“You got played,” Dandridge said. “Now, inside.”
I stood my ground. “And if I don’t feel like it?”
He twirled the shotgun like a baton and thrust it into my face. I caught the full weight of the butt on my jaw, and was out cold before I even hit the ground.
18.
Something hard and cold tickled my face. I wasn’t sure what it was because my eyes were closed, and I didn’t want to open them. My brain felt far too big and seemed to be pressing painfully against the walls of my skull. Every movement, however small, exposed me to fresh shards of hurt, and I knew that opening my eyes would only increase the agony further.
“Rise and shine, sleeping ugly,” a familiar voice said.
The cold, hard thing tickled my face again. This time I pushed it away with my hand and tried to curl into a ball, for a bit more rest. Sleepy time was interrupted by an agonising jolt to the chin. Rubbing my jaw, I groaned and slowly opened my eyes. Every millimetre was a further scalpel slash of pain, but I forced my lids open and focused on the blurs that moved around above me. Gradually the blurs coalesced until they were solid.
My eyes followed the line of the shotgun barrel that Dandridge was pointing at me. “Don’t make me repeat myself, gadgie,” he said.
It was a struggle, but I managed to sit upright. I rubbed at the swollen part of my face where jaw had met gun butt and thought about standing up. I put my weight on my legs, but they were wobbly. I immediately stumbled backwards and landed on my arse. I pretended to suffer a dizzy spell and made like I was about to collapse, buying the seconds I needed to get my bearings and work out how to escape.
Mary’s living room was a simple, square space with a sofa by the window, which was directly in front of me, and an armchair to my left. My brother sat facing me on the sofa with hands tied behind his back. Dandridge’s black mate sat next to him and pointed the barrel of the shotgun at his stomach. Tony Gillan was in the armchair, holding an automatic in his lap that looked like mine, although he wasn’t pointing it in my direction. Deep lines cut into the area just above the bridge of his nose and he ground his teeth in anger and frustration.
“We gonna kill these fucks, or what?” he said, glaring at me.
Dandridge patrolled the area of carpet just to my left, moving back and forth, swinging the shotgun with every stride. He wore camouflage army pants, a dark T-shirt and had ankle length Doc Martens on his feet. He was as big as he was tall, which was very, and seemed to fill the room with his bulk. His weak, chinless face sank into the pink flab of his neck and made him look more computer nerd than hard man. His tiny eyes lingered on Gillan before moving in my direction. He grinned.
“What’s your hurry, Tone? They aren’t going anywhere.”
“My fuckin’ car’s a wreck,” Gillan replied. “Plus these arsewipes have been sniffing through my things. Fuck knows what they’ve done to my pad.” He put his free hand in his jeans pocket, pulled out the roll we’d stolen from him and placed it on the arm of the chair.
“Not enough,” my brother said. “I shoulda shit on your pillow.”
Gillan’s eyes turned in his direction. “I’ll make sure to save the worst pain for you.”
My brother sniffed. “Not if I get to you first.”
“That’ll be a neat trick,” Gillan said and stared at his boss. “Let’s get this started.”
Dandridge chuckled, and a thick sound like a smoker’s cough rumbled from him. “Again, what’s your hurry? Thought you might fancy torturing these boys first – a bit of slice and dice.”
Gillan twisted his body and seemed to listen for something. The sound of slippered feet against vinyl flooring drifted in from the kitchen along with the clank and rattle of pots and pans being moved around. He turned to face Dandridge. “Here?” he whispered. “Mary’s not gonna be pleased about that.”
“But she’ll be ecstatic about killing them?” came his boss’ reply.
“Didn’t mean here,” Gillan said, backtracking. “Meant elsewhere, like. Phone somebody, anybody, and move ‘em.”
“We will, in time.” Dandridge pointed at my brother with the shotgun barrel. “But you said he weren’t the other bloke you robbed, which means the fucker’s still running around outside. We can’t be having that. We need to get him.”
“Fuck him,” Gillan replied.
