Past Echoes

by Graham Smith

  By the same token, I don’t want to stretch credibility by not giving up a fact as inconsequential as my name. So long as I seem to give them each piece of information they want with a grudge, it will add a layer of validity to the lies I tell.

  ‘My name is Brian Johnson.’

  I’m not sure if they’re fans of AC/DC. In a lot of ways, I don’t care. Even if they do recognise the singer’s name, Brian Johnson is the kind of everyday name that is believable. Had I told them my name was Mick Jagger, or Axl Rose, I would have given them such grounds for disbelief that I may as well beat myself up.

  ‘So, Brian, you said you came here looking for a position within my organisation; perhaps you can enlighten me as to your qualifications? Also, tell me, who is this friend of mine who suggested you come and see me?’

  The way Kingston says “Brian” suggests he doesn’t believe it’s my real name. He doesn’t push it though. I suppose in his line of work, false names are given more often than real ones.

  A bigger issue is that he wants to know who has sent me. Cameron’s name will get me a bullet in the back of the head, and I don’t know any of Kingston’s friends who might have made a genuine recommendation.

  However, I’d always known this moment may arise, and I’ve taken a few steps in preparation.

  I give him the name of the man who controls the southern half of Staten Island.

  Kingston purses his lips and takes a seat as he thinks about the name I’ve given him. He keeps his head down so his face can’t be seen.

  Federico Peccia is not a name to be said without reverence. I only know about him because I had Alfonse dig into the files of the NYPD to find the three-letter agency that deals with organised crime, and get me their most wanted list. I might never have been a boy scout, but their motto of “be prepared” is a good one.

  Peccia is known to be one of the most ruthless of the various crime lords. His signature punishment is to flay his victims, roll them in salt, and dispatch them with a bullet to the back of the head when he tires of hearing their screams.

  Kingston may, or may not, have met Peccia, but the two men will be aware of each other. They’re far enough apart territorially for there to be no encroaching of boundaries, but while Kingston may be a big fish in his own area, compared to Peccia he’s little more than a shrimp.

  He’ll now be thinking about his life expectancy and trying to work out if my presence here is enemy action, along the lines of infiltration, or if my story is genuine.

  I let him think for as long as he needs. If he’s thinking, nobody is punching me.

  His goons are silent and there’s no noise other than the faint echo of music. I can’t say I know anything about classical music, but the tune I hear is dark and brooding, and I can tell it’s building its way towards a thundering crescendo. I hope it isn’t symbolism at work.

  Kingston lifts his head and licks his lips. His expression is grave when he addresses me. ‘Buster, you don’t know much about Peccia if you thought you could come here saying he sent you. He doesn’t do favours. Not for you, not for me.’

  ‘I didn’t come here because of a favour.’ I make sure there’s plenty of scorn in my voice. ‘I’m here because I get around and I hear things. A lot of what I’ve heard is not good news. At least, not for you.’

  ‘So, what have you heard?’ Kingston picks up one of my guns and points it in my face.

  I try not to show fear. ‘Shooting me won’t get you the information that will save your life. It might be Peccia that’s coming for you, it may well be someone else.’

  ‘Gentlemen, we are saved. Brian here, has come to rescue us from our enemies.’ Kingston turns to his goons and laughs until they join in, like the good little sycophants they are. It’s a false laugh, derived from fear and uncertainty.

  ‘You made a mistake killing the girl on the yacht. That’s brought you a lot of attention. Trust me, it’s the wrong kind of attention.’

  Kingston’s laughter stops dead and his eyes narrow. ‘What do you know about the yacht?’

  ‘Everything.’

  ‘Would you care to elaborate, or do I have to ask William to encourage you?’

  ‘You got shafted by one of your own. Gave chase, killed the wrong person, and became a laughing stock when the guy you were after disappeared.’

