The Glasgow Grin (A Stanton Brothers thriller)

by Martin Stanley

  My brother got up and placed his hands in his pockets, flexing his muscled torso and arms. “Go and siddown, lads,” he said. “Enjoy the rest of your day, like I’m gonna.”

  Maori and Blondie stepped forward in tandem, neither willing to back down. The two hipsters kept enough distance to easily turn and run if it all went wrong. I wondered how much fear their Ray Bans were hiding.

  My brother sighed. “One more chance, lads.”

  Maori stepped forward and slammed both palms into my brother’s chest. He barely moved an inch, but his face muscles twitched and jumped furiously. He was really trying to control his temper – I’d seen him break men’s kneecaps for less.

  “Siddown, lads,” he said. “Seriously, before youse get your lovely fuckin’ boyband hair and tats all mussed up.”

  Maori swung a wild right that my brother blocked by raising his left shoulder. The punch landed with a crunch that harmed Maori more than my brother. Yelping, he drew back his injured hand and tried to follow up with a left to my brother’s gut.

  My brother did a quick sidestep and brought his right hand and the cola can out of his pocket. Maori roared angrily and ran towards him. My brother let him come and then swung the can. The base struck his opponent’s nose with a solid thump, crushing it. Maori shrieked as he dropped to the sand, hands covering his ruined face.

  The two hipsters in shades grimaced, taking several steps backwards. They appeared to be deciding whether to run or stay.

  Blondie didn’t share their cowardice. He threw a forceful right hook that caught my brother’s cheek perfectly, pitching him back a few steps. An expression of shock dropped my brother’s jaw, he hadn’t expected such accuracy. Bending his knees, he dropped into a fighter’s stance and let his right arm go loose.

  Blondie took the bait. He rushed in without thinking, arms raised, body unprotected.

  My brother swung the can in a short fast arc that crunched into Blondie’s left side. He tried to ignore the broken ribs, but the pain slowed him considerably. He attempted to throw a left, yelped in agony, and adjusted his body to fling a right instead.

  My brother smashed the can into Blondie’s mouth. Dazed, he staggered back into the hipster twins, who made the mistake of keeping him upright. Blondie spat blood and teeth on the ground and readied himself for the next attack.

  My brother raced forward, then did a stop-start shuffle in front of Blondie, who was stunned enough to fall for it. He threw hooks at the space where he thought his opponent was supposed to be and took another blow to the jaw. This one shattered his face with a crack that could have been heard on Phuket. His legs buckled and he fell forward, landing on his stomach.

  He stayed down and bled into the sand

  My brother dropped the can and grabbed one of the hipsters by the throat. The other turned and ran towards the town, looking over his shoulder occasionally to ensure he wasn’t being chased. My brother lifted the hipster like he was a feather and pulled him close. The hipster pissed his shorts, screeching sorry repeatedly.

  He tightened his hand around the man’s throat, reducing the apologies to choked sounds. “You even think about bringing the pigs in on this and I’ll skull-fuck you. We clear?”

  The man nodded his head and gurgled enthusiastically. My brother dropped him on the sand. He sat on the ground, rubbed his throat and hacked a pathetic cough. He was studying my brother with wary eyes, waiting for his back to turn.

  My brother moved towards Maori and stood over him with balled fists, waiting for the man to try something. The only thing he was trying were interesting new ways of crying into the sand: squealing into his hands like a toddler having a tantrum.

  Sensing his moment, the hipster scrambled up from the sand and took off after his friend, rushing as fast as he could towards town. It was obvious that he’d be blabbing to the authorities within five minutes of finding the station.

  I grabbed my brother by the shoulder. “Think it’s time we moved on too,” I said.

  He nodded. “Yeah, better get back to the hotel, like. Fuckin’ starved.”

  “No, I mean off this island.”

  We packed in record time, checked out of our hotel and made our way down to the harbour, so we could take the next boat to Krabi. The police were already waiting for us, along with the hipster who didn’t have my brother’s handprint around his throat. He helpfully pointed us out and jeered as the police dragged us off the pier.

