Sweetness chuckles. “I figured that out on my own. But a promise is a promise, and if you go, I go. I just don’t know how you can do it with your knee as fucked up as it is. And if I said no, I have a feeling you’d try to go by yourself.”
“Yeah, I would.”
“How?”
My pain level has gone down considerably since getting the cortisone shots. “Slowly and carefully. And that’s why I brought the sawed-off room sweeper.”
“Then let’s go.”
I check the time on my cell phone, wish I hadn’t destroyed my watch. It’s a few minutes after midnight.
I switch back to English and say to the whore-mongering brothers, “Put your thinking caps on and figure out how to get in and out alive, because you two are coming with us.”
“Why us?” the Raper says. “We gave ya what ya wanted!”
“Because,” I say, “the two of you are such harmless, pathetic, brainless morons that no one would suspect you of doing anything that requires balls.”
Pissed off and afraid, the Ripper says, “Ya told us you’d leave us be if we told yer what ya wanted.”
“No, I promised you no rat jacket. And you may not pimp the girls in your club, but you make deals with their pimps-don’t tell me you don’t take kickbacks-and in my eyes, that makes you scum.”
“They’ll fuckin’ kill us. We’ll have to leave the fuckin’ country.”
I draw my silenced.45. “It’s me now or them later. You boys are good at plying your trade. I’m sure you’ll start over somewhere else and prosper.”
In fact, I wouldn’t kill them or have Sweetness cut off their fingers, but I’ve done a good job of convincing them otherwise.
“Ya can’t just murder us. You’ve been seen. You’ll end up in the nick same as any other murderer, copper or not.”
I show him the taped-up.357 Magnum. “You pulled this. It was self-defense. We had no choice.”
Fear: the great motivator. He doesn’t hesitate, makes a call. The table is full. He says they’re happy to sit in when other players want breaks, and really, they want to come to talk business more than play. He gets the invite. My guess is they’re bush-league players and the others just think of them as easy money. Two idiots to fleece and send packing.
“You’re going to need the cash as a stage prop,” I say, “to convince them you’re there to play. Find it.”
“You expect us to have two hundred thousand euros just layin’ around to no purpose?”
“I hope you do,” I say, “for your sake.”
He turns even paler, scowls, furious at having his life turned upside down, calls me a “filthy fucking rat bastard prick,” and says, “I guess we gotta take it with us to flee the fuckin’ country anyway, cuz of you.”
“It would likely be in your best interest,” I say.
He pulls a cheap reproduction of a Pre-Raphaelite painting off the wall to reveal a safe behind it. It’s stuffed with cash. He jams it all into a gym bag. “I guess you win, mate,” he says, “but goddamn you to hell fer it.”
“We’re not fucking friends,” I say, “so if either of you calls me fucking ‘mate’ one more time, I’ll shoot you on general principles. So fuck you and let’s go.”
15
We go out to the Wrangler. The Ripper sits in front beside Sweetness. I sit in the back beside the Raper, my silenced Colt pressed against his side. They might try to bolt and run while we’re at a traffic light. This gives them incentive to stay in the vehicle and behave. We park down the street from King’s Royale. To reach the back of the club and the delivery entrance, a vehicle has to pass through an alley. The buildings on both sides of it make the alley a perfect shooting gallery, while hiding and protecting the guards at the club door around the corner at the back of it. I have no visibility for the first leg of this operation.
How to do this? The Harper brothers could just forewarn the guards that police are coming, walk in, the door locked behind them, and earn some points from Pasi Palo for the tip-off. No doubt they’ve both already considered this.
“You two remember who you’re dealing with,” I say. “Two cops from the National Bureau of Investigation.” They don’t know Sweetness is officially employed as a linguistic specialist. “If you screw us, we’ll kill you tonight if we can. If not, we’ll ruin your business, charge you with all sorts of shit, have your books examined and nail you for tax fraud. I’ll make it my personal business to see you get max prison sentences. The list of our ways to fuck up your lives is long, and if you fuck us over, it’ll be your own asses you’re peddling, as if anyone would want them, instead of spending your evenings drinking cognac with spies and getting your dicks sucked.”
I take the Raper’s cell phone, put my number in it, and give it a speed dial with the number one. I call my own phone number, give it back to him and tell him to keep the line open so I can hear everything that’s said.
I ask Sweetness for his Taser, take out my own, and show the brothers how they work. “You two are going to talk your way into getting the door unlocked, then zap the men guarding it with these. Keep shocking them until they’re unconscious. Look for security cameras and get out of sight of them. Then you tell me and we’ll be there in a heartbeat.” I pull the sawed-off in its black garbage bag out from under the seat and show it to them. “We’ll be right behind you with this, and when we get there, I’ll tell you what to do next.”
I smell fear sweat and they both tremble. “Pull yourselves together, goddamn it, or you’ll end up dead.” I hand Sweetness the bag with the lockbuster shotgun and he takes a roll of duct tape from the glove box.
They nod, and we pile out of the Wrangler. They have trouble making themselves walk down the street. Sweetness kicks the Raper in the ass. “Move.”
Off they go, and we trail a little less than a minute behind them, shotguns hidden in the bags, but cocked with our fingers on the triggers. It gets dark a little earlier every night as summer progresses. The light is dim. For a moment, I think it makes us unobtrusive, but realize my limp and Sweetness’s size make that impossible.
We reach the corner and peer into the alley. The brothers walk into it. We give them a head start and follow. They reach an inner courtyard and turn right. I listen to them blabber inane bullshit to security about why they want to attend the game. But they flash the cash and it gives them an appearance of veracity. I hear electric zaps.
The Raper unpockets his phone and speaks to me. “The blokes are out cold. Me satchel full of cash made ’em believe we’re here to play. I got me foot keepin’ the door open, an’ there’s a security camera on top a the door.”
Sweetness peers around the corner and blows out the camera lens with his pistol. He motions for me to follow.
I recognize one of the bodyguards. He answered the door once when I visited Veikko Saukko’s home. I take it he’s on loan this evening. He had an iPad and used it to check Saukko’s appointments, appeared to serve as Saukko’s secretary as well as security. We use zip-lock plastic ties to cuff their hands and feet. Saukko’s man is an obvious powerhouse. I double-shackle him to make sure he can’t use his strength to snap the zip-locks. I take his iPad, it might have some useful information in it. We tape their mouths shut. They start coming around.
“Can we scarper now?” the Raper asks.
“Soon,” I say. “Take us to the game, put on happy faces, and tase the guards outside the door. Same deal. I’ll listen. Tell me when they’re down.”
“Yer a God-rotted bastard,” he says, and does as he’s told.
We follow the brothers through the kitchen storeroom, they motion for us to stop, and they start down a hallway. Upstairs in the nightclub, the music must be blaring. Here in the staff area, I can’t hear a goddamned thing. The soundproofing is excellent. The Raper gives me the go-ahead. We start down the hall. I go as fast as I can, which isn’t very. Two more guards are down. We secure them, disarm them, pull the batteries out of their phones and fling them back toward the storeroom. I tell the brothers to get the fuck out of here.
We take the shotguns out of the bags. I cradle the sawed-off under my arm and take two flash-bangs out of my pocket. I press myself against the wall to avoid shrapnel. Sweetness angles himself away from the door to do the same. We do it fast. He fires and kicks the door open. The roar is deafening in this confined space. I pull the
