“Sure, John. Thanks for calling.”
Chapter 8
Black Door
Dubai at two in the morning. Manny kept moving through the shopping mall that was trying to pass itself off as an airport. Slowly he made his way through the shuffling crowd of jet-set zombies, killing time before he could get back on the plane. He was on his own for the time being; Ruth had taken off to the smoking room. A glassed-in part of the terminal that smelled like an ashtray despite having its own air-handling system. It was full of nicotine addicts; Ruth would fit right in. They had two hours to kill, and there was nothing to do but smoke, buy crap, or eat just to pass the time.
Ruth found him again fifteen minutes later, and the two of them kept walking, doing laps of the terminal. Neither of them wanted to sit down; once they were back on the plane, they’d be in their seats for another twelve hours. So they kept moving, not talking much, just watching the other travellers while doing circuit after circuit.
Manny didn’t like the Middle East. He had spent seven years in Israel straight after school. Four years fucking around in the IDF and three years sweating in a cell before they deported him. Not that this airport was anything like Israel, but still, he couldn’t wait to get back on the plane and get as far away from these Arab bastards as he could.
It had been his friend Sam’s idea for them both to go to Israel and join the IDF after school. It had been a stupid plan that ended up with Sam killed and Manny locked up. Three years in a hot box, locked up with psychos and thieves. He’d been glad to get back to the cold and damp of London.
The only good thing to come out of those years was learning to fight. It wasn’t that complicated, really; it just came down to being harder and faster than your opponent. Not backing off. The Israelis knew a few things about that, even though they liked to pretend their shit didn’t stink like everybody else’s. Always trying to prove they were more civilised than the Arabs. The only difference Manny saw was better weapons, better training. More money.
He’d never thought of himself as a Jew until Sam had started going on about it. Manny hadn’t cared. The idea of somewhere new that would teach him how to fight, somewhere away from the grey and cold of London—hell, he was seventeen: bring it the fuck on.
Then Sam had been killed while on leave in Tel Aviv, on his way to visit Manny—one of their rare opportunities to catch up after they’d been posted to different units. Sam was blown to shit with ten others by an electrician from Nablus.
Neither of them had really thought it would happen to them, but still, they’d made promises to each other. Keeping his promise to Sam had gotten Manny court-martialled. Still, he didn’t regret any of it. He and Sam Barsky had been best mates since they were ten. Fucking up a Palestinian stone thrower had been the least Manny could do.
To get back on the plane, he and Ruth had to go through security again, shuffling back and forth between the barriers in a long, winding queue. Everyone in front of them was acting surprised that they had to take their belts and shoes off again.
“I don’t know why we had to take everything off the plane with us,” Ruth said, juggling her backpack and handbag so she could hand her boarding pass and passport to the woman at the gate.
Manny didn’t care; he just wanted to get back on board and go back to sleep. He really hoped this trip to Sydney would be worth it. He wanted to see this son of Stewart Finch. He wanted to know about the men his father had worked with. Men he had trusted. Someone had betrayed them, grassed them up and taken the gold. Kovacs had said it wasn’t him, and Manny believed him. After Ruth had finished with him, Harry Kovacs had nowhere left to hide any secrets.
The side door of the nightclub was propped open again when Manny and Ruth returned the next night. It opened onto a short passage that led to a flight of stairs. Silently Manny led the way up the stairs, pausing at each landing to listen and to let Ruth catch up. She was carrying a white plastic shopping bag with the logo of a local ironmonger’s shop on the side. It contained a roll of duct tape, heavy-duty cable ties, a box cutter, and an electric heat gun. At the same shop, Manny had equipped himself with a chef’s knife with a six-inch blade, now concealed in his sleeve.
