Fair Game (10 page)

He let rip with a shotgun and blew the head off a gangster with a shaved head then shot him in the chest for good measure as he sank to his knees. ‘Yes!’ he shouted as he moved to the right and shot two thugs, one in the groin and one in the face.

‘Behind you!’ shouted Two Knives. ‘They come at you from behind!’

‘I know that, I know that,’ said Crazy Boy, reloading as he turned. He let rip at the three hoods who’d been coming up behind him. Blood sprayed across the street and the men fell back and smacked into the tarmac. ‘Die, you scumbags!’ he screamed.

He was sitting on a huge overstuffed sofa that had come with the house when he’d bought it. In fact all the furniture had come with the house, a five-bedroom mansion in one of the most expensive areas in Ealing, standing in two acres of immaculate gardens. The house had belonged to an Indian businessman who had left the country at short notice with an Inland Revenue investigation team hard on his heels. The house and contents had been put up for auction six months after the businessman had arrived in New Delhi and Crazy Boy had bought it through an offshore company, one of more than a dozen that he controlled. When he had moved in he hadn’t needed to bring anything other than his Xbox and collection of video games.

The Indian’s taste had been towards the ostentatious and the walls of the sitting room were decorated with ornate gilt mirrors and framed photographs of old sailing ships, which Crazy Boy had taken as a good sign, considering his chosen profession. His feet were resting on a huge piece of thick glass that lay on four large marble balls, which the estate agent said had been carved by an artisan outside Milan. Above were three large chandeliers that hadn’t been cleaned since Crazy Boy had moved in and were already covered with dust and cobwebs. At one side of the room, next to the French windows that led out to a paved terrace that ran the full length of the house, was a sideboard that would have looked at home in Versailles, not that Crazy Boy had ever heard of Louis XIV or his palace. On one end of the sideboard was a four-foot-tall glass sculpture of dolphins frolicking in white-tipped blue waves, and on the other was a porcelain figurine of a fairy-tale coach being pulled by four white horses. In the middle was a porcelain mermaid sitting in a mother-of-pearl-lined shell.

A biker waving a heavy chain came rushing out of an alley and Crazy Boy shot him in the chest and quickly reloaded. A black Humvee came roaring down the road and Crazy Boy let loose with the shotgun. The first shot took out the windscreen, the second blew the nearside front tyre and the third turned the head of the driver into a bloody mist. The BMW spun off the road and crashed into a shop window.

There were three cheap Nokia mobiles next to the Xbox and the one in the middle rang. ‘Get that, yeah,’ said Crazy Boy.

Two Knives picked up the ringing phone and looked at the screen. ‘It’s your wife.’

‘Your wife?’ said the young blonde girl sprawled on the sofa across from Crazy Boy. ‘I didn’t know you were married.’ She was a hooker that he’d ordered from a West London escort agency, eighteen years old and only recently arrived from Latvia. There was another one, a brunette with pneumatic breasts, upstairs in Crazy Boy’s bed.

Crazy Boy pointed a finger at her as he carried on playing. ‘Shut the fuck up, bitch,’ he said. ‘Find out what she wants,’ he told Two Knives.

The blonde pouted and rolled over, hugging a cushion. Crazy Boy had paid four thousand pounds to have the girls for a full twenty-four hours but he was already bored with them even though there were still a few hours to go.

He carried on playing his game while Two Knives answered the phone and spoke to his wife. The woman was his wife in name only. He had married her for the passport that came as part of the package and the only reason he’d made her pregnant was so that no one could ever argue that it was a marriage of convenience and because being the father of a European citizen gave him additional rights. He switched his shotgun for a handgun and fired six shots into the chest of a streetwalker.

Sitting on two winged armchairs by the window overlooking the garden were two Somalis, Levi’s and Sunny, big men who had worked for Crazy Boy since he’d arrived in England. They were both distant cousins with relatives working for Crazy Boy back in Somalia and both had been granted asylum in the United Kingdom after paying ten thousand dollars each to a Chinese people-smuggler in Mogadishu.

