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

“Fuck knows.”

  Ray grinned. “Sounds like a solid plan you’ve got there.”

  “I’ve got a bit of cash stashed.”

  “If you’re retiring you’ll need more than a bit.”

  “I’m just retiring from this shit,” I replied. “I’m way too young for Saga holidays and incontinence pants just yet.”

  “That’s what I mean.”

  “Maybe I’ll run a bar,” I said.

  Ray scoffed. I gave him a sharp look.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’re gonna need more than a bit to run a bar, mate.”

  “I’m thinking Thailand. A lot cheaper over there.”

  He waved his hand in dismissal. “It’s more than you might think, mate. Guy I know’s been running a place out in Bangkok for three years. I went over there to see him a few months back. When I went over I was talking about getting a bar over there myself. Mate, let me tell you he gave me a severe fuckin’ wake up call.

  “My mate needed twenty-five gees just to limp through his first year. And his second year was no walk in the park, either. He’s only just making a profit now and that’s only because he’s got some prime trim throwing themselves at the customers. It was a big fuckin’ culture shock to him, and he knows the language, the customs. And with all due respect, you my friend don’t.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  I thought about the six grand I had in the bank and the favours people owed me that could be turned into cash. I knew it wasn’t enough to run a bar, even somewhere as inexpensive as Thailand. If I was to do anything other than lean on junkies and housewives for the next thirty years I knew I’d have to make some money and fast. All I needed was an angle and some luck. Little did I know that Ray was about to deliver some news that suggested I really didn’t have much of either.

  He took us through a Staff Only door, up a bare wooden staircase, through a small bar with a pool table and into a room at the rear of the building. It was a tiny windowless space that had a slim metal filing cabinet on the wall to the left of the door. A small MDF desk was sitting next to it. A larger desk rested close to the far wall with a big leather executive chair behind it. Dozens of clear bank bags full of money had been scattered across the desk. Ray went behind the desk and reclined in the executive seat.

  “When you head out to Thailand are you taking your fuckin’ brother with you?”

  Alarm bells started ringing in my head. “I take it he’s been causing trouble?”

  Ray ran both hands over his bare scalp, lowered them to the desk where they began to clench and unclench continuously. His lips went tight and his jaw muscles twitched beneath the skin. “Stupid cunt came in on Friday after a bad day at the track. Lost a couple of hundred on a candidate for the glue factory called Lucky Star. Fuckin’ ironic, or what? So he gets on the pool table and starts hustling punters for money, which ends up clearing the room pretty quickly. So far so fuckin’ bad. But all the while the big daft cunt’s polishing off vodkas like they’re water, which is sending his aim right off. A couple of soft lads I know decide to take him to the cleaners. They basically pick his carcass clean and then send him into the hole for another two hundred. This displeases him. He’s even more displeased when the soft lads go tell him to fetch their money toot sweet. Well, he laughs in their faces and tells them to get to fuck. So, not knowing who they’re dealing with, one of the soft lads decides to break a pool cue over the big fella’s head.”

  “That was a mistake,” I said. The alarm bells were now chiming like police sirens.

  “You’re telling me,” Ray said and sighed. “Your brother breaks this lad’s right forearm like it’s a fuckin’ twiglet. Then he throws the lad clean across the room, bounces him off the wall, and sets about rearranging the other clown’s face. Smashes his nose flat, knocks out most of his teeth and kicks his head around like it’s a fuckin’ football. So then Toby comes in off the door, trying to calm shit down, and your brother kicks fuck out of his knee, puts him down like the useless sack of shite he is and then puts the boot into his ribs and breaks a few of them. You might’ve noticed, walking through, that the upstairs bar was missing a door. Well that’s ‘cause your fuckin’ brother tore the thing off its hinges and then started twatting the gadgies on the floor with it.”

  “Jesus Christ,” I hissed.

  “He only stopped ‘cause the lad behind the bar pulled the shotgun from under the counter and threatened to blow his legs off with it. Lucky for the establishment and your brother that nobody was up here by that point. Every fucker had fled downstairs.”

