The Drop

by Howard Linskey

It was two more flights to the inner sanctum and when I got there Bobby was sitting behind his big, solid oak desk, waiting for me. There were a couple of senior members of the firm there with him; Jerry Lemon, as usual in a T-shirt, all bare arms and prison tatts, filled with so much pent up aggression I was always expecting him to have a heart attack. Standing next to him was Mickey Hunter looking uncomfortable in a supposedly smart jacket, a tie strung so loosely round his neck you could see the top button of his shirt. I wanted to march up to the big fellah and pull it taut so he didn’t look like such a scruff. He obviously felt obliged to dress smart in Bobby’s nightclub but it just didn’t suit him. He ended up looking like a manual worker forced by his missus to wear a good suit at his niece’s wedding.

  Even our bent accountant Alex Northam was there, in a tweed suit that was far too old for him. He was one of those middle-aged guys who can’t wait to get old so they can tell everybody how far back they go.

  I’d known these guys for a long while but they all avoided my gaze now. I wondered if any of them had put in a good word for me or if they couldn’t wait to dance all over my grave. No honour among thieves.

  While not quite as violently psychotic as Finney, Bobby Mahoney was still a man to be reckoned with, even in his late fifties. He might have had the grey hair and lined face of a man contemplating retirement, but you could still put him in a room full of twenty-year olds and I’d bet he’d be the only one left standing at the end.

  He didn’t look pleased to see me.

  ‘Alright Bobby?’ I said, knowing that he wasn’t.

  ‘Where the fuck have you been?’ the big booming voice silenced every one else immediately. It was so sharp it made Northam twitch in alarm.

  ‘Thailand.’ I told him as defiantly as I could manage. Rightly or wrongly, since I’d done nothing wrong I was gambling that my best form of defence was a little bit of defiance, mixed with a healthy dose of bemusement. ‘Why?’

  Bobby climbed to his feet and came out from behind his desk. Jerry Lemon and Mickey Hunter parting like the Red Sea so he could get at me. My mouth was dry and I didn’t like the way his enormous fists were balled up. I was preparing myself for a bad beating.

  ‘What happened to the Drop?’ he asked me outright.

  And this is where it got difficult for me, because I wasn’t supposed to know it hadn’t happened but Finney knew that I knew and he was standing there with me, so I had to be convincing. If I started looking shifty because I was denying all knowledge of what had happened to the Drop then Bobby might start to wonder why and draw the wrong, dangerous conclusion.

  ‘I don’t know, I was away. I’ve been on holiday remember.’ Then I acted like it was just sinking in, ‘what do you mean “what happened to it?”’

  ‘You were responsible for the Drop!’ the volume rose to a dangerous level. He crossed the floor towards me and the others started looking elsewhere; their shoes, the framed prints of half-naked Pirelli calendar girls on the walls, anywhere but at me, ‘don’t take me for a cunt Davey,’ he hissed at me when he was right up close.

  The situation was serious enough for me to immediately stop acting defiant. ‘Yeah, I know Bobby, but I was on holiday so Geordie Cartwright said he’d do it,’ I said this quietly, hoping to calm the big man down, ‘just like he always does when I’m on holiday. He said he’d clear it with you and he’d take Maggot down there with him.’

  He walked right up to me and stopped just in front of my face, so he could take a long look at me to see if I was lying. They say Bobby Mahoney can smell a lie. ‘Well he didn’t fucking clear it with me and he didn’t take Maggot with him.’ He was up so close to me I could smell the stale tobacco on his breath.

  ‘You’ve spoken to Maggot have you?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Finney wryly, ‘we spoke to him alright.’ By his tone I realised they must have put the fear of God into the poor bastard to make sure he was telling the truth. Finney was famous for his powers of persuasion, his trademark weapon of choice being a nail gun. He had a fondness for putting nails through people’s hands, leaving them stuck to their kitchen tables, garage doors and, in one memorable case, the skull of a deceased accomplice.

  ‘You didn’t ring me,’ I offered, surprised that this was not the first thing he’d thought of. I didn’t have a fancy mobile with an international connection but I wasn’t hard to trace.

