by Declan Burke
Madge feeling immune, dislocated. But in a good way. Knowing the long arm of the law could come reaching out across the horizon any minute, knock on the bubble's door, crook a finger – except, if it did?
Then it did. Deal with it then.
Madge'd lived most of her life worried. Always thinking ahead, making plans, contingencies for what might go wrong. Knowing, married to Frank, that it was only ever a matter of time before something else cropped up. Finally he got himself barred for malpractice, sued for negligence. One woman, Madge had seen the pictures Frank'd left out on the desk in his study, Frank curled up on the couch cuddling a quart of Glenfiddich, the woman looking a lot like the ice after the Stanley Cup went into overtime …
Then, the twins. Jeanie and Liz, watching The Simple Life, Paris and Nicole, like it was Open University. Madge had done her best by them, at least in the early years, before the twins got sucked into the race to become the skinniest twit on YouTube and Madge turned to nurturing her preferred deadly duo, the old Prozac-and-vodka one-two.
But really, what did she owe them?
Wrong question, Madge told herself, flipping the cigarette out into the piazza, slipping back into the room, luxuriating in the sensation of the heavy velvet curtains sliding across her arms and shoulders. Round about now was when the twins, old enough to jaunt around the world, needed to realise how much they owed the woman who'd been ripped open giving birth. Madge hoping they'd do the math and come up owing her nothing. No demands, no more whinging, an absolute moratorium on constant, low-level grief about clothes, hair, boys, money. Mainly money.
Madge, okay, was the one responsible – no, guilty – for bringing them into the world. So sure, she'd done the crime. But she'd done her time too. And the least she was entitled to, the very least, was to walk away free and clear, debt to society paid.
Terry, she thought, looking down at him now where he lay humped over in the bed, wanted to take a cruise, live the high life, then take her home, he said, to face the music. Madge imagining a whole orchestra lined up in a row, a firing squad.
She shrugged. Maybe because Frank had been such a nut for Rossini, was always playing opera like it made him some kind of half-assed intellectual, Madge had never been a big fan of orchestras, all that classical horseshit. Terry, on the other --
The thought arrowed into her mind so fast, so clear, that Madge gasped. And then its enormity struck her, the thunder arriving in the lightning's wake. Afterwards, huddled on the toilet, still shivering, she wondered if the reason hadn't seen it was because it was so big, so obvious …
How Terry'd had it arranged. Frank, the fool, bringing the heat down on everyone, Karen and Ray first, but Terry too, Terry the guy behind Madge getting snatched, the one who'd brought it all to Ray.
She wondered too if Terry'd had Frank killed because he was a loose end or just to make an example of him, this is what happens when you fuck with Terry Swipes.
Not that it mattered now. What mattered now was, Terry wasn't Madge's alibi.
Madge was Terry's.
Melody
'What is he?' Mel said. 'A cop?'
'Dunno,' Sleeps said.
'A soldier?'
'Could be.'
'That's some weird marching he's got going on there.'
'I'm guessing he's drunk.'
'Oh.' Mel leaned forward to peer into the wing mirror. 'Think he fell asleep?'
'If he did, he's sleepwalking this way.'
'Rossi, I mean.'
'Sssh. Let me do the talking, okay?'
The cop, or maybe soldier, the guy wearing dusty fatigues, weaved across the tarmac towards them, one hand upraised as if telling them to stop. Except they'd been stopped twenty minutes now, Rossi coming awake fast with a look of fright on his face, bawling at Sleeps to pull over, he was touching cloth, the turtle showing its head.
So Sleeps pulled in onto the apron of a little supermarket, the place still closed this early, the sky lightening to a dull maroon over the crest of the hills rising sheer on their left. It was, Mel had decided, the most idyllic setting she'd ever seen for a supermarket, tucked neatly into the crook'd elbow of a bay that opened up on the other side of the road, rowboats moored and bobbing gently on the metallic glimmerings of the Adriatic half-glimpsed between the pines. Even the sight of Rossi shambling across the tarmac into the scrub beyond the tarmac apron, one hand jammed between his buttocks, hadn't spoiled the view entirely.