  Kingston puts the gun on an occasional table, three feet to my right, and returns to his chair. ‘You seem well-informed, but only to a point. We didn’t make it public knowledge, but we got the guy we were after, and his buddy. Therefore, your information is wrong.’

  I’d laugh if my life wasn’t in imminent danger. Kingston is bluffing and his face says he believes the lie. Perhaps he’s been told it as a truth, by men who’re afraid to give him bad news.

  It’s time for me to ramp up the tension. ‘What about the girl? My sources tell me she was the daughter of a senator. I shouldn’t think the police will be allowed to not solve her murder.’

  ‘She’s a senator’s daughter, is she?’ His face changes. ‘It would appear to me that your sources are less than accurate. Either that, or you’re being economical with the truth. William, if you’d care to go first, I think two blows each this time.’

  I hear footsteps approach me and I tense myself, ready for the pain that may well be coming my way.

  67

  I’m not looking forward to getting hit ten times, so I attempt to make a bid for freedom. I lift my hands as high as possible, and drive them down with as much force as possible while tucking my elbows into my sides as they descend.

  Just like the books I’ve read suggested, the motion is enough to free my hands from the duct tape binding them.

  I feel William’s fist collide with my left kidney. Now I’m free of the restraint provided by the pillar, the blow is enough to send me staggering.

  This is a good thing, as it propels me towards the gun that Kingston laid on the occasional table.

  As I snatch it up I look at it and assess which one it is. It’s the one I got from the mugger in the alleyway. That means it has three bullets.

  Six opponents, three bullets and one bad shot: me.

  Those aren’t good odds, but they are better than the ones I was facing when bound to the pillar.

  As I whirl round to face them, I bring the gun to bear and pull the trigger.

  Three deafening shots ring out and three of the men fall to the floor. Not that I hit them with a careful aim: they were so close to me it would have been harder to miss.

  I don’t waste time checking the severity of their injuries. Instead, I point the gun at the nearest man, who is stumbling over his buddies.

  Momentum is carrying him forward, so I slip my finger from the gun’s trigger guard, and use the palm of my hand as a hammer to smash it into his face. I follow up with a left cross to the temple.

  As he’s falling, I weigh up my last two aggressors.

  One of them is Kingston. Like the hero he is, he lets his goon come at me first. I can see the snarl on the goon’s face, as Kingston heads towards the dining table where my other gun still rests.

  The goon has to go down quick if I’m to stand any chance of catching Kingston. Because of the bodies on the floor, he takes a circuitous route to get to me.

  I use the time he wastes to grab a chair and throw it at Kingston. The chair hits the back of his legs and he stumbles to his knees.

  The chance is too good to waste, so I launch myself forward and plant the toe of my boot in Kingston’s unmentionables.

  As I take a step towards the gun, a strong arm wraps itself around my throat and hauls backwards to exert maximum pressure on my larynx.

  I throw my elbows back, but the guy holding me has positioned himself to use my body as a shield.

  He has me standing on my toes, so it’s no use trying to use my weight to draw him to the ground – he’s too strong for that. Instead, I swing a foot forward, as far as it will go, and thrash it backwards with enough force to break his shins.r />
  My foot misses his leg, but I’m not worried. My leg flies past his and alters our balance. Instead of me being stretched back against his chest, he’s now hunched over my back.

  I twist, and let my standing leg go weak.

  I throw my head back as we are falling, and it collides with his as it lands on the polished wooden floor.

  His arm loosens its grip on my throat long enough for me to break loose. I spin round and crash my forehead into his nose. His head goes back and presents me with the target I’ve been looking for.

  I punch the goon with my knuckles extended. He may recover from the blow to his larynx, or he may spend the next couple of minutes gasping his way to his grave, that’s his problem; for now, he’s out of action.

  I look for Kingston and see he’s picked himself up and is reaching for the gun. I charge towards him and hit him with a running tackle that slams him into the table and drives the breath from both of our bodies.

