On the Money

by Kerry J Donovan

  After sealing the deal, he tugged out the earbuds, rolled up the cable, and dropped the phone into his pocket.

  Low clouds scudded across the sky, pushed by a scything winter gale. The forecast promised more rain that afternoon and the grey woolly blanket overhead seemed to confirm it. Kaine turned up the collar on his jacket, resettled the flat cap on his head, and picked up the pace.

  Time to move things along. He’d been away from Lara’s side long enough.

  Kaine pushed away from the wall and crossed to Rhino’s side of the street, picking up the pace. Behind him, Rhino hurried, struggling to keep up.

  Three hundred metres later, he reached the crossroads with Boothe Avenue. The area he’d walked through had become more and more downmarket, the houses even less well-maintained. To his left, the Avenue extended through a broken-down industrial estate, heading towards Palmerston Road. To his right, ran towards the High Street that was Walthamstow’s town centre. Straight ahead, Green Lane stretched on, flanked by more terraces, some two-storey, others townhouses, all in various states of disrepair.

  He turned left along the Avenue, heading through a grim-looking Bernville Industrial Estate. Warehouses and workshops, each more dilapidated than the next, reached out on both sides. Some were occupied, most were shuttered, the businesses closed permanently. The recession, austerity, and all the political tensions with the EU had clearly hit small businesses hard.

  It took him ten minutes hard marching to reach the end of Boothe Avenue and its junction with Palmerston Road.

  Kaine stopped at the edge of the pavement, removed his cloth cap, and scratched his head. He turned, looking left and right, apparently lost.

  Over one hundred metres to Kaine’s right, on the opposite side of the road, stood a large grey building surrounded by a black-and-rust, wrought iron fence. Double gates in the centre of the fence barred the way to a set of five steps of which led up to the covered porch of a once-grand entrance. The portico housed a pair of solid-looking double doors. A sign chiselled into the keystone above the entrance read, Palmerston Road School—the HQ of the Palmerston Road Tribe.

  What had once been a proud centre of learning, and before that, a stark Victorian workhouse, now stood in a sorry state of disrepair, with boarded windows, cracked and missing roof tiles, and broken gutters and downpipes.

  The area surrounding the school building looked more like a prison compound. It appeared to be the only building in the area still occupied, and the only one to have received a fresh coat of paint since the turn of the millennium. The woodwork on the doors and ground floor windows wore the same garish purple as the PRT tags.

  Cars were parked nose-to-tail on both sides of the street. Most were rust-spotted and long overdue a terminal visit to the wrecker’s yard, but the ones parked close to the compound stood out as shiny and clean—and expensive.

  Cigarette smoke billowing around the entrance portico spoke of guards and lookouts.

  Kaine spent no more than a few seconds to take in the scene.

  He’d seen enough of Palmerston Road for the moment. Depending on what happened with Darwin, he’d return that evening for a closer inspection, a real scouting session.

  “Darn it,” he said, loud enough for Rhino to hear, before turning about-face and retracing his steps.

  On seeing Kaine reverse direction, Rhino’s step faltered. He looked up, first at Kaine, and then over Kaine’s shoulder towards the school, clearly unable to make a decision.

  Kaine closed the thirty-metre gap quickly and stopped five paces away from his scarred follower.

  “Damian, what the hell are you doing, man?” he asked, loud and angry.

  Anyone earwigging in the nearby building couldn’t have failed to overhear.

  Rhino’s stare alighted on Kaine, then flicked all around him. Fear and confusion working their way across his dark face.

  “What—?”

  Kaine drew two steps closer.

  “We shouldn’t be meeting in the open like this. What the hell’s wrong with you, man?”

  Rhino frowned, shook his head, and opened his mouth to speak, but Kaine interrupted again.

  “You know our agreed meeting place and time,” he hissed, “and this most certainly isn’t it.”

  The scarred man shook his head again, as though trying to clear away some cobwebs. He formed fists.

  “That’s right,” Kaine said, nodding encouragement. “Throw a punch, but make it look good. Use real anger.”

