Is This Yours? (Nine)

Not at first though. The blow to the back of his head stunned him and he rolled forward from the kneeling position he was in to attract the dog, hit his head off the side of the Fiesta and landed flat on his stomach. He heard the dog whelp and then a kick thumped into his lower back, followed by a loud crack and he wondered if whatever snapped belonged to him or the mutt. Instinctively he moved to cover the area where the money was and in doing so he wrapped his jacket tight around him; but two swift smacks into his upper right arm, which was still smarting where Bob had pinched him, made him retract it, and it lolled back across his hip like Ahab calling on his men to follow him and the white whale to their watery end.
”Those blows were not made by fists” he grimaced and glanced upward toward a black shape towering over him. It held, what appeared to be a rod in its right hand. The dog had been silent after its initial cry and he guessed the poor mutt had legged it in terror. Instinctively he tried to bury his head under the chassis, but another strike, this time across his clavicle forced a retraction. This time he caught sight of what appeared to be a long slash wound down the right hand side of the attacking shadow. As he braced himself he received two more blows to the face, and after the second he was ready for the blackness.
He awoke to the strong smell of rubber and the word Goodyear gradually came into focus through bruised eyes. Acknowledging the mocking logo as if it were some kind of cosmic joke, he extracted the upper part of his jaw from the offside tyre of his Fiesta, where it had come to rest after the second punch to the face. He flinched as pain attacked him from his back and his legs but mostly from his nose which seemed to have taken the brunt of both blows. It hurt like a migraine but the blood had congealed. He tapped it gingerly. “Why would God put the bloody thing there in the first place?” Then he remembered the old man in the bookies.
“Retribution I suppose. I knew they’d never let me keep it” He didn’t believe in God except when things went wrong. “There should always be someone there to blame” he’d tell Cassie, who was the perfect pragmatist and blamed and congratulated herself in accordance with her performance.
“There’s only us I suppose” Jim agreed, and she giggled at his poor grammar.
“Well when I go home empty handed I can at least prove I was mugged for the money” and he attempted to sit up. Not only was his upper torso screaming in agony but there was something heavy across his chest. It was the dog. He slapped its side but it was lifeless. Its head was hanging limply from Jim’s waist. It had taken a blow across the head and its neck was probably broken.
“What a great little guy. Died defending a stranger”
Jim suddenly felt closer to the animal than anybody else in his life.
It took him some time to move the corpse. It was only a medium sized canine but it weighed a bloody ton. He shuffled it off and leant back against the door of the Fiesta, exhausted with the effort. He was trying to recall faces from the betting shop hoping he could guess who’d kicked the shit out of him but they were as anonymous as the poor dead mutt. Then a phone rang in his pocket.
“What’s the bastard going to tell me now? Don’t bet on the dogs” but the vibration was coming from his inside pocket. It was his own phone ringing this time.
“Yeah” he said groggily as he held it to his ear.
“Jim, is that You? It's a bad connection. Listen I’m going to be a little late. I have to mark homework for my missing teachers. You haven’t got the food yet have you?”
“Listen Cassie I…”
“Can’t hear you very well Jim; where are you?”
“In the multi-rise”
“Still no good; can’t you move to somewhere clearer?”
He wasn’t sure he could walk.
“HAVE YOU GOT THE FOOD” she shouted.
“The line’s not bad this end you stupid cow” he shouted back, his side aching with the effort.
“Was that no sweetheart, I hardly caught any of that?”
“Yes!” he bellowed.
“Okay just about heard that. Head straight home, I want to see what you’ve bought. I’ll get the take-away. Usual for you – spare ribs?”
“Even she’s taking the piss now” he snarled.
The phone went dead.
“That’s my dreams fucked up. How to lose a fortune in…” he looked at his watch - 5:50, “…in two hours” He'd been unconscious for about fifteen minutes. He leaned forward to grab the door handle on the Chrysler, he didn’t want blood stains on his own car, and pull himself up when he felt that reassuring lump across his stomach. He tapped it with the tips of his fingers like it were a tambourine. It was still there, untouched. He pulled out the envelope and extracted the bundle of notes. Sure enough it was all there, every single one of those beautiful red and brown coloured bits of paper. Even the £50 note he’d extracted earlier was still there in his breast pocket.
“What on earth did he want then?” Then of course he knew. “The phone, he’s took the goddamn phone” He pushed his hand into his pocket and confirmed it. It was a blow but seven and a half grand in the hand was better than only a promise of more to come. He still had the horse’s name and the time of the race, so what if some thug had the info too. “He’s hardly going to tell the fucking world is he? I’ll still have one more decent bet”
A little strength returned to his legs with the relief his fortune was still intact. He dragged the dog to the rear of the Cherokee and dumped it between the wall and the stop bar. He noticed the foreign number plate. “Tourists I bet. Well they’re going to get one hell of a fucking surprise if they’ve bought any souvenirs to put in the back”
Then he saw the flag, or rather flags: one on the plate, another on the rear window and a third on the dashboard. “Can’t fault their patriotism, these Americans; you’d think with all the terrorism they’d keep a low profile” Then he laughed thinking they might see the dead dog as a threat.
He caught his reflection in the Chrysler window. His nose was crooked and both eyes were beginning to puff up badly. He stopped laughing and dragged the dog out again and dumped it behind the Jag.
He climbed into the Fiesta and pulled away, his aching limbs manipulating the gears and pedals in agony. As he did so groups of people were heading toward their cars as if they’d seen all this coming and hung around outside waiting for it to end. He put the cash into the glove compartment, jamming it in between the hand book and a couple of CDs.
He glanced at the clock on the dash - 18:00. It was fast. It was the day he bought it, but keeping time was never that big a deal in his life, a major factor in his inability to retain employment. “This time tomorrow…” he thought “…I may be minutes away from a small fortune”
On the way out of the city centre traffic was building up as the busy town emptied of workers, shoppers, families and the elderly so they could hand it over to the evening occupants; the drinkers, car thieves, muggers and anyone else looking for what generally passes as a good night out these days. Around him tired drivers crunched gears and switched lanes exorcising the tension their day jobs had generated in them. Jim, still smarting in several places, swore and gestured at them in equal measure and received either the equivalent back or a bored yawn.
The light was fading slightly and a thin mist obscured his vision beyond 300 yards, if there had been anything worth looking at. Jim’s way home took him past an area of the city prime for regeneration before the credit crunch. A huge billboard displayed the future development of a cleared site where the old tax offices had stood.

