Choose Your Parents Wisely (Joe Grabarz Book 2)

by Tom Trott

‘The vote is split.’

  ‘And where the vote is split…’

  ‘…it’s the perfect place for a third party to slip through the middle.’

  ‘From your ward: Hove Park.’

  ‘Exactly. And who would make a super-strong candidate?’

  I looked at him even more incredulously than the others. ‘The local charity-running angel whose daughter was abducted.’

  I wheeled between the three them, unsure which to believe. Then I considered the lean, tanned man crouched in the corner, drinking a can of Carling Black Label, with eyes that burned in the darkness.

  ‘What I can’t figure out,’ I told him, ‘is where you factor into all this.’

  He kept drinking, didn’t even look at me. ‘Into what?’ he replied. ‘The universe?’

  ‘Just this part of it.’

  ‘You’ll have to figure that one out for yourself.’

  ‘Maybe you were the one who was supposed to find her.’

  He smiled to himself. ‘Be the heroic big brother?’

  ‘Keep the money in the family. Not that you’d accept it, of course.’

  He scoffed. ‘Sounds nice. Mummy and Daddy would be so proud.’

  ‘No… I don’t suppose anyone would believe that.’

  I thought harder. The blue van, the farm in the middle of nowhere. His own cellar.

  ‘You’re the one who abducted her, aren’t you. Or at least you will be.’

  He betrayed a wry little smile, but there was sadness behind it.

  ‘Why would you do it, throw your life away like that?’

  ‘To get my soul back.’

  ‘I wouldn’t think you’d believe in a soul.’

  There was that smile again, ‘I don’t.’

  ‘JOE!’ a voice screamed.

  Thalia!? I searched the darkness but couldn’t see her.

  ‘Joe, he’s got me. He told you. He told you! He would hurt me if you didn’t give him the money—’

  A hand slapped me across the face. My lips stung.

  ‘Snap out of it, Mr Grabarz. You’re losing your mind.’

  I looked up into the pale, sweaty face of Hermann Vogeli.

  ‘It’s probably the chloroform,’ he whistled in his soft Swiss accent, ‘it can make people quite delusional. What a pity.’

  ‘What have you done with her?’

  He just laughed. I was the most pitiable thing on the planet. He sauntered away into the darkness.

  ‘No, wait!’

  I fumbled across the landscape again.

  ‘Hands and knees, Joseph,’ she purred from another corner, ‘Hands and knees. All the way from your office to my bedroom.’

  ‘I’m a little busy right now, Monica.’

  She reached across the room and slapped me. I went spinning. Round and round. And round. And round like a roulette wheel. Until I came to a halt. I was facing Bill Harker.

  ‘What the hell do you want?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ he shrugged.

  ‘Well, give me another spin then.’

  He did. Round and round. And round and round. I stopped on darkness again.

  A cold wind blew.

  Waves crashed.

  No! No, no…

  A banshee screamed. A shape was forming in the distance. A ghost on strings flying toward me like in a haunted house. The old man’s face. Beady eyes, reptilian mouth.

  ‘NO!’ I screamed.

  Then I grabbed the wheel myself and span. Round and round. And round. Still round. Round some more. Then a little bit more. Keep going. Slowing down. Click, click… clunk. Sweet silence. Darkness again.

  But not quite. Dark sockets. Cheekbones. And the smell of lavender.

  ‘When do you think they had the conversation?’ that preening voice mused. ‘“Darling, I think we should kidnap our daughter. That would solve all our problems, wouldn’t it?” “Oh yes, simply marvellous idea.” Honestly. Whatever it’s for; money, publicity, to be a councillor; it makes a mockery of the whole idea of abducting a girl. And the brother? Have you met a more pitiable snowflake in your entire life? It smacks of amateurism, no wonder a fool like you could stumble onto it. If you’re going to do it, do it right, I say.’

  I didn’t reply. He enjoyed doing the talking.

  ‘They’ll have to kill you. You know that, don’t you, burglar. It’ll take them some time until they realise, they’re probably talking about it right now. They can’t buy you because they couldn’t possibly trust you to keep your word. They can’t fool you, you already know too much. They’ll have to kill you. And they will, they’ve already gone this far.’ He leant forward. ‘It’s him who’ll do it. She’ll make him.’

