Cuts Both Ways

by Solomon Carter

  “Hang on. There’s no need to—” said Dan.

  “Shut up!” roared the man, his voice deeper than Dan had expected.

  “You’re trespassing…”

  “And so are you, I believe…” said Dan.

  “But this isn’t yours. None of it is. Who the hell are you people?”

  “Why don’t you tell us the same,” said Dan.

  A sound came from somewhere behind the stranger’s back. A rumble followed by a thud. The man’s hand dropped away from his jacket. He turned to look over his shoulder and his jacket fell open to reveal a T-shirt with an image of a robotic skull on it, with one red shining light for an eye. Very Terminator. Dan noted the collection of silver rings on the man’s hands. On some fingers more than one. There were rings on his thumbs, and several studs in his ear. But Dan’s concerns were rapidly shifting to the sounds behind the stranger. The same noises which were bothering the stranger in the doorway.

  The man leaned back and tried to peer around the corridor, before snapping his head back to watch both of them. But Dan saw he was distracted and getting edgier. His attention was torn in two directions. And that was when he pulled the gun from his pocket. He held it out towards them as a symbol and a warning. Mark’s eyes almost popped right out of his head.

  “You’d better stay here. Don’t worry. I’ll be back for you. And then we’ll talk.” There was no mistaking the threat underlying his words. The man turned abruptly and hurried around the wheel of the corridor, moving quickly out of sight. They heard his footsteps long after he was gone.

  “Stay here? Fat chance of that,” muttered Dan. He dropped to the floor and dipped his arm into the bed frame to retrieve everything he’d hidden. But the items had scattered apart when he had thrown them in his hurry. Before Dan was done, the door opened again. This time it swung open quietly and didn’t touch the wall. A woman stood in the gap. For a long moment she watched, unnoticed. The woman’s eyes roved over Mark’s back, and watched Dan scrambling to snatch up what he’d dropped. She was thin, her body not quite anorexic, her frame much like a gangling teenage boy. Her eyes were dark and determined. Her hair was dark and bunched up high on her head, and there was a coiled snake tattoo on her upper arm. The woman bent down and snatched up a shiny silver coloured lamp from behind the door. She hefted its weight in her hands. The electric plug and cable swung and scraped against the chest of drawers, and Mark turned too late as the woman swung it hard around the back of his skull. Dan turned back in time to see Mark already falling, his eyes rolling, losing consciousness even before he hit the deck.

  “Mark!” called Dan. He lunged and put an arm up to stop Mark’s fall. Mark landed on his forearm, then rolled off again, hitting the ground with a disturbing thud. Dan had reduced any chance of severe damage from Mark’s fall, but the danger was still in play. Dan quickly tried to right himself, to ready himself. The woman looked at Dan as he steadied himself, looked at the empty drawer cavity, and saw the pill bottle and cash laying exposed beneath. There was nothing Dan could say or do. He was caught off guard, without time even to adequately protect his head. The shining silver weight came down like a guillotine blade, and the world became a blur of shock and pain before it all too quickly blinked out of existence.

  Eight

  At some point the light returned and brought with it a haze of dull pain. As consciousness edged back, the aching filled his skull. The pain seemed to radiate from a single point on the very top of his head. Dan blinked hard to help himself see better. But there was still only murk and haze. He felt someone else sitting close. Yes… sitting… and Dan realised he was pressed up against a table top. His seat had been pushed in tight, like a child at the dinner table. He felt moisture on his cheek, and he looked down and saw the same moisture on the table. He had been unconscious, sweating and probably dribbling too. His eyes found a stick thin figure, little more than a silhouette standing by the edge of the room. Which one was it? Dan blinked again and the woman’s sharp outline became clear. It was formed by a hazy yellow light coming through a drape or blind. He looked around to the neighbouring shadow sitting nearby.

  “Mark?” he said, with an edge of panic. “Mark? Is that you?”

