In Your Name, page 20
When she heard the click of the lock, Mechanic struck.
She reached under her leg, brought out one half of the Coke can and slashed the razored edge deep into beefy man’s neck. A shower of blood splattered across his shirt and his hands grasped at his lacerated throat. Blood spurted through his fingers as his severed jugular pumped him dry.
Mechanic unclipped the chain and swung it hard as Bonelli was making a dash for the door. The heavy links smashed into his face, knocking him off his feet. He rolled on the floor screaming in pain. Mechanic leapt on his back and wrestled him onto his front. She wound the chain around his neck and leant back with all the strength she had left.
Bonelli gurgled and choked as the links cut deep into his flesh. His hands clawed at the metal. Mechanic glanced across to see beefy guy keel over as blood pulsed onto the floor. Bonelli’s eyes were bursting from their sockets as the chain crushed his windpipe. His head was blowing up with the increased pressure and his flesh was bright purple. Mechanic heaved with all her might and eventually his flailing body went limp and his hands dropped away.
She slumped forward, exhausted, and unwound the chain. To her amazement, Bonelli let out a low groan and she could feel his lungs fill with air. He was moving below her.
She leaned across his back to raise his head and stretched the chain tight across his forehead. Gripping it with both hands Mechanic leaned right back. There was a loud crack as Bonelli’s neck broke.
Mechanic struggled to stand and fell to the ground. She unlocked the cuffs and took the gun from beefy guy’s belt. She went over to Bonelli and frisked him. No gun, schoolboy error, she thought.
The corridor outside was long and featureless with a door at the end. Mechanic reached it and placed her ear to the wood. She twisted the handle and it opened up onto a concrete stairwell. She climbed the steps and tried to control her breathing. At the top was another door with a window in it. She peered through.
On the other side she could see an office with a female cleaner busying herself with polish and a duster. Mechanic slid the gun into the back of her waistband and stepped inside.
The woman jumped as Mechanic came in.
‘Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,’ she said in a husky voice.
Mechanic started opening and closing desk drawers while the cleaner looked on with her mouth open and duster poised. In the fourth drawer she found her wallet and gun and stuffed them into her pockets.
Outside the office was a trolley stacked with plates of curled-up sandwiches, the remnants of a lunch meeting. Mechanic grabbed a handful as she went by, along with a bottle of water. Leftover food never tasted so good.
Through a few more doors and up a flight of stairs and she was outside in the warm Vegas air. She collapsed with her back against the wall to gather her strength. She was dehydrated and starving. The last of the food disappeared, washed down with the water. The sun warmed her face. Mechanic got to her feet, followed the road around the block and eventually recognised the bottom of Fremont Street.
All her instincts screamed to go back into the Park Piazza and blow the rest of Bonelli’s men away, but she was in no fit state. Anyway she had more important things to take care of and a free newspaper to collect.
49
It’s disturbing to think of Las Vegas crawling with bad people, even worse to think they are all looking for you.
Mechanic made it back to her newly acquired digs, a one-bedroom condo on a short-term rent. She missed her comfortable apartment but that was strictly off limits since the Huxton woman had given away her phone number to the one-armed idiot boy.
She shouldered open the front door and stepped inside with her heavy bags. A quick trip to the supermarket while the taxi kept the meter running had been an urgent necessity. The bags contained food and isotonic drinks to replace the nutrients and salts her body so badly needed, along with a selection of silk and woven scarves, cheap children’s bracelets, hair dye, false tan and a veritable jumble sale of odd accessories.
She went to work in the bathroom while the kettle boiled, emerging forty-five minutes later sporting jet black hair and eyebrows with a thin layer of fake tan on her face and neck. In two hours’ time she would repeat the process.
Mechanic ate like she hadn’t seen food before and downed several bottled drinks. She lay on the sofa and drifted off. Thirty minutes later her alarm went off, she didn’t have time for deep sleep but needed to have some rest. She got up and began to assemble her new look.
After twenty minutes of wrapping herself in scarves and pinning her new clothes in place, she was ready. Mechanic left the flat wearing a hijab and long skirts. She walked with a slightly lopsided gait and steadied herself with the aid of a brightly coloured hiking pole. Her skin was a little too pale for her ethnicity but that would develop later, it was the best she could do given the time. She carried a small rucksack slung over one shoulder and hailed a cab.
The taxi dropped her off outside the Hacienda. Mechanic tipped the driver and said something incomprehensible to the bellhop who offered to take her bag. She ambled through reception to the lifts and hit the button for the twenty-first floor. The key to suite 8123 slid into the lock. Mechanic drew her gun and opened the door. She was amazed to find Silverton’s room untouched.
How had the goons from Fremont Street missed this? They wouldn’t have done a fingertip search, they were far more likely to have torn the place apart looking for information. The condition of the room suggested no one had been there.
Mechanic headed straight for Silverton’s office and as expected the drawers in the oversized desk were locked. She put down the gun and retrieved a combat knife from inside her wraps. Seconds later the first drawer slid open. Mechanic rifled through the contents looking for anything with her details on it. Similarly, with the next, and the one after that, until all the drawers were busted open. Nothing.
