Black Violet

by Alex Hyland

  Published by Accent Press Ltd 2018

  www.accentpress.co.uk

  Copyright © Alex Hyland 2017

  The right of Alex Hyland to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  The story contained within this book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of Accent Press Ltd.

  eISBN 9781635969955

  1.

  Freddy parked the car within sprinting distance of the Nine Hills Country Club. I glanced at my watch: six fifteen.

  ‘This guy arrives at six thirty?’ I said.

  Freddy nodded. ‘The past three days, yeah.’

  ‘Cameras?’

  ‘Just one. I did it last night.’

  I grabbed a pile of laminated IDs from the glove compartment and flipped through them: SFO Airport Security, Four Seasons Valet Parking, White Arrow Cab Company.

  ‘Be careful with this guy,’ said Freddy. ‘I don’t like the look of him.’

  I smiled and clipped the cab company ID to my jacket.

  ‘I’m not kidding,’ he said. ‘He’s a tough looking bastard.’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  I glanced at the clubhouse – a handful of Range Rovers and Mercedes sat parked in the courtyard. These people weren’t tough guys, they were bankers and lawyers. A Harley Davidson sat by the main gates – any money the guy who owned it had ‘LOVE’ and ‘GOLF’ tattooed across his knuckles.

  ‘Alright, I’ll see you in a few minutes,’ I said.

  I put on my sunglasses, got out of the car and made my way toward the clubhouse. Its sweeping windows overlooked San Francisco Bay – anyone could be watching. I kept my head down. I crossed the courtyard, pushed open the main door and entered a marble-pillared lobby. A receptionist in a three-pocketed Valentino sports jacket sat at the main desk.

  ‘Cab for Elizabeth Embry,’ I said to him.

  ‘Embry?’ he replied. He furrowed his brow as he studied the club register. ‘Are they visiting the clubhouse or the restaurant?’

  I shrugged. ‘Nine Hills Country Club, that’s all I’ve got.’

  He scanned another register.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘There’s no Embry. Are you sure you have the right name?’

  ‘Hang on.’

  I took out my phone and pretended to dial a number.

  ‘Yeah, the Nine Hills pick-up,’ I said into the phone. ‘Can you tell the client that I’m waiting in reception.’ I paused a moment. ‘Alright.’

  I put away the phone. ‘They’re going to call the client,’ I said.

  The receptionist nodded.

  As I waited, I scanned the lobby and thought about what the best play would be. I tried to imagine the guy arriving – pictured him opening the main door and heading toward the reception desk. Chances are he’d be right-handed – I’d stay to his left. If he really was the violent type, then I could use that. Not that I was looking for a fight, but a little physical contact always made my job easier. It was all about distraction.

  I heard a car pull to a stop in the courtyard. I checked my watch: six twenty-eight. This would be him. My heart jumped a gear – sent my blood racing around like it was late for something. It didn’t matter how good I was at this, the feeling was always the same. I loved it.

  I took out my phone like I was receiving a call, and pressed it against my ear.

  ‘Yeah?’ I said into the phone. ‘You’re kidding? I’m at Nine Hills now.’

  I addressed the receptionist for a moment. ‘The name’s Embry,’ I said. ‘But this isn’t the pick-up address, it’s the destination.’

  As the receptionist rolled his eyes, I heard footsteps approaching the clubhouse. I held the phone back to my ear, and casually stepped away from the desk. The main door then opened – a suntanned hulk in his late thirties entered the lobby. This was our man – head shaved like a bullet, and Jesus, was he huge. A six-foot slab of concrete with no neck. Freddy wasn’t kidding. I’m pretty good in a fight, but if this guy caught me he’d snap me like a fucking matchstick.

  He headed for the reception desk. I headed for the main door. As we approached each other, I spoke into my phone again.

  ‘This is the second time you’ve given me the wrong address, Carrie,’ I said. ‘You’ve got to start getting it together.’

