Brilliant Short Stories

by Stan Mason

  The lorry drive was quite unperturbed at the passenger’s frank admission. He was a big man who boasted that he could always look after himself. The fact that his passenger had killed four people didn’t really worry him at all. ‘How do you feel about it after twenty-five years? Is there much change?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Lots of it. Everything to be honest. When I went inside, computers were the size of factories. Now they’re in every room in the house and everyone uses them. Televisions were just televisions. Now they’re teletext, fasttext... heaven knows what. And then there’s the Internet. A world-wide information service on every subject under the sun. People don’t need newspapers any more. They can tape programmes on television with video-tape machines and there’s more than seven hundred channels operated by satellites which orbit the earth. They have hi-fis, CDs, DVDs, and there’s mobiles and WAP telephones you carry around with you all the time, not to mention the virtual reality sets. Vaccum cleaners don’t need dust-bags any more. Robots are just around the corner. Cars are computerised and fitted with air-bags. Waste disposals go down the kitchen sink. And not only that but everyone is on the move all the time like they’re on wires. Clubs start to open at ten-thirty at night when most people are going to bed. I tell you, the world has become such a horrible place I don’t really want to come back into it. Not for a moment. And then there’s the wars. They’re going on in different places throughout the world... and the weapons they use are horrific. What the hell is it all about? I tell you, it’s far safer in prison where one can get three meals a day and all the security required. I never want to leave there... not in my lifetime.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’ asked the driver. ‘Once you get back in, I mean. You say you’ve only a week to go.’

  ‘I’m going to insist that I stay inside for the rest of my life. When I go in front of the parole board next week, I’ll threaten to kill the Prime Minister and all the members of the Cabinet if that helps me to do so. But one thing’s for certain. I’m not coming back into this strange world. No, siree! I’m not going to be part of this environment with all its electronics, its virtual reality, it’s heated toilet seats, its wars and its surface-to-air missiles. Not now, not ever!’ And quite unremarkably, after his performance at the next hearing of the parole board, he never did!

  Cherchez La Femme

  It may be true to say that Mario Buloni had a role which was the equivalent of a Godfather in the Mafia. Indeed, in a small way, he could truly accept such an accolade and the reasons were quite plain. Firstly, it was absolutely true that he came from Italian stock. His father was born in Milan and emigrated to Britain under a scheme after the Second World War which had been engineered to employ foreign miners in an industry in short supply of workers. However, Italian women in Britain were hard to find. Subsequently, his mother was an Irish woman born in Dublin. Secondly, there was a distinct difference between the operations of the main Mafia undertaken in Sicily and in the United States. This emerged from the fact that all activities were limited within a fairly small region in the East End of London and all operations were carried out from a large house instead of a luxurious mansion in Sicily or a large property on Long Island in New York. Nonetheless, the elements of the activities was very similar to those carried out by those abroad. They involved hard drug distribution, the installation of slot machines in all places where the public attended, an insurance protection racket for shopkeepers and businesses, and a group of women who were employed in prostitution. In effect, Mario Buloni was a big fish in a very small pond and he was not unhappy about it because he had accumulated a large fortune over the past twenty years. However, things were about to change. He soon became aware that someone intended to blow the whistle on the nefarious activities of the East London mob which could end with them all being sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. The evidence was very clear. Lorna Evans had been employed to keep the books of the mob some four years earlier. She had fallen in love with Mario’s son, Vittorio, and the relationship blossomed very well... until recently when Maria Vedetti appeared on the scene. She was an attractive dark-haired voluptuous woman who had emigrated to Britain and found employment as an operational supervisor of the slot machine activities. Within a very short time, the profits of this division began to grow and her performance was noticed by the watchful eye of the Godfather. For Vittorio it was a sea change. He immediately became smitten by the lovely new recruit and he dropped Lorna like a hot brick telling her that he didn’t love her any more and that their relationship was over. It was of little suprise to anyone that she strongly resented such rough treatment and, in a moment of revenge, she took it in her head to inform to the police about all the illegal activities undertaken by Mario Buloni and his gang. When this had been completed, and she had signed a full statement outlining all the details, she was advised to be placed on the Witness Protection Programme in order to ensure protection for herself. This meant that her present state of life was about to come to an end. She was given a new identity, a new address well away from the East End of London and, to all intents and purposes, she was a completely different person living alone in a new environment. For this purpose she cropped her hair very short, dyed it from blonde to black, wore heavy black-rimmed spectacles, and changed the style and colour of her clothes in the hope that no one would recognise her. She was advised to lie low, remain in the apartment provided for her, and to wait there patiently until the case came to Court. A plain-clothed policeman was posted opposite the apartment block in case her identity was discovered and the gang came to stop her from giving evidence, one way or another. In effect, she was so incensed at being rejected by Vittorio, she intended to avenge herself in full on her ex-lover!

  The Godfather called his son into his office one morning to discuss the matter. ‘What’s goin’ on, Vittorio?’ he demanded of his son after receiving an indictment from the Court in the form of a Writ. ‘Who’s blown the whistle on us? And what’s happened to Lorna these days? I haven’t seen her for two days.’

