Running Stupid: (Mystery Series) (32 page)

“Get the fuck off me!” the hit man squirmed, but his movements were restricted. He knew that too much movement would bring the chainsaw down harder on the back of his neck.

“Option one or two?” Matthew asked softly.

“Fuck you!”

“One or two?”

The assassin laughed, a spontaneous laughter riddled with anxiety. “You can’t get out of here,” he said. “They have you trapped. They have you under their control. They fucking own you!”

Matthew nodded solemnly and then stood up, taking the chainsaw with him.

“What are you doing?” the hit man wanted to know. He too tried to rise to his feet but Jester made sure of his immobility by delivering a knee to his jaw, cringing at the noise his teeth made when they chipped. “Fucking bastard!” his words were filled with agony, anger and saliva. He was literally spitting his insults.

Taking four chunks of wood from the broken door, Matthew meticulously stacked them up beside the head of The Lumberjack, who was still face down on the floor. He then took the chainsaw and lowered it back onto the assassin’s head, using the boards on either side to hold it in place; the blade could still turn, but the device wouldn’t move.

“What are you doing?” The Lumberjack asked, the pain of the blade in the back of his neck forcing him to stutter his words.

Matthew didn’t reply. Instead, he reached for the starter cord.

“What the fuck are you doing!” the assassin pleaded.

“I want to know how to get out of here,” Matthew said.

“There is no escape; the windows are locked and barred and there is no way in hell you can get through the main doors. You’re fucking screwed!” the hit man laughed again.

Matthew nodded, his expression blank. “Cross your fingers,” he said placidly.

“What? Why?” the hit man asked erratically.

Matthew reached for the cord and yanked it as hard as he could. The chainsaw immediately started up again, and instantly the blades began to cut down through the assassin’s neck. Blood gushed out of several wounds and sprayed Matthew’s clothes. He averted his eyes from the carnage.

The Lumberjack was screaming now, blood-curdling screams, agony-filled pleas for help and for salvation, but the saw continued to eat away at his flesh.

Standing up – his eyes still not committing to the massacre – Jester walked out of the room and back into the corridor of the second floor. He shifted past the broken door and sluggishly returned to the lounge area. Screeches of pain, screams of fear and cries of morbid realisation followed him.

When he reached the leather sofa, the noises sounded like a dentist surgery. The saw had reached bone.

Seconds later, the chainsaw stopped, its noises ceasing. Matthew turned to the large poppy on the coffee table in front of the sofa. He smiled at the camera inside, a confident but defeated smile – a smile that suggested he wanted to escape, to rest, but also warned that he wouldn’t rest until everyone involved in the game had been personally stripped off their lives.

Chambers rose to his feet. All eyes turned to him. He gathered some papers from a nearby table and stuffed them all into his briefcase. He shut the case and then let it swing by his side.

“What are you doing?” Fadel wanted to know.

“I’m leaving,” Chambers said bluntly, adding the word. “Sir,” with an anxious cough.

“Why?” Maloney wanted to know.

“This kid is a psycho,” Chambers explained, pointing towards the screen. “He wants to kill us and I’m beginning to think he will.”

“We’re safe,” Maloney explained. “He won’t even see this room, let alone get access to it.”

“I don’t care. I can’t stay here any longer.”

“You can’t just walk out.”

“You don’t need me here,” Chambers said. “I can watch the rest from home.”

“You’re supposed to be running the fucking book!” Maloney screamed. “That shit,” he hooked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the computer server, “is all yours.”

“You’ve been doing it,” Chambers noted. “And you’re perfectly capable of continuing. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” Chambers moved towards the side door which led out into an old, unused hallway, at the end of which was a fire exit.

“You’re not going anywhere.” Maloney stepped in front of Chambers. The two men clashed, Chambers backing away. “What the hell is wrong with you? Let me go; you don’t need me.”

“Exactly,” Maloney said with a nod.

