by Rob Ashman
‘What about the other two?’
‘Older gentlemen, both in their fifties. The one was very charming and the other looked a bit sour-faced.’
‘These guys were from Sunny Village?’
‘Yes that’s right. The nice man was black and the miserable one was white.’ Jenny-Jay sipped from her cup.
‘Did they leave anything for me?’
‘No nothing. They went on their way looking very confused. Fancy a top-up?’
Mechanic looked at her cup, it was full to the brim. ‘No thanks, Jenny-Jay. I have to go unfortunately.’ She tapped her watch.
‘Please let us know how Jo is getting on, Mary-Jay is dying to know what she’s up to.’ Jenny-Jay rose from the table to see her out. Mechanic said her goodbyes and headed back to her car.
She needed to get to a phone fast.
Back at home Mechanic called all the nursing homes around the Vegas area, starting with the two Huxton told her about. Predictably, they both came up blank. She worked her way through the directory and got the same response each time. Mechanic looked at her watch, she’d been on the phone for two hours.
She was dialling the next number when she jumped up, snatching the envelope which Jenny-Jay had given her from the table. She spread the torn page flat on the surface.
‘Shit!’ she said racing out the front door.
It was dated the previous day.
Mechanic needed to buy a newspaper.
33
Mechanic sat in her car tearing through the classified ads section of the Bulletin. There were hundreds of them. She turned the pages one by one tracing her finger down the printed columns.
‘Damn it,’ she exploded and grabbed the torn one from the envelope. Mechanic tried to collect herself and breathe deeply. The red-ringed ad was in the personal section, page twenty-two. She flipped through the pages and tried again.
There, on page twenty-four, was what she was looking for:
MECHANIC WANTED IN EXCHANGE FOR PRECIOUS POSSESSION
REFUSAL WILL REDUCE THE QUALITY OF THE POSSESSION
ACKNOWLEDGE RECEIPT
Mechanic shut her eyes and banged her head against the steering wheel. Tears rolled down her face and onto the paper. She stared blurry eyed out of the windshield.
‘Who the hell would do this?’ she yelled.
Then she laughed and rubbed her eyes. It was a dumb-ass question, the list of candidates for that honour was too long to count.
Mechanic stared at the ad and for the next thirty minutes sat in her car, running through every possibility in her head.
Then it all fell into place.
A charming black guy and a sour-faced white man.
A tall dark-haired guy with one arm. Not sure how the guy is even alive, but it all makes sense.
Piece by piece the picture came together.
There was only one set of people who matched those criteria and who wanted to inflict damage on her and Jo. The option posed a morass of unanswered questions for sure, and it was a long shot, but the jigsaw fitted together perfectly.
She knew who she was up against and if she was right it changed the game completely.
The time for emotional indulgence was over.
It was time to go to work.
34
Mechanic needed to buy herself time and find a way to somehow hit the brakes. It was a high-risk strategy but if both she and Jo were to survive she had to slow things down. Twenty-four hours would do it.
She knew Lucas would be hellbent on ratcheting up the pressure and accelerating the pace. It was crucial for him to maintain the upper hand and do everything he could to dominate the timescale and events. If she allowed that to happen she was a dead woman for sure.
Mechanic was taking an enormous gamble – that Lucas would not harm Jo.
She surmised he probably had her at a nursing home or hospital, or was supplying the nursing support himself, but that was unlikely.
Lucas would have done a thorough job placing Jo well out of harm’s way and Mechanic could spend days on the phone and never find her. She needed a different tack and for that she needed time.
It always amazed Mechanic the number of favours she could call on when needed. It struck her that for a sadistic serial killer she must come over as quite a nice person. By five thirty she had what she needed. She phoned Silverton and requested a meeting.
They met at his suite at the Hacienda.
Mechanic held three pictures in her hand and waved them at Silverton.
‘I have a strong suspicion these are the men who carried out the hit on your operation.’
‘Who are they? Do I know the bastards?’
‘Unlikely. The reason why you couldn’t turn anything up was that you were looking in the wrong place. These boys are not from a gang or a drug cartel, they think of themselves as what you might term Good Samaritans.’
‘I don’t get it.’
‘Your men are looking for a new crew or a gang with an axe to grind. These guys are neither. They come from Florida and share one thing in common.’
‘What?’
‘They’ve all lost someone close to them because of drugs and they all used to be cops.’
Mechanic spread the mug shots on the table. The faces of Lucas, Harper and Bassano stared out of the photographs.
‘Cops? Why us and why here?’ Silverton was not expecting this.
‘Why anywhere, I suppose, Mr Silverton. These people roam around the country hitting drug gangs. They have nothing against you or your operation other than the fact you distribute and sell narcotics.’
Silverton picked up the pictures and stared at each one.
‘How did you find them?’
‘Now that I can’t say.’
‘What do you mean, you can’t say?’
‘Do you trust me, Mr Silverton?’
‘I pay you well enough, don’t I?’
‘I agree, but do you trust me?’