  His son winced at the incisive questions because he knew all the answers. ‘Lorna’s gone crazy because we split up,’ he told his father candidly. ‘I told her I didn’t love her any more and she went nuts. It’s obvious to me that she’s so mad she’s gone to the police and told them about all our activities.’

  ‘So... what are you goin’ to do about it, son?’ The question was crystal clear, placing the blame fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the younger man.

  ‘There’s only one way,’ exclaimed Vittoria. ‘She’s almost certainly gone into the Witness Protection Programme. What we need to do is hire a hit man to take her out as soon as he can find her. That would solve the problem once and for all.’

  ‘Then do it!’ retorted the Godfather. ‘Make sure she’s taken out. We can’t afford to take chances with a material witness.’

  ‘Okay, leave it to me, I’ll see to it,’ declared his son firmly before he went outside to stand in the hallway, producing a mobile telephone from his pocket to contact the assassin. He dialled a number and spoke quietly into the receiver. ‘Hi, Danny. Look, I gotta job for you. It’s Lorna. Lorna Evans, my ex-fiancee. She’s gone to the cops and blabbed all about our activities. We need you to take her out.’

  ‘Okay,’ replied the assassin. ‘It’ll cost you ten grand as usual. You best get her details to me as soon as possible.’

  ‘There’s a problem,’ admitted Vittoria sadly. ‘She’s almost certainly in the Witness Protection Programme which means she’s not employed here any more and not living at her home address. I really don’t know how you’re gonna find her.’

  Danny Frost was a very cool customer. He was only twenty-four years of age but he had been responsible for killing twenty-three people. On a personal level, he was eager to kill one more person to equate the number of deaths with his age. ‘Hm, it may take some time,’ he replied casually, ‘but I’ll find her. Leave it with
me.’

  ‘Well make it fast, Danny. Dad received a Writ this morning. It’s gettin’ serious.’ Vittorio replaced the mobile telephone to his pocket and went into the room which had been turned into a general office. He walked over to the voluptuous figure of Maria Vedetti dressed in a tight black sweater and smart black slacks and took her in his arms. ‘What do you say we finish up the day right now and go out together, you gorgeous creature?’

  ‘Vittorio!’ she chided gently. ‘It’s only nine-thirty in the morning. I have work to do. Go away!’

  ‘Work! Huh! We’ve got other people to do the work. Come on. Let yourself go! Enjoy life!’

  ‘Go away,’ she said firmly, although a smile appeared on her face. ‘I have work to do, and now that Lorna’s gone there’s more to be done. That’s the problem with ex-fiancees, they leave you in the lurch.’

  ‘Okay, okay!’ he retorted in mock disgust. ‘I’ll leave you alone here with all this work! You’ll soon realise how pointless it is when you think about your desires and the fun you could have if you went out with me today!’

  He left miserably, wandered into his own office, and sat behind his desk for a while flipping little balls of paper into a waste-paper basket from the bottom of a ruler. Then he went to the corner of the room, picked up a putter and started to hit a ball across the floor trying to pot it into a small gadget which represented a hole on the green. Eventually, he tired of this as well, replacing the golf-club in the corner, and returned to his father’s office.

  ‘Did you fix it?’ asked Mario, looking up as his son entered. ‘Did you find a hit man?’

  ‘Yeh, I got Danny Frost,’ answered his son triumphantly. ‘He’ll sort out the problem for us.’

  His father’s face fell. ‘Ah, Danny Frost. I hoped you wouldn’t hire him. You see, he’s got a big mouth. He’s been telling stories. Bad stories about us to the police. I arranged a contract on him only five minutes ago.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous!’ claimed Vittorio in confusion. ‘Ten minutes ago I gave him the contract on Lorna. Now you’ve put one out on him. What are we gonna do?’

  ‘We can’t pull him off the job. If we did that he’d become suspicious and all kinds of hell could break loose. And I’m reluctant to call off my guy. There’s only one thing to do. We let him carry out the hit on Lorna and then my hit man can take him out. In that way, we kill two birds with one stone. What do you say?’

  ‘Are you sure that’s the way you wanna play it?’ questioned Vittorio, rather puzzled at the complex situation which presented itself. ‘I mean, wouldn’t it be better to call off your hit man until Danny took care of Lorna?’

  ‘Nah,’ responded Mario adamantly, ‘there’s no point. I’ll contact my hit man to follow Danny Frost until he takes out Lorna and then he can blow him away, but not before he’s done the job. In that way, we can save ourselves ten grand. That’s the best idea.’

  Vittorio was unconvinced but he conceded to his father’s wishes. After all, he was only second-in-command of the gang, forced to play second fiddle... until the day his father passed on. Then it would all be different.