  I couldn’t hear him anymore. My face was hot and wet. I looked up into the eyes of a kindly Spanish lady. She was around twenty feet tall, a little plump, stroking my hair with her large, soft hands. I was lying in her lap and I knew that nothing could hurt me here. I was safe in her bosom.

  I went to speak, but she put her finger to my mouth. It was time to sleep now. Time to sleep. So I curled up in her lap and sucked my thumb.

  21

  Lies & Death

  there were no cards inside the wooden box. Instead there were six leather cups and thirty dice. Father Christmas placed one cup in front of each of us and counted out five dice each.

  ‘So what is this?’ I asked him.

  ‘Liar’s Dice.’

  ‘Sound’s fun, but I can’t pretend to know the rules.’

  ‘At the start of each round we all use our cups to roll our dice, keeping them hidden from each other underneath. You can look at your own dice. The object of the game is to correctly estimate the number of dice out of all thirty that are showing any particular number.’

  He reeled it off as though he might have written the instructions that came with it the set.

  ‘One player starts the bidding,’ he continued, ‘stating how many of a number on the dice, or “face value”, of his choice he believes are underneath all the cups. The next player must either increase the face value or increase the number of dice in the bid, in which case he may select a new face value if he wants. The object is not to exceed the total quantity of that face value underneath all the cups.

  ‘If the next player believes that the previous bid is too high he should challenge it, by saying “liar”. In this case the players reveal the dice under their cups one by one and the number of dice showing the relevant face value are counted. If the number is less than the amount bid, the player who made the incorrect bid loses a die. If there are the correct number or more, the person who made the incorrect challenge loses a die. The player who loses their die starts the next round, unless they have lost all their dice and are out, in which case the next player starts instead.

  ‘Now, ones, or “Aces”, are wild and are counted in every bid. Therefore, if a player wishes to bid Aces alone they must halve the previous bid, rounding up of course.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Similarly, if the player wishes to change the face value of the previous bid back from Aces, they must double the quantity of the previous bid and add one. The game continues until only one player remains. Do you get it?’

  ‘He gets it,’ the silhouetted answered, ‘let’s play.’

  ‘You promise a fair game?’ I asked him.

  ‘Of course. Within the rules.’

  They each brushed their dice into their cup and placing a hand over the mouth, gave it a shake; the mystery man reaching out from the darkness with latex hands. Then they each slammed their cup upside down on the table, dice trapped underneath.

  The vibrations sent a ripple of pain through my hand, both of which were still tied behind my back. I could feel the swell of a tsunami on the horizon.

  ‘Do you mind?’ I asked the ex-pro, nodding my head behind me.

  ‘Not at all.’

  He reached forward and picked up my cup and dice, shook them, and slammed them on the table. Then he tilted the cup ever so slig
htly for me to peek underneath. I had one 1, two 2s, a 4, and a 5.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I’ll start,’ Father Christmas said kindly to me, ‘that way you’ll have the knack of it by the time it comes round to you. Two 4s,’ he announced.

  ‘Seven 4s,’ the darkness bid instantly.

  The overdressed reptile mused for just a second. ‘Seven 5s.’

  ‘Ten 3s,’ was the ex-pro’s instant bid.

  My turn. What were my options? Eleven or more 3s or 2s; ten or more 4s, 5s, or 6s; or five or more 1s. One 1, two 2s, a 4, and a 5. I tried to do the maths: with thirty dice the odds are five of each number, and if 1s are wild, the odds of any bid are ten. So his bid of ten would be stupid to challenge. That said, I didn’t have any 3s, so I was looking for ten out of the twenty-five other dice. Except I had a 1, so he only needed nine out of the other twenty-five. Nine 3s and 1s combined. That sounded too easy. I had two 2s and a 1, that made three, so I bid:

  ‘Eleven 2s.’

  ‘Liar,’ barked The African Queen, and lifted up her cup for all to see. She had no 2s and no 1s. Nothing for me.

  Then Father Christmas lifted his cup. He had two 2s but no 1s. ‘Two.’

