Red Mist

by Jan Swick

  Lisa grabbed his arm. “You jealous? I can get you one of those girls, if you want.”

  He looked at her, then grabbed her close and put his mouth to her ear.

  “This is the place,” he said. “For sure.”

  She hugged him right back, smiling, patting his back, giving anyone who cared to look the impression that they were having a good time, or consoling each other.

  Matt explained. The guy on stage. Half an hour ago the guy had commented that he liked the redhead. And now she’d grabbed him off his stool. Someone had done him a favour, and not his friend, who had been just as surprised when the redhead came over. Someone else.

  Her eyes showed shock as she understood what he was saying. He nodded. They’re listening. It’s how they do it. It’s how they find people.

  She shivered, as if feeling the weight of watching eyes and listening ears all around.

  Into his ear, she said, quietly, “Liam Hardy is the Security Director, right? Matt nodded against her head.

  "You planning to make a habit of coming here?" Lisa said. "You want a membership, maybe a tab at the bar, and your own hook in the cloakroom?"

  He shook his head.

  "Me neither. So let's get barred."

  It took just seven minutes. They walked from table to table. Matt took photos using his phone, or at least pretended to. He gave a good impression of a guy trying to take snaps in secret but being not very good at it. Two croupiers told him he wasn't allowed to photograph the tables. By his side, Lisa pretended to speak into her phone, looking around the club, at the cameras, at the tables and under them. They created a scene, and eventually three men in suits came for them.

  The two behind the one looked like bruisers, bodyguards, but the one looked like he didn't need them. He was at least six-five with thick shoulders straining at the seams of his blue tuxedo. He had a buzz-cut that connected to his goatee by sideburns, making all the hair on his head look like some kind of helmet he could slip off his skull and mouth. And he wore a badge that clearly noted him as SECURITY DIRECTOR HARDY. Matt and Lisa had hoped that the Director himself might venture out to see off these two irritating customers, and they had gotten their wish.

  "Excuse me, sir," Hardy said. His English accent was Southern Counties. "You're disrupting our players, and we don't allow photography of the tables. And you, ma'am, you need to put your phone away, too."

  Matt couldn't take his eyes off the guy. Here he was, the man he needed, the man listed as their top suspect. Just feet away, within grabbing and choking and crushing range. But Matt stayed his hands, held back his rage. He did this by telling himself they would not get information out of Hardy here, now. He had to bide his time, hard as that might be.

  "We're not trying to cheat," Lisa said. "We're new. Just checking the place out."

  Hardy looked at her, then back at Matt, but didn't seem fazed by Matt's frozen stare. Matt knew he was overdoing the staring, but he couldn't stop his brain from telling his eyes to soak up every detail of this man. Hardy held the stare for a few seconds, then told them to leave.

  "For what? Having technology everyone has?" Lisa said.

  "Let's not have a scene," Hardy said. He tapped his foot on the carpet. It made barely a sound, but was clearly some kind of pre-arranged sign, because the two bruisers stepped forward, one waving an arm at Matt like someone saying, you first. Leave, in other words.

  "This is a joke," Lisa snapped. "I was on the phone to my bank manager to get a loan. I was going to put ten thousand on black, but you guys just messed that one up. Where's the manager."

  "Like the tables and indeed every part of this casino, not available to you,"

  "Let's go," Matt said to Lisa. He took her arm, but she didn't need leading. She knew it was time to go.

  They were escorted by all three men to the foyer doors. There Hardy stopped while the two bruisers took them to the exit, and there the apes waited until they'd watched their unwelcome guests walk partway down the road.

  As soon as the guys were gone, Matt and Lisa split up. Matt went around the back, to watch the rear of the building, while Lisa ran for the car. Twenty minutes later they were both in the car and watching the gate in the wall at the rear of the casino.

  They decided to sleep in turns, just in case Hardy worked the entire night shift. Matt chose to watch first, because he knew he wouldn't sleep. Lisa told him to wake her at four, but he didn't plan on any such thing. He wasn't planning to be asleep when Hardy left the building.

