Heedless
by Alan Brough
Genre: Thriller
Swearwords: None.
Description: A missing head is a deal breaker for businessman Bod and hit man Stoat.
_____________________________________________________________________
The hiding place was beneath three sheets of corrugated iron. Six foot by three, ragged with rust at the edges, they had lain randomly on top of one another. There were plenty of other bits of rusting hardware lying around the industrial waste ground so they didn't look conspicuous. The last of the sheets had now been upturned to reveal the shallow, brick lined grave; an old drain of some sort.
Bod looked at the body. Even if its presence there had shocked him he wouldn't have shown it. Bad form. Instead he looked at Stoat. "There's no head," he said.
Stoat had been watching him; at least that's what it looked like. There was never enough life in the mud brown eyes to be sure, but now they turned downwards. Stoat's mouth opened and his nostrils flared. He looked like he was having trouble breathing. This was shock.
The body was of a male in his late thirties, well muscled under a nice sports jacket, bright slacks, expensive shoes. Bod looked at his own shoes, his mouth curling in distaste at the red mud clinging to Italian leather. The man hadn't died peacefully. A large portion of his chest and upper abdomen had been turned into mince by the crude application of a shotgun cartridge at close range. Subtle or what. And then there was the missing head; not a tidy job, Bod admitted. All in all, Watson Priest was not looking his best. Shock was an understandable reaction, or would have been if Stoat hadn't put the body there in the first place, scrunching it into a foetal position to make it fit.
"It's still him though," Stoat finally spoke.
"You know the deal?"
The muddy brown eyes just stared at him, no sign of even the limited intelligence within. Bod spoke slowly, as though to a child: "Five thousand for the head."
"It's still him though," Stoat said again.
Bod waited. Stoat's hand went to his back trouser pocket, making Bod tense on the balls of his feet, but came out with a wallet. He held it out.
Bod took it, rubbed it in the palm of his hand. Pigskin. He sneered at the corpse. The wallet was empty save for a passport size photograph of the missing part of the jigsaw.
"How much was in it?" he asked Stoat.
"Hunner, hunner and twenty or so."
"So you're not completely out of pocket then. Credit Cards?"
The boy's eyes flitted away.
"For chrissakes Stoat, you don't murder a man then sell his plastic." Especially not when the dead man is Watson Priest. Bod wondered for how long Stoat would be around. Looked at the skinny youth in jeans and hoodie; hood up, framing a pinched, acne-ridden face. "So you stole the man's wallet, what does that prove?"
The boy was beginning to shake now, a trembling over his whole body. Bod wondered what he needed the money so badly for. As far as he knew Stoat was clean. In this game, you gave someone drugs to stop them thinking too much. No one was going to waste expensive chemicals on what nature had already sorted. No matter. Stoat was quivering on the ground now, like the little rocket he was, just before take off. Bod didn't want Stoat taking off when he was this close. Not with a dead body between them. Fireworks were dumb but still dangerous.
"I need the head, Stoat," he said.
No answer and the quivering didn't stop. The youth was almost dancing on his toes now.
"There's a market in this kind of thing, Stoat. Who knew about this?"
Was that a flicker of interest there? Stoat was an entrepreneur, a freelancer, markets were something he understood.
"I'm the customer here, Stoat, and that," he pointed to the gap above the collar; "is the product."
Stoat considered this. It made a kind of sense when he thought about it, the way Bod put it. It had occurred to him just for a moment or two that Bod was putting one over; he'd heard a rumour about cash flow problems. "So how does any of this help me get my money?" he asked.
"I want to help you here, Billy." Bod put his hand into the pockets of his coat and took some time to check out the landscape. The last of the light was going from the waste ground now, no lights on the jagged gable ends that faced this way. In the further distance the city lights illuminated the sky. He could see himself stubbing a toe or stepping on dogshit on his way back to the car. Turning again to the Stoat. "Does preferred bidder status mean anything to you, Billy?"
Billy shook his head, dumb but interested.
"You did the deed here, Stoat. I trust you on that but you don't pay out on trust in business. This, ah, commodity, will be bought and sold but I'm the ultimate customer."
