Bullets, Teeth & Fists

by Jason Beech

  Bullets, Teeth & Fists

  by

  Jason Beech

  -

  Cover Design by Christopher Lucania

  Text Copyright © 2013 Jason Beech

  All Rights Reserved

  For Neeta and Sorrel.

  Table of Contents

  Don’t Be Late

  The Date

  Brendan and Carl have Breakfast

  Bring it on Down

  Tripping Up

  The Spartan

  The Thing that Looked at Me

  Tantrum

  Dead Batteries

  Secret Mind

  Where’s My Money?

  The Real Man

  The Tree

  Sleep, See

  Don’t Be Late

  1. Accident

  Rupert’s morning began, as it did most days, with dry toast and a glass of orange juice. He wanted to earn his food. At the end of the day he would feast, a personal celebration of a day’s work well done.

  After he dressed, he packed his rucksack with spare socks, t-shirts, jeans, trousers, shoes, trainers, and a suit. Double-checked his laptop was juiced-up, and ensured he had prepared the badminton racket case. He considered another juice for luck. He denied himself. Only amateurs needed luck.

  He readied himself for London by kissing a photo of his daughter and squirmed at her mother’s wish to take her out of the country. He paid his usual greetings to the neighbours on leaving his Holland Park flat.

  “Hello, Mrs Chilcott.” The old woman would only ever nod and then look away, as if she suspected him of something. He wanted to live in civilisation, so he greeted her full of cheer whenever he caught her outside.

  “How are you Mr Turpin? Held anybody up lately?”

  Mr Turpin insisted the infamous Dick was his ancestor. The old man would always point index fingers at him, two thumbs up, and ask for his money.

  “Not likely, fella,” Rupert mock-protested, swished his hand like Zorro.

  “I have pistols, Rupert. They hold sway over swords.”

  “You better make sure you hit me, then – reloading those things takes time. I’ll have you skewered like a pig before you cock one.”

  Mr Turpin’s smile changed from pleasant to lopsided. Maybe I take things a little too far, Rupert thought.

  Poor old Mr Bipen couldn’t talk at all. Some throat problem made his voice sound like two sheets of sandpaper rubbed together. He waved, all enthusiastic, while he tended the communal garden.

  “Those roses look the business,” Rupert noted, the admiration purely for his neighbour. He preferred tulips. He pondered why he had so many old neighbours as he walked the fifteen minutes to Kensington station. That might have to change.

  *

  “Beautiful day.” The woman seated next to him smiled.

  “Isn’t it,” he said. “I thought all that rain would force me to emigrate.”

  She seemed familiar. Her fringe curled only just beneath her chin, framing her face for photographic examination. Now she had his attention she fidgeted a little, but her wide brown eyes were open and relaxed. It seemed unusual for an English woman, where string often seemed to pull one eye up, a cynical expression he saw too often. Maybe it’s Englishmen which make them that way. He couldn’t place her; maybe he’d seen her on the tube in passing one time. How he examined her turned her nervous. The tube’s not a natural environment for sociability. Heads hide behind newspapers or books. If not occupied, eyes are vacant as minds absorbed headphone content, or examined the intricacies of the floor.

  She flashed a smile again and lowered her eyes. For a moment it looked like she’d also try to solve the floor’s puzzle, but it had no pattern to its spackle. His stomach gurgled a little, moving out-of-place for a second.

  “You like badminton?”

  Okay, bland talk – fine. “I love it.”

  “It’s nice to meet passionate people. I enjoy badminton. I love photography.”

  “Oh yeah? Are you on Flickr?”

  It was too late to get acquainted. His station called him. “Nice to meet you. Maybe I’ll see you on here tomorrow?”

  “Sure.”

  Her open expression calmed his beating chest enough. “I’m Tom,” Rupert said. “Short for Thomas.”

  “What else? I’m Britney.”

  “You don’t sound American.”

  “My mother.”

  He moved to shake her hand, a smile accentuating it. He caught a corporate logo poking above the rim of her jumper. “See you next time.”

  She returned his hope.

  *

  The sun always shone on Belgravia, even on cloudy days. He had no time for admiration; the phone call reminded him of that. He checked his rental car sat ready at Hans Place, stored the rucksack and his mobile phone in its boot, grabbed a t-shirt and a pair of jeans with him in a duffel bag, and headed for Belgravia Avenue. He slung his badminton case casually over his shoulder.

  He banished the smiles and hellos and focused. The woman on the tube, Britney, had disturbed him.

  He stared at the pavement, walked past the badminton courts, and reached the flats. He glanced at his badminton case, swung it a little as he thought strategy. It took him a while to enter the opulent lobby, centred by the hand-carved wooden outer door of the lift. This place dripped with money. He rode to the third floor. Disappointed at the corridor of chintz after the glare from the lobby. Old side-tables had doily covers which would make the 1970s proud.

  He stood before number thirty-two and fumbled inside the badminton case. He pressed the bell with his elbow. Two chimes announced him. He straightened his tie as footsteps approached and a Russian mumble penetrated the gold-sprayed metal door. One lock undone, two, three… a fourth. Rupert watched the door handle turn and then stop. Boris hesitated.

