by Nick James
Cheng Su was slumped, totally out. Purely out of vengeance I dispatched his wife and parents. Live by the sword, die by the sword…you evil shit.
I headed back out checking every corner as I made my way to the manager’s office where I knew they kept a wheelchair, which they had showed me on my tour when I mentioned that my (make-believe) brother had trouble walking.
Leaving the unconscious form of Su in the manager’s office, I slowly moved to the back of the building with my pistol raised high. I could hear a pair of voices coming from the back. I knew from my scouting mission that this was where the bodies were bought in from the mortuaries, and where my transport was out of here.
I used my pistol to edge the swing door open, just enough to see stack upon stacks of caskets, and a silver table where the body would be placed after leaving the chiller before transferring to the casket. The voices came from another set of metal swing doors at the other end of the room, so I moved quickly with my gun still trained on the door. I needed to move; time was quickly passing by.
Once again, my pistol moved the door. There was one guard with his back to me talking to an older gentleman wearing black trousers and a white shirt, an employee of the funeral home. The door to the outside world was closed, which helped as I pushed through the door and placed a bullet in the guard’s lower spine, dropping him instantly. The second shot took him further on his journey towards the man’s ancestors.
The worker just looked stunned, with blood covering his once pristine white shirt from the head shot.
I moved around the body and pressed the suppressor into the man’s chest. ‘Say a word, you die,’ I said, to which he gave a shaky nod. I pulled him in front of me, jammed the gun in his back and forced him into the manager’s office where we reclaimed my prize.
On the return journey, the worker was viably shaking. ‘It’s okay, just help me load him into a casket and then the hearse, then you’re free to go,’ I lied.
As he nodded repeatedly, I could hear words of whispered prayer coming from him; he never said a word to me when we loaded the now full casket into the vehicle.
‘Keys?’ I asked.
Still muttering his prayer, he turned and pointed to the vehicle.
In that second, I said goodbye to the helpful but now dead man.
I placed my guns and gas mask on the passenger seat and headed out while my prisoner slumbered in the casket in the back.
The area where I had parked the van was clear, which allowed me to transfer my kit and the unconscious body into the back of the van. I took time to tie him up and fill his mouth with a ball gag – thank you, Tony the Tiger, for my birthday gift.
I’m guessing luck was with me as I managed to get him into the flat unseen; well, I hope so, anyway. But soon this area would be flooded with police, so I texted Alexi to get his contact to take the van away, leaving me with just a pistol and two magazines, a suit and my guest, who was now tied to a chair – oh, and Mr Hammer.
I had to wait an hour until he started to wake. I helped by giving him a backhanded slap. His eyes fluttered. ‘Good morning, Cheng Su.’ His eyes still look glossed over when I greeted him, so I slapped him again, hard enough to knock out the ball gag.
‘Well, well, it’s the freak.’ He chuckled and licked his lips. ‘You know, they will kill you for this.’ His head rolled about, the gas was still affecting him.
I shrugged. ‘You killed my family, Su, in cold blood!’ I spat and punched him in the face.
He groaned, then laughed.
‘You broke the rules; they were innocents.’
The tall man just gave a dark chuckle. ‘You killed them when you fucked up that hit in Britain.’
I shook my head and pressed my suppressor-adorned pistol to his knee. ‘Then you come after me, not wipe out my family,’ I hissed as the bullet shattered his kneecap, filling the flat full of screams and curses. I put bullets in his other knee and both shoulders. It did take a while for him to come round after passing out from the pain. What a wonderful thing an adrenaline injection is.
I stood over him and smiled. ‘Listen, Zheng and his daughter are dead,’ I told him.
He couldn’t shout back as he was making too much noise, so the gag was put back in, then he just dribbled and snotted at me.
‘Your wife…dead…your mum…dead…your dad—’ I placed the suppressor against his eye ‘—dead…and I will destroy the Council of Five – well, three now.’ With the squeeze of the trigger, he joined his family.
It was done. Now all I had to do was get out of the country and hunt down the last three of the Council. ‘Vengeance will be mine,’ I hissed at the corpse, before hitting the shower.
