Crime Always Pays

by Declan Burke

  'Money with a slow wink,' Sparks agreed. 'Speaking of which – Trust Direct put up a reward.'

  'Oh yeah? How much?'

  'Ten percent.'

  'Of the ransom.'

  'Correct.'

  'On what they paid or what's recovered?'

  'On what they get back, I guess.' Sparks chugged some beer. 'In theory, just call me curious, how much would you keep?'

  'How much would you?'

  'Depends on what's left. And who's around when you're counting it.'

  'Yeah.'

  'You going to tell Niko? About the reward, I mean.'

  'Niko's on need-to-know right now.'

  'So what does he know? Just so I don't screw you, say the wrong thing.'

  'Keep it social, Sparks, and you won't go far wrong.'

  'You tell him about Frank?'

  'Not yet, no.'

  'But he knows you're suspended.'

  'He thinks I'm on holidays.'

  'Busman's holiday. Chasing bad guys in between cocktails.'

  'I say too much, Sparks, especially about Frank, Niko'll shut me out.'

  'And you don't want anyone getting to Ray before you do.'

  Actually, Doyle was wondering if it wasn't Rossi she wanted after all. Put the skinny prick against a tree and pump a round into the wood about an inch from his ear, see how he coped with the fallout. Doyle believed he'd cry too.

  'The Greeks get their hands on a pile of cash,' she said, 'no one knows how much there's supposed to be, you can kiss goodbye to any ten percent.'

  'And then,' Sparks needled, 'there's the whole Ray issue.'

  'Fuck the money, and fuck Ray.'

  'Sounds like my kind of party.' The waitress, Jade by her name-tag, with wheat-blonde hair, deeply tanned, was wiping down the next table along. 'Do I need to bring my own Ray or are they, like, on tap?'

  'There's only one,' Sparks said. 'He looks durable, though.'

  Doyle said, 'Hey, there's no volcanoes here, right?'

  The girl shook her head. 'That's Santorini.'

  'Santorini we know about. What about here?'

  'Back home, in New Zee? We have volcanoes. I come away for the summer, the last place I'm going is where they have volcanoes.'

  Doyle nodded. Sparks said, 'So what's there to see?'

  The waitress tucked her rag into a back-pocket, sat down and shook a cigarette free from a softpack of Marlboros. 'There's Homer's tomb,' she said, biting softly on the filter lighting up. 'A Venetian castle. Some monasteries, and there's windmills up at the top of the Chora. It's not what you might call culture central.' She nodded at their bags. 'You get somewhere to stay yet?'

  'We're just in,' Sparks said. She held up her bottle. 'First beer.'

  'You looking for a pool?'

  'That all depends on your quality of cabana boys. I mean, I generally lean more towards willing than sculpted back home. On holidays? I'm thinking I'll treat myself to some sculpted.'

  Jade grinned, then pointed out across the square to where Doyle could make out a beach curving away to a headland maybe quarter of a mile distant. 'Most people stay up in the village or around at Mylopotas, wherever the bars and clubs are. If you're not looking to be up all night every night, though, you'll want Ormos. There's no pool, but it's quiet day and night and the beach is right outside your front door. I stay there, so I can vouch for it being clean, daily sheet and towel changes. None of which has anything to do with the fact that if you book in using my name, I get commission.'

  'Nice hustle,' Sparks said.

  'It's a cool place. Cheap and laidback.'

  'Sold. What's it called?'

  'The Katina. Just take the shore road, it's about three hundred yards past the ESY, the health clinic. Make sure and tell them Jade sent you.'

  'We'll do that. I'm Sparks, by the way. This is Doyle.'

  Jade stubbed her smoke, checked her big Mickey Mouse watch. 'If you go now, you've a couple've hours to grab a nap, get your disco pants on.'

  'I don't dance,' Doyle said.

  'You don't dance?'

  'Her and all the other tough guys,' Sparks said. 'Me, I like to dance. What are we talking, acid house? Will there be poppers and shit?'

  'Christ,' Jade said, getting up. 'When's the last time you were in a club?'

  'Not since God was a boy,' Sparks said. 'So what time are we hooking up? I mean, you're taking us out, right, showing us the town. Our treat, looking to get blitzed. What d'you say?'

  'Appreciate the offer but I'm already out tonight. Although,' Jade said, 'we'll be getting together in the Blue Orange, you're welcome to come along. Just ask in the village where it is. Any time after eleven, we'll be there.'

