by Jan Swick
They moved on. Dawdled some, talked some, spent some. Nothing came of it. Burly security guys came close and they stiffened, got ready, but always the guys walked on by, heading somewhere else. Eventually Matt called it a night.
Back at the hotel, Lisa asked Matt about what she’d found in a waste bin: battered apples, many with smile-like slices. Matt had bought another bunch of bags of apples that afternoon. What was he doing, juggling with them?
Matt didn’t answer. But once again when his partners were asleep, he hit another room with another bag of apples.
In the morning, they split up. Matt drove off in his Mondeo while Daz and Lisa, arm in arm, went shopping.
They talked and laughed like a regular couple, just in case anyone was listening. Matt's paranoid idea: maybe the Watchdogs watched potential clients even outside the casino, just to be sure of their sincerity.
At one point Daz looked in a shop window, but Lisa saw that his eyes were on the world reflected behind them, so she looked, too. Across the street, a man was watching them. Just some guy. Typical guy. Stood out only to them, and only then because of his scrutiny. He watched them watch him and briefly put two fingers up to his eyes.
They walked on. “Are we being watched, was that what he meant?” she said.
Daz looked at her, surprised. “Smart girl. Matt chose well.”
“So you have guys watching for guys?”
He nodded. “Guess that means we struck gold and you two were right. You found the place. They're interested in us and they're watching. Now, I’m just going to play with my balls for a moment. Excuse me.”
He slipped a hand into his trouser pocket. His fingers started to play in there, but Lisa knew he wasn’t fondling himself. All three of them had practiced this trick. Daz was manipulating his mobile phone, texting by muscle memory.
Without moving her lips, Lisa said, “I hope you took off predictive text, or you could be saying anything.”
He smiled at her.
He took his hand out of his pocket for a moment, then continued. That puzzled her. It suggested he was sending more than one message. Both to Matt? Or one to someone else?
Only one was to Matt. He read it and smiled. So they had been right. The casino was the place. They had found the Watchdogs. He almost shook in anticipation.
Then he cursed. If the Watchdogs were watching Daz, they might also be watching Matt. He was driving to his parents’ house, but now that would have to be postponed - if the Watchdogs knew where Karen’s parents lived and he turned up there…
He made a turn, then another, and pulled up outside a massage parlour. It would look too suspicious if he simply went back to the hotel, perhaps alerting the Watchdogs that he was onto them. So he went into the massage parlour and paid for the cheapest, quickest item on the list. Went into a dim room with a pretty girl, but didn’t accept her touch. Instead, he said he just needed to make a call first. She was happy enough to wait, playing on her own mobile phone in the other corner of the room.
He called the family home, but got no answer. Well, they weren’t at work, he knew. Next he called Danny, who answered amid a cacophony of shouts and chatter.
“Hello?”
“What’s going on there?” Matt said.
“Matt! Where are you? Jesus, we thought you’d gone again. Ignore the noise, just a palaver at work. The funeral is on Wednesday. Tell me you won’t be missing it. Don’t let your last memory of her be ash.”
His heart sank. He couldn’t get away, not now. Even if he could drag himself away, it would not be a good idea. The Watchdogs would be watching, and if they followed him to the funeral of one of their victims…
His pause must have gotten the message across. Danny said, “That’s not good, Matt. Not good at all.”
He opened his mouth, but no words came. His brain tried to think of the best response, but again the pause let him down.
"Are you investigating, is that it?" Danny asked.
He said nothing.
"Then you do what you have to until then. But don't miss the funeral, okay? That would probably tip Mum and Dad over the edge. Look, I have to go. Mum wants to talk to you, so you can ask her where it is. Give her a call.” He hung up without a goodbye. Matt held his mobile to his ear for a long time afterwards, as if there was still a way he could resolve this.
Had he imagined it, or had Danny sounded a little relieved that Matt was investigating Karen's murder? If so, it meant he didn't buy the story about Daniel Barthow being her killer. Did he believe Matt would find the truth? Or was he just glad that Matt was errant again only because he had some kind of important mission? That he wasn't just off wasting his time while other members of the family sorted important business?
