Raucous (25 page)

CHAPTER SIXTY FIVE

Raucous knew he had to do this fast, speed was key to convincing.

Raucous pulled up at the apartment complex.  He looked up and saw the light bright in only one window.  He stepped out of his car and rang the bell.  He waited five seconds and rang again.

“Who is it?” A voice shot through the intercom.

“As if you can’t see me on the camera you have hidden behind the plate here.”

Raucous pressed his finger against the small spy hole and left a smudge that would annoy the hell out of anyone with OCD.

“What do you want?”

“A chat.”

“About what.”

“Business.”

The door popped open and Raucous took the elevator to the fifth floor.

Parker greeted him as he stepped out of the lift.  A gun trained on Raucous’ head.

“My gun is in the car,” Raucous said. 

Raucous stepped out of the elevator and lifted his arms up and out as he spread his feet. 

“I’m clean, but check.  I’d like this to be short,” he said.

Parker patted Raucous down with his left hand.  The right hand holding the gun at all times.

“Come on in,” Parker said.

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

Raucous sat at the mahogany desk.  Sir Alex in front of him on the opposite side, with Parker standing to the right of Raucous and a step behind.

“We have a snitch, or you don’t trust me.  Which one is it?”  Raucous asked.

Sir Alex looked puzzled.

“Great little bit of acting.  But the question wasn’t answered.”

“What are you getting at?”  Parker asked.

“The phone you patted down, can i get it out?” Raucous asked.

Alex looked to Parker.  Parker, Raucous thought, must have given the nod.

“OK,” Alex said and lent back in his chair.

Raucous swiped his phone open.  He dialled the number Jobs had saved as A.  His phone started to ring, but no other in the room followed. He waited seven seconds and then the mobile on Sir Alex’s table sounded.  The ring-tone a famous classical piece that Raucous knew by ear but not by name.  Raucous ended the call.

Raucous then phoned B.  He waited the same seven seconds and then heard the vibrating coming from Parker’s pocket.  Raucous ended the call.

“I hope you turn them off at the cinema,” he said.

“We’re associates,” Alex said.  “We need to know we can trust each other.”

Raucous grimaced.

“The trust should have extended a little further," he said.  "So I can take it the guy is not a snitch, at least not to the police.”

“Yes, you can," Sir Alex said.  "I’m sure you can understand our caution.  Once we understand our relationship, only then can we start to help each other.”

Raucous stood, Parker backed off and raised his gun.

“Then let’s start with the mutual help," Raucous said.  "You are going to have to help me.”

“And how are we going to do that?” Sir Alex asked.

“There’s a van parked in the safe zone out back of the Villa.  The van needs to vanish.”

“It is untraceable,” Parker said.

“Maybe so, but as comatose as the boys are that get shifted around in it, they aren’t far enough gone to not realize there is a decomposing body in there that's six-feet-six long.”

“He’s dead?”  Parker asked.

“He was acting like a snitch.  So I killed him.  We have another gathering organized for next weekend.  I imagine I am no longer required as I am led to believe you two will be paying a visit.  Or I imagine after tonight it will be cancelled.  But if you trust me for a next time, wherever that may be, don’t send an alcoholic idiot to watch my work.”

Raucous turned and pointed at Sir Alex.

"I gave up whatever was in the package," he said.  "And you sure wanted it, so I’m guessing it was pretty important to you.  Now I’m giving you a body that has my prints all over it, in a van with an equal number of my prints all over it.  There is also the gun.  Again covered in my prints.  You have that on me."

Parker snorted.

"And if we were to call that in," he said, "I’m sure you would be forthcoming with certain information about us."

"I’m an ex-con, with a dumb past.  My word, a word that needs to be said to avoid jail time.  I’m not going to win that against a man of your influence.  So there’s my trust.  To you.  I hope I will be shown a similar courtesy in return.  If you need me, I’ll be at home.  It’s been a rather long and unusual day.”

              Raucous made sure he was a mile away from the building before he called. 

They answered on the third ring.

"There was a problem," he said.  "I think I have them convinced.  The next gathering is next weekend.  We use that one, or I kill them all.  I'm not letting it happen again.  I won't do the long game.  Next time with your plan or next time with mine.  I'm ready.  If you aren't then they all die.  If I am excluded, I'll enter and shoot.  If I'm in, you do your thing, or I'll exit shooting.  Chamberlain is coming.  He needs to calm the clientele.  He'll be there."

