Sid had hefted the body through the back door, half crawling as the limp thing was dragged across the grass to the hole in the fence, taking his time to check that no one was around as he opened the passenger door of his stolen car before fetching the body.
He arranged the lifeless corpse in an attempt to look simply like the boy was lightly sleeping in the seat, almost crapping himself when he heard sirens nearby; but no other cars came onto the street, no one walked by.
You sure chose a good day to accidentally murder a child, a voice in Sid's head thought, nice quiet night.
Shut up, replied another voice, it's not child murder if it's accidental.
Yes, you just committed child manslaughter, that's not bad at all. Understandable really.
He couldn't go home, he'd figured that out already, but he needed to get his bearings – find somewhere safe to store the body, or an deserted place – he could plant the body with some cigarettes and matches, booze and burn the place down – it would look like some runaway kid had gotten drunk and fallen asleep with a lit cigarette in his mouth; he doubted the rate of desertion from the orphanage had greatly improved since his last stay.
But he didn't go to an old deserted warehouse or factory; he found himself taking a familiar route, and when he arrived at Gregori's house he was almost mildly surprised that he'd somehow turned up there.
Gregori had a garage that connected to the rest of the house, Sid didn't have a key for it but the lock was easy enough to bypass.
He'd been handsome. Maybe not very handsome, but enough that it was a shame that he wouldn't be buried with his good looks, no, they'd been smeared across that stupid floor, and the police would come and wipe it up and hose it down and soon Gregori would be nothing more than an ugly corpse 6 feet under with a non-committal gravestone that just had a vague 'RIP' to mark how there wasn't enough good to say about him to make up an even slightly original epitaph.
These thoughts permeated and gripped Sid's mind, then the first voice came back again.
You complain that they'll having nothing to say about him, but what did you come up with first? Hmm? He was 'handsome'. Well, that shows your priorities.
The other voice didn't reply.
Sid exited the garage, round to the front door, fished out the keys and entered the house carefully and slowly. He felt like an intruder. He was an intruder. Or was he? Gregori had given Sid the keys happily, telling him to come round any time he needed. He was nice like that.
Handsome and nice. RIP you handsome and nice person. What a wonderful tribute to put on his gravestone. He wondered what the kid in his car was like.
Would there be people laying flowers at a little memorial tree? We'll miss you, Alby, you're always in our hearts, the cards would write. Alby for Albino, how witty. Had the kid been going places? A scholarship to a good school like Sid had done? Or perhaps he was just another dumb adolescent with unfortunate hair, the police would never bother finding the body after they'd marked the file with a big 'runaway' stamp, and there wouldn't be a little memorial tree, or any cards, or flowers.
Sid had been standing blankly in the hallway for several minutes. He blinked himself out of his stupor, and went back to the garage, through the door in the utility room.
Pose the body, booze, cigarettes, some stupid child had broken into the house so out of his head that he'd just fallen asleep in the sitting room, his head so burnt up that dental records would be a pointless endeavour. Maybe he could take a few out, make the dental records even more difficult. That was a good idea, he should get rid of bodies more often.
He began to lift the corpse out of the car –
"Hhmm."
Sid let out an undignified yelp as the body fell out from his arms. He didn't breathe as he stared at the thing lay at his feet.
It had been his imagination. The car's tired old frame groaning as a weight was lifted from it.
"Uhhh."
Shit. Fuck. Nope. Damn. Darn. Heck. Hell. Flip. Shit. Even in his inexpert experience, he knew corpses didn't tend to moan. The kid wasn't dead.
…
Otto drifted for a while. He felt himself bump into things painfully as he was dragged along the ground, and a little while later he heard a voice talking to someone, but he couldn't hear the other person.
"Look, I can't tell you right now, but I'd appreciate it if you came over. But I'm not at my house."
A pause.
"You say 'don't get me involved with anything' like you're some sort of angel. I just want you to give me some advice. It's a little sensitive so I can't tell you over the phone."
Otto drifted back into silence.
When Otto came fully back into consciousness, he was sitting down. His limbs seemed very heavy, he couldn't move them – it took him a moment to realise they were tied with a thin rope. There was some sort of rag in his mouth, choking him slightly.
In front of him sat a man in another chair, bent over and chewing nervously on his thumb knuckle. He was probably in his mid-20s, though Otto was not a good judge of that, the man's dark hair was pushed back but had begun to fall back into his eyes, he was wearing a simple black business suit which looked like it had seen better days. All in all, he did not look well.