  The warning sound in my head had gone silent. I knew that I was about to be squeezed for money. “Does Piper know yet?” I asked.

  Ray shook his head. “No, but he’s not gonna be pleased when he does. Although it doesn’t necessarily have to go that far.”

  My stomach lurched. Squeezing was about to commence. “How?”

  “If people get comped.”

  I looked up at the artexed ceiling and let out a long breath.

  “Look, Toby might be a useless sod but he’s a sound lad and, more to the point, he’s legit,” Ray said. He took a cigarette packet off the table, pulled a stick from the box and lighted it. “It took all my powers of persuasion to convince him not to press charges. He’s pretty upset, and with good reason. Your brother damaged the lad’s cruciate, broke his ribs. He has to be comped. Simple as that, really.”

  “How much we talking here?”

  “A grand ought to cover it.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Along with another hundred and fifty for the broken door.”

  “Shit.”

  “And another fifty to replace the picture and frame that was hanging on the wall the lad bounced off. Plus, I’ll need another hundred on the downlow to give to the lad behind the bar, to keep his mouth shut.”

  “Couldn’t you just lean on him?”

  “I could, but I won’t,” Ray said. “He’s a good lad, a good barman. And your fuckin’ brother needs to learn a lesson or two. I’m telling you now as a courtesy that your brother’s banned. If he comes back again, I’ll have the cunt kneecapped. You know as well as I do that Piper doesn’t like trouble in his watering holes. It looks bad on him and it looks bad on me, and I’m not fuckin’ having it. It’s only ‘cause I like you that your brother’s getting forewarned. If it was anybody else I’d be driving them up the Moors to use their kneecaps as target practice.”

  I grimaced. “I’m not exactly happy about any of this,” I said.

  Ray bristled slightly. “I wasn’t the one causing trouble, was I? Take it up with your brother if you have a problem forking over what’s due. If you’d prefer, I could let Toby go to the police and see what happens? Or I could just tell Alan and watch the chaos unfold.”

  “Fair enough,” I conceded, holding up my hands. “You’ve got me over a barrel.”

  “It’s not about bending you over a barrel,” Ray said with a sigh. “It’s about doing what’s right. Pay the comp and keep your brother out of trouble.”

  “What about the lads he tossed around?”

  Ray let out a pah sound and gave a dismissive swipe of his left hand. “Fuck ‘em. Stupid fuckin’ bail monkeys. I’ve let them know that if they say owt they’ll be going back inside for a diet of prison gruel and arse rape. They should’ve known better.”

  I thought about the amount I’d have to pay for my brother’s stupidity – thirteen hundred fucking quid. I knew that he didn’t have that kind of money, and even if he did he wouldn’t pay up. He probably felt some remorse about injuring Toby, but his guilt wouldn’t stretch to digging up thirteen hundred quid from beneath his mattress. So it was up to me to make it right. This seemed to be the story of my life – my brother takes a massive shit and I’m the one who has to clean it up. If I was lucky I would get some of the money back, but I knew that I would have to go out and earn the rest of it. My stomach twisted and turned like a bag full of snakes. Bile burn
ed the back of my throat. It took a couple of swallows to send it back to my stomach where it belonged.

  Seemed like I’d retired from debt collection a bit too soon.

  Ray appeared to sense my mood. “Look, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings. If I’d’ve been there it would never have got as far as bloodshed.”

  I nodded and tried to smile, despite knowing that it would look as false as it felt. “Not your fault.”

  “Well, I feel like shite anyway. You’re a good lad and I hate dropping summat like this on you.”

  All of this talk of losing money was making me depressed. I decided to turn the subject around 180 degrees by looking down at the cash on the table. “So how much are we carrying?”

  “A lot,” Ray replied. “A lot more than usual. Dave Lockhart should’ve picked up Friday’s take on Saturday morning, but he cried off for some reason, so you’re gonna be carrying over eight grand.”

  “Christ. Thought everybody paid by card nowadays?”

