Raucous

by Ben Paul Dunn

  “I did.”

  “I’m still alive.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  Rollin paused, looking at Parker. He squinted.

  “I don’t make those kinds of mistakes,” Parker said. “At least not back then. I check. And you were most definitely not dead, which is the way it needed to be. Had my order been to kill, I would have killed.”

  “Then why leave me to live?”

  Parker shrugged his shoulders.

  Rollin drifted, he knew it was coming. The room blurred around its edges and he reassessed the past.

  Rollin pulled a metal bar from the bag he was carrying, a foot long, heavy solid steel. He held it up and examined the surface like he had a hundred times. Parker watched, and moved his right hand to his lower back. He flipped the latch on the leather pouch and wrapped his fingers around the worn handle on his sharp knife.

  “When the jeweler died, I knew the game was corrupt,” Rollin said. “The jeweler could never be robbed. There was no way of entering his shop without being known.”

  Rollin stared at the bar, as if he were telling it the story. Parker slipped his right hand to his side, the blade of his knife pointing up, the top of the handle resting on his curved fingers, the blade hidden by his palm, wrist and forearm.

  “Do you remember him, Parker? Johnnie something.”

  “Johnnie Fischer,” Parker said. “A friend of yours?”

  “Never had a friendly conversation with him. Strange man.”

  “Loved his money.”

  “He was a high-street knock-off, ring and necklace merchant, but he dealt in high-end goods. The high-end goods that come into the market illegally. He had a shop, three in fact, each on the high street of three different quarters of the city. They were profitable, but not enough to support the luxury life he led. And boy did he have some expensive toys.”

  “Very popular with the ladies for someone so ugly.”

  Rollin smiled.

  “Money sure can make up for some deficiencies,” he said.

  Parker nodded, smiling like they were doing a nostalgia trip at an old friend’s wake.

  “Where he worked, where he earned the big money was a lock up in an industrial wasteland," Rollin said.

  “Is that so?”

  Rollin looked up, Parker stared back.

  Parker had not moved. There was a bed between them. He could not be attacked quickly, but nor could he exit the room without going through Rollin.

  “Precious metals melted down and made into the heavy gold chains that hard men loved to wear to show their wealth,” Rollin said. “All those sovereigns and necklaces, medallions and the like.”

  “Never was my thing. A little too pretentious. I prefer discreet.”

  Parker waved a hand down his chest while fixing his eyes on Rollin. Parker wore no jewelry, nor flash clothes. His white shirt, and tweed clothes, all tight fitting on his wiry frame. He was not a London caricature.

  “I believed that the plan was genuine," Rollin said. "He was dealing with the same people he had always dealt with but on a score he didn’t have the ability to manage. The sample had been sent, the idea of smelting the lot into bullshit trinkets and charms and earning money back the easy way supplied. Only no reply came, only the news that this jeweler was out of business due to death. His workshop trashed, the contents gone and the body cut up bad.”

  “I heard.”

  “I have no doubt you did, Parker. A man good with a knife put him away.”

  “There is more than one in the world.”

  Rollin heard a couple from the next room. It was one o’clock so he figured an illicit meeting between work colleagues. A lunch break in which they could release. He thought about their lives sometimes and was happy he had never become them. Parker heard their playfulness too, but neither moved their heads to the sound.

  “I was young so I started to panic,” Rollin said. “The other guys were fools, real low-life morons. Them killing each other, I didn’t mind at all, but when the jeweler got it, I knew I had to move. Me and Hatcher were the last two.”

  “Raucous and your boy were alive,” Parker said. He was still, calm, relaxed.

  “They were nothing. A driver and his friend. I got to Hatcher’s. Walked there, avoided my car, and avoided the street. Came round the long way. Cost me a friend.”

  “Maybe saved your life.”

  “The car out front told me I was the second visitor of the day. An old red escort.”

  “They used to handle like a dream.”

  Rollin stared at Parker, old feelings of anger and hate scratched at his calm. He paused bringing himself under control.

