The Mechanic Trilogy: the complete boxset

by Rob Ashman

  Checking into the hotel was a different matter.

  While the hotel was expecting them, even at 3am, they were also expecting them to be the same colour. The receptionist took more than a little professional interest in why one of the supposed brothers was white and the other one black.

  There were notes on the system to accompany their booking which now looked mighty suspicious. Harper regaled her with a rambling story about a messy divorce and how their white father remarried a black woman. This seemed to do the trick although it was patently obvious to everyone there that Lucas was the product of a black on black encounter.

  Lucas conceded afterwards it would have been much easier to say they were a gay couple.

  First thing in the morning they hit Lucas’s list of targets. There was no point asking the homes if they had a woman staying with them in her early-thirties who required care as a result of a gunshot wound to the head. That would get them nowhere. So the game plan was simple. Lucas would request a tour of the home and discuss the possibility of placing his sister with them, who had recently suffered head trauma in a road traffic accident. Harper would drift off during the visit and see if he could spot Jo among the patients.

  The plan was indeed simple but as always the devil was in the detail. Detail which neither of them had bothered to work out.

  The Golden Horizon nursing home was situated in Spring Valley, about four miles south-west of the Las Vegas Strip. It was a modern building with impressive grounds adjacent to Desert Breeze Park. Lucas and Harper were keen to get started.

  An officious looking woman in blue scrubs met them at reception, her nametag read Snr Nurse Janet Willow. She welcomed them to the Golden Horizon and took them to a soft seating area behind a set of free-standing dividers. Lucas introduced himself as Steve Christie.

  So far, so good.

  ‘And where is your sister now, Mr Christie?’ she asked in an earnest tone.

  ‘She’s being cared for at home. We have carers who come in daily to administer to her,’ Lucas said.

  ‘And where is home, Mr Christie?’

  Lucas looked at Harper who helped by raising his eyebrows.

  ‘Not far. We have a house about a couple of miles from here.’

  ‘And who is delivering the care at the moment?’ Nurse Willow studied him over the rim of her glasses.

  ‘Oh, um, it’s a private company that comes in. They come in daily. The private company that is.’

  ‘And what is the nature of her injuries?’ She seemed to start every sentence with the word ‘and’.

  ‘My sister suffered severe head trauma which means she needs daily care.’ Lucas tried hard to make it sound convincing.

  ‘And what condition is she in now?’

  Lucas flashed a second glance at Harper, it was clear his friend was not going to bail him out of this one.

  ‘Oh, not so good.’

  Harper’s eyebrows went stratospheric.

  ‘Can you be a little more specific?’ Janet Willow perched herself on the edge of her seat and pursed her lips.

  Lucas wanted to go away and start again.

  Harper could take no more of watching Lucas drown. ‘Senior Nurse Willow, my friend is struggling to fully answer your questions because he’s still coming to terms with the tragic events surrounding his sister. We don’t know the medical ins and outs of Chrissie’s needs but we do know the family cannot give her the care and support she requires and that’s why we’re here. We will provide you with the necessary medical information when the time is right but not right now I’m afraid. You must understand, the family are taking baby steps and this is an enormous decision – where is the best place for Chrissie and who should deliver her long-term care. I’m sure you appreciate what they’re going through.’

  ‘And I do, Mr … er …’

  Harper ignored the inferred request for his name. ‘If we could take a look around, it would make a huge difference to the family and help them understand their options. This is a very difficult journey for them. We’re looking for your help. We’re looking for the right place for Chrissie.’

  Lucas stared at Harper. Where the hell did that come from?

  ‘And of course here at Golden Horizons we are always willing to help.’ Nurse Willow led them to a large double door with an oversized keypad on the wall to the left. She punched a series of digits and the doors swung open with a motorised whir. ‘Let me show you around.’

  Harper winked at Lucas as they followed Senior Nurse Willow down the corridor.

  ‘Chrissie Christie, really?’ whispered Lucas.

