Chapter 6

A blinking light woke Face. He blinked back at it confused. It went off and he tried to get his bearings. He was somewhere dark, cramped and bumpy. The blinking light started again. A turn signal. He was in the trunk of a car. Not his favourite way to travel. He tried to get himself into a more comfortable position. Since he was lying on the spare wheel, with something unidentifiable sticking in his back and his head resting on a wheel arch this wasn't easy. The headache wasn't helping. He could feel dried blood down the side of his face. All in all he wasn't having the best night.

One good thing though, his hands weren't bound. He felt around for the release to see if he could open the trunk, but it was locked. Giving up on that he got busy with a little sabotage of the turn signal and the brake and reversing lights. The back of the housing was rusted out, allowing the light to leak into the trunk and exposing wires. Face pulled out as many wires as he could find until the lights all stopped working. With luck that might attract the attention of a police car. As he worked he worried. Not about himself, if they wanted him dead he'd already be dead. He worried about Murdock back at the warehouse and prayed they hadn't hurt him.

After about twenty minutes the car stopped. Face tensed as he heard doors slamming. Three doors. There'd been three guys at the warehouse when they took him. He forced himself to relax and when they opened the trunk he was affecting a dazed look as if he was only just waking up.

"Out," one ordered Face, gesturing with a handgun. It was the rat-faced man Face remembered from their previous encounter. He had two large friends with him. Face could see enough past them to guess they were in an alleyway.

"Huh? Where am I?"

"Get 'im out," Rat-boy told the other two. The thugs hauled Face out of the trunk and he let them drag him stumbling into a building. Rat-boy kept the gun jammed in his back. They went through a dark and silent restaurant kitchen that smelled of old grease, then up some narrow stairs into a dark room thick with cigarette smoke. A television was on in the corner, a blue movie playing silently. Several men sat around in battered leather armchairs, smoking cigarettes and drinking from heavy cut glass tumblers. The look of them and the room made Face think instantly of the phrase 'den of thieves'. He coughed on the thick atmosphere and resisted the urge to close his eyes as they started to sting. While pretending he was still woozy he took in as much as he could.

A thickset man, nearly six feet tall stood up. He had extremely large hands Face noted, and wore several large gold signet and sovereign rings. His suit was tasteless but expensive. His nose had clearly been broken several times and not reset by trained medical staff on all of those occasions. Boxer? Face wondered, filing that speculation away.

"This is one of 'em?" The big man asked, incredulously "This fairy is one of the boys that gave you lot a kickin'?" He glared accusingly at his men.

"Well you shoulda seen the rest of 'em, Harry," Rat-boy protested. "Huge bastards they were, weren't they lads?" The other two nodded in agreement. "Especially the darkie," Rat-boy continued. "This one's probably their wheel man, or he does the books or summat." He smirked.

"Nasty black eye you've got there." Face said to Rat-boy. His knuckles were still a little bruised from inflicting it. The other two thugs sniggered. Rat-boy glared at them then he turned back to 'Harry'.

"He had this."

Face groaned inwardly as he saw his shotgun in Rat-boy's hands.

"Lovely shooter, Harry. I took it off him, can I keep it? I need a clean piece for that job I've got next month. Course I'll have to saw down the barrel."

Face groaned out loud this time. Hannibal was going to kill him. Harry glanced at him.

"Yeah, okay Jimmy, you hang onto it."

"Thanks, boss." Jimmy grinned in a nasty gloating way at Face.

Harry took out his cigarette and walked over to a table, stubbed it out in an ashtray. Then with a surprising turn of speed he grabbed Face by the lapels of his jacket and slammed him back against the wall.

"Okay, yank," he snarled. "Who the 'ell are you and what are you lot doing shoving your noses in my business?"

"You know," Face said, "though I am an American it's not strictly accurate to call me a 'Yank'," Face had been paying attention to the Hannibal Smith method of talking to bad guys.

"Eh?"

"Yankees are from particular states, in the north-east. I'm from California…" He shut up when Harry gave him a swift punch in the gut then grabbed him around the throat with one of his meaty hands, forcing his head back.

"Comedian, are ya? Never liked American comedians."

"What?" Face sounded choked. "Not even Bob Hope?"

"Harry," Jimmy was slipping on a set of brass knuckles. "Let us take him out back and give him a proper going over. He won’t be making no bloody jokes after that."

"No, no." Harry said, seemed to be trying to make an effort to control himself. He let go of Face and stepped back. Face bent over a little, holding his stomach. Definitely a boxer. "Listen, yank, or whatever you call yourself. I'm not looking for no trouble. I've just been trying to transact a little legitimate business."

Face wondered where breaking and entering, threats, intimidation and abduction were found in the Big Book of Legitimate Business Practices, but he kept his wonderings silent.

