by Samson Weld
His eyes glazed over the concrete. It was a jumbled gray mass. But then a dark orange puddle caught his attention on the ground before him. He glanced down and immediately identified the substance as day-old vomit.
“Shit,” he mumbled as he sidestepped it in disgust.
At the exact same time, a loud crack rang out and he felt something zipping by him. The limestone wall of the building beyond him splintered in a small cloud of dust.
Nick stopped moving. What was that? He couldn’t understand what was happening. He spun on himself as a gust of wind made an old newspaper swirl around him.
That’s when the second bullet was fired.
It struck a parked SUV just ahead of the Mercedes. The impact triggered the car alarm. This time there was no doubt as to what had happened.
He was being shot at!
Unconsciously, he looked up at the row of skyscrapers. He found it cruel to be shot at and not to know by whom. All he saw were thousands of dark windowpanes. He’d never be able to identify who was shooting or where they were exactly. All this took place in an instant.
His survival instincts kicked in. He ran back to Anne-Marie’s car just as another round came his way. This one shattered the side view mirror.
“Go, go, go!” he shouted while he launched himself through the open window.
Anne-Marie couldn’t breathe. All she knew was that her car had just been maimed and that Nick was halfway in the car with his legs sticking out. Still, she understood the situation was dire.
“Aaahh, shit!”
She looked at Nick. His face was twisted in pain. He reached to his leg. There was bright-red blood on it.
“Come on, let’s go!” he urged.
She hesitated no longer. She ignited the engine, shifted into gear, and they sped away like a bat out of hell.
~ ~ ~ ~
In spite of his experience, Fullerton was getting nervous. He was getting angry.
Failure was unacceptable. He followed the Mercedes through his scope as it zigzagged through traffic, trying to get a bead on his mark, or at the very least on the driver.
It was a lost cause. They were going too fast and the angle was all wrong. He had no shot. Calmly, he pulled back from the ledge and proceeded to disassemble the rifle.
He hated himself for having gone for the safe option. Just because it had worked earlier with that Stanley guy, he had deluded himself thinking he could strike gold twice in one day. He should have killed Nick Eversull up close and personal.
But it was all right. It was never too late to do the right thing.
~ ~ ~ ~
Night had fallen by the time Anne-Marie and Nick walked through the door of the condo on Le Plateau, that trendy neighborhood where people paid extra for crooked floors and paper-thin walls.
Nick was limping and had a handkerchief tied around the wound on his leg. She led him to a leather couch, turning on lamps on the way, and he winced loudly as he sat down. She helped him lift his leg onto the coffee table.
“You sure we can stay here tonight?” he asked.
“It’s my sister’s apartment. She’s on vacation and made me promise to water the plants.”
“Okay, as long as we’re safe.”
It was now obvious that they had a real hitman on their trail. There was no other way to explain it. That was how Stanley had been killed, shot from afar. Same for what had just happened to him.
It was a professional fucking assassin.
Going to any place where they might usually go to was out of the question. That was how people got tracked down, right? You went to see an old acquaintance, you ate at your favorite restaurant, and the next thing you knew you were a corpse on the ground.
It was reasonable to think that someone with means and capabilities could link him to Anne-Marie, link Anne-Marie to her sister, and link the sister to this apartment. Nevertheless, they were counting on timing. It was a safe bet that they would be okay for now, for tonight.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?” she called from the bathroom.
“I’m sure. They’ll ask too many questions and whoever tried to kill me will know where to find me. Besides, the bullet just grazed me.”
Anne-Marie came back with a first-aid kit. The rusty hinges didn’t inspire a lot of confidence.
“This is getting surreal. I’m not sure I understand anything anymore.”
He shrugged. “Me neither. Can you get me something to write, I need to organize my thoughts.”
She stretched to the end table where the telephone was. She took the notepad and pencil next to it and handed them to him.
“So, what do we know?” he began. “Helmbold made a deal two years ago with Aylward, but Aylward was getting restless. So he threatened to take over the company.”
“Helmbold sold off the majority of the company to stay afloat and called in additional funds from your firm in New York.”
She tore the fabric around the wound to have better access to it. That made Nick grind his teeth even more than the throbbing in his calf. These pants had cost him three hundred and fifty dollars.
“And we know that’s something that threatened Aylward, not controlling Hozalex anymore. If your boss gets his money somewhere else, Aylward becomes useless. He has no more leverage over Helmbold. For some reason, Aylward needs to control Hozalex. Stanley was therefore hired by Aylward to make sure we wouldn’t recommend renewing the investment. This would force Helmbold to go back to Aylward.”
She used alcohol to clean the injury making Nick wince in pain again.
“Stanley killed the prostitute so you would be arrested—or discredited—and unable to write the final report. Stanley didn’t realize that Montreal isn’t like New York, that you wouldn’t be arrested right away. He should have killed you instead.”
“Thanks, appreciate it.”
She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. In any case, his plan didn’t work. And with Stanley dead, it seems like somebody else is trying to kill you now.”
