Street Smart (Matt Reeves Thriller)

by Ben Onslow

  Street Smart

  A Matt Reeves Novella

  Ben Onslow

  Range Road Press

  New Zealand

  Published in NZ by Range Road Press, 2021

  Copyright © Ben Onslow 2021

  Ben Onslow asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.

  All characters in this book are fictitious,

  and any resemblance to actual persons,

  living or dead,

  is purely coincidental.

  Cover designed by Range Road Covers.

  Street Smart

  A Matt Reeves Novella

  Ben Onslow

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  The Ride

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 1

  MATT PICKED UP the container that held the packets of salt and tapped it on the table. He’d sat in this café waiting for Draper a couple of times in the last few weeks. Tonight, Draper was late. It was already ten-thirty and his boss had better turn up soon because he was getting sick of sitting here.

  There were only two other people in the café. A couple of women had been there noisily for a good twenty minutes already. From what they said, they’d been clubbing. They were old enough to know better.

  He looked out the window and watched the city lights. The hood of his sweatshirt obstructed the view. Bloody thing. He pushed it back a bit so he could see better.

  Outside, cars crept slowly past. Lights in the windows of the office buildings glowed. Streetlamps cut through the darkness, and mist hovered around the cones of light. It was cold out there. Probably be a frost tonight.

  He studied the condemned parking building across the street. During the day, you could see all the cars, but he could just make out the tops of the silver ones in this light.

  The building had been damaged in the last earthquake, and now no one was allowed in. Not even to get their cars back. Something to do with the ramps coming adrift from the levels where the vehicles were parked. According to some report he’d read, there were big gaps at the top and bottom of each ramp, like they were floating now.

  Then he saw a girl he’d noticed a few times in the last couple of weeks coming across the road. Young, maybe fifteen, maybe a year older. She was dressed like he was, jeans, sneakers and a hoodie, and had the sort of face and figure that demanded a second look. Pretty, in a dark-eyed, dark-haired, petite, delicate, ethereal way.

  She was one of the street kids living in the parking building. He’d seen them coming and going. Not down the exit ramps with the barriers and the cones. They sat on the concrete half-wall along the side street and lowered themselves to the ground. When they came back, they climbed over the white tape with emergency printed in big red letters along it and clambered up the wall again and disappeared into the darkness.

  The girl had come into the café every night, at about this time. Just to use the facilities as far as he could tell. Never ordered anything. Never stopped to buy a burger or a coffee. Just headed straight for the restroom and then emerged again twenty minutes later.

  Tonight, as she started to cross the road, a man approached her. The guy looked about mid-twenties, much the same age as he was. Big, wide-shouldered, bulky, tall.

  From the way the girl reacted, she seemed to know him. She stood back a bit as they talked. Maybe she didn’t like him. Or didn’t trust him. He couldn’t tell.

  The guy nodded at a car parked a few metres down road like he wanted her to get in. The girl shook her head and started to walk away. He grabbed her arm, but she brushed him off, said something. He pulled his hand back. Then she headed for the entrance of the café and came up the steps.

  Instead of following the girl, the guy stood, hands on hips, watching her. He was dressed in one of those long black woollen coats all the office workers in the city seemed to wear anytime they went outside. Scarf looped around his neck, black trousers with creases down the front of the legs, shiny shoes. Showy. Slick. Not someone he would bother to have as a friend. But someone Draper might be interested in.

  Matt went back to studying the parking building. He figured about a quarter of the parking spaces still had cars in them. There must have been a lot of pissed off people once they’d recovered from the earthquake and found they weren’t allowed to get their vehicles back.

  He looked at the street. The guy was still there. He’d lit up a cigarette, then leaned against his car as he smoked, and watched the café. He had that intent look some males get when they’ve got something in mind and are just waiting their chance.

  About five minutes after the girl had disappeared through the restroom door, the guy straightened, gathered up his cigarette packet and the lighter. Shoved them in the side pocket of his coat and, too casually, sauntered up the steps of the café. He came through the door, then wove past the empty tables ignoring the two women taking selfies now and headed for the restroom.

  Matt watched him glance around. Then the guy pushed the restroom door open and went in. It didn’t look like an arranged meeting. The girl hadn’t even glanced his way after she’d left him. And it didn’t look like the girl would be any match for him.

  Matt checked the time on his phone. Draper had to arrive soon. And he wouldn’t be happy if he didn’t find him here. But could he ignore whatever was going to happen in that restroom in the next few minutes?

  He watched the older women stand, collect up their shiny purses and the phones they’d been using. For a moment he hoped they’d decide to use the restroom. But they headed for the exit. Probably had an Uber waiting.

  He needed to decide quickly. Did he risk pissing off his boss only three and a half weeks into an assignment? Or pretend he didn’t know what was about to happen behind that door? He drained his coffee cup. Coffee had come a long way since he left the country five years ago. In the year he’d been back, every cup he’d ordered had been great.

  He stood. There was no way he was going to ignore what was happening.

