Valhalla, p.28
Valhalla, page 28
‘Oh, for crying out loud,’ said Attila the Hun; and he jumped up, ran down the aisle and started to climb the wall.
At first they were all too stunned to react at all. Then they started shouting, screaming, cursing, throwing telescopes and tripods and thermos flasks and notebooks and video cameras and shoes and items of jewellery and apple-cores and moisture meters and even a few thin, sharp-edged copper coins. Attila ignored them as best he could, and went on climbing. When he was finally astride the top of the wall, he held up his hands and spread them wide.
‘Look,’ he called out, ‘no paint.’
A folding stool hit him in the chest. He wobbled for a moment but managed to keep his balance. There were ten men in black uniforms with big shiny boots heading straight towards him down the main aisle.
‘Look at me,’ he howled. ‘Look at my hands. Look at my clothes. If the paint was even the slightest bit wet, wouldn’t it have come off on me? It’s dry, goddammit, dry.’
‘That’s him,’ someone in the front row said, and pointed. The leader of the shiny-boots nodded and advanced towards him, drawing a big heavy metal flashlight from his belt as he came.
When Attila came round again, he found that he was back in the auditorium; but this time he was right out on the far left side, and his feet and hands were chained to the floor. Worse, his head was wedged in some kind of stiff plastic collar that stopped him from looking anywhere but straight ahead. There was sticking plaster over his mouth, too.
‘Mmm,’ he said emphatically. ‘Mm mmmm mm m. Mm.’
‘Sh,’ replied his neighbour, eyes fixed on the wall.
‘Mmmm. Mmmm. Mm. Mmmm!’
His neighbour lowered his binoculars, turned his head and fixed him with a murderous glare. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’ll explain this just the one time, so listen up. The paint is wet. Any minute now it’ll start to dry, but at the moment it’s still wet. Now, if the paint’s wet, the guards will come and take off the gag and the chains. If it isn’t, they won’t, and you’ll have to suffer the misery of sitting there for the rest of eternity watching a dry wall. Now then,’ he went on, ‘who in his right mind’d want to sit forever watching dry paint? There wouldn’t be any point, would there?’
‘Mm,’ Attila conceded grudgingly. ‘Mmmm mm m.’
‘’Course I’m right,’ the neighbour said. ‘Now then, it’s up to you; one Mm for yes, two for no. Is the paint wet or dry?’
‘Mm.’
‘Sorry, I don’t think I quite heard you. Is the paint wet or dry?’
‘MMM!’
And sure enough, when he looked at it through the specially calibrated telescope they were kind enough to bring specially for him, he could see quite clearly that the paint was wet; well, not wet exactly. More sort of just ever so slightly getting tacky at the edges, which meant that the fun would start at any moment. Definitely not dry, though. Not dry at all.
Some time later, Attila became aware of an annoying itch, threatening to spoil his concentration. Without taking his eye away from the eyepiece of the telescope, he reached back to scratch; but it wasn’t any part of his head or body that was itching, it was his mind.
Hey, he ordered. Cut that out.
The itch apologised. It hated having to disturb him at a time like this, what with the paint being just about to start getting gooey on top, but could he by any chance remember who he was? Only they were filling out some forms at Subconscious Central, and it seemed that nobody could remember the name . . .
Name?
What we’re called. Our name. You know.
Attila scratched his head. Sorry, can’t help you there. Didn’t even know we had one.
Oh, replied the itch, dying away. Maybe you’re right and we’ve been imagining things. Which wouldn’t be all that unusual, since of course we’re your imagination.
My what?
Your imagination. It’s kind of a . . . Sort of . . . Well, you’ve got one. Had one. Once.
Attila shook his head and was about to tell the itch off for distracting him when suddenly everybody else in the auditorium was on their feet, yelling and screaming and cheering and hugging each other and singing—
‘What?’ Attila asked, bewildered. Nobody took any notice.
The celebrations went on for a very long time. Finally everybody quietened down and started to file out of the auditorium in an orderly fashion; except for Attila, of course, because the shiny-boots had forgotten to take off the last of the chains, the one that connected his ankle to his seat. He ought to have mentioned it at the time, he knew, but he’d been so caught up in watching the nice paint that he hadn’t even noticed that the chain was still there until some time after they’d gone. Still, he was able to grab the sleeve of one of the others as he shuffled by down the aisle.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked. ‘Why’s everybody leaving?’
The woman whose sleeve he was holding (was the face familiar? Joan something? He couldn’t remember) prised his fingers loose and let his hand drop. ‘It’s over,’ she said. ‘The paint dried.’
‘Huh?’
‘It dried, quite suddenly, just like that.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Oh no, don’t say you missed it.’
‘I—’ Attila opened and closed his mouth a few times like a goldfish. ‘I suppose I must have done.’
The woman shrugged. ‘Your own silly fault,’ she said, ‘for letting your attention wander.’
Then she walked by, and left him alone
‘Visitor for you,’ said the prison warder.
Vinnie awoke and propped himself up on his elbow. ‘For me?’ he repeated blearily.
The slide in the door ground shut and the door itself swung open. A tall, straight-backed man Vinnie had never seen before in his life walked in, and the door slammed shut behind him.
‘Hello,’ the man said. ‘You still here?’
‘What?’ Vinnie had to think for a moment. ‘Oh, you mean I haven’t escaped. Hey, where’s the point? It’s not as though I’ve done a murder. I’ve got a week to go and then I’m out of here on parole. If I escape, all that’s down the toilet. No, I’m staying put.’
The man raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘You surprise me. Especially since you’ve got this nice cell that just happens to overlook the blind spot in the perimeter fence, where by some weird coincidence there’s a weak point in the wire you could just squeeze through, no problem. Just the bars on the window between you and freedom, in fact.’
Vinnie shook his head. ‘Not me,’ he said. ‘You must be thinking of someone else.’
‘I suppose I must have been,’ the man replied. ‘Sorry I bothered you.’
‘That’s okay.’
The man turned to call the warder, then he looked back over his shoulder. ‘Still,’ he said, ‘you might as well have this. I don’t happen to like Victoria sponge myself.’
From under his arm he produced a round Tupperware box. He put it carefully on the floor, then banged on the door. ‘So long,’ he said
‘Ciao.’
When he’d gone, Vinnie opened the box and lifted out the cake. He looked at it for a moment, then plunged his fingers down into the icing until he felt metal. He grinned, then pulled out the file.
Nah, he thought. It’d be a really dumb thing to do.
The file seemed to be looking at him through its covering of crumbs and sticky goo. It made his fingers itch.
The smart thing to do is stay put, keep still, do the time, let Justice run its course. And besides, I don’t do that stuff any more.
He ran the edge of the file over the ball of his thumb. Nice sharp, clean teeth. Then he looked at the window; first at the bars, then at the clear blue sky beyond.
On the other hand, Vinnie thought, what the hell is the good of freedom if they give it to you? Only kind of freedom worth having is what you take for yourself.
First, however, he ate the cake. After all, he might be on the run for a very long time.
Tom Holt, Valhalla
