Raucous (16 page)

“Duly noted.”

Raucous snapped the phone closed, and returned it to Jobs.

“On your way, and you should have checked the garage and upstairs.  That was the only mistake.”

“Your car is in there?”

“No, but you should have checked.  Always be as careful as you can.  People always know more than you think.”

******************************************************************

Parker turned to the Turk. 

“It catches up with all of us, Francis,” he said. 

The Turk struggled in his chair; the effort stretched the deep cuts in his chest, splitting them longer.  Parker pushed the Turk’s head back with the palm of his hand.  He felt little resistance.  And Francis, wide-eyed, tried to mask his fear with anger.  The last moment of his life and he wanted to go out a man.

“Too late in the day to act the man of stoic indifference.  You sold each and every one of your friends.  Betrayed and had them killed.  You lived this long, with your pathetic little life because I let you.  Think back, have those flashes of memory and what do you see?  You see nothing.  A wasted life.  Goodbye, Francis.”

Parker raised his knife and sliced along the right side of the Turks neck severing the artery, blood spat, and then ebbed out in a high pressure flow of beats.  The Turk’s feet started to shake and move.  Parker paused and repeated the move on the left side and he stood and watched the life drift slowly out of the Turk’s body.

CHAPTER FORTY SIX

“Geoff Rollin?  Not much to say about him.  He became successful.  Made millions.  Property guy.”

Charlotte found making the appointment easy to do.  Colin McKenzie was a financial advisor with a successful company that worked in collaboration with Rollin.  He was one of many who had connections but he stood out as having been at university, when Rollin has run home after the heist to hide in the protective arms of his family.  A mature student with a criminal past.

The meeting was easy to set up because McKenzie was a man bathing in his own brilliance.  An interview from a posh paper that his colleagues and competitors could read was all the ego massaging he needed.  He said yes as soon as Charlotte said she was from the Telegraph.

Charlotte chose the location.  She used the internet to find a traditional pub that had removed the traditional drunks and traditional potato-based food and replaced them with bankers and faux-continental snacks.  They met at midday, the lounge bar was empty.  They chose a circular wooden table next to the street window.  They sat on a long felt bench that ran the length of the wall. Outside drizzle was turning to snow.

McKenzie was a mid-thirties banker.  He wore a sharp tailored suit, wore a permanent expression of smug contentment, and cropped his hair short because the majority had fallen out.  He was keeping hold of his body reasonably well.  But not enough for the lazy excesses to shine through.  He was carrying what a teenager would call puppy fat, and what a man nearing middle-age would call fat.

His cheeks carried small burst capillaries from nights of excess in pubs.

To warm up, Charlotte asked questions about his life.

McKenzie, it became apparent, loved to tell the tales of crazy nights and fantastic experiences that sounded the same as a late-teen describing weekends of free beer and embarrassment as if he were recounting nights of excess in wall-street parties of super-models, Coke and celebrities, only his had been transferred to the stag’s Head and involved drunk colleagues, real ale, and a man who had once been in Eastenders.

Charlotte asked about his success, and he was willing to talk about moments of his own genius, about deals and about stupid people who he had taken advantage of and how it was their fault he skinned them alive because they shouldn’t have been so stupid.  He spoke of what he owned and what he would, about how people rise to the top naturally based on intelligence and skill, about how maybe one day he would have children but he would never say settle down.

Charlotte took breaks every ten minutes by moving away to the counter and ordering drinks.  She breathed deeply and hoped McKenzie’s verbal self-aggrandizing would lessen as he dank more. 

McKenzie had placed one of his six credit cards behind the bar.  The first two rounds, McKenzie asked for an Indian Pale Ale because of its fruity hoppy taste.  He glugged it down in minutes.  Charlotte ordered coke, asking the bartender not to fill the glass to make it look like a mixer.  The barman smiled. 

