by J C Williams
Madeline started to laugh. “Who’s that?” she asked.
“Exactly,” said Mr Esposito, indulging the impertinent interruption. “Who is this?”
Despite his massive frame, Joey’s knees were starting to feel wobbly. “Sir,” he said, ever the gentleman. “We followed the car, sir, as instructed. We were told the registration number of the car, where Emma Hopkins was likely to be, and procured this woman from it once an opportunity presented itself.”
“Tell me, young lady,” said Mr Esposito, now turning to the woman before him for answers. “Would you mind helping us resolve this game of Guess Who? If you are not Emma Hopkins, which I know you are not, then who do I have the pleasure of addressing?”
Despite his anger, Mr Esposito was unflappable and he remained in complete control of his faculties.
“My name is Abby,” said Abby, acutely aware of the danger her current situation had presented her with. “These two knuckle-dragging Neanderthals took me from my car and gagged me before I could even get a word out.”
Joey shifted his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other. He was sensitive about his looks and didn’t like being mistaken for a mug.
Mikey, meanwhile, took the insult in stride. He was used to insults. In fact, insults, he felt, meant he was doing his job well.
“I see,” Mr Esposito responded. “And, Miss Abby, how do you fit into this picture, if I may ask?”
“Well…” Abby began, considering her strategy, but then deciding that, under present circumstances, the truth (up to a point, at least) was the wisest course of action. “I’m a private investigator,” she said proudly. “And I was originally hired to find Emma Hopkins, and then hired by Emma herself to find out who was trying to find her, and, well… it all got very confusing. Suffice to say, however, I am not Emma Hopkins. I am not the woman you’re looking for.”
“Interesting,” said Mr Esposito, adept at turning disadvantages into advantages. “Very fine. You must know, then, where our Emma Hopkins is currently located. Yes?” stated Mr Esposito. “So you may, in fact, be of some assistance to us after all.”
Mikey took this statement as a positive one, and shuffled forward, keen to yet receive the praise he’d been hoping for.
“Let me go! This instant!” insisted Abby defiantly. All that was missing from the cliché was a stomp of her shoe and the waving of a fist.
“Or what?” asked Mr Swan, amused, and tilting his head quizzically.
Abby thought for a moment, gathering herself together, and formulating a reply.
“Because, you bloody wazzock, right now, one of the most talented, brilliant investigators I’ve ever worked with is busting down doors and using his extensive network on this Island to find out where I am. He’ll already have picked up the trail, and trust me, wherever you go you better have one eye over your shoulder because he’s going to snap your neck like a twig! When he catches up with you, you’ll rue the day you ever set foot on the Isle of Man!”
“Sam, will you stop sobbing? That’s not going to help anyone, now is it?” Emma told Sam as if admonishing a small child, though not without sympathy.
“I’m not crying,” insisted Sam, unconvincingly. “I’ve got something in my eye, is all,” he said, wiping the moisture from his cheek, before abruptly abandoning all pretence. “How could I let them take my Abby??” he wailed.
Emma moved to him. “Allow me,” she said, using a damp tea towel to wipe away the dried blood from his cheek. “You have quite a nasty gash here. It may require some stitches. Have you injured your lower back?” she asked, in reference to Sam rubbing his rump. “Have you whacked your coccyx?”
“What? No!” Sam replied, horrified. “Nothing like that!” he said, misunderstanding. “No,” said Sam. “It’s these bloody shorts, they’ve nearly cut me in two.”
“So what do we do now?” Emma asked.
“Well, I can promise you they’re going straight in the bin as soon as I can get my jeans to change into,” replied Sam.
“I’m not talking about your shorts!” Emma responded. “For god’s sake, I mean about this current situation. Your friend has been taken, and I cannot stay in this place. They’re going to find me in no time if they’ve got her.”
“They’ll hurt her?” whimpered Sam.
Emma nodded her head. “If Mr Esposito thinks she knows where I am, then, yes, she’s in real danger. As we are, also.”