Dandridge shook his head. “You don’t get it, do you? Piper’s not some fuckin’ amateur. He might look like a pretty boy, but his methods are ugly as fuck. And unless you wanna be on the end of some of the more creative ones, you’ll help get this other prick off the streets.”
Dandridge gave me a cold stare. “Take it Piper doesn’t know yet?”
“What makes you say that?”
“The fact you idiots was trying to get in via the backdoor. In fact, I reckon Piper doesn’t even know what’s up yet.” Dandridge looked at a small digital clock on the mantelpiece above the fireplace. “Judging by the time, I’d say he knows that summat’s wrong by now, but he won’t quite know what yet. Probably thinks you’ve decided to do a runner. Probably even has a few of his men sniffing around. So if you disappear he’ll just think it’s a case of his collectors going rogue.”
Dandridge coughed out another chuckle. “But congratulations on getting this close. I’m impressed.”
“Don’t be,” I said. “Your boy Gillan’s not very good at stealing. Left a trail of breadcrumbs right to Mary’s door. From using junkies as triggermen, to Molly’s seduction, to the convenient overdose, the whole thing hasn’t been very subtle.”
“And yet you’re the one on the floor nursing the fucked up jaw, aren’t you?”
I ignored Dandridge in favour of Gillan. “What did you put in their heroin?”
He grinned. “Fentanyl – several grains more than they needed. Fuckers couldn’t wait to shoot up after finishing. I took each one aside and told ‘em that I’d given the other a hot dose, so we’d both get a bigger slice each. They couldn’t wait to set the other one up, the treacherous fucks. So they both shot up in private. Doubt they even knew what hit ‘em.”
“All this death over ten grand?” I said.
Dandridge shrugged. “They’re fuckin’ junkies. Seriously, who’s gonna miss a junky?” he replied and laughed again. “Besides, what makes you think this is just over ten grand?”
“Isn’t it?”
“You’re not seeing the bigger picture.”
“Then paint it for me.”
“Henry had a little business idea that’s proving very successful.”
And there it was, painted as vivid as a Van Gogh brushstroke. Poor Henry Green never stood a chance; the moment he approached Dandridge about the cannabis oil he had effectively signed his own death certificate. Henry tried to do business with a man who understood nothing about cooperation and partnership – greed and singular ambition were what fuelled him.
“Cannabis oil,” I said.
Dandridge’s face slackened and his tiny eyes went wide as he angled his head in my direction. He hadn’t expected that. “You knew?”
“Junkies like to talk,” I replied. “When you share needles and other good times, word spreads like hepatitis.”
“Who told you?”
“I forget.”
Dandridge gave me a gummy grin. “We’ve got ways of making you remember.”
“I’m sure you do,” I said and sighed. “Tell me, did you pay Henry’s partner to run out on him? ‘Cause I know they got the product through customs.”
“You just never run out of questions, do you?”
“Well, if I’m gonna be worm food, I might as well know why.”
His grin widened. “Henry’s partner tried to sell him out for ten grand but I got the product for a lot less than that.”
“Judging by your cheesy fuckin’ smile, I’d say you did it the same way you got Henry?”
“Not quite. That one died screaming,” he said. “I got the oil for nothing, I had Henry into me for three gr
and, and he gave up his side of the deal in exchange for not losing his kneecaps. It were fuckin’ beautiful.
“He had a girl in Utrecht where he has this little set-up going. She lets him use some heavy-duty plastic sealing kit in her spare bedroom. He had it all worked out – drains this fuckin’ hair oil stuff outta the bottles and replaces it with cannabis oil. Just a drop of this amber shite in a cigarette is enough to put most dope smokers on their arses. I tried some of it, about four puffs, as you do, and I had a total fuckin’ whitey. Basically, just one drag is all you need to see you good for the evening. A cigarette can last you a good few days.