  'It's a date,' Sparks said.

  Ray

  'You're a sneaky prick, Ray, I'll give you that.' Rossi nodding a grudging approval. 'Except what I'm wondering is if you're being sneaky-sneaky or, y'know, super-sneaky.'

  'Is that even loaded?' Ray said.

  'That's perxactly the gamble,' Rossi said, waggling the .22, 'you're looking at right now. It's like --' He glanced across at Gary. 'What's that one with Walken?'

  'Things To Do in Denver?'

  'That's Andy Garcia. The other one.'

  'True Romance.'

  'The fuckin Vietnam one, man.'

  'Deer Hunter,' Ray said. 'Walken sweats years of Russian roulette and then De Niro turns up, Bobby the jinx.'

  Gary driving, Rossi riding shotgun but twisted around to face into the back to keep the .22 on Ray.

  'So that's what you need decide,' Rossi said. 'Like, is this baby loaded or not?'

  'Not.' Ray's plan, originally, had been to rent the car, then watch from up the street for Gary, Rossi calling him Sleeps, to bring everyone out front, so Ray knew Karen wasn't with them, Karen or the duffel. If she wasn't, Ray planned to keep them waiting, buy Karen some time. Except then, it was only the three of them, Ray reconsidered. Wondering if it mightn't mean less heartache in the long run, with Rossi heading for Athens, under the impression he was Palermo-bound, for Ray to be inside the tent pissing out.

  'The last time?' Ray said, holding up his busted arm. 'It was a fluke you hit me. So I'm guessing, even if the gun's loaded, you're no Chris Walken. Or even James Woods.'

  'Just out of curiosity,' Mel said, 'how come you're so sure?'

  Mel with a vanity case propped on her knees, the lid up, a notebook in there, scribbling notes with an eyeliner pencil.

  'The safety's off,' Ray said.

  ''Course it's off,' Rossi said.

  'Except,' Ray said, 'you never took it off. So it's been off since before you whipped it out all Billy the Kid-like, the element of surprise. This after I watched you patting your pockets trying to remember where you'd stashed it. And only a moron'd walk around with safety off on a loaded gun, even a .22.'

  Mel paused in her scribbling. 'That's what you're banking on? That he's not a moron?'

  'What I'm banking on,' Ray said, 'is how hard it is to keep someone hostage. At least one person's got to watch over them all the time, in case they try something bogey. Then you're untying them, bringing them to the bathroom, tying them up again, cooking three times a day … I mean, it's a full-time gig. Rossi, am I right?'

  'Fuckin A,' Rossi said, glum.

  'I mean, you can do it,' Ray told Mel, 'I'm not saying it can't be done. But there's techniques, y'know? You have to plan it out. In the Rangers there was whole courses you could do, how to manage prisoners of war.' Ray glanced up at Rossi. 'Anyway, I'm the one rented the car, gave you a lift. So if there's a hostage in this situation, it's actually you.'

  'Whoa,' Mel said. 'Anyone's a hostage around here, it's me.'

  'You're bearing up remarkably well,' Ray assured her, 'considering the stress.'

  Mel did some simpering that looked to Ray like she had ants in her delicates. 'Point being,' he said to Rossi, 'you can't depend on Mel here, and Gary's got his hands full driving. Hey, I got another one,' he said to Sleeps. 'Kasparov.'


  Sleeps nodding. 'The state capital of Indiana, that's Gary too.'

  'So that leaves you, Rossi,' Ray said. 'Hostaging me with an empty gat.'

  'Gat?' Mel said.

  'Rod,' Rossi said sourly. 'Roscoe.'

  'Roscoe?'

  'Ray,' Rossi said, 'one pro to another, this isn't a you-me issue. It's about justice. Ethics, Ray.'

  'So it's not about the two hundred gees. Which, I should point out, is now down to around one-thirty-five, less change.'

  Rossi lowered his head, began butting his forearm. 'That's my gelt, Ray.' The voice coming muffled from the crook of his arm. 'I have it coming. I'm owed.'

  'Possession's ten-tenths. You know the drill.'

  Rossi, an idea brewing, looked up. 'How about I have Sleeps sit on you?'

  'I'm sitting on no one,' Sleeps said. 'You think that's fun, some guy's nose up your crack?'

  Rossi swore.

  'I'm the one's owed,' Ray said. 'For renting the car, like.'

  'I shook on that,' Sleeps reminded Rossi. 'Gave him my word.'

