Wrecked, page 19
Amy sat down on the couch and I moved away from the play-pen to join her. ‘Kids, they’re the best, aren’t they?’
Nods.
‘You have a little corker there, Amy, you should be overjoyed.’
The sobs were still coming, she wiped a black smear on the sleeve of her dressing gown. ‘What a mess.’
I couldn’t see what had sparked all the upset, said, ’Is everything all right?’
‘I know some people think I’ve fucked up, but I don’t feel like that. Well, I didn’t until just now. You don’t know the pressure that’s on us—my generation—not to do this, not to have kids, but to go and chase career…’
I cut in, ‘Don’t pay attention to any of that shite.’
‘I don’t, usually. It’s just, you can’t get away from it. Everywhere I go, every TV show, every magazine article—it’s all about women with degrees and PhDs and flashy careers and they’re all saying how hard it is to find a decent man, so if they can’t find one then what chance have I got now?’
She didn’t strike me as all that needy. ‘Are you sure you want one?’
‘I have a child, Gus. I want to raise Evie in a proper family. I wouldn’t change my choices, but how was I to know she’d change me inside?’
‘You weren’t to know. And, let me tell you something, those career women that can’t find men that you read about, they’re not scaring men off for the reasons you think they are.’
‘They’re not?’ The tears receded.
‘No way. Men aren’t intimidated by hot-shot babes, they’re irritated by them. Who wants to spend their days with an egotistical bore that expects you to worship at the altar of her degree in Media Studies?’
Amy laughed. I thought Tony Robbins would be shitting himself if he heard this coming out of me—I had the motivational speaker gig pegged.
‘Amy, I’ll tell you what men want—a nice smile and a big heart and everything else is up for negotiation. Trust me, you’ve got absolutely nothing to worry about.’
As if to prove me right, she put on that nice smile of hers. I smiled back and then Amy took my hand. The moment altered when we touched and I feared the next contact would have deeper consequences.
I yanked my hand away.
Amy spoke, ‘Why didn’t we work things out, Gus?’
She’d utterly T-boned me. Had absolutely no hope of a coherent answer.
‘Well…’
‘Don’t dare say, “Is that the time?”…’
I took a look at my watch, made a show of changing tack. ‘Shit. You do make a good point, though. Look, I’ve something to tell you, Amy.’
I filled her in on the conversation with Fitz. About Mac being lifted and about my earlier encounter with Jonny Ladd. When I was finished, the poor girl looked like I’d buried her under a ton of bricks.
‘God help us.’
‘I’ve tried that, too.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing…I need you to do something for me.’
She perked up a little, always the action junkie. ‘Of course, name it.’
‘This new boss of yours, Stevie Fergusson.’
‘What about him?’
‘I need you to arrange a meeting, like yesterday.’
Her eyes rolled a little, gazing upwards towards the ceiling, where she seemed to locate her inspiration without too much effort. She leapt from the couch and took her mobi from above the fireplace.
‘I’ll put this on speaker-phone, so you can hear…’
Ringing.
‘Hi, is that you, Stevie?’
‘Yes, who’s calling?’
‘I’m sure you won’t be expecting this call but I just can’t help myself.’
‘Who is this?’
‘It’s Amy. I just started working on you, I mean for you.’
‘Oh, hello, Amy.’ His voice tilted into a curious tone. ‘And what can I do for you?’
She winked at me, a mischievous smirk creeping up her face. ‘I’m a very direct sort of girl, Stevie, so I’m just going to come out with this…’
He cleared his throat. ‘Erm, okay then.’
‘If I find myself attracted to a man I don’t like to mess about with all the stupid preamble that it usually entails. You must know what I mean.’
‘I-I think I do, Amy. Yes, I know what you mean.’
‘Since I saw you behind that desk of yours today, in your tight, white shirt, I’ve been fixating on one thing. Do you know what that is, Stevie?’
Stevie grew cockier, ‘Oh, maybe I can guess.’
‘I’m sure you can. I’m sure an experienced man of the world like you has no shortage of imagination, especially involving women.’
