Authors: Declan Burke
'Nope.'
'Me neither. Not 'til Tuesday.'
'You're feeling it?'
'It's bubbling up, yeah.'
'So let it go.'
'I'm thinking I might. Soon as we're on the ferry, okay?'
'Fine by me.'
Doyle held on until the ferry cleared the rocky point that marked the last of Santorini. Then bawled. Going into it deep, barely aware of Sparks rubbing her back. The hard bubble in her chest taking a while to puncture, then easing out slow, one heave at a time. Coming out of it she heard Sparks say, 'Yeah, morning sickness. She's pregnant to some gypsy guy, he ran off last night. It's a tragedy.'
Doyle came up laughing through more tears, snuffling snot and wiping her eyes. A middle-aged Greek waiter standing there agog, tray dangling. Sparks said, 'While you're there, Zorb, I'll be having a mojito, heavy on the mint. Doyle?'
So they had a nice buzz on by the time the first island hove over the horizon. Early evening, like walking into a giant warm sponge coming down the ramp, Doyle oozing a slow sweat in the small of her back. They skirted the knot of hawkers with their day-glo signs promising swimming pools, A/C, asses milk in the bath, Doyle in no state to deal with a babble that sounded a lot like miners hawking up dust. They crossed the square and found a vacant table at the first café they came to, ordered cheeseburgers and beers. The square was lined on two sides with cafés, hostels, tourist bureaus. A life-size greeny-bronze statue on a roundabout of dusty white marble. The place quiet now the ferry was gone, the port officials in their white uniforms strolling back to base, the hawkers dispersed. Some backpackers, the stragglers, still wandering around, dazed by the heat. Across the way, in middle of the yachts moored against the dock, was one mocked up like a pirate ship, Jolly Roger and all, below that the Swiss flag, Doyle liked the combo.
'Money with a slow wink,' Sparks agreed. 'Speaking of which – Trust Direct put up a reward.'
'Oh yeah? How much?'
'Ten percent.'
'Of the ransom.'
'Correct.'
'On what they paid or what's recovered?'
'On what they get back, I guess.' Sparks chugged some beer. 'In theory, just call me curious, how much would you keep?'
'How much would you?'
'Depends on what's left. And who's around when you're counting it.'
'Yeah.'
'You going to tell Niko? About the reward, I mean.'
'Niko's on need-to-know right now.'
'So what does he know? Just so I don't screw you, say the wrong thing.'
'Keep it social, Sparks, and you won't go far wrong.'
'You tell him about Frank?'
'Not yet, no.'
'But he knows you're suspended.'
'He thinks I'm on holidays.'
'Busman's holiday. Chasing bad guys in between cocktails.'
'I say too much, Sparks, especially about Frank, Niko'll shut me out.'
'And you don't want anyone getting to Ray before you do.'
Actually, Doyle was wondering if it wasn't Rossi she wanted after all. Put the skinny prick against a tree and pump a round into the wood about an inch from his ear, see how he coped with the fallout. Doyle believed he'd cry too.
'The Greeks get their hands on a pile of cash,' she said, 'no one knows how much there's supposed to be, you can kiss goodbye to any ten percent.'
'And then,' Sparks needled, 'there's the whole Ray issue.'
'Fuck the money, and fuck Ray.'
'Sounds like my kind of party.' The waitress, Jade by her name-tag, with wheat-blonde hair, deeply tanned, was wiping down the next table along. 'Do I need to bring my own Ray or are they, like, on tap?'
'There's only one,' Sparks said. 'He looks durable, though.'
Doyle said, 'Hey, there's no volcanoes here, right?'
The girl shook her head. 'That's Santorini.'
'Santorini we know about. What about here?'
'Back home, in New Zee? We have volcanoes. I come away for the summer, the last place I'm going is where they have volcanoes.'
Doyle nodded. Sparks said, 'So what's there to see?'
The waitress tucked her rag into a back-pocket, sat down and shook a cigarette free from a softpack of Marlboros. 'There's Homer's tomb,' she said, biting softly on the filter lighting up. 'A Venetian castle. Some monasteries, and there's windmills up at the top of the Chora. It's not what you might call culture central.' She nodded at their bags. 'You get somewhere to stay yet?'
'We're just in,' Sparks said. She held up her bottle. 'First beer.'
'You looking for a pool?'
'That all depends on your quality of cabana boys. I mean, I generally lean more towards willing than sculpted back home. On holidays? I'm thinking I'll treat myself to some sculpted.'
Jade grinned, then pointed out across the square to where Doyle could make out a beach curving away to a headland maybe quarter of a mile distant. 'Most people stay up in the village or around at Mylopotas, wherever the bars and clubs are. If you're not looking to be up all night every night, though, you'll want Ormos. There's no pool, but it's quiet day and night and the beach is right outside your front door. I stay there, so I can vouch for it being clean, daily sheet and towel changes. None of which has anything to do with the fact that if you book in using my name, I get commission.'
'Nice hustle,' Sparks said.
'It's a cool place. Cheap and laidback.'
'Sold. What's it called?'
'The Katina. Just take the shore road, it's about three hundred yards past the ESY, the health clinic. Make sure and tell them Jade sent you.'
'We'll do that. I'm Sparks, by the way. This is Doyle.'
Jade stubbed her smoke, checked her big Mickey Mouse watch. 'If you go now, you've a couple've hours to grab a nap, get your disco pants on.'
'I don't dance,' Doyle said.
'You don't
dance
?'
'Her and all the other tough guys,' Sparks said. 'Me, I like to dance. What are we talking, acid house? Will there be poppers and shit?'
'Christ,' Jade said, getting up. 'When's the last time you were in a club?'
