Crossing the Line

by Solomon Carter

  Dan tried the door. It was locked, so he rapped it twice loud and hard with his knuckles. The door opened seconds later. A muscular black man with a shiny black dome head let them in, his eyes cold and serious, evaluating both Jess and Dan, and evidently not finding too much to worry about. The man who’d taken their guns.

  From the desk in the corner of the room, still dark with mood lighting, came the voice of Damon Chalker.

  “You. You made my boys look bad.”

  “Sacrificial lambs. That’s all we were to you. That man was going to kill me. And there’s every chance he will kill Eva too. Right now, who knows what Marka is doing to her to get back at me. You’re a cold bastard, Chalker.”

  The big man stepped into Dan’s view and waited.

  “You might have lived. Our plan isn’t Marka’s plan, you get me? You should have played along.”

  “Really? Damn. My survival instincts got in the way of that, see. I should really do something about my ridiculous urge to live. You would have done the same in my shoes. Anyone would.”

  “I don’t ever want to step in your shoes. I know your story. I got it from Victor Marka himself. The man likes you, doesn’t he? Now you tell me something.” Damon stood up from the desk in the gloom and walked past the now silent gaming table to join chrome dome, but stayed a few feet back from the potential fray.

  “What do you want to know, Chalker?”

  “First off, why a man who lets his girl carry the can for his own fuck ups, has the bottle to come back here and invade my space to tell me what’s what? And second of all, what do you think I am going to do about it?”

  Jess turned to Dan, and he looked back with a little shrug of his shoulders.

  “I’ll tell you in a minute.” Dan looked back at the desk and the gaming table, but it had just the same high rolling losers clustered around it, pretending they were big when really they were handing every penny directly into Damon Chalker’s hands. Gamblers. They were just junkies by another name.

  “Bad Boy Brian’s not here, no?”

  “He’s unavailable.”

  “Shame. I really needed to talk with him. Has he left town?”

  “Who am I? Gillespie’s PA? You want to see the man, that’s your business.”

  “He’s in town still, isn’t he?”

  “So you’re a psychic. You should get a stage show.”

  They were jousting, ego to ego, and Jess saw they were enjoying it. Jess felt the electricity, the adrenalin pulsing around them. This was Chalker’s show, and the man wasn’t going to lose face. It was just a matter of time before someone went too far. Jess would have to say something soon, to break the escalation towards the inevitable violence.

  “Nah, I’m no psychic. I can read slip-ups. You and your friend here gave it away in your tone of voice and in the way he looked at you when you said about being Gillespie’s PA. That was a tell. Like one of those terrible poker players over there, you wore it all on your face.”

  Jess twitched.

  “I had two questions remember, Bradley? You dumped your girl and ran. That was a bad move. Why did you do that?”

  “Because Eva was smart. She knew I had absolutely no chance of surviving another encounter with Marka. But she had a chance, so I took her advice. Then I came back here to find out where Marka is staying so I can pay him a visit. I need to know right now.”

  Jess broke in. “Wait a sec. You said Marka’s plan wasn’t your plan. What do you mean?”

  Dan nodded, catching on. “You were going to piggy back in and do something.” His voice escalated. “What’s happening? I need to know.”

  The big man stepped forward and grabbed Dan by the flimsy collar of his cheap checked shirt from the laundrette.

  “You’re not welcome here, so calm down.” His voice was as deep as Barry White’s with a Cockney twist.

  “Just tell me. I won’t cause you any further trouble. None at all.” He spoke directly to Chalker, his eyes fixed and serious. “All I need is the information and you’ll never hear of me again.”

  Damon shook his head and sucked on his teeth. “Listen. This ain’t my deal. I won’t tell you shit. I don’t know the full picture because I didn’t want to know, do you hear me?”

  Dan nodded, thinking: You let Gillespie wipe out Marka and all you do is pretend to cry about it when in the real world you gain half a kingdom. Unless you aim to take the whole lot and top Gillespie too. He didn’t say it. He knew he’d be dead if he did, but he was certain of it anyway.

