FEARLESS FINN'S MURDEROUS ADVENTURE

by Mike Coony

  From the sweltering, humid heat in the street I stepped into the air-conditioned chill of the Ritz-Carlton. As instructed, I asked at reception to speak to Linda. A girl with coal-black hair and turquoise-blue eyes came to the desk.

  “How might I help you, sir?” she asked, in a voice that comes from round by the Rhondda Valley in Wales.

  “My dear, it wouldn’t be right, see, if I was to tell you all the things I’d like you to do for me…seeing as we’ve only just met, you see,” I said, imitating my hero Tommy Farr.

  “Not bad, not bad, but no Richard Burton. I feel Tony Hopkins’s job is safe at the moment, see, and Dylan Thomas may still lie peaceful in his grave. Now, shall we see what I can do for you right this minute, in the privacy of this public hotel lobby?”

  “A mysterious package please, Linda.”

  “Coming right up, big fellah,” she smiled.

  Linda returned moments later and handed me an envelope sealed with Sellotape on top of a pubic hair – nice touch Finn. The hair intact under the sticky tape means no one has opened the envelope. It’s a simple device, but effective all the same.

  “Important is it, then?” Linda asked.

  “Not really. Just sexy photos of wenches I’ve come to photograph in the nude.”

  “And I suppose the fanny hair is from one of them then, is it?”

  “Probably. I’ll just have to look out for the genuine blonde, I suppose.”

  I walked to Statue Square and sat on a wall surrounded by girls chattering thirteen to the dozen in a language I don’t recognise. Inside the envelope there’s a photocopy of a photo of a man’s face, a membership card for the Two Exchange Square Health Club, and a phone number scribbled on a beer mat. Another nice touch there Finn – it’s just too difficult to lift fingerprints from beer mats, and the police don’t usually bother trying. I stuffed the health club card in me sock and studied the face.

  “Can yous tell me where I’ll find Exchange Square?” I asked the chattering girls.

  “Behind that one. Take the bridge,” one of them said, as she pointed me towards a grey building with windows like portholes on a ship.

  “Thanks a million.”

  As I headed for the pedestrian overpass I memorised the phone number. I tore up the envelope, photocopy and beer mat and dropped them in a rubbish bin along the raised walkway. Two steep escalators – one for up and one for down – sandwiched between brown marble walls lead to and from Exchange Square. The escalators are lined with rows of potted daffodils from top to bottom; the blaze of yellow against the brown marble is impressive, and very Welsh. An omen, I thought…considering my earlier encounter and piss poor Tommy Farr impersonation, see.

  The Health Club is on the fifty-second floor of Two Exchange Square. Before I go up I’ll look for alternative exits, something other than the main escalator I’ve just used. There’s an escalator to another elevated walkway leading towards a pier, and I saw a lift that goes down to the lower ground floor. Three escape routes, it’s ideal.

  I got in the lift and pressed the button marked ‘HEALTH CLUB 52nd Floor’. The lift stopped on the second floor and the man I’d been studying in the photocopy stepped in carrying a sports bag. He checked me out in the reflection of the polished chrome doors, then he turned and gave me one of those sickly smiles you only see on the lips of a poofter – I remember them from my Brighton days with Finn. Holy mother of God, forgive me, but I smiled back at him.

  “Are you going all the way?” he asked. He must’ve caught the puzzled expression on my face. “Oh silly me, all the way indeed! I meant are you going to the fifty-second floor, to the health club? I only ask because you don’t have any kit with you. Just going for a Jacuzzi, then, are we?” he twittered.

  “That’s it, a relaxing Jacuzzi I think. And you?”

  “I’ll begin with a workout, then perhaps a Jacuzzi. Maybe I’ll see you in there later?”

  I thought, you’re bloody right you’ll be seeing me fellah, and I’ll be the last man you ever see.

  There’s no one manning the reception desk as we walk into the health club, so I don’t even have to show the membership card. And there isn’t an attendant to be found in the changing rooms. Lucky me again! It seems most club members are still in their offices, and the staff are taking their breaks or changing shifts. This is probably why my little shirt lifter likes to come to the club at this time of day – no one’s around to see what he gets up to.

