Only the Dead by Ben Sanders

job thing, but he just said, you know, “Don’t believe you.” He had this lighter that he whipped out and he held it next to my head, under my ear, and said he was going to start sizzling my earlobe if I didn’t give. Man, I’m not a bad guy. I drive getaway cars. I’m not in there telling people to get on the ground. I’ve never shot anyone.’
    The cat mewed. Devereaux leaned down again and ran a hand along its back. ‘When was this?’
    ‘I don’t know. Good few weeks back. Early January, I guess.’
    ‘They tell you their names?’
    ‘No.’ He folded his arms and hunched into them. Features vacant, eyes with the floor.
    ‘What did they look like?’
    He shrugged. ‘Medium-sized guys, maybe forty or so. They laid into me.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    His tongue traced his top lip. ‘I mean they laid into me. Or the guy in the back did. He was fucking quick. He’d just reach across and hit me upside the head; I’d knock straight into the window. The window hurt more than his hand. But I didn’t give them anything; I didn’t know what they were after. They drove me back here and parked, and the driver got out and opened the door for me, like a chauffeur or something, but the guy in the back with me just reached up with his foot and gave me a couple of kicks to get me out the door. Hurt like shit. Glad Millie didn’t see, or she’d be off.’
    He pulled his shirt and twisted sideways. The skin above his hip wrinkled. A U-shaped bruise stamped his lower ribcage. ‘See. I’m not even bullshitting.’
    A car turned in off the road. A thump and a suspension squeak as it crossed the kerb. Turner dropped his shirt and hit the light switch. The room darkened. The cat slipped beneath the table.
    ‘I’m near paranoid now. Every time someone comes round, I gotta kill all the lights and check the peephole first, you know? Jittery as hell.’
    He left the room: light footsteps towards the front of the house. Darkness deepening as he killed the lights in the front room. Devereaux pushed his chair back, palmed his way around the edge of the table. He followed Turner down the hallway: direction obscured, weaving wall to wall as he moved. Right into the television room, plastic disc cases cracking underblind feet. Turner was at the window: a cupped gaze to a gapped curtain. Everything a faint sketch under weak light.
    ‘Oh, shit. It’s another cop.’ He pulled away from the window, face ashen. ‘This your backup or something, what’s going on?’
    Devereaux pulled him back and looked outside: one unmarked police car behind his own, Don McCarthy silhouetted mid-exit.
    ‘I didn’t call him.’
    ‘So what’s going on?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘So, then, what the hell? Man, cops are the last people I want round here. Last time cops came here I got the shit beaten out of me. I tell you. Vicious as hell.’
    He exhaled and linked his hands behind his neck. Leroy Turner, assault and burglary record, almost frantic.
    Devereaux stepped away from the curtain and moved through to the entry.
    Leroy’s hissed whisper: ‘Don’t let him in. Please. You’ve gotta make him leave. I don’t want anything to do with this.’
    Devereaux ignored him. He opened the front door and set the lock. Then he stepped outside and closed the door behind him.

ELEVEN
    T UESDAY , 14, F EBRUARY , 1.42 A.M .
    T he Don was dressed suave: a gleam of shoeshine as he crossed the headlamp glare. He smoothed his tie and buttoned his jacket, a neat one-handed pinch.
    ‘Thought I might find you here,’ he said.
    Devereaux stayed on the step, back to the locked door. The Don’s high beams swamped the yard, blades of grass etched in stark monochrome.
    ‘Didn’t realise I needed a minder,’ Devereaux said.
    McCarthy shrugged. ‘Thought you might need backup.’
    ‘I’m fine. I appreciate the concern.’
    ‘What are you doing here?’
    ‘I could ask you the same thing.’
    The Don smiled. He pocketed his hands and propped a foot up on