The Glasgow Grin (A Stanton Brothers thriller) Read online

  The plan, such as it was, involved getting one of these bastards out of the house, so we could incapacitate him and use him as leverage to force our way inside. Thus far it wasn’t looking good. McMaster was having a hard time convincing the occupant to assist him.

  My brother figured it was time to give the safecracker a helping hand. He took the Taser from the back of his jeans and started moving in the direction of the front door. I grabbed his arm and shook my head, whispering the word wait. He stopped moving and put the Taser back beneath his waistband.

  “Look, mate…”

  “I’m not your fuckin’ mate.”

  “Look, all I need…”

  “All you need is to gerroff me fuckin’ property. Now,” the man said, sounding ever more irritated. “‘Cause if you don’t gerroff now you won’t be in any shape to do it later. You gerring me, mate? Or would you like me to go to direct to the part where I kick your head around the fuckin’ garden?”

  “Not tryna cause any chew, mate. Just need some help is all.”

  “Do I look like a fuckin’ Samaritan?”

  “No.”

  “Then gerroff me drive.”

  “Look…”

  “You tryna fuckin’ wind me up, like?”

  McMaster paused. We heard a couple of scuffed footsteps. “No. Look I’ll leave you be, mate. Sounds like you’re upset or summat. I hear it gets like that during your time of the month, sweetie.”

  There was a brief but substantial moment of silence. The change in the already hostile atmosphere was palpable. I tensed up, ready for whatever came next, the hairs on my forearms standing upright, goosebumps stippling my flesh. I grabbed a Taser.

  The man exhaled sharply. “What?”

  A couple more scuffed footsteps, like somebody stepping backwards. “Well, you seem a bit cranky. So I thought maybe you might wanna tampon, or summat.”

  I tightened my grip around the handle and moved towards the edge of the garage.

  “You know what, think I’ll jus’ kick your fuckin’ head around the garden now, if you don’ mind?”

  “Mind? Why would I mind, darling?” McMaster said with a chuckle in his voice.

  More fast and scratchy footfalls, followed by slower, heavier steps, came in our direction. My heart slammed into my ribcage like it wanted to break free. I kept the Taser steady and brushed the trigger with my finger. All the safecracker needed to do was bring him out far enough for a clean shot.

  McMaster danced back with a big grin on his face, closely followed by a large man with a thick neck and arms the size of hams. He made a flailing grab at McMaster, but only ended up clutching the air. Staggering forward slightly, the man turned on his heels and noticed me just as I lined up my shot.

  I pressed the trigger, sending the Taser’s yellow blast doors arcing to the ground, and the prongs slammed into his chest. The machine clacked as the current coursed through it.

  The man went tight, groaned and fell forward. His face hit with the concrete with a sharp smack. He bared his teeth and moaned as his face turned red. Forehead veins popped, arm veins flexed. The knuckles on his big fists turned white.

  I took my finger off the trigger and the clacking stopped. The man remained on his stomach for a few seconds, panting like a dog. Then he tried to get to his feet again, albeit clumsily. I gave him another burst, keeping my finger on the trigger for a full ten seconds until it automatically cut out. After that, he was barely able to move at all.

  My brother turned him over and slapped his face twice. The man blinked a few times, but his eyes were unfocused. His nose had been crushed by the fall and blood oozed slowly from the nostrils. A fat bump was already forming on his forehead. He tried talking, but was too concussed to make any sense and could only mumble gibberish.

  We hooked our hands under his armpits and dragged him to the front door. Although he groaned loudly, the man didn’t bother to try and fight what was happening. My brother pushed him against the wall and I went through the open door, into the hallway.

  It was dark and reeked of freshly smoked joints, stale beer and pizza cheese. I pulled a silenced gun and rested my finger on the trigger. I let my breath out slowly and turned into the living room, gun raised and ready to fire.

  And the place was empty.

  I heard grunts and moans upstairs, along with creaking bedsprings. A woman shrieked to God about her impending fake orgasm. I cursed under my breath. Some of the girls were still here. That was trouble we didn’t need.

