by K. T. Tomb
Mickey laughed again and took a long drink from the beer bottle in his hand.
“I simply want you to understand what happens to people who skip out on their commitments to me,” he continued. “On that note, there’s someone here who’d like to see you. I think you’ll recognize him, Fiona.”
A man was pushed out in a wheelchair; he had a fresh cast on his left leg, and was terribly bruised up. He looked like he had been beaten just shy of death. Fiona’s eyes became large and she was visibly upset.
“That your sister, Matt?” he asked the beaten up man.
Matt nodded in agreement, and then was wheeled away.
“All this is over a threat to skip out on her bond?” Travis interjected.
“No! This is not just about the stupid bail bond,” he screamed back at Travis. “It’s about the principle. They took my money, made a promise to me and then threatened, quite nonchalantly I might add, to renege on that commitment. I don’t do business with liars.”
Travis thought that his comment was hilarious. He guessed that English gangsters were rather particular about the caliber of their clientele. Do as I say, not as I do kind of thing.
“Okay then, we’re gonna die.” Adam said in a sarcastic tone, almost as if the situation was a joke and then he sighed.
“No...” Mickey assured them.
“At least not if your little friend does right by me, which I really hope she will, actually. I’ve had as much violence in the matter already as I have the stomach for. My friends here though, they can stomach a whole lot more than I can. Fiona, you’re going to have to pay that twenty thousand pound bail upfront out of your vacation money, for the pain and suffering you’ve inflicted on me. This is going to happen by tomorrow. If it doesn’t, then we’ll have to renegotiate and I’ll be leaving those arrangements to my guys here. There’s no need for you to deny having it either. I know how much money your blond Norwegian friend spent today on Bond Street; you definitely have the money, black card.”
“See, its better when the boss does it,” said one of the goons from earlier, to the one who dropped his gun. “You completely suck at it, just be a normal jerk next time.”
“Get them out of here” he ordered the guards in his office.
They were being let off the elevator on the garage floor when Fiona’s cell rang. The guards immediately stopped herding them towards the SUV and allowed her to answer the phone.
“Hello?” she said.”
It was Mickey on the phone.
“I’ve sent your brother home to recover. If you don’t pay me the money by closing time at the bond shop, he won’t do any more recovering.”
He started laughing like a madman before he finally hung up.
The ride back to the hotel was quiet, even the music had been turned off. There were no further idiotic displays of intimidation from John and Ken, but all four of them spent the ride in fear for their lives. Savannah panicked in her mind, but hid it well under her calm outward appearance. The alcohol was coursing through her system, and she was feeling more than a little tipsy. She wouldn’t be able to keep it together much longer.
Meanwhile, Adam found it difficult to remain calm and collected after being kidnapped. Fiona clearly didn’t care one way or another about the ordeal she had caused them; she seemed to be rattled mostly by the phone call she had received as they had been leaving Mickey’s bar. She hadn’t bothered to tell them what it was about or who had called her.
Chapter Two
The group found Thyri waiting for them in the lobby restaurant. The hotel reception staff had informed her of the two men herding the four of them out of the hotel earlier in the day. She’d been particularly worried when they still hadn’t returned after the two hours it had taken her to put away her shopping, shower and take a quick nap. They sat down at the table and brought her up to speed on the situation.
“What do you think we should do? Call the cops?” Thyri asked, unsure of the decision that needed to be made. “I’ve already dealt with the legal fees, Mishka called me this afternoon to tell me about your quick thinking, Savannah. I’m just not sure if the cops would even have the power to help.”
“No!” Savannah protested. “The cops will take his side, I’m certain of it. I think it worth thinking about either paying the bond to Mickey up front like he wants or giving him some sort of security that stupid here will actually be going to court and won’t be doing any running.” She looked directly at the blond girl and said, “Yes Fiona, you are utterly, and horribly wrong for what you did, but it was no excuse for him to kidnap us or break your brother’s leg!”
