Free Crime Always Pays by Declan Burke Page A

father".'
              'Cooking, cleaning, serving him dinner. Same deal, right? And the living's cheap, especially on the islands. So you've still, even after buying the place, the bike, got thirty, forty gees in the mattress. That buys you, even not working, three or four years.'
              'We have eighty right now,' Karen said, 'eighty and change once we split with Madge. Then, after  we  split, that's forty. Forty before I go buying any ranches.'
              'So if we don't split,' Ray said, 'you've still got eighty.'
              Karen watched the big guy give up knocking on the Ladies' door, do a quick sketch left and right, then barge through. She said, 'If we don't split or if we don't split the money?'
              'Either or,' Ray said.
              'Because what I'm thinking,' Karen said, 'is that kind of living – I mean, remote on an island? Working in bars? It doesn't sound like your kind of living.'
              'Hold on, here he comes.'
              The big guy crossed the forecourt again, a suitcase under one armpit, the girl now in two-piece suit, jacket and slacks, a silk scarf knotted at her neck, tottering along on kitten heels, dragged by the hand. Ray lit a Marlboro and waited for the Beamer to pull off, the Beamer veering from the left-hand lane into the right when a Ford Focus came tearing towards it flashing its lights, honking its horn. 'Don't sweat the details, Karen,' he said. 'Living's living.'
              They pulled out of the gas station and got on the road. Karen dug out her bottle of pills and leaned over the partition, fed one to Anna, shushed her to sleep. Then she filched one of Ray's Marlboros, cranked the window an inch or two.   
              'So what happens,' she said, 'we get to Athens, you still haven't heard from Terry?'
              Ray scratched the plaster-cast below his elbow. 'I guess we make a new plan.'
              'Another one?'
              'Plans are cheap,' Ray said. 'Plans come free.'
     
     
     
     
     
    Doyle
     
    'The Acrockolis?' Sparks said. 'That anywhere near the Acropolis?'
              'Right next door,' Doyle said. She switched the phone to her other ear, perched a buttock on a smooth rock that might have been a rock or yet another ancient altar, Christ, Doyle afraid to step on dog turds in case they turned out sacred. 'Just there behind the Acrapolis.'
              'Ingrate. That's three thousand years worth of culture you're looking at there.'
              Doyle, who'd found it hard to sleep in the muggy heat, felt like she fit right in with all the ruins. 'It's hot up here, Sparks. Plus they take your bag off you in case you smuggle out a temple or two, maybe. So I forgot to bring any water.'
              'Details, girl. What's it like?'
              Doyle shaded her eyes and looked up the dusty hill towards the Parthenon, the vast blue dome of sky behind. 'Right now,' she said, 'it's infested with Yanks and Japs, it's Iwo Jima with Nikons. And the temples are all covered over with scaffolding, so it looks a lot like a building site for the world's biggest sauna.' She pulled her clammy t-shirt away from her belly, the jeans sticking to her thighs. 'So what's happening there?'
              Sparks cleared her throat. 'Frank's dead.'
              'Shit. You're serious?'
              'Last night,' Sparks said, 'late.'
              'How come?'
              'They're still not sure. So far they've ruled out septicemia, cancer and suicide. The early money's on heart-attack.'
              'What happened?'
              'They don't know. He was fine at the last check, around ten-ish, still bitching. Then, the nurse is doing her rounds, about two-ish, she finds the guy.'
              'And no alarms went off? They were cut?'
              'He wasn't critical, didn't