  I stepped back into the hallway and waved the all clear. My brother dragged the man inside and put him down with a hard right to the jaw. Then he kept hitting him, probably because it was his idea of fun.

  McMaster followed us into the hall and shut the door. We all listened, craning our heads in the direction of the sex noises. There seemed to be no change in what was happening upstairs, although the screamer from earlier was exhorting her partner to fucking smash it.

  My brother pulled his Taser and stared up at the ceiling. “I wonder if one of these’ll work on two people?” he said, cracking a grin.

  48. – Stanton

  CRADLING THE Taser like a loved one, my brother crept up the stairs, with me following closely behind. McMaster remained with the heavy, even though it was pointless. The man’s wrists were zip-tied, and if the earlier blow to the head hadn’t already given him concussion it was pretty much guaranteed once my brother had used it as a punching bag.

  At the top of the stairs, my brother turned left and started in the direction of the bedroom at the front of the house. I reached out and grabbed his elbow, pressing my fingers deep enough for him to feel it. He looked down at my hand and then at me. “What?”

  “Eddie strike you as someone who lets others use his bed?” I whispered, figuring Eddie’s bedroom to be on the left. It was obvious to anybody with ears that all the action was happening in the bedrooms to the right.

  He was too stubborn to listen to sense and jerked his arm away. He dropped into a crouch and crept towards the bedroom door. Grasping the handle gently, he turned it, and pushed the door with his shoulder. It opened a few inches. He let the handle rise slowly and then rushed into the room.

  To the right, the screamer let out another series of porn star squeals to announce the arrival of her latest fake orgasm. Smiling, I wondered if her partner knew she was faking it, or if he’d allowed himself to be swept along by her theatrics. I had a feeling it was the latter. Nothing is quite as distracting as a screamer.

  Her screams had distracted me too, from the fact that my brother was taking an incredibly long time to check one room. Sweat prickled my forehead as I stepped to the left. Every muscle tense, ready for anything. Taking a deep breath, I walked in.

  My brother was fully unzipped, with dick in hand, directing a stream of piss over a king-sized bed. He was chortling quietly as he soaked the bedspread and pillows. His amusement increased as he sent the spray up the walls and across the carpet.

  “What the fuck’re you doing?” I said under my breath.

  Grinning, he turned and finished what he was doing. “Taking a slash on his pillow,” he replied, tucking his dick away and zipping his jeans.

  I shook my head. “We don’t have fuckin’ time for this.”

  “Too bad. I needed a piss and this is as good a place as any, like.”

  I tried to say something else, but my brother ignored me and walked towards the bedrooms at the back of the house, stopping outside the first door he came to.

  The screamer told her partner in breathy couplets that this was the best she’d ever had. It sounded as convincing as a politician’s apology. The rhythmic slap of flesh increased and her moans increased with them.

  Waggling the Taser slightly, my brother sneered. “I reckon they’ll both collapse,” he whispered. “Wanna take a bet?”

  “No, you sick prick.”

  “Fifty they both collapse.”

  I gave him a long stare. “You need years of fuckin’ therap
y, you know that?”

  “Come on, twenty-five, then. Put your money where your mouth is.”

  “Considering I didn’t make any bet in the first place, my wallet’s like my fuckin’ mouth.”

  “Huh?”

  “Firmly closed.”

  “Coward.”

  He opened the door gradually and we peaked through the gap. A bald, fat man with a pelt of back hair slammed into a petite blonde doggy-style and pushed her face into the mattress. They had their backs to the door, so didn’t notice when we stepped all the way inside. My brother lined up his aim and angled the weapon towards the man’s hairy rump. He smiled as he pulled the trigger.

  The blast doors spun off across the room and the two prongs went deep into his arse. The man let out a roar as the electricity flowed through him. An odd sounding squeal came from the woman that was a mixture pain and pleasure. My brother kept his finger on the button and chuckled nastily until the machine cut out. The man went completely limp and when the girl pushed him off her it was obvious that he was limp in more ways than one. Her face contorted like she was ready to give us some abuse, but my brother stepped forward, put a finger to her lips and leaned in close enough for her to smell what he’d had for dinner. “Whatever you’re gonna say, I’d keep to meself.”

