Crime Always Pays

by Declan Burke

  Crime Always Pays

  A Screwball Noir

  By

  Declan Burke

  Copyright © Declan Burke, 2009

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission of the author.

  "Crime is but a left-handed form of human endeavour."

  W.R. Burnett

  For their support and encouragement, and for writing damn fine novels, this book is dedicated to Adrian McKinty and John McFetridge.

  Praise for Declan Burke's THE BIG O:

  "Imagine Donald Westlake and his alter ego Richard Stark moving to Ireland and collaborating on a screwball noir, and you have some idea of Burke's accomplishment." – Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

  "THE BIG O is one of the sharpest, wittiest and most unusual Irish crime novels of recent years … Declan Burke is ideally poised to make the transition to a larger international stage." – John Connolly, author of THE LOVERS

  "Burke has married hard-boiled crime with noir sensibility and seasoned it with humour and crackling dialogue … fans of comic noir will find plenty to enjoy here." – Booklist

  "THE BIG O is full of dry Irish humour, a delightful caper revolving around a terrific cast … If you don't mind the occasional stretch of credulity, the result is stylish and sly." – The Seattle Times

  "Carries on the tradition of Irish noir with its Elmore Leonard-like style ... the dialogue is as slick as an ice run, the plot is nicely intricate, and the character drawing is spot on … a high-octane novel that fairly coruscates with tension." – The Irish Times

  "With a deft touch, Burke pulls together a cross-genre plot that's part hard-boiled caper, part thriller, part classic noir, and flat out fun. From first page to last, THE BIG O grabs hold and won't let go." – Reed Farrel Coleman: Shamus, Barry, and Anthony Award-winning Author of THE JAMES DEANS

  "Irish thrillers don't get much more hard-boiled than this gritty, violent and wildly hilarious kidnap caper." – Irish Independent

  "Delightful … darkly funny … Burke's style is evocative of Elmore Leonard, but with an Irish accent and more humour … Here's hoping we see lots more of Declan Burke soon." – Kansas City Star

  "Faster than a stray bullet, wittier than Oscar Wilde and written by a talent destined for fame." – Irish Examiner

  Advance praise for Declan Burke's forthcoming BAD FOR GOOD:

  "A genuinely original take on noir, inventive and funny. Imagine, if you can, a cross between Flann O'Brien and Raymond Chandler." – John Banville, Booker Prize-winning author of THE SEA

  "BAD FOR GOOD is unlike anything else you'll read this year … Laugh-out-loud funny … This is writing at its dazzling, cleverest zenith. Think John Fowles, via Paul Auster and Rolling Stone … a feat of extraordinary alchemy." – Ken Bruen, author of AMERICAN SKIN

  "Stop waiting for Godot – he's here. Declan Burke takes the existential dilemma of characters writing themselves and turns it on its ear, and then some. He gives it body and soul … an Irish soul." – Reed Farrel Coleman, two-time Shamus Award-winning author of EMPTY EVER AFTER

  "A harrowing and yet hilarious examination of the gradual disintegration of a writer's personality, as well as a damned fine noir novel … Burke has outdone himself this time; it's a hell of a read." – Scott Philips, author of THE ICE HARVEST

  WEDNESDAY

  Sleeps

  It was bad enough Rossi raving how genius isn't supposed to be perfect, it's not that kind of gig, but then the vet started carping about Sleeps' pride and joy, the .22, nickel-plated, pearl grip, enough to stop a man and put him down but not your actual lethal unless you were unlucky. And right now, empty.

  Sleeps waggled it in the vet's general direction. 'Less talk,' he said, 'more angel of mercy. How's that ear coming?'

  Not good and not fast, Rossi ducking around like Sugar Ray in a bouncy castle. Still in shock, bofto on the wowee pills, with these delusions of grandeur – he was Tony Montana or maybe Tony Manero, Sleeps couldn't say for sure.

  It didn't help there was no actual ear. The wolf had tore it clean off, along with enough skin to top a sizeable tom-tom. Plus the vet was using catgut and what looked to Sleeps like a needle he'd last seen on the Discovery Channel stuck horizontal through a cannibal's nose.