'Not since God was a boy,' Sparks said. 'So what time are we hooking up? I mean, you're taking us out, right, showing us the town. Our treat, looking to get blitzed. What d'you say?'
'Appreciate the offer but I'm already out tonight. Although,' Jade said, 'we'll be getting together in the Blue Orange, you're welcome to come along. Just ask in the village where it is. Any time after eleven, we'll be there.'
'It's a date,' Sparks said.
Ray
'You're a sneaky prick, Ray, I'll give you that.' Rossi nodding a grudging approval. 'Except what I'm wondering is if you're being sneaky-sneaky or, y'know, super-sneaky.'
'Is that even loaded?' Ray said.
'That's perxactly the gamble,' Rossi said, waggling the .22, 'you're looking at right now. It's like --' He glanced across at Gary. 'What's that one with Walken?'
'
Things To Do in Denver
?'
'That's Andy Garcia. The other one.'
'
True Romance
.'
'The fuckin Vietnam one, man.'
'
Deer Hunter
,' Ray said. 'Walken sweats years of Russian roulette and then De Niro turns up, Bobby the jinx.'
Gary driving, Rossi riding shotgun but twisted around to face into the back to keep the .22 on Ray.
'So that's what you need decide,' Rossi said. 'Like, is this baby loaded or not?'
'Not.' Ray's plan, originally, had been to rent the car, then watch from up the street for Gary, Rossi calling him Sleeps, to bring everyone out front, so Ray knew Karen wasn't with them, Karen or the duffel. If she wasn't, Ray planned to keep them waiting, buy Karen some time. Except then, it was only the three of them, Ray reconsidered. Wondering if it mightn't mean less heartache in the long run, with Rossi heading for Athens, under the impression he was Palermo-bound, for Ray to be inside the tent pissing out.
'The last time?' Ray said, holding up his busted arm. 'It was a fluke you hit me. So I'm guessing, even if the gun's loaded, you're no Chris Walken. Or even James Woods.'
'Just out of curiosity,' Mel said, 'how come you're so sure?'
Mel with a vanity case propped on her knees, the lid up, a notebook in there, scribbling notes with an eyeliner pencil.
'The safety's off,' Ray said.
''Course it's off,' Rossi said.
'Except,' Ray said, 'you never
took
it off. So it's been off since before you whipped it out all Billy the Kid-like, the element of surprise. This after I watched you patting your pockets trying to remember where you'd stashed it. And only a moron'd walk around with safety off on a loaded gun, even a .22.'
Mel paused in her scribbling. 'That's what you're banking on? That he's not a moron?'
'What I'm banking on,' Ray said, 'is how hard it is to keep someone hostage. At least one person's got to watch over them all the time, in case they try something bogey. Then you're untying them, bringing them to the bathroom, tying them up again, cooking three times a day … I mean, it's a full-time gig. Rossi, am I right?'
'Fuckin A,' Rossi said, glum.
'I mean, you can do it,' Ray told Mel, 'I'm not saying it can't be done. But there's techniques, y'know? You have to plan it out. In the Rangers there was whole courses you could do, how to manage prisoners of war.' Ray glanced up at Rossi. 'Anyway, I'm the one rented the car, gave
you
a lift. So if there's a hostage in this situation, it's actually you.'
'Whoa,' Mel said. 'Anyone's a hostage around here, it's me.'
'You're bearing up remarkably well,' Ray assured her, 'considering the stress.'
Mel did some simpering that looked to Ray like she had ants in her delicates. 'Point being,' he said to Rossi, 'you can't depend on Mel here, and Gary's got his hands full driving. Hey, I got another one,' he said to Sleeps. 'Kasparov.'
Sleeps nodding. 'The state capital of Indiana, that's Gary too.'
'So that leaves you, Rossi,' Ray said. 'Hostaging me with an empty gat.'
'Gat?' Mel said.
'Rod,' Rossi said sourly. 'Roscoe.'
'Roscoe?'
'Ray,' Rossi said, 'one pro to another, this isn't a you-me issue. It's about justice.
Ethics, Ray.'
'So it's not about the two hundred gees. Which, I should point out, is now down to around one-thirty-five, less change.'
Rossi lowered his head, began butting his forearm. 'That's my gelt, Ray.' The voice coming muffled from the crook of his arm. 'I have it coming. I'm
owed
.'
'Possession's ten-tenths. You know the drill.'
Rossi, an idea brewing, looked up. 'How about I have Sleeps sit on you?'
'I'm sitting on no one,' Sleeps said. 'You think that's fun, some guy's nose up your crack?'
Rossi swore.
'I'm the one's owed,' Ray said. 'For renting the car, like.'
'I shook on that,' Sleeps reminded Rossi. 'Gave him my word.'
'This was before,' Rossi said, 'you realised he was Sneaky fuckin Ray.'
'I shook on it,' Sleeps insisted.
Rossi poking at his good ear with the muzzle of the .22. 'Karen swiped my sixty grand,' he told Ray. 'You know this, right? When I was inside, she ran off with sixty gees, my Ducati motorcycle and the .44, which she chucked in the lake. You were half-unconscious at the time, you might've missed that last bit.'
'I heard, after.'
'So I'm calling double-bubble.'
'Okay by me. But you better call it loud, so Karen hears you. No point telling me.'
'Double-bubble?' Melody said.
'On the inside,' Ray said, 'you get in hock to a guy for a pack of smokes? You have to pay back double.'
'I'm willing,' Rossi said, 'to forget the Ducati, the .44. But the sixty gees goes double-bubble. That way Karen walks away with, what, fifteen grand clear. Except,' he pointed at where his ear used to be, 'the wolf? She goes double-bubble too. I want both that bitch's ears.'