Stiffed

by Kitchin, Rob

  ‘We were at soccer practice, Sally,’ Cyclone says. They’re still refusing to call her Mom.

  ‘I said they’d be …’ I start, before trailing off.

  ‘Don’t, Tadhg,’ Sally warns. ‘Just … don’t.’

  ‘We need to go, Sally,’ Annabelle says. She’s just noticed the police activity in the cul-de-sac. ‘Sally! We need to go.’

  ‘Go where?’ Sally says, looking over quizzically at her friend.

  ‘To one of my shops. As much chocolate and ice cream as everyone can eat.’

  ‘Way to go,’ Storm cheers.

  ‘I thought Dad was coming home early and we were going to the lake,’ Cyclone says.

  ‘We’re doing that after,’ Sally replies, not even bothering to question the statement.

  ‘What are we going to do with the bikes?’ Storm asks.

  ‘Put them in the bushes over there.’ Annabelle points to some shrubbery.

  ‘They’ll be stolen,’ Cyclone protests.

  ‘We could put them in the van,’ I suggest.

  ‘Too unhygienic and we don’t have time,’ Annabelle says to me. To the kids she says: ‘I’ll buy you new ones. Better ones. Hurry, come on. This deal expires in ten minutes.’

  The three of us wheel our bikes over the bushes. I shove each one in as the kids run back to the van. When I get there, there’s no room in the cab.

  ‘Get in the back, Tadhg.’

  ‘The back?’

  ‘Come on, stop messing about; get in the back.’

  I head reluctantly to the rear of the van and let myself in. It’s freezing inside. As I close the door, the world fading to black, Annabelle pulls off. I feel like Marino and Junior, rolling around in the back of a delivery van. Only in this case it’s full of specialty chocolate. Death by chocolate. Now that would be a way to go.

  10

  The man who has experienced shipwreck shudders even at a calm sea - Ovid

  The kids are at the ice cream counter being looked after by one of Annabelle’s employees, a spotty teenager with a mouthful of braces. We’re sitting at the back of the shop in a low booth furnished in soft, purple cushions, nursing mochas and a plateful of Annabelle’s deluxe selection.

  I’m playing with the cap. I’ve twisted it every which way, felt round the rim, turned it inside out, but there is nothing to suggest that it is worth a million bucks; no writing, no bulges. I’m completely baffled.

  ‘Give me that,’ Annabelle demands. She seems to have recovered remarkably well, with little sign of the injuries she was carrying earlier.

  She exams the cap in detail then drops it onto the table, shrugging her shoulders.

  ‘We must have the wrong cap,’ I say.

  ‘Is it Kate’s?’ Sally asks.

  ‘Yeah, it has a water stain on the peak that looks like a rooster,’ I say pointing.

  ‘That looks like a rooster to you? How the hell does that look like a rooster?’

  ‘Look, there’s its beak and there’s its crown. This is its neck.’

  ‘Jesus, Tiger, I hate to think what your therapist makes of your ink spot sessions.’

  ‘I don’t have a therapist.’

  ‘Well, maybe you should think of getting one, then next time you wake up in bed with a corpse you’ll ring the police not your best friend.’

  ‘I didn’t ring you, she did,’ I say, pointing at Annabelle.

  ‘And I can’t apologize enough,’ Annabelle says. ‘It was a stupid thing to do.’

  ‘The stupid thing was him,’ Sally points at me, ‘leaving you on your own to guard that monster.’

  ‘She insisted on being left alone,’ I protest.

  ‘That doesn’t mean you have to do what she says.’

  ‘This is Annabelle we’re talking about. Did you think she was going to take no for an answer? I’d have ended up in a worse state than Redneck. Covered in Chinese burns.’

  Sally looks away. She knows I’m right. Annabelle is her own woman. God help the man that tries to insist on being chivalrous.

  I pick up the cap again and twirl it in my hands. It’s just an ordinary Crusaders cap. Red with a large, heavily embroidered white C on the front, the bottom of the C extending into a hand holding a sword. How in God’s name is it worth a million bucks?

  ‘Maybe one of your kids removed whatever was in here,’ I suggest to Sally.