  “I circled the house at distance, moved closer, heard no noise nor saw any sign of movement. I rushed to the back wall of the house in a crouch and pushed my back against the brown brick.” Rollin paused, took a deep breath and shook his head. “Seems like yesterday, I can still see it.”

  “No one ever remembers the past how it was,” Parker said. “You make assumptions on the information you have, but you never have it all. The conclusions you draw without knowing it all, are always wrong. And the desires you have distort them till they are no more.”

  Rollin nodded slowly and slightly, a reluctant agreement with a philosophical insight.

  “I waited and listened but heard nothing. I remember I held my breath. I was, I have to admit, scared. But I think that’s what kept me alive. I didn’t understand what was happening, but I knew that everyone involved had signed up to be killed.”

  “Plans go wrong,” Parker said, "People need to adapt. People get greedy.”

  Rollin snapped out of his haze. He looked at Parker, and saw him, actually saw the details. He was an old man, too much alcohol and too much stress. He looked old. He looked ill. His eyes rolled down to the knife Parker held.

  “Same knife as those years ago?”

  “Family heirloom.”

  “You won’t need it.”

  “Like you won’t need that bar?”

  “You don’t recognize it?”

  “I can imagine where it came from.”

  They waited, silent and still.

  “Why didn’t you kill me with it?” Rollin asked.

  “That’s a question you have to ask someone else. I did what I was told. And I was told not to kill you.”

  Rollin tapped the bar on his open left palm. He grabbed the bar with both hands, thinking of a long time ago.

  “I need to know the truth. I should let it go. But it’s that event, that single moment in a life that just will not go. Do you have that?”

  “More than one,” Parker said.

  “The haul was too big, too easy. A seven man job and they escaped with too much ease. They had loaded all the bars for an hour and no one had come. No one. The security there was poor.”

  “You helped with that. The inside man. He let them in.”

  “It was more than that. The laughter, the big time, all those smiling faces when we turned up back on the estates. The money we had made. The slaps on the back. We had all made it big.”

  Parker yawned.

  “Too much money for too many people,” he said. “Causes tension and jealousy. Men drink and men fight and they like to take more than they deserve.”

  They waited in silence. A knocking noise from the adjacent room as a headboard beat rhythmically against the thin plaster wall. Neither held the other’s gaze, but they were watching all the same. An old man with a steel bar, and an older man with a knife. Rollin thought about ageing, about how he fought it, and about how Parker ignored it. The same result. They were both old and nearing an end of one type or another. What they had was built on youth and passion. They defended it now with experience and knowledge.

  “I saw you do it,” Rollin said. “With this bar. I heard your voice. Parker, the detective. The man they had all met. You had gone and seen each of them. They had called each other with the doubts.”

  Parker showed no emotion, like a
kid without feeling at school, being taken down by a teacher they do not respect. He stared unblinking with bored aggression in his face.

  “I guessed you would call it a burglary gone wrong. The papers would insinuate involvement in the heist. The papers had been speaking of nothing else as the murder count rose. But no one was finding the money. People turning up dead or simply disappearing. One day there, the next no more. Not answering messages, nowhere to be seen. The only point through the centre was you. You arrived, you spoke, you asked and then the listener was silent because they were no longer there."

  Parker shrugged and let Rollin continue.

  “Hatcher had it planned. Only he knew the place. They wouldn’t kill because they couldn’t. Twenty-Five million in bonds, cash, bullion and jewels meant his own murder would be the most expensive hit in history. Christian was gone and only he knew. No way they would do it. I hid out and he’d call me in when it was all done.

  “But you didn’t listen, Parker. Five million gives me protection. That’s what Hatcher said when he saw you, when he let you in. You laughed, what you have is no protection at all. Do you remember saying that?”

  Rollin was back there in his mind, outside that window. His face blushing, heart rate clicking fast.

  “The thump, the crack, the repeated hits,” Rollin said. “And then you were gone.”