  “I need to see Gillespie, then.”

  “That’s up to you. But you won’t find him here, I guarantee it. Second question: What do you think I am going to do about you?”

  Dan stayed quiet for a second, then said, “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? Really?”

  “My enemy’s enemy is my friend. You ever heard of that phrase?”

  Damon Chalker stood impassive.

  “In Essex I stood up to Marka’s gangs. I fought them and I won time and again. I even tussled with some of those Somali boys and I dealt with them. That’s two sets of people I know you don’t like dealing with.”

  “Who does?”

  “But there’s more. I have been an immense thorn in the side of someone else you know well, and I think you might want me to stay alive just so I can carry on being a thorn in their side. Do you know who I’m talking about? I think you might. You just never know when that’s going to pay dividends, do you?”

  Damon’s eyes sparkled with a smile, while his mouth stayed a solid straight line. He knew Dan was talking about Gillespie, and Dan knew that he knew.

  “I don’t need anyone.”

  “Oh. I can see that. But my kind of help is an added bonus. My enemy’s enemy is my friend.”

  Chalker stared at Dan hard and stroked his chin. Then he tutted and shook his head with a wry smile. “Let the man go, Ollie. It might be entertaining to find out how you get on.”

  Big Ollie let go of Dan’s collar and Jess breathed a silent sigh.

  “Go find the girl.”

  Dan gave a nod then turned on his heels and headed straight out of the door. Jess didn’t look back. When the door was shut, Damon looked back at the faces arrayed around the gambling table. The players were silent and doing a bad job of pretending not to listen. “Party on,” said the gangster with a clap of his hands, and party on they did.

  “That was useless,” said Jess.

  “No, it wasn’t. It was next to useless, but it wasn’t absolutely useless.”

  “How did you work that out?” said Jess, as they walked down the road away from Elmo’s.

  “Well, we’re not dead for one and because we know Gillespie knows where Eva is. The other good news we got is that if Gillespie succeeds, Eva will be safe from Victor Marka.”

  “But not safe from Gillespie. From what I know of Brian Gillespie, he’s a fat, ugly version of Victor Marka.”

  “Maybe. But Marka had a deadline on this the whole time. He was building up to my termination time, which was going to be tonight. And I guess one way or another, he was going to swap his revenge over onto Eva. All being well, she will be away from him, and Gillespie will have a totally different agenda, at worst maybe his own timeframe for her. Who knows what his plans are, but if he has a timeframe, it will be just starting, not finishing.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning we have more time to find her.”

  “That’s great, but it’s all built on the presumption that Eva isn’t with Marka.”

  “True. And if she is with him, all hell will break loose very soon.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If he still has her, it will be because Gillespie’s attempt to take Marka down has backfired. Then it’s only a matter of time until the trails lead back to Gillespie and our friend Damon Chalker back there. I think if it had played out that way, Elmo’s Minicabs would already be a smoking crater.”

  “You’re too optimistic, Dan.”

>   “Do you want to be pessimistic right now? If I was being pessimistic right now, I’d go and borrow a shooter from Damon’s boys and stick it in my ear. The last thing you need me to do now is be pessimistic.”

  Jess nodded as they beat the pavement in the dark evening, walking through intermittent pools of orange light as the sounds of the city played out around them.

  “Okay. But there’s being pessimistic and there’s being practical. So what now?”

  They had walked a block from Elmo’s Minicabs, already Jess had noticed Dan looking all over and around as they walked. She thought he was being paranoid, but she didn’t mention it. Now he nodded down the next side street, intimating that Jess should follow. He walked off towards the turning. Jess shrugged and followed suit.

  “So we’re back to playing detective. So, Gillespie’s boys and Damon’s boys are working together. We all know how this works. We’ve seen it back in Southend. They act all pally but they always have their fingers crossed behind their backs. That’s why Damon let us go, in fact I was banking on it.”

  “So Damon had his fingers crossed behind his back about his deal with Gillespie?”

