Washed Up

by Berry, Tony

  ‘My God, Bromo, what’s got into you? It sounds like you’re trying out for the Comedy Festival. That’s the best laugh I’ve had for ages. Or it would be if it wasn’t so bloody serious. You don’t just march into Con Theopoulos and start making demands like that. I told you, there’s money involved and that makes him very dangerous indeed. And it’s my money you’re playing with. Plus my reputation.’

  ‘All the more reason we start standing up to him.’

  Liz shook her head from side to side, her eyes downcast. She seemed drained of the will to argue. Bromo persisted.

  ‘We can at least give it a try. We’ve got nothing to lose.’

  ‘Correction, you’ve got nothing to lose, Bromo. I’ve got plenty.’

  He put an arm gently around her shoulder. He felt her relax into him, the slightest of movements, the smallest of shifts. Tremors stirred within him. He drew her gently forward, expecting her resistance. Her upper body bent towards him, her head coming to rest on his chest. He wrapped his other arm round her and lowered his head into her mass of russet curls. No resistance, only closeness and warmth. Vibrations flowing. An interlude to treasure.

  ‘Liz, Liz,’ he murmured. ‘Let me at least give it a go.’

  He felt her draw in breath, long and slow. And hold it. Then let it out, just as slowly from deep within.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘See what you can do.’

  They drew apart, exchanging smiles that said more than words, an understanding of the moment that had passed. Liz moved towards the door. She shrugged her coat up around her shoulders.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ she said. ‘But be careful. He’s a dangerous man.’

  The door closed behind her. Bromo heard the sound of her shoes clacking on the bare wooden tread of the stairs fading away. He took another look outside. The skies had cleared. More window-shoppers were drifting by. The cyclist he’d seen sheltering in the doorway was pedalling away. Situation normal. Time to gather up the papers on his desk and make that phone call.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Carl West pushed open the door of the real estate agency, guided his bike through and propped it against a side wall beneath three large posters each proclaiming “Forthcoming Auction”. The dates on all three had passed without a “Sold” sticker being pasted on. The receptionist rose from behind the counter in her routine protest, gesturing towards the bike.

  ‘You can’t—’

  West did what he always did – ignored her and cut her off, pointing at the posters.

  ‘Business not good, eh? Con must be slipping.’

  He waved his hand at the bike.

  ‘Keep an eye on the treadly, eh?’

  He began unstrapping his bike helmet as he strode down the corridor towards Theopoulos’s office. He knocked on the door and pushed it open, all in one forward movement. The estate agent was tapping at a calculator and writing figures on to a notepad. West slumped into a chair, legs extended, head back.

  ‘Working out your fortune?’

  Theopoulos ignored him and kept writing.

  ‘Making millions?’

  Theopoulos closed the calculator.

  ‘Losing them,’ he growled. ‘That fire at Number 85. And Rosen’s not happy. Claiming loss of income. Fucking cop.’

  West sat up.

  ‘Hey, that’s your problem. Not mine. If that’s why you called, count me out. Rosen and I go back a long way.’

  Theopoulos picked up his komboloi and began fingering the stones. West put his bike helmet on the desk, receiving a glare of disapproval in return. Theopoulos was in one of his snarly moods.

  ‘What for you dressed like that?’

  ‘Doing what I do best. Keeping an eye on people and merging with the landscape. Very mobile, too.’

  Theopoulos sniffed.

  ‘Huh, you stand out like Olympic flame. Everyone notice.’

  ‘No, mate. You’ve got it wrong. Cyclists everywhere these days. We’ve even got bike lanes. Part of the scenery. No one sees us, especially the bloody car drivers. Anyway, I got your message. Came as quick as I could. What’s the trouble if it’s not Rosen?’

  ‘Perkins!’

  ‘Ah …’

  It was like a punctuation mark. A full stop. Followed by a long pause. Theopoulos expected more, and waited. West breathed deeply. He linked the fingers of both hands together, reversed them and pushed his arms forward, stretching, palms facing Theopoulos. There was a slight cracking of joints up around his neck. He rolled his shoulders as he lowered his hands to his lap and unlinked them.

