Murderous David Hickson (best thriller novels of all time TXT) 📖

opened my arms to embrace him. He allowed the embrace in the way a stuffed toy allows a child to squeeze it. Fat-Boy’s actual name was Stanley, but we used Fat-Boy because he preferred it, and it suited his self-deprecating view of himself. Just as my name was not Angel, but attributable to my namesake. And ‘Colonel’ was in honour of the power of our great leader. Only Robyn had no nickname, unless you counted sex bomb, which was how Fat-Boy described her, although that was mostly outside of her hearing.

Sex bomb was perched on a workman’s table beside the nearest hull, her shoulders thrust forward, her weight resting on her arms with her hands beneath her thighs on the table. She had watched our approach with cold, dark eyes. She afforded Chandler the briefest smile and greeted my premature return into her life with an impenetrable gaze.

Chandler rubbed his hands together like he was trying to light a fire with them and beamed at us with an enthusiasm that was undiminished by our lack of response.

“We’ll get straight to it, shall we?” he said and stepped over to the ship’s hull. Chandler liked to do things by the book, and that meant an opening speech from him; the rest of us arranged on hard chairs in an obedient line. The shortage of furniture deprived him of this scenario, but he did his best to make up for it by standing on a small wooden step, the rusty hull providing a suitable distraction-free backdrop.

“It has been a few weeks since we were all together,” he said. “Now it is time for us to move forward.”

He paused for the applause but was disappointed. Robyn shifted her weight and Fat-Boy shuffled over to lean against a barrel of oil.

“We have a plan?” asked Fat-Boy.

“Broad strokes,” said Chandler, and Fat-Boy sighed. He preferred action, not all the standing around talking.

“The Angel and I discussed a few ideas on the way over here. But first both he and Robyn need to disappear. Breytenbach will not waste any time hunting them both down. You fixed the beds?” He looked about the warehouse as if realising there was something missing.

“Back room,” said Fat-Boy. “All done, colonel. I did everything you said.” He turned to me with resentment. “Two beds, push them together if you like. I chose the sunflowers. Matching yellow pillows.”

“Sounds lovely,” I said, because he looked as if he expected some gratitude.

“Car all sorted?” Chandler asked Robyn. She nodded. She did not look at me.

“It’s a rental,” Chandler said to me, “so don’t go breaking the rules. If the cops pull you over, you’d better believe BB will know about it. Don’t go getting stuck in one of those road blocks again. Take the scenic route. Phones too?” he asked Robyn and received another nod. “You both have new phones. Burn the old ones. You don’t go back to your apartment until this is over, understood?”

I nodded, but Chandler waited for the verbal acknowledgement. “Understood,” I said, and nearly added a sharp ‘captain’ and a salute. It was the tragedy of Chandler’s life that the military would no longer have him. His military approach to life entirely defined him. The way he spoke, the way he expected others to speak to him, the way he thought, the way he acted. Inevitably, he would end up with some kind of squad to lead no matter what he did. It must have been a source of great disappointment to him that the squad was this assorted collection of misfits.

“You’re on company time now,” said Chandler. “Until we get our little stash of yellow metal into this warehouse, it’s going to have to be full focus.”

“Why this warehouse?” asked Fat-Boy, as if he’d been storing that question up for some time.

“Because my man will take delivery at sea.”

“I don’t do sea,” said Fat-Boy.

Chandler smiled grimly at Fat-Boy.

“You might find that eight million yankees help you overlook that shortcoming.”

“Seven million, seven hundred and sixty-five thousand, four hundred and eighty-nine,” said Fat-Boy, and he pushed his lower lip forward and blew out his cheeks to indicate that he considered it unlikely that would enable him to overlook anything. “Each. If we divide by four.” Then, as Chandler struggled to find words, he added, “Give or take.”

“Eight million between friends,” said Chandler. But Fat-Boy wasn’t going to let him get away with such gross inaccuracy.

“You said he was giving you fifty cents on the dollar,” he protested. “We’ve got a hundred and twenty bars. That’s seven million, seven …”

“I understand,” interrupted Chandler, with a hand raised to stop the flow of numbers. “Nevertheless, a reluctance to climb aboard a boat pales beside that kind of figure, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Not for me, it don’t. I don’t do sea,” repeated Fat-Boy, and he turned to me for backup.

“I’ll do sea for that,” I admitted. “I’d probably do sea for a lot less.”

Fat-Boy made a sound with his lips, like he was warming up for a trumpet recital.

“That’s ‘cos you’ll do anything to prove what a fucking military hero you are,” he said. “While you were polishing your medals, I was being called a non-swimmer, that’s why.” It irritated Fat-Boy that I had a shared past with Chandler, and he loved to poke at it and see what kind of reaction he could get. It was usually a negative one. He knew nothing of my military career, as he liked to demonstrate by ridiculing it. The idea of describing anything I did as heroic was amusing enough. But the suggestion that I’d earned any medals was ludicrous.

“You were never called a non-swimmer,” I said. “Those kinds of insults went out with the dark ages.”

“Was too.” Fat-Boy stuck out his lower lip again. “They never taught us blacks to swim. Called us non-swimmers.”

Chandler took a deep breath, and I felt a momentary pang of sympathy. Not only were we a bunch of misfits, there was a distinct paucity of sense between us. Mind you,