  “Yes, and The Bad Boy has his fingers crossed about the deal with Chalker. Damon let it slip that Gillespie wasn’t out of town yet. Of course he isn’t. Gillespie isn’t a fool. He’ll know the whole routine and what’s coming, and he will have a scout nearby ready to intervene directly or report back to Brian on any shenanigans down here. They both knew Marka had a scout because Marka didn’t trust Chalker. Gillespie knows that, so Gillespie won’t trust him at all. He will have a man nearby.”

  “So? What’s that got to do with us and finding Eva?”

  “We’re playing their game now, Jess. We’re the good guys, independents and not criminals, we’re just trying to rescue our friend and get away.”

  “I get that part, Jeez. I was just wondering if you had remembered that too.” The insinuation he had forgotten Eva was low and she knew it.

  “Don’t insult me, Jess. Not now.”

  Jess looked at him and blinked until her sarcastic stare lessened a little. Dan gave her a chance and carried on.

  “Look. I knew it.” They were standing beside a row of parked cars on a side street not far from Elmo’s. Across the street was a gleaming black new Range Rover parked in a side bay. There was a hint of rock music coming from it. The windows were dark and it was impossible to see inside. The car was big and bulky, and shiny sleek. It said money and power and glamour. Surely, it was too good for a side street in Brixton.

  “If that’s not one of Brian’s boys, I’ll eat my shoes.”

  “What?”

  “The scout. The watcher. The listener, whatever he’s doing in that car. Who knows, he could have Damon’s room bugged. Either way, that wagon belongs to Gillespie. Look at that motor! It’s gold bullion on wheels.”

  “I don’t get it. Why would someone use a flash car like that out here?”

  “Because Gillespie doesn’t buy anything else. Cars, horses, he buys and steals only the best. That car is a Range Rover Autograph. Its value is off the scale.”

  “I still don’t get it.”

  “No. You’re right, it is too flash. But it’s one of the old man’s vices.”

  “That’s not what I meant. Why they would leave someone here, and how did you know they would?”

  “Because it’s what I would have done. Trust no one, right? These people trust no one. So they watch and listen, waiting for the kill. I would have done that. Besides, I’ve been following scumbags like him for years. You get a nose for it.”

  “And what about Eva?”

  “Gillespie knows where Marka is. This was a take-down, an assassination so Gillespie can invade his territory and take over.”

  “His territory - you mean like the newspaper building?”

  “Not really. That’s too literal. The newspaper building, in fact every building and business run under Marka’s name was a front to legitimise his name and to provide cover for his underground operation. But the newspaper was mostly just vanity. That’s all. No, Gillespie is after the money laundering, the drug dealing, people trafficking, the prostitution, the protection operation – the big money. The property is just the shell of the business.”

  “Then this sounds way too big just for you and me to deal with.”

  “It’s way too big for anyone, but we’re stuck right in the middle of it, Jess. And Eva is stuck worse than us, God knows where. No matter what you or anyone else think about my intentions and behaviour, I am not going to leave her. You get your chance here too, you might be young, but you owe her one, Jess. Are you with me, or not?”

  “I don’t know how I can help, Dan. But I’ll do what I can to help find Eva.”

  “Good. I can’t guarantee your safety, Jess. I’ll try to protect you, but I’ve got to be honest here. People younger than you die in wars, die on the street, and at work every day. I’m not recommending it as a lifestyle choice. I’m just saying what happens next is out of my control, and you need to know that.”

  Jess took a breath. “I’m still in.”

  “You heard what I said.”

  “I’m in.”

  Dan nodded once and looked her in the eye, and waited for it to sink in. Jess didn’t flinch.

  “Right, then. Here’s the deal.”

