The Glasgow Grin (A Stanton Brothers thriller)

by Martin Stanley

  “You know who we are?”

  He nodded.

  “Then say it.”

  “The creeps that cut up Rose McGarvey and her bairn.”

  “Actually, that was your boss.”

  “You expecting us to buy that?”

  “Only if I was selling it, which I’m not,” I said. “Besides, I don’t need to sell it, ‘cause it’s true and I can prove it.”

  “How?”

  “While Eddie was giving Rose and her kid the Heath Ledger experience he took some money from them. Although calling five hundred grand some money is a bit of an understatement, don’t you think?”

  The man’s eyes widened briefly then narrowed. “Dunno nowt about no money, like. Eddie just said he needed us as a bodyguard.”

  “Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. The best way of getting to the truth, I find, is to go all Guantanamo on somebody. In this case, that somebody’s you.”

  The man shuffled in his seat. He tried to swallow, but found it hard going and almost choked. “Look… I said… I dunno nowt.”

  “I heard you.”

  “So?”

  “Doesn’t mean I believe you though, does it?”

  Twitches and tics twisted his face. He cast several nervous glances at his colleagues. They kept their heads down, so that they didn’t have to get involved. When he realised that he had no support, his eyes turned glossy. His bottom lip trembled.

  “Look... I’m not lying,” he croaked.

  “We’ll see,” I replied, turning to my brother. “Do your worst.”

  My brother walked over and picked the nail gun off the floor. He looked at it with admiration for a few seconds and smiled slightly. “Been looking forward to this, you fuckin’ gobshite,” he said.

  The man shivered. Tears gathered in his eyelashes, though he did his best not to let them fall. My brother rested the gun barrel against the man’s knee. The man’s eyes followed the line of the gun barrel, travelled up my brother’s arm and eventually fixed on his face.

  “Got owt you wanna say?” my brother asked.

  The man tried maintaining eye contact, in order to appear brave, but his face folded like an umbrella and he lowered his head towards the ground. A series of coughs wracked his body; at least that’s what I thought they were until I noticed tears dripping off the tip of his nose.

  He shook his head. “Dunno nowt... Fuckin swear down.”

  “You ever seen a nail hit a kneecap?” my brother said, pressing the barrel hard against his knee. “It’s not like a fuckin’ bullet. That’s pretty clean. A six-inch nail’ll fuckin’ destroy your knee, but won’t go all the way through neither. That thing’ll stay in there, tearing your shit up every time you try to move. Doubt you’ll walk proper again, like.”

  The man continued coughing every time he choked back a sob. Tears soaked the crotch of his jeans. “Dunno... nowt,” he said, barely able to say the words.

  My brother watched me for confirmation. I nodded. Just as he was about to pull the trigger, the man squawked: “Stop.”

  Grimacing slightly, my brother relaxed his finger, but kept the gun in place.

  The man had worked himself into such an emotional state that a thick line of slobber swung back and forth on his chin, threatening to but never quite managing to break, and words stuttered out of him like he was on autorepeat. We had to wait for him to calm down, but when he did he stammered something into his chest about the floorboards in the corner of the room.

  McMaster strolled towards the wall, reached down and pulled back a heavy Moroccan rug. He paused, craned his head for a closer inspection and began chuckling. At first glance, I didn’t understand what was so funny.

  I walked where he was crouching and looked at the floorboards. I still didn’t see what was amusing him so much. Squatting beside the safecracker made things a little clearer. Two barely visible hairline gaps ran across floorboards, about three feet apart. Leaning even closer, until my nose was practically brushing the floor, I found another couple of fine cracks running along the line of the boards. It appeared to be a door, perfectly fitted in the floor, running flush with the boards so that its line was almost impossible to make out. A lot of trouble and, no doubt, expense had been spent on getting this right. I noticed a problem that might hinder finding out what lay beneath it.

  “There’s no handle.”

