by John Gubert
He dropped the playful tone, “Were you sent by your father or are you working on your own?”
“We’re freelance. We need to change documents. The police are pretty sore with us. I don’t think they know I’m involved. They most likely don’t know about Charles but they are looking for the other two. There’s a full Interpol alert for them.”
“What have you brought with you?”
“Their old documents. They are called De Roche,” she answered.
“Let me see.” He looked at the documents. He nodded.
“These are good. They are fake ones of course. This is very like the real thing. Only an expert forger like me would recognise the difference. I suppose you don’t want them back. That will reduce the price.”
“Keep them if that’s the case,” I said. The De Roche ones would not be of any use to us any more. I was indifferent if the man had them. He needed to use the photo in any case. He would then recycle them. He had no interest in talking to the police. And by now, I was certain that the Di Maglios would know who the famous De Roches were. Even if they had not made the connection when they met me, by now they would have put two and two together.
Jacqui was, though, giving him instructions. “You can use the two old De Roche passports on mules. They must be ones that will be caught. So only alter the photo and ages on the documents. Then you can have them for nothing. But don’t forget I know the price for these things. I want you to play straight. And I want no calls about our location or new identity. The hunk is lethal if crossed and he delivers.”
The man looked over at me. I smiled, “That’s right. I do as she says. And even if you only told her father, I would have to assume that you bleated to others. And my speciality is slow and painful, but always fatal.”
He knew this was only bravado but he sensed danger. He knew I was not capable of gratuitous violence. He also sensed that I was not adverse to killing if that was needed. I hoped he would take heed although I now thought that her father would not seek to harm us again after what had happened.
“I don’t care how I have to use them. The important thing is to use them. A mule does not know who they are working for. The police will think the passports have been stolen and therefore the owners could have been murdered. Police don’t look for dead people. Good thinking, Miss Jacqui. They will be with the authorities within the week.”
He laughed quite evilly and added, “Have you a passport? I need to copy it. I suppose you will want to keep hold of yours.”
She handed hers over. “Yes I do. And don’t forget you only use the two older De Roche passports for the mules. Charles’ must be used in the normal way so that it is recycled but untraceable. That’s important.”
He nodded his agreement. “What name would you prefer?” he asked us.
“Something common,” I suggested. “How about White?”
“Absolutely not,” said Jacqui. “Far too boring.”
She reflected for a moment. “How about making us all the Pasquales after your first real escapade with me?” I shook my head.
“How about Thackeray. That’s my mother’s name” I suggested.
Jacqui laughed. “He’s one of my favourite authors. I always fancy myself as a bit of a latter day Becky from Vanity Fair.”
I shrugged my shoulders. He smiled, “Always the artist comes out in you Miss Jacqui.”
“Better have a name without a connection to the famous De Roches who embezzled a few hundred million,” said the man.
I was not surprised that he knew. Jacqui simply ignored the comment and nodded, “Well how about using my mother’s family name. That was Rossi.”
We all agreed and Jacqui added happily, “At least she will have been some help to me. I can’t say she has paid too much attention over the last decade or so.”
“Poor bitch,” said the man. “She couldn’t cope. It was just that her fear was greater than her maternal instinct. And why should it not be so? After all you’re a tough enough cookie to fend for yourself. Once she knew that she quit.”
For the first time, Jacqui looked at him coldly. “That’s not your business. When can we have the papers by?”
“Three o’ clock,” he said. “Back here.”
“No” said Jacqui. “You see us on our turf. This place is dangerous and we are unarmed.”
“OK,” he replied, “The bar of the Sir Francis Drake on Union Square.”
I asked if he could arrange credit cards. He nodded. “I have some in stock. I can get your names embossed and have them for you this afternoon. I’ll get one from a different bank for each of you two, and from a third bank for the older couple. I’ll put in a large limit, as it’s you. Miss Jacqui knows the penalty for non-payment. Their banking business is clean and above board.” He laughed, “It’s just the collection side is unusual if you have been issued one of our instant cards and don’t pay back.”
“Fine,” she said, “that’s all we need. And give me a fifty thousand dollar limit. I have to buy clothes. Do keep to schedule. And do call a gun supplier with the licence details, as we need a bit of hardware. I’ll use the usual one for this region. See you at three.”
And with that we headed out again. “Who on earth is he and why does he live in this hole?” I asked.
“His name is Benny. He lives here because he likes it. He is admired and respected. Have no illusions he can handle himself. He’s no more camp than I am. He gets all the girls he wants here. He auditions them for the bars and like.”
Seeing I looked shocked, she said, “It’s a better life than the streets. And for the majority of the people around here, that’s the only other option.”
We walked up the road, looking for a taxi. The chances of finding one were poor. We would need to get into a better area than this before they dared to stop.
We passed a group of youths lounging about by a derelict shop. They saw Jacqui and called out “how much?”
I clenched my fists, but she held me firmly by the arm. I knew it would be stupid to pick a fight. We walked on.
“I said how much you fucking whore?” said the voice. “You, the girl. Not the other ponce.”
