Killer Instinct (15 page)

The prospective boyfriend had used the break in the reject's attention to climb warily to his feet. I risked a glance at him. The bottle had been applied by someone who'd had practice. The thrust-and-screw technique had opened up the whole of the left-hand side of his face. The skin hung in ragged peels from the top corner of his lip to just below his eye. It was going to take a micro-surgeon with a special interest in jig-saw puzzles to piece him back together again so he looked anything like the picture on the box.

I flicked my eyes towards the girl. She'd stopped screaming by now, shoving both hands over her own mouth and gagging as though about to be sick. I turned back to the boy with the ruined face. I hoped whatever she'd been offering him had been worth it.

I didn't like the look in his eyes. He didn't need to touch a hand to his face to know what had been done to him. The evidence was splashing down the front of his shirt in a scarlet river.

He started to swear then. Softly at first, but growing in profanity and volume as he launched himself at his attacker, oblivious to the dangers of the slashing bottle.

I couldn't let them come together again. I knew that. I took the prospect first, sweeping his legs out from under him to send him crashing. I only just managed to jump back out of reach of the reject as he sliced the bottle at me, aiming for my stomach.

I caught him a fast blow to the face as I dodged away, bloodied his nose. There was no real weight to it, but a remarkable amount of nerve-endings meet in the nose. It should have been enough to put him down, should have slowed him down at any rate, but he was feeling no pain. He shook it off like a light tap and kept coming, weapon lifted now, like a dagger.

Christ! Now would be a good time, Len . . .

I swallowed hard. I was going to have to hurt him to stop him. My mind shied away from it, but the facts didn't change. I dithered and nearly lost it altogether.

I hadn't heard the prospective boyfriend get back on his feet until he grabbed me round the neck from behind. The rejected one was still coming, but now I was almost immobile and a much easier target.

I switched off my conscious mind and put a muzzle on my conscience. I needed fast, clinical action. The outlines of all the techniques I'd ever learned unrolled behind my eyes like computer graphics, clear and precise. There was no room for hesitation here. No time for compassion either.

I shifted my hips sideways and used a clenched backfist to hit the boy holding me hard in the groin. I didn't need to deal with the arm round my throat then. It simply melted away.

I shrugged him off as he crumpled backwards away from me, and moved forward to meet the charge of the crazy boy with the broken bottle held overhead. With deadly accuracy, he stabbed the glass down at my left eye. So directly that when I looked up I could see straight into the taper of the neck.

I blocked him high with my forearm, grunting at the jarring impact. I weaved my right arm quickly up through his to meet it, clasping my hands together round his wrist.

The movements were automatic, fluid, but I didn't want to do this! Oh I knew the moves, had
nearly
carried them to completion a hundred times, but I'd never had to take that final step. It was crossing the line. It was too far.

I looked up to see the stump of the bottle again, inches from my face. It was quivering from the sheer effort he was putting into trying to drive it downwards towards me. Into me. Oh shit . . .

Leverage is everything. They reckon it takes just eight pounds of pressure to break almost any bone in the human body. I must have applied quite a bit more than that now. I shut out the last lingering doubts and heaved, sideways and down.

The boy's shoulder dislocated with an ease that was mildly surprising. It made a soggy popping sound, like a spoon being pulled out of a bowl of set jelly.

I put my shoulder out once, falling off a horse when I was a kid. The pain is indescribable. You can't escape from it, can't move anywhere to make it hurt any less. It focuses you utterly and you'll do anything to make it stop.

The boy dropped slowly to his knees, the wild light in his eyes dulling as the biting pain of his injury finally took the edge off whatever was floating him. He let the bottle fall to the floor. I kicked it away.

There was the thump of heavy footsteps and I turned to see Len and Angelo had, at long last, deigned to put in an appearance. They skidded to a halt and took in the scene. One boy writhing on the floor, a trail of slimy vomit now mixing with the blood from his face.

The other was still on his knees, whimpering, his torso deformed into an unnatural shrug. Len stared between them, open-mouthed. Angelo just regarded me with those calculating eyes.

“What fucking kept you?” I demanded, stalking past them. I ignored Len's shouted order that I stay put. He was in charge, wasn't he? Well let him sort the mess out, then!

Behind me, the dark-haired girl had started screaming again.

***

I left Angelo and Len to deal with the aftermath. I went upstairs to one of the quieter bars and ordered coffee as an excuse to take in some sugar.

When it arrived, I found my hands were shaking too much to lift the cup.

I thought of Angelo's earlier treatment of the three couples outside the club. If you dealt with it every day, you became hardened to violence. If that was so, I didn't want to deal with it every day. Maybe Sam was right and this move was a mistake. Maybe I shouldn't have taken the job on.

Or maybe Angelo was right. I just didn't have the killer instinct.

“Are you OK?”

I hadn't heard Marc come up behind me. Without looking round I said tiredly, “Yeah, just wonderful, thanks.”

He came and sat beside me, linking his well-manicured hands together on the table top. He was wearing another devastating suit over a collarless white shirt with no buttons visible except the pearl stud at the neck. I wondered how long it took him to choose his wardrobe in the mornings.

With a supreme effort, I managed to take a sip of coffee without slopping most of it down the sides of the cup. When I looked up at Marc it was with steady eyes.

He was watching me with a half-smile quirking his mouth. “Once again it seems I have to say you've handled yourself pretty well,” he remarked.

“Once again without any back-up from your own security people,” I put in bitterly.

“So it might seem.”

It was the slight emphasis that tipped me off. My head came up and I stared at him. “You told them,” I said, my voice a whisper as the realisation hit. “You told them to leave me to it, didn't you?”

