Deadly Treatment (32 page)

The medical facilities morgue was the perfect place for what he had in mind for the evening, and after a generous donation to their social fund from Paxton, they were more than happy to give him free rein of the place — even throwing in the old ambulance for him to use. He wheeled Vince up to the necropsy table and heaved him onto the slab. A creative use of cable ties bound Vince’s wrists and ankles to the table, and as Elwood started to cut the clothes from his body, Vince slowly began to come to.

‘Good evening,’ Elwood said as he tugged the last bit of clothing away from Vince’s now naked body.

‘What the fuck… Argh!’ Vince yelled as the cable ties dug into his flesh when he tried to pull away.

‘My suggestion is that you don’t do that too often; cable ties have a ratchet system that click tighter every time you tug. Now, am I in the presence of Scott or Vince?’

‘Fucking untie me, you wanker, and I’ll show you who I am,’ Vince spat.

Elwood rifled through the clothes until he found a wallet.

‘Vince it is then. And what do we have here?’ He pulled out the snub-nosed pistol. ‘Were you planning to shoot me with this little thing?’

Vince clammed up.

‘We’ll get back to that a bit later. Now, did you bring the flash drive with you?’

Vince stayed quiet.

‘You know, it’s very rude to ignore someone who’s talking to you. I can see that you’re either a shy or non-communicative guy, Vince, and here’s me thinking that we could be friends.’

He continued to go through Vince’s clothes as he spoke. ‘I mean you and your partner have indirectly done quite a lot for me over the past few years, and I must say that your work has been excellent. No questions asked about who the buildings belonged to or why you were doing them — you  just took the money, and did the job. We’re not too different, you and I; we’re both links in a big, in fact huge, corporate chain. Ahhh, here it is.’ He had found the device hidden in the lining of Vince’s jacket.

Vince’s head sank as Elwood admired the stick for a moment before inserting it into his computer. The machine clicked and whirred, and then the photo of Anthony Cain on top of the Sears tower filled the screen. Elwood flicked through the images until he came to the one with the two suits in the background. He studied it for a few seconds before laughing out loud. ‘Oh, poor little Vince, you still have no idea what you’ve got here do you?’

Perplexed, Vince’s eyebrow raised.

Elwood laughed again and turned back to the computer. He attached the image’s file to a bcc’d e-mail message and hit send; then he returned his attention to Vince.

Back from the diner, the display on the motel’s cheap alarm clock provokingly flashed 9:40, and Scott was beside himself. Throughout dinner, all he could think about was what had happened to Vince. Did Elwood kill him? Did the cops get him? Did he take the money and run? Plus a myriad of other options. Every fifteen minutes or so, he’d switch on the mobile and check for messages, but each time, the phone remained silent.

He put Joshua to bed and turned the TV volume down low; he needed to think, but he also needed the distraction of the images that flashed on the screen. With Vince gone AWOL, he was left carrying the can. Kidnapping, murder, arson, grand theft auto, the list of what he’d done and not done could run a mile long. He had no money and no passport. He couldn’t go anywhere near his family in case the killer was after him. He was fucked!

He went to the bathroom to empty his bladder; he didn’t really need to go, it just passed a few more seconds. Back in the room, he tried the phone again – nothing. Think, think.

‘The PI,’ he said to himself.

I’ll call the PI, and get him to take Joshua back; maybe I can get the kidnapping charge dropped. It’s a start at least.

‘You know you’re not going to walk away from all of this don’t you?’ Elwood said to Vince as he donned an apron and put on some surgical gloves.

‘You’ve got what you’re after; just let me go… and give us our money back.’ Vince sounded deflated, the return of their money being an afterthought.

‘I’m going to ask you some questions, and how painful your last moments on this planet are going to be depends on the truth of your answers.’

Vince tugged on his restraints and they ratcheted up a notch cutting deeper into his flesh.

‘Fuck you! You ain’t gonna get shit from me.’

Elwood wheeled over the surgical instrument trolley and selected an electric autopsy saw. At the flick of a switch, the tool burst into life; the aggressive noise from the motor and the small round blade echoed around the empty room startling both of them.

‘Wow, noisy little thing isn’t it?’ He smiled as he moved closer to Vince revving the tool in short bursts.

‘Now, who else knows about Anthony Cain and the pictures?’

Vince tried to wriggle away from the saw.

‘Get that thing away from me!’ Vince yelled.

‘Arrrrrgh.’ He screamed as Elwood ran the small blade over his exposed glute, slicing off a big chunk of flesh.

‘Since you’ve been a pain in my ass, thought I’d return the favor,’ he joked. Blood poured from the open wound and Elwood swatted the slice of cheek down to the end of the stainless steel table.

‘Stop, Stop. My fucking ass!’ Vince was twisting and turning on the table, the plastic ties cutting into his skin.

