False Move, page 19
Pinky’s phone rang out. So did Stella’s when she rang hers.
Before she’d done trying Pinky a second time, she scrambled into the front passenger seat and Po’s foot jammed down heavily on the gas. Any intention of steering clear of Stella’s apartment vanished.
THIRTY-SIX
‘Stand down, pal,’ said Hayden James.
Apart from averting his face from the CCTV camera he hadn’t bothered with a stealthy approach, he’d gone direct to the door of Stella Dewildt’s apartment and kicked his way inside, only to find his passage to the woman barred by some weird-looking black man who appeared to be the product of two magician’s apprentices sawn in half, their component parts mixed up, and then sewn wrongly together again at the lower chest.
‘You want her, you’ll have to go through me.’ The man had backed Stella into the kitchen, and swept a large knife from a chopping block. He didn’t look fearful of Hayden’s suppressed pistol.
‘I don’t want to shoot you.’
‘I don’t want shot either, me,’ the man replied, his speech pattern as weird as his appearance, ‘so put down your gun and walk away.’
‘Can’t do that. I said I don’t want to, but I will shoot.’
‘Then you’d better hope you kill me first time, or you’re goin’ to have a real problem, you.’
Hayden wagged his pistol. ‘You’re a brave man, I’ll give you that, but you’re misguided if you think you can get to me before I empty this clip in you.’
Opposite him, the black guy cocked his head, as if considering his words. He seemed to come to a conclusion: perhaps Hayden’s reticence to shoot gave him false hope. He raised the kitchen knife above the breakfast counter that separated them. ‘Well, I’m up for tryin’, me, but you don’t look so keen on finding out.’
Stella Dewildt cowered beyond her protector, barely visible because of his bulk. She kept glancing at the cell phone ringing on the counter a few feet out of reach, tempted to lunge for it and scream for help. A minute ago, another phone had rung incessantly from the black man’s hip pocket, but he hadn’t allowed it to distract him: his attention was fully on Hayden since he’d smashed inside the apartment.
‘That’s probably your friend Villere calling to warn you about me,’ Hayden said. ‘It’s too late for him to help.’
‘If you do kill me and take the girl,’ the guy replied, ‘Nicolas will hunt you down and cut out your heart.’
Hayden shrugged. ‘Or I’ll cut out his.’
‘You don’t realize the kind of enemies you’re courting, you.’
‘Or I don’t care.’
The black man shook his head, and a feral smile displayed large white teeth. ‘You care, otherwise you’d have pulled that trigger by now.’
Hayden lowered his gun.
His opponent kept the knife up.
‘You misunderstand my reluctance,’ said Hayden. He wanted to take Stella alive. The big guy’s body might not absorb all of his bullets. Besides, he was only stalling, though time was against him and he couldn’t keep up the act forever. ‘Stand aside, and I promise neither of you will be harmed.’
The man snorted. ‘You think I just fell out of a coconut tree? I’m just some kinda dumb nigga man to you?’
‘Buddy, I wouldn’t insult you like that. Some of my best friends are niggers.’ He offered a snarky grin.
‘Kiss my black ass.’
The phone on the counter fell silent, and the one in the man’s hip pocket burst to life instead. The guy adjusted his weight, but only to press Stella further behind him as she groped for his phone. In that split second, his attention drifted, and his body turned fractionally away. He was returning to front and centre when Hayden’s hand snatched up, and he fired.
‘Down!’ The man spun incredibly fast, engulfing the smaller woman: he seemed not to have noticed the bullet that had cut a chunk of skin from his right thigh. Hayden had purposefully shot wide to avoid hitting Stella behind him. The kitchen counter was briefly between them, and Hayden had to crab around it, never lowering his aim. He could have stitched a pattern in the broad back presented to him, but held fire, waiting for a clean shot where there was no risk of collateral damage.
Stella scrambled to the right, now hidden beyond the far end of the counter, but she’d placed her friend at Hayden’s mercy. He paused: his sentiment still held; he didn’t want to shoot Stella’s protector but he would. He aimed directly between the heaving shoulder blades. But then Stella rose up, her empty hands imploring him to hold fire. Hayden flicked a glance at her, considered her plea, then ignored it: Holbrook’s order to clean shop should be obeyed.