“I say we book it to Russia a day earlier,” suggested Travis. “Just get out of this country. That way he won’t be able to get hold of any of us.”
“I agree,” said Adam, but in a more timid tone.
“It isn’t that easy, dearies.” Savannah retorted back. “You see, it was already difficult to get the visas on such short notice. Xenia waited only a week instead of two months for our visa approval. This is especially impressive when you considered that four of us are from the States. With everything that’s happening in the Ukraine, just being American is making it particularly taxing for us to travel to the Federation. We’re already walking a tightrope, so we have to wait here for another two days. Our choices are to give them security or pay them off.”
Everyone looked at Thyri.
“I’m not convinced that paying the bond will end this,” Thyri responded. “These guys won’t stop what they’re doing. If you pay them, it will just encourage them more. Besides, we don’t have any guarantee they won’t just kill us all and run. To pay them would be supporting kidnapping and countless other criminal acts and that is just wrong.”
“Then why was he giving us a day to get it? Why not kill us now?”
“Mickey is nuts,” explained Fiona. “Look at the way he was acting there, that guy clearly doesn’t have it together.”
“Seriously?” Adam yelled at Fiona. “This is entirely your fault, you stupid, stupid bitch!”
“Hey!” Savannah defended Fiona, and stepped in to silence the two. She looked Adam straight in the eyes, and followed up with, “I don’t give a damn if it is her fault, you don’t talk to her that way and if you ever say anything to her like that again, I will make you wish you were dead.”
“Point taken, sheesh.”
“Ok, so what are we gonna do for two days?” Travis asked the group, hoping desperately that turning the focus back to solving their problem would help to settle them down. He looked at the waiter, and signaled for him to bring some menus. He placed one in front of each of them and started to fill their water glasses from a frosty pitcher.
“Sparkling for me please,” Thyri said, without even thinking about it. “And a big wedge of lemon.”
Travis was rather pensive. Once he had placed his dinner order, he went directly back into his problem solving mode. He got up and left the others at the table while he proceeded to pace the restaurant, mumbling softly as he reviewed their situation.
The women looked at him as if he was crazy but Adam soon came to his defense.
“It’s how he does his best thinking,” he advised them. “Just let him mull it over, you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the outcome.”
“Sounds bonkers to me,” Fiona said loudly. “Are you sure he’s right in the head?”
“Fiona! Fiona!” Savannah hissed. “Why don’t you shut the hell up for once?”
Just then the waiter came out with the starter dishes that Thyri had ordered. He placed bowls on the table that held green stuffed olives, black Kalamata olives, raita, mango chutney, tamarind sauce, tzatziki sauce, capers and a large plate of bruscetta. The waiter left to retrieve the rest of the antipasti.
“Why don’t you put some of that bread in your mouth before it gets you into any more trouble,” Adam suggested to Fiona.
“Oh no, not you now!” Fiona responded as she took a sip of her beer. While she was n
ot a big drinker, beer was not her beverage of choice. She preferred the stronger spirits, especially in cocktails that involved fruit drinks as chasers to mask the strong taste of that alcohol. When she drank a beer, she felt that it was work to get drunk, and a night’s sentence of visiting the restroom.
“I’ve got it!” Travis suddenly exclaimed.
He walked back over to the table, took his seat and unceremoniously started spooning olives onto his plate. As the others sat there watching him in silence, the waiter returned with the rest of the food. Vegetable pakoras, pork wantons, beef samosas, a plate of Italian charcuterie, crackers and cheeses. Travis dipped further into the food and started eating hungrily. Stunned, the others joined in and soon everyone was chewing and praising the delicious selection Thyri had made.
Thyri dabbed her lips with her napkin and sipped her lemon water before saying anything else. She knew exactly what Travis was up to and she applauded him mentally for his successful manipulation of his colleagues.
“So Travis,” she began, “tell us what you’ve come up with to get us out of our predicament.”
He smiled at her slyly and replied, “You already know.”
Thyri burst out laughing and returned his smile with a knowing one.
