Questionable Heroes

By Lucas Gaunson

Robyn is a high school science teacher searching for answers after her mother dies suspiciously.

Johnny is an ambitious nightclub owner seeking to obtain and sell the identity of an extremely secretive Columbian drug lord.

Zulse is a geeky university student who discovers his skin is bullet-proof.

Zyrkan is a broke ex Special Forces soldier who accepts a dangerous hostage rescue mission in Afghanistan.

Romeo is an assassin working as a mole against his employer.

Masud is a foreign exchange student being blackmailed by ISIS into providing refuge for terrorists planning a terror plot.

Oscar is a professional safe cracker whose dreams see into the future.

Questionable Heroes follows these seven people into a sexual and deadly tale of danger, manipulation, avarice and honor.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookRix
• Release date: May 3, 2018
• ISBN: 9783743867024

Book preview

Part I, Optimism

Oscar is a down on his luck thief who starts dreaming the future.

Robyn is a high school science teacher searching for answers after her mother is murdered.

Romeo is a dangerous assassin plotting to infiltrate a secretive Columbian drug cartel.

Johnny is an ambitious and manipulative nightclub owner looking to move up in the world.

Zulse is a geeky university student who discovers he is bulletproof.

Zyrkan is a special forces soldier worried about his family and gets offered a dangerous hostage rescue job overseas.

Masud is a foreign exchange student trying to cope with ISIS terrorists living with him.

These seven people’s stories intersect and conflict in a manipulative, sexual and deadly tale set against the backdrop of the vibrant city of Sydney.

Chapter 1, Oscar

CHAPTER 1, OSCAR

Oscar was stressed. In his thirty five years he had never been wealthy, however the hit to his current finances was more dire than he had ever faced before. Faced with alimony payments to his ex wife Belinda, the various repayments on his small three bedroom brick veneer villa in the south side of Prospect combined with the ever increasing repayments of his two credit cards to the NAB and Commonwealth banks, he was feeling decidedly poverty stricken.

He had purchased the villa in happier times, back when he had a safe job as an IT security expert for a one of the larger companies in Sydney’s North Sydney IT area, his wife Belinda still not an ex yet and his prospects for the future much brighter and as such the villa’s current condition reflected this chain of events.

The downturn in the IT industry along with the rise of outsourcing had wrecked his career path and his marriage and the decor of his house reflected this downturn, the decor was now very bland, where previously the woman’s touch had adorned it, its previous colourful setting now replaced with a black wooden chipped coffee table and a grimy white cotton fabric style futon couch upon which he currently lazed on as he flicked between the channels on his wall mounted older style Plasma flatscreen TV.

He eventually settled on watching a rugby league game being played between the South Sydney Rabbitohs and the Parramatta Eels. He followed neither team, but mildly disliked the Eels so decided to become a temporary Rabbitohs supporter for the duration of the game having nothing better to watch on a cold Friday winters night.

Oscar was not a classically handsome man but he did have a certain roguish charm. His fair skin meshed well with his mousy brown hair, piercingly warm blue eyes, five o clock shadow and short goatee style beard. He was a tall man, broad of shoulder with his previously chiselled body just beginning to show the signs of neglect. He had never had much trouble for female attention when he wished it, or male attention when he preferred that. Sexuality and labels were something Oscar never cared for, at a young age he had realised that sex was something to use in order to advance his status in lots of areas of life, socially, in the workplace and later in more clandestine circles, he enjoyed the company of both men and women and more recently both at once. A naturally dominant man, this personality trait echoed into his private time and as such he found himself drawn towards more submissive couples, something he was glad to be able to keep private.

Recently, two big changes in his life were teaching himself how to pick all sorts of locks and safes, something he had a natural aptitude for and a budding future with and the other thing was that he had enjoyed being intimate with a fairly high ranking police officer and his wife, a prominent solicitor. The couple were both very dominant people socially but enjoyed submitting to him in private, something he took great pleasure in.