He didn't wait for an answer.  He turned the phone off and stopped.  He couldn't do it again. 

CHAPTER SIXTY SIX

Raucous didn't know if they had bought it.  Sure, they had told him to set up the gathering, to collect the boys, to be the doorman, to make sure it all ran smooth. Nothing could hold back the Villa. But it didn't ring true.  Were he them, he would set him up too.  They would check, they would be careful, Parker was nobody's fool.  But here he was, Raucous, in the Villa, sat at his chair at the bottom of the stairs waiting for guests to arrive.

Chamberlain had called him personally.  This should have set off the alarm bells.  He didn't need to speak to anyone, he had men for that.  But Sir Alex had spoken, told him too much. He had given information that Raucous wanted and needed to believe.  Chamberlain was due to make an appearance.  Raucous couldn't understand why.  There was no reason.  Maybe a new man needed to be bribed, maybe a show of calm in the face of media storms.  Raucous didn't know.  But he knew it didn't fit.

Raucous needed this night.  He needed this to be the last.  He had picked up the kids, brought them here and they were upstairs unguarded and free.  He imagined they would be silent, sipping drink if they weren't already too far gone.

He had his gun.  He was sure he would need it.  Parker was too wily to fall for something so obvious.  Raucous couldn't do this, couldn't keep it going.  The boys upstairs were the next generation from his.  He knew them, and he knew the boys that had been them.  He couldn't do it and he had called it in.  Tonight it ended. He couldn't sit and do nothing until the right moment came.  Their lives were destroyed, he knew that, but he couldn't use them, be separate from what was happening, be a part of their torture so another evil could be caught.  It had to be now or he would break and kill and most would escape.

Three of the four guests arrived.  Raucous greeted and they made their way upstairs.  None were from the previous gathering, and none were Sir Alex. 

He had to come, Raucous thought.  He had to come. 

Raucous carried his gun at all times.  He was waiting for one of the guests to be his assassin, but none of them seemed the killing type.  They were broken men, trying to justify their own suffering by inflicting it on others.

It had to be the fourth.  The last man would be the only chance to attack Raucous.

But the fourth guest arrived and went upstairs without noise or bother.  A fat man in a suit.  The usual giggles and chatter drifted from the drinks room.  Raucous sat and waited.  He looked at his watch.  He didn't know why, Sir Alex had given no indication of the time he would arrive.  He had said he needed to visit, be there briefly, show his face.  But Raucous was now more convinced than ever this was a trick to flush him out.  And they had called it right. 

Raucous looked up the stairs.  He knew what was about to happen, had sat through it once, and if he were honest with himself, he had put himself in a position to kill Jobs to balance out the evil that he felt he had caused.  The balance hadn't come, only a brief high for eliminating a man like Jobs. 

He couldn't do it again. 

Were there enough important men here to turn on Sir Alex?  Raucous thought.  Would they know enough?  Could they connect him to any of this?  Raucous was a part, he had seen, he could testify, but his word meant nothing.  An ex -con with nothing but lies behind him. 

He heard the first of the couples leave the comfort of the drinks room.  He stood and paced.  He waited, he looked at his phone.  Nothing, no calls no messages.  He heard a bedroom door open and he heard creaking boards and a deep voice.  He paced, and he heard another couple leave the drinks room.  His phone stayed dead.  He sat down and thought of his childhood friends, he thought of the promises made.  He pressed his phone, the screen lit up, he pressed a button and he held the phone to his ear. 

"Do it now," he said and slumped back.

He sat still as the front and back doors burst open.  Police in heavy armour with guns pointed straight at head-height marched up the stairs.  They paid no attention to Raucous, and Raucous paid no attention to them.  He had failed.  He had caught some, but not the one he wanted.  He had helped but not made the catch he wanted.  Sir Alex was still free.  Rollin he didn't care for, but if he were free or not, caught in his own raid or not, it meant nothing to him.  They had gone for Rollin, he knew that.  He didn't know why, didn't care.  Some old time gangster with business cash.  Who cared?  He was one of thousands.  But Sir Alex he had wanted, he had needed.  He had needed to be there, to be the one to take him down.  And he had failed.

He knew they would tell him empty promises.  Sir Alex would fall eventually, they would repeat that till the end. The police he had spoken with, the detectives who couldn't stand him, the grass, the snitch, the weak man. The men here could bring him down, they had said. They seemed sure there was enough here to take Sir Alex down. But Raucous wouldn't be there for that, wouldn't be able to speak to him, to look at him and tell him he had lost. 

