Hearts of Stone

by Mark Timlin

  ‘His girlfriend, I imagine. Fanny,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t want to use that lift,’ said Kylie. ‘We might walk straight into them and, like you said, we don’t know who’s going to be there to meet them.’

  ‘So?’ I said.

  ‘Let’s try the front entrance.’

  ‘You’re the boss,’ I said.

  We went round to the main door, a forty-foot-high edifice of plate glass, engraved like the tomb of an ancient Egyptian. Inside was a sumptuous foyer paved with marble, complete with a uniformed security guard presiding over a desk full of telephones and a bank of TV security monitors.

  Kylie banged on the door. The security man looked up, shook his head, and gestured that we were to go round the side to the club entrance. She banged again and he angrily repeated the gesture. She stuck her warrant card against the glass and pointed to it. He got up from the desk in an exaggerated way and came to the door and studied it. I swear his lips moved as he read it. He looked at her, then her ID again, and went back to the desk and touched a switch, and the door lock clicked. Kylie and I went inside. As the door closed, I heard the lock click behind us. The security guard got up and met us halfway across the foyer.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Shaw,’ said Kylie, showing her ID again. ‘We need to get to the top floor.’

  ‘That’s what I was trying to tell you,’ said the guard. ‘You’ll have to use the club lift. It’s just round the corner.’

  ‘No,’ said Kylie. ‘Can we get up there from here?’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s against the rules,’ he said. ‘Employees only.’

  ‘Bend the rules a little,’ I said.

  I knew what he was going to say. ‘It’s more than my job’s worth,’ he said.

  ‘This is official police business,’ said Kylie. ‘It’s not that we want to get in without paying.’

  ‘Sorry, love,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not your love,’ she said shortly. ‘Is that the lift over there?’

  ‘You can’t…’ he said – and I pulled the Colt out of my jacket pocket and stuck it in his face. I was doing a lot of that, that night, and enjoying it more every time.

  ‘Just tell us,’ I said.

  He paled. ‘All right, all right. You take the lift to the thirty-ninth, then walk up. You can get in through the emergency doors. There’s a button on the outside opens them.’

  ‘Great,’ I said. ‘See how gratifying it is to assist the forces of law and order. You’ll be up for an OBE if you’re not careful.’

  He looked at the desk and the screens and the phones. I looked for a camera. There was one watching us from the corner of the foyer like a praying mantis. ‘Any more security on?’ I asked.

  He didn’t answer for a second and I saw the lie form in his eyes. ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘Bollocks,’ I replied. ‘I think we’re being watched,’ I said to Kylie, and pointed at the lens.

  ‘We’ll have to risk it,’ she said.

  I could have made him turn the camera and screens off, but the chances were there was a panic button he could operate without us knowing, so I wasn’t going to let him get near the desk. ‘Got that last pair of cuffs?’ I asked her.

  She took them from her bag. ‘Where’s the karsy?’ I asked the guard.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Toilets.’

  ‘Over there.’ He gestured towards a plain door in one wall.

  ‘Come on, then.’ I pushed him across the expanse of marble and through the door. It was sumptuous inside, but even a sumptuous toilet has to have water pipes. I shackled him to a set, like I’d done with Del and Terry, first passing the chain connecting the cuffs behind the pipe. ‘Somebody will be down to let you loose soon,’ I said.

  ‘You bastard.’

  ‘It’s been remarked upon,’ I said, and went back to find Kylie. She was waiting by the lift, doors open.

  ‘The phone rang,’ she said.

  ‘I hope it was just his mum wondering what he wants for his breakfast,’ I said, but I doubted it.

  We got into the lift and went up to the thirty-ninth floor. We came out on to a long, wide corridor carpeted in pale green. Halfway along was a fire door leading on to concrete stairs carpeted with nothing. We went up. At the top of the stairs was an unmarked door. Next to it was a red button. I pressed it and the door clicked softly. I pushed it open and we were in another wide corridor, carpeted in the same shade of green. I could hear music close by. Loud. Opposite was a door marked OFFICE. We went into the corridor and I listened at the office door. I couldn’t hear a thing, but the music would have drowned out anything but the loudest voices. I tried the door handle. It was locked. I shook my head at her and we went down the corridor together towards the music.