  ‘Don’t bring my kids into this, Tiger.’

  ‘It was just an idea. They did steal it.’

  ‘They borrowed it. You put their lives at risk, you inconsiderate moron. Joel’s going to have a fit when he finds out about today.’

  ‘Joel should be happy that you care so much about the little brats.’

  ‘Those little brats should not have been mixed up in this madness. If we somehow manage to get out of this mess, Joel’s going to kick your scrawny ass to court and back.’

  ‘Him and whose army?’

  Great, I’ve turned into the gawky kid at the baseball diamond.

  ‘This army.’ She waves her right fist at me. ‘And this army.’ She waves her left arm.

  I roll my eyes.

  ‘What happened with Pirelli?’ I ask Annabelle, trying to change the direction of the conversation. It’s impossible to have a reasonable, rational discussion with Sally. The woman is half-deranged.

  ‘I signed the forms, he drove me back to Carrick and dropped me at the factory.’

  ‘So he now owns fifty percent of Annabelle’s Delights?’ Sally asks.

  ‘He thinks he owns fifty percent. I signed with my left hand and mis-spelt my name. I’ll claim it’s a forgery. Besides, I can’t sell or sign over any of the company without the agreement of the shareholders. Don’t worry about Pirelli, I can handle him.’

  ‘We’re talking about Aldo Pirelli,’ I persist. ‘Nobody handles him. He’ll hound you until he gets what he wants.’

  Annabelle stares into space for a moment then pulls a weak smile. ‘We’ll see. I have friends.’

  ‘Shareholders?’ Sally says, a puzzled frown on her face. ‘I thought you own the company outright.’

  ‘We wanted it to seem that way. It adds to the image. You know, single female entrepreneur builds the company up from scratch.’

  ‘We?’ I prompt.

  ‘I guess you’d find out eventually. Myself and Jason.’

  ‘Jason is a shareholder? Our Jason?’

  ‘Jason’s a silent partner. He gave me one hundred and fifty thousand for a thirty five percent stake to help get the company up and running. I still had debts from university and I was having problems raising capital. I used his money to leverage a business loan from the bank.’

  ‘He gave you one hundred and fifty thousand,’ I say incredulously. ‘Where the hell did he get that kind of money? Did he rob a bank?’

  And if he did, why the hell wasn’t I cut into the raid? And why the secrecy? I’m meant to be his best friend for heaven’s sake! He’s meant to tell me everything.

  ‘He works as a programmer, he lives at home and has hardly any outgoings. The money just accumulated. He was happy to invest it. He has a passion for chocolate. If it worked out, he was going to get a supply for life.’

  ‘Jesus, he must be worth a fortune,’ I mutter. He has a stake in a company with thirty five shops and rising. He’s making money hand over fist and he’s still living with his parents. How can that be right?

  ‘He’s also employee number two,’ Annabelle continues. ‘I’m number one, of course.’

  ‘Jason works for you?’

  This is just getting better and better. His life is one big lie. Talk about being cut out of the loop. When this is all over we’re going to have a serious head-to-head about our friendship and reciprocity. I have a dead body, he’s the first person I call. He has a lifetime’s supply of chocolate and he keeps that particular nugget to himself.

  ‘He does all the software work. We’re the company in California, as he likes to tell you. He maintains the website and manages t
he CRM and ERP systems.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Customer relations management and enterprise resource planning. They help us build relations with our customers and suppliers and to manage the company as efficiently and effectively as we can. You know, coordinate our purchasing, inventory, accounting, personnel, distribut …’

  ‘Unbelievable,’ I cut her off. She’s slipping into work boss mode. As much as I’d like to know about how the company is organized and works, it’s Jason I’m interested in. ‘And he just omitted to tell me all this? It just kind of slipped his mind?’

  ‘He was respecting my wish to keep it secret. That’s what friends do; they hold confidences. He would have told you, but I asked him not to.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘For business reasons. And now I’ve told you I’ve broken my own confidence, not him.’

  This is just great. I am officially having the world’s shittiest day. I can’t even trust my best friend to rat out other people’s secrets. That’s his job. How else am I going to get juicy snippets of gossip?

