Deadlift
by
Craig Saunders
The Mulrones
Book Four
Copyright © 2017 Craig Saunders
All characters in this novel are fictitious and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover or format other than that in which it is published and without similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchase.
2nd Edition
1st Edition published DarkFuse.
Cover Art Copyright © 2017 Craig Saunders
CONTENTS
I.
The Deadlift/00.01.36
II.
The Other Man
III.
The Woman in Red
IV.
Deadlift/00.00.45
V.
Dinner with the Woman in Red and the Other Man
VI.
Creating a Monster
VII.
Redundancy
VIII.
The Right Man
IX.
Freya
X.
The Path of Least Resistance
XI.
The Beast in the Cage
XII.
Otaku and the Man in the Mask
XIII.
The Beast Within
XIV.
The Man in the Mask
XV.
Last Man Standing
XVI.
Owned
XVII.
Bone Eye
XVIII.
The Death Sentence
XIX.
A Moment in Time
Afterword
Also by Craig Saunders
About the author
'The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it, as long as you really believe 100 percent.'
-
Arnold Schwarzenegger
I.
The Deadlift/00.01.36
Deadlift is a weightlifting term which refers to the action of lifting a weight from the floor to a standing position, gripping a bar. Records for the deadlift performed in strength competitions range from 1015lbs to 1180lbs, depending upon competition rules, the type of weight, handgrips, weight belts. The heaviest recorded deadlift, by a man named Tom Magee, was 1180lbs (a shade over 535kg) and performed over thirty years ago.
The heaviest unrecorded deadlift, performed outside competitions rules, or any rules, was by a man named David Lowe who held the severed cable of an elevator. David Lowe was huge and strong, but he was also tiring. He'd been holding the elevator not for the standard count at full extension, but for one minute and thirty-six seconds.
The elevator, according to the man who had severed the cables, was rated to carry 1000lbs of human weight, though it only carried 123lbs (Lowe's wife) plus change (the change being her lover, who weighed 227lbs). The hotel elevator itself weighted a mere 604lbs. The cable, one of six, was roughly three inches in diameter, steel, and around seven feet in length between the elevator itself and the severed end. Seven feet of steel cable, times six, equalled near enough 46lbs.
A total of 1000lbs in the hands of a man who loved 123lbs of that weight just enough to hold on for a little while longer.
*
Three days before the man in the velour tracksuit bottoms and a Sailor Moon t-shirt blew the cables on a hotel elevator with two people inside it, a man named Lowe knocked at his door.
The Sailor Moon t-shirt wearing man was Otaku, and though he wasn't Japanese but Hispanic, he qualified. Middle aged with thin sideburns and thick glasses, a slight paunch and a weak chin.
Lowe was immense. A largish gut, but anything else on him would have looked wrong. Six feet and five inches, 280lbs of bone, sinew, fat, and a lot of muscle. Not bodybuilder muscles, but strong man muscle. Business muscles. He didn't show them off with tight t-shirts or vests. They weren't, particularly, aesthetically pleasing muscles. His shoulders were rounded, he carried a fair amount of fat. He wasn't ugly, but he was blunt in the face. And when he cried, like now, he often reminded people of a giant baby.
Sailor Moon t-shirt man knew why the big man had come. People rarely called on Otaku for anything but deliveries of rare Japanese memorabilia from various niche sites around the world.
Occasionally, though, people called on Otaku to blow things up.
'Come in,' said Otaku, and wondered if the man would fit through a standard doorframe.
Lowe ducked and entered, still crying, sniffing, with a little snot visible in the hairy nostril Otaku was staring at. He couldn't take his eyes from that droplet. Waiting for it to drop.
Lowe pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his nose, then his eyes.
Otaku was disgusted, and a little relieved, and a little disappointed.
'I want you to kill my wife,' said Lowe, without even checking if Otaku was Otaku, without using the code they'd agreed online, without even so much a lifted eyebrow. Just sniffles and sadness.
Otaku shrugged. People were pretty stupid when they'd been hurt, but he enjoyed blowing things up and the pay was better than his little sidelines: Schoolgirl porn and selling used ladies' underwear to lonely businessmen, along with a naked shot of someone he found online and a short handwritten note and a lipstick kiss.
'Where and when?'
'The Regal. Can't be exact, but she'll be on the twentieth floor. She's with a guest. I want them both...done.'
The man in the Sailor Moon t-shirt pretty much had everything else figured right there, but the thing was, he didn't care, and didn't spend any more than a couple of seconds and a slight shift of his left eyebrow thinking it through.
What he was wondering, right there, was when, why, how, and how much.
'Five grand,' he said.
'You said two.'
'You said one,' replied Otaku. 'Two's double.'
'Then four.'
'One for expenses.'
