Lion

by Matt Rogers

  Slater stomped down on the first guy’s forehead as he hit the ground, a gruesome move to utilise but one that would ensure separation from consciousness. He held back enough to avoid permanent injury, instead knocking the guy out and throwing off his equilibrium for the foreseeable future.

  Without hesitating, he used the first guy’s temple as a springboard to launch himself onto the second guy, coming down on top of him with enough force to pummel his sternum, winding him. Slater followed up with a series of devastating elbows, restraining himself to ensure he didn’t accidentally kill the man but dishing out a suitable amount of damage to prevent the guy from fighting back.

  Out of breath, he crawled off the second motionless form, panting as he righted himself and aimed the Beretta across the room at the small, timid man — the only guy left awake in the entire space.

  ‘None of that went the way you expected, did it?’ Slater said.

  The man didn’t respond. He feigned some kind of vague hand gesture.

  Slater narrowed his eyes.

  ‘Are you trying to pretend you don’t speak English?’

  The man said nothing.

  ‘We were talking earlier. I’ll give you three seconds to answer me before I shoot you in the leg.’

  The man visibly paled. He opened his mouth, searching for the correct choice of words but finding nothing.

  ‘Just tell the truth,’ Slater said.

  ‘What do you want from me?’

  ‘Information.’

  ‘I cannot tell you anything. My employer will kill me. And it will be slow. Worse than anything you could do.’

  ‘Your employer has enough problems as it is,’ Slater said.

  Still facing the man, he backtracked to the door and kicked it shut by ramming his heel into the edge of the wood. It slammed home, re-locking with a distinct click.

  ‘You got any more men coming?’ Slater said.

  ‘You killed them all.’

  ‘I killed one man. Because he tried to shoot me. Other than that, your men will be fine. They might have headaches for a few days. Nothing aspirin doesn’t fix. Although, if you don’t answer my questions with enough believability, I might get the wrong idea and go back to murder every single one of them. Understand?’

  ‘What do you want from me?’ the man repeated.

  ‘I told you.’

  ‘I told you also — there’s nothing I can give you.’

  ‘Yes, there is.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir. You will have to kill me.’

  ‘It won’t just be that. If I find out you’re doing what I think you’re doing, I’ll make it slower and more painful than your employer ever could.’

  ‘I doubt that. You don’t have much time with me before others realise what’s happening.’

  ‘Do you keep young girls on this floor to please horny old men? Nine-year-olds — that kind of age?’

  The man visibly froze, his features locking up at the sudden inquiry. ‘What?! No, of course not.’

  Slater believed him. It was hard to fake outrage of that kind — it seemed the man genuinely reviled being grouped in with that sort of crowd. Nevertheless, Slater kept his aim rigid, ensuring the barrel remained unwavering in the air, pointed directly at the centre mass of the man’s forehead.

  ‘Why should I believe you?’

  The man squirmed, visibly uncomfortable, horrified at the thought of Slater thinking he was lying. Beneath everything, it seemed the guy had a shred of integrity. ‘I swear.’

  ‘Thought you weren’t supposed to tell me anything.’

  ‘I do not associate myself with those people.’

  ‘Those people? Who are those people?’

  The guy clammed up.

  Slater surged across the room, sidestepping one of the unconscious bodyguards. He closed the space between them and clamped his meaty fingers over the guy’s throat, squeezing hard enough to send veins protruding out of his forehead, turning his cheeks a deep shade of red.

  When he released his grip, he waited a beat for the man to draw a staggering breath of air — then he jammed the barrel of the Beretta down the man’s throat at the opportune moment, capitalising on the brief window of opportunity the guy afforded him.

  The head of security coughed, spluttered, and his cheeks turned dark red. The shade of beetroot. He recoiled away from Slater, humiliated, in pain, horrifically uncomfortable and vulnerable.

  Slater wrenched the gun out from between the man’s lips, bringing a strand of saliva along with it. ‘You’re going to answer me.’

  ‘They’re not on this floor.’

  ‘So something’s happening in this casino. And you know about it.’

  The guy threw both hands in the air, an exaggerated gesture to hammer his point home. ‘What do you expect me to do? You know what happens if I talk about it?’

  ‘You die?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Slater jammed the Beretta against the man’s temple — it was wet from the insides of his mouth. He squirmed, but didn’t dare move. Slater moved the weapon back and forth against the wrinkles in his forehead, accompanied by a sickening squelching sound. ‘You die right now unless you talk. You ready for that?’

  ‘You are a good man, then?’ the head of security said. ‘If you are interested in these bad things happening? You must be some kind of vigilante?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Then you will not kill me. You are too noble.’

  ‘One of the men underneath you is dead. Two, actually, if you count that elevator guard you were searching for earlier. I hit another one with so many elbows that his chances of recovery are less than slim. And none of them were as implicit in this scheme as you are. What do you think I’ll do to you?’

  ‘All talk,’ the guy muttered with a wry smile.

