by Darren Dash
I looked around the office.
“You could tie me up,” Brue said, and his reading of my intentions was starting to irritate me, “but you’ve no idea what my itinerary for the rest of the day might be like, if some of my guys are due to drop by and pick me up. If I’m freed before you make it to the rendezvous, I’ll ring Rabbit and it’s game up.
“Let this go,” he said as kindly as he could. “She was dead the minute she returned to London. Hell, she was dead the minute she took up a gun as a kid and found it a comfortable fit. You can’t save the damned, Eyrie Brown.”
I went on staring at him. He was right. I couldn’t kill him, and leaving him tied up here was too much of a risk. That left…
I hurried to the desk, mindful of the passing seconds, and rooted through the drawers. Found a roll of masking tape.
“Hands behind your back,” I ordered.
His smile slipped. This wasn’t what he had expected.
“You’re fucking joking, aren’t you?” he snapped.
“You’re coming with me. Hands.”
“Brown, think about what you’re doing. I like you. I brought you in on this to reward you. Don’t make an enemy of me now.”
“Your hands,” I barked.
Lewis Brue tapped his chin with two heavy fingers, then turned and crossed his hands behind his back. I frisked him, took his gun away, then wound the tape tightly round his wrists.
“This is the wrong play,” he said politely but angrily.
“Maybe,” I conceded, “but it’s the only play I can make.”
We marched down the stairs, out the front door and into Mickey Goodnews’ car, Brue in the passenger seat beside me. I started the engine and looked sideways at him. “I don’t want a long discussion. If you start yapping, I’ll tape your mouth shut and stick you in the boot. Are we clear?”
“You’re the boss,” he said with a sneer.
I put my foot down and aimed for the East, and we sped through the city like the devil himself was hot on our scorching tail.
I took every shortcut I could imagine, and went against traffic on a few one way streets, figuring they’d be largely free of cars this late on a Sunday. I made it across the city faster than I ever had before, and as we closed on our destination I spotted a car ahead of us, turning off to the left.
“Is that them?” I asked, slowing down.
Brue squinted. “Perhaps. They’re too far ahead to be sure.”
“But that’s where Jeb Howard is supposed to be waiting, right?”
“I think so,” he said sourly.
Good enough for me. I zipped along until I came to the place where the car had turned. There was a footpath, then a wire fence that ran all the way along this stretch, trees and bushes growing behind it. A section of the fence had been pinned back to create an opening, and I could see tyre tracks advancing through the bushes, which grew thinly here.
I pushed through slowly, the bushes parting around the car. There was a large area of barren land just beyond, more trees and bushes on the far side, an old road cutting through them. I could see Rabbit’s car just disappearing from sight down the road. He was going at a crawl, so I crawled too.
I checked the gun while I was covering the last short stretch. I hadn’t thought to reload after the Smurf incident, so I ejected the magazine and replaced it with a fresh clip.
“That thing was empty?” Brue barked.
“Maybe, maybe not,” I smiled. “But it sure isn’t empty now.”
“Fuck!” He thrust forward in his seat, as though to headbutt the window, but stopped short and sat back. “You’re some chancer, Brown,” he said with grudging respect. “I’m liking you more and more. What say we turn round and forget this? You were under a lot of pressure. You weren’t thinking straight. I can forgive.”
“I told you I didn’t want to hear you talking,” I growled.
“We’re practically there now. What harm can a few words do?”
“None to me. Plenty to you. Shut it. I’m trying to concentrate.”
There was a large quadrangle beyond the trees, surrounded by shrubbery on all sides. A limo was parked in the middle. Four men were standing by it, one slightly ahead of the other three.
Rabbit had parked close to the limo. He and Toni were out and walking. Her hands were behind her back and her head was hanging low. Rabbit glanced over his shoulder when he heard my car but Toni’s head never moved.
I stopped behind Rabbit’s car and got out. The four men by the limo were staring at me curiously. They could see the fuming Lewis Brue and were no doubt wondering what he was doing here. The middle-aged guy in front – Jeb Howard, I assumed – turned to address his men. None of them looked overly alarmed. They weren’t expecting an ambush.