"So you'll get it offered to you?"
"That's right, and when I do, I'll let you know, that's the best I can do." Bod finally felt able to turn his back on Stoat and did so, walking away carefully, trying not to step on anything and trying not to hurry. He had never liked fireworks, would rather have paid if the money had been available. Less trouble all round.
Stoat watched him go as he lifted the corrugated sheets back into place. He didn't trust Bod and this preferred status business. What was to stop Bod just paying whoever delivered the head and saying nothing to the Stoat? Why go to the trouble?
Truth was, the guy was beginning to seriously spook Bod. Almost a week now since the Stoat had shown him Priest's body and still he kept turning up. That had been Sunday, on Tuesday the body was discovered. A bit like America, Bod had thought when it was announced on the radio; discovered but already known to all the people who lived there. A lot of people seemed to have previous knowledge of Priest's demise. The Stoat wasn't subtle; talking about his deed had been a form of advertising for him. If he was lucky the police would find him first, before Priest's people. Neither had appeared on the scene yet; the kid led a charmed life, protected by whatever god watched over the terminally stupid, and he in turn was watching over Bod, waiting for the seller to get in touch.
Hastie insisted in calling it a wine bar but it was just a pub. The little man was red faced and sweat clung to his upper lip. He was always this way in Bod's company.
"And you assure me there will be no difference in quality, Mister O'Donnell?"
"Absolutely, listen these aren't fakes, or inferior products. What you are getting is exactly what you put on the order form. Same manufacturer, everything."
"Then how?"
Bod smiled. To Hastie he was always Mister O'Donnell, not even a 'call me Brendan' had broken that one. Bod liked that, although he knew it wasn't a gesture of respect. He also liked the fact that Mister Hastie was about to solve his cash flow problems. "The only difference is the route from factory to warehouse."
"And the delivery?"
"Tomorrow morning, in a proper van, name on the side, the whole thing; and I'll bring the invoice in myself in the afternoon."
Hastie left the pub first, glad to be away from him. To look at him you would never believe it was the little man who had made all the running, after Bod had tried to sell him some less than legit floor coverings six months earlier. Hastie wanted goods invoiced to the company at full price, he wanted Bod to have a company bank account and he wanted thirty percent of each invoice, net of vat, remitted in cash, back into his own sweaty little hand. Bod wasn't complaining, it was the sweetest deal of his life.
Stoat was standing in a doorway across the road. Bod went over to him. Stoat was agitated, beginning to quiver again. No denying it, his presence made Bod uneasy. It was the killing of Priest, he never really expected Stoat to be up to it. His kind were the ones always trying to keep up, to show the others; always more dangerous in the end than the natural hard cases.
"Was that him, Bod, was that the man with my head?"
"You stay away from him, you little jerk."
Stoat flinched backward but Bod was already striking him once, twice to the stomach, kicking his head as he fell on to the wet paving stones.
Only two other people in the side street; a boy and girl holding an umbrella between them against the rain. Had been walking towards Bod and Stoat, now pirouetting gracefully still linked, to go in the opposite direction. Bod turned up his collar and walked away, glad that there was no sign of Hastie in the street. He didn't like Stoat knowing of Hastie's existence.
Hastie was even more formal the following afternoon within the ancient offices of Clutterman and Son. He kept Bod waiting for one thing, in a corridor outside his office, from where Bod could look out on the yard where his van would have made the delivery earlier in the day. The top half of the door was glass, but of the opaque sort with Hastie's title on it, in gold lettering, so he couldn't peer through and see if he was actually with someone, or just pissing him about for the fun of it.
No, he wasn't alone, probably bouncing the young secretary on his knee. Bod heard his voice, more pompous than ever. "If that's Mister O'Donnell from Shakespeare Stores, show him in, will you, Marie."
He wasn't so formal though after Marie had gone. Bod noticed the sweat was forming on his lip again. He poked at Bod's invoice with the tip of his fountain pen. "I could do with the commission on this." He always called it that, 'commission'. "Pretty soon. Bit of a cash crisis on the home front, if you know what I mean."
