Dead or Alive: A heart-pounding assassination thriller with a shocking twist (Eliot Locke Thrillers Book 1)

by Dean Carson

  The driver put the nose back in the glove compartment then said in broken English: “I did his party ten years ago.”

  “Small world,” I replied.

  The driver looked at me blankly.

  Almost immediately after crossing the border, the road surface improved dramatically. I could smell the sea on the light summer breeze, and ten minutes later I could see it glinting in the distance to our right. The countryside was slightly less arid than the interior as we approached the coast. Even the cars seemed a bit newer, but I suspect that was my imagination. I liked Croatia. It was not Bosnia.

  Within twenty minutes we were in the heart of Dubrovnik. Now for the tricky bit. It was not dangerous, but I had to struggle to keep a straight face. When I had hired the clown I had to give him an address, so I had gone on the web and found a room through Airbnb. That was the address I had given him. I was curious to see where I had picked out.

  I had to admit I was impressed. The room was in a modern house on a quiet street. The street was on a hill in the newer section of the town, overlooking the walled old quarter and the small old harbour in the distance. It looked like a bit of a walk into town, but if I had been a real tourist I would have been delighted.

  Now was the moment.

  I turned to the clown and tried to explain as best I could. With a mixture of wild gestures, smiles and the pigeon English we always use with those who don’t speak the language, I did my best to make him understand that I was going to go into the house and get them ready for him to make his grand entrance. I pointed to the cake and told him to bring it in with him. He grinned.

  “Five minutes. I put on costume, get show to the ready.”

  I gave him a thumbs up, he gave me a thumbs up, and I got out of the car. Still smiling, I walked to the house and walked around the side towards the back. I turned and smiled. He smiled back.

  I walked on, turned the corner of the house and found myself on the rear balcony, where the view was outstanding. I think it was outstanding. To be honest, I didn’t look. Because when I came around the corner on to the balcony I disturbed two women sunbathing topless in what they thought was privacy. I smiled pleasantly at them — I was doing a lot of smiling that afternoon — then walked past and vaulted over the low railing to the neighbouring balcony. From there, steps led to a lane. I didn’t know where it would lead, but I walked briskly down it. I wanted to be as far away as possible from the balcony when the clown walked into the topless beauties.

  I no longer had to keep a straight face and I was grinning widely. I felt bad for the clown, but it had only cost him a few hours and some petrol money. And he got a cake out of it.

  Now I just had to find out where the hell I was, make my way to the harbour and locate La Donna. And we had a history. That wiped the smile off my face.

  SEVEN

  I killed another few hours, which wasn’t difficult. Dubrovnik is a lot more modern and cosmopolitan than Mostar. Another thing that made it easy was that I spent much of the time cursing my brother. He had sent another text. It read: WTF! Why didn’t she tell me she came out? Can you stop her?

  He is so strait-laced he never swears in real life. For him to even think of writing “WTF” showed just how upset he was that his precious air of respectability was under threat from the black sheep of the family. Funny how the dancer, bringing joy to thousands, is the black sheep, while the hired assassin is not. But then none of my family actually know what I do for a living. They think I lead extreme adventure tours in odd parts of the world. I do, but it is a tour of one and the only extreme adventure is big game hunting. Only two people are involved in each adventure, and normally only one returns.

  I ignored the text. If Jane is a lesbian, it will come as a surprise to me and her boyfriend.

  Dubrovnik began as a small walled city, heavily fortified. From the hills around you could look down and see a modern sprawl, but at the centre there was an area bounded on three sides by the thick walls of the medieval fortification and on the fourth side by the sea.

  The houses in this section all had the distinctive red tiled roofs of that ancient era, and the streets were very narrow. The rest of the town had wider streets and more modern roofs. It was as if someone had taken an aerial shot of the city and put a reddish orange stamp near the centre of the sea edge, I thought when I first looked down. It was a town of ups and downs, and you would want your wind to explore it properly.

  I did some exploring and some coffee drinking to kill the time. I found a bookshop and spent two hours trying to bludgeon my way through Ulysses again. The first few chapters were a joy, and after that… God, that man needed an editor.

  I waited until nearly nine before I made my way to the small hotel on the edge of the harbour where La Donna was staying. My unerring instinct in these matters, and a text from Bill, led me right to her lair.

  What can I say about her? The first thing is that La Donna is not her name. I have no idea what her real name is, just as she has no idea what mine is. That is the way in the shadowy underworld. We go by nicknames, signatures of convenience and false papers. She called herself La Donna because she thought it meant lady in Italian. I called myself Eliot, because it contains Eli, the name of one of the three actors in the spaghetti western The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. That trilogy of westerns captures the spirit of the bounty hunter, and people in the business accepted my nickname. Few of them knew that it is also my real name.

  La Donna’s choice of nickname told me she was far less Italian than she claimed. Even my schoolboy grasp of the language was enough to know that La Donna means woman while lady translates as La Signora. I guessed she was from the former Yugoslavia, probably special forces or secret police before the break-up of the country.

