The Curious Case of the Missing Moolah (A Stanton Brothers thriller)

by Martin Stanley

  I took Molly’s phone from my pocket and used her passcode to open it.

  Mark sent an irritated glance in my direction. “What’re you doing?”

  “Getting reinforcements.”

  “They’re just junkies.”

  “That’s as maybe, but there’s three of them, with shotguns, and two of us. I wanna equal up the numbers.” I dialled a number from memory. It rang off two times because the ignorant bastard at the other end was probably too lazy to answer it. Another attempt also rang off, but a gruff voice answered at the fourth attempt.

  “Who the fuck’s this?” he bellowed, obviously upset at the interruption to his ugly sleep.

  “And hello to you, too.”

  There was a brief pause. “You change your number?”

  “Temporarily.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the fuckin’ phone fairy came and snatched mine from beneath my pillow.”

  “Oh, was that after he made you bite it, like?” he said, chuckling at his attempted humour.

  “Much as I love to trade homophobic quips with you, there’s a real reason for this phone call.”

  “Oh, aye?”

  “I need you to get to an address for me. Now. I’ll meet you there.”

  “And why’d I wanna do summat like that?”

  “‘Cause you owe me.”

  “And how’d you figure that?”

  “‘Cause of your stupid fuckin’ stunt on Friday.”

  There was another slight pause. “Did Ray tell you, like?”

  “Who else.”

  “So what’s the damage?”

  “For starters, you’re banned from the Miner’s, on threat of a kneecapping —

  “That fat fuck threatened…”

  “— and somebody’s gotta pay for the broken door, the damaged décor, and Toby’s fucked up kneecap.”

  My brother made a pfft sound. “I barely fuckin’ touched the gadgie.”

  “Is that why he’s got cruciate damage along with broken ribs?”

  “It was some light play fighting,” my brother said. “Seriously, if that gadgie’s got broken ribs then there’s summat really fuckin’ wrong with him. Mebbe he’s got that Ost… Osta… Ostoparalysis or summat.”

  “It’s Osteoporosis, you fuckin’ idiot.”

  “Don’t call us a fuckin’ idiot.”

  “Then stop acting like one.”

  “How about I hang up on you?”

  “You do that and you’ll have nobody to pick up the tab for the comp you owe Toby and to Ray, for the damage to his bar.”

  “You’re picking that up?” he said with a hint of surprise in his voice.

  “Only in return for a favour.”

  “Go on?”

  “Get yourself to Victoria Street.”

  “Now?”

  “That’s right. Get dressed. Now. Then grab a gun, a silencer and some Tasers. Bag ‘em up, along with some rope. Oh, and bring the baseball bat.”

  “The plain one or the one with the nails in it?”

  It was a tough decision to make, so I told him to bag them both.

  “So what’s going on, like?”

  “I’ll tell you when you get there.”

  I ended the call, put the phone back in my pocket and glanced out of the window. We were already on Skipper’s Lane, rushing past single-storey industrial structures with high spiked fences. We turned right into Old Middlesbrough Road and then right again on Aire Street. It was a narrow road bordered on both sides by green strips of flat parkland. Mark pulled the car over onto the grass verge and applied the brakes. For a couple of seconds, I could see him shaping up to ask a question that had formed in his mind, mouth open and ready to speak. For whatever reason he left the query where it was and instead turned to face me with a slight smile turning the corner of his mouth. “You forgot about a weapon for me in that shopping list,” he said.

  I could have happily hugged him, because I knew what he wanted to ask. He wanted to know why we were bringing a wildcard like my brother into a situation like this? And if he’d asked that question I wasn’t sure I’d have an appropriate answer. Mark had been there while Ray told his story – he’d heard what kind of an idiot my brother is, how impulsive, stubborn, aggressive and violent he can be. But it was precisely those things that made my brother such a good partner to have when dealing with something like this. Sometimes when you’re facing down men with bigger guns, working against the worst kind of odds, you need a big, brave, blunt instrument to do the heavy lifting and hitting.

