The Unlucky
Page 17
Three.
She opened her eyes, sat up, aimed out the broken back window and shot three times into the chest of the man standing by the trunk. Even as he fell, red bursting up on his chest where Sarah’s bullets entered, the four remaining men twenty feet back opened fire on the Pontiac again. This time they didn’t stop until they emptied their weapons and had to reload.
Sarah screamed along with the assault, waiting for the moment when their ammunition would pierce the back of the car at the right angle, enter through the back seat and continue through the front seat and into her. With her head between her arms and legs scrunched up, covered in glass and various other pieces of upholstery, an idea occurred to her.
She couldn’t exit the car through the doors and going out the broken back window would be stepping into the line of fire.
But the broken front windshield was another case entirely.
Quickly, before they could reload and continue towards the car, Sarah swung her legs around and kicked at the windshield with both feet. Two hard stomps later and it disconnected from the frame in almost one piece. It landed on the hood, slid down and fell off slightly to the right.
She pivoted on the seat, got her feet under her and twisted around to fire her weapon out the back window.
The four men were just bringing their weapons around to aim at the destroyed Pontiac Catalina as Sarah’s bullets went wide. It had the effect she wanted as each man ducked aside and spread out to avoid being hit.
She pushed off with her feet and dove through the open windshield, holding the gun tight. Her shoulder took the hit on the hood of the car before she rolled off and smacked onto the pavement. Before she could catch her breath, she looked under the car for anyone approaching but the alleyway behind the Pontiac was empty now.
The four Chinese assassins had disappeared. Only the body of the one she shot was visible.
Police sirens were pulling up out front of the restaurant and at the mouth of the road she had parked on. It had been a long time since she was happy to have the police arrive.
Weakened by the ordeal, her muscles jelly-like, she pushed off the dirty ground, slipped Diner’s gun away, and got to her feet. A minor tremble went through her knees. She leaned on the hood of the car and examined the extensive damage.
How the hell did I survive that?
Men ran into the street and looked her way.
“Hey,” one shouted. “You there. Freeze!”
Sarah turned away and hobbled into a back alley. Finding strength from somewhere, she ran to the end of the alley until she realized she was standing behind the Chinese restaurant that held Samantha Mason.
The back door was opening. She caught a glimpse of a uniform as she slipped behind two large garbage dumpsters. Stained cardboard boxes and wooden crates were piled high by one dumpster. She edged behind them and covered her feet with a crate. The smell of rotting food was overwhelming. Scents of rot and decay came off black gunk piled under her shoulder blades. Grease or used vegetable oil piled an inch thick already oozed through her T-shirt. A mouse scurried inside the crate beside her head, dining on a half-eaten piece of something that might have once been lemon chicken.
She retched silently as the smell was so horrid she could taste the rot. She covered her mouth fast enough to quell any noise as men drew near her position.
A few words came her way. They were talking about a woman. Something about a funeral home. The two officers who had chased her from the Pontiac stepped close to the garbage bins.
The mouse turned to watch her. Its tiny nose sniffed the air, its whiskers jerking back and forth. Then it moved closer and sniffed the air again.
If she screamed now, it was over. There could be no coming back from this. No resolution to her Toronto tasks and the people she hunted would get away with everything.
Come on, Sarah. Get tougher. Like the old days. Fuck this situation and everything about it. You’re better than a shit mouse.
She tightened her jaw, clenched her fists and then paid attention to the men on the other side of the garbage bins.
One of the lids opened and slammed down.
“Hey, what are you doing there?” someone asked.
For a brief second, Sarah thought they had discovered her and that the voice was addressed to her.
“We followed the girl down here, Councilor. Just checking to see if she jumped in one of these bins to hide.”
Councilor?
The other bin’s lid slammed back into place.
“Carry on. No one ran down this way.”
“Yes sir.”
The man they called Councilor moved closer. She couldn’t see him from her position, but another man walked with him.
“We almost got her. Had her pinned down in that car. What happened?”
“The police got here,” another voice said. “Someone else must’ve called them.”
“Okay, find her. Kill her. We can dispose of the body at the funeral home.”
Funeral home? The same one Vivian asked Aaron to meet me at in the note she left him? Sarah closed her eyes. Golly, thanks Vivian. Guess I’m dead, is that it?
“What about the woman’s body?”
“Take Samantha’s corpse to the funeral home, too. I’m meeting Niles Mason there later. They can cremate together. Then we cremate the stupid girl and it’s done. This whole mess will end. Now, leave me. I have to make a call.”
One set of steps moved out of earshot. A moment later, the councilor started talking but he had turned away from her and was whispering something unintelligible.
