The Dali Deception

by Adam Maxwell

  “So where’s the boss?” knife-boy asked, putting what few possessions they had stripped from Katie and Violet onto the desk that dominated one side of the room. A backpack with a couple of bottles of water and Violet’s lock picks weren’t of much interest to him, so he drew his knife once more and began staring at his own smudged reflection in the blade instead.

  “Which one?” knuckle-duster replied. “I ain’t seen either of them all day.”

  The Baldoni brothers ran a tight ship. Tight enough that they didn’t feel the need to actually be on board for large chunks of time. The security guards had carefully herded Violet and Katie into the captain’s quarters and sat the pair of them on chairs under one of the portholes.

  The reason for this, it had become apparent, was that none of the five guards wanted to be anywhere near either of them. Sawn-off sat behind the Baldoni brothers’ desk, the imprint of Katie’s knuckles blossoming as a bruise under his skin. The shotgun lay on the desk in front of him, but he was much more preoccupied with his face and seemed presently to have no intention of going toe to toe with either Katie or Violet.

  Katie rolled her sleeve and glanced at her watch. Three minutes had elapsed since Zoe’s warning. Their captors were beginning to relax slightly. The initial excitement over, they were settling in to the geography of the room. Katie maintained a careful map of where all of them were and, at least in general terms, what she was going to do to each of them the next time she got to her feet.

  Especially snub-nose. That cocksucker was going to get some special attention.

  “I’ve left them a message,” snub-nose said. “We wait to find out what they want to do.”

  “I can’t wait much longer,” sawn-off grumbled. “That bitch broke my jaw, I need to go and see a doctor.”

  “And one of the dealers has been bitching about some bloke winning a shit load of money down on the floor,” said knife-boy. “I reckon that might be more important than two crazy women breaking and entering.”

  The five of them stared at Violet, weighing up two or three of their ranks leaving the room. Then they looked to Katie and decided that the other problems could wait just a little longer.

  “Try calling the boss again,” said sawn-off.

  “Which one?” knuckle-duster asked.

  “I don’t fucking care which one. Either one. If someone can’t get them on the phone in the next five minutes I’m going to bury these two fuckers at sea.” Sawn-off stomped across the room towards a fridge, opened it and took out a bottle of water. He tried to unscrew the cap, failed, then just held the cold glass of the bottle against the side of his jaw.

  And then it started.

  A metallic clang from somewhere outside. Something hitting the side of the boat. Violet and Katie glanced at one another expectantly. This was their chance.

  The second clang was less of an actual clang, more of a kerthunk with an overtone of clangyness. Whatever it was, it got the attention of the security guards, who all looked at the wall – perhaps hoping for it to suddenly become transparent and reveal what was happening.

  The third time was definitely more kerthunky, the clang-factor probably just the sound of the impact as whatever it was hit the side of the boat.

  “What is that?” Knuckle-duster got to his feet and walked toward the porthole above Violet and Katie’s heads.

  “Just ignore it,” sawn-off said, still rubbing the bottle of water against his jaw. “It’ll just be kids. This side of the boat is against the riverside, they throw shit up here all the time, tennis balls, footballs, you know, shit like that. Fucking kids, man. Ignorant little bastards.”

  “You two,” said knuckle-duster. “Up on your feet and into the middle of the room. I want to look out of this window.”

  Violet nodded; both she and Katie slowly stood and moved to the centre of the room. A smile invaded the corners of Katie’s mouth.

  There was a loud crack.

  “What in the name of shitting Christ was that?” knuckle-duster blurted, cupping his hands around his eyes to look out of the porthole.

  There was a second, louder, crack. The boat rocked slightly.

  Violet and Katie both took the opportunity to crouch down into the brace position.

  “Can you see anything?” sawn-off asked, absently. “We could–”

  The third crack happened just outside the porthole, punched the round window from its house and sent it flying into the room.

  Unfortunately, the trajectory of the air-bound porthole was blocked by knuckle-duster’s face and it slammed into him, shattering his cheekbones, flattening his nose and knocking him to the ground in a cloud of vapourised blood.

