Stiffed (13 page)

‘Tad!  I don’t want to shoot you.’

Fuck.

I daren’t look across.  Instead, I take my left hand off the handle bars, reach down and grab the neck of a garbage bag.  The maneuver almost topples me.

‘Tad, this is your last warning.’

I lift the bag up, trying to get a better grip, then drop down off the curb alongside the car and stuff it through the lowered window of the cruiser, the plastic catching on the frame and ripping.  A soggy mess of litter drops down onto the road, but most pours into the car.  I let go of the bag and use a driveway to get back up onto the sidewalk.

M
y left thigh is covered in tomato sauce, broken egg shells and heaven knows what else.  So much for making myself presentable to Pirelli.

As we reach Telegraph Road I hang a right through the car park of a row of small shops.  Behind me I hear a sickening crunch.

I glance back.  The cruiser has smashed into the back of a car reversing from a slot.

I bet Joe Gerlach is no longer smiling.

I exit the car park, sticking to the sidewalk.  I’m travelling faster than the two lanes of cars next to me, crawling into the centre of town.

Behind me I hear the continual whoop of the siren.  Clearly the crash has little delayed the cruiser.

I glance back in time to see the police car mount the wide pavement.  There are only a few pedestrians, but they’re all wise enough to start scattering.

I drop down off the cu
rb slicing diagonally through the closely packed, slow moving traffic.  I travel on the centre line for a few meters then dash across the two lanes of on-coming cars, horns blaring.  At the next junction, I hang a left and disappear into an old residential district, the police car still trying to negotiate its way across Telegraph Road.

No doubt there are half a dozen police cars all converging on the area.

I feel like I’m in a game of pac-man.

* * *

To anybody that spots me I must look like I’m wearing a dark blue shirt, rather than the sky blue one I put on half an hour ago.  The sweat is oozing out of every pore. 

If they were giving out prizes for the town’s dumbest citizen I must stand a pretty good chance of taking first spot.  Kate, I
mean Kathy, has led me on a merry dance for seven months, then whilst on the run from the cops I ring them and advertise my location.  Duh!

I cruise to a halt and
jump off the bike.  I’ve somehow managed to evade the police for the last couple of minutes.  I guess a little spatial knowledge pays off every now and then.  I’m in an alley behind the imaginatively named, The Grill.  I daren’t go to the front entrance.  I tuck the bike in behind a dumpster, hiding it from view, slipping the helmet over the handle bars.

The gunk on my leg seems to be melted on.  I scratch at it, managing to get rid of the worst elements.  I smooth down my hair, straighten my tie, and try
and tuck the shirt back into my trousers.  I’d have been better off wearing the t-shirt, rotating the arrow so it pointed to my head.

I feel like the last man standing.
  I have no real idea what the hell I’m going to say to Aldo Pirelli, other than if he can get Annabelle and Sally back and get the five of us out of the situation we’re in he can have the million dollars.  No questions asked.  I’ll even work the next thirty years to give him the interest owed.  Even if it’s his money to begin with, a million saved has to be worth some kind of reward. 

Nobody likes to lose a million dollars. 
Right?

What the
hell am I doing here?  I don’t have the million dollars to give him.  What I have is two bodies, an idea as to who has the million dollars, and a willingness to beg for understanding and mercy.  This really is a stupid plan, but what else am I going to do?  I’ve lost Annabelle, Sally and Kate.  God knows where Jason and Paavo are and I’ve no way of contacting them.  If I go to the police, who knows what will happen.  Aldo Pirelli runs this town, if anyone can sort this mess out it’ll be him.  I’m sure we can work out a payment plan.

I
head to the back door along a path sided by crates of empty bottles.  I knock and wait.

Nothing stirs.

I try again.

I must be certifiable.

This time it’s yanked open by a man in his late thirties wearing a scowl, a hairnet, and a filthy chef’s apron.  He’s holding a meat cleaver in a somewhat threatening manner.

