Running Stupid: (Mystery Series) (34 page)

Jabbing in the required digits, he waited until the phone was picked up. “Get the car ready. I’m leaving.” He finished the call and dropped the phone into his pocket before he picked up the briefcase, turning to look at Maloney one last time. “Good luck.” He winked and left the room.

Maloney smiled to himself as he listened to Fadel’s footfalls in the hallway. He closed the cupboard without locking it and casually walked up to one of the screens. It was blank – faulty – offering a mere reflection.

Dennis Maloney studied his appearance. His wavy black hair had matted somewhat during the course of the game. The humid atmosphere also caused him to sweat slightly, the accumulation of which stained the rim and underarms of his V-neck shirt.

Closing his jacket, but not zipping it up, he momentarily hid the wet patch, pondered for a while and then allowed his jacket to fall free again, the knives and holsters visible. Still unhappy with his jacket, he wrapped it across his chest and buttoned the highest button. The jacket now flared out, draping over his chest, the holsters still visible. He fastened the bottom jacket button to even himself out. The holsters were no longer visible but were still accessible.

Checking the screen one final time, Dennis Maloney took note of Matthew’s position – back on the second floor, lounging in the foyer – picked up a remote control, activated the steel shutters and stepped out into the hotel, closing them behind him.

***

Matthew heard cushioned footfalls coming from the stairwell, and he acted accordingly. Jumping out of the lounge area, he pressed himself up against the wall next to the door. Whoever opened it would be opening it into Matthew’s face, and when it swung shut, he would be ready to pounce.

The sound of the footfalls increased as Matthew pushed his ears to the wall. The movement of the newcomer’s feet, the rhythmic clicking of his shoes on the metal, was steady, meticulous.

After climbing the final step, the footfalls paused momentarily, lingering on the corridor outside the second floor. The pause lasted longer than Matthew hoped or expected. Still in silence, the door still closed, he sidestepped, keeping away from the hinges and the paranoid thoughts that the newcomer would open the door, notice him through the gap in the door and then stab, hit or shoot him.

Matthew closed his eyes, hoping to focus on the noise. They bolted open again when he heard the sole of a shoe slap the ground. The newcomer had advanced on the door in three steps. Matthew listened intently, his eyes on the door knob.

He never saw the handle turn and he didn’t hear the newcomer enter the room. The door was gripped and pushed with so much force and speed that Matthew’s eyes couldn’t keep track. The wooden frame of the door struck him, the flat angle of the door slamming into his body, sucking the wind out of his lungs, cracking into his knee caps and slamming into his chin.

It had all happened so fast. The door bounced off his body, rattled and swung back. Then the hand of Dennis Maloney reached out, grabbed the handle and secured the door in its frame.

Jester was on the floor, completely stunned, squinting his eyes. He looked up at Dennis Maloney. “Number five, right?” he asked lightly. The pain in his body had been harsh, rough, but instant. The pain killers and adrenaline had been already working on blocking it out before he’d even hit the floor.

Dennis Maloney nodded.

“Why are you staring at me?” Jester quizzed.

“I have my reasons.”

“You fancy me?”

“No.”

Jester rolled his eyes and tried to push himself to his feet, but Maloney held him back with an intimidating hand on his shoulder, after which he returned to grinning at the man.

Jester shook his head in confusion and averted his eyes. “So, you’re the final one?” Jester looked at Maloney. He didn’t receive a reply and didn’t expect to. “Tell me something,” he offered, “this shit, this fucking game – I know what happens if I lose, but no one ever told me what I could win.”

Maloney laughed softly. “You can’t win, Matthew.”

“So what happens after I kill you?”

Maloney grinned at the question.

“Why are you smiling so fucking much? Are you high?”

“You don’t know who I am, do you?” Maloney asked softly.

“No, and I don’t fucking care.”

“I think you
do
care. I set all of this up. I’m the instigator, the puppet master; I’m Big Brother.”

“You’re full of yourself, aren’t you?”

Maloney tilted his head back and laughed, a mistake he quickly regretted.

Matthew sprang to his feet and charged at the man in front of him, tackling him to the ground. They both landed with a thud, a moan escaping the lips of the American. Matthew grabbed hold of Maloney’s collar, lifted his head off the ground and rammed his right fist into his face.

“You filthy fucking pig,” he shouted, spitting directly onto Maloney’s face.

“So you
do
know me?” Maloney slurred through bloody lips.

“You fucking bastard,” Matthew screamed and shoved Maloney’s head towards the ground, his skull rattling against the solid floor. The impact shook through Maloney’s body. He pushed all of his energy outwards and managed to knock Jester off the top of him.

Jester rolled over, and Maloney pounced on him. He now had Jester in the same position he had been in seconds before.

“You killed Jennifer,” Matthew spat.

“It had to be done.”

“She was fucking innocent!”

“She is …” Maloney pondered and then corrected himself with a grin, “
was
a big part of your life. She had to be removed.”

Jester wriggled violently underneath Maloney’s grip, but he couldn’t shake the man.

Maloney lifted his head and looked towards one of the cameras, grinned and then returned his attention to Jester. “You should be proud of yourself, Matthew. You made it a lot further than anyone expected. I, of course, had higher hopes, but still ... I never dreamt you’d make it all the way to
me
.”

“Dreamt? What sort of fucking kick are you getting out of this?”

“Don’t you see, you’re my creation; watching and controlling you is my ‘
kick
’. The person inside of you now is not the same person that was inside of you a few days ago. When you saw your girlfriend’s body ... a part of you died, and slowly but surely, the rest of you followed. You were dead inside. I gave you life. I turned you into what you are now.”

“
Bra-fucking-vo
.” Jester collected some saliva and spat into Maloney’s face. The American wiped away the mucus with a swipe of his sleeve.