  Eddie Kennedy, the man in the Range Rover Autograph Black sat staring straight ahead, awaiting his orders. He had been invited to borrow one of the old man’s cars for this mission, and normally he would never have got near the Autograph Black. For two reasons. One, Brian Gillespie himself, always treating Eddie like a muscle without brains. And now, Terry. Terry was one third minder for Gillespie, one third guardian of the mad old witch, and one third curator of the car collection. But neither Gillespie nor Terry were present when he received the instruction to take one of the motors and position himself near Elmo’s Minicabs. Which was why Eddie was now sitting in the £140,000 long wheel base deluxe Autograph Black, Range Rover to the stars. Even so, Eddie hadn’t upped his own game to match the car. Beside him there was a collection of polystyrene cartons empty but for a smearing of sauce and grease in the front seat beside him. He had finished two doner kebabs and two large portions of chips, because the large size deals were not quite big enough for his appetite. On the superb sound system he was listening to some DJ know-it-all spoil some good old-fashioned rock music with mindless talk about X Factor. Most of all, Eddie liked music from the eighties and nineties; he grew up on it down at Roe Park, listening as he got drunk at Basildon bars and while getting charged on nose candy and JD around the campfires on the Park. He’d gone off the nose candy years back after having seen one of his friends get so coked up he picked a fight with Gillespie only to become one more of the Park’s unsolved murders. The police had reams of Roe Park murders on the books. Roe Park kept its problems within, never aired its laundry in public. Tonight, as his guts howled and bubbled in protest at the grease and stodge crammed into his body, Eddie Kennedy was feeling quiet and slightly snoozy, expectant of yet another night doing nothing, barely awake with only the radio and instant coffee for company. The all-too chatty DJ had just begun talking over a record Eddie loved, “In the City” by the Jam. For the last two minutes, Eddie had been tapping the steering wheel, nodding his head and mouthing the lyrics until this egocentric idiot interrupted again. As Eddie was still cussing at the DJ, the door of the Autograph Black was teased open. Eddie didn’t notice. He was still cussing as the door was yanked hard and a rush of cold air shocked him wide-eyed. He finished uttering a four letter word as a rain of fists came down on him left, right, and left again.

  Listening to the music of the Jam while being smashed around the head in a hail of fists, it could have almost been twenty years back, just another night on the Park, if it were not for being strapped into a motor worth the price of a Southend flat. Eddie had just enough time for one more cuss before the world inside the Autograph snapped t
o total blackness. Jess said nothing, but she had never seen brutality of the kind dispensed by Dan Bradley. It shocked her. It scared her. She knew it was too late to back out. And it was going to get worse.

  Thirteen

  It didn’t take long to get hold of Gillespie. When they took the big man out of the driving seat, Dan wasn’t able to move him easily, but in the back streets of Brixton nobody wanted to take notice of a thin man and a girl moving an unconscious hulk into the back of a Range Rover. Dan emptied Eddie’s pockets, emptying the man’s wallet of one hundred and eighty pounds and change. He took the man’s mobile, another smartphone, almost as big as a tablet. Dan didn’t get the reason behind the move towards bigger and bigger mobiles with large screens. A phone was a phone, not a computer. But Dan knew he was in the minority. And the other reason he didn’t like them was because, like this big guy, most people kept theirs locked with a pin code. The phone was useless, though Dan guessed it would have a street value of around £200. Not bad money, but he wasn’t a street seller. He left it in the big man’s pocket, took the cash and ID, removed the pocket pistol from the man’s jacket – a sweet brand spanking new.380 pocket Glock - and took a flick knife from his jeans. Both would come in handy if the big man woke up too soon. But Dan had not spared him his boxer’s armoury, and hoped the blows would keep him out for an hour or two. On Jess’s phone they Googled the name of Gillespie’s Upminster building and pulled its number and tapped it to call. It didn’t answer, but went through to a machine with a couple of site numbers and another number in case of an emergency. Dan used this on the basis that for Eva, this was the biggest emergency of her entire life.

  He got through to a man with the now familiar Irish lilt - how they kept that accent after so many generations in England, Dan couldn’t understand. The man asked what the trouble was. “The trouble is that I have an unconscious Eddie Kennedy in the back of this beautiful Range Rover Autograph Black in Brixton. It’s a beautiful car, worth well over a hundred grand I reckon, what with all the extras and gadgets and leather inside it. But it’s not really mine, I’m sorry to say. You’d better let Bad Boy Brian know I am borrowing his car and his boy in case he wants to see either of them again.”