Richard Wiseman - To Kill Or Be Killed

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?’

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 decor 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.

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.