To Kill Or Be Killed (30 page)

“I suppose. You
scared?”

She smiled. “A
little, but I like danger. How do you become a paid killer?”

He didn’t
answer.

“Oh is that one
of those you can tell me, but you’d have to kill me questions?”

When he didn’t
speak she turned with the bread knife.

“You aren’t
going to kill me are you?” She waved the knife in front of her.

Mason’s move
was fast, the scissor hands knocked the knife away and he stepped
in grabbing the back of her head with his left hand and his right
hand sliding between her arms and her back, pinning her suddenly,
unable to move due to the edge of the kitchen side against which
her arms were held tight. He looked in her eyes and strangely they
were defiant, not afraid. He leant in and tenderly kissed her
lips.

“No, but make
no mistake that I can at any time, that enough danger for you?”

‘Leash’ smiled.
“You are a bad boy aren’t you?”

They went back
to her room with snacks and drinks. In spite of his reservations
Mason was drawn to her. She had, he could tell, reserves of
strength and courage. She had spirit and character. Most women he
met weakly surrendered to him, but she had bucked and fought back,
scratching and pulling.

“I could be
your secretary. You know. You on some job somewhere calling me and
me watching your back.”

“You’ve seen
too many films. It’s not like that. It’s lonely, messy, frightening
and you never have anyone you can trust.”

“What if you
could trust me, you wouldn’t be alone then.”

Mason got up
and walked to the window and looked out of a parted gap. There was
a million on this hit, enough for him to retire to a
non-extradition country and then what? Whores would take his money
or stitch him up and he’d have to work again. With a girl he could
trust he could settle. The last few days and how close the security
services were at the moment made him feel that it was time to quit.
He’d rather taken to ‘Leash’ and he felt he could control her. He
turned, dropped his towel and walked over to the bed.

“Let’s talk
about what you can be for me in the morning, in the meantime…” He
climbed onto the bed and slipped off her robe.

Around midnight
‘Leash’ woke with a strong urge to urinate. She disengaged from
Mason’s arm, which pinned her to the bed, and extracted herself
from the ‘spoons’ position they had adopted after sex, necessary
for them both to sleep in her single bed.

Mason didn’t
wake, but he mumbled in his sleep, hand twitching on a fantasy
pistol trigger. “Time now Jono…time…priory… at the priory….” His
foot kicked out and he shifted slightly. ‘Leash’ watched his face,
it was tense. Perhaps that was what it was like for men who lived
his way, never relaxed.

She went to the
toilet looked in on Leah’s room, the ‘satanic meringue’ girl with
whom she shared the house. She was surprised that she hadn’t come
home. Maybe she’d scored at last. ‘Leash’ smiled and went back to
bed, easing herself onto the bed and pulling Mason’s arm over her.
‘Priory’ she thought, ‘maybe he had killed a priest?’

Chapter
79

Mayfair Rendezvous
Casino

11 p.m.

April 18th

The Rendezvous
casino in Mayfair on Old Park Lane was as plush and luxurious as it
sounded. After the taxi had dropped him off Cobb squared his
shoulders and strode in with confidence. He bought four hundred
pounds worth of chips and after walking amongst the tables he went
for a drink in the up stairs bar. Sitting on a too comfortable
spotted seat under multi coloured tile décor he frowned at the
somewhat chintzy look of the place. His over expensive bourbon on
ice was finished too soon and he was unhappily reminded of the
smoking laws. He put away his ‘Luckies’ pack and Zippo and went
down stairs.

He chose
American Roulette in the end and sat down in a spare seat. A short
haired man in a casual suit was making a pile of chips to his left.
The blonde casino worker smiled at him as he sat down and he took
in her black uniform, tight in the right places and accentuating
her curves. Her neat make up and bright blue eyes were the friendly
face of the casino.

The man to his
left placed one hundred pounds in tens around the black twenty, a
lady who must have been in her fifties, low cut dress showing
ageing cleavage and mottled neck, followed his lead saying ‘I might
as well ride your luck’ and gave the younger man a wink.

