Stiffed (11 page)

We’re
a couple of blocks from where I received Gerlach’s call, standing in the shade of a large chestnut tree on the banks of the Long River in the Mill Race Recreational Park.  The site used to be part of the grounds of the old Kilbarry Mill.  It’s now landscaped with nature trails and cycle ways that form part of a network that stretches a few miles along the river bank.  On the far side remnants of Carrick Springs’ industrial past, a ramshackle collection of old factories, line the shore, some converted into high-end apartments.

Paavo has parked the van in a quiet corner.  Hopefully it’ll either remain there unnoticed for a couple of days or someone will steal it and drive it to a chop shop.  He’s already snatched Jason’s phone and launched it out into the fast flowing water, Jason protesting about it being a three hundred dollar smartphone.

‘Tadhg’s right, Paavo,’ Sally says.  ‘We might need the phone later.’

‘They can track phones,’ Paavo says, lunging forward. 

I dance back out of reach.  ‘Only with the battery in.’

‘Look this isn’t getting us anywhere,’ Sally says, s
tanding between us.  ‘Somebody’s holding Annabelle hostage.’

‘If they’re holding her hostage,’ Paavo says.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Jason asks, bristling.

‘There was no ransom note,’ Paavo replies.  ‘Nobody has called us.’

‘What are you suggesting?’ Jason says, his voice rising in pitch and volume.  ‘That she’s dead?’

‘I’m not saying anything
,’ Paavo says, appearing to calm down.  ‘I’m just saying.’

‘Well DON’T.  She’s alive, okay.  A
LIVE.’

‘Okay, okay, let’s try and calm down,’ I mutter, aware that we’re starting to attract the attention of
strollers out enjoying the sun.

‘We need a plan,’ Sally says.

‘She’s right,’ Paavo adds.

He’s changed his tune all of a sudden.  I can’t help
myself: ‘That’s what I said, back at Jason’s.’ 

‘Who cares who said it,’ Sally says, rolling her eyes, making me feel like I’m five years old again, arguing over who suggested we play a game.  ‘We
’re just running around aimlessly.’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘For God’s sake, Tadhg, grow up,’ she says frostily.  ‘Try and act your age for once.’

For the first time since I had the misfortune to meet them, I feel sorry for Storm and Cyclone.  They might
be forces of nature, but they’re up against an ice queen for a mother.  The poor little bastards.

‘So now what?’
Paavo asks.

‘We go to my house and work out what to do,’ Sally answers
, an approaching siren becoming audible.

Damn
.  Somehow Sally Krebs is taking charge.  Dopey, conservative Sally Krebs.  We might as well appoint Diane from Cheers as our leader.

* * *

‘So, let me get this straight,’ Sally says, sitting at her kitchen table, nursing a black coffee, ‘you found Marino – Aldo Pirelli’s right hand man – dead in your bed, Psycho-Bitch attacks you and leaves, then Barry White turns up and kills Junior.  Then the police turn up.  Then Redneck turns up looking for a million dollars that he claims Kate had stolen and Annabelle knocks him unconscious with a spade and you tie him to a chair.  Then you leave Annabelle to guard Redneck whilst you go off to get rid of Marino and Junior.  Barry White chases you and you force him off the road, you dump the bodies but then this dude, what did you call him, Cowboy, turns up with an Uzi.  He kidnaps you, but you escape, and that’s when you assault me.  And whilst you were gone, Annabelle and Redneck were snatched.  That right?’

‘That about sums it up,’ I say.  I’ve a fresh bag of frozen sweet
corn resting on my lap and I’m slowly working my way through a pint of water, re-hydrating after a sweaty morning. 

Jason has his head in the fridge,
assembling the makings of a monster sandwich.

‘This is taking too long,’ Paavo says, pacing from one end of the kitchen to the other
, his hand clutching one of Cyclone’s bottles of Gatorade.  ‘We need to find Annabelle.’

