Reprisal in Black

by Dan Fox

  In his SUV he checked again for messages. There were none. He sent a secure text to Spain saying he should be back by the middle of next week, but he’d call them when he’d finished the job.

  Now he needed to do some preparation work. It was perhaps too early for the Loan office to be open yet, he thought he’d remembered ten a.m. That gave him an hour. He drove around the area for a while just building up his knowledge of streets and landmarks and then parked up a few hundred yards away. He wanted a better look behind the office and at the row of outbuildings in the daylight. He might need to hide there or use them as part of an escape route. He also wanted see if there was any external alarm fitted, something that might flash and make a noise which he didn’t want.

  There was a fairly wide alley that ran between the two streets of commercial properties. Each had their own groups of single storey, flat roof outbuildings mainly used for storage Steve guessed. Between their rear entrances and the outbuildings was a narrow pathway maybe five feet wide. He’d gained entry that way last night when it was dark. He could now see in the daylight what he might have to deal with.

  He checked his silenced phone for calls and messages but there was nothing yet. Satisfied with what he’d seen and how it fitted into his overall plan, he drove to the Mall and parked in the car park and ran through a few more options.

  He didn’t want to deal with the thugs at Janice’s place anymore and the pretence of being there as her solicitor had lost its appeal. He thought it was a good idea at one stage but now had changed his mind. At least he wouldn’t have to wear a suit. There could be a lot of noise and damage so it would be far better to deal with them all at their office. This change of plan meant he would need to pay them off, meaning that Janice would need to give them the cash. They would then take the money back to the office either straightaway or perhaps after another call or two. He hoped they’d go straight back to their office.

  While he was mulling things over, he felt his phone vibrate and pulled it from his pocket. He answered it but said nothing.

  ‘Hi Steve, got a little info on the safe for you. It’s a really old safe, like sixty or seventy years, more used for fire protection than security. You could open it easily with a good pick set but they would need to be best part of three inches long as the door is quite thick and the lock is at the back. There’s no other security with it. It’s got a very simple locking mechanism. Good luck.’

  ‘Thanks’, said Steve and disconnected. He wouldn’t be surprised if they had left the safe key in one of the unlocked office drawers, but obviously he couldn’t count on it.

  He went back to the hotel and checked his bag of tricks, treating his fingertips again with the silicon spray. No fingerprints and you didn’t need to wear gloves. He picked up a second set of lock picks which had prongs a good three inches long. Smiling to himself, he put them in his pocket with the others and went back to the car. He parked up a couple of blocks from Janice’s place and spoke to her briefly on his phone. The kids were at school today so he asked her to meet him near the entrance of the Mall in twenty minutes.

  She arrived close to time and Steve gestured for her go inside the Mall suggesting she stop for coffee at the first place she found. She had the brains to pick a table out of the way, ordered a coffee and waited for Steve. He arrived five minutes later after checking around. Satisfied, he called for coffee as he entered, and then sat at the next table, back to the wall, eyes on the entrance.

  She half turned her head towards him and he said quietly, ‘Okay for the morning, I’ll arrive at seven. Just leave the door on the latch. I’ll have the money with me. I’ll let them take it and deal with them after. I won’t meet them but I’ll be armed and very close in case they want to be stupid. You will be in no danger. Do you believe me?’ She nodded although not altogether sure, but it was going to be the best chance she had.

  ‘What time do you take the kids to school?’

  ‘About eight-fifteen and I’ll be back by eight thirty-five.

  ‘That’s fine, you can just hide me away somewhere until the kids have gone, okay?’ She nodded. Steve left enough money for both coffees and left. Janice just sat and stared after him as if someone she cared about was walking out of her life.