We realised they were following us. “The hope is that they go away,” said Jacqui. “Otherwise hit the ones with knives first. They are usually scared if they see their leader’s hurt.”
“Are you deaf?” called the voice. “What’s the menu. Do you blow? Do you do it straight? Or do you have specials? Answer bitch.”
This time, when we did not answer they came closer. “Turn around,” said Jacqui “Or they’ll jump us. Now play tough.”
I looked at them. They hesitated.
“Scram. If you think we came here on foot and unarmed, you should think again.”
They were not impressed. One or two were a bit less certain but the other five or six were unconvinced by my bravado.
The voice walked in front. He put one hand towards Jacqui. I had forgotten what she had once told me about being trained in martial arts. She was good.
A foot soared upwards and outwards. It caught the mouth in the groin and he bent double in pain. Then she stepped backwards and launched her whole weight at him. Her feet made contact on his chest as he started to straighten up. He crashed to the ground, hitting the curb with his head. She held her balance, stepping back towards me.
Another youth took out a knife from his belt. I allowed him to lunge at me. I side-stepped gently. As he stumbled past me, I slammed the back of his neck with my hand. I grabbed his jacket and pulled him back. As he faced me, I did a karate chop to his throat. He started choking and dropped the knife. I picked it up, grabbed hold of the voice. He was now stumbling to his feet and I said, “He buys it if you make one false move.”
I knew they believed me but thought it better to make sure. I slashed the voice twice across the face. He screamed. Blood flowed out of the cuts. He was sobbing in agony. I moved the knife to his throat.
The gang backed off. The little guy with th
e knife was stirring. I threw away the voice. He collapsed in a heap.
“I think we move,” said Jacqui. “It was mad not to think of transport.”
There was a car parked by the curb. I grabbed hold of the little guy who had had the knife. “Whose car is that?”
No answers came from the others.
I slashed the little guy across the cheek. He bled. “I said whose car is that?”
One of the gang said “mine.” He was an ugly looking character with buckteeth.
“Give me the keys or he buys it.”
They hesitated and I slashed the knife across his stomach, cutting his clothes. The knife most likely grazed him for there was a bit of blood. More importantly he screamed. Buckteeth did not move. The others, though, stepped back. I shoved my captive against buckteeth and he stumbled. I grabbed hold of him.
“The keys,” I said and helped the knife to his throat. He passed them to me and I tossed them to Jacqui, “Start it up darling, we’re going for a ride.”
She got in and started the car. She left the passenger side opened and I took buckteeth around to the door. I pushed him into the road and, as he fell over, got into the car. Jacqui drove off.
“Why is it that we always seem to attract trouble?” I asked.
“I have no idea. I managed to keep out of trouble for twenty-two years of my life. Since I met you, you have got me into enough scrapes to last a lifetime,” Jacqui replied.
“It must be my magnetic personality,” I suggested. “If it is switch off the current occasionally,” she replied.
We drove the car down some side streets. Once we had got it well away from the main road, we wiped it down and left it so that it obstructed an exit. The police would soon pick it up but they would get no joy from the owner. Punks like that lived by the principle that they did not talk to the police.
We, meantime, had a couple of hours to kill before we met Benny in Union Square. I was hardly surprised when Jacqui decided to look at a couple of the boutiques. She upgraded, or so she called it, the casual part of her wardrobe. And I found myself the owner of a few more shirts and designer T-shirts.
Perhaps her shopaholic attitude was infectious. I now found that I quite liked her approach. It made clothes shopping appear like food shopping. That was necessary and quite fun if you came away with tasty things you had not planned.
At three on the dot, Benny appeared with the papers. Jacqui did not check them but took the parcel. I handed over, as we had agreed, the twenty thousand dollars.
“Good hunting,” said Benny. “Next time, though, kill punks like the ones who jumped you. I had to get rid of two of them. Otherwise, if they had found out whom they had threatened, they would have gone round boasting that they had taken on a Di Maglio. We need everybody to know that they can’t win if they do that. And a few scratches and bumps is not good enough.”
He looked at me sternly and added, “That’s precious goods you’re looking after. Stop acting as if she’s just another broad.” With that, he left.
Jacqui went to the ladies and checked the paperwork. She handed me my new passport and a gun licence. We turned out of Union Square and down a side road. We came to a gun shop. It was no back street gun shop, masquerading as something else. This was a real legitimate operation.
“Can we see Mr Renaldo?” asked Jacqui. And I knew that there was a dark side to this shop. This was another part of the Mafia supply chain.
Renaldo came out of the back of the shop and asked us through to what he called the staff quarters. “Benny told me you would call,” he said gruffly. “What do you need?”
“We don’t want traceable guns. We have the licences Benny made. We need weapons to match and ammunition.”
Renaldo came back soon with three guns. The first, a small handbag pistol, looked like the one Jacqui carried before in France. She nodded. The second was a standard revolver, compact but powerful. It also came with a silencer. I assumed that could be useful. Again, Jacqui nodded. The third was a type I had never seen before. It was small and stubby.
