Stonedogs

by Craig Marriner

  He’s pretty sure his old man’s going to leave the house to him before long, and added to the few grand he already has squirrelled, his slice of the cake in front of him right now should see Mick set for life.

  He can’t help but smile, this physical intimacy with his nest egg buoying him considerably.

  Soon though, as his count reaches twenty-five thousand, Mick dips into the duffel bag in search of more notes and feels his finger scrape along its bottom.

  Sudden alarm jolts him, and Mick skips to his feet. Peers into the bag.

  Gutted: ‘What the fuck game are you trying to pull here, Helmut?’

  Helmut, defensive: ‘What are you on about, Half-pint?’

  Mick, meeting his glare: ‘The deal was for a hundred big ones. So far I’ve counted twenty-five, and we’d be lucky if there’s five more left in the bag.’

  Barry, standing along a wall, shows his teeth, stiffening. Beside him, Gator quickly notes the progress of the dope counters — they’re almost finished — and then appears almost … relieved.

  Helmut, mocking: ‘Don’t panic, ladies. There’s a safe up here and the rest of the money’s in that. Unlike you retards, I wasn’t about to hand over all my trumps until I was certain no covert ops were taking place.’

  Mick: ‘That question’s been well and truly answered, Fritz. Now break out the rest of the moolah.’

  Then, over slow seconds, a certain furtiveness slinks across Helmut’s eye. Commanding: ‘Toby. Voss. You’re no longer needed. Stand down. You’re dismissed. Get back downstairs.’

  With silent grievance, the pair depart.

  And then there were four.

  Helmut, lightly: ‘Ya know, I reckon Kaiser fucked up on the negotiation of this one, Larch. There’s no way this shit’s worth a hundred large. What do you reckon?’

  Larcho: ‘I reckon that’s beyond your mandate.’

  Bunter: ‘Me too. If we …’

  Helmut, hushed: ‘Five grand in each of ya satchels change any minds?’

  Silence.

  Across the table from them, the Skins seem to all but forget the existence of their visitors.

  Bunter: ‘How do you propose we engineer that?’

  Helmut, bluff: ‘Simple. These cunts had a hidden agenda. Tried to renege on the deal. Then they tried to blindside us. For fucking us around we slapped them up a little then gave them the bum’s rush with just the fifty we left on the table. Their fucking fault.’

  Mick, incensed: ‘Hang on …!’

  Helmut, raging, flourishing the shotgun: ‘No, you fucking hang on! Another word and I unload in your face!’

  Larcho: ‘You know how pissed off the Brass’ll be if it finds out. The days of us blitzkrieging on deals are over. We can’t afford clients doubting us no more.’

  Bunter, pondering: ‘They are outta-towners, though.’

  Helmut, intent: ‘Exactly! We let them keep the thirty already out, and split another twenty between us. Once they’ve settled down they’ll realise they came out of it OK and stand to gain nothing by telling tales to Kaiser. Even if Kaiser believed them, they’re only outta-towners and he’s fifty gs up. No matter what they say to him he won’t give them any more money, or any pot back, and they’ll know they’re dead meat from us four.’

  Gaping, Mick looks to his friends for a play, but Barry seems in shock almost, muttering to himself: ‘Lousy skinhead fucks,’ eyes only for the shotgun. And Gator just gazes slackly, like a man in a whole other place.

  Skinhead Four: ‘What about this Bum? He might blow the whistle.’

  Helmut: ‘With Jamie in the brig, Bum’s got no angle round here. He’ll know better than to get on the wrong side of any Skins. Why do you think he isn’t here now? He wants no part of us.’

  Larcho, musing: ‘And even if Kaiser did find out the truth, our only crime is shafting some outta-town kids and saving the firm fifty big ones. We won’t exactly get gassed for it.’

  Bunter, brightening: ‘Yeah, that’s right. Fuck it. We’ve put a lota hard work in lately that’s gone unnoticed. Let’s take some plunder.’

  Larcho: ‘Seconded.’

  Helmut, grinning fiercely, steps away from his confederates and rounds the table, toward the swindle’s casualties. ‘Hear that, bitches? The deal’s about to undergo one or two minor alterations.’

  But the way to Mick’s spirit has always been through his pocket.

  He stands slowly, like a man resolved to Hades. Faces Helmut from several feet. Low, trembling: ‘You’ve got no i-dea what we went through to get that shit to this room, Helmut. There’s no way we can walk from this with a quarter of its fucking worth!’