‘Damn, I never got to use my hammer,’ I mused as I soaped up Mikey’s playthings.
Chapter 20
Sam Blades
My mind was reeling from last night. No, not just that Bunny brought out her French Veela persona for the night – and what a night…sigh, wince – but it was down to the fact that she had asked me to break the rules of my contract at Shimmering Dreams and look at a specific person’s dreams. This was one of the many reasons we as a couple vowed never to put the accursed app on our phones. The last thing I wanted was the girl I love seeing that I was playing strip poker with Arsenal FC ladies football team while we slept together.
After kissing my Lotus flower farewell, as I left before her for once, because Bunny had a meeting off-site this morning, and she chose this moment to announce that we would be getting engaged – once the ring turns up, that is, and if I could transfer £3,000 into the joint account. That was my half of the cost. £6,000 for a fucking ring, I shouted in my head while smiling. It wasn’t the most romantic of settings, but she was standing in a towel dripping wet and all shiny. I would have offered another £500 to drop the towel.
But anyway, out of my mind, people. I didn’t pay any attention to the world around me, not even the hurt look on the song destroyer’s face as I accidentally kicked his hat full of coins, scattering them over the unclean floor. Hope they’re up to date with their tetanus injections.
Even with the tunes of The Jam singing about going underground rattling around in my head, I couldn’t shake the worry of being caught and sacked, or, even worse, prosecuted. But I was confident with my skill set, and it wouldn’t be my first dalliance with the rules.
I shook my head. ‘Man up, bitch,’ I muttered. You survived getting shot and an intruder who came to kill you. ‘Bloody Fred!’ What good is a clownfish anyway?
I followed the line of cattle heading out into the rare English sunshine, into the world of big business, glass and steel. Oh, and two homeless people shagging in the bushes. Talk about a welcome back to realism.
Toto had just finished singing about their trip to Africa when I entered my place of soul-crushing despair. I saw the airheads eyeing me up nervously, so I thought I would be nice to them, like the big-hearted person I am.
I walked towards their reception desk and opened my arms and smiled. ‘And good morning to the pair of hardest working, and may I say the most beautiful, women in the world.’ I saw them give me beaming, heartfelt smiles. So, I looked behind them and saw a pair of girls I was friendly with from floor ten. ‘Karen, Susan, it’s been too long…’ I ghosted around the soulless she-devils who were seething and hugged my friends. It’s good to be me.
I managed to enter my little piece of heaven and send a chocolate peanut sailing through the air towards the willing and waiting Emily. ‘Three points, nothing but flesh!’ I crowed and then bid everybody welcome.
The peanut-eating woman in the office squealed with happiness when I told her about the pending loss of £3,000 and the engagement. She gave me a very flesh to face hug. Oh, to be a newborn again.
I had backed off from teasing my work colleagues, too much of a good thing, and they seemed better for the rest, although they kept sending suspicious looks my way. Clearly, they had trust issues.
Mark turned up last and slappe
d me on the back before taking the peanut challenge and nearly taking out one of lovely Emily’s eyes.
‘You are shit!’ I mocked with my rapier-like wit.
‘Kate told me you’re getting engaged.’ Mark yawned at me, allowing me a good view of his breakfast-ridden mouth. ‘Congratulations, buddy.’
I groaned. ‘Thanks, mate, and no there won’t be a party – we dodged a bullet last time,’ I said as we remembered all the drunken clashes our partners have had together. I saw him raise his hand in surrender as the others chuckled at our byplay.
Before we all settled down to our work, there was another request from IT security for me to choose a better password, and that they would create one for me if I couldn’t take it seriously. What’s wrong with ‘isniffyouwhileyousleep69’?
It was getting nearer to lunchtime. Hicks had just done the drinks run. I checked my phone and scanned the list of instructions from Bunny. So I logged onto the main database and looked through the list of our customers with the surname Head, which still makes me laugh.
