Die Tryin' (37 page)

‘Niko?
I-I don’t understand,’ Charlie stammered, his head twitching in the gloom.

‘I didn’t want any of this, Charlie,’ Nick responded. ‘You have to understand—it’s all about the money. Always just about the money. Nothing personal.’

‘Nothing personal? I’d say you threatening me with a gun is very fucking personal, Nick! What the hell is going on?’

‘Just give me the bag, Charlie,’ Nick repeated, and curled his fingers in again.

‘Are you out of your head? I just told you that Marco is willing to let this lie if we just put the jewels back where we got them from. Why do you want to make things worse?’

Nick gave Charlie a wry smile and began shaking his head. ‘You still don’t get it do you, Charlie?’ he said, rolling his eyes. ‘After all this time, you still don’t get it…
God, I’m so smart I scare myself sometimes…’

‘What are you talking about?’ Charlie asked, bemusement stamped all over his face.

‘There is no fucking Marco, Charlie.’ Nick stated flat out. ‘There never was. He’s dead,’ he added, and waved his gun on the air, and for a split second, Charlie thought it was going to fire.

Did Nick even know how to use it properly?

‘It was
me
fucking with your head,’ Nick then said tapping his forehead with his index finger.

Charlie squinted and turned his head to the side. He peeked incredulously at Nick through slitted eyes. ‘But I
saw
him. I
spoke
to him.
He
spoke to me.’

Nick shook his head. ‘It wasn’t him. It was a look-a-like.’

‘A look-a-what?’
Charlie exclaimed. ‘What are you on about? He told me I had to come here with the jewels, and that I had to put ’em back, and everything would end.’

‘I told him to tell you that,’ Nick said matter-of-factly.

‘Well what about Taki then?’ Charlie asked. ‘Marco told me he was gonna kill Taki before he did it, and that I had to bring his body here and put it in the tomb. He told me to ring Tony in Thailand and tell him he was back. He gave me Tony’s number!’

‘It was a fucking look-a-like, Charlie!’ Nick repeated forcefully. ‘I gave Tony’s number to him once I got it off Maria.’

Charlie stopped speaking for a second. Then: ‘A look-a-like? Who?’

‘One of my dealers,’ Nick replied. ‘You wouldn’t believe how much that Marco prick looked like him. Un-
fucking
-canny! When you first spotted him at the fair, I thought it was him! It was perfect, Charlie. Fucking perfect, like it was meant to happen. An opportunity to good to miss. So, I paid him to follow you, man, paid him to tell you these things so you’d go and do ’em. Even got him to apply a henna tattoo to help fool you.’

‘You
what?’
Charlie bellowed.

Nick nodded. ‘Yeah. And it was his idea to lace your drugs.’

‘Lace my drugs? What do you mean lace my drugs?’

‘Dramamine,’ Nick answered monotone, and Charlie stared back at him nonplussed. ‘It’s a deliriant,’ Nick added.

Charlie just carried on staring blankly back at him, blinking.

‘Argh! It don’t matter, Charlie,’ Nick said angrily, waving his gun on the air. ‘It’s what I’ve been putting in your speed; Tony’s coke; Nick Black’s puff. Makes you see and believe in things that aren’t really there, Charlie. Things that are playing on your mind—like murdered Marcos and vengeful ghosts. You lot were dosed
just
enough so you wouldn’t know what was real and what wasn’t!’

Nick took in a deep breath as if to control the energy he was releasing with this confession. After all this time it was finally being let loose, like steam from popping the lid on a pressure cooker after ten hours on high heat. ‘Yeah, I milked the situation where I could like giving that kid at the wedding a fiver to go and say some shit to Tony, but the other stuff you’ve all been seeing is down to the drugs.
And I know for a fact you’ve all been seeing something…’
Nick sighed again. ‘I knew you had something like that going on from a long time ago, Charlie. I used to catch you talking to yourself when you thought no one was looking. But, I quickly realised you weren’t talking to yourself, you were talking to
someone
… At least that’s what you thought. And so I realised I could exploit that and…’ Nick shrugged. ‘That’s that, man.’

Charlie scanned the floor as if searching for answers, the sudden truth hitting him like a runaway train. ‘You mean you,
you manipulated me
…’

‘It’s called compartmentalisation, Charlie. The CIA do it all the time. They get a useful idiot to do all the dirty work for ’em, then burn him when the job’s done. Think Lee Harvey Oswald and Osama Bin Laden.’