‘I trust you with my life and my business, what more can I say?’
‘Then you need to trust me when I say these are the ones. They took out your team and I want to deal with them my way. These are not your normal meatheads, they are sharp and very dangerous and if they get the slightest inclination you are moving in, they’ll be gone.’
‘I want these jerks hanging from fucking spikes.’
‘And you will, but only if we do things my way.’
‘So what do we do?’
‘Circulate the mugshots to your boys on the ground, someone must have seen them. When they’re found I want complete hands-off from your team, that’s the only way this will work. I want the order to come direct from you. If anyone spots them and makes a move, I will fucking blow their heads off. Is that clear?’
‘Do you have previous with these guys? Because this sounds personal.’
‘You need to trust me, Mr Silverton. I will deliver these men’s heads to you on a silver platter, but first I need to know where they are. Can you make that happen?’
‘Leave it with me,’ he said gathering up the pictures. ‘And the message is very clear to my guys – leave well alone or you’ll blow their fucking heads off. Sounds a little strong but okay.’
Silverton went into the other room to make his calls.
Mechanic left to prepare for war.
35
Next day Lucas was up and out of the motel the early. He’d had a dreadful night tossing and turning while Harper slept the sleep of the dead and snored non-stop. Getting a separate room had to be a priority for today.
He pushed open the Perspex front on the news-stand and removed a copy of the Bulletin. Walking back to the hotel he felt energised and on top of his game. This was what he’d been dreaming of for so long. For the entire time of his convalescence, during his therapy sessions, and even during his disastrous meeting with his boss, his head was only ever full of one thing: catching the bitch and making her suffer. This was his day.
He sat with a coffee and ope
ned the paper, flicking through the pages, scanning down the personal columns. Nothing. He moved to a table with better light and repeated his search. Absolutely nothing. He flipped over to the front section to see if her response had been misprinted in the business section. No, there was nothing.
He checked the date on the top. Sure enough it was today’s edition. Where was Mechanic’s acknowledgement?
He left his coffee and returned to the room. Harper was cleaning his teeth while peeing in the toilet.
‘There’s nothing here.’ He threw the paper onto the bed.
‘Have you checked them all?’ He said showering the wall with toothpaste.
‘Yes, I’ve checked them all.’
‘Let me see.’ Harper emerged from the bathroom, picked up the paper and donned his glasses. Several minutes later he folded the paper and placed it to one side.
‘You’re right, nothing there.’
‘Why would Mechanic not acknowledge?’
‘Maybe she missed the deadline for the ad.’
Lucas sat on the bed deep in thought.
‘Yes, that’s probably it. She missed today’s edition.’
‘Relax Lucas. Focus on what we’ve achieved. We have Jo in a place where Mechanic can’t reach her. We’ve made first contact and she’s going to be flapping around not knowing which way is up. Her sister’s gone and she’s on the rack. She’ll be in complete turmoil, man, and not thinking straight. That’s what we want isn’t it?’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘We want her crumbling under the pressure. Right?’
‘Yes, you’re right.’
‘Let’s pick up Bassano and get some breakfast. We got an exchange to plan.’
Across the city in a luxury suite Mechanic was far from crumbling. She was nowhere near a state of turmoil or flapping. Mechanic knew exactly what to do.
Silverton’s men had worked wonders overnight.
‘No one has made contact?’ she asked looking at the scribbled note in her hand.
‘No. It’s as you requested.’
‘I’m impressed, Mr Silverton.’
He bowed his head in mock acceptance of the compliment.
‘Apparently though, these guys may not be as hot as you made out. They weren’t exactly keeping a low profile when my men eyeballed them. They were having dinner at Hooters.’
‘You’re sure they didn’t clock your boys?’ Mechanic asked.
‘I’m positive, but then I told them you’d blow their heads off if they did.’
‘Thank you.’
‘When are you going to make a move?’
‘Already started.’
36
It was pitch black when Mechanic pulled into the car park. There was no moon and the courtesy lighting spilled a watery glow across the front of the building. She stepped out of the car and made her way along the walkway in front of the ground-floor motel rooms.
She glanced through each window as she went. Nothing took her interest. Then she passed a room with a semi-clothed man lying on the bed watching TV, a beer bottle resting on his belly. The woman sat at the dressing table brushing her hair. They were both early twenties and were probably taking advantage of a dirty few days in Vegas. Room G46fitted the brief perfectly. Mechanic returned to her car and settled down for a long wait.
After an hour the light went out in the room but the dancing flicker of the TV screen still played across the partially closed curtains. Forty-five minutes later the room went dark.
A further hour and the clock on the dash said 01.34am. It was time to move.
Mechanic staggered and swayed along the walkway with her head bowed, bumping into the wall and tripping over her feet. When she reached G46 she knelt down to tie her shoe and unzipped a flat, rectangular pouch. She laid it on the floor and removed two thin metal implements. Mechanic slid the slender tension pick into the lock followed by the Bogota rake. There was a faint metallic scratching as she pulled the rake back and forth, setting the pins inside the lock. Mechanic felt a soft click as it disengaged. She withdrew the tools and replaced them in the wallet.