And then this guy had come stumbling down off the hill, out of the darkness into the orange glow of the supermarket's apron.
Sleeps wound down the window, leaned out. 'How's it going?' he said.
The cop, or soldier, held up his hand again, peering now at the registration plate, the tax and insurance discs. Late twenties, maybe, but grizzled with it, stubble running to grey. A hard strong jaw, eyes dark under the peak of the forage cap. Mel, noting the leather strap running diagonally across his chest that suggested he was carrying some kind of machinegun, felt a frisson tingle up the back of her thighs.
He came around to Sleeps' side and grunted something.
'Sorry,' Sleeps said. 'We're tourists. Don't suppose you speak English?'
The cop, or soldier, growled something, then hawked a gunger that gurgled in his throat before he spat it out. He held out his hand and made the universal gimme sign.
'Passports?' Sleeps said.
The guy shook his head.
'Driver's licence?' Sleeps hazarded.
The cop, the soldier, taking it personal now. He straightened up, lurched backwards half a step, then tugged on the leather strap so the machinegun slid around into view, leaving it high on his hip. He jabbed a finger in the general direction of north, muttered something guttural.
'That's right,' Sleeps said. 'We've just come from Split. Heading down into Dubrovnik now. Looking forward to seeing that old city, man. Hey, don't suppose you were around when the Serbs were --'
The cop, the soldier, punched the door with the side of his fist. Wriggled his shoulders and jabbed his finger north again, then made a lifting gesture.
'You want to look in the trunk?' Sleeps said. 'Sure thing, no worries.' He made to open the door, get out. The cop, the soldier, slammed it closed again, then pointed down towards Sleeps' feet, made a jerking motion this time. Sleeps held up both his hands, palms out. 'Okay, man. Relax.' He reached down, tugged on the trunk-release. 'There,' he said. 'It's open.'
With one last growl, which even Mel could interpret as a warning to stay put, the guy staggered around to the back of the Beamer, hauled on the trunk. Up it came, blotting out their rearview vision.
'What if he finds the package?' she whispered.
'Then he finds it,' Sleeps said, sounding grim. Melody glanced across, then felt a more intense frisson, one that knifed into her guts, Sleeps with the little gun, the .22, holding it flat against his right thigh.
'I thought you said that wasn't loaded,' she hissed.
'Sssh. He'll hear you.'
'But --'
'Oh-ho!' croaked the guy from the rear.
'Fuck,' Sleeps said. Gently, very gently, he eased the door-release towards himself until it clicked. 'Get down,' he said. 'Get way down.'
'Don't do it, Gary. The guy's got a --'
There came a high-pitched yelp from the rear, swiftly followed by the Beamer rocking on its springs. A number of dull thuds. Then a bang as the trunk slammed down.
Rossi slid into the back shaking one hand out, the knuckles skinned and bleeding. But looking at his other hand, eyes fixed on the machine-pistol that gleamed blackly in the dim light, a mix of metal and plastic that Melody wanted to believe made it a toy.
'An Uzi,' he breathed. 'Sleeps? It's a motherlovin' Uzi.'
'Looks like it,' Sleeps said, reaching forward to replace the .22 in the glove compartment.
'Whaddya think, is it a sign?'
'Is he …?' Mel swallowed hard. 'Where's the guy?'
'In the trunk.'
'Is he
okay?'
'The best,' Rossi said, using his sleeve to polish the Uzi's barrel.
Sleeps put the Beamer in gear, indicated right, rolled off the apron. 'You ever shot an Uzi before?' he said.
'Never, no. Remind me to make a wish before I blow some fucker away.'
'This guy in the trunk,' Mel said. 'He's not dying or anything, is he?'
'Nope.'
'Or already dead.'
'I barely tapped him, Mel. The guy just collapsed.'
Sleeps looked across. 'Now'd be a good time to walk away, Mel. We drop you off, you take a holiday in Dubrovnik, then head for home. No one's any the wiser.'
