Messenger of Death (7 page)

“Yes.”

“Good.” Marcel
took a pack of money out of his pocket and handed it over to
Claude.

“Here it is. Go
back alone. I will go a different way. Have fun.”

VII

As the feeble
light of a November morning crawled through the half-closed
shutters, Claude sneaked out of the sofa bed, put a pile of money
on the table, and got back to where warm, soft, and tender Leila
was sleeping. Feeling his arm around her, she moved closer, still
in deep sleep. He was lying motionless, waiting patiently, looking
at her parted lips and closed eyes. Soon her lashes trembled and
she woke up.

“Morning,” she
whispered, still in the grips of sweet dreams. Claude smiled and
pushed a thick wisp of hair off her forehead. She kissed him,
raised to her knees, and stretched. The first glance at the table
made her utter a joyful cry.

“Wow! This will
make for good shopping!”

“Sure. Why
not?”

“How much may I
take off the pile?”

“Take it
all.”

“Kiddn’
me?”

“Nope. Take
it.”

She hopped on
him and jumped a few times, as if riding a horse.

“Should we buy
new furniture?” she asked.

“Anything.”

“Love you.
Sweet boy. We need some clothes. I wanna buy something for you,
too. Handsome guy, but dresses like a peasant.”

“Good idea,” he
agreed, although a much better plan preoccupied him at that moment.
There was a bar, which was so far nobody’s territory. It would be
nice to meet there with Trasher and show off his riches. Let
Trasher guess who did the hit—the hottest media topic of the week.
Every gangster wants fame and recognition more than money. He
picked up the phone and dialled.

“Hello,” rasped
Trasher at the other end of the line.

“Can we meet at
the Brussel bar today?” asked Claude.

“M–m–m.
When?”

“At three.”

“Okay. Somtn’
important?”

“Not much. Jus
. . . I’m gonna be at the plaza there, while Leila shops. We can
talk.”

“Sure.”

At the plaza,
Leila changed her plan. It was the furniture store that distracted
her attention.

“Let’s buy a
bed,” she suggested. “Ours is completely ruined, partly through
your efforts.”

Claude smiled
and gave her a friendly, gentle, and loving tap with his fist.

“You worked
hard as well to deserve it,” he said. “Choose whatever you like,
and arrange the delivery with the store. After that, go to Holt
Renfrew. I’ll meet you there.”

“You are
leaving me alone?” she exclaimed capriciously.

“I have to meet
Trasher at the bar. It won’t take long.”

Claude found
him sitting at the table with a glass of beer.

“Your hit?” he
asked, when Claude took a chair.

“Wanna drink
somtn’ better?” asked Claude. “My treat.”

“Nah. Maybe
later. Doing well?”

“Not bad.”

They sat in
silence, and when a double shot of Scotch was served for Claude,
they drank, exchanging meaningless remarks. Suddenly a tight knot
squeezed Claude’s stomach.

“What’s wrong?”
Trasher asked, throwing suspicious glances around.

“Turn back, but
very slowly. There is a skinny guy at the bar stand.”

“Yes. I
see.”

“That is
Stanley, the big shot at Iron Ghosts. Marcel showed me his
photograph.”

“Do you have a
piece with you?” asked Trasher.

“Nothing.”

“Me neither.
But don’t you worry. One blow of this hand,” he showed his large,
hairy fist, “will break his neck.”

“I’ll do it,”
Claude said. “See, he’s skinny like a starving horse. I’ll break
his jaw with one punch.”

“Don’t,”
insisted Trasher. “Stay as a cover, in case he’s not alone.”

“He noticed
us,” Claude warned.

“You see, it’s
even better for you not to move while I approach him.”

Trasher stood
up and walked, looking in the opposite direction, as if Stanley was
of no interest to him. For a split second, Claude froze in horrific
amazement. Stanley dove under Trasher’s assaulting hand, which was
supposed to have dealt a devastating blow, but missed. Trasher took
an expert punch in the jaw. While he was off balance, Stanley
grabbed his jacket and threw him backward. Trasher’s head hit the
bar stand with the sound of crushed bones; his lifeless body fell
on the floor.