A loud crack of lightning in the night sky above interrupted his concentration on the rugby game, a frown beginning to sweep across his face as his eyes flicked across to the glass pane window above and behind his position on the futon. The inevitable raindrops that nearly always follow the sound of lightning began to bash themselves against the ceramic tiles of his roof and the glass pane of his window with increasingly rapid duration, the rain beginning to hammer itself against the window and streaking its way into little pools at the base of the wall underneath the window.

Unlike most people he knew, Oscar disliked the rain at night, the smell and sound of it irritated him, he much preferred the company of the bright sun or the constant sound of the crickets on a clear night, their constant chirping a reminder that no evil person was able to sneak up to his door without their silence as an instant detection against the potential intruder.

Rain was a minor annoyance to Oscar, and as such he found himself irritated and decided the best course of action for him was to pick up the TV remote, press the red button, watch the TV quickly flicker to the standby position and pick himself out of the couch. He made his way past his small dining room and kitchen combo and through to his bedroom.

The bedroom was a scant improvement over the lounge room, his bedclothes strewn on the floor, white sheets that probably should have been washed the week before covering up his teak antique four poster queen sized bed. The bed really dominated the room, the only other possession of note in the room was his cheap black plastic IKEA bedside table, the surface currently being covered with his cheap leather wallet, a set of keys and his older model Apple iPhone complete with a big crack right through the middle of its screen.

Oscars eyes settled on his bedclothes, he made his way over to them on the floor, bent down and picked them up. He quickly sniffed them, the old male test on whether clothes should or should not be worn apparently failing on the bedclothes, so he returned them back to the floor before taking the three steps he needed to get to his bedside table, open its bottom drawer revealing cleaner bedclothes. He changed quickly, turned off the light and put himself to bed.

As usual, sleep came easily to Oscar, something he took great pride in. A lucid dream overtook his brain, he dreamed that he was strolling peacefully through a park close to where he lived, an upwards glance towards the clear blue sky revealing a cheeky kookaburra making off with a magpie chick with the magpie’s parents apparently none the wiser. He smirked at the bird as he walked, the half-smile making the most of facial features.

The sound of a car door closing on a large black SUV at the far side of the park drew Oscar’s dreamy attention. The door closer was a strikingly attractive woman, in her late twenties or early thirties, olive complexion, dark hair and eyes and the slim build Oscar admired in middle eastern women. She was short but graceful looking, her purple dress billowing gently in the apparent summer breeze. If he were awake, he would have probably just continued on the way to wherever he was originally going, but dream Oscar would have none of it. He strode confidently up to the SUV and went to introduce himself to the woman but she was engaged in a loud argument in what he thought was Arabic with an overweight aggressive middle eastern looking man with a hook nose and a large wart on his right cheek with otherwise dark features.

As his accidental eavesdropping started, he could not help looking into the rear passenger seat of the SUV. Its window was open and a small woman’s handbag could be seen in the SUV. The handbag itself was not of note, a simple worn black leather handbag probably seen on thousands of western women across the globe but the contents of the handbag were definitely of note, the handbag was partially open and large wads of the lime green hundred dollar notes wrapped in red rubber bands could be seen protruding from the woman’s handbag. Oscar seized his chance, reached into the SUV, took the handbag and walked quickly back in the direction from which he came, his theft apparently unnoticed by the arguing couple on the other side of the SUV, the smile across both dream and real Oscar’s face was wide and large before more real sleep overtook him and the dream faded to the black of unconsciousness of deep sleep.

Several hours later, the agitated bark of the little shaggy black poodle that lived next door drew Oscar back into being awake, if not totally alert. He glanced across at his silver wristwatch, a knock off Rolex, and saw that the time was bang on 8am. Breakfast, he thought to himself wryly knowing full well there was no real food in the house to eat. He slowly pulled himself out of the comforting embrace of his bed and rose to meet the day.

He thought about what was planned for the day as he showered, the ice cold water an immediate reminder that he had not paid his gas bill the last quarter. By necessity, the shower was quick, his thoughts mainly revolved around his job for the day and his visit of his cuckold couple afterwards, assuming the job went well.