  That night just after nine o’clock Pinky and Perky and the Banks’s left the office and went off in the car in the same relaxed manner as the previous evening. This time Steve was parked just around the corner with enough view to see the car back-up to let the Banks’s in. He planned to follow them at a safe distance. He wanted to know where they were going and get an idea of how long they’d be. They turned right onto the main street and then onto the main road out of town going west, travelling about fifty miles per hour with next to no other traffic about. Steve dropped back to about half a mile, he didn’t want to take any risk about them realising were being followed.

  After around fifteen minutes their brake lights came on and the car slowed as it took the slip road and headed north on a lesser road. Steve moved the SUV a little closer but still far enough back not to be seen. About a mile further on the brake lights flared again and they slowed and turned into a large parking lot in front of a big Roadhouse offering Steaks, Beer and Country ‘n’ Western Music. Steve hung back until they’d gone inside. He parked the SUV out of the way, walked up to the entrance and looked through a dirty window just in time to see them being escorted to one of the better tables. They sat together. Perhaps Banks realised that the other two guys were no threat to his relationship with Amanda.

  He waited until they were served with beer and given menus. So he now thought he had at least an hour start on them and floored the SUV back to the office area and parked behind a big van out of sight.

  He looked around to make sure no-one was about and got out of the SUV checking his coat jacket and trousers to make sure he’d got all the equipment he needed. His gun was tucked into his waist band, the hunting knife in a sheath under his arm, and the two sets of lock picks were in his side jacket pocket. There were also four large plastic carrier bags courtesy of the supermarket tucked into his side pocket. He checked the phone was on silent and walked carefully towards the pathway at the back of the office. He waited a few minutes, looking and listening and then took the small pick set and opened the rear door. No more than ten seconds this time.

  Switching on his pen light, he made for the office and the safe. He took out the bigger pick set and juggled the prongs around until he heard a click, moved them in a little further and heard click two, just a little more and he should be okay when he heard click three. Click. He removed the picks and returned them to his pocket and gently turned the handle. The door swung open with a low groan.

  Bingo. There were stacks and stacks of dollar bills, hundreds and fifties and a few piles of smaller denominations. He couldn’t estimate how much accurately but there had to be three or four hundred thousand dollars in there. It was all in a crappy safe that a blind man could open. What a bunch of arrogant dummies. They had to believe everyone who knew the area was that scared they would never attempt to rob the office, or perhaps it was late in the week and this was the takings to go to the bank tomorrow.

  It wasn’t going to matter why it was there because it wouldn’t be for much longer. Steve pulled the carrier bags from his pocket and filled them to bursting. He took every single note and a few files for good measure. They had to be worth something if they were in the safe. He then shut the safe and used the picks to turn back a couple of tumblers.

  Locking the back door behind him, he headed carefully towards the SUV. He was about to step out from the alley way when he stopped quickly and moved back as a Police cruiser drove slowly by with the driver and his mate looking around all the time. They might have been looking for someone specific or maybe chasing druggies. Whatever, as soon as they’d gone he opened the boot and dropped the bags in. He was now hoping that the office would not be used again until it re-opened at ten o’clock in the morning. If all went to
plan it would never re-open.

  Back at the hotel car park, he secure locked the SUV with all the money still in the boot space and went off to his room. He checked his e-mails via the satellite link, packed away the rest of his gear and then showered and went to bed knowing he needed to be up by six a.m. at the latest. Waking a little before his alarm went off he did a few push ups and sit ups and then cleared all his gear into the one big bag he’d brought into the hotel. He double checked the floor and top surfaces to make sure he’d left nothing behind, then left the room and dropped off his key at reception. After he’d loaded his gear into the SUV he made his way to Janice’s.

  He reckoned they would approach her place from the south. If they approached from the main road it would make sense. He hoped it would be their first call of the morning as he parked around the corner to the north and used passages between the housing blocks to make his way to Janice’s door. It was open. It was quiet. The kids were probably still asleep. He walked along the hallway towards the aroma of coffee. Janice had been up for ages and looked tired and tense, but still pretty. She smiled as she looked at Steve and he knew she would be relieved that he’d turned up. He would had to have been dead not to. A promise was a promise after all.