  ‘We phoned the hotel you gave us,’ said Jerry Lemon, ‘they said you weren’t staying there,’

  ‘That’s bullshit,’ I said, ‘I was there. I’ve been on the same fucking resort for ten days. Laura brought back half the gift shop. Course I was fucking there.’ And then a thought suddenly struck me.

  Laura.

  Laura made the booking.

  Oh Christ.

  ‘So, what’s happened then?’ I asked, looking to deflect them from the subject of my strange absence from the hotel register. For a second, I thought Bobby was going to belt me and when Bobby Mahoney starts belting people he doesn’t stop. Believe me, I’ve seen it. It takes Finney and all his mates to drag Bobby off once he’s started and by then it’s usually too late.

  ‘Nothing happened!’ he snarled, ‘the Drop certainly didn’t happen and Cartwright’s disappeared.’

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘Yeah, shit’s the word. A whole heap of shit and we are all in it, particularly you. The first I hear about it is when I get a call to tell me the Drop’s late. The Drop’s never late so I know something’s wrong straight away and I look into it sharpish. Turns out nobody can find Cartwright and nobody can find the money. Only thing anyone knows is it didn’t fucking get there. So my question, once again, is where the fuck have you been?’

  I am bright enough to realise that he is not talking literally. I know if I even say the words ‘holiday’ or ‘Thailand’ again I am liable to get a beating that would not entirely be undeserved. ‘I’m sorry Bobby, I really am. I fucked up,’ he doesn’t seem to know how to react to that level of honesty. He’s clearly not used to it. ‘I should have made sure the Drop was in safer hands than Cartwright so you had nothing to worry about.’

  ‘I’m not worried about Cartwright. I’ve known him for years and he’s fucked either way son. It looks like someone’s killed him and taken my money. That’s my guess and, if it’s not that, it means he’s so stupid he’s stolen it himself, and I’ll bloody kill him. Don’t worry about Cartwright, worry about yourself because the Drop is your responsibility. I thought I’d made that pretty clear. Now you get out there and you find Cartwright or you find his body. I want to know who’s behind this and I want my fucking money back – then I am going to let Finney cut whoever’s responsible into tiny pieces while they are still breathing. You have got two days to sort this mess out. I want my cash back on this desk on Monday morning. Nobody takes from me, nobody, you know that!’

  Christ, my heart sank on hearing that. I already knew my chances of finding Cartwright, or his rotting carcass, and Bobby’s money by Monday were slim to none, but I was definitely not going to tell Bobby Mahoney that right now. If I did, I reckoned he would have killed me, so I took the path of least resistance and bought myself some time.

  ‘Yeah Bobby I know that. Leave it with me. I’m on it.’

  ‘Go on then,’ he said and I didn’t wait to be told twice, ‘and take Finney with you.’

  Finney lumbered after me, which I could have done without. I needed some time on my own to think, but now I’d got Finney with me I was going to have to start making enquiries, darting round the city on a Friday night like a lunatic. Jesus, where would I even begin?

  ‘Where to?’ asked Finney as soon as we’d left the room. I was starting to get the funny feeling he was secretly enjoying this. The ‘whiz kid’, as he used to refer to me when I first joined the team, had been firmly put in his place and was clearly shitting himself at the prospect of a good kicking or worse. I had no idea ‘where to’.

  ‘Simple,’ I said with as much nonchalance as
I could muster under the circumstances, ‘known associates,’ he frowned at me like his simple brain couldn’t quite digest the concept, ‘Cartwright’s nearest and dearest. We quiz them all. Let’s get the car.’

  I was keen to halt his questions about my plans. I didn’t have any.

  THREE

  ...................................................

  When we were back in the car Finney asked, ‘where first?’ ‘Jesmond,’ I told him, thinking on my feet, ‘there’s a side street just off Osborne Road. Cartwright shacks up there with his bird, what’s-her-name, Amanda something, the one who used to be a stripper way back when?’

  ‘Mandy McCauley,’ he told me. I was surprised he knew her full name. ‘Used to take it all off in a back room at the Sunbeam Strip in the eighties before they closed it down. I couldn’t believe it when Cartwright took her on full time.’

