BREAKER

  A CHARLIE COBB THRILLER

  ROB ASPINALL

  CONTENTS

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  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Guide to Charlie Cobb Slang

  Also By Rob Aspinall - Homecoming

  Also by Rob Aspinall - Truly Deadly

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  CONNECT WITH ROB

  Acknowledgments

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  1

  A man’s gotta have a code. That’s why I’m not gonna drop the guy. I’m just gonna scare the shit out of him. And this is my favourite place to do it. Grab ‘em by their belt and flip ‘em upside down.

  I’ve got Mr Kavuk here dangling over the edge of the old Rope Works. It's a beaten up Victorian warehouse in the middle of a concrete, needle and weed jungle. It’s stark and dirty. An abandoned world a couple of miles out of the city. Cold and windy too, especially in late February.

  I bet if I dropped Mr Kavuk right now, the animals and birds would clean up the mess before the council did. It’s that kind of place.

  Kavuk himself is a middle-aged guy. Turkish, I think. Short. Chubby. Receding. Baggy black slacks and a matching jumper over a white shirt. A flash of gold around his hairy wrists and fingers.

  “That’s a nice watch,” I say. “You buy it or nick it?”

  “I don’t steal.”

  “Sure.”

  “Is this what this is about?” he asks, wriggling and kicking his stumpy legs. “A few stolen watches?”

  I let him slide a little lower over the edge of the flat cement roof. He gets a nice view of ten floors down.

  “You know why we're here, Mr Kavuk. You’ve been roughing up some of the neighbours. Trying to get them to sell.”

  “The business is growing. I offer a fair price. They’re stubborn.”

  “Yeah, well one of ‘em has insurance with Mr Rudenko. And Mr Rudenko would like you to stop.”

  “I'm not scared of your boss.”

  “He’s not my boss,” I say, tipping him further over the edge. “I'm independent. Like Switzerland."

  “Then whatever he’s paying you, I’ll give you ten per cent extra.”

  “You cheap bastard.”

  “Okay,” he says, his head filling with blood. “Fourteen.”

  I laugh and shake my head. I let go of his belt. He begins to slide through my grip. I've found over the years that expensive pants slide easy.

  “Shit!” he yells.

  I tighten my grip around his knees.

  “You’re getting heavy, Mr Kavuk. You agree or not?”

  Kavuk eyeballs the patchy, cracked concrete below. He looks up at me. “No.”

  “No? You’re hanging off a roof, mate.”

  I’m so surprised, I almost drop him. By now they're usually giving up their wife and kids. Anything to let ‘em up. I decide he needs some extra motivation.

  “Perhaps I’m not being clear,” I say, letting go completely. He gasps. I catch him by his fat ankles. He swings. “You know, fat ankles like these are harder to grip.”

  His face shifts from panic to something else. I dunno. A kind of weird resolve, I suppose you’d call it.

  “I don’t care what you do," he says.

  "Fine," I say, letting go of an ankle. I feel the strain in my right arm. “Did I mention my old shoulder injury? It freezes up if I hang on too long."

  That's the truth. I once had this guy by his foot. My whole arm went dead. Yeah, that was a mess.

  “If you’re gonna drop me, drop me," Kavuk says. "I don’t bow to anyone. Especially not a Russian.”

  I can see why the pig-headed fool’s built himself a nice little empire. He’s one hell of a negotiator.

  “Okay," I say. "I’ve got another question. If I drop you right here, right now, who inherits your business? Your wife?"

  “My son. Omar.”

  “Well then. My grip is gonna give out in about thirty seconds from now. And when your head makes a Jackson Pollock all over the concrete, I’ll drive across town and find young Omar. I’ll bring him up here and go through this all over again . . . Assuming, of course, Mr Rudenko’s happy to stop there.”

  I can see him run it through his computer. He looks at the ground. Looks at me. Shakes his head. “Okay, okay. But leave my sons.”

