Heavy Water: And Other Stories by Martin Amis

HOW
    “Park inna Inn onna Park,” said Fat Lol.
    “We ain’t doing it in there, are we?”
    “Don’t talk fucking stupid. Pick up me van.”
    Access to the innards of the Inn on the Park having been eased by Fat Lol’s acquaintance with—and remuneration of—one of the hotel’s garage attendants, the two men drove boldly down the ramp in Mal’s C-reg. BM. They then hoisted themselves into Fat Lol’s Vauxhall Rascal and proceeded east through Mayfair and Soho. Mal kept peering in the back. The clamps lay there, heavily jumbled, like land mines from an old war.
    “They don’t look like normal clamps. Too big.”
    “Early model. Before they introduced the more compact one.”
    “Bet they weigh.”
    “They ain’t light,” conceded Fat Lol.
    “How’s it go again?”
    Mal had to say that the scheme made pretty good sense to him. Because it relied on turnover. Mass clamping: that was the order of the day. Clearly (or so Fat Lol argued), there wasn’t a lot of sense in tooling round the West End doing the odd Cortina on a double yellow line. Clamp a car, and you got seventy quid for declamping it. What you needed was cars in bulk. And where did you find cars in bulk? In a National Car Park.
    But hang about: “How can you clamp a car in a National Car Park?”
    “If they not in they bay. The marked area.”
    “Bit harsh innit mate?”
    “It’s legal,” said Fat Lol indignantly. “You can clamp them even in an N.C.P. If they park bad.”
    “Bet they ain’t too pleased about it.”
    “No, they ain’t overly chuffed.”
    Fat Lol handed Mal a sample windscreen sticker. “Warning: This Vehicle Is Illegally Parked. Do Not Attempt to Move It. For Prompt Assistance …” On the side window of his Rascal additional stickers indicated that Fat Lol welcomed all major credit cards.
    “Give them a while and they cool off by the time you get there. Just want to get home. What’s it going to be anyway? Some little slag from Luton bring his wife in for a night onna town.”
    They decided to kick off with a medium-rise just north of Leicester Square. No gatekeeper, no bouncer to deny them entry. The automatic arm of the barrier rose like a salute. On the second floor: “Bingo,” said Fat Lol. Twenty prime vehicles packed tight at one end, crouching, waiting, gleaming in the dangerous light of car parks.
    Out they dropped. “Fucking Motor Show,” said Fat Lol. And it was true: the chrome heraldry, the galvannealed paintwork. They hesitated as a family saloon swung down from Level 3.
    “Let’s do it.”
    Disappointingly, only four vehicles were adjudged by Fat Lol to have outstepped their prescribed boundaries. But he soon saw another way.
    “Okay. Let’s do them if they’re touching the white lines.”
    “In tennis,” said Mal moderately, “the white lines count in.”
    “Well in clamping,” said Fat Lol, in a tight voice, bending low, “the white lines count out.”
    It was warm and heavy work. These ancient gadgets, the clamps—they were like fucking steamrollers. You had to free them from the van and from each other and hump them into position. Next you got down there— A! —and worked the pipe wrench on the snap ratchet. Then: thwock . There was the clamp with its jaw fast on the car’s wheel. One bit was quite satisfying: spreading the gummy white sticker all over the windscreen.
    Fat Lol was down there doing a K-reg. Jag when Mal said, “Oi. I can see your bum crack.”
    “Bend down.” Fat Lol stood up. “I can see yourn.”
    “You said dress casual.”
    “With a car like this,” Fat Lol announced huskily, “it tears you apart. I mean, with a car like this, you don’t want to clamp it.”
    “You want to nick it.”
    “Nah. To clamp a motor such as this, it’s …”
    “Sacrilege.”
    “Yeah. It’s fucking sacrilege to mess with a motor such as this.”
    Mal heard it first. Like something detaching itself from the siren song of Leicester Square, where the old sounds of various