  In the end Sleeps stepped in and stuck his forefinger in the wound, stirred it around. Rossi screeched once, high-pitched, then keeled over.

  'I'll be wanting,' Sleeps said, wiping his finger on Rossi's pants, 'a bag of horse tranks. And whatever gun you use for putting down the animals.'

  The vet shook his head. 'We don't use those anymore, they're not humane.'

  'Humane? You're a vet, man.'

  'We treat them like children,' the vet said, 'not animals.'

  'Nice theory.' Sleeps scratched the cattle-prod off his mental list, gestured at Rossi with the .22. 'But what if they're a little of both?'

  Melody

  'So if the movie gets made,' Melody said, 'or film I should call it, or the script at least gets picked up, optioned, then I pay it back, this loan-grant that's not really a loan or a grant but somewhere in between. At, you're saying, no interest.'

  'That's right.'

  'But if it doesn't fly, I don't owe anything?'

  'The Institute is here to encourage innovation,' the guy said, swiveling now in his chair behind the desk, fingers steepled on his pot belly. A nice view of Temple Bar behind him through the tall windows, the cobbled streets that'd been laid specially for the Michael Collins shoot, they'd left them down after, a gift to the city. Mel'd nearly broke an ankle on the way in, a kitten heel getting jammed between cobbles. He smiled now, Tony, the guy with kindly pale blue eyes behind rimless specs. 'If you're worrying about how you'll pay the money back,' he said, 'you're not likely to be at your creative best, are you?'

  Mel liked those odds.

  'I've got it all budgeted out,' she said, extracting the relevant sheaf of paper from her folder, the front of which bore the legend Beautiful Losers in gold magic marker. 'We're talking twenty-five and change, for the year. That includes research and writing, locations, some meet-and-greet funds for the --'

  'Locations?'

  'Sure, the eye-candy. I'm thinking Amorgos, where they shot The Big Blue. You've seen it, right? Ohmigod, the scenery's amazing.'

  'Amorgos?'

  'It's in Greece, yeah. For when Jack and Judy get out to the islands, go to ground and --'

  'I'm just wondering,' the guy said, no longer swiveling, 'if it's Greece you need specifically. Because if it's just an island, you might want to think about the Isle of Man, there's nice tax-breaks going. Or the Saltees, just off the coast of Wexford. Spielberg, when he was making Private Ryan, he was thinking about using the Saltees at one point.'

  'Okay,' Mel said. 'But you're not really getting that Greek quality of light on the Saltees, are you?'

  'That's where your post-production guys earn their money.'

  'Sure.' Mel staring the guy out, trying to decide if he was serious. 'But my movie, I mean film, it's set in Greece. What the story is about, it's what these two do inGreece, Jack and Judy. They're like Jack and Karen in Out of Sight, only Judy isn't a cop, they're both blaggers but very cool, very now. It's why Jack's named for Jack Foley, he's laidback but maybe lethal, you don't know. Or maybe he's a little older, like that guy from Miller's Crossing …' Perspiring now, Mel with the distinct impression she was losing the guy, hot flushes breaking out. She forced a smile. 'Ohmigod, I can never remember that guy's name, the Miller's Crossing guy.'

  'Albert Finney?'

  'No, not Albert, the other guy …' Mel had the old familiar feeling now, mild concussion from banging her head off brick walls.
Stomach churning. 'Have youread the script?' she said. 'I mean, the synopsis, the treatment, the character bible, all that stuff you had me put together, go back and rewrite like five hundred times before you'd even open that precious door over there … Did you read any of it? Like, where's there one character in the whole script Albert Finney could play? Which one of the young, hip, attractive characters could Albert, fine actor that he is, don't get me wrong, I loved him in Shoot the Moon but no way he's ever playing fifty again, never mind thirty-something … Excuse me a sec, okay?' Mel fumbled in her pockets for a Kleenex, then got up and went to the side of his desk, retched noisily into the wastepaper basket. Then she went back to the seat and got comfy, wedged herself in, Mel pretty sure it was the last time for a long time she'd be sitting in it, she might as well get her money's worth. Tony's eyes looking owlish as he licked his lips. 'Exactly who,' she said, dabbing at the corners of her mouth with the Kleenex, 'you don't mind me asking, have you identified as a possible for Albert Finney? Judy?'

