drive.
‘That’s Haltenorth. He’s new, but useful.’ Diller clicked his tongue.
Vincent shrugged. ‘OK. There’s a kettle inside we can fire up. But only got tea. That OK?’
‘Magic.’
Vincent turned and led the way. His forced smile disintegrated, knowing this was no social call. This, he knew, was purely business. Dirty business. In fact he had been expecting it, nay had engineered it, but he hadn’t foreseen Diller would be the lead soldier. But then again, maybe he should have. The time for games had long since gone. Problem was, he was just slightly off balance and would have felt better if his partner had been with him. It would have made the equation much more even-handed.
‘Fuck,’ Vincent uttered under his breath, half expecting Diller to step up behind him and stick the barrel of a pistol against his hindbrain and blow his head off. Things really had got that far, but the fact that Diller didn’t kill him was the first of his mistakes. Vincent’s smile returned as he opened the cabin door and allowed Diller and Haltenorth to enter ahead of him.
‘You guys want to grab a chair at the far end?’ Vincent said amicably, his mind manipulating angles and possibilities because he was certain this would not end prettily.
Steve Flynn smiled winningly as he passed the two pretty female cabin crew members and boarded the flight. He had managed to book a very last minute ticket, via Adam Castle’s travel agency, for a flight that would take him back to Manchester from Las Palmas. He’d had a quick discussion with Castle about leaving the island for a short period. There would be nothing lost because of the lack of work. Castle also told him that a short-term disappearance might be a good thing anyway. Rumours were already circulating that the petulant charter boat customer who Flynn had accidentally knocked unconscious was after blood — or a payoff. Flynn’s absence from the island might be a good thing, Castle had suggested.
Flynn heaved his only baggage into the overhead locker and edged sideways into the middle of three seats. He looked at both his travelling companions and they studiously avoided eye contact. With a sardonic twist of his mouth, he leaned forward, struggling to take off his windjammer, which he stuffed under the seat in front of him after he’d taken out the paperback thriller he was halfway through. He found his place and continued reading about a tough guy walking into town with no ID, just the clothes he stood up in, and then kicking the crap out of the ‘ornery yokels’. Completely unreal, but highly exciting. Only four and a half hours to go, he thought. Then he smiled at the prospect of seeing Cathy. Her predicament sounded iffy, even though she hadn’t said very much on the phone, but he was looking forward to being with her again. She promised that somehow she would pick him up from the airport.
They walked past the desk and sat on the plastic chairs at the far end of the cabin, which were positioned in the vicinity of the tiny gas-powered heater. Vincent, too, walked past the desk, and reached for the kettle — but Diller placed a hand on his forearm and glanced up at him.
‘We don’t need a drink, actually.’
Vincent’s fingers unravelled slowly from the kettle handle.
‘Mr Cain wants his money. He’s tired of waiting.’
‘H,’ Vincent began, his voice reasonable.
‘H. Diller,’ he was corrected.
‘H. Diller… look, pal, one of my donkeys got away with it. It can’t be found, but I took care of him — you can’t really ask for anything more than that.’
‘Mr Cain wants payment.’ Diller flexed his large black fingers. To his left, Haltenorth sat forward in his chair, his fingers interlocked. His eyes were angled up at Vincent.
‘I don’t have payment. We were ripped off by my donkey.’
‘Mule, you mean?’
‘I call ’em donkeys. Thicko lowlifes. Who else would take the chance, but doombrains, i.e. donkeys?’
‘I see.’ Diller’s eyes hadn’t left Vincent’s face. ‘In that case, Mr Cain would like goods in exchange — at double the value.’
‘Twenty grand’s worth?’
‘Plus interest. Make it twenty-two. Round it up to twenty-five for my inconvenience, and that of Mr Haltenorth, too.’
Vincent shook his head.
‘You have that amount here. This is where the distribution starts.’
‘I have no stock. The vehicles took the last of it on their last run.’ Vincent sighed. ‘This won’t go away will it, H. Diller?’
‘Be like an elephant in your brain until it’s settled.’
Vincent ran a hand over his unshaven face. ‘I’ve got a grand in the petty cash drawer.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the desk. Then he bent forward, placed his hands on his knees like he was going to play pat-a-cake, and looked directly into Diller’s eyes. He spoke tauntingly. ‘And that’s all the fucker is having. That’s the bill paid. It’s just one of those write-offs you occasionally have to make in this business. People get greedy. That greedy person has been dealt with and that’s the end of the matter — you tell him that.’ Vincent rose to his full height. He wasn’t a tall man, five-nine, but he was lean, with power behind his shoulders. ‘I’ll get you the money.’
He stepped to the desk and, as he expected, Diller moved — quickly. He shot up from the plastic chair and manoeuvred himself into a position between Vincent and the desk. At the same time, a handgun appeared in his right hand, a 9mm pistol of Chinese origin. Even with the gun jammed in the soft part underneath the cleft of his chin, Vincent recognized the weapon as part of a consignment he’d brought in and distributed two years before, one of his other sidelines. He wondered how many jobs it had been used on, how many lives it had taken, how much cash it had generated.
‘N-no, back away, pal,’ Diller said.
Vincent tried to swallow, his throat rising and falling against the ‘O’ of the muzzle. He moved as requested.
‘Check the drawers,’ Diller said out of the corner of his mouth. Haltenorth was already on his feet. Diller pushed Vincent further back as the other man swooped to the desk and yanked open the drawers. He rifled through them, found nothing but papers and a money tin with a piece of paper taped to it that said ‘Petty Cash’.
He took it out and showed Diller.
‘What did you expect, a shooter?’ Vincent asked.
Diller removed the muzzle from Vincent’s neck, but couldn’t resist dragging the barrel up to his temple and pressing it hard against his skull, before withdrawing.
‘How much in tin?’ Diller asked.
‘Twelve hundred, give, take,’ Vincent shrugged, his face taut with tension.
‘Unlock it.’
Vincent edged out of Diller’s proximity and sat down on the office chair. Diller and Haltenorth stood back to watch him. He fished a key out of his jeans pocket and inserted it into the lock of the box, which measured about six inches by nine, maybe four inches deep. As he did this, his knee touched the shotgun strapped underneath the desk. His mind whirled as he worked out his moves. The flaw in it all was the time it would take him to free it from the Velcro straps, turn, rise, aim it — the weapon was ready to fire, loaded with two twelve-bore cartridges — and take out two very streetwise individuals, one of whom already had a gun in his hand. No doubt the other was also armed but hadn’t yet shown his firepower. But they had expected to find a gun in the desk drawer, and hadn’t. Vincent could tell they’d dropped their guard. They’d relaxed. And that was all to his advantage. Plus they hadn’t killed him yet.
‘Why don’t you two guys sit back down?’
‘Nah, we’ll stand, because it won’t be enough. We had specific instructions, Jack. Oh yeah, don’t get me wrong, we’ll take the money — but you’re still gonna die. You had your chances, y’see. That was the last one and you didn’t come good.’
Vincent slowly unlocked the money box, opened the hinged lid. It was stuffed with cash, many notes, all tightly rolled up. He removed the money from the tin, a bitter expression on his face, and bounced it on the palm of his hand. ‘How much to pay you guys off?’ he asked, playing the game.
‘What you mean?’ Diller demanded.
‘How much for you to go back to Cain and tell him I wasn’t here, you couldn’t find me? Eh?’ His eyebrows