'It's not that,' Mel said, realising that, even if she could've gone for the pad and pen, her hands were shaking too hard to write. 'I'm just wondering if the guy's actually bleeding out. I mean, that's a fake Louis Vuitton I've got back there.'
Doyle
Niko saw Doyle off at the airport, Doyle taking the short hop out to Santorini to rendezvous with Sparks, Sparks booking all the way through and due in on an afternoon flight. This after Niko put his foot down, no way was he having Doyle, uncredited and on holidays, hanging around the Piraeus waiting for Karen and Ray, maybe starting a fire-fight that'd get Italian tourists massacred, as tempting as the prospect might seem just talking about it. Niko with some loose ends to tie up at the office before he could take a few days off, join them in the islands.
He winked and patted his breast pocket, where his phone was. 'I'll keep you posted, okay?'
Doyle went through the departure gate backwards, fluttering her fingers at him, specifically the finger with the fake emerald. Although intrigued, she had to admit, as to what his proposal might be, Doyle had told him the night before, Niko walking her back to her hotel, how the ring wasn't an engagement ring per se, more of a promise from this guy she was seeing, Ted. Niko just shrugged. Doyle had seen movies with less in them than that shrug.
The flight was all take-off and landing, took forty minutes. Doyle taxi'd down from the airport high on a plateau and winkled out a place to stay in Fira in jig time, then went out and rented a moped. Found a beach down the coast, a shack that served beers and ice-cream, club sandwiches. Ordered a frappé, then changed her mind had had a cocktail, a Tequila Sunrise, it just seemed right, sitting out on the veranda overlooking the beach under a wide umbrella, the Aegean like a vast sapphire sparkling up new. A narrow spit way off to the right edging out into the sea, a tiny white church perched at the very end. The breeze still balmy, although Doyle could smell it on the salty air, the heat that'd be bearing down any time soon.
Except just when everything was coming up Doyle-shaped, this professor type gets in her space. Forty-ish, a narrow head shaved tight to the sides and bald up the middle, the bald bit red and peeling, sunscreen glistening, like he was trying to sauté the bare flesh. Wearing horn-rimmed specs, pushing them back up his sweaty nose all the time, the guy sponging his brow every three seconds with a damp white handkerchief.
'Of course,' he said, droning on like some massive four-eyed insect, Doyle itching to just swat him, 'most people think it was the eruption that destroyed the Minoan civilisation, whereas it was actually the Myceneans invading from the north.'
'Kicking the crap,' Doyle said, 'out of these half-drowned Minoans.'
'In a manner of speaking, yes. But by then their civilisation had run its course. They were already in terminal decline.'
'So the Mycenaean guys did them a favour, putting them out of their misery.'
'That's one way of looking at it, certainly. Although the Minoans might not agree.'
'They probably wouldn't,' Doyle agreed, 'being drowned three thousand years and all.'
The guy not really listening, his Adam's apple trapped above the buttoned-up shirt working hard as he made his play. 'If you'd like to see the remnants of the volcano while you're on Santorini,' he said, 'I'd be delighted to be your guide.'
'Sorry, but looking into holes in the ground isn't on my list of priorities right now.' Doyle with no plans beyond her second Tequila Sunrise and a vague intention to meet Sparks off her flight.
'It's actually an island,' the guy said. He pointed out over the tiny white church at a clump of black smudges visible in the horizon's haze. 'Santorini is just part of the rim of the ancient volcano.'
'No shit.'
'There's a boat-tour,' he said, scraping his chair closer. 'You get to see all the islands and walk up on the volcanic one. At the top they'll let you hold some rocks, feel how warm they are.'
'Because this is why I've come on holiday. To fondle coal.'
'Then they'll dig into the earth so you can see the steam emerge. Most people think it's smoke,' he smiled, 'but it's actually steam.'
'The ground is steaming?'
'It's live. The volcano, I mean. I didn't mention that?'
'No one,' Doyle said, 'mentioned that.'
'Amazing, isn't it?'
'What, that there's lunatics who want to live next door to a volcano?'
The guy got a bang out of that one. 'The balloon isn't likely to go up any time soon,' he said. 'And even if it was, there's an early-warning system in place. We can read volcanoes now, we know when they're going to erupt.'
