Highlander

by Garry Douglas Kilworth

  The Kurgan shook his head. ‘Never been to Nam.’ ‘Car accident then, maybe?’ said the barman, probably feeling he could not leave the subject alone, now that he was so far along the road.

  ‘No car accident.’

  ‘Hell,’ said the barman. ‘1 just mind my own business. Who the hell cares whether a guy’s got a scar or not?’

  ‘Vodka. No ice,’ said the Kurgan.

  ‘Coming right up, sir.’ The hand that poured the drink was trembling.

  The Kurgan drank it down slowly, recalling a wine seller he had strangled once in the streets of Athens, because the man had showed too much interest in his face. What did it matter any more? There was only one man between him and the prize.

  ‘Will that be all, budd . . . er, sir?’ said the barman.

  ‘I’ll let you know if it isn’t.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘And stay away from the phone.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of calling anybody.’

  ‘Even if it rings.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The Kurgan sipped the vodka. It was foul. Some stuff manufactured in America, no doubt. He wouldn’t normally use such sludge to clean his sword, let alone drink. Still, beggars.

  Chapter 27

  ONCE THE BIG bastard with the sword had gone, the crowd felt it was safe enough to go into the alley and take a look at things there. The headless corpse caused a little flurry of excitement, but what was more amazing was the fact that the guy who had been swung around on the point of the sword was still alive.

  The ambulance eventually arrived, along with the police, and Matunas was taken away to Belle Vue Hospital, while Waiter Bedsoe and Frank Moran were left to sort out the mess. Frank stood by the doctor as he made a brief examination of the corpse.

  He said to Bedsoe, ‘We got to catch this nut soon. The mayor’s going bananas.’

  ‘At least people saw him this time.’

  ‘Yeah. I guess so. Get any description?’

  Bedsoe had been interviewing witnesses at the entrance to the alley and he replied, ‘Yeah. One or two. A little conflicting - you know - ‘

  Moran did indeed know. People told you what they thought was the truth, but often they were so shocked by the incident itself, the details of description got lost in the blood and gore.

  ‘What about the victim?’ asked Moran.

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The one that’s having trouble walking around,’ replied Moran, sarcastically.

  ‘Foreigner. Passport was in his pocket. Name’s Kastagir, from Chad.’

  ‘Where the hell’s Chad?’

  ‘Africa.’

  Moran screwed his eyes. ‘These victims come from all over. Seems like they hop on a plane to New York, just to get decapitated. I wish I knew what all this was about.’

  ‘The other guy - the one that was wounded. He’s an American,’ said Bedsoe, as if it were almost a matter of national pride that one of the victims be home born and bred.

  ‘And we can talk to him?’

  ‘He got a sword in the gut, but he’s still alive. Give him a few hours to get over the operation and we’ll get some information. ‘

  Bedsoe then went home to a cold bed and Frank Moran to his wife. She was waiting up for him when he got into their downtown apartment.

  ‘That you Frank?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She always asked if it were him. He wondered who else was expected to come wandering in, using their own key. Once he had shouted, ‘No, it’s a mugger,’ in a funny voice, but she had not been amused.

  He walked into the living-room, where she was watching TV.

  ‘You want a cup of coffee?’

  ‘Please. Your supper’s in the cellophane wrapping, on the worktop. It’s salad.’

  ‘Okay, fine. Kids asleep?’

  ‘Yes. It was just on the news. The latest beheading.’ He took off his tie and unbuttoned his shirt collar wearily.

  ‘Yeah. But we’re getting somewhere at last. Someone saw it this time.’

  He went out and brought in the coffees and his supper. Then he sat down on the floor, between her legs, his back resting against the foot of the chair and ate his supper while she massaged the nape of his neck.

  ‘That’s really good,’ he murmured. ‘Really good. Poor old Waiter. I could see he didn’t want to go back to his apartment. Must be pretty rough to be on your own still, at his age.’

  ‘I thought he was chasing Brenda Wyatt,’ said Sally. ‘He was - but Brenda’s a bit too classy for our WaIt. Trouble with him is his eyes are bigger than his belly.’

  Sally said, ‘Well you managed to get a woman much classier than yourself.’