  Instead of joining one of the warring factions, she had gone to Italy and hooked up with the Camorra, or Neapolitan mafia. Her job was roughly similar to mine. She carried out contract killings for the bounty. But after that we differed. I have my rules. She has none, if legend is to be believed. I knew she had killed many times more than I. Men, women and children — it made no difference. And collateral damage was just part of the fun. She was a cold-hearted bitch who was looking at psychopathic in the rear-view mirror. If you can judge a man by his friends, I was screwed.

  As I approached the hotel, I could see it was just the sort of place she would gravitate towards. The seedy run-down structure was obviously not a tourist trap. I knew the bar would be full and that the young women propping up the counter would be available for rent by the hour, or for shorter periods if that was more your thing. Not a classy establishment, and everyone drinking would be local. Everyone staying would be either a sailor or a travelling sales rep.

  I went in and pushed past a leggy blonde to the bar, calling for a beer. A couple of people looked at me, but no one cared. The blonde did try with a come-hither smile, but she gave up quickly when she realised I wasn’t buying it, or her.

  Leaning my back against the bar as I sipped the cold beer, I scanned the room. It was easy to spot her. She could have passed for a double of the late Princess Diana. She had the same tall body, the same short bobbed blonde hair, the same haughty regal air. But there were some subtle differences. One was that she was stacked like Di never was. It may have been a push-up bra, or it may have been the amount she spent on surgery. I knew she had had surgery. As I said, we had history.

  Another difference was that she had an attitude that Diana never had. Raw sensuality oozed from every pore. She was dressed in a black jacket with a scarlet blouse beneath it, the buttons straining to breaking point. She was sitting right under a no smoking sign with a cigarette between her fingers. The four guys around her all looked ready with a light.

  Then she saw me.

  I could see the startled look register on her face. It was gone a microsecond later and she was looking right through me. A pro to the end. I might be on a job. She wasn’t going to blow my cover. I smiled slightly to tell her it was all r
ight, then looked through her. No one watching could have seen the glance we exchanged. After all, she might be working and I might blow her cover. But no, she nodded, and I knew we were safe.

  As I walked towards her table she stood, towering over the four men. She towered over me too, in heels that made her look like a goddess and that were incredibly effective as a stabbing implement. Just ask José Antifermo, whose heart had been pierced during a sexual encounter with a tall woman who was never identified. I don’t know what crime merited José’s name appearing on a mafia hit list, but I hope he died happy. Knowing La Donna as I do, I am sure he died at the peak of his happiness. That would have appealed to her kinky side.

  “Darling,” she gushed, as she stepped forward and threw her arms around me.

  I leaned in to kiss her on the cheek, but she turned her head and caught me full on the lips. It was a good kiss — I counted four Mississippis before she removed her tongue from my mouth.

  “Scoot,” she said to one of her four acolytes.

  He obligingly stood up and I took the seat beside her. He didn’t look happy, but perhaps he got something out of being bossed around by an Amazon.

  She turned to the other three. “It’s been real nice. Maybe we can do it again sometime.”

  The party was over. The guys knew it. Reluctantly, they stood. The first guy tried to say something, but his voice faltered out as she fixed her pale blue eyes on him. The second and third shuffled away. But the fourth — he wasn’t so easy to shift.

  He fixed me with a glare that would have frozen hot soup and said, “I was buying the lady a drink.”

  “And now I am,” I said, trying to keep my voice level and calm. I even tried a smile, but it was no good.

  “You are not welcome here,” he went on.

  “Oh darling,” interrupted La Donna, “you can buy me a drink later. Now I simply must catch up with my old friend, Eliot.”

  “No. He will come back later. Now you are with me.”

  This was getting silly. I stood up to leave.

  “Sit down.” She turned to the other man. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I am not being ridiculous. This man will now leave.”

  He was speaking with exaggerated slowness, like a drunk trying to appear sober. That made him dangerous. He was not drunk enough to be out of control, but he was certainly drunk enough to have lost his inhibitions. A fight was on the cards, and the last thing a man on the run needs is a fight. You don’t want to draw attention to yourself. I stood and began to walk away.

  “That’s it, go,” he taunted. “Little sissy boy.”

  I’m a big boy. I can take it. I kept walking until I reached the bar. I nodded at the man behind the counter and pointed towards a tap. He smiled and took down a glass, filling it with lager. All good. He pushed the glass towards me, but our friend had left La Donna and come up to the bar.

  “I thought you were leaving,” he said. He picked up the glass, and I knew what was coming next. I might have taken it if I had a change of clothes. But I didn’t, so I gripped his wrist with more power than he expected and squeezed. His grip on the glass began to waver, and with my other hand I took it and replaced it on the counter. I was not going to get the contents poured over me tonight.

  I looked at him and smiled ruefully. “You could have walked away,” I said. “But if you insist on dancing, I will dance. Out the back door and we’ll do it.”

  I let go his arm and nodded towards the rear door, which I assumed led to a yard at the back of the premises. After feeling the power of my grip he had sobered slightly, but he couldn’t back down. So he walked ahead of me to the door. At the last minute, I drew level with him and pushed open the door. “After you.”

