Lone Wolf - Robert Muchamore Page 0,43
a full valet with detailing. Kar Kleen didn’t accept cards or cheques, which made it a perfect business for its owner, Hagar, to launder cash made in the drug trade.
Ryan was average height for fifteen, but he was smaller than the adults he’d been sent to work with, so he’d landed the awkward job of cleaning car interiors. Vacuuming wasn’t too bad, but customers who dropped fifty quid for a valet expected perfection, so he had to crawl around inside cars with cleaning sprays, cloths and brushes hanging off a tool belt.
Ryan had done a full day at school, and was now into his third hour at the car-wash. He’d begun to hate Minis, because there were millions of them around and there was no comfortable way for a normal-sized human to clean out the back of a small two-doored car.
The Mini Ryan was in right now was particularly bad because the owner had a couple of brats and the back seats were crusted with Ribena stains, crayon and puke. He worked some cleaning mousse into a nasty blotch on the seat, then wiped down the seatbacks and headrests before returning to attack the stain with a plastic scraper and a nail-brush.
Ryan’s neck and shoulder ached as he scrubbed, but the stain just blurred around the edges. He reckoned he’d get another bollocking from Milosh the supervisor, a man whose unwillingness to believe that a stain couldn’t be removed was matched only by his unwillingness to climb inside a car and have a go himself.
After giving up on the seat stain, Ryan delved into dirt and crumbs under the front seat. He was pulling out a Thomas the Tank Engine sock and a mildewed digestive when a rap on the back window made him jolt.
Ryan gently bumped his head on the padded door trim as he rolled on to his back. Craig was eyeballing him, making an aggressive get out gesture.
The bottles hooked to Ryan’s belt sploshed as Craig led him across the soapy courtyard and into a large office. It had once been the garage shop. The cashier’s desk was still in place and magazines and newspapers yellowed on a rack by the door.
‘The boss here reckons you’re OK,’ Craig said, grudgingly. ‘You passed your trial.’
Ryan was surprised enough to manage an involuntary smile, because all he’d heard from Milosh was abuse.
‘You’ll work off your debt at ten pounds an hour, starting tomorrow,’ Craig said. ‘You’d better work hard. I want you here every day after school and eight till seven on Saturday. If you call in sick you’d better be dying. If you cause me any kind of grief, I’ll make sure you regret it. Understood?’
Ryan’s feelings were split. On one hand, he’d found a path back into Craig’s good books. On the other, the prospect of slogging it out after school and all day Saturday didn’t exactly leave him brimming with glee.
‘When do I do my homework and stuff?’ Ryan asked.
‘Not my problem,’ Craig answered tersely. ‘I don’t give a shit about you. I just want the money you owe me.’
‘OK,’ Ryan said.
Ryan’s OK came out grumpier than he’d expected and made Craig turn nasty.
‘Any more of that attitude and I’ll slap the piss out of you. Now get back to it.’
As Ryan headed out of the office, a Mercedes E-class was pulling up on the forecourt. It looked new, but it was understated, apart from black privacy glass which gave the vehicle an air of menace. As a tall, mixed-race man emerged from the driver’s seat, Milosh rushed across and did a kind of semi-panicked Japanese bow.
‘I’ll get it washed straight away, sir,’ Milosh fawned. ‘Won’t hold you up at all.’
Ryan had seen the driver in dozens of security photos while preparing for the mission, but he’d been knocked off kilter by Craig’s anger so it took a couple of seconds for him to register that Hagar had walked past and was heading into the office to see Craig.
‘You, you,’ Milosh was shouting, as he pointed at a couple of guys and ordered them to start jet-washing Hagar’s car.
Ryan was curious to get a look inside Hagar’s wheels. ‘You want a hand, boss?’ he asked.
Milosh buckled a cleaning belt, as he gave Ryan a look of horror. ‘Finish the Mini,’ he said. ‘Mr Hagar’s car has to be done by an expert.’
*
Fay caught her first glance at Eli’s lieutenant, Shawn, across the food court of Wood Green Shopping City. He had a goatee, a yellow Lakers