The Glasgow Grin (A Stanton Brothers thriller)

by Martin Stanley

  Now I had to sit down. “Christ!”

  Rose coughed, waggled her gun as a warning and I stood up again.

  “Like you care,” she said.

  “I didn’t want that,” I said.

  Rose snorted again. It was the best laugh she could manage without doing more damage to her face. “So what did you want?”

  “For you to realise you can’t set up the people you work with.”

  “Well, guess what, lesson learned,” Rose said. “It’s just a shame my little girl had to get taught that too, isn’t it?”

  A stomach twinge sent the taste of bile into my mouth. I gulped a couple of times until the bitterness was gone. “How?”

  “She caught them in the act. They were about to rape me.”

  I rubbed the bridge of my nose and exhaled. “While you were...”

  “Yeah. While I was cut and bleeding.”

  I sat down again. This time Rose didn’t make a complaint.

  “What happened?”

  “They had me bent over in the kitchen. Eddie’s guys held each arm, so he could get free access – the fuckin’ piece of shit. Then I heard this god-awful shriek and I knew that Emily had seen us. I screamed at her to run. Poor thing paused for too long – Christ, like she couldn’t decide whether to leave me or not – and then she made a bolt for the door, but Eddie beat her to it. He dragged her back into the kitchen.”

  Rose stopped for a few seconds and blinked repeatedly. Finally her eyes closed and the tears flowed, soaking her dressings. She didn’t sob though. Instead, she took a few seconds to regain composure and started again, although her voice cracked a few times. “I... I told him to let her go, that it was between him and me. He l... laughed at that, thought it was good for a hoot. They all thought that was hilarious.

  “Then the bastard started stroking Emily’s hair and asked her what she thought of Mummy? She started crying, wanted to know what was wrong with my face. Eddie re... really laughed at that. Said it was genetic. Wondered if she was really my daughter, ‘cause he couldn’t see the family resemblance. He asked her if she’d like to look like Mummy again.

  “I knew what he was getting at, so I told him where the money was and the combination to the safe – anything to keep Emily out of harm's way. Eddie took her upstairs with him when he went to get the cash. While he was gone, the two animals he brought with him kept whispering in my ear that they were gonna enjoy fuckin’ my holes when this was all done.

  “I remember closing my eyes. I remember praying under my breath. It’s funny, isn’t it? I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe in any of that but, still, I don’t think anybody’s ever prayed harder than I did at that moment. I prayed that Emily would get out of this clean. I hoped that once they had the cash they’d be happy with that and let the rest slide.

  “Maybe I didn’t pray hard enough, because when Eddie came back down he said he was gonna teach Emily about sex. He said he was gonna use Mummy to teach her. I started crying, then. I didn’t cry once when they were cutting me, you know. Not once. Yeah, I made some noise when they were doing it, because it hurt like nothing you could possibly imagine.

  “Then Eddie changed his mind and said he didn’t fancy shagging some manky-looking old whore. The sex lesson would have to wait till some other time. I thought it was over then, that it was done. I thought if this is as bad as it gets I can live with that. But just as I thought he was gearing up to leave, Eddie started cackling. Said he’d forgotten one last thing. Said he wouldn’t feel quite right if mother and daughter didn’t share a family resemblance.

  “I remember getting on my knees then, begging him, praying for him to let Emily go. He laughed in my face, said I had it coming. The two pricks he brought with him held my arms and forced me to watch. Then that prick cut Emily. He laughed all the time he was doing it, laughed at her screams. He didn’t cut as deep as he did with me, but she’s gonna have scars. And I don’t just mean the physical ones.”

  Rose’s hands covered her eyes and she breathed deeply, as if fighting for control. Occasionally a silent sob shuddered through her. Every time she raised her head and seemed ready to talk, fresh tears spilled down her face and soaked the gauze. Then she’d cover her face again and wait until the emotion passed.

