Stiffed by Rob Kitchin Read Free Book Online Page A

hit.’
    Paavo looks like someone who has just been told he has lost his entire family to a tragic accident.  He steps across the threshold and stares into the front room at Anna pointing a gun in his direction and Redneck tied to the chair.
    ‘Is he dead?’
    ‘No, unconscious.’
    ‘You have a mattress?’
    This is who I should have called instead of Jason.  Nothing fazes Paavo.  You have an unconscious man tied to a chair, that’s your business.  His is moving stuff.
    * * *
    Paavo didn’t blink at the blood on the mattress, just grabbed the end nearest the top of the stairs and slid it down.  I guess he saw worse when he was in the army.  He signed up straight from school, did nine years and then bailed out.  He’s never told any of us what he did or where he served.  If you ask, he just says, ‘stuff’ and ‘wherever they sent you.’  When he left the army he returned to Carrick Springs and worked in a car component factory until they shut it down, then he started driving a van for a local delivery company.  He doesn’t seem to care about the crappy money or hours.  It’s a living not a vocation. 
    T he van is now loaded with the mattress, the bed, and the garbage bags containing my own and Marino’s clothes.  We’ve left Annabelle, at her own insistence, to guard Redneck.  When he comes round we’re hoping he’ll tell us what the hell is going on and we’re going to try and persuade him that we haven’t a clue about his money, that that’s between him and Kate, and we’ll silently go our way, if he goes his.  He’s a businessman, he’ll hopefully see sense.
    Paavo has driven a few houses down the road and reversed the van into the drive of the Choi’s house.  It won’t fit down the alley between the houses, but it blocks out the view from the road of any potential prying eyes.  There are now a few people up and about, heading off for their day of purgatory.  Much like us.  The sky is blue with barely a wisp of cloud.  It’s going to be a hot one.
    ‘You stay here,’ I say to Paavo, ‘we’ll load the rest of the stuff.’
    ‘She’ll be heavy,’ Paavo replies.
    ‘Who’ll be heavy?’ I try to fake confusion.
    ‘The body.’
    ‘What body?’
    ‘Psycho-Bitch.’
    ‘Psycho-B itch?’ 
    He thinks I’ve killed Kate. 
    ‘No, no.  It’s not Kate.’
    ‘So there is a body.’  Paavo eases himself out of the driver’s door just as Mrs Choi exits the house.
    ‘No, no, no, no, no, no.  Not here.  You wrong place.’  Mrs Choi is small, round and energetic.
    I step round the van.  ‘Hello, Mrs Choi, we’re just helping Jason move some stuff.’
    ‘What stuff?’
    ‘Some junk from his room.  We’re going to the dump.’
    ‘Good!’ She claps her hands.  ‘Room full of junk.  I go help.’  She turns on her heels and heads back into the house.
    Jason’s going to shit a brick.  His basement is bursting at the seams, much like himself.  To most people it looks like junk, but to him it’s all vital stuff ; mostly what he euphemistically calls ‘collectibles’.  And he’s very precious about it all.  He’ll be given no choice now but to load some of it into the van to keep up the pretence.
    We head down the alley to the garage.
    ‘What’s he doing back here?’ Jason asks, blocking the doorway. 
    ‘Your mother’s in your room.   She thinks we’re helping you clear it out.’
    ‘My mother … oh fuck!  You’re going to pay big time for this, Tadhg,’ Jason says, waddling at top speed to the entrance to his basement lair.
    Bring the man two bodies and he’s basically okay about it.  Tell him his mother is in his room and his world falls apart.  Go figure.  I guess Mrs Choi is a damn sight scarier than two mummies.  I’ve certainly never had the balls to cross her.  And nor has Mr Choi, the most henpecked man on the planet.
    ‘Are you taking that gun in with you?’
    ‘Fuck.’  Jason turns on his heels and hurtles back to the