The Driver by Mandasue Heller Page B

himself away from the pillar and headed out into the foyer. Under any other circumstances you’d expect a doorman to wade in if there was a fight. But he could hardly blame this one for staying out of it, because it was a bit of a piss-take expecting the guy to help one of the men who were stealing money from the club. And that was effectively what they were doing, because they certainly weren’t doing any of the security dirty work to justify it. That was all left to the doormen, who had to deal with the troublemakers and mop up the vomit and blood – all for a fraction of what Eddie was taking.
    The foyer light had gone out. Trying the door and finding it locked, Carl presumed the doorman had done it to keep the fight from spilling over into the club. But as he turned to ask him to open it he heard a whooshing sound. Too late to duck – he felt like he’d been hit by a train when the baseball bat connected with his forehead.
    At that same moment Kenny and Matt had just stepped out of the manager’s office. When he found the previously lit corridor in darkness, the hairs rose on the back of Kenny’s neck. And when the manager suddenly closed and locked his door behind them, he dropped instinctively to his haunches and eased his gun out of his inside pocket. He’d never used it and had hoped he’d never have to, but if something was going down there was no way he was being taken out without giving himself a fair chance.
    Narrowing his eyes now, Kenny squinted into the void, watching for movement in the shadows as Matt edged his way along the wall in search of the light switch. When he heard the same distinctive whooshing sound that Carl had just heard out in the foyer Kenny yelled, ‘Get down!’ But it was too late, and he winced when he heard the dull thwok of wood connecting with bone, followed by the sound of Matt’s body hitting the deck like a sack of potatoes.
    ‘Don’t be a prick,’ Kenny said calmly, guessing that the doorman had whacked Matt with a bat. ‘I’ve got a gun, so drop it or I start shooting!’
    ‘Fuck you,’ the doorman hissed, swinging out wildly and jarring his elbow when he hit the wall. ‘Mistake you made was thinking that we were gonna sit back and let your boss carry on ripping us off,’ he went on. ‘ We run this place, not him.’
    ‘Know him, do you?’ Kenny asked, edging away from the door, aware that this was most likely where the man was heading for.
    ‘Are you deaf, you little cunt?’ the doorman snarled, getting closer. ‘We don’t give a flying fuck about Eddie Quinn – and you can tell him that from me. This is over, do you hear me? As of now, he ain’t getting another penny.’
    The light came on suddenly as Carl burst through the door and flicked the switch. Seeing the gun in Kenny’s hand and realising that he’d been telling the truth, the doorman stopped in his tracks. It genuinely hadn’t occurred to him that they would be armed, because they looked like a bunch of kids playing hard men to him. If anything, he’d thought they might have knives, but he always wore a stab vest when he was doing doors so that hadn’t bothered him.
    ‘All right, lads, no need to get stupid,’ he said, raising his hands. ‘Just leave before the pigs get here, yeah?’
    Seeing Matt on the floor, Carl swiped at the blood running from the cut on his own head and aimed a vicious kick into the small of the doorman’s back, sending him sprawling to his knees.
    ‘Where’s the other one?’ Kenny asked, strolling towards the doorman and pointing the gun at his head.
    ‘Spark out in the cloakroom,’ Carl told him, wiping his face on his sleeve.
    ‘And Daz?’ Kenny asked, wondering why the hell Daz hadn’t stopped the men from coming after them in the first place, or at least alerted them – unless they’d got to him first.
    ‘No idea,’ Carl said, squatting beside Matt and slapping his face to rouse him. ‘All I know is, this one’s mate told me he was getting