  As it was, the X6 left at just after midnight. Lisa was in the driver's seat, so he had no choice but to wake her. She climbed over him so they could swap places. The X6 swung a right once out of the tunnel and drove past them. Matt watched in the rear-view until it reached the junction and swept left, then he turned the car in the road and followed.

  "It might be hard to stop them this late," Lisa said. Matt just nodded. "Guy like him must expect he might get followed or attacked now and then. Sour customers who lost the house. Sour customers thinking it's all fixed. What you want to do?"

  Matt said, "We just follow for now, see if we can get an address."

  Midnight, but the traffic was still pretty heavy. Which was good. Enough vehicles to allow Matt to hide the Mondeo when he needed to, and to slow the X6 so that there was never a chance of losing it.

  The drive was just a few miles south, to Roehampton. The X6 turned off a main road and entered a housing estate. Matt had to hang back now, because traffic here consisted of one shiny black BMW X6 and one battered Ford Mondeo and that was it. The X6 took a turn, but Matt stopped the car at the corner, allowing Lisa to hop out and peek around the edge of a house. A few seconds later she was back.

  "Left," she said. Matt took the turn and quickly drove to the next corner, where Lisa had watched the X6 turn left. There, she exited again and did her peeking thing.

  "Right," she said as she jumped back in the Mondeo. He turned left, drove eighty metres to the next junction, where the X6 had now turned right. Out she got. Pressed herself against the wall of a house on the right side. Peeked around.

  This time when she returned to Matt, she did so at a walk.

  "It's parked about halfway down."

  Matt went to look for himself.

  The next street was lined with semi-detached houses with neat little elevated lawns that made the road seem as if it were laid in a depression, or had subsided three feet. The X6 was at the left kerb, lights off, but he could just about hear the idling engine.

  The house it was parked outside was dark except for a light on upstairs. Front bedroom.

  The driver's door opened and a man got out, slowly. Hardy. There he was. Matt gripped the corner of the house, digging his nails in. This location was a far cry from a busy casino with cameras and witnesses. No one here to see anything. No one else in the car this time. He knew he could cross the distance between both men in seconds. Hit the man like a Juggernaut. Fight over. But again he told himself to wait. Watch. Stay his anger and bide his time.

  Hardy closed his door slowly, but didn't click it shut. As Matt watched, the guy walked backwards across the road, staring up at the lit bedroom window. He stood on the far kerb, staring. He pulled his mobile, rang a number and held the device to his ear. But nobody seemed to answer, and after a few moments the guy smacked his phone against his leg, clearly angry.

  He crossed the road and entered the garden. Shocked, Matt watched the guy approach the front door of the house and bend and put his ear to the letterbox. He didn't shout through, which made Matt realise Hardy didn't live here. He had assumed Hardy was locked out and had tried to phone someone to let him in. But if that had been the case, surely he would have shouted through the letterbox. Instead this guy was listening, and being very secretive about it.

  Then he did something even more surprising.

  The Security Director felt about in the garden, lifted a stone the size of a tennis ball, returned to stand by his vehicle, and then launched the st
one at the downstairs window. The crash of breaking glass seemed terribly loud on such a quiet, inert street. No lights came on in other houses, but Matt knew that woken neighbours would be rushing across dark bedrooms to stare out windows.

  Hardy got back in his car and tore off, and left his lights off until he was turning the next corner.

  When he saw the car pull up outside, he decided to make it easy for them. No need for the B&B owner to get his place trashed when it could all go down smoothly.

  So Matt left his room, left the building. Stepped out into the morning sunshine.

  The street had a few pedestrians, and he didn't think it would go down here. So he turned left once out of the gate and walked to the junction. Ahead and right, the streets eventually found their way to a town centre. But to his left, the road passed some shops and houses and terminated at a fence with a turnstile in it. Beyond that, a kids' playpark. He went there.