  The table overturns and I hear the gun skittering away. I’m gasping for air as Kingston picks himself up. He’s unsteady on his feet but, after the punishment I’ve taken tonight, he’s in better shape than I am.

  He lifts a chair above his head and crashes it down on my chest.

  What little air there is in my lungs gets driven out.

  68

  I’m fighting to breathe and I see Kingston take a frantic look around him. I guess he’s looking for a weapon and pray he doesn’t find one.

  Kingston’s eyes don’t rest anywhere for long. Some air enters my lungs and I feel strong enough to move, just as he launches himself towards the door that I came through.

  I know, if I let him out of my sight, I’ll have to leave with my mission unaccomplished. There’s no way it would be safe to look for him in his own house. He’ll know where his weapons are, and the best places to ambush me.

  Somehow I haul my aching body upright and stumble after him.

  He’s ten feet ahead of me as he goes towards the door that leads to the kitchen. The door hangs open behind him and I see him reaching for the knife block as I enter.

  His fingers grasp a large carving knife and he gives a vicious smile. ‘You’re a dead man, Buster. Even if I don’t kill you right now, my men will hunt you down. Nowhere will be safe for you. You’ll die screaming, begging for the pain to end.’

  I ignore his taunts. He doesn’t know who I am or where I’m from. There’s no way his men can find me once I leave here. All he’s trying to do is goad me into going for him, putting myself within reach of the knife he’s holding.

  He advances towards me as I round a granite-topped island that has a sink in the middle.

  I throw various items from the worktop at him, but none are substantial enough to do any damage.

  He tries to come around the island at me, but stops when he realises I’m circling round to where the knives are. I glance over my shoulder and see a full wine rack.

  I grab two bottles by their necks.

  As weapons, they are not the greatest, but they’re strong enough to deflect a blow from the knife, and heavy enough to numb a muscle if I can get sufficient power into my swing.

  Now it’s me who advances.

  ‘Come on then, prove you’re The King. I’ve dropped all your henchmen, this is your chance to prove to them why you’re known as The King. If you can take me down you’ll become a legend.’

  I see the flicker of excitement in his eyes. He wants that veneration; he wants to be classed as better than his thugs.

  Inside me I know this has to end soon. If we get drawn into a long battle, the beating I’ve taken will give him the advantage. There’s also the fact that one of his goons may not be sufficiently hurt to stay down for any length of time, and his wife could make another appearance. She’d looked wasted earlier, so I’m hoping she’s passed out in her bed.

  Kingston takes a dancing half-step forward, flashes his knife, and leaps back two steps as I retreat a pace. His move works for him and he grabs another knife from the block.

  We face off against each other: him with a knife in each hand, me with a bottle of wine in each of mine.

  He flashes his knives in front of my face in a steel blizzard as he advances on me.

  I throw the bottle in my left hand at his head and, when he lifts his knives to deflect it, I strike forward with the bottle in my right. I don’t care what I hit, so long as I hit something.

  The bottle crashes against his left forearm causing his fingers to involuntarily open. His knife clatters to the ground.

  He still has the advantage of knife against bottle, but now I’ve had a chance to judge how quick his reflexes are.

  They are good, but not necessarily good enough.

  I transfer the bottle to my left hand and wait for him to slash or stab at me.

  When he does move to attack, it’s with a mixture of short controlled movements that could become a slash or a stab at any time.

  I swing my bottle towards his knife, deflecting it away from his centre, as I wheel inside his arm and throw an elbow at his head.

  The bottle slips from my fingers and falls to the floor, sending broken glass and red wine across the cream tiles.

  My elbow collides with something that’s too hard to be anything other than his forehead. The pair of us slump to the ground, fighting for control of his knife. I can feel pieces of glass digging into my back as he wrestles himself on top of me.

  Instead of defending myself, I use both my hands to twist his knife arm until I feel him release his grip. While I’m doing this, his free hand is throwing short hard punches at my face.

