.
****
Outside in the alley below, The Pan and Shanice climbed onto some giant wheelie bins, or dumpsters as the Grongles called them, and surveyed the window above them. It was a little higher than head height but it was open and there was plenty of room to climb through. The bin wobbled a bit as The Pan pulled himself up and looked in.
‘No-one there,’ he said as he landed lightly beside her. ‘I think we’re in the clear.’
‘Thanks babes,’ she said.
‘Before we go in, would you do me a favour once we’re inside?’
‘Sure.’
‘For reasons I can’t go into, I have to stay here but I’ve been paid to deliver a message to a guy in there called Deaf Marlon. He’s about my height, maybe taller, and he will be wearing a tweed sports jacket with a polo neck jumper underneath. He usually has a sketch book and draws the clubbers around him.
‘Oh yes, I know him, I seen him down The Big Thing before now,’ said Shanice.
Arnold be praised!
‘Can you give him a message? Can you tell him The Pan of Hamgee has a message from his boss and is waiting for him in the gents.’
‘Course I can,’ she said.
‘Thanks. He’s deaf so you have to look at him, because he’ll need to read your lips.’
‘Yeh I can do that.’
‘Thanks. Bunk?’ he asked her. He bent down and she stood on his linked hands.
‘One, two, three,’ he said hefting her upwards on the ‘three’. She squirmed her way into the window. After a second or two she reappeared and leaned out, her blonde hair framed by the light behind her, to blow him a kiss.
‘Mwah! Arnold bless you babe! You have, Saved. My. Life,’ she told him.
‘Any time. You won’t forget about the message will you?’
‘Course not.’
‘Thanks. Have fun.’
‘Catch you later babes.’
She waved and ducked back inside. He heard her heels clacking across the tiled floor and the squeak of the hinges as she opened the first of the two doors that led back into the club.
The Pan smiled to himself. That had been a lucky break.
Well, one good turn deserves another, he thought. He was just about to follow his newfound friend through the window when he heard voices and footsteps. They were running along the quay at the front of the club, towards the alley. Someone was approaching at speed. For heavens sake! Why now?
The Pan slid silently off the wheelie bin and flattened himself against the wall, in the shadows. Was this going to conceal him enough? It depended who they were. He cast around for other places to hide, nothing much other than under the wheelie bin or in it. Hmm, that would be a last resort, something stinky was leaking out of it and if he was found in either of those hiding places he’d be cornered where he couldn’t run away. No, thinking about it, the best route was above head height, it always was. He cast about him.
Yes! There it was; a fire ladder attached to the building opposite.
The ladder went up the side of the building but stopped abruptly ten feet or so from the ground. The Pan jumped and his finger tips caught the bottom rung but he didn’t achieve enough height to grab on. Dammit! The footsteps were getting closer. He jumped again and for a second time the tips of his fingers brushed the metal.
‘Smeck!’ he whispered.
One last go. He stepped back and took a slight run up. At last he jumped high enough to grab the metal bar but the momentum swung him forward with such force that he almost let go.
‘Aargh,’ he muttered, his shoulders burning as he swung painfully back. No, no. It was OK now, The Pan was a pro at this. It was all about using the momentum. Quickly, before the swinging loosened his grip, he put his feet against the wall and walked himself up, his fear of being discovered, combined with the momentum, gave him the extra strength he needed to haul himself onto the ladder. He climbed a few feet up, slid round behind it so his back was against the wall and waited, trying to still the rasping of his heightened breathing.
Through the window opposite, he could see someone’s shoulders and trousers.
Wait a minute! Was that? Yes, it was Marlon. He’d come out of one of the stalls and went to the washbasins.
Below The Pan, two massive bald blokes with the kind of necks that were bigger than the tops of their heads jogged down the alley, like badass policemen, and stopped. Unlike many of their ilk, these guys were fit. Massive they might be but they weren’t out of breath when they stopped.
‘I dunno why we have to check down here, no-one’s goin’ to go in this way. That window in the gents ain’t low enough,’ said the first one.
‘Nah,’ the other agreed. ‘An’ it stinks down ‘ere.’
You’re not wrong there, thought The Pan as he waited, silently above them.
‘What’s in that bin?’