She twisted the handle and pushed open the door. Cool air hit her face as the noisy buzz of the air-conditioning unit provided useful cover. She stepped inside and closed the door.
The sallow glow from outside seeped through the tatty curtains and partially lit the room. The couple were sound asleep. The bedspread moved up and down in time with their breathing. The woman lay on her side with her back to him, he was curled around her with his left arm draped across her shoulder. Mechanic watched them from across the room.
How cute, she thought.
She removed the gun from the side of her belt and walked slowly to the bed. The newly carpeted floor made her footfall completely silent. Mechanic’s usual preference would be to have some fun, but on this occasion it was strictly business.
She levelled the silenced weapon and blew a neat hole in the guy’s temple. The woman stirred as her boyfriend’s body jolted under the impact of the bullet. Mechanic reached across the man’s body and popped the next shell into her brain.
Mechanic went to the bathroom, picked a hand towel off the floor and returned to the bodies still hugging each other in bed. She rolled each one onto their back, opened their mouths and unwrapped an object from her pocket. The clinical steel of the scalpel glinted in the dark.
Taking the towel she grasped the tip of the man’s tongue, pulling it out towards her. The blade cleaved through the muscle and she sliced it off. The woman was next. Mechanic opened her mouth and carved out her tongue.
Blood pooled in the depressions of the pillows and ran onto the floor. A ground-floor room had to be the target. No risk of scaring the folks below when the claret seeped through ceiling.
Mechanic held the woman’s tongue and dipped it into the blood.
‘Let’s see how the fuckers like this.’
Ten minutes later Mechanic left.
Her advert in tomorrow’s Bulletin would now make perfect sense.
37
The hotel finally came up with a cancellation, which Lucas jumped at. A room on his own was hugely preferable to one with Harper in it. The privacy gave him the opportunity to call his wife. It was late and he lay on his bed in the dark watching the digits click over on the clock. He hated the way their previous conversation had ended and wanted to make it right.
Lucas lifted the phone and dialled his house. The phone rang but there was no answer. He flicked through his billfold, pulled out a scrap of paper and punched in the numbers.
‘Hi Heather, sorry it’s late.’
‘Come on, Edmund, it’s God knows what time here. I thought Darlene was clear the last time you two spoke, she doesn’t want to talk to you.’
Lucas tightened his grip on the receiver. Heather was making far too much of her guard-dog role.
‘I need five minutes, Heather. That’s all. Please tell her I’m on the line.’
‘She knows.’ There was mumbling in the background as Heather handed over the phone.
‘Hi.’ It was Darlene.
‘Hi.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I needed to hear your voice.’
‘Is it something important? Because if not I’m hanging up.’
‘I miss you. I needed to talk.’
‘Really? Well here’s what I need.’ Darlene choked back the tears. ‘I need you to come home to me. And that’s not the same as you showing up at the house, sticking your key in the lock and hollering “Hey honey, I’m home”. I need you to come back to me. But instead you sit in the living room and I know your head is in Baton Rouge or Vegas or wherever the hell you think she is. I can’t do that anymore.’ The flood gates opened and she began to sob.
‘I love you, honey, but I have to do this.’
‘I know you do, and you need to understand that I need to do this. I can’t be with you until you want to be with me. Why can’t you be like other men and screw around with hookers, or
spend your nights at the titty bar? I’d know how to deal with that. I could fight that. But I can’t fight a woman who occupies your head twenty-four hours a day, I can’t win.’
His eyes were moist and his throat was dry.
‘We’ve got a strong lead and I gotta take it. This could bring the whole fiasco to an end.’
‘It’s already ended.’
Darlene hung up.
Lucas slept very little and woke way before his alarm. He lay in bed turning the conversation with his wife over in his head. It certainly hadn’t gone the way he intended. At least now he had a room to himself. No heavy breathing, no snoring or early morning farting. This was a welcome relief. He could try Darlene again later.
It was 7am and he couldn’t wait to get his copy of the Bulletin. Despite Harper’s reassurances it bothered him that Mechanic hadn’t posted an acknowledgement. He understood the logic behind Harper’s explanation but couldn’t shake the underlying feeling that something wasn’t right.
He got out of bed, dressed, and made his way to the news-stand down the street. On his return he sat in the motel reception skimming through the columns of the personal section.
Midway down on the left was a short message. It jolted him upright in his seat. It was for him, no mistake.
LUCAS
WHAT COMES NEXT IS IN YOUR NAME
He crumpled the paper in his fist and dashed to Harper’s room, stopping only to make a call to Bassano to get his ass over here now.
Twenty minutes later Lucas sat with both of them trying to make sense of what was happening.
‘What the hell …’ Harper said a little too loudly. ‘What does that mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Lucas reading it out loud for the hundredth time. ‘I don’t get it’
‘Okay, let’s step through this logically,’ said Harper. ‘How does Mechanic know it’s you?’
