The Glasgow Grin (A Stanton Brothers thriller)

by Martin Stanley

  George Karagounis came straight at me, rushing into the light, unblinking, with the desire to kill all over his face. I let him get within five feet, then calmly unloaded into his right knee, turning it into mush. The leg collapsed beneath him and he went down with a squeal. Then I shot him in the other leg a couple of times, just for fun. That made him screech louder.

  I dragged him back to clearing by his hair. He was too concerned with the pain from his newly mangled legs to put up much of a fight and lay on the ground panting and puffing.

  Eddie on the other hand realised that he wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry. He stepped away from the tree, spat blood on the ground and dropped into a fighter’s stance.

  “Let’s see how hard you are without that fuckin’ gun.”

  My brother smiled and threw the weapon in my direction. It landed barrel first in the soft mud, handle jutting from the ground. I picked up the piece and pocketed it, just in case it might be needed it again.

  Shoulders tensing up, my brother raised his fists and lowered his head. “You’re about to find out.” He got within a few feet of the pimp and began to circle him. Eddie turned in time with my brother, never taking his eyes off him.

  On the surface, my brother appeared careless and arrogant, dancing forward as if to deliver a blow before shuffling back without throwing it, but there was more to it than met the eye. Every time he danced forward, my brother lifted his gaze from Eddie’s feet to his fists and back again, carefully watching his movements.

  He let his guard become loose and sloppy. Eddie took advantage and danced forward, smashing several fast jabs into his face. The pimp smirked as he danced back to his original spot, satisfied that this was easier than he’d thought it was going to be. A lump formed beneath my brother’s right eye and another started to swell on his left jaw. He spat blood on the soil and gave his opponent a scarlet grin.

  Eddie danced like Muhammad Ali, fast-stepping and feigning blows that never came. “Take the gun away and you’re just a big pussy, aren’t you?”

  My brother let him come again and did a heavy-handed swing that raised a breeze as it rushed uselessly through the air. Eddie ducked beneath it and caught my brother on the chin with a weak blow. My brother’s legs wobbled and his eyes fluttered and went dreamy. Eddie sensed blood and charged in with his defences down.

  Just as the pimp geared up for the killer strike, my brother’s eyes narrowed and he threw a right-hand blur of a punch into Eddie’s ribs. A loud crack echoed through the trees. Eddie cried out, folded forward and staggered several steps, cradling his left side. He was wheezing for breath, but turned back to my brother and tried to rush him. My brother caught Eddie with a left jab and a right hook to the chin. His legs lost all coordination and he fell on his stomach with his face slamming into the wet earth.

  Wheezing noisily, Eddie managed to get up on his knees. Judging by the laboured rattle of his breathing, one of his lungs had been punctured by a broken rib. My brother crouched in front of Eddie and patted his muddy face.

  “What was that you were saying about me abilities without a gun?”

  Eddie took a big lungful of air before he spoke: “Fu… ck. Y… oooh.”

  My brother slammed his open palm into Eddie’s damaged ribs, which made an audible wet crunch. The pimp mewled and folded forwards until his forehead was touching the soil.

  “Better watch that, matey,” my brother said, leaning close. “It’s bad for your health, like.”

  He left Eddie in his prayer pose, stood upright and rifled through a jacket pocket. He pulled out a long-handled switchblade and hit the button. Torchlight glinted off the blade as it snicked into place. My brother turned towards Rose, saying: “He’s all yours now.”

  He threw the knife in her direction. Recoiling instinctively, Rose retreated back a few steps and cast a glance at where her men were hiding. Then she noticed the blade was embedded in the tree trunk to her left and regained some of her composure. She tried not to look back at her bodyguards, but couldn’t quite manage it. I pretended not to notice, letting her think she still had the upper hand.

  Rose pulled the knife from the bark. Rotating it in her hand, she studied the blade and then thrust it forward several times in a rapid motion. She wielded it like somebody who’d once shanked a woman in prison.

  Eddie managed to get back into an upright kneeling position. He wiped his mud-smeared forehead and coughed blood on the soil.