  Rhino obliged, but telegraphed his move so far in advance, Kaine could have had a cup of tea while waiting for the wind up.

  With both fists raised, held in front of his chest in a sad parody of a boxer’s stance, Rhino lumbered forwards, stomping his left foot ahead of the right. He threw a wild roundhouse left. Kaine parried with his right forearm, sidestepping inside the blow.

  A stiff-fingered jab driven hard into Rhino’s left armpit ended things quickly. The squat man spun, toppled, and hit the pavement hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs. Rhino gasped, desperately trying to recover. His legs jerked, heels digging into the pavement in an attempt to scramble away from the unexpected danger.

  “My dear chap,” Kaine shouted, dropping into a squat beside the fallen thug, “you must have tripped.”

  Kaine pressed an index finger into the side of Rhino’s neck, where the scar peaked out above the collar of his hoodie. To any spectator, it would have looked as though Kaine were checking the man’s carotid artery for a pulse. To Rhino, the finger digging into the pressure point nestled in the notch between the mandibular ramus of the jaw and his earlobe, would have felt like a cattle prod delivering an electric pulse of excruciating pain.

  He yelped and struggled to pull away.

  “No, no, no,” Kaine said, adding enough pressure to his index finger to make Rhino squeal and stop moving. This time, Kaine spoke so quietly, only Rhino would hear. “Stay right where you are, Damian, old sport. Struggle any harder and what Adolf Ridsdale did to you in prison will seem like a paper cut. Understand?”

  Rhino’s eyes widened, and he grunted something totally incomprehensible.

  “Sorry. Didn’t quite make that out, Damian, old chap. But I’ll take it I have your undivided attention. Yes?”

  A blink and a second grunt confirmed Kaine’s interpretation.

  “Good, good. Now, you’ll have to trust me on this, but if I add a few grams more weight to this pressure hold, you will stop breathing, permanently. Do you believe me?”

  “Y-Yes.”

  “Good.” Kaine eased the pressure a little, and Damian closed his gaping mouth.

  “Excellent,” Kaine continued. “It would be such a pity if you weren’t around to take care of Ariel and the little one.”

  The brown eyes widened again, the capillaries in the whites standing out clear against the young man’s darkly greying skin.

  “Yes, Rhino, that’s right. We know all about you.”

  “W-who are you?”

  “Never mind about that. I may explain at some stage, but for now, just listen to me and behave yourself,” he whispered, before adding more loudly, “Oh dear, we’re making a bit of a spectacle of ourselves here, aren’t we.”

  Kaine released his hold completely, stood, and offered Rhino his hand. “Here, let me help you up, old sport.”

  Reluctantly, Rhino lifted his arm. Kaine grabbed his wrist firmly, pressed a knuckle hard into the man’s radial pressure point, and yanked him to his feet.

  Rhino grimaced and tried to free his arm, but Kaine held the grip for another five seconds before letting go.

  Breathing heavily, the beaten man hugged his temporarily paralysed arm to his chest.

  “W-What the fu—”

  Kaine held up a silencing finger. “This is a public place. We don’t need to swear.”

  Rhino tore his stare away from Kaine and flicked it towards the school.

  Kaine shook his head. “Don’t even think about calling to your buddies for
help. If you do that, I’ll have to kill you. Understand?”

  The gang member’s shoulders sagged. He lowered his eyes and nodded. “Y-Yeah, I unnerstan’.”

  “Good, good.”

  Smiling warmly, Kaine stepped closer and raised an arm. Rhino flinched.

  “Don’t worry, old chap. We’re just two old friends, shooting the breeze.”

  Kaine draped his arm around the stunned man’s shoulder. Rhino buckled under the weight, and Kaine’s smile didn’t falter.

  “Whatcha wan’ with me?”

  “Nothing, Damian, old man. Nothing at all.” He stiffened his arm and pulled the man closer. “You and I are the best of buddies. We’re going to have a little chat, and come to an understanding, okay?”

  Fear and doubt appeared in the gang member’s eyes.

