by Jay Stringer
“You mean he pays you to be prepared.”
“I like that.”
We sat and watched Gaines and Robeson as they carried out a hushed business conversation. I read the back and forth through their body language. Robeson was leaning in, occasionally pointing out the window toward where the casino would be built. He was deep in sales-pitch mode but Gaines was already on the hook, so he was pushing for something else. Gaines was leaning back, shaking her head slightly, not enough to be saying, “No,” but enough to be saying, “I don’t think so.”
“What’s your boss up to?”
Green tapped a ring on his finger against his glass for a second before answering. “I think he’s received an offer from someone else. He’s trying to see if Gaines will up her bid.”
“I thought we were past all that, everything was agreed.”
“Things are never agreed until they’re on paper.” He grinned at his own joke before he told it. “Even then, minds can be changed.”
“Something else you get paid for, no doubt.”
He raised what was left of his drink in another toast before downing it. I pointed at his empty as an offer for another but he waved it away and asked the barman for a glass of water.
“So what does she pay you for, Mr. Miller?”
“Eoin. And that’s a very good question.”
“John.” He mulled something over and then leaned in closer. “I’m hoping she pays you for advice, because she’s going to need some.” I could smell more than two glasses of whiskey on his breath, and almost as much mouthwash. “He doesn’t pay me enough to follow him into hell, and that’s where this deal is going.”
“Why?”
“I took a bullet once in some country I’m not allowed to tell you about, jumping in front of someone I’m not allowed to tell you about. One other time I ran into a building that had a bomb in it, to pull out someone else that I’m not allowed to tell you about.”
“You’re always in the kitchen at parties with chat like that, right?”
“Point is, I’ve done things for Queen and paycheck that fatty over there could never dream of. I’ve stood up to fuckers with machine guns, and I’ve taken bullets for people worth taking bullets for.”
“And he’s not one of them?”
“No, he’s not. And what he doesn’t seem to get, right, is that there’s a huge difference between doing shady deals with people who make dirty money, with a hired beltman covering his back to make him look cool, and getting in over his head with assholes who will cut it off.”
“This other offer?”
He nodded, then shrugged away his previous willpower and waved the barman for another. “This other offer was from—”
“Someone you’re not allowed to tell me about.”
“Like hell. This offer was from some assholes in suits more expensive than what the NASA guys wore for the moon landing. Some cartel from the Middle East. These are guys you’ll see sometimes out in the field, in Fannystan or I-crack. They’ll turn up in shiny cars, in suits, in the middle of a war zone, bullets flying around them, and they won’t bat an eyelid. And you know to get the fuck out, no matter which army is backing you up.”
“And your boss is making the mistake of considering their offer.”
“No, his mistake was taking their call in the first place. They’re due here any minute. Apparently they want to meet with your Ms. Gaines as well. If I were you, I wouldn’t be here by then.”
Green slammed down the empty glass and stood up, headed toward the toilet. Robeson noticed this but carried on with his pitch. I saw—rather than heard—Gaines get angry. She had a cold anger, a temper that burned with ice rather than fire. If you got her mad she would stare you down and wait for the frostbite to get you. She was sitting upright in her chair and speaking in a hushed tone, one I’d heard many times before as she issued threats. She stood and walked toward me, nodding for me to step in beside her. We headed to the door.
“So, that went well, then?”
“Eoin, there are times when your jokes are funny. This would not be one of them.”
“So you do think I’m funny, then?”
She paused as we walked out of the front door, facing me, letting the coldness in her eyes thaw a little. “I was just being polite.”
“Okay, this bit isn’t a joke. The cartel guys are on their way here. They’re coming for you. They’ve used you the same way you used fatty in there, to smoke out the deal. Now they want it for themselves.”
I caught a glint over her shoulder and looked to see the light bounce off a shiny black car that was pulling into the car park. The windows were dark without being tinted.
My stomach flipped over and began to crawl for the hills.
I grabbed Gaines by the arm. “We need to go. Now.”
We drove out in the opposite direction, following the curve of the lake away from the hotel and then around the back of the Exhibition Center. It was the long way round, taking us away from the exit roads at first before looping back around toward the train station, but it gave me a chance to watch for a tail. I took the wheel, ignoring Gaines’s protests, and kept my eyes on the rearview mirror while she talked.
“You think they want to buy the casino out from under me?”
“You’ve been set up. It’s their money you were going to use to buy the casino, right? They let you run around, setting up the deal, smoking out the fixers and organizing the contracts, and now they’re going to cut out all the middle men. And women.”
A bridge took us over the railway tracks while we both watched a plane take off from the runway ahead of us. As we hit the first of the many small roundabouts that made the airport so difficult to navigate, I slipped into the lane to lead us toward the M42, which would give us a clean run back to the Black Country.
“Can’t go home yet,” said Gaines.
I stared at her as she gestured to the sign for Birmingham.
“Are you serious?”
“I’ve still got a meeting with my money man.”
