So I turned back again and saw the guy I had hit in the throat flat on his back in the gutter. He was whooping and wheezing and pawing at his windpipe.
I knelt next to him and patted him down. No gun. No knife. I went back to the guy on his ass. No gun. No knife. Not in broad daylight, I guessed. Not in London.
Casey Nice staggered back into view. She looked very pale. She said, ‘What the hell are you doing?’
I said, ‘Talk later. We’re in public here. Get them in the van first.’
The guy in the gutter was barely breathing. I bunched the front of his raincoat in my hands and lifted him up and turned him around and got his head and shoulders into the load space, and then I shovelled the rest of him inside, and then I did the same thing with the other guy, but with his collar from behind, and the back of his belt, because he was bleeding badly all down his front, and I didn’t want to get marked or sticky. I kicked the props and closed the doors on them, and checked the handle.
Secure.
Casey Nice said, ‘Why did you do that?’
I said, ‘You didn’t want to be sidetracked.’
‘They’re cops, for God’s sake.’
‘Get in the front. We need to dump this thing somewhere.’
‘You’re crazy.’
I looked all around, and saw some cars and people, but they all seemed to be going about their normal business. No big crowd was gathering. No one was standing with a flat hand over an open mouth, or fumbling for a cell phone. We were being ignored. Almost consciously. The same the world over. People look away.
I said, ‘You told me if we get a problem, we should deal with it fast and decisively.’
I stepped back up on the sidewalk and tracked around to the driver’s door. I got in and pushed the seat back as far as it would go, which wasn’t very far, because of the wire screen. I was going to be driving with my knees up around my ears, on the left side of the road, with a stick shift and a diesel engine, none of which I was used to.
Casey Nice got in next to me. She was still pale. The key was still in the ignition. I started the motor and pressed the clutch and waggled the stick. There seemed to be a whole lot of gears in there. At least seven of them, including reverse. I took an educated guess and shoved the stick left, and up, and looked for the stalk that would work the turn signals.
Casey Nice said, ‘I meant different problems than cops.’
I said, ‘Cops are the same problem as anything else. Worse, in fact. They can take us back to the airport in handcuffs. No one else can do that.’
‘Which they will now. For sure. They’ll hunt us down with a vengeance. You just assaulted two police officers. We’re on the run, as of this minute. You just made things a thousand times harder. A million times harder. You just made things impossible.’
I clicked the turn signal and checked the door mirror. I moved off, with a lurch, because of a clumsy left foot.
I said, ‘Except they weren’t police officers.’
I changed gear, once, twice, three times, a little smoother as I went along, and I got straight and centred in the left-hand lane.
She said, ‘We saw his badge.’
‘I bet it was done on a home computer.’
‘You bet? What does that even mean? You’re going to assault a hundred cops just in case one of them isn’t?’
I changed gear again and sped up a little, to blend in.
I said, ‘No cop on earth would call his badge a government identification document. Cops don’t work for the government. Not in their minds. They work for their department. For each other. For the whole worldwide brotherhood. For the city, just maybe, at the very best. But not the government. They hate the government. The government is their worst enemy, at every level. National, county, local, no one understands cops and everyone makes their lives more and more miserable with an endless stream of bullshit. A cop wouldn’t use the word.’
‘This is a different country.’
‘Cops are the same the world over. I know, because I was one, and I met plenty of others. Including here. This is not a different country when it comes to cops.’