Without warning his target unfolded, whipping up and back from a crouch, and the flash of steel yanked Hayden’s gun up as he dodged the hurled knife. The blade embedded in the wall behind him, even as his shot struck a cupboard door and broke crockery within. He steadied his feet, and his aim, but a fraction of a second too late. The big man launched up, sweeping the gun high with his forearm, and tackled Hayden with the brutal impact of a Sumo wrestler. Hayden was borne backwards, until they slammed the wall. His assailant – how the dynamic had changed in an instant – heaved up with his shoulders, picking up Hayden and grinding him against the wall. Hayden’s gun hand was gripped at the wrist. He strove to bring around the barrel and shoot his attacker, but the extra length of the suppressor made it difficult to place a bullet in the man’s back. Another stray shot caromed off the floor and shattered glass somewhere. For fear another ricochet would strike Stella, Hayden held fire, and instead smashed his opposite palm repeatedly against the man’s ribs. Ineffectively it turned out. Hayden was dragged along the wall, and slammed sideways into a table and chairs. The racket of scraping chair legs joined the clatter of their feet as they wrestled for control of the gun.
The black man’s arms were oddly thin compared to his large thighs and midriff, but there was nothing weak about them. A scarlet flash filled his vision as a clubbing left hook landed on Hayden’s jaw. Blackness wavered at its edges. Instinct kicked in without conscious thought, and Hayden drove a knee into his opponent’s body. He heard a gasp as the air was forced out of the man’s lungs. Briefly there was space between them, and Hayden optimized on the moment, kneeing again at the same spot. Wheezing, the man ducked, protecting his solar plexus, and scooped up Hayden’s knee, to mobilize it. He was thrown backwards over the table, his opponent never letting go of his wrist or knee. They rolled, scattering plates and coffee mugs yet to be cleared away after breakfast, and crashed to the floor. Hayden hissed as a shard of ceramic pierced his thigh: karma was a bitch, which demanded immediate recompense for shooting his opponent there. He kicked free of the man’s hold around his knee, then slammed a heel into his left kidney. They both scuffled for dominance as they rose to their knees: his gun was practically useless but under no circumstance would he willingly discard it to free up his hand.
His arm was slammed repeatedly against the table, but he held on to his gun, and instead chopped at the man’s head with the blade of his left hand. Immediately a headbutt smacked into his face, and Hayden was only saved from a crushed nose as he managed to dip his chin down at the last instant and they went forehead to forehead. Nevertheless, the impact sent another cloud of scarlet and swirling black dots exploding across his vision. The strange notion struck that it was always easier defending another person, than it was one’s self when fighting a determined opponent. Distracted he missed the next blow, this time the web between the man’s index finger and thumb jammed into his windpipe. Hayden gagged, and couldn’t defend against a punch that almost loosened his teeth. Fuck not shooting for fear of hitting Stella; he forced the gun around and finally got a bead on the fat bastard.
Something slammed into his head, and Hayden buckled, the gun falling from his fingers and sliding away under the table. Bleary eyed, he blinked up at Stella who stood over him, threatening to smash his skull in with a heavy skillet. He was jostled again by his opponent, and thought he was done.
‘Drop it, bitch, or I’ll blow your head off!’
Beyond Stella, Megan materialized from the adjoining hallway, a suppressed pistol extended in both hands. Stella remained defiant for a second, the skillet poised to strike again, but there was a different level of threat in the scarred woman’s glaring eyes: she’d happily blast holes into Stella’s pretty face. Stella dropped the pan and it clanged at Hayden’s side. His opponent had also relented beating on him, and had gotten to his knees a few feet away, hands up. Hayden shook lucidity into his brain, watching as Megan stalked all the way to Stella’s side and buried the tip of the suppressor in the hair above her left ear. In the next moment, Megan yanked Stella into her grasp, wrapping an arm around her throat and dragged her backwards off balance.
‘You took your damned time,’ Hayden snarled at his partner as he pushed up from the floor.
‘Took longer getting in through the back than I thought. Don’t know what you’re complaining about, everything turned out well in the end.’ Megan sneered down at Hayden’s kneeling opponent. ‘Didn’t think you’d have much trouble with an unarmed slob.’