He didn't want to think about such things.
Six miles away, Daz and Lisa were still walking around the streets. But Lisa was getting bored and wanted to go back to the hotel.”
“Ten more minutes,” Daz said. Eight of those minutes passed. Then there was a moment when Daz broke away from Lisa and said he wanted to look in a shop. In he went, pushing roughly past a young black man in jeans and a pullover. The black guy sneered at Daz then vanished. Daz was in the shop for just a few seconds, before exiting with a chocolate bar.
“Suddenly developed a sweet tooth?” Lisa said.
Daz shrugged. They walked on. Lisa scooted round to Daz’s left side this time, put her arm around his waist, and pressed up close. It was the side the black man had passed on. Her hip pressed hard against his. And she got concerned.
When they got back to the hotel, they found Matt in the smaller bedroom, sitting on the bed, holding his new belt, doing something to it, although Lisa had no idea what. The belt didn’t draw her attention, though. The apples did. They were all over the floor, mostly scattered around a six-foot upright lamp that had been placed in the centre of the room. They were all battered, some split in half, some with great rents in them.
“What the hell’s going on here?” she said.
Matt stood up and put the belt back on his trousers. Strangely, he didn’t need to thread it through the loops. The loops had gone, as if cut away and discarded. It stuck closed with Velcro.
He ignored her question. “Just in case they’re watching us in this suite somehow, it’s best if we separate. The bodyguard should get a separate room. But how sure are you that they’re watching us?”
Daz explained what they had seen while out. It should have been good news, but nobody’s face said that. Daz sensed tension and scuttled off to make tea. As soon as he was gone, Lisa stepped close to Matt.
“Daz is your good friend, right?”
He was puzzled.
“But how well do you know him now?”
The puzzlement deepened.
“I’m not sure what he’s up to, but it’s something.” She explained about the black man in the shop. About sliding up close to Daz after the interaction between the two men and finding no lump in his pocket where there had been one before. “He passed something in secret to that guy, a guy who was supposed to be a stranger. Do you know why?”
Matt shook his head. “But don’t worry about him. He knows people and whatever that was, it was a personal thing probably, and nothing to do with this. He’s okay, Lisa, so don’t worry.”
But she did worry.
That night Daz's Merc tore up to the front of the casino with a screech of rubber. Daz jumped out and and ran up the steps while Matt went to park. He spoke to the doormen, telling them to fob off any cops who might be looking for a guy who destroyed the speed limits and blew a red light. An hour later he was at a roulette table, trying to encourage the other players to join him for a road race later, fifty grand to the winner, saying the London streets would be great for a cop chase. Matt wondered if he'd overdone it, but liked Daz's proactive attitude, although they couldn't be sure if it wasn’t all a waste of time. The idea that the Watchdogs approached people in the casino to offer their services was beginning to seem unl
ikely, despite the story Hardy had told them in the minutes before he went crispy.
It remained an unlikely notion right up until the point when a black Range Rover pulled them over on a darkened side street as they drove back to the hotel.
The vehicle had more than one man inside, but only one got out. He wore a black suit with a black shirt and had a black overcoat. His face was tanned and his hair was black. He almost looked like some kind of ghoul. They half expected him to slap his long overcoat like wings and fly towards their car.
He didn't fly. He strode quickly to the front and flipped open a cigarette case, a gesture designed to relax, to show he was harmless, a friend, just wanting a chat. Daz rolled down his window and stuck his head out.
"Seen that trick before, mate," he said. "I take a fag and thirty seconds from now I'm smoking it on my ass, no car or money."
The guy didn't have a friendly face, though. He continued to proffer the cigarette. Now his posture seemed to say, this conversation is going to happen, so why not get comfortable?
"Stay here," Matt told Lisa, then flipped his door open. Daze copied. Both men stood by their doors.
