It's Killing Jerry: A Comedy Thriller

by Sharn Hutton

  He swept her misconception away. “Save it for Jerry. Can you go up to the room and wait? Here’s the key. Room 439. I need to get him from the bar.”

  “Uh-huh.” She peered at the offered key card, considering his words and Adam gripped her wrist. “Don’t even think about ripping us off.”

  “All right already.” She shook him loose, her voice escalating, “I won’t take no crap. Don’t think you can treat me bad.” She jutted out her chin in defiance and Adam reeled himself in to continue in a whisper.

  “I know. Look I’m sorry. I’m just a little nervous for my friend. I want him to like it, OK?” Adam didn’t want Jerry to bottle it and run away. “Go gentle.”

  She smiled, relaxing. “It’s OK. I get it. Don’t worry. Your friend will have a good time.” Snap of the gum.

  Adam pulled out a twenty-dollar note and tucked it into the pocket of her waistcoat. “I’m sorry.” It wasn’t her fault. Was she another pawn in the game, or a player? Adam wasn’t sure where the lines were anymore.

  “Forgiven,” she said and turned to click-clack into the lobby, round bottom wiggling away in spray-on pleather.

  All that remained was for Adam to get Jerry to his room. He needed a reason to take him from the bar. What argument could he build to take their party upstairs? Could he send the girls on ahead—send them to a phoney room number? Then they could follow on ‘behind’.

  Adam strode across the lobby, homing in on Jerry, whirring through his options. Sitting at their table, hot and happy, Jerry was leaning back in his seat, enjoying a moment’s recuperation. The girls still crowded at the bar and Adam saw his chance to persuade them, without Jerry hearing.

  Adam rehearsed the speech in his head and, lost in the argument, didn’t even notice Spink until he was right on top of him. Shoulders slumped and eyes downcast, Spink’s drooping mouth did nothing to pull the furrows from his brow. He was undoubtedly a worried man.

  Adam pulled up just short of slamming into him and, surprised, Spink looked up, his expression shifting from worry to wide-eyed fear. He recognised Adam from all those years ago. His tormentor had found him.

  Adam looked coolly down at the rabbit caught in his headlights. “Well what do you know! Dinky! Fancy seeing you here!”

  Spink cowered.

  “What’s the matter? Not pleased to see me?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Enjoying the sights. Until now.”

  Adam felt a surge of power, remembered from school days. Then he’d been invincible: badgering Spink into humiliated submission. The smug little shit who thought he knew best and got kicked around the playground on a daily basis. Back at school everything had been so much simpler: my gang or your gang. No confusion. He’d ruled over Spink. Why couldn’t Jerry? It was yet another confirmation of the void between them. Jerry could never stand in his shoes, be the man nor the match for Rachel.

  Spink squirmed backward, but Adam didn’t want to let him off the hook and stepped in closer. Their toes touched and Spink recoiled. Adam stepped in again, this time standing hard on Spink’s tatty Oxfords.

  “Leave me alone, Fox! I don’t need this today!” Spink whined.

  Adam looked down at him in silent reproach. The foul reek of stale cigar smoke caught in his nostrils.

  “I’ve lost it all!” Spink was shaking, “You happy?”

  Adam raised an unconcerned eyebrow. A gambler, of course. That was what membership at The Cranley was all about for him, wasn’t it? Spink had been drawn to his own. Grasping, miserable excuses for human beings, all of them.

  That day with Greg: tight-collared and rotten, he’d been nauseated by the comparison and the shame. There’d been no choice but to change, not like them anymore.

  Adam’s head blurred and flickered. McGinty taunted him. I cut out her wagging tongue. He clenched his teeth against frustrated anger, spurting now through tight capillaries to find expression in muscle beyond. He drew in breath to hold it back and watched Spink sink down, unable to escape.

  “Leave me alone, Fox!” he squawked, hands rising to protect himself from the onslaught he felt coming, “It’s been years, can’t you move on?”

  Adam tossed back a laugh. “Oh yes. I’m moving on.” He’d left all that behind. No point in letting the past take over, not now his future was so close to starting. Adam eased the pressure off Spink’s foot, who took his chance and lurched away across the foyer, putting as much distance between himself and Adam as those short legs could manage. Adam let him go: he had more important things to do.