  Out in the field, Danny Frost girded on his gun holster and checked his machine-gun which he kept in a violin case. He had read many stories and seen comic films about gangsters carrying violin cases with guns inside them but he had to admit it was the best method of carrying weapons without being noticed in public. With his trilby hat tilted on his head, and wearing a very smart blue suit with a blue tie to match over a smart white shirt, he realised he looked a little too affluent to be a musician but that was the style he always like to adopt when going out. Now where could this Lorna Evans be hiding? That was the question. He knew two addresses where previous witnesses had been hidden and they were the first two places to investigate, however neither of them proved to house the woman he had been hired to assassinate. So what was the next step? He racked his brains and came up with a quick solution. He knew a policeman who was willing to exchange secrets for a cash payment, so he contacted him and they arranged to meet, but the information was insufficient for the assassin’s needs.

  ‘I don’t know where she’s been taken,’ admitted the police officer, at a building site on the outskirts of the city. ‘But I know the new name given to her. That much I can tell you.’

  ‘It’s helpful but not much use, is it?’ riposted the assassin sharply. ‘I mean, even if I do know her new name how the hell can I find her. She won’t be listed anywhere. It’s worse than trying to find a needle in a haystack.’

  ‘Well for what it’s worth,’ continued the policeman dourly, ‘the name she’s been given is Hannah Anderson. That’s all I can tell you. That’s all I know.’

  Danny handed him some money to keep the man sweet and the officer went on his way. Hannah Anderson! It was something to work on and yet nothing of any value. The name would not appear in any voting list, in the records of any housing association, on the computer of any library... nowhere at all! In view of the fact that the County Court would be the place for the Hearing, it was more than likely she would be hidden somewhere in the city rather than be taken to the country or another city. And then he thought about the telephone network. If she was installed in an apartment or a house somewhere there might possibly be a new telephone number for her. He contacted the telephone network authority but not unexpectedly drew a blank. There were no telephone numbers listed in the name of Hannah Anderson. Consequently, he realised that the police had already installed the telephone at the safe house in an assumed name. He opened the file on Lorna Evans which he had collected from Vittorio’s office and examined her photograph and details very carefully. She was an attractive blonde woman twenty-five years of age who worked for the gang during the day, undertook martial arts activities each Monday and attended aerobics classes every Thursday. She was the adoring fiancee of Vittorio Buloni and had kept the books of the mob for four years. As she was a keen rally driver and the fiancee of the Godfather’s son, she had been given an expensive black-coloured BMW motor car registered in her own name as a present. She like watching television, attending parties, going clubbing once a week with Vittorio, and spending the rest of her spare time with him. Nothing terribly untoward in her life-style but equally totally unrewarding to an assassin who was searching for her. However, while he was looking for clues to help him find her, his professionalism was not to go wanting. Very few people ever know if they are being trailed by someone else but Danny was suddenly aware that he was being watched and followed. He didn’t know the identity of the hunter but the hairs rising sharply on the back of his neck were sufficient reason for him to recognise the situation. One question stood out in his mind. Why was someone was watching him? Admittedly, recently, he had been forced to reveal some information about the gang to his police informant but that was the only means by which he could get the information he needed about his next target. As usual, with his paid contacts in the police force, Buloni was in pole position to discover that, in a sense, he had betrayed the gang. Surely, such a small amount of innocuous information wasn’t sufficient for them to put out a contract on him! In any case, they had only just given him an assignment so why should they have him followed? In that case, who was following him?

  He went over the details of his target in his mind, trailing over the minutest bits of information to determine where he might find her. And then suddenly it came to him in a flash. The black-coloured BMW motor car. She loved attending motor rallies. It brought her the excitement she desired and it was a big part of her life. Consequently, she would be willing to change her identity and her hair and her clothes to look different but she was unlikely to dispense with her pride and joy... the motor vehicle. If he could find it, he would find her. He knew it in his bones. The Councillor in the Witness Protection Programme would no doubt have told her to give up the vehicle but Danny doubted whether he would have influenced her to do so. Lorna
Evans was hiding in an apartment or a house and she would remain there for some time. Therefore the car would be parked somewhere nearby either in the street or in a garage. He decided to search a number of public garages first, leaving it until almost midnight because by that time nearly everyone who was enjoying an evening out at the theatre, a cinema, or a club would have gone home. For a while, fortune refused to favour him and it was almost five o’clock in the morning when he came across it. He checked the registration number in the file and found that the vehicle corresponded with it. Lorna Evans was very close by. He left the garage and trudged around a few streets until he saw a man sitting on a bench opposite a block of apartments. It was quite clear to him that the man was a plain clothed policeman. Indeed, it was quite obvious at five o’clock in the morning that he was on the street watching out for her.

  Danny went over to the flats and stared at the names of the twelve tenants listed by the side of the security devices outside. He pressed one of the buttons and waited. An irate man, woken rudely from his sleep, muttered something into the microphone but refused to press the release control to open the outside door. He pressed another button to receive similar treatment from a hysterical insomniac woman who had only just managed to get to sleep. The third call brought him much better luck. A man answered and Danny rose to the occasion with some very quick thinking.

  ‘Frost here,’ he said dryly into the microphone. ‘I’ve come to relieve you and look after Hannah.’