  The porthole continued, apparently unperturbed by the interruption, coming to rest once it had embedded itself in the opposite wall.

  For a moment there was a pause, the only sound a high-pitched ringing in their collective ears. Knuckle-duster just lay, his knuckle-duster fallen from his hand on the floor, and a small pool of blood began to form, flowing steadily from his injuries.

  Katie made eye contact with Violet, reached out her hand and, with splayed fingers, pushed slowly toward the floor.

  Stay down. Violet wasn’t about to argue.

  Katie balled her hand into a fist and exploded upwards.

  Immediately in front of her was the security guard carrying the other knuckle-duster, the one with the knife moulded onto the end; and standing just behind him was knife-boy.

  The element of surprise finally back on their side, Katie sprang upwards, her powerful thighs and calves giving her instant, enormous momentum. The security guard closest to her didn’t have time to cry out, but even if he had he would have been immediately silenced by the rising right hook to his jaw.

  Follow through, just like in golf. The results of her attacks were perfectly transparent to Katie. Knuckles connected to the security guard’s chin, driving bottom teeth into top teeth, either loosening them or smashing a few if he was lucky. If he was unlucky then his bottom teeth would ram into his upper lip, possibly dislocating his jaw and bursting his top lip in the process.

  Keep extending the punch. Follow through, the muscles in her upper body taking over from the momentum that had carried her this far. Result; security guard is propelled into the air and the ceiling is not too high so the top of his head smashes into it. The downward force exerted in the equal and opposite reaction will slam him back down onto her fist so important to pull back as he peaks.

  Two down.

  Katie was on her feet now, and the three remaining guards had begun to react. The two closest to the guns were the two farthest away from her. No matter. They were already running scared, the panic on their faces feeding Katie’s confidence.

  Pulling her arm back, she changed the shape of her right hand, her fingers sliding out of a fist but the tips staying tucked under. Knife-boy had taken out his weapon but she could see two things; that he wasn’t ready to swing it and that his reach was considerably shorter than hers.

  Taking a beat, she shifted her feet to a better stance and struck out, punching him in the throat. Result: partially collapsed windpipe, knife dropped on the floor. Secondary results: cabin filled with the gasping, rasping of knife-boy as he struggles against that horrible drowning feeling. The fear that it instils in the others is priceless especially as he drops to the floor and begins gagging. The appearance to the layman is that he is having some sort of fit.

  Three down.

  Knife-boy hit the ground at the precise moment the bottle of water sawn-off had been holding bounced to the floor. He had dropped it in favour of sprinting back across the room to the desk to grab his sidearm. Katie swung round her arm to clothesline him; he saw it coming and ducked, making it to the desk and grabbing the gun with both hands.

  Katie lunged forward and hooked her arms under sawn-off’s, locking her hands behind his head in a full nelson. He bucked and writhed, but Katie lifted him off the ground to use him as a human shield as snub-nose fumble
d with his pistol.

  As she swung him around she thought for a moment that he might actually try to shoot them both with the sawn-off. But as she exerted more pressure on the back of his head, he began to concentrate more on trying to stop Katie from pushing his head so far forward that she would snap his neck.

  Finally he dropped the shotgun on the floor, but snub-nose had got his act together and was pointing the gun at Katie’s human shield as he dangled in front of her.

  One second turned to two, turned to three. Katie could smell the cheap aftershave and sweat on the man in her grip. She stared coolly at snub-nose.

  “Put him down!” snub-nose squeaked. All manly posturing was thrown aside as he bleated at her. “Put him down and put your hands up... or... or...”

  “Or what?” asked Violet, who had, in the confusion, armed herself with knuckle-duster’s dropped knuckle-duster. She gripped it tightly in her hand and punched inexpertly forward.

