Copacabana: International Crime Noir: Liverpool - Rio de Janeiro Read online

  Copacabana

  Transatlantic Crime Noir: Liverpool - Rio de Janeiro

  Jack Rylance

  40° Books

  Copacabana Copyright © 2017 by Jack Rylance. All Rights Reserved.

  This book was produced using Pressbooks.com.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Onwards and Upwards

  A Study In Revenge

  Bonus - A Study in Revenge - Chapter 1

  Bonus - A Study in Revenge - Chapter 2

  Bonus - A Study in Revenge - Chapter 3

  Code Red - Chapter One

  Code Red - Chapter Two

  Code Red - Chapter Three

  Code Red - Rogue Hackers Trilogy

  Remote - An Island Mystery - Chapter One

  Remote - An Island Mystery - Chapter Two

  Remote - An Island Mystery - Chapter Three

  Remote - An Island Mystery

  Dog Rough - Chapter One

  Dog Rough - Chapter Two

  Dog Rough - Chapter Three

  Dog Rough

  The Purpose of a Man

  Other Books by The Author

  Chapter One

  “So here we are,” Pete Murphy said. The apartment was a surprise to John Mullan – small, dim, cluttered up with cheap-looking furniture – and bore little relation to what he’d long imagined it to be. A pair of heavy green curtains were drawn together blocking out the midday sun. A computer was switched on at a desk in the far corner, shedding its sickly light on the dull surroundings.

  John walked into the middle of the room, pulling his suitcase behind him, and came to a stop below the active ceiling fan. He looked at those doors leading off from the lounge and counted two of them. A number which suggested that there was only one bedroom, which meant that he’d be sleeping on the sofa in here.

  “One block back from the beach,” Pete said.

  “What?”

  “This apartment. It’s only a minute’s walk. I hope you packed your trunks.”

  John walked over to the window and held back one of the curtains and peered outside at the other high-rise buildings across the way. “So can you see the sea from here?”

  Pete laughed. “Yeh, if you lean right out and risk breaking your neck…You want a drink?”

  “Have you got a coke?”

  Pete went directly into the kitchenette, opened the fridge, took out a can.

  “Am I alright smoking in here?” John asked him.

  “There’s an ashtray on the table.”

  Sitting down on the low white couch with an ashtray in front of him, he took out a Berkeley Superking and lit it up. It was his sixth cigarette since landing in Rio de Janeiro an hour and a half earlier. There were thick yellow bands of nicotine on those fingers he used to smoke.

  Pete brought the soft drink over. He had aged visibly since they’d last met, two years before. He now had a deep brown tan, the result of living in the sun day to day, month after month, and this tan had accentuated the wrinkles around his pale blue eyes. His hair was blonder than before but still the same length as it had always been, falling down about his shoulders. But you never would have taken him for a hippy in spite of that.

  “So how’s your mother?” Pete asked, putting the can down on the coffee table.

  “The same.”

  “Right.” He sat down in the armchair opposite. “So I guess we’ve got a lot to talk about.”

  John nodded, acknowledging the fact, but there was a look on his face which suggested he wanted to ignore such matters for the moment and press on with what was foremost on his mind. “Listen, Pete,” he said, “I brought you something.”

  “Oh aye? What’s that then?”

  John leaned forward eagerly and pulled over his large suitcase and began to open it as fast as he could. He lifted back the lid and started burrowing through his clothes, throwing them out of the way like a child hunting a gift down. Then he came away with a smaller red sports bag hidden inside. “Here we go,” he said and zipped it open and then tipped it upside down. Countless bank notes fell out. They were tied in large bundles and made little thuds as they dropped against the floor. John shook the bag with both hands to empty it completely, releasing the last two stacks of Pounds Sterling. After that he looked over at Pete, awaiting his reply.

  “Well I guess that clears up why you had to leave in such a hurry.”

  “I haven’t had time to count it, but I reckon there’s a hundred grand there.”

  By Pete’s own estimation it was closer to two. “And you hid it in your suitcase?”

  “Yeh.” The young man nodded earnestly.

  Pete considered those baggage handlers who had idly watched this suitcase go by, missing out on the haul of a lifetime. The truth would have driven them all to madness. Now he looked at John closely for any sign of visible change, but the intervening years were nowhere to be found. He was still a youth, if one of twenty two. You would have been hard pressed to mistake him for a man. His thin face was honest, expressive, easy to read. He possessed that innocence which the young desperately want rid of.

  “You’re a slave to fortune aren’t you, lad?”

  “A what?”

  “Never mind…”

  “I want you to take what you want, Pete,” John said. “That’s for you and me, that is.”

  “And where exactly did you get it?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “But I do though.”

  “Alright, OK, I’m gonna tell you . . .” Wetting his lips nervously, John revved himself up to do just that.

