The first wall had been easy; grab, lift, climb. Dropping down behind
a sprawling lilac just as simple. The red-eyed Doberman, big and sleek
and sniffing like a super model at a mirror, that was a different
story.
+++++Lungs burning from caged-in breath, I shifted slightly behind the
bush, reached into my jacket pocket. Gentle as a new mother stroking
her baby, I danced my fingers against the pen-thin sliver of plastic,
drew it out with mime-slow movement. The big mutt, ears fine-tuned
beyond anything I’d used out East, took another big gulp of night air,
growled a little from deep in its belly then took a quick, confident
step in my direction.
+++++“Here boy”, I whispered.
+++++The hell-mutt snarled as I stepped out from behind the tree, shot up
its hackles as I held out my hand and dropped to my belly. A second
growl, longer, deeper, ripped the night like a rusted bayonet. The
beast took a couple more tentative steps toward me.
+++++“Good dog,” I whispered, guts flipping at the thought of it barking.
+++++Pulse rate jumping, I lay on the ground, waiting. Head tilted to give
me a view, hands spread slightly by my head, I watched it come closer,
circle me. Its musty, drizzle damp coat stank of wet wool.
+++++“Good dog.”
+++++Wet grass soaked through my t-shirt. The rich smell of sodden earth
clogging my throat, I let the Doberman sniff me over. The big beast’s
nose probed my face, my ears. Its low, threatening voice told me if I
liked breathing, I’d stay nice and still, nice and submissive.
+++++It circled a couple more times, leaning in to nip my hair and back
with ice-pick teeth. Two minutes of prowling, it quit the belly
rumble, huffed at me with same brand of disdain a city banker reserves
for vagrants before stopping at my head and cocking a slender,
powerful leg.
+++++Hot, stinking piss splashed my face and shoulders, sprayed my cropped
skull, dribbled into my eyes, my mouth. Dominance exhibited, the
German bully-boy trotted back to its place on the three-storey town
house’s patio, dumped its arse on a low-sided bed.
+++++I grabbed a handful of waterlogged grass, wiped it across my stinking
face, jammed it into my trousers. Slipping the syringe back into my
jacket, I braced my knees and elbows against the ground,
leopard-crawled toward a bed of dead roses. I could have made a run
for it, could have got to my feet and dashed across the garden. I’m
sure the still-watching dog would have loved that.
+++++Boots sinking in fertilised soil, I stared at the second wall. Higher
than the first, broken glass concreted to its top edge glistened in
the light of a crescent moon. Slipping my jacket off my shoulders, I
draped its leather back over the wicked blades, dragged myself up and
over.
+++++I crossed the second garden in a low, ape-like run. Muscles loose,
breathing controlled, I darted along its shadowed boundary, stopped
short behind a corrugated iron shelter that stank of cigarette smoke.
Fumbling the bandana tied at my neck, I dragged it up over my face.
The acrid stink of dog piss made me want to gag.
+++++Boot steps light, I tabbed over to a heavy wooden door, slipped picks
from a cargo pocket, reached for its corroded handle with a flash of
inspiration. Grinning, I turned the metal knob, slipped inside, pulled
the door shut.
+++++Back pressed against a corridor wall, I scanned the rehab clinic’s
shadowed interior. A cocktail of bleach and vomit filled my lungs with
every breath, penetrating my damp mask. Running through the
blue-prints I’d committed to memory during a week’s recon, I rolled
tension from my neck, hit a right. Adrenaline spiked as a low moan
filtered behind the first door I passed, tightening my muscles to hot
wire. The groaning died in a beat or two.
+++++I followed my internal map up a flight of rickety stair, took another
right into a door-lined corridor, its ceiling dotted red with
emergency lighting. At the third door in, I reached for another
handle, stopped with hand midair when I noticed circular welt of a
Yale lock.
+++++I swallowed surprise in a fraction of a second, Squatted down with
picks in hand. Despite the darkness, my tension wrench found its mark
straight off, followed by a jagged pick. I stroked metallic pins with
my thief’s finger.
+++++Tumblers clicked into place, the wrench turned. I pushed the door and
rose to standing in one smooth movement, stashed the picks in my
trousers and stepped inside. Lavender and sandalwood pierced my
dog-stinking mask, the hum of an electric heater buzzed in my ears.
+++++“So you’ve come.”
+++++The voice, flat and calm, sent a shiver through my spine. He sat on
the bed, silhouetted by silver light leaking through his open window.
+++++“I knew you would. I knew she was too much of a hater to let it go.”
+++++The voice from a dozen movies rolled like honey through my brain as
the shadow raised his hands palm up, the gesture trying to placate me,
to let me know he’d acted outside his control.
+++++“I knew she’d be trouble, it made me want her more. What could I do?”
+++++I slipped a hand into my jacket. My other hand slid around to the
small of my back, gripped rubber. I shifted it back to the front, let
moonlight dance along the k-bar’s razor edge.
+++++“You could have kept your dick in your pants,” I said tossing the
hypodermic needle into his lap.
+++++“There’s enough in there to do the job, you’ll barely notice.”
+++++The patch of blackness picked up the plastic sliver, turned it in his
fingers like he’d never seen one before.
+++++“So you’re going to go through with it? Kill a penitent man?”
+++++“Only if you make another bad decision.”
+++++Dark, silent molasses passed between us for a moment. Movement in his
shoulders told me he was toying with the needle, the idea of dying,
probably weighing up his chances. A sharp jerk of his elbows killed
the silence with a sharp crack.
+++++“I don’t think you’ve got the gu…”
+++++Two steps and a single lunge cut him dead. I twisted the blade as I
pulled it from his sternum, felt not a damned thing as he tumbled
sideways onto his sheets.
+++++“Wrong choice,” I said, wrenching the blade from his chest, wiping it
off and stashing it at the small of my back.
+++++I left the same way I got in, walked through wet streets to my stolen
Cavalier. After changing my clothes, I pulled a pay-go mobile from the
glove box, sent a message to an equally untraceable phone. It read
‘Let it go’. Half hour later, I was back in my flat, sipping whiskey
while the car, phone and blade smouldered merrily in the roughest part
of town.

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Jim Spry

Jim Spry's fiction has appeared in Near to the Knuckle, Shotgun Honey and various other places. He occasionally blogs at: http://dirtymercsbarandgrill.blogspot.co.uk/

Latest posts by Jim Spry (see all)

• Bak Mei Dragon - March 9, 2016
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• Tuesday - June 18, 2014