  “I had done what I had to.”

  “I waited until you left, waited twenty five minutes. Hatcher on the floor on his back, his face caved in, this bar resting on his chest. I knew the police would come only once you were far enough away. I ran North. Got in a car with what I had and went. Hatcher was the only man who knew where that score was and you killed him anyway.”

  “Are you are here to kill me or take a trip down a nostalgic street?”

  “I’m here, Parker, because I need to know. I took some bars, everyone did. I wasn’t there but I got my cut. I showed them to Johnnie. Now, he’s an expert. He offered me the money he thought they were worth. Cash. No questions. He dies the deal folds. Everyone dies. And then they turn up in the hands of some Italian gangsters and turns out they are fake. What’s the truth, Parker? Even you didn’t seem interested in getting them back. What’s the truth, Parker?”

  Rollin threw the bar onto the bed, it bounced and rolled, and rested near the pillows. Parker revealed his knife.

  “I came in after,” Parker said. “A clean up man. Whatever it was went sour, or maybe it was planned to go sour. I picked up the bars that were drifting around and shouldn’t have been, killed a couple of people I had wanted to kill for a long time. Your man Hatcher included. Not a nice man. He was your friend.”

  “We didn’t have friends.”

  “But I was told not to kill you. I don’t know why, a favour to someone, or a debt, I don’t know. I imagine now it was because of your son. He was the one who knew. I had free hand. Only condition was that you lived. I didn’t get rich from it and neither did Sir Alex. Someone somewhere probably did, but you’d need an understanding of complex economics and financial institutions to find out who.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think I used a lot of my spare time looking into things. Trying to figure things out, just like you. Your life was saved on account of your roots. You went back there and they looked after you. Other things I found out by good old investigation. Your boy Christian not being dead. I knew that a long time ago. Just didn’t know where he was. Then I found him, but Jim was on to it immediately. But Jim was working for someone. Maybe someone official. The boy comes here and nothing is ever going to turn out right.”

  “Why did you keep looking?”

  “Because I believe there’s a reward at the end of it, and like you, it’s a moment that changed my life. I need to understand what went on.”

  “Were you going to kill Christian?”

  “That was the plan. After we found out the location. Not personally. That was someone else’s job. And your friend Hatcher was the man who left the gun there to kill him. Buried at the base of the seventh tree. Your friend Hatcher wanted your son dead. Raucous, for whatever reason chose not to.”

  Rollin thought, he stayed alert in the same way people can sleep with eyes open. He went through snapshots of his history, projected plans into the future.

  “There’s no coming out of this the way we came in,” he said.

  “I think it’s only you and I that understand that.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Mitch woke from the same dream. The same balcony. The same door smashed open and the same fade to black. Mitch sat, and thought of nothing other than he wanted to see her again. He knew her address, he had been there, and she had taken him. 72, Belleview Park, middle-class London. But the city was big and he didn’t know how far from his new home.

  Jean hadn’t drawn the curtains, light broke through and Mitch stood watching the city outside. A fifth floor with thick glass windows insulated the inside from noise and wind. People moved and cars slowly edged to whatever part of the city their owners needed to go. Mitch looked at the movement, not understanding why this was natural, why people aimed for this life. A morning spent in a car moving to an office to work so enough money can be made to pay for an expensive house where they sleep and spend lazy weekends of panic. The big city. He couldn’t understand. But he knew there were many who would refuse to live anywhere else, to accept calm and quiet, to find silence when waking up. Mitch pressed his right palm against the glass and felt small vibrations.

  Charlotte knew something, she had said as much, and Mitch knew. She knew Christian, had known him well, which meant she had an insight into them. The scarring, her eyes, the anger she kept inside all indicated pain. But it was her age that grated most. She was his age. Three months older. He was June she was March. Both of them the twenty first day. Mitch knew, like Ben had thought, they were close when young. But she knew Christian, not them.