“Do you know how many drops of this shit you can get in just one of those little hot oil containers? Let me tell you, it’s a lot. We charge a fiver a cigarette – just one pack of twenty can make me a hundred quid. And I’m selling about fifty packs of this shit a day and demand’s rising all the time. There’s just no fuckin’ downside to it. And now Henry’s girl is working for me, sealing the shit herself, and I’ve got debtors going back and forth between here and Holland. We haven’t lost a drop so far and it’s practically all profit.”
“Then why kill Henry?”
“He was a liability.”
“Most junkies are.”
“He was better off dead,” Dandridge said. “Sorry, let me rephrase. I was better off with him dead.”
“That was nice of you.”
“Doing him a favour, too,” he said with a shrug. “I mean, seriously, how long did that prick have? You know, the way he was going, and that?”
“If he’d got his business running, who knows?” I said. “Might’ve got clean.”
Dandridge scoffed. “About as clean as my sweaty fuckin’ scrotum,” he replied. “He’d have only fucked it up. Somewhere along the way, he’d spike a vein or smoke a rock and the business would fall apart. Bagheads can’t be trusted.”
“I guess now we’ll never know.”
Dandridge’s gaze was chilly. “Lose the sarcasm, dickhead. It’s not like we’re losing a scientist here, some cancer cure, or an astrophysicist. What we’re losing is a fuckin’ needle farmer – big deal.
“Anyway, having Henry walking around weren’t much good for business. If he got pulled, which as a junky were a real possibility, he’d sell out the operation in a fuckin’ heartbeat – just to stay outta jail. He knew places, names, processes, the airports with the most lax security, the whole thing would fall apart if Henry talked. So I decided to get rid of him. Had the hot doses all mixed up and everything. Just needed to find a way of getting them to him.”
“And then, right outta the fuckin’ blue, Henry came to me with a wild idea to pay off his debt. Wanted to rob Piper’s weekend take and the morning collection. He had it all worked out – knew exactly how to do it, with a little help from Molly. Said he’d be able to pay me off and have enough on the side to get himself clean. I told him I’d help if he needed it.”
Dandridge pushed out his chest, nodded thoughtfully and looked down at me with a smug smile. He was truly proud of what he’d accomplished: conning Henry Green, stealing his part of the operation, making him desperate enough to consider stealing from Piper. I got the feeling that he would have explained it all regardless of whether I’d asked him about it or not; just so I’d know how clever he really was and how I’d been beaten. It was all about winning.
“Big of you,” I said.
“Wasn’t it just?
“So me and Tony worked out how to do it. Got Tony in as the third man they needed. Tony started playing them off against each other, talking about cutting the other out for a larger split. We were actually gonna dose them before the job, if you must know, but then I thought it’d be nice to get one over on my competitor, throw a little friction into his outfit. If it wasn’t for you fucks it would’ve worked out perfectly.”
I’d listened to this fat, smug bastard for long enough. I knew everything I needed to know; and if I did nothing, or didn’t fight back, I probably wouldn’t live out the rest of the day. And if I fought back and failed, at least there was the possibility that I might take one of these pricks with me. My brother had his hands tied, so he was out of the game, which meant that getting out of here was all on me.
I waited for my moment.
It wasn’t a long time coming.
Dandridge stopped walking back and forth, and manoeuvred the shotgun between the crook of his arm to keep it upright. He searched his pockets with both hands and shot me a quick glance. “You’re gonna text your friend, gadgie. You’re gonna lure him here, you hear?”
“I don’t hear so good,” I replied. “That blow to the jaw’s making my ears ring a bit.”
He gave me a thin smile. “How about I clean out the wax with another blow to skull?”
“No thanks.”
“Then you’ll do as you’re fuckin’ told, won’t you?”
“Guess I will.”
I noticed Dandridge didn’t have his finger on the trigger and that he was also standing close enough for me to kick. A quick sideways glance was enough to see that Gillan still had the gun in his lap; his eyes were on his boss, not on me, and the gun barrel wasn’t aimed in my direction. Even the black guy on the sofa was watching Dandridge, the shotgun barrel angled slightly away from my brother’s torso. My brother gritted his teeth and gave the slightest of nods, but that wasn’t my cue – I would take that from Dandridge. And when the moment was right, I’d know.
