Crime Always Pays

by Declan Burke

  'All I'm asking,' she said, 'is you keep your ears open. Someone mentions a wolf with an eye-patch, you let me know.'

  'Of course. Consider it done.' He sipped some wine, patted his lips with the napkin. 'But what happens then? Unless the woman, Marge --'

  'Madge.'

  'Madge, yes.' He gave one of his exquisitely careless shrugs. 'But unless she makes a statement to the effect that she is a hostage, then there is nothing we can do. Not until such time as an official request comes through the channels, at least, and we would have no reason to hold them long enough for that to happen. You know how long it can take.'

  Doyle, who'd neglected to mention Frank's untimely demise, and believed the issue of her suspension was news to be doled out on a strictly need-to-know basis, said, 'Sure, yeah. But all I'm asking is you tip me off as to where they are.'

  Niko nodded. 'Just so long as you remember,' he said, waggling his fork at her, 'you're out of your jurisdiction. The last thing we need right now is another scandal about Greek policemen ballsing up.'

  Doyle'd seen the footage on YouTube, two Greek cops forcing some immigrant kids to beat themselves up in the station. 'Who said anything about arresting anyone?' she said. 'I'm on my holidays, Niko. Here to have some fun.'

  Niko popped home some kalamari. 'Fun, huh?'

  'Absolutely. Take a ferry or two, see some islands.'

  He held up a warning forefinger. 'It's not safe in the islands for a beautiful woman on her own, Stephanie.'

  'Safe's for back home, Niko. And I'm on my holidays.'

  He shrugged, that gorgeously loose and careless Greek shrug, then toasted her with his wine glass. 'Here's looking,' he said.

  FRIDAY

  Sleeps

  'When Hannibal crossed the Alps?' Sleeps said. He pointed through the windscreen in the general direction of where the snow-capped peaks had been before night came down. 'He lost sixteen elephants.'

  'How does anyone,' Melody said, 'lose sixteen elephants?'

  'One would've been unfortunate,' Sleeps said, flexing his hands on the steering-wheel, enjoying the pay-off. 'Sixteen? That's just careless.'

  'Oscar Wilde,' she said. 'Right?'

  Sleeps nodded, getting a shivery tingle that had nothing to do with the crizz. Over the hump now, the first blast like being plugged into a tiny sun, hair crackling, muscles taut and skin humming. He glanced across at Melody, fiddling now with the stereo trying to find a station that wasn't cranking out guttural death-metal. Okay, the girl was flat-out loon, Sleeps was hoping they didn't encounter any full moons on the high seas, but Sleeps had always liked the big-boned girls and Melody had curves like the Monaco Grand Prix.

  In the end she switched the stereo off. A gentle snoring purred in from the rear, the combination of crizz, Woo-Woos, Purple Craze and horse tranks catching up with Rossi round about Stuttgart.

  'Think we'll make it?' she said.

  'It's do-able. I mean, thirteen hundred clicks in what, sixteen hours? I stay awake, that's do-able. And we've got that extra hour. They're an hour ahead in Palermo, right?'

  'They would be,' Mel said, 'if we were still at home. But I think we've caught up with the time-zone now.'

  'Shit. Really?'

  'I'm not sure. We're still in Germany, right?'

  'Long as we're heading in the general direction of up, we're still in Deutschland. Then, we get to where it's all heading down, we're into Italy. Freewheeling all the way to Sicily.'

  'Yeah.' Mel nibbled a thumbnail. 'Listen, Gary? There's something you should know.'

  'What's that?'

  'We're not going to Sicily.'

  'No?'

  'The cruise, it's leaving from Athens.'

  Sleeps digested that. 'So why'd you say Palermo?'

  'I thought Rossi might try to dump me, swipe my credit card.'

  'Smart thinking, yeah. Perceptive. Except why wouldn't he have dumped you when he heard it was Palermo?'

  'It was a test. If he tried, I'd have told him it wasn't Palermo.'

  'Makes sense, I guess.'

  'You're not mad at me?'

  He glanced across. 'I'm here to drive, Mel. All I have to do is point this baby until we get caught or we don't. Athens, Sicily, Outer Banglakazikstan, it's all jake with me.'

  'What about Rossi? Y'know, with him being half-Sicilian and all …'

  Rossi being as Sicilian as melted igloos, Sleeps just shrugged. 'I won't tell him if you don't.'

  'How d'you mean?'