  Rupert stretched the synthetic gloves onto his hands. He looked left and right, raised his foot and kicked the door open. Boris stumbled backwards –to maintain upward mobility by suckering his palms to the walls on either side. His skinny legs stuck out of scraggy boxer shorts – how could they bear the weight of his fabulously fat stomach, stalks which made his belly look like a mushroom head.

  Rupert pulled the knife from the case. The glint mesmerised the old man enough to keep his hands from protection. Rupert took advantage and plunged the weapon into his heart. Twisted to the right. He thought Boris’ eyes would pop out. Rupert grabbed him grabbed him and stared into those rippling eyes as he died. He never thought himself callous. He liked to stay with his victim all the way. The polite thing to do.

  Boris’ grip loosened and he slid to the floor. Left blood streaks on his killer. Rupert put a hand behind the man’s head so it did not bang on the floor, as if putting him to sleep. He closed the door, gathered a few valuables into the duffel bag, and pulled the knife out. He opened a few drawers and smashed pieces of furniture. He used the bathroom to wash and change into a t-shirt, a pair of jeans, new gloves, and trainers. Shoved the stripped clothes into the duffel bag. He placed the knife on top, tightened the strings, and left the premises.

  2. Message

  Two voice mails. Each said, “Do not forget.”

  “For crying out loud, yes, yes, yes, I know.”

  He powered his laptop, checked a few emails, and reinforced details. He drove, checked the rear-view every so often; and ensured no flecks of blood fingered him. A London car park burdened his credit card further. Hamleys occupied the waiting hour. His daughter, Arabella – her mother registered that name when he was out of town – had developed a snort for the dolls ever since she noticed boys climb trees in the park. She wanted some of that. Rupert encouraged it. You needed agility in this world. He bought her a pair of Sylvanian Mon
key Twins. He always called her monkey.

  “Would you like it gift-wrapped?” The checkout girl’s smile didn’t have that forced-by-management grin. It shone genuine.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Gift-wrapped. Would you like me to wrap it for you?”

  “That’s a service?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good grief, that’s fantastic. Yes. Please.”

  *

  Rupert had probed the Regent Street apartment days before. Daylight remained, though evening had started to pull it to the horizon. He needed speed before police helicopters probed him. The roof inclined, but a walkway framed it. He sneaked past windows fast – hoped only Angelo remained home on this floor. He had his window cleaning sponge and a bucket, items inside hidden by a rag.

  Angelo Vega had bought this fancy piece of real estate two years ago, taking advantage of Britain’s lax property tax laws. He entered the country three times a year, one week at a time. In his previous two visits he had spent Wednesday alone, his company just one man he brought with him to stand in the lobby to vet potential visitors. He had bullet-proof windows and, like Boris, he looked to Fort Knox for door-locking inspiration.

  Except…

  Angelo had neglected his upper window. If he had thought about it at all, he can only have reckoned its position on the incline made it unreachable. Sorry, Angelo, Rupert thought, but that’s a bit of neglect you’ll regret. He shook his head. Life depended on details.

  Rupert left his bucket and sponge behind and made his cat-like way up the slope, one slip away from decorating the street below. The knife he had used on Boris he now slid between the window frames and jimmied them open.

  Too easy.

  He slid inside like a snake in a rat hole and took stock. He could hear a clock tick-tock away. The door led downstairs to a bedroom twenty-five by twenty feet. He crawled on all fours, just in case shots fired head or stomach height. Opening the door bit-by-bit elicited creaks enough to dart a hostile hand towards a gun. He wiped his face and neck free of damp and opened it a little further.

  The thud above, probably waist height if he stood, forced turtle-movement to hare speed. He ran low into the room, gun in hand, and fired one bullet into Angelo’s forehead. The force snapped his neck backwards, and he slumped into the chest of drawers. A shot to the heart made sure of him.

  4.30pm. Late. “Damn it.”

  It took Rupert thirty minutes to remove Angelo’s head, a procedure he’d had to study for this job. The gross application of the technique got to him, more than anything he had ever done, and it took longer than anticipated. Twice he almost threw up, a disaster he could not afford. He fired off a few “fucks” when he noticed the samurai sword sheathed on the wall.

  “You were waiting for an opportunity like this?” he asked.

  The swipe took a second and he planted the head on top of a head-high lamp, free of the shade and bulb, and faced it towards the apartment’s front door.

  3. Personal

  It made him happy to see that account closed.

  Cleaned up, and now be-suited, he sped to his car. His phone had three more voice mails haranguing him. His skin prickled as he drove. How could she be like this?

  He pulled up down the road from the office block, Prudential lighting the darkening road. He flipped the laptop and brought up the company's website. He recognized her instantly: Assistant Risk and Controls Analyst – Britney Frazer. It felt legit.

  He watched her leave. Departed his car after a dozen heartbeats, a package beneath his left arm. She took a coffee stop, did some window shopping, bought a newspaper – The Sun? – and took the tube. He kept himself hidden all the way to Notting Hill, where she stepped off. She didn’t live far from his place. He would need to scope further, just to make sure of her.

  *

  Late.

