Blue Genes - By Val McDermid Page 0,92

this meeting," he reminded me, stabbing his finger toward the center of my chest. "You need what I can do for you. Otherwise you might as well fuck off back to Germany."

I jerked back from his finger. I could relax now. Lovell had just nailed himself to the wall. "Okay, okay," I said. "No reason why we can't do business. I was just checking."

Lovell got to his feet. "Well, you've done your check¬ing and now you know what the score is. You don't ever get smart with me, bitch, you hear? I tell your poxy band where they play and when, you do no deals without con¬sulting me first." He put a hand in his pocket and tossed a small mobile phone on the table. "Keep it on you. My number's programmed in at number one. That's the only number you call, you hear? I get any bills that say other¬wise and you pay a service charge I guarantee you won't like. You can buy a charger unit anywhere that sells phones. I'll let you know when your first gig is."

Whatever he was going to say next was lost. The door to the club crashed open again and two men piled in, shouting, "Police. Don't move." The door to the ladies' toilet opened and two more rushed into the room, heading for the minders. A fifth cop jumped over the DJ's turntables as Delia ran out from behind the bar toward Lovell. Every¬body was screaming, "Police. Don't move." The acoustics of the club had a strange effect on their voices, almost swallowing them in the vastness of the space.

Lovell's face went deep red from the neck up, like a glass filling with colored liquid. "Fucking bitch," he yelled. "Let's get the fuck out of here."

But before he could go anywhere, Delia's sergeant, a rugby prop forward from Yorkshire, misjudged his run from the DJ's platform and cannoned into him. Seeing their boss floored and themselves outnumbered, the mus¬cle decided that the game that had been keeping them in made-to-measure suits was over. Lovell was dead in the water. But that didn't mean Tweedledum and Tweedledee had to sink with him. In perfect sync, two right hands dis¬appeared inside their jackets and emerged holding a matching pair of semiautomatic pistols. Suddenly, everything went quiet.
Chapter 22
It's not just the immediate prospect of being hanged that concentrates the mind wonderfully. Staring down the barrel of a gun does the trick just as well. For a long minute, nobody moved or said a word. Then Twee¬dledum gestured with his pistol toward Delia. "You, bitch. Over here."

At first, she didn't move. I knew what she was thinking. The more spread out we were, the harder it would be to keep us all covered. "I said, over here," the gunman screamed, dropping the nose of his pistol and firing. A chunk of wood from the dance floor leapt into the air inches from Delia's feet and frisbeed away across the room. "Fucking do it," he shrieked. I've never understood why it is that the guys with the guns always sound more scared than those of us without them.

Slowly, cautiously, Delia moved toward him. As soon as she came within reach, he pulled her to him by the hair, back against his chest, gun muzzle jammed into her neck. I knew then that these guys were the real thing. The neck is the professional's option. Much more sensible than holding it to the temple. The muzzle buries itself in the flesh of the neck rather than sliding on bone covered by sweating skin. Guns to temples are amateur city, a mark of someone who's watched more movies than they've committed crimes.

The man holding Delia turned so that he and his companion were almost back to back. "Nobody fucking move," the other one screamed.

"Get this fucker off me," Lovell yelled.

"I said nobody fucking move, and that means you."

"You fucking work for me, shithead," Lovell screeched, his face purpling now with sheer rage.

"We just handed in our notice, okay?" the gunman shouted, his gun pointing at Lovell and the cop still sprawled on top of him. "Okay, let's go." He took a step backward as his buddy moved forward. Awkwardly they made their way over to the fire exit. Given that only two cops had burst in the main door, I guessed that the remaining two men were outside the fire door. I sincerely hoped neither of them was the heroic type.

The gunmen had nearly made it to the