  I took my time getting undressed; the target had changed into shorts and a T-shirt and minced off to the gym before my trousers were off. I wrapped a towel around meself and slipped into the bubbling Jacuzzi next to the changing rooms, making sure not to touch anything with my hands.

  It only took ten minutes for him to reappear. He’s naked as nature intended, and his cock’s sticking out like a barber’s pole. He slid into the foaming water right alongside me. I grabbed his cock in my left hand, pulled him under the water and rabbit punched him with my right fist. Semen spurted out of his cock, which went limp in my hand, and then some semen floating on the surface of the water caught in his hair. I know I’ve broken his neck, but I smashed his head against the side of the Jacuzzi and made sure to leave his nose and mouth below the water – just to be sure, to be sure. It crossed my mind that he probably died happy, ejaculating in a man’s hand.

  Without touching the sides of the Jacuzzi I stepped out of the bubbling water and slipped back into the changing room. Once I was dressed I buried my towel in a half-full laundry basket.

  The dead poofter’s jacket is hanging neatly on a peg beside his sports bag. I reached into the pocket and took out his wallet. It’s bulging with yellow thousand dollar Hongkong Bank notes. Who’s a silly boy? I thought. I stuffed the notes in me pocket and wiped the wallet down before putting it back in his jacket.

  This was a real dawdle, so it was. First off, he sprung up from nowhere. Then there are no witnesses to worry about. And the eejit had a twenty thousand dollar motive for murder in his jacket. If I didn’t know better, I might think I’m being set up.

  I took the lift down to the main level and exited by the rear of Two Exchange Square. After walking along the elevated pedestrian bridge to a set of steps near the water I skipped down to ground level. I dropped the health club membership card in a sewer drain and waited until it sank, then I followed the harbour to Queen’s Pier. I made a right turn and made my way back to Statue Square where I’d been earlier.

  I went over to the public phone boxes and stood outside one until the girl inside finished her call. She gave me a thousand watt smile, offered me the telephone handset, and waited with the door half open until I started dialling.

  This is some city. I’ve just been given the eye by a homo, now I’m getting something similar from a knockout girl. And I’m no oil painting. I’ve been accused of frightening a stone statue, so I have – never mind a pretty young girl!

  Finn answered after two rings.

  “Gone ta mammy!” I said. He told me to go to where I’d picked up the envelope, order a meal, eat, drink, and wait.

  Heading back towards the Ritz-Carlton I walked past the legislative buildings. As I waited to cross the road to the hotel a convoy of police Land Rovers tore past me with blue lights flashing and sirens wailing. It seems the body has already been found. To tell the honest truth, I’d prefer to be heading home instead of on my way to eat in a hotel within sight of the murder scene. Still, orders are orders, and Fearless Flynn outranks me in the organisation….

  I’d just about finished my steak when the waitress told me I’m wanted outside. I gave her the money to cover my bill, plus her tip, and I stepped out of the hotel and into a green taxi.

  Finn is sitting in the back seat with his head stuck in a newspaper; he gave me the say nothing hand signal. The taxi pulled into traffic and drove for about a kilometre before entering a tunnel. It took us twenty minutes to reach the old-fashioned railway station. There’s a ‘Kowloon-Canton Railway – Kowloo
n Station’ sign hanging across the concourse; the cream and brown sign looks like it’s hung there since the 1920s.

  As we walked to the ticket office I described what happened in the health club, and what I did afterwards. Finn told me to check if the serial numbers on the notes I lifted are consecutive, so I went into the gents’ toilet and inspected the notes. The numbers aren’t consecutive and I stuffed the notes back in my pocket.

  Finn’s standing outside the ticket office, and he’s just handed me another look-alike passport. He pointed out the Hong Kong Immigration Department entry stamp and a transit visa for the PRC in the passport. Then he gave me a train ticket and a bunch of money with Chinese writing on it.

  “That’s Chinese renminbi. You’re taking the train to Canton, then a taxi to the airport. Use the renminbi to buy a ticket for Shanghai. When you arrive in Shanghai book yourself business class on a flight to Paris. Stay at the usual hotel, and your own passport will be returned to you there. The train leaves in ten minutes, so fuck off my friend…and a nice touch getting the queer to come all over the place. Makes it look like a homo thing gone wrong. Those old Brighton queens would be so pwowd of you ducky…ever so pwowd.”