  'This was before,' Rossi said, 'you realised he was Sneaky fuckin Ray.'

  'I shook on it,' Sleeps insisted.

  Rossi poking at his good ear with the muzzle of the .22. 'Karen swiped my sixty grand,' he told Ray. 'You know this, right? When I was inside, she ran off with sixty gees, my Ducati motorcycle and the .44, which she chucked in the lake. You were half-unconscious at the time, you might've missed that last bit.'

  'I heard, after.'

  'So I'm calling double-bubble.'

  'Okay by me. But you better call it loud, so Karen hears you. No point telling me.'

  'Double-bubble?' Melody said.

  'On the inside,' Ray said, 'you get in hock to a guy for a pack of smokes? You have to pay back double.'

  'I'm willing,' Rossi said, 'to forget the Ducati, the .44. But the sixty gees goes double-bubble. That way Karen walks away with, what, fifteen grand clear. Except,' he pointed at where his ear used to be, 'the wolf? She goes double-bubble too. I want both that bitch's ears.'

  'Rossi, man – how many times? Karen dumped me, ran off with the loot. For all I know she's in fucking Tibet. And you're the one took our phones, fucked them in the lake. So how'm I supposed to contact her?'

  'She'll be hooking up with Madge,' Rossi said. 'Somewhere along this cruise there'll be a big reunion, fuckin cake and candles.'

  'This is presuming Madge even makes the cruise.'

  'This Madge,' Mel said to Rossi, eyeliner pen poised, 'being the woman you kidnapped who thought she was your mother.'

  Rossi glanced across at Sleeps. 'Let's try keeping the personal shit personal,' he suggested. 'Let's just try that, see how it works.' Sleeps shrugged, kept his eyes on the road. Rossi came back to Ray. 'I'm seeing that cruise off anyway. Just to be sure.'

  'We saw you on the ferry over,' Ray said, 'getting into Amsterdam. So Karen knows you're on your way. Still think she's going to make that cruise?'

  'Put yourself where I am,' Rossi said. 'Down two hundred large. Would you see that cruise off?'

  'I was sure Karen wouldn't blow the whistle, have cops waiting for me at any specific piers, then probably, yeah.'

  'Rossi?' Mel said. 'I'm thinking we should cut our losses, head straight for Ios.'

  Rossi glared. 'Our losses?'

  'For as long as I'm still owed my ten thousand,' Mel said, 'plus expenses, then they're our losses.'

  'That's agreed from way back,' Sleeps said.

  Rossi put the muzzle of the .22 to his temple and pulled the trigger, click-click-click. Then said, to Ray, 'You think she'd do it?'

  'Would who do what?'

  'Karen. Sic the cops on me.'

  Ray shrugged. 'I only knew the girl a week, Rossi. You've known her what, ten years? You tell me.'

  Madge

  Back when Frank approached Terry Junior to have Madge snatched, the first thing Terry'd done was have Frank audited.

  'And you can just do that,' Madge said.

  'You can pay enough,' Terry said, 'you can do anything, Christ, order an invasion of Iraq.' He caught the look on her face. 'Generally, though, it's the client provides the details, as part of the deal.' He checked his watch again, third time in two minutes. 'No way they're making it now,' he said.

  Early evening, still balmy but with a hint of chill up on the liner's observation deck, the breeze flapping at Madge's headscarf, Madge with big round shades on, the whole Jackie O schtick.

  'So you're saying,' she said, 'a million and a half.'

  'You and him both, for a million-five each. The money going to the twins, with the surviving parent in charge of the spending until they reach 21. He never told you this?'

  'No,' Madge said, neglecting to mention how she'd never asked. 'And the house is mine?'

  'The mortgage was in Frank's name from when he remortgaged his own home to buy you yours. So that goes null and void. The bank, for once, gets screwed.' He slapped his bicep punching the air an uppercut. 'Up the workers.'

  'But what about the circumstances? How he died.'

  'You get charged, it goes to trial, then yeah, it'll get complicated. But the money's the twins', not yours. So someone'll have to, this presuming worst-case scenario, administrate your estate on their behalf, at least until they're 21. But that's not even an issue.' He turned away from the breeze, pulled his lapel up to light a cigar. 'You want to know what I think?' he said after some ruminative puffing. 'I think they'd all be happier if you never came home.'