Hayden felt as if a football team had used his head for practice. The black guy looked soft and weak, he was the epitome of contradiction. If Hayden wasn’t in such pain – not to mention shameful that a cooking pot had almost taken him out – he might respect the guy’s fighting ability. Instead, he sneered at him with as much bile as Megan did. ‘Would’ve been a different story if I hadn’t tried not to kill you,’ he said.
The guy cocked his head. ‘I didn’t have the same qualms, me.’
‘Who the fuck is this joker?’ Megan demanded.
‘He’s unimportant. Get Stella to the car …’ Somewhere a phone was still ringing. ‘I’ll be with you in a minute.’
‘Let me kill the fat ass for you,’ Megan offered. ‘I won’t hold back.’
The black man laughed in scorn and Megan’s features screwed in rage.
‘D’you want to try me?’ she spat. ‘I’ll kick you so hard you’ll spray shit all over this place, and then when I’m done killing you, I’ll rub this bitch’s face in it.’
‘Hmm, you’ve such a ladylike way of speaking,’ the man replied. ‘I’ve never willingly hurt a lady before, but for you I’ll make the exception. If you hurt as much as a hair on Stella’s head—’
‘Shut up!’ Hayden swung the skillet. It rang dully off the man’s skull and he sprawled face down, arms outstretched, blood pulsing from the broken skin above his left eyebrow. Stella yelped in alarm, shouted a name: ‘Pinky!’
‘Fucking “Pinky”, what kind of name’s that for a brother?’ Megan snarled at her. When Stella opened her mouth to respond, she was rewarded with a slap to her face, and Megan began jostling her for the exit. Hayden retrieved his pistol, and unscrewed the silencer, all the while staring down at the recumbent man. Maybe, he thought wryly, in future he shouldn’t be so contemptuous of anyone using a cast-iron pot as a weapon. Blood pooled on the floor around Pinky’s skull and he didn’t as much as twitch. Hayden crouched alongside him, dug in his hip pocket and pulled out his cell phone. The screen flashed, announcing the caller: Tess.
He would speak with her in his own time. Hayden declined the call, but slipped the phone into his jacket pocket for safekeeping. He paused and regarded his fallen opponent a final time. If he hadn’t unscrewed his suppressor he would put a bullet into Pinky’s heart, making certain he was dead as per Holbrook’s orders. It would be a matter of seconds to refit the silencer but why bother? Pinky’s brains were nigh on leaking on the floor as it were. He turned away and followed Megan out with their hostage.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Despite the threat to his welfare, Lacey wouldn’t stay hidden in the Mustang, and neither Tess nor Po had the time or inclination to waste trying to keep him there. In fact, if she wasn’t so worried about Pinky and Stella, his determination to get to his daughter might have won an iota of respect from Tess. As it were, she rushed for the door, only a step behind Po, barely aware of Lacey’s stumbling progress up the short flight of stairs behind her.
Po paused ahead of her, dipped down, and came up with a knife from his boot sheath. She could sense his reticence to entering unarmed. The lock was broken, and the door wide open. There was no other hint of a break-in within the entrance vestibule or the adjoining sitting room, but the evidence was plain to see strewn across the kitchen floor. Broken crockery was scattered on the tiles, a heavy skillet pan among it, and a chair had been upended. Po quickly held up a hand to stall the others. He gestured at Tess to check the sitting room before they all got bunched in the kitchen where they could be cornered. Tess made a brief check, not going further inside than the threshold, and then Lacey roughly pushed past her and followed Po into the kitchen. She entered, scanned left where the men had gone, and felt her heart squeeze. Pinky was face down and unmoving beyond more overturned chairs and a table shoved off-kilter, the obvious wreckage of a fight. Glass and broken dishes littered the floor around him, and a knife was buried almost to its hilt in the wall. Po rushed to his friend, and touched fingers to his throat. Po was still, concern waging with rage for control of his emotions. He looked up at Tess, and she’d never seen him look as desperate before. ‘He’s got a pulse …’
She rushed to Po’s side, dreading the full story of Pinky’s injuries. An awful amount of blood had poured from the wound on the side of his head; his right eye was swollen to the size of a baseball. They were indications of blunt trauma, and bad enough, but she was more concerned by any wounds they couldn’t see because of the way he was lying. Almost unnoticed by her, Aaron Lacey limped from room to room seeking his daughter, though Tess had already concluded she was gone. By the state of the kitchen, and Pinky’s face, he’d fought determinedly to protect her but failed.