  They took us to station. We didn’t make a fuss, because it wouldn’t have helped our case. When we arrived, I leaned in to the commanding officer and asked if he’d like to make two thousand dollars? Large sunglasses covered most of the top half of his face, so I couldn’t read his eyes, but his body language changed from one of hostility to something friendlier. He grasped my forearm and squeezed, whispering, “We talk later,” in my ear.

  A few hours later he came storming into our small dingy cell with a demand:

  “You pay four thousan’ dollah.”

  He was a tiny man in a dark grey uniform that looked more military than police. A long multi-coloured mosaic badge sat above the left pocket and a couple of medals dangled from the flap. A peaked cap with a badge at the centre finished the whole ensemble. Out of uniform he would have looked ridiculous, but here he was the master of his domain. The sunglasses were off and his dark eyes were angry. He held up four fingers to illustrate his point.

  It was more than I wanted to give him, but two thousand apiece made sense.

  “Okay,” I replied.

  “Each,” the officer said, pointing at my brother.

  “Four thousand each?” my brother said, face reddening. “Fuck that shite.”

  The man’s eyebrows sloped upward, wrinkling his forehead. “Shite?”

  “Another word for shit,” I replied.

  “Not shit,” the officer said. “You do, or you don’t leave cell.”

  He strode out, slamming the cell door shut.

  I glowered at my brother. “Congratulations. You’ve pissed him off.”

  “Fuck him and fuck you.”

  “That’s the spirit.”

  “Whassat supposed to mean?”

  “You ever seen the inside of a Thai jail?”

  “No.”

  “Neither have I. And I don’t wanna see inside of one, either. This is as close as I wanna get to Thai justice. If you’re smart you’ll pay up, just like I’m gonna.”

  And pay up we did.

  The Thai police scoured our suitcases, but didn’t find the money and currency cards we’d hidden inside special compartments built into the frames. Because I didn’t want to open the cases and lose all our money, I asked for a few phone calls instead. They allowed two calls, made long-distance to McMaster and Kandinsky, begging for the money. Neither man was happy to be put out like that, but I promised them each a favour if they needed it, along with a considerable chunk of interest on what I borrowed. Both told me that I owed them big-style and sorted out the money within a few hours.

  One at a time, we were taken on an escorted boat ride to the nearest Western Union office in Krabi. My escorts were plain clothed, but their stern demeanour and the bulges beneath their jackets confirmed what would happen to me if I tried any funny business. They ushered me to the Western Union counter and watched as four grand’s worth of dollar notes were tallied. They took the bundle out of my hands, put it in a small holdall, watched intently by the counter clerk, and told the senior officer over the phone that the deal was done. Then they escorted me to a café across the street, where we waited in silence until my brother arrived with another four of their colleagues.

  Via a method of high-pitched screeches in various languages, pointed fingers and semaphore, the officers told us to never return to Ko Phi Phi. Then, two-by-two, they flagged down taxis and disappeared from our lives forever.

  Watching the last taxi spew smoke as it drifted into heavy traffic, I turned and patted my brother on the shoulder. “At least they didn’t find the
money in our suitcases.”

  His mouth was downturned and his muscles tense. “Still got four grand outta us though.”

  “Better than being gang raped in a Thai jail.”

  “Yeah.”

  I picked up my bag and case and ploughed through dense crowds of early-evening commuters, fighting against thick humidity and oppressive heat. A random thought about the money in the cases made me tighten my grip on the handle.

  We hadn’t been in Thailand long and we’d already been banned from one island, and five grand of my money had disappeared in as many days. I had a sinking feeling that our big score wasn’t going to last long. Without this cash, we would be back in Teesside, running from Bob Owden’s bounty, breaking villains’ bones for chump change.

  That thought depressed me. My heart sank into my stomach and boiled within the acid. The desire to be anywhere but here was overwhelming. I pulled a map from a bag and pointed at it. “There’s a bus station not too far from here.”

  My brother nodded. “Where are you thinking?”

  “Surat Thani. There’s an overnight train from there to Bangkok.”