'Tell me about it', Bod thought, but all he said was: "The quicker the invoice gets paid, the sooner I can get back to you."
Stoat was outside the gates of Cluttermans' but ran off when Bod emerged.
With his cash flow problems solved Bod seriously considered paying Stoat; that was how much the boy's constant presence was getting on his nerves. Stoat was following him everywhere and they had spoken several times. Although Bod was getting tired of the whole head thing he hadn't hit Stoat again. He didn't think Stoat would accept a part payment and to be perfectly honest, now that the thing had started five grand felt worth holding onto. It was roughly the amount he owed Hastie. This was a debt he would pay; a worthwhile investment.
No delays this time. Hastie at the open door, sweaty but welcoming, ushering him into his office. Hastie's briefcase lay open on top of his desk, facing the door, waiting for Bod's envelope. Hastie was ready to close the lid as the envelope went in when the door thudded open again at their backs. Hastie leapt about a foot in the air, imagining the fraud squad arriving.
Bod swung round. "Stoat, put the gun down. He isn't the one."
The gun didn't waver. Stoat shook his head, grinning. "I know he is," he said.
"Stoat, this is a business deal and you are severely spoiling it."
"Back against the wall."
Bod thought about it. Looked into his eyes; mud, nothing there to reason with. The gun was a shotgun, single barreled; the one that had killed Priest, he was sure.
He moved with Hastie back against the wall.
Stoat picked the envelope out of the briefcase.
Bod tried one last time. "Stoat, I'm telling you, he's not the one." Desperate now.
"You lied to me, Bod, it even says so on the door." Stoat backed out of the door. Footsteps echoed down the corridor as he ran.
Hastie began to beat Bod's chest with little fists. "Get after him."
Bod shoved him off and went to look at the office door. The gold lettering, which he had looked at before without reading, said 'Head Buyer'. He put his head against the glass paneling and began to laugh weakly.
Swearwords: None.
Description: A missing head is a deal breaker for businessman Bod and hit man Stoat.
_____________________________________________________________________
The hiding place was beneath three sheets of corrugated iron. Six foot by three, ragged with rust at the edges, they had lain randomly on top of one another. There were plenty of other bits of rusting hardware lying around the industrial waste ground so they didn't look conspicuous. The last of the sheets had now been upturned to reveal the shallow, brick lined grave; an old drain of some sort.
Bod looked at the body. Even if its presence there had shocked him he wouldn't have shown it. Bad form. Instead he looked at Stoat. "There's no head," he said.
Stoat had been watching him; at least that's what it looked like. There was never enough life in the mud brown eyes to be sure, but now they turned downwards. Stoat's mouth opened and his nostrils flared. He looked like he was having trouble breathing. This was shock.
The body was of a male in his late thirties, well muscled under a nice sports jacket, bright slacks, expensive shoes. Bod looked at his own shoes, his mouth curling in distaste at the red mud clinging to Italian leather. The man hadn't died peacefully. A large portion of his chest and upper abdomen had been turned into mince by the crude application of a shotgun cartridge at close range. Subtle or what. And then there was the missing head; not a tidy job, Bod admitted. All in all, Watson Priest was not looking his best. Shock was an understandable reaction, or would have been if Stoat hadn't put the body there in the first place, scrunching it into a foetal position to make it fit.
"It's still him though," Stoat finally spoke.
"You know the deal?"
The muddy brown eyes just stared at him, no sign of even the limited intelligence within. Bod spoke slowly, as though to a child: "Five thousand for the head."
"It's still him though," Stoat said again.
Bod waited. Stoat's hand went to his back trouser pocket, making Bod tense on the balls of his feet, but came out with a wallet. He held it out.
Bod took it, rubbed it in the palm of his hand. Pigskin. He sneered at the corpse. The wallet was empty save for a passport size photograph of the missing part of the jigsaw.
"How much was in it?" he asked Stoat.
"Hunner, hunner and twenty or so."
"So you're not completely out of pocket then. Credit Cards?"
The boy's eyes flitted away.