  She stared at him wide-eyed and drew back towards the headboard, wrapping the sweaty bed sheets around her. “You’re not gonna rape us, are you?” she whispered.

  My brother turned and looked in my direction, his arms spread out. “Why do all women think I’m gonna rape ‘em?”

  “Maybe it’s because of your rapist eyes?”

  He glared at me for several seconds. Then his finger hit the trigger, giving fat boy a second dose of shock therapy. The man stiffened as the current slammed into him. Tears ran down the girl’s cheeks and she curled into the foetal position with the sheets around her, whimpering softly.

  I crept along the landing towards the next bedroom, keeping my ears tuned for anything unusual. I needn’t have worried – the shrieks, grunts and bedspring squeaks suggested that nothing less than a pneumatic drill would disturb the occupants’ fun.

  I pushed the door open.

  A skinny man with a shock of grey hair was pounding a tubby bruiser of a woman in the spoons position, their bodies slick with sweat. Although they were both facing the door, it took them a couple of seconds to register my presence. When they did finally notice me, their mouths gaped with surprise. Gradually, the man’s thrusts slowed until they stopped completely.

  “Don’t stop on my account.”

  The man pushed the woman hard enough to send her rolling off the bed and jumped to his feet. His fists were tight and ready to be thrown, his jaw muscles were jumpy. He moved in my direction.

  I waved the gun to get his attention. “Unless you want your cock shot off I’d behave yourself.”

  The man didn’t listen to common sense, but he certainly heard the handclap crack of my silenced pistol, and he took plenty of notice when the bullet smashed into his left foot. He yelped and hopped around on his good foot. Losing his balance, the man collapsed against one of the walls. He was making noises that sounded like whale song and waving his hand at the wound, as if somehow wafting air in its direction would make everything better. A steady flow of blood bubbled from the wound and splashed the carpet. The colour drained from his face and he looked like he was about to faint.

  “I did warn you,” I said, pointing the gun at his crotch. “Next time I’ll put the bullet where I promised.”

  “Whaddaya want?” the man asked. He wrapped a dirty sock tightly around the wound and pressed his hand down hard to stem the flow of blood.

  “For you both to get dressed.”

  The man and woman put on their clothes quickly, stopping now and again for the occasional angry stare. Whilst he was wrapping his foot with a large bath towel, the man sneered at me. “You like looking at people in the buff, you fuckin’ creepy cunt?”

  “Only when they’re attractive.”

  The man didn’t like that. “Funny fucker, aren’t we?”

  “Not as funny as you look naked.”

  “Whassat supposed to mean?”

  “It means if you’re dressed you’d better start moving fast, or else.”

  49. – Owden

  IT HAPPENED just as Jimmy said it would.

  Bob sprawled across a branch, watching the clearing through night vision binoculars that Jimmy had given him. The hitman lay on a different branch and observed everything through a sniper rifle scope. They moved only when uncomfortable and spoke only when they needed to.

  Eddie arrived with five men from the Highcliff Road side and congregated at the narrower end of the clearing. Gupta showed up shortly after. He sat on the tree stump, watched Eddie at work, and occasionally studied his mobile phone screen. Pointing in various directions and snapping orders, Eddie sent his men into the surrounding trees and undergrowth. Bob tried to make out what was being said, but aside from the occasional shout and the odd comment that carried he heard nothing more than wordless droning.

  Eddie sat beside Gupta and their lips moved occasionally, although they mostly stared into the darkness with matching sullen expressions. Every now and again Eddie checked his watch and Gupta took out his mobile phone and prodded it.

  The time passed in slow motion, the seconds like minutes, the minutes like hours, and the hours like long, interminable days. Bob had to fight the urge to check his watch. Every time his gaze was drawn towards his left wrist, he thought about what he was doing and stopped. He passed the time by whispering the lyrics of songs he knew in real-time to the backing tune he had going in his head. He counted off the minutes with every song he got through.

