Read Partners in Crime: Two Logan and Steel Short Stories for Free Online Page B

Scouse wideboys, a dead gangster, four of Malk the Knife’s goons, and the spotty ginger kid that works for Wee Hamish Mowat. Sodding hotel bar’s like the United Nations for drug-dealers.’ She reached over and poked a finger into Logan’s toffee sauce.
    ‘Hey!’
    Steel sooked her finger. ‘And you want to know the weirdest thing? They’re all playing nice. Even Kevin McGregor and the Riley Sisters: in there, quietly sipping their pints. You’d think they’d at least chib each other for old time’s sake.’ Pause. ‘Give us a go of your spoon.’
    Logan turned away, shielding the pudding with his arm. ‘Get your own.’
    She stared back towards the bar. ‘Never mind a paddle: if this kicks off, we’re up shite creek without a
canoe
. According to the guidebook, Jura’s got two special constables and that’s it. No firearms team, no black maria, nothing.’
    ‘So call Strathclyde – get them to send a helicopter.’
    ‘And let those Weegie soap-dodgers take all the credit? No thanks.’
    ‘No, of course not – silly me. It’s
much
better if this lot tear the hotel apart and murder each other in the lounge bar. What was I thinking?’
    She stared at him. ‘No one likes a smart arse, you know that, don’t you?’
    Logan finished his sticky toffee pudding. Licked the bowl clean so there’d be nothing left for Steel. ‘Only one thing for it then: we pick them off one-by-one like Rambo.’
    Mid-afternoon and the sky was like boiling tar, rain battering down – bouncing off the road and a handful of parked cars. DI Steel curled her lip, buzzed down the window and spat out into the storm. ‘“We’ll pick them off one-by-one like Rambo,” he says.’
    ‘Not my fault they all go to the toilet in pairs, is it? Who knew drug dealers were like girlies on a hen night?’
    ‘Prat. They go to the bogs in pairs so the opposition doesn’t chib them in the ribs while they’re having a slash. Puts them off their aim – blood and pee everywhere.’
    Badger McLean shuffled out through the bar’s main door onto a raised stone patio with a handrail around it to keep anyone from falling into the bustling rush-hour traffic. Which probably consisted of a Post Office van and a sheep. If it was a really busy day.
    ‘Did you tell the hotel owners that their bar was full of drug dealers?’
    ‘Course I sodding didn’t. What they don’t know won’t kneecap them.’
    The wee hairy man huddled in the hotel doorway and winkled a hand-rolled cigarette out of a tin of tobacco. He lit up, shifting from foot to foot, puffing away in the torrential rain. Shivering.
    Steel sighed. ‘I miss fags.’ She pulled out a silver hip flask, twisted the top off, took a swig, then waggled it at Logan. ‘Snifter?’
    ‘You really think that’s a good idea?’
    ‘It’s no’ drink driving, it’s drink parking.’
    Over in front of the hotel, Badger fought with his lighter again. Then looked over his shoulder back into the bar, before limping down the steps and across to an ancient maroon Peugeot with a deep gouge all the way down the passenger side. He hauled open the back door and lowered himself inside with slow stiff movements, as if his spine was made of broken glass. The hot blue-and-yellow flare of a lighter. The dull orange glow of a cigarette. The pale-grey smoke drifting against the glass.
    Logan stuck his pudding bowl on the dashboard next to the iPrint kit. ‘One-by-one, just like Rambo.’
    Badger McLean squealed as Logan wrenched open the Peugeot’s door and jumped into the back seat beside him.
    ‘I didn’t—’
    Then another squeal as Steel slid in on the other side, trapping him in the middle.
    Silence.
    Outside, the wind howled.
    Steel stretched her arm along the back of the seat, behind Badger’s shoulders, as if she was about to put the first-date moves on him in a darkened cinema. ‘Aye, aye Badger. Badge. Badge the Tadge. Long time eh?’
    He licked his lips, eyes flicking from the car door to the