‘We don’t know who’s got Annabelle,’ I say to him.
  ‘We need to think this through.’

‘This is all to do with the million dollars,’ Sally says.  ‘Where the hell did Psy
cho-Bitch get a million dollars?’

‘How the hell
would I know?’ I snap.  ‘She didn’t share any of it with me.  And stop calling her Psycho-Bitch.  Talk about the kettle calling the pot black.’

Sally raises her eyebrows, signaling offence.  ‘Well, she got it from somewhere.  Who is she in any case?  Where did you me
et her?  Psycho-Bitch Anonymous?’

‘
You should be able to find out, shouldn’t you, since you’re a founder member?’

‘For
God’s sake,’ Jason says, buttering some bread.  ‘She’s a Goddamn psycho-bitch, Tadhg.  The woman’s cuckoo.  She made you have a full body wax.  She had you wrapped round her little finger.’

‘A full body wax?’
‘That’s not true.  She …’ Sally and I say simultaneously.

‘Enough!’ Paavo shouts.  ‘
We’re wasting time.’

‘Kate,
’ Sally prompts.

‘Forget Kate,’ Paavo says.  ‘What’s the plan?’

‘I met her at a wedding,’ I continue.  ‘I was covering it for the paper.  She asked me for a dance.’

‘When?’
Sally asks.

‘
About seven months ago.’

‘And you’d never seen her before?’

‘No.  She was visiting from out of state.  We hit it off, she decided to stay.’

‘Just like that
?’

‘Yeah, just like that. 
Sometimes people just click, you know.’

‘And she never went home to collect her things?’

‘No.’

‘So she could have been on the run and you’re
such a dumb schmuck you took her in and gave her somewhere to hide?’

‘I …
’  The gears and cogs of my memory are reframing the narrative arc of the last few months.

‘Fake orgasms
and a bit of false affection for a new life.’

‘I …’

‘Everyone has a price, Tiger.’

‘You sound like you’re talking from experience,’ I snap back.

She doesn’t say anything, studying me with hard grey eyes.

‘Kathy,’ Jason says
, placing a slice of bread over a stack of meat, salad and sauce.

‘What?’ I snap at him. 
As much as I hate to admit it, Sally has managed to creep under my skin.  Actually she’s managed to wind me tighter than a spring on a Roman catapult.

‘Barry White’s sister called her Kathy.
  Maybe that’s her real name?’

‘Well, that makes it easy,’ I say, ‘we’ll just look her up in the phone directory
under K.’

‘What’s her surname?’ Sally asks.

‘Jansen.  She said it was Jansen.  Kate Jansen.  It’s bound to be false.  Like everything else about her.’

‘So they were fake orgasms,’ Sally says.

‘Fuck you.’

‘In your dreams, Carrothead.’

‘Whoa, whoa,’ Jason says, spraying sandwich filler across the floor.  ‘Jesus.  Can you two rein in the insults?  It’s like being in an episode of Moonlighting.’

I
need some air; Sally is wrecking my head.  I have no idea why Annabelle called her.

‘Are we going to
sit here all day and do nothing?’ Paavo asks.

‘Paavo, will you stop
pacing and sit down?’ Sally instructs.  ‘This is important.  To bring the fight to your enemies you need to know who they are and how they think.’

Jesus, who does she think she is,
George Patton?

More like
The Wicked Witch of the East.

Paavo reluctantly slides into a chair.

‘So do we know who Barry White or Junior, or Redneck or Cowboy, are?’ she asks.

‘Junior is Ronald Carter Junior,’ Jason says, ‘a youth leader from Boston
with a shady past who’s done a few years in prison.  He’s married to Denise, Barry White’s sister.  Redneck is Earl something.’

‘That’s it?’ Sally says.

I shrug.  ‘Earl’s from Memphis.  He runs an … entertainment company, I think.’

‘Yeah, that sounds
about right,’ Jason says, his mouth full.  ‘Earl Jones?’

‘Earl Something,’ I add helpfully.
  ‘Annabelle will remember.’