  ‘We’re in, aren’t we? Keep a sharp eye.’

  Which both of them did, without success, for the next half hour.

  24

  Mechanic watched Silverton cross the hotel suite to the room service trolley. He came back with two cups of black coffee and a sugar bowl. Ramirez was nowhere to be seen.

  She heaped in two spoonsful and stirred. The steam rose from the cup, its strong aroma masking the lingering smell of shit which followed her around wherever she went. Three showers and five bottles of hotel body wash later and the stench was still lodged in her nostrils.

  Silverton sat opposite, leaned back and crossed his legs. Mechanic sipped at the coffee and placed the cup onto a side table next to the photographs of Silverton’s dead drug team.

  ‘Look, Jess, it’s business,’ he said casually.

  ‘It’s fucking painful, that’s what it is,’ she said holding up her left hand with its bandaged finger.

  ‘It’s an unfortunate part of what I do – sometimes I have to use methods which are a little severe. You understand, I’m sure.’ Silverton had not yet slipped back into buffoon mode.

  ‘I get it you needed to know about Walker. You could have asked.’

  ‘Yes maybe. And maybe you’d have blown me away as well, it was a risk I was not prepared to take. It’s business, Jess, just business.’

  ‘I have no intention of blowing you away.’ She glared at him across the room. The first chance I get, though, Ramirez is going to be picking those pliers out of his ass.

  ‘You said you have a better idea?’

  ‘Yes I do. I understand you want to avenge the death of your men. That’s expected, and it’s about sending a clear message to the others. But there is a bigger opportunity here which you’re missing. You are going to pay me a lot of money to find the people who did this.’ She held up the pictures. ‘That’s fine, but why not take the opportunity to bring a little instability to the competition while we do that? They know you got hit and no one is coming forward with a name. Why don’t you hit your competition using the same MO? Who’s to say it isn’t the same crew who knocked over your team. There’s a golden business case here for a little destabilisation. And you can do it with impunity.’

  ‘Are you saying, don’t look for the dirtbags who did this?’

  ‘No, do the digging because people will expect you to look. But if your eyes and ears on the street are coming up with nothing then they must be well hidden. In the meantime hit one of the competition in the same way. You can hold your hands up and say: “Not me – I already got hit by these guys. I’m trying to find them.”’

  ‘But what if they continue to target my network?’

  ‘That will give us more to work on and we’ll flush them out. Besides, hitting the other players will create confusion and whoever it is could make a mistake and give themselves away.’

  ‘I like it. But how the hell am I gonna hire a team to do this without the word getting around?’

  ‘I would have thought that was obvious. You already have.’

  Silverton smiled and nodded his head.

  Mechanic nodded back. ‘Which do you want hitting first?’

  Lucas and Harper visited the nursing homes on the list. Lucas divided the route map into a grid and plotted each location. ‘Clustering’, he called it; ‘a pain in the ass’ was how Harper described it. As the list of ticked-off venues grew,
so did their ability to get past the reception welcoming committee and into the home.

  Harper continued with his ‘tugging at the heartstrings’ speech while Lucas provided sketchy detail on the condition of his mythical sister. The combination seemed to work well.

  The staff at the homes were all too pleased to provide a thorough tour of their facilities, which provided ample opportunity for Harper to slip away and look for Jo. They drew a blank at every visit. They were parked at the Calder Bank convalescent home discussing their latest walkabout.

  ‘I liked that one,’ said Harper. ‘It had a nice feel to it.’

  Lucas stopped tracing out the directions to their next location on his map.

  ‘What?’ He looked at Harper the way a family regards their mad uncle.

  ‘I thought the staff were a little more relaxed than some of the others. A little more friendly.’

  ‘We’re not going to live there.’

  ‘No I know. I’m only saying that was better than the others we’ve seen. Bit on the pricey side though.’