  He casually headed for the restroom the way the guy had. Weaving through empty tables covered in trays and red and white cardboard. Going around chairs that needed pushed in. Moving unhurriedly so he didn’t call attention to himself.

  He eased open the white door, using the stainless panel at handle height. No handle, so no lock. That was a good thing. He didn’t want the sort of disturbance having to break the door down would cause.

  The short passageway was empty. The door on the left had a cartoon silhouette of a man. Would the guy have pushed her in there? The other door had a silhouette with a skirt. Or followed her into that one?

  He pushed on the door with the picture with trousers. The room was empty.

  Then he slid open the door with the skirt silhouette and found pretty much what he expected. With one hand, the guy had the girl bent over the vanity, her wrists held behind her back. He was working on his fly with the other.

  “Let me go,” she demanded and kicked back with her sneaker and caught his shin. She still had some fight in her.

  “Fuck.” Her attacker gave up on his fly, grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled her head back. “Keep still, you bitch.” Matt could see her eyes looking wild, frightened and angry in the mirror.

  The guy pushed her head back down, her forehead making a dull thud on the stone benchtop. He roughly yanked at the fly of her jeans.

  She jerked her body forward, jamming his hand against the edge of the benchtop.

  He pulled her up
hard against him this time, so she was upright again.

  “You’ll pay for that bitch.” He had one arm around her body now. Her eyes stared at the mirror, all anger and defiance. Then shock when she saw Matt.

  He put his finger to his lips, hoping she wouldn’t give him away.

  The guy yanked at the button on her jeans. “You can watch me fuck you.” And went for the zip.

  As Matt stepped in the room and let the door swing shut, about to help her, the girl smashed her head back against the guy’s nose. Then lifted her legs, kicked against the edge of the bench, and flung them both back into him.

  A pretty gutsy move for someone so small and delicate looking.

  Matt got an arm around the guy’s neck. “No, you don’t,” he said into his ear. Then wrenched his hand off the girl and up behind his back. Matt was taller than him, probably as wide, and stronger and fitter, but still had to put in a bit of effort to hold onto him.

  “Fuck off.” The man exploded and tried to turn away.

  Matt pushed his hand higher up his back. “Stay still, or I’ll break your arm.”

  The girl stumbled away, caught her breath, and turned.

  “Take this, you arsehole,” she muttered and delivered a right cross to her attacker’s cheek that Joseph Parker could be proud of.

  The guy’s head ricocheted back, and Matt would have had a broken nose if he hadn’t turned away in time.

  There was no way he’d leave peacefully after that.

  Matt swung him around by the wrist, hit him again, enough to put his lights out for a while and let him slide to the floor.

  The girl backed up against the bench and grabbed her backpack. She pulled out a spray can of paint and aimed it at Matt.

  “Are you planning on taking his place?” she asked. Still ready to fight.

  Gutsy. He was really starting to admire this kid.

  “What are you going to do if I am?” he asked. “Paint me to death?”

  “No,” said the girl. “But one step closer, and I’ll smurf you.”

  Matt snorted. The blue drips on the can did look pretty smurf coloured.

  “You can put the can down. Rape’s not my thing. And blue’s not my colour. You’re a bloody good fighter.” He nodded at the guy on the floor. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

  “I wasn’t going to let that arsehole touch me.”

  If he hadn’t come in when he did, maybe she would have got away.

  But really, he’d only solved the problem until the arsehole laying there sprawled on the floor, shiny shoes toe down, long woollen coat, over him like a blanket, came to.

  “You should disappear now before he wakes up,” he suggested.

  She hesitated, still not sure, still ready to fight.

  Then must have decided he could be trusted.

  “Yeah.” She shoved the can in the backpack. Then the soap and hairbrush sitting on the bench and did up the buckle on the bag.

  She gave him a lopsided grin. “Thanks.” Then grabbed the pack, slung it over her shoulder and headed for the door.

  Just before she went out, she turned back. “Thanks,” she said again.

  “You’re welcome.” Matt rubbed his knuckles. Hard chin.

  The girl took off, and he went out back to his table and waited for his boss to turn up. The little interlude in the restroom had been the most interesting thing that had happened in three and a half weeks of doing this.

  Chapter 2

  FINALLY, HE SAW Detective Sergeant Draper come through the door and order himself a coffee. He’d known the guy for a month, and he wasn’t too hard to recognise. You wouldn’t take him for a cop. His suit looked like he’d slept in it for a week. It had looked that way when he turned up at the Manakau Police Station and announced he needed Matt on his team.

  He’d asked, “What team?” They’d been sitting in one of the interview rooms at the station. He’d only been back in the country for nine months then, and three of those had been spent at police college learning how to be a cop. Then he’d been posted to Manakau in Auckland. He’d been there for six months and was just getting the hang of it when Draper turned up at the station.

  “My covert surveillance team,” Draper had said.

  “An undercover cop?” Undercover work hadn’t been part of the plan.