  “Yeah,” said Mark, quiet and croaky. “It’s me. Mark turned and looked at Dan who made out the pinpricks of light in his eyes. “I think I came around before you did. But I’m not sure I wanted to wake like this, to be honest…”

  Dan tried to kick at the table, tried to pull away, but then realised he could barely move his arms. He looked down at them, and made out the dark tape around his wrists, and followed the strips down to the underside of his chair.

  “What the hell is going on?” he said, shouting out of pure indignation. But the sound only hurt his head.

  “This? This is called consequences,” said the voice of the silhouette. Female, with a smoky voice. A hint of cockney, an edge of aggression.

  “Consequences of what?!” said Dan.

  “Come on. I think you know that already,” said the woman.

  “Will you please turn on the light and quit all this dark and moody act,” said Dan. “I can’t see a damn thing, and my head feels like it exploded. You may as well turn the light on.”

  “No can do,” said the woman, stepping closer. “Can’t if I wanted to. There’s no power in this place. Hasn’t been for weeks now.”

  “Weeks? You’ve been holed up in here that long?”

  “Shut up, will you?” she said. “I’ll be asking the questions from here on.”

  “You?” said Dan. “Why not the tattooed weirdo with the gun?”

  “I warned you to shut your mouth,” she said. “You’re in the meeting room. The centre of the building. You don’t get much light in here at the best of times. But let’s see what we can do, eh?” The woman pulled a curtain on an internal window and Dan saw he was looking out on the circular corridor, which was just a little brighter. The faint yellow light crept into the room and gave them all a sickly, zombie-like pallor, but the thin girl was illuminated the brightest of all. And now Dan was sure it was her. The big dark hair, all up on her head, the full fringe down to her eyebrows, the angular face, the full moody lips, the undeniable anger in her eyes. The body, the tattoos, the jewellery. It was her.

  “It’s you. Alma Poulter. It’s really you,” said Dan.

  “What? That’s not my name.”

  “Isn’t it?” said Dan, seeing the awkwardness in the woman’s eyes. “And Angie suits you better does it? I don’t think so. Alma’s interesting. A name with character. And anyone can see you have character. You’ve got character in spades, haven’t you?”

  The woman glared at him and folded her long arms beneath her chest. True to the photograph from Maison Sol, Alma Poulter had a slight frame. She had little bosom to speak of, but plenty of definition in most other places. The musculature in her arms and shoulders was well developed, with hardly an ounce of fat to be seen.

  “So then…” she said, staring at Dan. “You might as well tell me. How much is he paying you?” Her voice was strident, confident.

  “Excuse me?” said Dan. “How much is who paying us, exactly?”

  Dan ignored Mark’s pleading looks – glances which urged him not to goad their captor. Instead Dan kept hold of the woman’s eyes.

  “I’m curious,” she said. “And I think I’ve got a right to know. I don’t know how you found me, but you’re no longer in a position to play games, and I’m not really in the mood to play them, either. I need reassurance. I need answers. So I’ll ask you again, how much is he paying you?”

  Dan shook his head. “Sorry. You’re coming across too cryptic. And if you’re talking about our rates, then that’s a confidential matter between the clients and us. It depends on the type of job, on the particular risks involved, and a whole other number of factors not worth discussing right now.”

  “Please. I’m not interested in how witty you think you are,” she snapped, moving close to the edge o
f the meeting table and drumming her long fingernails on the veneer. Her bangles clinked against the surface. Then Dan saw the pink ribbon, still worn proudly on her wrist. It looked faded, the ends stained with dirt from overuse and little cleaning.

  “You’re still wearing your ribbon.”

  The girl looked at him, confused.

  “The ribbon, Alma,” said Dan. “That’s how we tracked you down to this place. The pink ribbon. You wore it to the DJ Toxic gig at Maison Sol. You were photographed by the local newspaper. You were dancing, having a whale of a time from the look of it. If you didn’t want to get found here, your first mistake was getting snapped by a newspaper dancing at a big-name dance event.”