I drew the Hi-Power and fired. Aimed low, for their legs. Didn’t want to kill unless I had to.
I hit one of the guards and he went down screaming. The others cursed, pulled their weapons and shot at me. Bullets ripped into the concrete floor around me and a couple whizzed by my ears. I was exposed, one against three, terrible odds, but there was nothing I could do except keep firing and advancing, and pray that I got lucky.
I winged another guard and dared to start hoping. But then a bullet struck my right forearm and the Hi-Power flew from my hand as it was snapped backwards.
The men smiled mercilessly, held fire and shifted their feet to take more careful aim. I knew I was finished and prepared myself to die.
Before I could make my peace with any gods who might have tuned in for the show, Jeb Howard’s chest exploded in a burst of red and he slumped without even a scream. The guards flinched and stared, shocked, no idea what was happening. I didn’t know either, but when I switched my focus from Jeb Howard and his men to Toni and Rabbit, it all became clear.
Rabbit was standing tall, a gun in hand.
And so was Toni.
It had been a ruse. Her hands had been free the whole time. This was a trap, but not the one Jeb Howard had been expecting. Toni wasn’t being delivered. She had been sent to make a delivery.
Jeb Howard’s guards fell fast, ripped apart by a shower of bullets. I scrabbled for my gun and picked it up with my left hand, in case my assistance was required, but I needn’t have bothered. Their hesitation had robbed them of any chance they might have stood, and they never even got to return fire. They died like spasming puppets, along with the one that I’d downed, falling in a lifeless heap next to their slain master.
Toni pranced ahead and danced round the corpses in her slippered feet. She was grinning, though she still looked drawn and exhausted. She put a bullet through each man’s head, two through Jeb Howard’s, just to be absolutely certain.
“Nice timing, Eyrie,” she crowed, starting towards me. Rabbit fell in line just behind her. “Rabbit bet me you’d show up. I told him this wasn’t your scene, but I guess he –”
“Toni!” I yelled, my left arm locking hard to point the Hi-Power.
Her eyebrows furrowed and she started to turn. Stopped when she felt the barrel of Rabbit’s gun dig into her neck.
“Drop it,” he ordered and she obeyed immediately, letting her weapon fall as if it was hot and burning her fingers.
Rabbit smiled at me over Toni’s shoulder. Wasn’t fazed by the weapon that I had trained on him.
I heard the passenger door of Mickey’s car open, then slam shut.
“What now, Mr Brue?” Rabbit shouted.
I didn’t turn, but took a step to the side, keeping the gun on Rabbit, shifting my head slightly in order to cover both angles.
Lewis Brue was out of the car and tearing off the last strands of tape. He had a small knife in his right hand. Must have been hiding it up a sleeve. It never even crossed my mind to properly pat him down. I rid him of his gun in the bookies, thinking that was all I had to worry about. But Brue either kept a knife secreted out of habit, or had foreseen the way this might go and packed the knife especially for the occasion.
; Rubbing his hands together to get the circulation flowing, Brue leant against the bonnet and gave the scene a once-over, taking in the corpses, Toni, Rabbit, me.
“Now?” Brue smiled, answering Rabbit’s question. “Now we tell Eyrie Brown the real story. After all he’s been through, and the role he’s played in helping us get to this point, I believe he’s entitled to it.”
And out it all came, the whole damn stinking truth.
FOURTEEN — ANSWERS
“You were on the right track back in the bookies,” Brue said, striding across the opening to take the gun from the dead Jeb Howard’s hand.
“How so?” I asked as he checked to make sure the gun was still loaded — he’d obviously learnt his lesson earlier.
“Me telling you to leave Toni in your apartment.” He tutted. “As if I’d really make a mistake like that.”
My eyes narrowed. “You knew Smurf would come for her?”
“Given the number of witnesses in DEL’S, even an idiot like Smurf would have tracked you down eventually,” he chuckled, “but I couldn’t rely on him to find out your identity and hot-tail it over there in time. He needed a nudge.”
