CHERUB: Mad Dogs (21 page)

‘So are we just gonna drive around all night?’ James asked.

Wheels smiled. ‘I’ve had a little scam on the cards for a few weeks now, but I need an extra body to pull it off. Take a look in the glove box.’

James flipped it open and looked suitably impressed when he saw a large Glock handgun. ‘Nice piece.’

‘Cheers,’ Wheels said, ‘but I was actually talking about the plastic card.’

James picked the card out of the glove box. It was silver, with a picture of a revolving door and the words
Ambassador Suites
written at the top.

‘Hotel room key,’ James said, as he turned it over in his hands. ‘So what?’

‘It’s a brand-new hotel down in the city,’ Wheels explained. ‘The cheapest rooms are four hundred a night and the suites are nearer to two grand. That card you’re holding is a duplicate of the hotel manager’s key. It lets you into every single room.’

‘Cool,’ James said, glancing at his watch. ‘But won’t everyone be in their rooms at this time of night?’

‘Absolutely,’ Wheels smiled. ‘That’s the whole point.’

The traffic was light but it still took an hour to drive from Bedfordshire to the Ambassador Hotel, built amidst the office towers in the City of London.

‘Just be confident,’ Wheels said, as they headed towards the revolving doors with baseball caps pulled over their heads. ‘Place like this is gonna have security cameras everywhere, so move fast and keep your head pointing towards your feet.’

A blast of warm air hit the pair as they passed into the lobby. An elderly couple stood around a mound of designer luggage waiting for a car to pick them up. The gent wore a Rolex and the lady had diamonds the size of marbles over her wrinkled fingers.

‘You can smell the money in this joint,’ Wheels said happily as they waited for the lift.

The reception was at ground level, but most of the tower block was office space and the hotel rooms didn’t start until the 33rd floor. Wheels pressed the button marked
Suites 38
, but the light wouldn’t come on and the doors stayed open.

James felt edgy as a hotel employee in a black suit walked towards them. ‘Can I help you gentlemen?’ he asked.

‘I need the thirty-eighth floor,’ Wheels said.

The employee nodded. ‘May I see your room key?’

Wheels handed the plastic card over and the hotel employee pushed it into a slot above the lift buttons.

‘There you go, sir.’

‘Ahh,’ Wheels said innocently. ‘I didn’t realise. The bell boy must have done that when we went up with our luggage earlier.’

‘Not a problem sir,’ the employee replied politely. ‘I hope you have a relaxing night.’

The high-speed lift made James queasy as it belted up to the thirty-eighth floor. He felt a bit scared as he saw the Glock bulging beneath the waistband of Wheels’ jeans. His own gun was back in his room at the Zoo.

They stepped out of the lift and Wheels handed James disposable gloves as they moved briskly over deep carpet. It was more than ten paces between each door, meaning the suites behind them had to be huge. But Wheels had an even grander ambition and kept going until they came to some double doors at the end of the hallway. The brass plaque on the door said
Room 38020: Winston Churchill Suite
.

‘Rich scum, here I come,’ Wheels chanted, as he pushed the plastic card inside the lock. It took a couple of seconds for the mechanism to work and Wheels ripped the gun out of his waistband as he stormed into the huge suite. But the bed was pristine and there was no sign of any luggage or personal items spread about.

‘Empty room,’ James said.

Wheels swore under his breath as he tucked the gun back inside his jeans and almost trod on James’ foot as spun around. ‘Look where you’re going,
kid
.’

James didn’t fuss over getting blamed as Wheels stepped back into the hallway and slotted the key card into the door of the nearest suite. This time he pushed the door and got hit by green light from a TV screen. As James stepped in, he noticed a woman standing in the bathroom wearing only knickers and a woolly mammoth on the bed in polka-dot boxers.

‘Where are you going, honey?’ the man asked, in an American accent; clearly thinking that the sound of the door was caused by his wife leaving. But he knew something was wrong when she screamed.

‘Get on the bed,’ Wheels ordered, as he pointed the gun in the woman’s face. ‘Now.’

‘Keep cool, boys,’ the man said, raising both hands in surrender as Wheels bundled the woman across the bed. ‘We don’t want any trouble.’

‘Nor do we,’ Wheels said as he opened up a large mirrored door and spotted the small electronic safe in the bottom of the wardrobe. ‘What’s the code?’ he demanded.