The man couldn't, wouldn't, argue, and Otaku knew it. The man was big, but he was broken, too, and he wasn't in the least imposing to Otaku. Maybe on the street, yes. But here, begging?
Otaku smiled as the big man nodded.
'Half now,' said Otaku. 'Half when it's done. You know how.'
'It'll be there in an hour,' said David Lowe, who left, then, within the hour deposited £2,500 in credit into Otaku's online game account.
Otaku bought his avatar a new hat and a schoolgirl outfit.
The rest he filtered here, there, online auctions, online transactions. It took the best part of three hours of shifting money through various sites, until finally it was clean and clear and entirely his.
And, at £2,500, was precisely what he'd wanted in the first place, plus a little extra for insurance. Otaku never, ever, did a job without insurance.
*
The cables were the easiest part of the problem. The timing wasn't all that difficult, either.
The 'governor' - the system that would engage the copper shoes that would clamp down on the elevator in the event of failure - that was the problem.
The governor functioned on a sensor system, which Otaku couldn't get to. He couldn't get to the shoes themselves, nor the systems to override them.
So he decided on a twin assault.
The first explosion would be a bomb loaded with ball bearing, on a simple trigger, like a kind of homemade Cla
ymore mine. This would take out the six cables which raised and lowered the elevator.
Second, rather than just blowing the copper shoes of the back-up safety system, which he couldn't do without overly complicating everything and thus making the risk of discovery that much higher, he designed a small, powerful device that would be triggered with the first detonation.
The second explosion wouldn't just take out the copper shoes that would halt the elevator's descent. It would pretty much vaporise everything inside the elevator instead.
*
Forty-five seconds in, holding the cable, the first little slip happened. Sweat, skin, blood was lubricating the cable. Roughly an hour and half since Lowe figured he'd made a terrible mistake (the precise moment had been lost on David Lowe, because he shifted from inaction, tears, angry and heart-deep hurt to action at that moment).
Forty-five seconds in was also, coincidently, the moment when a man placed the muzzle of a short revolver against the struggling, sweating man's temple.
'You really are fucked, buddy,' said the man with the short gun and a dirty smile.
*
II.
The Other Man
The other man liked a challenge. The hard-to-get, the beautiful, the high maintenance. But mostly, he liked married women. The more married, the better.
He didn't fuck them. Never had. He listened, flirted, befriended. He paid the bill on so many fancy dinners and pretty drinks he'd lost count of the expense.
It wasn't about sex. Never was. Fact was, he couldn't bear the sight of naked flesh. He always wore a heavy sackcloth mask on his head and face when he killed.
He'd killed a lot of women. His sackcloth mask was bloodied and torn and repaired so many times, soaked, at times, in women's blood, that it was no longer beige but more maroon, with multihued stitching. It wasn't a heavy thing, but it was a little too bulky to fit in a jacket pocket (women tended to like him in a suit). He carried a smart briefcase instead, and kept the mask in there.
He'd never seen the actual act of murder, but he knew he was culpable. He allowed the mask to see, to feel. He allowed it to exist. He put it on.
And when he did he wasn't quite himself anymore.
*
Three days before David Lowe discovered his wife's adultery, the mask was in a briefcase at the foot of a glass table on a sun-bathed terrace in London's business district. The mask could not see. Not yet.
The man who belonged to the mask smiled. He showed perfect teeth, poured a little lunchtime wine (chilled, white) for his date.
'You look happy,' she said, smiling, too.
'I'm happy enough,' he said. 'I'm with you, I'm happy. I'm a simple man.'
He didn't wink, because he didn't want to overdo things, not on a first date. But it didn't matter much. She wanted him. He could smell it. Like some kind of pheromone in the warm summer air, or a hint of pussy, wet.
He didn't push it, though. Now, later, next week. Didn't matter to him or the mask.
'I don't usually do this,' she said, leaning forward across the glass, her cleavage showing, sickeningly. 'But...'
He leaned forward, too. Engaged, not overly eager.
Take charge, or be led?
He decided she wanted to lead.
He let her.
Later, in her apartment, he stabbed her in the foot, clean through to her heated floorboards, with her own narrow-bladed carving knife. While she was pinned and screaming a piteous scream, he spun the combination on his briefcase. Then he put on his blood-caked mask and didn't see or hear anything else until he woke in the morning, clean and unsullied, in his own bed. Same as always.
He took care of the mask and the mask took care of him.
*
Two days before David Lowe discovered that the only woman he'd ever loved, and loved to his own destruction, was having an affair.
The man who belonged to the mask met her at a station, offered her a drink. Mrs. Lowe smiled, politely, but declined.
It happened, from time to time. Sometimes the mask was silent, and the man moved right along to the next and the next and the next.
This time, though, the mask spoke.
'I want her,' it said.
The man heard it speak through the briefcase.