  Slater seized hold of his wrist, exposing the bare skin as the cuff of his dress shirt’s sleeve rolled down. He pressed the Beretta against the tendons in the guy’s hand and fired a shot, bracing for the recoil. The gun kicked back in his palm and gore showered across the bank of monitors opposite them. The guy’s hand would prove useless for months, if not years, to come. In all likelihood, the limb would never be the same.

  The guy howled and screamed and broke out in a cold sweat — Slater gave him no opportunity to recover. He clamped the same hand around his throat and began choking the life out of him, digging in hard enough for the man to think he was on death’s door.

  When Slater released his hold, the man spluttered and choked back tears, clutching his destroyed hand to his chest and staring up at Slater with venom in his eyes.

  ‘There are certain levels of this casino reserved for human filth,’ Slater snarled. ‘Am I right?’

  The guy couldn’t resist any longer. Sweating and crying, he nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You know what happens on those floors.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’ve done nothing to stop it.’

  ‘I got no choice.’

  ‘There’s always a choice. You know which floors handle young girls?’

  The man stared at him with visible disbelief. ‘No… what did you say?’

  ‘You heard me.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about that. I swear.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ve heard rumours.’

  ‘I always thought they were just rumours.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘What do you want me to do? I need this job to provide for my family. Just because people on other floors are doing—’

  Slater backhanded him across the face, cutting him off. ‘You could have anonymously gone to the police. Or anyone, really.’

  ‘Look…’ the man said, clearly frustrated. ‘Who the fuck are you to tell me what to do?’

  Slater smirked. ‘I was wondering how long it’d take you to get angry. I’m not going to kill you, but I couldn’t care less how much damage you take. I can see it in your eyes. You know about a single floor. Worse than all the others.
Right?’

  The man nodded. ‘I won’t lie to you anymore. Just don’t kill me.’

  ‘I think I’ve caused you enough distress.’

  Relief plastered the guy’s pale complexion. ‘Thank you.’

  That was intentional, you idiot, Slater thought. Now you think we’re best friends. Now you’re going to tell me everything you know.

  37

  ‘You know there’s a floor for the scum of the earth but you don’t spend much time thinking about it because you’d prefer not to know it exists. But your job involves sending people there occasionally — customers on this floor who show darker tendencies. Right?’

  A pause. Then the guy realised Slater was onto him, and nodded.

  ‘I don’t know what they do there,’ the man said. ‘I never asked.’

  ‘You must have been told what to look for.’

  ‘If they seem … I don’t know the English word.’

  ‘Seedy?’

  ‘Something like that. If they look like they want something more than gambling. Something worse.’

  Slater felt rage building, but he crushed it. He needed this man on his side.

  ‘You sent them to take advantage of young girls,’ Slater said. ‘You got kids? You said something about a family.’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘Eight and eleven.’

  ‘Girls?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Imagine the men you sent away naked, on top of your children. You still happy about what you do?’

  ‘I’ve never been happy about it. But I don’t think about it.’

  ‘You ever in contact with those secret floors?’

  The guy shook his head. ‘Each of the floors in this building is run by a different junket. We don’t deal with each other. Only the boss.’

  ‘Junket?’

  ‘Illegal organisations, run by whoever. Triad. Private owners. They each operate their own economy. So, on our floor, we have full discretion over what we want to do with the gambling profits coming in. We can give wealthy customers lines of credit — that sort of thing. Each floor does its own thing, and we all report to Mr. Forrest. He gets a cut of everything.’

  Slater listened to the spiel, formulating a plan in his head. ‘I killed a couple of your men. I knocked almost all the rest unconscious. There’ll be hell to pay when they come to and the bodies are found…’

  The man said nothing, frozen in fright. He had no idea where the conversation was headed. As far as he was concerned, a psychopathic killer was in the process of determining whether he lived or died.

  Slater reached into his jeans pocket and withdrew his smartphone — in all the commotion of the last twenty-four hours the screen had cracked in several places, turning the display into a spider-web of shattered glass. Nevertheless the phone still worked. He unlocked it, scrolled to the inbuilt voice recording application, and hovered a finger over the record button.

  He tilted the phone toward the head of security, and raised the Beretta in his other hand.

  ‘You’re going to say these words,’ he said, keeping his voice low. ‘It took you long enough. You got the girl okay? Your payment’s here. If you say anything other than those thirteen words I’ll put a bullet in your head, and I won’t feel a shred of remorse about it.’

  The guy flapped his lips, speechless. He hadn’t quite worked out what Slater meant yet.

  Slater gave him no time to think.

  ‘Go,’ he said.

  He hit record.

  ‘It took you long enough,’ the man said, struggling to stop his tone from wavering. ‘You got the girl okay? Your payment’s here.’

  Slater didn’t take his finger off the record button.

  ‘I ran into some issues,’ he said. ‘When Forrest realises you’re going to the police with this, he’ll tear you apart. I want to be out of the country before that happens. You’re a brave man for standing up to someone like that. The cops will handle everything. They’ll make things right. Good luck, my friend.’