  Whatever level of expert she was, a punch to the back of the hand is going to bloody well hurt, and snub-nose felt it, squealing as it impacted. Result: the gun’s trajectory is changed and snub-nose fired. The smell of sulphur and cordite filled the air and the gun clattered to the ground and span off towards the wall. Snub-nose followed as he clutched at his wound.

  Katie dropped sawn-off from the full nelson into a choke-hold and dragged him forward three paces, then landed her foot down hard on snub-nose, somewhere in between his arse cheeks.

  Result: bruised or, if she had gotten enough force behind it, broken coccyx. Snub-nose howled, the pain shooting up his spine.

  This also bought Katie a little time, which meant that as she squeezed the choke-hold harder the result would be unconsciousness, not death, and soon she achieved it as sawn-off went limp in her grip.

  By this time snub-nose had crawled to where the gun had come to rest. He grabbed it and turned, struggling to get the thing into his grip. Katie dropped sawn-off and he hit the ground with a meaty thwack.

  One left.

  She advanced on him, staring him down as he turned over. His eyes came up to meet hers and she was picking up pace, running across the room towards him. He turned onto his back, trying to prop himself against the wall, and his broken tailbone touched the floor. Again the pain shot through him and he shoved his pelvis forward, away from the floor, leaving his legs wide apart.

  Katie planted a kick of enormous force right between his legs.

  Result: if Katie’s calculations were correct then snub-nose’s balls would have been pushed against his pelvic bone with such force that he would experience a testicular rupture.

  Snub-nose made a noise like a dog slowly dying, rolled onto his side and vomited. Katie kicked the gun out of his reach.

  “Right then,” said Violet, clapping her hands together. “If you’ve finished flirting with these boys we’ve got a painting to recover.”

  Chapter 37

  Lucas stood up and thanked the dealer. Things were getting ridiculous. He had continued to follow the plan and beat the casino to draw attention to himself. And that had only half worked. After winning and winning he had thought that helping the other players at the table would spark some sort of intervention.

  Except it hadn’t. And now he had amassed sixty thousand pounds and helped his fellow players to, at a guess, ten thousand a piece. This obviously wasn’t working. Time to cash in his chips and check in with Zoe. He slid a generous tip across the table to the dealer, but as he walked across the floor to the cashier, Zoe wasn’t answering.

  “Lucky night tonight, sir?” asked the cashier, counting out his winnings.

  “No, it’s a talent,” said Lucas, then caught himself and rounded it off with a smile.

  The cashier handed over the bundles of cash and Lucas shoved them in the various pockets of the suit jacket he was wearing and wandered towards the bar.

  “Zoe, can you hear me?”

  There was an odd thump that seemed to resonate throughout the boat.

  “Zoe, is that you?”

  Another thump.

  “Zoe?”

  And a third thump.

  Was it a thump? It sort of sounded like a firework. Lucas ordered a pint of lager and surveyed the gaming floor. At the far side he spotted that the Baldoni brothers had just arrived and were beginning to do the rounds of the tables.

  “Lucas? Can you hear me?” It was Zoe.

  “Ten-four, good buddy. Reading you loud and clear,” said Lucas his hand in his trouser pocket stroking the edges of a pack of twenty-pound notes.

  “What are you talking about?” Zoe sounded flustered. “Are you in trouble too?”

  “What? No. The opposite actually. That was just like trucker talk. Like in the movies, you know, Smokey and the Bandit?”

  “This is going to be one of those things I have to Google to find out what the fuck you are gibbering about, isn’t it, you prat?”

  “Listen,” said Lucas. “I won a fucking shit ton of money and nobody batted an eyelid. But the Baldoni brothers just arrived.”

  “It never rains but it pours,” Zoe sighed.

  “And the attention you were looking for me to garner is about to start raining down on me,” said Lucas, looking over to where the taller of the two brothers had rounded on the dealer Lucas had just tipped. There was a quick exchange and then the dealer raised her index finger and pointed it at Lucas.

  “Ooh,” said Zoe, excitement creeping into her voice. “Head for the exit now and look out for Barry coming in. I’ve got a brilliant idea.”

