Crime Always Pays (26 page)

          'I kind of need to sneak up on Karen at the moment, Pyle.'

          'I hear you. Still want to grab that beer?'

          'Where?'

          'There's a place called Baywatch, I shit you not, it's down on Ormos beach out back of the port. A little cantina operation. Might be they'll sort you out with a place to stay too. Ask for Kosta. Looks like a pirate, sounds like a tank in reverse.'

'An hour.'

'Thereabouts.'

Ray hung up, swapped the phone for the ignition key, kicked the bike to life and walked it around in a semi-circle. 'George,' he said, climbing aboard, 'it's been beautiful.'

'For you, maybe.'

Doyle

'All I'm saying,' Doyle said, 'is you shouldn't have accepted, not on my behalf.'

          'I thought you'd have said yes.'

          'Maybe I would've, maybe I wouldn't.'

          '
I
 would,' Sparks said.

          'You did,' Doyle pointed out. 'Invited yourself, then turned up. On time, too.'

          'If I hadn't,' Sparks said, 'you'd have no one to take it out on. Ray not showing, I mean.' She sucked up some spaghetti, dabbed her napkin into the corners of the mouth. 'Still no word from Niko?'

          'Not since he left that message.' Niko saying he'd been delayed, he'd keep her posted. Short and a long way from sweet, the guy sounding seriously hacked off.

          The restaurant starting to empty out now. Doyle watched one couple pay their bill and take their Metaxas across the road to the beach to sprawl on sun-loungers under the stars. The restaurant open-fronted, a cool breeze wafting in off the bay.

          'Maybe he arrived,' Sparks said, 'saw you and left again. Expecting it to be me on my own.'

          'And maybe he never planned on coming.'

          'He said he would.'

          'Ray's a liar. Compulsive.'

          'He gave me his Scout's honour.' Sparks made the three-fingered salute. 'Dib-dib-dib.'

          'He kidnaps people, Sparks. I mean, this is how he earns a living.'

          'I thought you said he was retired.' 

          'I'm talking about his character. How lying, to Ray, comes second nature.' Doyle, despite taking a shower, lowering a couple of frizzies, was still lethargic after her eight-hour siesta.

          Sparks slurped up some more pasta. 'You're just pissed because he left you in the lurch.'

          'The 
lurch
? He left me cuffed to Frank in the middle of the woods.'

          'Some lurches,' Sparks said, 'being worse than others.'

          'See, this is what's bugging me. You knew all this before you let him ride off.'

          'Sure. But this was after he was asking about you.'

          Doyle forked some moussaka around the plate. 'What'd he ask, exactly?'

          'How you were, were you alright. Sounding concerned. Genuine.'

          'Ray'd sound sincere reading a laundry list.'

          'I know. What is it, his eyes?'

          Doyle was in no mood to talk about Ray's eyes, his tigery hazel glints. 'He say anything about Karen?'

          '
I
 thought he was asking about Karen. When he was asking about you.'

          'I mean, where she might be.'

          'Nope. He tried the bike rental place too. No joy.'

          'This is what told you.'

          'Why should they tell him and not you?'

          'Maybe he asked right.'

          Sparks pointed at Doyle's moussaka with her fork. 'You want to change that? Something wrong?'

          'It's fine. I'm just not hungry.'

          Sparks closed one eye adding up. 'Let's see,' she said. 'No appetite. Symptoms of withdrawal. Irritability. Obsessive behaviour. Any nausea?'

          'Leave it, Sparks.'

          'Look at the facts. You're pregnant, in love or you've picked up cholera.'

          'Maybe I just want to be left alone.'

          'You and Dietrich. Another actress.'

          'Mention Ray once more, Sparks, and I'm gone. Seriously.'

          'Okay. You want dessert?'

          'No thanks.'

          'Me neither. Not really.'

          Sparks had the chocolate fudge, Doyle a slice of strawberry cheesecake. Ray arrived in time for coffee. Sparks said, as Ray pulled up a seat, 'There's a rule for a good-looking guy, how he's never actually late, just running behind. You're not gorgeous enough to qualify.'

          'Yeah,' he said. 'Sorry about that. I'm not staying, either.'

          Looking straight at Doyle while he apologised. Doyle shrugged it off, letting him know, but doing it cool, she didn't expect any better.

          'I have to meet a guy now,' he said, 'but just for a beer. How about a drink after? My treat.'

          'Why don't you bring your friend here?' Sparks said. 'The treat'll be all mine.'

          Doyle kept her eyes on Ray. 'Where?'

          'I don't mind.' He nodded across the road. 'The beach?'

          Sparks winced. 'You're not worried about friction burns?'

Karen

From behind the boulder Karen couldn't be sure what was in the bales being unloaded off the motorboat. But at getting on for midnight, on a deserted beach, Karen had a good idea they weren't trafficking Tupperware.

So she backed away, keeping the boulder between her and the beach. Aiming for the ravine, testing each stone before she put her full weight on it. Breathing shallow and fast, blood roaring in her ears.

Then heard a click like there's no other click, felt something solid and cold against the nape of her neck.

          A hand on her shoulder, turning her around. Karen had time to notice three dark holes, one the snout of the gun, the other two being cavernous nostrils under a vulture-beak nose. The gun whipped back then came in fast again, lashing Karen across the face.