Showered and feeling refreshed if not a little chilly, he dried himself off and strode naked back to his bedroom and pulled out a black leather sports bag from underneath his bed. He unzipped the bag, the contents included a black long sleeved skivvy, unbranded but new and still in its store packaging, a black pair of cargo pants in his size also new and in original packaging as well as a pair of short black socks and black sneakers, both of which were also in their original packaging. Careful to return the packaging of all of the articles of clothing back to the sports bag, he quickly dressed in the clothes from the sports bag before marching quickly to his front door.

Oscar glanced at his wristwatch, saw that it was 8:20 am, right on time. As promised, a dark grey late model Subaru Liberty wagon pulled up out the front of his villa stopping crisply and precisely in the dead centre of the tight gap between a battered old model Jeep in front and an older model white Holden Astra hatch behind. Oscar strode purposefully to the rear passenger door of the car, pulled its plastic handle expecting to hear the low thunk of an unlocked car door but instead hearing the metallic high pitched clink of a locked car door.

Oscar shot the driver of the car, his friend Ryu, who was a short wiry Japanese man of indeterminate age with jet black hair and dark brown eyes a questioning look, eyebrows and the left corner Oscar’s lip raised. Ryu just stared straight ahead, initially trying to maintain a serious look but failing, his straight serious face quickly conceding to a large shit eating grin with the hint of a giggle.

The other occupant of the car was Arutha. A taller, thicker set Slavic man with hazel brown eyes and dark unkempt but thankfully shortish hair and goatee beard, he grimaced at Ryu’s antics, turning and facing Ryu and in a commanding but gentle tone ordered Come on mate, don’t play silly buggers. We have a big job to do today, serious dogs mean serious business.

Ryu retorted I know, I was just messing with him. Ryu followed this up by pressing the unlock button on his right hand side. Outside the car, Oscar could hear the click of the Liberty’s central locking unlock all the doors. He tried the door handle again and was able to enter the rear passenger door and sit himself down on the leather seat. Both driver and passenger were dressed the same as he was, long sleeved black skivvys, black cargo pants and black socks and sneakers.

Oscar respected Arutha. He was a man of meticulous planning and preparation. He knew Arutha believed strongly in his prep work and knew that if Arutha was coming on a job with you, the money they were about to steal was a done deal. Arutha was a thief of the older variety, believed in only working with trustworthy allies, not being too greedy and never letting emotions cloud his judgement. You got in, you took the money, you got out. He believed strongly that violence was for amateurs and the police tended to come after you with much more force if you hurt anyone and really pushed that view anyone that worked with him. He made you really stick to his plan but he gave you a fair cut and always played it safe.

Oscar had done four other jobs with Arutha. Two suburban branches of two different banks, the first one in Hurstville, the second in Moorebank, one large sports club in Eastern Sydney and the last one was a truck full of Apple iPhones taken from a commercial dock at Port Botany. All four jobs had gone down quickly and quietly and he had been paid his fair cut each time, so he had every reason to expect full success this time too.

The three men travelled in silence, Ryu manoeuvring the larger vehicle expertly onto the Great Western Highway, temporarily joining the Sydney traffic that was snarling its way east into the city. Oscar hated traffic and was pleased when Ryu drove the men off the highway onto the Prospect Highway exit making three fairly quick turns down smaller side streets until they reached their destination, Ryu again pulling the car crisply to the kerb.

The house they had stopped in front of was a larger two story yellow fibro house common to this part of Western Sydney, a little shabby granny flat at the front of the house that desperately needed a coat of paint was the apparent destination of the group, the last member of their party was inside.

Ryu checked his watch, the Japanese preferring a digital Seiko brand with LCD display, the time was 8:30 am. He smiled at Arutha, knowing full well he had done well to get them here exactly on time despite the traffic on the Great Western Highway. Arutha noted this gesture and just nodded in admiration but it was short lasting, his admiration towards Ryu quickly turning to irritation towards Jackie, the last member of the party for not being ready to go when they arrived. Minor details like this irritated Arutha.

Oscar, sensing Arutha’s irritation, asked quickly Should I go get him?