  I closed my eyes. Somehow, hearing about all this pain and misery second-hand made it worse. The tremor in her voice when she described her daughter’s maiming was heart breaking. Emily was on my conscience now. Eddie might have made the incision, but ultimately I put him there with the knife in his hand. The only way I could think of getting the girl off my conscience was to give Rose a similar opportunity at carving up Eddie. That, and the chance to get her money back. It wasn’t much, but it was all I had.

  Rose stopped crying and looked up. “This was what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

  “Not this,” I replied, shaking my head. “I thought he’d be a professional.”

  Professionals only hurt those who cross their paths. They don’t hurt bystanders, or family members, or kids; they don’t choose alternatives when the targets they want aren’t around. Professionals don’t enjoy the violence they inflict – well, most of the time – instead they see it as a means to an end. And they don’t betray their partners.

  Rose’s eyes widened. “Professional? The man’s a psycho,” she said, almost screaming the word. “He enjoys inflicting pain. He came when he was cutting me, you know that?”

  “Christ!”

  “Why are you here? Why?”

  Now that she’d told her story, the moment of reflection had passed and the anger returned. She could feel aggrieved again.

  “Take off the hit,” I said.

  “And why would I wanna do a thing like that?”

  11. – Owden

  JACK SAMSON looked around the lounge with an expression of admiration. “And some folks say that crime don’t pay.”

  “It pays very well, lad,” Bob replied, and thought about Larry Eldridge for a moment. “It’s honesty and decency that have a pay gap.”

  It was a large rectangular room that traded the farm’s rustic rural exterior for something more modern. An expanse of expensive and intricately patterned parquet led to a floor-to-ceiling wall of glass. Behind this, subtle amber and yellow uplights turned the rear garden into vibrant landscape art. The centrepiece was a circular lilly pond, framed with weeping willows and spanned by an ornate wooden bridge. Jack stared wide-eyed at the scenery, his expression a mix of amusement and envy. “Honesty and decency’s overrated in my opinion,” he said. “Especially when the alternative gets you something that looks like your very own Monet.”

  “You know your art?”

  Jack’s gaze went hard and mean and he turned towards his host. “I’s not a fuckin’ moron, Bob. Been known to visit a museum or two on my travels,” he said. “Like the Impressionists, Cubism, and all that shit. Real painters they were, not like these Turner Prize motherfuckers that everybody’s into these days, you know?”

  Bob wafted his hand towards a large three seat sofa with a front-row view of the garden. “Take a seat.”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” Jack said. He ignored the sofa and lowered himself into an armchair. His large frame made the task difficult, and he ended up wedged in tight, with his bulk spilling out over the chair arms. He grimaced, grunted, and shifted his body to get comfortable, but it didn’t seem to be working. Under usual circumstances Bob would have gained a lot of satisfaction from Jack’s discomfort, but not this time. He offered his guest the sofa again.

  Jack shook his head and waved a dismissive hand. “I’s okay here, thanks.”

  “You don’t look comfortable, lad.”

  “I didn’t come here for no comfort. I come here to make sure there won’t be no war on account of this fucked up shit.”

  Bob moved towards a gleaming glass media unit in the far right corner of the room. A massive television dominated the structure, but to its right was a small silver stereo. He turned it on and sm
ooth jazz filled the room from unseen speakers. “Is that what you’re thinking?” Bob said. “That I’m gonna start a war?” Then he pressed a button on the wall behind the television and blue silk curtains glided across runners and obscured the garden view.

  “Dunno what you’re thinking,” Jack replied. “That’s why I’ve come here – to work the shit out for myself.”

  Beside the media unit was a tall, slim wood cabinet. Bob pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked it. As the door opened, a small shelf folded down. Bob took a couple of glass tumblers from the rear of the cabinet and placed them on the shelf. Then he started removing bottles of various sizes and colours and positioned them on the cabinet top. He turned in his guest’s direction. “Poison?”

  Jack stared at the booze. “Whisky Mac, if you got the ingredients; Whisky neat, if you don’t.”

  “Ice?”

  “Only if you got it.”

