Authors: Declan Burke
'Hold on a sec.' Doyle none too comfortable negotiating through hairpin bends with sheer drops the other side of a low rail. She tucked the phone between her ear and shoulder, said, 'Okay, go on.'
'
The fuck're you doing with Rossi's phone
?'
'Rossi's a nice guy, Ray. Thought you and me should talk once in a while. Plus I reminded him, if we were to swap, about all the contacts he'd get from Johnny's phone.'
'
He's there now
?'
'Nope.'
'
Where's Johnny
?'
'Johnny, yeah. I gave him to Rossi too.'
'
You gave him to
--'
'I figured, you and Rossi being best buds now, you're telling him sad stories about you and Karen, that wouldn't be such a problem. I mean, maybe if you'd rang me when I still had Johnny, maybe then we could have --'
'
Let me talk to Johnny, Doyle
.'
'I don't have him.'
'
Fuck
.' A heavy sigh, Ray accepting it. '
So where are you
?'
'Right now? Coming down the valley towards this beautiful beach, all moonlit and shit,
trés
romantic. Karen still have you, y'know, pinned down?'
'
Shit, Doyle – which fucking beach
?'
'Neraki, the one Rossi said Karen had you --'
'
Get out of there, Doyle. Do it now
.'
'Don't you
dare
take that tone with --'
'
Niko's loose, Doyle. We're coming up the road behind him, we don't know where the fuck he is
.'
Doyle slowed down to make another bend, fumbling with the gear-stick, still coming to terms with it being on the right-hand side, Doyle half the time trying to change gear with her left hand and grabbing the window-winder. She came out of the bend saying, 'Shit, yeah, I think I can see his lights, way down --'
'
That's us, Steph. Niko's on foot
.'
'He's on --'
Niko reared up in the headlights, wild-looking, one hand holding up something shiny, the other pointing a gun at the Suzuki's windscreen. Doyle jammed on so hard the phone flew out from between her ear and shoulder, bounced back off the dashboard, Doyle following its general trajectory, the bridge of her nose cracking against the rim of the steering wheel. The Suzuki skidding to a halt about three feet short of ploughing Niko off the road and out over the low rail.
He came around the driver's side brandishing his badge, shouting something guttural in Greek, then hauled open the door and cut off, staring. '
Steph
anie?'
Doyle, her vision blurry, tears stinging, felt something warm and wet oozing from her nose. Niko said, 'What are
you
doing here?'
'Oh
Niko
,' Doyle bawled, 'they took
Johnny
.'
Niko bundled her across into the passenger seat and sat in, tucked away his badge, the gun. Executed a fast three-point turn, then burned rubber surging back up the road, all the while watching the rearview.
'Can you believe this shit?' he said. 'They sent a fucking
wolf
.'
Karen
'Where now?' Sleeps said, the Punto climbing out of the valley onto the main road.
'Go right,' Pyle said. 'He'll head for the port or the coast, probably the coast. He needs to get out.'
Sleeps went right and pushed up a gear and said, 'Pity we didn't remind the wolf to stay on the road, not go tracking the guy cross-country.'
'Shssssh,' Ray said. Doyle, her phone still on, her voice crackling on Ray's speaker-phone, said, '
You want me to take a look at that arm?
'
'
It'll wait
,' Niko said.
First time she set eyes on Doyle, Karen'd known the girl was trouble. Bad enough she was a cop, one with something to prove to the guys down the station, but then she starts batting the lashes at Ray, chasing the guy all over Christendom. No shame. Doyle the first time Anna ever got it wrong, cuddling up to the cop first time she met her, Doyle under the impression Anna the two-time killer, three parts wolf to one husky, was what she called a wee dote.
Karen was starting to wonder, the way Anna'd taken to Pyle so fast too, if the girl's instincts weren't haywire. Anna stopping Rossi's bullet with her forehead, it'd be strange if that hadn't fritzed up her works a little. Karen feeling all kinds of fritzed herself, in shock but buzzing, still kind of stunned but feeling electrified too, adrenaline coursing.
Doyle, she wanted Ray, that was one thing. But if the girl tried to get between Karen and Niko, pull some mutual appreciation shit between cops, Karen'd go through her for a short-cut …
'
So who told Johnny?
' Doyle was saying.
'
Fuck's it matter?
' Niko said. '
He knows. It's blown
.'
'
What happens now?
'
'
We get out. After that we worry about what happens
.'
'
We?
'
'
If I'm a cop, they'll think you're a cop too
.'
'
They didn't when they took Johnny
,' Doyle said.
The clink-flick of a Zippo. '
What happened?
'
'
Johnny, I couldn't put him off, he wanted to get to the Orange, said he was worried about you. I'm saying no, we need to stay out of sight, but he started wondering, I could tell, how come I'm giving all these excuses. So I thought I'd take him along, stick tight.
'
'
And someone hit you?
'
'
When I wouldn't back off
.'