"What do you want?" Daz said to the man. "And you stay right there. Put your cancer away."
The guy flipped his case closed and lost it in a pocket. When his hand withdrew, it held a little black bag, like something you'd carry diamonds in it. But he didn't offer this bag. It stayed clutched in a fist that hung by his side.
"I work at the casino," the ghoul said. He had an American accent that was barely there.
"I'm no cheat," Daz said. "So shall we just be on our way."
The ghoul flicked his head to the other side of the car and took in Matt. Matt tried to take the emotion off his face. To look perplexed, and a little scared. That was the normal reaction of someone pulled over on a dark street by such a man in such a car.
"You showed a love of fast cars tonight, sir," the ghoul said. "You like to race?"
Daz eyed up the black Range Rover. "I can't beat that machine, if you're thinking of a bet."
The ghoul smiled, shook his head. "You shouldn't drive so crazily around London, because you might get stopped by the police."
Matt and Daz looked at each other. Matt got back in his seat, a cue for Daz to do the same. Daz copied. But neither man shut his door.
"If you want to race around London without the police catching you, you need luck," the ghoul called out. "Or you need to control luck." Then he tossed the black bag onto the bonnet of their car, twirled and got back in his vehicle. It slipped away as smoothly as part of the night itself.
Matt exited, snatched the bag off the bonnet and got back in his seat. He opened it and tipped the contents into his hand. Daz flicked on the interior light. Lisa leaned through the gap between the front seats to see.
In Matt's hand was a casino chip. He could see PEGASUS stamped on it. It was not stamped with a monetary value, however. Not a normal chip at all.
"That's for the one-armed bandit," Lisa said. Both men looked at her. "I saw a poster for it. The big machine where you can win a car."
Daz punched Matt's arm. "They want us back there. We're on."
In the very early hours of the next morning, Lisa found out what the apples were for.
She woke to a rhythmic thumping, light, the beats ten seconds apart, and got out of bed, wrapped her bathrobe around her, and went into the living room.
Matt was there, and the standing lamp was in the centre of the room again, and there were apples on the floor again. But this time they were all in halves. From the doorway, she watched Matt lay a fresh apple on top of the lampshade, just under head height, and step backwards four of five feet. His eyes darted down and up as he shifted his position slightly, working for the correct place. He put his hands on the front of his belt, like some cowboy. Then, shocked, she watched as he yanked the belt free by one end, right-hand, a backhand swing, flicking the length of leather like a whip. The buckle end caught the apple and cut it right in two. Both halves leaped away. Matt immediately stepped forward, took another apple from a bag laying on the floor, and was about to place it on the lampshade. But he froze instead. She figured he'd smelled her, or heard her raised heartbeat. He turned, looking as guilty as a child caught being naughty.
Lisa walked towards him. He didn’t move. She took the leather belt from him and checked the end. The looped metal buckle had been filed into something sharp, like the curved end of an axe. She dropped it on the floor.
“So that’s your plan,” she said. “We can’t get into Orbach’s office with weapons, so you made one. What, the apples are Orbach’s throat? You plan to slice his throat with that Hollywood trick?”
He didn’t respond, which gave her her answer. Lisa moved to the sofa and sat. Matt just watched her.
“You plan to kill the man right there, in his office?”
He cleared his throat. “You watched me kill a man the other day, and you’re surprised that this was my plan?”
“I thought your plan was to ask him questions. Matt, we don’t even know if he’s involved in this. Not for sure. We don't know if any of the dead ones really are. And you told me Hardy was an accident.”
“There’ll be questions for sure. Before I do it. I’ll make sure. ”
“I know you killed Hardy, and here I still am. I know you killed some other guy involved in this. I worked that out after Daz’s slip-up. And here I am. So this is not about your morals.” She got up and stood in front of him.