  “Fuck it. We can’t do any worse in Bangkok than we did in Ko Phi Phi, right?”

  I eyeballed my brother. Those words didn’t fill me with confidence. I said nothing, pointing in the direction of the bus station instead. We had a long journey ahead of us.

  II. Owden

  GUPTA PATEL stood on the podium and smiled.

  He’d lost over six-stone since the injury that had cost him one of his balls. Surgeons had managed to save the other, but it didn’t work as well as it should and he occasionally needed injections of testosterone to make up for what he could no longer produce very well. The loss of a testicle had given him more purpose in life – as though he felt a need to compensate for the loss. He exercised more, ate and drank less, and focused on his career, with a little help from Bob.

  To his right stood Mike McGarvey, looking slick in a two-grand Italian silk suit.

  He’d gained weight since having fatherhood thrust on him in the middle of the night. Days and evenings of trying to cheer up a disfigured child, with cinema visits, parties, impromptu outings to fast food restaurants, along with less time to himself, had made Mike pudgier than he liked.

  The two men looked at each other, smiled and seemed like the best pals in the world. The local press lapped it up – the rest of the world had long since forgotten about the Stokesley Slaughterhouse. Cameras flashed and whirred and the crowd murmured.

  “As an importer of spices and ingredients from India, I know the importance of having world class haulage,” Gupta said and grinned. “The horrible events at Hollis Haulage all those months ago can’t be erased, but neither can quality. John Hollis may have been an awful human being, but his many employees can’t be blamed for the failings of their employer. These hardworking people deserve a company that’s run clean by locals for locals but with an international scope and vision.”

  Gupta took a step back from the podium and McGarvey took that as his cue to speak. “When my good friend, Gupta, mentioned that he wanted to take on the challenge of buying and running Hollis Haulage I saw it as an opportunity to start afresh. An opportunity for the employees to be managed by professional businessmen, who don’t treat the place as a personal bank for their own profit, who don’t indulge in illegal business using a legitimate concern to cover their tracks. I saw this as an opportunity to diversify into a new and potentially profitable sector. It’s a totally new start for a great group of employees under new management.”

  New management, controlled by the old management, thought Bob. Both men talked a slick line, like politicians, disguising their heroin importing business with buzzwords like diversify, profitable, vision, and hardworking people. They were doing as they were told, delivering the lines exactly as instructed, playing their parts perfectly, telling the narrative that the audience expected to hear. Nobody would ever think that the resurrected company had already returned to its old ways: importing more Heroin, sneaking in more girls, and exporting more criminals than ever before. Nobody would think it because everybody loves second chances and tales of redemption. The squalid truth would be almost too unbearable for them to comprehend.

  McGarvey stepped back. Gupta patted him on the shoulder and continued: “That’s why we razed the old headquarters, moved to a temporary location, and employed Owden Construction to build a brand new state-of-the-art headquarters in Middlesbrough. And like all new starts, we’re operating under the new name of Sunrise Haulage.”

  Patel shuffled away from the podium and it was McGarvey’s turn to talk. “A sunrise signifies the dawn of a new day. In this case Sunrise Haulage signifies the dawn of a new business with new aims…”

  “Which are just your aims, really,” Chief Constable Charlton Aimes said, leaning in towards Bob. His tone was sniffy, as it always was when he’d had too much free booze. “Tell me, Bob, what’s in this for you? You know, aside from the building contract?”

  “Why should there be owt in it for me, lad? I’m just an impartial observer.”

  “Because you’re the antithesis of impartial. You’re Mister Self-Interest.”

  “Nice word, that – antithesis.”

  “Don’t patronise me, Bob.”

  “Then quit your mithering,” he replied, fixing his eyes back on the stage.

  Gupta and McGarvey were both facing left, beckoning somebody to join them. Slowly, nervously, Larry Eldridge emerged from behind a curtain and blinked at the popping lights. Sweat rolled down his forehead and perspiration flowers bloomed around his armpits. He looked uncomfortable and painfully thin in his grey polyester suit. Walking with robotic determination, he approached the two men and and shook their hands with stiff, jerky movements. A stupid fake grin cracked deep lines around his terrified eyes.