  The head of security stared at Slater with his mouth agape, the horror of what he’d implicated himself in dawning on him. When a man’s reputation hung on the line — as Forrest’s did with these secrets — he would go to unfathomable lengths to protect himself and save face.

  The man no doubt understood how doomed he was if anyone in Forrest’s employ heard those words.

  Slater ended the recording. For good measure he dragged the file onto the front page of his home screen, ensuring it wouldn’t take much of a search to find it. He tucked the phone back into his pocket and smiled.

  ‘Please,’ the man said. ‘Don’t show that to anyone. I will die. Have you stolen one of Forrest’s girls?’

  ‘I’m not showing a soul. But if I wind up dead in this casino, you can be damn sure that file will turn up on a rudimentary search of my body.’

  Everything dawned on the man at once. He squirmed uneasily in his seat. ‘You want the worst floor in the casino?’

  Slater nodded. ‘Yes, thanks.’

  ‘Level 44.’

  ‘Can I get there using the elevators?’

  ‘Yes. You won’t be allowed in, though. It takes an invite.’

  ‘Or a recommendation from this floor. From you.’

  The guy had broken out in an uncontrollable sweat. ‘Fuck.’

  Slater recognised the threat had dissipated — no-one in the immediate vicinity was looking to take his head off. He lowered the Beretta to his side.

  ‘They search you when you get to level 44?’ he said.

  ‘Of course,’ the head of security said. ‘No weapons.’

  ‘I’ll drop it just before I get to the elevator. That way you can’t kill me on this floor and destroy the recording.’

  ‘I don’t think I could kill you even if you dropped it now.’

  ‘Your men might try.’

  ‘Seems they already have.’

  All the urgency had sapped out of the man — his lackadaisical demeanour stunned Slater. The audio recording had manipulated the guy into compliance so effortlessly that it felt unnatural. But all the resistance had left his body at once, his shoulders slumping forward and his expression one of dejection.

  Slater spun on his heel, passing the two bodyguards only just beginning to crawl out of unconsciousness, and wrenched the door to the security hub open.

  ‘Remember,’ he said. ‘If I get to that floor and it turns out I’m not welcome, it’ll be your head when that audio surfaces.’

  The man said nothing. He simply gulped back fear.

  ‘Make the call. And do it fast. It’s in your best interests to make sure I get out of this casino alive.’

  The guy nodded. ‘I’ll do my best. Please don’t get yourself killed. You don’t know what kind of man Mr. Forrest is.’

  ‘I have an idea of what he’s like. It won’t turn out well for you.’

  Little did the head of security know that Forrest was no doubt facing a relentless torrent of issues, given the mess Slater had become entangled in. But he had no intention of solving the man’s problems — only worsening them. Every sign led to a dark secret on level 44, one that involved innocent children and disgusting predators.

  And Slater was set to stride into the heart of it.

  He shut the door behind him — confident that the head of security would do everything in his power to assist him — and made straight for the bank of elevators. He passed the entrance to the VIP room along the way, flashing a glance inside to check on the situation.

  Two uninhibited security guards had wandered across the room to tend to the man Slater had knocked unconscious. Neither of them must have seen the strike take place, because they were treating him like someone who’d fainted. The guy had his head bowed and his rear end planted on one of the chairs running along the curving wall of the VIP room. He had his elbows on his knees and he was taking deep, rasping breaths, still disoriented by the blow. Soon his cheek would swell and his memory
would return.

  By then, Slater would be long gone.

  The customers were entirely ignorant of the guards, treating them like they weren’t there. They held money in higher regard than the wellbeing of the staff surrounding them. Bouts of fainting were none of their concern.

  But soon the men Slater beat down in the corridor would wake up, and they would call for reinforcements, and shit would truly hit the fan.

  By then Slater would be in the elevator, and it would be up to the head of security to ensure he didn’t get bottlenecked into a trap.

  He hoped the man would do his job well, and contain the panic to a single floor of the Mountain Lion complex.

  He called for an elevator with a digital interface built into the far wall, and one arrived within seconds. As the doors slid open, he spotted a large opaque decorative vase propped up on an antique wooden table near the end of the corridor and dropped the Beretta M9 into its neck with as much practiced nonchalance as he could manage.

  Nothing to see here.

  Slater noticed there was someone inside the cable car, but he didn’t think twice before stepping straight through the doors — any kind of hesitation would draw suspicion.

  The doors sealed, trapping both occupants in silence.

  Slater entered his intended destination into the digital display, and crossed his hands behind his back as the elevator lurched up the shaft.

  He craned his neck to manage a sideways glance at the man alongside him. The guy was roughly the same height as Slater, in his late forties, with short salt-and-pepper hair. Slater noticed dried blood underneath the man’s nose, and deemed it prudent to get a proper look.

  He made eye contact with the guy, and stared straight into a mask of pain.

  The man had stifled any audible exclamation of agony but his face told a different story, wracked by a combination of stewing anger and discontent. He clutched one of his hands awkwardly against his chest. Slater stared at the appendage and noticed it was wrapped in a blood-soaked cloth.