  ‘Why, what’s wrong with her?’

  ‘You mean apart from showing her growler to every man in Newcastle?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘apart from that.’

  ‘Well she shagged virtually the entire crew,’ he told me, ‘no actually, I tell a lie, she did shag the entire crew. If you hadn’t have been in short trousers back then you’d have got your end away too. If she turned up anywhere with George after it was like…’ he seemed lost for a suitable phrase.

  ‘An old boyfriends’ reunion?’ I offered.

  ‘Yeah, well no, not really. None of us ever took her out. You didn’t have to with Mand,’ and he chuckled, ‘she didn’t seem to mind. Though, to tell you the truth, it was like chucking a Smartie tube up the Tyne Tunnel.’ Finney laughed harder, ‘I dunno,’ he said reflectively, ‘maybe he felt sorry for her.’

  ‘Or maybe he just had a bigger cock than you,’ but he didn’t laugh at that. Instead he just pressed the accelerator more firmly and we sped closer to Jesmond.

  Whatever looks Mandy McCauley once had, she’d lost them. The woman that answered the door in her dressing gown might have taken her clothes off for money twenty years ago but these days you’d have paid her to leave them on. She was an overweight, badly made up specimen with a cig in her nicotine-stained hand trailing smoke up into her bloodshot eyes. ‘Finney,’ she said unhappily, ‘and you,’ I wondered if she’d forgotten my name. She took a deep breath and when she spoke once more her voice was harsh, ‘what have you done with him you bastards!’

  She eventually let us in, once I’d persuaded her we were looking for Cartwright too. The house was shabbier than I would have expected, the white flock wallpaper in the hall turning brown and peeling in a corner.

  ‘Wipe your fucking feet,’ she ordered.

  ‘Watch your dirty mouth Mandy or you’ll get a slap,’ Finney told her. It was moving to see these two lovers reunited. ‘Now where is he?’

  We followed her into a grubby little front room with a high ceiling, a three-bar electric heater and a large sofa that sagged under my weight when I sat down. When Finney sat next to me I swear I felt a spring snap under him. Mandy sat on a battered armchair and crossed her legs primly, which to me seemed like locking the door after the entire stable has bolted, ‘I don’t know,’ she said with some feeling, ‘I thought he was with you or… .’

  ‘You thought we’d hurt him?’ I said reasonably.

  She flicked her cig into an ashtray, set it down and pulled the sleeves of her dressing gown taut so they half covered her hands. It wasn’t cold in the room. It was a nervous gesture ‘I s’pose.’

  ‘Well, you would,’ I said, ‘if he’s not been around. How long has he been missing?’

  ‘Three days,’ and saying it aloud set her off. Her lip quivered and the tears formed, ‘Geordie’s never been away for more than a night, not ever.’ North east men christened George are always known as ‘Geordie’ and George Cartwright was no exception.

  ‘When you last saw him where he was he off to?’

  ‘The office. He said he had to see the accountant then he had a trip but he’d be back that night, late.’

  ‘Collecting the Drop,’ said Finney almost to himself. Cartwright would have collected it from Northam, our bent accountant. He was just like a real accountant. The difference was he knew where all the dirty money came from and he never, ever wanted your signature on anything.

  ‘Only he didn’t come back, did he?’ she said accusingly.

  ‘Was he okay when he left?’ I asked her, ‘not upset about anything, worried?’

  ‘No’

  ‘Not acting different in any way you can remember?’

  ‘I’ve just told you!’

  ‘Mandy,’ warned Finney. I got the feeling he would have liked an excuse to belt her one. Maybe he was still smarting about that cock joke.

  ‘It’s alright,’ I assured him, ‘I think we’re done. We’ll get in touch with you as soon as we find him Mandy. You make sure you contact us if you hear from him. You’ve got the number for the club?’

  She nodded. We were leaving when she suddenly said, ‘has something bad happened to him?’ looking like she was going mad with worry. Her eyes met mine imploringly. There was love there, for Cartwright, somewhere deep down, beneath all the fake toughness that comes from a fucked-up life, ‘tell me the truth.’

  ‘The truth?’ I asked and she nodded, ‘I dunno Mandy. I really don’t.’