  Bob poured a double measure of whisky into both tumblers and then topped them up with ginger wine. He handed one to Jack and then sat down on the sofa. He lifted the glass.

  “Cheers.”

  Jack did likewise. “Don’t look like you got much to cheer.”

  Bob nodded and supped his drink.

  “You got that right.”

  Jack took a healthy swig. “We good?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Like I said, I didn’t have nothing to do with this, Bob. And I’s here as a courtesy, all vulnerable and shit, to tell you that.” Jack’s accent was from all over the place, much like the man himself, a transatlantic amalgam of American, Jamaican, and plain old Middlesbrough. Not even his closest allies seemed to know his history, which was probably how he wanted it – the international man of mystery. One day in the early nineties, Jack Samson turned up in Teesside, running Blues parties in derelict houses, using the events to deal drugs, or sell flesh to punters who wanted to walk on the wild side. Nobody knew who he was, or where he came from, and in many ways they still didn’t. Unlike Bob, he’d managed to remain an enigma.

  “So G-Max weren’t one of yours?” Bob asked.

  “That motherfucker ain’t even black.”

  “Since when did that mean owt?” Bob replied. “It’s not like you don’t have white lads on the payroll.”

  “Yeah, my operation’s real ebony and ivory shit. So what?”

  “Then Gerald could’ve been one of yours.”

  Jack made a pah sound and sneered. “Everybody knows that boy’s freelance.”

  “Was freelance.”

  “Excuse my mixed up tenses, but that boy died a freelancer.”

  “And the other two?”

  “Those boys were mine, but they were dumber than dirt. Never had much use for ‘em, certainly for nothing that involved the expenditure of brain power.”

  “So you didn’t send them there?”

  Jack curled his top lip. “I know you don’t think much of me, but I sure as shit wouldn’t send those fuckin’ idiots if I’s gonna knock off Hollis. If I’d sent some brothers to deal with that fat racist fuck, there wouldn’t be a trace of him anywhere. He’d just be fuckin’ gone.”

  “But you sent the lads the time before, right?”

  Jack shook his head and took another big gulp. “Sorry to disappoint on that score, too. Now I know we went to war last time some of my boys hit Hollis, but that’s ‘cause we’s both prideful motherfuckers. Didn’t mean I sent ‘em to steal from him.”

  “So who did?”

  “They made that shit up they own damn selves. Stupid fools didn’t realise just what they were getting theyselves into. They prolly thought they’s hitting a fat old honky with too much hooky money, too loud a mouth and no motherfuckin’ trousers. I guess they’s wrong on that count.”

  “So why not say that first time around?”

  Jack smiled. “I did say that shit first time around, but you sure as hell weren’t listening. In fact, if you’d let me at Hollis first time round you prolly wouldn’t be going through all this now.”

  Bob bristled. “Nobody tells me what to do in my town.”

  Jack’s grin widened. “And nobody tells me what do in mine.

  Bob’s fingers tightened around the glass. Jack’s gaze drifted down to Bob’s hands and his smile faltered slightly. “Look Bob, that battle cost us both, so I know you ain’t wanting to do it again. I lost money, I lost people, I lost fuckin’ territory, but I sure as shit hurt you too. I know you lost a couple of building contracts worth a lot of money, I expect you prolly lost a few local councillors and pigs off the payroll. And I know damn well I took a few lives from you.

  “But, here’s the thing, I’s a lot stronger nowadays, Bob. And if we go to war again, you ain’t gonna do so good this time around. But having said all that shit, I ain’t wanting no damn war, with you or any other fool. So you best make your next move carefully.”

  Bob felt a twinge of fear, though it wasn’t for himself. He wasn’t afraid of dying, and he wasn’t afraid of pain, either. He was afraid of losing everything he’d acquired. All his years of building, and moulding his empire, would be gone as soon as the first shot was fired. He knew that another war would cost him political influence, the police that he paid for, the building contracts for his companies, the business licenses he acquired without all the usual red-tape. He couldn’t afford to lose those things; if he lost his influence, then it was back to being a full-time gangster again.

