Crime Always Pays (29 page)

Sleeps

'What's it say?' Rossi said, shovelling home a forkful of bacon.

          Sleeps flattened the note with his elbow while maneuvering a slab of toast into his mouth. '
Dear Rossi
,' he read, chewing. '
If you'd like to have a chat about some money you're owed, meet me for lunch at noon at Ali Baba's. Yours, an Admirer
.' He swallowed the toast. 'There's also two x's on the end, I think they're kisses.'

          'Ali fuckin Baba's?'

          'What it says. Who d'you think it's from?'

          'Johnny?' Rossi hazarded.

          'Signing off with two kisses?' Sleeps said. 'Besides, we're already meeting his guy later on, back at the Orange.'

          'So who?' Rossi said. 'It can't be Mel, she thinks we owe her.'

          'And Mel,' Sleeps pointed out, 'wouldn't be going into print as a big admirer of yours.' He speared half a fried tomato, slotted it home. 'Karen? Looking a parlay?'

          'Possible,' Rossi said. 'Maybe even a full, y'know, makey-up.'

          'That'd explain the kisses, yeah.'

          'What'd the guy on the desk say?'

          'Other'n he's owed a hundred, not a whole lot.'

          'Maybe it's Johnny's guy,' Rossi said, 'getting in early from Crete and keeping it in code. That make sense?'

          'Maybe. Think Johnny had us tailed here?'

          'You'd be disappointed,' Rossi said, 'a pro like Johnny, if he didn't.'

          'So he's still not trusting us. While we're trusting him.'

          'No way we're opening it, Sleeps. We do that, the ten grand goes bogey.'

          'How's he even gonna know?' Sleeps said. 'Hey, you eating those eggs?'

          Rossi passed his plate across. 'How about this?' he said. 'You're the one wants it open, so we say, there's any grief after, you're the one opened it. While I was asleep or some shit. You're a coke fiend, can't help yourself.'

          'Hanging me out to dry,' Sleeps said, wiping a dribble of yolk off his chin, 'for looking out for your interests.'

          'That's perxactly how it lies,' Rossi said. 'Your call.'

          Seven minutes later they were staring at a hefty pile of Mel's skimpies, the package unwrapped on Sleeps' bed. Arriving at the consensus, that they were Mel's, via the guess that Johnny, he for some reason wanted to double-cross Jochem, or Rossi, he probably wouldn't have had a heap of what Rossi referred to as dwarves' ponchos lying around in Vatican Two. Rossi, outraged, went hunting out the darts, raving how he was planning to harpoon himself some beached whale right through the fuckin eyeball.

          'No personals,' Sleeps said. He bundled together the delicates. 'Let's keep this one strictly business. The way Mel's playing it.'

Karen

Karen woke up with a head full of scrapy cellos. Skull pounding, a metallic taste in her mouth, stale and damp from sleeping in her clothes. Pyle perched on the edge of the bed, shaking her ankle. 'Hey,' he said. 'How're you feeling?'

          'Not good.' She gave him her symptoms, Pyle nodding along.

          'Concussion. Here.' He handed her a bottle of water, some pills. 'These'll help.'

          The room was cool, the A/C humming. Doors and windows closed, so their slats threw fat shadow-ladders across the tiled floor. Karen sat up trying to ignore the bile bubbling in her gut and gulped down the pills, feeling the water filter through her body one parched cell at a time. 'Who found me?' she said.

          'I did. You must've slipped off a rock, clonked your head.'

          'I slipped off the rock on purpose. The clonking came after.'

          'You fell?'

          'You'd've fallen too, someone cracked you with a gun.'

          Pyle frowned. 'A gun?'

          'That cop from the Piraeus? He's here.'

          'Shit.'

          'There was a boat,' she said. 'They were unloading some bales, I couldn't see what they were.' Karen looking past Pyle, to where the khaki duffel was propped against the other bed. 'Then he just popped up with the gun, and bam.'

          'Bastard.'

The room quiet apart from the A/C hum. No snuffling or deep-chested growls, no nails clickety-clicking on the white tiles. Karen stifled a yawn, wincing as her nose wrinkled. 'Where's Anna?' she said.

          'Anna's fine. You worry about yourself for a change.'

          Karen drank some more water. 'You worry about you,' she said. 'Start with how this guy found me, just happened to be here on the same beach at this place you told me we'd be safe.'

          'You think 
I
 tipped him off?'

          'It damn sure wasn't Anna.'

          'If you think I had anything to do with that,' he gestured at her face, 'you're crazy.'

          'Okay,' Karen said. 'But what I'm wondering is how come he found me.'

          'I doubt he was even looking for you,' Pyle said. 'Just got lucky.'

          'In all these islands? No one's that lucky.'

          'Maybe it was you,' Pyle said, 'who just happened to be on the beach.'

          'I don't follow.'

          'It's a long story. C'mon, I'll tell you over breakfast. You think you could eat something?'

          'No thanks.' Even the idea of food made her nauseous, the pain throbbing now from the bridge of her nose down the length of her upper jaw. 'How's it look?'

          'Not good. I think he bust your nose. When you're ready to move I'll take you in for an x-ray, make sure there isn't a fracture of the actual skull.'

          'I'm ready now.'

          'The health centre doesn't open 'til noon.' He stood up. 'Anything else I can get you?'

          'Just Anna.'

