For Those Who Know the Ending (3 page)

Martin stood and looked at him, considering it. Usman smiling, trying to look reasonable and persuasive. Couldn’t do any harm to take the phone number even if he had no intention of ever phoning the guy. Everyone promised big money for little work. It was the detail that would separate Usman from the criminal herd, but Martin had little intention of phoning to hear it, he just wanted this conversation to be over.

‘Fine, I will take your number,’ Martin said, taking his phone out of his pocket.

Usman told him the number, told him how to spell his name as well. As Martin turned to walk away Usman put a hand on his shoulder and stopped him.

‘I bet you’re thinking that I’m some kind of bullshitter, eh? Big mouth kid and all that. Well I ain’t. This job, it’s a good one. I got all the plans and info to make it work clean. Just needs a driver and gunman, two-man job, me and you. But you wouldn’t have to pull the trigger, no way. Minimum thirty grand return. Minimum. You think about it. Call me and we’ll discuss it, I’ll give you the details. Don’t have to say yes, but at least talk to me about it. How are you ever going to get to know people in the business if you won’t work with them?’

Usman nodded, convinced he’d nailed the speech with that last gem at the end. Throw in a catch-22 that only he can solve for the new guy in town. He turned and walked back down the street, his tall and thin frame rocking side to side as he walked. An affectation, an attempt to look like the coolest man in Glasgow. Hard to say who he thought he was impressing, but he seemed committed to it. Going for a gangster swagger.

Martin took a walk to the nearest bus stop, still unsure of where everything was here. Best way to learn your way about was to travel in ignorance, watching the city going past and waiting for it to get familiar. He would make a little money just for turning up at the drug handover they’d done today, but only a little. Working security, a job he was no good at. Not in Glasgow, anyway. Here he was just a short man with a mean look and a funny accent whose threats were mostly misheard. God, funny accents summed up half the city from where he was standing, but he was the odd one out. So he wasn’t even intimidating here. No reputation. Nothing. He was starting from scratch, and how do you start from scratch without taking a chance on new people?

2

It was the bill for the car insurance that changed things. Joanne had decided, partly because Martin had unofficially moved in and Skye had unofficially moved out, that it was time to get another car. She’d had one until Skye was nearly old enough to drive, then quickly sold it. She didn’t want to teach that girl how to drive; she was quite dangerous enough on foot.

Joanne had enough money to buy the car by herself, but Martin insisted on chipping in. It was pride, more than anything. Go halves on everything this early in the relationship to make Joanne see how useful he was. So he had to take two thousand, two hundred out of his savings. He told her he had the money and Joanne had little choice but to believe him.

‘I have money of my own,’ she told him. ‘You don’t have to match me penny for penny.’

‘I have money too,’ he said.

She knew what it was. This macho little guy who had earned his own money and paid his own way his whole life, unwilling to have his girlfriend provide anything for him now. She had no idea how much money he had, but he hadn’t done much work since they’d got together.

Joanne was going to pay for vehicle tax, so Martin insisted on paying for the insurance. And that was it. She saw a change in him now. Martin seemed like he was worried about something, and that something could really only be money. It became obvious that he was looking for work, phoning people who could help him out. They had separate accounts, didn’t talk much about money. Didn’t talk about what he would do to earn some either.

They didn’t talk about his work because it wasn’t a subject either of them was sure their relationship was strong enough to handle yet. Joanne worked with her older sister in a book store that their parents had owned before them. The parents were dead now, Joanne’s house had been theirs before they passed away. So Joanne had a nice house that she didn’t have to pay for and just enough money coming in from her job. She didn’t know what Martin was bringing to the table.

She didn’t put pressure on him; he put all the necessary pressure on himself. She didn’t ask about money, didn’t ask about his work, didn’t ask about his history. She was too smart for questions.

‘I had to leave in a hurry,’ he had told her early in the relationship. ‘I was working for some people. Not good people.’

‘I never thought you were a social worker, Martin.’

