The Curious Case of the Missing Moolah (A Stanton Brothers thriller) Read online

  “It’s Mary, isn’t it?” I asked.

  “What part of shut the fuck up don’t youse understand?”

  “You don’t wanna shoot us, Mary.”

  “Don’t I?”

  “It’s over.”

  She took another step forward. “Is it now?”

  “But you don’t hafta be part of it.”

  Her face twitched, a brief look of uncertainty, and the gun wobbled.

  “You’ll hurt me.”

  “I’m not interested in you,” I replied. “I want the money they stole, and that’s it.”

  The gun began to drop, but was still pointed in my direction.

  “All you hafta do is wait for my boss to arrive, let him in and that’s the end of that.”

  The gun dropped again. “What happens to Tony?” Mary asked.

  “You don’t wanna know.”

  “Is he gonna die?” she said, the gun rising slightly.

  “Depends on my boss,” I replied. “But he doesn’t look kindly on thieves. It wasn’t Tony’s money to take, plus he killed a couple of people.”

  “Killed?” Her mouth loosened and dropped slightly agape. She turned towards her boyfriend and looked at him, shaking her head sadly, before fixing her gaze on the gun in her hand. It angled towards the carpet again.

  I really didn’t know what Alan would do with Dandridge and her boyfriend. I knew that whatever happened would involve pain and lots of it, but outside of that revelation I didn’t have a clue. After what we’d been through to get the money back, and the damage that Gillan and his boss had done, I couldn’t care less what happened to them. They’d probably be better off dead.

  A little girl frown wrinkled her nose as she took her bottom lip between her teeth and worried it. “I was with them,” she said.

  “You let me cut my brother loose and that information never leaves this room.”

  She still looked uncertain, but the gun dropped again.

  “Trust me, if you answer the door dressed like that, Alan Piper’s gonna love you,” I said. “Might even be worth some money.”

  “I’m not a whore,” she said, her voice hard.

  “Never said you were,” I replied. “But with Alan, arrangements can be made.”

  Mary lowered the gun completely and took her finger off the trigger.

  Dandridge began to stir, letting out throaty moans and groans, so I kicked him in the face. He didn’t make a sound after that.

  Mary looked down at Dandridge and her boyfriend for one last time before turning away. As she left the room, she said: “I’m gonna go and finish getting dressed. I want youse gone before I come back down. You wanna cut your brother loose there’s knives in the kitchen.”

  I went into the kitchen and picked up the first sharp blade I could find. I cut my brother loose and then looked around the room for the burlap moneybag, but couldn’t see it anywhere. A more thorough search revealed that somebody had placed it behind the sofa. I left it where it was – it would be a nice little surprise for Piper when he came storming into the place. I asked my brother for his phone and dialled a number on his contacts list.

  “What the fuck’s going on?” a voice barked. “Where’s me fuckin’ money, you total and utter cunt?”

  “Whoa, Al, didn’t anyone ever tell you that stress’s a killer?”

  “I’m a fuckin’ killer, cunty. And you’ll find that out first-fuckin’-hand if youse don’t have me money.”

  “We have it.”

  “And I’m charging interest for being late.”

  “You can stick your interest up your hairy arse,” I snapped back, adding before he had a chance to interrupt. “And if you shut the fuck up for a while I’ll explain.

  “It’s at a place in Normanby, along with three men who’re just dying to tell you a little tale. It’s an interesting tale, but it might make you a tad angry – so you’re gonna want to move them to somewhere a bit more secure after you’ve heard it. When you get here a girl’s gonna let you in. Now, she has nothing to do with this, but I think when you lay eyes on her you’ll probably wanna get to know her better.”

  “Cute, huh?”

  “One of the few girls I’ve met who can work a Grangetown facelift.”

  “You gonna be there when I arrive?”

  “I’m retired,” I said. “I told you that earlier.”

  “Youse were late. I want me interest.”

  “Fuck your interest, Alan,” I said. “You wanna send some boys round to collect it, be my guest. But I’m telling you now, you better have good fuckin’ health insurance, ‘cause those boys’ll be coming back broken. We clear on that?”

  “Crystal,” he said.

  “And lose the fuckin’ strop. I’ve just jumped through hoops to get your money back. I’ve had guns pointed at me, gone walking through heroin needles, broken all kinds of fuckin’ laws. I’m tired, I’m pissed off, and I’m in need of a long sleep.

