The Charlie Cobb Series

Chapter 9

9

She stands there in skinny, torn jeans and a baggy green jumper. Messy blonde hair and a pile of smart-person books in her arms. A look disappointment on her face.

“Dad, you promised.”

I should tell you at this point, I tend to see and hear things. As if they’re real. Some prison shrink said it might be all the bangs to the head I’ve taken. Boxing. Fighting. Baseball bats to the skull.

Anyway, the same shrink wrote me out some of these little yellow pills. All they did was make me sick and tired. So I chucked ‘em. I’d rather put up with a few imaginings than a fuzzy head and twenty-four-seven farts.

So Cassie stands there looking at me. Shaking her head as I hold the barrel of the gun over the witness. And before I know it, I’m not putting a bullet in the kid’s brain. I’m swinging my left elbow and connecting hard with the base of Frogger’s skull. At the same time, I clock the kid on the head with the butt of the pistol. The pair of them drop like stones. The kid on the floor, Frogger face-first on the sofa.

I tuck my gun away and take Frogger’s from his hand. I swipe it across the heads of the two cops the crazy bastard left alive.

They may as well take a nap too.

I slide Frogger’s gun under the nearest sofa. I reach inside one of his overall pockets and find a spare plastic tie. I roll the kid on his back and tie his wrists in front of his body. I scoop him up and throw him over a shoulder. Carry him into the second bedroom. Over to the window. I pull it open wider and lower him through onto the platform. He flops onto the steel mesh as if he’s dead. I climb out after him and power up the winch. The motor whirs and the platform drops down a floor. Then another. Then . . . Wham! A falling shadow, heavy as a barrel of bricks landing on top of me.

The platform swings and shakes. Bounces off the side of the building, but keeps dropping.

Before I know what’s what, I’m pinned to the floor. A wrinkly old face in mine. Frogger. His forearm against my throat. I thought I’d knocked him out good.

But damn. Jumping out of a top floor window? He’s tougher and even crazier than I thought. And now he’s slamming the back of my head against the platform floor.

Well, I stop him doing that with a left across his chin. I stagger up. Him, too. He swings and misses. I connect with a right. He drops to one knee. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the kid slipping between the platform floor and the railing. I drop to the deck and catch hold of his arm as he falls.

His body hangs limp over the side. I start to pull him up, but Frogger jumps on top of me. He punches me once, twice, three times. The rubber mask stops me cutting up, but he’s gonna beat me senseless if I don’t do something.

Do I let go of the kid? I’m tempted. Wouldn’t be the first body I’ve dropped.

But no. Can’t do it. I snatch hold of Frogger’s throat with my spare hand. He keeps punching. I keep squeezing. The punches get weaker. I slam forehead against the platform railing. He flops to the floor, out for the count.

I drag the kid up and through the gap in the platform. I scramble over Frogger’s body and hit the big red emergency stop button on the winch motor. We’re a couple of feet below the room Rudenko arranged for us. The linen drapes billow out in the breeze. It’s cold up here, but I’m sweating like Satan’s bollocks.

I shake the pain from my face and loosen the tension out of my arms. I pick up the kid and launch him through the open window. I heave Frogger up over both shoulders and overhead press him. It’s a struggle, but I get him half in, his arse and legs hanging out. I climb up onto the railing of the platform and clamber in over Frogger’s body. I throw the kid onto the nearest twin bed and drag Frogger inside.

I’ve half a mind to leave him out there. Let him take the rap. But he’ll squeal on me the first chance he gets. And I’m neck high in rhino s**t as it is.

I pull the drape inside and slam the window shut.

The first thing I do is head to the bathroom. I turn on the light and remove my mask. Check my skull for damage.

No, I’m fine. Just a sweaty red sheen and a few bumps and bruises. I wipe my face and neck down with a fluffy white hand towel off the rail. I unzip my overalls and step out of them. I’m wearing a black suit and matching tie with a white shirt underneath. My weapon holstered inside the jacket.

I bundle the overalls, mask and towel together and dump them on the floor in the bedroom. I pull a large, empty suitcase from the wardrobe and open it out on the nearest twin bed. I throw the overalls, mask and towel in the bottom. I pick the kid up off the other bed. Still out cold but breathing. He goes inside the case, just.

Good job he’s small and bendy.

After arranging him in the foetal position, I zip up the suitcase. I take out the travel case again. I unlock it with the same code I saw Frogger use earlier. There are two folded metal canes inside and two pairs of sunglasses.

I snap out the cane to full length. I leave the travel case next to Frogger for when he wakes up. I drag the case with the kid inside off the bed, stand it up and pull it over to the door. I stop and look inside the wardrobe. Grab a wire coat hanger. I open it out, then fold it over in two. I slide it inside my jacket pocket, slip on my shades and pull the case out of the room.

I hurry to a bank of lifts at the end of the corridor and catch an empty one going down. The lift pings open on the lobby floor. I hear a siren wailing outside the entrance to the hotel. I wave my cane side to side, as if I can’t see a bean. I pass a blonde female cop—dressed up to look like a businesswoman but fooling no one. Another cop rushes in. Unkempt and in a hurry, his badge flashing on his hip. I pretend like I don’t see him and he almost crashes into me.

I guess one of the fuzz in the suite woke up and called it in. I realise too late that I still have my black leather gloves on from the job. But no one seems to notice. I make my way out through the front entrance and onto the street.

The hotel sits on a busy four-way crossing. I head left, hearing more sirens on the wind. I wait at the busy crossing with a few other pedestrians, struggling to see in the shades.

I feel a heavy hand on my shoulder. The long arm of the law. A pig in uniform, s**t, rumbled.

“Here, mate,” he says. “Let me help you across.”

The green man flashes. The traffic lights beep. The beat cop wrestles the suitcase off me and takes hold of my elbow. He guides me across the road and hands me back the case.

“There you go, pal.”

“Thank you, officer,” I say. “There aren’t enough like you.”

“Tell me about it,” he shouts, jogging back across the road before the traffic can move.

I breathe a sigh of relief as I move on with the case. I round a couple of corners and fold up the cane.

I slip the cane and shades into a public bin and peer round the corner wall of a clothes store. Blue lights flash and the scream of sirens cut out as a convoy of police pull up outside the hotel.

I grab the case and stride off at pace into the night, wondering what the hell I’ve just done.