by Rob Ashman
Harper was right at home, it felt like Korea.
It was late evening. Lucas lay on his bed running through the sequence of events in his head but all he could think about was Darlene. It was the time of night he hated most. He knew he shouldn’t but he picked up the phone anyway.
‘Hello.’ It was the attack dog.
‘Hi Heather, can I speak to Darlene.’
He heard a hand cup the mouthpiece and the sound of raised voices.
‘She said no.’ The line went dead.
Lucas shoved the phone off the side table and it clattered to the floor. Not the best preparation when you want a good night’s sleep.
The morning came and all three had slept badly. They were wide awake and ready to go by 5am. Harper tucked into a cold cheeseburger from a vending machine and encouraged the others to do the same.
‘You need to keep your energy levels up,’ he said taking a huge bite from the soggy mess.
‘I know,’ replied Bassano sipping black coffee. ‘But I don’t think I can keep anything down.’
There was a nervous sense of high expectation, each one awash with adrenaline.
Lucas drained his cup. ‘Let’s make a move. We’re better off waiting at Centennial than sitting here looking at each other.’
‘Agreed, are we ready?’ said Harper.
‘Let’s go.’
The time for rehearsal was over.
Centennial Park was as Bassano had predicted, the occasional jogger and dog walker, but other than that deserted.
Lucas stood a yard inside the tree line at the top of the amphitheatre. He scanned the park through a small pair of red-lensed binoculars and could see Harper sitting on the bench about two hundred yards to his left. Bassano was in the van. The time was 6.05am.
As the time ticked towards the hour the anxiety grew. Bassano was the worst. He was stuck in the vehicle unable to walk about, at least Lucas and Harper could move around and change position. He was hunkered down below the window ledge in case Mechanic arrived in the car park.
Lucas and Harper were in constant communication, vetting anyone who passed by. They had no idea what Mechanic would look like, so everyone entering the park had to be considered a potential sighting.
Harper held a newspaper in front of him and wore a baseball cap pulled so far down that he could barely see out.
‘Dog walker approaching from the left, one hundred yards and closing. Looks male,’ Lucas said into his handset.
‘I see him, he’s turned away and headed to the car park.’
‘Stand by. Lone woman approaching from your right. Wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase.’
‘Yup, got her. Nothing doing, she walked straight by.’
It was 6.40am.
The running commentary continued with every visitor. And with every visitor the tension went up a notch. It was unbearable.
Lucas could hear his heart thumping away the seconds while Bassano squirmed in his seat trying to make himself comfortable. Harper kept a cool eye on the expanse of green in front of him, every few minutes checking the gun which was tucked into the back of his belt. He glanced at his watch. The digits flicked over to 7.00am.
Across the park a figure in a long dark trench coat and wide-brimmed hat came into view. A black rucksack was slung over one shoulder.
Lucas nearly dropped his walkie-talkie.
‘Person coming from your left, about eighty yards out, heading straight towards you. Can’t tell if it’s male or female.’
Harper turned slightly, peered over his paper and clocked the figure – even from this distance it was a terrifying sight. The person was medium height, lean and walked with a purposeful stride. Head down, the wide-brimmed hat covering the face, long black coat flapping open in the early morning breeze.
Harper breathed deeply to steady himself and put his right hand at the back of his waistband to grip his gun. Lucas and Bassano were simultaneously doing the same.
‘Steady,’ said Lucas. ‘Target heading for the amphitheatre.’
‘Shit,’ Bassano joined in blindly, sitting bolt upright.
The person in the billowing coat passed Harper without looking up. Harper whispered into the mouthpiece.
‘Confirm female, repeat, confirm female.’
‘Is it her?’ Bassano asked.
‘Can’t see her face.’ Replied Harper.
Lucas moved out from the cover of the trees, his hand tucked under his jacket, gripping his gun for dear life.