Arutha responded calmly but with a resigned air No, it’s ok, I’ll get him. Oscar watched the other man open the passenger car door and make his way purposefully over to Jackie’s granny flat. He knocked on the door of the granny flat, a single cockroach scurrying away in fear.

Oscar had met Jackie at Cheezels bar, the small dingy dimly lit bar that most of the reputable local criminals hung out at. Jackie was a younger man, a big stocky guy with a thick messy ginger beard, green eyes, very fair freckled skin and sunburn apparent everywhere. Two things were obvious to Oscar about Jackie, firstly that he was a lover of the sun but the sun did not return his love and had burned him mercilessly, and second that singlet tops did not look good on big chunky solid men.

Oscar could hear a voice inside the granny flat, Jackie was clearly awake. The door then opened and Jackie could be seen, brandishing the same singlet top and a pair of black Penrith Panthers football shorts that Oscar had seen him wear at Cheezels bar. Oscar knew this would irritate Arutha, the man prided himself on punctuality, readiness and details, and he was not surprised when Arutha gestured to Jackie to get his things and get in the car with a slap across the air between the two men. Ryu noticed this too, he watched and stated sarcastically Yep, Jackie isn’t prepared again. What a damn surprise. Oscar just chuckled, glad he had been prepared and on time.

To Jackie’s credit, he seemed to take the discipline well and in under a minute was dressed the same way as the others and was sitting beside Oscar in the rear bench seat of the liberty. He looked the part but still smelled of stale beer and sweat. He was sure the other men in the car noticed but none of them mentioned anything.

Ryu started the car again and took off briskly, he loved Japanese cars and while the Liberty was not the same as his beloved Toyota Supra Turbo that he lavished all of his spare time on, it was still a nice vehicle and he enjoyed putting the car through its paces. He glanced at his wristwatch again, saw that he still had nearly an hour to get to their location and that the drive was only forty five minutes away.

While Ryu drove, Arutha broke the silence in the car by clearing his throat softly before following it up by saying OK guys, you all know the drill and your roles by now. Are there any last minute questions? The other three men in the car all declined this chance to ask, all three knew their purpose and their roles in the heist they were about to pull.

The job was to steal the contents of a safe of a small fishing club in Sydney’s Northern beaches, Harbord Fishing Club. Ordinarily a fishing club would not warrant the attention of such professional thieves as Arutha, however this one was unusual. As a general rule in Australia, most RSL and Sporting clubs are non profit organisations, usually putting their profits back into the club or into local non profit organisations as donations. The directors of clubs typically are fair people and usually try and do the right thing by the communities that bring them their income, forming a symbiotic relationship with their communities and client base.

Harbord Sports Club was an exception to this rule. A large club with four hundred poker machines and six restaurants, the club sat on some prime land right on the water, you could literally step outside its rear doors and onto the beach, the land value of the club alone was seven figures. The prime location alone guaranteed the sports club to be a real success which it was, its income was comparable to the larger clubs like Panthers and Canterbury Leagues further west, the poker machine income flowed in and all six restaurants inside the sports club were usually booked out days in advance despite their hefty prices.

There were six directors of Harbord Sports Club and they shared a few things in common, namely they were all fishermen and all believed they had earned a little extra from their time at the club. To further both aims and appear to the public to meet their community obligations, they decided to create a Harbord Fishing Club as a non profit organisation and use this Harbord Fishing Club as a donation point for a large percentage of Harbord Sports Clubs profits. To date, the Harbord Fishing Club had received about five million dollars and change from the Harbord Sports Club, all of this was detailed for anyone to see in the club’s annual general meeting and tabled in all directorship meetings for anyone to read.

What wasn’t for anyone to read was the actual membership of the Harbord Fishing Club. The Fishing club boasted six members.  It was not easy to find the names of the six members, but Arutha had, and he was not surprised to see the names of the spouses of the six directors from Harbord Sports Club listed as the names of the members of Harbord Fishing Club.