  ‘Funny you should mention that,’ he said. ‘I’ve spent the last half-hour cooling my heels in a doorway opposite Perkins’ office. Followed the Shapcott woman there. Must have been urgent. She waited around for Perkins to turn up.’

  ‘And?’

  West stared back, blankly. What more could he offer? He was just a tracker, an observer, not a hidden microphone. How was he expected to know what went on when Liz and Bromo were closeted in Perkins’ office?

  ‘There is no ‘and’,’ he said. ‘All I know is she came out after half an hour and went home. Alone. Didn’t look too happy.’

  ‘That’s about when Perkins phoned,’ said Theopoulos

  ‘He called you?

  West ran his hand through his hair, ruffling its untidy bunching at the back of his neck where it had been disturbed by his bike helmet. He was tuning into the Greek’s wavelength, getting the message. Theopoulos was not merely sullen, glowering across the desk; he was seething. Wet patches of sweat were staining the armpits of his shirt. This was a simmering cauldron; turn up the heat and the lid would blow. West took a chance.

  ‘So, why the call? I guess he wasn’t looking to buy or rent.’

  Theopoulos lurched forward in his chair, hands thumping the desk, the komboloi clattering away to one side.

  ‘He threatened me,’ he roared. ‘He fucking threatened me. And if you were on the ball, none of this would have happened.’

  West stared in disbelief. He reckoned he knew a bit about rough justice, often claiming it was the reason for his periods banged up behind bars, rather than the crimes he’d committed. Theopoulos, however, was taking it to a new level, shooting the messenger and unable to accept more upright members of the community might object to his shady deals. They might even work to put an end to his stand-over tactics, fraud, coercion and numerous other illegal activities.

  West protested, trying to summon up the deeper, thicker voice he once used in bad guy roles when directors demanded he project some menace across the footlights and into the stalls.

  ‘Stop right there, Con. I’m not standing for that.’

  He went down an octave.

  ‘Remember, I’m just the gofer. You’re the boss. Who’s giving the orders, making the money? Not this little bunny. If Perkins is on to you, that’s not my fault.’

  West smirked; not a bad performance, he reckoned. Theopoulos eased back from the desk, upright in his chair, the komboloi dangling again from his right hand. West judged the storm had passed but the dark clouds remained, brooding and ill-tempered.

  ‘Perkins said he was acting for the Shapcott woman,’ Theopoulos said. ‘She wants her money back. Wants to get out. Says they’ve got proof about the houses. About the girls. I told him go fuck himself – in Greek.’

  He punctuated each phrase with a slap of his hand on the desk.

  ‘So,’ said West. ‘Let her go. Give her the money. You can afford it. Everything’s set up. Concentrate on Rosen. Keep him sweet and you’ll have the cops on side.’

  To Carl West it was all a question of priorities. When crunch time came, it was better to have the police for you rather than against you. Knowing into which palm to slip a bunch of neatly folded green stuff had saved him from more trouble than he cared to recall. Experience had shown there was always a copper ready to supplement his income in return for delving into the data bank, heavying his colleagues or losing files. Anyone who thought otherwise had
sawdust for brains and didn’t read the daily press.

  ‘We need Shapcott,’ Theopoulos growled. ‘She’s the link to the council. Her name on the plans gets things done. It pulls strings, makes the wheels turn. No questions asked.’

  ‘Surely there are others.’

  ‘Not as good. Not with the contacts. And she put in her money.’

  West heard the door behind him open. The receptionist squeezed around his chair, her large backside straining the smooth cloth of a size 14 black linen skirt stretched over size 16 buttocks. She put a yellow Post-It note on the desk in front of Theopoulos.

  ‘Another call,’ she said. ‘It sounded like the same voice. I tried to keep them talking, but they rang off. This time I wrote it all down.’

  Theopoulos grunted. The receptionist gave a frosty sideways glance at West. She waited, as if expecting instructions – even an acknowledgment of her presence. She got neither. Theopoulos flicked a finger upwards and away. West felt the squeeze of the buttocks against his chair as they made their outward journey and heard the door close behind them.

  ‘More trouble?’ he ventured.

  ‘Someone’s on to us and it’s not just Perkins. Text messages, phone calls.’

  He tapped the Post-It note.