  The feeling he had, his mind raced. He needed to see her. Jean had not cared, would never care, had no interest in the woman. She probably saw Charlotte as a threat, someone to fight rather than hold. But wherever they went the follower came, saw all and reported back. The follower would never stay silent. He would tell. But he watched, and he stayed back. If Mitch went, the follower, the tall large silent man would come. And what would he see? They knew about his connection with Charlotte, what could the follower say? He met her, they spoke. She was in no danger. Rollin was a businessman not a gangster. He had an office in the city. He may be, and probably was, crooked, but he had shown nothing for Mitch to be afraid. He didn’t need to shake the tall man, he didn’t need to hide where he was going. They knew Charlotte, she was not the Turk, nor one of his people. She wasn’t a threat, although she and Rollin had not spoken with calm. But Charlotte never seemed calm, there was something going on, something inside her head. As if she knew the way out, but was afraid she would be seen running away. Mitch knew he was making excuses to see her, telling himself she was no danger nor in danger herself.

  CHAPTER FIFTY ONE

  Charlotte felt movement before she saw him.

  Charlotte was walking with Roach. They set off from his house on foot. The plan was fresh air, ideas and talk. Their minds emptied and conversation stopped. But they kept walking, along streets of family homes with occasional outbreaks of mini shopping areas of localized corner shops and cafes. The weather was brisk, but there was little wind and in their winter coats they were warm enough to sweat.

  Charlotte became aware of heavy steps minutes before. The street they were walking was busy. It was nearing eleven a.m. and people were out buying food, or simply grasping the fresh air before another heavy rain set in. She paid no attention, let the paranoia ebb away, and kept pace with Roach. But the repetitive clip of heavy boots on concrete slabs made her grow wary. Roach seemed oblivious and Charlotte wondered what type of policeman he was.

  Charlotte feigned interest in a cafe, she knew Roach would decline, but she took the chance
to slow down and turn. The clips stopped and she saw from the corner of her vision, the man who was following.

  He was big, twice her width at the shoulder, and a foot-and-a-half taller. He was not a man she would willingly wrestle. He didn’t seem concerned with concealing his presence, but his eyes were darting around, checking everyone in his field of vision. Charlotte walked on and the big man followed.

  Charlotte manoeuvred Roach into a smaller residential side street; they walked its length and turned left. The next street was deserted with the exception of an old man, five hundred meters from where they walked. The speed of the clips changed and Charlotte realized her arrogance had caused a mistake. She stopped and Roach pulled up, confused, he looked at her.

  The Big man closed the space between them. He was moving fast. Charlotte watched and realized he was bigger than she had guessed. He was six feet five and weighing in at 110 kilos, thankfully a fair proportion was fat or loose muscle. Charlotte knew they should have started walking but the man’s size had made them pause like they were staring at an old friend. And now they had nowhere to go.

  Charlotte’s defence mechanisms jumped to a start, she looked at the man’s hands. They were covered in thin leather gloves, completely black. They were empty of weapons. His face was covered with a bandanna, as if looking like a wild west outlaw would be scary enough to get what he wanted. He stopped quickly, half-a-meter from them and they looked up at his face. He resembled a military agent attempting to go undercover on a G8 riot. The man stared and said nothing.

  Charlotte looked at his feet and saw that he was standing off-balance in expensive Italian leather boots. His weight was too far forward, he was readying himself to pounce, but it seemed he had forgotten how. He rocked back too far and had to move forward again to counter the weight shift. Charlotte judged the quickest way to bring him down. A simple Judo move as he brought his weight forward to attack. Move with him, crouch, drive her hip into his thigh and over he would go. The impact would cause his leg to go dead, and she could run. One on one she was certain she could survive. But Roach confused things. He was a man, and men wouldn’t run, not those like Roach. He knew he was out of shape, no type of fighter and incapable of defence, but he’d try all the same. He was a man, and that’s what they were programmed to do, like a Yorkshire terrier incapable of calculating the damage an Alsatian will inflict because they believe themselves to be tougher than they are.