As Wheels unlocked the safe and retrieved a laptop and the lady’s diamond necklace, James walked around to the bedside table where he found a mobile phone, a wallet and the keys to a Lexus. James flipped the wallet open and showed Wheels the rack of bank cards inside.

‘He’s loaded,’ James said, as Wheels crammed the laptop and jewellery inside a Nike backpack, then aimed the gun at the lady.

‘I don’t see your purse,’ Wheels yelled. ‘Where is it?’

The woman sat with a luxurious satin pillow in her lap to shield her breasts. ‘Find it yourself,’ she spat, her body language indicating that she wasn’t too impressed by her husband’s meek surrender.

‘This says Patek Philippe,’ James said, as he picked up the man’s watch. ‘Never heard of it.’

Wheels laughed. ‘That’s because you can’t afford it. They’re dearer and more exclusive than a Rolex. Trouble is that makes ’em buggers to fence.’

James reached over and dropped the watch into a backpack as Wheels searched around for the purse. Finally, he lost patience and smashed the barrel of his gun into the woman’s face.

As she howled and sobbed, her husband pointed towards a yellow handbag resting in the gap between the mattress and the bedside table.

‘No,’ the woman gasped. ‘My grandmother’s brooch is in there. Please don’t take it.’

‘Your granny’s brooch,’ Wheels sneered. ‘Quite frankly, I don’t give a damn.’

The woman sniffled as Wheels ripped her purse from the bag and began inspecting her collection of plastic cards.

‘Very impressive,’ Wheels snorted. ‘Do you know, this card comes with a twenty-four-hour concierge service? That’s gonna come in handy for replacing all this stuff we’re stealing.’

‘You’ve got what you came for,’ the man said firmly. ‘Now why don’t you leave?’

Wheels broke into a nasty laugh as he ripped the hotel telephone out of the wall socket. ‘I’m afraid that we’re only just starting. What’s the registration of your car?’

‘Why do you need it?’ he asked.

Wheels looked at the woman. ‘Do you want me to smash her one?’

‘Seven one, D E F, two five nine.’

‘Right,’ Wheels said. ‘And is it parked down in the basement?’

The man nodded.

‘Valet or self-park?’

‘Self-park, basement level three outside the elevator.’

Wheels snapped the cord from the base of the handset and threw the length of telephone cord at James before pointing at the woman. ‘Tie her up.’

‘What are you doing?’ the man demanded.

‘It’s very simple,’ Wheels grinned. ‘You’re going to tell me the PIN numbers for all of your lovely cards. Once we’ve tied you up, I’m going downstairs to take your car. Then I’m gonna drive around London, stopping off at cash machines and drawing two-fifty or five hundred quid on every one of them. It should only take an hour or so, and my little pal will wait here pointing this gun at you. If you make a fuss or try to escape, or if it turns out that you told fibs when you gave me your PIN numbers, he’s gonna put bullets through both of your heads.’

James felt bad about tying the woman’s wrists together as Wheels made the man write a list of his own and his wife’s PIN numbers on Ambassador Hotel stationery.

‘Turn on to your stomach,’ James ordered, as the woman sobbed desperately.

James knotted flex around her ankles before trussing the wrists and ankles together and cramming one of her husband’s handkerchiefs in her mouth. The man scowled at James when he moved in to repeat the exercise, but gave in when Wheels squished the tip of his nose with the gun.

‘Any noise, any lies, any fuss and you’re both
dead
,’ Wheels grunted while James finished tying the couple up. Then he handed the gun to James. ‘You feeling OK?’

The Glock was heavy and James felt awful about the sobbing woman. But he nodded.

‘Don’t sweat it, I’ll call in about an hour and meet you back where we parked,’ Wheels said.

As Wheels walked out of the room James settled into an armchair and kept one eye on the couple as he tried to work out how much they’d stolen: the laptop was worth a few hundred, the watches, the woman’s jewellery, cufflinks plus the money Wheels was collecting from the cash machines and whatever the new Lexus was worth to a stolen car syndicate. All told it had to be the best part of ten grand and Wheels had promised James a share.

But crime didn’t look so good from the perspective of the woman trussed up on the bed with tears streaking down her face. James grabbed the remote and flicked the television from 24-hour news to VH1, but even when he turned the sound up he couldn’t not think about the two desperate humans less than three metres away from him.