'
Bastard
.'
Karen gritted her teeth. Sleeps said, 'Pano Kambos coming up fast. What now?'
'Shssssh,' Ray said.
'The Blue Orange,' Pyle whispered. 'You know it?' Sleeps nodded, stayed with the main road.
' …
paranoid as fuck
,' Niko was saying. '
I'm guessing Pyle, the way it sounded back at the beach, is planning a reverse takeover on Johnny, maybe cutting these Sicilians in. Or just using them for muscle, a flat fee, I don't know
.'
'
A reverse takeover on what?
'
'
This dope they're running, I told you in Athens, it goes out through the hippy commune.
'
'
And this is where you're meeting Johnny
,' Doyle said. '
The hippy commune
.'
'
Are you insane? I go in there I'm coming out horizontal
.'
'
So where?
'
'
This other place. Hey, is that your phone?
'
'
Yeah, shit. It must've fallen when I jammed on that time
.'
A scrabbling sound, then click-
brrrrrrrrr
.
'Shit,' Ray said.
'It's okay, I know where he's going,' Pyle said. 'Gary? Get back to Pano Kambos, go left.'
Sleeps pulled in, u-turned, got back on the road.
Karen said, 'Ray? We get there, you best look out for Doyle. She gets in my way she's going down too.' She said, 'Which reminds me, who's got my gun?'
'That'd be me,' Pyle said, handing it forward. He said, looking from Karen to Sleeps and back again, 'So that's both of you want Niko. Ray? You got a coin we could maybe flip?'
Ray
They came off a bend and over a small rise and straightaway Sleeps cut the engine, the lights, allowing the Punto coast down slow into the parking area, tyres crunching on gravel. A Suzuki jeep parked to one side, a crazy-paved path leading away from the parking area to some kind of pagoda halfway up the hill, the black sea sparkling beyond. No one around. Sleeps scooching down in the driver's seat, just in case. 'Think that's them?' he said.
'Why don't you just ring Doyle, Ray?' Karen, with an edge. 'See if she's out for a moonlight stroll with our boy Niko.'
'No need,' Pyle said. He pointed off to the right, the mouth of a ravine a jagged black chunk dug out of the silvery landscape. 'Guy thinks he can't trust us back at the commune, he's called a boat in here.'
'Back-up?' Ray said.
'Don't know if that'd make a whole lot of sense,' Pyle said. 'Like, he'll have a crew on stand-by, just laying off the coast ready to storm in?'
'There's prisons just busting out all over,' Sleeps said, 'with guys who forgot how sneaky cops can get.'
'Like Doyle, say,' Karen added.
'Whoa.' Pyle glancing at Ray. 'This Doyle's a
cop
?'
'Suspended,' Ray said. 'Getting out.'
'This what she's telling you,' Karen said. 'Chased you all the way across a continent just to let you know she's retiring, how much her pension's worth.'
'You're saying,' Ray said, 'maybe it's female intuition, you know what's going on in her head.'
Sleeps said, 'Be fair, man. Doyle looked pretty friendly with Niko to me, the time you snatched Johnny.'
Everyone looked at Ray. Pyle cocked his head to one side. 'She's in with Niko?'
'She knows him from way back,' Ray said. 'Some kind of training programme, cops from all over the EU teaming up, sharing expertise. But that was --'
'She told you this?' Karen said.
'Yep.'
'And you're still here?'
Ray shrugged. 'Pyle had you,' he said. 'Trading you off for Johnny.'
Karen looked at Pyle, who said, 'That's not exactly the way it was.'
Karen, still staring at Pyle, said, 'Okay, but now Pyle doesn't have me anymore. How come you're not getting out?'
'Niko finds out Doyle's hooked up with me,' Ray said, 'the girl's in all kinds of trouble. And she bought in, Karen. I couldn't have got you back without her.'
Karen, with the busted nose and swollen eye, didn't need to try to look any more evil. She gave it a shot, though. Looking to Ray like a gargoyle with the mean reds bad.
'Outta curiosity,' Pyle said, 'is there anyone here who trusts anyone else even, y'know …' He brought his thumb and forefinger close together, squinted through.
'If it's any consolation,' Karen said, 'you're the one I trust least.' She jerked a thumb at Sleeps. 'And all I know about him is he's Rossi's guy.'
'Point well made,' Pyle said, 'and taken.'
Sleeps said, 'I got an idea. Hands up anyone wants to see Niko make it off the island.' He glanced at all three in turn. 'Okay,' he said. 'So let's do this.'
Rossi
Lost
again
, Christ, this fuckin place …
Rossi sitting parked up at the fork in the road on a rusty bucket-a-shit moped, wiggling a finger in his good ear, one sign saying Homer's Tomb, the other Pakoto. Trying to remember Johnny's directions. Except Johnny hadn't been making much sense at the time, the guy in agony, blood spattering gloss-red all across the porcelain bath, the white tiles …