Thieves Like Us 01 - Thieves Like Us (7 page)

‘Geek, they’re calling you a loser on TV!’ honked Motti.

‘They should look at you now, Jonah,’ said Patch with an encouraging smile.

‘
Security is being tightened in the wake of the extraordinary jail-break,’
the reporter went on, ‘
but
accusations of incompetence have been denied by the governor
…’

‘How can he deny it?’ Motti looked genuinely affronted. ‘Geek, I dunno how you stuck it.’

‘Motti, would you stop calling me “geek”?’

‘Sorry, geek.’ He grabbed the remote and zapped to a music channel.

Jonah said nothing, but he was relieved. His legs had gone kind of wobbly. He wished he was tougher. But the truth was, hearing about his own breakout on TV had suddenly made it all more real. It had rammed home the fact that there really was no going back now.

Patch knelt up against the back of the couch. ‘Got the most amazing satellite dish out in the grounds,’ he said. ‘Can pick up just about anything on earth. All the pay channels, even hot girl action and stuff!’ He paused. ‘Only thing is, Con said she’d brick my balls if I ever tried to watch any.’

‘Don’t lose no sleep over it,’ said Motti. ‘She’d have to find them first.’

Patch laughed good-naturedly. ‘Anyway, Tye says I’m a big enough jerk-off already.’

Jonah forced a smile, weighed down by his thoughts. ‘Where’d Tye learn to fly and stuff?’

‘Smuggling in the Caribbean. She’s from Haiti,’ said Motti.

‘What did she smuggle?’

‘What
didn’t
she?’

‘Never met no one smarter than Tye,’ Patch said, moving the subject along. ‘You can’t get nothing past her.’

‘What about Con?’ Jonah asked. ‘How’d she pick up the mesmerism – join the Magic Circle or something?’

‘One of her old-timer relatives had this stage hypnotist act back in the 1960s,’ said Motti. ‘They call it neurolinguistic programming now – like big words can explain it all away.’ He snorted. ‘Anyway, Con’s a real quick learner. And when Grandpa couldn’t teach her no more she cleaned him out, quit school and struck out on her own. Conning nice, rich old men who wanted to adopt her. Know what I mean?’

‘Looks like Coldhardt succeeded where they didn’t,’ said Jonah.

‘Yeah, well, Con and Coldhardt speak the same language.’ Motti idly drummed his fingers on the couch along to the music. ‘Green and crisp.’

‘Apples?’ joked Patch.

‘Cash, numbnuts.’

‘Will Coldhardt bring the girls back tonight?’ Jonah wondered.

Motti looked up at him sharply. ‘Miss the eye candy, huh? Well, you better make sure looking’s all you do.’

‘I didn’t mean that!’

‘Coldhardt don’t allow nothing else, see. We got a working relationship. Anything else, shit gets messy.’

‘You’ve got a lovely way with words, Motti.’ Jonah shook his head. ‘I just meant, will Coldhardt be bringing them back here tonight?’

‘When they’ve done what he needs them to do.’ Motti turned back to the TV. ‘They ain’t gonna turn into pumpkins if they’re out past midnight.’

‘So are
you
free to come and go?’

Motti rolled his eyes. ‘If we want. But since there’s nothing to do for miles around and we got all we need in here –’

‘Isn’t it kind of like being under house arrest?’

‘Yeah, maybe.’ Patch gestured around. ‘But what a house!’

‘You need to cool it some, geek,’ said Motti. ‘Why not go to the fridge, open the door and stand there for a minute? Then grab a beer from inside and bring it to me.’

Jonah smiled despite himself. ‘Good of you to think of my welfare like that.’

Patch followed him out into the main room. ‘I’m glad you’re in with us, Jonah.’

‘Yeah? Why?’

‘Well, it’s just nice. You know, there being more of us.’

‘Right. Sugar-daddy Coldhardt and his five clever children. Just a normal happy family.’ As he opened the fridge door, he saw Patch do his best to hide a hurt look. ‘Hey,’ he sighed. ‘I’m sorry, OK?’

‘It’s kind of messed up, and it ain’t always happy, but it
is
family.’ Patch smiled, an honest, simple smile. ‘I’m glad you’ve joined us, mate. See, we’re all each of us has. To me, this place is home. And I’ll do anything not to lose it.’

Jonah nodded. ‘And you’d take me into your family, just like that?’

‘Another person watching my back?’ He grinned. ‘’Course I would. Life’s too short to waste it freaking out over stuff. You gotta go with the flow, right?’

‘How long have you been with Coldhardt?’

‘Just over a year and a half. Coldhardt and Motti found me on my thirteenth birthday.’

‘And threw a surprise party?’