“They must have realized I’m getting too close.”
She applied bandages to the wound. He had been right. It was nothing more than a deep graze. For the next half hour, they simply sat there and drank the only alcohol they found: Drambuie. That booze was almost worse than getting shot, he thought.
Chapter 30
They needed time to process what was happening. Keeping silent, not doing anything, it served to relax Nick. The TV was on, but neither of them was watching. He retired to the bedroom later on.
When Anne-Marie joined him to refresh his drink, he was on the phone. He was using the landline since he was certain his own phone was compromised. As he talked, he held a dishtowel filled with ice against his wound. She came closer just as he hung up.
“So?” she asked.
“Detective Bédard is currently unavailable. Again. They’ll try to get him to call me, but for now we’re on our own.”
She sat on the edge of the bed and took over wound-icing duties.
“Why do you do this, Nick?”
“Well, you see, ice makes swelling go down.”
Without thinking, he put his hand over hers. The gesture was innocuous, he was merely stroking her skin, but the gaze they shared was loaded with tenderness. The feeling frankly surprised him.
“Why don’t you have a stable relationship?” she asked softly. “Why do you insist on sleeping with escorts? Why do you travel only for sex?”
He shrugged as he considered whether he should answer or not. He had never talked about this with anyone, not in real life anyway. He had discussed it a little bit on the Internet forums although he never had to go into details since all the other participants were just like him.
“What I do…” he began.
“Yes?”
“It started out as just these little innocent games, you know? Nobody gets hurt.”
“Dating doesn’t hurt either, Nick.”
He started to snort a laugh, b
ut decided that was cruel. She didn’t deserve that. She also didn’t deserve to hear the whole sob story of his life. The heartbreaks, his incapacity to deal with them like most rational people could. His way was so much easier.
That was the mantra he’d been repeating to himself for years, anyway. He looked at her and smiled wanly.
“It’s the least painful option. Once the appointment is over, the girl goes home and you go home. There’s no attachment. She…”
“What?”
“She can’t break your heart. They don’t have any power over me.”
“Not all women are like that, you know.”
“Now I know,” he whispered.
She let go of the ice pack and crawled up his body. She searched his lips and he cradled her face as he kissed her. Their eyes closed and the embrace heated up.
Her hands fumbled with her blouse buttons and he quickly lent his expertise. She let herself fall onto him and he held her tight.
For once, nothing else mattered. They weren’t thinking about murders and conspiracies and professional killers. They were alone. They were together.
~ ~ ~ ~
At the top of the Vu3 Hotel was the presidential suite.
It cost over five thousand dollars a night and for that price you had two thousand square feet of living space, motion-activated nightlights, heated marble floors in each of the two bathrooms, three bedrooms, and a spacious den with a full bar.
The current occupant was billionaire William Aylward who was presently sitting on the plush couch while going over paperwork.
He wasn’t an industrialist, he wasn’t a fearless entrepreneur. He was the first to admit that he was a professional gambler, though the kind who usually held forty-nine cards. He had made his money by investing in other people’s companies, most often to break them apart, and was only truly happy when he succeeded at manipulating the market.
The big-screen TV was on and it displayed a raunchy European movie, one with high production values. The participants were in the middle of an orgy. There were several men banging one girl, several girls pleasing one man, ladies having fun amongst themselves. He looked up once in a while at their antics before going back to his work.
He’d always found that he worked better when surrounded by the aura of sex. It kept him sharp, on edge, and the adrenaline push stimulated his brain into performing better.
The fact that he sometimes watched Internet pornography during meetings had ignited one or two scandals in the past—including three lawsuits by female employees who had no sense of humor—but eventually people chalked it up to idiosyncrasy. He was another eccentric billionaire.
Sorensen, his personal assistant—but mostly bodyguard—walked to the edge of the living room without so much as looking at the TV. He was used to it.
“Sir, you have a visitor.”
Aylward nodded and waved his employee away. Lars Moultrup walked in and took position at the end of the couch. The billionaire acknowledged him with a quick glance and returned to his paperwork.
“I said I would meet you for dinner at eight, Lars.”
“I know. But it’s already nine.”
Aylward looked at his watch and shrugged. “Some of us work for a living.”
Trying not to let his blood boil, Moultrup looked away. He caught a glimpse of the sexual acrobatics on the television. He smiled approvingly. He wasn’t really fond of the man on a personal level, but it was hard to fault his taste in entertainment.
“Is that the new Rocco movie?”
“The new Rocco movie? Pay attention, will you? How could you ever confuse Andrew Blake with a factory Rocco movie? Jesus Christ, I thought you had better judgment than that.”
“Sorry.”
The attorney sat down on the edge of an armchair.
“Look, I didn’t come here to discuss the finer points of the pornographic art form. I came because we have a problem.”
“You know I don’t like hearing about problems, Lars. What do I do with people who bring me problems?”
“You kick their asses.”
“That’s right. Tell me something I don’t want to hear and I’ll fuck you so far up the ass that you’ll be gargling nut juice for a week. Do we still have a problem, Lars?”