  The guy was thirty feet away. His jeans were 501s. His jacket, Armani – the spring collection. I knew it well. No external pockets – two internal, both in the left panel. As he walked, the left jacket panel creased differently to the right. He had a gym bag in his left hand. An iPhone in the other. He was fifteen feet away.

  I continued into my phone. ‘That’s not what I’m saying, Carrie.’

  I was nearly on the guy. Engrossed in my phone call, not looking where I was going. Three feet. Two feet. One. I passed him and gently nudged into his shoulder. He swung a heavy arm and pushed me out of the way.

  ‘Watch where you’re going!’ he said.

  I feigned losing balance – my left hand brushed against the silk lining of his jacket.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said to him. ‘My fault.’

  He didn’t even look at me. He just walked to the main desk, signed in and headed out the rear door toward the tennis courts.

  I continued into my phone. ‘What? Nothing, doesn’t matter. Look, we’ll talk about it later.’

  I exited the clubhouse and lowered the phone from my ear. I raised my other hand – in it was an electronic car key hanging from a fob. My heart slowed to a gentle beat. It really was too easy – fucking Armani jacket, he might as well have just mailed me the key. I glanced around the courtyard. There it was parked next to the Harley – a matte black Ferrari 458. Low-profile tires, eight cylinders, and the best part of three hundred grand. I beeped the car open, slid inside and started it up. In my jacket was a GPS jamming device about the size of a cigarette pack. I switched it on. If Armani man realized any time soon that his car was gone, this would drown out its tracker signal.

  I eased down the pedal, quietly swung the car out into the street and headed for Tamlin Auto.

  Tamlin was a half-hour drive away – a tiny steel-shuttered garage tucked between fire escapes in The Mission. Just south of the financial center, it was a really shitty part of town. There was a doctor who worked down there – his details were written across his front door in marker pen.

  I weaved down the backstreet and pulled the car into the garage bay. The sign above the entrance read, ‘Tamlin Auto. Mercedes. Aston Martin. Ferrari.’ Freddy was just behind me. He parked outside, hopped into the bay and clattered the shutter down behind him.

  I got out of the Ferrari and threw the keys to Miguel. Miguel didn’t look like much – a dopey-eyed surfer-dude – but the kid was a wizard. He immediately began clambering all over the car with his scanners and laptops – diving into the engine, sliding under the chassis, he was like a high-tech baboon at a safari park. In a couple of minutes he’d have all the car’s alarms, trackers and immobilizers disabled. Untraceable.

  Freddy headed over to me. ‘Everything OK?’ he asked.

  I nodded. ‘You weren’t kidding. He was a big fucker.’

  ‘Yeah, better you than me.’

  He grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge and handed me one.

  ‘Anyhow, good work,’ he said.

  We toasted the Ferrari’s good health –
we’d been waiting weeks to find one like it. Freddy downed his beer in one shot, his huge hairy knuckles wrapped around the bottle like a drooling gorilla.

  ‘So are you coming over tonight?’ he asked.

  ‘I haven’t been home in three days, Freddy, I’m wiped out.’

  ‘Why, where did you go after the bar last night?’

  I sighed wearily.

  ‘You’re kidding?’ he said. ‘You went home with that Judy? She had to be forty, man.’

  I laughed – she was probably closer to fifty. She had these pumped-up collagen lips – I swear, she kissed me, it was like being beaten to death with a rubber dinghy. Judy, last night. Some Portuguese student on Wednesday. I couldn’t remember Tuesday. I was twenty-nine, but ached like I was close to fifty myself.

  ‘Anyhow, Linda’s in town,’ I said. ‘I think she’s coming over.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Linda?’ said Freddy.

  As he threw me a look, I caught sight of Bill Tamlin grinning at the Ferrari from behind his nicotine-stained office window at the end of the garage. Bill ran the whole operation. Late forties. Constantly wired. He was speeding through a massive midlife crisis using coffee, cigarettes and cocaine as fuel. I’d worked for him for nearly two years, and in all that time I don’t remember having seen him blink once.