‘I’ve had no complaints, put it that way.’
‘Stevie, I don’t care where you put it. And I mean where. I just want it, right now, on that big desk of yours. Do you get me, Stevie? Do you want me, Stevie?’
‘I’m sure it can be arranged, Amy.’
‘One hour. I want you stripped and ready for action when I get to the office. I’ll be in my overcoat and silk hold-ups. Nothing else.’
‘One hour?’ he said.
‘If I can wait that long, Stevie.’
Hung up.
We laughed so hard that I thought I was in danger of doing myself some kind of injury. The girl had some moves. No question.
‘Sh-sh…we’ll wake the baby, Gus,’ she said. ‘Let me get dressed and I’ll call my mum to mind Evie.’
I put the brakes on. ‘No way.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I mean, there’s no way. I’ve put Hod and now Mac in the firing line already and there’s no way I’m doing the same to you.’
She looked angry, disappointed. Then she turned the situation to her advantage, said, ‘Aww, Gus, I didn’t know you cared.’
‘Really? I must be giving off all the wrong vibes.’
Amy put her hands behind her back, loped towards me, and placed a peck on my cheek. ‘Not any more, you’re not.’
I’d parked the Golf in Rossie Place, one of the side-streets off Easter Road. It was a bad spot to park, plenty of car windows getting spark-plugged for stereo removal, but it had one major advantage: access from the Abbeyhill colonies. The street was bumper to bumper, even a couple of DHL drivers doing deliveries whilst leaving the van running in the middle of the road. The jakies outside the mini-mart were looking curiously at the contents of the vans but were clearly too far gone to pose a threat.
I kept my head low. Was cool enough to put the Crombie on now—the collar went up on instinct. As I opened up the Golf I turned over the engine and prayed that Wally’s once-over hadn’t been another one of his fuck-ups. The engine purred to life, without even a splutter. I pinged the ciggie-lighter and pulled out.
I kept looking in the rearview, anticipating a couple of lardy plods to be in pursuit but nothing showed. I was in the clear, well, clear enough. I parked one street away from Mac’s shop and took the dark close to the back green. He had a planter that he kept a key under for emergencies and those late-night, back from the pub lock-ins.
There it was. ‘Bingo.’
I had as much chance of the filth being called now as I ever did. Looking rough as guts and sporting an edgy peering-over-my-shoulder-every-five-minutes twitch. In this part of Leith, break-ins were on the hour, two an hour on Saturdays, but thankfully I found my way into the backdoor without any interference and closed up behind me.
The light outside was fading and it was getting dark inside, but I didn’t want to put on the lights. I couldn’t risk being hauled in at this stage—I was the last shot for us all—before the buzzards descended. The thought that it had come to that didn’t sit well with me.
Flicked my Zippo and followed the thin blue flame towards the kitchenette. I opened the cupboard under the sink and spotted a tool box. Inside was a roll of duct tape. Pocketed it. And searched out a steel rule—it was just the size to slot in the loose floorboard that I’d been shown once before.
The floorboard hid an item that Mac had said was a “necessary evil” these days, but one I’d never had cause to test. Lifting this board was my break glass in case of emergency moment. I reached in and felt a cold, plastic carrier bag.
As I held the bag up it was heavier than I imagined and it made my breath still to think of the consequences of what I was doing. This alone was a locking-up offence. I dug in and retrieved the dirty oil-cloth, inside was Mac’s old Enfield revolver—fully loaded. It might have looked like a museum piece, but it could still tear you six new arseholes for suggesting it.
I tucked the shooter in my waistband and headed back to the car. There was a strange lightness in my step that might have been over-confidence or might have been my guts sensing a checkered flag.
Either way, there was no going back now.
I touched the handle of the shooter through my coat.
At least I had a fighting chance.
Chapter 33
I couldn’t, realistically, say that his failure to install a proper security system on office premises in the west end of Edinburgh was Stevie Fergusson’s first mistake. But it was one of them. A big one at that. Even a video-phone on the buzzer would have saved his randy old arse this time, but despite being blackmailed by Bunny and brushing shoulders with Jonny Ladd on a regular basis, the thought hadn’t occurred to this moron.
