Adrian Magson - No Sleep for the Dead

The sound of the shot wasn’t as loud as Riley expected. A vague corner of her mind rationalised that Mr Grobowski downstairs wouldn’t have heard anything, as he was too busy banging his pots and pans in the kitchen. Even so, she flinched at the shockwaves in the air.

Szulu spun away with a cry of pain, clutching his left arm. When he straightened up and took his hand away, there was a hole in the sleeve of his jacket and a trace of blood was beginning to spread through the material.

‘Fuck, man — you shot me!’ he whispered, as if he couldn’t believe such a thing. ‘What you do that for?’

‘Damn, that was careless,’ commented Mitcheson mildly. He looked at Riley and continued as if discussing the matter with a new recruit, ‘They don’t always work after jamming like that; they usually need stripping down. Good job I was aiming at his head — I might have hit something serious, otherwise.’

Riley said nothing, too stunned to speak yet feeling an irrational urge to laugh. It had all happened so fast. She was mesmerised by the ease with which Mitcheson had shot her attacker, yet aware of the evident care he had taken not to kill him, in spite of his anger.

As if to demonstrate this, he grabbed Szulu by his good arm and slammed him against the wall. ‘Now, before I get really annoyed at you for frightening my girlfriend, what’s this about?’

‘John, wait.’ Riley stepped quickly alongside him and placed a hand on his arm. ‘He said he had a message for me. I want to hear what it is.’

Mitcheson lifted an eyebrow. ‘Really? Boy, Fedex must have really changed their core business.’ He jammed the gun barrel beneath Szulu’s chin and nudged it upwards until their eyes met. Whatever Szulu saw there made him go very still.

‘Let’s hear it.’

‘It’s…yo, man, this really hurts, y’know!’ Szulu sucked air through his teeth and held his wounded arm, until Mitcheson dropped the gun and pointed it menacingly against the man’s good shoulder. ‘Okay… okay. The message is… Christ, I don’t understand it, but she said to tell you-’

‘She?’ Mitcheson echoed.

‘Some woman called Fraser,’ Riley explained helpfully. ‘She hired him to drive for her. She’s been hanging around, but we don’t know who she is or what she wants. They already turned over Palmer’s office.’

‘So they’re not part of the other thing you told me about?’

‘Radnor? It doesn’t look like it.’

‘She said to tell you,’ continued Szulu, ‘she said you’d know what she meant. She said, ‘Lottie’s back’. That’s all, I swear. ‘Lottie’s back’.’ He slumped back with a sigh as Riley and Mitcheson exchanged stunned looks.

‘Lottie Grossman?’ Riley could hardly believe it. The name sent her thoughts spinning back to an assignment in Spain, when she had first met John Mitcheson. It was also the first occasion she and Palmer had worked together, and they had nearly lost their lives investigating the activities of the murderous ex-gangster’s wife and her gang of mercenaries. ‘I thought she’d be dead by now.’

‘Wishful thinking,’ said Mitcheson. ‘Never bloody works when you want it to.’

‘Of course!’ Riley said excitedly. ‘That explains the gardening bit in Palmer’s office. The evil cow was a mad keen gardener, wasn’t she?’

Mitcheson nodded. When Lottie wasn’t busy plotting, she had spent most of her time in the garden, armed with something sharp. ‘She just liked killing things. Weeds were a ready victim. She certainly put a lot of enthusiasm into it.’

Szulu looked from one to the other as if they were mad, and gestured towards the door. ‘Look, I hate to interrupt, but can I go now? I need a doctor.’

Mitcheson looked at Riley. ‘You got a small towel you don’t mind losing?’

Riley went into the kitchen and came back with a handful of paper towelling. Mitcheson made Szulu strip off his jacket and gave his arm a cursory examination. There was an entry wound but no exit, and he guessed the jacket and Szulu’s arm muscle, and maybe a poor charge in the cartridge, had combined to reduce the round’s velocity. He slapped the wadded tissue unceremoniously against the wound. ‘Hold that in place and don’t get excited, and you might not bleed to death.’

‘Wha-? Hey — I need proper medical attention, not this stuff!’

‘And you’ll get it. First, you talk. What’s with the mad Lottie? She after revenge or is she trying to make another comeback?’

Szulu frowned. ‘Huh?’

‘She used to run a gang, a few years back. Clubs, drugs, girls… that sort of stuff. You didn’t know?’

‘You kidding me? That old woman?’ Szulu almost laughed at the idea, then clearly thought better. ‘I ain’t surprised. She’s cold. Way cold. I don’t know about no comeback, though. But revenge, definitely. She said so, in fact. She hired me as a driver, see — and minder. First we went to Palmer’s place. But he wasn’t there. She seemed to be looking for something at his place, but she never told me what. Maybe she didn’t know herself. Fact is, she never told me nothing until it was almost too late. Then she told me he was some hotshot ex-army cop.’ Szulu looked aggrieved at the idea and shook his head. ‘Then she decided she wanted me to put the frights into her.’ He nodded at Riley, before quickly looking at Mitcheson. ‘But I was never going to hurt her — honest. It seemed like Grossman was building up to something… getting herself all wired up and that, but she didn’t say what it was.’

‘Revenge?’ said Riley. ‘Why am I not surprised?’

‘She told me Palmer had caused her old man’s death and spoiled some plans, and you’d helped him. It’s obvious, isn’t it? She was pissed and wanted payback. Said something about how she’d been waiting long enough and now was the time, before it was too late. Too late for what, she never said. Personally, I think she’s nuts. But that’s all I know, I promise.’

‘So why this?’ Mitcheson waved the.22 in the air. ‘You’re no gunman.’

‘It was for protection, man, what else?’ Szulu glanced down at his arm and hissed quietly as a wave of pain hit him.

‘But Lottie Grossman always flies mob-handed,’ said Mitcheson thoughtfully. ‘It’s the only way she knows. Are you saying there’s nobody else out there?’

Szulu looked from one to the other, a variety of expressions crossing his face. Then he said quietly. ‘Sort of.’

‘Sort of?’

‘Wait — it’s not like you think. See, I got into this problem. There’s this south London guy named Ragga Pearl. He’s bad news — I mean really bad. A gangsta dude with delusions. With Ragga, if he wants to hurt someone, he don’t think twice about it. Think of the worst person you ever knew, jack it up by a hundred, and you’d have the Ragga. He’s a real mamba on two legs. Anyway, he thinks I disrespected him, but I didn’t. See, he’s got this whole thing going about respect, and is totally crazy into the bargain — I mean lethal, right?’ He winced, but this time it didn’t seem connected with the pain in his arm. ‘I also owe him some cash, which was stupid, borrowing off a freak like him, but whatever. At the time, I was desperate.’

‘How does this mesh with Lottie Grossman?’ asked Riley impatiently.

‘I’m coming to it, right? I don’t know how Grossman connected with a guy like Ragga Pearl, her being old and white an’ all. I mean, it shouldn’t happen, even with all this multi-cultural crap they spilling out these days. You don’t mix lions with zebras, right? I reckon they must know people in common, is all I can think of. Anyway, I been expecting like the roof to fall in on me for about two weeks now, what with the way Ragga is. But next thing I know is, he calls me and tells me I’m working for this white woman until he decides otherwise.’