The Mechanic Trilogy: the complete boxset

by Rob Ashman

  He jumped out of his skin and tore the headphones from his head.

  ‘What the fuck!’ he screeched, leaping away from the madman in front of him. ‘What are you doing?’ People looked over at the commotion.

  Lucas searched for something to say. Nothing came. He looked at the letter face down on the floor.

  ‘I’m sorry, I thought you were going to put it into a dead mailbox.’

  The boy screwed his face up.

  ‘A dead what?’

  ‘I did the same thing the other day. I put a letter into this box and it was no longer in use. I had to get the mail guys to come open it up to get it back.’

  ‘You had to what?’

  ‘Sorry I startled you, I didn’t want you to make the same mistake. It looks like it’s in service now.’

  The boy went to pick up the letter but Lucas moved first. The boy stepped back.

  ‘You’re crazy, man. You can’t go round knocking things out of people’s hands like that.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Lucas said handing him the letter. ‘I thought—’

  ‘You are one crazy person.’ The boy approached Lucas with his arm outstretched as if he was feeding a wild animal and snatched the envelope out of his hand.

  He stuffed it into his bag and scurried away to find another mailbox, preferably not one being guarded by a madman.

  Lucas let out a huge sigh and pulled a pen from his jacket. He rolled up his sleeve and scribbled on the inside of his forearm. He retraced his route back to Maple Crescent with two thoughts in his head: where was Harper and who the hell was Mark Jameson?

  Moran was about to start day two of her three-day promise to Harper. Her previous evening with Mills had been worse than expected. He talked non-stop about himself and insisted on buying the drinks. It felt like a disastrous date, but it achieved the objective.

  Mills had been a happy bunny sitting opposite Moran with a beer in one hand and a fistful of corn chips in the other, waxing lyrical about how he could have played for the NFL when he left college. Moran had faked interest and nodded in all the right places. To be honest, she was more surprised about Mills having gone to college than about the NFL lie.

  She had struggled to keep her mind focused and kept drifting off into the horror that was the Shamon situation. She didn’t know if Lucas and Harper had made any progress or, if they had, if it would do any good. All she knew was Harper had her by the short and curlies and if the plot to capture Mechanic ever got into the open she was well and truly screwed.

  Mills had rounded off the evening by walking her back to her tram stop. He said goodnight and for a heart-stopping moment it looked like he was about to move in for a kiss. Thankfully for him he didn’t, if he had she would have decked him.

  Moran arrived in the office early to figure out the best way to fake a problem with the Shamon account. She contacted the bank to make an appointment and by 9.15am it was time for the morning briefing.

  Mills was unbearably chipper. He flashed a special good morning smile in Moran’s direction as she took her seat.

  ‘Morning everyone,’ he kicked off. ‘Going round the table, what do we have?’

  Each officer reported on their slice of the case and Mills took notes. When it came to Moran she reported the issue with the Shamon account, indicating that she would be sorting it out with the bank today. She was acutely aware that she had to find another twenty-four hours of delay, and her latest pretend problem was not going to carry her through. But this was one step at a time.

  Mills didn’t challenge her, he accepted what she said and thanked her with another smile. Moran looked away hoping no one saw. The meeting wrapped up and she picked up a coffee on her way to the bank.

  Lucas threw open the door to find Harper dozing in the chair.

  ‘Good to see you’re on red alert.’

  ‘I was resting my eyes.’

  ‘Looked like you were pushing out zeds.’

  ‘No, no. Anyway we had the wrong guy. I caught up with him but he turned out to be a little shit who steals the takeaway food flyers.’

  Lucas shook his head.

  ‘He steals what?’

  ‘Never mind. Where the hell have you been?’

  ‘Catching the right one.’

  ‘What? How did that happen?’

  ‘Shortly after you ran off, another kid appeared and took the mail.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Just as we thought, he redirected it.’ Lucas rolled up his sleeve and showed Harper the name and address scribbled onto his inner arm.

  ‘How did you get it?’