Raucous watched the police take the men away.  They were incredulous, and quiet.  They believed themselves untouchable, and maybe ten years before they were.  But not now.  Now they faced a different public, a different media.  They were finished and all they would be able to do to reduce their pain would be to talk.  But not politician's talk of emptiness and nothing, they would need to be honest and break pacts.  And the first to do this, they all knew, would be the one with the easiest ride.  They were now in competition to be the one that told the best true stories.

Raucous watched social workers hug children and escort them away.  He knew the home from where they had come would be covered in police too.  He knew they would be taking the recording equipment he had planted there as evidence.  He hoped he had recorded something to convict them.  He was sure he had.  The place hadn't changed and they always used the same room.

Raucous stood, defeated. 

He had no idea where he went from here.  He would read papers, see if Sir Alex made it or not.  He was done.  And he was free to go.

CHAPTER SIXTY SEVEN

They hadn’t had time to speak.  Parker saw one man too many, recognised the car and saw what was being watched. 

Parker took a left and accelerated away.  Chamberlain asked why, and Parker told the truth.  The Villa was being raided.

Parker smiled to himself.  Raucous had a plan after all, and it had ruined his.  If you had waited, Raucous, he would have been all yours.

Parker pulled the car into the underground garage.  There were spaces for twenty cars, two for each apartment.  Each was empty.  Except one.  A black BMW X5.  A car with false registration and history.  A safe car for a safe escape.  The building was unsold and unoccupied.  Chamberlain planned to use it as accommodation for purposes of extra marital affairs, and the domicile of women who had no problem with being kept at the right price.  The project had yet to start.  And now would not.  Millions to go to other people when the bureaucracy connecting the place to Chamberlain was unravelled.  This had been his retirement plan, a project secret from Rollin.

Parker waited on the smooth flat concrete slope as the large steel security gate slid back into place behind them.  There was no space above or below the gate, nor spaces through which to look.  A solid steel frame of intertwined rods covered in thick steel sheets   It could not be climbed or crawled under, nor broken down with ease.  The front door on the street was secured, and largely ornamental.  No one entered from the front.  Access was underground, through the steel gate and then steel doors to the four lifts.   Parker had circled the block and checked.  There was no surveillance and the gate was in place.  They had driven for six minutes from the villa.  To arrive here would have taken four if they had not needed precautions.  They were not being followed, but they were being filmed.  CCTV on every street recording jerky movement throughout the day.  The car was registered to a nobody in a far-off place.  Traceable eventually, but not today.

They parked in a space, perfectly between the white lines, above a painted ten.  The number of the apartment where they intended to have their brief stay.  They needed to be in and out.  Moving when traffic was light but there.  Safer than a two a.m. getaway when their movement would be seen as suspicious.  They exited the car and paced faster than they normally would but came short of a jog.  They rode up to the top floor by elevator after they had entered the correct codes on the keypad to access the building.  Parker unlocked the apartment door with the master swipe-card.  They hadn’t spoken since the Villa.  They knew where they were coming. It was only once there that they could start to organize a plan.

The lights did not come on automatically.  Parker slid the swipe card into a holder mounted on the wall and the room illuminated to a pre-programmed setting.

“Would you like to inform me of the reasons my offices are currently under the possession of the metropolitan police?”  Rollin asked.

Rollin was sat in a large brown armchair facing the door.  This was not its normal place, drag marks in the carpet were visible, and the armchair blocked forward movement.  Chamberlain and Parker stared at the gun Rollin rested on his lap.

“Someone broke silence,” Parker said.

Parker walked forward toward Rollin. 

“Stop there,” Rollin said.  Parker obeyed.  “This someone being Raucous?”

Chamberlain stepped forward, his hands clasped.  “It doesn’t make sense,” he said.  “We have him for two murders.  He was managing the party.  He organized last weekend's gathering.  We go down, he goes down longer.”

Rollin looked to Parker.  “A deal?”

“No deal to make on that.  He’s going down a long time.”

“Maybe that’s where he wants to be,” Chamberlain said.  “He just wants back inside.”

“I don’t think so,” Rollin said.  He turned to Parker, “The situation?”

“We need to leave.  Disappear.  No deals, they aren’t accepting any.  No pleas.  We’re gone for good.”

Rollin stood, “Everything comes to an end.”

Chamberlain stepped back and across so Parker was between him and the bullet he imagined coming.  “You are involved,” Chamberlain said.  “It is our property. That’s why they are there at your offices.  They want you too.  The money they want is ours in shared property, they’ll take it, break you, how are you going to prove you aren’t involved?”