He followed her home from the station. Watched her house for three hours, searched her bins, pieced together a few bills, went home.
He hit the computer, and the following day, one day before David Lowe found out his wife was cheating on him, the man with the mask turned up at Mrs Lowe's office.
'Don't I know you?' he said, twenty minutes into the meeting, head cocked a little to the right.
'I don't think so,' she said.
'I'm sure...you look...maybe...'
'I'm sure I'd remember, Mr. Harmon,' she said, and he knew he was in with a shot.
*
Mr. Harmon, trader in the City of London, made mistakes. He often made mistakes.
Like requesting Mrs. Lowe's number for an after-hours assignation to discuss a possible investment that would mean a very large bonus for her, should she bring in his business. Of course, she could not decline, though the request might be unusual.
So, he made mistakes. Like sending a text message to Mrs. Lowe, which she left on her phone. A message which her insanely jealous and immensely loving husband could misconstrue in minutes.
Mr. Harmon made many simple mistakes.
The mask did not, and the mask owned Mr. Harmon, soul and body both.
*
III.
The Woman in Red
A red dress spread across the quilt, tidily, waiting to be worn. It was summer, and Mrs. Lowe, Freya Lowe, liked the dress. She'd wear a cardigan over the top. Nice, but not too nice. She liked to keep the really nice for David. Like a little cleavage when they went to dinner, or maybe a hint of leg. She wasn't as confident about her legs as her breasts, which she knew were good. People looked at them often enough, even when she was in blouse and jacket for work.
She wanted to look nice, because Mr. Harmon could mean a lot for herself and David, should she reel him and his money in.
But not too nice.
She nodded, happy enough with her choices, didn't wear matching underwear but did shave her legs, her armpits, as she showered in the en suite. She dabbed on perfume, put on make-up, but not much.
Dressed, she fluffed her hair and blotted her lipstick on a piece of tissue, which she left on the pillow for David.
Freya didn't enjoy going out at night. She enjoyed her husband's arms around her when she got home from work. When the work day was done she felt dirty. His arms felt clean.
He could be overbearing, sometimes, but she'd always felt protected with him. He was like a bear, in many ways. Fierce, warm, huge. He'd knocked a man down and out once, for squeezing her tit in a pub in central London.
She still didn't know if she liked that, or not. But David was just what he was - simple, honest, and he loved her to distraction.
As she left the house, with her keys in a clutch bag and a taxi waiting at the kerb outside, she thought about maybe telling him about the extra money, should it come to that. Thought about maybe opening her red dress for him, later.
Thinking about how to play the evening, and leaving her mobile phone on the kitchen table.
*
Mr. Harmon, she knew, was an extremely wealthy man. The rich and the very rich were often hard to please, sometimes eccentric, and as demanding as children.
Mr. Harmon was, maybe, more personable than some she'd met in her time, but his request that she meet him in his suite on the upper floors of the Regal Hotel was somewhat unusual, and somewhat uncomfortable.
She didn't like it, but her boss bade her go, people knew where she was, and it was a hotel. It wasn't as though she was meeting a drug dealer in a dark alley. He was well known, filthy rich, and seemed nice enough. Kind of like a normal person, even, despite being more rich than she could ever wish to be.
The
Regal was a nice hotel. Wainscoting on the lobby walls, ornate ceiling roses, crystal twinkling in chandeliers. Quiet, a kind of professional hush among the staff. A few people in the lobby. They sat in high chairs before dark wood tables and drank coffee she could smell ten feet away.
'Mr. Harmon's room, please? I'm Freya Lowe. He's expecting me.'
'Room 2001, Ms. Lowe,' said a well-presented man at the counter. 'Go right on up.'
'Thank you,' she said, and took the elevator, because no-one in their right mind walks twenty flights of stairs in black high heel shoes.
*
As Freya stepped from the elevator onto the top floor of the hotel, a man was waiting for the elevator. A small man, with a hint of stale tobacco on his clothing.
He smiled and stood back to let her pass, which was polite enough. But for some reason, she found herself giving him a wider birth than necessary, and her returned smile tight.
Suddenly she was uncomfortable and her confidence draining. The man stepped into the elevator and when the doors closed, she took a few steady breaths before continuing down the hall.
'You can do this,' she said to the empty hall, and walked on quiet carpet to Mr. Harmon's door.
Knocked, gently, and when he opened the door in his suit she was inexplicably relieved, like she'd half imagined he'd be there naked.
Daft, she told herself, and stepped into Mr. Harmon's top floor suite to do some business and he closed the door behind her.
*
IV.
Deadlift/00.00.45
Forty-five seconds, holding the cable and all the weight attached to it.
And his wife.
A gun at his temple.
David Lowe was a simple man, but not a stupid man. He was wondering if he had enough breath to hold the lift like this and speak.
Deadlift (The Mulrones Book 4) Page 1