He smiled back
faintly at the clumsy ‘pass’ and Cobb noted the woman’s accent as
American, though, explaining her extrovert bravado, tinged with an
alcohol slur. Cobb looked the young man over. The suit was blue
grey tonic, the shirt silk and the watch on the hairy wrist was an
Omega. The man’s face was tanned and his dark eyes and short cut,
expensively untidy hair was black. He had a Mediterranean look. As
Cobb watched a lean, gorgeous, tanned beauty in a long green dress,
low neck line and smooth rounded cleavage, decorated with pearls
came over and stood at the end of the table by the roulette wheel.
Her auburn hair was ‘up’ showing a smooth tanned neck. Cobb was
smitten.

He placed five
twenty pound chips around the table, all on black numbers and a
hundred pounds in chips on the black.

When red
nineteen came up, the ball clattering to a halt in the ‘cup’ there
was an unhappy sigh from the older lady.

“Now you owe me
a spin. “ She said laughingly.

Again the good
looking young man smiled faintly.

Both he and
Cobb repeated their bets, Cobb knowing that he’d be out in two
turns if he lost again, but he and the young man were lucky. The
spinning wheel slowed clattering the ball into black twenty. A pile
of chips to the sum of three hundred and sixty made its way to
Cobb’s left and Cobb got his two hundred. The older American woman
laughed aloud when she got her three hundred and sixty.

“Now we’re
even. We make a good team!” The young man didn’t reply, but gave a
knowing look to the girl in the green dress. She returned the look.
The American woman saw the connection and accepted her defeat at
the perfectly manicured hands of the younger woman. The young man
was not to be the lady’s.

“Maybe I’ll try
‘blondie’ here, what say handsome?” She leaned over Cobb’s way.

“Sure I’m going
red this time if you want in?”

“Hey! Fellow
American! We should stick together baby.”

The young man
bet tens around the black ten and Cobb bet red, putting fifty on
red and a hundred on the red three. The lady put all of her chips,
seven hundred pounds, on red three.

When the wheel
clattered to a stop it was black two. The old lady groaned. Cobb
rose to go.

“What say you
buy me a drink handsome and we’ll call it quits.” The American
woman stumbled as she got up. Cobb nodded. As she walked towards
him he noted her mutton dressed as lamb look, but figured her for a
sure thing in her state.

“I’m staying at
Claridge’s, you want to come back, get a little champagne and room
service?” he asked giving her wink.

“You rogue, you
want to take advantage of a rich widow.” She took his arm.

“It’s a thought
at that.” He said and led her to a taxi. She wasn’t a dream girl,
but it wouldn’t be a total loss if he got laid.

A taxi took
them back to the hotel, she was drunkenly noisy and Cobb had
steered her quickly through reception up to the room. She was
impressed with the suite. They ordered champagne and food. He
ordered a bottle of bourbon and got good and drunk. The American
woman, Betty, was well preserved bodily, plastic surgery had been
good to her, but Cobb couldn’t have slept with her sober. She
guzzled champagne and chattered inanely.

After finally
getting into a ‘clinch’ they staggered to the bed and sweated half
an hour away together, she thinking of the young man and Cobb
fantasising she was the auburn haired girl.

Betty, blind
drunk, flopped unconscious after their first coupling and Cobb
drank some bourbon, smoked a cigarette and went back to the bed and
‘used’ her whilst she was comatose. Finally he left her slumped on
the bed, had a shower and drank some coffee. It was two in the
morning when he arranged spare blankets on the suite lounge sofa
and settled down with the television.

He’d ordered
cold cuts and crusty bread along with fruit, salad and snacks. He
watched the news eating a beef and horseradish sandwich. News
twenty four was covering the riot at Underworld. When they
mentioned Mason’s name he chuckled. So Mason knew he’d lucked out
and had gone for a night out, silly man. Still he hoped the ‘fella’
got away. They’d got on well during the time on the submarine.
Betty’s snores made him look in on her. He covered her tanned old
skin with the duvet, thinking her not too bad when he didn’t look
too hard.

He went back to
the sofa, turned off the television and fell asleep thinking about
how sore the old broad was going to be when she woke up.

CHAPTER
80

LONDON

2AM

April 19th

‘Leash’s face
seemed to glow golden brown in the light of bedside lamp. She
stirred when he eased himself away. Mason looked at the clock. It
was two in the morning. He knew he had to get out of the house.