  Draper had shuffled some papers and pulled out Matt’s file. He’d flicked through it. Read a bit, then looked up.

  “Head prefect, captain of the first fifteen, and an A student?”

  Matt had shrugged. Couldn’t deny it, at school he’d been a star. The way things had gone since he’d probably peaked then.

  Draper turned a page, read a bit more and looked up again.

  “Two years at university, passed everything and then dropped out?”

  Matt shrugged again. “Can’t believe it took me two years to figure I didn’t want to be a lawyer.”

  Draper turned to the next page. “Four years roaming the world, then you come home and apply for police training.” He idly shuffled the sheaf of papers like a pack of cards and then put them back in the folder.

  “Yeah,” said Matt. He’d spent the time travelling around Europe, Canada, Bali, pretty much everywhere with snow or surf. Turns out even chasing surf and good snow could get old. He decided he should start doing something with his life. Snowboarding when there was snow and surfing when there were waves was fun, but it wasn’t something you could do forever. He’d seen a few guys who tried it, and once they hit their forties, they just looked pathetic.

  “Had to grow up some time,” he’d said to Draper. He’d come home to figure out what he would do and finished up applying to go to police college. It wasn’t a big step from thinking you wanted to be a lawyer to help people to deciding that being a cop might be a better way. Now he was grown up and responsible.

  Draper came over to the table, weaving through the chairs and debris with his coffee. “Anything to report?” he asked as he sat down.

  Matt shook his head. He’d done a bit of poking around and hadn’t seen anything that looked like a meth lab.

  Draper pulled out his phone and flicked to a couple of pictures.

  “Seen these two?” he asked.

  Matt took the phone and had a closer look. He didn’t recognise the first guy, oldish, tough-looking.

  He flicked to the next picture. Yep, he’d seen that one. He didn’t tell Draper, but right now, that guy was having a little sleep on the tiles of the ladies’ restroom floor.

  He handed the phone back, trying to keep it casual. “Who are they?”

  “A couple of lowlifes who’ve been known to dabble in drugs.”

  This was supposed to be all surveillance, keeping a low profile, reporting back to Draper, not beating up a suspect.

  Draper pointed to the picture of the one not asleep in the restroom.

  “This is Ernest Barnes. He owns the Amnesia Club a couple of blocks away.”

  “Amnesia? Not very original.” He’d been to the Amnesia Club in Ibiza. If this Barnes was some sort of drug king, using that name for his club was like hanging out a ‘buy here’ sign.

  “And this one is Karl Fraser.” Draper pointed at the guy he’d just beaten up. “They’ve always been on the fringes of the drug scene, and now there’s a whisper they’re running the operation.”

  “I’ll keep an eye out for them.” He was pretty sure the guy on the restroom floor wouldn’t recognise him. He’d had the hood of his sweatshirt up, and it would have shaded his face. Besides, Mr Fraser’s whole focus had been on the girl. He’d just make sure he left here before sleeping beauty woke up.

  Draper talked a bit longer about Fraser and Barnes and what he thought they were up to. Then he left. Matt watched him go down the steps and walk along the street past the parking building.

  For the last few days, he’d been thinking, he should have joined his mates in Queenstown and helped them open their art gallery and cafe. The way Draper had described what he’d be doing i
f he accepted the assignment had sounded interesting, so he thought he’d give it a shot. But a month of hanging around Courtney Place watching had got tedious fast.

  When Draper was well gone, Matt went out the back way to where his car was parked. The dark had closed in a bit more. The day had been hot and clear, but now there was a chill in the air. A breeze stirred a couple of white paper napkins dropped in the parking area. The only light came from the café and the glowing squares of the high-rise windows.

  Matt unlocked his car. Still the old maroon station wagon he’d bought when he’d been at uni. His parents had kept it in a shed while he was overseas. Must upgrade it some time.

  And he needed to change his clothes. When Fraser came into the café, he might have noticed him sitting there and might remember the brown sweatshirt. If he was going to follow him, he’d make sure he didn’t look like the guy who’d hit him.

  He hauled the heavy black knee-length jacket off the back seat and hung it over the door. Then he shrugged out of the hoody he’d been wearing for the last month and put the jacket on.

  He sat sideways on the back seat, feet on the tarmac and toed off the trainers and replaced them with boots. Not as good for running in, but more what he usually wore.

  After he was dressed a bit more normally, he got in the car, drove out of the car park and down the street a bit, then parked. He’d have a good view of both exits here.

  He leaned back in the driver’s seat and prepared to wait for Fraser to come out of the café. Did he want to keep doing undercover work? Or should he tell Draper he’d changed his mind and head back to Manakau and carry on being a normal cop? He’d only agreed to do the job to try out the lifestyle, really.

  Draper had said, “As soon as I read your file, I had you earmarked as a candidate for my team. Just had to wait and see how you performed during training and your first posting.”

  Well, he’d aced training. Four years surfing and snowboarding kept you pretty fit. And a couple of years studying law meant that the theory part of the training hadn’t been much of a challenge either.