Claude rushed
toward Stanley. This time, though, he had bad luck: Stanley’s fist
stopped him. It was the punch of an expert boxer, too fast to
avoid, too hard to withstand. With lightning speed, Stanley’s left
hook landed under Claude’s right rib, near the liver. A wrenching
spasm of pain gripped Claude’s body from head to toe. He bent over
and got another blow, this time in the jaw, very accurate as well,
but not as painful, although his brain almost stopped working. With
inhuman effort, motivated by intense hatred and an insane rejection
of defeat, Claude darted forward and clutched Stanley, like a
wrestler. A few moments of wrestling gave him a break. The acute
pain subsided; his sadistic rage and energy returned. He did not
manage to do much, though. With a powerful twist, Stanley threw him
against the bar counter. Claude felt terrible pain again, but this
time at the back of his head. Blood was now running down his face
and body. Claude groped forward only to encounter another blow,
which, it seemed, crushed everything inside his skull. He fell to
his knees, hands planted on the tile floor, spitting thick, red
saliva and crumbs of broken teeth. With the detached curiosity of
an outsider, he saw a tiny dark stream pouring from his face into a
growing dark puddle on the floor.

“This is the
end,” he said to himself. This thought did not frighten him, but
the sour feeling of defeat, mixed with the greasy flow of blood,
gave him a bad taste in his mouth.

To his
surprise, the beating stopped. Somebody lifted him and placed him
on a chair. He raised his head. Two cops stood in front of him,
observing him with apparent hostility.

“What
happened?” asked one of them. Claude shrugged his shoulders. A few
steps away another cop was helping Trasher; blood was streaming
from a wound at the back of Trasher’s head, but he was still alive.
Stanley was nowhere to be seen.

“I will get
you, Stanley,” Claude said to himself.

Chapter
2

I

Camilla thought
of herself as an extraordinary, exceptional girl, although nothing
in her biography had so far been remarkable enough to defend such
an inordinate notion. She was tall, blonde, and pretty, with an
artistic look. She had wits and a good sense of humour, but an
actress, she was not. Instead, she was on the last leg of her
studies to become a registered nurse. At twenty years of age, she
had already had a few lovers, all of whom she’d left behind with
broken hearts. These affairs would have been of interest to her
close friends and admirers, but they were not significant enough
for any biographer to record. Her fate, however, was about to take
an unpredictable twist.

The day was
overcast, as many were in January 1996. Camilla was standing in
line to board a chairlift at the Mont Tremblant ski resort. Over
her shoulders, she wore a backpack with a colourful patch that read
“McMichaels School of Nursing.” Next to her was her closest friend
and roommate Shelly—a petite, sweet little woman with large, dark
eyes like those of a defenceless gazelle. Though Shelly was a
student at the art institute, her goal was a successful marriage,
not a career in the arts. To that effect, she considered every male
who approached her to be a potential groom.

The long line
of skiers was advancing slowly toward the chairlift. Just outside
the boundaries of the stretched ropes stood a man talking on a cell
phone. Camilla gave him a quick look.

Not bad, she
thought. Like Shelly, and most young women, she loved to flirt.
Usually, men accepted her advances gladly, but this one stared
right through her, as if she did not exist, and said something into
his cell phone. Camilla could not make out the words, in spite of
his close proximity. As the line moved forward and she passed by,
she noticed a small scar under his left jaw and cold, ruthless rage
in his eyes. She dropped her game and resumed talking with
Shelly.

The girls were
getting very close to a four-seat bench on the chairlift when
Camilla heard indignant, irritated voices behind them.

“You have to
stay in line like everyone else, sir,” a man was saying,
reprimanding someone rather angrily.

“Next time—,”
she heard. Presumably, this was the response of the man to whom the
reprimand had been directed. “I promise.”

“Outrageous,” a
woman’s voice proclaimed solemnly.

“I will change
for the better, ma’am, I swear,” promised the voice.

“Stop him!” the
woman demanded. Nobody obeyed her command.

“This would be
my last run today, ma’am,” the man said. That was easy to promise
because the chairlift was shutting down in ten minutes.