‘Now, I’ll ask you again, who else knows about Cain?’ Again he revved the saw.

‘No one else. Just Scott and the boy, that’s all.’ Vince was starting to cry.

‘The boy? Don’t you mean the dwarf?’ Elwood was thrown by the word boy.

‘What dwarf, there’s just me, Scott, and the boy.’

‘You took a boy on the office job with you? I thought you hired a dwarf.’ Elwood was a little confused.

‘So you don’t know everything. Arrrrrgh’

Elwood ran the blade over Vince’s upper arm, cutting through the bicep to the bone and round to the tricep as he tried to struggle away. The flesh sagged uncovering a mess of blood, muscle, and sinew.

‘Don’t lie to me! Who else?

‘It’s the fucking truth — I swear. Pleeeease stop. I’ll do whatever you want,’ Vince begged.

Elwood’s phone rang interrupting his interrogation; normally he would have ignored it, but the ringtone was the one set exclusively for his boss, Gerard Paxton.

He pulled off the gloves and flicked open the phone. ‘Hello.’

‘HELP ME, HELLLLLP.’ Vince screamed behind him.

‘Hold on just a minute,’ Elwood told his boss as he walked over and shoved one of his rubber gloves into Vince’s mouth gagging him quiet. Then he moved away to concentrate on the call.

‘We have a problem,’ Gerard said, knowing better than to ask what was going on and who was shouting for help.

‘What’s up?’

‘I’ve opened up the images file you sent me and it’s not good news for us, there’s some pretty damaging stuff on it. Make sure the trail ends here and ends NOW. We don’t need any of this stuff out there.’

‘Got it.’ Elwood shut off the phone and donned a fresh pair of gloves.

Vince’s eyes were wide open with fear as Elwood walked back over to him and pulled the glove from his mouth.

‘Time for you to tell me everything you know,’ he said as he picked up the saw.

W
ith Joshua asleep in the room, Scott wrote him a quick note then grabbed a cab to meet Malone. During their phone conversation an hour earlier, Scott arranged to meet Malone at the Greyhound station on East 7
th
street. He knew it was a risk, but his urge to run was out-weighing his stay-and-see-it-through nature. To Scott’s mind, Vince was either dead or gone, and neither prospect was a win for him. He wanted to tell the PI, Malone, the way things had turned out; he wanted him to tell Erin that they’d never meant any of this to happen, that it was all a huge misunderstanding. Maybe he could get some cash from Malone and then just disappear.

Scott got out of the cab and walked into the bus terminal. Rows of uncomfortable steel chairs filled the room, a handful of vending machines lined the back wall, and the room smelled bad. Malone was already there waiting. Despite the fact they hadn’t exchanged appearance details, he wasn’t difficult to spot. It was just after midnight, and aside from the odd drunken vagrant, Malone was the only normal looking person there — and the only one sitting upright.

Scott took one last cursory glance around the room — although if Malone had called the cops it would have been far too late to bolt — and went and sat beside him. Not only had Malone kept his promise about not calling the cops, but he’d also chosen not to call and wake up Erin, opting to find out what Scott’s story was first.

‘I take it you’re Malone,’ Scott said and held out his hand.

Malone refused to shake it.

‘Where’s Joshua?’

‘He’s safe for now, but if I don’t return, he won’t be,’ Scott lied.

‘Then we’ve got nothing else to talk about. I told you on the phone to bring back Joshua, and then we’d talk about where to go from there. No Joshua, no talking, just a lot of jail time.’

Malone grabbed hold of Scott tightly with one hand in case he bolted, and then pulled out Harrison’s cell phone. Scott didn’t attempt to move; he simply sighed and dropped his head.

‘Maybe you’re right; maybe jail is the best and safest place for me now.’

Slightly stunned at Scott’s response, Malone thought for a moment, and then put the phone away.

‘What’s this all about? Arson, abduction, and murder? You must know that Erin Costello isn’t a wealthy person, so there’s no chance of any ransom.’

‘Well she’s got enough cash to hire a PI, and I’m sure you’re not cheap,’ Scott snapped. He was getting desperate.

‘You think I’m a PI?’ Malone was mildly amused. ‘I’m just a friend helping out a poor single lady who’s lost the one thing in this world that means anything to her life. Something you’ve taken from her.’

‘It’s not like that,’ Scott said slowly shaking his head, and then sinking lower in his seat.

Malone looked at the exhausted Scott and calmly continued.

‘You said on the phone that it’s all a mistake — what did you mean?’

Scott looked at Malone, and then told him almost the whole story.