  Helmut, caustic: ‘If you don’t wanna walk, then you don’t have to. You can be carried.’ Levelling the shotgun: ‘In a body-bag.’

  For long seconds Mick peers into the barrel.

  He reddens, breath arriving in small snorts. Then his face twists with harsh resolve and he gulps visibly, as if swallowing the dregs of his doubt.

  Then, without menace, palms spread, he shuffles forward until the weapon stares at him from inches. Torn from him in fits: ‘G–, g–, go on then! I p–, promise you’ll have to kill me before … b–, b–, before I leave under your terms!’ He sniffs back snot, panting though his teeth, features rung like a dish-rag. ‘Do it, you cunt! There’s n, no other way!’ His head cringes from the shotgun unconsciously, leaving his chin thrust forward … like a boxer paid to dive in the fifth. Behind his dark glasses, Mick’s eyes are surely closed in dreadful anticipation. ‘C’mon, Helmut! Kill me or get our m–, money! Those are your only choices!’

  Scoffing lightly, mockingly impressed, Helmut shifts his grip on the weapon — ‘Is that right, hard-man?’ — and swings the butt at Mick’s jaw: the Hollywood staple.

  But almost before Helmut moves, Mick drops to a knee, armed with forethought …

  … and hurls a left like a Stuka at the skinhead’s crotch.

  ‘Huuuughhhhhh!’

  Helmut doubles at the waist as if snapped, eyes bulging, and as Mick rises he takes the weapon as easily as from a child.

  Mick’s face feels hot, swollen and throbbing. He hears himself drawl: ‘You dopey Nazi bum. Learned fuck all in fifty-odd years, have ya’s?’

  While Helmut’s three colleagues gape disbelief, Mick lifts the weapon high … and smashes the butt over Helmut’s skull.

  A flaccid pile; an empty receptacle.

  Mick, distant: ‘Now that was fucking … orgasmic.’ He trains the barrel on the Skins across the table. ‘I won’t bother saying it, chaps.’

  Two sets of hands go up. Larcho, though, starts round the table smartly. Brash: ‘It’s not loaded. You’re fucked. Chuck it down and you’ll walk away.’

  Mick, to a stirring Barry and Gator: ‘You dudes know how to work this thing?’

  Barry: ‘See if you can cock it.’

  Shunk-shik. ‘Now what?’

  Larcho, nearer: ‘Now nothing. There’s no shells in it.’

  Ever the pragmatist, Mick draws deliberate aim at a portrait of Hitler … and reduces the fucker to confetti.

  In the turmoil of gunsmoke and Fuhrer flakes, stunned ears and stunned minds, all four Skins are suddenly face down on the floor.

  Mick, a crisp order: ‘Gator, would you mind closing that trapdoor?’ He cranks home a fresh shell. Shunk-shik.

  Sprinting, Gator’s at the hall’s opposite end in seconds. He slams the lid of the trapdoor; flicks home a large bolt. ‘Sorted!’ He bounces back, leaping, tearing at flags and banners, a manic redecorator.

  Like a soccer star with a shot on goal, Barry dances toward Larcho … and kicks him in the head with all he can muster.

  Clunk.

  Larcho finishes on his back, gargling inhumanly.

  Gator, wired: ‘What’s the plan, fellas?’

  Barry, drooling: ‘Hold the gun on these bastards, Mick; I’ll slap the safe’s whereabouts outta one of them.’

  Mick: ‘I’m not so sure we should do
that.’

  ‘Why the fuck not?’

  ‘I just think we should cut our losses and bail, while we still can. We’ll take the thirty gs on the table and leave them a third of the dope, as if the deal went sweet, only smaller. That way they might not feel the need to come after us. If we start torturing them, dicking round in their safe, I think it’s given that we’ll acquire a new set of enemies.’

  Barry pauses to absorb this. At length: ‘Na, let’s go for broke.’

  Gator: ‘I reckon Mick might be spot on with this, Baz. This thirty and the other lot’ll do us well enough. The rest’ll be pinga in the bank.’

  But Barry’s got the taste on his tongue. His eyes roil with it.

  A frantic hammering from the underside of the trapdoor.

  Barry, seizing on this: ‘How the fuck are we gonna scrap our way outta this joint holding four big sacks? If we can find the rest of the bucks, one of us can carry all of it and a couple of sacks, with two others freed up for action.’

