by Declan Burke
'Shit, yeah.'
'Except,' Sleeps pointed out, 'Johnny's fucking you too. And, it looks like, Ray.'
'Ray, to be fair,' Rossi conceded, grudging it, 'he's onside with Karen. The guy's just looking out for her, like you said.'
'Fair go. Only I got the feeling this Doyle was looking out for Ray.'
'Ray's a pro. No way he's hooked up with any cops.' Rossi sparked the doob, held the draw down. 'Here,' he said, exhaling slow, 'she flashed you her badge, right?'
Sleeps nodded. 'I said, "Aren't you out of your jurisdiction, officer?" She goes, "Put a tune to it, I'll sing along."'
'So what's she doing here?'
'Dunno. Looking the ransom money back?'
'Yeah. But is she, y'know, working freelance? Scooping the pot for herself?' Rossi handed the joint across. Sleeps waved it away. 'Fuck,' Rossi said, 'maybe Ray is hooked up with --'
There came a rat-a-tat-tat on the door.
'Christ,' Rossi said, 'who the fuck's that?'
'Go look see.'
'You go look see.'
In the end, the rat-a-tats getting louder, Sleeps went to the door. He came back out onto the balcony saying, 'It's the guy from downstairs, at reception. Has another note, except he got fifty for bringing it this far, wants another fifty to hand it over. Says it's what he was told to say.'
'You got a fifty on you?'
'Nope.'
'Fuck.' Rossi rifled his pockets, came up with twenty-three and change. 'See if that'll do it,' he said. 'He doesn't want to hand it over, get him to just read it out instead.'
Sleeps came back in with the note that looked to Rossi ripped from a posh note-pad, the paper pale blue. 'What's it say?' Rossi said.
'My dear Rossi,' Sleeps read. 'That money you're owed is actually your inheritance, which is worth three-quarters of a million euro. I'll be at Ali Baba's this evening for dinner at nine o'clock if you'd like to talk about it. I checked, it'll definitely be open this time. Yours faithfully.'
Rossi boggled. 'Say what?' he whispered.
Sleeps read it out again.
'Three-quarters of a million?' Rossi said. 'A fuckin inheritance?'
'What it says,' Sleeps said.
'A grift,' Rossi said. 'Has to be. Some bastard setting me up.'
Sleeps thought about that. 'Well,' he said, 'it's not Doyle, she wants you gone. Same goes for Mel.'
'Karen?'
'You're the one chasing her. Why would she want a sit-down?'
'Like I said, a makey-up.'
'She came a thousand miles just to get away from you, Rossi. And now, you turn up, she has a change of heart?'
'So who? Johnny?'
'Not unless he's in cahoots with Doyle, who wants you gone.'
'Gimme that,' Rossi said. He scanned the note. 'Hey,' he said, 'there was a signature here. Right after it says, y'know, yours faithfully.'
'The guy,' Sleeps said, 'I gave him the twenty-three, he ripped the bottom of the note off and ate it. Said if we want to know who it's from, it'll cost us another twenty-seven.'
Rossi with the overwhelming urge to stab some fucker in the heart. 'So what do we do?' he said.
'We?'
'Yeah, we. What, you're bunking out on me now? Doing a Mel?'
'Not walking into a trap, Rossi, that's not bunking out. That's basic sanity.'
Rossi had a long toke wiggling a finger in his good ear. 'What're you saying?' he said.
'We wait for Ray to ring, see what he has to say. Take it from there.'
'Except Ray's hooked up with the cop.'
'On one side, yeah. On the other, Karen.'
'Plus he's got Johnny's guy.' Rossi thought about that, then frowned. 'So what's Ray want with us?'
'He had Johnny's guy,' Sleeps said, 'probably nothing. Except Ray thinks he has Johnny.'
'How come?'
'I didn't mention that?'
'Maybe you thought you mentioned it,' Rossi said, 'in some dream you had, on the nod again.'
'No personals,' Sleeps said. 'Like, how many times do we have to get into it?'
Rossi shook his head in despair. 'How's it help us,' he said, 'Ray holding Johnny's guy thinking he's Johnny?'
'Can't hurt us,' Sleeps said. He flapped lazily at another bug. 'And the way things're going, that's the only positive I can see. I mean, right now, we fell into a barrel of tits, we'd come out sucking our thumbs.'