  ‘This is the third. Always the same.’

  He pushed the note towards West.

  ‘Fire at Number 85 was justice,’ he read. ‘More to come. Melissa lives.’

  ‘Hmm. Wishful thinking. Ms O’Grady is long gone. My friend Maurice will vouch for that.’

  He gave a sinister chuckle and slid the note back to Theopoulos.

  ‘Take no notice, Con. Someone’s playing silly buggers.’

  ‘And that someone is young, female and operating from this number.’

  He unclipped his mobile from his belt, opened it and handed it to West.

  ‘When the text message came in, I phoned them back. They hadn’t thought of that. A female answered, sounded young, very English. And frightened. She hung up.’

  ‘Adriana,’ said West.

  Theopoulos threw him a questioning look, the upward rise of his brows briefly replacing his thunderous frown. West smiled and did that exercising thing again, with his entwined fingers and stretched arms.

  ‘Adriana,’ he repeated as he unknotted his fingers.

  He reminded Theopoulos of Adriana and Lottie’s visit to Bromo, of their close ties to Melissa and Luke, and his belief they’d been compiling a dossier on him. Theopoulos levered himself out of his chair. He shuffled slowly six paces one way, six paces the other – aerobic exercise for a fat-rich slob, adding fresh damp to the underarm sweat patches. He leaned against the bookshelf running along the back wall.

  ‘Where are these girls now?’

  ‘A share house. North Richmond, down near Punt Road. Word is they’re moving out. Very soon. Apparently they don’t like the attention some of my friends have been giving them.’ He chuckled – a croaky, unpleasant sound that lacked any joy.

  ‘It seems Perkins has arranged somewhere else. A refuge or something.’

  Theopoulos bent forward, no longer using the shelf as a prop. His bulk was intimidating.

  ‘Looks like you’ve got some work to do, Carl.’ He gave a dismissive wave of his arm, a slight sneer distorting one corner of his mouth.

  ‘Go home,’ he growled. ‘Change your clothes. You look stupid. Men in coloured tights is for circus. This is not a circus.’

  An image of clowns flashed through West’s head. He gave a brief thought to making a comment about them. Which one’s the clown? A glance at Theopoulos’s face changed his mind. The storm still raged. He picked his helmet up from the desk and strapped it on. He turned to the door and bent to adjust the strap on his riding shoes.

  ‘I think I’ll drag out my mafia hitman gear,’ he mumbled towards the floor. ‘Is that the look you want?’

  He never got an answer. His helmet took the full force of the door’s solid wood lower panel, as it was thrust open, tumbling him backwards. Vern Rosen strode into the room, plunging forward and thumping his hands down on the desk, his body thrust menacingly towards Theopoulos. West sprawled on the floor, knees bent into his chest, fingers fumbling with his helmet’s neck strap.

  ‘Fuckwit,’ groaned West, glaring at the detective.

  Rosen flicked a brief look in his direction.

  ‘I’ll deal with you later,’ he threatened.

  He turned back to Theopoulos, prodding a stubby cracked-nail forefinger into the Greek’s chest.

  ‘As for you, you mongrel, you’re in deep, deep shit! That means, the way things are, I could be in there with you. And … I … don’t … like … that!’

  He reinforced the last five words with harder jabs of his finger – physical punctuation marks. Theopoulos leaned back in his chair, unable to avoid them. His face, always an unhealthy shade of pale, was pastier than ever. Rivulets of sweat trickled down his cheeks.

  West unscrambled himself and stood up, pushing his shoulders back. He looked at Rosen and gestured towards Theopoulos.

  ‘Take it easy, mate,’ he said. ‘Any more of that and he’ll be pissing himself.’

  ‘And who cares?’

  West shrugged.

  ‘Yeah, well.’

  He let the words hang. Rosen had a point. This was no love-in. Any unity that existed between them flourished from a shallow planting of self-interest and greed. Mateship and camaraderie were parked outside the door. However, like links in a chain they still depended on each other. He leaned back against the wall, arms folded, deciding to give it another try:

  ‘We’re all in this together, Vern. One goes, we all go.’