‘’S not the bin it’s the bogs innit? They’re overflowing again.’
‘Oh what? Arnold’s cleggnuts! Tell me that ain’t what I just trod in?’
The other one turned on a torch and pointed it at the ground. From above them, The Pan could see a flash of something yellow and mould coloured.
‘You’re all good, Ted. It’s a mouldy old mango from the kitchens innit?’
‘’S still disgusting.’
‘C’mon we’re wasting our time. There isn’t no-one down here, let’s go.’
They turned and The Pan watched them depart, stolid in their black coats, the shiny tops of their shaved heads reflecting the dim light, their neck rolls like stacked sausages, they strolled away down the alley without once looking up. Nobody ever looked up. Never. Even so. That had been close.
****
As Clark opened the first of the two doors into the Gents lavatory, it was opened by a tall female. Her make up had run, as if she’d been crying, but she, herself seemed very cheerful.
‘Sorry babes, can you believe I went into the wrong one?’ she said laughing as she ran past him. He paused in the doorway to watch as she went straight into the ladies, next door. Presumably to fix her make up.
****
Marlon opened the stall in which he was hiding just in time to see someone tall, blonde and female leaving the room.
That was strange.
He glanced at the window. Had she just …? Possibly. It was a sash window, of frosted glass but the top had been pulled down and the lower one up until the two sheets of glass were next to one another, in the middle. There was room for someone to get in there, but a lady, in those heels? He started towards the window and then, through the soles of his shoes, he felt the vibration of the outer of the two entrance doors closing. He didn’t want to get seen and toyed with the idea of diving out into the street.
No, he’d break his neck. He was no climber and he needed to work out a way down.
There was no time to nip back into a cubicle, he’d have to wash his hands and wait for whoever this was to leave. He rapidly changed course towards the basins, pushed the soap dispenser with his hand and pressed the tap. The door opened and to his horror, the Galorsh who’d been with Marcella The Pirate walked in. Marlon kept his eyes straight ahead and fixed on the mirror in front of him. He was glad he hadn’t dived through the window because the light in the alley outside changed, as if someone had turned a torch on. Maybe Marcella had goons out there too. In some respects, Marlon was inviolate because he worked for Big Merv but everyone in Big Merv’s organisation knew that Marcella had beaten up The Pan of Hamgee and taken the earrings he was delivering to Ms Myrtle, Big Merv’s girlfriend at the time. Big Merv had gone in pretty heavy over that one. and Marcella had sworn revenge. Yeh, if he let her goons corner him, Marlon doubted he’d escape unscathed.
‘Listen,’ the Galorsh said. ‘Can I talk to you bro?’
Marlon kept staring straight ahead, as if he hadn’t heard.
‘I know you can lip read, even in the mirror. I know you’re Deaf Marlon, the human bugging device.’
Marlon didn’t know who called him ‘the human bugging device’ but it wasn’t anyone in Big Merv’s organisation. It was quite a cool nickname though. Pity he had to find out now when he suspected his future was looking quite a lot shorter than it had been a few moments earlier. Slowly, because he didn’t want to provoke the stranger into any untoward reaction, Marlon turned round.
The Galorsh came closer and held out his hands, fingers up, palms facing him in a classic, I-don’t-intend-to-hurt-you gesture. But he had Marcella’s gang sign shaved into his fur so Marlon wasn’t buying it. He backed into the corner by the wall and the Galorsh kept walking towards him, moving slowly and cautiously.
‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ he said. ‘Straight.’
‘Yeh, sure,’ said Marlon. ‘You just want a word outside right? Then Marcella’s going to hurt me. That’s how it goes, isn’t it?’
Marlon said, ‘Yeh, that’s how she thinks it goes but me, I think different. I need your help. I want to—’ began the Galorsh and suddenly, he was rudely interrupted.