She found a briefcase and prized open the locks. This too contained business documentation but nothing linking her to Harry. Mechanic opened a cupboard and inside was a safe with the buttons 0–9 illuminated with a pale green light. She unzipped her bag and removed a small spray can, flipped the top off and sprayed a fine mist onto the keypad. The chemicals in the spray reacted with the residue of oils and sweat left by Silverton’s fingertips and four of the buttons turned purple. Mechanic noted the digits: 0,1,3,6. Shit, it was a six-digit code and the permutations were too many to try.
In frustration she twisted the handle and the safe opened. Silverton had forgotten to re-set the code in his excitement to get to the Fremont meeting. Mechanic pulled out neatly stacked bundles of bank notes and pushed them into her bag, there was nothing else of interest so she closed the door and wiped the keypad clean. The cash would come in useful.
She made her way to the ornate writing desk and set about the drawers with her knife. They were all empty. She cursed under her breath.
Mechanic then noticed the books in the bookcase weren’t in line, the ones on the left of the top shelf were sticking out about an inch proud of the others. Mechanic pulled them free and found what she was looking for, a plastic wallet containing a wad of paper. She immediately saw her passport-sized picture and a raft of personal details relating to her. Mechanic placed this in her bag and removed more books. She uncovered the photographs of Lucas, Harper and Bassano which she had given to Harry.
Behind her she heard the metallic click of the lock and the suite door opened. Mechanic rolled across the floor and hid behind the desk. She reached out and slowly pulled her bag towards her out of sight. Two men entered the room, one much taller than the other. The tall one went into the living room and the other into the bedroom. Mechanic picked up her gun from the table and went to grab the photos from the bookcase. The taller man walked across the doorway forcing her to duck back behind the desk. She was trapped.
One man called to the other and she saw him cross the doorway once again. This was her chance. Mechanic moved towards the bookcase.
She stopped in her tracks as the man reappeared in the doorway with his back to her, she could see the long silenced barrel of his gun. Mechanic changed direction and hid behind the open door as both men entered the room.
‘Hey take a look at this,’ one said in a deep southern drawl. ‘Someone’s forced open the drawers.’
The desk was at the far side of the room. Mechanic peeked around the door. Both men were sifting through the paperwork.
‘There’s a safe,’ one said.
Both of them knelt down, peering into the cupboard at the safe.
‘Try and force it.’
Mechanic made her move and dashed out into the hallway. She opened the front door and ran down the corridor. The sound of the handle turning made both men look around but all they saw was the door closing.
Mechanic heard them burst out of the hotel suite, footsteps running, but she was already hurtling down the fire escape. Her robes flowing behind her as she fled. She opened a door to the eighteenth floor and mingled with the tourists entering the elevator. No one followed her.
The elevator pinged open at the ground floor. Mechanic kept in the middle of the group and pulled her scarf tight across her face as they spilled out into the lobby. She crossed the floor, weaving her way through the melee of tourists and stepped outside. The two men bundled their way out of a second elevator and were frantically scanning the crowds of people. Mechanic put her head down, hunched her shoulders and ambled off towards the Strip.
She cursed and gritted her teeth.
That was too close for comfort and a major screw-up.
The money and the documents were a good result but leaving the photographs behind presented her with a massive problem.
50
‘How in hell’s name am I supposed to choose?’ Lucas was in a bad way.
‘Because that’s what you have to do,’ Moran replied. ‘If you don’t, more people will die and we’ve had enough body bags with your name on them to last a lifetime.’
‘Is that supposed to help?’
‘No. It’s what you must do.’
‘I have another suggestion.’
‘Go on.’
‘I share the dilemma with Harper and Bassano. Tell them about the penance and explain what Mechanic is demanding. We can use it to lure her into the open, she thinks she’s hunting us when actually we’re hunting her.’
‘That’s horseshit. Not a chance,’ Moran said. ‘What if neither of them goes for it? What if they say no? After all, you’re effectively asking one of them to volunteer to be the sacrificial lamb in the vague hope that you get to her first. I don’t think that works.’
‘But I can’t choose one of them to be slaughtered by Mechanic either.’
Moran thought for a moment. ‘There may be a way of doing both.’
‘How?’
‘By running with the hare and the hounds.’
‘Don’t talk in riddles, I’m not in the mood.’
‘We play it both ways. Mechanic wants you to offer up either Harper or Bassano or she will kill again. The assumption on our part is that whoever you select she will kill. So you choose one.’
‘But that’s the very thing I can’t do. This is going nowhere.’
‘Hear me out. We concoct a story that encourages one of them to put themselves up as bait to draw Mechanic into the open – then we take her out. We know she does things up close and personal and we’ll be ready for it.’
Lucas considered the plan. ‘What would be the cover story?’
‘Don’t know, we need to think of something convincing.’
Lucas and Moran sat in silence.
Then Lucas kicked into gear. ‘There is a way to do both, but it will only work with an additional piece in place.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You.’
