Assassins

by Ray Timms

  Inside room 413, Jimmy Ross wasn’t interested in the new clothes lain out on the bed. He first checked out the wardrobe, then the bedside cabinets and the chest of drawers and the finally the bathroom. He found nothing. He returned to the bedroom and turned full circle scratching his head. The guy had checked in with nothing? Who checks into a hotel with nothing? Not even a bleedin’ wash bag! He turned his attention to the labelled bits laid out on the bed. There were a couple of check shirts, two pairs of casual trousers, a pair of walking boots and a zip front fleece coat. In another bag on the floor he found a set of chef’s whites, and what appeared to be a waiter’s outfit. In another bag he found a pair of surveyor’s boots, a tape measure and a hard hat. The guy for sure, wasn’t a chef, a waiter or a building surveyor. Scratching his two-day chin stubble, Jimmy suddenly wondered, was he was one of those male strippers? All this stuff could be his props. He had the athletic build and the rugged chiselled looks to pull it off. In his mind Jimmy tried to envisage the man dressed up as a builder, entertaining a bunch of raucous drunken women baying for him to get naked. It didn’t stack up. What male stripper would dance around semi-naked in a chef’s outfit? Returning to the bathroom, Jimmy examined the towels. They hadn’t been used and neither had the orderly line of freebie toiletries on the washstand. The guy could be staying just the one night? Nothing wrong with that… lots of people make an overnight stay in a hotel, especially someone only here to do a one-off stripper gig. Then why the orange wig? Jimmy couldn’t answer that. Thinking about it, maybe, the guy was bald and he wore an Irish.

  When Gent hurried back into the hotel lobby the first thing he noticed was the hotel thief was nowhere to be seen. He immediately became more suspicious when the hotel Busboy that he’d seen earlier talking to the thief head, over to the wall phone. Thinking he wouldn’t wait for a lift, he hurried over to the doors that led out to the stairs. He had gone up a few steps when he heard the ping of the lift. Racing back around the corner he squeezed past the gaggle of elderly women still trying to exit the lift while he was forcing his way in.

  Stepping out of the lift on the fourth floor he found the corridor empty. Gent took out his Beretta and fitted the silencer. Moving quickly along the passageway he could do nothing about the floorboards squeaking underfoot.

  It was while he was pondering on how he could establish who the guy was that Jimmy heard the whine of the approaching lift. He held his breath. He prayed it carried on to the floors above. He froze when he heard the clonk of the lift stop at his floor. This was followed immediately by the whoosh of the doors opening. Jimmy looked over at the phone on the bedside cabinet. If this were the guy, surely Jimmy would have called him… wouldn’t he? Shit! He could hear footsteps, sounded like they were trying to remain quiet on the creaking floorboards. When the sound of the footsteps, amplified by his fears stopped right outside his door Jimmy cursed Hammy.

  Down in the lobby Hamish had the wall phone pressed to his ear and was praying for Jimmy to pick up. It’d been ringing for the past two minutes now. Hamish couldn’t understand why Jimmy hadn’t picked up, unless… the guy had already found him in his room? McCoy looked back at the lifts. Any minute now, he imagined the man was going to rush into the lobby screaming about finding a burglar in his room and demanding that someone call the cops. And that would be the end of his job. He would then be arrested and charged with conspiracy to rob. The last judge he had stood before had told him straight, “the next time you’ll go down for five years.” Shit!

  The seagull that had landed on the windowsill of room 413, with a sense of purpose that was beyond the understanding of the human mind, began earnestly pecking at the dried putty that held the window glass in place. The sound of the bird’s beak hacking at the rock hard putty carried through to the corridor where Bartholomew Gent bared his teeth into a snarl. He could see that the hair that he had stuck across the doorjamb was now on the floor. Judging by the noise he imagined the intruder was trying to get into toilet cistern void where he had concealed his bag that contained his other guns, spare ammo, fake passports and credit cards.

  Gent straightened up and adjusted his feet to a shooters stance. Keeping the gun pointed at the door he planned to shoot first and ask questions later, except for the hotel thief there would be no later. He slid his door key in the card reader until he saw the light glow green. He imagined the faint clonk of the lock disengaging would be drowned out by the tapping noise going on inside his room. Gent shook his head. Stupid thief, making all this racket.