Now wasn’t the time for panic.
Dandridge pulled Molly’s mobile phone from his pocket. He smiled at something on the screen and opened his mouth to speak.
That was my cue.
I drove my heel into Dandridge’s shin as hard as I could, putting all my weight behind it. The bone broke with a loud crack. He screamed as his left leg collapsed beneath him and tried to stay upright by hopping around on his good leg. He was far too heavy to keep his balance and toppled forward on to Gillan, pinning him to the chair.
My brother slammed his forehead into the black guy’s temple and followed through. The man’s eyes rolled over white as he slumped forward and landed face first on the carpet. The shotgun fell from his hands and ended up beside him. My brother stood up and kicked the man in the face repeatedly, until it began to crunch, to ensure that he stayed down.
I grabbed Dandridge’s shotgun as it hit the carpet and rolled across the floor, so that I could get a better aim if I needed to squeeze the trigger. The big man lay on top of Gillan and squealed in pain as Tony tried to move him. Every time his body shifted, it jarred the broken leg and he screamed again.
Gillan’s attempts to wriggle his arm free so that he could fire off a round or two didn’t work; Dandridge was too heavy and he was desperately fighting with Gillan to keep off his bad leg.
I jumped to my feet and approached the struggling men. Gillan glared at me as I raised the shotgun. His defiant expression quickly softened when he realised that his attempts to free the gun were in vain. As I brought the butt down, his expression was one of acceptance – he knew that things had turned to shit, but no longer cared. The shotgun butt smashed into his face, crushing his nose flat. I pulled back for a second strike and brought the gun down with even more force, this time breaking his jaw and putting him out for the count.
Dandridge managed to wrestle the gun from Gillan’s hands, but was having trouble positioning himself to fire off a shot. The problem was that every time he moved, the pain from his leg prevented him from tilting his body and he collapsed back on top of Gillan in a screaming, sweat-soaked heap.
“John?”
“What?” Dandridge replied, mumbling into Gillan’s T-shirt.
“Look at me.”
He turned his head. Our gazes locked. I raised the gun butt, so he got a good view of it. “Remember this?” I said and slammed the stock into his face until he was unconscious.
I pulled Dandridge off Gillan and threw him on the carpet, then looked around the room for something that could be use
d to cut my brother loose. I pulled at the drawers of a small cupboard unit near the unconscious Gillan and rifled through them.
A figure appeared at the corner of my eye. I stopped what I was doing, spun in its direction and held my breath. It was the figure of a small, pretty girl, just out of her teens, with blonde hair that had been pulled back tightly and bunched in a long, floppy ponytail. There was a flustered expression on her pink face, and she was breathing heavily. The fact that we’d overpowered Dandridge and her boyfriend must have caught her by surprise, because she was only wearing a bra and panties. It looked like she’d been caught in the middle of getting changed.
But that wasn’t the reason I stopped moving.
It had more to do with the semi-automatic that she had in her hands.
“Either of youse two move an inch and I’ll fuckin shoot you,” she said, her tone icy.
My eyes drifted down to the breasts that were barely contained by her bra.
“If my dick moves, does that count?”
19.
“If your dick moves I’m gonna shoot it off,” she said, taking a step into the living room.
“Good luck with that,” my brother said. “‘Cause it’s a pretty fuckin’ small target.”
I told him to go forth and multiply.
“Why don’t the pair of youse do me a favour and shut the fuck up?” Her voice broke for the first time, and I could tell that she was very scared despite all the bravado.
The girl twitched the gun back and forth in her attempt to cover us. Her eyes flicked left and right and her lips trembled and she jabbed the weapon at us like it was a dagger. I could see that she had no idea how to use the gun, which made her more dangerous – her finger was tight around the trigger and she was just one small scare away from pulling it.
The Curious Case of the Missing Moolah (A Stanton Brothers thriller) Page 9