Two hours later, Lucas, Harper and Bassano were sitting in a backstreet car park drinking take-out coffee. It was dark and the Vegas night air was hot. Not the best environment for three men in a car. They sat with the windows down.
‘What are we doing here?’ Bassano asked.
‘You’ll see,’ Lucas replied.
‘See what?’ Harper asked. ‘I don’t see jack shit.’
‘You will. In fact, here she is now.’
Another car trundled along the road and parked next to them.
‘Oh no, not her again,’ Harper called out, loud enough for Moran to hear.
‘That’s why I didn’t say anything, you wouldn’t have stuck around.’
Moran ignored Harper’s outburst and climbed into the back seat next to him.
‘What the hell?’ said Bassano.
‘Shut it,’ Lucas said. ‘I’ve asked Detective Moran to join us because we have a mutual interest.’
‘Oh yeah,’ Harper said giving her a sideways glance. ‘What is it, playing jump rope?’
‘Cool it, guys. She’s here to help.’ Lucas was determined to keep control.
‘Help with what?’ Bassano was challenging hard.
‘Killing Mechanic.’ Moran let the words land with their full weight. The car fell silent and all eyes were on her.
‘She worked out our sorry bunch of shit but instead of turning us in she came to me,’ Lucas said.
‘What do you mean, worked out?’ asked Bassano.
‘Everything, tracking Mechanic to Vegas, taking Jo, the ads in the Bulletin and the motel killings. The full shebang. So I think you both need to shut up and let her speak.’
‘I want to be the person who takes Mechanic down, but I can’t do that on my own, I need your help,’ Moran said.
‘What for, when you have the whole of LVPD’s finest at your disposal?’ Harper asked.
‘I believe we have a leak in the department. We’ve been on Mechanic’s tail since she landed in Vegas but she’s always one step ahead. Those guys are spinning in circles to capture her and she slips straight through, every time. I’m the new girl and to me there’s only one logical explanation. Someone is tipping her off.’
‘We know how that feels,’ Harper said with almost a hint of sympathy.
‘That’s why I came to Lucas. You guys have done what entire police forces have failed to do, you had a shot at her. You got close.’
‘What would we have to do?’ Bassano asked.
Lucas continued, ‘There’s one thing guaranteed to make Mechanic break cover, and that’s her sister. Moran puts out a story that one of you is about to cut a deal with the cops and hand Jo over in return for protection. Mechanic won’t be able to stop herself, she will do anything to protect her sister.’
‘And that’s what we’re counting on,’ Moran said. ‘I’ll leak the meeting place where you are going to do the deal and Mechanic is bound to show up. And when she does, we take her out.’
No one spoke. The gravity of the situation was sinking in.
‘It’s asking a lot but the alternative is we spend the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders wondering when the hammer will fall,’ Lucas said.
‘How do we know she’ll take the bait?’ Harper asked.
‘We don’t,’ Moran replied. ‘But one thing is for sure, whatever the cops know, Mechanic knows as well.’
‘When do we do it?’ Bassano asked.
‘The sooner we get the story out there the better,’ Moran said.
‘I have a question.’ Bassano sounded pensive. ‘Why does it need to be me or Harper?’
‘If it was me, Mechanic would see through it right away. She knows me inside out, I would never cut and run leaving you guys to face her alone,’ Lucas said.
‘What makes you think I would?’ Bassano replied.
‘I’ll do it,’ Harper said without a moment’s hesitation.
51
Mills was making a complete hash of the motel murders and Moran was not about to put that right. She watched from the sidelines as he strutted around in spray-painted shirts, bluffing his way through the investigation, meticulously collating evidence and analysing it to death then failing to make any real headway, which suited Moran fine.
The more Mills bogged the team down, the happier she was. Moran needed time and the way Mills was performing she had all time in the world. In fact, when she thought about it she had hardly seen him the past couple of days, he’d been hiding away in meetings. This gave her ample opportunity to park the case in the slow lane and concentrate on catching Mechanic.
Moran had to be seen to make some progress with motel murders. It was a tough juggling act, especially as the Mechanic work had to be done under wraps. It meant working long hours, which for most people it would be an exhausting schedule, but for Moran it was energising and exciting.
Her goal was clear. She wanted to be known as Detective Moran, the woman who finally brought one of America’s most notorious serial killers to justice. She pictured the day when the Las Vegas chief of police would shake her by the hand and pin a commendation medal on her chest. Brennan would listen to her then. She could almost taste it.
It was 10pm and the station was quiet. Moran was completely engrossed in her work, so engrossed she didn’t realise the Mechanic folder was open on her desk.
‘What the hell has she done now?’ A man with a quiff of hair walked by and pointed at the photograph of Mechanic pinned to the cover. Moran jumped. It was one of the team she had met on her second day but couldn’t recall his name.
‘Er what? Nothing, I was checking some old cases.’ She shuffled the pages together and closed the folder.
‘Sorry to interrupt. I saw her mug shot and thought she’d been causing trouble again.’ He started to walk away.
‘What trouble? You know this woman?’ Moran asked after him.