  “And come tomorrow, I’m gonna hafta start thinking about what I wanna do for the rest of my life.”

  20.

  First thing we did after leaving Mary’s place was to cut Bobby Manning loose. He was in the throws of some kind of heroin withdrawal when we arrived, so gave us a mouthful of abuse for tying him up. The tirade ended with a couple of well-aimed slaps from my brother. When we tried to leave, Manning grabbed my arm and told me about a robbery he had planned. I shook loose of his grip and told him to find somebody else. As we were walking to the car, he screamed that it was good money, real money, as opposed to the other kind, and that we would be back.

  Our next stop was at Molly’s.

  She was asleep when I entered her bedroom. I sat on the bed and shook her roughly. Molly blinked her big blue eyes a few times, frowned in confusion and looked up me, her gaze blank and uncomprehending. As soon as she tried to move, Molly realised where she was and what was happening. She sighed into her pillow.

  “I take it I’m in trouble?”

  I nodded, unrolled her from the duvet and cut her loose. She sat upright, flexing and unflexing her hands, and took several deep breaths. Flexing seemed to be doing little for her, so she raised her arms to shoulder height and began to wave her hands around.

  “How much trouble?”

  “I dunno,” I replied. “If I were you, I wouldn’t wait around to find out. If you’re lucky Tony Gillan might keep your secret for an hour or two, but your boyfriend’ll break him sooner rather than later.”

  Molly wobbled as she got to her feet, took another deep breath, and went to the wardrobe. She pulled out a big black holdall and started filling it with clothes that she pulled off hangers and out of drawers. Her movements were jerky, her face tight, and she seemed to be getting more stressed with each new drawer that she opened. Molly pulled several drawers out of one of her units, scattered the contents across the carpet and threw the drawers on the bed. Her eyes twitched left and right as she searched the floor for something. She finally let out a big sigh, crouched down and picked up her passport.

  “Where’s Hen?” she said.

  “Your brother’s dead.”

  She stopped moving and gazed into the distance for a few seconds, her bottom lip trembling. Tears gathered in her lashes and rolled down her face, catching the light on the way down. A couple of sobs caught in her throat but she didn’t let them out. Her hands were shaking as she put the final items of clothing in her bag.

  “Did you kill him?” she said, almost hissing the words.

  “Gillan.”

  Her eyes sought mine. “Why?”

  “It’s a long story,” I said. “And you don’t have the time.”

  “You’re sure he’s dead?”

  “I saw his body.”

  “How did he die?”

  “Hot dose.”

  Molly stopped again and tightened her hands into small fists.

  “He was a plastics engineer, you know?” she said, looking at me through a glaze of tears. “Once upon a time, before he got in wi
th the wrong crowd. I tried to help him… but he didn’t want it.”

  “They never do.”

  “It was all about the next fix.”

  “It always is.”

  Molly zipped up the bag and found a pair of jeans and a sweater. Whilst she was putting them on, I took four hundred quid from Gillan’s roll and threw the notes on the bed. The money was the first thing Molly noticed when she had finished dressing. She turned to face me.

  “Why?”

  “Just because,” I said.

  Because there had been too many corpses today, because there had been enough betrayals and unpleasantness, and because this was as close as I could get to doing the right thing. Molly might not have been a good person, but even the worst of us can feel pain and grief, and it was obvious that this display of emotion was genuine. With a junky for a brother and a loan shark for a boyfriend it was no wonder that she behaved the way she did. Maybe a bit of kindness would help her in the long run.

  She looked confused. “Even after I set you up?”

  New tears gathered in her lashes.

  “Let’s not make a big thing of it,” I replied.

  “Fine,” she said, stuffing the notes in the pockets of her jeans.

  I moved off the bed and stood in the doorway. “Where’ll you go?”

  She sighed again. “D’you actually care?”

  “Not really.”

  “Then I’ll keep it to meself.”

  I turned away and walked down the stairs. The stuttering sound of her sobs accompanied me on my way to the front door. She wailed Henry’s name repeatedly as I turned the handle and walked outside into the cold, wet night. There was one final howl as I shut the door, but on the way to the car the only thing I could hear was the sound of the rain falling.

  21.