  'We get to Athens, there won't be these big signs, "This Is Athens". Right?'

  'But they'll be speaking Greek.'

  'To Rossi, Italian'd be all Greek.' Sleeps shrugged. 'If he twigs, we just tell him the truth.'

  'And then what?'

  'He'll vent a bit, sure. Probably mention Napoleon, how the little guy was never backstabbed by his troops, all this. Then he'll have a toke, a dab of crizz, remember something else he's pissed about.' Sleeps made a spiraling gesture with his forefinger. 'And the circle of life will turn again.'

  Melody fell silent. Sleeps drove on into the darkness, wondering if driving on the wrong side of the road, the wrong side being actually the right side, was some kind of omen for where his life was headed. Then caught his first glimpse of the Alpine tunnels, brightly lit orange beacons in the blackness, their round mouths putting Sleeps in mind of sawn-off shotguns. So he got off the whole omens thing.

  Mel, whispering now, said, 'You ever think about dumping him?'

  'Nope.'

  'Seriously?'

  'Yep.'

  'The thought never even occurred to you?'

  'Why don't you just put it out there, Mel? Get it off your chest.'

  'Well,' she said, 'it makes sense, doesn't it? The guy's a liability. I mean, you're the driver, I know where the cruise is going from. Why do we need him?'

  'You just told me where the cruise is going from. So why do I need you?'

  'Maybe I lied.'

  'I was kind of presuming you did.'

  'You don't trust me?'

  'Don't take it personal. It's just best all round when no one trusts anyone, keeps everyone on their toes.'

  'I thought,' she said, 'back on the ferry, you and me had a connection.'

  'No disrespect, Mel, but you're a straight, a civilian.' Sleeps flicked his head in the general direction of the low drone buzzing from the rear. 'Who’s now driving through Europe in a stolen car with two fuckwits and a stash of stamped gak in the trunk. That kind of desperate measure, it makes me wonder what kind of desperate times you got going on you're not telling anyone about.'

  'I told you, I'm making this movie.'

  'Sure. Butch Cassidy and the Zorba Kid.'

  'You don't believe me?'

  'I'd like to. Really, I'd love to think you were on the level.'

  'If it's good enough for Rossi --'

  'Rossi doesn't give a shit, Mel. You think he's a moron, he believes all this movie crap'll pan out?' He shook his head. 'Right now you could tell him, I dunno, you're the reincarnation of Maria Callas off to marry Onassis all over again, the guy'd play along, ask you to sing him The Wild Colonial Boy. Rossi wants Karen, the money, and you're putting him beside her. That's as far as it goes for Rossi.'

  'But not for you.'

  'I'm not so worried about the money. Being honest? It'll be a miracle if we ever catch up with Karen. So I'm along for the ride, just enjoying the buzz, the drive.' The crizz glowing deep down in his system. 'Know what'd spoil that? If I got the impression I was the one being taken for a ride.'

  'By me.'

  'Rossi, I know why he's here. And I'm the one driving him. That leaves you.'

  Melody stared out into the darkness, her face blue-tinged from the glow of the dashboard lights. The glare of oncoming headlights splashing her yellowy once in a while. 'The script is shit,' she said, so quietly Sleeps barely heard her over the snoring, the hum of the Beamer.

  'That's probably a good way to be thinking,' he said. 'You were t
o tell me it was great all the way through I'd be worried, wondering if you weren't a bit too close to it. Y'know?'

  'It's not that,' he said. She turned to face him. 'I mean, have you ever seen a baby's first crap?'

  'Can't say as I have.'

  'It's like tar. Black sticky shit, the baby's covered in it.' Melody scratching absent-mindedly at her forearm. 'You need about two tons of steel wool to get this stuff off.'

  'And this is your script.'

  'See,' she said, 'you're writing porn scripts, there's not much call for character development. It's like, do we go wham-bam, thank you ma'am, or just wham-ma'am?'

  'I always like a bit of bam,' Sleeps said.

  'Right now I got Jack and Judy,' Mel said, 'they're heading for Greece. Yeah?'

  'Go on.'

  'Well, that's just it. They're heading for Greece. Like in a straight line, A to B.'

  'No bam.'

  'So I'm wondering, what if Jack was thinking about dumping Judy. Or vice versa.'

  'Judy, she maybe likes her vice versa?'

  'But I still need 'em to make it to Greece. I mean, they don't get there together, there's no movie.'