There you are, Dickhead. I checked the viewing log; security checks done. McAllister and Admin001, and that last one was the ghost, as we all called him. Nobody knew who he was, but he crept up occasionally on our files. Well, no one but me. DUN DUN DUN. Dramatic, right?
I checked the relevant dates and smiled. I slipped a thumb drive into its USB port. And just to show off, and to show I am no mug around a computer, the program I designed doesn’t download the material, it just copies the information. There is no record of the download. I said goodbye to the nanny-shagging Richard Head and closed down the file. Then, using a little back door on the program, I deleted my login details. I am that smooth criminal… Shamone motherfucker! EeeeeeeeHeeeeeeee.
Okay, despite the shock, I showed Bunny. I have done this many time before, but never for financial gain, or for public viewing. It was only for my own perverse wants and needs. Who wouldn’t want to see Keira Knightly dancing around naked to Amy Winehouse’s ‘Monkey Man’. I hope Bunny never finds that hard drive; loads of questions will be asked – and possible detachment of things that make me the gender I am.
As Mark and I headed out for lunch, I truly felt like James Bond, or Ethan Hunt from Mission Impossible. That thought alone made me start to sing the films’ theme tunes. Mark joined in as we walked towards, as my friend called it, a surprise.
We stopped in front of a white and blue painted bistro called Le Coq de Jeu. Even though it had a French name, that was as close as it came. It was a Tottenham Hotspur themed restaurant. I shot Mark a scathing look before heading in.
Although the décor was a bit Tottenham-like for me, the food was good. Our waitress, Sue, wasn’t the quickest, but she was friendly and seemed to know everybody’s names who came in and even those who just walked past the bloody place.
All in all, it was a fine lunch. We thanked the owners, Stuart and Wendy, the former was the real driving force for the Tottenham theme, but it did get a bit chilly when I asked about the lack of cups and silverware. I think they took it to heart, but it was fun anyway.
‘And now we can’t go back there again,’ Mark moaned. He had been avidly looking for a new pub after being barred for two weeks for throwing a fridge magnet at our pierced goddess of a barmaid at the Bucket. Although it amused the girl, the bar manager was pissed off.
‘Oh, come on, buddy, they’ll let us back there. I’ll even behave next time…ish,’ and gave him one of my world-famous grins as I gestured back at the so-called Temple of Tottenham, although I’d made some other names for it myself. That made him storm off like a toddler who’d been told they could only have one sweet. It was a lonely walk back to the office.
When I did arrive back at work, I had a thought and looked on the Net about past friends. First was Pam Pam the bag lady, the friendly, old soul who turned out to be a serial dog killer. She skinned them and sold them as coats to her fellow homeless people. According to the local paper, Pam had got into more trouble, she was now doing life in a mental institution for beating her cellmate to death with her flip-flop. That must have taken a hell of a long time.
The other was my old school friend Adam Walker, who was now on remand at the local jail for being caught too many times in the ladies’ public toilets, looking for a date, as he put it. But it seems he doesn’t have to worry about a date now, according to Beth, he was now the wife of a certain Mr Big of the jail. And he was happy about it. I was going to visit, but I don’t think I can face the hilarity of the situation. So, I just sent him an email. It’s good to stay in touch.
Then, with a sigh and a dark thought, I brought up my late brother’s social media sites to check out his biker friends. Mum never knew this, but he died when he crashed his bike mid-race. I found out after his passing that he was part of the illegal city road racing group, where you had to reach a point on a map around the city, first one to race from one point to the other won a cash prize. I found out it was run by the Chinese mob and all the betting took place from a casino in London. Supposedly, my brother was one of the best, well known for riding his Kawasaki ZX-10R the wrong way down one-way streets. On that fateful day, a taxi came the other way; neither had time to move.
It seems that two of his Brothers of Asphalt had passed away as well. At least he’ll have someone to race with now. The big lump.
The day came to an end, but just before leaving I sent Mum an email asking where she was and how she was. A reply came just as I started to shut down:
I’m okay, at the deli counter at Tesco’s, off to Vegas tomorrow, how’s Bunny?