"For chrissakes Stoat, you don't murder a man then sell his plastic." Especially not when the dead man is Watson Priest. Bod wondered for how long Stoat would be around. Looked at the skinny youth in jeans and hoodie; hood up, framing a pinched, acne-ridden face. "So you stole the man's wallet, what does that prove?"
The boy was beginning to shake now, a trembling over his whole body. Bod wondered what he needed the money so badly for. As far as he knew Stoat was clean. In this game, you gave someone drugs to stop them thinking too much. No one was going to waste expensive chemicals on what nature had already sorted. No matter. Stoat was quivering on the ground now, like the little rocket he was, just before take off. Bod didn't want Stoat taking off when he was this close. Not with a dead body between them. Fireworks were dumb but still dangerous.
"I need the head, Stoat," he said.
No answer and the quivering didn't stop. The youth was almost dancing on his toes now.
"There's a market in this kind of thing, Stoat. Who knew about this?"
Was that a flicker of interest there? Stoat was an entrepreneur, a freelancer, markets were something he understood.
"I'm the customer here, Stoat, and that," he pointed to the gap above the collar; "is the product."
Stoat considered this. It made a kind of sense when he thought about it, the way Bod put it. It had occurred to him just for a moment or two that Bod was putting one over; he'd heard a rumour about cash flow problems. "So how does any of this help me get my money?" he asked.
"I want to help you here, Billy." Bod put his hand into the pockets of his coat and took some time to check out the landscape. The last of the light was going from the waste ground now, no lights on the jagged gable ends that faced this way. In the further distance the city lights illuminated the sky. He could see himself stubbing a toe or stepping on dogshit on his way back to the car. Turning again to the Stoat. "Does preferred bidder status mean anything to you, Billy?"
Billy shook his head, dumb but interested.
"You did the deed here, Stoat. I trust you on that but you don't pay out on trust in business. This, ah, commodity, will be bought and sold but I'm the ultimate customer."
"So you'll get it offered to you?"
"That's right, and when I do, I'll let you know, that's the best I can do." Bod finally felt able to turn his back on Stoat and did so, walking away carefully, trying not to step on anything and trying not to hurry. He had never liked fireworks, would rather have paid if the money had been available. Less trouble all round.
Stoat watched him go as he lifted the corrugated sheets back into place. He didn't trust Bod and this preferred status business. What was to stop Bod just paying whoever delivered the head and saying nothing to the Stoat? Why go to the trouble?
Truth was, the guy was beginning to seriously spook Bod. Almost a week now since the Stoat had shown him Priest's body and still he kept turning up. That had been Sunday, on Tuesday the body was discovered. A bit like America, Bod had thought when it was announced on the radio; discovered but already known to all the people who lived there. A lot of people seemed to have previous knowledge of Priest's demise. The Stoat wasn't subtle; talking about his deed had been a form of advertising for him. If he was lucky the police would find him first, before Priest's people. Neither had appeared on the scene yet; the kid led a charmed life, protected by whatever god watched over the terminally stupid, and he in turn was watching over Bod, waiting for the seller to get in touch.
Hastie insisted in calling it a wine bar but it was just a pub. The little man was red faced and sweat clung to his upper lip. He was always this way in Bod's company.
"And you assure me there will be no difference in quality, Mister O'Donnell?"
"Absolutely, listen these aren't fakes, or inferior products. What you are getting is exactly what you put on the order form. Same manufacturer, everything."
"Then how?"
Bod smiled. To Hastie he was always Mister O'Donnell, not even a 'call me Brendan' had broken that one. Bod liked that, although he knew it wasn't a gesture of respect. He also liked the fact that Mister Hastie was about to solve his cash flow problems. "The only difference is the route from factory to warehouse."
"And the delivery?"
"Tomorrow morning, in a proper van, name on the side, the whole thing; and I'll bring the invoice in myself in the afternoon."
Hastie left the pub first, glad to be away from him. To look at him you would never believe it was the little man who had made all the running, after Bod had tried to sell him some less than legit floor coverings six months earlier. Hastie wanted goods invoiced to the company at full price, he wanted Bod to have a company bank account and he wanted thirty percent of each invoice, net of vat, remitted in cash, back into his own sweaty little hand. Bod wasn't complaining, it was the sweetest deal of his life.
