Crime Always Pays (19 page)

          'Rossi, man – how many times? Karen dumped me, ran off with the loot. For all I know she's in fucking Tibet. And you're the one took our phones, fucked them in the lake. So how'm I supposed to contact her?'

'She'll be hooking up with Madge,' Rossi said. 'Somewhere along this cruise there'll be a big reunion, fuckin cake and candles.'

          'This is presuming Madge even makes the cruise.'

          'This Madge,' Mel said to Rossi, eyeliner pen poised, 'being the woman you kidnapped who thought she was your mother.'

          Rossi glanced across at Sleeps. 'Let's try keeping the personal shit personal,' he suggested. 'Let's just try that, see how it works.' Sleeps shrugged, kept his eyes on the road. Rossi came back to Ray. 'I'm seeing that cruise off anyway. Just to be sure.'

          'We saw you on the ferry over,' Ray said, 'getting into Amsterdam. So Karen knows you're on your way. Still think she's going to make that cruise?'

          'Put yourself where I am,' Rossi said. 'Down two hundred large. Would you see that cruise off?'

          'I was sure Karen wouldn't blow the whistle, have cops waiting for me at any specific piers, then probably, yeah.'

          'Rossi?' Mel said. 'I'm thinking we should cut our losses, head straight for Ios.'

          Rossi glared. '
Our
 losses?'

          'For as long as I'm still owed my ten thousand,' Mel said, 'plus expenses, then they're our losses.'

          'That's agreed from way back,' Sleeps said.

          Rossi put the muzzle of the .22 to his temple and pulled the trigger, click-click-click. Then said, to Ray, 'You think she'd do it?'

          'Would who do what?'

          'Karen. Sic the cops on me.'

          Ray shrugged. 'I only knew the girl a week, Rossi. You've known her what, ten years? You tell me.'

Madge

Back when Frank approached Terry Junior to have Madge snatched, the first thing Terry'd done was have Frank audited.

          'And you can just do that,' Madge said.

          'You can pay enough,' Terry said, 'you can do anything, Christ, order an invasion of Iraq.' He caught the look on her face. 'Generally, though, it's the client provides the details, as part of the deal.' He checked his watch again, third time in two minutes. 'No way they're making it now,' he said.

          Early evening, still balmy but with a hint of chill up on the liner's observation deck, the breeze flapping at Madge's headscarf, Madge with big round shades on, the whole Jackie O schtick.

'So you're saying,' she said, 'a million and a half.'

          'You and him both, for a million-five each. The money going to the twins, with the surviving parent in charge of the spending until they reach 21. He never told you this?'

          'No,' Madge said, neglecting to mention how she'd never asked. 'And the house is mine?'

          'The mortgage was in Frank's name from when he remortgaged his own home to buy you yours. So that goes null and void. The bank, for once, gets screwed.' He slapped his bicep punching the air an uppercut. 'Up the workers.'

          'But what about the circumstances? How he died.'

          'You get charged, it goes to trial, then yeah, it'll get complicated. But the money's the twins', not yours. So someone'll have to, this presuming worst-case scenario, administrate your estate on their behalf, at least until they're 21. But that's not even an issue.' He turned away from the breeze, pulled his lapel up to light a cigar. 'You want to know what I think?' he said after some ruminative puffing. 'I think they'd all be happier if you never came home.'

          Madge felt hollowed out, sipping a Bellini on the observation deck of the
Patna
, scanning the chaotic port below for a Karen- or Anna-shaped ant. Athens rising on three sides, a shallow white bowl washed now in delicate mauves and violets, the sun virtually gone. 'Either way I'm screwed,' she said. 'If go back I can't touch the money. And if I don't go back, I can't touch the money.'

          'That's one way of looking at it.'

          'There's no other way, Terry. I can't touch the money.'

          'Sure. 
You
 can't touch it.'

          'I'm not sure I follow,' Madge lied, Madge with a fair idea she was starting to see it now, Terry's plan all along.

          'What you need,' Terry said, puffing on his cigar, 'is someone you can trust to do the right thing. By you 
and
 the twins.'

          'You're talking about someone administrating the estate,' Madge said, 'on my behalf.'

          'Exactly.'

          'In which case it wouldn't matter where I was, back home or Bongo-Bongoland.'

          'It'd probably be better if you were somewhere in the EU zone,' Terry said, 'for the sake of convenience, so everyone's singing off the same legal hymn sheet. But, in theory, yeah.'

          'I don't know.' Madge aiming for a Little Bo-Peep vibe. 'It sounds awfully complicated.'

          'That's partly a benefit,' Terry said. 'You open up a few shell companies, siphon off a little here, divert a bit there. Pretty soon it's a jungle a guy'd need a machete to get through.'

          'What happens when it's all sucked dry?'

          'Generally you'd sue whoever was taking care of the estate for you, this to prove your own innocence.' Terry peered at his watch, tapped the face. 'Eventually it goes to court, none of the principals turn up, hardly surprising when one of them's the invisible man. So the judge throws it out.'

          'And where's the money?'

          'Wherever you want it to be. If you're smart, lots of different places, preferably washed through investment portfolios, the blue-chip shit. You'll get low returns but it's safe until you need it. You want my advice, I'd say plunge on Chinese cement, take a punt on some radical energy shit, maybe nuclear power. But it's your money. Hold on, is that them?'

          But it was only a family of immigrants, the cops wading in, batons drawn. 'I don't have anyone I can trust that way,' Madge said, reclining on the deckchair again. 'No one who's that clued in legally, I mean.'

          'Not a problem. You want, I'll put my guys on it.'

          'Yet again,' Madge said, 'that's incredibly generous of you, and very sweet.'