  Rose squinted in his direction. “You’re looking a bit unhappy there, Eddie,” she said. “Maybe you should smile more.”

  “Maybe… you should suck… my cock,” Eddie wheezed. “Oh wait… you already did.”

  He coughed out a wet, sibilant laugh.

  Rose’s body went rigid and a low moan escaped her.

  “My daughter’s hardly slept since you sliced her up,” she said, voice thick with rage. “She wakes up screaming every night. And every night I smooth her hair and tell her it’ll be all right. Every fuckin’ night I lie to her, because it won’t be all right, will it? Her life’s fucked. Everywhere she goes she’s gonna have the grin you carved into her.”

  Eddie bared his bloodstained teeth at her. I think it was supposed to be a smile, but the gesture looked feral in the torchlight. “Remind me again… why I should… give a fuck,” he said. “Maybe… now her face is… fucked. She can work… on her personality.”

  Then he let out another longer laugh that sounded like sounded like a gas valve being turned on and off. Leaning in, my brother pressed his hand against Eddie’s chest. He stopped laughing and started wailing.

  “You don’t cut kids,” my brother said. “You just don’t.”

  Eddie spat blood in my brother’s face. He pulled away in disgust and wiped at it with his jacket sleeves. Then he knocked Eddie back on the ground with a hard right-hook and stomped his face into the wet mud until he begged for mercy. He pulled Eddie back to his knees and grabbed his throat.

  “Don’t fuckin’ do that again,” he snarled.

  Eddie’s face was drenched with mud and blood and snot and drool. He tried speaking, but initially couldn’t form the words and only gurgled. Gradually, through sheer force of will, he managed to blurt: “Your daughter’s… a cunt, Rose… Just like… you.”

  Rose stiffened and her fingers clenched around the knife handle. A low guttural animalistic growl escaped her lips. “Hold him,” she said, striding towards the pimp.

  My brother wrapped his right arm around Eddie’s neck and held him tightly. His left snaked around the pimp’s chest and squeezed the breath out of his lungs. Eddie was too weak and too short of lungpower to do anything more than a bit of limp struggling. Finally, he accepted his fate and let his body go loose.

  Rose stood over him and lifted his face up, so that she was looking into his eyes. Then she slipped the knife blade into his mouth and let it come to rest at the left corner, against the flesh but not pressing hard enough to cut through it.

  “I hope this fuckin’ hurts you as much as it did Emily,” she said.

  The knife sliced through the skin and blood gushed. Eddie mewled and bucked with pain, but my brother kept a tight grip on him. Rose kept pushing the blade until it reached Eddie’s ear, all the while hissing, This is for Emily, like a mantra.

  I had hoped that Eddie’s torture would bring me some kind of satisfaction, but all I felt was emptiness. There was no pleasure, no sense of an ending: all of this pain and torture from one robbery that now seemed like a lifetime ago.

  Just as Rose started on the other side of Eddie’s face, the blade slicing the flesh apart, I heard Mickey’s voice through the earpiece. It started low at first and was hard to discern over Eddie’s mumbling and my brother’s hoots of derision, but got gradually louder and more panicked. At first I thought it had something to do with Rose’s men, that they were finally making their play. My hand tightened its grip on the gun, and my finger brushed the trigger, ready for the chaos to come.

  Then I caught some
words that chilled my blood, repeated again and again and again.

  “Bob fuckin’ Owden, Bob fuckin’ Owden. You hear me, Stanners, it’s Bob fuckin’ Owden.”

  81. – Owden

  BOB AND JIMMY crept through the trees with Regan close behind. Wet ground squished beneath their feet. Voices droned wordlessly somewhere in the distance. They followed the sounds until they got louder and words formed and they saw the glare of a torch.

  Bob stopped moving and looked over his shoulder at Regan.

  “You sure we can trust them lads?”

  Regan smirked. “Boss man, you pay those lads and they’re loyal until the job’s done.”

  Regan’s men had stayed behind to load the bodies into the van that was now hidden in a small alcove just off the road and away from the clearing. Neither of them had instilled Bob with confidence; they resembled a couple of thickset brickies from one of his building sites, and spoke with the drawled, confused tones of the perpetually stoned.