Pinning Jester’s arms and legs to the ground, Maloney tried to slip his free hand inside his jacket, using his right hand to hold both of Jester’s hands, but his attempts were futile. Anger had reached boiling point inside Jester’s blood. With sheer brute force he freed himself from Maloney’s grasp and shoved the American to the floor.

Rolling over in the opposite direction, Jester quickly jumped to his feet. Maloney followed suit.

They both stood rooted. Jester’s eyes frantically scoured the area, looking for something, a weapon, an escape, protection. Dennis Maloney, on the other hand, had slipped his hand inside his jacket, and he now wielded the hefty combat knife.

Jester’s hands began to journey around his body, tapping his many pockets: trouser pockets, jacket pockets, back pockets. His hand paused over the left front pocket of his trousers, and his fingers traced the outline of a miniature bottle of whiskey. He had taken two bottles from the supply closet at the beginning of the game, but he’d only used one of them on Terry Jones, a man still bound and gagged in room
5A1
, his eyes blind and weeping.

He retrieved the bottle and cupped it in his hands, concealing it from Dennis Maloney.

“It’ll be a shame to see you go,” Maloney said, advancing on Jester. “I put so much work into you, it seems such a waste …” He allowed his words to trail off, finishing them with a sadistic grin.

To Maloney’s surprise, Matthew laughed and nodded. “You know, the strangest thing,” he explained leisurely, his words making Maloney stop and listen. Matthew knew his sadistic mentor would happily listen to anything he had to say. “Everyone assassin you’ve sent after me, every psycho I’ve encountered – they all said the same things. They all
believed
the same things.”

“Clarify,” Maloney said with interest.

“They all told me they were going to kill me. In fact, all of them were pretty much one hundred percent sure that they could and
would
kill me.”

“What’s your point?”

“I just find it ironic.”

“Why?”

“When I walked into a gunfight, a knife fight, a fist fight or even a chainsaw fight, I kept one thought in my head: death. I expected to be killed, I expected to die, but I’m alive. I walked into those fights with my head held low and came out with my eyes on the skies.”

Maloney twisted his face. Confusion was setting in.

Matthew grinned at the look of awe on the American’s face. He worked his aim, cocked his arm and then propelled it forward. The whiskey bottle flew out of his enclosed fist like a bullet, shot across the room and smashed against Maloney’s temple: a perfect shot.

The minuscule shards of glass exploded over his face, embedding shrapnel into the bridge of his nose and his forehead, including a sharp shaving of glass that dropped from the collision point like an arrow and sliced through his upper lip.

The whiskey ran in a river from his forehead, running all the way down his face. Drops got into his eyes, mouth and even up his nose when he made the careless mistake of sniffing in reaction to the tiny piece of glass embedded there.

Without even looking at Dennis Maloney, Matthew Jester burst forward, heading for the stairwell door. Moans and shouts of aggression followed him as he slammed the door and quickly began to descend the stairs.

Reaching the ground floor, Matthew paused, still in the stairwell. He looked up through the gaps in the stairs, all the way to the top of the stairwell, the seventh floor. After a quick consideration, he opened the door and burst out into the reception area.

He wasn’t sure where he was going but was sure that he couldn’t escape. The shutters were firmly closed. He ran around the reception desk, dropped to his knees and slid underneath it.

The floor was surprisingly dusty for such an exclusive hotel. Hiding directly underneath the till, pushed into a crevice, he guessed that the public would never see the dust anyway. Maybe they had a lazy cleaner, maybe –

He slammed his palm into his forehead. 
Stop thinking bullshit and start concentrating,
he warned himself.

***

Dennis Maloney blinked away a drop of whiskey attached to his eyebrow and slowly opened his eyes. He could only pry them open halfway. He noted that Jester had disappeared and heard him leave the room via the stairwell. But Maloney knew that the kid was crafty enough to fake an exit and hide in wait, ready to kill.

He also knew that if Jester wanted to kill him, he would have done so after the bottle had smashed. He was an easy target, a sitting duck. He stumbled across the hallway and entered the room with the dead Lumberjack, the chainsaw still embedded in his spinal cord.

He twisted his face in revulsion as the stench hit him like a sack of rocks. He gagged. Death didn’t worry him unless it was his own. He didn’t mind dead bodies, carnage or blood, all visual exceptions, but the smell of death was enough to turn his stomach.

He rushed straight into the bathroom, pushed the plunger into the sink hole and flicked on the cold water tap. When the sink was brimming, he dunked his face in, savouring the cool, welcoming freshness. He wiped his face with a towel he took from the rail, being careful not to push any pieces of shrapnel further into his face. Then, cupping his hand, he began to flush his eyes out with water. The act was painful, awkward and didn’t feel natural, but he persisted until the burning whiskey was nothing more than a twinge in the corner of his eyes.

After removing some large pieces of glass from his skin, as well as a few smaller pieces – with the aid of a pair of tweezers found amongst some toiletries – he washed his face again, carefully replaced the towel and then left the room.

He was in no rush and neither was Matthew Jester. In Maloney’s eyes, he created Jester. He created the game, and he controlled the carnage. He’d watched with respect bordering adoration as Jester had ruthlessly killed and wounded professional killers, and now it was his turn to step up.

***

After waiting for what seemed like an eternity, Jester pushed himself out from underneath the cash register, skidding on his backside across the dusty floor. He crawled to his knees and then pushed himself to his feet.

He ran over to the stairwell door and pressed an ear to it. “What the fuck is he doing?” he mouthed. He looked around the room, distressed. He allowed his eyes to wander to the elevator.
Surely he wouldn’t use the lift
, he reasoned with himself before turning his eyes back to the door.

He still couldn’t hear anything.