The woman reached the centre of the amphitheatre and dropped the rucksack on the ground. Harper turned to face her and waited for Lucas to get closer.
‘Can you confirm target.’ Lucas was already out of breath.
‘Negative.’
She bent down and unzipped the bag.
Lucas’s heart leapt into his mouth.
Harper jumped up, removed his gun and walked towards her.
‘Close in,’ he whispered.
‘Is it her?’ Bassano asked again.
Lucas hobbled down the grass bank and positioned himself about fifteen feet from the woman. Harper approached from the other side.
‘Negative, her face is covered,’
Lucas could see Harper’s gun.
The woman bent down, fished around in the bag and brought out a long, black metal barrel.
Harper sprang into action.
‘Drop it!’ he shouted levelling his pistol. ‘Drop the weapon. Do it now!’
The woman shrieked and threw the metal object to the ground.
‘Step away!’ Lucas shouted. ‘Bassano, we have contact.’
The woman held her hands in the air and screamed, spinning on the spot, looking first at Harper then Lucas.
‘What are you doing?’ she yelled.
‘On your knees. Hands behind your head.’ Harper reached the woman and twisted her arm behind her back.
‘Don’t shoot, don’t shoot.’ She dropped to her knees.
Harper’s right boot hit her between the shoulder blades sending her sprawling onto the grass, her hat went flying.
He kicked away the bag.
Lucas watched it skid across the ground scattering paints and brushes onto the grass.
Harper knelt on the woman’s back and clicked the cuffs in place.
Lucas stared at the metal object on the floor, it was a telescopic easel.
Harper was roughly patting her over when Lucas reached down and turned her face towards him.
The terrified woman stared back with eyes the size of dinner plates.
‘Take my money. There’s money in the bag. Take it.’
The sound of an over-revved engine hurtled towards them. She snapped her head sideways away from his grip and stared in horror at the van. ‘No don’t. Take my money. Don’t kill me.’ She was pleading, tears running down her face.
Lucas cursed through gritted teeth. ‘Shit, it’s not her.’
He pulled Harper away from the woman.
‘It’s not her. It’s not Mechanic.’
‘Fuck.’ Harper slapped his hand hard against his thigh.
‘Abort, abort,’ Lucas said into his walkie-talkie. The transit skidded to a standstill on the wet grass. Bassano could clearly be seen through the windshield, his mouth wide open and a ‘What the fuck?’ look on his face.
Harper scurried away across the park.
Lucas limped as fast as he could up the hill to the tree line.
Bassano swung the van into reverse and disappeared in the direction of the car park.
The woman lay on the ground, her face buried in the dirt screaming, ‘Don’t shoot, don’t shoot.’
Harper trudged his way through the wet grass. With every step he uttered the word ‘fuck’.
42
Harper and Bassano were pacing around Lucas’s room shouting at each other.
‘How the hell did Mechanic not show?’ Harper was not a happy man. ‘We need to get over to Victorville and start slicing bits off her sister.’
‘I don’t know. Maybe she didn’t get the paper or something.’ Bassano was trying to defuse Harper’s rage.
‘She got it alright. We need to teach that bitch a lesson.’
‘Let’s talk it through with Lucas when he gets back.’
The door burst open and Lucas threw the latest edition of the Bulletin onto the bed.
‘Read it,’ he said bluntly.
Harper picked it up and flicked over the pages. There in the personal section was an ad meant only for them. It was short and to the point:
LUCAS
PUT HER BACK
He passed it to Bassano, who read it and flung the paper onto the floor.
‘She’s playing us,’ Lucas said. ‘Mechanic was never going to show. She doesn’t believe we’ll hurt Jo.’
‘It’s like you said, boss. We took her, so we have to return her. That’s the game.’
‘We got to seize back the initiative.’ Harper was stomping around, furious with the events of the morning. ‘We need to go to Victorville and make Jo pay for her sister’s actions.’
Lucas shook his head.