  *

  Katie pointed to the desk in the office and Violet looked over. On the other side was an old safe. Bolted to the floor, it lurked beside a filing cabinet and was perhaps a half a metre wide, the same in height. It was obvious from the peeling black paint that the thing was ancient.

  Violet vaulted the desk and landed in a crouch next to the safe. She ran her hand against the cold metal of the door, then reached up to the desk and grabbed the backpack that contained her lock picks.

  “Bet they’re in here,” said Violet, staring unblinking at the safe. It was old-school, with a lock rather than a dial. She could hear the sound of movement behind her but, recognising the footsteps as Katie’s, she didn’t budge, instead selecting one of the lock picks to get the feel of the inside of the safe’s lock.

  Katie’s footsteps got closer. A frown flickered across Violet’s brow as she tried to concentrate and her friend distracted her. Katie tapped Violet on the shoulder with something.

  “What?” Violet snapped, turning to face Katie, who held the courier tube in her hands. “Oh,” Violet sighed. “Are they in there?”

  Katie nodded.

  “Oh,” Violet said again, her eyes darting back to the safe. “Where were they?”

  Katie gestured to the corner of the room; there was a filing cabinet with a gap down the side.

  “I wanted to crack the safe,” said Violet. “I was looking forward to it.”

  Katie shrugged.

  “Ah, but the tablet!” said Violet, less convinced but still hopeful. “That could be in there!”

  Katie shook her head slowly.

  “No?”

  Katie pointed first to the desk drawers, then to sawn-off’s prone body. She lifted her left hand flat in front of her and started tapping the fingers of her right hand on it.

  “You saw him using it?”

  Katie nodded and opened a couple of drawers. The third one held Zoe’s tablet.

  “So we’re done then?”

  Katie nodded and gave her friend a sympathetic smile.

  “But the safe...” Violet turned to look at the safe, one of the lockpicks drooping out of the lock. Suddenly she brightened. “We need to cover our tracks! Need to make it look like we haven’t just come here for the paintings and the tablet. So really, I need to break into this safe. The job depends on it.”

  Katie glanced at her watch and nodded, but Violet wasn’t looking; she already had the lockpick bac
k in her hand and was beginning to rake for the tumblers.

  *

  “I’m not going in there,” said Barry from the front seat of the van. “Not with the Baldoni brothers on patrol. It’s just asking for trouble, isn’t it?”

  “I want them to catch you,” said Zoe with an evil grin. “That’s the whole plan.”

  “What are you talking about, you idiot?” said Barry, looking a little hurt. “Why would you want them to catch me? In case you’ve forgotten I still owe them a shitload of cash and I just nearly sunk their casino.”

  “Because Lucas has just won a serious amount of cash on the tables and what could be more poetic than paying them back with money we won from their own casino?”

  Barry thought about it for a second. “In general, I like the plan.”

  “Just in general?”

  “Well, the specifics, the small print if you like, I’m a little hazy on.”

  “Hazy how?” asked Zoe.

  “Well, let’s say, just for shits and giggles, that I walk through the door and one of them shoots me straight in the face.”

  “It is a possibility, I won’t lie,” Zoe said. “But given the number of regular pundits I’d say that they would be more likely to call security.”

  “And then I’ll have a crowd of Neanderthals kicking the living shit out of me. I don’t like the sound of that either.”

  “Ah, but you’re forgetting something,” said Zoe.

  “And what’s that exactly?”

  “Katie has rendered casino security inactive.”

  “Eh?”

  “She’s beaten them all half to death,” said Zoe. “So grab that empty gym bag and meet Lucas in reception. He’ll give you the cash, you give it to the Baldonis.”

  Barry continued to protest, but knew that it was an opportunity he couldn’t really turn down. Although the thought that he could just take the winnings and run briefly danced across his brain, he dismissed it. They were a team now. If today had proved anything it was that they could pull off the impossible in the face of overwhelming adversity and the plan turning to molten shite in front of their eyes.