  I feel my nose burst and my lips split, but I don’t change my tactics.

  With the knife released from his hands, I writhe and twist underneath him until I can buck him off me.

  I straddle him and throw punch after punch at his face, turning it into a bloody pulp. I feel a sharp pain in my leg and see he’s grabbed a knife and stabbed me.

  As he pulls it out to stab me a second time, I twist his arm until the knife drops and I hear the crunch of his wrist bones breaking.

  I deliver a thundering punch to his jaw that leaves him fighting consciousness.

  I lever myself off him, open a cupboard, and pull Kingston into a position where I can rest one of his legs on the bottom shelf.

  I stamp down hard enough on his shin to break the bone.

  I kick anything that could be used as a weapon away from him, and return to the dining room. One of the goons has gotten himself into a sitting position, but the others are all lying where I dropped them. Four chests are rising and falling, which tells me only one of them is dead.

  The guy sitting up watches me in fear as I gather up my jacket, backpack and the two guns.

  ‘I’m going to talk to Kingston. Are you going to be stupid enough to interrupt our conversation?’

  His answer is the defeated shaking of his head as he presses his hands against a bloody stomach wound.

  69

  I arrange Kingston into a sitting position, fill a bowl with cold water and throw it in his face. A second bowlful of water gets tipped over his head.

  He needs to be awake and fully alert for what I’m about to do.

  I place my backpack on the floor opposite him and drop my denims before I sit beside it. He’s watching me with confusion in his eyes.

  I get my supplies within reach and stare at him. ‘Pay attention.’

  He doesn’t say anything, just watches me as I remove the lid from his bottle of cognac and pour the contents on the stab wound on my right thigh. I don’t know what damage has been done, I just know there’s more blood coming out than I’d care for.

  The brandy stings, but it’s nowhere near as bad as the pain I’ll feel in a minute.

  My next move is to empty a bowl of water over the wound to cleanse it and wash the brandy away.

  Kingston’s eyes widen in surprise when I remove the blowtorch from my backpack and put one of his wooden salad forks betw
een my teeth.

  I wet the fingers of my left hand and use them to prise open the wound in my leg.

  The blowtorch crackles into life; the blue flame, an inch and a half long, hisses with contempt.

  My mouth tightens, and I almost chicken out of what I’m about to do, but a memory of Taylor spurs me on.

  I point the tip of the blue flame into my stab wound and hold it there for two long, agonising seconds.

  I clamp my teeth down on the salad fork as the pain becomes unimaginable. Were it not for the fork, I’d be screaming. Beads of sweat appear all over my body.

  I put down the blowtorch and look at my leg.

  The sides of the wound are red and inflamed but that doesn’t worry me, it’s only pain. What’s important is that the blowtorch has done what I’d hoped it would do, and cauterised the veins split by Kingston’s knife.

  I pull some antibiotics, which I got from a pharmacy, out of my backpack and take a handful to counteract any infection that may have gotten into the wound.

  Next I use my T-shirt to form a rudimentary bandage.

  I pull up my denims and look at Kingston as I button my shirt. His eyes show a mixture of respect and revulsion.

  ‘You’ve seen what I’m prepared to do to myself. Can you imagine what I’ll do to you if you don’t answer my questions?’ I lift the blowtorch. ‘Who shot the girl on the yacht?’

  Kingston swallows and looks to the door, hoping for a rescue that doesn’t come.

  ‘So that’s what this is about. She was your girl.’

  ‘You have five seconds to give me an answer.’ I don’t bother telling him what the consequences will be if he doesn’t. The blowtorch hissing in my hand is enough of a threat.

  ‘She wasn’t meant to die.’

  ‘Four.’

  ‘It was Henderson who was supposed to die.’

  ‘The Scottish guy? Three.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Kingston squints. ‘Hey, he looks a bit like you.’

  ‘He’s my father. It was me on the boat with him. Two.’