  Just in time, too. My shoulder's getting stiff. I haul him up with both hands and flip him upright. He collapses against the lip of the roof. I drag him onto his feet and hold him while he gets his balance.

  “Can we go now?” he asks, checking his watch. “I’ve got appointments.”

  “Course,” I say. “Right after you go through the gift shop.”

  “Huh?”

  “I can’t let you leave without a souvenir,” I say, pulling my phone from the inside pocket of my black bomber. I dial 999.

  “What are you talking about?” he asks.

  I hold a finger up for him to shush. A lady operator answers. “Ambulance,” I say.

  She patches me through. A guy asks me what kind of emergency it is. I tell him it’s the serious kind. I give him the address and cut off the call.

  I tuck my phone away and square up to Kavuk. “Right. So which arm then?”

  “Which what?”

  “The left or the right? Which can you do without?”

  Kavuk attempts to run. I lunge forward and grab him. I bend him over double with a hand pressed on his shoulder. I extend the left arm out. “I’ll go with this one.”

  “No! The other one! The other one!”

  I guess he wanks with his left. I switch to the right arm. I straighten it out. “On three,” I tell him.

  He squeezes his eyes shut and grits his teeth.

  “One . . . Two . . .” I snap it quick.

  He screams and scares a couple of pigeons off the side of the building. The guy whimpers. Holds the top of his arm. The bone sticks out the wrong way through the sleeve of his jumper.

  “There,” I say, admiring a nice job. “Clean as a whistle.”

  He throws up as I lead him across the roof. “You animal,” he says, trembling.

  Round and round we go down the uneven narrow staircase that stinks of junkie piss and dead things. He curses me all the way. All the names under the Manchester clouds.

  I walk him across the stretch of unused land. Weeds up to the knees. Broken glass crunching under my trusty docker boots: black and steel toed. One of three pairs I rotate to keep them fresh.

  I don’t wear trainers. Trainers are no good for kicking in doors or ribs. Not thick enough for when you’re walking over needles and glass. Not grippy enough for when the floor gets slippy with blood. No, what you need in this game is a sturdy pair of boots. Health and safety always comes first.

  We stop at my car. A big, dark-blue Peugeot saloon. Sporty and pricey in its day. I’ve got it parked up on a street where prossies offer a blow 'n' go drive-thru service.

  “You smoke?” I ask Kavuk.

  He nods his head, shiny with cold sweat.

  I open the passenger door and reach inside the glove box. I pull out a pack of cigs and a silver lighter. I take out a cig and push it in Kavuk’s mouth. I light it. He puffs away, calmer now. The shock kicking in.

  “You not smoke?” he asks me as I put away the lighter and cigarettes.

  “Only after messy jobs,” I say. “The cigs are reserved for the people I hurt. I'm good like that.”

  “I can’t believe you broke my arm,” Kavuk says, blowing smoke and staring at the bone. Getting used to it.

  “You’ll be right as rain in a few weeks,” I say. “And count yourself lucky. Rudenko wanted a leg.”

  As Kavuk makes light work of the cigarette, the ambulance shows up. Lights flashing blue. Siren on silent. It pulls up in front of my car. A pair of paramedics in green overalls jump out. A man and a woman in their forties. Short. But then most people are short next to me.

  “This is your man,” I say, pointing to Kavuk. “I’ll leave you to it."

  “What happened?” the woman asks. She snaps on a pair of blue latex gloves as the male paramedic opens the back of the ambulance.

  “He fell over,” I say, walking around to the driver’s side of the Peugeot. “Didn’t you, Mr Kavuk?”

  Kavuk tosses the cigarette butt and nods. The woman guides him towards the back of the ambulance. Shaking her head and giving me the evils. Like I give a shit.

  I get behind the wheel of my car and reverse out of there before they can ask any more questions.

  See, I told you I'm a nice bloke. Most enforcers wouldn’t have called the ambulance. They’d have left him up on the roof with a busted leg.