  He smiled at her, upside-down. ‘Yeah, but then I’ve always been a lucky bastard. Walt’s a loser - he tries too hard.’

  ‘And you didn’t?’ she smiled back.

  ‘Well, yeah, but I was a handsome swine. You couldn’t resist me. What I lacked in class, I made up for in looks.’

  She hit him round the head.

  The following morning Moran and Bedsoe went down to Belle Vue to see the victim. As they walked along the corridor, Moran said, ‘So tell me what we’ve got on this guy - Matunas. What is he, on drugs?’

  Bedsoe mumbled, ‘No. He’s a survival nut.’

  ‘What do you mean “a survival nut”?’

  ‘Well, you know, he’s into guns. He was a marine, er, Vietnam. I talked to his ex-CO. He said that the guy was, er, a little paranoid, but a good commando.’

  Moran stopped. ‘A gun nut with a twist to his barrel. Shit. ‘

  ‘Well, he’s all we’ve got, Frank.’

  ‘I guess so. What was in his car?’

  Bedsoe listed the arsenal found in the trunk and around various parts of the vehicle. Frank Moran whistled. ‘Didn’t do him a lot of good, did they? And what about the weapon we found near the body?’

  ‘It had been fired - a whole magazine of thirty-two rounds, some of which we found around the alley.’

  ‘Let’s go talk.’

  They entered the private room to find Matunas propped up in bed. His face was the colour of bread paste and there was a look of faraway pain in his eyes. No doubt his wound still hurt, even through the pain-killers. He smiled weakly at the cops. These were his kind of people.

  Moran said, ‘How are you doing, fellah?’

  Weakly, the reply came, ‘Okay, I guess - for a guy who got three feet of steel crammed through his gut.’ Moran nodded.

  ‘Listen - you saw the guy that stuck you?’

  ‘Sure. Close to me as you are now.’

  Moran reached into his pocket and took out a photograph of Russell Nash. He held it in front of Matunas’ face.

  ‘This the man?’

  Matunas said, ‘You kidding me?’

  ‘Is this him?’ insisted Moran. He had a sinking feeling inside and when Matunas said, ‘Nope,’ he knew that Nash was going to slip the net again.

  Goddamn it, he thought, I was so sure it was that bastard. He had one more try.

  ‘Come on, quit kidding, Matunas. It was dark in that alley. You could have made a mistake.’

  ‘Listen,’ said Matunas. ‘That freak was trying to kill me. I had plenty of time to see his face - plenty. I could’ve reached out and touched his goddamn face. I’ll never forget it ...’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘He had a scar across his neck. Thick as two fingers.

  ‘How tall is your guy?’

  ‘Bout six-one, six-two.’

  ‘This freak was at least seven feet tall. I tell you he was built like the Empire State. He was like some friggin’ giant out of a fairy tale - and he wasn’t real, man. I filled his carcass with .303’s and he just laughed at me.’

  ‘Does that depress you?’

  ‘Yeah, but you don’t grunt about depressed. I got me a Schmeisser. I got me a trunkful of shotguns. I got me pistols and ammo until they’re coming out of my ears. And I ain’t safe. I can’t protect myself. How the hell are you sup
posed to protect yourself, when they won’t go down?’

  ‘Take it easy,’ said Moran, as Matunas was shouting. ‘That weirdo man. He got up after I put enough lead in him to drop a rhino. . .’

  ‘Listen,’ said Moran. ‘Do you think you could work with one of our artists?’

  Matunas calmed down a little. ‘Sure. Sure. Yes.’

  ‘Maybe come up with a picture of this guy.’

  ‘Sure. . . Listen, I know you guys think I’m nuts. That’s why I haven’t told you about what happened afterwards. . .’ .

  ‘What happened afterwards?’

  Matunas described the neon signs exploding and the lightning streaking down the brickwork.

  ‘Sounds crazy don’t it?’

  Bedsoe said, ‘We have other reports that confirm what you saw. And the physical evidence - the blown neons. Maybe that wasn’t anything to do with it, though.’

  Matunas nodded. ‘Oh, it was, all right. I could see his face. He was getting a kick out of it - you’d think he’d just taken speed the way he was reacting.’