  ‘By making myself look like a dick.’

  ‘What do you mean, look like?’

  Lucas ignored his remark.

  ‘Get your ass in gear,’ he barked at Harper.

  ‘Where we going?’

  ‘We have a new friend to call upon, Mark Jameson.’

  17

  Mechanic stood in the shower and allowed the hot water to cascade over her head. She had been home just long enough to boil the kettle and down a cup of sweet black coffee. She was exhausted.

  The images of the last seventeen hours played out in her head like a low budget S&M movie. They had planned to discuss business at some time during the evening but the pleasure side got in the way.

  She pictured Jameson doing the very same thing, standing in his shower, wincing as the water flowed over his battered body. A session with Jameson always satisfied Mechanic’s three basic needs: sex, whisky and violence. The harder she beat him, the harder he fucked her. And the more they drank, the more he could take.

  They had collapsed into bed at 2.40am. He was asleep as soon as he hit the sheets and she had cradled his head against her breast, his breathing erratic and heavy. Through the thin drapes the streetlights had illuminated the room with a sepia glow. She had looked down at him lying next to her. His face, neck, hands and arms were unmarked, but the rest of his body was a morass of bruises, abrasions and scratches.

  She had beaten him for six hours.

  The game was always the same. She beat him until Jameson had an erection hard enough to poke a hole in the wall. Then they would screw each other’s brains out. When he was about to come, they would stop, allow things to cool down, and drink Wild Turkey. Then the beatings would start again. The cycle repeated over and over until either he lost control and came, or physically he couldn’t continue. This time his self-control was immaculate.

  She had slipped into a dreamless sleep holding him in her arms. The alarm was set for 6am when the beating would resume, checkout was at 11am.

  Mechanic stepped from the shower and wrapped herself in a bathrobe. She wasn’t sure how much pain Jameson was in this morning but she was decidedly sore, and decidedly happy.

  She fished an envelope from the behind the wardrobe and spilled its contents on the table. The photo statted picture of Elaine Cooper stared up at her.

  The phone rang.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘It’s me, can you talk?’ It was Jameson calling from the hotel.

  ‘Yes, what’s up, you okay?’

  ‘I’m still trying to find that road truck that ran over me last night but other than that I’m fine thanks.’

  ‘Yes, it was quite a night. You home yet?’

  ‘No, still at the hotel. I called the organisers of that conference we are due to attend in San Francisco.’

  It took Mechanic a second for her brain to get in gear and decode the sentence.

  ‘Is there a problem?’

  ‘No, but they’ve had to move things forward by a week, something to do with a mix-up at the venue.’

  ‘When is it scheduled?’

  ‘They want to hold it the day after tomorrow and asked if we could still attend. I said I’d get back to them.’

  ‘That should be fine. Can you get the merchandise delivered in time?’

  ‘No problem. We need to run through the agenda and make sure we have the presentation worked out. But I guess w
e can do that en-route to Frisco.’

  ‘That’s fine with me, is there a change in time?’

  ‘No, all the arrangements are as previously agreed, it’s simply a change in the date.’

  ‘We can make that work. I’m looking forward to it. I will call you from the airport.’

  ‘Have a safe flight, speak to you later.’

  Mechanic replaced the receiver then picked it up again. She needed to book some tickets.

  Jameson got out of the cab, paid the driver, and walked, or rather limped, across the road to his two-up two-down town house in the trendy Ocean Bay area of San Diego.

  He dragged his roll-along bag behind him. It contained his shredded suit, two halves of a shirt and enough sex toys to run a brothel. He was an ex-Navy Seal and physically fit, but this morning he struggled to tow behind him a twelve-pound bag on wheels.

  He opened his front door, dumped the bag in the hall and headed for the bathroom. He clunked around in the medicine cabinet and knocked back a handful of painkillers and anti-inflammatories. He needed a bath and some sleep. Mechanic had promised him an extra special night and boy had she delivered. Everything hurt.