‘Si?’

‘I’m here to see Aldo Pirelli.’

‘Who?’

‘Aldo Pirelli.’

‘I never heard of him.
’  He slams the door.

I
take a deep breath and knock again.

The door opens quickly, the cleaver stopping just short of my
nose.

FUCK!

‘Are you deaf or stupid?’

‘Stupid,’ I answer.  ‘Mr Pirelli owns this bar.’

‘I never heard of this Mr Pirelli.  Now scram before I use this,’ he wiggles the cleaver, ‘to cut you a new ass.’

I stagger back a couple of paces.

‘Can you tell him Tadhg Maguire is here to see him?’

The door slams closed.

Fuck.  Now what?  I could try the front entrance, but that means having to travel half a block along a busy street.  I scan the various windows.  They’re all protected by vertical bars.

I could really do with Annabelle right now.  She’d know what
to do.  She’s the brains of our crew.  She’d get out her notebook and sketch out the permutations and arrive at some logical solution.  I’ve hit a brick wall and am out of ideas.  The front door seems the only available route.  I wander back through the beer crates to the dumpster.  I might as well cycle round.  At least then I stand some kind of chance of getting away should the police turn up.

The back
door opens.  A man mountain in an ill-fitting suit fills the frame. 

‘You Maguire?’

‘Yeah.’

‘It’s your lucky day.  Mr Pirelli will see you.’

I wander back to the door.

The mountain
’s face is large, round, flat and full of little pock marks, like it was pressed in a pancake maker.  He’s enormous, but not in a Jason kind of way; more like The Rock.

We enter a kitchen.  The chef is hacking at meat on a bone.  He doesn’t look up as we pass through.  We enter a short
hallway.  The Rock points at a flight of stairs.

‘Couldn’t we meet somewhere more public, like the bar?’ I ask.

‘You don’t want public,’ he growls.

I don’t have an answer for that, so I
climb the stairs, The Rock close behind.  At the top we head to the rear of the building, entering a small room with nothing in it other than a couple of chairs, a desk and a bookcase holding a few novels.  Outside of the window are bars painted white that are stained with rust. 

‘Wait here.’

‘Where’s Mr Pirelli?’

‘He’s on his way.’

The Rock closes the door behind him and I hear the sound of a key turning in the lock.

Oh
God.

I try the handle, but the door is locked.

‘Hey!  Hey!’

‘Pipe down, Red.  You don’t want me to come back in there to subdue you.’

He’s right.  I don’t.  I’ve seen skimpier looking bulls.  Perhaps this wasn’t such a clever idea.

* * *

Half an hour later and I’m starting to get pretty damn nervous.  The adrenaline from the bike chase has dissipated and I’m coming to terms with the knowledge that I’m sitting in a locked room in Pirelli’s lair.  I might be beyond the long arm of the law, but I’m in a far more dangerous place.  The police might not like the answers I give them, but they’re unlikely to yank out my fingernails or hold burning cigarettes against my skin to make me talk.  And it’s prison that beckons at the end of the day, not concrete boots and the bottom of a lake. 

I need to stop watching gangster movies.

The books on the case are all well thumbed romance novels.  They seem curiously out of place in a room which would be difficult to associate with love.  It’s bare, functional and needs a good clean.  I’m starting to wonder whether I should slot the battery back into my mobile phone and call Gerlach.  Throw myself at his mercy.

The key turns in the lo
ck and The Rock enters followed by a little old man dressed in an immaculate dark grey suit.  He must be a quarter of the size of his bodyguard.  His silver hair is neatly parted and he’s wearing a pair of bottle glasses that magnify his eyes, giving him a slightly comical appearance. 

There is nothing amusing, however, about Aldo Pirelli.  His reputation for ruthless efficiency precedes him.
Carrick Springs might be a relatively small town, but it is has a large hinterland stretching for fifty miles or more and Pirelli controls it all.  If there is a way of making a clandestine profit he’s found and exploited it.