  “Finn, just before I fuck off as you so elegantly put it…there isn’t really time ta go inta it all now, but the Chief’s asked me ta meet him privately as soon as I get back home. There’s been a nasty development looking for the wee bastard who gave away yer nickname and hostage hidey hole back in Tipperary. I’ll let ya know as soon as I hear more. Watch your back. Good luck!”

  ———

  Mac’s on his way to the PRC, and I headed back to the Ritz-Carlton for a smoked salmon sandwich. The ‘brutal killing of a stockbroker in the plush Two Exchange Square Health Club’ is the lead news item on the early evening news on TVB – the English-language channel.

  The reporter is interviewing a chief inspector outside police headquarters in Wan Chai, and the chief inspector is speaking directly to the camera. “My officers, having examined the scene, are now following a definite line of enquiry. There will be an ongoing investigation into this particularly brutal slaying. However, we must await the results of the post mortem examination before making any further announcements.”

  In other words, Mac did a brilliant job as usual, and they haven’t a clue who snuffed the stockbroker. I imagine that their ‘definite line of enquiry’ has something to do with what was floating around in the Jacuzzi and stuck in the man’s hair. It crossed my mind that Hong Kong’s small homosexual community will be in for a rough time from the police. It doesn’t seem fair, but it’s collateral damage, as our American friends would describe it. And there’s always some of that.

  I would’ve liked to spend a few days with Mac. We’ve shared some shite over the years, especially since the Troubles started up again. We’d watched the barefaced ethnic cleansing of Catholics carried out by the Stormont government under the noses of their British pay masters. Standing shoulder to shoulder at barricades made from people’s best front room furniture, bedsteads, mattresses and dustbins, we faced the bastard B-Specials with their armoured jeeps, tracer bullets and baton rounds. Back in those early days, Mac and myself were armed with two ancient shotguns and a handful of cartridges between us.

  I could never quite match Mac’s stamina. He’d sit up through the night making Molotov cocktails by filling milk bottles with equal parts petrol, flour and sugar. Then he’d smear the bottles with grease, so when they shattered on impact the burning shards of glass stuck wherever they landed.

  If I close my eyes I can still picture the mad bastard on a borrowed Vespa scooter with a Hells Angels helmet on his head. The RUC was firing volley after volley of baton rounds at the housewives, young boys and students trying to hold back the B-Specials, to stop them getting through to burn down their homes. Mac was darting between the barricades on the scooter, throwing his exploding bottles at the jeeps and the lines of RUC – who were in full riot gear and protected from head to toe with flame-proof shields.

  Mac and I were both put on the RUC Special Branch’s ‘shoot on sight’ list. We got so hot that the Army Council ordered us back south to set up a unit specialising in bank robberies.

  We had great craic on Thursdays, deciding what bank we’d visit on Friday. The newspapers named Fridays ‘Provos Pay Day’, and they held the front page of their final edition on a Friday afternoon until they had news of where we’d hit.

  There’s one Friday outing I’ll not forget. We were robbing a bank in a small town in Wicklow, about forty kilometres outside Dublin. Mac was the lookout man, sitting in the getaway car. Myself and the lads left the bank with pillowcases full of cash, but before we got back in the car Mac pointed out two other banks across the road.

  “Now that we’re out here Finn, let’s hit them as well. Make it a proper pay day, eh!”

  “Right you be.”

  A young girl behind the counter in the third bank spoke to me. “Hey big fellah, will ya fire that thing, will ya? Up there like, go on,” she said, pointing up towards the ornate plaster work on the bank’s ceiling.

  I knew what the clever little minx wanted. Cashiers get a payment from head office when they suffer the trauma of an armed robbery, and this bright girl caught on that they’d get more compensation if shots were fired.

  “What’s up there?” I asked from under my balaclava.

  “Nothing, ya know…just old filing cabinets.”

  “Right, cover your ears and duck down behind the counter.”

  I fired two shells into the ceiling with my sawn-off Remington Wingmaster and brought down a shower of plaster.