Luxury Apartment Complex
Gated with gymnasium and restaurant
The next generation in inner city living

Nobody had laid a solitary brick. It was like a grand promissory note that was un-cashable. Then suddenly the jam broke up and they were moving again.
After a mile and a half most commuters had turned for the by-pass. Jim climbed Troy Rise. From the top he could usually see the suburb where he and Cassie lived, “A semi-detached house for semi-detached lives” he labelled it, but not tonight. The mist was thickening like a pall settling on a coffin in slow motion. Others in front and behind Jim were turning left and right heading for their own little corner of ‘residentia’ (Jim’s conglomeration of the words residential and dementia) At the apex of the hill the road dipped steeply for thirty yards before rolling out into a gentle slope that led toward the traffic lights at the T junction between Greek Road, the extension of Troy Rise, and Argos Avenue.
There were few pedestrians. It was chilly and early evening fog was nirvana to the opportunist mugger. As he cruised across the top of Troy Rise the mist thinned a little and he caught sight of a tall solidly built man to his left. He was dressed in black and looked quite an ominous and threatening shadow looming out of the grey. The man was preoccupied with something in his hand, and it wasn’t the weapon he’d used mercilessly a short time ago. He had on a thick black overcoat with a gash of red lining showing through a large tear at the side. As Jim drew alongside him he could see the guy manipulating a black mobile phone. Jim instantly knew it was the same phone and that this was the man that had beaten the living daylights out of him. He eased back on the accelerator and pulled into his nearside, breaking gently and brushing up against the kerb. He slipped on the hand brake and slipped off his seat belt leaping out of the car as stealthily as he could, smothering the consequential torturous pain involved in the effort. Beneath Troy Rise the traffic lights were invisible.