  Rosen glared at him and said nothing. Suddenly, he extended his arm in a grab for the tie knotted loosely at Theopoulos’s neck, its broad blue and white stripes proclaiming his national allegiance. He tugged it towards him. Theopoulos spluttered and jerked forward, hands going up to his throat, trying to ease the pressure.

  ‘Fix it,’ Rosen yelled at him. ‘People are asking questions. They’re digging into files. They’re adding two and two and sometimes making four. And Number 85 looks like being out of business for at least three months. Which means I need another little money-maker.’

  He tugged on the tie. ‘Now.’

  He pulled hard again: ‘Now.’

  The bones of his knuckles were near to bursting through their thin cover of skin as he gave a final emphatic tug: ‘Now!’

  The triple imperative left Theopoulos gasping. Rosen let go. Theopoulos moved his hands sideways away from his neck, elbows still bent, palms open towards Rosen in a gesture of surrender.

  ‘Okay, Vern. You are right. We talk. We do it my way.’

  He leaned to his right, reaching down towards the bottom drawer of his desk. Rosen hurled himself forward across the desk, scattering files and papers, his left arm reaching out for Theopoulos’s, his right thrusting under the flap of his jacket, into his waistband. In one fluent, non-stop movement, he extracted his service revolver and chopped down on the Greek’s head. Theopoulos made a sound somewhere between a scream and a groan as the blow sent him sprawling out of his chair. West took two steps towards him before Rosen pushed him back against the wall.

  ‘You stay there!’ the cop snarled as he scrambled past him.

  West froze; didn’t argue. Rosen pushed his gun back in its holster and gripped Theopoulos under the armpits. He hauled him upright and steadied him against the edge of the desk with one hand on his chest. He righted the chair with the other.

  ‘Sit!’ he barked.

  Theopoulos sat, slumped and dishevelled. He put one hand tentatively to the back of his head. He felt around among the lank strands of hair before bringing his hand back down, inspecting the palm.

  ‘No blood,’ Rosen assured him. ‘Just a bump. You’ll survive.’

  ‘No thanks to you,’ said West.

  ‘You keep out of it.’

  ‘Bloody maniac,’ said Theopoulos. ‘
Why you go mad like that before we talk?’

  Rosen shrugged, slightly sheepish, almost chastened.

  ‘I thought you had a gun down there.’

  An explanation, but no apology.

  ‘I was getting my flask,’ protested Theopoulos, the hurt spurring anger. ‘We talk. I give you coffee.’

  ‘That’s more than I ever get,’ grumbled West.

  Two heads swivelled in his direction, glaring, withering, flashing an obvious but silent message to shut up. Rosen and Theopoulos had more to concern them than their gofer’s coffee problems. West subsided against the wall as the two men sunk slowly into their chairs, an unspoken truce settling between them. Rosen watched warily as Theopoulos leaned over and brought his Thermos up from his desk drawer and poured two cups of coffee, pushing one across the desk towards him.

  ‘Yiamos,’ said Theopoulos, raising his cup towards Rosen.

  ‘Cheers,’ replied Rosen.

  West stayed silent. He knew the role he had to play – relegated to a bit-part while the lead actors wove the plot and eventually fed him his lines. Rosen rested his forearms on the desk, leaning in towards Theopoulos.

  ‘So, Con, we understand each other? No more fuck-ups. You find me another place while Number 85 is being repaired and bovver boy here takes care of Mr Bloody Perkins and anyone else who stands in our way. Get it?’

  Theopoulos picked his komboloi up from alongside his laptop and began fingering the beads.

  ‘No worries,’ murmured Theopoulos.

  He shook his head up and down in a short series of nods, shuddering more than shaking, expressing fear as much as agreement. Rosen’s lips flattened into a smirk. It was a reaction he’d enjoyed so many times before as he nailed some young hood up against an alley wall and watched the bravado drain away while he pummelled his fist into the youth’s kidneys. The fear factor instilled by authority he knew few would dare question.

  Rosen eased himself slowly out of his chair and swaggered the few steps needed to close the gap between him and Carl West. His paunch butted up against West’s sunken waistline. Their eyes were level. Rosen could see a trickle of sweat sliding down West’s cheek. He could smell the man’s sour odour – stale and unhealthy. A good sign. He inched closer, edging West hard against the wall.