Getting involved with Sasha’s crew was an essential part of the mission and there was no way to do that without getting involved in some bad stuff. But he did rummage through the backpack and drop the antique brooch on to the carpet.

*

James drove the Vauxhall to the outskirts of London and met up with Wheels, who’d dumped the Lexus in a side street. Apparently a friend in the motor trade was already on his way to collect it and it would be resprayed and shipped off to Eastern Europe within days.

Wheels had taken over two grand out of the cash machines and he gave James half, with a promise of more money when he’d been paid for the car and fenced the stolen gear.

‘You did good,’ Wheels said.

‘So can we do some more jobs together?’

Wheels nodded. ‘But not straight away. You’re only fifteen and I reckon that grand is going to burn a hole on your pocket. The Zoo is full of snitches, so take your time spending it and
don’t
go mouthing off.’

‘I’m not a
complete
idiot,’ James said.

‘Sasha’s short of bodies right now, so I’ll put in a word and see if he can find something more permanent for you.’

‘Cheers, and goodnight,’ James said as he popped the door of the car. But when he looked up at the sky he could see the sun coming up behind a line of houses. ‘Or maybe that’s good morning.’

James had left all the stolen stuff with Wheels for him to sell, but he patted the back pocket of his jeans to make sure that he had his wedge of money. It might have been half five in the morning, but the care worker stationed on the entrance didn’t bat an eye as James sauntered in. A couple who looked about thirteen were making out in the non-smoking lounge and a bunch of kids were watching a DVD and smoking in the other one.

But most people were asleep and James crept into the room to avoid waking Bruce. Unfortunately, his trainers made a racket as they crackled on the filthy vinyl floor.

‘What happened?’ Bruce whispered, as James pulled his shirt over his head.

‘Hotel robbery,’ James said, pulling the money out of his jeans and fanning it.

Bruce grinned. ‘I might just know why Wheels was so keen to take you out, even though he barely knows you.’

‘You reckon?’ James said.

‘I was speaking to Junior and there’s a rumour going around that Wheels isn’t exactly what you’d call a ladies’ man.’

‘You mean he’s gay?’

Bruce nodded. ‘It would certainly explain why he took a shine to your pretty blond head within about five minutes of meeting you.’

The idea that Wheels was attracted to him made James uneasy. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘If it’s true it’s kind of worked to our advantage, but he’d better not try anything. And speaking of people who keep things under their hat, what was going on out on that football pitch?’

‘I’ve always been good at football, but I’m not really into it.’

James shook his head in disbelief. Most boys would give
anything
to be that good at football. ‘You never practise or anything,’ he said. ‘If you did you’d be awesome.’

‘I’m a talented guy,’ Bruce said immodestly. ‘By the way, you might want to be careful when you climb into bed; there’s a couple of teeth around somewhere.’

James raised an eyebrow. ‘Teeth?’

‘Mark and Kurt came by again,’ Bruce explained. ‘They must have realised you were out and thought they’d stand a better chance if it was two against one. They were wrong,
obviously
…’

It was now Thursday, two weeks from the day Gabrielle had been stabbed. Michael Hendry sat in the Green Pepper café, his plate loaded with spiced chicken and macaroni. The place had been empty in the days after the murder of Owen Campbell-Moore, but custom had drifted back once the cops took down their cordons and stopped hassling everyone who came within a hundred metres.

The customers shot pool, dealt drugs and fattened the owner’s bank balance by stuffing coins into the fruit machines, while the radio was tuned to an internet station bringing news and music out of Kingston, Jamaica.

Michael might have had the same colour skin as the rest of the customers, but he was a middle-class English boy and he’d never have been able to infiltrate the Slasher Boys without Gabrielle’s authentic Jamaican heritage.

Michael glanced at his watch – a gold-strapped Bulgari which he’d bought off one of the Slasher Boys for less than a tenth of its legitimate value. Major Dee was forty minutes late, but that was normal. Making people wait around was Dee’s way of showing that his time was more important than yours and you showed respect by not complaining about it.

Michael was chewing the last piece of chicken off a drumstick when Dee finally pulled up outside in a Ford Mondeo. He had a mean-looking sidekick called Colin Wragg in the back. Dee owned some fancy cars, but the discreet wheels meant he was on serious business.