          'Don't mention it.'

'But it sounds to me,' she went on, 'that something like that, it'd be expensive. Lawyers fees and what have you. I'd be afraid the money would be gone by the time it's all over.'  

           Terry grunted. 'I've seen it happen,' he said.

          'Which'd put me back to square zero. Not even on the board.'

          'If you were me,' Terry said, 'what I'd do is get my guys to out-source. Y'know? Find some young firm, they're new and keen, get them to hump the coal up the hill. Then, it all falls apart after, you've got the added benefit of knowing some lawyers got screwed too.' Another bicep-slap. 'Anyway,' he said, 'there's no way you're falling off the board. You're officially divorced now, right?' Madge nodded and toasted Terry with the Bellini. 'I was you,' he said, 'on a tub like this? I'd spread the word. Looking the way you do, I'd be surprised you didn't walk away from the cruise with about ten proposals, maybe even from the captain himself.' He raised his eyebrows. 'You know they have a shop on the third deck specialises in engagement rings?'

          'I honestly don't know if I'll ever get married again,' Madge said, deftly parrying his clumsy lunge. 'Besides, it's far too early to --'

          'Who's talking about getting married? I'm saying engaged, having fun, Christ knows you deserve it. Meet some new guys, let 'em buy you shit. Scrapping to impress you, tossing one another overboard.'

          'You wouldn't be one of them?'

          'Fuck no. I 
been
 married, got the t-shirt, it didn't fit. But don't worry about me, I'll keep a low profile. You want me gone, I'm gone. Or I can stick around, make sure no one gets any notions he shouldn't. It's up to you.' 

          The liner sounded its klaxon, a mournful blare that shuddered through its entire length, sounding to Madge like the lady had a cold coming on.

          'That's final call,' Terry said, 'they're definitely not making it now. What'll we do, stay or go?'

Sleeps

'Rossi? I'm getting a little yawny over here.'

          'Tough shit, you've had all the crizz.' Rossi slumped in the passenger seat, arms folded, cheesed off ever since he sparked a doobie and Mel, halfway through her second warning, puked across his shoulder into his lap. 'Stick your face in the breeze,' he said.

          'One, we're stalled in a tailback. Two, it's humid enough out there to boil eggs. You want me to nod off?'

          'Whaddya want 
me
 to do? Magic up some fuckin crizz?'

          Things a little tense in the van, the cruise gone twenty minutes ago if it was leaving on schedule, traffic log-jammed on the outskirts of Athens. Everyone edgy, the stench of stale puke not helping. 'What I'm getting at,' Sleeps said, 'is Johnny's, y'know.'

          'You've a Bob hope. That fucker stays sealed. Johnny said, being specific on it, how the load gets through intact.'

          'But only saying that on the presumption you'd be dipping in. Making sure you didn't party it up, just tried a taster.'

          'What're we looking at,' Ray said, 'coke?'

          'Never you fuckin mind,' Rossi said.

'In the Rangers,' Ray said, 'for night sorties? They'd pass out the speed. Even in training. Guys were volunteering to go out. Queues to sign up, all this.'

'You had any common decency,' Rossi told Ray, 'any sense of fuckin shame, you'd be bringing something to the party, not sponging dabs of coke off us.'

          Sleeps glanced at Ray in the rear-view. 'You being in the Rangers, you'll have done some work with machineguns. Right? The heavy shit.'

          'Sure.'

          Rossi glaring across, not getting it. But then started to see, nodding along, as Sleeps said, 'So you could clue us in if we had, say, an Uzi.'

          'Your Uzi's as straightforward as it gets,' Ray says. 'Just point and fire, you can't go wrong.'

          'You'd think so,' Sleeps said as Rossi opened the door and got out, 'wouldn't you? Except none of us have any experience, never having been to any war zones or Miami Beach.'

Rossi slammed down the trunk of the car, hustled back into the passenger seat again. Started fumbling with the catches on Mel's suitcase. 'The fuck's with the Fort Knox?' he said. 

          'There's a combination,' Mel said.

          'And what, I'm supposed to guess?'

          'It's, erm, double-o seven.'

          'Sweet suffering Cheez-Its.' Rossi sprung the locks, opened the case, holding the lid sideways so no passerby could glance in, spot the hardware. Then gave Ray the nod. Ray scooched up so he was peering down over Rossi's shoulder, holding his nose against the waft of puke. 'Nice, yeah. Where'd you pick it up?'

          'Under the machinegun tree. So what's the skinny?'

          'First off,' Ray said, 'it's not your actual Uzi. It's a copy.'

          'A fake?'

          'An Uzi rip-off. The stock's wrong, it looks like some kind of local adaptation. The Ingram, maybe?' Ray thinking out loud. 'But it'll do the same damage as an Uzi, don't worry about that.'

          'So how's it work?' Rossi said.

          'Work? You pull the trigger, bullets come out. How d'you think it works?'

          Sleeps put the car in gear, rolled forward a few feet. 'Just presume for a second,' he said, knocking the car out of gear again, 'we're complete morons here, we never handled an Uzi before. Start at the start.'

          'I could do that,' Ray said. 'Except, I get you tooled up, you'll point it at me and tell me take you to Karen.'

          'I thought you said,' Mel said, 'you don't know where she is.'

          'This is my problem.'

          'I give you my word,' Rossi said.

          'Rossi, no offence, but you've shot me once already.'

          'That was a fluke. You said so yourself.'

          'Yeah, but from there? With an Uzi? Even you couldn't miss.'

          'Hey, Ray?' Sleeps said. 'Take a good look at me, man. I look to you the type that'd do good time in a Greek prison?'