  “You’d be surprised. Even with your brother’s bullshit we had a solid Friday. A lotta cash there. Then there was a big birthday party here on Saturday and every fucker paid cash. Then we had the carvery on Sunday, and that’s always solid.”

  “Maybe Piper should invest in G4 to carry this kinda paper?”

  “I wouldn’t trust those cunts to carry a fuckin’ cold.”

  Ray started putting the bank notes in a large burlap sack. By the time he’d finished loading the thing it was bloated with cash – he might as well have painted the word Swag on it.

  He pushed the bag across the table. I grabbed it with my left and slung it over my shoulder. I forced a grin that was difficult to hold in place. Ray stepped around the desk and patted me on the shoulder. Mark stepped forward and shook Ray’s hand again, then we turned and quickly left the building. As soon as I was outside I stopped walking, took a deep breath and counted to ten before releasing it. I looked up at the sky, which was dark with fat grey clouds, and silently cursed my brother.

  I felt a tap on my right shoulder.

  “What?” I said, turning in the direction of the tap.

  Mark looked at me and moved his gaze towards the bag. “Maybe we should get moving? I feel uncomfortable with this kinda cash out in the open.”

  I didn’t answer. Instead, I walked to where my grey Vauxhall Astra had been parked and unlocked the boot in silence, grinding my teeth together constantly, while Mark lurked behind me. I threw the money into a compartment in the boot and slammed the door shut. I looked at myself in the rear window for a few seconds and noticed that Mark was still staring at me. I turned in his direction.

  “Got summat to say?” I said.

  “Sorry about the money.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “I take it this means those retirement plans are on hold?”

  “I guess they are.”

  A slight smile curled the corner of his mouth. “I think we’re gonna work well together.”

  4.

  The car hit the bump at speed, bounced over it with a horrible crunch and juddered momentarily upon landing. The impact went deep into my bones. There was something satisfying about driving like this. Every time we struck a speed bump I imagined that it was my brother’s legs – the wheels grinding his kneecaps into bone meal. I heard his screams in my head and felt the tension lift from my shoulders.

  Mark leaned close to the passenger window, fogging the glass with his breath, and watched as the houses of Marshall Avenue whizzed past. Most of them were plain red brick ex-council houses but occasionally, just for variety, some of the homes had been painted red or brown. We turned left into a small cul-de-sac and parked outside a small bungalow.

  Mark looked at the building with a curled lip of disdain. “Piper’s girlfriend lives in a bungalow? What? Is she an old age pensioner?”

  I laughed and hitched my thumb at the rear garden of a house to my right. “She lives in one of those.”

  “What’s she like?”

  I smiled. “You mean is she worth the envelope that Alan gave us this morning?”

  Kandinsky grinned back and nodded.

  “Well, she is pretty.”

  “Pretty or beautiful?”

  I thought about this for a moment. I pictured her at one of Alan’s parties, wearing a clingy black dress and in full make-up. It was a tough call to make, but I stuck with my original assessment.

  “Pretty,” I said and then gave it some more thought. “Adventurous, too.”

  Mark raised his thick black eyebrows. “Really?”

  “If Alan’s tales of derring-do are to be believed.”

  An enigmatic lopsided smile appeared on his face.

  “But she’s got no time for the help,” I added. “So you can wipe that smirk off your face.”

  That just made his grin wider. “I wouldn’t pull that kinda shit on the job, not unless I thought I’d get away with it. Even then, I’d probably think twice.”

  “To be honest, mate, I get the impression that the only bulge she really likes in a man’s trousers is the one a wallet makes when it’s in his pocket. Unless you’ve got a stack of money I don’t know about, that girl’s not gonna give you a second glance.”

  5.

  Molly Green opened the front door and looked us both up and down. Her eyes lingered on Kandinsky and lowered towards his crotch.

  “You’re new,” she said, her eyes rising to meet his.

  “Don’t let that put you off,” he replied.

  “It doesn’t,” Molly said with a flash of white smile. “I like fresh meat.” She drew out the word meat until it was as filthy as she’d intended.