  ‘Three. Four. Five,’ counted out the silhouette.

  ‘Six, seven,’ counted the reptile.

  I only needed the ex-pro to have one, but he had none.

  He lifted my cup to reveal the three I had: ‘Ten,’ then he threw one of my dice into the middle. ‘Good start,’ he muttered as he rolled my dice again.

  Thanks.

  Round two; it was my turn to call now, and I started to discern some of the tactics involved. If I bid fairly high, with six people in the game, it was unlikely to get back round to me. And if I bid a high face value, it became even less likely.

  ‘Eight 6s,’ I announced.

  ‘Nine 2s,’ bid the African Queen.

  ‘Nine 4s,’ offered Father Christmas.

  ‘Nine 5s.’

  ‘Nine 6s.’

  It was getting back round to me. The bastards were playing as a team. But wait a minute, this put all the stress on the ex-pro and the African Queen. The ex-pro couldn’t challenge the reptile, because one of them would lose a die. He had to bid. And if I bid, she had to challenge me for the same reason.

  The ex-pro took a few moments to consider his options.

  ‘Take your time,’ I told him, ‘I’m not in a hurry.’

  ‘Five Aces.’

  ‘Liar.’ There was nothing else I could do. Eleven was too high, and so was six Aces. He lifted my cup, I said, ‘None,’ and we went round again:

  ‘One,’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Two, three.’

  ‘Four.’

  The ex-pro didn’t even lift his cup properly, he just threw a die in the middle and re-rolled, slamming his cup back on the table a little too violently.

  I let the silence emphasise his mood; this was something I could work with, so I told him: ‘Good start.’

  He looked at me with dead eyes and rolled and slammed my dice even more violently. He tilted it up for just a second, then it was his turn to bid:

  ‘Seven 4s.’

  ‘Do you mind?’ I asked him.

  ‘What?’

  I nodded toward my cup.

  ‘I already did that.’

  ‘I forgot.’

  ‘That’s tough then, isn’t it.’

  ‘Either you untie at least one of my hands, or you lift it when I tell you.’

  ‘You don’t get to give fucking orders, mate.’

  ‘You promised,’ I told the silhouette.

  ‘How about I break another finger?’ He leant over toward me.

  ‘That’s quite enough,’ the silhouette commanded. ‘Lift his cup. I promised him a fair game.’

  And you always keep your word.

  The ex-pro lifted my cup with his Neanderthal hand until I nodded for him to stop. It didn’t matter what was under there, with his bid of seven 4s he had already bid too high if they were playing the game to get back round to me.

  I bid eight 4s.

  ‘Eight 5s.’

  ‘Eight 6s.’

  ‘Nine 2s.’

  The ex-pro looked at his dice. Then he pushed his fat bottom lip up close to his nose.

  ‘Come on,’ I moaned, ‘at the rate you think, I’ll die of old age.’

  A vein in the side of his head arrived to watch.

  ‘Just my luck to be caught by the dumbest one of you. If I hadn’t given myself away out there I wouldn’t even be here.’

  ‘Liar.’

  The others all stared at him in shock, although they tried their best to hide it. The reptile glanced at the other four, as if to ask are we really doing this? But it was too late. The ex-pro had lifted his cup, and my cup, and counted them out. Out of twenty-eight dice, nine is actually below the odds, but they’re only odds and the reptile lost a dice. And he lost it with a pissed off look to his left. Their plan was broken in three moves. Now things could get fun.

  And they did get fun, if the word can be used to describe a desperate struggle for your life against a robot, a fictional character, a ghost, a lizard, and an arsehole. Which of course it can’t. The reptile didn’t want to be the first to go out, and he was angry the responsibility that was supposed to be the ex-pro’s was now his. I’m sure that in a regular game he would challenge the cattle skull but there was no way he was going to do it this evening, so he was the first to go out, and was now smoking a cigarette in a flagrant breach of signs. By this point Father Christmas had lost two dice, as had the ex-pro, miraculously I hadn’t lost any more than the one, the African Queen was on the same score, and the human shadow was still on five. Nineteen dice. My finger was throbbing again. My finger, my whole hand, even my stomach.