Shelly stopped
talking and glanced over Camilla’s shoulder. Camilla turned around,
too, to see what was causing the disturbance. She noticed a man
struggling awkwardly to get through the line of skiers. Jostling
with enviable energy, he advanced at last to the place where
Camilla stood and asked her rather politely, “May I join you
girls?”

He was the man
who had not responded to her glance just a minute before. Camilla
shrugged her shoulders and looked the guy up and down. Medium
height, slim but apparently strong, a sporty, very fit man. The
blue, piercing eyes on his skinny face reminded her of a marathon
runner. She noticed again the small scar under his left jaw.

“You may. The
lift is for four.”

The next moment
they were in a rush to be seated on the moving bench.

“My name is
Stanley.” The man introduced himself as the lift began moving.

“And your
name?”

The question
was directed to Camilla, as she was next, on his left.

“Leave us
alone,” responded Camilla. She did not like these kinds of
advances.

“That’s not
polite,” commented the man. Camilla turned her head and looked
disapprovingly into his unblinking eyes. An expression of
unrestrained force in them was frightening. She did not say a
word.

“What are you
doing tonight?” Stanley asked.

“Indeed,
Camilla, what are we gonna do tonight?” asked Shelly. “Let’s go to
the spa first. I love to sit in the hot tub outside when the snow
is all around.”

“Good idea,”
agreed Stanley. Shelly bent forward to look at Stanley with her
“would-you-marry-me?” eyes. When their stares met, she flapped her
eyelashes but then, disturbed and embarrassed, she leaned back and
fell silent.

Stanley tried
to strike up a conversation a few more times, but his attempts were
not well received. He then sat quietly for a while, bending forward
and shifting his eyes from one woman to another. Camilla, however,
felt that most of his attention was directed toward her. As the
lift approached the top of the hill, she turned to Shelly.

“I’m gonna try
the Diamond Run this time. You go on Green, Shelly.”

“Please don’t,
Camilla,” Shelly begged. “Look—there are icy moguls all the way
down. And it’s getting dark.”

“I don’t care,”
Camilla said, jumping off the bench and pushing ahead with both
poles. “I’ll see you down there.”

She slid to the
start of the run and looked back. Stanley stood right there behind
her, smiling.

“I can’t let
you run alone,” he explained. “Nobody goes there. What if you break
a leg?”

“I wouldn’t
advise you to go after me, unless you are a really good skier. The
slope is very steep. See those moguls? They are all ice.”

With another
push of her poles, she began making the slalom descent, elegantly
making quick, deft turns on parallel skis. She stopped where the
moguls began and looked back. Stanley was catching up, trying to
make the same turns and twists that she had. No doubt he was a poor
skier. He wasn’t even able to keep his skis parallel, let alone
demonstrate elementary slalom techniques.

“Please, be
careful. Don’t try to follow my tracks,” Camilla warned him again
when he stopped beside her. “This is really dangerous.”

“Everything
dangerous is worthwhile for me.”

“You are
crazy.” She tried to convince him: “If you do that, the paramedics
would bring your body down the slope in parts. Don’t exhibit your
stupid bravado here.”

Having said
that, she pushed forward and rushed between the moguls, fully
enjoying the strength of her legs, the speed, the twists, turns,
and jumps—all attributes of a body’s physical superiority over the
challenges of the world. A noise behind made her stop. To her
horror, she saw Stanley rolling on the snow. His skis—which were
off his boots—were scattered far away from where he was tumbling
downhill. At last, his body ceased its terrifying roll. He lay on
his back, arms spread wide, motionless. Camilla looked around in
search of anyone who could help. Only the icy moguls and the still
trees, clad in their white winter dresses of snow, were in sight.
She took off her skis and walked up as quickly as she could, but
the climb was not easy in heavy alpine boots. When she got close,
she knelt beside him and touched the artery in his throat.
Suddenly, Stanley opened his eyes, grabbed her with both hands,
threw her on the snow, and bent over her, smiling.

“A-a-ah!”
Camilla screamed, frightened. “Let me go!”

“I will. But
tell me first, why did you touch my throat?”

“I was trying
to feel your pulse. Let me go. Now!”

He held her
tight. It was useless to struggle against such a strong man.