  Gator: ‘If that’s your only issue we ain’t got one. We’re taking the fire exit.’ He beckons Barry to the windows facing the neighbouring warehouse. Reluctantly, Barry follows.

  Gator, pointing: ‘Out the window, over the fence and clean away.’ He raps Barry’s shoulder with finality, producing from his pocket a mobile phone. Pushing a button, he hands it to Barry. ‘Tell Tony we’ll be leaving via the tradesmen’s exit.’

  Without a glitch, Gator strides back to the table, but Mick watches him blink relief as Barry begins speaking.

  Sullenly: ‘Tony? Where are ya? … How far away’s that? … All right. Go to Plan B, man … In a minute or so … Tell ya then. Later.’

  Hoisting a sack, Gator asks Mick: ‘You all right, man?’

  Mick weighs this for a moment. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m happy as a nigger with a watermelon.’

  Gator: ‘Grab the money, will ya, Baz?’

  Barry, still miffed: ‘Here, Mick, pass me the shotie. Let’s revert to type: you play accountant, I’ll play bombardier.’

  Mick, showing teeth: ‘Not tonight, buddy.’

  Barry seems set to make an issue of it when a loud crash from the front yard freezes them all. It’s followed instantly by the screech of metal in agony.

  Running to a front window, Mick yelps, recoiling in pure revulsion.

  Gator: ‘What the fuck is it?’

  ‘Oinkers, man! Carloads of the cunts! They just rammed the front gate with a fucking meat-wagon!’

  As if on cue the unhurt skinheads leap to their feet, sprinting for the trapdoor.

  As helpless as a predator, Barry moves to give chase.

  Gator, roaring: ‘Barry, no! No time, man! We’re gone! Right now!’

  A few strides into it, Barry pulls short with a grunt, a face like Eve’s in a greengrocer’s. Spins instead to the table, bagging cash in thousand-dollar handfuls.

  The skinheads rip open the trapdoor; disappear. Sounds of pandemonium filter upwards.

  With the weed forgotten, Gator claps Mick’s back and leads him at a run down the hall, to a window near the halfway point. ‘Smash this fucker! If we stay at the edge of the garage maybe no cunt’ll see us from the courtyard or road!’

  Breaking the glass with the gun-butt; sweeping shards from the frame.

  Gator, over his shoulder: ‘Fuck the bucks, Baz! We gotta go now! ’

  Barry, discordantly calm: ‘It’s done.’

  He turns from the table and hurls the bag at Gator in a long halfback’s pass. Gator promptly tosses it through the broken window. He’s about to take hold of the window frame when he catches himself. ‘Prints, fellas! No prints on the aluminium!’

  He has his shirt off in a second; spreads it across the foot of the window frame. Mick offers him an arm, helps him ease out and down, stretching to arm’s length, dropping to the roof, knees bent.

  He straightens immediately, catches the shotgun Mick lowers, places it beside the money.

  In seconds Mick’s beside him in the night, regathering the weapon. From the head of the building comes the crunching of sledgehammers on wood.

  And then wild hollering: ‘Get the fuck down, all you bald cunts!’

  ‘Get your face on the floor or you’ll fucking lose it, I swear to god!’

  Gator, hissing as Barry swings from the window: ‘The shirt! Don’t leave my shirt behind!’

  Heavy boots eating stairs.

  From behind a dark window Mick hadn’t noticed, a few feet from his face, a door is kicked off its hinges and a torch beam flickers about … crosses the wall … impales them.

  ‘Out on the garage, Sarge! Three of the fuckers! Getting away!’

  Fleeing the light, the Brotherhood pelt across the roof … and freeze. Between them and rolls of barbed wire lies a black abyss. But it’s the drop into the alley, beyond the fence, that gives them pause. Two or three metres? More? Who can tell in this light?

  Shirted again, Gator throws the bag across and they watch it fall, get a feel for the height. The shotgun goes next, clattering on rocky dirt.

  Still they hesitate.

  From the front door: ‘Joe! Take team C into the alley! Get into the alley! They’re escaping over the wire!’

  Mick leaps through pure panic, clears the barbs by inches, strikes the wire fence of the alley’s far border, bounces off, lands on his back. Springs to his feet uninjured.

  He locates the shotgun as Gator hits the far fence, sliding to his feet cleanly.

  Barry follows … and snags a foot on the wire. It’s torn free almost immediately, but his equilibrium’s gone …

  … and he lands in the alley on a single, straight leg.

  Mick, wailing: ‘Noooo!’