After that, all she saw was velvety black. 

Ray

Pyle cracked a gag with the barman on his way down to where Ray was sitting on a stool at the corner of the L, then slid inside Ray so he was looking past him out onto the road, the beach beyond, the port away to the left.

          'I'm hoping you're not on any medication, man. Booze 'n' pills, it's a bad mix.'

          'Karen didn't make it?'

          'Still haven't seen her. Can I freshen that?'

          Ray stayed with rum-and-coke. Pyle had a Mythos in a frosted glass, chugging half in one go. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. 'I guess,' he said, amping up the southern-fried accent, 'this is where I ask if your intentions are honourable.'

          'Towards Karen or the money?'

          'The money's Karen's, man. They don't get separated.'

          'I'm the one left the money with Karen. I know who's it is.'

          'Cool. So why d'you want to see her?'

          'Make sure she's okay.'

          'She says she's okay.'

          'Karen says a lot of things.'

          'She says she hardly knows you. Or she only knows you ten days, something like that.'

'We've been through a lot.'

          'She said that too.'

          'This is what I'm talking about. Who knows what she's saying?'

          Pyle drank off his beer. 'A woman doesn't change her mind once in a while, she's a transvestite.'

          Ray called another round, leaving his credit card, not the gold one, on the bar. 'It's not the money,' he said. 'I don't need the money.'

          'Says the man buying drinks on plastic.'

          'Temporary cash-flow glitch. Money's not the issue. Although,' he said, the barman, Kostas, setting them up, 'I wouldn't mind getting my passport back.'

          'She took your passport?'

          'It was her or Melody.'

          'How come?'

          Ray wasn't sure. 'They both got reasons for wanting me gone, but one doesn't want me to leave.'

          'You're betting it's Karen?'

          'I don't gamble, Pyle.'

          'So I hear.' He toasted Ray with the fresh beer. 'Karen mentioned the snatches, how you'd pull them off. Sounds like a neat trick.'

          'I'm retired.'

          'This is where I'm coming from. You're looking for a new challenge. Also, you're ex-Rangers.'

          'Yes to the ex-Rangers. Thanks but no to the new challenge.'

          Pyle sucked froth off his upper lip. 'You just haven't heard yet,' he said, 'how challenging it is.'

Sleeps

'We already came this way, Rossi.'

'Fuck.' Rossi, after an hour spent wandering around the village, the Chora, had a face like a burst ulcer. 'You sure?'

'From the other direction. That tree with the pink flowers? We already passed that coming down.'

          The village a maze of alleyways, crazy-paved. Sleeps getting snow-blind from the white-washed walls, the windows and doors trimmed in blue. Trekking up steps, ducking into tunnels, the alleys curving away around corners to intersect like so many rollercoaster rides. Sleeps resigned to, at some point, meeting himself coming back.

          Rossi turned another corner and stopped dead. 'Shit – is this the fucking square 
again
?'

          They found a space on a low wall circling a tree and had a couple of Singapore Slings to take the edge off. Rossi pinching out the crease in his strides, at this point dressed head-to-toe in Italian, a light suit, no socks, Gucci loafers for the finishing touch. Sleeps in beige Chino shorts and a white tee, XL, untucked.

          'Why don't you just ring Johnny?' Sleeps said. 'Ask him to get his guy come meet us.'

          'Amateur hour,' Rossi said. 'Giving 'em the giggles back in 'Dam.'

          'You could play it like you were being cool,' Sleeps said. 'Taking no chances, a neutral venue, all this.'

          'Making it sound like we don't trust Johnny.'

          'I don't trust Johnny.'

          'Because,' Rossi said, 'you never did serious time. Don't appreciate the bond between guys celled together. Besides, I been doing some research.'

          'Research?' Sleeps said.

          'Multi-tasking,' Rossi said. 'Like, how long have we been walking up and down the village?'

          ''Bout an hour, maybe more.'

          Rossi nodding along. 'And I haven't once, not fuckin 
once
, had even a whiff of a toke.'

          'Maybe they do their smoking at home,' Sleeps said. 'Private-like, so's they don't, y'know, get nabbed by the cops.'

          'You even seen a cop?'

          'Not yet.'

          'I rest my case.' Rossi lifting Johnny's parcel, putting it down again, to make his point. 'What I'm saying,' he said, 'is there's a niche here. You see it? Johnny's piping in coke, yeah?'

          'Not if you believe Johnny. According to Johnny he's just doing this guy Jochem a favour.'

          Rossi winked. 'This is Johnny's cover. Operating on a need-to-know basis.'

          'So you're trusting him even though he doesn't trust you.'

          'What're you spraffing about, man? He gave us the coke, didn't he?'

          'Yeah, but --'

          'Ask no questions, Sleeps, hear no lies. You ever move up, get to some place there's responsibility involved, you'll see that's how the big boys run it. Nudge-nudge, know what I mean?'

          'Running it like a Monty Python sketch.'

          'A what now?'

          'Forget it.' Sleeps scanned the crowd that filtered out of the alleyways to mill around the village's main square like it was a vortex sucking them in, Sleeps still hoping Mel might wander by. The square fronted by four or five bars with tables outside, each bar with speakers blasting out different tunes, the effect being roughly that of Russian sopranos on a spin-dry cycle.