****
From his viewpoint on the ladder opposite, The Pan could see Marlon—and he was now sure it was Marlon—standing at the basin, washing his hands. There wouldn’t be a better opportunity to get his attention than this, but Marlon was deaf. Calling out to him wouldn’t work and unfortunately, The Pan had nothing in his pockets that he could throw. By The Prophet! This was the pits! In a few seconds Marlon would go back out into the club and who knew whether Shanice would pass on The Pan’s message. There were a hundred things that she might do which could distract her attention or preoccupy her so she forgot. Sure he could wait for someone else to use the gents but he knew that, while the clock wasn’t exactly ticking, Big Merv would be expecting a speedy extraction of Marlon from Ditzy’s. There were a lot of things that could go wrong, too. For starters, what if Lord Vernon decided to use the gents? The Pan could feel the cold sweat pricking his temples at the thought. He had to get to Marlon right now and the window of opportunity was closing fast … even if the window to the gents was … well … still open.
There was no time to descend the ladder, cross the alley, scramble onto the bin and climb in. The Pan knew he would have to do something a little more radical. He was going to have to jump into the gents at Ditzy’s from where he was. He scrambled round so he was standing on the front of the ladder, climbed up a few rungs to add some height—but not too much. He wanted just enough to increase his momentum a little bit—but no more—then he pushed off with all his might. He dived, head first, for the sizeable gap at the bottom of the open window.
The Pan might be a city boy now but he had grown up by the sea and he could execute a decent dive about as easily as breathing. Even so, he was surprised when he judged it perfectly. Well … more-or-less perfectly. What he didn’t account for was the possibility that anyone else might be in the gents with Marlon. Unfortunately someone was, and just as The Pan came hurtling through the open window like a human cannonball, another being walked into his path. He tried to turn and managed to twist a tiny bit so he hit the being in front of him shoulder first rather than head first.
Excellent, he’d avoided breaking his own neck so he’d chalk that part up as a win. He wasn’t 100% certain about the other bloke. Flying into him at speed, it was hard to tell where the impact point was but The Pan suspected he hit his victim mid thigh. There was a howl of pain that he knew, categorically, didn’t come from him.
Please Arnold let his leg not be broken, The Pan thought as the poor fellow went down with a crash and he landed, sprawling, on top of him.
Immediately The Pan scrabbled free, backed a pace or two away and stopped. The being he’d collided with was a Galorsh who was not getting up. Instead he was rolling around cursing under his breath and occasionally, yelling.
‘Smeck! What have I done?’ whispered The Pan.
‘Did you break his leg?’ asked a voice; Deaf Marlon.
The Pan turned to face Marlon so he could read his lips and said, ‘I hope not.’
‘Aaargh!’ yelled the Galorsh and The Pan forgot Marlon and concentrated on his victim. The poor fellow was rolling one way and then the other in pain, clutching his thigh. ‘You … aaargh! Bastard! Aaargh!’
The Galorsh was demonstrably alive so The Pan supposed that was a win. Even better from the way he was moving the affected leg as he writhed in agony, it was probably bruised rather than broken. Another win. Indeed, it looked as if it was merely a dead leg. Possibly one of the most painful dead legs ever given in K’Barthan history, from the way the chap was going on, but he wasn’t going to die of it and apart from the stiffness and the bruising he’d be up and about in no time.
‘Thank Arnold for that!’ muttered The Pan.
‘What do you—gnnnhhh—mean? Aaargh! Thank Arnold for that? You—gnaaargh—smecking cleggnut!’ shouted the Galorsh.
‘Have you any idea how much this hurts?’
It so happened that The Pan did but even if he hadn’t, his victim’s reaction wouldn’t have left much room for doubt.
‘I do actually, and I’m really sorry,’ said The Pan with a glance at the door. ‘I’m also extremely sorry that I can’t stay to help you but I really, really have to go.’
It was wrong to leave someone in such obvious pain but at the same time, the chap was making a lot of noise; enough to bring the club security staff running. Time for a sharp exit. The Pan turned back to Deaf Marlon who seemed to be supremely unconcerned by the Galorsh’s plight even if he was, quite clearly, terrified.
‘Come on Marlon, let’s go,’ said The Pan.
‘Suits me.’
Marlon was white, with a sheen of what looked like cold sweat across his face and he was projecting an aura of intense relief. The Pan’s shoulder was aching at the point of impact but it didn’t feel as if anything was pulled or broken. That was a mercy. He put the other hand to it as he crossed the room to the window, rolling it as he went. Yes, it was just stiff. He glanced down at Marlon’s smart, leather-soled brogues and back at his face.