'Look on the bright side,' Rossi groused. 'We keep going this way, you'll be back inside, doing soft time, before it gets dark again.'
'Actually,' Sleeps said, beckoning for the jay, then waving it around like a joss stick to ward off the bug, 'that's something I've been wanting to bring up.'
'Fuck, no.'
'See, the time in Croatia? I could've taken a dive then. Except the guy'd have taken you too, you with your pants down, I'm talking literally, taking a dump out in the scrub.'
'Appreciate it, yeah.'
'Then, with the cop earlier on? I could've just nutted her too, the way I did Johnny. Let her book me for common assault, some shit like that.'
'You nutted Johnny?'
'Guy was in my face, begging it. So I crunched the fucker.'
'But somehow neglected,' Rossi said, 'to Glasgow kiss the cop, she's just standing there.'
'A woman?' Sleeps shook his head. 'Anyway, things're different, man.'
'What? What's different?'
'Mel,' Sleeps confessed. 'I'm thinking I might give it a go, she ever sits still long enough I can put her a proposal, with Mel.'
'Mel? The bitch ripped us off, man, ran to Johnny Priest with the coke.'
'The girl's got her reasons.'
'There's what they call a saying, Sleeps. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, I rip your head off and shit in the hole.'
'She's got her reasons,' Sleeps said, firm.
'She's got tar and feathers in the post is what she has.'
'I told you already, no one's slapping any women around on my watch.'
'Your watch?'
'Ray said he'd ring,' Sleeps said. 'So we wait, see what he has to say. Maybe, he's hooked up with Doyle, they'll put us in touch with Johnny. Maybe even Karen, for a parlay.'
Rossi stuck a finger in his good ear, dug around until he came up with a decent ball of wax. He went inside to the bathroom and wiped off, came back out onto the balcony saying, 'Hey, Sleeps? Y'think maybe … shit.'
Sleeps with his head pillowed on his forearms, snoring gently. Rossi swore and reached across, plucked the joint from between Sleeps' fingers, smoked on.
The bug, persistent, finally settled on Sleeps' forehead. Rossi swore again, softly, then went back inside. Found the bug juice and brought it out, pumped it upward above Sleeps' head so the fine spray came down like a tiny-diamond rain.
Ray
The knock was a gentle tap-tap-tap but Ray on his feet and moving for the door at the second tap. He stood with his back to the wall, said: 'Vo ist das?'
'Ray?' A whisper. 'It's me, Sparks.'
Ray let her in, locked the door. Sparks put a finger to her lips, pointed towards the balcony.
'What's up?' Ray said, angling himself so he could see back into the room.
'Doyle said to say you got the wrong guy,' Sparks said. 'That's not Johnny.'
'Shit.'
'It gets worse. He's a cop undercover, running a sting on Johnny.'
'Bollocks.'
'You get a chance, maybe during pillow-talk,' Sparks said, 'you might do me a favour and remind Doyle she's a cop too.'
'What's she saying we should do?'
'She's not saying a lot, Ray. Johnny thinks Doyle's hooked up with Niko, so she's right now looking out for Johnny's interests.'
'How'd that happen?'
'Doyle,' Sparks said, 'has a way with men when she needs to be believed.'
'Oh yeah?'
'One thing she did say, she's not handing Niko over to this Pyle guy like you're planning. They find out he's a cop …'
'Pyl
e wants Johnny. And we have Johnny.'
'Being precise about it, Doyle's the one has Johnny.'
'What's that mean?'
'It means, Ray, she's handing over Johnny to this Pyle guy so Karen skates out. Right?' Ray nodded. 'Except, when Doyle asked, just as a gesture, you wouldn't hand Karen up no-how.'
'That was different.'
'It was a gesture, Ray. All she was asking for was something she could hold on to. Now she has it, all nice and Johnny-shaped.'
'That's bullshit. Where is she?'
'She can't talk to you now, it's a delicate situation she's got with Johnny. And there's no way I'm watching over him for any lover's tiff. I'm still a cop.'
'You're saying she wants me to go up there and meet Pyle with no Johnny, no this guy Niko you're calling him, and no fucking back-up?'
'You don't have to go.'
'And just leave Karen hang out to dry?'
'What it all comes down to, I guess,' Sparks said, 'is Doyle's wondering who you're more worried about, her or Karen.'
Ray shook his head. He said, 'Say I don't go. What happens with Johnny and Niko?'
