by Rob Ashman
She figured that after their last encounter her father wouldn’t agree to see her. At this time he was probably out, so a different approach was in order.
She found Simpson Place and scouted around the back of the properties. Each one had a small open-plan garden at the rear, with a paved area and a tiny piece of grass, a line of low bushes marking out the perimeter. Stewart Sells’ bungalow was the one at the end. It was in darkness, as was the rest of the street.
Mechanic walked up to the patio door, pulled on a pair of gloves and tried the handle. It was locked. She peered across and allowed herself a brief smile. The living room window was on the latch. She rifled through her bag and brought out a hunting knife. The thick blade made short work of lifting the catch and Mechanic was in.
The smell of fresh paint had been replaced with the smell of dirty clothes and stale food. She checked the rooms, Stewart Sells was not at home. Mechanic sat on the sofa in the dark and waited. The churning in her stomach had gone, replaced with cold resolve.
On the stroke of eleven she heard a movement outside. There was lots of cursing and the noise of scuffling feet, and then the sound of a key being inserted into the lock. After much scraping of metal on metal her father fell into the house, his hand still holding onto the key. Or to be more accurate, he had one foot planted in the living room with the other stuck on the front path. He swayed back and forth suspended from his front door trying to regain his balance.
‘Fucking lock,’ he scowled, tugging at the key.
With a herculean effort, he took an enormous stride forward and launched himself into the house. He slammed the door shut with the keys still jangling in the lock. He turned back and reached for the light switch, his index finger prodding and stabbing at the wall until it hit the button.
He turned and jumped out of his sagging yellow skin.
‘What the f—’
‘Hello, Dad.’
‘How did you … When did you … What the …’ The whisky had robbed him of his ability to complete a sentence.
‘We need to talk.’
‘But how did you …’ He swivelled at the hips and pointed at the door, toppling back against the wall.
‘You left it open, so I let myself in.’
He stomped through to the kitchen and pulled a mug from the pile of dirty crockery in the sink.
‘You want to talk?’ he called over his shoulder as he dragged items from the cupboards onto the floor. ‘What do you want to talk about?’
He moved into the bathroom and Mechanic could again hear the sound of cupboards being ransacked.
‘Fuck it,’ he said returning to the living room. He banged the empty cup on the table and flopped into the armchair.
‘We need to talk.’
‘You said that already.’
‘I need to talk about what you did.’
‘What did I do?’
‘When I was young. I need to talk about what you did when I was young.’
‘What did I do?’
‘What do you mean, what did you do?’ Mechanic’s cold resolve was starting to melt.
‘You come in here uninvited and say you want to talk about what I did? What about what you did?’
‘Dad, this is about you.’
‘The fuck it is. If it’s about anything it’s about you stabbing a knife into a table. That’s what it’s about.’
‘No, this is about you and what you did to me.’
‘Go on then. What did I do?’
‘You abused me when I was young and it’s damaged me all my life.’
‘Damaged? What damage? You wanted for nothing. You ungrateful bitch.’
Tears welled in Mechanic’s eyes and her bottom lip trembled.
‘You starved us. We had no food in the house. I went to school in dirty clothes.’
‘I did the best I could.’
Mechanic leaned forward and clasped her hands in front of her as though she was praying.
‘No, you didn’t. I want you to acknowledge what you did to me. I want you to take responsibility.’
‘Take responsibility for what?’
She slid from the sofa and knelt in front of him.
‘You raped me. I was a child, for God’s sake.’
‘Don’t give me that shit. You wanted it every bit as much as me. There you were, with your furtive looks, and your special smiles, and your skirts hanging way up to here.’ He grabbed his crotch with his hand.
‘No, it wasn’t like that.’ She threw her hands in the air.
‘That’s exactly what it was like. It was the same when I was stationed in the Far East. Those child whores. They would come around all bobby socks and pigtails, little pictures of innocence. Next they would be giving you the come-on, asking “you want fucky-fucky, mister? I blow you good, mister, ten bucks, mister”. They even wore their school uniforms, the little whores.’
Mechanic stared at her father, her mouth gaping open.
‘You made me wear my school uniform,’ she said in a whisper.
‘You were the same as them.’
‘I wasn’t the same as them, I’m your daughter.’
He leaned forward, she could smell liquor on his breath. Her senses catapulted her back to when she was twelve years old. The same stench on his breath as he pawed and penetrated her body.
‘Did you fight me off? Did you go to the police? No, and that was for one reason and one reason only. You were gagging for it.’
‘I did it so you would leave Jo alone.’
‘Jo? Jo? She had class, she wasn’t a child whore like you. I would never touch Jo, I’m her father.’
‘You’re my father too!’
‘Yes, but with you I’m the father of a child whore. And by the looks of it you grew up to be nothing more than an adult whore.’
He came out of his chair and grabbed her.
‘Child whore, child whore!’ he shouted as he grappled with her shoulders. She raised her hands and fended him off.
Child whore, child whore. The words echoed around the room.