Chambers backed off further. “Don’t you try to fucking threaten me, Dennis. The money is in my banks, laundered through my companies. Without me, you’re fucked.”

“Let him go,” Fadel’s words were stern and unforgiving.

Reluctantly, Dennis Maloney stepped to one side. Chambers made his way across the room and into the hallway. In seconds, he had left the building via the fire exit.

Dennis Maloney locked eyes with Ahmad Fadel. “Why did you let him go?” Maloney wanted to know.

“He is right – we don’t need him here.”

“He is part of this. He should be here.”

“He is not needed.” Fadel’s words were blunt and final. “This is your game, Dennis, and you are the controller, and that man there ...” he pointed to the screens where Matthew Jester was lying on the leather sofa giving the poppy a one finger salute, “is your subject.”

Maloney looked at Jester and smiled. “You’re right,” he said. “Fuck Chambers. This is my show.”

***

Jester stood and stretched. His throat was dry, his mouth chomping on cotton balls, the realisation of which brought with it a sudden thirst.

He walked back into the room where The Lumberjack lay, his head half-severed and bobbing in a pool of its own blood. Jester headed straight for the mini bar, refusing to look at the bloodshed.

A strong smell of musty oil, coppery blood and ammonia hung in the air, creating a stench so powerful it seemed to take on a form of its own.

Jester scooped all the miniatures out of the fridge and dropped them onto the floor in front of him. He sat cross-legged with the goods inches from his shins and began to search through them.

He found a usual assortment of miniature liqueurs, including bottles of wine and spirits. He didn’t want alcohol in his system. It would disturb the substances already inside him and sedate him further, and alcohol wasn’t much of a thirst quencher.

He tossed the unwanted bottles to one side and concentrated on two bottles of tonic water. With a smile and a look of trepidation, he picked up one of the bottles, screwed off the cap and tipped the liquid down his throat. He gagged at the taste, a putrid fizz. After making a series of faces, he picked up the second bottle and drank that too.

***

“Who is next?” Ahmad Fadel asked, his eyes fixed on the screen.

Maloney wandered to the back of the room, and moments later he called out to his superior. “Knuckles. No other name … he was a prize-fighter, big on the underground scene.”

“We need hit men, not fighters. Killers, not players.”

“At least twenty men have died by his hands, probably a lot more,” Maloney reassured. “He’s a dirty fighter, a street fighter, no rules, no restrictions, first man to die or faint loses.” He paused for reflection. “And as far as I know, he hasn’t lost yet.”

Fadel smiled warmly. “Send him in.”

Jester heard the steel shutters lock into place. The vibrations from the first floor floated up through the ceiling, pushed through the leather lounges and alerted his tired mind. He growled wearily, cursed at the poppy and then climbed to his feet. After a glance and a moment of contemplation, he bolted for the door to the stairwell and began to climb.

The noise of his feet slamming against the metal steps echoed loudly throughout the empty hotel. Listening intently, having just entered the stairwell, Knuckles tracked Jester’s movements.

Jester only stopped ascending when there were no more stairs to climb. At the top of the stairs, at the end of a small corridor, was the door to the seventh and final floor. He walked toward it and strode inside without hesitation.

Floor seven had only five rooms, but the rooms were much bigger and far more luxurious, something that Jester realised after he kicked the door down.

Instead of a basic living area and a bathroom, these pricier suites had four separate areas. A large living-room-cum-bedroom was the first, fitted with a king-size bed, a fifty-inch LCD television and a set of sofas and chairs. Around the back of the sofa was a line of blinds rolled halfway down. Beyond them lay a balcony furnished with two deck chairs and a coffee table.

The bathroom was large and lavish, the Jacuzzi three times the size of the others in the hotel. The marble effect on the floor and the blue tiled walls turned a place of essentials into a place of beauty and warmth.

The final room was a kitchen. There were worktops, cutlery, a microwave and a large fridge, but no other appliances. The kitchen joined onto a dining room which had a large mahogany table in the centre.