  ‘Are you serious? Get real. We are looking for Jo so we can catch ourselves a serial killer – we’re not conducting a suitability assessment.’

  ‘Yes I know, but it cost quite a lot more than the others. That’s all I’m saying.’

  Lucas shook his head. ‘You’re fucking losing it.’

  Harper put his head down, rereading the brochure he’d picked up from the home.

  There was a rap on the driver’s-side window. Harper reached for his gun and Lucas jumped in his seat. He pushed the button and the window glided down.

  ‘Can I help you?’ Lucas said.

  ‘Sorry to bother you, but I’ve seen you looking around homes asking about availability.’ A young man stood beside the car. He was in his late twenties, wore a two-piece boiler suit, safety shoes and a baseball cap. Emblazoned across the peak was Blue Water Medical Supplies, and across the back of his jacket was written Your Complete Solution in a Single Delivery.

  Lucas and Harper both stepped out of the car. Harper stayed on the passenger side keeping his gun out of sight. The young man looked excited, like he was meeting up with two old friends.

  ‘Hey, I deliver supplies to the homes.’ He removed his cap and pointed to the logo. ‘I go to every facility at least once a week and I’ve seen you both a couple of times. I thought if you want to know anything about the homes here in Vegas then I’m your man. I know them all.’ Lucas looked across at Harper who stuffed the weapon in the back of his belt.

  ‘I saw your van,’ said Lucas pointing at the two-tone blue transit in the parking bay.

  ‘You deliver to all the nursing homes?’ asked Harper.

  ‘Yup, and some of the hospitals as well. They don’t take weekly deliveries, they do theirs on a monthly consignment basis because of volume discount and shit.’

  ‘You must know them all pretty well then?’ Lucas asked, playing him along.

  ‘Oh, hell yes. I know them all. I don’t walk around with my eyes shut, I notice things.’ He seemed to have a much more exciting life taking place in his head.

  ‘Yeah I bet you do,’ said Harper. ‘Do you know any of the patients?’

  ‘Not really, but I see them coming and going. I get to stock the stores and sign off the inventory count. That means I get to walk about. I reckon I could be a doctor – that’s what I want to do. My name is Gus.’ He extended his hand and Lucas shook it.

  ‘Well, Gus, a doctor eh?’ Harper whistled. ‘You seem like a switched-on guy, I get that. You must see a lot of stuff, I bet you notice all manner of things when you walk about.’

  ‘Yes I do, sir. I know them all and for a small consulting fee I can give you two gentlemen the low-down.’

  ‘Consulting fee?’ Harper repeated.

  ‘Yes, medical school is gonna cost a bundle. But I could save you guys a ton of time driving around. What do you say?’

  ‘How much would this consulting fee be?’ asked Lucas.

  ‘Ten bucks.’

  ‘Wow, Gus, these medical fees must be huge,’ Harper said.

  ‘You better believe it.’

  Lucas looked across at Harper and shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ he said taking the bill from his wallet. ‘This better be worth it, Gus.’

  ‘Okay. From a purely clinical perspective I would recommend Sunny Village in Clover Heights. They have the highest staff-to-patient ratio and have some cool medical kit. It’s more like a hospital than a care facility. It’s not the cheapest but it looks like a really smart hotel. I’d go for that one.’

  ‘From a clinical perspective, eh? Well that’s fantastic. That will save us a whole heap of time. Thank you very much.’

  ‘You’re welcome, sir. Anything you want to know, I’m your man.’

  ‘It sounds like you are, Gus, that’s for sure,’ Harper chipped in.

  Lucas decided to grasp the nettle.

  ‘We are looking to place my sister – she’s in her thirties and was involved in a car accident. It left her with head injuries and she needs constant care. With your expertise can you think of a place where they already look after people like that?’

  ‘Head injuries you say?’ Gus stroked his chin. ‘The majority of places take folks suffering with cancer or dementia. It’s kind of end-of-life care.’

