Marwick's Reckoning - Gareth Spark

by Near To The Knuckle

  'Hello, Marwick.'

  At first he thought the voice had welled up inside him, a memory broken free, but then she said it again, voice soft as ever, and he turned and felt the shock of her smack into his core like a lance. 'Jesus,' he said, raising the cigarette to his lips and sucking hard on the smoke. He tried to think of something to say, anything, just some noise, something to break the spell and went for, 'Of all the gin joints in all the world.'

  Louise walked past him and gazed at the headland. The lights churned against the blue stillness like a view of a distant fairground. 'Always the same here, isn't it?'

  'You'd think so,' he said. 'But the changes are subtle and you only notice them when you stick around. Something you were never good at.' He looked at her and felt something he had not felt in a long time. It was everything she had killed out of him years before.

  'Don't you ever get sick of it?'

  'I get sick,' he said, 'and tired.' He stubbed out the cigarette and looked at her warily. His heart was jumping. 'So what are you doing here? After all this time have you come to see how I am?'

  'No,' she said, 'I can see how you are.' She sat opposite, her loose hair blowing in the slightest of breezes and looked at him for a long time. He glanced away and tried to pretend not to care, but it was there, stamped on him as the design is stamped on a coin. 'The beard adds twenty years,' she said.

  'I've been told ten.'

  'By people who love you.'

  He laughed and said, 'Nobody loves me.'

  A handful of dark shapes walked by the end of the cut between the buildings where a path ran from Pineda to Sant Carles; Marwick watched them, then, without looking at her, asked, 'How long has it been?'

  'Since we spoke? Three years, eight months and some days.'

  'You remember?'

  'I never forget a thing, that's my gift.' She looked over her shoulder. 'Yours is to hurt people.'

  'I never hurt you.'

  'You did.'

  'I remember it being the other way, drink?'

  'It's closed.'

  'I have the key.'

  She smiled and played with the hair hanging beside her throat. She wore a black dress that showed off her figure. 'I suppose I better.'

  'What'll it be?'

  'You remember how to mix a Mojito?'

  'Always,' he said. 'It's your drink.'

  He walked to the bar, legs trembling, opened the door and switched off the alarm. Before he made the drink, he poured a whiskey and threw it down his throat. Then he grabbed the bottle and an empty glass, placed it on a tray beside the Mojito and walked back outside. She watched him and he said, 'What?' before sitting.

  'I'd forgotten what it was like just to watch you.'

  He ignored the comment. 'You've got a lot of nerve, I'll give you that. I take it you're here for Sean?'

  'How is Mr. Mallon?'

  'Constant as the tides.'

  He filled the glass with and saluted Louise with a sharp gesture that was so careless the drink spilled over the side and across his fingers. 'Un día se me va a matar,' he said, before emptying the glass.

  'Your old toast,' she said, 'Spanish version.'

  He poured another large measure of the drink. 'You know the language?'

  'I get by.'

  'You were always good at that,' he said, 'getting by.'

  She smiled and the corners of her eyes crinkled. Then she sipped from her own drink and raised her eyebrows in appreciative pleasure. 'Nice.'

  'One of the few good things I could ever do for you. So why don't we cut the crap and you get to tell me why you're here, really? Charlie never said you were coming.'

  'Should he?'

  'I made a point of finding out when you paid him these flying visits. So I could be elsewhere.'

  'You never wanted to see me? Not even once.'

  'Not once.'

  'So where is he? Where's Dad?'

  'He's around.'

  'I want to see him.'

  'I'm not his keeper, am I? He does his own thing. Always has.'

  'Jack wants to know he's all right.'

  'Jack?' Marwick finished his second glass and stared longingly at the bottle, contemplating a third but hesitating, knowing it would put oil on the fire inside him. 'How is the old bastard?'

  'He hears things,' she said, 'and he wants to know what's going on. Where's Dad?'