  “So…”

  “Riley.”

  “You stole it from Riley?”

  “I took it from his house.”

  “And is that who the money belonged to?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Is this money Riley’s?”

  “Dunno.”

  “That’s a lot of money for him, don’t you think?”

  John shrugged.

  “Is that who you think the money belonged to?”

  John shrugged again.

  “So who knows you’re here?” Pete asked.

  “No-one.”

  “Not even your Ma’?”

  “Why the fuck would I tell her?”

  “And what about the other lads you knock round with?”

  “I’m not that stupid.”

  “Alright. And you definitely weren’t followed to the airport?”

  “If I’d have been followed, I wouldn’t have made it this far, would I?”

  It was another reasonable answer, and probably John was safe in the short term, but the chances were this would only be a lull. Whoever the true victims of his crime, they were unlikely to let it go and chalk it off to experience. It was worth considerable effort to get that kind of money back.

  John got to his feet and stood over the emptied sports bag, hands on his hips, waiting for Pete to show his pleasure. Or a tiny bit of admiration at least. But Pete
only shook his head at the small fortune. He realised that whatever John had done to get the money, the youngster was not particularly interested in holding onto it. His idea was to hand it over as an offering, a tribute. He was asking Pete to take care of him in return. And yet the money didn’t much interest Pete either. For some time he’d claimed not to care for wealth any longer, and, as it turned out, he’d been telling himself the truth.

  Chapter Two

  They went out after midnight. Despite Pete’s misgivings, he thought it only proper that they celebrate John’s arrival in style. After all, he had made it this far. And if John did not want to bring up the exact circumstances of the theft then he would not press the kid for every detail until tomorrow. Let him have his one night’s reprieve.

  It was less than a five minute walk to their destination, Sobre As Ondas, a terrace restaurant on Atlantic Avenue. They left the apartment building, took a right, a left, a right, and then it was there before them: the main strip of Copacabana’s nightlife; its fast beating heart.

  Turning the corner, the first thing to catch John’s eye was a tall bald man in a blue Hawaiian shirt smoking a cigar. He had one foot planted on a small wooden shoe box as a young boy crouched before him and ran a cloth over one of his black brogues at astonishing speed. Meanwhile the man blew the smoke out of his mouth and looked downwards, studying the boy’s handiwork. Now John’s focus widened and he tried to take in the street as a whole and failed spectacularly. The entire scene was frantic and unfathomable. Countless young women were milling around, alone or in groups, all dressed up and showing themselves off. Hawkers were passing through, wares draped over their shoulders, selling towels, hammocks, flags, even at this hour. Among these people, there was unanimous interest in those holidaymakers who were also out in force, for the most part male. What drove the action here was the endless trade-offs between the two parties. The ways in which locals and foreigners rubbed each other up.

  John had never seen anything like it.

  A young girl darted towards them, maybe seven years old. She had short thick brown curls, a dirty face, and was holding out a few packs of chewing gum, offering them up for sale. Pete took out an identical pack from his back pocket to prove he didn’t need any. The girl dropped her interest in him instantly and began to concentrate on John. “I’ve got no money,” he said in English. She tugged at his shirt, imploring him all the same. He felt helpless, too frightened to push her away. “Tell her I’ve got no money,” he said to Pete.

  “You should have brought some of your ill-gotten gains out with you,” Pete answered. “I’m sure she would have accepted a twenty.” Then he looked down at the girl and spoke in her language until she turned and ran off.

  The two of them cut through the crowd and reached the terrace which lay in the middle of all this confusion. It was wide, rectangular, packed out with paying guests. As Pete stood at its edge, looking for somewhere to sit, a waiter hurried over and greeted him warmly. “Pete!”

  “Oh Antonio!”

  The waiter then turned and made a great show of hunting down a good spot for him. It pleased John to see that his friend’s standing here was high. “VIP treatment. That’s alright,” he remarked.

  “One of the perks of being a drunkard,” Pete replied.

  They were led to a central table and sat themselves down there. Pete ordered a caipirinha for himself. “What do you want?” he asked John.

  “I’ll take a beer,” John answered, his eyes flitting about, still struggling to acclimatize. The sights hitting him in successive waves, so that before he’d got to grips with any one of them, another came along. This superabundance had assaulted his nerves just as soon as he’d arrived in Rio de Janeiro and resounded within him ever since. The foreignness was overwhelming. It struck him as a form of deviancy; as if the people here had tried in vain to imitate everything that John knew of life, only to get it horribly, spectacularly wrong. As such, it made for a world of deep mystery. One that the young Englishman felt himself flinching from.

  Scanning the periphery, he took in three young women and paused for a moment to look them over, trying to figure out if they were older or younger than himself. As John did so, one of them expertly caught his eye, smiled, and waved over at him. He turned to Pete. “I’m sure that bird over there just gave me a wave.”