He wasn’t 100 per cent on what social workers did over here, but he was 95 per cent sure it was a long way from what he had done. Beating people, torturing a few and killing some. He did what was required to make the money he wanted. Over here? Standing in the back of a hairdressers while other people did deals, silent and simple. Only there so that his side would have one more person at the handover than the other side. He was a fucking statue.

Those savings had been hard earned. Took him years of brutal work to put it all together, but he had expenses back home as well. A nice flat, a nice car, a lifestyle that burned through disposable income quickly. When you work those jobs to make that money, you become determined to enjoy it. And when you flee the country in the night, get yourself across Europe and find yourself hardly employable for a few months, the savings dwindle. If it had been him alone he wouldn’t have called Usman. He would have lived poorly; worked with people he vaguely knew and worked his way up very gradually through the crowds of industry men in this city. He had to be careful, a man in his position. Make a wrong move and he’d be running from another country, this time without help. Don’t let people know who you are or what you did. Pick the people you work with carefully. Problem was that he didn’t need to earn just for himself, he was part of a couple now. When he woke up in the morning with Joanne wrapped around him, he knew he had to make the call.

Martin was alone in the house, sitting at the big kitchen table. The kitchen felt old, solid, classic. Everything looked expensive, almost antique, leftovers from Joanne’s parents’ time. He had his phone in front of him, Usman’s name and number on the screen. Thinking about that goofy smile and that silly walk. No. No way. He couldn’t work with a guy like that, too much risk. He would never have given him the time of day back home. Guy like that, he would have laughed in his face. Thirty grand minimum take with an even split, he had said though. A week’s work, at the most. Top up his savings and he wouldn’t have to work again for a few months. Wouldn’t even have to pull the trigger.

It was funny, but he hardly thought about the police, not back home and not here. He’d never been caught. Came close, obviously, or he wouldn’t have been bundled off to Glasgow in the first place, but he’d always got away. Wasn’t scared of getting caught now, even if he was in unfamiliar surroundings. He believed he had the talent to do most jobs clean. It was the thought of the other half of the two-man job botching it, getting him a bad reputation, that put some fear in him. The thought that Usman was a clown and everyone knew it but Martin.

He phoned the hairy Pole instead.

‘Przemek,’ he said, getting the pronunciation right this time. The good start he needed. ‘It’s Martin Sivok. I want to ask you about this Usman Kassar.’

There was a pause of a few seconds, a memory being searched. ‘What about him?’

‘Why did you give him my name?’

‘I knew he was looking for someone like you. I knew you were looking for someone like him.’

‘You make it sound like you’re sending us on a fucking date.’ His English improving to the point that he now knew where to drop the customary swear into a Glaswegian sentence.

‘Hey, what you two get up to is your business. He got in touch with you?’

‘He says he has a job. He seems stupid to me. Very stupid. If I work with him, I feel like other people will not want to work with me, they’ll think I’m stupid like him.’

‘Usman? He’s young, that’s all. He dresses stupid, but all young people dress stupid, always did. Talk funny too. But he has reputation. His brother, maybe more, but he has too. People know that he’s good at what he does. He’s done things that are outside of dealing, that’s the thing. His brother is just a dealer, we have worked with him, a reliable man. Usman, he does some things that his brother doesn’t, so when he needs someone to help he can’t go to Akram. Needs someone to do some of the things you used to do. I thought you and him would make money.’

‘Huh.’ It sounded reassuring. Almost reassuring enough. ‘These jobs, what are they?’

‘You would have to ask him, I suppose, he doesn’t share his secrets with me. I think he targets single jobs, high value, some risk. Good money though. You have robbed places, I know this, you can do it again. It would be that sort of thing, I think. Look, talk to him. He is from round here so he knows the targets. I don’t know them, not my area.’

That was all he could get out of the Pole and he had nobody else to ask. Nobody who would know Usman and his record in the city. He needed to make better connections among the local organizations. Something he mistakenly hadn’t tried to do. Now he knew he was staying, it looked like Usman would be his first.