“What’s so funny,?” Fiona asked around a mouthful of food.
“Travis thinks that I can influence your friend into seeing things our way,” she summarized.
The others turned and looked at him expectantly.
“It’s true,” he confirmed.
“How do you figure that?” Savannah asked.
“Guys like Mickey Large are only intimidated by one thing; real influence and power,” he proclaimed. “They spend their time trying to perpetrate it and intimidate people with whatever they put in place to enforce their influence and power, but the minute they’re faced with the real deal; they curl up into a ball of submission like little babies.”
He put his knife and fork down and took a sip of his beer. Then he nodded his head toward Thyri and added, “She’s the real deal.”
“He’s right, you know,” Adam agreed.
Savannah raised her water glass to Travis and said, “Brilliance is among us.”
“If Thyri walks into Mickey’s office tomorrow in one of her killer outfits, preferably something ridiculously sexy and mink, she could convince him to see things her way quite easily.”
“I like it,” Thyri said.
“But what about Matt?” Fiona asked suddenly. She hadn’t said a thing the entire conversation.
“That’s a good question,” Savannah agreed. “We’ve got to be sure he’s safe from them just in case he realizes he’s been played after we’re gone. Where is he now?”
“Mickey said he took him home to recover,” Fiona said.
“When did he say that?” Adam asked quickly, not remembering that ever coming up.
“Never you mind, Mr. Nosey,” Fiona retorted, but after some serious looks from the others she had to give up the details of the phone call she had received as they were leaving Mickey’s restaurant.
“We’ve got to stash him somewhere safe,” Savannah said. Then it came to her. She turned to Fiona and said, “We can go to Arlington! You know, your mum’s sis? Remember, she works at the Arlington Football Club Hotel. I know she could get us some proper rooms there, and keep it real confidential. We may be able to hide Matt from Mickey that way.”
“You think that would work?” asked Adam, as he adjusted his thick, black wire-frame glasses. “I mean he called Fiona’s phone right after we left his place, and he knew where we were staying, even where Thyri was shopping today and how much money she was spending. Don’t you think he could find us there too?”
“Unfortunately, Adam has a point,” explained Travis, and finished the last of his beer. “But he could have found out anything he wanted to about us when we didn’t know he was finding it out. Now he’s lost the element of surprise.”
“Absolutely!” Thyri agreed, which shocked Travis a little bit. He never thought he would ever be on the same page as Thyri, it wasn’t inappropriate to say that she was way out of any league he ever hoped to be in. “So what are we waiting for? I’ll settle the bill, and we can get out of here.”
“No, we’ll need to be a little stealthier than that,” suggested Travis, He was proud that he was able to take charge of the situation they were in. “Thyri, do you know of any absolutely dependable car services in the city? The kind you might use if you were trying to stay incognito while in town?”
“Of course,” she said, revealing that polished, privileged air for the first time since they had met her.
Travis smiled at that; it was the same persona he was counting on for their success in Mickey Large’s office the next day.
“Great, we’ll need a car to pick up Matt tonight and take him to Arlington. They’ve got to be sure they aren’t followed. Once he’s safe there, we can go ahead with our plan.”
“I like it, and I know just the driver to call. He’s ex M-5 and a real modern day James Bond type. He does all the diplomat work around town.”
“Excellent.”
While Thyri called her driver, Fiona took Savannah’s phone and called Matt. She told him to wait for a call from the driver with instructions and go to Arlington and lay low.
Predictably, after the opulent antipasti, none of them could see their way to order any more food. They had another round of beers instead while they hatched their scheme to completely emasculate Mickey the gangster the next day.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Travis muttered.
***
“This is all gold, Mr. Monahan!” exclaimed the young reporter.
I was getting annoyed with her. I almost wished they’d sent a man to interview me. At least he wouldn’t have distracted me from the story as much; her lack of professional courtesy was beginning to strike a raw cord. She looked a little too much like a combination of Savannah and Fiona and I think that was what was bothering me as well.