Charlie stared at him head on, suddenly the pieces fitting together to finally complete the sorry jigsaw, only to find that the finished picture was of himself, a dunce’s cap pushed down hard on his head, being buggered by a grinning Nick Theodorou in a pink cowboy hat, the words
YOU’RE MY USEFUL IDIOT, BITCH!
embossed across the top. ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa,’ Charlie said, cutting his hand across the air. ‘Give me a minute to just work this out.
You
made me call Tony and tell him that Marco was after him, which in turn made him jump off that balcony?
You
-
you
killed Taki? You killed him and made me help you bring him here to bury him? Is that what you’re saying?’

‘I
didn’t kill anyone, Charlie,’ Nick replied short and sharp. ‘I paid someone to do it.’ He took in a deep breath. ‘Look. Regardless of the bling, Taki had to go. Think about it logically for just a second. He was gonna grass us all up to Old Bill and that would have put
you
behind bars as well as me, Nick Black and Tony,
can’t you see that?
And Nick Black went Judas on us all. Prick deserved to go just for doing that!’

‘What do you mean
deserved to go
? You killed him too?’

Nick tutted and shook his head. ‘I told you I didn’t kill anyone. I paid the look-a-like to ram Carla’s car into that telephone pole…’

‘Christ…’
Charlie reflected. ‘You really are a sneaky fucking prick…’

Nick shrugged and then nodded. ‘Yeah, I’m a fucker, Charlie…’

Then a more pertinent thought came into Charlie’s mind, and he had to ask the question. ‘Why didn’t you just have us all killed at the same time then? Why make up all this Marco
skata
? Driving me out of my mind? Why put me through that?’

‘Would look a bit strange wouldn’t it, if you
all
dropped off
all
at the same time apart from me, and then I suddenly come into a shitload of money? Nah, I had to wait it out, play it like a game of chess.

I also wanted the price of gold to go up as much as possible before I cashed it in, so it made sense to hold out. But in the end, after Tony left and you were out of the picture, our business was about to go under, and I needed a home for my family. Sitting on ’em any longer wasn’t a viable option, so I had to cash ’em in.

Besides, believe it or not, I actually didn’t want it to go this far. I genuinely wanted us three—me, you and Tony to share the money, three ways was much better than the original six, so I was happy with that. But, we took a massive hit on the bling.
A massive hit…’

Then Nick’s words triggered something else in Charlie’s mind, and it suddenly released a wave of anger inside him. His top lip curled back in disgust. ‘Now I realise why you got me to phone Tony. With him out of the way, you could have Maria all to yourself.’

‘Do you blame me, Charlie? Think Tony would have been happy about me with his sister? You know how crazy he was when it came to her. But, by then, Tony was past the point of no return. The coke and all the Marco stuff sent him over the edge.

And he had a will, believe it or not. Wrote it before he fucked off to Thailand ’cos he knew his days were numbered. Left any money he had in the bank to Maria. Seventy odd grand in total.
He must have gone through shitloads out there…’
Nick shook his head ruefully as he spoke.

‘You probably don’t give two fucks about her do you?’ Charlie then said, hate stamped on his face. ‘It’s just convenience. Beautiful Greek bird, who’s about to inherit a small fortune.’

Nick gave him a smug, self-serving look. ‘It’s all in the game, Charlie.
All in the game…
This is life.
It’s about survival.
It’s as simple as that. It was an opportunity too good to miss. I couldn’t let it pass me by.’

Charlie’s bottom lip began trembling in anger. This person,
this thing
, who he once called a friend, once would have risked his life for, was nothing but a lowlife; a sleaze; a degenerate. Nick just stared smugly back at him, proud of his work, proud of his ‘plan’ and how he pulled it off, and that’s what sickened Charlie the most.

He felt his hands curl up into fists and push tightly into his thighs. ‘You know, Tony might have done some sick, unforgivable shit in his time, but one thing he never did was hurt his friends or family. You’re scum, Nick. Proper scum.’

Nick closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘It’s all about the money, Charlie. You think things come cheap? Houses; cars; furniture; babies. They all cost money. I ain’t like you who still lives with his mum. You just don’t understand how it is…’

‘I understand,’ Charlie replied, nodding his head. ‘I understand that you’re a greedy motherfucker with the moral fibre of a leech.’