‘Could say that.’

Jonah took out a beer. ‘Were you inside like me?’

‘No. Squatting.’ Patch held out his hand for a beer. Jonah passed him a Dr Pepper instead, and he rolled his eyes. ‘These blokes, they let me squat with them, all round the country. I got ’em inside really cool places, see? So long as you don’t use force to break in, you can squat anywhere.’

‘And I’ll bet you could break into 10 Downing Street without scratching the lock.’

‘Probably,’ he agreed brightly. ‘See, most people think it’s tools that get you in. That all you got to do is shove it inside and fiddle around. Well, they’re wrong. That pick’s gotta be an extension of
you
. It’s just running over the pins, sliding through the keyway, sending you a little picture of what’s going on inside.’ The tone of his voice grew reverent. ‘You have to listen to what it’s saying to you, learn its personality. You gotta feel the tiniest turn of the pins and the plug …’

Jonah looked at this kid who was fourteen going on forty. ‘Spiritual lock-picking?’

‘Sound like an arsehole, don’t I?’ Patch smiled sheepishly. ‘Sorry. Just that I’ve been picking locks since for ever. My mum used to dump me with the guy downstairs while she …Well, anyway, he was a locksmith. I spent a lot of time there. I could torque before I could talk, you know?’

Jonah looked at him blankly.

‘Torque – you know, you use a torque wrench with the pick to open …’ Patch shrugged. ‘Never mind. Locksmith joke.’

‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you.’ Jonah cracked open Motti’s beer on a black marble countertop. ‘So that was all you were doing? Getting inside squats?’

Patch paused, his one good eye clouding over as if at a bad memory. ‘No.’

‘And I’m guessing Coldhardt hasn’t taken you under his wing to help people who’ve locked themselves out of the house. Right?’

‘Nah. I’m a thief. Only thing I’m any good at.’

Jonah decided he might as well just come out and say it. ‘Well, I don’t want to sound like a Boy Scout here, but … Don’t you ever feel bad? Ripping off people’s houses and stuff?’

‘We don’t go burgling
normal
people!’ Patch protested. ‘Coldhardt ain’t no ordinary crook. And he don’t plan ordinary jobs.’ He looked suddenly shifty, lowered his voice. ‘You saw those photos he got hold of. He moves in some pretty freaky circles.’

Jonah hesitated to ask, ‘Freaky how?’

‘How come such a little kid got such a big mouth?’ Motti had come slouching into the room, huffing on his glasses, polishing them on his sleeve. ‘Listen, geek, let’s just say that the types Coldhardt rips off, they don’t exactly rush to call in the fuzz. These people are rich enough –
powerful
enough – to work outside the law.’

‘No one’s outside the law,’ said Jonah automatically.

‘Is that so?’ Motti smiled and took his beer. ‘Well, anyway, with Coldhardt’s interests, it ain’t just
modern, high-tech places we have to break into. We’ve gone to work on temples, mausoleums …’

Jonah stared. ‘Grave-robbing, you mean?’

‘No, I
don’t
mean.’ He smirked. ‘But you’d be amazed what stuff gets buried.’

‘You superstitious, Jonah?’ asked Patch.

‘’Course not.’

‘I never used to be.’

Jonah raised an eyebrow. ‘And what? You are now?’

‘Sleeps with the lights on, doncha, Cyclops?’ sneered Motti.

‘So?’ There was an uncomfortable pause. Then Patch gave him two fingers, Motti gave him one in return and Patch wandered back off towards the TV room. But Jonah found his eyes lingering uneasily on the eerie mural on the wall, at the shadowy, undefined figures ranged across it.

‘Who painted that?’ he asked.

‘Coldhardt. Kind of freaky, huh?’ Motti paused for a deep swig of beer. ‘He calls it
Still Life
.’

‘I thought that meant when you painted flowers and fruit and stuff.’

‘Maybe he means, whatever freaky bad stuff’s happened in that picture… there’s still life.’

‘If you can call it that,’ said Jonah quietly.

‘Hey. It’s OK.’ There was no sneer in Motti’s voice now Patch was out of earshot. ‘I told you before, I fixed this place. We’re safe. Nothing can get in here.’

Jonah looked at him. ‘No
one
, you mean.’

Motti nodded, half-smiled. ‘Whatever.’

* * *

Ophiuchus, also known as Imhotep – the man who couldn’t die? Tye searched Demnos’s face for signs he was trying to deceive them, but his gaze was clear and confident.

Con, however, was looking at Demnos with barely disguised contempt. ‘You expect us to believe there’s some four-and-a-half-thousand-year-old man running around?’