  Despite the fear, Bob gave his opponent a look with enough ice to chill both their drinks.

  “We go to war again, lad, and I’ll just go nuclear. It’ll be the apocalypse.”

  Jack lifted his glass in salute again. “Then we know where we both stand,” he replied, and finished his beverage. “But I’s offering the olive branch here. I didn’t have to do that, and you know it. Hell, coming to see you is prolly gonna make me look like some kinda pussy-ass motherfucker. It’s gonna leave me with some seriously fucked-up waters to smooth. Why would I put my safety on the line if it weren’t for no greater good, huh? Now, I didn’t have nothing to do with this shit, and I thought that maybe hearing it from me in person might persuade you that I’s on the up-and-up.”

  Bob held Jack’s gaze for an uncomfortable amount of time, but the man didn’t blink, or waver, or lower his eyes. He didn’t do any of the other things that people usually do when they told lies, like rubbing his throat or earlobe or scratching his face. If Jack Samson was lying, he was doing a very good job of it.

  “You think them lads of yours went there for revenge?”

  Jack shrugged. “I doubt it. Like I said, them brothers were slower than molasses in January. Revenge in the heat of the moment, maybe, but those stupid motherfuckers didn’t have the brainpower to arrange no motherfuckin’ hit. Maybe G-Max fucked ‘em over, maybe they were chasing him and not Hollis – but I be guessing you’s already thought of that.”

  Bob finished the drink and tapped his fingers along the rim of the glass. It finally felt like Jimmy’s revenge theory had been removed from consideration, which left either robbery or something that he just couldn’t see yet as his only viable options. It didn’t feel like a robbery gone wrong, even though it had the look of one, which left him even more confused. He needed more information about that night, from sources that had their ears close to the ground. Bob looked up from his glass and stared at Jack.

  “We’re good. For now.”

  Jack raised his eyebrows. “For now?”

  “I think you’re telling the truth, lad. But thinking and knowing are two totally different species. I’m gonna keep looking into this, and if it turns out you’re lying, you’ll regret it.”

  Jack put his hands on the armrests and pushed to his feet. The effort sent fresh sweat trickling down his forehead, which he wiped away with a sleeve.

  A dark thought ran through Bob’s mind – something that he entertained for a split-second before discarding. It made him crack a grin, though, which he turned on Jack. The man must have sensed
what he was thinking, because he returned the smile with interest and angled his eyes towards the living room window and the darkness outside. “Got three brothers with shotguns just round the corner from your estate,” he said. “If those boys don’t hear from me, then you’re gonna be hearing a lot from them. And believe me, those brothers know how to kill.”

  “Why not have them come in here and finish me off?”

  Jack’s grin widened. “‘Cause I’s be the first one you’ll pop,” he said. “Plus, when you go down, I want you to know that you’ve been taken. I’s wannit to be fair and square.”

  “That’ll never happen.”

  Jack shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. But I got time to wait. Ain’t going nowhere.”

  Bob patted him on the back. “Yes, you are.”

  Jack stared at him blankly.

  Bob pointed at the door. “Right now, you’re leaving my property. Our time together is over.”

  12. – Stanton

  I SAT and thought of all the reasons why Rose should call off Bob Owden’s hit. The only one I could think of was that we could put her and Eddie in the same room again; only this time she would be the one holding the knife.

  “Well, I’m waiting,” Rose said.

  “Why Bob?”

  Her eyes crinkled at the edges. “Why not? One thing Bob hates is people who hurt children. He was seething by the time I finished telling him. Now, I told him exactly the same story that I told you, but with one key difference.”

  “Me and my brother were the villains.”

  Rose nodded, her eyes hard and mean. She was enjoying my discomfort.

  “What happens now is this: Bob puts out an official hit on you two and every hitman in Western Europe sits around Teesside until one of you arseholes puts his head above ground. Then, when you’re dead and he thinks he’s got away scot-free, Raffin pays Eddie a visit and puts him in the soil. He said he’ll even show me the footage. I told him to make sure the bastard dies screaming.”