The Drop Read Free Page A

I was lying. They say Bobby Mahoney can smell a lie. ‘Well he didn’t fucking clear it with me and he didn’t take Maggot with him.’ He was up so close to me I could smell the stale tobacco on his breath.
    ‘You’ve spoken to Maggot have you?’ I asked.
    ‘Oh yeah,’ said Finney wryly, ‘we spoke to him alright.’ By his tone I realised they must have put the fear of God into the poor bastard to make sure he was telling the truth. Finney was famous for his powers of persuasion, his trademark weapon of choice being a nail gun. He had a fondness for putting nails through people’s hands, leaving them stuck to their kitchen tables, garage doors and, in one memorable case, the skull of a deceased accomplice.
    ‘You didn’t ring me,’ I offered, surprised that this was not the first thing he’d thought of. I didn’t have a fancy mobile with an international connection but I wasn’t hard to trace.
    ‘We phoned the hotel you gave us,’ said Jerry Lemon, ‘they said you weren’t staying there,’
    ‘That’s bullshit,’ I said, ‘I was there. I’ve been on the same fucking resort for ten days. Laura brought back half the gift shop. Course I was fucking there.’ And then a thought suddenly struck me.
    Laura.
    Laura made the booking.
    Oh Christ.
    ‘So, what’s happened then?’ I asked, looking to deflect them from the subject of my strange absence from the hotel register. For a second, I thought Bobby was going to belt me and when Bobby Mahoney starts belting people he doesn’t stop. Believe me, I’ve seen it. It takes Finney and all his mates to drag Bobby off once he’s started and by then it’s usually too late.
    ‘Nothing happened!’ he snarled, ‘the Drop certainly didn’t happen and Cartwright’s disappeared.’
    ‘Shit!’
    ‘Yeah, shit’s the word. A whole heap of shit and we are all in it, particularly you. The first I hear about it is when I get a call to tell me the Drop’s late. The Drop’s never late so I know something’s wrong straight away and I look into it sharpish. Turns out nobody can find Cartwright and nobody can find the money. Only thing anyone knows is it didn’t fucking get there. So my question, once again, is where the fuck have you been?’
    I am bright enough to realise that he is not talking literally. I know if I even say the words ‘holiday’ or ‘Thailand’ again I am liable to get a beating that would not entirely be undeserved. ‘I’m sorry Bobby, I really am. I fucked up,’ he doesn’t seem to know how to react to that level of honesty. He’s clearly not used to it. ‘I should have made sure the Drop was in safer hands than Cartwright so you had nothing to worry about.’
    ‘I’m not worried about Cartwright. I’ve known him for years and he’s fucked either way son. It looks like someone’s killed him and taken my money. That’s my guess and, if it’s not that, it means he’s so stupid he’s stolen it himself, and I’ll bloody kill him. Don’t worry about Cartwright, worry about yourself because the Drop is your responsibility. I thought I’d made that pretty clear. Now you get out there and you find Cartwright or you find his body. I want to know who’s behind this and I want my fucking money back – then I am going to let Finney cut whoever’s responsible into tiny pieces while they are still breathing. You have got two days to sort this mess out. I want my cash back on this desk on Monday morning. Nobody takes from me, nobody, you know that!’
    Christ, my heart sank on hearing that. I already knew my chances of finding Cartwright, or his rotting carcass, and Bobby’s money by Monday were slim to none, but I was definitely not going to tell Bobby Mahoney that right now. If I did, I reckoned he would have killed me, so I took the path of least resistance and bought myself some time.
    ‘Yeah Bobby I know that. Leave it with me. I’m on it.’
    ‘Go on then,’ he said and I didn’t wait to be told twice, ‘and take