“Our…” He racked his brain for the appropriate word. “Our contractor was unable to get rid of Nick Eversull this afternoon.”
Aylward threw his legal pad away and stood up. “What? I thought you said he was a professional! Why do I remember you telling me specifically that he was a professional?”
“He is a professional, it’s just gonna take a smidge longer.”
“A smidge longer? I’d like my cock to be a smidge longer, but our dreams don’t always come true. Eversull has until noon tomorrow to file his report. I can’t let that happen, Lars. I cannot. Do you understand that?”
“It will be done, William. I promise.”
There was nothing left to say. Moultrup took his leave and the business tycoon sat back down.
He wasn’t in the mood to work anymore, problems tended to do that to him. He grabbed the remote control and turned up the volume. There were few worries that a good orgy scene couldn’t make you forget.
Chapter 31
The pizza was in no way comparable to a New York pie, but it wasn’t half bad, Nick concluded. It helped that he was famished. It covered up the taste of the Drambuie.
The bed sheets had been thrown at random over their nude bodies while they ate. That was the great thing about squatting someone else’s apartment; you didn’t need to worry about the crumbs.
“You know, I can’t decide whether this whole weekend has been a nightmare or a blessing.”
Anne-Marie frowned. “When people shoot at me, that usually qualifies as a nightmare.”
“Yeah, but would we have spent as much time together? For some weird reason, I wouldn’t mind remaining in hiding forever with you.”
He leaned over and kissed her. Hmmm, bacon-flavored lips, he thought.
“We can do that even without professional assassins after us.”
She put the remains of her pizza crust into the box before pushing it off the bed. She scooted closer to him and rested her head on his chest.
Being holed up here had been invigorating. Nick was no longer shell-shocked. He was done being reactive. It was time to go on the offensive.
“You’re right,” he said. “We have to finish this. Once and for all, we have to finish this”
“We could always go to a police station, stay there until things settle down.”
Nick sat straighter and turned his head so he could see what time it was on the alarm clock. He grinned mischievously.
“I think I have a better idea. Can you hand me the phone?”
~ ~ ~ ~
William Aylward didn’t have to go out for dinner now that they had settled their business. It suited him just fine.
He ate a room service chicken burger while wearing the hotel terrycloth bathrobe. He wanted to get more work done tonight anyway—a stock market was always open somewhere on the planet. So he sat down to crunch some numbers while a different porno played on TV.
He heard footsteps and looked up to find his bodyguard with four young women behind him. They were all in their twenties and dressed fashionably in revealing dresses.
“What is this? Turn-down service I don’t know about?”
One of the ladies stepped forward. She was Melanie, the high-class escort Nick had run into in the hotel bar. She smiled coyly.
“Salut, mon beau. I’m Melanie and this is Maribel, Gwen, and Lolly. Your friend Lars thought you might like us.”
Aylward dropped his pen and stood up. Lars might have failed him earlier, but at least he knew how to redeem himself. He looked the women up and down, carefully inspecting the offered merchandise. He turned to Sorensen.
“They clean?”
The bodyguard nodded. It was his duty—in this case, privilege—to pat down visitors
for weapons.
“All right, I suppose there’s no harm in feeling good. You can take the rest of the night off.”
The bodyguard nodded again and left. Meanwhile, Aylward continued leering at the prostitutes.
“Well, ladies… How about having some fun?”
“Oh yes!” Lolly said as one of the others giggled.
The billionaire knew that this was acting. Every laugh was calculated. Every smile had been rehearsed a thousand times before. He didn’t give a shit. Romance was a big fat waste of his valuable time and he had a string of ex-wives to prove it. Romance was a costly mistake.
They used to say that in a relationship you had to take the good with the bad. Now he could afford to avoid the bad. Whores were cheaper than wives and these young things were more interesting than what was happening on the television.
He smirked at them. “Show daddy how good you are.”
“Your pleasure is my passion,” Melanie said, coming closer and stroking his face.
As if on cue, the other girls converged on him, pressing their bodies against his. Melanie was about to kiss him when she turned her head sideways and instead started making out with Gwen. Maribel crushed her lips against the billionaire’s and Lolly ran her hands down his body before snaking into his robe.
They kissed and fondled and undressed. Aylward had had his share of escorts, oftentimes in threesomes, but this was his first time with four girls. He was rock hard thinking about what would happen next.
The five of them went past the grand piano and entered the master bedroom, collapsing on the mattress. The girls were giggling as the remainder of their underwear was discarded.
The Andrew Blake movie from earlier was coming alive, Aylward realized. There was always a girl making out with him or kissing his neck while another hovered by his nether region, taking care of his needs. At the same time, two other girls would put on a show for him, touching themselves, touching each other.
They went through a range of sexual positions, from missionary and black bee to the rocking chair, the Hoover maneuver, and the leapfrog. The Kama Sutra had nothing on them. Before long, the billionaire found himself engaged in a three-way kiss with Gwen and Maribel while being ridden by Lolly.