  ‘Have any of the homes taken in a woman in her early-thirties with head trauma in the past few months?’ Lucas was being dangerously direct.

  ‘No can’t think of any.’

  ‘Hey come on, Gus,’ said Harper. ‘I thought you were the man. You said you wanted to be a doctor. Come on, you gotta have more than that?’

  Gus assumed a theatrical pose to accentuate the fact he was thinking.

  ‘It’s not a nursing home to speak of but I do deliver to a house where they look after two women. They must be in thirty-something I suppose but it’s hard to tell.’

  ‘That might be interesting,’ Harper said casually, hiding the fact that his stomach was in his mouth.

  ‘There used to be one of them but now they look after two, and one of them has a head injury of some sort. It’s not a business like this.’ Gus waved his arm at the plate-glass and wooden frontage of Calder Bank. ‘It’s more like a family home.’

  ‘Where would we find this place?’ Lucas said.

  ‘I don’t think they take cold callers. Like I said, they’re not a normal type of business. I’ve never seen anyone else there.’

  ‘Yeah I understand. So, for completeness, Gus, and to make sure we don’t turn up by accident, where is this place?’

  ‘Wait here.’ He ran back to his van and returned with a red folder.

  Lucas and Harper held their breath.

  ‘It’s Honeydew House in Buxton Cope. The name on the docket is Huxton.’

  Lucas fished around in his wallet and pulled out another ten-dollar bill. He offered it to Gus.

  ‘We didn’t have this conversation. We need to keep this to ourselves, you know like patient–doctor confidentiality.’

  Gus touched the side of his nose with his finger and gave Lucas a wink.

  ‘I was never here,’ he said taking the money.

  He turned and walked back to his van with the warm, fuzzy feeling that he was twenty bucks closer to med school.

  25

  The answer to Mechanic’s question was the Crips. They were a well-organised drug gang who controlled the south-west side of Vegas selling low-grade coke. It was cheap-end material, not in the same league as the Silverton gear. They thrived on pushing volume to compensate for the low margin and that meant there were loads of them to choose from. It didn’t take long for Mechanic to select two lucky candidates.

  The duo peddled their business from an out-of-town trading estate and tended to work from 6pm onwards when the shops closed for the day, though in reality it was when the shop closed – singular. The real-estate development company had grossly overestimated the volume of trade when they bu
ilt the place. A four-hundred-space car park serving nine businesses was a little over the top, a ratio made even worse since eight of the business units lay empty. The only one trading was a tyre replacement workshop at the far end. For the Crips, this was perfect: no CCTV, minimal street lighting and all-round visibility.

  Their trade was all drive-by customers stocking up on the evening’s entertainment. They operated from the front of the unit farthest from the tyre place and used the same procedure every time. When a vehicle pulled onto the lot the two dealers would separate and stand about ten yards apart. The car pulled up to the first guy and handed over the money, he held his hands up and signalled what had been purchased and the quantity. The customer drove to the second guy to pick up the drugs. It was the narcotics equivalent of a drive-through happy meal.

  The guy handling the cash was scrawny, he wore clothes two sizes too big and enough gold chains to double his body weight. The second man was a big guy with a shaved, tattooed head and wore a long leather coat, appropriate attire for hiding a long-barrelled weapon.

  Trade was brisk and most of their clients were regulars. They had been there for over twelve months selling their packets of fun without any problems. All that was about to change.

  Mechanic drove the battered Dodge Sebring near to the lot and parked up. The vehicle was sprayed a putrid two-tone green with tiger seat-covers and red crushed velvet covering the dashboard. Not her usual choice of ride but it was the car of choice tonight, owing to the keys being in the ignition and no one there to prevent her taking it. She killed the engine and watched the buying and selling from a distance.

  She saw the dealers dispatch another satisfied customer, and then started the car and edged towards them. The guys looked up as she rolled along the tarmac and did their usual separation routine. Scrawny guy stayed put and long-coat guy turned his back and walked away.