  We came out in the restaurant overlooking the disco room. It was pretty near empty, like the last time I’d been there, except for one table which was full. Sitting round it, clockwise, starting at six o’clock, were Fanny, one of the big geezers who’d got out of the Merc – Billy? Barry? – Gregor, the other big geezer – Barry? Billy? – next to him Derek, the manager of the club, beside two more strangers. One was a little fucker, with the expression of a dyspeptic stoat, and a suspicious bulge under the left armpit of his soft leather jacket, and the other a suave-looking face in a dark suit and a white shirt that shone brightly under the ultraviolet lights.

  Kylie pulled me back out of sight, and put her mouth close to my ear so that I could hear her. ‘Lovely,’ she said. ‘We’ve got them all together.’

  ‘Gregor and Fanny I know,’ I said. ‘And Derek, the bloke who runs this place. And the two Gregor came in with must be Billy and Barry. But who’s the fashion-plate and the little bastard next to him?’

  ‘The fashion-plate, as you call him, is the biggest fish of all,’ she replied with a look of satisfaction on her face. ‘Kaplan, Anthony H. Owns a lot of real estate round here. Including most of this place. He was Brady’s numero uno target. And now he’s mine.’

  ‘So how do you want to play this?’ I asked.

  ‘Quietly. With the minimum of fuss. They’re not expecting us. We can take them down before they know what’s happening.’

  I admired her optimism, but I had severe doubts. ‘If you say so,’ I said. ‘Quietly it is.’

  ‘Let’s do it then,’ she said.

  46

  We walked together towards the table. It was covered with glasses and bottles. In front of Gregor was a briefcase. I assumed it was the one he’d brought with him, as they would hardly have had time yet to do the deal, what with getting the booze in and all. I had my hand on the Colt in my pocket. Kylie’s right hand was inside her bag. In the other she carried her police ID. I put my arm around her. Although we weren’t exactly dressed for a night of club culture, I wanted us to look as much like a carefree couple as possible. She looked up at me in surprise as I did it, and I winked. The music boomed, and the TV screens on the wall scrolled out currency values worldwide in ice-blue and yellow figures on a black background.

  As we got close to the table, I let her go and stood behind Fanny. Kylie took centre stage. Where the table was situated was like the eye of the hurricane. The disco speakers had been cleverly placed so that it was possible to make yourself heard without screaming, yet no one closer than a couple of feet could hear a word. The most perfect place in the world to do a dirty deal in private. As we stopped at the table, everyone there looked up with varying expressions of recognition and surprise on their faces.

  Kylie tossed her ID on to the table amidst the washing-up. ‘Police,’ she said. ‘Everyone get your hands on the table. Now!’

  Gregor started to stand up and Kylie brought her hand out of her bag with the revolver held in it. Gregor sat down again.

  I pulled the Colt from my pocket. ‘You heard her,’ I said. ‘Let’s see them.’

 
One by one they obeyed. When I saw fourteen hands on the table, I relaxed slightly. It had been a lot easier than I thought. Mind you, our problems were just starting, but at least we’d won the first round on points.

  ‘Then you’re all going to stand up and go out through the restaurant to your office,’ said Kylie, pointing her gun at Derek. Then, to Gregor, ‘Is that the bag you brought in?’

  He didn’t answer right away. ‘Well?’ she demanded. He nodded. ‘Where’s the money?’ Nobody said a word to that. ‘Come on, where is it?’

  ‘He’s got it,’ I said. Looking at Kaplan. ‘Him or his minder.’

  She moved the gun in Kaplan’s direction. He stiffened.

  ‘Here,’ he said and pushed another bag out from under the table. It was about the same size as the one Gregor had brought.

  ‘Good,’ said Kylie. ‘Nick, you bring that.’

  I didn’t like it. It was possible they were all armed. Even Fanny might have a little nickel-plated .22 keeping warm in her stocking top. There were too many of them, and too few of us. The fact that no one else in the room had clocked what was going on was the half-inch in which we were living. One nosy waiter or waitress raising a fuss could bring the roof down. I knew it, and I knew that Gregor, Derek, Billy, Barry, Kaplan et al. knew it too. I was beginning to wish more and more that Kylie had called for back-up.