On a table between them was a huge Waterford crystal bowl full of fresh leafy khat twigs. As they watched Crazy Boy play his video game, they kept reaching into the bowl, stripping off leaves and chewing on them. They had eaten khat from the age of ten, and neither could remember a day when they hadn’t enjoyed the buzz that came from the plant’s cathinone psychoactive drug. Khat grew naturally in the mountains of Kenya, Yemen and Ethiopia, and every day tonnes were exported across Africa wrapped in banana leaves to keep them fresh, and more was flown around the world to satisfy the cravings of expatriate Africans. More than three-quarters of exported khat was sent to the United Kingdom for the two hundred and fifty thousand Somalis who now called England their home. It could be bought in London, fresh off a plane, for £3 a bundle. Freshness was important, for within forty-eight hours of being picked the cathinone started to decay and lose its potency. Crazy Boy had fresh khat delivered to his house every day.

There was a gilt desk with legs fashioned in the shape of an eagle’s wings in one corner and on the wall behind it was a bank of flatscreen monitors that gave more than a dozen views of the exterior of the house and garden. Two Knives had supervised the installation of the twenty-thousand-pound CCTV system and he’d done a good job – there wasn’t a single blind spot anywhere. Two Knives had also arranged for all the windows of the house to be replaced with bullet-proof glass and for the fitting of a high-tech burglar alarm system. Crazy Boy wasn’t convinced that he needed the latter as there was an arsenal of weapons in the house and there were always at least three of his bodyguards in residence, but Two Knives had convinced him of the necessity.

The rest of the house was as luxurious as the sitting room. In Crazy Boy’s bedroom there was a bed that was ten feet square with silk sheets that were so smooth that it was like sleeping on ice, and opulent furniture, most of which still had Harrods price stickers attached. There was a marble-lined bathroom leading off the bedroom, with a Jacuzzi big enough for three people, which Crazy Boy often put to good use. It was the first place he’d taken the two hookers when they’d arrived on his doorstep the previous evening.

Two Knives put the mobile phone back on the coffee table. ‘She wants money,’ he said.

‘Bitch always wants money,’ said Crazy Boy.

‘And she wants to know when you’re going round to see your boy.’

‘That boy’s so ugly I think they threw the kid out by mistake and kept the shit that came out afterwards,’ said Crazy Boy, shooting a black mugger in the groin three times and then blowing a big chunk of his skull away. ‘What she want the money for anyways?’

‘She says she has to pay the car insurance and she got a fine for speeding and she wants the boy to go to baby school.’

‘I give that bitch ten grand a month and she goes through it like it was water,’ said Crazy Boy. He sighed as he switched back to the shotgun and blew out the windows of a passing car. ‘How much she want?’

‘Five grand,’ said Two Knives.

‘Take it round tonight, yeah,’ said Crazy Boy. ‘But tell the bitch she have to make do with what she get every month. Bitch so ugly she not worth half what I give her.’

Crazy Boy’s wife lived in a three-bedroom semi-detached five miles from the mansion. He’d bought it through an offshore company and every month he gave her ten thousand pounds in cash for living expenses. According to Two Knives she’d developed a drug problem above and beyond the khat leaves that she used to chew – he’d seen drugs in the house. Crazy Boy knew that the woman wouldn’t be stupid enough to get involved with another man so the drugs could only have been hers. He had no problem with that just so long as she didn’t get into trouble with the police, but at some point she was going to have to be slapped and brought into line. There was no call for her ringing him up and asking for money and trying to use their kid as leverage.

‘Someone’s at the gate,’ said Sunny, pointing at the CCTV monitors.

Crazy Boy paused the game and looked over at the bank of monitors. There was a black Bentley parked in front of the gates, its grille only inches from the bars. ‘We know anyone with a Bentley?’ he asked Two Knives, who’d gone over for a closer look at the screen.

‘Bentley’s for old men,’ said Two Knives. As he stared at the screen, the front passenger door opened and a heavy-set man in a dark suit climbed out, rotated his neck as if it was troubling him, then walked over to the entryphone that was set into one of the concrete pillars.

‘Looks like an Arab,’ said Crazy Boy, standing behind Two Knives.

‘Maybe he thinks the Indian still lives here.’

The entryphone buzzed and Crazy Boy picked up the receiver. ‘Yeah?’ he said.

‘Is Mr Simeon Khalid at home?’

‘Who wants to know?’ asked Crazy Boy.

‘Mr Mamoud al-Zahrani is here and requests an audience with you,’ said the man. He had a square face and a thick moustache and slicked-back hair that glinted in the security lights. His eyes were hidden behind dark glasses.

Crazy Boy looked at the small screen as he chewed his khat. The windows of the Bentley were heavily tinted so he couldn’t see who else was in the car.