  ‘So Jason is the only other shareholder then?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes. The money from the bank was just a loan.’

  ‘So if Jason was to … you know … then you’d be the only shareholder. Like on Aldo Pirelli’s contract forms.’

  Annabelle looks at me, then at Sally. ‘Where is Jason?’ she asks.

  ‘She didn’t tell you?’ I motion to Sally. ‘I thought she was your best friend.’

  ‘Tell me what?’

  ‘You were the one that phoned her,’ Sally says. ‘You could have told her then.’

  ‘TOLD ME WHAT!’ Annabelle says loudly.

  Most of the shop’s occupants swivel their gaze to check out the commotion. We must look like tornado survivors with all of our cuts and bruises.

  I wait for them to avert their stares then whisper: ‘Barry White is holding Jason and Paavo hostage. For the million dollars.’

  I lift up the cap again and start playing with it.

  ‘Barry White is …’ she trails off. ‘Then what the hell are we doing sitting here chatting? We need to rescue them.’ She starts to shuffle out of the booth. ‘How am I going to cope without Jason?’

  ‘Anna, wait.’ I grab her arm. ‘It’s not so simple. There are three of them. Barry White, his sister and his younger brother. They’re armed and they’re psychotic.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘When I was looking for Storm and Cyclone they chased after me – Denise and his younger brother. They were driving a red Beetle. The modern version.’

  ‘You could have led those monsters straight to my kids,’ Sally says.

  ‘Yeah, but I didn’t, did I?’

  ‘Will you two stop bickering,’ Anna says. ‘We need to rescue Jason. And Paavo.’

  * * *

  We’ve moved to a store room behind the shop, leaving the little brats out front. Annabelle has rung the factory to find out where the van taken by Paavo and Jason to move Marino and Junior is presently located. The distribution manager can track them all using GPS apparently.

  ‘The police have called to the factory looking for me,’ Annabelle says, replacing the receiver in its cradle. ‘You’re headline news: CNN, Fox, you name it. The shootout in the mall was captured on their CCTV cameras.’

  ‘Great.’ I wonder if a Crusaders scout has been watching? 3-0 isn’t bad when it was two playing against four, and the four were armed. I would have thought it might at least merit a spot in the lower order. ‘What did he tell them?’

  ‘The truth – he hasn’t got a clue where I am and he hasn’t seen me all day.’

  ‘But he could locate the van you’re driving.’

  ‘But he didn’t. The police have confirmed that everyone got away and that nobody was shot with the exception of one of those who started the shooting.’

  ‘Cowboy,’ I mutter. It’s a miracle no-one else took a bullet and that Cowboy got away. Juan’s shot must have only winged him.

  ‘Everyone else is just suffering shock and a few cuts and bruises.’

  ‘Thank God for that.’

  I can’t believe that Redneck managed to walk out of there. I hit his knee into the bleachers. He must have one hell of a limp. Maybe the scout might not be so impressed; it looked and sounded like a solid hit, but it only trickled out to second base.

  ‘Pure luck,’ Sally says.

  ‘Well, it’s about time we had some for a change,’ I counter.

  ‘He said you were like John McClane in Die Hard,’ Annabelle says. ‘Wading in with nothing but a baseball bat to save the girl and taking on four armed hoodlums.’

  Well, at least that sounds like the media are treating me as a give-it-a-go hero rather than a bad guy, even if I’m not going to make the Crusaders team. I suspect the police have a different view, especially Joe Gerlach. The garbage through the window stunt will probably haunt the rest of his career; the amusing anecdote they tell all new recruits.

  ‘And cause chaos and massive panic,’ Sally adds. ‘It’s a wonder that nobody died.’

  ‘But they didn’t, did they!’ I feel like a broken record. Some people just refuse to be grateful. I rescued her from those lunatics; if it wasn’t for me heaven knows what she’d now be experiencing.

  ‘He said you sped out of there like Dale Earnhardt,’ Annabelle says to Sally.

  ‘Well, I … just floored it!’

  ‘And it’s a wonder no-one was killed when you flew through the fence and skidded onto the road,’ I add. ‘It could have been a massive pile-up.’

  ‘But it wasn’t, was it?’