  Of all the things he had done this day, his life depended on the final appointment. A tube delay projected a scowl. Nobody would engage him in conversation on this journey. He pushed his way through commuters at his stop and ignored each “bloody hell.”

  He stopped before the open gates – all puffed. He surged ahead once he steadied himself. He held the package tight as he walked across the yard; each step like the concrete had only just been laid. He could not be late, not a chance. The door to the building stayed open with the help of a chair. His walk turned to a run down the fluorescent-lit corridor. He checked each door – Mrs Speckle, Mr Bruning, Mrs Borkowski, and so on until he arrived. He moved the package to the other arm and hoped the dark inside hid the sweat.

  Music floated from flutes, triangles, a cymbal, and a solo violin.

  “Where’ve you been?” his ex-wife Abbie demanded through every gap in her teeth as he took his seat beside her in the assembly hall.

  “Have I missed her?”

  “No.” Disappointed he hadn’t.

  He whispered. “You have to stop threatening to take her out of the country every time I miss something.”

  “You don’t deserve her. You don’t deserve a hair on her head.”

  “She’s mine and I’ve had enough of your threats. Now let me watch my daughter.”

  Her glare could give him a suntan. She had never been intimidated by him. She knew he would not hurt a hair on his daughter's mother, no matter the hate he had for her. One excuse and she would take his girl away from him forever.

  There she stood, her head poking through a gap between the curtain and wall. She shifted from one foot to the other. Her eyes found him and he gave a little wave. Her smile got him. He could see his six-year old girl’s form straighten behind the curtain. Her pride reached him over the heads of all the other parents. He squeezed the Sylvanian Monkey Twins through the package’s wrapping and allowed himself a grin as she entered the stage – the best female Artful Dodger a school production of Oliver Twist had ever known.

  Every heart he stabbed and every head he cut off was for her. His little Arabella.

  The Date

  “Your leg is shaking really bad,” Alison noted. An eyebrow reached for the awning, asking what’s up with that?

  John wondered how long for. He watched his date with intent, enough to see if he could read her thoughts, not enough to make her skin crawl. The leg troubled her; that sardonic eyebrow told him as much. But she remained engaged. Alison had not given off any of the so-called signals which hinted at attraction. She did not play with her hair and refused to face her body towards him. Maybe she liked him and refused to give out those signals for fear of rejection. He couldn’t tell. He had been out of the game for years. He didn’t know what to do anymore. His now former-married life had crushed his sexuality to a pair of pips.

  He had tried to do the right thing. Had asked Alison about herself, and never brought the conversation back to him. He just let her know that her experience interested him.

  “What about you?”

  She wanted him to do the talking. Sometimes she made it like a job interview. If you want me, you need to impress me – about your job, your values, your experience. Nevertheless, he liked her, despite himself. He enjoyed how her long neck fell into her V-neck top. He resisted the urge to stick his head forward.

  They had met at a mutual friend’s party the week before. John could not believe his luck at her presence, and that she had initiated the conversation. She thought she had seen him before, but couldn’t work out where. She told him about her work. She loooved being a lawyer – couldn’t think of anything more fascinating. He got her number before she got pulled away by other social obligations.

  Last week's eagerness had turned a little frosty.

  “First dates are always a mess.” She had honesty. The hurt surprised him. “This one has been the messiest I’ve ever been on.”

  He kept his emotions next to the ice-pack. She rejected him. His bones told him so. The awkward moment allowed him to look elsewhere. They sat outdoors at a restaurant which emptied the wallet for food that did not rent all h
is stomach's available space. Some couples talked, some people-watched – made it obvious they made fun of somebody by the way words escaped the corner of their mouths. A couple three tables away endured a date worse than his. It warmed him up.

  A wry smile sprung, an unexpected bonus in this situation. “It’s the second messiest I’ve ever been on. The worst was when I was twenty-four years old. She was also called Alison – wanted to eat in McDonald’s and then told me all night about her dream honeymoon.”

  Alison’s eyebrow asked him if he hadn’t known this in advance. He wondered if she exercised that eyebrow in a mirror.

  “Blind date,” he explained.

  “Do you have children?”

  He felt his leg go again, spasmed like a piston in a past-it motor. “I had a daughter…”

  She had the grace to look away and not show him pity. She let the moment wear itself out. The date mattered again.

  Those men… they had all escaped punishment.

  A scream – a woman in her mid-twenties – pulled him back. The pitch was not over a dropped plate. It reached into his ears and played the Psycho screech on his heart-strings. A toddler had broken free of his mother to play with those big fast cars on the road. John jumped the barrier between the sidewalk and restaurant and pulled the boy from a certain impression on the road. He returned him to a grateful mother and happily took her grateful kisses, accepted a hug, and jumped the barrier again to a standing ovation.

  Not quite what he wanted. People should not remember his face.

  Alison welcomed him back to the table warmer than the start of their date. She pushed her chair closer. Faced him and played with her hair. Once congratulations from staff and other customers subsided, the pair quaffed the free bottle of champagne the restaurant gave him for his heroic act. He dreaded the idea of a news crew from the cheesy local TV station.

  “This date has become interesting. What more have you got?”