Dirk Ramm: Suited and Booted

by Matt Hilton

  Two nights ago…

  Ramm stepped out of the shower, wrapping a towel around his hips. Behind him, dripping with sweat from their exertions, as much as the water from the showerhead, Bitsy Horton reached after him, to draw him back into her embrace. Her scarlet nails dragged down the tight muscles of his back and hooked into the towel. She wouldn’t let him leave.

  Ramm glanced back at the heaving breasts of Bitsy, saw a spot he’d not yet covered in soap, or by his lips, and thought twice about answering the urgent ringing of his doorbell. But then, for what he had in mind he’d need all of his strength.

  ‘I’d best get that,’ he said. ‘It’s probably the pizza guy.’

  ‘We can eat later,’ Bitsy pouted. ‘That’s if you’re still hungry.’

  With an appraising eye cast over her voluptuous curves, Ramm winked at her. He nodded at the shower stall. ‘This is simply the entre.’ He gestured at the large bed in the adjoining room. ‘That there’s for afters. But for the main course we have a couple of Joey’s special twelve inchers. We’ll both be thankful of the extra nourishment.’

  Bitsy’s eyes flashed with lurid delight, and her voice was breathy. ‘I’m sure I just had a twelve inch as my entre, I’m not sure I could take any more.’

  Ramm grunted out a laugh. ‘Thanks for the compliment, but you exaggerate surely?’

  ‘And there was me thinking that wasn’t a loofa you kept running up and down my back.’

  Bitsy retreated beneath the warm water, pulling too the glass door. Ramm listened to the doorbell, but didn’t rush to answer it. Through the misted glass he watched Bitsy lather up, and was glad that he’d ordered the Joey Special, with all the trimmings on top. Bitsy was voracious, but Ramm was all for sating her appetite.

  The bell continued its incessant ringing. Joey had a fifteen minutes promise: if his pizza arrived late, the customer didn’t pay. Whoever had delivered the takeout food wasn’t prepared to go back to the shop empty-handed.

  ‘OK, I’m coming. Give me a second, will ya?’ Ramm didn’t head directly for his apartment door. He went to the closet in the corner of his bedroom and pulled open the doors. Hanging among his suits and shirts was a shoulder holster, in it a matte black pistol. As he walked through the living room for the door he spun the chamber making an unnecessary visual check that the gun was fully loaded. He picked up his wallet from the coffee table. There was a spy hole in his door, but Ramm didn’t place his eye to it. Too many people had fallen foul of the old “shoot through the spyhole when it grows dark” ploy. Ramm never used the spy hole. It was there to draw in the unwary assassin, while he viewed them through the hidden fisheye lens of the CCTV camera hidden lower down the doorframe in an artistically designed, but wholly natural-looking knot in the wood. He checked out the small monitor on the wall next to the door.

  Outside stood Old Gampie, the regular delivery guy from Joey’s place. He was holding two boxes flat on both his palms. He wasn’t the one pressing the doorbell. Two large men stood close enough behind him for the steam from the pizzas to mist their shades. One of them leaned past Old Gampie, keeping steady pressure on the doorbell. Ramm frowned.

  He pushed the gun down the back of his towel, then rattled the door chain. The two guys in shades stepped aside, so that Ramm would see only the delivery guy on opening the door. Both of them took out guns he was unhappy to note, so it stood to reason they were up to no good.

  Regardless, Ramm opened the door.

  Gampie was no more Italian than Ramm was. He was an African American, an old school tough guy from Harlem back in the day. Nowadays his Afro was cropped short and white as snow, his flared jeans, silk shirts and platform shoes replaced with a red cotton jacket, with JOEY’S stitched on the breast pocket, khaki trousers and pumps. One time, Ramm had seen the old guy’s shirt fall open and he’d seen the faded clenched fist tattoo on his pigeon chest. Back in the seventies Gampie was into Black Power, but now he was as faded as his tattoo, and barely had the power to lift more than a couple of twelve inch pizzas at once. Ramm liked the old fella and was pissed that he’d been caught in the middle of Ramm’s troubles.

  The old man didn’t speak. He rolled his rheumy eyes right and left. Ramm winked at him.

  ‘I shouldn’t have to pay for these,’ Ramm said, as he quickly took hold of the boxes. ‘Your fifteen minutes is up. I just bet these are cold by now.’