‘Search him,’ Pirelli orders.

The Rock kicks my legs apart and runs his hands along my arms, over my torso, and down my legs.  He takes my wallet from my back trouser pocket and throws it on the table.  He taps the front pocket and I pull out the cell phone and the battery.

Pirelli takes those. 
‘Sit!’ he barks.

I drop gratefully into a hard chair, my legs having turned to jelly.

‘So, Tad Maguire.’

‘Tadhg,’ I correct, my eyes tracking The Rock as he takes up a position behind me.

‘Tad, Tadhg, who gives a fuck?  You have a lot of balls to come here.  A lot of balls.’

If only he knew.  I bet that right now I have bigger balls than The Rock.
  But probably only just.

‘
It seems you’re the talk of the town,’ Pirelli continues.  ‘The police radio is talking about nobody else.  And you turn up at my door!  What are you trying to do, get my place raided?’

‘No, no, Mr Pirelli.  I came … I came to ask for help.’

‘Help?  Do I look like a charity to you, son?’

‘No.’

‘No.  That’s because I’m not.  Now if you have a business proposition, that’s a different matter.  Do you have a business proposition?’

‘Not exactly.
  I … I …’

‘Spit it out, son.’

This guy is making my balls shrink just by being in his presence.  I’m a journalist.  Not a very good one, but I’ve heard the stories.  Pirelli would have no problem putting me through a meat grinder and feeding me to pigs.  He doesn’t need to look scary to scare a man half to death, his reputation does that. 

‘I
… I know where to find Tony Marino and how to get your million dollars.’

He snorts a laugh, his eyes crinkling.  ‘Tony doesn’t have the million dollars.’

‘I … I know.  Kate, I mean, Kathy … this woman I live with does.’

‘She doesn’t have it either, Tad.’

‘She doesn’t?’

‘No.  She says you do.
  She’s been trying to track you down.  She even contacted me.  She thought I might be holding you.  She wanted to trade.  Half the money for Annabelle Levy.’

What
the …?

‘I …
I …’

‘Of course, I have no interest in Annabelle Levy, except if she’ll cut me in for a share of Annabelle’s Delights.  Kathy’s workin
g on it.  She understands how things work.  Now that would be a nice bit of business.  Half a million dollars and a share in a company that must be worth ten million dollars plus.  Maybe twenty million.  Who knows?  Plus all the chocolate I can eat, of course.’

He smiles again.

Kate has Annabelle, I supposedly have the million dollars, and Pirelli has me.  I’ve surpassed myself in the stupidity stakes.  Voluntarily handing myself over to Pirelli really was a moronic move of monumental proportions.  I should be sectioned and put in a home for imbeciles.

‘I
also hear on the grapevine that Earl Jenkins is also looking to trade with you, that is, if he can track you down.  A million dollars for Sally Krebs.  As is Leroy Taylor.’

‘
Leroy Taylor?’ I mutter.

‘
Black guy.  Bald.  Has a temper on him like a tempest.’

Barry White.

‘He has your friends Jason Choi and Paavo Poukasomething,’ Perilli continues, obviously enjoying himself.  ‘The only problem for Mr Jenkins and Mr Taylor is I have you and I’m not interested in Sally Krebs, Jason Choi and Paavo Poukawhatever.  And if I didn’t have you, you’d be facing a very difficult choice.  Running away with a million dollars in used notes or saving one or two of your friends.‘ 

Fuck!

Fuckity fuck fuck!  It’s like a kidnapping Mexican standoff.  Each party has a hostage and they all want the same thing – the million dollars.

‘I’ve made
the choice for you, I’m afraid,’ Pirelli continues.  ‘And only if Miss Levy agrees to my terms.  Half a million dollars plus a fifty percent stake in her company.  Otherwise, I’ll just take the million dollars and leave her to her fate.  Kathy can be a vindictive little she-devil when she wants to be.’