The Pure

into the kitchen and came back with two strawberry mousses, two plates.
    ‘Not now, Squeal. Not now. I’ve been cut,’ said Uzi, shielding his eyes from the sight of the mousses.
    ‘Don’t be a pussy, Tommy. Come on. Pudding wars.’ Squeal peeled back the lids of both tubs and upended them on the plates. They stood there, two pink, quivering sandcastles.
    ‘I’m not doing it,’ said Uzi.
    ‘You are,’ said Squeal. He placed the mousses side by side on the table and crouched over one of them, his mouth slightly open, poised an inch from the slippery surface. He looked at Uzi expectantly. Reluctantly Uzi assumed the same position above his mousse.
    ‘On three,’ said Squeal. He thumped his hand on the table three times and both men slurped loudly. The puddings vanished, as if by magic.
    ‘Ha,’ said Squeal, his mouth full, ‘there’s still some of yours left.’
    Uzi looked at his plate, feeling slightly nauseous. He was right.
    ‘Fuck.’
    ‘That’s another point to me, then,’ crowed Squeal, displaying his own clean plate. ‘You’re only two ahead now.’
    ‘I told you, I’m not well. I’ve been cut, for fuck’s sake. By your friend.’
    ‘No excuses.’ Squeal’s burst of energy subsided and he slumped back on the sofa.
    Uzi’s head drooped forwards, and once again he was standing on the edge of a cliff outside Beirut, watching a fireball consume a car below, the wind stripping him of his thoughts.

 
9
    ‘Fuck, man. What happened to you?’ said Avner, in French, as Uzi opened the door of his apartment.
    ‘I haven’t got the strength,’ Uzi replied in Hebrew. ‘Let’s just speak our own language like normal people, OK?’
    ‘Whatever you say,’ Avner said, in Hebrew this time. ‘So who did you piss off?’
    Uzi shut the door, double-locked it, then, limping slightly, went into the kitchen.
    ‘You’ve got an infestation,’ said Avner, accepting a coffee and nodding to the worktop where a line of ants stretched to the window. ‘What are they, crabs? Pubic crabs?’
    Without a word, Uzi took a cloth and swept the insects to their deaths. With the movement he winced slightly.
    ‘Looks bad,’ said Avner, ‘your shoulder.’
    ‘I got Waxman to patch it up.’
    ‘Waxman the Sayan?’
    ‘Waxman the Sayan.’
    ‘With the ambulance?’
    ‘With the ambulance.’
    ‘You cheeky bastard,’ said Avner, ‘you’d better be careful. The Office will have your balls.’ Avner’s phone rang. He allowed it to ring until it went silent.
    ‘Have you heard of Liberty?’ said Uzi.
    ‘Liberty?’
    ‘Liberty. American woman running a Russian drugs gang. You should know. You were stationed in London for long enough.’
    ‘Ah yes, Liberty. I remember now.’
    ‘I thought you might. What is she, CIA?’
    ‘Used to be. Her name is Eve Klugman. Served as a covert operations officer in Iraq and Afghanistan, then resigned when she had a child. A year later her husband and baby were killed in a traffic accident. She spun out, married a Russian drug dealer based in London. Then he was killed, too, and she took over his gang.’
    ‘I ran into her last night,’ said Uzi.
    ‘She can be pretty brutal. She’s got a reputation.’
    ‘Can you get me her file? From the Office?’
    ‘I can’t do that any more than you can, Adam. You know that.’
    ‘Stop bullshitting me. What about all these horses you keep talking about? You’re in London Station. Get me the file.’
    ‘Horses can only do so much. Why do you want to know, anyway? Did she do this to you?’
    ‘Don’t be stupid. It was some Poles, small-time. Only three of them.’
    ‘You’re losing your touch, Adam.’
    ‘The knife only needs to get through once.’
    ‘It’s never got through before. And you got cut twice.’
    There was a pause. Uzi wondered when Avner was going to mention Operation Regime Change. But he said nothing.
    ‘I need your help,’ Uzi said.
    ‘I knew this was coming.’
    ‘I can’t just sit back and do nothing. It would kill my business.’
    ‘So this was about business?’
    ‘I’ve got to do something to show them I’m not someone they can fuck with. Otherwise they’ll all be at it. I’ll be dead by the end of the year.’
    ‘Why don’t you just give it all up? Come and work for me.’
    ‘It’s got to be proper, hard revenge. A real deterrent. This can’t happen again.’
    ‘I could use a man like you.’
    ‘I don’t want to work for you.’
    ‘You need to get a stable job, Adam.