by C B Wilson
Shelly said, “Let Floyd do it. He’s the lead investigator on this one, right? He can work a video camera.”
Oliver told her that he wasn’t sure that Floyd could get his shoes on the right way round without help. Shelly said, “I know you think that everyone else in the world is useless, but somehow we all seem to muddle along without you when you’re not there.”
Oliver said, “This is important. We can’t afford to let Floyd screw this one up. If the police find Omar before we have his testimony…”
Shelly said, “That’s my call and I’m telling you to delegate. He messes up, it’s on me.”
Oliver said, “Not this one. If he gets it wrong, somebody dies.”
“I’m ordering you to leave this to Floyd. Get yourself over to Montego Bay, find your friend, help her out. Then take a couple of days to relax. I don’t know – hire a boat, catch some fish, smoke some dope. You’re in the Caribbean, for Christ’s sake.”
Holmes grunted.
“You’ve been there what, four months now – and you haven’t been on a boat. What is it? Boats are too frivolous? Too much fun for you?”
Holmes said, “I don’t need a break.”
“Listen Mr Grumpy, you carry on like this, you’re going to be burnt out by the time you’re forty. I’ve seen it happen.”
Oliver said, “I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to drop everything right now.”
Shelly said, “I told Nikki you’d be there tonight.”
“Well you shouldn’t have.”
Shelly said, “You already look like an asshole. Don’t make me into an asshole too.”
10
A couple of the security guys led Henin along the passageway and onto the rear deck of Plutus. The yacht was open to the sea at the back but the deck above stuck out over it, creating a cool, shady place, about large enough for a basketball court. It was the deck they used to bring on board politicians or celebrities so that they couldn’t be seen.
Jerry was sitting on a jet-ski that had been pulled out of the sea on the shallow ramp at the rear of the deck, when Henin scuttled over. “What you got me down here for? I got things to do.”
Jerry hated everything about Henin. He hated his morose little voice and his constant negativity, but even worse, the Frenchman had learned to speak English with an American accent, which Jerry found unforgivable.
Jerry gave Henin a big smile. “Hey Panda, thanks for coming down.”
“I told you a million times, it’s Vincent.”
Jerry said, “At last, the mystery of why everybody hates The Panda is explained.”
“Con.”
Henin used to be a journalist in the south of France. The way Jerry looked at it, that was the only job you could have where becoming a pimp was a step up. He stood up and patted the seat of the jet-ski. “Could you climb up on here for me?”
“What for?”
“Hop on and I’ll tell you. I think you’re going to like it.”
He was uncomfortable about it but Henin couldn’t see anything wrong with the request. One of the security guys stood in front of him, one behind.
Jerry said, “Malkin told you not to bring English girls or British girls to the parties – right?”
“That’s not my fault. What can I do? It’s the security guy who’s the problem. Not me.”
Jerry said, “It’s never your fault, is it?”
“T’es con toi.”
Jerry said, “Are you saying that because I’m Jewish? Are you anti-Semitic as well as everything else?”
“You’re not Jewish, you’re just weird,” said Henin.
“I’ll tell you what’s weird,” Jerry said. “Look up there.”
Henin looked up at the roof where Jerry was pointing. When his head was tilted back, the security guard behind him grabbed Henin by his ponytail and slammed his head down onto the handlebar of the jet-ski. The roll of padding that was supposed to protect the driver from a collision had been removed. Henin’s head hit the bare metal bar hard. The Russian lifted his head by his hair and slammed him down again. Again and again. Blood spurted from the Frenchman’s nose and forehead and he slumped to the deck unconscious.
The Russian who had attacked him pulled him into the shallow water on the ramp and held Henin down. After a couple of seconds, Henin came awake. He thrashed from side to side trying to get to the surface but the Russian was a big, heavy man. It was no trouble for him to hold Henin until he stopped moving. The water that lapped around him was pink.
