Nick Oldham - Facing Justice

‘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 arched.

Haltenorth checked out Diller, but the latter kept his eyes on Vincent, who continued with his subterfuge, because there was no way he would think about paying these guys off. ‘Follow me back down to my house. I got a couple more grand stashed away. You guys take this’ — he held up the money roll in his fist — ‘as a show of my good will, and I’ll give you the cash down at my house. Three grand, plus, in total. Not bad for a ride out to the back of beyond. It’ll give me more time to get stuff together. Do me now and Cain won’t be getting anything. How about it? Take the cash,’ he pleaded. ‘No one will be any the wiser.’

His eyes darted between the two men. He could sense Haltenorth was up for it, but Diller wasn’t even wavering.

‘Mr Cain will still get his dues, man,’ Diller said, ‘even with you dead. We’ll just move on to your partner in crime. I’m given a job to do, I do it.’

Haltenorth’s bottom lip dropped with disappointment. Clearly he wasn’t being paid anything like the money Vincent was offering now. Haltenorth had no loyalty in his bones. Vincent had placed doubt in his mind.

‘What about it, man?’ Haltenorth hissed to Diller.

Diller turned slowly to him, unable to believe his ears. His gun drooped to one side and his face showed complete surprise.

‘I’ll tell you why, dumb-ass. You do not double cross Mr Cain. He don’t do double crossing. That’s why!’

‘But man, all that cali.’

‘I thought you were cool, man.’ Diller crashed his gun across the side of Haltenorth’s head, sending him spinning backwards.

Vincent watched the short verbal exchange intently, saw the minute change in Diller’s body language that reflected his disbelief in what he was hearing, then saw the gun arc across his dim partner’s head. Even as the gun started to move, Vincent reached under the desk and slid the hanging shotgun out swiftly and neatly. It was a movement he had practised time and again whilst sitting at the desk. He spun on the chair just as Haltenorth stumbled backwards, holding the side of his bloodied head. Diller was angled slightly away from him, the gun in his hand pointing upwards and away from Vincent.

It was a side-by-side double-barrelled sawn-off shotgun. A simple weapon. Vincent liked simplicity, because it rarely went wrong. Revolvers rarely went wrong, but sometimes pistols did. Sometimes pump-action shotguns that needed racking went wrong because their mechanisms jammed. But a simple, old-fashioned, pre-loaded one, safety catch off, never went wrong. The only drawback was that there were only two cartridges in it and he had to get this right first time. He would not be allowed the privilege of reloading.

But here, in the confines of the cabin, with two targets less than six feet away from him, he had absolute confidence that he would be successful. He couldn’t miss. The trick was to ensure that he brought the two men down. There was the possibility they wouldn’t be killed straight away, but if they weren’t dead they would be severely injured enough that he would have time to reload.

As he spun on the chair, he held the shotgun at the base of his belly, just above the groin, angled upwards.

Diller’s face turned, a scream coming to his wide mouth as he tried to spin back and bring his gun around on Vincent.