Raucous (26 page)

CHAPTER SIXTY EIGHT

They waited for his arrival.  Roach and Charlotte sat at their desk.  They wondered what his mood would be, what he would feel.  A culmination of a long plan.  The end of what he had wanted.  They knew it would not be how he had wanted the end to come, and it still hadn’t finished.  But the end would come, there was no escape. 

They sat in the office and waited.  He had called, asked to meet.  He was late.

He didn’t knock; he walked straight in and sat down.

“Alex didn’t come,” Raucous said.

Roach looked to Charlotte.  She stayed silent.  Roach took the lead.

“They’ll get him in confessions,” he said.

“Not good enough for me.”

Charlotte leaned forward.

“It worked out," she said.  "We got them.  You got them.”

“Not Alex.  We made a mistake somewhere.  He didn’t come.  He didn’t come.”

Raucous stood and reached into his back pocket and pulled out a packet of twenty Marlboro.  He pulled one cigarette from the packet.

“I quit inside.  Would have been the same thing as smoking money.  Figured I would start again."

Raucous patted himself down.

“Anybody have a lighter?”  He asked.

Roach threw a Zippo onto the table with the two keys the Doctor had given them.

"Where did you get those?"  Raucous asked.

"They're Christian's."

"The Zippo is.  The keys are for a big lock and a transit van.  Why is it here?"

"The Zippo doesn’t work," Charlotte said.

"I know that too.  It’s fake."

Raucous picked up the lighter and rolled it around his fingers and smiled, remembering old times.

“Alcohol and tobacco were OK for everyone.  Getting drunk was fine, but hash was frowned upon.  Illegal isn’t it.  So the crooks didn’t want their kids to smoke it.”

Raucous flipped the Zippo open.  He pulled the casing away so he held the two pieces in his hand.  He flipped the furry patch with the small circular screw upward and smiled.

“You looked in here?”  He asked.

“Didn’t think to,” Roach said.

Raucous pulled away the furry wire.  It had been cut into a small section, so the body of the Zippo was a container.  He patted the body against his palm and a small chunk of black hashish fell out.  Raucous rolled the brittle black block in his fingers.

“I smoked this when Christian drove me out in that van full of nickel bars.  Only thing that stopped me killing him then.  That and I couldn’t drive, I guess.  I could have walked back, but I didn’t know where the hell I was.  Bouncing in the back of that transit van for god knows how long.  Two hours?  More?  No idea.  Smoked a whole lot thinking about how I was going to kill him.  I believed Parker.  Really believed him.  He was a cop right?  Why shouldn’t I believe him?  I should kill Christian and get back to him.  Whereupon, I assume, I was to be vanished too.  The scene would have tied me into the murder because I didn’t have a clue about any of that CSI stuff back then. 

He looked up at Charlotte.

“Maybe that’s the way I should have done it.  You would have walked away.  Lived your life.  I wouldn’t have hurt you.”

“Where did you go?”  She asked.

“No idea.  Into the countryside.  Back of beyond and it was dark.  Parked that van in a shipping container.  That key there opens it.”

“At a port?”  Roach asked.

“No water to be seen or smelled.  Only cow-shit, and lots of it.  Really dark, the corner of the corner of a field.  A big old stone barn with a container inside.  Seems like yesterday.  Strange how I can remember any of that.  I don’t think I had slept for two days.  Amphetamine is a bitch.”

Raucous looked at the hash once more and placed it back into the zippo.  He stared inside; he squinted, placed his little finger into the small space and slid out a small folded piece of paper.

He unravelled the paper.  And he smiled.  “Numbers,” he said.  “Two long numbers.”

He placed the paper on the table so Charlotte and Roach could see them.  “Mean anything to you?”

They looked and read the numbers.  Their faces were blank.

“Don’t do much orienteering, do you?”

They looked up at Raucous.  “Co-ordinates,” Raucous said.  Google it.  I bet you zoom in on a brick barn with a container inside.  And inside the container a transit van to which that key belongs, with a ton of reasonably expensive metal made up to look like gold.  Shit, Christian.  We got killed for nickel.”