‘I do not see visitors at my home,’ said Crazy Boy.

‘Mr al-Zahrani understands that but hopes that in his case you will make an exception,’ said the man, his voice a dull monotone as if he had memorised a script.

‘Do you know him?’ asked Two Knives.

‘Him I’ve never seen before but al-Zahrani is the guy that the Arab was talking about,’ said Crazy Boy.

‘How does he know where you live?’

‘That’s a good question,’ said Crazy Boy.

‘What does he want?’

‘Another good question,’ said Crazy Boy.

The man on the screen turned back to the Bentley. The rear window had opened slightly and someone inside was obviously saying something. The man turned back to the entryphone. ‘Mr al-Zahrani does not make a habit of visiting unannounced but he feels that this matter is of such importance that it is necessary on this occasion, and for that he offers his apologies.’

‘There could be three or more assassins in a car that size,’ muttered Two Knives.

Crazy Boy nodded slowly. Two Knives was right. ‘Tell Mr al-Zahrani that I will receive him, but he must come alone,’ he said into the intercom. ‘The car and anyone else in it must remain outside.’

‘I am Mr al-Zahrani’s bodyguard, he goes nowhere without me,’ said the man.

‘Very well, you can accompany him, but no weapons of any kind are to be brought into the house.’

The bodyguard nodded and went back to the car. He spoke through the rear window and then the door opened and a tall Arab got out. He was light skinned, wearing dark glasses and a suit that fitted so well it could only have been made to measure. Al-Zahrani adjusted his cufflinks as he looked up at the security camera. He had a hooked nose and a receding hairline that he compensated for by growing his hair long at the back.

Crazy Boy pressed the button that opened the door to the side of the main entrance. Al-Zahrani pushed open the door while his bodyguard reached into his jacket and then handed something, presumably a weapon, through the window.

‘You’re letting them in?’ asked Two Knives. He pulled his Glock from the back of his trousers and checked the action.

‘Search them, but be gentle, yeah?’ said Crazy Boy. He nodded at the gun. ‘Keep that out of the way, we don’t want to spook them.’ He turned to the blonde girl lying on the sofa. ‘Hey, bitch, get upstairs and wait for me in the bedroom.’

The blonde scowled at him and flounced up the stairs. She was wearing one of Crazy Boy’s white shirts and nothing else and she turned and flashed him while she was halfway up the staircase but he was looking at the screen. Al-Zahrani and the bodyguard were talking, then al-Zahrani patted the man on the shoulder as he smiled and nodded. Crazy Boy looked over at the two men sitting by the window. ‘Levi’s, you stay in the study, keep the door open and your gun ready.’ Levi’s nodded and headed for the study, pulling his gun from its holster. ‘Sunny, you get upstairs. Get a shotgun from the attic, stay out of sight, but if I call you come down shooting, hear me?’

‘I hear you, boss,’ said Sunny. Crazy Boy kept a weapons cache in the attic behind a false wall. There were half a dozen handguns, two MAC-10s, two shotguns and several tasers and plenty of ammunition. As Sunny hurried upstairs, Crazy Boy watched on one of the security screens as al-Zahrani walked slowly up the driveway with the bodyguard following. The doors of the Bentley remained closed and there were no other occupied cars in the road outside.

He patted Two Knives on the back. ‘Tell the kitchen staff to stay quiet.’

Two Knives hurried off to the kitchen as Crazy Boy followed al-Zahrani’s progress up the driveway. It was ten o’clock at night but the halogen security lights meant that it was as bright as day outside.

Al-Zahrani reached the front door, but he waited for his bodyguard to press the doorbell. Two Knives came back into the room as the doorbell rang out.

‘Remember, be gentle,’ said Crazy Boy. ‘He’s connected to some very important people and he’s got balls walking in here with no guns.’

He sat down on the sofa and used the remote to switch off the television. He heard Two Knives open the door and after a couple of minutes al-Zahrani walked into the room. His suit looked even more expensive close up and there was a gold watch on his left wrist and a thick gold chain on his right. His shirt had double cuffs and his tie was silk and perfectly tied. Al-Zahrani walked towards Crazy Boy, an easy smile on his lips, his hand outstretched. Crazy Boy realised that he had taken off his dark glasses. ‘Thank you for seeing me,’ he said. ‘And my apologies again for arriving unannounced.’