The sound of
the shower woke ‘Leash’ and she stood in the bathroom doorway naked
with ruffled black hair watching him shower.

“Are you
going?”

“Yeah. I have
to move on. “The shower stopped and he stepped out and towelled
himself. She went downstairs and he heard the kettle boiling. He
was quickly dressed and when he got to the kitchen she stood arms
folded by two cups of coffee on the kitchen side. She had lit a
cigarette. He held the stolen Sig 220 in his hand.

“Those things
will kill you.” He said waving the weapon at her cigarette.

“Ditto tough
guy.” Her smoke waved at the gun barrel.

He tucked the
pistol in the back of his waist band and picked up his coffee. He
broke a short silence between them.

“Look I’m in
the UK to do this one job. It’s a big job and a lot of money. After
that I have to head for a non extradition country, like South
America or something…” He trailed off. He'd never before wanted to
say what was on his mind at that moment, but the feeling he got
when he looked at her was strong.

“If you’d like
to hook up… I could contact you… I mean…” Again he trailed off and
she moved towards him, dropping her cigarette in her freshly made
cup of coffee. She put her arms around him and held him tight.

“I’d like that.
I had a feeling about you. It’s got stronger now.” She ended the
embrace and put her face close to his, kissed him gently, twice on
the lips. “Do your job, get out and call me I’ll come running,
really I will.”

“Listen,” his
face became serious, “The people after me are good, really good, so
they will get here sooner or later. Tell them nothing. Tell them we
met, you cut my hair, we arranged to meet and we spent the night
together. Tell them nothing else. I’m not a bad man ‘Leash’, I just
kill for a living. The people I kill have generally done something
bad so it’s like pest control. Thousands of people are killed in
accidents every year, through doctors’ negligence, company health
and safety lapses, you name it. I was a soldier once and I killed
on government orders, so killing isn’t so bad if there’s money or a
reason behind it. They’ll tell you I’m evil, that I’m a murderer,
but they’ll kill me on sight if they see me and say it’s in the
interests of national security. Don’t believe what they tell you
about me. When we get together again I’ll tell you all about me and
my life and you can decide. I wish I had time now. I’ve wanted to
share my story with someone for years, now you’ve come along I’ve
got to go…”

‘Leash’ touched
his face gently. “It’s okay Marc I understand.” Mason suddenly
laughed.

“My name is
Mason, Peter Mason, sorry I forget sometimes.” ‘Leash’ laughed too
and held out her hand to shake.

“How do you do
Peter Mason I’m Aliesha Jones.”

They laughed
and embraced. They said goodbye quickly and from the open doorway
she watched him walk away. Tired she went back to bed, able to
smell him on the sheets. She smiled and early morning day dreams of
life on a tropical beach in South America filled her head.

Mason went to
the motorbike, wheeled it into the road and started it up. He
followed the map in his head back to the Bickenhall Hotel. He kept
to back roads, twisting and turning through an indirect route, not
just because of those giving chase, but because he had no helmet
and he didn’t want the police to stop him. Two or three times on
the short winding journey his mind turned to ‘Leash’, but he shook
her out of his head. He had to be serious and clear headed, no time
for school boy romance now.

He rode up to
within fifty metres of the hotel, parked the bike and dropped the
key down a drain. He walked past the hotel and saw an open window,
two floors up. Each window on the white frontage had a ledge above
the old sash window. The first floor windows had a balcony and
rails. Mason jumped, scrabbled and made a route up to the open
window as if the hotel front was a climbing wall. Finally standing
on the narrow window ledge he slowly and carefully wiggled in a
limbo movement inside. There was nothing beneath the window and he
was inside kneeling in the half light in a double room. A bald man
he had seen check in was lying in bed, covers half off, snoring.
Mason saw keys and personal effects on the bedside table. He padded
over, took them, including a wallet, and silently exited the room.
He walked through the dark corridors, into the stair well and up a
floor to his room.

His key pass
worked and he gathered his things, especially his pistol from the
self locking safe. He quickly and carefully checked the room to
make sure there was nothing personal and opened his window. His
room was at the back. He took a length of twine from his bag of
tricks and lowered his bag. He followed the bag down, using the
climbing wall style again to get down and at ground level grabbed
his bag.