          'Okay. I'll check back in a while, bring her along.'

          She waited until he was gone, then crossed to the other bed and hunkered down beside the duffel, guts boiling up hot and greasy.

          The money was there.

The .38 was gone. 

She went in the bathroom and stared at the huge bruise on her forehead, the blackish swelling under both eyes. Then she purged the vomit, got undressed and stepped under the shower. The icy blast made her gasp but she couldn't shake the torpor. Realising the pills were kicking in, she toweled off and went back in the room to lock the door, except Pyle had already locked it. The window shutters rattled but were hooked on the outside.

Karen trudged through deep treacle to the bed and collapsed. She drifted off trying to remember if she'd brought the .38 along, the night before, just going for a stroll on the beach. Pretty sure she hadn't.

Doyle

Sparks was out on the balcony sunbathing topless, her breasts the bluey-white of halogen headlights. Doyle sat on the other lounger averting her eyes.

          'Dirty stop-out,' Sparks said.

          'He took a room down the hall. So I didn't really stop out as such.'

'And?'

          'It's complicated.'

          'When is it not?'

          'He's thinking of doing another snatch.'

          'Christ.' Sparks dipped her Mickey Mouse shades. 'You're serious?'

          Doyle filched a cigarette from Sparks' deck.

'And you can't stop him,' Sparks said.

          'I think he wants me to help.'

          'Now that 
is
 complicated. I thought he was retired.'

          'He is.' Doyle lit up, sucked hard on the smoke. 'But he thinks Karen's in trouble.'

          'He wants 
you
 to help him save Karen?'

          'Sort of, yeah.'

          'He doesn't know much about women, does he?'

          'Not much.'

          'So what're you going to do?'

          'Think about the little,' Doyle said, popping a smoke-ring, 'he does know.'

Ray

'If you gotta go, man, this is the place to be buried. Am I right?'

          Ray looking out from Homer's Tomb to some islands nesting in the horizon's haze, the sea and sky a blue so huge it hurt his eyes trying to fit it all in. Off to his right a deep ravine wound down to the sea. Beyond that, some dry-stone buildings that might have been goat shelters or German pill-boxes from the war. Ray hearing sea-birds skee-yar, goat-bells clunking. A lone cicada like a one-stroke hyena.

          'This is where it all started, man,' Pyle said. 'Gods and heroes, Troy in flames. What I like about Homer? Three thousand years of culture, kick-started by a guy who was blind.'

          'There's caves in the Sahara,' Ray said, 'that have paintings go back to the Neolithic.'

          'Oh yeah?' Pyle undid his red bandana, mopped his neck and throat. 'You like wall art?'    

          'Murals.'

          'The Sistine Chapel, man. Am I right?' Pyle faking a left, throwing a right double-jab. 'So maybe you'll get it,' he said.

          'Get what?'

          Pyle waved back towards the commune, the white buildings shimmering in the heat-haze down on the plain. 'This guy, he's making what you might call a hostile takeover bid.'

          'On a hippy commune?'

          'Not us. The place. See that crack in the shoreline, looks like someone knocked out a chip with a hammer?' Ray nodded. 'It's a natural harbour,' Pyle said. 'A sheltered deep-water. So this guy's planning a hotel, the exclusive kind. Water-skiing, wind-surfing, scuba-diving, you name it. Then, for culture, he has Homer's Tomb on his doorstep. The Venetian castle just over at Paleokastro. Some nice pieces in the village, various eras, even some Ionic.'

          'And you think a spooking'll put him off?'

          'Depends on how he's spooked. I'm thinking about leaving him overnight in a room with Anna, see how he's talking next morning.'

          'I just snatch them, Pyle. I don't do fantasies.'

          'So Karen said. But Ray, I should tell you, Karen got clonked last night.'

          'Clonked?'

          'Some guy, she said, smacked her over the head with a gun.'

          'Shit. She alright?'

          'He bust her 
nose
, man. I'm thinking, this guy might need some clonking himself.'

          'Where was Anna?'

          'Sleeping off a beer buzz. Karen went for a walk, ended up down at the cove. Then this guy comes out of nowhere, smacks her. Warning us off.'

          'She see a doctor?'

          'Right now she's sleeping. I'm bringing her in later to get some x-rays done, make sure there's nothing serious.'

          'And this guy just strolled in past George.'

          'Karen said they came in a boat.'

          'They?'

          'The guy's protected, Ray. I'm hearing rumours he's a coke guy from Amsterdam, looking to run a pipe-line into the islands.'

          Ray grinned. 'You're serious?'

          'Sure. Guy called Johnny Priest, he's well known in --'

          'No, Pyle – I mean you're serious about wanting me to snatch a guy fronted by muscle with guns.'

          Pyle reached under his shirt, tugged a .38 from his belt, walnut grip. 'He's arriving today,' he said. 'Like for a sit-down? Last thing he'll be expecting is some hippy crew to be tooled up, put a gun in his face.'

          'I'm a hippy now?'

          'Honorary.'

          Ray thought it over. 'Say you snatch this guy, spook him. What's to stop him coming back, next time with an army?'

          'He's a businessman. So we present him with a better proposal.'

          'What's that?'

          'How it's better being a businessman than some dead asshole used to have an army. Maybe play some Russian roulette, teach him a little geography. How there's all these other islands that don't have wolves with hangovers.'