Jerry watched the whole thing without turning away. When the Frenchman was dead, he said, “Sometimes, I love my job.”
Then he said, “Ditch him and the jet-ski tonight. You know where.” And then he strolled away, whistling a tuneless song between his teeth.
11
It’s a little over a hundred miles from Kingston to Montego Bay, a three-hour drive on mostly two-lane roads. Holmes wasn’t even fifteen minutes into his journey before he saw the flashing lights on the car behind him. It was a grey Toyota Corolla with two men inside it. The passenger was gesturing at him to pull over.
They were on the north-west outskirts of Kingston, a few miles before the beginning of the short stretch of toll road, where the city peters out into slums and used car lots behind chain-link fences with no pedestrians in sight. Holmes didn’t like the look of it. It was too isolated. He drove on a little further with the cops hooting and flashing and gesticulating even more angrily. He pulled over at a bus stop next to a petrol station.
He killed the engine and heard cheery singing coming from the Pentecostal church across the road. It didn’t seem to fit the situation. He’d have preferred something a little more serious as a soundtrack. Two men were waiting for a bus a dozen metres from where Holmes had parked. He shouted to them, “Have you got a phone? Can you record this?”
He thought he got a thumbs-up from one of the men, but he was too busy keeping his eyes on the police car to be sure.
The Toyota pulled in behind him, tyres crunching on the gravel. Holmes stayed in the car, wound down his window and put his hands palms-up on the driver’s door, just like he’d been trained.
As a man who carried a little extra weight, Holmes was always interested to see how other big men dealt with surplus flesh. The first policeman who got out of the Toyota was the kind of man who carried his fat tight all over his body. It made him look big and hard; you couldn’t imagine him being any slimmer.
The policeman approached the driver’s side. He had his hand on the butt of his pistol in the holster. Holmes was nervous. He could feel the sweat springing out on his back and his face. Shooting people at traffic stops was a favourite tactic of rogue cops all over the world.
Holmes said loudly, “There are no weapons in the car.”
“Get out of the car,” said the officer. His colleague walked slowly round the car, checking for infractions they could use against Holmes.
Holmes got out of the car with his hands visible as much as he could manage.
The policeman said, “Licence, registration and insurance documents.” But he wasn’t traffic division. Holmes recognised him from the photographs of killer cops stuck on the wall of his office.
Holmes said, “Documents are in the glove box.”
The policeman told him to get them out. Holmes shook his head. “I reach in, you think I’m going for a gun, you shoot me. You guys have done this before.”
“Are you refusing to carry out the lawful request of an officer of the Jamaican constabulary?”
Holmes looked at the officer’s shirt. There was no insignia or number. “What’s your name and rank?”
“Licence, registration, insurance.”
Holmes said, “I know you. The shooting of Delroy Robbins. His body was never found, but his girlfriend testified to investigators that two policemen took him out of his car and drove off with him. He was never seen again.”
The policeman said, “Documents.”
“She made an ide
ntification from photographs of one of the officers who abducted and possibly murdered her boyfriend. She said it was Constable Morris. That’s you, isn’t it?”
Morris was breathing like an angry man making a noise somewhere between a growl and a snarl. “Documents.”
“Why don’t you come to my office, say Tuesday, and we can get your side of things on tape.”
Morris jabbed a finger in Holmes’ face and said, “Shut up.”
The other policeman was getting agitated. He said, “Calm down Roy. I’ll check the papers.”
He went into the glove box from the passenger side. The policeman told Holmes to put his hands on the roof of the car. He pointed his pistol at him and moved in close so that the barrel of the gun pressed against his head. Holmes knew that he the next few seconds were vital if he were to stay alive. In the training, they always told him – make it personal. Don’t let the guy with a gun think of you like another notch on his pistol grip.
Holmes said, “My name is Oliver Holmes. I’m thirty-nine years old, British citizen…”
The policeman said, “Shut up!”