I chuckled. I’m okay, Mum, thanks for asking, I fired off as a quick reply and then headed home to my love.
With the soulful tunes of the Eurythmics playing in my ears, I headed out of the tube station and without a care in the world I strode down the path, until a police car pulled up in front of me with its lights blazing away.
I stood stock-still as a very angry Sharon aka Stoney stepped out, followed by a smiling Bethany. ‘Don’t run, Sammy,’ the latter mouthed while Mrs Lennox was still singing to me personally.
My brain agreed, as I saw the crowds watching on with mobiles in hand. But unfortunately, my legs had a different theory; they decided to be the Road Runner to Sharon’s Coyote.
Fuck me, she was quick. Clearly, I was a different Road Runner, one with asthma, because she took me down hard in three steps, thankfully on a piece of grass verging which seemed to be shit free.
I felt her knee in the small of my back. One hand was pushing my face into the grass quite forcefully, knocking out my earphones – bye, Annie.
‘Hi, Sammy, miss me?’ she whispered as I heard Beth telling people there was nothing to see and to move along.
‘Hey, Sharon, good takedown,’ I said and winced as she forced my arm around so she could cuff me. ‘You should do this for a living… Ow!’ Nice one, Sam, keep mouth shut.
I was now back on my feet and could still see the laughing Beth moving people on, but Sharon’s face wasn’t so happy.
‘Sam, despite our banter, I love you like a brother, not a nice one, of course – an irritating one – but, nevertheless, I do love you,’ she admitted. But by the look on her face, it was a painful admission.
‘This is a pure Hallmark moment,’ I said, and then bent over as she pushed me into the stress position. ‘Owwwwww!’
WPC Sharon Andrews bent down. ‘Watch your mouth, Sammy. I know it’s difficult,’ she said with only a small chuckle. ‘I know Bunny asked you to prank me, and I can’t blame her for that. Maybe I did go too far… But—’ she started to walk me to the car with my head forced down ‘—why a stripper, in front of all my work friends? It’s a living hell!’
Beth was standing by the back door of the police car smiling happily as she held it open. ‘Wotcha, Sammy.’ She winked as I was manhandled into the car and the door slammed shut.
I watched the smirking pair get in and Stoney drive into the traffic, allowing Beth to tu
rn around. ‘Told you not to run, Sammy. Shaz is a quick one.’
‘Don’t I know it. The bloody ground was hard, too, coppers,’ I answered with a playful sneer. ‘Going to bang me up, are ya?’
Bethany raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that an offer, Sam? Don’t think Bunny would approve.’
Both coppers laughed as I started to stutter a denial. I was relieved when we pulled into my flat’s car park.
‘Let’s go and have a fun cuppa with your missus.’ A feral grin appeared on Sharon’s face. ‘I might just use you as a footstool,’ she said before getting out and dragging me out with my hands still cuffed behind my back. Which made her day as she happily walked my face into every door, even using my forehead to press the button to summon the lift.
At this point I should have been asking myself if I’d done something to cause all this, especially as I now had an upwards facing arrow imprinted on my forehead. But, luckily, I am me, so it must be Bunny’s fault, and of course Sharon’s anger issues.
They stood either side of me. Stoney holding the cuffs, giving them the odd twist to show her annoyance, but Beth was enjoying pinching and groping my arse. Nobody would’ve guessed by the angelic face she was sporting. Just as the doors started to close, a hand stopped them, then I saw the face.
‘Sam, officers,’ the man said. ‘Is it safe to join you?’
The women nodded. ‘Yes, sir, just a troublemaker, flashing old women in the park,’ Susan said in a professional manner. ‘But as the old dear couldn’t see anything, we’re just bringing him home.’
The man turned around and smiled. ‘Pissing the police off, too, Sam?’ Mike McAllister asked.
I just shrugged. ‘You know how it goes, boss, a simple miscommunication,’ I explained.
The two women shared a look as the man pressed the button for the floor above ours. ‘Do you know each other?’ Beth asked, although she knew the man looked familiar.