I thought it over and let out a deep breath. “You sicced Smurf on her. When I rang and told you all that had happened, you lured me out for a meeting, and at the same time passed my details on to Smurf and sent him over to my place, knowing what he’d find there.”
“Guilty as charged,” Brue smiled.
“Why?”
“You’re smart. Figure it out.”
“Why?” I shouted, and almost swung my gun on him. Caught myself in time. If I did that, Rabbit would have a clear shot, and I was sure he wouldn’t hesitate to take it. I wasn’t naïve enough to believe that Brue was telling me all of this for fun, like a big-mouthed Bond villain. He was trying to create an opening, so they could drop me.
“I wanted him to have her,” Brue said.
“You bastard,” Toni hissed.
Brue shrugged. “Sorry, my dear, but it’s a bastard’s world.”
“You promised you wouldn’t double-cross me,” I said softly. “When I accepted the job, I warned you not to cross me.”
Brue nodded. “And I’m a man of my word. I crossed Toni, not you. I could have left you there for Smurf, but I tempted you out to keep you alive. I thought, when you returned and found her gone, you’d call me with the bad news, then bail. I’d have pretended to curse the fates, thanked you for your help, and that would have been that. I never expected you to pursue her like an action movie hero and get dragged in this deep.”
I frowned. “But you offered me more money to continue.”
“A scam, to make you believe I truly wanted what was best for her. I knew she’d be gone when you got home, so in the unlikely event that you accepted my offer, I assumed you’d rue the loss and refund the money. I’d have reluctantly allowed you to repay me, and again, that would have been that.”
“Why call Smurf?” I asked. “Why have one of your own kidnapped and tortured? I thought the idea was to protect her.”
“No.” Brue’s smile faded. “That was never the idea. That was subterfuge, a way to get her into London while maintaining my distance. I wanted to keep her alive until the proper time, but her death was always on the cards. Hers and Howard’s.”
“I thought you two were close.”
“Me and Howard?” He looked surprised.
“You and Toni.”
“Oh. Sure.” He shrugged. “But like she said, I’m a bastard. I didn’t want to kill her, but she was the only way I could get to Jeb Howard, so she was a pawn I had to sacrifice.”
“I’m nobody’s fucking pawn,” Toni spat.
“Yet here you are,” Brue said pointedly, then sighed. “I was forced to act to get Howard out of the way. Our territories and business interests had overlapped. We were heading for a long, messy war, and I wasn’t lying when I said it wasn’t a war I could win. One of us had to go.
“I could have kept it basic and paid one of my guys to gun Howard down,” Brue continued, “but he’s a popular leader, unlike Smurf, and his people would have come looking for revenge. The war I’d been hoping to avoid would have found me regardless. I had to kill him, that was a no-brainer, but I couldn’t be linked to his death, so I decided –”
“– to use Toni,” I cut in, starting to see how it was meant to play. “An out-of-towner. An old enemy of Howard’s. You trick her into coming to London, keeping her link to you a secret from everyone, so it looks like her being here is nothing to do with you. Then you contact Jeb Howard and tell him she’s fallen into your lap and you’re handing her over to him as a peace offering, but in reality it’s an ambush and you let her kill him. Right?”
He tipped an imaginary hat in my direction. “It wasn’t quite that simple, but you’ve got the general gist. The tricky thing was, if anyone knew I’d brought her back or been in contact with her while she was here, it wouldn’t work. That’s why I had to use a real outsider — you. Nobody could trace you to me. It was supposed to look like she came to London just to see Eyrie Brown. People would assume you were lovers or old friends.
“So she hits town, shacks up with you, gets seen in a few places — I told her to keep her head down, but I knew she wouldn’t listen. It didn’t matter if the people in the dives you took her to didn’t know who she was. As long as they saw you together, they’d be able to ID her from photos when Howard’s men came asking, as they will, checking their facts, getting everything straight.
“I’ve a couple of inside men on Howard’s crew.” Brue sniffed. “No great coup, I’m sure he’s got a few among my guys too. They were part of my plan, the only ones who knew what was going on, except for Rabbit, who helped me come up with the scheme in the first place.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” Rabbit snickered, no longer pretending to be just a plain henchman.
