Free Carnage by Maxime Chattam

him because he’s a white kid, did you?’
    Lamar shook his head.
    ‘You’ve lost me. He told you everything about what?’
    ‘Don’t play the fool with me!’ bellowed McLogan, pointing his finger at Lamar. ‘He told me you’ve been hounding him. You singled him out; you were determined to make things difficult for him. He was so scared of you and what you might do he ran away and came here, absolutely terrified. So he turned to me and asked me to come and talk to him, calm him down and take him back home.’
    Lamar held his hand up to stop McLogan coming any closer.
    ‘Now wait a second, you’ve got this all—’
    ‘Your methods are totally unacceptable, Lieutenant! You—’
    McLogan stopped, catching sight of the blood on Lamar’s hands.
    ‘What have you done?’
    He scanned all around him, straining to see in the darkness. Suddenly he froze.
    ‘So that’s what I heard? Not firecrackers then, huh? It was gunfire? You … you shot him?’ McLogan asked, his disbelief quickly turning to outrage.
    Lamar was about to protest when alarm bells started to ring. McLogan was here on the pretext that Chris had asked him to come. Doing everything he could to protect the boy. Could it be … An adult in a position of influence, who might well know how to manipulate a kid.
    But just as these doubts began to form McLogan’s brains exploded from the shadows, spattering over Lamar’s chest and face as a deafening shot rang out in the tunnel.
    A fourth person was walking towards them.

13
    A shape emerged in the circle of light cast by Lamar’s torch.
    A pistol was pointing at him.
    Lamar recognised the close-cropped hair and the round face: Frank Quincey, grinning.
    ‘One down!’ shouted the janitor of the school where it had all started. ‘Never could stand the jerk.’
    ‘Calm down, Quincey. Put down weapon away.’ He laughed.
    ‘Who do you think you are?’ he challenged Lamar.
    ‘Who are you to be giving orders to anybody? No, I will not put down my goddamn gun. And you know what? I’m going to kill you.’
    Lamar tried to breathe calmly and get a handle on the situation. If he gave in to fear, all would be lost. He had to buy himself some time, find a way out of this. He had to talk to Quincey. Make him talk.
    ‘Quincey,’ he began, ‘why … why are you doing this?’
    ‘ Why ? Jeez, you really are one dumb black fucker, aren’t you? Well, luckily for our future civilisation there are people like me around. And people like these kids, just waiting to be told what to do. Like Christian. Good kid, that one. Smart. Didn’t take long for him to get it. When I saw the way he looked at all the Puerto Ricans and Mexicans, I knew we were thinking the same thing. We both knew how to make the world a better place. After that, the little guy didn’t come to see me just to bum cigarettes!’
    Quincey was getting himself worked up, his eyes sparkling with excitement.
    ‘I brought him into our group, the next generation. Kids I found on the streets, kids forgotten by our corrupt system! The little guy soon stepped up to take part in our eradication project. All I had to do was get him the weapons.’
    Lamar racked his brains for some way out of the dead end he found himself trapped in. He ran over every possible escape route. Meanwhile, Quincey’s impassioned soliloquy was in full swing.
    ‘Imagine, Detective, a world in which teenagers started shooting down their schoolmates, not just aiming at coloured scum, but the whole damn lot of them! They’re all tainted, the liars and cheats of tomorrow! What Christian did was to set an example. Soon others will do the same andthen all hell will break loose. There’ll be armies of young people, and the police will be too scared to fire on them. We’re going to turn this country upside down, and then we’re going to make it right again!’
    Quincey lifted his arm until the gun was pointing right at Lamar’s head.
    ‘And, in our new order, you’ll go back to being