McKenzie drank three pints on an empty stomach.  He became increasingly friendly and open.  There were sitting on a long sofa bench that ran the length of the wall adjacent to the street.  McKenzie stood and removed his jacket.  He sat down closer to Charlotte than he had been before.  He extended his left arm back and rested it on the back of the sofa.  Charlotte imagined that this was his typical move when chatting up equally drunk women in any of thee pubs in which he socialized.  He was oiled and speaking and confident.  But the alcohol was impairing his judgment, although Charlotte was giving signs that she would never do if she had no information to collect.  McKenzie believed in his brilliance.  He was a man who had obtained everything he wanted, and those objects or women that he had not, were not worth his while.  Why would anyone turn him down?  He had it all, a car, an apartment, and a salary beyond most people’s economic possibility, he was a success, a man to envy.  He saw the way other men looked at him, he saw their jealousy.  He saw how their women looked at him and then looked at the men they were with and how they realized there was better for them out there.  It was jungle he said, and Charlotte knew the alcohol had taken effect because he was slipping into the biggest clichés without embarrassment or shame, and in that Jungle it was men like him that women wanted so they could have the things they craved.

Charlotte smiled and giggled and wrote on a pad in fake shorthand.  She wanted no record of the bullshit he was spouting.  She smiled and hoped that a woman more self-centered and arrogant than him would catch him and they could compete for the rest of their marriage on who could be the bigger prick.

She chose her time, she went to the bar, she bought another IPA, even if the last one had spilled on his shirt.  She put it on the damp coaster in front of him.  He smiled up, his eyes glazed like the drunk he was, he had unbuttoned his shirt so the top of his chest was visible.  Charlotte hoped this man would change or at least never have children.

She sat down and sipped her coke.  McKenzie moved closer.

“You are also an associate of Mr. Rollin, I hear,” Charlotte said.

McKeenzie stiffened slightly, and leaned away.  Charlotte saw the negative reaction.  A surprise.  “Yeah,” he said.  “We do a lot of business together.”

“You’ve known him from your university days, right?”  Charlotte asked.  She leaned toward McKenzie.  McKenzie backed off, he took his arm down from thee back the padded bench.  He moved his lower jaw side to side like a boxer checking to see if it were broke.

“He knows you’re asking this, you have his permission?”  McKenzie asked.

Charlotte smiled, a halfway pout, an attempt at a seductive look she had seen from bad actresses in bad soap operas from a different continent.  If she were any good at it, she thought, she would have had a monumentally stale pop career by now.  She knew she was floundering but pushed on.

“Would I need that?” she asked.

McKenzie sat upright.  Adrenaline was taking the edge of his easy booze phase

“I would prefer it if you did,” he said. “He’s not a man I would like to be on the wrong side of.”

Charlotte tried to act coy and unsure, she hoped McKenzie would buy her act.

“And why would that be?” she asked.

McKenzie smiled but not happily, it were as if he could see where Charlotte was going, or as if he knew who she was.

“Influential man,” McKenzie said. “We do business together.  Makes me and him a lot of money.  He is very principled.”

Charlotte feigned surprise.  She had never acted, not even at primary school, she preferred open and honest.  She had no idea if she was making the right moves. 

“I don’t see why he would mind,” she said.

McKenzie stood, he stumbled slightly, making him realize he was drunk and Charlotte was not.  His mind was working fast and he looked at Charlotte with great suspicion.  He picked up his jacket from the back of the chair where he had left it neatly folded and hanging.  He reached inside and produced a large phone.

“Well, you won’t mind if I phone and check,” he said.

McKenzie swiped the screen in a zigzag and pressed once.  He had Rollins on speed-dial.  He looked at Charlotte without smiling as the phone rang.

“Hello,” he said.  “Sorry to bother you Geoff.  I have a reporter here.  The telegraph she says.  Doing an article on me but wanting to know about you.  I found it strange as you are quite a private man.”

Rollin spoke and the man looked Charlotte up and down.  He nodded his head and his eyes became slits.  Rollin continued to speak and the edge of fear left him.  He eased up, his shoulders relaxed.  He managed a half-hearted smile at Charlotte.

“Yes, that’s her,” McKenzie said.  “Scars and all.”

Rollin spoke again.  McKenzie nodded.

“If you are sure,” McKenzie said. “I don’t have all that much to say.  Anything I need to leave out? 

McKenzie laughed at the answer, too long and too hard.  An attempt to let out stress and tell Rollin everything was under control

“Yeah, I don’t think anyone would like to know about that,” he said.

McKenzie placed the phone, screen up, on the table and sat down again.  He stayed his distance and he sat up straight, twisted at the waist to face Charlotte.

“Rollin said I could speak freely,” McKenzie said.  “So go ahead and ask questions.”

Charlotte picked up her pen and flipped the notebook to a clean page.

“What was he like?” she asked.