  Eddie patted Gupta on the shoulder and went off to hide. Gupta continued playing with his phone, sending text messages, occasionally taking calls, and the time continued to pass. Finally, Bob checked his watch and noticed that it was well past nine.

  “They’re late,” he hissed.

  “Not technically,” Jimmy replied.

  “You and I both know that turning up unprepared to summat like this is a stupid thing to do, lad.”

  Jimmy grunted and shrugged.

  Bob leaned in and whispered: “Do the Stantons strike you as stupid?”

  Jimmy’s grip tightened on the rifle.

  “Derek Stanton strikes me as somebody who could be outwitted in a maze race by a lab rat.”

  “I’m not talking about the monkey, I’m discussing the organ grinder,” Bob said. “Does Eric strike you as stupid?”

  Jimmy sucked on his teeth like they were boiled sweets before answering: “No. He does not.”

  “Then summat’s wrong here,” he said.

  Bob shifted around on his branch and the leaves rustled loudly. Gupta’s head lifted up from his mobile phone screen and turned in their general direction.

  Looking through his sniper scope, Jimmy hissed at Bob to stop moving.

  “Unless you want these pricks to know we’re here you better pipe the fuck down,” he said. “Otherwise we’re gonna hafta shoot our way out.”

  Bob ceased fidgeting and glanced through the binoculars again. Gupta was on his feet, looking from left to right, unable to pinpoint the source of the noise. Bob realised that they were stuck in the tree and there was nothing he could do about it.

  He would have to wait.

  Bob didn’t like waiting.

  He chalked that up as another black mark against the Stanton brothers.

  50. – Stanton

  WE TIED up the captives with as much rope and as many zip-ties as we could find and sat them on the large L-shaped sofa that dominated Eddie’s living room. Their eyes followed me as I patrolled back-and-forth across the carpet, asking them question after question. It didn’t take long to realise that collective questioning was getting us nowhere fast. It was time to make things more personal.

  The man who’d chased McMaster was in no shape to talk. The
blows he had taken to the head rendered him useless. His massive head lolled left and right, without focus, and he made little sense on the few occasions he did try to speak.

  The fat man was pale and unwell and mostly silent. He was still dealing with the after effects of the four jolts of electricity my brother had given him, but wasn’t doing a very good job of it.

  I didn’t want to involve the girls if I could help it, so gagged them to make sure they couldn’t scream. This left us with the skinny streak of piss and his smart mouth. He threw out more bad jibes and jokes than a Seventies pub comedian, oblivious to the fact that he was one jeer away from being kicked into a coma by my brother. With cold blue eyes and a sneer so pronounced it looked like a physical defect, his was the kind of face even a mother could hate.

  He was just begging to be hurt.

  I stopped walking and started rummaging through a large holdall that had been placed by the sofa. The lanky man smirked.

  “‘Ere, Creepy, whatchoo got in there, like?”

  He turned his sneer in the direction of his fat mate.

  “I betchoo Creepy ‘ere’s brought his little gay sex toys for us to play with. ‘Aventchoo, Creepy?”

  “Not quite,” I replied. “But I have brought some playthings.”

  “Butt plugs? Cock rings? Bottles of poppers?”

  I shook my head and laughed humourlessly.

  “Yeah, I knew it,” he said, trying to act all pally. “I knew you’s a fuckin’ bender the moment I laid me eyes on you. I saw the way you’s checking out me cock. You like cock, don’tchoo, Creepy?”

  I maintained a straight face, despite the fury gnawing at my stomach, and pulled the nail gun out of the holdall. I held it in the air long enough for him to register what it was, before placing it on the floor near his feet. The look of malice faded from his eyes, until they were as flat and lifeless as photocopies, and the smirk became thin and tight. For the first time I sensed his fear. I let the moment of doubt stretch until he began fidgeting in his seat, and only then did I talk.