I can’t resist shouting manically, “Jonny Hustler three, Ruski bastards nil!”
I’m bone-weary with the blood of too many men on my hands to count them properly. I need to get rid of the BMW and the.38. Hole up and lick my wounds until the heat dies down. With Pope and Kozlov dead, all leads to Archie’s killer have evaporated like spittle on a hot London pavement.
Ten days later my sources tell me the police are connecting the Pope and Kozlov murders but have nothing else to go on. I’m seemingly in the clear but arrive home with a strange sense of foreboding. This macabre business is far from over.
Amongst the assorted pile of bills, junk mail and fast food flyers is a Royal Mail docket for a registered delivery. My sixth sense itches like a dose of hives. I’m up to my bollocks in a case that sucks like a nymphomaniac on death row.
I return to my flat from the local sorting office with a tightly wrapped package. Sitting on the sofa I pull bubble wrap away, revealing a six by six inch box. I fire up a B&H, suck hard on the snout until my lungs crackle. I flip the lid on the box.
A multitude of precious stones shimmer like cats’ eyes and sparkle like distant stars. I’m mesmerised by a mass of translucent gemstones.
I whistle and say aloud, “Jeez!”
“Hello Jonny Boy.”
I turn. Archie Knox is framed in the doorway. He’s dressed in navy blue corduroy slacks, roll neck sweater and a hound’s tooth check blazer; just like your favourite uncle.
My mouth gapes. An eternity passes until I manage to say, “What the fuck…”
“I’ve led you a merry dance my old son.” Archie tries for a grin, holding up both hands, palms forward. “What can I say…”
I’m speechless. You try talking to a ghost.
I get up and grab a hold of his lapels to check he’s for real. He is. Anger replaces shock.
“The chopped up corpse?” I ask.
“One of Kozlov’s boys.” Archie shrugs, “He was about the same size and build as me.” Then he adds, almost as an afterthought, “Didn’t know I had it in me…”
My mind flashes back to the news items; the hands, the feet and teeth were all missing from the dismembered cadaver.
“You sicko.” I lift Archie from the ground. “Does Lucy know?”
“Too dangerous.” Archie shakes his head, “She’s the only decent thing in my life, Jonny Boy.”
I put a hand around Archie’s scrawny turkey neck and squeeze his windpipe a little. “I should throttle you for putting on this bloody charade.”
“Think of the money,” Archie gasps.
“The money!” I rage.
“The jewels! The jewels!” My fingers tighten a little more. Archie struggles for air, his feet kicking mid-air. “I… I’ve got the c… co…contacts…,” he croaks. “You’ve got the b… br… brawn… The b… bb… bottle.”
The jigsaw starts to come together in my muddled brain. I loosen my grip a little. Archie gulps air like it’s going out of fashion.
“A fortune split down the middle, fifty-fifty,” Archie wheezes, winking at me. “C’mon what do you say, Jonny Boy?”
“I’ll split you down the middle.” I bounce the back of his head off the wall a few times but not enough to do damage. Not that there’s anything inside his canister to damage. “You trusted jewellery, worth five hundred grand, to the Royal bloody Mail!”
“I posted the gems before you offed Kozlov.” Archie puts his hands to his head, feeling for bumps and lumps. “He was getting close. Too close for comfort. Then you put the cat well and truly amongst the pigeons.”
I let go. Archie falls into a heap.
“Your little game has made me very angry.” I pull Kozlov’s Glock 19 from my waistband. “And I’m a nasty bastard when I’m angry.”
“Sixty-forty?” Archie whispers. “In your favour.”
I place the muzzle of the Glock on his forehead. His eyes grow big. My finger caresses the trigger.
A long beat passes. Archie looks like death warmed up; forgive the pun.
“Seventy-thirty,” I finally say.
BIO:
Alan Griffiths, a rookie writer, hails from the badlands of South London. His criminal writing can be found in the e-book anthology Discount Noir published by Untreed Reads. The Byker Books anthologies: Radgepacket – Tales from the Inner Cities Volumes 5 and 6. Also, in the Near to the Knuckle anthology: Gloves Off. His literary hero is Ernie Wise; nuff said really!
HANOI HEAT By Iain Purdie
I hate Vietnam. In fact I hate all of South East Asia, but I hate Vietnam more as that’s where I was stuck at this precise moment in time. It’s not the food or the language or the people – especially the women. There’s nothing wrong with the women and I’ve… sampled enough to be sure of this fact.
It’s the weather. The humidity is simply dreadful. It makes my hair a nightmare to maintain and it’s murder on clothing. A man likes to give a good impression and a lovely white suit is the perfect start. A white suit with sweat stains on it by lunchtime is anything but attractive and gives off entirely the wrong impression. It may be perfectly all right for people like the fat businessman currently digging into his second bowl of phở in the restaurant I was running past, but it just wasn’t good enough for me.
Ah, yes. Introductions.
My name is John Cord and Her Majesty’s government is very lucky to have me in their employ. My job title is the wonderfully simple and yet perfectly accurate “Special Agent”. Emphasis very much on the “special” as I’m sure those aforementioned Vietnamese lovelies would agree.
However, even I find it difficult to feel special whilst wearing a dreadfully sweaty light cotton suit. Also while running along a busy Hanoi street slightly after midday in near 100% humidity. This kind of thing they certainly do not train you for as part of the Ministry’s schooling. Seventy-two hours on the frozen hills of Scotland hunting and humiliating those amateurs in the SAS? No problem. But sadly no training in avoiding mopeds seemingly ridden by drivers utilising sonar while running pell-mell through what feels like a very warm swimming pool.
Oh, running. Yes.
This was an unusual situation. Often, my job entails locating someone regarded as a threat and convincing them – gently, with the lowest-velocity of bullets – that they would rather not cause problems for the United Kingdom and her friends and allies.
Instead I was currently tasked with locating an individual carrying knowledge which could help us in our fight against the, for want of a better phrase, “bad guys”. The problems I was having were twofold.
First of all, he didn’t want to be located. And once he realised he had been, he decided to make himself un-located as swiftly as possible.
Secondly, I wasn’t the only one who regarded the contents of his cranium as valuable. Representatives of the opposition were right behind me, very much intent on getting their filthy mittens on my quarry.
Sadly for them, one thing stood in their way.
Me.
So, running past a restaurant. Quarry ahead of me, but disappearing amongst the busy crowd. At least two men of Arabic descent following me at quite the pace. They obviously had less regard for their clothing as I for mine. They also had less regard for the populace, seeming quite happy to push and shove their way through the lunchtime throng.
I, on the other hand, had opted to sprint down the road and take my chances with the traffic. While this was working on the whole, every so often a moped would speed towards me against the flow of traffic. While miraculously missing every other vehicle, they always seemed to be making a bee-line for yours truly with every intent of coating my rapidly-browning finery in another layer of exhaust fumes.