A disgruntled former duty manager of Harbord Sports Club, Andrew, had cottoned onto the scheme six months previously and been fired when he brought it up to the board of directors. Unfortunately for Andrew, he had been seen on the CCTV footage receiving oral sex from a nubile fifteen year old girl with blonde pigtails while he should have been closing up the club instead of enjoying the attentions of her sweet lollypop mouth. When Andrew had threatened to leak the details about the Harbord Fishing Club to the media, the directors had been smarter, they leaked the footage of him receiving oral sex from the girl to the local newspaper along with a small bribe to the editor to splash it on the front page. The editor had thought this was manna from heaven, getting paid a bribe to do his normal job really well and of course had made a nice big fat front page headline of Andrew’s mistake and earned his bribe in the process.

The resulting six months for Andrew were hellish, he barely managed to avoid prison but he was not so lucky with his marriage, his wife took his kids and took him for everything he had. Andrew was left close to destitute, having been forced to move out of his beachside house and into a little single bedroom apartment across the road from Cheezels bar.

It did not take long for him to start drinking at the bar and for his story to end up in Arutha’s ear and from there the seeds of a plan had hatched, the plan being the one they were executing today.

Reading over the Sport Club’s Annual General Meeting was very useful for Arutha as it not only confirmed Andrew’s story but it also happened to contain the blueprints of the club. The club was in the middle of planning an extension and as such the directors wished the community to see what was happening, a form of free advertising of their new areas being built. Arutha was using their own plans against them. He had been back several times on little scouting missions as was his way and had laid the framework for their plan.

According to Arutha, the fishing club just consisted of a single room on the top floor of the Sports Club. The room itself just housed a wooden boardroom table, six old expensive leather chairs and the older style Heritage Centennial gun safe that had been repurposed by one of the directors in order to temporarily store their slush fund from their poker machine takings from the Wednesday’s trade. Arutha had determined that the director that worked the Wednesday night shift stored every Wednesday nights poker takings in the safe very early on Thursday morning before he left and the director banking it would remove it from the safe early on Thursday afternoon after his shift ended and go and bank it into the fishing club account.

Traffic slowed Ryu’s drive by a few minutes, he was still able to have them at the carpark of the Harbord Sports Club well before 930 am. Ryu parked the car facing the sea and stayed in the vehicle as was his part in Arutha’s plan, the other three men exited the car and made their way over to the fire escape of the building.

The three men quickly made their way across the carpark to the rear fire escape door. The door was an older style fire escape door, its big heavy metal hinged door with the words FIRE ESCAPE NO ENTRY emblazoned in circled red writing across its front. Arutha paid no notice to this and instead slipped a credit card from his pocket and slid it expertly into the gap between the door and the wall, right in front of the laser alarm sensor. While he did this, he removed a silver metallic key from his pocket and handed it to Jackie, who took the key and slipped it into the lock. It fitted perfectly and turned first go, the soft sound of tumblers in the lock the only sound emanating from the area as Arutha quietly swung the door open and the three men slipped inside the fire escape. Jackie closed the door softly and Arutha gingerly removed the credit card from the slot, waiting for a possible alarm sounding. He had catered for this contingency in his plan, however he need not have worried, the siren was silent when the card was removed from the front of the little laser sensor.

The door closing removed the only source of light from outside, the small concrete corridor was completely dark inside. To combat this, Arutha fished in his pocket for his iPhone, pressing the screen a few times before a bright light shone from his phone. He then started walking down the corridor, motioning for the other two men to follow him along. Oscar did so, moving quietly along the corridor. The corridor was about thirty metres long and eventually it ended at a stairwell doing both up and down. Arutha started climbing the stairs, holding out the phone in front of him for vision, so Jackie and Oscar followed, their sneakers extremely soft sounding on the hard concrete floor.

The stairs led to a second corridor and also continued up. Arutha ignored the second corridor and continued up the stairs, the other two men close on his heels. The staircase then ended at a third small corridor with another metal door at the end of the corridor. The men walked over to it. Arutha then repeated his trick with the credit card and motioned for Jackie to open the door, which he did.