"Ah, hello," the man said looking up, a fake smile spread across his features, "how are you?" His voice was controlled and pleasant, in stark contrast to his appearance.
Otto groaned, panic steadily rising in him – he didn't recognise where he was, it looked like a kitchen, with off colour white tiles on the floor and walls, a kitchen stove to his right and a fridge to his left, cupboards on either side, that was all he could see in front of him, but where the light fell showed him that a large window was behind him. All this he took in in an instant, his mind immediately trying to decipher ways to escape.
The man shifted his position to be more upright, hands on knees. Otto saw bloodstains on the man's shirt.
"Right. First of all," the man began, "I'm really sorry about all this – I didn't mean to hurt you. I mean, when I thought I'd killed you and it turned out you were alive, it was mixed feelings, but, I think this is better. Sorry, I should have planned this speech before you woke up," the pleasant tone did little to calm Otto, who was struggling to control his breathing with the growing panic and the rag in his mouth.
Otto heard the doorbell ring, and the man seemed to perk up a little. He got up and left the kitchen. Otto heard the door open, but it was too muffled by the kitchen door to hear the greeting. Footsteps, and their voices became clearer.
"Ok, promise me this, you're not going to get angry," came the voice of the original man.
"Saying that just makes me get angry earlier, Sid," this voice was also male, but gruffer, and slightly agitated, "what happened?"
Sid didn't speak for a moment, when he did it was more subdued.
"They're all dead. I went to the warehouse yesterday, and they were all dead."
"What are you talking about?"
"Can I get any clearer? They're dead, every one of them. Murdered. Shot mostly, I think, I didn't stick around."
"Christ. Do you know who?"
"That's where it gets ambiguous. Gregori was still breathing long enough to tell me that someone was after me, they said they wanted me to help them find someone else, but then…"
"Then what?"
Otto heard Sid describe how his day had been, following the story up to the man's visit to the orphanage. Damn, Otto thought as he heard the story, he had been in the office. I'm such an idiot.
"You killed a child?" shouted the visitor.
"Feel free to shout louder, I don't think the NYPD heard you," Sid said sarcastically.
"You killed a child," he repeated.
"No I bloody didn't. I thought I did, but, when I got back here he woke up, so now he's in the kitchen."
"The place with all the knives? You really are stupider than I thought."
"He's tied up, obviously, but I need your advice."
"Advice on what? How to fuck up more?"
"Now you're just being unfair."
"Am I? Look, Sid, just let the kid go."
"Are you sure? What if he talks?"
"Then you'll be a hundred miles away by then if you have any sense. I don't appreciate the fact that you were going to leave without a second thought to me, but if these people are really that serious then you need to get out of this city. This country, even."
The handle on the kitchen door turned, and the new man walked in. He was tall, though slightly shorter than the man he called Sid, and with wider shoulders. He was bald, but the look suited him. Overall he looked powerful, stern and very annoyed.
Otto would have licked his lips if it weren't for the rag. He just stared, wide eyed, at the new man.
He shook his head and turned back to Sid, "he's barely 14," he said. Otto was 15.
The man turned back to Otto, "listen," he said, "my name's Diabolous, if I take out the gag, will you tell me your name?"
He took the rag out of Otto's mouth with surprising gentleness.
"My name's Otto Malpense," Otto said after taking a few lungful's of relatively fresh air.
"Hi Otto, I'm sorry about my associate here," from behind Diabolous, Sid rolled his eyes impatiently, "but he really didn't mean to hit you, and if we let you go you've got to promise not to tell anyone."
"They'll ask me where I've been all night," said Otto.
"You're going to have to lie about that, just say you went out with some friends."
"Who are you?" asked Otto.
"I told you, my name's-"
"I don't mean your name, I mean why are you being chased?"
"Well I'm not being chased," said Diabolous.
"If these people are killing people he knows," Otto nodded towards Sid, "then surely they're going to be looking for you, and now they'll kill me for knowing you to. You can't send me back if I'm going to get murdered!"
"Look," said Sid, "no one's going to kill you – you're really not very important."
"Sid, please, have some tact," protested Diabolous.
"They'll go after your family as well," continued Otto, and when Diabolous tensed up he sensed that he'd hit a nerve, "by the sounds of it anyone connected to this guy isn't safe."
"This one's clearly playing with you," Sid told Diabolous, "he doesn't know anything about it."
Diabolous whipped round to glare at Sid.
"Shut up," he told Sid, as a bullet cracked through the window behind Otto and whizzed through the spot where Diabolous' head had been just a second before.
