Running Stupid: (Mystery Series) (31 page)

“Actually,” Maloney said, “we don’t. We may miss out on a lot of live betting, but there are still a lot of bets to be won and lost.”

“Tell the punters,” Fadel ordered. “Warn them, and then send in the next one.”

Maloney nodded and walked to the back of the room. He returned five minutes later, all three pairs of eyes instantly turned to the camera trained on the entrance.

The steel door lifted, and light broke through momentarily. When it faded and the door slid back in place, a six-foot man in his late thirties appeared. He was naked from the waist up, his heaving muscles, tattoos and scars exposed.

Wrapped over his head, covering his thick black hair, he wore a black bandanna, tied in a knot at the base of his skull. The only other item of external clothing he wore was a pair of loose fit blue jeans. But what drew the attention of the three men in the control room, and the eyes of thousands over the world, was not the thick muscles or the violent tattoos, but the huge, petrol-powered chainsaw he cradled in his arms.

He handled the deathly weapon with great ease and expertise in his huge hands and mighty arms. It looked like a toy. Its razor sharp edges and motorised serrated blades looked a plastic gun wielded by Action Man.

“Who the fuck is that?” Mark Chambers asked, stressing each syllable.

“They call him The Lumberjack,” Maloney said.

“No shit.”

Maloney turned to Chambers, smiled at him bleakly, and then turned his eyes back towards the screen. Jester was on the second floor, rushing about, hoping to find a glimmer of hope. The Lumberjack was heading for the stairwell.

Matthew found a lounge area on the second floor. It was spacious with a limited amount of rooms, all of which were bigger than the ones on the fourth and fifth floors.

Two black leather sofas and two matching recliners formed a neat square in a comfortable niche. In the centre of these was a coffee table – a sheet of glass resting across two steel bars. On the surface of the table in the centre was a beautifully selected bouquet of flowers, their scent still fresh.

Matthew threw himself down on one of the sofas, choosing the one that still allowed him full view of the lift and the door to the stairwell.

He was tired and spent. His body ached; his mind was exhausted. He wanted to rest, to sleep, to relax, but he wanted revenge more than any of those comforts. Anger, frustration, bereavement, shock, confusion and a whole host of other emotions coursed through his body, mixing with adrenaline and codeine to form some kind of energy. The agony and fatigue in his muscles were soothed by the painkillers – his erratic dosing and high tolerance made sure the pain stayed away and the sedation effects were kept to a minimum.

He casually looked across towards the stairwell. A noise attracted his attention. Blinking it away, he looked instead to the area around him, focusing on the arrangement of flowers on the table. Stuck in the head of a red poppy was a small device, a camera. He sat up, leaned forward and lowered his head until his face peered directly into the lens.

He kept his face there for a few moments, laughed loudly and rose to his feet. He moved forward and shifted down a corridor, out of sight of the stairwell.

He stopped at the end of the corridor. He’d run into a dead end. Ahead of him, directly opposite, was a door to a room marked
2B13.
To his right was another room marked
2B12
and a storage room.

Acting on the first thought that came into his head, he lowered his shoulder, readied himself and then charged at the door in front of him. His shoulder barge snapped the lock and the door burst inwards with Jester toppling after it. Quickly jumping to his feet – ignoring the pain in his shoulder – he hurried out of the room, stood in front of the second room, raised his foot and kicked. The door didn’t budge. He kicked again and again. The door shook in its frame and then cracked open.

He paused for a moment to catch his breath before he turned his ears down the corridor, trying to tune them into the sounds of the stairwell. Instantly he heard an explosive clatter, a noise so startling his heart skipped a dozen beats. The shattering of wood preceded the deathly, unmistakable sound of a chainsaw.

Jester listened intently. His ears picked up the sounds of the petrol-powered killing machine, and his heart skipped even more beats. “You have got to be fucking shitting me,” he spat, his eyes flickering around erratically, studying his surroundings.