  ‘Right,’ said Kylie. ‘When I tell you, stand up slowly, keeping your hands where we can see them, and move through the restaurant to the office. Don’t bunch up. Don’t speak. And look happy. It’s party time, and we’re all friends here.’

  I moved so that I had an unrestricted view of Kaplan’s minder, but I also kept throwing glances at Billy and Barry, whichever one was which. The sooner we had them confined and unarmed the better.

  I was so busy trying to do three things at once that I didn’t notice a woman come through the main door of the club, down into the disco, and head in our direction. I didn’t notice her until she was almost at the table. As she passed into my peripheral vision I looked at her sharply, looked away, then did a classic double-take. It was Jools.

  She was dressed up to the nines in something short and sexy in white. But she looked like hell. Like someone who’d seen their worst dream come true whilst they were awake, and didn’t like it one little bit. She was carrying a leather tote bag over her shoulder and her right hand was inside it, like Kylie’s had been in hers earlier, and it took me a fraction of a second to realise why. A fraction of a second too long. By then it was too late. Out of it she produced a Colt automatic. The twin of the one I was carrying.

  ‘You bastards!’ she screamed, loudly enough to drown out the music. She aimed the gun at Gregor, and fired. The bullet hit him in the middle of the chest. Jools turned the gun on Fanny, who was starting to rise to her feet, a scream already growing in her throat. A .45 slug chopped the scream off and she crashed across the heavy sitting next to her, in a tangle of arms and legs and long blonde hair.

  Kaplan’s minder came to his feet, too. With practised ease he drew a heavy revolver from under his jacket and shot Jools just above the right breast. Then I saw the gun begin to move in Kylie’s direction.

  He’d done it wrong. He wasn’t to know. No one was. He was protecting his boss. That was his job. He should have shot me or Kylie first, and left Jools for later. It was the most expensive mistake he’d ever made. I shot him twice. Once in the throat, once lower in the chest, as quickly as I could pull the trigger. He tumbled backwards over his chair, his legs came up, and the table went flying in a shower of booze and glass and three hundred thousand quid’s worth of top-quality cocaine in a briefcase.

  Then it was chaos. There were screams as the few punters in the place hit the floor, or decided that Stringfellow’s probably had a better ambience and made for the exit. The gaff was blown. Well and truly. And I knew that Kylie and I could die in the confusion. I fired a couple of shots in the direction of the table, and grabbed Kylie and threw her bodily behind a settee facing a low table nearby. She was my insurance. I badly needed her alive, not in a refrigerated drawer in the mortuary, where she couldn’t talk. As we hit the deck, the door that led from the restaurant to the emergency exit we’d used burst open, and two security guards came charging in, both holding what looked suspiciously like UZI carbines.

  The Billy/Barry who hadn’t collected Fanny’s body in his lap came up armed and fired in their direction. A hole blossomed in the leading security man’s uniform shirt, and he did a perfect forward somersault to land in a heap on the carpet of the restaurant. His UZI spun through the air, slid across the glass dance floor, bounced off the front of the DJ’s booth and back down the wide steps, to land about twenty feet from the sofa behind which Kylie and I were crouching.

  Meanwhile, the other guard triggered a spray of heavy-calibre bullets that zipped up the shooter’s body horizontally, like a row of buttonholes, and danced him backwards in our direction, until his legs collapsed and he fell and lay still. The guard who had fired dropped behind a restaurant table for cover.

  Apart from the sound of Eric B and Rakim coming through the speakers at mega Dbs, all was quiet for a moment.

  So there we were. Split into four factions. Kylie and me behind the sofa, between the disco and the main exit via the lift. Kaplan and Derek hiding somewhere in the debris of the table. Armed? Who knew. But I had to assume so. Then there was the surviving Billy/Barry. Armed definitely. Pissed off, too, I bet. And, finally, between the disco and the other exit, a security guard with an automatic weapon. There were also two cases. One containing a fortune in cocaine. The other filled to the brim with the equivalent in cash. To the victors go the spoils.