"I made Stewart a fair offer for the premises and he chooses to bring in a bunch of hired guns to stir up trouble. Now is that reasonable, I ask you?"

"I think you missed out a big chunk of the story there," Face said. Harry grabbed him again, slammed him back against the wall, pinning him.

"Well now I have to get unreasonable, don’t I?"

Of course he does, thought Face, and as usual it's me they get unreasonable with.

"Now then…" One of Harry's big hands was around Face's throat again. He wasn't squeezing. Not yet. "We're going to make a phone call to your boss. And I like to know who I'm talking to, so you're going to tell me his name and all about him." Now he was squeezing, just a little, just enough. "Aren't you?"

Chris paced back and forth in his small office. Hannibal sat on the edge of the desk smoking a cigar, watching his client. Chris scowled at him.

"How can you just sit there smoking?" Chris asked, in an agitated voice.

"Helps me think." Hannibal said. Jenny came in then with some mugs on a tray.

"Some tea, Colonel?"

"Thanks, Jen." Hannibal said.

"Oh, great, tea, that'll solve everything." Chris said as Jenny put a mug down on the desk for him.

"Don't worry too much." Hannibal said. "Look, as charming as Face is I'm pretty sure they didn't grab him just for the pleasure of his company. They'll try to use him as leverage, to make you hand the place over."

"Colonel," Chris stopped pacing and looked at Hannibal. "They can have the whole damned place and everything in it if it means getting Face back safely."

Hannibal took out his cigar. "Thanks, Chris, I appreciate the sentiment. But it won't come to that. Believe me, we've been in this situation before, more than once."

"You almost sound as if you were expecting this to happen." Jenny said.

"Well, it was a likely move," Hannibal said. "In a way it's an opportunity, we should get some useful information."

Chris shook his head, amazed. "Aren't you worried about Face at all?"

"Face is tougher than he looks, Chris." Hannibal said. He grinned. "Not that that would be hard."

"So what are we going to do?" Jenny asked.

"Wait." Hannibal said.

"Wait for what?" She asked, frowning.

"The phone call." Hannibal said,

"Strong and sweet, BA?"

"Huh? Oh, tea, thanks, lil mama." BA took a mug from Jenny's tray. He was developing a liking for this stuff.

"Where's Murdock?" Jenny asked.

"Outside." BA answered.

"Patrolling?"

"No, just… outside."

"But it's raining."

BA frowned. "Fool ain't got enough sense in his head to come in outta the rain."

Jenny took her tray, found one of the umbrellas they'd left near the door when they arrived and went outside.

If Murdock was on sentry duty he wasn't exactly on high alert. Jenny walked right up to him without producing any reaction.

"I made some tea, Murdock."

"Oh, thanks." He took the mug, stood watching raindrops splash into it. Jenny drank her own tea and watched Murdock. The rain pattered onto the peak of his baseball cap and dripped off the edges.

"Colonel Smith doesn't seem too worried," she said eventually.

"Hannibal never seems worried." Murdock said.

"Chris on the other hand is having kittens," Jenny smiled, trying to lighten his mood. Murdock didn't respond. He had something in his hand, kept turning it around and around. A small red cylinder, a shotgun cartridge Jenny realised.

There was another long pause. Murdock drank a little of his tea.

"I'm sure he'll be alright," Jenny said, hating the silence.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you're right. Murdock said. "You always looked on the bright side," he added, giving her a smile as weak as his rain diluted tea.

Jenny shrugged. "If you don't then why bother getting up in the mornings?"

"Why indeed?" Murdock said quietly.

This time Jenny let the silence happen, just waited with him. The rain got heavier and the wet grass soaked through her shoes, but she just waited.

At last in the quiet they heard the distant sound of a telephone

Face had held out just long enough so they weren't suspicious and not so long that they stopped underestimating him. It was a delicate balancing act that he'd had the opportunity to practice far too many times for his liking.

To be truthful though he was actually pretty scared of Harry. Part of it was instinctive, a primal terror, way down in his gut. The same way he'd be scared of a lion or a bear. And that was down to the strength he'd felt in those massive hands when they were around his throat. But there was something more. It was the eyes. There was a look in them that Face recognised. This man had killed before.

Face sat slumped against the wall, battered and bruised and shaking a little. Harry was dialling the phone. The other men in armchairs went on watching the television. They had shown little interest while only a few feet away Face was being given a beating by Harry, Jimmy and the two big thugs.

Rat-faced Jimmy sat nearby crowing over the Remington. Seeing Face looking at him he pointed the shotgun at Face and said, "Bang!" Then roared with laughter.

"Shut it, Jimmy," Harry said. His call was connected and barely rang once at the other end before it was answered. "That Stewart, is it? Shut yer face, mate and let me talk to Colonel Smith."

Chapter 7