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

Raucous left the two of them with their computer.  He went outside, lit up and pulled hard on a Marlboro.  He smoked it down to the filter, long slow inhales. Raucous stamped out the cigarette.  He couldn’t make the connection.  There was no logic.  There was nothing to find.  The heist had eliminated the possible snitches on a politician's life.  The Turk had stayed, because he was owned by them.  He loved his life, no ambition, no need for extra cash.  Be happy with the level you arrive.  Make the most of it.  Protect what you have and don’t make waves.  All rivals eliminated, and the Turk reigned.  They had stolen a whole lot of nothing.  There had been some of the real deal, mostly cash, mostly traceable.  It had been a set up from the start.  A planned elimination.  It had worked.  The Turk stayed the boss, Alex moved on and upward, and anyone who could implicate was dead.  The only loose end, Rollin, came back to the fold and made them more money than they could have imagined.  By design and chance they had hit the perfect end.  But why worry about Christian?  What did he have?  If he knew anything he would be the ramblings of a seriously deranged life-time head-case.  There was nothing Christian could challenge them with.  The man did not want the son, there was never any love.  An attempt at faked repent convinced no one.  What was the catch?  What was the problem?

Alex and his friends had been caught.  They had no moveable assets.  The game was over.

He was missing something. 

It hit him.

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

“It’s the only thing that fits,” Raucous said.  He was out of breath.  He had run to the office.  “Rollin has no money.  Alex is on his way down.  Their connection means the end of his business.  The end of him.  They need cash, or more importantly, finance.  That van has bullion.  Real genuine gold.”

Charlotte and Roach were zooming in on Google earth.

“It was never claimed.  They can’t write that off,” Charlotte said.

“Sure they can, and they did. There’s bullion in the van.”

“Not possible," Roach said.  "Twenty million would always be accounted for.”

Charlotte looked at the papers on her desk.

“Two mid-level Italian Mafia trying to sell fake gold,” she said.

“The codes were correct,” Raucous said.  "They were correct because they had seen the real deal.  Two bars of it.  Two of the bars Rollins took with him.”

“This is imagination," Roach said.  "Go share it with Belfour."

“Imagination that fits," Raucous said.  "Rollin runs, he has two bars, probably more.  How heavy are they?   Transporting four isn’t so hard.  He makes it to Liverpool where his name means at least something.  He sells the bars to start his new life.  The codes are copied down.  They run in sequence?”

“No they don’t,” Charlotte said.

“Well, the Italians gave up two as examples.”

“Two fake bars,” Roach said.

“Two fake bars with the codes from the two real bars Rollins sold.  It’s an easy and obvious thing to do. Perfect really. For everyone except the Italians.  Everyone assumes that the whole batch was bullshit because two Italians, who couldn’t have been too high up in any organization, or even in any organization with the brains they displayed, produced fake bars with the right codes.  It made everyone suspect that the robbery was what half of it was.  A set-up to eliminate a group of men muscling in on the wrong territory, and threatening the wrong politician.

“The van is full of Gold.  Real Gold?”  Charlotte asked.

“And we have the coordinates?”  Roach said.

Raucous knew they were humouring him.

“That’s for the police.  We can get them all.  We can get them tonight before they flee with a pocket full of change and bruised egos.”

"It's for the police now," Charlotte said.  "They have the people from the party, and they'll talk.  There is nowhere for them to hide any more."

“Lord Lucan?  You think he died or escaped?”  Raucous asked.

“What?”  Roach said.

“Lord Lucan.  Obviously killed the maid, right?  Guilty as, no arguments from anyone on that.  But was he disappeared, or did he live out a life somewhere.”

“Elvis too?”  Charlotte asked.

Raucous didn't like the sarcastic tone.

“Elvis died taking a dump," he said.  "Lucan, maybe, lived out his life because he was one of them and not one of us and so could be forgiven for his sins and told to live quietly and in secret.”

“He died,” Roach said.

“Where’s the body?  Alex is as important.  And that party didn’t catch them all.  There are plenty others out there that don’t have the need to come down to London for their fun.  You think he might call in a few favors?  You think there might be the possibility that he has enough on others to make him and Rollin two people who can just vanish overnight and have stories in the Sunday mirror written about where they may possibly be every five years on the anniversary of their disappearance, which will be tomorrow?”

“You aren’t thinking straight,” Roach said.