  Jameson went to the kitchen, rummaged in a cupboard, returned to the bathroom and turned on the taps. Hot water flooded into the bath and steam rose into the air. He unbuttoned his shirt with shaking fingers and peeled the material away from his body. It stuck to him where the blood had seeped through the fabric and congealed. The shirt dropped to the floor, he removed his jeans and underwear. Standing naked in front of the mirror the full extent of his injuries became clear.

  His chest was pockmarked with what looked like purple bullet wounds where her heels had stamped holes in his flesh and his cock and balls were a kaleidoscope of colours. His stomach and ribs were a patchwork of blue and yellow, as the bruises spread under his skin. He half-turned. His ass, back and legs were criss-crossed with angry welts from the bite of her crop, and deep red tramlines ran down his body where her nails had raked away the top layer of skin.

  Jameson turned off the taps and swirled a handful of salt into the water. He lowered himself into the bath and slid down until the water lapped against his chin, wincing as the salt got to work on his wounds. After twenty minutes the pain eased and the hot water soothed his battered body.

  He closed his eyes and melted into sleep.

  Outside, Lucas and Harper sat in their rental car.

  ‘I figure that was our guy,’ Harper said.

  ‘Unless he takes in lodgers.’

  ‘I’m not sure what he does for a living but he looked like shit.’

  ‘We got to hustle. You stay here, I need to find a phone.’

  18

  Lucas walked a quarter of a mile back towards town and found what he was looking for. To the side of a bus stop was a bank of payphones. He stood at the first one and punched in the digits. He fed a coin into the slot, spoke briefly, then hung up.

  After a few minutes the phone rang.

  ‘Hi,’ he said.

  ‘I can talk now.’ It was Moran. ‘Where’s your attack dog today?’

  ‘I’m sorry about that, I had no idea.’

  ‘You two come as a pair, so excuse me if I don’t believe you.’

  ‘I didn’t, I swear. I found out about the photographs a couple of days ago.’

  ‘It came as a shock. I didn’t expect anything different from a dinosaur like Harper, but you, Lucas, I thought we had a connection.’

  ‘Is that why you told me to fuck off when I needed your help?’

  She went quiet.

  ‘I haven’t told you that today. What do you want?’

  ‘The good news is we’ve located Vickers.’

  ‘That was fast. What I gave you was sketchy at best.’

  ‘The bad news is Gerry Vickers turns out to be a ghost. He’s a cover for a man called Mark Jameson, he’s the one behind Sheldon Chemicals and Helix Holdings.’

  ‘That’s impressive work, shame you retired.’

  Lucas delivered his punch line. ‘We believe he’s also the one who supplied Mechanic with the equipment to kill my wife.’

  ‘Shit. How did you—’

  Lucas interrupted. ‘That doesn’t matter. What matters is we need to move fast.’

  Moran thought for a minute.

  ‘You sure it’s him?’

  ‘As sure as we can be without a positive I.D. We could do with more background on Mark Jameson and a recent mug shot. He lives here in San Diego at 102 Waterfront Place, Imperial Beach.’

  ‘Just a minute.’ Moran scrabbled for a pen and paper. ‘I’ll see what comes up and fax it to your new number. What else?’

  ‘Jameson has a direct line to Mechanic, and the plan is to use him to draw her out into the open. She trusts him and the likelihood is the hit on Darlene wasn’t the first time they worked together. It’s vital that Jameson remains untouched. He’s no good to us if the cops start sniffing around. You have to lose the Shamon account transactions.’

  ‘You gotta be kidding. Do you have any idea how much shit is flying around here? I’m already stretching it as far as I can, and I’m not sure how much longer I can hold out. You got maybe twelve hours at most.’

  ‘That account information could cost us the only link we have to Mechanic.’

  ‘I can’t, Lucas. The guy running the investigation is sweet on me and I’m pushing my luck as far as it will go. You know how much scrutiny is applied in a murder investigation. If I turn up a blank it’s bound to come out somewhere else.’

  ‘Don’t you want her dead?’ This stopped Moran in her tracks. ‘Don’t you want to be the one who finally takes down Mechanic?’