  ‘Uh-uh. Scalding hot,’ Gampie told him, with another roll of his eyes.

  ‘That’s good,’ Ramm said, and flipped open the top box. Hot steam wafted up. ‘Mmm. Extra garlic, too.’

  Ramm handed Gampie forty bucks and told him keep the change. ‘Now go on, get outta here, or you’ll be late for your next customer as well.’

  Grateful for the quick escape, Gampie spun on his heel and alighted the stairs down to street level. His flight was enough to draw the attention of both big guys for the few seconds it took Ramm to drop his wallet and the unopened box, and to dip one hand under the steaming hot pizza in the other.

  As the first of the big guys stepped around the frame to wedge open the door with his foot, he was met by the twelve inch special that draped over his entire features like a hot rag. Melted mozzarella wasn’t quite napalm, but you wouldn’t know it from the muffled shriek of agony as the man clawed at his burning face, dropping his gun in the process. Ramm ignored him, snapped a hand down on the wrist of the second man and dragged him into the open. Ramm nutted him full in the nose. The bridge of the man’s nose flattened and his shades slipped down his face as it lengthened in pain and shock. Ramm dragged the man inside and kicked him over. The man stayed on his knees, his fingers prodding and pushing as he tried to reshape his features and to stem the flow of blood. He too had dropped his gun, and Ramm toed it out of reach.

  The first man had bent at the waist as he clawed melted cheese and peperoni out of his eyes. Ramm grabbed hold of his jacket collar and dragged him inside, flinging him down by his pal. From behind his back, Ramm withdrew his revolver and pointed it lazily in their direction. He stooped to pick up the man’s dropped gun and set it aside, while wondering who had sent these bums after him.

  A slow clap answered the unspoken thought.

  Ramm turned to regard the third man walking up his steps.

  The middle-aged man was smiling lazily, his teeth as white and perfect as in a toothpaste advertisement. His hair was as neat as his tailored suit, only a few shades darker than his tanned skin. Ramm recognised the guy.

  He was called Adrian Cannon. A big cheese, multi-millionaire entrepreneur, a humanitarian and philanthropist supposedly, a player definitely. Lately Cannon was a regular guest speaker on the TV news since his daughter Shelly had gone missing. All of his connections hadn’t meant a damn thing when it came to getting his daughter back.

  Ramm let the man see his gun.

  Cannon smiled, giving him a flash of his pearly whites. ‘You won’t need that pistol, Mr Ramm. I come in peace.’

  ‘So what’s with the dumb clucks you sent to ring my bell?’ Ramm made a quick check of the men behind him, but neither was in a fit state to trouble him.

  ‘Oh, they were just a little test. To ensure I’d found the right man.’

  ‘All you had to do was come to the door, state your business, and I’d have confirmed you’d come to the right place.’

  ‘I knew I was at the right place. I only had to ensure that I had the right kind of man. I wished to witness first hand how you handled yourself in a pinch, before offering you a fortune in cash.’ Cannon stood on the threshold. He cast a glance over his two incapacitated thugs. ‘Seems the rumours about you were unfounded. I’m very impressed, Mr Ramm.’

  ‘I’m not. You made me waste a good pizza, and it’s not the only thing getting cold. You have a job on offer I take it? So come in and let me close the door.’

  Cannon stepped inside the hall, avoiding the splatters of cheese and blood decorating the floor. His men had regained enough of their composure to blink up at
him in shame. Cannon aimed one of his searchlight bright smiles at them. ‘Don’t worry guys; you’ll still receive the agreed fee for your assistance. Now I suggest you get yourselves out of here before Mr Ramm decides to make you clean the floor.’

  Ramm picked up the unopened pizza box. As the two men squeezed by casting him frightened looks, he offered it to the one with the broken nose. ‘You may as well take that, buddy. Not sure your pal will want any more pizza tonight.’

  Broken Nose shook his head, unsure of how he should answer.

  ‘Go on,’ Ramm said, offering the box again. ‘You want me to put it in a doggy bag to go?’

  Now…

  Ramm could have done with that pizza now.

  Maybe he could have offered it as tidbits to the attack dogs, appealed to their hunger for his flesh with cheese and peperoni instead, won their trust, befriended them and sent them on their merry way with a pat on their adoring heads. Yeah, right! The only kibble the dogs would be chowing on would be his gonads if he didn’t escape them.