“I’m thinking fine.  How many coincidences do you need to stand up and believe what is happening?”

“We have to call it in, and the police can decide,” Roach said.

“Call it in and they run without money.  Call it in and they will go nowhere near it.  The only reason they could want Christian is that the gold exists and as no one currently knows where Rollin or Christian are, I'm guessing they are going for the money right now, or more likely they are beating the shit out of Christian to jog his memory”

“Why didn’t they come after you?  You were there too.”

“The only person that knew I was in that van with Christian is Christian.  And he can’t even remember who I am, Parker gave me some info, but he doesn't know if I went or not.  He just hoped.”

“Zoom in on the coordinates," Charlotte told Roach, "and show me where it is.  If they have built some big multiplex there, then it’s all over anyway, and some developer has made himself some serious cash.”

"They haven't," Raucous said.  "I went back.  It's still there."

Roach and Charlotte stared at him.

“I wasn’t going to admit to that,” Raucous said.

“And you think they believe there is real gold in that container,” Roach asked.

Raucous nodded.

“Easy way to find out,” he said.

CHAPTER SIXTY NINE

Rollin's phone vibrated on the table.  Sir Alex sat passive in his armchair.  Parker stepped back and Rollin turned.  Christian slumped forward in his chair.  Blood dripped from the cuts on his face.

“He is never going to tell us because he is never going to remember," Parker said.

“You don’t think I know that?” Rollin barked.

“Then why the violence?” Sir Alex asked.

“Because of a lot of things.  Because of a past, because of my life.  Because someone has to be blamed, and I choose it to be him.”

Parker looked across at the phone.  “It’s Raucous,” he said.

“How do you know?”

Parker pointed at the screen.

“The number,” he said.

Rollin picked up.  “What?”

“Want to know where the gold is?” Raucous asked.

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“I can tell you.”

“If you knew," Rollin said, "you would already have gone and taken it.  It’s been sitting wherever the hell my mentally retarded son parked it these last seventeen years.”

“Yeah, it’s still sitting there in the white transit.  Exactly where we left it.”

“You know a lot, Raucous.”

“I know you’ll come to find it.”

“And walk right into the welcoming hands of the police.”

“No, no police," Raucous said.  "Well, one called Roach.  And that’s it.  I would like Christian back in our exchange.”

“Exchange Christian for twenty million in bullion?”

“Twenty million minus the few bars you took to start your new life.”

Rollin paused.  Raucous heard him breathing regular and easy.

“Figured out a few things.  But that still sounds like an unfair exchange,” Rollin said.

There was a pause, and Raucous snorted a fake laugh.

“As you know, there will be no exchange.  It’ll all get messy, guns will be fired.  And all that stuff.  Because you want to kill me, and I am going to kill you.  But we’ll do the pretend thing to start.  Christian handed over and the coordinates given.”

This time the pause was filled with Rollin's loud booming fake laugh.

“No, Christian handed over at the place.”

“Of course,” Raucous said.

Raucous expected another pause.  It didn't come.  Rollin spoke.

“We could obviously do a deal here.  Twenty million is a lot of money.  A sixty-forty split.  Our guys and your guys get paid, Christian gets to live his lunatic life and we all vanish and never see each other again.”

“Sounds a fine proposition, only for that to happen I’d need to trust you, and I just can’t bring myself to do it.  But I look forward to hearing more of your persuasive powers when we meet.”

“Where are we meeting?”

"I’ll send you through the location when we get there.  We need to check out a few things first.  Sit tight.  I can’t imagine you’ll need to drive for more than an hour.  And I forget.  I need to speak to Christian, see if he’s OK.  In relative terms. If you have already killed him, then the deal is obviously off.”

"He's here."

Raucous heard the phone moving, a voice he couldn't understand and crackles as the speaker was held against a bristled cheek.

“Are you OK?” Raucous asked.

“Not even close to being OK,” Mitch said.

“Hurt?”

“Broken up good.”

“I imagine they’ll stop for now.”

“Awww, I think I could take a few more of his girly weakass slaps.”

“I’m sure you could.”

Rollin stepped toward Christian with his right fist drawn back.  Parker stepped between Rollin and Christian.

“Fun’s over,” Parker said.  “Let’s get prepared.”