  “And after the job’s done?”

  Regan’s smirk twisted higher. He adjusted the strap of the assault rifle that was digging into his shoulder. “I can make sure they never speak a word to anybody.” He paused, stared into the distance and broke a grin, as if deep in thought. “In fact, it’ll be my pleasure.”

  Bob nodded and turned back in the direction of the torchlight.

  There was a sudden commotion, scuffling and silenced gunshots. Regan sucked in a breath and reached for his weapon, but Jimmy turned and stopped him. He jerked his head back in the direction of the sounds. “They don’t know we’re here.”

  Regan relaxed and exhaled. “Then what’s going on?”

  Jimmy shrugged. “Let’s go find out.”

  The three men crouched as low as possible and scurried from tree to tree until they had a clear view of the proceedings.

  Eddie was on the ground in a prayer position with his forehead pressed to the soil. Derek Stanton stood over him with a faint smile, as though admiring his handiwork. Then he pulled something from his pocket and a blade snapped into place. He threw it in the direction of Rose. Her head quickly jerked to the right and lingered. Then she turned and saw the knife embedded in the tree beside her.

  Bob followed the path of Rose’s glance, noticed what he thought was movement in the shadows, and grabbed the binoculars. Lit up in green, Rose’s companions stood behind a couple of thick tree trunks, with their guns drawn. Bob passed the glasses to Jimmy and pointed at the threat. “You think you can take them two idiots out without making a scene?”

  Jimmy and Regan looked at each other and smiled.

  “At least give us summat difficult to do, boss man,” Regan said.

  Bob watched as Jimmy and Regan crept from tree to tree, using the shadows to mask their approach. They only moved when Eddie’s wailing and Derek Stanton’s mocking laughter was loud enough to disguise the noise they made.

  Bob turned his attention back to the clearing. Rose was making a mess of Eddie’s face and taking a great deal of pleasure in it, whilst Derek held him steady. She kept grunting, “This is for Emily,” at the pimp as she cut his flesh.

  Bob fixed his gaze back where he thought his men would be, but they’d moved. Rose’s bodyguards were still in the same place, watching and waiting for some kind of signal. Bob saw Jimmy crouched by at the foot of a tree, almost parallel with the closest bodyguard, holding a silenced pistol in a straight-thumb combat grip, aiming it carefully. Jimmy suddenly cocked his head to the right and looked in that direction. Following his line of sight, Bob saw another long silencer barrel poking out from behind a tree.

  Derek let out another loud, annoying cackle. Small flames erupted from the silencer barrels. The two bodyguards took headshots and fell to the floor. Jimmy and Regan crept towards the bodies, made sure that they were dead, and took their weapons. Jimmy looked in Bob’s direction and pointed at the clearing.

  Bob smoothed his hair, adjusted his jacket, and stood upright.

  It was time to crash the party.

  82. – Stanton

  BOB OWDEN emerged from the shadows like an animal hunting its prey. His movements were graceful and measured, though he seemed to be holding something back, walking on the balls of his feet, like he was waiting to pounce. He ran a hand though his silver mane, smoothing it back, and bared his teeth in the manner of a big cat.

  Bob turned his grin on Rose. She backed away and cast a worried glance in the direction of her bodyguards. Then he turned his smile on my brother, who let go of Eddie but remained otherwise still. He walked until he reached the centre of the clearing. “Now isn’t this cosy?”

  Mickey jabbered questions at me, mostly concerned with what the fuck we should do now. I pulled the mobile from my pocket and typed out a text that said: Wait on my signal. Hand gestures from here on in.

  I had questions of my own: like how the hell Bob had located us out here? And, more importantly, why had he come?

  Had Rose set us up? Had Eddie made some kind of deal with him? Had he worked out what had happened at the Stokesley Slaughterhouse? Or were we in the middle of something that we didn’t yet understand?

  I tried not to let all the questions tumbling around in my skull get in the way of survival instinct. I put them all to one side, took a deep breath to compose myself, and pressed send.