  'Or Jack could get there first, Judy chasing him. Viceing this versa she's got going on.'

  'What I'm looking for,' Mel said, 'is conflict. Like, Judy thinks she's being dumped? How's she going to react?'

  'Jesus, Mel, the suspense is killing me. Cut to the chase.'

  'You don't get it?'

  'Get what?'

  'This is why I'm asking you to dump Rossi. See what you say, how you react.'

  'Oh.'

  'Only now it's too late. Now you'll be thinking, how's this going to look in a movie? Trying to be cool, come up with a snappy line, instead of just saying it.'

  Sleeps thought that over. 'Except,' he said, 'when you asked me, I mean to dump Rossi? I said no straight off the bat.'

  'I heard you. But you didn't get crazy, or start making plans or, y'know …'

  'No bam,' Sleeps said.

  'Well, yeah.'

  'And you want to know what a real bad guy'd say, he got that kind of proposal.'

  'I don't know any criminal types, Gary. You're the best I've got.'

  Sleeps nodding along. 'All I can tell you is what I'd say, Mel. And right now Rossi owes me five gees, this is from way back, whether or not he finds Karen. Plus, this FARCO thing ever takes off, he's promised me president for life. Being honest,' he shrugged, 'I've a pretty good idea I'll be seeing no five gees, no president for life. Only right now I'm cruising Europe in a Beamer with a decent chance of going down for soft time.'

  'See,' Mel said, frustrated, 'that right there is screwing with my narrative arc. Like, who wants to watch a movie about a bad guy who wants to get caught?'

  'You're saying, where's the bam?'

  'Well …'

  Sleeps licked the tip of his forefinger and dabbed it into the foil wrap on the dashboard, snorted a pinch up each nostril, rubbed the remainder into his gums. 'How about this?' he said. 'How about, you wait 'til I'm having a snooze, you mention to Rossi about dumping me? Maybe tell him I was the one suggested dumping him.'

  Mel considered. 'You're not worried he'd freak?'

  'We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.' Which would be, Sleeps was guessing, roughly three seconds after the bridge flew out of his ass, a Mack truck dangling from its railing. 'But I warn you now, you do it and you'll have all the bam you can handle. You'll be up to your tits, pardon my French, in bam.'

  'Y'think?'

  'A-wop-bop-a-loo-mop-a-whop-boom-bam,' Sleeps said.

  Ray

  'So that's Trieste we didn't get to see,' Karen said. 'And now you're saying we won't see Corfu either.'

  Up on deck smoking, leaning on the rail, Ray guessed the occasional glow here and there was Albania, its huge dark bulk rearing up into the Balkans, stars glittering if he craned his neck all the way back.

  'Right now,' he said, 'the priority is to make the cruise. Then, we know for sure no one's getting screwed, specifically Terry, we can go anywhere we want. Maybe even come back and see Corfu.'

  Karen took a drag on her smoke. 'You still think they won't make it?'

  'Depends on if Madge mentions booking it by credit card. If she does, Terry's not taking that chance. But there's no guarantees she'll mention it. I mean, when's it likely to come up in conversation?'

  'It might.'

  'If it does, great. Everyone's a winner.'

  'You don't think it will.'

  'I don't know, Karen. How would I know?'

  'Okay, relax. I'm only asking.'

  'About fifty times an hour.'

  'You're the one said we shouldn't presume anything.'

  'Yeah, well, she will or she won't. Either way, we're seeing that ferry off.'

  'And then making our getaway.'

  'That's the basic idea.'

  'Except you already said, there's no getaway as such. We're getting away. All the time worried about Doyle sharking you.'

  'You're the one's worried about Doyle.'

  'Right now,' Karen said, 'I'm actually more worried that you're not.'

  'Doyle didn't strike me as the kind to hold a grudge. I mean, she was fucked off, okay. But she's a cop. She'll be practical.'

  'This is how well you know her. You can predict how she's going to react, and for how long.'

  'Doyle's the same as anyone else. She has her limits.'

  'And you know what they are.'

  'I can make an educated guess.'

  'I'm all ears.'

  'I'm thinking the Caribbean might be a jump too far for her.'

  'The Caribbean?'

  Ray jerked at thumb in the general direction of Albania. 'I served in there,' he said. 'Way the hell back and gone in there. When I was with the Rangers, a peace-keeping mission in Kosovo. Six-month tour. Anyway,' he said, 'this guy I served with, he's out now, running an op in the Caribbean based out of Haiti. Has the security franchise for a mobile phone company, they're expanding into the Caribbean, Central America. Said he could always use a guy could handle himself.'