‘How are we going to achieve that? Check her out of the nursing home, hack a couple of fingers off and put her back? That doesn’t work.’
‘We don’t have to hack anything off,’ said Bassano.
‘Yes we do,’ shouted Harper. ‘Mechanic has to know we’re not fucking around. She needs to learn a lesson. She needs to know we mean business.’
‘Yes she does. I agree. But we only have to tell Mechanic we’ve chopped her fingers off. She has no way of knowing if we have or not.’
‘Go on,’ said Lucas.
‘We place an ad stating that because Mechanic didn’t show this morning we’ve taken it out on her sister. She has no way of verifying it.’
‘What do you think?’ Lucas looked at Harper.
‘I think we should go to Victorville, remove her fucking head and mail it to Mechanic.’
‘That’s plain stupid. Bassano’s right, we can fake it. We can make it look as though we’ve retaliated.’ Lucas was beginning to think rationally at last. ‘We place another ad and set up a second exchange.’
Lucas left the room to get some coffee while the others continued to argue. He needed time to think and the place was filled with a heady mix of confusion and rage, neither of which helped him work out what to do next.
The hotel reception contained a large line of people checking out. Like most hotels in Vegas the management had not yet figured out the inverse relationship between the length of the line and the number of reception checkout staff.
Most of the queuing tourists looked exhausted, broke and happy. Pretty standard for people leaving Vegas.
Detective Moran sat at a table drinking tea.
Lucas spotted her and tried to backtrack. She called him over.
‘Morning, Mr Lucas, how are you today?’
‘Good thanks. Yes, I’m good.’ Lucas wanted to run for the nearest exit.
‘Enjoying your break?’
‘Yes, it’s fine thanks. Who wouldn’t enjoy themselves in Vegas.’
‘Glad I’ve bumped into you, I was meaning to have a little chat. Do you have a couple of minutes, I wouldn’t mind running something past you?’ She had accidently bumped into Lucas only because she’d been waiting for forty-five minutes for him to show up for his morning coffee.
Moran patted the seat next to her. Lucas complied.
‘I wouldn’t mind getting your advice, in a professional capacity.’ Her tone was soft and gentle.
‘A professional capacity? I’m not sure that’s quite ethical given my circumstances.’
‘Don’t worry it’ll be fine.’
‘How can I help, Detective?’
‘I have a problem and you might be able to provide some insight.’
‘Okay, what is it?’
‘You see, Lucas, I’ve recently moved into a new place, and like most people who move into a new property, I’m constantly seeing things that need fixing. The bathroom needs re-tiling, the kitchen worktops could do with changing, you know, that kind of thing.’
Lucas nodded but had no idea where this was going. He wanted to get the hell away from this woman.
Moran sipped her tea and continued. ‘Now I’m not what you might call a DIY type of girl. I work long hours and the last thing I want to be doing when I finally knock off work is to be on the business end of a circular saw. So I figure I need to find some local tradesmen who can do that for me.’
Lucas interrupted. ‘Detective Moran, I’m sure you and I have more important things to do than discuss home improvements.’ He got up to leave, every sinew in his body screamed ‘run’. She put her hand firmly on his arm for him to sit back down.
‘Stick with me on this one, Mr Lucas, I think this is important.’
‘I don’t see how?’
‘I’ve been reading this local paper where businesses advertise that sort of work. It’s fantastic, there’s all sorts in there, it’s called the Bulletin. Looks like whatever I want to do there’s a guy who can do it.’ Lucas flinched.
‘I got bored looking through the classifieds and started to look through the personals. There’s a lot of busy girls in Vegas that’s for sure.’ She laughed and gave him a theatrical wink still holding his forearm tight. ‘I came across this one advert and it stood out from the others because it wasn’t really advertising anything. I notice things like that. I notice when things look out of place. Take a look, Mr Lucas. It’s a little odd, right?’