“This is pants,” said Sam. “I can’t just sit here. I’m going to phone the police.”
“You can’t,” Emma reproved. “They’ve got my sister, remember, and now they’ve also got your friend. If you go to the police, they wouldn’t think twice about killing them. Trust me, I know.”
“And you know what I know?” said Sam, suddenly angry, throwing the towel on the floor. “All this mess has happened since you came on the bloody scene!”
“It’s not been a bundle of joy for me either!” Emma shouted. “Don’t forget, thanks to you, I’ve now got not one but two crazed psychopaths trying to hunt me down and kill me!”
Sam bowed his head. “Oh, yeah. About that,” he said in a more conciliatory fashion. “I forgot to tell you, I may have misled you — by accident! — about the whole Mr Justus thing.”
Emma looked at him hard. “Misled me, how?” she demanded.
“Well… on reflection, I gave him the correct painting, I think. So, technically, it’s just the one. Psychopath, that is. Just one, not two. So he — Mr Justus — should be happy?”
Emma’s expression softened somewhat. “Well, that’s actually good news, I suppose. But it’s still like waiting to be eaten by one lion instead of two.”
“Would Mr Justus know where Mr Esposito has taken Abby?” Sam was clutching at straws.
“What? No, of course not,” Emma replied. “Mr Justus has never met him and probably doesn’t even know he exists. I doubt their paths have ever crossed. I’m the only one that’s ever met him and all the others who’ve been ripped off — been involved in every fraudulent transaction — which is one of the reasons my life is expendable in this whole mess. There are numerous people involved in these transactions, but with me being the public face — the man in the middle, if you will — I’m the one who has sufficient knowledge to bring the whole debacle crashing down. This is why Mr Esposito knows that I’m his Achilles heel — the one who knows every aspect of the size and scale of his forgeries. This is why, if he does find me, I will be dead once my usefulness to him had ended.”
Sam walked solemnly towards the narrow window, his silhouette filling the ageing wooden frame as he looked at the sun glistening off the water at the nearby Laxey Bay. He could sense Emma’s eyes were trained on him about the same time as he felt a gentle breeze caressing his right bum cheek.
“Have my shorts ridden up again?” he asked without looking.
“Yes. Yes they have,” replied Emma, with a tone suggesting that this was not a sight she wished very much to see.
Sam gripped the fabric in frustration and yanked it out of its darkened recess, while scooping up his phone (which had been retrieved from the boot of the car) with his free hand.
“You’re not phoning the police, are you?? They’ll kill my sister and your friend!” said Emma with a fair bit of urgency.
“No,” Sam assured her. “But we can’t just sit with our thumbs up our arse waiting for them to find us! No, I’m going to do something about this, and the only people that can help us — that I know we can trust — are those two fellows from the FBI.”
Chapter Eleven
The Humboldt Penguin
T wo young children moved at pace, their heads buried in a folded glossy brochure that they’d opened like an accordion. They giggled with excitement as they ran up the gravel path and pressed their faces up against the glass screen. Their red rain macs and yellow Wellington boots appeared over-cautious on a day where the sun hung high in the sky.
They shuffled sideways to maximise their view whil
e continuing to chatter incessantly. The boy on the right hit his young female companion on the head with the brochure, and began to turn in order to make good his escape. He progressed very little beyond the twisting of his torso, however, before smashing into something which sent him flying backwards. But, before the boo-hoos arrived, a hand reached down.
The small boy’s gaze progressed northward, slowly, as the little girl took shelter behind him (which was no mean feat as the boy was sat flat on his arse). The boy’s smooth, pristine face tilted up, and eventually its eyes came to rest on another face, far above, that looked like it’d seen rather more wear and suffered far more abuse. As such, it was not what anyone might ever mistake for a pretty face. Yet it was not an entirely unkind face.
The boy accepted the hand on offer, and regained his feet. Even after getting his sea legs back, though, there was still a great disparity in height between them — and there was something about the man’s face that the boy couldn’t quite make sense of. He stood on his toes to gain an even better view, mouth agape. “What happened to your nose, mister?” he asked, finally.