Stoat was standing in a doorway across the road. Bod went over to him. Stoat was agitated, beginning to quiver again. No denying it, his presence made Bod uneasy. It was the killing of Priest, he never really expected Stoat to be up to it. His kind were the ones always trying to keep up, to show the others; always more dangerous in the end than the natural hard cases.
"Was that him, Bod, was that the man with my head?"
"You stay away from him, you little jerk."
Stoat flinched backward but Bod was already striking him once, twice to the stomach, kicking his head as he fell on to the wet paving stones.
Only two other people in the side street; a boy and girl holding an umbrella between them against the rain. Had been walking towards Bod and Stoat, now pirouetting gracefully still linked, to go in the opposite direction. Bod turned up his collar and walked away, glad that there was no sign of Hastie in the street. He didn't like Stoat knowing of Hastie's existence.
Hastie was even more formal the following afternoon within the ancient offices of Clutterman and Son. He kept Bod waiting for one thing, in a corridor outside his office, from where Bod could look out on the yard where his van would have made the delivery earlier in the day. The top half of the door was glass, but of the opaque sort with Hastie's title on it, in gold lettering, so he couldn't peer through and see if he was actually with someone, or just pissing him about for the fun of it.
No, he wasn't alone, probably bouncing the young secretary on his knee. Bod heard his voice, more pompous than ever. "If that's Mister O'Donnell from Shakespeare Stores, show him in, will you, Marie."
He wasn't so formal though after Marie had gone. Bod noticed the sweat was forming on his lip again. He poked at Bod's invoice with the tip of his fountain pen. "I could do with the commission on this." He always called it that, 'commission'. "Pretty soon. Bit of a cash crisis on the home front, if you know what I mean."
'Tell me about it', Bod thought, but all he said was: "The quicker the invoice gets paid, the sooner I can get back to you."
Stoat was outside the gates of Cluttermans' but ran off when Bod emerged.
With his cash flow problems solved Bod seriously considered paying Stoat; that was how much the boy's constant presence was getting on his nerves. Stoat was following him everywhere and they had spoken several times. Although Bod was getting tired of the whole head thing he hadn't hit Stoat again. He didn't think Stoat would accept a part payment and to be perfectly honest, now that the thing had started five grand felt worth holding onto. It was roughly the amount he owed Hastie. This was a debt he would pay; a worthwhile investment.
No delays this time. Hastie at the open door, sweaty but welcoming, ushering him into his office. Hastie's briefcase lay open on top of his desk, facing the door, waiting for Bod's envelope. Hastie was ready to close the lid as the envelope went in when the door thudded open again at their backs. Hastie leapt about a foot in the air, imagining the fraud squad arriving.
Bod swung round. "Stoat, put the gun down. He isn't the one."
The gun didn't waver. Stoat shook his head, grinning. "I know he is," he said.
"Stoat, this is a business deal and you are severely spoiling it."
"Back against the wall."
Bod thought about it. Looked into his eyes; mud, nothing there to reason with. The gun was a shotgun, single barreled; the one that had killed Priest, he was sure.
He moved with Hastie back against the wall.
Stoat picked the envelope out of the briefcase.
Bod tried one last time. "Stoat, I'm telling you, he's not the one." Desperate now.
"You lied to me, Bod, it even says so on the door." Stoat backed out of the door. Footsteps echoed down the corridor as he ran.
Hastie began to beat Bod's chest with little fists. "Get after him."
Bod shoved him off and went to look at the office door. The gold lettering, which he had looked at before without reading, said 'Head Buyer'. He put his head against the glass paneling and began to laugh weakly.
About the Author
Alan Brough was born and brought up in Glasgow, but has lived in Argyll for the last twenty years.
‘I have always written short stories,’ he tells us. ‘They tend not to go beyond my laptop, although one or two have been published in various places and are almost certainly not in print now.’
‘I have always written short stories,’ he tells us. ‘They tend not to go beyond my laptop, although one or two have been published in various places and are almost certainly not in print now.’