  I grinned and said, “I haven’t forgotten anything.”

  I got out of the car, went around to the boot and opened it. I grabbed the automatic that was hidden inside one of the compartments. At the back of the boot, where it became the rear seat, was a small black holdall. I pulled the bag towards me and opened it. The top layer of objects were all common DIY tools, screwdrivers, hammers, spirit-levels, nails, but far beneath them, wrapped in thick black plastic, was another gun, some silencers, and my lock picks, including a snap gun. I pulled the black plastic parcel out of the holdall and unwrapped it. Mark looked at the unwrapped parcel and then stared at me. “I thought you said you were legit?”

  “Mostly legit,” I replied. “Occasionally, just occasionally, my brother and I pay clandestine visits to drug dealers or pimps to relieve them of their stashes. We’re talking strictly small-time here, and only every few months. We wear masks or balaclavas and do nothing that might tie us to the robbery, everything on the downlow.”

  Mark let out a laugh that seemed both amused and knowing. He laughed louder when I turned to face him.

  “Something amusing?” I said.

  “Only that we’re in the same line of business.”

  “You’re…”

  “Uh-huh,” he said, nodding. “The only difference is you’re a debt collector who does a little thieving on the side and I’m a thief who does a little debt collecting on the side.”

  I handed Mark an automatic and a silencer. “Around here?”

  He shook his head. “Rarely. I work with a few select people and we mostly work in big cities,” he said, putting the gun beneath his waistband. “We form teams, buy information from local junkies, whores, professional drinkers – you know, your usual concerned citizens. Then we pick the most ideal candidate and scope them until we pull the job. While we’re there we keep things professional: no real names, no partying, no flings. And once the job’s done we get the fuck out.”

  Having watched Mark at work all morning, particularly with the junkies and the drinkers, I’d noticed that he was very good with his fists. He didn’t hesitate when throwing punches and showed no remorse or pity once the punches had landed. I’d assumed that he was an experienced collector, and had seen all the tricks and angles before, but it was now obvious that he was just killing time between jobs, probably because money was tight.

  “And how much d’you make doing summat like that?” I asked.

  Mark shrugged. “Depends on the job, but if I don’t make at least five grand on a three or four man job then I’m not happy.”

  That was good money, much better than I’d earned doing the same thing. Until now, the people my brother and I had hit had been strictly small-time with small-time returns. It occurred to me that maybe Mark had the balance right; that thinking bigger and better would bring the kind of profits I wanted.

  I closed the boot, locked it, and we started to walk, cutting across the parkland to save time. With the exception of a man walking his dog at the far end of Aire Street we had the area to ourselves. Occasionally, we heard the man shout at his disobedient yap-happy pooch in ever-increasing tones of frustration and volume, until the man gave up shouting and there was a sudden yelp or two from the dog and then silence.

  We came off the grass as we reached Queen Street, cut across into Victoria Street, a long, narrow road of plain redbrick terraced houses, and veered off through a back alley, paved with wet cobbles, used condo
ms and syringes, to avoid being seen. We came to a stop at the end of the alley and peeked around the wall at the address Molly had given us.

  The place was a three-storey flat-block that looked like it had been derelict for years. Its beige rendered walls were mottled with mildew and pockmarked by weather damage. Textured aluminium panels covered the windows and doors. A tall wall topped with sharp metal spikes bordered the rear of the property. A rusted staircase jutted out from a top floor fire exit at the back of the building and ended in the back yard.

  “How the fuck do we get in there?” Mark said.

  The wall went all the way to the side of the neighbouring property, which was another derelict, but the spikes didn’t go all the way to the end; there was a bare section of wall about two feet wide.

  “Where the two properties meet,” I said, pointing at it.

  The wall was scuffed and water damaged and the render had been worn away in the areas people had used to get a foothold.

  “That still doesn’t get us into the place,” Mark replied.