“I wanted to make certain you could cope on your own, take care of yourself,” he admitted without any visible signs of remorse, “so, yes, I told them to let you handle the first incident that came up solo.” He allowed himself a rueful smile. “I didn't realise it would be one quite so . . . serious.”

I felt a cold sweat break out between my shoulder-blades, prickling my skin. Would I have willingly gone into it knowing I had nobody behind me? I replayed the scene in my mind. Saw again the broken bottle, and the blood. I knew I couldn't have walked away and let those two slug it out until only one was left standing. “And if I hadn't been able to cope?”

He left the question hanging for a few moments. “I didn't doubt for a moment that you could,” he said calmly. His eyes shifted to focus behind me. “Ah, Len, is everything sorted down there?”

“Yes sir.” Len took a chair alongside me, leaning back and scowling. “Bad one. We had to get a meat wagon for the pair of them.” He glanced at me and said grudgingly, “You did OK, but you should have gone in sooner. We're not the police. We don't have to give them a chance to surrender. You go in hard and fast so they don't know what's hit them.”

He demonstrated his point by smacking a fist against his palm. “As soon as trouble starts, you stamp on it. Trying to talk them out of it is just a waste of time and it'll get you hurt.”

“Being reasonable is never a waste of time,” I said, trying not to grind my teeth. “Most people will respond to reason, given the opportunity. Most people will respect reasonable force as well. Unlike back there at the door when Angelo kicked that guy when he was already down and out of the play. That's not being reasonable. That's just vindictive. That bloke'll remember that, and I wouldn't be surprised if he's back with a few more of his mates later.
That
is what will get you hurt!”

I watched with mild interest as the blue touch paper of Len's temper ignited. Marc's presence was probably the only thing that was keeping his hands clenched on the table top instead of round my windpipe. “You don't know the first thing about this game, so keep your half-baked opinions to yourself,” he growled. “We've seen it all. Done it all. And we know how to handle it!”

Irritated, he lifted himself back to his feet and stumped away.

I swivelled round in my chair and waited until he'd made two strides. “If you're so all-seeing and all-knowing, perhaps you can tell me what the boy was on?”

Len stopped, revealing quite a bit by the way his head ducked at the question. He turned back slowly, eyes flicking nervously to his employer as he did so.

“On?” It was Marc who made the demand, his voice sharp.

“Yeah, Len here was only too keen to let me know earlier that nothing went on in this club that he didn't know about, so he should be able to tell me – what was he on?”

“What are you talking about?” Len asked. He didn't make it sound convincing.

“The kid with the bottle,” I said patiently. “I hit him hard enough to put him down, but he stayed on his feet, and he kept coming. I don't know what shit he had in his system, but I'd lay money that you can't buy it over the counter at Boots.”

Marc sighed, as if talking to a child. “Charlie, we don't ask people for a blood sample on the door before we let them in. If he
had
taken something, he probably did it before he came into the club.” He pinned me with those pale eyes. “I can tell you now that nobody with any sense tries to bring anything in to my place. Not if they know what's good for them.”

Len vigorously voiced his agreement. Marc glared at him. He made a swift exit.

Marc stood, smoothing out his jacket, his face tightly controlled. Abruptly he leant forwards, resting his hands on the back of my chair and the table top. He spoke in a voice quiet with fury. “I will not have
anyone
spreading rumours that the New Adelphi is open house for aspiring chemists. Is that understood?”

I had to force myself to hold his gaze, not to back away from him. Pure pig-headedness made me pause for a few moments, defying him, before I nodded.

Satisfied, he straightened up. “Now,” he continued, his voice icy, “if you’re sure you’re all right, I have a club to run.”

***

I fully expected that to be the last I saw of Marc all evening, but to my surprise he reappeared just as we were packing up, around two.

Most of the security lads had already said their goodnights, climbed into their cars and departed into the night.

It had started to drizzle around midnight, a fine spray which sat on people's clothing like dust when they came into the club. Now the rain had started in earnest. I wasn't looking forward to the ride home. What a night to forget my waterproofs.

I'd already pulled on my leather jacket and scarf when Marc caught up with me. “Have you got a moment, Charlie?”

I paused, running quickly through a mental checklist to see what else I'd done to deserve another talking to. I couldn't think that the way I'd handled the brawl on the dance floor could have been dealt with any better. Angelo, of course, would have just kicked both their heads in. And probably the girl's as well.

Now, I just nodded and followed Marc upstairs. We went right the way up to the small dining area on the top floor. I was surprised to find one of the chefs waiting for us, still in his whites.

Marc turned. “I was going to have a bite of supper. Will you join me?”

It was phrased as a polite request, but I wasn't sure of the reaction I'd get if I said I'd rather be on my way home to bed. I hesitated. Although I'd had a break at ten, I'd been too unsettled to do more than drink coffee. It had been good strong stuff and now it was doing its best to burn a way out through the front of my chest. Eating something might dampen it down a bit.

I smiled. “Yes, please, that would be great.”

We made our way over to a centre table and two place settings were whisked in front of us. Marc ordered wine. Mindful of having my wits about me for the ride home, I stuck with water.

“You should smile more,” Marc said as he lifted his glass. “It suits you.” His voice was strangely neutral. I looked hard for mockery, but couldn't find it in his impassive features.

I took a swig from my glass and avoided his eyes. When I next looked up it was to find him amused.

“What's so funny?”

“I was just thinking what a contradiction you are, Charlie,” he said. “You field a right hook more easily than you take a compliment.”