‘OK Marlon, we’re on the first floor but there’s a big wheelie bin thing down there. You can jump onto that. If you climb out of the window and hang by your hands from the sill it’ll be a few inches to drop at most.’ Marlon had already swung his legs out. He turned onto his stomach and began to worm his way backwards.
‘D’you need me to lower you down?’ asked The Pan.
‘No. I can do it,’ he had almost shimmied his way far enough back to reach tipping point when he paused, ‘You’d best hurry up lad.’
Mmm. He clearly wasn’t hanging about. Then again he was rattled and The Pan understood that something must have ‘gone down’ as Big Merv would have put it between Marlon and the Galorsh. He made a mental note to ask.
‘Wait for me by the bin,’ he said while Marlon could still see his face.
‘Ten seconds, no more,’ said Marlon. Blimey! Something had put the fear of The Prophet into him him.
The Pan glanced back into the room at the Galorsh who was now on all fours, panting, his long purple tail stretched out on the ground beside him, the black fluffy end of it occasionally twitching. The sound of scrabbling and cursing drifted in through the open window followed by a loud bong. The Pan should try to help the being he’d injured, leaving him like this was not the K’Barthan way. He ran back to the Galorsh but then he remembered Marlon’s obvious fear and caution got the better of him. He stopped a few feet short, squatted down and met the brown, dog-like eyes as the Galorsh turned his head towards him. His victim’s expression wasn’t at all what The Pan expected. He wasn’t angry. He was disappointed, defeated, hopeless even, but there was no heat in his expression. He eyed The Pan with the placid resignation of a trapped animal.
‘I’m really, really sorry, truly I am, but I have to leave you,’ The Pan said. ‘Help will come soon but if I’m found here when it does, I suspect it’ll be the end of me.’
‘Yeh it will,’ said the Galorsh. His head drooped and he coughed.
The Pan didn’t know if that was a warning or a promise. No time to think about it now. He ran to the window, slipped out and as he turned to drop onto the bin the Galorsh called, ‘wait!’
He looked as if he wanted to say more. Arnold’s socks! It might be important. Yes, it might be or it might be a ruse to keep The Pan where he was until security arrived but it was too late to stop now. Anyway, if The Pan wanted to keep track of Marlon there was no time to listen and that was the priority here.
‘Can’t,’ he said and dropped onto the bin with a much quieter bong than Marlon. He landed lightly on the tarmac surface of the alley with a squelch. Oh dear. Please Arnold let that just be the mango. From the window above he heard shouts.
‘Smeck! Already?’
Marlon was half way up the alley by this time, running towards the lights of the street. The Pan would have gone the other way, into the darkness, where nobody would have bothered to look. Never mind they had a decent head start. He grabbed his keys and pressed the button to call his snurd as he sprinted to catch up Marlon. With any luck the SE2 would reach them before the pursuit did.
****
Clark stayed on all fours for a moment after Marlon and his rescuer had disappeared, then he heard the outer door of the gents hitting the wall with a smack as it was thrown open. He knew who that was.
By The Prophet’s conkers.
He’d screwed up and now he was trapped; stuck with Marcella and her goons forever. Still, if her ability and intelligence were anything to go by, forever with Marcella wouldn’t last that long. He just had to find a way to be alive at the end of it. He flopped onto the floor and pretended he’d passed out.
‘Get up you useless sack of pus!’ shouted Marcella.
Clark rolled over and pretended to be coming to.
‘Wha— What hit me?’ he asked.
‘How could you let that little deaf runt get one over on you!’ she shouted.
‘They jumped me,’ he moaned.
‘They? Who?’
‘Some of Big Merv’s gang.’ A loose definition of ‘some’ there—especially as one of them was Marlon—but two was more than one, so technically it was ‘some’ and they were definitely both employees of Big Merv’s gang, so he felt it was a legitimate description. If Marcella assumed a different level of ‘some’ it was her look out, not his, Clark decided. He was in too much pain and too crushingly disappointed at the opportunity he’d missed. He really couldn’t be bothered to explain about some bloke diving straight through the open window and smack into his leg. It was a too ridiculous a fluke and she wouldn’t believe him. Smeck! Even he found it hard to believe and he’d been on the receiving end. Where had the guy come from, for Arnold’s sake? Thin air?