  He took the offered coffee and asked where he should go to avoid the kids. There was a rarely used small study room just off the hall that would be fine. On the other side of the hall was the sitting room where she was told to lead the two guys to make the transaction. It was the first room inside the front door and made sense. He had just closed the study door behind him when he heard kid’s noises coming down the stairs.

  Ignoring the noise and concentrating on the job in hand, he ran through the rest of the plan. He checked his pistol and drew one into the chamber and set the safety off, he laid it on the arm of the small sofa he sat on.

  A little while later he heard the kids come along the hallway and open the front door. It would be school time. He heard Janice follow them out and pull the door shut behind her. Not long to go now. When Janice returned about twenty minutes later, Steve came out of the study and held out an envelope containing fifty one hundred dollar bills, all neatly held by a rubber band. She smiled and a tear came to her eye.

  Steve said, ‘When they get here I’ll be in the study armed and ready but I don’t want them to know I’m here unless it becomes an emergency. Are we clear on that? You need to be matter of fact and polite with them. I don’t want you to give them excuses to hurt you. Okay?’ She nodded. ‘You give them the money and ask them to leave. By rights they should give you some bit of paper saying that the loan has been re-paid, but I doubt they will. They may even ask for more. If they do you need to stall them for time. Okay? I need them to go back to their office preferably straight away.’ Again Janice nodded. She seemed unable to speak. He put an arm around her and whispered ‘It’ll be okay. I’ll sort them once and for all.’ She smiled a little and went into the front room to wait.

  Ten minutes later a loud bang came from the front door. Steve tensed and picked up the gun and held it down at his side. Ready. Janice opened the front door and gasped as she was pushed inside.

  ‘Where’s the money?’ said Pinky with the goatee holding a large hunting knife up towards her throat.

  ‘I have it in here’ said Janice and turned to go into the front room.

  ‘Not so fast’ said Perky who drew a large pistol and pushed the door open. He then swung his gun arm around in an arc checking out the room. ‘Clear’ he said and entered. He’d been watching too many movies. He stood by the open door and waited while Janice and Pinky passed him.

  ‘Okay, where is it?’ said Pinky, ‘it better be the full five thousand dollars or we do some real damage, okay?’

  ‘It’s all there’ she said as she passed over the envelope. Pinky ripped it open. There it was, the full five grand in used notes. He was speechless for a moment.

  ‘They’d better not be forgeries or we’ll be back.’ Janice assured him they weren’t. Nothing more was said and they left. If Steve was relieved, Janice had nearly had a bowel movement. When Steve came out of the study a few seconds after they’d gone, she just jumped on him and hugged him around the neck, crying and repeatedly saying thank you.

  He stood it for a few seconds and then said ‘I have to go but I’ll be back in less than two hours okay.’ You pack up everything you need for a very long vacation because we’re leaving in the morning. She just looked at him unable to say anything.

  Chapter 10

  Chicago - continued

  Steve ran through the passages and back to the SUV, jumped in, fired the engine and took off tyres squealing. He daren’t lose the two guys and saw them in the distance on the way towards the Mall and accelerated after them. Closing to within three or four hundred yards, he held that distance not getting too close. They only made one stop which was at the Asian shop and Perky came out with a carton of cigarettes. He obviously hadn’t paid for them. Quite a few people would be a lot happier when this morning’s events were over.

  The car drove off and turned into the gap next to the office and they got out. Steve drove around the back of the block and parked near the end of the alley. He needed to move quickly. Checking his gun, he fitted the silencer and walked towards the office. He checked his phone was on silent and while walking he felt for the small roll of duct tape and the plasti-cuffs in his thigh pocket.