  The gaggle of girls were still where he’d left them and Adam marched straight into the centre of their circle. “Girls! Who wants more champagne?” he shouted over the music, over the voices in his head.

  The group whooped and cheered, just like he knew they would.

  “What do you say to carrying this party on in luxurious private? I’ve got a suite on the 30th floor and money to burn!” Money. Always money. He leaned over to the bartender and ordered a couple more bottles of champagne, which he awarded to the eager girls.

  “Suite 3025. Take up the bubbles. We’ll be there in a minute.” Adam waved at Jerry who gave him the thumbs up.

  Already high on Adam’s generosity, the girls bounded unquestioning out of the bar. Another step accomplished, Adam had to focus on the final crucial piece.

  He noted with pleasure that Jerry was looking a little disappointed, craning his neck to watch the departing hen party. He slid into the chair beside him.

  “Aw, Adam! What did you say to them?”

  “They’re going up to your room. I suggested a little private party.”

  “You what! Adam, I can’t…”

  “Sure you can. They’re fun girls. We’re just going to have some fun.”

  “But I…”

  “Don’t be selfish, Jerry. What about me?”

  Jerry pouted at him and narrowed his eyes. “You don’t need a wing man.”

  “I do, Jerry. I need this, please.”

  Jerry took a long pause. “Get me another drink and I’ll think about it.”

  “Jerry, the girls…”

  “One more. Then we can go.”

  Adam knew that Adora would wait and the girls were heading in the wrong direction anyway. He sighed and conceded. Jerry was allowed a last request. “Bud?”

  “Yeah.” Jerry grinned. “Get one for take-out too.”

  FIFTY-ONE

  SPINK SQUEEZED AT HIS TEMPLES WITH SHAKING FINGERS. His run in with Adam Fox had upset him more than felt rational. Just overwrought, he reasoned, the pressure of the last few days taking its toll.

  That evening he’d pushed it too far and lost everything in the casino and was dragging his depressed self to the bar to find more whisky and distraction when he’d seen him: Adler, sitting smiling at a table drinking champagne. What the hell did that little shit have to celebrate? Spink’s ego had felt the erosion of its foundations and swayed. Was there something that he didn’t know?

  He’d had to get away, to head for his room, before Adler spotted him, unable to hide his defeat.

  Spink clenched his fists. He needed to secure his job more than ever now. Couldn’t have Adler whipping the rug out from under him. Not now, not when he was so close.

  Spink paced to and fro in the rising glass lift. Fists clenched at the ground, he counted the floors passing. A dull ache spread across his chest: aftermath of the ghastly encounter. Adam Fox, Jesus. A noxious coincidence that was. He hadn’t seen him for years, not since school and there he was, popping up when he needed him least.

  Spink’s flesh crawled with the oppressive memories. He’d been the short kid with the big mouth ‘asking for a slap’. He’d always overdone it. He knew it. What he’d lacked in height he’d tried to make up for in volume. Adam Fox had taken it upon himself to silence him. “Still not listening? Let’s clean out those ears…” Another flushing, the choking water that left him gasping, that trickled down his back in the classroom a
fter: the marker for the other kids to see.

  To hell with Fox. He didn’t know why he was letting it get to him so much. Things were different now. It was bad luck bumping into him when he was feeling low, that’s all. He was a businessman now, a success. He didn’t know what Fox did for a living, but he was still a terrorist as far as Spink could see. He hoped his life was a flop, hoped that the world had seen through his good looks and convenient charm and knocked him on his arse. Spink was the better man now, he was sure of it.

  The lift doors slid open on four and, straightening up, Spink made off down the corridor at a lick, toward his room.

  Ten paces to go he noticed that the door opposite his was ajar. Adler’s door. Spink checked up and down the corridor then crept over, pushing it open to discover a voluptuous Latina hooker. She smouldered on the bed in nothing but black lace knickers and a short skin-tight sparkling top. She spoke through scalding red lips, “Jerry? I’ve been waiting so long, I thought I’d get comfortable.” She stroked at her naked thigh.