She was too late.
Samantha Mason had been killed. This councilor was responsible and now he was going to kill Detective Niles Mason.
She eased Diner’s empty gun out and quietly escaped her hiding place behind the garbage bins.
It was time to turn the heat up.
It was time to stop the murders by killing a few more assholes.
Chapter 25
After easing out from under the crates, Sarah crouched behind the dumpster and scanned the alleyway. The councilor talked on his phone five feet away, near the back of a Lincoln Continental.
Marshall Machiavelli.
“That’s what I’m saying,” Machiavelli said into his phone, his back to Sarah as she stood to her full height. “The fact that that meddling bitch was in the vicinity makes the plan work. Explain during your press conference that Sarah Roberts has murdered again and Samantha Mason, a cop’s wife was the victim. That’s why there’s a large police presence here now. Say that we’re locking the area down to find Samantha’s murderer, an American named Sarah Roberts. The public will believe it.”
Anger rose in her as she moved closer to him, her focus on the back of the councilor’s head.
The rear door of the restaurant banged open as a cop jumped out. Machiavelli turned at the noise, but Sarah sprung into action.
She wrapped her free arm around the councilor’s neck, yanked him back into her and brought Diner’s gun up to his cheek.
“Drop it!” the cop at the restaurant shouted. He moved closer, lowering a few steps as more officers exited the restaurant behind him. “I’ll take the shot. Drop the fucking gun.”
Machiavelli’s hands moved skyward, the cell phone still locked in his grip, as Sarah spun him around to protect herself from itchy triggers.
“Tell them to back off,” she ordered Machiavelli. “If I take a bullet, you do too.” She jammed the tip of the gun into his cheek hard enough to bruise his gums. He grunted and tilted his head to the side to ease the pressure.
“Okay, okay.”
Seven uniformed officers had now emerged from the restaurant’s back door, guns up and ready. At any moment, one of them would try to play hero. This wasn’t working. The door opened again as more tried to come out.
“Tell them to remain calm,” Sarah whispered. “I don’t have to remind you what I did to Vanessa and Joel and Belinda and Fletcher’s dad.”
�
�Okay, everyone take it easy,” Machiavelli shouted.
“We’re going for a ride in your car,” Sarah said. “Mine needs some work now.”
“We’re leaving,” the councilor shouted for the cops to hear.
“Can’t let you do that, sir,” the officer who had come out first said. “Have to apprehend her.”
“You’re not listening, Officer. She will kill me like she has killed so many in the past two days.” Sarah started backing him up toward the Continental. “I’ll be fine,” Machiavelli went on. “Just don’t play hero and get me shot.”
“They can lower their weapons, too,” Sarah chimed in.
“Lower them,” Machiavelli ordered.
Sarah and Machiavelli stood against the side of his car. None of the officer’s guns lowered.
Sarah’s temper flared. She drew back on her arm, choking Machiavelli, and forced him to arch backwards and raise up onto the tips of his shoes, the whole time keeping Diner’s gun jammed into the side of his face.
“Lower them means,” she whispered, then shouted, “lower the fucking guns.”
Machiavelli was making choking sounds, his hands scrabbling at Sarah’s arm. Remarkably, his cell phone never left his grip. Sarah eased the pressure off, lowering him to the soles of his feet. He choked, gasped, and then coughed to clear a path in his throat to breathe.
“Open the door,” Sarah said.
Machiavelli reached around and pulled the back door to his Lincoln open.
“I’m going in backwards. You follow. Stupid shit gets you dead. Understood?”
He nodded, not ready to speak yet.
Sarah made him bend his knees as she got in the car. Vivian whispered to her that the car had a driver and that the driver was unarmed and willing to drive.
Then the upholstery of the Continental’s backseat met her butt. She eased back carefully, and pulled Machiavelli down with her.
He got inside the vehicle without a problem. Sarah moved the gun until it was placed at the opening of his ear, then reached over him to slam the door shut.
“Go!” she yelled at the driver.
The car got underway immediately. She chanced a look out the back window and saw about a dozen cops running after the car, half of them talking into little radios attached to their epaulets. Then she sunk lower in the seat to reduce her head being a target.
“No need to worry,” Machiavelli said. “This car is bulletproof.”
Sarah sat back up feeling a little foolish. They wouldn’t open fire on her in the councilor’s car as long as he was with her. Nerves after what happened to the Pontiac Catalina had made her duck.
She slid along the seat to the other side of the car and rested the gun on her lap, keeping it aimed in his direction.
“Thank you,” he said.
“For what?”
“Moving away.”
She frowned.
“You stink. What’s that smell?”