  It was just ten o’clock and the office door should be open by now. He hoped that they’d not had reason to open the safe yet. With his cap peak down and shoulders hunched he walked to the front office door and pushed it open. Only Pinky was there. Maybe Perky was upstairs with the boss or maybe he was in the toilet. Steve needed to act fast.

  ‘I need to borrow some money’, said Steve.

  Pinky looked over Steve’s hunched shape and said ‘wait there’ and turned around to get an application form from one of the desks. Steve silently covered the four feet between them in a split second and whacked Pinky over the back of the head with the butt of his pistol, hard, very hard. Pinky was not alert. Perhaps he was still hung over from last night. Who cared? He dropped like a stone and would be out for hours probably with a hairline skull fracture. It was not Steve’s intention to kill either of them unless he had to. He had much better things in store.

  Pinky’s unconscious form was dragged into the corner to the side of the safe where he was out of sight, then cuffed and tape stuck over his mouth. Steve retrieved the envelope with the five thousand dollars from Pinky’s pocket and dropped the latch on the front door. He waited at the counter for Perky to return. Pinky was on the floor out of his line of sight when Perky returned and approaching Steve at the counter gruffly said ‘Yes?’

  Steve kept his head down and his shoulders hunched and whispered he wanted to borrow some money. Instinctively Perky bent his head and body forward to hear the faint voice better. He was certainly not alert. Steve gave him a straight finger upper cut into the throat. Not quite enough to kill him but he wouldn’t say much or breathe well for a while. He dropped, poleaxed, vocal chords damaged, wheezing badly, already semi-conscious due to lack of air. Steve cuffed him and dragged him into the corner next to Pinky. There would be no need to tape his mouth unless he wanted to kill him. ‘Sleeping beauties’ said Steve as he laughed to himself and made for the stairs to the apartment above.

  His slick rubber soled boots made no noise on the bare stairs as he slowly climbed towards the fairly loud Nineties music playing in the apartment. ‘The Charlatans’, ‘The Only One I Know.’ Carefully looking around the top of the stairs into the lounge area he could see Ronnie Banks dancing by himself and miming the words to the song. Amanda was not in there. Was she in the bathroom or still in bed? Steve knew he had perhaps only a minute until the track finished. With Ronnie’s back turned away from him he peeked into the bedroom, no-one there. The bathroom door was open. No shower noise and no-one on the pan. He crept towards the kitchen to find it empty.


  ‘Shit’, Steve said to himself, Amanda must be out shopping. She could be a minute or hours. He turned his attentions to Ronnie Banks. He had no mercy or sympathy for anyone who lived off the desperation of the poor and unfortunate people of the area. However you cut it Loan Sharking was a heinous crime made even worse by hiring violent, psychotic thugs to scare, beat and mutilate or murder your victims.

  As the song ended Ronnie instinctively turned around. He felt someone else in the room but probably assumed it was Amanda or either Pinky or Perky. He stopped short when he realised it wasn’t. He blustered, ‘Hey, what you doing up here?’ looking nervously at the gun levelled at his copious belly. ‘Time to pay your bill’ said Steve and shot him once in the lower stomach with his silenced pistol. That was all it took to provide some justice for his victims. Ronnie looked shocked until the pain hit. He dropped to the floor and lay there bleeding profusely and moaning quite loudly. Gut wounds were painful, very painful. There were a lot of blood vessels in the stomach area and you didn’t live too long without urgent treatment. Ronnie Banks wouldn’t be getting any.

  Steve moved slightly over the prone body and instantly felt the draught pass his right ear and smash against the wall. Amanda had returned and assuming a robbery was in progress, had thrown the flower vase at Steve while he was distracted and had fortunately missed. He turned, grabbed her by the arm and roughly threw her into the nearby armchair. He moved up to her and put the gun barrel on her forehead and pressed hard. She squealed. He motioned her to be quiet. ‘You have ten seconds to tell me why I shouldn’t kill you’, said Steve, ‘you have been part of this vicious business and you deserve to die.’