  I sat for a second and tried to work out how many bullets were left in the Colt. Not many. I needed another gun. There were plenty lying about. It was like the bargain basement at Woolwich Arsenal. Blue spot day.

  My ears were still ringing from the music and the gunfire. I leant close to Kylie. ‘You OK?’ I asked.

  She made an ‘O’ with thumb and forefinger. She looked pleased. Maybe what had just gone on top was her idea of quiet. Maybe she was just relieved to be alive. I know I was. But for how much longer?

  I peered round one side of the sofa. Kylie did the same on the other. From behind the overturned table Derek appeared, pushing a case in front of him. It was the money. He didn’t have a gun. Kylie fired twice and hit the case, and he ducked back, leaving it on the carpet. Billy/Barry popped his head up and fired at us, but missed. The bullet ripped through the sofa. Kylie took a pot-shot at him, but with no apparent effect.

  At that point the second security guard decided to get back into the game. He’d been lucky so far. He stood up and sprayed the place with the remains of the UZI’s clip. Glasses flew, the sofa absorbed a couple more bullets, half a dozen or so TV screens imploded into oblivion, taking the exchange rates of the mark and yen with them, the DJ booth suffered a mortal wound, and the music stopped dead – but no one was hit.

  I looked over at Kylie. She was using a speed-loader to fill the cylinder of her gun. ‘Give me more fire,’ I yelled. ‘That fucker’s going to get lucky and kill one of us if we’re not careful.’

  She leaned round the far end of the sofa and fired two shots into the restaurant. The guard dropped, then popped up again, UZI blazing and I emptied the Colt at him. Got him, too. He tumbled backwards, and the last of his bullets hit the ceiling, blowing bulbs in the fancy light displays.

  I was out of ammunition, and had no spares, I needed another gun desperately. I dropped the Colt and went for the first guard’s UZI. The twenty feet between the sofa and the gun seemed like twenty miles. I heard gunfire behind, but couldn’t tell if it was aimed at me or if it was Kylie giving me cover.

  I scooped up the machine-pistol and rolled behind the DJ’s booth. The DJ had scarpered. Who could blame him?

  I stuck my head round and too
k a squint at what was going on. The place looked like a battlefield. A battlefield illuminated with twinkling lights and a big multi-faceted glass ball spinning slowly in the middle, splashing everywhere the reflection of hundreds of spotlights aimed at it through the smoke from the firearms. Somewhere, someone was screaming. A highpitched wail that wouldn’t stop. I stood up and crouched behind the booth. I fired a single shot in the direction of the table. Kylie looked around and waved. I didn’t wave back. Billy/Barry came up and fired at me. I switched to full automatic and fired half a clip. It only took a second, and the gun was hard to control. Billy/Barry came up to return fire and Kylie gut-shot him. He stood for a moment with a look of amazement on his face, then dropped his gun and slowly crumpled to the floor.

  Silence reigned.

  Kylie looked over in my direction, and I left my cover and ran to her. When I slid down beside her she looked round the sofa and shouted, ‘Kaplan! Derek! It’s all over. Throw out any weapons you have, and stand up slowly. We won’t shoot.’

  There was a cry from behind the sofa and Derek came slowly to his feet, hands aloft.

  ‘Where’s Kaplan?’ said Kylie.

  ‘Here my dear,’ said a voice from our left. ‘Now drop your weapons both of you. I will shoot.’

  Kylie and I looked round as one. Somehow Kaplan had managed to weasel himself from behind the table in all the excitement, and was now standing on the glass dance floor, still immaculate, but holding a small revolver as a fashion accessory.

  ‘I mean it,’ he said. ‘Drop the guns.’

  I looked at Kylie. She looked at me. We both shrugged and obeyed.

  ‘You,’ he said to me. ‘Fetch me the cases. No tricks, or the young lady dies.’

  I went over to where Derek was still standing amongst the carnage, and found both cases.

  ‘Bring them to me,’ ordered Kaplan. I did. ‘Now slide them across the floor. Gently.’

  I slid the first one over to him. I knew he was going to kill us. Behind him the huge plate-glass window, riddled with bullets, creaked in the wind that rushed round the top of the tower. I looked down through the floor. The streets were black with firefly lights. It might be grim living down there, but it was better than dying up here.