the countertop.
‘You gonna start a fight?’ Hagar teased.
The concierge walked stiffly to the glass-doored lifts, one of which had a sign on saying it was in use only between 6 a.m. and midnight. The working lift took a few seconds to arrive and Hagar, five thugs and the concierge squeezed inside.
‘You boys look like you need some exercise,’ Hagar said. ‘See you up there, don’t dawdle.’
Hagar might have been acting like a big kid, but Ryan noted that Warren and the three bulky men accepted the order to walk up fourteen floors without hesitation.
Two flights separated each level, and by the sixth floor the routine of eleven stairs followed by a 180-degree turn on a balcony started making everyone dizzy. Ryan was last through the door on the ground floor, but though his ankle still hurt from earlier, he was the only one who made it to the top without pausing for breath.
The fourteenth floor comprised a single penthouse. The concierge had unlocked for Hagar and the others and Ryan stepped through an elaborately carved double-height door.
‘Took your time,’ Hagar said brightly. ‘Welcome to chez Eli! Where are the others?’
‘Coming,’ Ryan said breathlessly, as he took in the opulence.
After a marble lobby, the apartment opened out into a huge open space, with floor-to-ceiling glass on three sides and an impressive vista of barges making sedate progress along the River Thames.
A glass staircase led up to bedrooms and a balcony area on the floor above. The elderly concierge had been ordered to sit on a huge leather couch with his hands on his head, and Hagar held court as he grabbed a tall vase decorated with tabloid newspaper headlines and drawings of minor celebrities.
‘Eli thinks he’s sophisticated,’ Hagar said, as he looked at lines of contemporary paintings along the single unglazed wall. ‘Does this dog shit look like art to you? And he pays tens of thousands for this crap.’
Inevitably, Hagar let the vase smash at his feet.
‘What you all standing around for?’ he shouted. ‘Let’s trash this joint.’
As Warren and the others stumbled into the apartment in a breathless, sweaty lump, the rest of Hagar’s crew moved into action, ripping paintings off the wall, smashing up furniture, blocking sinks and switching on taps full blast.
Ryan picked up a wooden sculpture and used it like a spear, punching a hole in a large Damien Hirst painting. Then he teamed up with Warren, stepping out on to the balcony and throwing potted plants into a tiny outdoor pool.
Trashing stuff was fun and the two boys were helpless with giggles as they stumbled back inside, their shirts and jeans dripping wet. The guy with the eye patch was trying to smash a glass dining-table using a cricket bat with nails hammered into it.
‘Who wants a Rolex?’ Hagar shouted, as he emerged from one of the upstairs bedrooms holding three diamond-crusted watches and a woman’s jewellery box. He threw one of them down and two thugs almost cracked heads as they lunged for it.
As someone set off a sprinkler with a burning copy of Wired magazine and Warren tucked a nifty Sony laptop under his arm, Ryan was distracted by a crunch of metal outside. He stepped back on to the balcony, peered down over the railing and saw the VW people carrier he’d arrived in with a BMW coupé rammed into its side. There were two more cars. At least a dozen masked men were swarming into the lobby, while the getaway driver in the Renault had been dragged out and was taking a savage beating.
‘Guys!’ Ryan shouted, as he ran back inside. ‘Eli’s crew has arrived.’
‘What?’ Hagar shouted, as he stormed on to the balcony, followed by Warren and a couple of other men. ‘Shit, they’ve got Curtis. Joe, call for backup. Everyone else, let’s get downstairs and hit these pricks hard.’
Some of Hagar’s crew were up for a fight, but Ryan didn’t fancy it and Warren looked properly scared as masked men charged out of the apartment.
Another sprinkler went off, accompanied by a shrieking alarm as the first sprinkler successfully doused a flaming magazine rack and curtains. Ryan realised that he and Warren were the only ones left in the apartment as the concierge stumbled out, holding his mobile phone.
‘He’s gonna call the cops,’ Warren said, as he went after him.
Ryan shrugged and pulled him back. ‘Who cares? In a big building like this, the sprinklers will have already alerted the fire brigade and half the neighbourhood has probably dialled 999