  Bob’s eyes went down to the phone in my hand and said: “Who’re you texting, lad?” His rich Yorkshire baritone was loud and amused, like a man without a care in the world.

  This had me worried, very worried.

  I put the phone back in my pocket and tried to smile, even though it was difficult. “Telling Mam not to wait up,” I replied. “Won’t be home in time for supper.”

  Bob chuckled. “Didn’t know they had mobile reception in Hell?”

  “Didn’t you know? Everywhere’s connected now.”

  Bob’s gaze turned nasty. “I mean that’s where she is now, right? Hell?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Sure you do,” he said, smiling. “Your mam, Monica, were a deep throat specialist – back in the days when that were still considered an exotic skill. Went into prostitution for the money, stayed in it because she loved cock. Just couldn’t get enough of it. Had a higher sperm count than most of them fellas she shagged.

  “Drove your old man crazy, it did. Christ, imagine that, eh? Knowing that your missus is a nympho, that what’s between your legs just can’t satisfy her anymore, that every time you go down on her all you can taste is some other fella’s spunk. I don’t blame that lad for hitting the bottle. Or hitting you.

  “Hell, fellas came up from Bradford and as far north as Berwick to sample your Mam’s gullet, lads. They came for her mouth and stayed for her arse. You boys should be proud. She were a bloody good whore.”

  Jaw muscles jumping, my brother took a few steps back from Eddie and glared in Bob’s direction. He hated our parents as much as I did, but didn’t like strangers talking shit about them. We had our reasons for hating them, other people didn’t.

  Bob watched my brother carefully. “You’re looking a bit upset there, Derek.”

  Gnawing at his bottom lip angrily, my brother moved away from Owden. For once he was trying to control his temper and do the right thing. We both knew that Bob was far too smart to come into a situation like this on his own, which meant he had back up. I was hoping that Mickey would fill us in on the situation, but he was silent. It was hard to know if that was because he wanted to keep his location a secret or if he’d done a runner.

  Right at this second we were on our own.

  Bob followed my brother with his eyes and said: “Don’t be so angry there, lad. Your mam had talent, real talent. She could’ve been in porn.”

  Somehow, I had to keep my brother from losing his cool and playing into Bob’s hands. The only method I could think of was by playing Bob at his own game.

  “You’re right, Bobby. Our mam was a whore. You say she was a good one, like. Well, we w
ouldn’t know, so we’ll hafta take your word for it.”

  Bob’s smile changed, became less amused, and his eyes went narrow, as though waiting for my punchline.

  “I mean, I guess you must’ve had experience of her,” I said, “seeing as though she was one of your whores, way back in the Jurassic age.”

  Bob didn’t like that. Shuffling his big shoulders, he lowered his head slightly, as though ready to charge. Mentioning his age was a big no-no, which I’d learned to my cost the last time we met. But as long as I had the video and photos of John Hollis disposing of G-Max I knew I was covered.

  “I bet you must’ve sampled a lotta girls back then, while you were still married?”

  Bob’s face tightened and his body went rigid. He drew in a loud breath and held it. I’d hit his weak spot. It seemed impolite not to chip away at it.

  “Wait, didn’t you even fuck your own sister-in-law, back in the day?” I asked. “Yeah, that was it, right?”

  His lower jaw slackened and his mouth dropped open. This was an unexpected development for Bob, people just didn’t talk to him this way. Nostrils flaring, he took a couple of steps in my direction.

  “Hang about, didn’t your missus find out about her sister? That’s right, she confronted her, so the rumour goes. Threw hot coffee in her face. Scarred her up pretty fuckin’ bad.

  “Then didn’t she kill your six-year-old son? Sleeping pills, wasn’t it? Shortly before she did it to herself. Oh, wait, you’re looking a bit upset there, Robert.”

  Something in Bob’s expression went lifeless during my moment of tawdry triumph. He crouched into a full fighter’s stance and began moving towards me. Jimmy Raffin and Lee Regan emerged from the shadows, carrying silenced weapons that they pointed at everybody, jerking left-and-right, with military precision. Jimmy rushed towards his boss and cut in front of him.

  “Remember why we’re here,” he whispered, blocking Bob’s progress.