I heard the key turning in the Yale lock, just after the mortise slid, and I waited for the chain to be removed. He was talking, yakking away from the tip of his dick, probably expecting Amy to be there with her raincoat open—the goods on full display—as he went. It was difficult not to laugh, give myself away.
The chain dropped. In the same second, I put my boot into the doorframe and felt that familiar sensation of wood on bone. It wasn’t quite as sonorous as Hod’s hickory, but I’ll take whatever PVC-covered laminboard this was any day of the week.
The groan was uncomfortable to listen to. When I rushed the door, the sight of Stevie Fergusson’s doughnut-sized male pattern baldness winking at me was enough of a target for round two. I slapped the handle of the Enfield over his face and opened up a nice gash to match his bleeding nose.
‘Is that fucking tears?’ I said.
He was howling, worse than a bloody five-year-old that had come off his bike.
‘What kind of a man are you?’ I was ashamed to share the same gene-pool as this piece of shit. I grabbed his collar, kicked the door closed, and marched him through to the office.
He’d applied the same poor sense to his boudoir as he had his back entrance—though I’d want that sentence to be read carefully. A bottle of Talisker, an ice bucket, and a couple of nice glasses—the thick crystal jobs that I knew from experience went off like a ten-bob rocket when you threw them at the wall.
I threw one at the wall.
Hands shot to his head.
‘What the hell is this? What’s going on? I demand to know,’ said Stevie.
It was my turn to laugh now.
I tipped the ice-bucket over his head. ‘Polluting a good drop of malt with H2-fucking-O!’
He smarted, put out a hand to steady himself on a grey filing cabinet. Stevie Fergusson looked ready to keel already. I tucked the shooter back in my waistband and did my poor man’s Rutger Hauer from The Hitcher.
Paced. Gave Stevie some more time to build up a proper head of panic. I sensed him watching me as I went.
‘The night not working out quite how you planned it, Stevie boy?’
‘Y-you, know my name?’
‘I know quite a bit more than that, old son.’
He tensed, edged his backside onto the front of the desk. ‘Like what?’
‘Like, it wasn’t your arse you were expecting to see planted on that desk tonight. Sorry to break it to you, Stevie, but the only action your bollocks will get tonight are if I decide to use them for target practice.’
I opened my coat and gave the revolver another showing. His gaze followed my intent.
‘What do you want?’ he said.
‘Now, that’s an interesting opening gambit. You see, were I in your boots, sunshine, I think I might have been asking what the mad bastard in my midst had done with my proposed little fuck toy?’
‘Did you kill her?’
I nearly spewed my guffaw. ‘Are you for real? No, Amy’s fine, I’m sure you’d be glad to hear if you gave two shits for anyone other than yourself.’
He double blinked. His gaze shot to the door, eying his only escape route. But he decided against trying to outrun a bullet.
I walked in front of him, closed the door; it was more of a statement than a practical measure. When I got back to my side of the room I went over to the shitty John Bellany print that Amy had told me about—ripped it off the wall. In the absence of the print sat a beige-coloured safe, the whole works covered about the size of a sheet of A4.
‘Open it,’ I said.
‘So, that’s what this is about: money!’ He seemed disgusted.
Said, ‘Oh, you’ll wish that’s all it was.’
The grey features lost a few more shades. ‘What do you mean?’
Tipped my head. ‘Open it up. If you make me ask you again, you lose a kneecap, and gain a wheelchair for the rest of your days.’
‘You can’t get away with this, you know.’ He started to punch in the combination on a row of buttons like a telephone.
‘What makes you think I give two fucks about getting away? Do I look like someone who’s making plans for early retirement in Switzerland? No, I’m more your “born to lose” kinda cunt.’
He opened the safe and stepped back.