'Doyle didn't say. But if it was me, and I wasn't a cop? I'd have it on my toes, the nearest airport, flying off into the sunset. Cue the credits.'
'Only I can't go anywhere,' Ray said, 'until I get my passport back.'
'Your passport?'
'Yeah.'
'From who?'
'Karen.'
'Shit.'
'Exactly.'
'So what're you going to do?'
'You won't tell me what room Doyle's in?'
'No can do, Ray. Sorry.'
'That's okay, I can ring her. Although tell her, if it's not asking too much, I'd rather talk face-to-face.'
Leaving, Sparks turned outside the door. 'Ray?'
'What?'
'Break her heart and I break your face.'
Ray grinned. 'Some Kind of Wonderful, right?'
'You fucking better be.'
Rossi
No way was Rossi strolling down into the port to wait for some call mightn't come, get trapped like a mole in a bucket.
'They've seen me, Sleeps.' He gestured at the suit. 'These threads, they get you noticed. That's the whole fuckin point.'
'So I'm the one gets trapped like this mole.'
'The note,' Rossi said, brandishing the pale-blue paper, 'starts off "My dear Rossi," not "My dear Rossi and anyone else needs a nosebag." You see what I'm saying.'
'What you said was, the note's bad juju. A grift.'
'Y'think I'm just charging in there? I'll scope it out, see what's what.'
'Then, maybe this what works out as what, you scoop three-quarters of a million and bolt for Sicily, not stopping to rescue any moles in any buckets.'
That one hit Rossi where he lived. 'Y'think I'd scam you? Me, the guy's been fucked four ways by everyone except you, you being the guy who volunteered, okay, took it back after, but offered to do my time if things fucked up?' Rossi getting emotional. 'Last person I'm ever screwing over,' he said, 'is you. I mean, that halvesies deal we were on up to now, that's out the window, we're talking inheritance and shit here. But, it works out it's bona fide, I'm cutting you in for a slice. No man left behind, Sleeps.'
In the end they compromised on a disguise, swapping clothes, although Rossi had to keep the belt from the suit, when he put on Sleeps' baggy shorts they dropped to the floor without even grazing his knees. He'd had to keep the two-tone shoes too, Sleeps taking a size thirteen. Rossi believed he'd need a tent-pole, guy-ropes, he was ever to wear the suit again.
Now, though, wandering around the Chora – the Whora, Sleeps called it, Rossi presuming it was on the basis the village fucked Rossi every time, no questions asked – draped in Sleeps' toga of a t-shirt, a Daffy Duck baseball cap tugged down over the turban of bandage, kids stopping to stare, Rossi took comfort in knowing the cops'd never square him with the guy in the sharp Italian suit. As a disguise it was --
'Oh, Rossi? Over here. Coo-ee. Rossi?'
'Fuck.'
Mel waving from the doorway to Ali Baba's in these MC Hammer pants looked like she was planning a getaway on Ali's magic carpet. Rossi, conned again by Mel but carrying no shiv, the darts back in the room, guessed Mel'd heard about Johnny's guy getting took by Ray, Mel all of a sudden needing Rossi again, not knowing which way Johnny'd jump. Rossi with a sinking feeling strolling across to Ali Baba's, scaling down his expectations from three-quarters of a million to twenty grand. Which, he made a mental note, would be forty grand Johnny didn't get the finger out in the next hour or so.
Except then he walks in and follows Mel to the table and Madge is just sitting there, this smile on her like the Moany Lisa, letting Rossi know she knew something Rossi didn't. Rossi's brain going square trying out the math. Like, you get screwed over twice in the same thirty seconds, what's that, double-bubble-bubble?
'Hi, Rossi,' Madge said, her eyes bright. 'You're keeping well?'
Rossi was still trying to decide, one stitching him up for Frank, the other swiping his coke, who he was forking first in the eye, when the bald guy came back from the bathroom adjusting his cuffs, the guy slowing up when he caught sight of Rossi, appraising the threads as he came on.
'Nice,' he said. 'Blending in, I like it.' The guy now putting out his hand. 'The elusive Rossi, right? The Scarlet Pimpernel.'
Rossi eyed the outstretched hand. 'The fuck's this guy,' he asked Mel, 'comes in here calls me a pimp?'
'That's Terry,' Mel said. 'Terry Furlong.'
'Although you might know him better,' Madge said, 'as Terry Swipes.'