The noise of the chainsaw died down, and the sound of wood being obliterated for the aesthetic pleasure of thousands of sadists stopped. The intimidating sound of heavy footfalls sounded throughout the entire floor, the slow, almost methodical steps laborious and heavy. Matthew guessed it was the walk of a man showing off his posture, his chainsaw and his lack of morals to thousands of people rather than the walk of a man struggling to carry a chainsaw around an empty hotel.

He looked at both of the open doors, made a quick decision and slid into the room to his right. Inside, he found a huge store room, almost the size of the bedrooms themselves. It was poorly lit. He squatted down, crawled underneath a shelf and hid behind a large storage box.

The booming steps of the chainsaw-wielding hit man vibrated through Matthew’s body. He had turned the corner and was heading towards the dead end.

Controlling his breathing, Jester ran his eyes over the contents of the room. Nothing in the room appealed to him. He lifted the lid from the box in front of him, dug his hand in and reached around for something useful, smiling as his hands caressed a piece of shiny silverware. He took the item out of the box and quickly stuffed it into his front pocket.

The chainsaw man was now outside the store room. He had to make a decision. Either he could walk into the room in front of him, or he could march his way into the storage closet. It was a fifty-fifty chance, and luck fell Matthew’s way as The Lumberjack cautiously walked straight ahead of him, into the bedroom.

The assassin’s movements were slow and precise, his awareness fully tuned-in, his senses alert. He knew Jester was hiding, and with every step he took he expected the fugitive to jump out at him.

Jester crept up to the door of the storage room, his breathing controlled, his movements quiet and methodical. His efforts at silence were pointless; the roar of the chainsaw masked the majority of audio. If Matthew wanted to make a sound to alert the hit man, he’d need a lighter and a pack of fireworks.

Upon reaching the door, he wasted no time in turning the handle and slipping outside back into the corridor. He looked directly into the room that the hit man had entered. He was out of sight from the doorway, his attention on the bathroom.

Jester briefly embraced the idea of running away. Facing a hit man with a chainsaw inside a confined space was enough to make even the hardiest of souls turn and run, but Matthew’s soul had taken a backseat, watching through the rear-view as a subconscious born of drugs, emotion and adrenaline controlled every action.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the silverware he had taken from the storage closet. Then, taking in a deep breath, he walked forward. He stopped inches from the doorway, his eyes beaming at the object in his hand.

“
Bollocks
,” he cursed at the polished silver spoon. When he raised his head and averted his eyes, he saw The Lumberjack staring directly at him, a smile on his face.

He looked at Matthew’s outstretched hand. “What are you going to do with that?” he laughed exaggeratedly.

“Fuck you,” Matthew replied bluntly. “You brought a fucking chainsaw!” he complained, their voices shouting over the noise of the weapon.

Matthew backed up as the hit man advanced on him, their gazes locked, their eyes fierce.

“What the fuck are you anyway?” Matthew asked with a grin. “Why are you half naked? Is that for the sexual pleasure of the disturbed viewers or did your mother not put out a shirt for you this morning?”

The Lumberjack merely laughed, picking up his pace.

Matthew had now been backed into a corner. He took his final backward step and encountered a door. Stopping, he quickly shot a glance over his shoulder. The words “
2C15
” had been engraved on a plaque, nailed to the centre of the door.

The hit man’s advances were too strong. Matthew couldn’t move; running left or right would mean coming into close contact with the blades of the chainsaw and an inevitable decapitation. The Lumberjack was inches in front of him, and Jester could smell the fusion of hot metal and petrol, a musty odour that annoyed his senses.

“To be honest,” the chainsaw man shouted, “I’m surprised you got this far. All of us wanted to be number one, we all wanted to be the first, because no one expected you to make it past the first.” He winked at Matthew.

“I try my best,” Jester replied sarcastically.

The features of The Lumberjack changed almost instantaneously, as if his brain had suddenly realised that it should be concentrating on the task at hand and not on meaningless conversation. He leaned to his right and held the chainsaw up like a baseball bat before swinging with all of his might.

Jester anticipated the action and dropped to his knees. The saw sliced clean through the door, cutting a horizontal line across the wood, the top section – a third of the door – falling back into the room, leaving a cloud of sawdust in its wake.