  ‘I do. I mean I did. But that was a long time ago and we got burned. I got burned.’

  ‘You’re at risk of getting torched again. If they arrest Jameson, the next stop is Mechanic and then they get you too.’

  Moran went quiet.

  Lucas continued, ‘We need Jameson in the clear for this to work. All I can ask is you think about it.’

  ‘Okay, okay. I’ll get the details to you as fast as I can.’

  ‘Oh, Moran, there’s one more thing.’

  ‘This has to be the last, I gotta go.’

  ‘Can you think of someone in Mechanic’s recent past that crossed her? Someone she would hold a grudge against?’

  Lucas could hear the sound of a pen tapping rhythmically on a table.

  ‘There’s one that jumps out of the pack straightaway.’

  Lucas replaced the receiver and pulled a small dog-eared book from his jacket pocket. He thumbed through the handwritten pages. He lifted the receiver again, dialled the numbers, and waited for it to connect.

  ‘Hi, is that Fabiano Bassano? … Yes, hi, this is Ed Lucas … I’m fine thank you … I want to take you up on that offer.’

  Moran fed the printout into the fax machine and hit send. It cranked and whirred as the sheets spooled through the rollers. Mark Jameson, or Captain Mark Jameson to give him his correct title, was an interesting guy. Not from what the records said about him, rather what they didn’t say. It said his date of birth, it said he was well educated, it said he owned and drove a car and lived in San Diego. It said he joined the navy at the age of twenty-one, and then it said absolutely nothing.

  Moran fed the printout into the shredder and returned to work.

  Earlier that morning her meeting at the Wells Fargo bank had gone well. Moran had shared with the bank official her concerns that the account records had been corrupted, and the bank official had confirmed that wasn’t the case. Moran thanked her for the clarification and left. Easy and straightforward.

  The important point for Moran was the meeting had taken place. The bank official had a record in her calendar and would no doubt be able to recall discussing the account of Nassra Shamon. For anyone who cared to check, that was all that mattered, and the precise content of the discussion was irrelevant.

  It would buy her enough time to get through
to the briefing tomorrow when she would be forced to declare the transfer of money to Helix Holdings. Then the whole investigative apparatus would descend and the race for who got to Jameson first would be in full flight.

  Moran was seated at her desk when Mills appeared.

  ‘Hey, how did you get on at—’

  She interrupted him fast. ‘What are you doing when you get off work tonight?’

  Mills looked around at the empty office and shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Dunno, got nothing planned. Why, what were you thinking?’

  ‘I thought we might grab a beer.’ She put her head to one side and smiled.

  ‘Yeah, that would be great. I’m not staying late, so how about six o’clock. Maybe catch a bite to eat?’

  ‘Can’t do food but a beer would be good.’

  ‘See you at six.’

  He sauntered out of the office as if he’d just found a hundred dollar bill in the pocket of an old suit.

  Moran shuffled paper around trying to look busy. She didn’t want a beer and she wanted one even less sitting across from Mills spouting his schoolboy chat. But most of all she didn’t want him to finish his question and ask her how she got on at the bank.

  Moran lay in bed waiting for the alarm to go off. It was 5.57am and she’d been awake since three. What little sleep she’d had was filled with the prospect of what lay ahead of her today. She had tossed and turned, rehearsing in her head what she was going to say at the morning meeting with Mills. Each time she said it, she died a little inside. But saying it was her only option.

  The after-work drink with Mills had been as bad as ever. He had once more played the gallant suitor and made a big song and dance about buying the beers, but Moran had insisted. She managed to buy one round but that was it. He’d taken her to the same bar as before and fortunately they were showing the ball game, which kept Mills pleasantly diverted.

  To his credit, he had avoided the topic of work, which should have been a welcome change compared to the majority of dates she’d been on. But by the time they left at eight o’clock she almost wished he had talked over the murder investigation. At least that would have given her an adrenaline rush rather than the dead space she felt inside.