Matt Hilton - Cut and run

Who were these bastards, and why had they come after me? What connection had they to Rickard and the person guiding him? Had they been sent by Wetherby?

Rink and Harvey held their fire. The man probably heard me coming, because he turned my way, bringing round the Uzi.

I kicked the gun away and smacked the butt of my SIG directly in the centre of his chest. The man was slightly shorter than me, lighter in build, and I was able to force him backwards with the pressure of my gun against his sternum. He checked against a partition that was smeared by someone else's blood and the first thing he did was drop the Uzi and swing his bunched fist at my head. He was a player, for certain.

Blocking his fist with my gun hand, I used the angle to bounce my next blow to the side of his face. My SIG furrowed skin from his cheek, but he was already moving. He brought his knee up at my groin and I barely avoided it, but then he snapped a kick into my shin. Hurt like hell, but it would take more than that to stop me. His elbow sought my chin and I ducked. Then I kicked him in his shin. He rode the blow, looped his foot round the back of my knee even as he thrust at my chest with the palm of one hand. I should have been tripped, but he hadn't caught me off guard; I stamped down with my trapped leg, centring myself, marrying my balance to gravity. Palming his arm away, I slashed my right elbow into his ribs, swung up outside his arms and back-fisted him across the nape of his neck in a classic move from Kenpo karate.

The man staggered away from me and the added weight of the gun in my hand made my next blow telling. I cracked him in the centre of his forehead and he went to his knees.

Grabbing a fistful of his hair, I jerked his head back, bending it painfully on his neck while I jammed the SIG in his left eye socket. 'Who sent you?'

'Fuck you!'

'You want to die?'

'Fuck you, man…'

'Tell me who sent you, goddamnit! Was it Wetherby?'

'Who the fuck is Wetherby?'

'Who was it then?'

'I ain't saying nothing. Shoot me. It's better than what I'll get if I talk.'

I almost did pull the trigger. I thought of his cold-blooded murder of the man under the table and I would've been justified if I had shown him as little regard. But I didn't. I just whacked him across the temple with the barrel of my gun and left him unconscious on the floor.

'Maybe Walter's boys can make him talk,' I said as my friends came up.

The howl of approaching police sirens sounded like a pack of banshees was descending on us.

'Alisha. Honey? Are you about done in there?'

Rickard used the tip of his knife to push open the door into the ladies' restroom. He recalled his admonishment of the man on his apartment roof doing something similar with his gun, but this time it was different. Alisha was no threat to him, not in a physical sense.

He was in a short passage that led from the dining area, three doors all on the right-hand side. The first was the men's room, the second the ladies'. The final door had proved to be a janitors' closet. No exit. The air smelled of bleach and there was a sickly underlying aroma of urine and perfumed tissue paper.

Peering into the alien territory of a ladies' room, he checked out the porcelain sinks, pot-pourri in little bowls on a shelf, two stalls with the doors closed tight. He walked further into the room, his shoes squeaking on terracotta tiles. 'Alisha?'

No answer came. But this wasn't uncommon. Often Alisha would play at being coy.

He crouched to scan the floor under each stall. One of them was definitely empty, and when he touched the knife to the door it swung inward silently. Next he tried the second door and it resisted him. He crouched again. 'Alisha, honey…'

He straightened up.

He considered kicking open the door, but realised there was no need for that. Instead he went into the vacant stall and stepped up on to the toilet bowl. He looked over the dividing wall into an equally vacant space. No, not true: Alisha's stiletto-heeled shoes were standing where she'd left them. Rickard grunted, looked at the narrow window where she must have crawled out. It had a security feature, a bar that allowed the window to open only partially. The gap was little more than ten inches wide. No way that a fully grown man could have squeezed through, but a slip like Alisha wouldn't have had much difficulty.

He should have been enraged, but Rickard felt cool about it, mildly amused even. Alisha had actually pleased him by showing this resourceful side, although it meant she had escaped him. Her betrayal had already harmed him; running off didn't make that much difference. He thought maybe this was even better. He had planned on murdering her right there in that stall, but that could have proved an inconvenience. It would be difficult getting out of the diner unnoticed if he was covered in her blood. Better then that he caught up with and killed her somewhere less public.

He stood down from the bowl, exited the stall and headed for the door. When he pulled it open he came face to face with the old man who'd taken too much interest in him earlier. The old man squinted at him, then at the sign on the door.

'You know that's for the girls, don't you,' he said.

By way of answer, Rickard dropped his left hand and gripped his own genitals. 'Yeah, and so is this.'

The other wasn't impressed by his lewdness. 'I've been watching you, boy. I just knew you were a strange one.'

Rickard merely smiled.

The old man tried to peer past him inside the room. 'That lady of yours, where's she at?'

'What's it to you?'

'You upset her, you did. I want to check she's OK.'

Rickard moved aside, swung his left thumb over his shoulder. 'Go on then. Check all you want.'

The old man frowned at him, placed a hand on Rickard's chest to press him further out of the way. 'Your posturing don't frighten me none, boy. Now get outa my way.'

He rapped on the door as he peeked inside. From this angle the toes of Alisha's shoes could be seen under the gap in the door. 'Lady? You OK in there, lady?'

'You think I'm strange?'

The old man turned and found Rickard standing directly behind him. Rickard had invaded his personal space and he took a half-step back.

Rickard said, 'What I find strange is how the girls get sweet-smelling pot-pourri while us guys get nothing. Do they think they're better than us?'

The man shook his head at the absurdity of Rickard's comment. He glanced again at the closed door. 'Lady?'

'Something else that's strange,' Rickard said, 'is how some senile old fool thinks he has the right to stick his nose into other people's business.'

'It became my business when I saw you hurting that lady. You're a bully, but you don't frighten me.'

'Is that so?'

'No, boy, you don't. Not one bit.' The old guy shoved at him, moving nearer the closed door. 'Hey, lady? No need to be afraid of this one!'

'You don't happen to have a son by the name of Joe Hunter, do you?' Rickard asked. 'He's a self-righteous prick just like you.'

Rickard grabbed the old man, spun him round and ran him at the sinks. The man's hip jammed up against one of the porcelain bowls, but Rickard continued to force him backwards, his left hand clamped over his mouth, stifling his yell. Rickard's right hand pistoned in and out, jamming his blade repeatedly in the man's stomach and ribs. He hissed through his clamped teeth as he watched the light go out of the old man's eyes. It wasn't a quick death for him; more punishment.

The man slumped to the floor. Rickard reached into one of the bowls of pot-pourri and scattered some of the perfume-laden petals on the man's dead body. It didn't cover the rank smells of blood or the man's voided bowel.

That done with Rickard finally peered at his reflection in the mirror above the sinks. For the most minuscule of moments he thought he saw a nimbus of light round him, but then it was gone. He leaned over the dead man so he could get closer to the mirror. Briefly he stared into his reflection, one eye at a time. The mirror was smeared by a hand print, the greasy stain giving the illusion of colour that wasn't really there.