Renaldo explained, “It’s a man’s gun. Takes standard bullets. The good thing is that it’s light and can be easily concealed about the person. At least it needs a jacket. You can’t conceal anything beneath the sort of light silky stuff you normally wear, Miss Di Maglio.”
I turned to him, “Have you got some holsters. A leg holster would be best for the little gun. I’m used to wearing that.”
He turned back into the shop. He came back with a simple holster that was attached to the leg by two straps. I nodded. He said, “The main gun should go into your trouser band. Police recognise shoulder holsters. But you need a special belt. This one looks normal, but you shove the gun into this part. It’s elasticised. Very strong.”
I nodded again. “And what can you do about ammunition?”
Once again he turned into the shop. This time he returned with a box of ammunition. “If you need more, you head for the local supplier,” he advised Jacqui. “We have word from your father to see that you are armed. And he is supposed to be also.”
Jacqui started at the mention of her father. I was surprised but, on reflection, not astonished by this unexpected benevolence. It was a welcome sign from Di Maglio that he would assist if needed. And I was not keen to refuse help. I knew we might need it.
Renaldo took us to a gun range at the rear of the shop and we loosed off a couple of shots each to make sure the guns were as easy to use as they looked. They were. These were good. I immediately felt safer than I had.
We paid Renaldo. I noted that Di Maglio did not extend his support to that any more. And we left, turning back up the street to the Square again.
“Let’s take the cable car to Fisherman’s Wharf. We can walk around there until we meet your parents,” said Jacqui. So we headed off to the Wharf. I wondered if they would be there on time. I knew my mother would be shopping. I knew my father would be working on the Asian markets. And that meant that they could both easily forget about the time.
As it was, I was mistaken. They were sitting in the bar as planned, chatting away happily, oblivious of the outside world. I have to admit that I was surprised for they had only just got out of the tightest spot of the whole trip. They were more resilient than I expected.
We went to a restaurant by the harbour and acted like any other family. It was strange but I had never done this before with my parents and a girlfriend. They and Jacqui got on like a house on fire.
At the end of the sumptuous meal, my father said, “Let’s get back to the hotel and agree what we are going to do about the next few weeks.”
We wandered up to the cable car and returned the same way that we arrived. We went to my parent’s room.
My father said, “OK what we need to do now is get to the health farm. It’s about two hours drive from San Francisco. I suggest that we head out there after a lazy breakfast. Charles, you need to get us a car.”
I nodded. He continued, “It’s a great place. The complex consists of a series of beach houses. We have one with a large open plan lounge downstairs and two bedrooms upstairs. One has a King size bed and the other two doubles. We’ll have the King size, as you two are not married.”
He grinned at me. “I assume you don’t mind sharing a room if you don’t have to share a bed.”
It was Jacqui who replied, “Not at all, we can always sleep on the floor between them.”
He laughed and said, “Don’t worry. I was only joking. You two can have the King sized one.”
He continued, but this time in a serious vein, “We’ll have our exercises in the morning and then we have our days for ourselves. I will be keeping a close eye on the Asian markets. I hope we can hang around for two months. The markets look fairly hairy but I don’t think they are going to crash just yet. We have ordered good monitoring equipment and also communication lines. If we need to we can move things forward from here. I know we will not be able to do so from France. Things are going to happen to
o early for us to return first.”
He turned to me, “I may need you to go to Europe, to Zurich or Geneva, and, once we start, I may ask you to be my ears in Hong Kong. You’ve met a lot of the people over there in the past and that could be helpful.”
“Oh, that’s great,” said Jacqui. “I would love to go to Hong Kong. I don’t know the Far East at all.”
“It could be quite boring. Charles will need to put his work first and Hong Kong is not the best place for a girl to wander about on her own. It’s not that it’s dangerous. It’s more that it is fairly boring when you are alone,” said my father.
“I’ll be alright. Anyway, I can look after Charles.”
My mother looked carefully at her and they exchanged a conspiratorial look. I swear they had been talking about us when they had been alone.
My father turned to us. “Are you doing anything tonight? We’ll have a drink in the bar.”
“We might try a club or two,” I said. “We feel like a bit of dancing.”
“Well, don’t stay out too late. You’re the one who will be driving,” warned my mother. I noticed once again that she and Jacqui exchanged a private smile.
“We’ll be all right,” I said. Then I remembered the papers; “Here are your documents. I almost forgot. You are now the Rossis. Blame Jacqui and not me. But don’t forget that we booked in this hotel as Biggs. Jacqui thinks that’s a pretty crummy false identity. But there must be some real Biggs. We are going to have to pay cash, as we have only got credit cards in our new name.”
We headed out of the hotel and took a car to club land. We went downstairs into a crowded night-club and got a table. As they served the drinks, the DJ started to play a slow number.
We got up and danced slowly together, holding each other tight. I loved the way that her body curved into mine. I felt the sensation of the fabric of her clothes with my hands. I pressed her body closer to mine as I moved my hands behind her back. The warmth of her slipped through her clothes onto mine and into my body.
She pulled me closer to her and gyrated gently against me. As I reacted to her warmth and invitation, she rushed her lips against mine and pressed even closer as if to enjoy the surge of excitement that she was sending through my body.