If he could just trust the boy more. If Usman had made a better first impression. The impression of youth. The impression of brashness. The impression of difference. These weren’t attractive to Martin. Deal with them individually. Youth. Well, he was definitely younger than Martin, but maybe not by much. Acting young in the street wasn’t a definite indicator of how he would perform on a job. A smart kid was a better colleague than a dumb adult. Brashness. Lot of brash people in the criminal industry, that was universally true. It was a defence mechanism sometimes, a second skin for those who had grown up in the business. Many were drawn to the industry because it matched their own bold and aggressive attitudes. And it wasn’t like he had to love the boy, just work with him. Difference. Well, he was different. A Pakistani, although he was Scottish and spoke like it. But there were two other issues relating to difference. The first was that everyone here was different to Martin. The second was that every difference was forgiven when you were profitable. That was universal too, applied to the business in Brno as much as in Glasgow. Colour, nationality, religion, those were all clothes you wore. As long as the person underneath made money, nobody paid a whole lot of attention. You stop being profitable, people look for reasons to hate you and your differences become an issue.

Usman had put together a list of alternatives, none of them any more appealing than the foreigner. He needed a second pair of hands and they had to be willing to hold a gun. There was a couple of names on the very short shortlist, but he didn’t trust either one of them. Freelancers, men that Usman had learned about through various stories of doubtful truth, and he was unhappy with them both. He knew nothing about the foreigner, and that ignorance put the little guy a step ahead.

The phone rang, Usman looking at the screen and seeing an unknown number. He had almost given up on hearing from the foreigner at that point.

‘Hello.’

‘Hello, Usman?’

‘Yeah.’ A slight pause, working out the accent. ‘Is that Martin?’

‘Yes it is.’

‘Yeah, I thought it was. All right, cool, brilliant, you want to talk about the job, huh?’

‘I do want to talk about the job. I am not saying I will do the job, but I want to talk about it. Not over the phone.’

‘Nah, nah, not over the phone, obviously. We’ll meet. You want to pick the venue?’

A little, gentle piece of reassurance. Usman smart enough to offer Martin control of the meeting. And it was instinct too, he asked it quickly and naturally, which should impress Martin.

‘You tell me somewhere, I don’t know,’ Martin said. Keeping it deadpan, all the way, accepting that he didn’t know the city well enough to pick a location.

‘Right, sure, no bother. There’s a flat above a Chinese takeaway in Mosspark, that’s not too far from you. There’s, like, a doorway sort of thing with steps, like a passage. Go in there and I’ll have the door up to the flats open for you. I’ll go in the back so we won’t both be seen going in the same way. We can pretend we never met if we don’t like the smell of each other, right?’

‘That’s fine,’ Martin said.

Usman could hear him writing the address as he recited it. They said their goodbyes, Usman grinning in triumph as he did. The gunman was halfway into the job.

It was only after he had hung up that Martin thought about what Usman had said. Not far from you. So Usman knew where he was staying. Knew where Joanne lived. Martin’s first instinct was to be angry. When someone in the business lets you know the extent of their knowledge it’s usually some sort of threat. Work for me or else. But not this time. He calmed quickly, realizing what it was. The kid was showing his professionalism. Showing Martin that he could find things out, set things up. Trying to make himself seem like the sort of person Martin would want to work with.

They had arranged to meet within the hour, better to get this done quickly. Better for both of them. If Usman couldn’t win Martin round then it put an end to it quickly, let both of them look for alternatives. Usman could find someone else to help him; Martin could try and find another way of earning a living. If Usman was persuasive then it let them get started on the job straight away. Preparation time was always key; whatever the job was, you needed to plan it well and that meant taking your time.

He found the Chinese takeaway, found the passageway with the few steps leading up it that Usman had described. Martin looked up and down the street before he went in. A first meeting, always nervous, always paranoid. This could still be some sort of a set-up, although it wasn’t entirely obvious what anyone could gain from setting him up round here.

He walked slowly along the passageway, feet scuffing a little to make some deliberate noise, kill the silence and alert Usman that he was close. There was a door on his right, ajar. He reached for it, and as he did, it pulled back. Usman was standing there, grinning when Martin stepped quickly back, ready to go on the offensive.