“Your sister was murdered. I’m on your side. The Watchdogs are not people the world should miss. What goes around comes around. Tit-for-tat. All those things. I’m a fan, I’m on board, I’m sold. My concern is not your desire to kill Anderson Orbach. It’s your safety. What’s your plan for getting out of the casino afterwards? You know, that place full of security guards and cameras?”
“Look, I don’t think you should be there tomorrow, Lisa.”
“So you have no plan?” She threw up her arms.
“Everything will be fine.”
“I don’t want you to go to prison, Matt. Or get killed by macho security guards. I care about you, if you haven’t worked that out already.” She kissed his lips, but he pulled away.
She stepped back, shocked. “And that would be the defensive Matt before me. The one that doesn’t like to get close, in case he loses people. The one that would rather run away. Is that your plan, then? You have no care about whether or not you get caught?”
He didn’t answer.
“Have you thought he isn’t the only one, Matt? Orbach hasn’t done all this alone. It's too big for one man. If you go to prison for his murder, you’re finished. How will you get to the other Watchdogs?”
"I just want Orbach," he said.
"Bullshit. There's a dead pimp and a dead security director, and those guys were super low-level. You needed to kill them, and I don't see you being content once Orbach is dead. You'll start to think about all the others, and you won't stop. But by then you'll be in prison and they'll be out here and you'll have no way of getting to them."
He seemed lost for words.
“The escape is planned and we’re getting them all, don’t you worry,” said another voice.
Lisa turned to see Daz in the doorway. He had been listening.
She looked between both men. “What are you two planning? Daz, who was that black man you passed a package to in the street? Tell me what’s going on.”
Daz didn’t answer, and Matt repeated his assertion that he didn’t want Lisa at the casino tomorrow.
“So we’re keeping secrets? To keep me safe. Oh, sweet. Well it’s not happening. Tell me your plan or not, doesn’t really matter. But I’m coming with you tomorrow. And you’re not going to stop me.”
They had to queue for the slot machine.
It was a three-seater, with three big reels, one for each player, and a bigger one up top, the bonus reel. Matt knew nothing about slot machines, so Lisa explained how
it worked. She had read up. On the smaller reels were many symbols, some fruit, some £ signs, Xs and 0s there, too. Three 0s got you nought, three Xs ten pounds, and combinations of fruit and £ signs awarded various pay-outs. There was also a car on the reels, and three of those got you a spin on the big reel. This one was virtual, with 256 different symbols, according to a customer that Lisa had spoken to. He even gave her the odds: 16,777,216. Nigh on seventeen million to one that your single spin on the big reel would display three sports car symbols, thus winning you the vehicle that posed on a pedestal behind the machine. A black Aston Martin One-77, sleek and beautiful. It didn't have the science-fiction looks of some cars Matt had seen, but for there was a spec list hanging above the vehicle that screamed its brilliance. Lots of numbers, but understood only one of them: £900,000.
"Bloody year's wage, that," Daz said. It got him a few dagger stares.
“I’m going for a drink,” Lisa said. She kissed Daz's cheek and walked away. But she didn't go for a drink; she went looking for answers.
She found one at a roulette table. Her eyes alighted on a man in a blue suit who was awaiting his turn in a seat. It was the black man she was sure Daz had slipped a package to. Her heart started racing. She moved closer and stood behind the man as he finally got a seat vacated by another house victim.
Back at the Aston Martin, a guy in a sheepskin coat cursed the slot machine and got out of his seat, and the lady in front of Daz and Matt literally ran forward to take her turn, holding up a chip as if it were an offering to God. She shifted her ass a bit on the leather seat and cracked her fingers, as if she thought skill and mental readiness might get a sniff here. And still held aloft her chip as if it was THE ONE. Matt was surprised by her confidence. Fifteen minutes in the queue and not once had he seen anyone win a spin on the big reel. Not once had someone earned their shot at the seventeen million to one chance.
Lisa found the black man near a second bar. She hung back and noticed him nod at someone as he took a seat. The second guy, who was white and about the same age, got up and went to the toilet. Lisa followed him inside.