  “Okay?” Kaine repeated, almost growling the word.

  Rhino nodded. “Yeah, right.”

  Kaine pointed back the way they’d come. “We’re heading back to Brooke Street. There’s a little patch of scrub we can use for a private chat. A place where we won’t be disturbed.”

  Together, they turned. Kaine released his grip and allowed his captive to lead the way.

  “That’s it, Damian. This will all be over soon.”

  Rhino faltered, and Kaine encouraged him forwards with a double-knuckle jab in the kidney.

  “You gon’ kill me?”

  “That depends on you, Damian. We’d rather not, but that option is definitely available.”

  Rhino’s broad shoulders seemed to wilt inside his heavy coat. His eyes started to tear and he sniffled. “W-Who you workin’ for?”

  “I’ll ask the questions, Damian. You answer them honestly and you might just live long enough to welcome your baby into the world.”

  Damian stiffened and looked around as though fearing others were close. “How you know about me and … Ariel?”

  Kaine glanced about him, making sure they were alone, before clapping the man across the back of the head.

  “What part of, ‘I’ll ask the questions,’ don’t you understand, Damian? How we gather our information is not for you to know. Suffice to say, you aren’t the only Tribe member we’re talking to, right now.”

  Kaine smiled behind Rhino’s back. Making things up on the fly wasn’t his preferred option, but spreading discontent within the ranks of the opposition had worked plenty of times in the past. Besides which, messing with the bad guys’ heads could be fun.

  #

  Behind a thicket of brambles and overgrown shrubs, which Rhino kindly agreed to break through—under Kaine’s gentle encouragement—they found a rusted and heavily damaged playground roundabout.

  “Take a seat, Damian, old chap. This really shouldn’t take very long.”

  Head bowed, Rhino perched on the edge of the roundabout. The wood cracked and screeched under his muscular weight.

  Kaine stood over him. Intimidating. Waiting for the man to make his inevitable second move. The painful but superficial damage he’d inflicted on Rhino during their earlier dance would have worn off quickly and, depending on the gang member’s state of mind, the rapid recovery might conceivably have wiped away the memory of how easily Kaine had bested him. The squat man might still fancy his chances in a rematch.

  “Here’s how this is going to go,” Kaine started.

  Head still bowed, Rhino stiffened. He roared and launched himself from the roundabout, his powerful arms outspread, hands clawing for a target.

  Kaine sidestepped the clumsy attack but left his leg outstretched. Rhino tripped, somersaulted in the air, and slammed, feetfirst, into the frame of a swing. Once again, he collapsed and lay still, breathing hard.

  “Idiot. Will you ever learn?”

  Kaine stood back from the young man while he recovered slowly. This time, he didn’t offer any help as Rhino climbed groggily to his feet and stood, swaying slightly. Once again, he hung his head in defeat. After a short time, he staggered back to his original place on the roundabout and glowered up at Kaine through cowed eyes.

  “Are you prepared to listen now?”

  Rhino nodded, but kept silent. He sat, shoulders rounded, fists clamped between his legs. A crushed and beaten man. Kaine hadn’t broken into a sweat. If only all his battles had been so easy.

  “Who’s in charge of your posse? What do you call it, the Tribe?”

  Slowly, Rhino raised head. He stared at Kaine through questioning eyes. “You don’ know?”

  “Of course we know.” Kaine pulled a notepad from his pocket and flicked through its pages. They were all blank, but Rhino wasn’t to know that. “Think of this as a test. Give me any wrong answers and I’ll end this interview. I’ll give you one guess as to what happens then.”

  Rhino stayed silent.

  “I said, you have one guess!”

  “You kill me?”

  Kaine sneered and tilted his head to one side. “Don’t be silly. We almost never resort to killing people. But you are learning the seriousness of your situation. Our preference is to proceed along the legal route. We’ll make sure you go down for a long time and you know what that means for your partner and your unborn child. It will be so sad. Will Ariel be able to cope on her own without your emotional and financial support? If not, I’m sure we can arrange for your child to go into care. It’ll be a crying shame, but probably better for the nipper in the long term. Don’t get me wrong, Damian, we don’t like seeing innocent children suffer, but if that’s what it takes to clear the streets of scum, well …”

  Kaine smiled sadly and allowed the threat to hang in the air.