Breathing heavier, The Lumberjack brought the mighty weapon down on Jester again, this time in a vertical motion.

Again Jester saw the move and casually rolled out of the way. The blade tore through the middle of the door, ripping from its top to its bottom. More sawdust ruptured into the air. Despite being inches from the hit man, Jester could no longer see him, but he could still smell and sense him.

He sprung to his feet, turned and dived through the door, another swipe of the chainsaw skimmed the sole of his shoe as he flew into the room, clattering with the chunks of broken door and the harvest of sawdust on the floor.

Kicking what remained of the door – a small section in the corner, where a square of wood dangled loosely from a damaged hinge – The Lumberjack strode into the room with the chainsaw held menacingly above his head.

Matthew Jester was on his backside on the floor, kicking out with his feet to push himself backwards as the hit man stood over him, ready for the kill.

With the noise levels soaring, Jester thought about saying something but decided against it. Instead he closed his eyes, awaiting his fate as the chainsaw loomed over him.

The petrol powered saw stopped moving. After a series of sputters and spatters, the mechanical device stopped moving, the blades deactivated. The Lumberjack looked at the weapon with something resembling awe and frustration. He shook the device, hoping that the frenetic shake would spark the machine back into life. Failing that, he reached for the cord with his left hand, holding the saw firmly in his right. He tugged hard on the cord, once, twice, three times, every one a failure; on the fourth attempt, the saw whirled back into action but quickly sputtered to a stop again.

With his attention fully on the saw, The Lumberjack’s eyes suddenly bulged, his face turned a sickly pale colour and a crunching moan escaped his lips. The chainsaw fell from his hand, bouncing around on the carpet before settling next to a hunk of broken door.

He dropped to his knees and brought both of his hands to his crotch. He gripped the area tightly and moaned again.

Jester was back on his feet. During the commotion, he’d acted on a simple and effective principle. No matter how big, tall or strong they are, no man can take a kick to the crotch without squirming.

Jester looked at the chainsaw briefly and then pushed it away with the tip of his shoe, returning to The Lumberjack who was rising to his feet.

Lifting his arm to chest height, Matthew pushed out his elbow. His aim was precise, his knobbly elbow slamming into The Lumberjack’s temple as he was rising. The impact sent him straight back to the ground. Matthew delivered two hard kicks into the assassin’s stomach and chest, sucking the wind out of him.

He slowly walked in front of the fallen man, crouched down and looked deeply into his eyes. “How much are they paying you for this?” he asked.

The Lumberjack shook the comment away and spat at Matthew instead, the saliva hitting his jeans. Jester looked at the small moist patch before returning his gaze to the hit man. “How much are you being paid for this?” he repeated patiently.

“Fuck you,” the hit man spat again, this time on Matthew’s shoes.

“Fair enough,” Jester said, rising to his feet. He walked over to the chainsaw and picked it up. He was surprised at the weight of the object, even when holding it in both arms. He stepped back to the fallen assassin and rested the blade of the chainsaw on the back of his neck.

The Lumberjack moaned softly as the jagged edges sunk into his flesh.

“They reckon that your head lives on after decapitation,” Jester said informatively. “Some say seconds, some say minutes, some say it’s all a load of bullshit, but who knows? I remember hearing a story as a child. Two men were to be executed by the guillotine – friends, enemies, I forget. But they were decapitated together, their lives taken at the same time and their heads dumped into the same sack.” Matthew pushed the blade further down, piercing more flesh, still struggling to gain control of the heavy weapon. “When they opened the bag they found that one of the men had taken a bite out of the other, possibly a final act of vengeance, hatred or even friendship. Who knows?” He paused for breath. “So … I’m giving you two choices,” he explained slowly. “I want to know how much they are paying you, and I want to find the exit to this place. You can tell me now, and I might slap you around a bit, kick you in the ribs a few times, but generally, you’ll be fine.” He smiled. “Or, I can cut your head off and see if you’ll talk to me then. After all, what would you have to lose?”