The door opened into darkness, the light from the phone revealing a lounge room sized white painted room smelling of cigars and bourbon, the windowless room obviously not having sufficient ventilation. The old antique lacquered boardroom table in the center dominated the room, the old worn leather chairs around the table at normally spaced intervals, the Heritage gun safe placed against the left hand side wall exactly where Arutha had said it would be, the polished silver gleaming against the light emanating from Arutha’s phone, the floor some sort of dark carpet. They even got lucky with the door on the other side of the boardroom, it was already closed, the hallway beyond covered in darkness, all seemed to be going exactly to plan.

While Jackie kept watch of the hallway corridor, Oscar made his way over to the safe, this was his part of the job. He pulled out a small piece of blank folded A4 paper from his pocket and slid it gently in between the base of the safe and the door of the safe. Next, he pulled a can of black Lynx deodorant from his pocket and sprayed the piece of paper, trying to get as much of the mist in between the bottom of the door and the piece of paper. He expected to see either a single or dual laser lines from the bottom of the door to the base of the safe, but to his astonishment he saw none which meant the safe was literally unlocked. He cranked the silver handle of the safe and to his surprise it turned fully and he swing the thick metal safe door back by its hinge, revealing six bundles of cash.

There was a small bundle of the lime green hundred dollar bills, a medium sized bundle of canary yellow fifty dollar bills, an inch thick pile of mango orange twenty dollar bills, an even thicker pile of the teal blue ten dollar bills and a small pile of the mauve five dollar bills all wrapped in nylon string bundles. Oscar smiled at this, quickly stuffed the bundles of cash into the pockets of his cargo pants and swung the safe door closed but careful not to re-engage the locking mechanism.

Arutha, having seen Oscar complete the opening and looting of the safe, tapped Jackie on the shoulder, it was time to leave. He again slid his credit card into the fire escape door, opening it and closing it gently once again, the three men made their way silently back down the small concrete fire escape corridor and down the two flights of stairs and along the corridor back to the original fire escape door. They paused at the door while Arutha fished out his phone, he dialled in Ryu’s number.

Ryu picked up on the first ring. Arutha whispered One softly into the phone, Ryu responded with Two.

Oscar knew this meant that there was someone in view of the fire escape door on the other side, so the three men crouched and waited for Ryu to say one back to them. What felt like hours was probably only five minutes or so, the three men crouching in the dark empty fire escape corridor. After what felt like an eternity to Oscar, eventually they heard Ryu say One.

Arutha did his credit card door opening trick, the door opened to reveal the brightness of the sunny day. Their eyes adjusted quickly to the daylight and they closed the door gently behind them and made their way across the two car spaces to where Ryu had parked the car, engine running. Oscar had to resist the urge to sprint, the adrenaline pumping through his veins as it always did after the completion of a job. The three of them opened their respective car doors and entered the Liberty. Ryu waited until they had all buckled their seatbelts and closed their doors before taking off casually, their plan a total success so far. Ryu pulled the Liberty out of the Harbord Sports Club and back onto the street running parallel to the beach and away to freedom.

A full five minutes of silence ensued, each of the men letting their senses go back to normal, Ryu constantly checking to see if they had been followed. They had not been seen, but Ryu took no chances. Jackie was the first to let his guard down, he looked over at Oscar and started to let out a big smile, his smiling eyes were infectious and Oscar couldn’t resist smiling right back at him. Jackie then let out a big Woop woop fuck yeah! And the other men in the Liberty all started to laugh.

Oscar had to resist the urge to pull the cash out and count it, he knew that could only happen in private in a place far from prying eyes, but from what he had seen he knew a decent payday was about to happen.

Ryu then pulled the Liberty into the driveway of a suburban brick townhouse in Manly. He stopped the car in front of a closed double garage door and opened the glove box of the car and pulled out a small black remote, pressing the single blue button on it. After a couple of seconds delay, the garage door started to open up and once it had, Ryu drove the Liberty into the garage. Once he had, the others opened up their car doors and exited the car. Jackie pressed a button on the inside of the garage wall and the door started to close, leaving them inside the shelter and safety of the garage.