  Karen

  Karen sat on the edge of the bed.

  'A cruise,' Ray said, blinking up at her. 'Me and you and a Siberian wolf named Blue, off cruising the Med.'

  'Madge booked it Sunday, before we mentioned about snatching her.'

  Anna lifted her massive head and whined. Karen scratched her under the chin, gazed into the cloudy amber eye. 'It's okay, hon. You're doing fine.'

  'What'd the doc say?'

  The doc, after he hoked the bullet out of Ray's arm, reckoned Anna was doing as well as could be expected, the girl shipping a .22 round point-blank. While admitting he was no expert in gunshot wounds in wolves, the guy reckoned the plate of bone that was Anna's forehead meant the slug probably came off worse.

  'He said to keep her doped, the last thing you want is a wolf with a migraine. But, she gets enough rest, she should be fine.'

  'That's fantastic,' Ray said, 'a real weight off my mind. He say anything about me?'

  'Sure. It's a clean break, six weeks in a cast. You can still drive, right? One-armed.'

  'Drive where?'

  'The Med, Ray. Athens.' Ray was still a little woozy from the shock and the pills, this after five or six hours of dozing off and on, adrenaline spikes fritzing him awake. Giving Doyle plenty of time to get Frank out of the woods, put the news on the wire. 'We'll be needing all sorts of documentation if we want Anna to fly,' she said. 'And there's quarantine. That means waiting, I dunno, weeks. Maybe months.'

  'You want to smuggle the wolf out of the country.'

  Karen shrugged. 'Rossi rats her out at the hospital, how she ripped his ear off, they'll be looking to put her down.'

  'I hear you.' Ray pushed out his slinged arm, looking to Karen like a stroke victim trying the Funky Chicken. 'But there's no way I'll make it all the way to Athenslike this.'

  'I can drive.'

  'You ever driven a van before?'

  'There's a first time for everything.'

  'Not when you're fugiting from justice there isn't. What about Madge, has she ever driven a van?'

  'Not likely. Besides, she's flying.'

  'Bad idea. They'll be watching the airports.'

  'Terry's making private arrangements. Says he likes the sound of a cruise, never took one before.'

  'Terry's taking the cruise?'

  'Madge told him about plugging Frank. Guy nearly creamed himself.'

  'Terry did?'

  'Why wouldn't he?'

  'She just shot Frank. The woman's a cop magnet, she might as well be free doughnuts.'

  'Maybe that's his buzz. He's torn between two, y'know …'

  'He fancies some posh is what it is. He can't make these private arrangements for Anna?'

  'He tried, yeah. No joy. But he has an automatic, a van, out on the lot. Says all I have to do is point it and drive.'

  Ray shook his head, then heaved himself up onto his good elbow, glanced around. 'Where's the money?'

  'It's here.' Karen kicked the bag she'd tucked under the bed. 'Think Terry'll still want his fifty gees?'

  'That was the deal.'

  'Yeah, but --'

  'I can tell him how the insurance company only paid out two hundred instead of the full half mill,' Ray said, subsiding onto the pillow again, 'I don't know, maybe there'll be a miracle. But it was Terry who cut us in, him and Terry Junior, for a flat fifty. He's owed.'

  Which was disappointing, but more or less what Karen'd expected. 'One more thing,' she said.

  'Just the one?'

  'I don't have a passport.'

  'No?'

  'Never been out of the country, Ray. Not with Anna to look after. What do you think, will that be a problem?'

  'I doubt it,' Ray said. 'Terry Swipes is a man of many talents.'

  Madge

  'Import-export,' Terry said, a grin starting, when Madge asked what he did.

  'What's so funny?' she said.

  'Nothing.'

  'No, really. What am I missing?'

  Terry behind a huge walnut-wood desk, maroon crushed-velvet curtains in the bay window behind, a green-shaded reading lamp on the desk. Clipping a cigar now. A nicely lined face, a little worn, the eyes webbed with laughter lines, mischief sparkling in their faded blue. A benign thug, putting Madge in mind of Paul Newman, only bald. 'You ever watch the Bond movies?' he said.