  With his gun held at chest level, Gent threw the door inwards until it slammed back against the wall. He fired off two silenced shots. With glass fragments glistening in its plumage, emitting a loud shriek the bird flew off.

  When he heard the approaching footsteps stop right outside the door of room 413, Jimmy, desperate and scared had looked around him for someplace to hide. The bloody bird pecking at the window wasn’t helping him think. When he heard the faint click of the door lock he dropped to the floor and a spilt second before the door flew in, Jimmy managed to squeeze his skinny frame under the bed. He heard two muffled gunshots, the sound of breaking glass and the bird shriek. With his chest up against the underside of the bed he could just about turn his head. Hammy, was now likely to get him killed.

  Gent realised what he’d heard was a gull pecking at the window. Keeping his gun extended, Gent did a quick tour of the two rooms. Everything was as it should be. He saw no sign of anyone having gotten in here. He figured the hair he had stuck across the doorjamb was not foolproof. It could’ve simply fallen off. He needed to calm down, stop shooting at everything that moved. The pressure he was under was getting to him, making him make dumb mistakes. He needed to get a grip of his nerves, start thinking rationally.

  Hamish had been watching the revolving entrance doors when he saw the guy with the orange hair hurry in with his face looking grim… murderous! The guy hadn’t been gone more than ten minutes. He watched him go over to the lift lobby, think about taking the stairs and then change his mind when he heard the ping of a lift door opening. Before the lift door had even closed Hamish was dialling up room 413. He waited and then waited some more. He was whispering, ‘pick up… pick up Jimmy, for Chrissake pick up will you.’ For two minutes he let the phone ring.

  By now the man would have caught Jimmy. Why the hell didn’t he answer the phone? ‘Jeez,’ Hamish muttered. Pressing his hands to his temples he was at a loss what to do next? ‘What if the guy actually was the hotel killer?’

  Under the bed Jimmy needed a wee and the dust and dead human skin cells under the bed was going to make him sneeze. He knew for sure that this was the killer. What a way to find out!

  Jimmy screwed up his nose and bit on his lip. Not a man taken to any religion, right now he was prepared to pray to anyone’s God for his salvation. All he could move was his head. At the moment his eyes were fixated on the guy’s boots at a forty-five degree stance rooted across the door threshold. When the man stepped inside the room and slammed the door shut, Jimmy’s heart almost stopped.

  The first thing Gent did was to go into the bathroom. The laminate shelf over the toilet cistern looked to be undisturbed. He lifted it off and hoisted out his bag. Taking this into the bedroom, he dropped the bag on the bed and then sat down alongside it.

  When the base of the bed came down on his chest Jimmy’s eyes bulged. He fought to get air into his crushed lungs. He fought the rising panic. If the big man was to sit any further back on the bed, or God forbid, he was to lie down, he would surely die of asphyxiation.

  Sitting on the edge of his bed, always the consummate professional, Gent decided to refill the magazine of his Beretta M9A1 Compact. He ejected the clip and dug out the box of bullets that lay hidden in the bottom of his bag. He took out two bullets. He clipped the first one in and when he went to slip the second one into the rack it slipped from his sweaty fingers. Gent cursed himself for making such a basic mistake. He cursed again when he saw the bullet ro
ll under the bed. He was going to have to retrieve it. His fingerprints were on it.

  Jimmy’s eyes widened when he saw the bullet hit the floor and then roll through the dust and then stop right up against his nose. He was done for.

  Gent dropped to his knees and peered as far as he could into the dark space under the bed. He couldn’t see the bullet. He cursed and with his face pressed up against the edge of the bed his fingers blindly searched the dust and fluff. In a minute he’ll just have to tip the bed over.

  The sweat was stinging Jimmy’s bulging eyes when the guy’s groping hand crawled ever closer to his face.

  Down in the lobby, Hamish was trying not to panic. He was also trying to not imagine the guy in room 413 shooting Jimmy dead. Maybe the guy wasn’t the killer, maybe this was just another of Jimmy’s bloody scams that was going to get them both in trouble. Suddenly he had a thought. Hamish’s blood ran cold. Shit! I could be next.