  Spink laughed out loud. Adler was celebrating, wasn’t he? He’d seen him downstairs quaffing champagne and looking quite comfortable. Shame to leave the tart here all alone, especially when she clearly didn’t know what Adler looked like.

  Spink slid into the room and clicked the door shut behind him. The hooker watched him, adjusting her position for maximum cleavage. Her perfume reached through the air: snaking tendrils of sticky sweet temptation. Why not? He lit a cigar and puffed out a plume of rich smoke. Was this part of Adler’s celebration? Well Spink was going to take it from him. “Well, well. This looks like fun.”

  “Oh yeah, we’re going to have some fun. Why don’t you come and sit down?” she said, patting the satin quilt.

  Spink wasted no time. Hauling at his belt buckle, he dropped his trousers to the carpet, stepped out of them and strode over to the bed, licking his lips, eyes focused on her nipples. She rose to her knees to meet him and Spink shoved his hand into her knickers before she could say another word. He could do what he wanted: he was Adler and she was just a whore.

  The hooker’s eyes popped a little, but he saw she knew the ropes and fought fire with fire. She slammed her hand straight to Spink’s crotch. Senses numbed by alcohol, he smiled and thrust into her palm.

  “So what have we got here?” She felt around but, found nothing worth mentioning. Spink shrugged. Hell, after the day he’d had, not surprising little Spink wasn’t up to the job. He wasn’t giving up on the hooker though, not one with jugs like that, especially not when Adler was paying.

  Spink rested his cigar on the bedside table and dragged his sweaty palm down over her breast, pinching and grasping. “Why don’t you help me along?”

  Pulling herself out of reach, she whipped his Y’s away like the pro she was, pushed him down onto the bed and got to work. Sitting astride him, she pounded and pumped with her hands to bring the flaccid flesh to life.

  “Oh yeah, you’re getting hard for Adora!” she squealed, writhing with obvious fake enthusiasm.

  Insincerity had never been a problem for Spink, who quickly climbed to the peak of excitement without ever achieving much form and it was all over. All over his flabby gut.

  “Well, OK. Don’t worry about it, we can try again in a minute,” said Adora snapping her gum and surreptitiously wiping her hands on the bed.

  Spink lay spent, all embers of desire turned to ash. Asphyxiating tiredness crept over him and sucked at his conscious. He didn’t want to try again, that was all he could manage tonight.

  “You can go.”

  “I’m paid up for a full hour…”

  “I said I don’t want you. I’m tired,” Spink spat.

  “OK.” She backed away and pulled on her clothes, “You’re the boss.”

  Spink heaved himself vertical, wiped the folds of his flesh on the quilt and let it flop to the floor. He gave the hooker a minute to get down the corridor then left the mess of Adler’s room behind to go to his own smug bed.

  FIFTY-TWO

  THE BLUE SPARK FIZZED AND CRACKED. It arced across the terminal and searched beyond. It probed and fluttered and groped for purchase.

  Dry paper convulsed, drawn to its friction. Surface blackening, it absorbed the energy. Too delicate to sustain its flow, it glowed, then crumbled and passed on the flame.

  Yellowing memoranda took the baton and twirled it on. The flames consumed last month’s rota, the thank you note and the holiday forms. Declarations of Health and Safety fed the fire in the kitchen no longer feeding people.

  Fancy hoardings masked it from the Monte Carlo’s clientele: the unused kitchen anticipating refit to bring it up to standard. Inconspicuous and quiescent until the impatient fingers of electricity drummed up some action of their own.

  Fire stretched up the wall and licked around the suspended ceiling, into the void. Corpses of long poisoned rats combusted in its path and through the flimsy plasterboard, it found the clutch of paperwork. Orders and invoices, internal requisitions and staff records: all held for reference but, apparently, not important enough to protect. The flames engulfed that locked room and produced a heat so fierce it punched through the air conditioning ventilation shaft running over head and gushed its noxious fumes into the air superhighway that ran a circuit of the hotel.