The garage was a double garage, the other side of the garage not occupied by the Liberty was empty save for a single fold up blue table with a bottle of expensive blue label scotch and four shotglasses resting on it and four white plastic chairs placed around the table. Oscar knew that Arutha was a fan of saying a simple thank you to his partners in crime, and this little ritual was his way of doing so.

Jackie saw the scotch first and could not help himself, he let out a Oh hell yes as he ran to the bottle, picked it up with a beefy paw and started pouring the amber liquid into the shotglasses, clearly overfilling the first shotglass he attempted to fill and spilling some onto the little blue table. Arutha watched Jackie and just chuckled letting the big man have his fun. Oscar walked more sedately over to the table and sat down on one of the chairs, reached into his pocket and handed Arutha the bundles of cash.

He had considered trying to slip a few of the notes out of the pocket the cash was stored in and into another pocket but resisted the urge to do this, he knew that if he did the right thing and was reliable that Arutha would ask his services again and that as far as there was such a thing as a semi regular stable income stream in the criminal world, Arutha was it and he had no wish to put him offside.

Ryu meanwhile had been unscrewing the number plates from the Liberty, revealing a second set of number plates underneath. Once he had done this, he took the original plates and placed them into the back seat of the Liberty, knowing Arutha would dispose of them on the way home. Jackie by now had finished pouring the drinks and was waiting impatiently for the others to finish their tasks, digging his beefy elbow into Arutha’s ribs egging him with C’mon boss, count that shit later, lemme drink!

Arutha good naturedly brushed the bigger man’s elbow aside as he sat down and started counting the cash saying happily Come on idiot. Work before play. Let me finish, I won’t be long. Jackie laughed, bent over the table and started to lick up the spilled scotch with his tongue with slurping noises, much to the delight of Ryu who had now joined the others at the table.

Oscar watched Arutha count the money from across the table, watching intently and counting the amount in his head silently, gently checking in his head to see if Arutha would try and shift them. Arutha had not noticed this, and when he had finished counting, the amount Oscar had in his head was exactly $125000. Once he had finished counting the notes, Ryu and Jackie looked at him expectantly. Arutha drew out the moment slightly, then held up his shotglass, announcing Well boys, I’ll be damned if we did not just make one hundred and twenty five big ones today. Pretty fuckin good days work eh boys! Slam your shots down and enjoy the moment you ugly bastards!

The three men cheered and high fived each other and then did exactly as Arutha had asked, the expensive scotch going down the throats of the three men all too easily. Jackie quickly poured the men another shot and they repeated the downing of the lovely scotch. Arutha removed the bottle from Jackie over his protests saying C’mon mate, you gotta drive home, be damn silly to get done for DUI now wouldn’t it? Jackie agreed sadly and relented, with Arutha placing the bottle into the back of the liberty on top of the number plates.

Ryu then began to divide the cash up between the men, handing them each their portion of the money. Ryu counted off Oscar’s cut and handed it to him, smiling at Oscar and saying Enjoy as he handed him his slice. As Ryu did the same for Jackie, Oscar then stashed his cash back in the pockets of his black cargo pants. Arutha started to collect the shot glasses from the men, reminding them Remember to throw out those clothes. Dont keep them, burn em, even the underwear. The other three all just nodded back to him understanding Arutha’s serious overcaution but all fully respecting and intending to comply with the request.

His work for the day done, Oscar decided it was time for him to leave. He walked over to Jackie, held out his hand saying It was sure nice to work with you Jackie. I hope to see you again soon.

Jackie shook the hand, responding Yeah man, you too!

Ryu was next. Oscar offered his hand to Ryu, saying Always a pleasure, you dumbass!

Ryu shook the hand, chuckled, and just smiled back at him.

Arutha was last, Oscar offered his hand to Arutha asking quietly Thanks mate, I needed this. Do you have anything else coming up?

Arutha took the hand and responded in a concerned tone Not at the moment. Are you in some trouble Oscar?

Oscar looked into Arutha’s eyes, the look of concern and sympathy on the other man’s face was plain to see. He was tempted to just