Criminally Insane by Conrad Jones

the poker game?” Dean’s eyebrows lifted, his forehead creasing. Speculation was rife on the streets. The city’s underworld was in uproar about the heist. Accusations were flying about and several suspected culprits had been beaten to a pulp as the gangsters looked for retribution. So far, no one had confessed. Word was out that two men were sitting on five kilos of cocaine and sooner or later they would try to offload it. Every dealer in the city was waiting for an approach. “If we finger Jinx for the heist and then the real robbers are found, we could be in deep shit, Leon.”
    “They’re in the wind, Deano, gone.” Leon licked the remaining powder from his thumb as he spoke. “There is twenty grand in it for you, plus a cut of whatever we take over when the dust settles.” Leon knew everyone had a price. Jackson would shoot his mother for twenty grand but Dean was different. “Twenty grand, Deano, you could a lot with that.”
    Jackson whistled again. He patted Dean on the shoulder and laughed. He liked Jinx and the way he helped the community he lived in, but he didn’t like him enough to warrant missing that kind of payday. Jackson was approaching his fifties faster than he wanted to and that kind of money would secure his future. If Leon gave them a cut of any other business he picked up then he could live with killing Jinx, but the look on Dean’s face told him that his colleague wasn’t so sure. Dean was going soft lately, talking about his family. He had big plans for their future; plans that didn’t involve shooting rival gangsters or burying people alive in the forest. If Dean didn’t want in on the deal, he would do it himself.
    “Come on, Deano.” He slapped him on the back again. “Twenty grand, you don’t like Jinx that much, do you?”
    “It’s what comes afterwards that worries me. Killing Jinx won’t be the end of it, Jackson. You won’t live long enough to spend the money, you fool, none of us will.”
    “I’ll take my chances for that kind of money.”
    “People will think Bodger did it, or the Turks. They’ll believe whatever rumours we put out there,” Leon grinned. “We have a meth shipment arriving tomorrow night at the docks. We’ll put our business in order and then we’ll take out Jinx. The money for the meth is all here. Pick it up tomorrow before you get the drugs.”
    Dean agreed with a grunt. Jackson smiled and thought about his bonus. The drug pickup was not complicated. They had the security guards on the docks in their pocket. Dean could concentrate on that for now and worry about the Jinx problem later. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but he knew that he didn’t want to be around when all hell broke loose. Leon placed the bag of money into a safe at the back of the storeroom and the door clunked as it closed. The storeroom smelled musty and damp. Apart from the safe, it was empty. There were no computers or keyboards for sale here, just the women upstairs. The men secured the metal grilles over the door and padlocked them into place. As they left the Crazy Computer shop, the Gecko watched them from a parked car across the road in a side street. He had listened to their conversation via a scanner and picked up some very interesting information. They were planning to make a hit on the moneylender Jinx Cotton. That was a problem, because Gecko wanted Jinx around. His enquiries had taught him that Jinx didn’t like the drug dealers in the city any more than he did. He could be useful for taking out Leon`s network of brothels and drug dealers. Gecko needed the safe combination to steal Leon’s money, but now he knew when it would be open, and he knew where they were collecting a large shipment of meth. Tomorrow would be a busy day.

Chapter Nine
Hotel Clean
    Maria was checking rooms on the third floor. Time was ticking away and the team of cleaners that she supervised were the worst she had ever worked with. The majority of them couldn’t speak