Nick sighed. ‘Yeah, I don’t blame you for thinking that. I would prefer it if we were on good terms before you left this planet,
but what can you do?’

‘Is that your plan is it? Kill me?’

‘No. You’re gonna give me the bag; I’m gonna leave here, and then lock the door.’

‘And then what are you gonna do? Leave me here to rot?’

‘Nah. Some naughty people who you don’t wanna fuck with are gonna come by and clean up, ’cos that’s what they do, Charlie, they clean up, get rid of evidence. And they’re good, fucking good, as you lot have found out so far. So, you can make this easy or you can make it difficult. The choice is yours.’

He held out his free hand higher and beckoned again for the bag. Charlie held it in the air by his side.

‘I’ll rip it out of your dead hand, Charlie, believe me,’ Nick said in a cold voice, but that tone was betrayed by his trembling hand.

‘You’re shaking a bit there, Nick,’ Charlie goaded him. ‘Why don’t you come and get the bag if you want it so badly? Come on…’

‘Don’t fuck around, Charlie! Just give me it,’ Nick ordered and moved closer.

‘You know what I think?’ Charlie asked as he moved to the side and away from Nick, still holding the bag out in the air by his side, the tomb that held three bodies and a skeleton separating them both. ‘I think you ain’t got the balls to shoot me, you always pay someone else to do it!’

Charlie grinned as he spoke, his eyes wide and gleaming. He now knew the truth. The truth he would take to his grave, whenever that time may be.

Nick pointed the gun more threateningly, his lips pulled back into a snarl, and for a split second he was the spitting image of his old dog, Snoop. He smelt gold the way Snoop smelt bitches and when they got the scent, nothing could stop them, they became something else, the way Tony used to switch when he went crazy.

Charlie jumped to the side, craned his neck forwards and let his tongue loll out of his mouth and hang there, like an All Black performing the Haka.

He was goading Nick, and Nick didn’t like it.

‘JUST GIVE ME THE FUCKING BAG, CHARLIE, YOU SCHIZO!’ Nick shouted.

He went to lunge for it when an abrupt sound in the outside world made him stop dead in tracks like he was playing reverse musical statues. Except, this melody was an unpleasant sound that made his ears prick.

And then Charlie could hear it, clear as day. It was a siren. A police siren, screaming at them louder and louder from outside. Getting closer and closer. Nick’s eyes widened to the point of popping out of his skull. He looked around him frantically as if the walls were starting to close in, his mind whipped up into an analytical frenzy. He looked up to meet Charlie’s stare, his facial features developing into a frown, and Charlie could see the realisation in his eyes.

‘What the fuck did you do, Charlie?’ he gasped, suddenly concerned, very, very concerned.

And before either of them could utter another word, the mausoleum door burst open, harsh light from outside spilling in, making Nick spin round and squint. He lifted his hands to his face, just as uniforms came bustling inside the tight space, shouting, blocking the light with their bodies. The expression embedded on Nick’s face at that moment would be branded on Charlie’s mind forever. It was the face of someone who had lost, who had been caught red handed, who knew the game was up and couldn’t accept the fact. And Charlie liked it. Savoured it like watching a beautiful sunset.

A copper raced up behind Nick and grabbed his arm before he had a chance to react. Nick let out a small groan as it was twisted behind his back and the gun fell from his grip. His face was contorted in pain.

‘Not looking so smug any more,
re Niko
…’ Charlie said to him, a snarl of hate on his own face, just as another copper came racing up behind him and grabbed his arm, making him groan and double over in submission. When he looked up, he saw the whole area outside swarming with police, all shouting, all hustling, all bustling.

‘Open that tomb!’ Charlie shouted over his shoulder to the copper bending his arm back. ‘Open it and you’ll find the bodies! They’re all in there!’

‘Shut the fuck up, Charlie, or I’ll cut your fucking tongue out!’ Nick shouted from his bent over position.

Charlie ignored him. ‘There’s two bodies in there that shouldn’t be there.
We
put ’em there.’

‘Charlie! You’re fucking killing us. Why are you doing this?’ Nick pleaded.

Charlie craned his neck forwards, the veins on his neck pulsing, ready to burst. Just a short distance now separated their faces.
‘He
told me what you were doing, Nick!’ he said quietly.

Nick became still.