Mike shrugged. “She’s your neighbour,” he said. “So this one’s yours,” he added, turning the handle on the adjoining office door. It was open.
“That’s odd. I’m sure it’s never usually left open,” said Hymie. “Unless, there’s someone in there…”
“Don’t be so ruddy paranoid, H. Nobody would break in to nick anything from a dump like this.”
“Thanks. At least I’m self-employed, not like you…someone’s hired help.”
“Well at least I get paid regularly,” said Mike.
He was clearly thinking back to life before JP Confidential.
They stood there in reception, bickering, when suddenly the lights came on.
“Good evening gentlemen. So good of you to join me.” It was the crime boss, Lau.
They stared at him in disbelief. Behind and to the left and right of him, all dressed in martial arts gear and wearing red headbands, was his personal army. In suits and ties they could have passed for a Chinese international choir, but it was to hear Goldman sing that they had come to visit his office.
“You must excuse our unorthodox method of entry, Mr Goldman, but I was so anxious to meet you I could scarcely contain my enthusiasm. My name is Lau, Master Lau.”
“Pleased to meet you” he said automatically, although it was clearly anything but.
“Whadda you want?” asked Mike, more abruptly. He could see that they were up against it and didn’t see the point in playing games.
“I do so hope we can conduct matters in a civilised manner MrGoldman. I do so detest violence.” He was toying with them. You didn’t take a martial arts class on social visits at two in the morning.
“I couldn’t agree more,” said Hymie, with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.
Resistance was futile, but at the same time, life without resistance was no life at all.
“Perhaps you would care to leave us, Mr Murphy. This matter is no concern of yours.”
“How do you know my name?” asked Mike.
“I know a good many things about you. As owner of The Rainbow Rooms I am also your employer.”
Mike’s granite-like features registered surprise in the exaggerated fashion of a silent movie star.
Hymie looked at him resignedly, but Mike, although many things, was neither a coward nor a deserter. “I’m not in any hurry to leave,” he said.
“What’s with the army then?” asked Hymie, nodding at Lau’s confederates.
“These are merely some of my friends and associates who expressed a desire to meet you. We really have been most impressed by the way you have been handling the Scarlatti case,” smarmed Lau, with grotesque politeness.
Incredulous but still flattered, Hymie smiled. “Is that why you’re here?” he asked.
“Well, if Mr Murphy is sure he won’t be running along then I will tell you. I have come to reclaim the statuette.”
“Of the pig?” queried Hymie.
“Naturally.”
“I don’t have it,” said Hymie, as though that would end matters.
“You disappoint me, Mr Goldman. Perhaps it has only been luck after all that has kept you alive for so long. But I am sure I do you a disservice and you were about to add that you know where it is and are prepared to get it for me. You see, it really is very important to me that the statuette is returned to its rightful owner.”
“And who might that be, Lau?”
“It is on a strictly need to know basis, Goldman, and you do not need to know. I assure you, however, that the knowledge would neither enlighten you, nor in any way enrich you, whereas concealing it will only cause you pain.”
There was an underlying arrogance to Lau that really got up Hymie’s nose. Mike felt the same way and had been looking for a soft spot to punch Lau’s face in when he reflected on the overwhelming odds against them and gave it up as a bad job. He settled for lifting JP Confidential’s last remaining asset; the green plastic phone, off the floor and throwing it at Lau’s head instead.
“Run for it!” shouted Mike.
Hymie, who was already on his backfoot, immediately started heading for the staircase.
Lau ducked instantly but one of his henchmen received the phone fully in the face. “Ah so!” he cried, or it may have been something similar.
Mike dealt a couple of hefty blows to an approaching assailant, then followed Hymie’s retreating path down the stairs.
It was only when they reached the foot of the stairs that they realized that the trap had been well and truly sprung, as a second troupe of martial arts enthusiasts filed in from the street, blocking their way.
“Resistance is futile, Goldman.” It was the gameshow fanatic himself.
Lau descended the staircase and struck Mike across the face with a gloved hand. The latter flinched but didn’t respond in kind.
“You have made your choice Murphy. Take him away.”
Mike was manhandled back upstairs into the office, where he was trussed and blindfolded.
Hymie followed under his own steam, the remaining hordes of henchmen parting before him like a latter day Sea of Galilee.
“What makes you think I have the pig, Lau?” asked Hymie.
“You were seen leaving a cottage in South Mimms on the day Chiu Mann was killed. I happen to know that he had gone there to collect the statuette from a petty thief who had stolen it,” explained Lau.