  'Not by choice,' Madge said. Frank had liked the Bond movies. Sitting on the green-leather couch, dimples the size of saucers, sipping on the brandy Terry'd poured for medicinal purposes, Madge wondered when she'd be officially cured. Maybe then Terry'd get around to pouring a more sociable measure. 'All that macho stuff,' she said, 'it's not really me.'

  'Says the lady who blew out her husband's knee.'

  'Ex-husband. The divorce comes through on Friday.'

  'I guess you can kiss that alimony goodbye.'

  'I'll live.'

  'I'll just bet you will. How's that brandy treating you?'

  'Like a gentleman, more's the pity. Listen, Terry, can you keep a secret?'

  'Depends what it is.'

  'I'm fine.'

  'Okay.'

  'Seriously, I'm good. Karen, I know, she's worried about me. Thinks I'm ready to freak because I shot Frank's knee.' Terry leaned forward, elbow on the desk and chin on palm, cigar forgotten. 'She's concerned, and it's an admirable trait she has, that I'll melt down once the shock wears off.'

  'You're saying it won't.'

  'She's young, Terry. I mean she's smart, don't get me wrong, and I love the girl to bits. But she still thinks everyone should feel how she does. You know she used to pull stick-ups?'

  'Karen?'

  'It's how she met Ray, he walked into a place she was sticking up. Surprised her, came up from behind.'

  'Lucky he didn't get his head blown off.'

  'See, this is Karen all over. She never loaded the gun. Couldn't cope, even thinking about it, with how she'd feel after putting a bullet in someone.'

  'You're saying, you're coping.'

  'Put Frank in front of me now, a gun in my hand, I'd do it again.'

  'But only Frank.'

  'No one else ever gave me enough reason.'

  Terry got up from behind the desk and went to the drinks cabinet, poured a brace of brandies. 'Remind me,' he said, carrying them across to the couch, 'never to give you a reason.'

  Madge took his balloon glass away, poured its contents into her own. 'Remind yourself,' she said. 'Slainté.'

  Rossi

  'Y'think maybe the cops have their own hospital?' Sleeps said. 'Their own ER at least, it makes sense. No one wants to be flat-backed beside some perp they've just whacked. That's bad juju.'

  'It was Madge,' Rossi said, 'who blew Frank's knee out.'

  'While he was handcuffed to the cop.'

  Rossi used one of the cop's handcuff keys to scratch up under the turban, the bandage drying out stiff and purple-black over where his ear used to be, the wound already itchy. 'I never heard of no cops' hospital,' he said. />
  'So then we're looking at her coming here. With you, y'know, under arrest. She read you up, right?'

  Rossi flinched as the metal teeth snagged on the catgut stitches. 'She started to,' he said, easing the key out from under the turban. 'Then she stopped when I fired down on her. So I dunno if that qualifies as properly habeas corpused and shit.' He shrugged. 'What d'you want, we sit outside the cop shop 'til she shows up there?'

  Sleeps had another squint out over the parking lot, seventeen rows all the way to the ER bay. 'We should be gone, Rossi.'

  'You're the one wants to go back inside,' Rossi pointed out, 'do soft time.'

  'That was then. Except now there's cops involved, cops and guns.'

  'And on the other side,' Rossi said, doggie-paddling his hands on an invisible see-saw, 'there's two hundred grand and the ear.'

  'The ear's gone, man. Forget about the ear.'

  'Forget about it? The bitch chewed my ear off.' Rossi shook his head, wincing even as he did it. 'Don't doubt it, I'm ripping the hound open, digging it out.'

  'And then what – you sew it back on? After it's been a couple a days in her gut? It'll be eaten away with acids.'

  'You heard the doc. It's not just hearing, your balance gets screwed too. I'm looping the fuckin loop over here.'

  'That'll be the goofballs. The vet said two every eight hours, not eight every two minutes. And what he said was, you start messing with the bandage and the inner ear gets infected, you'll --'

  'Hold up.' Rossi pointed across the car park to where an ambulance had pulled in at the ER doors, was now discharging its cargo. The cop still cuffed to Frank, bent double at the waist until the medics extended the stretcher to its full height. 'The seagull,' he said, 'has landed.'