  Bob began to laugh, which turned to guffaws when Aimes noticed the interloper. “Oh, you’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me,” he said.

  Bob smirked at Aimes. “Problems?”

  “This is pretty low, even for you.”

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  “Eldridge? You’ve got him working for you now?”

  Bob shrugged as Gupta placed a hand on Larry’s shoulder and squeezed, saying, “Larry Eldridge here, whose bravery brought the attention of the world to Hollis Haulage, lost his job in the aftermath of the massacre…”

  Aimes studied Bob closely. “You sneaky bugger.”

  “Sneaky?”

  “You cost Eldridge his job, didn’t you?”

  Bob pulled a face. “Dunno what you mean. Far as I can tell they fired him over a dropped iPod.” It helped that he knew the owner of Paragon Logistics and had undertaken a few favours for him in the past. Bob traded a favour to get Larry on his payroll, though he made sure that the cleaner didn’t know that; as far as he was concerned, they had fired him because of a broken iPod – damaged on the night of the massacre. Larry was easier to watch and manipulate as his employee, and the sense of closure at having him cleaning the offices of the newly resurrected Hollis Haulage was too good to ignore.

  “Pull the other one,” Aimes said, “you just want that poor bastard where you can easily control him.”

  “Is that so?”

  Aimes nodded. “Same as you have me at your beck-and-call.”

  “A horrible job for which you’re handsomely paid, lad,” Bob replied.

  “A job that maybe I’m getting too good for.”

  Bob turned his body towards the dull grey man in the dull grey suit and fixed him with a cold gaze. “You get unpleasant when you drink, Charlie.”

  Aimes prodded Bob with his forefinger after every few words. “We cleaned up after your set-to with Jack Samson, we cleaned up after Hollis, and no doubt you’ll expect us to clean up this mess once it starts puddling around your feet, Bob.”

  Bob thought about snapping the man’s finger for a moment, but instead mentally counted to ten and sat back in h
is seat. “You sound like you’re after some trouble there, lad?”

  “Don’t fuckin’ lad me.”

  “What should I call you then, Charlie? Boy?” Bob replied with a nasty grin. “That more agreeable, like? Because we all know that’s where your preferences lay.”

  Aimes’ skin faded from pinkish grey to something very close to white. “I dunno what you’re talking about?”

  Bob grabbed Aimes’ elbow and pulled him from the room carefully, ensuring not to draw anybody’s attention. He led the officer into the carpeted hallway and looked left and right. A few catering staff rushed from one room to another, but there was nobody close to hear him. He pulled out his mobile phone and found an image.

  “You’ve been kicking against the pricks, recently, and it’s been a great source of worry to me. I’ve heard rumours that you’ve been courting Jack Samson – hedging your bets for summat better to come along in case I went down with the good ship Hollis. Well, lad, the only thing you’re courting is disaster.”

  He held up the phone, so that Aimes had a good view of the image. It was a graphic image of him naked on an unmade bed with a slender, smooth bodied youth. Another picture showed the two of them on their sides in the sixty-nine position.

  Aimes’ face twitched. He cast his eyes from the phone to Bob and back again, just in time for a third picture of them indulging in a bit of mutual frottage.

  “He’s fifteen years of age, Charlie. That’s prison time. That’s your life over.”

  Aimes made a weak grab for the phone, but Bob pushed him away. The man collapsed against the wall and leaned against it to stop himself from sliding to the floor. Mouth pursed tight, he raised his right hand to his chin and vomited into it. Long strings of bile dangled between the gaps in his closed fingers. Bob looked left and right, nervously this time, saying, “Get a hold of yourself.”

  Aimes gagged, ready to vomit again. Bob grabbed him by the collar, dragged him along the corridor, past curious onlookers, and pushed him into a spotless white bathroom. Aimes sprayed the tiles with copious amounts of vomit, until the floor was slick with it, and dropped on his knees in a puke puddle and kept heaving. When he couldn’t retch any more, he turned his red face towards Bob, tears spilling down his cheeks.