“No way. We’re going back to our own patch.”
She lowered her voice. “Which one of us is the boss?”
“All right. But if I see trouble, we’re running.”
I looped round the roundabout again and turned back on the way I had come, this time ignoring the airport turnoff and heading straight toward the city. Soon the sides of the road filled with houses, restaurants, and car showrooms, but I still had one eye on the mirror.
“Now you’re going to tell me how you know so much about the cartel’s plans,” she said. “I know you’re not in with them, but you seem very sure of what’s going on.”
I’d known it was only a matter of time before she asked. I really didn’t want to tell her. Not because it was bad news, but because I knew it hadn’t been my place to keep it from her.
I took a deep breath. “The cartel contacted your father. They said if we didn’t find the leak, they would kill you. And, well, I guess I’ve found the leak.” My voice sounded as nervous as I was feeling. “But that’s not going to help, because if we do tell them who the leak is they’ll still want to kill you.”
She stared at me. I kept my eyes on the road but I could feel it. A mile passed. Two. Then she spoke, and I’d never heard her speak so quietly. This was a level of temper I’d never seen, and I’d seen her kill someone. “How dare you. Both of you. You want to blame this on me? Make it my fault that you’ve been lying to me?”
“No, I—”
“Shut up. You’re just like him. Them. All of them. Deciding what I can and can’t face. You have no right.”
The silence again. It stretched out. I lost my nerve and tried to fill it, tried changing the subject, anything to deflect the anger and take us back to where we’d been. “So how were you going to launder that much money anyway?”
/> I heard her breathing for a moment, biting back on the anger, and then she let out a sigh. “Same way everyone else does these days. A football club.”
“How?”
“I’ve been buying up shares in a lower league club, small chunks over time, nothing that would raise a red flag. The cartel was going to come in and buy me out, and because it’s football nobody will bat an eyelid when they pay way over the odds. It’s an inflated market anyway, and their front men will just distract people by talking about ambition for the club and big money signings, maybe getting a new manager in. When the deal went, I’d sell my shares and walk away with truckloads of clean cash.”
I didn’t even pretend to doubt the plan would work. There had been enough strange buyouts in football over the past decade that money laundering was the sanest explanation. Not for the first time I felt out of my depth at this level. I would rather stare down an angry drug dealer with a knife than sit in on a business meeting talking about mergers, assets, and liquidity.
“I need this.” Gaines filled the silence. “Just a few more days to sign these deals, and I’m out. The family is out. A few days is all we need.”
I sat in silence. This wasn’t a two-sided conversation; she was trying to convince herself rather than me. Her tone betrayed her—she already knew the deals were dead. This had all been one long con. If she’d spent the last few years lying to everybody to find a way out, and then that way out was taken away, all she was left with was lies. It made me think of Laura. She was caught in the same trap. Both of them had been using the ends to justify the means. I’d been far less complicated; I’d taken to lies just for the sake of an easy life. What did that make me?
I saw Gaines staring at an upcoming road sign that marked the turnoff for Solihull. We were miles past Solihull at that point, but taking that turnoff would lead us back away from the city and we would be at her father’s house within ten minutes. I watched the back of her head and wondered, does she spend as much time as me trapped in her own thoughts?
I thought about finally asking the only question that mattered. Then I chickened out and asked a different version of it. “When you said I’d be the only person who wouldn’t be mad at you, what did you mean?”
Our eyes met for longer than should have been allowed giving that I was behind the wheel of a moving car. But I couldn’t read her emotion.
“You know why.”
Follow that up, I told myself. Follow it now.
I nodded and turned my eyes back to the road.
Up ahead the tall buildings of Birmingham began to rise up out of the ground to catch the sun. The city showed no signs of the financial problems that had hit the rest of the region. Urban investment had continued, and newer and taller buildings were being thrown up all the time. Each time I visited the city I needed a moment to get my bearings as I drove between buildings that hadn’t been there before, or passed through a new junction. Gaines was directing me on a route where I didn’t recognize either the roads or the buildings, and we skirted the edge of the city until we stopped at a small street by the children’s hospital. We got out and walked though a new plaza with water features and shrubbery.
“I don’t recognize any of this.”
She smiled from beneath a large pair of sunglasses she’d slipped on while I wasn’t looking. “It’s exciting around here at the moment. So many investors are developing while labor and materials are cheap.”
She pointed across the plaza to an older building, something that seemed more familiar, and once we were alongside it I had my bearings. We were heading toward Colmore Row, the city’s traditional seat of power, where bankers and lawyers hid away from the world in Victorian buildings like they had for centuries.
Gaines noticed my limp and nodded at it.
“I have no idea.”
“You just woke up with a leg injury?”
“Something like that.”
“Okay,” she said, drawing out the word.
We walked along Colmore Row, with gray brick buildings on our right and the cathedral on our left, amongst an odd mixture of skater kids and people in business suits. At the end of the street were the older buildings, now protected by conservation orders that prevented even the multinational banks from having their way. We stopped outside the old Grand Hotel building, and Gaines turned to face me.