  'You're thinking,' Karen said, 'about going to the Caribbean.'

  'I'm saying it's an option. One that's probably beyond Doyle's limits, even if she ever found out where I was.'

  'And where's that leave me?'

  'The issue,' Ray said, 'far as I understand it, is me and Doyle. You being worried about how I'm not worried about her.'

  'While you're still with me and Anna, sure.'

  'This is what I'm getting at,' Ray said. 'If I'm gone you don't have to worry about Doyle no more. Or about me not worrying about Doyle.' He sparked another Lucky, no Marlboro Lights on the ferry. 'Or am I missing something here?'

  'Like what?'

  'Like I don't know. Maybe something about Doyle and me, you haven't gotten around to saying it yet.'

  'I just said it.'

  'Not this horseshit,' Ray said, 'some outside shot about Doyle maybe prowling me.'

  Karen, eyes hidden away behind mirrored shades at four in the morning, the electric-blue hair glowing weirdly in the moonlight, said, 'You ever listen to jazz, Ray?'

  'Not by choice.'

  'What they say about jazz is, if it has to be explained you'll never get it.'

  Ray sucked on the Lucky. 'So now it's jazz. It's jazz, it's Doyle, it's Madge. It's Anna.' He exhaled hard. 'You see it?'

  'See what?'

  'It's never you, Karen.'

  'It's never me how?'

  Ray flipped the Lucky, two in a row too harsh after the Marlboro Lights. He said, tasting the tar, 'We get into Patra? There's a train overland to Athens.'

  'You told me this already.'

  'The train'll get you into Piraeus, the port, or damn near.'

  'We've been over --'

  'Then, the ferries take you out to the islands.'

  Karen folded her arms. 'Your point being?'

  'To get this far, to Greece, you needed a driver. Except now
you don't need a driver.'

  'You're bailing?'

  'Now I've got you here, I'm a liability.'

  'I'm asking,' Karen said, 'if you're bailing out.'

  'Let's say it's more in the way of letting myself be pushed.'

  'Don't try and fake me, Ray. I don't fake.'

  'It's another six, seven hours,' Ray said, 'to Patra. Gives you plenty of time to think it over. Then, you want to find me, I'll be easy found.'

  Karen getting the twist in her jaw again. 'You want to be found,' she said, 'you better be lying out somewhere so's I trip over your legs.'

  Ray dug in his pocket, came up with the van's keys and laid them on top of the ferry's rail. 'Your call,' he said.

  Madge

  Madge, suffering night-sweats and hot flushes, pacing the room with dawn in the post, couldn't decide if she was finally coming menopausal or just suffering guilty killer syndrome. Although guilty, she was adamant, only in the technical sense. Like, legally. Once the shock began to ebb away, the dullness sharpening again into a stark appraisal of what she'd done – blew a hole in Frank, she'd overheard Ray telling Terry, you could've bowled a strike through – Madge was delighted to realise she was getting bolshy again, unrepentant.

  The way she saw it, slipping out onto the balcony overlooking the quiet piazza, smoking one of Terry's cigarettes, it all came down to consequences. Madge, sure, had often fantasised about what it would've been like to have Frank at the business end of a gun. Or, maybe, tucked into an iron maiden. Except the likelihood of that ever coming to be had always been size zero slim, a thing you read about in magazines but only ever happened to the lucky few, the insanely dedicated. Then Frank starts the ball rolling, arranges his wife of twenty years to be snatched, puts her in a place where a guy's handing her a gun, Frank helpless in handcuffs …

  Like, what else was a reasonable woman to do?

  No, the way Madge was seeing it, if anyone was guilty for Frank being dead, it was Frank. No, not guilty – responsible. Madge tapped ash off the balcony, wondering what the difference was, legally speaking, between guilty and responsible. Not really caring, though. Everything feeling a bit conceptual right now, theoretical. It was like, she thought, being caught in a bubble looking out at the world carrying on as normal, Madge watching it turn, interested but not particularly engaged, like drinking a coffee on some terrace, curious as to what people were wearing, why they were wearing it, how in Christ's name they thought they could get away with knee-high boots and three-quarter-length jeans with fat turn-ups over calf-muscles they'd swiped off a baby hippo. The Italians, Christ, all fashion, no style …