  The tears flowing down Rhino’s cheeks and his trembling chin indicated how effective the mention of his girlfriend and her unborn baby had been. Kaine almost felt guilty at his actions, but the more effectively he could intimidate his opponents, the more quickly he could complete his mission and return Lara to their French safe house.

  “Who runs the Tribe?” Kaine repeated.

  This time, Rhino’s response was immediate and comprehensive.

  #

  By the time he terminated the interview, Kaine knew as much about the Palmerston Road Tribe as he needed, confirming and adding to Corky’s extensive notes.

  “Thank you, Damian. That wasn’t too hard, now, was it?”

  Once again, the squat man lowered his head and fell silent.

  “Now, my friend, you have two choices.”

  The head jerked up. Once again, the eyes carried a question. They also contained fear.

  Kaine held up the index finger of his right hand. “Choice number one. You can go tell your Top Man all about how a middle-aged fart beat you into the ground, twice. You can also tell him how you spilled your guts and how much that same old fart now knows about the Tribe’s operations and where it sells its product.” Kaine paused, waiting for the implication to sink in.

  “Or …” he said a moment later.

  “Or?” Rhino asked, his expression pleading.

  Kaine smiled again. “Or you can be our second inside man.”

  “Second?”

  “That’s right, Damian. You can do what your other friend is doing and help us.”

  “What friend? You got to someone else?”

  “Indeed we have, old chap. We like to hedge our bets.”

  “Who?”

  “Ah, now that would be telling. Wouldn’t it?” Kaine answered, allowing his grin to widen.

  Divide and conquer, one of the oldest strategies in warfare. Kaine had used the concept many times in the past with great success. No reason it couldn’t work again.

  “You won’t know who’s working for us, and neither will he. Yes, it is a ‘he’. Remember this. If you tell us something different from our other inside man, we’ll know about it, and then all bets are off. Understand?”

  Rhino dipped his chin.

  “Say it!” Kaine barked.

  Rhino stiffened, looked up, and said, “I unnerstan’.” He took a short breath, opened his mout
h, and snapped it shut again.

  “Show me your phone.”

  “Huh?”

  Kaine snapped his fingers. “Come on. I won’t ask again.”

  Rhino dug in his pocket and pulled out a latest generation smartphone. He offered it across, but Kaine refused it.

  “Good. Very impressive. It’ll do very nicely.”

  “What for?”

  “How good’s your memory for phone numbers?”

  “S’all right. Why?”

  Kaine recited his burner number and instructed Damian to repeat it.

  “One final thing Damian.”

  “Yeah? What.”

  “Do right by us and you won’t only stay out of prison long enough to see your baby born and take her first steps, you might even earn enough to work your way out of this life.”

  “Really?” A glimmer of hope shone in Damian’s eyes.

  “Assuming you do want an ‘out’?”

  He nodded as enthusiastically as his neck scar would allow.

  “Yes, Mr Griffin. That I do.”

  “Good, Damian. Good. I’m looking forward to watching you earn it.”

  As Kaine turned to go, Damian raised his hand as though he were a student in school trying to attract the attention of a tutor.

  “Yes, Damian? What is it?”

  The younger man winced as he stood, looking more uncomfortable than he should have done. “I-I wanna tell you somethin’, but …”

  “But what?”

  “You ain’t gonna believe me.”

  “Try me, Damian. What do you have to lose?”

  Damian straightened and looked Kaine in the eye for the first time. He delivered his information and was right, Kaine didn’t believe him, not for one second.

  Without adding a comment, Kaine parted company with the scarred man and returned to Darwin’s house. He made sure no one followed him.

  Chapter 7

  Saturday 18th February – Lara Orchard

  Walthamstow, NE London