  Marwick gazed down at the street. Dust hung in the air, filtering moonlight like a curtain of lace pulled across the dusk. He looked back into her eyes and attempted a smile, failing at the last. 'He went south for a while,' he said. 'You know how he keeps things close to his chest and he knows everyone down there, doesn't he? Costa del crime and all that shit; as though he'd tell me a bloody thing about his business. He's down there and that's where he is.'

  'Is that right?'

  'It's all I know.'

  She looked at him. She'd heard something in his voice, but wasn't quite sure what it was. 'You and Sean,' she said, 'were the worst things ever happened to my father. He had something, he had a whole world at his feet and that moron Sean broke it in two. I suppose he's up to mischief down here too. Well, it won't be for much longer, I can promise you that.'

  'Had the crystal ball out again, have we?'

  'You're angry with me, I accept that, I can live with that, but don't be a fool all your life. He's going down. Don't get dragged down with him. They aren't stupid back in London. They hear things.'

  'You said.'

  'I'm trying to help you out, Marwick.'

  'That's good of you, yeah; you always had a good heart. Must be why he wanted you so bad.'

  'Well, you didn't.'

  'Like I said, I remember it differently.'

  'What was I supposed to do? You never loved me.'

  'I did,' he said, 'and look what I got for it.'

  'Well, you weren't the only one.' She said this quickly and looked at her wristwatch. It was expensive: diamonds, gold plate, silver numerals. She stood and passed him a business card: her name, embossed in blue on thick, luxurious paper, e–mail, mobile and an address that would bankrupt a Saudi prince. 'If you hear anything from Dad ...'

  'I'll call.'

  'Thanks for the drink.'

  He watched her pass the line of pale buildings, moving with purpose and without glancing back, and he knew he was lost now, as lost as he ever could be. Marwick poured the third glass.

  Chapter Four

  It was not long after midnight and fireworks going off from the roof of an apartment building lit the dirty alley leading to the back door of Bogart's bar. Sean walked slowly, his eyes darting skywards each time there was a bang. The red and yellow lights flashed in sweat that lay across his broad, lined forehead.

  The door was narrow, set low in the graffiti covered wall and he nodded at the men stood before it. They were laughing, throwing punches at invisible opponents, playing out past victories in boastful, beer–burned voices. 'You two stop fucking about', Sean said. 'I pay you to watch this fucking door.' He looked at one of the men, the closest, as though inspecting something he'd found between his teeth. Roy Quinn, Sean's godson, whose father was doing 25 years in the Scrubs. Sean promised to look after him though it was a promise he had started to regret. Roy was tall and heavy, with a missing incisor and skin like a dirty bandage. In a former life, he'd been heading for a title until the wrong choices led to the association stripping him of his title and license to box. Bringing the sport into disrepute, they called it. He wasn't too bright, and the robbery of a gold merchant in Clerkenwell showed he wasn't afraid of getting his hands dirty. 'Has anyone been in?' Sean asked.

  'Radu was around,' Roy said; speaking in his too loud voice, head tilted back so he looked at Sean down the length of his broken nose. 'He was telling us about these girls him and his brother…'

  'Shut up,' Sean said, glancing at the other doorman who knew enough to turn the other way and pretend to look at his phone.

  'Lot of money he said.'

/>   'Don't breathe a word of that to any cunt, you get me?'

  'Yeah, but he must trust me, Radu, to tell me. You didn't.'

  'You know what you fucking need to know.'

  'Charlie never talked to me like that.'

  'Yeah, well Charlie's…'

  'What?'

  'Just zip it. Your old man talked too much, and where he is now? He's lucky, down here you slip up once and they kill you. You disappear. Got it?'

  Roy waited until Sean had opened the door and said, 'Marwick's here.'

  'Is he?' Sean said without looking, paused in the action of opening the door.

  'Can't stand that cunt and I don't trust him either, he ain't like us.'

  Sean looked at him. 'There's a lot about Marwick you don't know. You should be careful. I've seen that man do some things.' A scornful look crossed Roy's face and Sean said, 'I'm serious.'