‘
Annabelle isn’t here,’ Sally snaps, ‘that’s the freaking problem.  Is that all you two clowns remember?’

I shrug again, conceding
the point.  On the evidence of the morning, we’re clowns.  ‘They weren’t exactly advertising their identities, Sally,’ I say, offering a little white lie.  We had two wallets; heaven knows what happened to them.

‘So Psycho-Bitch stole the million dollars from Earl Whateverhisnameis?’

‘Or Barry White,’ I add.

‘Or Aldo Pirelli,’ Jason chips in.

‘Pirelli?’ Paavo says skeptically.

‘
Marino has to come into it somewhere,’ Jason reasons.  ‘I mean, why was he there?’

All of us fall silent at this suggestion. 

Flip.

W
hichever way you look at it we’re screwed.  Three sets of people think that Kate has their million dollars and Annabelle’s life could depend on it. 

‘We need to find that million dollars,’ Sally says.

‘We need to get rid of those two bodies from my parent’s garage,’ Jason says.  ‘And get my boxes back.’

‘We need to find Annabelle and rescue her,’ Paavo says.

‘All of the above,’ I mutter, ‘except for the boxes.  Fuck the boxes.’

‘They’re collectibles.’

‘They’re junk.’

T
here’s a knock at the door.  Followed by a shout.  ‘Mrs Klutz?’ 

Klutz!  Jesus, I still can’t believe she married a
n idiot called Klutz.  Talk about natural justice.  Imagine how the kids feel.  Storm and Cyclone Klutz.  No wonder they’re little fuckers.

Another bout of knocking.
  ‘MRS KLUTZ, POLICE!’

Fuck
! 

‘Into the basement,’ Sally orders.

‘How about out the back?’ I suggest.

‘They could have the place surrounded.’

‘In which case going into the basement won’t help.’

‘Just get in the damn
basement, Tadhg,’ she says, pushing me towards the basement door and shoving me through.  From the strength of the shove one would think she was hoping I’ll topple down into the darkness.

* * *

I’m sitting at the top of the stairs my ear against the kitchen door.  We’ve been in the basement for ten minutes.  There’s more tension in the air than the locker room before a Super Bowl kickoff.  And if Jason lets another fart go they’re going to find us asphyxiated.

All I can hear is a low murmuring of indistinct voices.  Sally must have kept them in the front of the house.  It’s one of those enormous
suburban detached dwellings with a double garage and a large garden.  The kind you mortgage your children’s children for.  Every house in the cul-de-sac is a different design, all mock Tudor in appearance.  It looks about as much like a medieval English landscape as a golf course does wilderness.

‘What the fuck is happening?’ Jason asks in a high pitch whine.

‘Sssshhhhhhh,’ I answer back.

‘Tadhg?
  Come on, man, what are they saying?’

‘How the hell
would I know, some fat fuck keeps talking.’

‘We’re going to go down,’ he mutters.  ‘We’re dead men walking.’

Paavo places a hand on Jason’s arm to get his attention, then puts a finger to his own lips.  We’ve played out this routine about ten times now. 

The voices rise a little in volume then there’s the sound of a door being closed.  A
minute later footsteps approach the basement door and I scurry down the stairs, ducking out of sight.

The door opens and Sally puts her head in. 
‘Phewwweee!  What have you been eating?  You can come out now, they’ve left.’

We troop up and out into the kitchen.

‘Are you really now Sally Klutz?’ I ask, surprising myself with the question.

‘If you’d come to the wedding you’d have known that I kept my maiden name,’ she says tetchily.

Thank Christ for that.  There are some things that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemies.

‘They wanted to know
if I knew where you were.  Tiger, Jason, Paavo, Annabelle and Kate.  It seems that half the state is out looking for you.’

Shit
.

‘I told them I hadn’t seen you.  They seem to think you’re mixed up with some very
questionable characters and that you’re up to your necks in a whole crap heap of trouble.’