  The woman smacked her big lips in displeasure. She shook her head and looked away.

  “It was an exclusive set. It was supposed to be a secret gig. No press should have known about that. I was supposed to be safe there. That’s the only reason I went…”

  Dan shook his head. “Trouble is, that particular journalist has ways of getting access to all kinds of things. Not your fault, Alma. But still a bad mistake. As was the ribbon around the wrist, which you’re still wearing. It was almost like wearing a tag with your address on it.”

  “The Albany was my home. They were good people. I’d only just got settled here when they pulled the plug on the place.”

  “Bad luck again, eh? The funding was pulled just as new girl Angie began to find her feet.”

  “You’re making it up as you go along. And now there’s worse luck. You coming here and spoiling what we had left. But I swear, unless you start telling the truth, the worst luck of all is going to be yours. Now, I’ll ask you one more time. How much is he paying you?”

  Dan looked into the girl’s eyes. They were like onyx. Hard to read, impossible to see where her pupils ended and her irises began. They were hard to bear.

  “Wait a second. The guy you think is paying us… who do you think this guy is?”

  The woman sighed. It was theatrical, and angry. She tilted her head and glared at Dan harder than ever.

  “You can’t play me. People have tried so many times to play me… so many people. But I always come out on top.”

  “And yet, Alma, look. Here we are. I’m sorry, but it sounds like your run of bad luck looks set to continue, unless you get a little help.”

  The woman said nothing. She looked at Mark and Dan in turn.

  “Humour me,” said Dan. “What could it hurt to tell us? Who do you think paid us to come here?”

  The girl coughed into a bony fist.

  “That’s easy enough. The bastard who sent you here to finish me off.”

  “To finish you off? You mean, to kill you?” said Dan. “Is that what all this is about? You think we’ve come here to kill you?”

  “Don’t even try to blag me,” she replied. “I saw you. You know why you were in my room, and so do I. You came here to do a job. Turns out my luck isn’t all that bad, after all. I was out, and when I came back, I caught you red-handed. No matter what line you try and feed me to get out of this, no matter how much you lie, I won’t buy a word of it. Like I told you. I always come out on top. You’re the one who’s going to end up hurt.”

  “And you’d do that, would you?”

  The girl nodded slowly. “If I have to, I’ll do anything.”

  “Like I said. Bags of character,” said Dan, “and nothing like I expected, either.”

  Alma frowned and gave Dan a hard, mocking glare. She started to edge around the oval table, coming towards them. Trouble was looming. But before she reached them, there was a knocking sound. It came from somewhere outside the meeting room. The knocking sounded like knuckles against glass – slow and steady, not needy or desperate. Like an expected visitor. She looked up and turned towards the meeting room door. By now it was a way behind her on the other side of the room.

  “More bad luck?” said Dan.

  “You two can wait here if you like,” she said with a grin. “I’ll be back soon.” Then she added a shrug. “Or whenever I like.” She spun around and walked out through the door into the dim outer corridor.

  “I’m not sure if I like her,” said Mark. “She’s the missing person?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure of it,” said Dan.

  “Then where the hell did Joanne pick up this job?”

  “Hang on,” said Dan. “Joanne didn’t tell you?”

  “No,” said Mark. He fell silent for a moment, then spoke again. “The last few days she’s been acting a bit weird with me. More secretive than usual.”

  “That’s women all round, so you’d better get used to it. Random and unpredictable and everything in between. Now, stop your navel gazing about Joanne and start trying to get your hands out of this duct tape. I don’t know about you, but these two have gone to town with the duct tape around my arms. Feels like my blood circulation is only just about reaching my hands.” Mark shifted in his seat and started to pull against his bindings.