Pinky’s breathing was ragged and noisy.
‘Help me get him on his side,’ Po said.
She wasn’t sure that they should move him, for fear he had a major brain injury, or broken neck, but first and foremost his airway should be opened. She knelt to protect his spine alignment, while Po dragged around one of his knees to help manoeuvre their large friend to a safer position. Pinky bucked and kicked, his left arm pawing at the air to shove them away.
‘Whoa!’ Tess held onto his head, without a care for the blood getting on her. ‘Hold still, Pinky, you’re going to hurt yourself.’
His response was an animalistic growl, the sound of ill-contained disappointment. He shrugged out of her hands, even as he pulled free of Po and rolled onto his back. Under him broken crockery scraped and shattered. His one good eye rolled, unfocused, and his lips worked as he cursed under his breath. Tess made reassuring noises, while Po moved in tighter, to help support Pinky, who tried to sit.
‘Wait,’ he advised, his left palm on Pinky’s chest. ‘Get your wits together before you try to get up.’
Pinky’s tongue lolled between his teeth a moment, and he dribbled a string of bloody saliva down his chin. Unconsciously he swiped it away with the back of his wrist. The glint of lucidity in his eye wasn’t as dim. He darted a look from Po to Tess, and settled on her. ‘Am I in heaven, because you’re a vision, you?’ he said, then squinting up at Po, he added, ‘Damn, I can’t be. There isn’t any angel as ugly as you, Nicolas.’
‘Right now you ain’t gonna win any beauty pageants either, bra.’
Pinky forced a smile, then hissed in pain and touched his fingers to the side of his head. The cut was wide, but the bone beneath seemed intact. ‘Son of a bitch downed me with a cooking pot.’
Po glanced at the heavy cast-iron skillet. Pinky was fortunate: it was apparent the flat base, and not the sharper edge had struck him, otherwise it would have been a different story altogether.
Pinky inspected the blood on his fingers. ‘Looks worse than it is; scalp wounds bleed like a bitch. Here, help me up.’
They both helped him sit up, and then jostled him so that the kitchen wall supported his back. Overhead, the knife jutted from the plaster. ‘Someone throw that at you?’
Pinky rolled his eye upward, grinned abashedly. ‘That was on me: missed by a damn mile. Never was that good with sharp implements, me.’
‘You could’ve been killed,’ Tess said pointlessly. She could have wept in relief, but was too busy checking him for other injuries. There was no sign of bullet or knife wounds, but for one bloody patch on his right thigh. She knelt to inspect it closer.
‘It’s nothing,’ Pinky reassured her. ‘Just lost a little skin, is all.’
His head still bled. He touched it again, then transferred his fingers to the swelling round his eye. ‘Man, I bet I look like Quasimodo’s uglier brother, me.’
Tess found a clean tea towel, ran it under the cold faucet and returned. She wadded it and handed it to Pinky who daubed it on the cut. ‘Try to keep pressure on it,’ she advised, and the words reminded her she’d a second bleeding patient. As if summoned by thought, Lacey appeared from a second entrance to the kitchen, one that gave access to an adjoining utility room and back door. Pinky tensed as he stumbled in and had to catch his balance against a counter.
‘It’s OK,’ Tess told him, ‘that’s Stella’s father.’
Pinky studied him for a beat, then looked conspiratorially at his friends. ‘He looks in worse shape than I am, him.’
‘Back door was forced too,’ Lacey announced, ‘and there’s no sign of Stella.’ He was so pale his skin was almost translucent, but for deep smudges under both eyes. His greying hair was dark with sweat, which also dripped from his jawline. He lacked the strength to stand unaided for long. Tess was torn between Pinky and going to assist the older man. He returned her concerned look. ‘Forget about me. Where’s my daughter?’