  A few hours later we sat around my kitchen table and divided up the cash. My brother grinned and rubbed his hands. If he hadn’t been sitting in a chair he would have probably been dancing a jig. Mark looked at him and then gave me a quick glance, too quick for my brother to make out. I smiled back.

  Three piles of money lay on the wood veneer – roughly a grand apiece. I pushed one towards Mark, who gathered it up and put it in his pocket.

  “Better than a kick in the teeth,” he said.

  “You do know Piper won’t hire you again after this?”

  He nodded. “Maybe I should get in touch with my people, see what’s on offer?”

  “I’ve got some plans along those lines,” I replied.

  Mark’s face was expressionless, waiting for the point to be made.

  “We worked well today,” I said. “We could make a lotta money around here if we sharpen up our game.”

  “We’ll make a lotta enemies too.”

  “Comes with the territory.”

  Mark wafted his hand at the kitchen. “You’ll have to give this up.”

  The room was dingy, with the kind of ingrained dirt that was impervious to even the deepest clean – like the rest of the flat. “What a tragedy.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “So am I. Never was too attached to having my own place.”

  “Sleeping on sofas, or living in cheap arse hotels, or the back seat of your car; hours, no fuck that, days of sitting around watching targets – you ready for all that?”

  “If it means getting a place in Thailand, why not?”

  Mark shook his head and chuckled. “You can forget that,” he said. “That fuckin’ dream’s over once you start doing this, my friend. Owning a bar in a tourist resort? You may as well paint a fuckin’ target on your forehead. Sooner or later, someone from your past’ll come through the door and then you’ll be past, as in tense. You’ll never be able to settle, unless you’re in the backwoods of fuckin’ Cambodia or somewhere equally as remote. Then, maybe, you can settle.”

  I shrugged, trying not to think too long about what I was about to give up. “So be it.” Even if I couldn’t have the bar, I could at least travel when things got too hot. It may have been the second best option, but it still beat the hell out of working nine-to-five for the next thirty years.

  I pulled the second pile of money towards me and pocketed it. My brother let out a throaty chuckle and reached for the third pile. At the last moment I pulled it away from him. He looked up sharply, anger tightening his features.

  “What the fuck?”

  “Your money goes to Ray.”

  “You fuckin’ kidding us, like?”

  “Am I smiling?”

  He folded his arms tightly across the chest and huffed, the way a toddler does when it takes a strop. “That money’s mine.”

  “No. It was yours, for all of a few seconds, now it’s Ray’s.”

  “You said you’d settle that bill?”

  I eyeballed him. “You know summat, you’re a right cheeky cunt.”

  “I can turn that money into double, triple the amount and then I’ll pay Ray.”

  “Or, as usual, you’ll turn it into a few useless betting slips.”

  “That’s my decision to make.”

  “Not with this money, it’s not.”

  “I’ll bet you for it.”

  I let out a dismissive laugh. “You’ve got nowt to bet with.”

  My brother put his hand in his jeans and rifled through the right front pocket. He grabbed something and slammed his hand down flat on the table. Then he pulled it away, leaving a two pence coin heads up.

  “Flip a coin,” he said.

  “You’ve got nowt to bet with,” I repeated.

  He smiled. “Heads, and I get the cash.”

  I nodded. “And if it’s tails?”

  “It goes to Ray, and I’ll give you another grand on top.”

  “With what exactly? You’re not flush with cash.”

  “If we’re gonna start hitting villains full-time,” he said. “I’ll soon make that kinda stash, and you know it.”

  “Okay, fuck it,” I said, pushing the coin towards Mark.

  He smiled and picked up the coin, balancing it between forefinger and thumb. “Heads, right?” he said to my brother.

  “That’s right.”

  “Don’t go fuckin’ changing your mind when it’s in mid-air. ‘Cause that’s an immediate default – you lose.”

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just flip it.”

  The room went silent. Mark looked at my brother and then me. He lowered his hand and flicked the coin with all his strength. It chimed softly as it started its ascent and went high above our heads, spinning so fast that it blurred. The coin hung in the air for a moment and then it dropped into Mark’s open palm, which snapped shut around it. He turned his right hand and slammed it palm down on the back of his left.

  My brother gnawed at his bottom lip, looked in my direction and finally nodded at Mark, who glanced down at his hands.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  “We’re ready,” I replied.

  He pulled his hand away and revealed the coin.