“But I wasn’t the only one there that day. There was a girl too, a girl called Steffanie Scarlatti. She shot Chiu Mann. She nearly killed me too. I still don’t know why she didn’t. If anyone has the pig, it’s her. It certainly isn’t me,” insisted Hymie.
“A convenient story, Goldman, and not without strands of truth, I realize, but only to lend credibility to the basic lie at its heart. Let me suggest an alternative scenario; the very fact that a bungling pet-investigator like yourself has been allowed to live so long by a professional killer like Ms Scarlatti suggests to me that you are either in thrall to her or in her employ, and as such you may be holding the statuette on her behalf.” He was relentless. It was like facing the Spanish Inquisition.
Hymie still didn’t know the whereabouts of the golden pig. Yes, he had removed it from the cottage in South Mimms, but he had kept it on his person until his final meeting with Lucy Scarlatti. When he’d woken up in hospital after her death it was missing and he’d assumed that Steffanie Scarlatti had reclaimed it.
“Well, if I find it, I’ll let you know. Now, can we go please?” asked Hymie, with as much bravado as he could muster.
The Master of Doom nearly smiled; a dangerous pursuit as it would have cracked the mask of his face.
“Do you know what this statuette is worth, Goldman? Do you really think I would stop at anything to get it?
“I dunno.” With no prospect of its recovery, Hymie had begun to lose interest.
“It is a priceless religious artifact, removed from the Temple of Wei Ling in the early Sixth Century. Ever since then it has been sought for, fought for and coveted by some of the most powerful and ruthless men in the world. Your life would be snuffed out like a candle if the true owner even suspected that it was in your possession.”
“Nice to know,” said Hymie.
“Unless you assist me in its recovery, I very much fear that just such a thing may happen,” said Lau with bogus concern.
“Look, I really don’t have the thing. What do I have to do to prove it? You must have searched my office, right?”
“As you can probably imagine, Mr Goldman, the task of searching your office was not an onerous one. You appear to have no need of office furniture. I commend your abstinence.”
“A mere misunderstanding with the bailiffs.”
“Of course. Now perhaps you would like to join me at my premises to discuss the matter further.”
“Well, I do have plans of my own…” interjected Hymie, desperately trying to avoid the inevitable.
“But I insist.”
“And Mr Murphy?�
� asked Hymie.
“Will also be joining us for the denouement.”
“How could I refuse?” asked Mike.
“Precisely,” concluded Lau, ever one to have the last word.
A Six O’Clock News reporter was interviewing Inspector Ray Decca of the Metropolitan Police Force. Not that it mattered to many people, although his wife Sheila was impressed for once.
“Is there any truth in the rumours of a gang war on the streets of Finchley, Inspector?”
“We are currently investigating three suspicious deaths in the area, although there is no evidence to support that particular conclusion. We live in troubled times I’m afraid and only the efforts of our professional and dedicated Police force prevent them from becoming more troubled.”
“Can you tell us Inspector, has anyone been arrested in connection with these murders?”
“Several people are helping us with our enquiries, although as yet no-one has been charged. Clearly I would ask anyone watching to come forward to help us catch the killers if they have any information which may have a bearing on the case.”
“So you are treating the murders as one related case?”
“We believe so, yes.”
“Thank you, Inspector. Anyone watching who thinks they may have information which will assist the Police should call 0845…”
Steffanie Scarlatti switched off the TV set and lit up a Havana cigar.
Police…what did they know? What did anyone know? She was invincible.
Here she was, sitting in her luxury West End apartment with a golden statuette of a pig resting in pride of place on the mantelpiece, having gunned down two people in as many weeks, and no-one could touch her. She pulled out her hand gun from the holster between her thighs and polished the barrel. It was a beauty, like herself, although she wasn’t about to spoil her curves by wearing it in a shoulder holster. Men were so crass.
For months she had masqueraded as that gauche seventeen year old school leaver Janis Turner, all to get revenge on her sister Lucretia, and no-one had suspected a thing. Yes, she could simply have shot her or stolen the statuette, but it would have been so obvious. As it was, there was nothing to connect her with the pitiful Ms Turner. She had only to leave her clothes on the beach or in the wretched girl’s digs with a suicide note to be free of her alter-ego forever. Everything had gone to plan; Lucretia was dead now, and she had the statuette, although frankly it bored her. She only valued what she didn’t have; her dead father’s love, her next lover, the next kill, the next million dollars.