  A bay window in a charity show allowed him to bounce his vision backwards, where he saw a car parked at the junction, just enough of it poking from behind the corner building to allow the occupants to watch him. Obviously, they needed to see where he was going, and it just wouldn't do to cruise at walking speed behind him. Who knew who might be watching from the shops and houses.

  He passed the last of the houses and shops and went through the turnstile. He heard the car approaching, He didn't look round. He heard it brake to a halt not far behind him. He didn't look round. He heard the turnstile creak like the front door of an old haunted house, and that was when he turned.

  Three guys. One was back at the car, stood by the open driver's door. Hardy. The other two were approaching Matt. Guys as big as he was. He didn't recognise them, so figured they weren't bruisers from the casino. New bruisers.

  "London Street around here, mate?" the closest guy said. Just to explain his presence, just buying time, so he could get closer. They were ten feet away now.

  Matt didn't want to get punched in the face, so he turned away from the guys, and pointed, and said, "Not sure if it's over-"

  That was as far as he got. Thick arms wrapped around him. He made a few cursory kicking and thrashing movements, just like you would if strangers grabbed you, and then he let himself be taken.

  "Someone wants to see you," the first guy said.

  "Little head just got big head in deep shit," the other guy said.

  As he was loaded into the boot of the car, he saw Hardy staring at him, pure hate on his face. But no recognition. The guy hadn't placed Matt as the guy from the casino last night.

  The boot slammed, shrouding Matt in darkness. As the car pulled away, he thought about trying to memorise the route, then didn't bother. He'd find his way back easy enough, and he'd use this car if they took him far away. So he just lay back and relaxed, and hoped they didn't take speed bumps too quickly.

  He wasn't tired, because he'd gotten a few hours sleep earlier. After leaving the scene of the window-busting, they had hunted out a local B&B and paid for one room in Matt's name. In case the owner was part of Liam Hardy's supposedly vast list of connections, they had decided that it should look as if Matt was alone. He had sneaked Lisa into the room when the coast was clear.

  They had spent a portion of the rest of the night lying on top of the bed, fully clothed, talking, before they finally drifted off almost in synch.

  Earlier still, Lisa had formulated a plan quickly. As soon as she heard the window smash, she realised what had happened. She drove the Mondeo and pulled up outside the house with the busted window, exiting to find the owner at the door, staring out in the street, seeking the culprit who broke her window. She looked very scared, but not confused.

  Lisa rushed over to console her, firing questions, telling her it would be okay. Led her into the house and put the kettle on. Took two cups into the living room for a chat, as if she were an old friend who had popped around in the middle of the afternoon.

  Her name was Jenny. Short, pretty without make-up, early thirties, and the owner of a pretty house full of ornaments and photos of family member's kids, but not her own. Jenny Gaiman, Lisa managed to find out, lived alone, and had done since she split from her boyfriend, Liam. Hardy.

  Through careful cajoling, Lisa managed to get the story. Her ex-boyfriend was a very jealous man who wouldn't leave her alone. In the four months since she booted him out for cheating on her, Liam had been harassing her. It started with phone calls at all hours, progressing to unannounced visits at home and then at her place of work. After that she discovered people watching her. People from the casino, where he worked as head of security. They would sit outside her home or work in their cars, just watching. She knew that Liam was trying to find out if she had another man. But she hadn't dated at all in those four months because she feared what Liam might do to either her or her new boyfriend. He had been in prison twice, both times for violent offences.

  Now, Matt perked up as the car stopped. He heard a big metal gate open. Some kind of shutter. He imagined he was at a warehouse of some ilk.

  The car drove in a short way and stopped. He could see a fine line of bright light in the seams where the boot lid didn't fit flush. Some well-lit place, then. He heard the men exit the car, heard muted voices and footsteps. He got ready.

  But a few moments later there was silence, and then darkness as someone turned off the light. Okay, he thought, some kind of tactic to scare him. They were going to leave him here a while, to worry in the dark. But he never worried in the dark.