“So, let’s get this straight. Mickey ‘Large’ McLanahan was just a small time mobster, who thought he was running things in London, right?”
“Yeah, he was a punk.” I replied, as I looked down at the ground to avoid eye contact with the reporter. “He was too mentally unstable, or too high to do his own dirty work. He got lucky and inherited a trust fund at an early age. Some people invest their money, some people spend it on frivolous things, and others just waste it away on vices. Mickey did all three in that order, and thought that his money made him invincible.”
People like Mickey had always annoyed me. The world was full of jerks like him; too stupid to get accepted into a primary school, let alone complete a degree. Yet, he’d had more power and money than I could ever hope or dream of.
“So how did you guys make it out of London?” the reporter inquired. “That must have been tricky.”
“It was never about the bail money.”
I explained to her that Mickey had informants all over the city, even in the outlying suburban townships. There wasn’t much that happened in London that he didn’t know about. So when he found out that one of his new bondees was being represented by Mishka Jovanovich, solicitor to the rich and famous and that Jovanovich’s bill was being paid by the affluent Miss Thyri Ragnarsson, it didn’t take much for him to decide it was worth finding out more about the situation. There was North Sea oil money to exploit and he intended to do so by any means necessary.
“That’s pretty intense,” she replied, and jotted more notes down in her spiral notebook. “So, let’s get to the visa. Tell me how you bribed the Russian consulate in London.”
“Oh, no one bribed the Russian consulate, not at all,” laughed Travis, at another lie that the news outlets had propagated in the previous months. “It was a Finnish bureaucrat who got us out of Finland and into Russia. We took a ferry to St. Petersburg. We were able to sideline Mickey and his men without having to try entering Russia any earlier th
an our visas allowed, but Mickey caused a lot of pain for us in London which ended with Mark having to help with our strange escape route from England. Thanks to Thyri, and some good fortune on Fiona’s part, we got out undetected.”
***
Travis had at least another two days in London before they would be allowed entry into the Russian Federation. Mickey saw them all as guilty by association to Fiona, and while he claimed he wouldn’t kill them, Travis didn’t think he could be trusted. It was six o’clock in the morning G.M.T. and he was finally caught up on his sleep. He wanted to be ready for the con they were going to run on the gangster later that day so he put on a tank top and a pair of shorts and went to work off the night’s booze in the hotel gym for a few hours; he needed to clear his head from the events of the previous day and get all the aspects of their plan straight. Matt had been safely delivered to Arlington and they had been assured no one had followed him there. Thyri’s driver had circled and backtracked all over London, turning a thirty minute drive into a two hour cat and mouse game before finally dropping him off. Travis thought about their conference with the gangster the day before and shook his head. Incidentally, it was not the first time Travis had been kidnapped.
He’d had the unfortunate fate of being thrown into the trunk of a car for refusing to pay a padded bill at a night club in Baltimore once. Someone had slipped something in his drink, which caused him to lose control of his inhibitions as well as his wallet. He’d ended up with a bill of over ten thousand dollars, and the owner of the club had been extremely angry when he disputed it. At first, there was nothing that Travis could say to convince the man that there had been a huge mistake. He had his men shake Travis down and go through his wallet and other possessions before dragging him out of the club and throwing him into the trunk. A couple of the club’s bouncers had seen him being thrown in and had recognized him. They had quickly gone to their boss and vouched for him, telling him that Travis was just an ordinary guy, a professor from the local university, who came in regularly and was trustworthy. If he said he’d been drugged, then that’s how it was and they were lucky Travis was the victim because the kind of people who did that stuff usually targeted a club for regular visits; they now had the chance to keep an eye out for the perpetrators. It was a rough experience to go through; however it taught him a very important lesson. In retrospect, he should have thanked the bouncers, because their testimony had allowed him to come out of the situation alive. Since that night, he paid more attention to his surroundings, his drinks, and vowed never to get inebriated during a job.