“Stay here.”
She walked up old stone steps and through the grand front entrance. I walked over to take up a position beneath the shade of a tree, leaning against the metal railing that surrounded the cathedral grounds. My hope was to get a good view of anyone approaching the building, but all I really did in the end was watch the teenage girls with their green and purple hair, and pretend I wasn’t staring.
Women.
I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my contacts, finding Laura and dialing.
“I think we should talk,” I said when she answered. I was searching for the right words.
“About?”
“I just had a long talk with Gaines. She told me about being your CI, that I’ve had you wrong the whole time. Why didn’t you tell me?”
There was nothing but the digital sound of the phone connection. Maybe she was also searching for the right words. We create technology that can connect people who are thousands of miles apart, but we can’t come up with anything that makes connecting any easier.
“Listen, I wanted to say—” I breathed in then let it out again. “I’ve been—”
“I know, don’t worry about it. Gaines tell you any more?”
“Not yet. She’s in with her money guy.”
I realized I couldn’t bring myself to tell Laura that Gaines was planning to back out on the arrangement. A warm lump of something climbed up my throat to stop me. The same feeling had also stopped me from telling Gaines that Laura and I had been seeing each other again. Stuck at a crossroads without a guitar. I wondered if there would be a parade on the day I figured myself out.
Gaines stepped out of the doorway and scanned the street for me before walking down the steps. She looked flustered, which reminded me just how deep the shit around us was. I told Laura we’d speak later and killed the call as Gaines reached me. She flexed her jaw and rocked on her feet a little as she stood beside me. She was staring at the cathedral, but I could see she was fighting for control.
“You were right,” she said. “They’re cutting me out.”
“What happened?”
“They’ve moved for the football club. It’s going to hit the news in an hour, big splash in the papers. But they’re doing the deal at a lower offer, at the PLC’s current share value. I’ll just get my investment back. It’s nowhere near enough for me to buy into the casino.”
I nodded for us to move and then started walking back in the direction of the car. I had a bad feeling about standing in one place too long.
“If they’ve lied to you about the casino and the football club, we need to assume they’ve lied to you about your territory. They’re going to have moved on that, too.”
She nodded but didn’t speak.
We both felt the trap snapping shut around us. It had been sprung to perfection.
“Listen, this is it. They get everything. You’ve wrapped up your territory and businesses into a neat little package for them to take over, and you’ve done the legwork on smoking out the deal for the casino. They’re even getting a football club in the bargain.”
“We need to get back to Casa Mia. We’ll call Claire and Ross on the way, put the crew together.”
“Chuckles? Hold on. We’re not ready. We’ve spent two years turning everything into a business, and we don’t even know if people like him are still loyal to us or sold out already. Besides, are you sure you want to take them on? If we don’t have enough muscle to think about Dodge, how are we going to think about the cartel?”
&nb
sp; She blinked a few times. Then set her jaw firm. “If people choose to stand against us, that’s their problem. If they want me to be a criminal, let’s show them just how much of a criminal I can be.”
We crossed the plaza and rounded the corner to where we’d left the car. At the top of the road I froze. The road was on a hill, with Gaines’s car parked at the bottom. And nestled behind it, idling at the curb, was the dark car from the hotel. Branko was leaning against it. He smiled and nodded at us. Then he stood up from the car and waved at someone I couldn’t see.
The Midland Metro is a light rail tram system that runs between Birmingham and Wolverhampton. It had once been part of a grand plan to connect the whole region with a tram system, around the same time that a similar line was being proposed in Manchester. As with everything else in the region, though, the money ran out. Only one part of the network had ever been built.
I led Gaines down to the escalator at Snow Hill, the station where the tram line terminates in Birmingham. When it had first been opened it was the last building in the street, the point where the wealth and offices changed to vacant wasteland and roads. Now it was fenced in between tall glass buildings. Gaines followed behind me with the slight lag of someone who had no idea where we were going. She’d probably never been on the metro before.
How the other half live.
I paid the conductor for two fares to Wolverhampton and then pushed Gaines to the front of the tram, settling into seats that faced back into the tram, from where I could watch everyone else that got on.
Shoppers.
Students.
Teenagers talking on mobiles.
Old people carrying groceries.
The tram rang out a signal that the doors were about to close, and just as they did I saw someone jump on board at the far end. The figure was obscured by metal railing and passengers. I kept my eyes on the outline of the person as the tram pulled away.
We picked up speed as we left Birmingham—the tall buildings moving by us—but then slowed down as we entered a tunnel leading to the Jewelry Quarter. As the tram darkened I saw the figure move out from behind the railing and slip down into a seat closer to us, but I’d still not seen who it was. I kept my eyes on him, and now Gaines had noticed I was staring and her eyes were flicking from me to further down the tram, trying to spot what I was fixed on.