“Oh that. It’s a new collection of perfumes from Toronto’s finest importers and exporters of human beings. It’s called Garbage Scent. It also comes in Human Waste scent and for those special assholes, Scum of the Earth scent. I got too close to you, hence the smell.” She offered him a wry, half smile, then pursed her lips. “Tell me how you thought you could get away unscathed?”
The driver turned up another road, then ran a yellow and headed south on Spadina.
“How about you?” he asked, turning to face her. “With all the murders you’ve committed, do you really think there’s anywhere in this world you can go to escape prosecution?”
“Maybe I’ll kill every criminal in Toronto. That’ll help me escape justice.”
Machiavelli tried to stifle a laugh, but his mouth closed too late.
“That makes no sense whatsoever,” he said.
“I once heard someone say, kill a few people and you’re called a murderer. Kill a few million and you’re a conquerer.”
“Is that what you’re trying to do here? Conquer Toronto?”
Sarah shook her head. “No, not really. I’m only here to stop you.”
She looked out the window. The car was heading under the raised Gardener Expressway at the base of Spadina. In a block or so, the driver would have to turn left or right or they’d end up in Lake Ontario.
When she turned back to Machiavelli, he had a wide grin on his face.
“What could you possibly find so amusing?” Sarah asked.
“Your face.”
“Bold statement for a man in your position seeing as I’m the one with the weapon.”
The car stopped in the middle of an intersection. He had to be waiting to turn left. She needed more time to decide where to send him. The warehouse or the funeral home? But where were those buildings?
Where should I go, Vivian?
“You may have the weapon,” Machiavelli said. “But not for very long.”
“How’s that? You’re going to disarm me?” She braced herself for him if in fact that was what he wanted to do.
“No. They are.” He pointed behind her.
“So old, so old. That trick.” She wagged a finger at him.
The car still hadn’t moved. Through the windshield, no vehicles approached them. The driver wasn’t waiting to turn left after all.
Sarah dove across the seat and landed on Machiavelli just as something made of at least a dozen tonnes of steel smacked into the Lincoln. The car was shoved sideways until the wheels met the curb. It lifted up at a forty-five degree angle, hovered a moment, Sarah twisted uncomfortably, her face plastered against the passenger side window, then descended back to the road, smacking hard, the chassis protesting the hit.
Before she could regain her balance and locate Diner’s gun that had been knocked from her grip, something else smacked the car from behind. It was shoved forward and Sarah was pushed into the back of the seat, her shoulder twisting at an odd angle, pain shooting through her upper neck.
Another hit, but this time she saw what was attacking them. Three large pickup trucks with huge thick bars covering their grills were taking turns playing smashup derby with the Continental, which was losing poorly.
Another hit knocked her to the floor of the back seat. As she struggled to get up, one of the trucks hit them again, this time crunching in the side door enough that Sarah got wedged in, stuck.
“Shit!” she yelled as a deeper pain coursed through her shoulder. “Nothing had better be broken.”
Machiavelli’s door ripped open. Two men hauled him out and helped him away. Then a man carrying a long-barreled weapon came into sight.
“Get out,” he said.
“Nope. Can’t move. Stuck.”
Someone yanked on the door that held her in place. After two loud metallic bangs, the bent door gave way and popped open, exposing Sarah.
Rough hands wrapped around her shoulders and yanked upwards as she screamed at the pain.
This isn’t working out too well, Sis.
The hands pulled her free, then dropped her. After one bounce on the cement with her head, stars formed in her vision.
She looked under the Lincoln, spun her head frantically to look the other way, wincing at the pain in her shoulder. The sunlight was cut off by someone standing over her.
Machiavelli moved in close. He held a baseball bat, the trunk of the Continental open behind him.
“You’ll burn for this, bitch.”
The tip of the bat came in hard and too fast to avoid. It connected with her head and turned the lights out.
Chapter 26
Someone screamed. A man in pain. A lot of pain. All of it from under water. Distant somehow.
Consciousness swam up violently. Faint light filled her vision. A spotlight, but not on her, shone on the center of the tiled floor. Like a hospital floor. Her cheek ached. Her shoulder throbbed. Random thoughts flitted through her head.
Chinese restaurant. Vegetable oil. Grease. Smell. The car. The accident.
The baseball bat.
A man stood beside her. She turned her head slowly. Another man stood on the other side of her.
She adjusted her weight, moved slightly to the right and sat up, testing her shoulder as she rose until her back leaned on a bank of cupboards. A cool dribble of saliva had pooled at the corner of her mouth. It leaked down her chin. When she wiped it, she felt the swelling the baseball bat had caused. A close inspection with her tongue revealed all her teeth were in the right places.