'This,' Doyle said, 'by comparison with the dopey Minoans, who didn't know volcanoes from pigshit.'
'It certainly would have helped their cause if --'
'I have my own early-warning system.'
'Oh?'
'Yeah. Someone tells me a volcano is live, I hop a plane.'
The guy chuckling. 'I really don't think there's any need --'
'A guy shot at me,' Doyle said, 'three days ago. So you can see how I might feel about unnecessary risks.'
Doyle feeling these strange tremors in her shoulders, maybe in sympathy with the ancient volcano. Tapping into its memory, the after-shocks still buried in the island's subconscious. Realising, now, why she'd kept herself so busy the last few days, flying here, scooting there, chasing Madge, then Ray … Doyle, fourteen years on the force, had never been shot at before. Now, for the first time in her life, she knew for sure she was going to die, and not in theory, some Buddhist grand-scheme bullshit. She felt it, a sucking black hole in the pit of her stomach, how she was already dying.
Doyle and the Minoans, in terminal decline.
One time Doyle'd lain back in the bath after pulling the stopper and let the water drain away the deliciously light floating, feeling her body get heavy and awkward again, the walls of the bath closing in like a porcelain coffin. Doyle'd never done it again.
The guy looked a little green now under the sunburn. 'Shot at you?' he croaked.
'With a gun.' Doyle pointed her forefinger, cocked her thumb. 'It's why I'm here, on the run.'
'You mean he's still …'
'Yep.' Doyle snapped down her thumb. 'Bang, you're dead.' Then drained her glass, the last of the Tequila Sunrise sliding down smooth. 'So,' she said, beaming a bright smile, 'when did you say that boat-tour is leaving?'
Karen
'What'll I do with the key?' Karen said. 'I mean, just leave it in the ignition? What?'
Karen unloading the khaki duffel, her sports hold-all with the few essentials she'd picked up in the ferry's shops. Then she got back in the cab again and filched the Tom Waits from the glove compartment. Wondering if she should leave the van unlocked or lock it up and hide the key somewhere, the parking bay cavernous in the bowels of the ferry, everyone revving their engines despite the signs that said not to, making it hard for Karen to hear herself think.
In the end she left the key behind the front wheel on the driver's side, Ray'd find it or he wouldn't. His call, she thought, making her way forward.
'See,' she said, 'if he can say that, how it's never about me, he just doesn't get it. I told him straight off, soon as we met, I had priorities. One, me. Two, you. Except,' she said, scratching Anna's forehead, 'not necessarily in that order, they're just two sides of the same thing. And if he doesn't ge
t that, he's not the guy I thought he was.'
Anna growled, a puzzled-sounding note in her coarse timbre.
'I know, hon.' Karen could sympathise, Anna drugged up for two days straight, coming around in a dungeon full of noise with a hangover to beat all. The front of the ferry clanking down now, light streaming in around the edges. Anna growling against the revving engines, someone back there honking because he was stuck behind the van, no one arriving to pick it up.
Karen tugged on Anna's ear and stoically accepted a lashing from her bushy tail. 'What he's saying is, it's never about him. Am I right?'
Anna barked short and hard, rammed her flank against Karen's leg.
'Yeah,' Karen said softly, 'I liked him too. But c'mon, the guy has to fit in around us, he knows that. He doesn't, what happens you?'
The front of the ferry clanged down on the dock, the port bustling with delivery trucks, buzzing mopeds, guys like admirals in their white suits shouting orders that couldn't be heard over the revving engines, the ferry's rumble. Karen bent down, hugged Anna to her. 'What happens you,' she whispered, 'is you get abandoned, maybe wind up with someone even worse than Rossi.'
Anna stiffened, then threw back her huge head with a violence that sent Karen stumbling backwards, catching her heel on a metal stud and slamming down hard on the floor, right on her ass-bone. The murderous howl, magnified in the cavernous parking bay, drowned out everything, ferry's rumble included.
When Karen got back on her feet again all she could see was these tiny little black Os, every mouth in the port dropped open.