  ‘Is that it? All of it?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  They left him then and walked off down the corridor. Bedsoe said to Moran, ‘It’s getting like one step beyond.’

  Moran nodded. ‘Yeah, but listen. When the press come, remember, all we’ve got is an eyewitness. Don’t say anything about sword tights or guys glowing in the dark, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘Okay Frank.’

  Chapter 28

  BRENDA WYATT HAD spent a day and a half in the computer room with friends of hers, trying to trace the genealogy of Mr Russell Nash. All that she could establish was that Mr Nash - at least the one he pretended to be - was dead.

  Russell Nash had died at birth. Was MacLeod then his real name? The computers had come up with all sorts of possibilities - even one which said that

  MacLeod had been around in the world for more centuries than was decent. Of course, she had discounted all these ridiculous theories. People did not live for more than a century and in any case Nash was not an old man. For some reason he was keeping his identity close to his chest and that was good enough for her. People had all sorts of reasons for not wishing to be recognized, not all of them criminal.

  She decided to visit her father for the weekend, and took a flight to Miami on the Friday evening. It was warm when she arrived and she took a cab to the bungalow on the edge of the marine flats where her father had made his retirement home.

  He was sitting on the porch when she arrived, fiddling with a fishing line.

  ‘Brenda?’ The wiry, whitehaired old man jumped from his seat and gave her a hug. ‘What are you doing down here? Why didn’t you call?’

  She shrugged. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I wanted to surprise you, Pop. You’re looking fit. Suntanned.’

  He carried her case through the flyscreen doors and dumped it on the living-room floor. Then he made them both a fresh orange juice. ‘Do you want to freshen up?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m all right. Can we sit on the porch?’

  ‘Sure.’

  They went outside and sat looking out over the yachts and boats in the marina, sipping their orange juice in silence.

  ‘Now,’ said her father, ‘are you going to tell me what made you come all this way? And don’t give me any garbage about family love.’

  His penetrating blue eyes stared into hers. She wanted to talk, but she did not know what to say. She had not really admitted anything to herself yet.

  ‘I’ve met a man,’ she said.

  The old watchmaker smiled. ‘Ah. A man.’

  ‘But he’s a little unusual.’

  ‘They always are at first,’ he said with a twinkle, ‘but after you get to know them well, they’re usually pretty ordinary .’

  ‘No, Pop. You don’t understand. This has nothing to do with stars in my eyes. I mean he’s strange. He may be involved in a murder - or two. He uses an assumed name. He’s got an air of mystery around him thicker than a cloud of Montana dust. I keep finding new things which sink him deeper into some kind of weird conspiracy. . . Yet, my instinct is to trust him.’

  Her father lit his pipe and leaned back in the wickerwork chair. It creaked under his weight. The evening insects were coming in now,- in small clouds, and the pipe would help to keep them off.

  ‘Your instinct may be’ governed by your feelings at the moment. You can’t trust love, Brenda.’

  ‘I didn’t say I was in love with him.’

  ‘No, but it sounds like it to me.’

  Brenda admitted to herself that it was a possibility.

  ‘Well, that aside, I don’t think that’s what’s interpreting the signals. I felt this instinctive trust the first time I met him, and I certainly wasn’t in love with him then, even if I am now. I just feel that deep down, he’s a good man, caught up in something which he can’t escape from – not at the moment.’

  Her father blew out a cloud of tobacco smoke. ‘If you’re coming to me for advice, you’re coming to the wrong man. My instinct is to tell you to get the hell away from this feller - well away. But then that’s the protective father coming out in me. I couldn’t give a damn about love and destiny, so long as my daughter is safe. I don’t think that anything so flimsy as love is worth the risk. It’s bad enough when two people know each other real well. When they don’t - and there’s the possibility that one of them could turn out to be an ugly customer - why bother?’

  She smiled. ‘Oh, come on, Pop. You would’ve married Mom if she had been the sister of Attila the Hun. . .’

  ‘With a brother-in-law like that, who would need to go into business at all?’

  They both laughed and Brenda went in to make them a cup of coffee. When she came out again, her father was looking at the newspaper which had been delivered by the boy while she was in the kitchen.