“My guys were going to pretend that someone had tipped them off about seeing Toni with you,” Brue continued. “They’d have sneaked into your apartment in the dead of night, knocked you out in your sleep – I told them not to kill you, because I really do like you – and made off with Toni. They’d have taken her to Howard, and because he thought they were his boys, he wouldn’t have been wary. He’d have got up close, to kill her himself. One of my guys would have pulled a knife and slit his throat. Then they’d have gunned down Toni, slipped the knife into her hand and pinned the blame on her.”
“Clever little bastard,” Toni muttered admiringly.
I knew he was bullshitting when he said he would have had me knocked out in my sleep. His men would have killed me, to ensure I couldn’t talk. But I figured it would do no harm to let him believe that I believed the lie. The more gullible he assumed I was, the more chance I had of maybe turning the tables on him and getting out of this alive. So I held my tongue and let him rumble on.
“Howard’s men would have been shaken,” Brue said, “but they knew Toni from way back, how skilled and deadly she was. They’d have been pissed at my guys for not frisking her more effectively, but they’d have believed their story and it would have been dismissed as a freak, unplanned assassination. Howard’s successor – a man more open to dialogue and compromise than Jeb – would have taken over. I’d have let a suitable period of mourning pass before opening communications with him, and everything would have been rosy.”
“But then Golding Mironova spotted Toni,” I murmured, piecing it together as he fed the information to me.
“Right,” Brue said.
“And that threw you.”
He snorted. “No. That was a gift from the heavens. My plan would have worked, but there were holes. Howard’s men might have interrogated my guys, demanded to know the name of the person who’d tipped them off. Or they could have gone after you, to determine exactly why Toni had come to London.”
That confirmed what I’d suspected, that he couldn’t have afforded to let me live, but again I said nothing, not acting a
s if he’d given himself away.
“My plan was by no means flawless,” Brue said humbly. “It was simply the best I could muster, until Golding turned up.” He laughed. “I love it when I catch a lucky break. The way things turned out, it looked like Toni had come to London to kill Golding Mironova. It gave her a solid reason to be here. It also meant that my guys could say they’d been at DEL’S, that they’d followed the pair of you back to your place, so there was no need for an imaginary grass.”
“Perfect,” I sneered. “So why didn’t you let them grab her there as planned? Why bring Smurf Mironova into the equation?”
Brue rolled his eyes. “Toni’s knife was a weak link. My guys letting her get close to him with a weapon… They’re professionals who shouldn’t make a mistake of that magnitude. It happens, even with the best of men, and I thought their story would be taken at face value – Toni’s always been resourceful, and I was pretty sure they’d accept the fact that she’d simply been a bit sharper than the men who’d brought her in – but it was a risk.
“When you rang to tell me what had happened with Golding, I saw a better way to take out Howard without compromising my guys on the inside. I had to come up with the plan at lightning speed – I had just a vague idea of how it might play out when I was talking with you on the phone, and only properly worked it into shape while you were on your way to meet me – but I’ve always been quick at thinking on my feet.
“I told my men to stay put, not to target Toni, then rang Smurf Mironova to tell him I knew where the mystery woman’s driver lived. I masked my voice, pretended to be a punter from DEL’S, said I wanted revenge for his sister, but also a bag full of cash, which he was to deposit in a bin behind DEL’S — if he made the payment, that’s still sitting there, though I doubt he did, cheap little hoodlum that he was.
“I knew Smurf would go crazy when he saw Toni, that he’d drag her away to wreak a terrible revenge — that’s the sort of melodramatic thug he was. He never just killed if he could torture first. Once he had her, my guys were going to go to Jeb Howard and tell him a mole had told them she was being held by Smurf. Jeb would have wanted her for himself, so he’d have gone looking to make a trade. My guys would have driven him. Jeb wouldn’t have foreseen any problems. The likes of Smurf Mironova always cave in to a man of Jeb Howard’s stature.