  That's the problem with the new breed. They lack principles. Discipline. Class.

  I spin the car round and shoot past a pair of late afternoon prostitutes in fishnet tights. I hit the elevated ring road that circles the city, the Manchester skyline like a giant game of Tetris. Some buildings old. Some new. Some made of brick. Some made of glass. Red and white cranes working on dropping the latest pieces in place.

  As I tear past traffic in the outside lane, I get on the phone to Rudenko. I tell him it’s done. Kavuk agrees.

  Rudenko tells me to come over to Dimitri’s, pronto. He sounds pissed off. I hang up the call and smile. A pissed-off client means there’s a big problem. And the bigger the problem, the more I get paid.

  2

  It’s bouncing down with rain. Sky painted black. I’m parked outside Dimitri’s,. a Greek restaurant Rudenko bought to rinse the cash he was making from a crystal meth network. He doesn’t say that, of course. Keeps his cards close to his chest. But if he liked Greek food so much, he wouldn’t order the doner pizza and chips every time.

  Anyway, it’s a rundown place on the outskirts of the city. One of a terrace row of takeaway joints. I wait to be summoned, Neil Diamond cranked up on the stereo to play over the rain. “Love on the Rocks”. I sing at the top of my lungs. It gets to the good part, the big chorus. I let it rip. I’ve got big lungs. A baritone voice. I could have been a crooner, but the gangs on my estate got to me first.

  Just as the song’s reaching its peak, a fist pounds on my window. I stop singing and dive for the stereo controls, spinning the volume to zero. I wind down the window. Fat, cold raindrops bounce in off the door sill.

  Frogger leans in and fixes me with those big, wide-apart eyes that earned him his nickname. “What you singing to?”

  “Metallica,” I say.

  I’m not ashamed of my Neil Diamond fan club membership. But it doesn’t do me any favours mentioning it. If this arsehole ever finds out, I’ll never hear the end of it.

  Besides, I can't have the underworld thinking I'm soft.

  “The boss is ready for you,” Frogger says, stepping away from the door. He pulls his red hoodie over his head.

  I open the door and get out.

  “You still driving this piece of wank?” he asks, snorting and spitting phlegm on the pavement.

  I look down a few cars and see his blue Nissan Skyline with the big spoiler and gold wheel trims. “You still driving the pig magnet?”

  “Like I give a toss,” he says. “They know who I am . . . Come on.”

  I follow Frogger inside. It’s warm and takeaway-bright. Smells of lamb and chip oil. It’s a dinky place with a few tables and chairs on either side as you approach the counter. The lino’s a dirty blue and white check in need of replacing. The menu board over the counter shows illuminated pictures of sick-looking meat.

  Dimitri keeps the restaurant empty when Rudenko’s around. Hardly matters if the place makes money or not. The big cheese himself sits on the middle booth on the righthand side. Sure as a bear shits, he’s halfway through his doner pizza and chips. A fourteen incher. The fat bastard must be nervous about something.

  After ten years of working for a guy, you get to know his habits. And he pigs out more than usual when he’s nervous.

  Me and Frogger stand dripping on the lino. I see Rudenko’s personal bodyguard sitting to the left. A cueball in grey sweats taking up the entire table. A burger demolished down to crumbs in front of him on a wax wrap. He stares at me every time I come to see his boss. As if he’s trying to put the fear into me.

  Nobhead.

  Rudenko sprinkles the pizza with salt. Doesn’t bother looking up. “Sit down.”

  Frogger takes the chair on the inside of Rudenko. I sit across from the boss. The chairs look play school compared to the four of us sitting on them.

  Freddie, Rudenko's bodyguard, is the biggest. Six-nine tall and a long walk around. I’m next in line. Six-five and solid. Frogger’s six-three. Six-four if he didn’t hunch. He’s lanky and wiry like a coat hanger.