  The barn was huge, open to the elements at the front end, with only one small exit door at the far end. Stalls were ranged along the right hand wall, and in most of them were horses. On the left side the area was largely filled with farming implements and machinery. A tractor and trailer dominated the central space, parked there out of the way of the elements. Ramm considered and discarded the idea of clambering up onto the tractor or trailer within a second. Either platform would have allowed him to elude the flashing teeth of the dogs, but then he’d be stuck there. The dogs weren’t his only concern. Those who’d sicked the dogs on him were coming fast. He could hear them shouting to each other as they spotted the farm buildings.

  Ramm sprinted past the tractor. The startled horses whinnied and snickered, rolling their eyes and kicking out at their stalls. There was an elevated platform towards the rear of the barn. A ladder led up into the darkness of a hayloft. Ramm lunged for it.

  But the lead dog also lunged for him.

  It clamped its jaws around his right ankle, and yanked back. Ramm went down on his belly, the wind knocked out of his lungs. The dog shook him and Ramm’s leg felt ready to be ripped out of his hip socket. White agony flared through him.

  ‘Son of a bitch!’ His curse would have been funny if not ironic.

  Ramm spun over, just as the dog released him so that it could chew down on him further up his calf, aiming to tear out his Achilles tendon. He kicked with his good leg, making axing motions with his heel. He caught the Doberman on the nose and it shied away. But only for a second. The big keel-chested dog was nimble on its slim legs, and it danced around Ramm’s kicking feet and champed down on his right thigh. Blood pooled around its gnashing fangs. Ramm made a mental note to check when last he’d had a tetanus booster. He struck at the dog, aiming for its eyes. The dog howled and backed off. But already the other two were coming, barely five paces away. Ramm scrambled up, ignoring the pain in his wounds, and clawed at the lowest rungs of the ladder.

  Bunching the muscles in his arms he hauled himself up, until he could get his feet beneath him and he began to clamber at speed for the safety of the hayloft. A solid weight struck him, but fell away. Dog claws raked down his back, his wife-beater proving little protection. Ramm scrambled up another couple of rungs. The first dog grabbed at his heel again, and found purchase. The dog that had tried to launch itself on his back had fallen away and was squirming on the floor to find its feet, but the third beast wasn’t put off by its failure. It leapt, and its forepaws went over his shoulders, even as its jaws snapped on to the meat at the base of his neck. The only thing that saved Ramm was gravity. It worked against the dog before it could find a proper grip for its teeth. Ramm released the ladder long enough to batter backwards with an elbow, and the dog slid off him, tumbling to land on the first, ripping its jaws loose from Ramm’s boot heel. Breathing heavily, Ramm pushed up the ladder. At the top he spun and glared down at the trio of attack dogs circling in the space below him.

  ‘Go on!’ he snarled at them. ‘Get the hell outta here!’

  The dogs didn’t obey his commands. One of them came forward. From the watering of its right eye, he could tell it was the Alpha, the dog whose eye he’d speared with his fingers. The dog placed a paw on the bottom rung, and then paused to look up at him. It snarled, went up on its rear legs, and reached for the next rung up.

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding me?’

  Ramm had seen dogs climb ladders in those funny animal videos on TV. They were hysterical because they were exhibiting unnatural behaviour for a mutt. He wasn’t laughing now. The Doberman had been trained for pursuit, and it wasn’t giving in. It came on steadily, while the other two prowled at the ladder’s base, waiting their turn. Ramm could wait, let the dog get its head over the top rung and then kick it off the ladder, but he had the feeling that he’d be there all night, taking down each dog as they came on and on. He didn’t have all night. The dogs’ owners had heard the ruckus in the barn and were heading his way. Ramm scrambled backwards on his hands and knees but was checked by stacked hay bales. He acted without thought, twisting to grab one bale by the twine binding. He hauled it around, pulled it to his chest then flung it down at the dog. The bale was heavy, and knocked the Doberman off the ladder. The dog fell with a howl and landed at the feet of its pack mates. Sadly, the impact of the bale, and the fall, had failed to snap its spine. Immediately the second dog came for the ladder.