How tiresome that Triad was becoming. They had the local drugs racket all sewn up and that posturing old fool, Lau was certainly heading for a fall. How sweet and fitting it would be for her to bring about his demise. He knew too much about her already and that would never do.
Part Seventeen
Master Lau was worried, very worried. He may have scaled the heights of the Triad, but no-one was indispensable and he was getting old. Not too old, of course, but definitely more mature. He had become a little unfocused of late. Yes, he still got a mild thrill from inflicting death and destruction on the nameless masses, but to be honest, he’d rather be watching “The Price Is All Wrong”, “Which Box Holds The Dosh? or any of the other high quality quiz shows on daytime TV.
As for that fiend in figure-hugging jeans, Steffanie Scarlatti, he was definitely of the view that she had outstayed her welcome. Unlike Goldman and Murphy, you couldn’t just send her on her way with a salutary beating, safe in the knowledge that she would forever after keep her head below the parapet, she needed exterminating. That irked him. It wasn’t that he objected to killing anyone per se, he just hated the increased police surveillance and reduced business takings that went with it.
Lau had always prided himself on the scrupulousness of his record keeping. Some people argued that keeping records was a dangerous self-indulgence, but you had to have a hobby. Besides, he still planned to write his autobiography at the end of his career and achieve a kind of posthumous notoriety. There was no index-linked pension and retirement home in the Cotswolds to look forward to in his organization, just the flash of silver and the taste of blood.
Business always came first with Lau. Drug Baron Chang had insisted that the price for the forthcoming year’s opium contract was the golden pig and it had been non-negotiable. Since it now appeared that Ms Scarlatti was in possession of said porker, she must be eliminated and the pig recovered. It was that simple. For some strange reason she wanted Goldman dead, so the easiest route to her was through him. The beauty of silencing Goldman was that it also got that old bat Timmins off his back. It was hard to imagine what it was about the inconsequential detective that provoked such hostility, but it didn’t actually matter.
It was easy enough to find Scarlatti; anyone whose calling card was a 45 calibre shell wasn’t exactly the shy retiring type. He knew where to find her, but he wanted her to come to him. He had left a trail for her to follow which lead to Beachy Head and another gangland killing; of Goldman and Murphy. His only concern was the reliability of his own team. Their work of late left much to be desired, resulting in an increased burden on the local Casualty department rather than the local crematorium. If only he had a few assassins like Scarlatti instead of a bunch of amateurs, the Triad would once more command the fear that was its due.
Dawn broke over Beachy Head. On the shoreline below the cliffs, waves crashed with a wild thunderous roar, swirling and spraying their white foam skywards. Three white vans came to a halt on the cliff top and their passengers disembarked. This was to be no car boot sale.
Master Lau stood quite still, gazing out to sea, as though in a trance, for a long while, then turned back to give his instructions.
Two of the assassins unloaded their human cargo from the back of the second van; a battered and dishevelled looking Goldman and a heavily sedated Murphy.
All of Lau’s men were meticulously dressed in black with matching ornamental swords like some bizarre nocturnal away strip.
Hymie was beginning to wish he’d become an electrician. Had he stuck to his apprenticeship, he would probably be rich and contented by now, with a fat wife and two-point-two children, instead of staring down the barrel of a point-four-five handgun. Still, who needed it? This was real, more’s the pity!
The ground cover on top of the cliff wasn’t best suited to hiding spectators, even those as lithe and slender as La Scarlatti. She had camouflaged herself and taken refuge behind one of those wind-blasted trees that seem to lean at an angle of forty-five degrees to the horizon for years with no ill effect; other than falling into the sea when the soil erosion catches up with it.
Goldman’s car, the ill-fated Zebaguchi 650, lay concealed under two tonnes of camouflage. It had proved nigh on impossible to make the blasted thing blend in with the landscape so she had gone for the iron-age burial-mound look. It was nothing more than a piece of junk anyway.
‘Why should Lau have all the fun?’ she thought, as she shouldered her newly acquired anti-tank gun, flicked up the sights at the end of the barrel and took a final look in her rear view mirror. It was party time again! She lined up the third of the white vans in her sights and teased the trigger with her finger tip.
Lau had a distinct and persistent feeling of unease. He hadn’t left a soufflé in the oven. Neither had he lived to be sixty three without having a talent for survival. He’d sent out his scouts before arriving on the cliff top, but as yet had received no reported sightings of Ms Scarlatti, nor of anything suspicious. Yet he trusted his instincts…she would be there.
The Golden Pig Page 10