At the top landing, he listened at the closed door for a moment before easing it open a bit. Music from the bar downstairs leaked into the stairwell. Through the narrow gap, he saw a wide landing, carpeted in red, with four doors and a short, wide passageway on the left leading to the top of a wider flight of stairs. Manny assumed the second flight of stairs led down to the bar. He let the door close to just a crack as one of the three doors in the opposite wall opened. A man stood in the doorway, shrugging his shoulders into a suit jacket. He looked flushed as he turned and said something. The woman behind him was naked except for black stockings. She smiled and gave the man a push out onto the landing, closing the door firmly behind him. The guy ran the fingers of both hands through his hair, and grinned to himself as he headed back down to the bar. The three doors in the wall opposite the fire stair looked the same, and each had a number. The fourth door, on Manny’s right, was painted black and had no number.
He waited a moment longer, trying to hear any noise that sounded like movement over the beat of the music. Then he quickly crossed the lobby to the black door. Light was leaking beneath it onto the red carpet, but he didn’t hear any noises from inside. He tested the door handle; it was unlocked. Ruth followed Manny across the lobby as soon as he was through the door.
The office was large and unoccupied. The kitchenette at the back suggested that it had been a studio apartment at one time. Manny saw a closed door in the wall next to the kitchenette that he guessed was a bathroom. Ruth moved to the large wooden desk in the middle of the room. There was no computer—just a pen stand, an empty in-tray, and a pile of bills under a large, ornate glass paperweight. She sat down in the black leather swivel chair and began carefully opening and closing the drawers. Manny stood at the kitchenette, looking and listening. A half-finished plate of food and a coffee mug sat on the draining board. The mug was still warm and half full. He turned towards the bathroom door as faint sounds came from behind it: clothes rustling, a belt buckle clinking. Then the toilet flushed and the door opened.
Kovacs froze halfway through wiping his hands on his trousers. Ruth greeted him from the swivel chair. “Hello, Harry. You look well.”
Kovacs said something short and angry in Hungarian.
“It’s Ruth, dear. Ruth Wexler. Remember me?”
“Ruthie? Jesus. What are you doing here? What do you want?” Kovacs’s voice was harsh and sharp, like gravel in a washing machine. “How’d you get in?” He looked around, saw Manny leaning against the kitchen counter, and backed towards the office door.
“Sorry, dear,” Ruth said. “This is Manny. Ron’s little boy. I took him on after Monica and Ron died. Like he was my own son.” She stood up and offered the chair to Kovacs. “Here, Harry. Come and sit down. You must be exhausted, working all night like you do.”
Manny stepped forward with his hand out, ready to shake Kovacs’s. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Kovacs. Aunty Ruth has told me a lot about you.”
Kovacs ignored him and turned back to Ruth. “I asked what you want, Ruthie.” He pulled a mobile phone out and thumbed the screen.
Ruth shrugged. “Manny and I are over here for a bit of a holiday. A short break to see the sights.” She smiled at Kovacs as he sat down behind the desk. “I think Manny might have it in mind to have some sex while we’re here too.”
“Leave it out,” Manny said under his breath.
“We thought we’d look you up, say hello, see how you’re getting on.” Ruth spread her arms, taking in the office. “Not too bad, Harry, the club and all. Looks like you’re doing all right.”
“How did you get in here?”
“Up the back stairs,” Manny said. He had what he hoped was a friendly, innocent smile on his face. “We thought it would save time—you know, trying to explain to your guys d
ownstairs. Our Hungarian is pretty rubbish really.”
Kovacs looked him up and down, not knowing what to make of him. He turned his chair towards Ruthie. “I’ll ask you again,” he growled. “What do you want?”
Manny answered, “We want the gold, Mr. Kovacs.”
“Ron’s gold,” Ruth added. “Our gold now. His share, which he never saw a penny of.”
A grunted laugh escaped from the Hungarian. “You think I have it?”
“Someone has it,” said Ruth. “Stands to reason. It didn’t just disappear into thin air, did it? And the list of possibilities is getting pretty short.”
Kovacs’s face hardened. “Kennedy? And Morecambe? That was you?”
Ruth shrugged. “Someone must have the gold.”
Two men came through the door from the lobby. Manny recognised the blond one as a bouncer they’d seen at the bar the night before. The other was new. A dark man with slit eyes above scarred cheekbones. Manny stepped away from the kitchen counter.