A seasoned, weathered face looked down. It looked as if it might unleash a furious storm at any moment. The boy, even up on his toes, at full height, was still pitifully small against the behemoth before him. He didn’t stand a chance.
The boy suddenly regretted his cheek, and he settled back down on the soles his feet, pressing them against the gravel and bracing himself for the sort of impending disaster he felt certain was, well, impending.
The man’s face broke into a gentle smile. It was the kind of face that wasn’t accustomed to smiling — at least not for a very long time — but wanted very much to do so. As the lips parted, the absence of several teeth came into relief. They were victims, these lost teeth, in a battle that both raged and never ended.
“Joey. At’cher service,” the man said. “And what about my nose?” he asked, smiling broadly.
The boy started to laugh. He was relaxed now. The man may have been a beast, after all, but was one that could obviously be reasoned with.
The girl leaned forward and whispered to the boy.
“My sister said you look like the Hulk,” said the boy, before turning and listening to further instruction. “But not green though she said she could paint you green if you wanted? you’ve got a funny accent,” he said, without taking a breath.
Joey laughed. It was a deep, fathomless rumble, and seemed to be of the type mostly out of range of human auditory senses. It was a laugh that was felt more than it was heard.
A frame bolt from the enclosure’s glass screen fell to the ground. It made a *scutch* noise as it hit the gravel. It had apparently vibrated loose and worked its way out from its mooring.
“You two are quite the pair,” said Joey amiably. “What are you here for, anyway? What’s your mission?”
“Mission?” the boy replied, tilting his head inquisitively.
“Sure,” Joey answered. “Everybody’s got a mission they’re on.”
“We came to see the penguins,” the boy said, pleased with himself, certain he’d gotten the answer correct.
“I’ll give you five bucks if you can tell me what type of penguins they are,” Joey offered.
“What’s a buck?” asked the little girl, still retaining her position of cover behind her brother.
“A buck. A dollar,” Joey stated. “Oh, wait,” he added, catching up. “I meant to say pounds. That’s what they’re called here, right? Okay, I’ll give you five pounds if you can tell me what type of penguins they are.”
The little girl was on tiptoe now, and she jumped on the spot with her hand raised to the sky like she’d been stretched out on a medieval rack. “Me!” she said, dancing in place excitedly. “Me, me!”
Joey smiled, putting one finger to his lips thoughtfully, while the index finger of his other hand bobbed along, counting invisible heads in consideration to call upon. “Anybody?” he asked. “Anybody know the answer? Anyone at all?”
“Me! Me! Me!” the little girl said, squirming. Her high-pitched voice was like a ship’s whistle as she shouted in short, tight bursts.
“Ah!” Joey said eventually, as if noticing her for the very first time. “You, there! Behind the boy! Would you like to have a guess?”
“Me, me!” she repeated.
“Alright, then,” said Joey, finally putting the poor girl out of her misery. “What are they, young miss?”
She slowly returned her feet completely flat to the earth, and she looked at her brother smugly. Because he wasn’t the only one who knew things. She knew things, too. Lots of things.
“Those penguins,” she said with an air of authority. “Those penguins there. Just there. I can tell you for a fact, because I know these things, of course. These types of penguins, as it happens…”
Now it was the girl’s turn, it seemed, to keep Joey in suspense. “Yes?” Joey prompted encouragingly.
“Are-black-and-white-ones!” she shot out, rapid-fire.
Joey didn’t want to dampen the enthusiasm shown radiating up to him from the girl’s beaming face. He took a five-pound note and, as agreed, handed it over to her — as, technically, she was correct.
“You’re absolutely right. They are indeed of the black-and-white variety,” said Joey, although the girl was now mesmerised by the five-pound note and paying him no mind. “They’re also called Humboldt penguins,” he continued professorially, and repeated the name for effect. “Humboldt.”
“Bless you!” countered the little boy, laughing at the sound of the funny name.