  McMaster found what looked like a large knot in the wood and pulled it back to reveal a metal ring handle. He found a second knot with another ring handle further along the board. He hooked his fingers through the rings and tugged at the door, which came away completely. About a foot lower was a heavy metallic safe with a digital facia and a keypad combination. It looked like a well-designed piece of equipment – no hinges on the outside, too heavy to pull out of the ground. The pensive expression on McMaster’s face made me wonder if it was too well designed.

  “Problem?”

  McMaster shook his head. “Nothing that a little plasma cutting won’t cure.”

  51. – Stanton

  WE MOVED the captives upstairs, away from the heat and fumes, so that McMaster could perform his magic. He went back to his car, grabbed all the equipment he needed and finally got to work. Eddie’s stereo was turned up full-blast to cover the noise of his activities.

  My brother and I tore the house apart looking for money. We scoured drawers, cupboards, wardrobes, beneath furniture, and overturned everything that wasn’t nailed down in our search for random cash and other valuables. We found a second smaller safe fixed into one of the wardrobe units and opened it with nothing more technologically advanced than a crowbar and some brute force. It contained a couple of passports (one real, one fake), some nice watches, and a grand in twenties. We found another three hundred scattered in drawers and jacket pockets and old wallets.

  Every so often, Gupta texted to ask how we were getting on and what we were up to. I texted general replies and told him we were on target to make the meeting. After an hour I went back downstairs and knocked on the living room door.

  McMaster opened it a few seconds later and came into the hall. The door was only open briefly but the heat forced its way through like an unwelcome guest and wrapped its sweaty arms around me.

  McMaster was wearing a large protective mask, a fire-retardant black top, and some equally heavy-duty gloves. He tore off the facemask and gloves and inhaled deeply. His skin was an unhealthy red and damp hairs were plastered to his scalp and forehead. He wiped at the excess sweat with a towel.

  “How’s it going?”

  “Fine, aside from the heat. Nearly there, I think. Have to take it carefully though; don’t want start dripping molten metal on the money. If that happens then everybody’s day is fucked.”

  I started thinking about the neighbours, worrying about the heat and the smell of the fumes. McMaster must have seen the expression because he chuckled. “Relax. The fumes are bad, but not so bad the neighbours are gonna start calling the authorities. I’ve got the garage door open slightly, along with the door through to the kitchen and I’ve got every extractor fan in the place going. At worst it’ll smell like somebody’s working on a car or something similar. And what about you?”

  “We’ve got about thirteen hundred quid. Everything he has must be in that safe.”

  “We hope.”

  “Meaning?”

  McMaster shook his head. “Nothing. Probably just paranoia.”

  He started putting his safety gear back on. I knew we couldn’t leave it like that, he’d pricked my curiosity. I wanted to know exactly why he was so paranoid.

  “Okay, I’ll bite.”

  McMaster fixed his eyes on my face.

  “When you’ve been around as long as I have you get to see every trick in the book.”

  “Such as?”

  “Some people use safes as timewasters,” McMaster said and leaned in like he was sharing a secret. “Villains break in and spend hours trying to crack a big fuckin’ safe. Then they find out, too lat
e, that it’s empty and realise they don’t have time to find the money that’s safely tucked into a secret compartment in the bed or beneath the floorboards. They’ve wasted so much time on the decoy that by the time they do figure out it’s a decoy it’s already too fuckin’ late, and the pigs are en-route or the owner’s key’s hitting the lock.”

  “If there’s nowt in there then we’re fucked.”

  “Just in case, is there anywhere you haven’t looked?”

  I thought about it for a couple of seconds. “The garage.”

  “Anywhere else? You know, just in case.”

  I thought about it again, angling my eyes towards the ceiling. Then it hit me – the attic. We’d paid no attention to the attic.