  Madge felt hollowed out, sipping a Bellini on the observation deck of the Patna, scanning the chaotic port below for a Karen- or Anna-shaped ant. Athens rising on three sides, a shallow white bowl washed now in delicate mauves and violets, the sun virtually gone. 'Either way I'm screwed,' she said. 'If go back I can't touch the money. And if I don't go back, I can't touch the money.'

  'That's one way of looking at it.'

  'There's no other way, Terry. I can't touch the money.'

  'Sure. You can't touch it.'

  'I'm not sure I follow,' Madge lied, Madge with a fair idea she was starting to see it now, Terry's plan all along.

  'What you need,' Terry said, puffing on his cigar, 'is someone you can trust to do the right thing. By you and the twins.'

  'You're talking about someone administrating the estate,' Madge said, 'on my behalf.'

  'Exactly.'

  'In which case it wouldn't matter where I was, back home or Bongo-Bongoland.'

  'It'd probably be better if you were somewhere in the EU zone,' Terry said, 'for the sake of convenience, so everyone's singing off the same legal hymn sheet. But, in theory, yeah.'

  'I don't know.' Madge aiming for a Little Bo-Peep vibe. 'It sounds awfully complicated.'

  'That's partly a benefit,' Terry said. 'You open up a few shell companies, siphon off a little here, divert a bit there. Pretty soon it's a jungle a guy'd need a machete to get through.'

  'What happens when it's all sucked dry?'

  'Generally you'd sue whoever was taking care of the estate for you, this to prove your own innocence.' Terry peered at his watch, tapped the face. 'Eventually it goes to court, none of the principals turn up, hardly surprising when one of them's the invisible man. So the judge throws it out.'

  'And where's the money?'

  'Wherever you want it to be. If you're smart, lots of different places, preferably washed through investment portfolios, the blue-chip shit. You'll get low returns but it's safe until you need it. You want my advice, I'd say plunge on Chinese cement, take a punt on some radical energy shit, maybe nuclear power. But it's your money. Hold on, is that them?'

  But it was only a family of immigrants, the cops wading in, batons drawn. 'I don't have anyone I can trust that way,' Madge said, reclining on the deckchair again. 'No one who's that clued in legally, I mean.'

  'Not a problem. You want, I'll put my guys on it.'

  'Yet again,' Madge said, 'that's incredibly generous of you, and very sweet.'
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  'Don't mention it.'

  'But it sounds to me,' she went on, 'that something like that, it'd be expensive. Lawyers fees and what have you. I'd be afraid the money would be gone by the time it's all over.'

  Terry grunted. 'I've seen it happen,' he said.

  'Which'd put me back to square zero. Not even on the board.'

  'If you were me,' Terry said, 'what I'd do is get my guys to out-source. Y'know? Find some young firm, they're new and keen, get them to hump the coal up the hill. Then, it all falls apart after, you've got the added benefit of knowing some lawyers got screwed too.' Another bicep-slap. 'Anyway,' he said, 'there's no way you're falling off the board. You're officially divorced now, right?' Madge nodded and toasted Terry with the Bellini. 'I was you,' he said, 'on a tub like this? I'd spread the word. Looking the way you do, I'd be surprised you didn't walk away from the cruise with about ten proposals, maybe even from the captain himself.' He raised his eyebrows. 'You know they have a shop on the third deck specialises in engagement rings?'

  'I honestly don't know if I'll ever get married again,' Madge said, deftly parrying his clumsy lunge. 'Besides, it's far too early to --'

  'Who's talking about getting married? I'm saying engaged, having fun, Christ knows you deserve it. Meet some new guys, let 'em buy you shit. Scrapping to impress you, tossing one another overboard.'

  'You wouldn't be one of them?'

  'Fuck no. I been married, got the t-shirt, it didn't fit. But don't worry about me, I'll keep a low profile. You want me gone, I'm gone. Or I can stick around, make sure no one gets any notions he shouldn't. It's up to you.'

  The liner sounded its klaxon, a mournful blare that shuddered through its entire length, sounding to Madge like the lady had a cold coming on.

  'That's final call,' Terry said, 'they're definitely not making it now. What'll we do, stay or go?'

  Sleeps

  'Rossi? I'm getting a little yawny over here.'

  'Tough shit, you've had all the crizz.' Rossi slumped in the passenger seat, arms folded, cheesed off ever since he sparked a doobie and Mel, halfway through her second warning, puked across his shoulder into his lap. 'Stick your face in the breeze,' he said.