  Slumped on his side, Barry says nothing for several seconds. At last: ‘Fuck.’

  Frantic feet thudding on bitumen …

  … nearer.

  Gator: ‘How bad is it, Barry?’

  ‘Help me up and I’ll tell ya.’

  They do and Barry takes one step, snorts back a howl. Panting: ‘It’s gone. The knee. Completely.’

  Gator to Mick: ‘Half each?’

  ‘Yep.’

  Shotgun and money-bag in free hands, supporting Barry between them, down the alley in a five-legged race.

  Reaching the square building site and veering left, crossing it diagonally, aiming for the narrow gap between the hulking workshops.

  Barry, puffing: ‘We can get out down here, right?’

  Mick, panting: ‘Bum reckons there’s a culvert between those buildings. It gives good access to the road.’

  To their right, on the wall of a workshop, lights begin to dance as their pursuers make the alley, torches bobbing.

  Mick: ‘Can we go any faster?’

  They try but the site is littered in debris, lit only by stars.

  Pounding steps to their rear. Louder and louder.

  Almost at the byway …

  The ground at their feet lights up.

  ‘Oi! Fucking freeze, you arseholes!’

  Ducking between the workshops, dropping into the dry culvert, Mick’s heart implodes. There’s a road at the narrow passageway’s end, all right. In fact, they can see Tony’s Torana at idle by a streetlight. Unfortunately, the workshops are much longer than they looked, ‘safety’ remains eighty metres away.

  Gator, raging: ‘Sonofafuckingbitch!’

  Mick: ‘We’ll never make it!’

  Barry: ‘Squeeze a shot off at the cunts. They’ll go to ground for the next three hours.’

  Mick: ‘Search team, man! They’ll be Glocked-up. We fire at them they’ll think Santa’s here early!’

  From around the corner, closing: ‘Get back here, you pricks!’

  Barry, a moment later, shrugging: ‘You dudes break for it. I’ll make a stand. One cunt could hold a thousand here … if he’s hard enough.’

  Desperation makes a brutal prioritiser: the moment is worth less than seconds.

  Gator: ‘Cheers, man.’

  M
ick: ‘You’ll go down in history, Baz.’

  Barry, speaking fast: ‘I’ll tell them I met you dudes at an Otara tinny house; don’t even ’member ya names. Phone Amy and tell her I was home till two hours ago, have been for the last week; she knows that anyway … And leave me the shotie, Mick: I’m ordering the smoked pork.’

  Yeah, right. Mick backs away. So you can make Valhalla — through a weapon with my prints — while a manhunt tears the Smoke up on a cop-killer payback.

  Gator seems to agree. ‘Sorry, bro. Your true role is yet to be played.’

  Hobbling, Barry snatches at the weapon as his cohorts desert him, pelting clear.

  At their backs: ‘Ya fucking killjoy bastards!’

  Several seconds later: ‘Don’t hurt me! Please! I surrender! ’

  Sprinting hard at Gator’s heels, Mick risks a backward glance. In the beams of several torches he sees Barry, hands aloft. The first policeman, intent on the chase, attempts to pass him at pace … and runs flush into a merciless clothesline.

  Mick: ‘Give ’em hell, Bazza!’

  Barry claims his victim’s long torch, clasps it like a club, holds his ground. ‘I — smell — bacon!’

  Hurling themselves at the Torana’s back seat: ‘Go, bro! Go, go, gooooooo!’

  15

  Wednesday, 15 March, 10.18am

  Windowless. Cramped brick walls. Linoleum floor. Undressed wooden table and chairs. Bare lightbulb dangling from a cord. Half-full ashtray.

  Minus only the black drapes, B-grade movie buffs.

  Especially when the iron door swings open, a burly detective easing in, clipboard in hand.

  Shutting the door behind him, he smiles at the sight of Barry, feet on the table, chair on two legs, braced against the wall, cigarette in handcuffed fingers. As if to spite his black eyes, his split lip, the cut along his jaw, Barry brandishes a mocking grin.

  Copper: ‘How’re you doing, mate. Not too sore?’

  ‘I’ve had sex that left me sorer.’

  The redhead offers a laddish chuckle. ‘That’s the spirit. I was at the bust and I heard about what happened. I can’t condone your actions, but I’d be the first to admit that you’ve got plenty of ticker. Now that the heat’s off they tell me you seem like a clued-up fella. Let’s you and me have a wee chat and I’ve got a feeling things for you are gonna be juuuust fine.’