  We headed back into the city and I had a bit more time to think. I stared out of the window as the concrete walls of the underpass sped by. I’d known seeing Mandy was likely to be a dead-end but I had to check her out in case she knew something, though I was no nearer solving the mystery of George ‘Geordie’ Cartwright’s disappearance than before. I couldn’t fathom it. Like Bobby had said, he’d known Cartwright for years and he didn’t strike me as being a man who was dumb or greedy enough to steal from his employer, particularly an employer like Bobby. But, if it wasn’t him, then who would have the temerity, the sheer fucking brass balls to take money away from Bobby Mahoney. If it was someone who knew about the Drop, and there can’t have been many, then it made even less sense. You wouldn’t want to steal that money believe me. Not for all the shit it would land you in.

  Bobby was right though, which didn’t make me feel any better. It was my responsibility to make sure the Drop got there. I’d been careless, and now I was in deep, deep trouble. How the fuck was I going to find Cartwright and get the money back? It would probably be easier to raise the money for the Drop myself by Monday - and that would still be impossible, even with my talents.

  Bobby was right in another way too. Nobody took from him. If somebody got away with that he was finished. The message it sent out would be clear. Bobby had turned into a soft touch, somebody who could be taken on or taken out by an ambitious rival. He simply couldn’t afford for that to happen. So he had to get the money back and punish the person who’d stolen from him. The punishment would have to match the crime and stealing the Drop was one down from raping his late wife’s corpse, so the thief was going to wind up dead - but not before Finney had spent a long time making him see the error of his ways. Suddenly I was terrified. If I couldn’t find Cartwright, I couldn’t retrieve the money and I couldn’t discover who was responsible, it was going to be me staring into the business end of a nail gun, because Bobby would have to show the world that somebody had paid for ripping him off.

  ‘Pull over,’ I said to Finney in a panic.

  ‘What? Now?’

  ‘Just pull over!’ I managed to get the passenger door open just in time. I leaned out and sicked up the horrible airline meal they’d given us, all over the side of the road.

  ‘Jesus,’ hissed Finney, ‘mind my upholstery!’

  FOUR

  ...................................................

  As soon as we hit the Bigg Market, I tried to light a cigarette but my hand was shaking so badly the match burned down to my fingers and I had to start again. All around me in the square, drunken youngsters were propelling themselves towards the next night spot,
some more steadily and silently than others. Close by, a girl fell on her arse and her friends shrieked with laughter. She cackled along too because she wouldn’t be feeling that bruise until the morning. In a doorway of a pub that had long since closed, a very pissed-up teenager was trying to pull a couple of young lasses by dancing in front of them, even though he could barely stand by now. He tried a couple of moves then stopped, his head lolling like a Thunderbird puppet.

  The girls thought it was hilarious, ‘Eeh,’ said one, ‘you’ll get all the ladies tonight with those moves.’ They both laughed at him and walked away, leaving him staring uselessly into the space they had just occupied like he couldn’t quite work out where they had gone.

  There was a lot of noise, a lot of shouting, most of it good natured. One young couple were having a violent row about something or nothing but there was a good deal of laughter coming from the long queue of early-darters at the taxi rank. I reckoned Finney and I were the only sober people in the Bigg Market by this hour.

  Finney asked, ‘Where now?’

  In an uncharacteristic move, I told him, ‘fuck knows,’ and immediately regretted saying it. Finney had already seen me so frightened I was throwing up out of his car, so I had to at least look like I wasn’t entirely losing control. I’d blamed that on dodgy Thai food but he hadn’t looked convinced. ‘Everywhere.’ I told him emphatically, ‘he drinks round here, always has, never liked the Quayside, it’s too modern for him. Speak to everybody. We need to know when anyone saw him last.’ I was already thinking that if Mandy didn’t know where he was then nobody would. I was worried he’d left the country along with all of Bobby’s money. ‘Some of his pubs will be shut by now but we’ll go to all the ones that stay open late, speak to the lads on the door and the bar staff, ask them if any one has seen Geordie Cartwright.’

  ‘Right,’ he said.

  ‘I think we should split up. We’ll cover them twice as fast,’