  Rudenko’s big too, but only in a circle. He’s five-nine, tops. And that’s in those Cuban heels. Makes him stand taller next to his blonde giraffe of a wife.

  “The usual, Frogger?” Dimitri shouts from behind the counter.

  “Just the meat,” Frogger says, in a nasal Mancunian accent. No trace of his Lithuanian family in his voice. Only the shaved, sandy hair and angular features.

  “You want anything?” Rudenko asks me between gobfuls of chips. He chews with his mouth open. Breathes through his nose. A suntanned face that greases itself.

  “I’m good,” I say, checking my watch. “Out for a meal in a bit.”

  “Your daughter?” Rudenko asks.

  “How’d you guess?”

  “Cause you’re a Billy No Mates, that’s why,” Frogger says, snorting.

  Rudenko looks sideways at Frogger. Frogger shuts up. His tray of doner meat slides into the picture. He shovels the meat in like he's gone feral.

  “Let’s talk business,” Rudenko says. “We’ve got a big problem. The trial.”

  “I thought that was a dead end,” I say. “Prosecution didn’t have a witness.”

  “Not until last night,” Rudenko says.

  “Kid saw us do it,” Frogger says. He turns his jaw to the ceiling and lowers a strip of meat into his big, cartoon mouth.

  “They saw you do it,” Rudenko says, slurping on a foam cup of black coffee. “I was just standing there. But they want the big fish, you know? Not the little worm.”

  ”If you’d hired me in the first place," I say, "none of this would be happening.”

  Rudenko shrugs. “Cashflow.”

  “Anyway,” Frogger says. “How’d we know some kid’d be hanging around the tunnels on the estate?"

  One thing I forgot to mention about Rudenko. He’s been on trial for a couple of months, out on bail. Something to do with a bookmaker, shot in the head and left in an unused sewer tunnel that runs under a large block of flats.

  I know it well. I grew up around there.

  Used to stash my money and drugs in that tunnel when it was still working. I’d stick a peg on my nose and plastic bags on my trainers. Go in and hide the gear where no one ever looked.

  But that’s when I was a dealer. I’m a changed man now. What they call a fixer.

  And yeah, I might lose a client if he goes down. But there’ll always be people who need straightening out.

  People the likes of Frogger and Freddie can’t handle.

  “So I suppose you want me to do something about this kid,” I say.

  “You suppose right,” Rudenko says. “I’ve got a man on the inside. They’re keeping him in a hotel for two days before he takes the stand. If the kid testifies . . .” Rudenko straightens up in his chair. Punches the centre of his chest. “Fucking heartburn.”

  “Don’t worry,” I say, as Rudenko returns to his pizza. “Just give me the details, and I’ll sort it.”

  Rudenko wipes his mouth with a serviette. Nods. “'I'll have the hotel and the room number tomorrow. Somewhere in the city centre. Frogger will come with you.”

  Oh, no, no, no.

  Ever had to work with someone you’d happily see fed alive and into an industrial mincer? Now imagine that fucker is a walking disaster who turns everything into a hurricane of shit and you’re the one left holding the mop. Yeah, that’s Frogger.

  “I’m a one-man show Mr Rudenko. You know that.”

  Rudenko shakes his head. “No. You take Frogger. He’s your contact with our man inside. And anyway, it’s a two-man job."

  “Sorry, Mr Rudenko. But you know my terms.”

  I hear a screech of chair legs across lino. Freddie casts a shadow as he gets to his feet.

  I turn to my left. “Don't make me get out of my chair, cueball."

  Freddie stomps over regardless. It's like that scene in Jurassic Park. When the T-Rex is coming and the water in the cup is bouncing.

  I get to my feet. My chair in one hand behind my back. Before the big man can lay a knuckle on me, I swing it around and up in both hands. Hard and fast.

  The rim of the metal seat cracks the underside of Freddie's nose. He staggers back and collapses against his table. It flips up sideways and spills a large coke down his front. He clutches his nose in both hands. Blood all over the place.

 

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