Crime Always Pays by Declan Burke Read Free Book Online Page A

long.'
              Karen slumped back, drained. Jesus, every time she turned around it was something else. Karen wondering if maybe she shouldn't stop turning around, just for once go in a straight line. 'You think the Greek cops'll give a crap about Frank?' she said. 'I mean, there's all that jurisdiction stuff, right?'
              'It's still European Union, Kar. There's protocols, agreements.'
              'So she'd be screwed.'
              'Madge?' Ray nodded. 'Except we're the ones brought her to Terry and never mentioned the whole credit card deal. And if he gets hauled in, aiding and abetting a fugitive from justice? Anna won't be the only one missing an eye.'
     
     
     
     
     
    Doyle
     
    Doyle'd never liked flying, especially when they served dinner. Trying to pretend cruising at thirty thousand feet was so normal there was no reason you shouldn't be eating plastic chicken too.
    Then the washrooms, designed to fit anorexic dwarves. Doyle freshening her lippy while the plane jitterbugged around the sky, electric storms over the Balkans. Doyle wondering if she wasn't overdoing the gloss. Trying to achieve a delicate balance, needing to look hot enough Niko would help her out but not so smoking the guy'd take it as a come-on. She'd decided to skip the eye-liner, it was just asking for trouble, a poke in the eye, when there came a tapping on the door. The stew, telling Doyle to return to her seat, they were starting the descent.
    Doyle wobbled back up the aisle, edged into the window seat and looked down on Athens, wondering how Niko'd look, two or three years now since she'd seen him last. He'd been thin then, sallow and tall. Doyle liked them tall but not as thin as Niko, the guy a greyhound, all cock and ribs. Cock, mainly. Had this habit, too, of looking at a girl from under half-closed lids over the beaky nose that he thought was sexy but made him look like a lizard with cataracts.
              He'd kiss both cheeks, Doyle knew that. Long, lingering smooches. All Doyle was hoping, as she switched the big fake emerald from the baby finger of her right hand to the ring-finger on her left, was Niko'd remembered to brush.
    Niko, he liked his  tzatziki  heavy on the garlic. 
     
     
     
     
     
    Rossi
     
    Rossi had always imagined that if he ever made it onto the set of a blue movie he'd be a little more jazzed. It didn’t help that the set doubled as the props room. 'So you're a getaway driver,' he said, 'except you're narcoleptic, nod off when the mood takes.'
              Sleeps checking out his reflection in the full-length mirror, the chauffeur's cap perched at a rakish angle over one eye. 'I was narcoleptic all along,' he said. 'You're the one picked me for wheelman.'
              Rossi deep-sixed the jay, held it down for a count of ten, a tip he'd picked up at anger management class inside. 'Okay,' he said. 'But let's call this a fresh start. Clean slate. Is there anything else I should know?'
              'Well, I'm allergic to penicillin,' Sleeps said. 'Plus I'm borderline diabetic, on account of I'm a little big-boned. Except I can't remember, do I eat sugar to keep my levels up? Or do I avoid it in case it blows my head off?'
              ' I'll  blow your head off,' Rossi growled. 'Worry about me.'
              Sleeps nodded. 'Lee Marvin, right?  Point Blank .' Then told Melody, 'The doc reckons it was a lack of nutrition when I was a kid, screwed my system.'
              'A  lack  of nutrition?' Rossi said. 'Sleeps, no disrespect man, but you look like you ate the Michelin Man.'
              'I was deprived in the  womb . My mother, God rest her, was a juicer, drinking meths, the works.'
              'Okay.' Rossi mulled it over while he had another toke. 'But what's any of that have to do with not flying?'
    'Nothing. That's from when I went to the funfair, going up on the Whirly