  ‘Any national news in there?’ she asked, putting down the tray.

  ‘Sure. They got a picture of that guy that’s been cutting off people’s heads. What a thing, eh? A mad axeman running around New York, and your pals can’t catch...’

  She snatched the newspaper from him.

  ‘Hey!’ he shouted. ‘That’s bad manners young lady. You’re not too old...’

  Relief flooded through her, as she looked at the drawing done by the police artist. It was not Nash. Thank God for that.

  ‘Sorry, Pop. Didn’t mean to snatch.’ She handed the paper back to him. She would have a better look later on.

  Her father looked at her. ‘Is this guy - you haven’t told me his name yet. Is he mixed up in this business?’

  ‘I think he’s connected to it somewhere, but I still don’t know how or why. We were together on a building site one night, when he was attacked by a ...’ She suddenly had a thought and picked up the paper again. She studied the drawing.

  ‘That’s him. . .’ she said, slowly.

  ‘That’s who?’

  ‘The man who attacked Russell.’

  ‘Says here he chopped the head off a black man.’ ‘And he would have had Russell’s head, if the police helicopter had not arrived.

  Her father looked at the picture himself. ‘Mean-looking son-of-a-bitch. Talk about Attila the Hun. We got him here, right in New York, USA.’

  Brenda went to bed that night with a safe feeling inside her. Miami had its crime too, but somehow it seemed a much slower, quieter place than New York city. Perhaps it was the presence of her father? Maybe she had that little-girl-protected-by-daddy feeling? Whatever it was, she was prepared to indulge herself. Plenty of time to get back to the raw, unprotected feelings when she flew back to New York.

  Chapter 29

  SO, KASTAGIR WAS dead. Now only he, MacLeod, stood between the Kurgan and the prize.

  MacLeod dressed himself, slowly. He wondered why the Kurgan had left him until last. Maybe, having once escaped his blade, the Kurgan had some special site for their battle? There was no real hurry, now that it was just between the two of them.<
br />
  But today was a special day, for MacLeod. He was not going to fight today, on Heather’s birthday. Ever since her death, when he promised to light a candle for her on her birthday, he had done as much. Whether he had been in Africa, Europe, Asia or America, he had managed somehow to get to a church and fulfil his promise.

  Today, he could stroll down to the cathedral at his leisure, and do his duty. Not just a duty, a pleasure. To renew old memories, in the quiet and peace of a holy place, was always a pleasure. And besides, the Kurgan would not fight him on holy ground. Even he would not violate possibly the only law that governed the site of their battles.

  He had a cup of coffee and then went out of the apartment, down to the street. Once there, he walked to the cathedral. There were children playing around the steps and one or two women hurrying to and fro. Birds were chattering amongst the stonework.

  Inside the cathedral, there were one or two worshippers, kneeling at the pews. And several nuns and priests drifted along the aisles like medieval ghosts. They did not dress all that much different from Father Rainey, the Glenfinnan village priest, way back in 1536.

  The sun hit the stained glass windows on the southern side of the building and splashed the tiled floor with bright colours. MacLeod wondered whether to say a prayer for Kastagir. Would the man want him to? It would not do any harm.

  ‘Lord, keep his soul from Hell,’ whispered MacLeod. That was the best he could do. MacLeod then took a candle, lit it, and put it in a holder.

  ‘For you, my bonny Heather. Happy birthday.’

  Then on impulse, he took another. ‘And you, Juan Ramirez. I hope you’ve been taking care of her, you overdressed haggis.’

  I hope they have been taking care of each other, he thought. He tried to picture what it was like, being dead. Nothing but black thoughts came to him. He wondered if ordinary people had the same blanks or whether they had a better insight into death than the so-called immortals. Certainly Heather used to say that she knew what it was like, only she never-could tell him. Perhaps death was nothing - nothing at all. In which case, all this ritual, all this paraphernalia was for nothing.

  There was a soft chanting coming from the chapel and MacLeod guessed that the priests themselves were offering up prayers. It’s the mystery that would attract me, not the ritual, thought MacLeod. You could find ritual in everyday life, but mystical atmospheres, why, they needed special places.