  Studying the rear of building, I noticed that the outside staircase ran past a large window. The metal grille that covered the window had been pried away, pulled back, presumably by somebody clambering inside, and then had been pulled flat. Whoever had tried to put the grille back in place hadn’t done a brilliant job and it jutted away from the frame slightly. That was our way in.

  “Window near the fire exit.”

  Mark nodded. “Got it.”

  The phone buzzed. It was a text from my brother asking where we were. I sent my reply and waited for him to show up. It didn’t take long for him to come loping down the alley – all six-feet four and a half inches of him – carrying a big black holdall. He stopped in front of us and glared down at Mark.

  “Who the fuck’s this?”

  “Mark Kandinsky meet my charming and erudite brother.”

  11.

  With the greetings out of the way, and after explaining what had happened to my brother, who spent most of the tale laughing at our misfortune, we crossed the road and climbed the rear wall. Despite his physical bulk, my brother pulled himself up and over like it wasn’t even there. Then Mark went over, though he didn’t make it look quite as easy and I heard him curse as he landed.

  I jumped up and took a firm grip of the wall. Lifting my right leg, I managed to get my toe in a foothold, and used it to propel my weight up. I sat on the top of the wall, looked around, didn’t notice any passersby and dropped down into the yard.

  Plastic crunched beneath my boot heels. Used syringes, discarded flame-blackened foils, old spoons, damp pieces of cotton and condoms were scattered across the concrete. My brother gnawed at his bottom lip as he looked around. “Whatever youse do, don’t fuckin’ fall over,” he said.

  “And watch what you’re stepping on,” Mark added. “Welcome to Hepatitisville.”

  I tiptoed around the detritus and tried standing on patches of clear ground, which was easier said than done because the yard looked like a junky landfill.

  My brother led the way up the staircase. I followed close behind, with Mark breathing down my neck. The structure creaked and groaned with every step and wobbled continuously, often swaying away from the wall that it was supposed to be fixed against. My brother stopped at the large window, put the holdall on the steps and reached into it. He put on a pair of thick black gloves.

  “There’s no fuckin’ way I’m touching owt without some protection,” he whispered. “Fuck knows what kinda fuckin’ germ farm this place is.”

  He wrapped his fingers around the bent bottom right corner of the metal sheet and pulled it up. It gave with a soft groan and folded away from the frame, leaving the lower half of the sash exposed. The windowpane had been completely smashed away, leaving no jagged pieces. My brother poked his head through the hole and looked inside. After a couple of seconds he pulled his head out and looked at us. “It’s creepy as fuck in there, like,” he said. “Youse two got gloves?”

  I pulled a leather pair from my inside jacket pocket and put them on. Mark shook his head. My brother gave him a grim look. “Then be really fuckin’ careful where you put your hands,” he said, “‘cause I swear down that the inside’s just as fuckin’ bad as the yard.”

  My brother clambered through the hole and disappeared inside. Mark pulled the sleeves of his leather jacket up over his hands and used them as makeshift gloves. He grabbed the frame and pulled himself up and into the building. I went through last, trying not to snag my clothes or skin on anything sharp. I almost fell off the windowsill going in but managed to grab the frame in a panic and hold on for dear life. After I took a few seconds to compose myself, I swung my feet over and put them down on the floor. Something soft squished beneath my shoes. I held my breath and looked down, hoping that I hadn’t stepped in human shit or something just as unpleasant. I breathed out when I realised that it was only a wet woollen bed cover.

  In the half-light of the open window everything in the room appeared to be monochrome like old film noir. In the far corner of the room was a bare mattress and next to it a small wooden box that had been used as a makeshift nightstand. On it were old spoons, disposable lighters, and a couple of used syringes. Mould-flecked paper came away from the walls in big wet strips. The floorboards were rotten in places, felt soft underfoot, and I worried about plunging through them to the floor below. The air was heavy with the earthy smell of damp and the sour under-scent of stale piss.

  We walked through a doorless frame into a black hallway. My brother turned on a small pen torch that coated the area in a sickly yellow light. There was an open door to our right and at the end of the hall was one staircase that went up to the top floor and another that went to the ground floor. My brother flashed the light through the open door and waved it around.