  ***

  The office was a long, L–shaped room. A large window looked over the bar and Marwick stared down at the crowd. An electric fan stood in the corner of the room and the breeze from it stank of overheated plastic. He was smoking and held the cigarette close to his face between thumb and forefinger, studying the small flame in the burning leaves, then looking up to watch the smoke trail and turn in the circulated air. He had not heard the door. 'Penny for them,' Sean said loudly.

  'They ain't worth that much.'

  Sean stood by the window. 'You're very quiet,' he said.

  'Am I?'

  'I don't like it when a man's quiet the way you've gotten to being. It means they're worried or thinking or something worse.'

  'We've got trouble.'

  'We usually do.'

  'Louise turned up tonight.'

  He saw Sean's mouth spell out a noiseless profanity, then, after a pause, he asked, 'What does she want?'

  'What do you think?'

  'Fucking hell Marwick, that's the last thing we need. I was only talking to the lads in London a couple of hours ago and they never said a word.'

  'That's their style; catch you with your drawers down. She was asking after Charlie. What am I supposed to say?'

  'Tell her he's fucked off somewhere.'

  'I have, but she isn't stupid.' He looked away. 'She never was.'

  Sean closed his eyes and squeezed them with his thumbs. 'Things are too delicate right now to have her sticking her nose in. If she finds out about the money, we're dead, you get that?'

  'I need a week, at most, but I can only do so much.'

  'You found anything?'

  'The coke has…'

  'Don't say it!' Sean snapped, pointing at his ear and then to the wall.

  Marwick waved his hand impatiently. 'The shit has vanished, but I spoke to Al on the phone tonight, he's on his way down, and he called a pal of his, a broker, who knows where it went.' Sean sat up, his face excited as a child's. 'Don't get worked up, he'll only talk to Al. Meantime I'm going to see Ben's old lady, pick her brain about this man Charlie sent down there. Getting him is the best we can do; anybody not show up for work?'

  'No.'

  'Then he's still around. All I need is time.'

  Sean stared at the leather–topped desk and then said, 'Throw Louise a bone. Send her south; give her a name, whatever. In a few months, we won't have to care about any of them, London, Stelescus, no–one.' He leaned closer. 'Get rid of her Marwick.' He laid a hand on Marwick's shoulder. 'Meantime there's something I want you to do for me, take a delivery to the Casa d'Esclaus, something coming over the border; can't trust anyone else to do it. An old truck carrying the shit Cezar wants at the farm. I want you to collect it.'

  'That compensation you were talking about?'

  'Business, that's all.'

  Marwick felt the muscles tighten across his face; a feeling, nothing good. 'When?'

  'Tomorrow night. You meet them outside Piera, the usual place. Take Roy with you.'

  'Roy?'

  'You need someone to drive you there.'

  'If anything goes wrong this time we'll end up in the hills with Charlie. Cezar won't fuck around.'

  Sean turned away and scratched at the leather surface of the desk with a thumbnail as he spoke. 'I burned through a lot of money.' He coughed again. 'And didn't quite have enough to pay 'em what they lost on that boat. I need to let them peddle some shit outta the farm.'

  'I wouldn't trust 'em too much.'

  ***

  Marwick lived above a restaurant called the Casa Gallau, and the hallway outside his apartment was heavy with the smell of cooking. He'd visited Ben's wife that afternoon. She remembered him, but she didn't let him into the house. Marwick was good, and after five minutes, he got what he needed.

  The windows looking into Casa Gallau were dark and dripped with steam escaped from the kitchen. Marwick fastened his shirt cuffs nervously, then unbuttoned them and rolled them up his sleeves as he walked. He nodded at the Maitre d', and stepped out into the square. Night had come swiftly from the hills. It was cold, and Marwick turned up the collar of his jacket. A car's horn blared from the corner and Marwick waved for the driver to keep quiet. It was a dark blue Mercedes, parked on the kerb. Roy reached across and flicked the lock down on the passenger door and Marwick climbed in, puffing a little as he fought with the seatbelt. He turned to Roy and asked, 'You get it?'