Kovacs said something, and the two men stepped between Manny and the desk. “If you don’t go now, you’re going to get hurt. It’s up to you,” Kovacs said.
Manny glanced at Ruth. “We haven’t had a chance to talk yet, Harry,” she said.
Kovacs gave an order in Hungarian, and there was a sharp metallic click as the dark man flicked out a long, extendable steel baton. He came at Manny, his arm back, aiming an overhand blow at his head. Manny moved to meet him, stepping inside the baton’s arc, parrying with his left. He ignored the pain that snapped along his arm as the baton glanced off, wrapping his arm out and around the bouncer’s, trapping it and the baton. With his right he punched to the man’s undefended head. Throwing fast punches, driving him back, keeping him off balance. He kneed him in the groin. And again. The man tried to swing with his left. Manny drove his forehead up into the bouncer’s face. Felt the guy’s nose crumple, heard the breath driven out of him, his legs starting to wobble. He kept moving, kept punching. Another knee to the groin. The man started to sag; his legs going. Manny let him fall, stepping away. As the bouncer pitched forward Manny whipped out a front kick that caught him in the face, destroying his nose and dislocating his jaw.
Manny bounced back on the balls of his feet. The chef’s knife dropped from his sleeve into his right hand as he turned to the blond man. When the guy looked up from watching his partner hitting the floor, all he saw was Manny’s right arm whipping towards the centre of his chest. He looked confused for a moment as Manny withdrew the red-stained blade from between his ribs and danced back out of reach again. There was no counterattack; the second guy was dead before he hit the floor, a large red stain from his ruptured heart blossoming on his white shirtfront.
Kovacs gaped at his men and at Manny, but he recovered quickly, pulling a large silver revolver from beneath the desk. Ruth swung the heavy glass paperweight she’d taken from the desktop, hitting Kovacs in the temple. He toppled out of the chair and onto the floor.
“You all right?” Ruth asked Manny, as she bent to pick up the pistol. She swung out the cylinder to check the load as she straightened up again.
Manny rubbed his arm and flexed his fingers. “Yeah. Stings a bit. That’s all. The first one was faster than I’d thought he’d be.”
“You should be more careful.”
Manny gave his arm another vigorous rub, rolled his shoulders, then knelt next to the man with the dislocated jaw. Blood flowed freely from his shattered nose, and his jaw was pushed sideways across his face. Manny grabbed a handful of dark, greasy hair and pulled his head back. Blood arced through the air then died away as the knife slashed his neck.
Ruth went back to the desk to finish her search. She pulled a black bag from the bottom left-hand drawer and placed it on the desk. Inside she found an automatic pistol, three clear plastic bags full of pink tablets, and a lot of money. She looked up at Manny, smiling. “There’s enough here to cover our costs anyway.”
“Good.” Manny turned towards Kovacs, who hadn’t moved from where he’d fallen. “Where do you want him?”
Ruth had her white plastic bag out and was lining up the heat gun, knife, and duct tape on the desk next to the pistol. “Leave him where he is. There’s an electrical outlet right here.”
Manny grabbed the thick black cable ties and started to tie Kovacs’s hands and feet together. Ruth squatted next to the unconscious man and began cutting away the front of his shirt: slicing off buttons, pulling up the fabric of his singlet and slicing through it, exposing dark hair and white skin. “Wake up, Harry,” she said. “We’ve got some catching up to do.”
Chapter 9
Middle of Nowhere
Just before 9:00 p.m., Billy was back outside Rash’s bedroom. Their bus was leaving Central in an hour.
He’d been to the station that morning to buy the tickets with cash. Safer, they thought, than booking them online with a card. By the time he’d arrived, only a handful of tickets were left. “It’s Christmas darl’,” the woman at the counter had said as Billy counted out $320 in fifties, twenties, and fives. “You’re lucky to get on. Everyone’s heading home or they’re off on holidays.”
When he tapped gently on the glass of her window, Rashmi slid the window up and handed him their bags and her crutches. “Do you want your camera?”