  Molly was in a loose cornflower blue dressing gown that brought out the colour in her eyes. Her boyish brown bob was damp and ruffled from a recent shower and her cheeks were still flushed from the heat. Even without make-up she really was pretty, but when she was made-up she came perilously close to beautiful. She shook her damp head, rubbed a small towel through her hair, fixed those big blue eyes on mine and gave me a look that could make cooked spaghetti bone hard.

  “You lads wanna come inside?” she said. The meaning in the words, in the tone of her voice, was as obvious as the erection that bulged in my jeans. She turned and flounced away, the satin dressing gown billowing behind her.

  Mark nudged my arm. He was looking into the house with a vacant, open-mouthed expression. “Thought you said she had no time for the help?”

  I said nothing and just shook my head. I’d noticed that she hadn’t asked for the envelope. This was a new development. Usually, it was the first thing she asked for. And sometimes she didn’t even ask, instead snatching it straight out of my hand with a look of barely disguised contempt.

  Finally, I found a few words in the locker.

  “She doesn’t. She’s never been like this.”

  Her voice drifted out from the living room. “You lads wanna drink?”

  “Why not?” I replied. Still puzzled.

  “Lads, you’re letting the heat out,” she said with mild irritation.

  We closed the door and went through a tiny hallway into the lounge. It was small but seemed larger because it was sparsely furnished with just a sofa for seating. The last time I’d visited she had also owned an armchair recliner, but I assumed that her brother had stolen it to fund his heroin habit.

  Molly stood in the doorway to the kitchen with a kettle in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other. “Fancy it hot or cold?” She rolled her eyes from one object to the other.

  I dropped onto the sofa to disguise my arousal. Kandinsky sat at the other end of it, making sure that there was a clear gap between us. We shuffled uncomfortably.

  “Better make it hot,” I said. “I’m driving.”

  She smiled. “You sure? I won’t tell if you don’t.”

  “Better not.”

  She shrugged. “Fair enough. T or C?”

  “Un Café,” I replied with a slight hint of flirt in my vo
ice.

  She glanced at my crotch briefly and then fixed her eyes on Kandinsky. “And for Monsieur?”

  “Same as him, thanks.”

  Molly turned around and went back into the kitchen. Cupboard doors and drawers were slammed, cups and glasses came down hard on work surfaces, and her slippered feet slapped loudly against the vinyl floor. If she hadn’t just been flirting with us, I might have thought that she was angry for some reason.

  Mark glared in my direction. “What the fuck’re you playing at?”

  My grin faltered. “What?”

  “Might I remind you that you’re flirting with the boss’ girlfriend?”

  My smile disappeared completely and I returned his glare. “And might I remind you that I’ve had a bad fuckin’ morning. I don’t see owt wrong about flirting with a pretty woman.”

  “Well I do.”

  “Oh, pardon me all over, Reverend fuckin’ Kandinsky”

  “Fuck you. I’d like to see her naked as much as you would,” he hissed. “But you’re not thinking straight. If you were, you’d know this is trouble”

  “It’s only flirting,” I said, doing a good job of convincing myself that this was just a bit of harmless fun.

  “Let’s give her the envelope and go.”

  The part of my brain that wasn’t donating its blood supply to my cock thought that this was a brilliant idea. Somewhere deep inside, I knew that dabbling with Molly would only lead to trouble. Unfortunately it was my cock that was doing most of the thinking, and it was convincing me that after such a bad morning I deserved a little bit of a flirt with a pretty woman. It also made me wonder just where it all might lead. I turned away from Mark and focussed my attention on the doorway.

  “Not until she asks for it.”

  A couple of minutes later Molly came back into the room with a tray that had two mugs of steaming black coffee, a sugar bowl and a little jug of milk on it. She put the tray on a small glass coffee table in front of the sofa, bending over as she did it. The top of her dressing gown hung down and I caught a brief glimpse of her firm white breasts. She stood up before I managed to see anything more and pulled the dressing gown tightly around her body.