  ‘You lot don’t seem like gambling types,’ I let them know, ‘if you don’t mind me saying. Although I guess you normally play for fun. But you don’t seem like the types to play for fun either.’

  ‘We’re great fun when you’re not around,’ the ex-pro retorted.

  ‘It’s our little tradition,’ explained the silhouette.

  ‘Who started it?’

  ‘It’s my set,’ said Father Christmas.

  ‘Where did you pick it up?’

  ‘Well, actually—’

  ‘That’s enough conversation,’ the silhouette announced loudly but calmly.

  I nodded gently. ‘We wouldn’t want to have too much fun.’

  I had learnt pretty quickly that the sooner, and calmer, you stated your bid, the less likely people were to challenge you. This game was a good metaphor for life: you might be destined to lose, but act confidently enough and people will believe you can win.

  So I did just that. Not that it worked on the African Queen, she was a computer; soon I had lost another die. She was playing the game far too mathematically for me to have an edge, so I decided it was time to shake her up. I stared at her for a few moments, whilst she shook her dice to start another round.

  ‘What’s a cold, robotic woman like you doing in a place like this?’ I asked her.

  She didn’t respond. It was Father Christmas’s turn to bid, which he did, and the play went round until it reached me. I took my time, umming-and-aahing, and making screwed-up faces.

  ‘What do you think I should do?’ I asked her.

  She didn’t even blink. ‘Kill yourself.’

  ‘I can see what you mean,’ I told the ex-pro, ‘you lot must be a right laugh when I’m not around.’

  I bid, and the game continued in much the same way it had been going. Soon we were down to fifteen dice, halfway. Me, the African Queen, and Father Christmas all had three. The mystery man still had five, and the ex-pro was down to one; I had just successfully challenged his bid.

  ‘There’s no need to feel bad, mate,’ I told him, ‘it’s just beginner’s luck.’

  ‘Shut your fucking mouth before I shut it for you.’

  ‘You’re a delicate
little snowflake, aren’t you.’

  His hand gripped his leather cup until it was crushed out of shape.

  ‘Here!’ Father Christmas wasn’t happy, ‘those were handmade in Peru.’

  ‘Oh, fuck off, Alan.’

  The name landed like a bombshell in the quiet room. The fog still licking the windows.

  ‘Bid,’ the silhouette commanded.

  ‘Three 5s,’ he mumbled instantly. I wasn’t even sure if he had looked at his dice.

  ‘Five 3s,’ I bid.

  ‘Five 4s.’

  ‘Five 5s.’

  ‘Five 6s,’ bid the silhouette.

  That left the ex-pro with two choices as I could see things: six of anything, or three Aces; either of which were above the odds and I would have to challenge. It was just a matter of which he would pick.

  ‘Liar.’

  The room shook. The cigarette fell out of the reptile’s mouth. Even the African Queen’s eyes had widened.

  He lifted his cup and counted. Then did the same with mine, taking us up to two 6s. I felt like his accomplice. The African Queen had none, as did Father Christmas. The silhouette needed three. He had two.

  Everyone was still frozen, but he was the most gracious of losers. He gently placed one die in the centre of the table and rolled his dice for the next round. The others copied.

  They all shook theirs randomly, but he always made five distinct shakes before placing the cup on the table. This time it was only four.

  He bid, and it went round until the African Queen challenged me when she shouldn’t have, trying to get the game back on course, and that took her down to two. Thirteen dice in the game. We rolled again.

  ‘Two 2s,’ she bid.

  ‘Three 5s,’ bid Father Christmas.

  ‘Four 5s,’ bid the silhouette.

  The ex-pro dithered. Checked his dice. I needed to push him further. I let out a tiny, disparaging chuckle.

  ‘Liar,’ he mumbled, lifting his cup, and then mine, with no 5s or Aces under each.

  The African Queen silently lifted hers, then Father Christmas lifted his, both revealing nothing that helped the silhouette.

  Then he revealed his hand: two 5s, and two Aces. ‘One, two, three, four.’

  I couldn’t help but laugh. It snorted out of me with a spray of saliva.