He was doing his best to overpower her. It was like being attacked by a six-year-old boy. She held his arms to stop him. They were thin and sinewy. His skin felt like it wasn’t attached to the flesh underneath.
Child whore, child whore. The words tore holes in her brain. She looked at her father snarling with exertion. The words weren’t coming from him.
Child whore, child whore. The words were coming from inside her head. Daddy was back.
‘I’m gonna give you a good fucking to teach you a lesson.’ She could see her father mouthing the words in front of her.
‘Stop!’ she yelled as she fought him off.
I’m gonna give you a good fucking, teach you a lesson. The phrase burst in her head. Her father wheezed and blew saliva in the air.
The room spun.
Daddy’s voice was blasting away inside her head, while her father fought to take her down. A right good fucking is what you need, the voice rasped away inside her.
Mechanic screwed her eyes shut.
She could no longer figure out what was in her head and what was real.
Child whore, child whore.
‘Be quiet!’ she yelled, releasing him and clutching both hands to her ears.
He forced her back and she tumbled onto the sofa, he shoved his hand between her legs.
‘Be quiet!’ she screamed again as the voices shredded through her mind.
He was on top of her.
Mauling at her breast with one hand and trying to undo her jeans with the other.
‘Quiet!’ Her hands were clamped either side of her head trying to crush the noise.
She could feel his mouth slavering over her neck as he forced down the zip on her jeans.
She screamed to blank out the voices.
Child whore, child whore.
He slid his hand into her underwear and tore at her shirt. She felt his fingernails scraping at her skin.
Mechanic seized his
shoulders and flipped him around, onto his back. His arms and legs flailed in the air like an upturned beetle.
‘Don’t you …’ he said as she grabbed his chin with one hand and the back of his head with the other.
‘You fucking child whore,’ he said writhing around, trying to right himself.
Crack!
She rotated her hands in opposite directions and the vertebrae in his neck snapped.
There was silence.
He went limp.
Mechanic lay there for several seconds listening for any sign of breathing. She shoved him to the side. Stewart Sells fell to the floor, dead.
Mechanic got up. She looked down at her father who stared back, his mouth gaping open.
She took hold of the low table and dragged it near the sofa. Then she went on a hunt. It was unlikely her father was looking for cleaning products when he came back, there had to be whisky hidden somewhere. She turned over the furniture and scoured the cupboards and drawers. Nothing. In the bedroom she spied the pile of dirty laundry spilling out of the basket and onto the floor. She dug around inside and her hand hit something hard. She pulled out a bottle of cheap liquor two thirds full.
Mechanic went to the kitchen, picked a mug out of the sink and returned to the living room. She filled it with whisky and placed the cup on the table.
She stood astride her father, put her hands under his arms and lifted him up. His head lolled back. She positioned his body over the table then slammed him down onto the edge. His head cracked open on the corner. The cup bounced onto the carpet spilling liquor over his chest. He landed with his face buried against the sofa an ugly gash at the base of his skull.
The room was quiet. Inside Mechanic’s head was quiet.
Mechanic wasn’t sure how to feel. Her father was dead. She had killed him with her bare hands. She was expecting feelings of desperation, grief and panic. With that in mind, the feelings of pure elation were completely unexpected.
The drive back should have been exhausting and tiresome, instead Mechanic had the radio blaring out country tunes while she howled along to the ones she knew, and the ones she didn’t. She stopped to refuel and get a bite to eat. The guy at the gas station was thrown by her cheery manner and smiling face at 3am. She even caught herself flirting with him at one point. She had not slept in twenty hours but she was buzzing. The six hour journey home flew by.
She pushed open her front door and headed straight for the refrigerator, making fresh brewed coffee and a cocktail of fresh fruit. The sun was peeking over the horizon and a cool orange glow washed through the apartment. The coffee tasted amazing and the fruit zinged on her tongue.
Mechanic took a knife, cut away the flap from the envelope lying on the table and spread the contents on the worktop. She spooned mango into her mouth and swallowed hard before she choked. This was a tough decision, she was torn.
The job would mean going back to Vegas, which made it a definite no. The mug shot was of Alfonso Bonelli, which made it a definite yes.
34
‘Alfonso Bonelli. Are you out of your fucking mind?’ Harper jumped up from his seat. ‘Do I have to remind you that Bonelli was the man who skimmed a bullet past my head in a fake execution. He let his goons rip my arms from their sockets by dangling me from a forklift, and then he tells them to bury me in the desert. You mean that Alfonso Bonelli?’
Up to that point the day had been going well.
Lucas, Harper and Moran were in Moran’s hotel room briefing each other on the day’s events.
Moran had repeated her stakeout of Seaport Village, with the same degree of success as the day before. Which was nothing. She had found that her pretence of being a fitness bunny was wearing thin. People were giving her suspicious glances. Her idea of a workout consisted of sitting on a wall in her running gear, drinking coffee and then wandering about.
By 10am she had decided to abandon Seaport Village to try her luck at the various parks the city had to offer. She couldn’t stay there any longer for fear of someone calling the cops.
