Crang Mysteries 4-Book Bundle. Jack Batten

Brackley’s blood is on their hands.”

      Overdramatic, but I needed something powerful in the way of effect.

      “You shithead,” Jerry said, meaning me.

      “Hit home, did I, Jerry?” I said.

      Nicky grabbed my left arm.

      “They knocked her off and walked out with the jewellery,” I said, still addressing Grimaldi. “Alice’s gold is in a locker downstairs. It’s time to act serious around here, Charles. You phone the cops and we’ll put these two goofs in the slammer where they belong.”

      Grimaldi took my vigorous proposal in the phlegmatic manner I’d come to loathe.

      Nicky didn’t.

      “Kill that broad?” he said. “It wasn’t us.”

      He was gripping my arm with the force of an indignant Arnold Schwarzenegger. I tried to yank my arm free. Unsuccessfully.

      Jerry chimed in from the right.

      “Where’s this bull comin’ from?” he said.

      The two voices pounding in my ears, one voice per ear, generated a load of outrage.

      Nicky said, “Somebody needs to be banged on for sure, it’s you.”

      “That other thing you’re talkin’ about,” Jerry said, “we didn’t steal the gold stuff downstairs.”

      “Mr. Grimaldi give it to us,” Nicky said.

      I stopped trying to wrestle my arm from Nicky’s grasp. At the same time, he and Jerry ran out of shouts. Behind the desk, Grimaldi was showing the first smile I’d seen on his face for a while.

      “Light go on in your head, Crang?” he said.

      A light the size of the beacon on the CN Tower.

      “You killed Alice,” I said.

      The words came out involuntarily.

      Grimaldi seemed to be enjoying his smile.

      “You found out she phoned me Sunday morning,” I said to him.

      One part of my brain warned I was foolish to say anything more, another part wanted to get it all out, everything that was rapidly becoming more or less clear.

      “She must have phoned you too,” I said. “The booze loosened her tongue.”

      “A drunk is all she was,” Grimaldi said. He overflowed with disdain.

      “My God, Grimaldi, the woman was your mistress.”

      “Good lay,” Grimaldi said. “But a drunk.”

      I didn’t have time to linger over the man’s attitude to Alice Brackley. It was the murder that counted.

      I said, “You got nervous about what Alice might tell me.”

      My mouth had taken over from both parts of my brain.

      “Alice knew something about the system you worked out at Ace,” I said. “Pillow talk maybe. She probably didn’t know everything, but enough to scare her when I came snooping around. She was going to spill it to me, whatever she suspected you were up to.”

      Grimaldi’s smile had run its brief course.

      “When she told you what she intended to do,” I said, “you went to her house and broke her neck.”

      “Enough already,” Grimaldi said.

      I knew I’d finally got it right.

      “What’d it take, Charlie?” I said. “Just one punch?”

      Grimaldi’s expression, like a piece of Arctic landscape, told me I’d goaded him enough. Too far. He wasn’t going to say anything more about Alice’s death. But I wasn’t ready to quit.

      “You made it look like a murder committed by jerks,” I pushed on, talking fast, maybe a little hysterically. “And you passed the jewellery along to Heckle and Jeckle here, a couple of world-class jerks by anyone’s definition.”

      My last remark caught the full attention of Jerry and Nicky. Nicky loosened his grip on my arm. He and Jerry were concentrating on Grimaldi. Jerry’s jaw had gone slack.

      “What’s happening?” Nicky asked Grimaldi.

      “Nothing’s happening,” Grimaldi said. “Crang’s pulling a number.”

      “What’s he saying?” Nicky asked Grimaldi again. “You looking to set me and Jerry up?”

      “You believe that, you got piss for brains,” Grimaldi said. His face was showing red through the tan.

      Jerry’s head had been working on another puzzle.

      “You really bump that broad?” he asked.

      “Who the fuck cares,” Grimaldi said. He was scaling new peaks of annoyance. “Yeah, I bumped her. You satisfied? Now let’s do the deal.”

      He couldn’t be talking about the deal I’d come to the Ace offices to consummate. He meant a deal that Jerry and Nicky were apparently privy to.

      “Hold on, Mr. Grimaldi, okay?” Nicky said. “The jewellery’s like a first payment, right?”

      “Melt it down,” Grimaldi said. “I told you, it’s worth twenty grand on the market.”

      I’d become the forgotten man in the discussion. But the let-up in concentration on me didn’t seem to offer any advantages apart from the chance to recover from the threat of panic and hysteria. If I tried to run for it, Nicky and Jerry would be on me before I reached the door. And I didn’t fancy a plunge over Grimaldi’s desk and through the window. I needed something else. A diversion. It was a cinch the cavalry wasn’t going to rescue me in the last reel.

      “Afterwards,” Jerry was saying to Grimaldi, “after the job, we get the rest? That’s what you mean?”

      “Another twenty grand,” Grimaldi said. He bit at the words.

      “Cash,” Nicky said.

      “Yeah, cash,” Grimaldi said. Bad temper oozed from every pore. “If you assholes got no more questions, let’s cut it.”

      “You gotta understand me and Jerry’s position, Mr. Grimaldi,” Nicky said. He sounded apologetic. “Crang talks about us killing the broad, the jewellery’s hers, whatever the hell, we just kinda wondered.”

      “Right,” Grimaldi said. He had no further use for gab.

      Grimaldi took a key from his jacket pocket and fit it into the lock on the top centre drawer of his desk.

      “You shoot the guy,” Jerry said. “We drive him to the dump.”

      Shoot the guy?

      Jerry was talking about me.

      The dump? My nerves were pumping again. If these three had their way, it sounded like my final resting place would be among the debris at the foot of Leslie Street. Nothing like advance knowledge of your grave’s location to get the adrenalin flowing.

      Instinct took over. I made a move at Grimaldi’s desk, more of a lunge than an orderly dive. It was sudden enough to avoid arm-grabbing from Nicky and Jerry, and Grimaldi remained separated from me by the desk. My target was the envelope with Wansborough’s cheque. It rested beside the pile of computer printouts. I snatched the envelope, held it high over my head, and danced to the side of the desk.

      “Get that thing away from him,” Grimaldi barked at Jerry and Nicky.

      Grimaldi meant the envelope, or more specifically the cheque with all the numbers on it, and the two heavies went for it instead of for me. The difference was small but crucial. It gave me room to create my simple-minded diversion. I threw the envelope in the air. It fluttered over Grimaldi’s desk,