  “But Joanne’s acting different,” said Mark. He looked down at the tape and saw a corner edge on the upper side of the back of his hand, close behind his right thumb. “She’s had this weird look in her eyes too, lately. I mean, she’s always been cocky. Sassy, they call it, don’t they? But I think arrogant is another good name for it. I know she thinks she could do my job a lot better than I can. What with all the encouragement you two have given her lately, it’s plain to see that she can’t think of anything else besides becoming a PI. In fact, I think she’s begun to see me as being in her way…” Mark gave up trying to pick at the tape on his hands. Instead he found the top of the metal table legs where they rose to meet the fittings screwed underneath the table top. He traced the end of the metal legs to a point where a semi-circle of rough metal edging was exposed. There should have been a plastic cap on the end, something to make it flush and neat to touch. But there wasn’t. Any cap or neatening had been lost. Mark turned his hands over to use the metal edge against at the tape. The tape snagged and peeled just a little. Soon Mark realised a better option was to snag the tape and yank his arms away to pull the tape off altogether. He turned his wrists towards it and pressed the tape between them against the thin rough edge. The sharp edge caught in the tape, cut a few fibres and bit deeper into the material between his wrists. Mark began to saw left and right and up and down. Anything to make the sharp metal bite deeper.

  “I used to love her attitude. I always did. It was part of the attraction, but now, when she’s started to turn against me…”

  “Mark. Joanne’s attitude was turned against me for weeks. But then she changed. We all change, right? And women change more than most. You just need to give her some time. Now, damn it, Mark, will you just focus on getting those hands of yours out of that tape. The bouffant ice queen might come back any second with Metal Mickey. I know you’ve got a lot on your mind right now, but can we just talk about this some other time?!”

  The metal sheared through the tape and Mark’s hands were free.

  “But Dan, you don’t see it and feel it like I do. I’m telling you, something weird is going on. And where exactly did she get this lead from? Because this job’s not exactly got off to a great start, has it?”

  Dan heard the words, but his focus had moved on. He watched Mark stand up and wrench himself free of the remaining bindings that taped his arms to his seat.

  “Like I said, focus. Focus, you hear me? Now get your arse over here and help me get out of this mess.”

  Mark ran across to Dan and knelt down at his side. He looked down at the mess of tape all over Dan’s arms, tightly bound to the chrome legs of the chair.

  “Wow. She really did go to town on you, didn’t she?” said Mark.

  “That’s what I said. But you’re free now, so you can do something about it. Just find the edge and rip the tape off.”

  “I’m trying. I’m trying. But look, like I was saying – about Joanne…”

  “Mark. Is Joanne still going home with you
?”

  “What?” said Mark. His fingers suddenly stopped tearing at the tape on Dan’s wrists.

  “The tape, the tape, Mark. Keep at it. Get if off my hands.”

  Mark looked down and set to work again, his fingernails clawing at the sealed edges, pulling wherever he found purchase.

  “Are you still, you know, still together.”

  “I think so.”

  “You think so? Jeez, it really isn’t that difficult to tell. What about last night? Did she stay the night?”

  “Uh, yes, she did. I suppose… we are still together… I guess.”

  “Then do me a favour. Until Joanne actually does something, can we leave all the overthinking and second-guessing aside, because it’s clearly doing your head in, and it’s starting to do mine as well. Think we can do that?”

  “Um. I think so.”

  “Good. Now please – get my hands out of this bloody tape before they drop off.”

  Mark found a single loose edge from the pile of tight-bound loops. He teased it open, then pulled enough to get greater leverage. He pulled and yanked the piece back hard. Dan gritted his teeth as the hair was ripped from the backs of his hands and wrists, and his skin nearly went with it.

  “Sorry,” said Mark, reading the pain on his face. Dan leaned back over Mark’s shoulder and stared at the door.

  “Don’t be sorry. Just get it done.”

  As he pulled and peeled, the endless length of tape kept coming, mostly fast, but sometimes the twists and turns of it took time to come away.

  “Look at all this. Alma must have had help to do this,” said Dan.

  “Oh, I dunno. She looks pretty mean to me,” said Mark