McKenzie half closed his eyes, took a deep breath, looked down and then up at Charlotte.  He smiled without warmth.

“Studious,” he said. “Never went out, rarely socialized.  Just hit top grades on everything.”

Charlotte wrote slowly, she wished she had brought a recording device.  She did not know short hand and wrote quickly and badly.

“How did you meet?” she asked.

McKenzie, Charlotte could see, wanted out quickly.  He was fidgeting with the coaster and he pushed his half-finished beer across the table so it was out of temptation.

“In halls,” he said.“We lived on the same floor.  First year.  He was the mature student, we all figured he was there to keep an eye on us.  Eighteen-year-olds, newly free from parents and there was this mid-thirties guy who rarely spoke and sat in the shared kitchen reading and studying.  Took us a while to figure out he couldn’t care less what we were up to.”

McKenzie stared into space waiting for the next question.

“Pretty boring guy?” Charlotte asked

“Yeah, but honest,” McKenzie said without looking at Charlotte. “No bullshit.  If he was annoyed he said.”

Charlotte paused, wanting McKenzie to turn and look at her, so she could try and see honesty or lies in his expression.  But McKenzie refused and his attention was taken by the barman keeping the perfectly clean bar clean in an attempt to justify his wage.

“What annoyed him?”  Charlotte asked.

“Noise.  He liked the quiet.  So we did the partying downstairs.  Ground floor.  Top floor was the peaceful area. Geoff’s area.”

At this McKenzie turned to Charlotte and smiled, like he had revealed an insight only an inner circle of secret people were able to understand..

“Only knew him in the first year,” McKenzie said. “Second year we all went and lived in our shitty rented places, and he stayed in halls.  Most mature students do.  Those without homes and families.”

“Rollins didn’t have any?”  Charlotte asked.

“You’re the journalist, you should already know.”

“Did you know?”

“No, we were not what you would call friends.  We never went out because he never went out.”

“But now you are business partners.”

“No, we are associates.  He came to me years after graduation.  I’m in brokering, which is-”

“I know what it is.”

“Of course you do.  Anyway, I received his call, went to the meeting and only when I saw him did I realize who it was.  He made a proposal; it was a great one, not just good, but great.  And we have worked on and off ever since.  We’ve made each other a lot of money.”

McKenzie picked up his coat; he shook it out and placed it on without standing.  His left fist pushed across Charlotte’s vision inches from her face.  Charlotte understood his anger, she had played with his self-confidence and now he was here having to explain and describe his bigger, better more talented friend.

“Still making that money?”  Charlotte asked.

McKenzie tapped his phone.  The time appeared in large white numbers on a black background.  McKenzie checked his watch for confirmation. He tried to yawn but it wouldn’t come so he stuck his tongue into the side of his cheek.

“Times are tough,” he said. “There’s a crisis.  While the golden age may have ended, or be in some type of pause.  We are careful men, and not so exposed to the risks of a market collapse.  He is a smart guy.  And not prone to investing rashly.”

“He must have some brains,” Charlotte said.

“Everyone is looking for investment and opportunities.  More difficult now with more people in the market and less property to develop and fewer rich people willing to spend.  But the bubble burst and now it’s inflating again.  Not the same as before, obviously.  But the smart people will always be ahead of the game.  And Rollins is smart.  And so am I.”

“Do you know any of his other associates?  Others come from university?”

McKenzie grabbed the back of the chair where his coat had been.  The skin on his knuckles turned white.  He squeezed hard, thought, and relaxed and the colour returned to his hands.  He took a deep breath and stood up straight and stared at Charlotte.

“Look, I’ll tell you my story of Rollin and then I’m gone.  OK?” he said.  “It’s off the record, but it doesn’t matter because you are no type of journalist at all.”

Charlotte saw she had no hope to keep McKenzie any longer, she nodded her acceptance of the deal.

“He helped me once,” McKenzie said. “I lived with a few of those guys that liked to be gangsters while they studied.  Low-level dealers of hash to friends and a small group.  Fun, not dangerous.  There’s nothing in it.  Students buying drugs and getting stoned.  Wow, what a surprise.  Only they expanded into pills and the locals didn’t like it.  That was their business.  You can deal to students but not the locals.  We got raided.  Not by the police.  A friend got smacked around.  A gun was pressed against my head.  Pretty scary for a home-counties posh boy like me.  Rollins got wind and said it wouldn’t happen again.  And it never did.”