  “There yous are now!” I yelled a bit too loudly, as my ears were ringing from the two shots.

  All the bank tellers stood up covered in white plaster. They applauded me and the lads as we left the bank with pillowcases full of money. I saw them cheering and applauding, but I couldn’t hear a thing through the ringing in my ears.

  No one could believe we’d hit three banks in under five minutes, but it was firing those two shots into the ceiling that brought massive heat on us. But that was then, and this is now, and I have plenty to think about apart from trips down memory lane….

  31

  THE GAMBIA and LANTAU ISLAND

  Some asshole in Customs sent the wrong certificates from the Gambian Ministry of Forestry with the last shipment of timber. The shipment is on the verge of being permanently seized by Customs in Yokohama, the Yakuza are threatening to head for Banjul, and Finn Flynn is unavailable. So here I am, back in Gambia, expected to clear up the goddamn mess.

  The Customs Office opens at seven thirty a.m., but it closes between one p.m. and three p.m. – except on Mondays and Wednesdays – and it’s closed by four every afternoon. This is according to the peeling sign that probably hasn’t seen a lick of paint since the Limeys left fifty years ago.

  The man Hussein introduced me to wasn’t at the Customs Office when I phoned, and no one could tell me when he’s supposed to make an appearance. I sat in a café across the street from the Customs Office for two days, watching for him. Not only did he not turn up, I never saw the front door open or close, not even once. Then, I find out from the bartender at the Atlantic Hotel that my Customs man hasn’t been seen anywhere at all in over a week.

  On top of that, I can’t get a hold of Hussein, the Lebanese prick. I’ve been told he’s gone up-country, or to Senegal. So which is it? No one knows…or they aren’t saying. Either way, I’m in a Third World backwater trying to deal with the remnants of British colonial rule. Fuck the Limeys!

  ———

  I’ve been trying to reach Nataliya Yelena at the house for three days, but the calls always go through to the answering service. It’s eight a.m. now, so with the eight hour time difference it’s four in the afternoon in Lantau. I’m kind of concerned about Nataliya, seeing as she’s sort of been stashed at my place, playing hide and seek with her Russian pimps if you know what I mean. I think I’ll cal
l the Sea Ranch office to see if I can find anything out.

  “Good afternoon. Sea Ranch luxury living. This is Mimi.”

  “Hello Mimi, it’s Mister Gerry. Would any of those shysters in accounts still be in their offices?”

  “I don’t think so Mister Gerry, but please let me check. Do you mind holding?”

  “Nope.”

  “Hello Mister Gerry. Just as I thought, they have all gone home for the day. May I take a message?”

  “Thanks Mimi, but that’s OK. I’ll stop by the office when I get back. But…hey…by any chance…have you seen Miss Nataliya Yelena today?” I asked as casually as I could.

  “So sorry, Mister Gerry. She hasn’t been here for nearly one week. Are you sure I can not take a message for accounts?”

  “No, no, that’s OK Mimi. Thanks. Arrivederci,…goodbye.”

  Hearing that Natalia Yelena hasn’t been around for a week makes me feel real queasy. Where the heck is she? Did Nico tell the Russian thugs that I’ve stashed her at my place? Merda…shit! I can’t believe Nico would sell me out like that. We’ve been buddies since second grade. Naw, he wouldn’t do that…would he? I can’t exactly drop everything here and rush back to find my Russian beauty…but I wish I could.

  ———

  My package flight back to Britain leaves tomorrow, and there’s still no sign of the Lebanese prick or the missing Customs man. If something doesn’t happen to get this show back on the road today…well, it’s not worth thinking about.

  I am having one little bit of luck. Those big black dudes that hang around outside the hotel hustling tourists recognise me, so they’ve been keeping their distance all week. They probably think Flynn will step out and kick the crap out of them again.

  The usual line of taxis is outside the hotel. A man with a briefcase beat me to the first taxi, so I got the second one. I told the driver to take me somewhere on the main road to Banjul where I can sit outside and watch the traffic. He dropped me at a workers’ café with decent outside seating under a striped awning. I’m keeping an eye on the cars heading to and from Banjul, hoping against hope that I’ll see Hussein’s black Range Rover.