“Yeah, might as well.” Billy grabbed his camera and handed her his phone in exchange. Rashmi sat on the sill and lifted her legs out one at a time. Billy staggered a bit, taking her weight as she slid off the windowsill, and pushed her hard against the wall to stop her from falling.
“Shit, Billy. Leave some skin on my back, will you?” Rashmi whispered, pulling her black-and-white-striped T-shirt down over her bra and jeans.
“Sorry. You’re heavier than you look.”
“Piss off.”
Billy passed the crutches to her, then reached up, straightened the curtain, and closed the window as quietly as he could. “You okay?” he asked.
“Of course I am. Let’s get going.”
Billy picked up their bags and followed Rashmi up the side of the house, past the darkened front.
“My mum’s in bed already,” Rashmi said, making for the gate. “How long have we got?”
“Nearly an hour. Plenty of time. There’s a 470 bus to the city in ten minutes. Supposed to be. If I had my phone, I could check how it’s going.”
“No phones.”
Billy sighed. “Yeah, exactly.”
“They can trace them.”
“Yeah, I know. It would just be handy, that’s all.”
The bus was running early. As they turned the corner onto Booth Street, they spotted the big blue bus coming down the hill.
“Shit,” Billy said.
“Run, Billy. Make him wait,” Rashmi said, as he set off up the hill to the bus stop. He staggered and lurched, unable to get into a rhythm with the bags swinging on his shoulders and thudding into his back. Rashmi was going as fast as she could behind him up the steep hill. As the bus pulled into the stop, Billy waved and pointed back to Rashmi. The driver grinned at him and gave him a thumbs-up.
“Thanks,” Billy gasped when he got to the bus. Standing with one foot on the bus and one on the kerb, he turned back to see how Rash was doing.
A few moments later, she was puffing hard as she pulled herself up into the bus. “Thanks for waiting, mate,” she said.
“No worries. You were moving pretty fast there, girl,” the driver said as she shuffled her way past him into the bus.
Billy tossed their bags onto the luggage rack then tapped both their Opal cards on the reader. As the bus lurched away from the kerb, bumping over a raised pedestrian crossing and then the central island of the roundabout, he swung himself into the seat beside Rashmi. “We just made it.”
“Yeah. Bloody buses are never on time.” She grinned and squeezed his hand. “Anyway, we made it. I can’t wait to get out of Sydney.”
“Me neither.” Billy still wasn’t sure this was the s
martest move, but Rash was right—they couldn’t just sit around and let her take all the blame.
“How much money have you got?” she asked.
“Not much. Twenty and some change. The bus tickets took almost all I had.”
“I’ve got nearly two hundred. Do you think we’ll need more than that?”
“Yeah, probably.” Given how much the bus tickets had cost, they would definitely need more cash.
“Yeah. We’ll have to get it at Central. If we use our cards up at Brunswick Heads, they’ll trace them. Better to do it here. It’ll make it harder for them to track us down.”
“How much? Two hundred each?”
“Yeah. That should do it.”
Billy had just over a thousand dollars in his account, most of which he’d saved from working with John on the house. Taking out two hundred would bring it down to eight hundred and something. He really liked the sound of having a thousand that was just his; he was planning to get a motorbike. That would take a bit longer now, but he was still a year away from being able to get his license anyway.
Billy and Rash got off the bus at Railway Square and found an ATM next to a closed-up sushi place. Rash took out an extra $160 and paid him back for the ticket.
As they passed the large old sandstone arches along Pitt Street, Billy started to worry about the time. The bus station was further away than he’d remembered, and Rashmi was going slower as they went. Their bags were getting heavier too. He was glad to the see the big Greyhound bus still there as they came under the bridge into Eddy Avenue. They joined a group of mainly young people waiting beside the bus with their bags. After a few minutes, the driver came out of the office with a clipboard and opened the luggage compartments along the side of the bus.
He looked at Rashmi and took her ticket. “On you get, love.” Rash handed her crutches to Billy and hoisted herself up the steps, leaning hard on the grab rails and then on the seatbacks as she made her way down the aisle. She chose a pair of seats near the back and wriggled across into the window seat.
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