  In room 413, hiding under the bed, Jimmy tried blowing on the bullet hoping to move it into the path of the groping hand. When the bullet stubbornly remained right up against his nose, desperate to get the bloody thing to move he tried to push it away using just his nose. With apparent belligerence each time he got it to roll away, it rolled back again. The hand was getting closer.

  Finally, employing a combination of minute movements with his nose, his chin and his tongue, he managed to roll the bullet into the path of the killer’s grasping hand.

  After grabbing hold of the bullet, Gent stood up and then sat back down on the bed heavily.

  He thought he heard someone gasp. He looked around for the source and noted the curtains were being blown around by the draft from the two bullet holes in the window. He shrugged and then blew the fluff off the bullet before clipping it in the ammo slot. He slammed the magazine back in the heel of the gun and got to his feet. He unscrewed the silencer and dropped this in his trouser pocket. Making sure that his shirt hid it, he tucked the gun in his waistband.

  Taking the bag back into the bathroom, he dropped it into cistern void and then replaced the cover. Satisfied, he went back into the bedroom, looked around him and then left the room. This time after he had closed the door, he attached two hairs across the doorjamb and then made sure that they were well stuck to the woodwork.

  He had his eyes closed and was praying for the man to hurry up and leave when with a loud bang the door slammed shut. Jimmy thought he’d been shot.

  Pacing the hotel lobby, Hamish McCoy, turned his back on the man from room 413 who had just stepped out of the lift. In the mirror on the wall he watched the killer walk out the hotel. But where was Jimmy? He hurried over to the phone on the wall and tried ringing the killers room number. He almost died of shock when a hand gripped hold of his shoulder. Only this time it wasn’t a copper telling him he was nicked. It was Jimmy whose face was as white as a sheet.

  ‘Hammy, you plonker,’ Jimmy said. ‘You was supposed to ring the room like we agreed. You nearly got me killed.’

  ‘Jimmy I swear to God…’

  ‘Chill Hammy, it wasn’t your fault,’ Jimmy said. ‘I checked the phone just after he left and the bloody ringer was turned off. Did you see him leave?’ Jimmy said, looking about him.

  ‘Jesus Jimmy what you got us into? I saw him go out a couple of minutes ago. He turned left. Was he the guy, you know, the guy, the hotel killer?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Jimmy said grimly. ‘When I heard his footsteps outside in the corridor I slipped under the bed. You are not going to believe this Hammy but he came right in and shot two holes in the fecking window.’

  ‘What!’ Hamish exclaimed.’ Why’d he do that?’

  ‘There was a bloody seagull pecking at the window and he must have thought that it was me making the noise. I tell you Hammy, I was bricking it.’

  ‘Ok, we walk away from this Jimmy,’ Hamish said, scared he and his old cellmate were way out of their depth. This was playing with the big boys. Hammy shuddered. ‘This is something else man. We don’t do shooters and stuff. You could have been killed. I take it, you will now hand it over to that cop, the one who hired you?’

  ‘You bet.’ Jimmy said, still shaking inside. ‘I need to get out of here. I need some fresh air. I will call Frank right away and tell him that I have found his man. Mate, I tell that was scary man.’

  Hamish nodded and held out his hand.

  ‘What?’ Jimmy said.

  ‘Me passkey Jimmy,’ Hammy said waggling his open palm. His doubted his old cellmate will have changed that much, ‘and you owe me the thirty quid for lending you the passkey.’ Hamish frowned. ‘You didn’t nick anything from his room did you?’ Hamish groaned when he saw a stupid grin creep across Jimmy’s face.

  ‘Hey! Where’s the trust man? I promised you didn’t I?’ Ross said, sounding aggrieved.

  Hamish McCoy was shaking his head when he said.

  ‘Don’t you go giving me that innocent look Jimmy Ross because I can tell by that stupid grin you took something…. Jeesuz Jimmy, we agreed you wouldn’t steal anything… so come on, own up, what did you steal?’

  Jimmy pulled from his pocket a small bottle of shampoo. He saw the look on Hammy’s face. ‘What’s the big deal? It’s a freebie man. The guy never paid for it, so it aint stealing.’

  *

  Mingling with the tourists around Holyrood Palace, Gent was disheartened by the extra security thrown around the King who hasn’t been seen in public since Monday and today it was Wednesday. In two days, at noon on Friday, the King was due to make his announcement. If he didn’t take him out before that deadline, he could forget his fee and kiss goodbye to being the Number 2 Hitman. He was going to need a new plan and more than a bit of luck.