The lesson was then interrupted, unexpectedly.
“Wait there!” shouted a woman with rosy cheeks trying desperately to keep control of a toddler who was using the restraints to take his mother for a ride (it being unclear who was, in fact, in control of who). She brought her child to a halt in front of Joey like a champion jockey. She looked at the children, to Joey, and then back to the children.
“I’ve been looking for you two everywhere,” she said in between catching her breath. “You mustn’t run off like that, I’ve told you a thousand times.” The distressed mother’s eyes kept flicking toward Joey and it made him uncomfortable.
Joey offered a smile. “It’s my fault ma’am. We were playing a game about the penguins and—”
“Where did you get that money?” asked the mother suddenly, snatching it from her daughter’s hand. “Is this yours?” she said accusingly, turning to Joey.
“No. Well, yes, in a way. But—” Joey responded, before being interrupted once again.
“Here,” she said, thrusting the note towards him. “Do you work here?” she said, eyes narrow, her manner abrupt.
“What? No,” Joey replied, getting a little intimidated by a woman easily less than half his size.
“What do you do here, then?” she asked, continuing the interrogation.
Joey laughed awkwardly. He wondered if she could see the bulge under his jacket, and he played his hand over the buttons, making sure they were fastened, putting himself together. “Well, I suppose I’m just here to help out, I guess you could say.”
“Right,” was the woman’s terse reply. “Well. I’m sorry my children have bothered you,” she said, still eying him with suspicion. “Here,” she said, holding the five-pound note out again. “Your money.”
“No, no, I insist,” said Joey, holding the palms of his hands against his chest. “The little girl earned it. She was very good.”
Of course this only served to heighten the woman’s apprehension, and her eyes, already narrowed, became even narrower.
“Shit, that didn’t come out right,” Joey appealed. “I meant…”
It was no use. The woman kept hold of the toddler and herded the other two up like a sheepdog. “Move,” she said to them through gritted teeth.
The little girl turned to smile at Joey. She was able to offer the hint of a wave before her mum tugged sharply on her other arm, effectively flatten
ing out the wave opposite.
“Don’t look at the bad man, Hayley. He looks like he’s just been released from prison,” said the mum, escorting her brood to safety, and that was the end of it.
The five-pound note was left on the gravel path, its promise abandoned.
Joey had half-raised his hand to return the little girl’s wave, and it had remained frozen there when the mother’s words hit him — with more force than he’d ever been struck, in any fight, ever. He stood in front of the penguin enclosure and slowly retracted his extended fingers, closing them, until they formed a fist.
He was snapped back to the present when the phone in his pocket started to vibrate. His ringtone was a horse’s whinny and the clattering of hooves.
But his phone was on silent now, and, feeling the vibration, he pulled it from his pocket.
Joey wasn’t in the mood for pleasantries. “Yes,” he barked down the phone. He listened, vacantly. “Yes, yes,” he added, bobbing his head, which caused the ripples in his neck to wobble. The phone was almost lost against the backdrop of his enormous head. “The boss asked me to pick a few things up for him,” continued Joey impatiently. “Yes. Right. Uh-huh.” And then, “Where am I now?” he replied, echoing the caller's question.
Joey stood and twirled, like Julie Andrews on a tranquil meadow — as he basked in the glory of his current location.
“I’m…” he hesitated. “I’ve dropped by the gym to catch up on some bench presses, what’s it to ya?”
The caller must have wanted him somewhere, but Joey’s expression clearly said he wanted to be elsewhere. “The boss has got a special job for me. Is that right,” he said, rolling his eyes, and enthusiasm waning by the second. “Bring a shovel?” he said. “What the fuck am I now, Mikey? The gardener?”
He walked away from the penguin enclosure, in no hurry to leave, just as another young family was gathering there. He lowered the phone for a moment before reinstating back against his cauliflower ear. “Where am I going to get a bag of lime?” he shouted, before lowering his voice for the benefit of the concerned-looking family nearby.