  He nodded for me to join him. Friday – it was time to settle up.

  I glanced at Freddy. ‘Alright, business calls.’ I squeezed past the Ferrari and headed into Bill’s office.

  Bill twitched as he lit another cigarette. ‘That’s good, Michael,’ he said. ‘That’s good, that’s good, OK.’

  He reached into his desk and pulled out a scratched metal box full of cash.

  ‘The two Astons, the SLS, and this,’ he said. ‘That’s eight grand’.

  I nodded. Four cars – it had been an OK week for me. I usually managed four or five. On my best week I’d stolen eleven.

  Bill started counting out cash onto his desk, mumbling numbers to himself. I didn’t pay much attention, but I didn’t need to. There’s a hundred different ways to steal a car, but the safest and most reliable is to get hold of the key – it was also the most difficult. Bill knew the value of a good pickpocket and had never short-changed me once.

  He finished counting out the cash, tucked it into an envelope and sealed it. I reached for the envelope, but he kept hold of it and started tossing it between his hands. He could be really annoying when he wanted to, and he wanted to most of the time.

  He smiled at me, and I shook my head – I already knew what was coming.

  ‘I’ve got a special order for you,’ he said.

  I laughed.

  ‘It’s not what you think,’ he said. ‘It’s Sally’s sixteenth birthday. She wants a

  Jeep.’

  I shot him a look. ‘I’m not stealing her a car, Bill.’

  ‘There’s a beautiful one parked on 25th Street. Can’t be more than six months old, the right color, everything. I’ll give you three grand for it.’

  ‘It’s your daughter, Bill, you really want her driving around in a stolen car? Buy her one, for Christ’s sake, it’s not like you can’t afford it.’

  ‘Three and a half,’ he said.

  I stayed silent.

  ‘Four,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not negotiating, Bill.’

  ‘If you think I’m going any higher than four...’

  ‘I’m not doing it.’

  ‘Listen, you work for me.’

  ‘No, I work for me. If you don’t want the cars any more, just say so.’

  He eyed me petulantly for a moment. ‘Have you any idea what a pain in the ass you can be?’

  ‘I don’t know, which answer’s going to get me out of this conversation the quickest?’

  He gave up. ‘Alright, alright,’ he said. He tossed me the envelope. ‘But you’re costing me a fortune here, you know that?’

  ‘Your own daughter, Bill. You’re such a cheap bastard.’

  He laughed to himself. I buttoned the envelope into the inside pocket of my jacket, then headed for the door.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, before you go,’ he said. ‘Yeah, some guy called yesterday, looking for you. Said he was your brother?’

  I stopped dead at the door and stared back at him.

  ‘Jon?’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, Jon, that’s right.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Nothing. I said you weren’t here. That was it.’

  I felt lost for a second. Couldn’t believe that he’d called – and here, of all places. I hadn’t been home, there was probably a message for me there.

  ‘I didn’t know you had a brother,’ said Bill.

  I nodded.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ I said.

  I zipped up my jacket and headed out.

  Home was a fourth-floor apartment overlooking The Embarcadero. Normally the rent would have been out of my league, but the landlord was some Japanese artist who’d decorated the apartment in his own inimitable style – black carpets, black ceilings and deep red marble walls. Etched into marble were golden images of running bulls, all hooves and glittering horns. I guess it was art, but I was the only prospective tenant who ever made an offer to live in it. Every person I’d ever brought back here said the place was a hell-hole that would drive them out of their minds in less than twenty minutes. But I actually found the place quite peaceful.

  I got in and headed straight for the phone. Its display was flashing – two new messages. I picked up the receiver and hit play.

  ‘Message received today at four seventeen p.m.’

  ‘Hey, it’s me,’ came a woman’s voice. It was Linda. ‘I’m going to be a little late tonight. Around nine. Don’t do anything without me. Bye.’

  The machine beeped. I listened carefully.