  Pete followed John’s nod. “You could be right.”

  “You’d think she knows me.”

  “She certainly knows your type.”

  “How do you mean?”

  Pete ignored the question as he spotted somebody else standing close to the girl. “You see that fella over there.” He was referring to a skinny man with a large handlebar moustache. “He’s a taxi driver, but more importantly he’s also a snitch. You don’t ever want him watching what you do. And as for that woman he’s talking to…” Pete went on to point out other people as well, describing a web of intrigue, populating a gallery of rogues. It seemed like a very complicated drama and John soon gave up on understanding it and surrendered any hope of ever remembering what was what and who was who.

  It took Pete a little over an hour to finish his third caipirinha. He called these cocktails ‘petrols’. He was the kind of person who gave things nicknames which entered wider circulation because the names were accurate, poetic, both. John stuck with beer and watched as the stronger drink took hold of the older man, triggering his wit. He was glad to see Pete on tip-top form. The spectacle calmed and delighted him. It was the side of his friend he liked best.

  Now Pete became distracted by two North European tourists, a couple in their fifties, sitting close by. They were also drinking caipirinhas, becoming more open and relaxed as the cocktails slid down their throats. Pete pretended to interpret their conversation for John using a pair of comic accents, dubbing their actual words.

  “Later when we are in bed together you will do the special thing?”

  “I am not doing that!”

  “Here my darling, have another of their fruity drinks.”

  “I don’t want another of their fruity drinks!”

  “But you love their fruity drinks!”

  And so it went on, with Pete playing both roles. He never told a one-liner. His humour was always lavish, exhaustive, off the cuff. He loved language and led it on a wild goose chase and that was another reason why John enjoyed his company so much.

  “Well, you always said you were going to visit me,” Pete reflected.

  “Yeh.”

  “And here you are. On the run.”

  John allowed himself a sheepish smile. Pete had already warned him several times to leave home or else he was going to come unstuck. He had seen John’s future, John realised, and that was another good reason for his being here. It made sense to stick close to somebody who had that kind of gift. It was also true that when he’d answered the desperate phone call, Pete hadn’t hesitated for a moment before springing into action. He’d arranged the flight within the hour. All John needed to do was get to Manchester airport and ask for his ticket at the desk.

  “Listen Pete, I’ve got to get out of here now,” John had said. “I’m in big fucking trouble. I haven’t got time to explain.” The fear in his voice had been so thick and furry that he could hardly get the words out.

  “OK, you need to get out of town for a while, take a train up to Glasgow. I know people up there. They’ll sort you out.”

  “No Pete, I need to get out the country.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “You want to come here?”

  “Can I?”

  “If that’s what you need to do.”

  As for Pete himself, he’d expected to be underwhelmed when he learnt of John’s reasons for running away. Expecting to hear of a minor run-in with someone insignificant, blown out of all proportion. The problem would require a cooling off period. There would be a talking to for John, and, if necessary, a word in somebody’s ear back home. Then, after a brief stay,
he could put him on a flight back to England.

  But by dropping those bundles of cash onto the floor of his apartment, John had blown that theory out of the water. Pete was looking at an entirely different proposition. One that threatened to overtake his own life in any number of ways. The most obvious, if not the most threatening, was his being burdened with the boy, day after day after day. In the very short term, there was also Ester to consider. She would be back from Italy on Friday afternoon and he did not want John staying at his flat and cramping his style once his part-time love got back. Therefore Pete resolved to speak with one of the brokers who rented out apartments by the month. He would set John up in Copacabana for exactly that length of time and then they would take it from there.

  “So what do you reckon?” Pete said.

  “About what?”

  “How do you like Copacabana?”

  “Yeh, it’s sound,” John said vaguely.

  Pete snorted and then mimicked John. “It’s sound…” He appeared to be reaching a new level of drunkenness. It was no longer enough for him to sit here and talk things over. All of a sudden he wanted to get up and move about and cause some kind of stir.

  John sensed this dissatisfaction and wondered what he might do to counter it. For his part, he was more than happy to stay put. “How about another cocktail?” he said.

  “Nah. Not here. Let’s go over the road,” Pete answered.

  “Why? What’s over there?”

  “A whole world of trouble.” Pete winked.

  After paying the bill, they made their way onto the bustling sidewalk and then crossed those wide traffic lanes that ran in both directions from Leme to Arpoador. On the far side lay the long curving promenade of Copacabana and here they stopped before a beachside kiosk, right in front of its small wooden bar. Behind the counter stood a chubby man wearing a soiled white apron who gave Pete a single nod in reply to his drinks order. Then he turned and dug out two cans of Skol lager from the fridge to his left and sat these down on the counter along with a couple of white plastic cups.