  52. – Stanton

  THE LOFT was as dark as a city trader’s heart. The only illumination was a couple of carefully placed torches that I’d found in the garage, and what little light they provided was overwhelmed by huge shadows. Large boxes and cases lay across the rafters that cut the attic floor into segments, stacked on top of each other to form a crude cityscape. I had twenty minutes to look through this lot – twenty minutes before I was supposed to be catching Eddie by surprise – and there was a lot of looking to do. I texted Gupta, told him we would be late due to an accident on the A66, and started tearing the place apart.

  Fuck subtlety, I didn’t have that luxury.

  Using my phone LED as extra illumination, I made my way back and forth along the beams, scoured the boxes and threw the contents everywhere. I kept my attention focused only on holdalls or boxes large enough to contain the money, everything else was irrelevant. The moment I finished searching a box or case it got tossed from one side of the room to the other, so as not to get in the way.

  I stopped briefly to catch my breath and take stock of my progress. There were two large boxes and a couple of suitcases left in the corner of the room and I still had five minutes until I was supposed to meet Eddie. I checked my phone again: Gupta wanted to know just how late I was going to be. I informed him that we’d be there at 10.15, maybe 10.20 at the latest. Gupta replied almost immediately, saying he wasn’t happy – how the fuck was he supposed to keep Eddie there that long? I told him to improvise and that I couldn’t do anything about road traffic accidents and would hit the accelerator and get there as quickly as I could.

  I tore through the rest of the boxes in five minutes flat until all that was left were two black holdalls laid on a board in the far corner of the room. I glanced at the mess of carelessly discarded boxes in the other corner; twenty minutes to destroy what Eddie had probably taken hours to construct; all this work to hide two small holdalls.

  The bags were heavier than anticipated, so I opened them. Fat, tight bricks of money were stacked on top of each other, but weren’t heavy enough to account for the weight. Shaking the bag, I heard the clank of metal. A quick rummage revealed several automatics and a couple of ammo boxes at the bottom of one bag, and numerous revolvers in the other. They were obviously as hot as McMaster’s plasma cutter and needed to be disposed of. I pulled the weapons out of the bag and laid them on the rafters. They were Eddie’s problem to deal with.

  I walked along a beam using the holdalls as counter weights, then threw the bags down into the room below. I lowered myself through the scuttle hole, until my feet touched the stepladder, and closed the lid.

  My brother grinned as he rummaged through the bags. “If the money was up there, then what the fuck does Eddie have in that safe?”

  “We’re about to find out.”

  53. – Stanton

  MCMASTER WAS counting money in the kitchen. He flicked quickly through a stack of notes, threw it next to a couple of stacks close to the stove and smiled. His skin was red and inflamed from the heat of the plasma cutter, but it didn’t seem to be bothering him much judging by his grin.

  The acrid stench of burnt metal scratched at the back of my throat. I threw the kitchen windows open and unlocked the back door.

  “How much?” I said.

  McMaster shook his head. “You disturbed the count, so your guess is as good as mine. Mixed stacks, different notes – totally random. That one I just counted was four grand, all twenties. The other two are two and four respectively, both mixed. I’ve got another six stacks here,” he said, waving around a small canvas bag. “And you?”

  I lifted the two holdalls so he could see them.

  “Nice.”

  My brother clapped his huge hands together and cackled with joy. “This is some serious fuckin’ wedge,” he said, dancing an uncoordinated jig.

  I looked at my watch. “Let’s worry about counting it later. We’ve gotta get our shite together and move.” We got our bags and equipment together and exited the kitchen.

  The smell in the living room was so pungent it made my eyes water, and I covered my mouth with my shirtsleeve. The safe door lay on its back near the empty safe. It had been completely cut away from the hinge and bolts, and the surprisingly neat edges suggested that he’d been meticulous about doing it, except for one small bit of metal that was bent outwards and jagged. A nearby crow bar suggested that McMaster had used brute force to jerk the door out completely, using the bit of metal he didn’t melt completely as an improvised hinge.

  Gupta called just as we picked up McMaster’s cutting rig and made our way to the door. I answered as we got to the car.

  “Seriously, what the fuck?” Gupta hissed. “Youse are making me look a right cunt here.”