  Gent made his way back to his hotel. The lobby had quietened down. There was no sign of the hotel thief or the Busboy. When he inspected the hairs that he’d carefully stuck across the doorjamb they were still there but he could see they were only attached to the door. He swung the door open and saw they stayed put. Someone could have gotten in? Gent decided it was time to start using a more sophisticated means of checking for intruders. Inside the hotel room it all looked exactly as he had left it. Even the wind had stopped blowing through the bullet holes he’d put in the window. Gent lay back on his bed with his hands behind his head thinking. This business in Edinburgh was proving to be a tough assignment, more tricky even than the time that he had to assassinate the President of Gandania. He needed to take a shower. He was undressing by the bed when he first noticed the smell. Now that the draught from the window had dissipated the smell of cordite, he could smell stale cigarettes and body odour!

  ‘The hotel thief.’ He muttered. His lips curled into a snarl. Wearing only his underpants he rushed into the bathroom and lifted the lid that concealed the toilet cistern. He reached into the void and pulled out his bag. He was about to put the bag down on the shelf alongside the washbasin when he spotted the gap in the orderly line of toiletries. Someone had taken the shampoo. Hurrying now, he carried the bag into the bedroom and tipped the contents out on the bed. It was all there: his other handgun, spare ammo, a couple of passports under different names, a hefty amount of paper money in a variety of denominations, and his collection of credit cards also in different names. In his head Gent began re-enacting his movements. Half an hour ago, he came into this room thinking that someone was in here. He then shot at the seagull that was on the windowsill. Maybe, he began exploring other possibilities, when I shot at the bird thinking that the gull was the intruder, all the while someone had been in here, but where? He’d looked inside the wardrobe. He’d looked in the bathroom. Where else could he have been hiding? Gent turned full-circle. Facing the bed, his eyes fell to floor and then settled on the dark space beneath the bed. He sucked air in through his teeth. Taking out his mobile phone he turned on the torch function and shone it under the bed. No question the fluff and dust had been disturbed. Then he saw it. Reaching under the bed his hand grabbed hold of the small rectangle card.
Getting back to his feet Gent read the name on the card: Detective Inspector Francis Guardo – Edinburgh Police. When he turned the card over he read: “Jimmy Ross, £40 a day- plus £30 a day expenses- paid - one week in advance.”

  Gent snarled. ‘The three of them, the cop, the thief and the Busboy were all in on it. The Busboy must have let the thief into his room. The hotel thief, had to be the Jimmy Ross that was written on the cops business card and he was probably a petty crook hired by the cop to spy on him. What he wondered did they have on him? Gent needed to eliminate them. He needed the address of the thief and he had a good idea who he could extract that information from. He would pay the Busboy a visit.

  Back down in the lobby, smiling broadly, Gent approached the girl behind the reception desk. He noted her name badge.

  ‘Rachel, could I ask you a favour? The Busboy, who was here earlier, ‘Gent said smiling, ‘he was kind enough to return my very expensive gold watch that I had lost.’ Gent showed her his Rolex. ‘I would very much like to reward his honesty, so rarely seen these days. Would it be against the rules for you to let me have his address? I would like to send him a thank you card with a fifty pound note?’

  Rachel was thinking, that was nice and Hamish would appreciate the extra money. She wrote the Busboy’s address on a compliments slip and handed it over to the appreciative customer.

  Gent thanked her and walked away. He shrugged. What’s it matter if a few more stiffs were to end up in the local morgue? He’d be gone in two days.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Edinburgh.

  With his muscular build and his angular jaw, Sven Johannson, the “Swedish Meatball” – World’s Number 1 Hitman, resembled Arnold Schwarzenegger before he went soft on politics. An hour ago he was informed by his backroom team in Oslo the English assassin Bartholomew Gent had been in Edinburgh the past four days. Upon hearing this, he at first became angry and then on reflection he thought it might be a good opportunity to do something about the man who over the past few years has been complaining to others in the community of assassins how he was a much better hitman than he was. Gent was also putting it about that he was a closet gay. The Swede decided it was time to finally shut him up and at the same time get rid of a competitor.