  Horses still whinnied and kicked out.

  The dogs were growling and making huffing noises.

  The shouts of men joined the clamour.

  Ramm grabbed another bale and threw it down the ladder. This time the dog jumped out of the way. Ramm sent another bale tumbling, then scurried for the back of the dark space. His shin clunked against something solid. Ramm pitched over it, but this time found a soft landing in loose straw. He twisted round, feeling for the length f wood that tripped him. A grim smile played across his lips as he tugged out the length of wood and found it to be a pole of some sort. A quick run of his fingers along its length found steel at its tip, actually there were three long prongs, and the discovery made his grin all the more wicked.

  Armed now with a pitchfork, he could easily fend off the dogs. But that wasn’t what pleased him. He didn’t wish the dogs any real harm. They were answering the commands of their masters: their attack wasn’t personal. The men behind them were Ramm’s real enemies. He held the fork braced across his chest as he headed for the back of the barn and found the hatch he’d fully expected. He shoved it open, peered down at the forbidding drop to hard packed earth, but fancied his chances down there more than he did staying within the barn. The Bishop’s men would encircle the barn before long, and he didn’t put it past them to set the structure ablaze to force him into the open.

  Without pause, Ramm flung the pitchfork ahead of him, and then went out of the hatch in a leap. His injured ankle and thigh were impediments to a successful landing, but he timed his fall, bent at the knees and tucked into a commando roll. As he came out of his forward somersault he snatched up the fork and ran. He didn’t head away from the barn. Where was the sense in that? The dogs would only come after him again. No, he went alongside the structure towards the front.

  The Bishop’s henchmen were just approaching the barn, calling out bloodthirsty encouragement to their dogs. There were five men. Four held cudgels, the last one a cleaver. If they’d brought guns then the battle would be one sided, but this was different. Ramm was outnumbered, but he outreached them by far.

  They were intent on following the dogs inside the barn. The Dobermans were engaged in climbing the ladder and their barking drew the men in after them, sure now that Ramm had been contained. Three men went forward, while the last two took one side of the barn each, hoping to close down any possible exits. The unfortunate man rushing towards Ramm was unaware his quarry was crouching in his path. Ramm braced the pitchfork against the ground, the fork at an oblique angle aime
d directly at the man’s chest. At the last possible second, Ramm jerked up the fork incrementally. The man ran onto the tines, the central of the three piercing his trachea, the outer prongs ripping out his carotid arteries. He died silently. Ramm twisted him over and laid him on his side in the dirt. Blood pooled out of the wounds, but there was no spurting: the man had died instantly of shock, his heart failing abruptly. Ramm stepped on the man’s shoulder, pushing him away as he yanked free the long tines. The dead man was one of those wielding cudgels. Ramm picked up the club and fed it through his belt.

  He was off in the next second, hurtling past the open front of the barn without alerting those inside. He couldn’t immediately see the man on the far side of the barn. Mist danced where the man had passed seconds earlier and Ramm followed the swirling patterns along the side wall. Seconds later he caught sight of a darker blur through the uniform grey, and he again held the pitchfork like a pike man at the ready as he stalked forward.

  The man was moving slowly; alert to any egress to the barn, totally unaware that death was stealing in on him. Never the coward, but always ruthless, Ramm gave the man no warning. He slammed the tines of the pitchfork under the man’s ribcage, digging deep for the liver. The man cried out, but Ramm forced one palm over his mouth, cutting off the screech of agony. When the man didn’t die quickly enough, Ramm dropped the fork, grabbed both hands round the man’s head and wrenched it savagely. The man dropped stone dead to the earth. Ramm took his club, and retrieved his fork. His weapons cache was building.

  From within the barn came the sound of voices raised now in question. The snarling of the dogs, the whinnying of the horses, didn’t help make things clear, but Ramm realised that the man’s death hadn’t been silent enough. Time for stealth was over: now it was time for balls and fury. He reversed route to the front of the barn, holding his fork in one hand, a cudgel the other. His night vision had sharpened somewhat and he could see further within the dim recess of the barn. The tractor stood out now against the dark and beyond it he could see the raised hayloft. The Dobermans had all scaled the ladder. They milled about up in the loft, unsure of what to do or where to go. Ramm grinned: the dogs could climb up; let’s see the fuckers climb down again.