The second policeman had some kind of control over Morris. Maybe it was rank, maybe because he was smarter, although from what Holmes had seen of Morris, that wouldn’t be hard. He had scraped things off the sole of his shoe that were smarter than Constable Morris.
“Easy, Roy. This isn’t the time.”
Morris said, “This is the guy.”
His colleague held up Holmes’ papers. “They’re OK,” he said.
Morris said, “Phone them in.”
They all knew he would have to go back to the car to get a check on Holmes’ documents over the radio. He thought about it.
Holmes knew he might not survive two minutes alone with Constable Morris. He said, “My employer knows exactly where I am. I phoned in your registration plate when you pulled me over. You’re not going to be able to hide on this one…”
The policeman said, “We know who he is. Let it go.”
Morris didn’t want to do it, but after a little more back and forth with his colleague, he holstered his pistol.
Holmes said, “We’re just about to go public with the Robbins case. If you want to talk to me, I can get you a good deal. Thing is, that only works for the first guy to come forward. And you don’t want to be number two in this kind of case. We’re looking at murder, conspiracy. All kinds of stuff, but there’s only room for one guy to do the right thing.”
Morris said, “Shut up.”
“Let me get your statement, and I promise you will get a good deal.”
The punch came out of nowhere. Morris swung a fat fist into Holmes’ stomach. Holmes bounced off the side of the car, crumpled on the ground and groaned for a while.
Constable Morris stood over him, waiting for Holmes to show some aggression. Holmes said, “You animal. You think I’m going to fight you?”
Morris looked down on Holmes, spat on the ground and then swaggered back to his car. The second policeman said to Holmes, “You were lucky.”
Holmes pulled himself upright and leaned against the side of the car, put his hand on his stomach and said, “You guys are all the same.”
“What?”
“Iraq. Mexico. Colombia. Ivory Coast. You’re all the same. Same cheap sunglasses. Same shitty attitude.”
The policeman said, “Watch your mouth.”
“Don’t you get it?” said Holmes. “The world has changed. The thugs lost. The rule of law won. You just don’t know it yet.”
The other policeman said, “We are the law.”
“Not when you abuse it.”
The policeman flexed his fist. “Maybe I should have let him beat you some more.”
“Do you really think I’m going to give up because you punched me?”
The policeman said, “Move your car before you cause an accident.”
Holmes said, “I’ve got a business card in my pocket. I’m going to pull it out nice and slow. Don’t shoot me.”
He took out his business card. “Once these things start to unravel, they come apart pretty fast. And you absolutely need to be the first one to tell your story. Talk to me and I can get you a good deal. But you have to be the first, and believe me, I’ve seen it happen a hundred times before – this one is just about to come apart. Be the smart one.”
Slowly, he handed the card to the policeman. Without looking at it, the policeman tore it in two, dropped it and ground the heel of his boot on it.
Holmes said, “Doesn’t matter. There’s a number on the website. Justice Unlimited dot com.”
The policeman turned and walked back to his car.
Holmes shouted loud enough for both cops to hear. “Be smart. Call me. Somebody always does.”
The Corolla pulled away. As it drove past Holmes, he made the universal “call me” gesture with his little finger and thumb. Both policemen ignored him.
The two guys from the bus stop had been joined by a small crowd. One of them shouted, “Twenty US dollars for the video!”
Holmes walked over, taking a note from his wallet. “Thanks. Take the twenty. I don’t need the film because they didn’t actually shoot me, but thanks anyway.”
A few minutes later he was back on the road. There was no sign of the Toyota all the way to Montego Bay.
12
Malkin stormed up and down on the deck, shouting at Jerry, spitting out threats and curses. The guards who normally lounged around out of earshot were up close and tensed.
Jerry sat in a chair, calm and detached. He’d had a shouter for a father and a first wife who’d ranted at him once a month and he’d learned to stay neutral in the face of an outburst. Besides, when people shouted, that was a good sign. It was when Malkin was cold and quiet that Jerry started to worry.