  Down in the kitchen, the sprinklers squatted above the cold steel of unused burners, oblivious to the climbing flames that ignited an inferno in the store room above.

  The ventilation shaft made progress easy. Silently it swallowed up grey death. Sweeping unseen above the ceilings, black arms of smoke reached out down sleepy corridors. Their grisly fingers plunged uninvited into vents, bypassing locked doors and gaining entry unknown.

  Dark smoke gained weight and sank toward the sleeping.

  FIFTY-THREE

  ADAM PULLED JERRY OUT OF THE LIFT INTO THE 4TH FLOOR LOBBY. He’d get him to the room, make a show of going to find the girls, then return and ‘catch’ him. Adam swallowed down the tension in his throat, grasped Jerry’s arm and steered him down the long corridor.

  “Are you taking me to bed? I do hope you’re not planning to take advantage of me?” Jerry slurred and stumbled a little. Adam gripped tighter at his elbow and propelled him on. He wouldn’t see the mocking eyebrow raised for his benefit, refused to register the humour.

  He scanned the doors for numbers as they passed. 417, 419, 421. The corridor stretched ahead of them, bright and deserted. Adam pushed on down the tunnel of no return, adrenalin singing in his ears. He had to do it: a harsh act to put things right. Righter of wrongs and defender of the weak: he’d save Rachel from her tormenter and protect her himself. She would fill the emptiness. Be his family. Be his everything.

  They rounded a corner. 435, 437, 439. Here.

  “Key card?” Adam demanded, not recognising the rasp in his own voice.

  Jerry leant against the wall and started a slow ineffective pocket search that poked at Adam’s raw impatient nerves until he yanked his hands aside to rummage through one pocket then another. He tore the card from Jerry’s jacket and slid it into the metal jaws of the lock.

  Intending ‘not to notice’ the hooker waiting for Jerry there, Adam pushed the door wide open. His eyes scouted around the room, surreptitiously checking that all was as it should be. They found a dishevelled bed, its luxurious quilt knocked partially to the floor, but no Adora to ignore.

  Jerry peeled off the wall, ricocheted off the door frame and staggered inside, leaving Adam blinking with disbelief in the corridor. After a moment he strode inside himself to pace the perimeter, checking that she truly was not there.

  The poisonous remnants of cigar smoke caught in Adam’s constricting throat. He pressed dry lips together and balled his fists. Where the hell was she? His chest tightened and his vison flickered, flashing snippets of memory: the nameless hen party girl running her hands over Jerry’s willing chest; McGinty, so self-satisfied behind those hooded eyes; Rachel venting noisy tears; six! Come on
six!

  Jerry bumbled around the room oblivious, finally attempting to open a beer on the edge of the walnut desk and chipping away veneer.

  “For fuck’s sake, Jerry!” Adam swung his arm to snatch the bottle away, knocking Jerry on his heels. The satin quilt, already puddled on the floor, enveloped Jerry’s feet and sent him twisting backward.

  His head cracked against the sharp corner of the bedside table, his face at once wide-eyed and pained.

  “Jesus!” Jerry gasped and Adam was on him, wrenching him to his feet by the lapels.

  “Nothing’s ever fucking easy with you is it, Jerry?” he yelled. Anger boiling in his veins, he yanked Jerry up onto his toes. Too close now to contend with, he threw him away, adrenalin-fuelled muscle launching him into the bank of cupboards that stretched the length of the room. Strong and righteous. Justice personified. The furniture shuddered from the force thrown against it and Jerry groaned with the air knocked from him.

  Rage and repulsion filled Adam’s head. He saw McGinty’s face, ‘Yeah I cut her. I cut her good. No bitch telling tales on me.’ Adam roared with the injustice, with the shame of defending the despicable. He would defend those worthy of it! Rachel. He could defend sweet Rachel. Jerry made her life a misery. Jerry was a fool. Why didn’t he understand what he had?

  His wild eyes found Jerry scrabbling, trying to get to his feet and Adam moved toward him. Lurching dangerously against the desk, Jerry smashed against the champagne glasses set up on the counter, slicing deep gashes into his palms. His shirt back was torn and bloodied where the chrome door handles had gouged at his flesh.