  He walked out the door into the small yard and I quickly stepped back inside, drawing the door closed. There was a small bolt that I pulled across, locking him out. I heard a bellow of fury from outside, and the door shook as he pounded it with his fists. But I could ignore that. The guys in the bar following the action laughed. That would infuriate him more if he could hear it, but I didn’t think he could. The door was not that flimsy. I returned to the bar. He would fume for a few minutes then slink away. Problem solved.

  I picked up my glass and stepped across to La Donna’s table, sitting down and shrugging. She had a sardonic smile on her face. She was loving this.

  I took a sip and put the glass down. I was in no rush. I needed to ask this unstable woman for help, and it would not be an easy thing to ask. She needed to be played.

  Just then the front door of the tavern banged open, and I didn’t need to turn to know that my friend was back.

  EIGHT

  The drunk should have swallowed his humiliation and gone home, but obviously he believed he could take me and there he was, silhouetted against the entrance. I had time to half turn as I heard a glass bottle break. As I completed the turn, I took in the situation at a glance. He had smashed a wine bottle and was charging forward, the ragged end of the bottle coming at me like a vicious jaw. I half stood to meet his attack but kept my head down, ducking slightly as he moved in for the strike.

  His first blow sailed harmlessly over my left shoulder and left him over-extended. His momentum carried him forward and I continued to rise, turning into him. My shoulder caught him under the arm and I tackled him hard. He stumbled forward, and only luck prevented him from hitting the floor.

  He managed to get one hand on a table, then straightened and came at me again. This time I stood and faced him. He drew his arm back, a mistake. Never telegraph your move. Then he swung viciously at my face. It was what I expected. An amateur, and drunk with it. No other move would do but the obvious. All I had to do was drop my knees and roll my head.

  The wild roundhouse sailed harmlessly over my head and I stepped into him again, this time clenching my fist and driving a left hook viciously under his ribs. I could feel him deflate as the air left his lungs in a rush. I straightened and hit him under the jaw with my right.

  The mistake amateurs make is to hit someone on the head with a fist. The human skull is a heavy lump of bone, hard as stone. If you hit it full force, you will probably break your knuckles and do very little damage to your opponent. I did not make that mistake. I drew my fingers back and hit him with the heel of my hand. I could feel the satisfying crack as I made contact. With luck, his jaw was not broken, but he was out cold as soon as I hit him. I managed to grab the front of his shirt as he fell and guided him to the ground. I didn’t want his head to bounce off the hard floor and cause more damage. The last thing I needed was cops crawling all over the place.

  I checked his breathing. Heavy and laboured. No real damage done. He would wake in a few minutes and nurse the mother and father of a headache tomorrow. But I wouldn’t be up for assault. As I was leaning over him, I could see his wallet jutting out of his back pocket. I am no thief but am not adverse to taking a loan when offered. I slipped the wallet into my own pocket.

  I looked at the barman, but he turned away. Not his business. That was good.

  Just then one of La Donna’s original fan club came forward. He tapped me gently on the shoulder. “I take him home now. He sleep it off.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  We smiled knowingly at each other. The fight was over. There would be no repercussions.

  I sat down and faced La Donna. She smiled, licking her lower lip seductively.

  “My big man,” she said. “You handled him like a pro.”

  Hardly a compliment, considering that I am a pro. That is what I do, handle difficult men. And I have known La Donna long enough not to fall for her superficial charms. But then she ran one fingernail delicately down my arm, her nail barely moving the little hairs. And I felt it, a shiver run right through to my core. The woman had electricity.

  “In town on a job?” she purred.

  “Don’t you know it. Done and dusted, and now I am on my way home.”

  “The Radoslav hit. I heard.”

/>   “I’m saying nothing. Walls have ears.”

  Damn, but she was well informed. She must have spotted the post on the Magic Café. Then it hit me — there was no post on the Café. That was a hack, only seen by me. A shadow of suspicion crossed my mind, but she went on: “I heard he had been taken out by a real professional. You are in the region. I put two and two together. What did you get for it?”

  “Not enough for a Ferrari, but enough to buy you a wonderful bottle of bubbly.”

  “A mind-reader and a killer. The perfect gentleman.”

  She looked up and nodded knowingly at the bartender, who reached down into the cool cabinet behind him. The good stuff was coming out. I hoped my newly-acquired wallet could take the hit.

  It was good champagne. The bubbles tickled the roof of my mouth delightfully as they danced down my throat. I could feel the quick rush to my head, which settled just as quickly. You could drink this all night. And you could end up dead as a result, I reminded myself.

  “So,” she said, looking deeply into my eyes. “You kill the man and then you seek out La Donna.”

  I shook my head vigorously. “I just came in here to while away the evening and was as surprised as you when I saw who was in the bar.”

  “Nonsense. You are not a drinker. A man like you would go to a play to kill the evening, or to a whorehouse. So trouble brings you here. Did someone make you?”

  “I should be insulted. Of course no one made me. I got clean away.”

  “And yet you are here.”

  I sighed. She wasn’t going to buy my innocent routine. I wasn’t surprised. She is as sharp as they come. “There were complications,” I admitted. “And now I need a gun. And a few thousand to get me home. Mainly the money.”