Malkin was running out of things to shout about and he was dragging up some long dead history, so in one of Malkin’s pauses for breath, Jerry said, “Are you finished?”
Malkin said, “Are you out of your mind talking to me like that after what you did?”
Jerry said, “This shouting doesn’t make for a conducive working atmosphere, OK? I’m not some recruit at boot camp you can intimidate.”
“Intimidate? You’re lucky you’re not dead.”
Jerry said, “Normally, I have the greatest respect for you, but I have to tell you, this kind of behaviour towards me is not acceptable or professional.”
“Professional? Don’t talk to me about professional. You killed one of my people! If I told Mr Volkov, he’d have you for shark bait.”
Jerry said, “We both know that’s not going to happen.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Malkin said, but Jerry was sure. He had a fail-safe system that would bring Malkin and Volkov down if anything happened to him, and Malkin knew he did. He just didn’t know how that system worked.
Jerry said, “Junior signed Henin’s death warrant.”
“You took this to Junior?”
Jerry said, “No. When Junior told the captain to put in the log that Henin had taken the hooker on the jet-ski, that was as good as killing the guy himself. We couldn’t have him around after that.”
Malkin held onto the guardrail and looked out over the sea without really looking at anything. He took thirty seconds to steady himself.
“I don’t care about Henin. What really gets me is, it’s stupid. And I hate stupid.”
“What is?”
“Giving the police a body. Cops get a conviction in only three per cent of the cases where they don’t have a body. And you just gave them a body.”
Jerry said, “You want to trade stats? Fine. You know how many murders the Jamaican police clear up? Five per cent. Think about it. Five per cent. Those guys couldn’t find their dicks if they were wearing crotchless panties. This is the third world. It’s not CSI Miami.”
Malkin wasn’t ready to let it go. “Henin’s body went in the water twenty-four hours after he was supposed to have gone missing. Twent
y-four hours. You think a pathologist isn’t going to spot that?”
Jerry knew he was winning the argument. “Come on, boss, you think I can’t take care of a pathologist in a bumbling country like this? Seriously?”
Malkin stared at Jerry, thinking a million things at once. Jerry went on. “Once the pathologist is under control, the Jamaican police will be falling all over themselves to put this down as an accident. Nobody wants another unsolved murder on the files.”
Malkin wasn’t finished yet. He said, “What about his family? The French police?”
Jerry laughed and said, “He has a bitter ex-wife. If I’d asked her, she’d have drowned him herself. She gets a cheque. She’ll come over and dance on his grave if it makes you happy.”
“And the French police? They’re not all Clouseau, you know.”
“Why would they get involved?” Jerry said. “The Panda was a very unpopular man. There’ll be no tears at his funeral. No media outrage. Best they can do is send some detective over from Paris who doesn’t give a damn. I’ll take him to lunch, give him a hooker for the night and that’s the last we’ll hear of it.”
Malkin was calm. It was an icy calm, and the first pangs of worry sprouted between Jerry’s shoulder blades. Malkin sat down opposite Jerry and said, “Why did you do it? Was there some shit between you and Henin?”
Jerry lied when he shook his head. He said, “We have to give the cops and the media a narrative, some way to explain how the hooker went missing. Doesn’t matter how unlikely, as long as we have some kind of a story to hide behind, we’re good. It doesn’t even need to make sense as long as there is some explanation.”
Malkin said, “And the story is?”
“They hit a rock in the dark, he died and her body is missing but got swept out with the tides, or eaten by fish, barracuda, whatever.”
Malkin liked it but he still wasn’t quite done with Jerry. He gave him his shark-eye expression and said, “OK. This time. But if you kill one of my people without telling me ever again, you’re done.”
Jerry smiled. “Saying things like that, that’s why I love working with you.” But he hid his hands under the table so Malkin couldn’t see them shaking.