She pushed the paper in front of him. Midway down on the left, circled in red marker pen, he read:
LUCAS
WHAT COMES NEXT IS IN YOUR NAME
‘What do you think, Mr Lucas?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve never seen this before.’ Lucas wanted the ground to swallow him up.
‘That’s strange because when I came back to your room the other day and we had our little disagreement about what was relevant, I saw the same newspaper. Your friend Harper was reading it.’
Lucas shrugged his shoulders.
‘So here’s where I need your help. Can you tell me how your name appears in a newspaper and underneath are the very words which are written in blood above the bed of a murdered couple? A couple who are killed in the very same hotel that you’re staying at. How does that happen?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know about which part?’ She let go of his arm. Lucas was going nowhere now.
‘Any of it. I can’t give you an explanation for any of it.’
‘I know we had problems with relevance last time. Do we have a problem with coincidences this time?’
‘I have no idea what the advert means and I have no idea who the shot couple were. Harper got the paper because he wants to include a little female attention during our stay. You have an over-active imagination, Detective.’ He made a half-hearted attempt at a laugh.
‘Yes I do, Mr Lucas. It helps me join dots up where others don’t see it.’
‘But I’m afraid that’s what it is, Detective, an unfortunate coincidence. There must be hundreds of people in Vegas called Lucas. I have no idea where this came from, or what it’s about.’
‘I contacted the paper and they don’t know who placed the ad. Items for print are placed over the phone so they couldn’t help. That’s why I wondered if you could shed any light on it.’
‘I understand your concern and you’ve done the right thing discussing it with me, but as I’ve already said, Detective, I know nothing about this. It’s an unfortunate set of coincidences. Have you got any leads on who might have killed that poor couple?’ Lucas tried to deflect the conversation.
‘No we’re still digging.’ Moran recognised the change in direction in the same way she recognised his facial twitching and rapid eye movement. Lucas was a poor liar.
‘It’s a difficult one, I’m sure.’ He got up to leave, successfully this time. ‘Sorry I couldn’t be of more help,
Detective.’
‘Thank you for your time, Mr Lucas.’
‘That’s fine. I’m glad you felt you could come to me and talk. You did the right thing. See you around.’
Detective Moran watched Lucas scurry back through reception.
I’m so pleased you think I’m doing the right thing, she thought to herself.
Lucas returned to the room without coffees. He was about to impart the news that life had just become a lot more complex.
43
Mechanic lay on the sofa listening to the strains of Pachelbel’s Canon in D through the headphones as she visualised her next move. This was a game she loved. The exquisite feeling of wrong-footing your opponent was almost as satisfying as crushing them to dust.
She envisaged the mayhem caused by her non-appearance at Centennial Hills. Harper crashing around, Lucas quaking in a corner and the one-armed wonder boy … well, he should be dead anyway.
It was a huge gamble but that was the point – take away the potency of their trump card, and the balance of power shifts. They weren’t going to hurt Jo, they wouldn’t do it.
She glanced at the clock, 8.35pm.
Mechanic smiled to herself thinking of the hapless trio flailing around in a state of chaos. They were amateurs playing a professional game and completely out of their depth.
She savoured the feeling a little longer, then went to shower. The ad was placed and there was work to be done.
It was 11.05pm when Mechanic pushed the column shift into park and turned off the engine. Thirty yards away was the Crimson Lake motel. It didn’t have much going for it, with threadbare towels, Styrofoam cups and dirty carpets. It was very much at the budget end of the scale, but its most attractive feature was its location. It was next door to the Lucky 6.
Mechanic crossed the street and strolled onto the parking lot near reception. She was parked directly opposite, at a closed-down fast food joint, and needed to find a suitable room facing the road.
The motel was on two levels, decorated in an odd patchwork of blue and beige, which suggested an acquisition of cheap paint rather than a carefully designed colour scheme. The ground-floor rooms had parking bays directly outside, which made it easy to see which were occupied and which were not. The outside lighting was virtually non-existent.