Free The Good Thief's Guide to Berlin by Chris Ewan Page A

cliché.”
    “Three.”
    “Charlie,” Victoria hissed. “Be serious. Please.”
    “Two.”
    “The common hoodlum I could live with,” I told him, with a nod toward his scarred friend. “But a countdown. It’s just so … predictable.”
    “One.”
    He tightened his finger on the trigger and released a faint sigh, as if he was disappointed by my attitude but not unduly troubled by its consequences. I realized then that he was serious.
    “Okay, wait,” I yelled, waving my hands.
    He relaxed a fraction and raised his head above his gun.
    “Just so I’m clear. Are you shooting on zero, or are you saying zero, and then shooting?”
    He clamped his lips together and shook his head. Then he unfolded his legs, planted both feet on the floor, and leaned forward in the chair. He squinted along the gun barrel, drawing a bead on me.
    “This will be a very painful joke, Mr. Howard. I will shoot your right leg, I think. Just below the knee. There is a lot of bone there. Not so much flesh. It is likely to be excruciating.”
    “All right,” I told him, and this time I meant it. I spread my fingers, as if to signal the shift in my attitude. “You’ve made your point.”
    “The item, then.”
    “I have it,” I said. “But it’s stuffed down the back of my trousers. If you’ll just let me lower my hands, I’ll pass it to you.”
    “That will not be necessary.”
    He issued a series of commands in rapid-fire Russian to the scarred Neanderthal. The stocky guy stuffed his gun inside the leather jacket he had on and paced over to me with his knuckles scraping on the floor. He lifted the tails of my soggy raincoat and roughly tugged my shirt out of the waistband of my jeans. He snatched at the folder and delivered it to his boss.
    Then he turned back to face me again. He stepped close and raised himself up on his toes so he was breathing right in my face. His breath was foul. I could feel the heat coming off him. He was sweating inside his leather jacket and he fairly reeked of testosterone. I daresay that if I’d lit a match, he’d have ignited like he was dowsed in petrol.
    I tried to hold his gaze but not all that hard. It may surprise you to hear that I’m not such a manly chap. I’ve never been very skilled at lifting weights or flexing my muscles, mainly because I don’t have many muscles to flex.
    He drew back his right hand and faked a punch to my jaw. I flinched and jerked backward and accidentally clipped Victoria in the temple with the back of my head. The guy enjoyed my reaction very much. He enjoyed the way Victoria yelped even more. He chuckled and split his slanted lips and grinned at me. His teeth were awful. They were yellowed and gapped, and he was missing his upper-right incisor altogether. The missing tooth really shouldn’t have surprised me. After all, you can’t call yourself a true bovine thug unless you have a missing tooth to go along with your disfiguring scar.
    Talking of surprises, the guy delivered another one. He punched me with his left fist, hard into my stomach. I’d like to be able to tell you that I have a washboard gut, honed by many hours at the gym and countless thousands of sit-ups. I’d love to be able to say that my abs are so well defined that the guy hurt his knuckles more than he hurt me. But the last time I’d visited a gym was after-hours when I was checking to see if there was any cash in the till. And my waistline had definitely softened with all the dense German food I’d been enjoying just recently. Regular plates of currywurst and mashed potato had a lot to answer for.
    So the moment he hit me, I crumpled and dropped onto my side on the floor. I clutched my hands to my stomach. My gut was in spasm. I gasped for air. I did a lot of moaning and some uncontrollable drooling.
    Victoria shrieked but not for long. The guy stamped his foot, like a Big Unfriendly Giant who was coming to get her, and she choked her scream down and dropped to her knees beside me. She