“Is that a threat?”

Parker spoke, “It’s the truth.  We are broken.  No way out.  Have you checked your accounts?  You are entwined.  The business is gone.  Everything seized.   They are coming after us.”

“They are coming after you," Rollin said.  "I’ll take my losses.  There is no way I can be connected to your activities.  And my business cannot be taken away because my silent partner is an arsehole.”

A silence hung.  Parker waited for Chamberlain to step up and impersonate a politician of negotiating skill.  The silence remained, Chamberlain unmoving but shaking.

“You have a problem.” Parker said.  “Prisoner’s dilemma.  The same one you faced many years ago.  You had and have every reason to hate.  Me in particular.  But you climbed into bed with us because you saw a benefit that outweighed revenge.  We are, as you keep saying, entwined.  You have a gun on us, you could shoot, and kill.  But then what happens?  Do you run?  You can’t, you don’t have the means.  Criminal connections, yes, but this situation requires political ones, ones that can manipulate the police into looking in the wrong place or not looking at all.  Chamberlain has those.  There is no hiding out in Liverpool this time.  No education to hide behind.  There will be an investigation, and what are the reasons you give for killing us?  There are none that will save you from prosecution.  Vigilantism is not a credible defense.  The property you have will be taken and sold to pay for the victims of others abuse.  You’ll be left with nothing.  You have a choice.  You run, with us, using our contacts and we using yours, or you call the police and we all lose what he hold dear: our freedom and our money.”

Rollin started to speak, but Parker held up his hand.  He had more to say.

"I know what your argument will be.  You are an intelligent successful man who can rise from the ashes of all this misfortune, but the final part is Raucous.  He was there all those years ago.  He links you in.  The only deal he can make is to bring you down.  And on paper that’s a lot of money you stole.  All of what you have will be taken, whether justified or not. But a full-stop on a robbery from a lifetime ago is a political tool.  It is the end of the life we have led.  You must see that.  And the only escape, the only possible way out, is to work with us.”

Parker stood tall. The straight back of a nineteenth century military officer, but he was twitching, the remnants of his speed impulses on fast muscles, a man in a dirt-street duel with a gun-slinger of ancient repute.  Rollin moved his hand, the gun laid flat, butt horizontal.  He turned his hand and the gun stood classically upright.  Parker stopped twitching.  He had no means to attack, nor defend.  He only had his argument.  Words. 

“And at the first opportunity be killed by you?” Rollin asked.

Chamberlain stepped from behind Parker.  The tip of his tongue flicked from out of his pursed mouth to lick his dry lips.

“No, the deal is mutual.  We have no resources, economic or otherwise.  This flat holds 75,000 in cash.  It is not enough.  We have no underground to keep us safe till we move, no muscle and no finance.  You have those.  A mutual deal.  If we get through and arrive wherever we can, then we divide.  No more us.  But until then, any idea of a showdown is absurd.  We need each other.”

Rollin lay his gun flat.  He thought but his eyes never left Parker.  A shot and Parker would die.  What came after he didn’t know.  Everything he had built was now gone.   

“We also need finance,” Parker said.  “Seventy-Five buys only rickety shelters for limited time.  It will not get us out of the city, let alone the country.”

Rollin clenched his jaw.  But his anger drifted away.  He knew Parker was playing him.  Parker had seen the defiance slip from his body, seen the point when Rollin had accepted their version of events. And now he was negotiating, making a deal on what all parties could bring to the table to improve the situation.  Rollin smiled as a boxer does to show caution and congratulations when tagged with a shot that hurts.  

“And how do you suggest we go about that?”  Rollin asked.  “Do you want me to walk into my bank?”

Parker didn’t pause.  He knew Rollin had worked out the answer.   The question was an invite to put it out in the open.

“Safety deposit box?”  Parker asked.

“You know I have one,” Rollin said.  “The same reason I know about here.  We watch each other.  300,000 at the last count.”

“307,000 pounds and some jewelry that is worth little,” corrected Chamberlain.  “It is a shame you took the long-term plan with your son, he could provide the key to a much easier escape.  The location of a lot of money.  I imagine he revealed nothing otherwise you would not be here.”

“Not yet.  But we can always have one more go.”

They looked at him, not understanding. 

“He’s in the bathroom.  Still breathing.  Not too hurt, and sticking to his story of ignorance.”