  “You mean more than usual?”

  “Funny. Mebbe you should become a fuckin’ stand-up with that line of patter.”

  “I told you we had some shit. We’re on our way.”

  “I’ve had to tell Eddie I’m speaking to me fuckin’ missus just so’s I can make this call. He’s seriously fuckin’ pissed off with me. Wants to know why I’ve taken off me hit. You can’t fuckin’ leave us dangling here.”

  “He doesn’t know we’re coming does he?”

  There was a brief pause at the other end of the line, then Gupta made a couple of hacking sounds to register his disgust that I’d even dared suggest such a thing. “What? And have youse send those pics to me missus?” he replied. “Does he shite? But I’m running outta things to say. You need to step on the fuckin’ gas, like.”

  “I told you, there was a crash on the A66. We had to wait to get through. Would’ve used the hard shoulder to turn around, but there were pigs everywhere. They’d have pulled us over if we’d tried and then we wouldn’t make the fuckin’ meeting at all.”

  “Get here soon, like. ‘Cause he’s not gonna hang around much longer,” Gupta said before he rung off. I knew he would call back soon enough, so I turned off the phone. The man had served his purpose.

  My brother loaded the cutting equipment and the cash in the boot and slammed the door closed. McMaster clambered into the vehicle and got in the back seat. There was something about his expression that didn’t look right. He should have been grinning from ear-to-ear, but that wasn’t what he was doing. His face was screwed up in thought, forming deep creases around the eyes. He pursed his lips and sucked at his tongue.

  “What’s with the long face?”

  “‘Cause I’m a prize pony.”

  “And why’s that?”

  He mouthed words silently, punctuating them with an occasional and forceful nod, like he was going over something in his head.

  “Cheer up,” I said. “We took a lotta dough tonight.”

  He looked at me in the rear-view. “Something tells me there’s much more in that house.”

  My brother got in the front passenger seat and I started the engine. “We tore the place apart,” I replied, putting my foot on the gas. I pulled away from the kerb and got to the end of the street.

  McMaster leaned forward and tapped me on the shoulder. “You said you took fifteen off the bloke at the poker game, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Then, just like that he puts another fifteen down on y
our heads.”

  “Right.”

  “I pulled maybe thirty outta the safe,” McMaster said, almost like he was thinking out loud. “But I reckon that was just operating cash – fifteen for you two and the rest of the money to pay the heavies. Bloke like that, pimping, dealing, has gotta be raking in some real money. If so, where the fuck was it?”

  I shrugged. “Dunno. But we tore that place apart”

  My brother murmured in agreement.

  McMaster shook his head again and stared at the streetlights whizzing past. “Not completely. We didn’t tear up the floorboards.”

  “Got a point there, like,” my brother said.

  “We’re gonna come away with more than forty grand each when all this’s done,” I said. “Who gives a shit? We can’t base our decisions on summat that might not even exist.”

  McMaster eyes glistened like he was ready to shed tears. “I’d hand over everything I made tonight for what’s underneath those floorboards. That’s how fuckin’ certain I am.”

  54. – Owden

  GUPTA SCREAMED a long unbroken string of curse words into his phone. Judging by their one-sided nature, those screams were being directed at an answerphone. Eddie stood about ten feet away, wearing a grim expression, and every few seconds he cast ugly glances in Gupta’s direction and made fists with his hands before loosening them again. Gupta eventually hung up the phone and turned towards the pimp.

  “What can I do?” he said, his voice carrying. “They said they were stuck in traffic.”

  “And now they’re not answering.”

  “What can I do?”

  “They better fuckin’ turn up,” Eddie replied, walking towards Gupta, who wisely backed away. “Otherwise this was a total fuckin’ waste of me time.”

  “Oh, you think I enjoy communing with fuckin’ nature, like?” Gupta said, waving his hand at the trees surrounding the clearing, his voice getting louder. “’Cause I don’t. There’s a hundred and one things I’d rather be doing than this shite.”