  Judging by the small, simple fireplace against the wall nearest to us, it had once been a living room. A dark sofa that was shedding its stuffing in big fluffy chunks sat in the middle of the room and on the sofa was a man in tight, dark clothes. He was sitting upright with his head back, as though staring at the ceiling. The left sleeve of the man’s top had been rolled hallway up his bicep and a thin piece of fabric had been tied around the lower part of the muscle and pulled tight. A syringe rested on his forearm because he hadn’t taken the needle out of the vein. It looked like it was probably quite painful.

  Or it would have been if he weren’t already dead.

  We stepped into the room for a closer inspection.

  The corpse was thin with long, pipe-cleaner limbs. Its haggard, slack-jawed face would have appeareded cadaverous even if it had still been alive. Blue eyes gazed lifelessly into the past. Even without the balaclava I knew that it was the man who had poked a shotgun under my chin.

  Here was the final resting place of Henry Green.

  I searched the floor for money or a shotgun or a discarded balaclava, but the only things on the floor were old sweet wrappers, empty beer cans and a couple of syringes.

  “Looks like the stupid bastard OD’d,” my brother hissed.

  “Maybe,” I replied, looking in Mark’s direction.

  He wandered around the sofa and towards the far wall, pushing objects on the floor with the toes of shoes, but didn’t find what he was after. He walked back to where we were standing. “Something’s not right here.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  We stepped back into the hallway and tiptoed towards the stairs. If his partners were still around they would have heard us by now and either made a run for freedom or come at us with shotguns blasting. Part of me knew that all this treading lightly was a pointless charade but I just couldn’t stop myself from doing it, because I wanted to believe that we might still find the other two men upstairs in some kind of junky stupor. My brother stopped at the staircase and turned towards me. “Which way?”

  I pointed up.

  We crept up the stairs, sticking to the outer edges of the steps because some of them loo
ked about as firm as wet bread. Entering yet another hallway, we tiptoed to the first door and did a quick flash of the torch. The room was empty, but looked like it had been used recently. The floor was scattered with empty takeaway boxes and cartons, including ones from a couple of places that had only been open a few weeks.

  More sneaking took us to a small room that had once been a kitchen, but had been torn apart by raiders looking for fixtures, fittings and copper piping to such an extent that it looked like it had been hit by a bomb blast.

  The final room was at the end of the narrow hallway and the door was closed. I put my ear against the wood and listened. Aside from a dog barking in the distance there were no other noises. I turned the door handle slowly and pressed my shoulder to the wood, but the hinges let out a long low groan, like a dying man, and we knew that if there was anybody in there we were in trouble.

  As it turned out, we had nothing to fear. There was nobody there.

  Nobody alive, that is.

  A corpse sat on a dirty mattress with its back against the wall and its chin resting on its chest. Like Henry, the corpse had some fabric tied around the left bicep and still had the needle in its arm. And like Henry it was also dressed in black.

  Here, in all his glory, was the other shotgun owner.

  But there were no shotguns, no moneybags, and no balaclavas anywhere, nor any other evidence that they might have been involved in an armed robbery, instead there were just a couple of dead junkies dressed in the Goth’s colour of choice.

  “Another OD,” my brother said.

  I let out a bitter laugh. “This wasn’t a fuckin’ OD, you idiot. They were hot-dosed.”

  Mark patted my shoulder. I turned to face him. “What’s the betting that the third bloke isn’t here?” he said.

  “Probably the same odds that he’s also the one that gave these two the dose.”

  It didn’t need a genius to figure out that they were probably desperate to take the edge off their post-robbery excitement and nerves. Their partner could have given them tainted goods – a few too many grains of Fentanyl in the mix – and waited for them to shoot up. Then, as each one was dying, or already dead, he could clear away all traces of the robbery – balaclavas, weapons and, most importantly, the money – and disappear off the grid for a while.