  The young man handed over a heavy, oil–stained paper bag from which Marwick drew a handgun. Marwick held the weapon in the palm of his hand. It was a small, short–recoil 9mm pistol, numbers ground off; same as the one he'd got rid of the night Charlie was killed. 'You haven't got the safety on,' Marwick said, pulling back the top slide and checking there was a round in the chamber before thumbing down the catch.

  'Yeah, well, I don't know anything 'bout guns do I?' Roy bit his thumbnail and glanced at the weapon, then at the door, as though preparing to run. 'What's all this about anyway?'

  'Hasn't your friend Radu told you?'

  'Ain't seen him.'

  'We're going for a ride. You get the rest?'

  Roy reached into the breast pocket of his shirt and handed him the spare clip. 'Why do you need a gun?'

  'Calm the fuck down; you're driving me to Piera, nothing else. We can have a chat on the way.'

  Light washed across the bonnet of the car as Roy waited for a gap in the traffic; Marwick watched it play over the beaten smooth surface and emptied his mind of everything but that light. Then it was gone.

  Chapter Five

  Piera, close to the French border, was small and pale in the distance beneath the warm light of the moon. Marwick raised a pair of binoculars, looked at the miniature citadel of the town on its peak, and wondered what it offered: a bar, certainly, probably nothing more. The Stelescus were ten minutes late, but he couldn't discount the possibility that they, like he, were watching cautiously from some concealed position. Nobody trusted anybody. There was a rattle in the dry bushes behind and he heard Roy swear. 'Keep it down,' Marwick said.

  'I don't know why we're hiding up here.'

  'Don't want to take a chance after last time.'

  'That was different.'

  'Was it?' Marwick turned and looked at Roy for a long time, then said, 'Not so different.' He reached round for the pistol and checked the chamber again. He wanted Roy to see the weapon, to remind him it was there.

  The latter stared unhappily. 'I don't get it.'

  'I'm just saying, it wasn't so different,' Marwick said. 'You were there that night too.'

  'Where'd you get that from? I fuckin' never heard a…'

  'Shut up,' Marwick snapped. 'I don't care. I don't even mind that you decked me; all I care about is finding that coke.' He lied easily. 'I know it was you.'

  Roy looked down, and after a while, he said, 'What you going to do?'

  'All I want is the coke.'

  'I can't,' Roy said, the bravado draining from him and his voice very quiet, 'he'd kill me.'

  'I'll kill you.'

  Roy smiled. 'Not like he would.'
/>   A voice rang out in the darkness and then a van drove slowly out of the barn, the engine hardly a throb in the night. It was a dark blue Ford Luton, moving at a creeping pace along the track. Men walked at either side of the track. Marwick turned the binoculars onto the roofless buildings and saw two dark 4x4s in front of the main house. He wiped the sweat from his eyes. He turned back. Roy had vanished.

  Marwick swore, then stood and started to descend the hill. His feet dragged in the dust as though trying to hold him back and his heart thumped heavily at the base of his throat. He walked towards the footbridge and crossed it with a carelessness that did not come easily; insects clicked in the reeds on the riverbanks and the light of the moon broke across the water. The pines were tall and stark against the warm sky and swayed a little in the breeze that Marwick could no longer feel. The weight of the pistol pulled against his belt at the back and he walked with his right hand free and ready to draw the weapon.

  The other men had spread out across the dusty circle of the earth so as not to present too easy a target. They watched him impassively.

  The van door opened and a high, amiable voice called: 'Marwick, my friend, come here why don't you. You kept us waiting for so long thought you were never going to come down from your hill.'

  Marwick walked over quickly. The Romanian sat in the van with the door open, smoking a cigarette, drumming his fingers on the wheel, grinning. Radu was a young 32, with long greasy hair pulled back into a ponytail. He wore a red hooded top, jeans and white trainers, and his small wrinkled eyes shone with manic energy. 'Did you hear they gave Marius eighteen years in Tarragona this morning?' He asked. 'He was always trying to act so tough, that putoi, but still, that's a fuck of a long time to stare at your feet.'