  They came for him just a few minutes later. Good plan, he thought. Five minutes of silence and darkness was enough time for a captive to start thinking he was going to be left a while. A captive might even start to relax a little. Not Matt, though. So it was no shock when, without warning, the boot slammed open and hands grabbed him and dragged him out. Not a word spoken by his assailants, and the light was still off.

  He was carried. Even though it was dark, someone covered his eyes with a cloth that smelled of oil. He didn't struggle, but he did yell questions like who are you? and what do you want? because that was surely what a shocked man would do. They set him down on his back, and then rolled him.

  He felt air, knew he was falling. Before his brain could think of what might be happening, he hit hard, smacking his head, thumping his hip. The cloth fell off his face and he got to his knees, and that was when the lights came back on.

  A big strip light on a wooden rafter illuminated a building with a corrugated iron roof and walls.

  He instantly took stock. He was in an inspection pit in a garage. There was no car above him, but the three guys were. They stood around the edge of the pit, staring down, trying their best to look intimidating. Matt put the correct amount of fear and shock on his face, playing along.

  "What the fuck were you doing at that house this morning?" Hardy said.

  Lisa had managed not only to find out about Hardy from his terrified ex-girlfriend, she had also gotten the lady to agree to let her glazier friend have a look at the window the next morning. So Matt had gone round and knocked on, and had been fully aware when he did so that the Vauxhall Zafira up the road had a guy in it who was watching the house. When Jenny opened the door, he Matt threw his arms open wide and stepped right inside, just like a guy who knew the woman and was expected. It surprised her, and once the door was shut he apologised for his overfriendliness.

  Now, he said, "What house? On April Road? I went there to see a friend. Who are you people?"

  Hardy looked at him, nodding. "Yeah, she's a friend alright. You fucking her?"

  Matt hadn't fucked her, of course. He had talked to her about the window and given a decent quote, and said he'd be back later that day. He had stayed half an hour, which he figured was about the right amount of time. When he left, he made sure that the shirt he'd tucked in was hanging loose. He fiddled with the button on his jeans and tucked his shirt in, giving a good impression of a guy finishing up getting dressed. Made sure he did it right on the doorstep,
so the guy in the Zafira would see. As Matt drove away, he watched the guy follow him. He led the guy right to the B&B.

  Now, Matt said, "What's it to you?" He had noticed the item by Hardy's feet: a petrol can, no doubt not empty. And in the man's hands: a box of matches.

  "Maybe that's someone's girlfriend, and you could get in big trouble for going near her. Again, are you fucking her?"

  Matt ignored the question. "Are going to make me spend five pounds?"

  All three men pulled puzzled faces, then laughed. Hardy bent down and picked up the petrol can.

  "You might lose five pounds of skin, if you don't answer right now. Last chance. Are you fucking her?"

  Matt grinned at him. "Sure am. You must be the no-dick ex she was moaning about."

  Hardy flicked the lid off the petrol can and started pouring it over Matt. Surprisingly, he watched his captive sit down and take it. Just sit right there in the inspection pit and just let him pour the stinking fluid all over him. He tossed the can away when it was done. Matt was rubbing the burning fluid from his face. His eyes were stinging.

  "For fuck sake, hurry up!" Matt roared. It made all three men pull puzzled faces. Get on with it?

  The garage shutter burst open with a screech of rending metal. Torn free of its side housings, it flipped up like a catflap, but no cat came through. Instead, roaring its way inside, was Matt's Mondeo.

  The two bruisers tried to dive aside as the car raced at them, knocking aside tools and a workbench. One made it, but the other guy got caught in the hip and sent sprawling with a scream. Hardy was quicker and more thoughtful about his escape. He dropped into the inspection pit, his head barely dipping the car as it skidded over the pit and crushed a table with magazines and a kettle against the back wall.

  Lisa leaped out of the vehicle, holding Ivor Tchevsky's pistol. The guy who'd made the leap out of danger was on his knees, and he now put his hands up. The other guy was on his front, screaming, both hands at his hip, which was twisted all out of shape. Some kind of bad break or dislocation, Lisa thought.