  ‘Do you two want to get a room?’ Annabelle asks.

  ‘What?’ ‘No!’ I and Sally say at the same time.

  ‘There’s so much sexual tension in here I feel like I’m in an episode of Moonlighting.’

  Sexual tension? If she thinks this is sexual tension it’s no wonder she’s single. This isn’t sexual tension it’s … it’s frustration, annoyance and intolerance, and there’s nothing sexual about it. The woman isn’t remotely attractive. She’s a bloody nuisance. Why Annabelle rang her in the first place is still a mystery.

  And what are these comparisons to Bruce Willis about – Die Hard, Moonlighting? Unless he dyes his hair red, what’s left of it, and is prepared to get an all over body wax for a psycho-bitch who’s stolen a million dollars from the Memphis mob and double-crossed her fellow thief, and has to call on his friends for help to try and sort it out, then I’d say we have little in common. He wouldn’t need to call his friends. He could kick ass on his own. I bet the guy even knows the name of different kinds of guns.

  ‘I think you’ll do better sticking to chocolates and steering well clear of amateur psychology, Annabelle,’ Sally says. ‘I wouldn’t be interested in him if he was the last man alive.’

  ‘If I was the last man alive and you were the last woman,’ I counter, ‘I’d let the species go extinct.’

  ‘I rest my case,’ Annabelle says.

  This is ridiculous, we’re just wasting time.

  ‘What about Paavo and Jason,’ I ask. ‘Where’s the van?’

  ‘Just off of Park Street, near to the old water tower.’

  ‘Then what are we waiting for?’ I ask, heading for the door.

  ‘The child minder.’

  Oh yeah, the child minder. I’m sure that Storm and Cyclone could cause mayhem and terror, but even they’re no match for the Taylor family.

  ‘Jesus, Tiger, try and stay with the plot, will you,’ Sally says condescendingly.

  ‘There’s a plot? I just feel like I’m in a pinball machine, pinging from one disaster to another.’

  * * *

  We approach the van slowly. It’s parked on the side of the street under a large chestnut tree. About fifty meters behind it is the old water tower, ‘Carrick Springs – The Friendliest Town in America’ painted on the container.

  They should re-paint it to: ‘The Most Unpredictable Town
in America.’

  The cab of the van is empty. We park in front and get out.

  I try the driver’s door and it opens. The keys are in the ignition. There’s no sign that the van was forced from the road or that there was a struggle. It’s like Paavo just parked up and they walked away.

  ‘Amazing,’ I say, removing the keys, dangling them from a finger. ‘Someone could have driven away with a fortune in chocolates. Gorged themselves.’

  ‘They better have taken an empty van,’ Annabelle says. ‘If there’s stock in the back as well as dead bodies we’re going to have to throw it away.’

  As ever, she has her priorities right. We walk to the rear of the van and I put the key in the lock.

  ‘You’re worried about your stock?’ I say. ‘If there are dead bodies in here, then we’re back to square one.’

  ‘Except we’re missing Jason and Paavo,’ Sally says, ‘and you supposedly have a million dollars on your head.’

  I open the door. The container is cool and empty, the refrigeration unit still working, the racks empty of trays. I clamber in and move to the freezers used to transport the ice cream. I open the first freezer door and Junior topples out, sending my heart jumping into my mouth and my body sprawling back against the side of the van. Junior clunks to the floor with a solid thwack.

  I move gingerly back to the freezer. Marino is still standing upright inside the unit. I tap the sheet wrapped around him. He sounds hollow. They must be frozen solid like giant popsicles.

  ‘Well, we at least know that they managed to collect Junior and Marino,’ I say.

  ‘I’m going to have to get this van industrially cleaned,’ Annabelle says.

  ‘Now what?’ I ask, ignoring her concern.

  ‘I don’t know. We need to find Barry White.’

  ‘We should go to the police,’ Sally suggests.

  ‘No!’ both I and Annabelle say together.

  ‘We don’t know where they are,’ Sally reasons, ‘we don’t have any weapons, and we don’t know how to fight.’

  She has a point. Well, three to be honest, but it’s not the whole picture. ‘We do have the million dollars,’ I say, patting the cap on my head.