‘There are many who do believe. A great many.’ Demnos let his stare linger on Tye. ‘The scraps of the Spartan scytale cipher I have in my possession were…
recovered
together with fragments of a further document. It is marked with the sign of the snake. I believe it is a copy of Ophiuchus’s prescription for Amrita, in his own hand. And that it is genuine.’

Tye’s mouth had dried. ‘Fragments, you said?’

‘Fragments that Mr Demnos does not wish to share with us,’ said Coldhardt casually.

Demnos’s dark eyes flashed. ‘I am not a fool,’ he snapped. ‘I know the value of the prescription, even incomplete.’ He paused, regained control. ‘But I have come to believe further parts of the same parchment exist in the hands of another collector, who may or may not appreciate the true importance of what they possess.’

‘Who is this collector?’ Tye asked.

‘Her name is Samraj Vasavi. A cheating harpy, obsessed with her own cleverness.’

‘You didn’t always think so,’ murmured Coldhardt.

Demnos glowered at him. ‘That was many years ago.’

‘I heard people talking about Samraj out there,’
Con said. ‘How she’s just funded a private hospital for sick children. She is worth a fortune, yes? Runs a multinational.’

‘Serpens Biotech,’ said Demnos, like the words tasted bad in his mouth. ‘The company trades in genetic research. If Samraj has opened a hospital, it’s to secure a steady stream of guinea pigs for the experimental cures she hopes to sell to the world.’

‘You think she may be pushing Amrita as one of those “experimental” cures?’ asked Tye.

‘It is possible. But the only way I can know for sure is to find out how much of Ophiuchus’s prescription Samraj has in her possession.’

Coldhardt idly pulled flecks of dust from the white rosebud on his lapel. ‘Which is why Raul is in need of our services.’

‘I am paying you well to uncover the truth,’ Demnos stated. ‘And I must know quickly.’

‘Why the sudden rush?’ Con’s gold lacy dress shimmered as she crossed one leg over the other. ‘I mean, if these fragments have been lying around for thousands of years …’

‘Word has reached me that a great mastaba was recently unearthed at the Sakkara necropolis, outside of Cairo.’

‘An Egyptian tomb,’ Coldhardt translated, ‘in the ancient city of the dead.’

Demnos nodded impatiently. ‘Many artefacts were discovered inside, many personal effects. Experts believe this could be the tomb of Imhotep.’

Con couldn’t contain herself. ‘But if Imhotep – or Ophiuchus, or whatever he’s calling himself today
– never died –’

‘So far, there has been no mention of a body.’

Tye felt a tingle up her spine in the silence that followed.

But Con still wasn’t ready to be convinced. ‘Maybe they did find one, but they’re keeping it quiet,’ she argued.

‘Why would they? Don’t you see, girl? Imhotep left Egypt to become Ophiuchus. He faked his own death and stored away his possessions.’ Tye could tell Demnos wasn’t just hoping. He was utterly convinced. ‘This mastaba must be a kind of strongroom, a place for secrets.’

Tye nodded. ‘And you think another copy of the full prescription could be inside?’

‘Perhaps. That is what
you
must discover.’

‘Because even if only fragments remain, they could still complete the parchment,’ Con realised. ‘For you – or for Samraj.’

‘I
must
know how much of the prescription she possesses. Any ingredient, any clue could be vital. And I imagine that, like me, she will be moving swiftly.’ Demnos mopped his forehead again and checked his gold wristwatch. ‘Now, you must excuse me. Yianna – my daughter – she needs me. She is very frail.’

‘She’s beautiful,’ said Tye.

‘The image of her mother.’ Demnos lowered his face and crossed himself. ‘Now I must rejoin her, see that she is all right.’

‘Of course,’ said Coldhardt smoothly. ‘We’ve detained you long enough.’

The big man pulled out a crisp white envelope from
inside his jacket and placed it on the curator’s desk. ‘A downpayment. I have already provided you with the details of the mastaba’s location. I wish to hear of your success within three days. Do not disappoint me, Mr Coldhardt.’ With that, he nodded at his bodyguard to join him, and both left the room without another word.

The second he left, Con pounced on the envelope and started to purr. Coldhardt held out a hand for it while turning to Tye. ‘Well?’

‘Good, steady eye contact, no fidgeting … Faced us the whole time, his posture was good. Didn’t cover his mouth, no real elaboration …’

‘He was sweating like a pig,’ said Con, pouting as she surrendered the envelope.

‘But he didn’t try to hide it. He’s a big man, it’s warm in here.’ Tye shrugged. ‘I think he was telling the truth. At least, he
believes
it’s the truth.’

‘Then he is seriously deluded,’ Con retorted. ‘But a madman’s money is as good as anyone else’s, yes?’