Disappearing back into the foyer, he returned to the room with a large fire extinguisher. He dropped the object on the bed and wound up the blinds, hoping to step out onto the balcony. A number of steel bars stopped him from escaping. He cursed under his breath and walked into the kitchen instead, taking the fire extinguisher with him.

Steven Henshaw ascended the stairs with a skip in his step. He wasn’t a big man. He was just shy of six feet tall and weighed just less than two hundred pounds, but all of it was muscle, hard muscle, muscle gained by fighting, by killing and by working.

He’d been given the nickname Knuckles as a teenager. He’d broken free of the care of social services at the tender age of thirteen and taken to the streets, his only mentor a drunken bum with a violent obsession. He’d fought his way through life. His fists earned him every penny he had ever made. At the age of thirty, he found solace in a suburban life with a working wife by his side. He still fought, big fights, bloody fights, but he always won.

Dennis Maloney had approached him via a friend. A large cash amount was placed on the table. It was enough to set Steven up for life, and Maloney had promised even more riches upon completion. Steven had had a hard life, and he was a hard man now with pound signs in his eyes. He rushed up the stairs and paused outside the door to the seventh floor.

He hadn’t brought a weapon as his weapons were his fists. He had also been told that if he could kill Jester with his bare hands, he would be in for a bonus.

***

Jester heard the door slam shut, followed by soft footsteps, mere vibrations, audible due to the lonely silence in the building. He listened as the footsteps scoured the entrance hall, checking every nook and cranny. The door to the room Jester was in was shut. The hinges were damaged, the frame shaken, but the door still managed to close. He listened as the footsteps stopped momentarily before starting up again and closing in on Matthew’s position. The hit man was now standing directly outside the door.

Jester hid underneath the kitchen table and quickly ran his eyes over the instructions on the back of the fire extinguisher. He’d never used one before and wasn’t sure exactly why he wanted to use it now, but he continued to read nevertheless. The instructions were long and complicated, filled with warning signs. Jester’s anxious, tired mind couldn’t take any of the information in. He averted his eyes from the label just as the door to the hotel room burst open, slammed against a door stopper, jarred heavily and then bounced back into its frame.

After what sounded like a cautious check of the area, the hit man advanced into the room. Matthew listened to the footsteps, his breathing relaxed, his pulse steady. His pulse momentarily coincided with the footsteps of the hit man before a pause in his walking threw the sounds out of sync.

He stopped in the bedroom, possibly to examine the balcony and the blinds, Matthew pondered. Maybe he was looking under the bed. For all Matthew knew, he could be stripping off for the cameras and pole dancing on one of the supports.

When the footsteps stated again, Matthew’s heart rate picked up its pace. Footfalls were now tapping the laminated floor in the kitchen. Matthew turned his head until he could see the lower half of the hit man from underneath the table. He held his breath as the hit man slowly made his way over to the dining area.

Jester watched the feet of Steven Henshaw as he potted about the kitchen, looking for his target or something that may lead him to his target.

Crouching, Matthew watched as Knuckles walked over to the table, his feet visible and accessible from underneath the mahogany structure. Scuttling like a crab, Jester shifted to the edge of the table and looked down at the assassin’s feet, then at his knees. He couldn’t see any higher.

He picked up the fire extinguisher – prying it from the floor with his fingers and then slowly rolling it onto his arms. He lifted it up to rest on his shoulder, the base aiming directly at the assassin’s shins. Holding it tightly with both arms, he gently swayed his body back and forth, hoping to gain some momentum.

He took in a deep breath and pushed it out of his lungs, simultaneously ramming the fire extinguisher forward with all of his remaining strength. The base of the foam-filled container cracked against the right shin of Steven Henshaw, his leg flying out from underneath him, out of his control. The shinbone cracked, his foot dangling from his leg like a rubber slipper.