Elwood finished cutting up Vince and put his remains into the medical disposal bins. He was surprised at how little Vince had known about the situation they were in, and he was impressed at how loyal he was to his friend, Scott. The boy was still a mystery though; Vince’s story about picking him up on a job just didn’t make sense —
and as Judge Judy always said, ‘If it doesn’t make sense it isn’t true’
, he thought to himself. Elwood was sure the boy was Scott’s son; no kidnapped boy would set fire to an office for his captors. It didn’t matter either way; he would be dead soon anyway. It took Vince a long and painful time to divulge the location of their new motel, but of course, in the end, he caved; they always caved. He cleaned himself up, and then quickly wrote out his report, sending it off with a click of the return key. It was time to take care of the last two loose ends.

Malone took pity on Scott; he could see how the whole episode had unfolded.‘Where is Joshua now?’ he asked.

Scott went silent; he knew Joshua was the only thing stopping Malone from calling the cops — and him going away for a very long time.

Malone picked up on his reluctance and tried to reassure him. ‘Look, my sole mission is to get Joshua back safely into the arms of his mother, Erin, and I have a sneaky suspicion you’d like the same thing too. I don’t care about the arson or Harrison’s murder, and although I feel a little sympathetic towards you, don’t mistake it for weakness. I don’t care about who or what you’re involved in, you’ve made your bed — I just want Joshua back right now; after that, we can forget we met; you can seek revenge, change your identity, go to Brazil, or do whatever the hell you want — Get it?’

Scott nodded

‘I’ll take you to him.’

Together they went out to Malone’s blue Ford.

Elwood quietly picked the lock on the motel room’s door; softly, he turned the handle and eased the door open. He poked the silenced muzzle of his pistol through the open crack and let off two rounds into the bed before stepping into the room and closing the door behind him; he wasn’t going to make the same mistake again. Switching on the light, he swore under his breath when he realized the bed was still made and Scott wasn’t there. Awakened by the noise, Joshua stirred in his camp bed and shielded his eyes from the bright light. Elwood stepped over to the camp bed and put the gun to Joshua’s head. He was about to pull the trigger when he noticed a letter on the pillow beside him.

With terrified eyes, Joshua looked at the man with the gun. ‘Who are you?’ he cried as he tried to jump up.

Elwood pinned him down with his knee. ‘Don’t say a word kid, or I’ll kill you.’ He wielded the gun in front of Joshua’s face, and with his other hand he unfolded the letter.

Joshua,

I’m sorry but I have to go.

I lied about your mother, she loves you and misses you.

I should never have kept you from her.

Please call home and ask her to come and get you.

Be safe.

‘Shit, what a loser. Even runs away from his own son. Kidnapped my ass!’ Elwood said as he screwed up the letter. Scott’s disappearance was a problem. Sure, he’d got his phone number, but he doubted it would be around for long. As soon as Scott realized Vince was never going to return, that phone would be history — if it wasn’t already. Tracking him would be a lot harder than before, Vince had told Elwood that they’d figured out the credit card had given their location away, so he wouldn’t use that…and a couple of robberies would top up what he knew of Scott’s limited cash. Plus, not knowing what stolen car he was driving meant he couldn’t even get Paxton to call his friends in the LAPD to help find him.

To finish the contract, he needed to finish off Scott — which in turn, meant he first needed to find Scott
. ‘What are my options?’
he thought.

‘If I kill his kid here, Scott of course would get the blame, so the cops could hopefully do the leg work in finding him for me. Once he’s caught, I can arrange for him to be killed long before he gets anywhere near a trial. But depending on how resourceful he is, catching him could take forever, and that means the contract remains unfinished; there’s no way I’ve done all this work without getting paid.’

Elwood also didn’t relish the idea of telling Paxton the contract wasn’t completed. ‘I’m sure Paxton would love for me to not finish the job and leave Scott running around unpunished.’ he thought dryly

Which left option two: find Scott himself. ‘Where would Scott be running to right now? Friends? Family? In California? Out of State? Out of the country?’ In Elwood’s experience, even though the world was a big place in which to run and hide, people seldom ventured very far away from what they knew. They might move to a different city, change the colour of their hair, etc., but they generally ended up living the same life — and virtually always got in touch with their old one. Even without the help of the corporation’s far-reaching contacts, tools like social media gave you access to nearly all of a person’s friends and family, likes and dislikes, hobbies and interests, the list went on. Surveillance of some or all of these contact points would secure a result. In time, Scott would be found, but Elwood wanted him now. He thought back to what Vince had said during his torture. ‘Scott and the kid have got some sort of bond.’ That was it. Elwood decided there was no real need to chase after Scott; it would be better to use Joshua as bait either direct, by phone, or via the mother.

Tearing up the sheets to use as makeshift ropes and gags, he tied up Joshua, and once he was sure the coast was clear, he carried him across the lot to the trunk of the rental car. ‘Don’t let me hear a squeak from you!’ he threatened Joshua, who nodded nervously before the trunk lid was closed.

In the driver’s seat of the rental, Elwood had pulled out his phone ready to call Scott to inform him of his predicament when two men in a blue Ford pulled into the spot in front of Scott’s motel room.