Harper was still basking in the glory of yesterday’s purchases. And, as of this morning, Lucas and Moran were the proud owners of brand new illegal firearms, ammo, binoculars, and walkie-talkies with a two-mile range. Harper had spent today pounding the streets checking out the list of gyms. He had met with two types of response: either, ‘Sorry, sir, I don’t know anyone fitting that description’, or, ‘Sir, that describes half the women who come here’. The day had been a waste of time.
Lucas had paid Jameson a surprise visit at 7am. To reinforce his dominance, he had ignored Jameson’s previous warnings and turned up outside his house. The man was not happy.
And it was when he reported on the conversation that followed that Harper had blown a gasket.
‘Shit, Lucas. It never occurred to me to ask who the target was, because it never occurred to me you could be so stupid. Start from the beginning and run it past me again.’
‘Okay, I’ll go through it word for word,’ Lucas said. ‘I met with Jameson and he told me the initial plans were complete and he was awaiting confirmation from his shooter. I told him I needed to know the details. He refused. I reminded him of the deal and told him that our client was growing impatient. He refused again. I stressed to him that in the same way we had made the financial transactions disappear, we could just as easily make them reappear. He finally gave in and said that Bonelli holds a weekly meeting with his troops at a hotel on Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas. It’s held at ten thirty every Friday, a chance for Bonelli to eyeball his lieutenants and discuss the performance of his drugs and racketeering empire. Bonelli arrives at 10am sharp. The hotel is heavily guarded but it has one weak point. Bonelli always arrives by car and parks in a private space at the back. He enters the hotel through a side door and uses the service elevator to reach the executive lounge at the top. He’s escorted by a small army at all times.’
‘The thinking behind the security routine is sound,’ Moran interrupted. ‘By entering the building via the service route they have a much smaller space to control than if they took him through the gaming floor.’
Lucas nodded. ‘Exactly. Jameson said the weak point is the ten feet of tarmac between the car and the side door. Bonelli is out in the open for five seconds tops, but it’s perfect for a sniper’s bullet.’
‘Did he say where the shooter would be?’ Moran asked.
‘He said there is a low-rise motel a few blocks away. It’s an ideal vantage point from which to blow a hole in Bonelli’s head.’
‘And far enough away to pack up and disappear before anyone comes calling,’ said Moran.
‘Okay, okay, I get all that,’ said Harper. ‘But of all the bad guys in Vegas, why the hell did you choose Bonelli as the target. You could have chosen anyone. Bonelli wants us both dead. You do remember he has mug shots of you and me? He probably has them pinned to his toilet wall so every time he takes a crap he can think of new ways to kill us.’
‘Yes, I know that. But it had to be someone Mechanic would go for. When I first met Jameson he told me that he discusses the hit with his shooter to confirm the plan. That would suggest that if Mechanic doesn’t like it, she can say no. And we had to ensure she said yes.’
‘She has a massive grudge against Bonelli,’ said Moran. ‘If I’m right, Bonelli killed her boss and held her hostage for days. She eventually escaped by killing the guard along with Bonelli’s brother Enzo. She would want to finish the job by taking out Alfonso as well.’
‘This is a huge risk. That’s all I’m saying. It’s been just over a year since Alfonso Bonelli thrust the photographs of you and me under my nose and threatened to blow my head off. He didn’t strike me as the type of man who would forget about that in the space of thirteen months.’ Harper returned to his chair.
‘Your points are noted. If I could have guaranteed Mechanic would take the bait with anyone else, I would have done it differently. It means we have to be extra vigilant but it’s worth t
he risk.’
Harper snorted. He knew Lucas was right.
‘We have the bones of Jameson’s plan. We can work with that to identify where this place is.’
‘Did he say which Friday?’ asked Harper.
‘No.’
‘Today is Tuesday, I guess we need to go to Vegas.’
Across the other side of the city Mechanic was staring at the photograph of Bonelli. The contract troubled her, was she taking it for the right reason? This should be a cold, clinical decision based upon the likelihood of success and the size of the payout. But with Bonelli there was a personal element which was clouding her judgement. She would be walking into the lion’s den.
Thirteen months may have passed, but Bonelli would like nothing better than to slice bits off her while she was still alive and feed them to his dogs.
The hit was straightforward. The exit plan was uncomplicated. It was the perfect job.
The phone rang. It was Jameson.
35
The journey to Vegas was long. They had hit the road by 7am with Lucas and Harper in the rental car and Moran driving her own vehicle. They travelled in convoy along Interstate 15, a three hundred and thirty mile route passing through Victorville, Barstow and Baker, and crossing the Nevada state line at Primm. With the scorched Mojave mountains behind them, it was a long slow descent into Vegas. They crested the summit and the Strip looked less than a foot long as it shimmered in the distance thirty-five miles further north.
They headed straight for Moran’s place. She let them in, it was good to be home. Moran checked her mail, there was nothing from Mills.
Lucas opened and closed every cupboard in the kitchen trying to fix coffee, while she found tourist maps that she had acquired when she first moved in. She spread the map of downtown on the table.