Sleeps
There was a queue when Sleeps got to the phone-box. Which in one way was good, he could blend in, just one more big guy in an Italian suit about six sizes too small, just waiting to call Mom, let her know he hadn't yet succumbed to alcohol poisoning or the clap, beg another loan to keep the party going.
Sleeps wondered what the protocol was, you were a gangster waiting at a call-box, there was a queue. Uh, 'scuse me, I gotta take this call from a snatch artist, you mind?
Except – finally, a break – just as the last of the kids hangs up, the phone rings.
'Ray?'
'Who'm I talking to?'
'It's me, Ray. Gary.'
'I was expecting Rossi.'
'Rossi's, uh, busy right now.'
'And that's why I'm talking to you?'
Sleeps, he was going to have to get into it at some point, said, 'You're talking to me now, Ray.'
'Not, you're saying, Rossi anymore.'
'You got a problem with that?'
'The problem I have right this second,' Ray said, 'is I got me a situation that needs another pair of eyes, a good head. A guy can handle himself.'
'And you were hoping for Rossi?'
'It was either Rossi,' Ray said, 'or some lummox who can't tell Johnny Priest from a Greek cop.'
Sleeps, his balls tingling, grinned. 'Guy's a cop?'
'Way I see it, Gary, you're the one put me where I need the extra pair of eyes. What d'you say?'
'I'll need, at some point, half-an-hour with Karen. A sit-down.'
'Where's Rossi for this sit-down?'
'In the corner, a pointy hat on his head.'
'I can't make you any promises, man. But I'll see what I can do.'
'Okay.'
'You're in?'
'Where'll I find you?'
'Stay on the line.'
Ten seconds later the navy Punto eased up to the phone-booth, Johnny's guy, the cop, driving. Ray in back nodding Sleeps on. Sleeps hung up, got in.
'The guy who unified Italy,' Ray said as Niko pulled off, 'was Garibaldi. You say it slow, it's Gary Baldy.'
'Except these days,' Sleeps said, 'people think he invented the biscuit.'
'What's that,' Johnny's guy said, 'some kind of Sicilian code?'
'You just drive,' Ray said.
Melody
Mel had seen her fair share of
drama-rama, considered herself a connoisseur of the unexpected yelp or moan, the quivering declaration of undying love. But even Mel was a little shocked when Rossi dropped to one knee, took Johnny's hand and kissed the guy's signet ring.
Johnny a little embarrassed, heads turning in the restaurant. He cuffed Rossi gently on the side of the head, Rossi wincing, then hauled him upright, gesturing for him to take a seat beside Mel, across from Madge.
'I'm only here to ask you one favour,' Terry said. Rossi's eyes shining. 'Just hear Madge out, see what she has to say. Can you do me that one favour?'
So they ordered some more drinks, Mel wondering who this guy Terry was, exactly, and then Madge went into her spiel, how she was Rossi's mother, the inheritance coming due once Frank's affairs were sorted, the insurance cleared, Madge finishing up with, 'Terry has agreed to help me prove it, he made a call earlier on to some guy he knows in the Births and Deaths office back home. We can have your birth certificate here tomorrow morning, or a fax version of it.'
'Three quarters of a million,' Rossi said, an expression on his face like a duck staring at thunder.
'The twins get half,' Madge said, 'you get half. It's only fair.'
'Okay.' Rossi sipped on his Woo-Woo. 'Except what I'm hearing, the cop wants me for Frank. Third-degree manslaughter, Sleeps said.'
'But I was the one,' Madge said, 'shot Frank.'
'Might be the best way to play it,' Terry said. 'Rossi gets pinched for Frank, Madge sews up the insurance, Rossi gets his half.'
'I gotta do time for that ratbag?'
'Worst case scenario. You've done it before, right?'
'Sure, but --'
'Why not get Sleeps to do it?' Mel said, anxious to make a contribution, justify the finder's fee she reckoned she was due. 'The guy says he'll do your time for you, he's practically begging for a reason. So why not --'
'This guy's doing your time?' Johnny said. 'See, that's the kind of loyalty,' he told Madge, 'you just don't see anymore. Not like the old days.' He toasted Rossi with his Bellini.
Rossi, morose, clinked Johnny's glass with his Woo-Woo. 'He took it back,' he said. 'Guy's gone bofto for Mata Hari here. Reckons he's got a proposal for her, she ever quits fuckin him around, running off with other guys.'