  ‘Message received yesterday at six twenty three p.m.’

  ‘Michael. It’s Jon.’

  I smiled. It was great to hear his voice. I hadn’t heard it for over a year now.

  ‘I hope you’re well,’ he said. He paused a moment. ‘I need to speak to you, Michael, it’s important. I don’t have a cell number for you. I don’t know if you’re still at that Tamlin place. I’ll give it a try. Call when you get this. Bye.’

  The message clicked off. I eagerly thumbed through the phone’s contact list, found Jon’s number and hit the dial key. I waited as the number rang.

  It went to voicemail.

  ‘Hi, you’re through to Jonathan Violet. Leave a message. Thanks.’

  ‘Jon, it’s me,’ I said. ‘I got your message. It’s…it’s really good to hear from you, Jon. Look, I’m home. Call me here when you get this. Or my cell, it’s 415 555 397. I hope you’re well. Speak soon.’

  I hung up, then nodded to myself. He’d finally called.

  I headed into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Three bottles of champagne – it wouldn’t be nearly enough. I grabbed my keys and darted over to Plum’s mini-market across the street.

  ‘Give me six bottles of Dom Perignon, will you, Danny?’ I said.

  Danny threw me a disapproving look over the rims of his half-moon reading glasses.

  ‘Six?’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, it’s been a good day.’

  ‘Been a good day a lot for you recently,’ he replied. ‘You keep drinking like this, you’re going to end up dead, you know that?’

  I sighed. ‘Come on, Danny, I’m in a hurry.’

  ‘In a hurry. Mr Big Shot, where are you hurrying to with six bottles of champagne?’

  He took out his keys and unlocked a glass cabinet beneath the counter. As he started counting out bottles, I stepped over to the newsstand and grabbed the papers – the New York Times and the World Review. I quickly browsed the Review, looking to see if Jon was in it. As I flipped the pages, a set of footsteps stopped behind me.

  ‘Michael,’ came a woman’s voice.

  It was Polly, a friend of mine. She was a waitress at The Butterfly, a few blocks away
. In her thirties. Skinny as a rake. Not what you’d call pretty, but sweet.

  I smiled at her.

  ‘How are you?’ she asked.

  ‘Good. And you?’

  She nodded, but she looked tired. She had an eleven-year-old son, Dominic. His dad died four years ago. Polly was raising him on her own now and having a hard time of it.

  ‘I haven’t seen you in a while,’ she said.

  ‘I actually dropped by last Saturday, but there was no one home.’

  ‘Yeah, I took Dominic down to see his grandparents. He’s spending the week there.’

  'How’s he doing?’ I asked. ‘How did the magic act go?’

  Polly laughed to herself. ‘He messed up one of the tricks. He was really disappointed.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘With the four cards.’

  ‘King’s Castle, yeah, it’s a hard one. Tell him not to worry about it.’

  I’d shown Dominic a few tricks for his spot in the school show. Magic – it was one of the few things that I knew anything about.

  ‘He was looking for you,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, I’m sorry. I’ve been all over the place the past few weeks.’

  I looked around, then reached into my jacket and took out the envelope full of cash that Bill had given me. I plucked out two grand.

  ‘So listen,’ I said.

  ‘Michael…that’s not why I said hello.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Really, you don’t have to.’

  ‘Don’t worry, business is good.’

  Like most people, Polly thought I was in the export business – luxury cars. It wasn’t a million miles from the truth.

  I offered her the money. ‘It’s fine,’ I said.

  There was a moment of silence. It was the usual routine – Polly maintaining that she couldn’t take it, and me knowing that she would. But it was quicker today. She stared uncomfortably at the cash, then sighed.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  She took the money and placed it in her handbag. Danny peered down the aisle from behind the counter.

  ‘Six bottles,’ he said. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Just the newspapers,’ I replied. I turned back to Polly. ‘I’ve got to go. Say hi to Dominic for me, will you?’

  I headed back toward the counter.