I looked inside. Couple of folders, some money bags, some manila envelopes. Turned and wiped my hand over the desk, pushing the laptop and a pretty little Ikea light onto the floor.
‘Empty it. Pile it up there.’
Stevie was sweating, a thin plumbline smeared down his back. His top-lip was so salty he couldn’t stop himself dabbing it with his tongue. I watched him empty the safe and pile the lot on the desk in front of me.
‘There’s over thirty-thousand in cash,’ he said. ‘Take it.’
I rummaged in the bank bags, ‘Oh, I think I will. Though, it’s not for me, you understand. I need this to pay someone off for one of your mistakes, a quite egregious one I might add.’
‘Pay who?’
‘Well, it wouldn’t be Bunny Veitch, because you’ve already paid him off, haven’t you now?’
He didn’t answer. I continued to rummage on the desk, found what I was looking for. I held up a black thumb-drive, ‘Pick up that laptop, I want to see what’s on this.’
He moved slowly, unsteadily. Stevie Fergusson was a man in a trance, watching the life he thought he had being flushed down the toilet as a fresh new hell opened up before him.
A silver apple appeared on the screen.
‘Sign in…’
He did as I told him. But there were no words now. The building could have started to crumble around us, I doubted there would have been words even then.
‘Give me it.’ I took the laptop and stuck the drive in the USB slot. It took seconds to produce a screenful of picture icons. I clicked on the first of the jpegs.
There’s a phrase, hear it all the time: You can’t unsee something.
I knew right away that I’d have that image of Stevie Fergusson, balls-deep, in a skinny little arse the second it appeared. I knew what to expect. This was a beat down, a serious demand for serious money. I’d been informed about the prostitute and expected the worst. I expected gore. What I didn’t expect was a girl of barely thirteen summers to be playing the lead role in this pathetic porn flick.
‘You utterly sick bastard,’ I said. I removed the pistol, pointed it to his head. None of this was planned, I was running on instinct from here and I was fired up to be capable of anything.
The hands went up again. As if that would make any difference.
I ran for him, pinned the snivelling bastard right against the wall.
‘Give me a reason, just one, why I shouldn’t put you down right here and now?’
I watched his eyes widen. I listened, but all I heard was the muffled sounds of a man choking on the business end of a revolver. I stepped back, but kept the sights between his eyes.
‘Speak, Stevie, or forever hold your peace.’
My pulse was ramping, my heart pounding high in my chest. It wasn’t easy to contemplate a killing, even killing a shit-stain like this.
‘You work for Jonny Ladd, don’t you?’ he said.
‘What in the name of Christ makes you think that?’
He licked his lips again, ‘Well, you mentioned Bunny, and he’s been paid.’
‘I see that.’ I tapped the screen of the laptop, ‘You wouldn’t have this otherwise.’
‘Look, I-I know about the other one…’
‘Who? Do you mean Lee Donald? What do you know?’
‘Yes, him. Lee Donald, that’s him.’
‘You know about Ladd and Donnie, then?’
He looked away, seemed to be struggling with his words. ‘I was there, the night he was…murdered.’
It made sense to me that Jonny would want to put the scare on Stevie, especially if he wanted his money back, and more so, if he wanted to find Bunny.
‘You must have had something that Jonny wanted?’
A slow nod. ‘Veitch, er, Bunny, as you call him.’
‘Well, why doesn’t Jonny have him, then? And how are you still walking the streets?’
‘It’s complicated. Bunny went awol after I paid him. Jonny let me pick up the debt.’
‘How much?’
He shrugged. ‘About sixty-grand.’
‘You paid him?’
‘Some. Not all. I was going to make another payment.’
I lowered the shooter, tucked it back in my waistband. My mind was doing loops. I had this fucker here, in front of me, spewing his guts up. But he was no use to me, I’d be as well wasting him and doing the world a favour.
I paced about, looked at the clock on the wall. I grabbed the cash-bags, bundled the lot together, and stuffed it in the poacher’s pocket of my Crombie. ’Well, this might buy me some time. Unfortunately, Stevie pal, time’s ran out for you.’
