Private Gold

Chapter 3

The youngster was fast, but Joey’s swift reflexes helped him recover instantly. Picking himself up, he used the momentum to fling himself forward. With his muscular, broad-shouldered build, he had won rowing championships at college; sprinting had never been his forte, but now his anger lent him wings.

He’d had everything else taken from him in the past few days and he was damned if some crazy mugger was going to get away with this.

As he pounded across the road, he heard the screech of brakes. He glanced to his right to see a minibus taxi hurtling toward him; an ancient-looking death trap of a vehicle. The driver had run the red light and now, too late, he was stamping on worn brakes, as threadbare tires skidded over the wet road. The taxi was hydroplaning, and Joey was directly in its path. The blare of its horn filled the air. He could see its windshield wipers... one moving at full speed, the other hanging down, broken.

Stop, he thought. Back!

It was the safest option. But already the skinny youth was sprinting down the opposite sidewalk and if he stopped now, he’d lose him.

Joey decided to make a run for it.

The rear of the taxi was fishtailing... its grille loomed, far too close, and the wailing of worn rubber on tarmac filled his ears. He leaped for the opposite curb, vaulting the crash barrier to safety just as the out-of-control taxi rattled past.

Usually, this sidewalk was cluttered with pedestrians at this time, but today only a few braved the elements, heads bowed under umbrellas and mackintoshes. It was easy to spot the fleeing thief darting between them. It looked as if he was heading for a beaten-up Mazda which had stopped on a yellow line, engine revving.

Frustration surging inside him, Joey realized his assailant had too much of a lead; he wasn’t going to catch him in time.

But then the youngster tripped, sprawling to his knees as a cracked manhole lid gave way. He picked himself up and carried on, limping badly, and Joey knew he had a chance.

“Stop!” Joey yelled, racing to intercept the Mazda. The driver was reversing to meet his accomplice. The passenger door swung open and the thief dived in.

But Joey was on him. A desperate lunge, and he had hold of the man’s knee, dragging him out again even as the Mazda’s driver tried to accelerate away. The thief was clinging to the seat-belt strap, his body in the moving car and his legs scissoring on the asphalt. The Mazda jerked to a stop.

“Give it back!” Joey shouted, twisting the man’s left ankle hard. From the screams that followed, he guessed he had gotten hold of the injured leg.

The man kicked out at him wildly with his right foot, but Joey grabbed it with his other hand. He clawed at Joey’s head, trying to pull his hair, but Joey’s dark buzz cut was too short for him to get a hold. One more powerful yank on the legs, and he pulled the thief right out of the car. He hit the road butt-first, then his head followed with a bump, and finally, his outstretched arms came free. He still held Joey’s rucksack in a death grip in his right hand and Joey wrenched it loose.

Street fighting had taught him his skills — crude, but effective. A kick to the crotch, and the thief forgot all about his injured ankle and curled into a ball, his screams turning to sobs.

Lying there in the rain, the young man looked vulnerable and terrified, and Joey suddenly felt sorry for him. He didn’t know the would-be mugger’s circumstances, but guessed they were even more dire than his own. At any rate, he had his possessions again, and that was what mattered. As the man crawled back to the Mazda, helped in by the visibly shaking driver, Joey shouldered the bag and turned away, jogging down the sidewalk as the rain stung his face.

He passed a streetlight with a newspaper headline poster attached to it. Torn by the wind and ripped by the hail, the print on the paper was illegible apart from a single word at the bottom.

“...COINCIDENCE?” it read.

Joey looked at the dripping newsprint as he passed, thinking of everything that had happened to him in the recent past. The word stayed in his head, refusing to leave.

He’d sure been unlucky. But had it all been coincidental?

He didn’t have Khosi’s background as a PI. He’d qualified with a business degree and worked as a forensic analyst in top-level corporate finance. Even so, he should be able to deduce if there was a pattern here, and whether this mugging and the recent burglary were linked.

Damn it, he thought, realizing he shouldn’t have let the thief get away without answering some questions. He turned, shielding his eyes against the rain, but the Mazda was gone.