Ammunition

29

Rodney Lewis was home, a nice log fire going, so, it was artificial, it looked the biz. And being in the financial game, he knew appearances were all. He was wearing a smoking jacket, he didn’t actually smoke but you get the drift. It had the monogram, R, on the pocket, in gold stitching. He was real proud of that:

Class.

Who said you couldn’t buy it.

Fucking Labour government is who.

They were going to get theirs, and big time, in the next election, and with the Tories back, let the good times roll. He was sipping from a snifter of brandy, a fifty-year-old cognac, and the aroma,…bliss. He’d had a lobster dinner at his private club and a rather delicious creme caramel to follow. He let out a contented belch, thought:

Life is sweet.

Except…

Brant…

The continuing problem.

He’d decided to let it sit for a while, just do… nothing and wait for inspiration to hit. It always did, why he’d made so much cash in the city. Meanwhile, he had the satisfaction of knowing the bastard had to be hurting from the gunshots. And better, knowing that Rodney was coming, Brant would be on constant alert and then, out of nowhere, when he let his guard down… bingo, he’d be hit.

Rodney wasn’t going to farm out this contract, nope, not after the last fiasco. He’d do the piece of garbage himself.

He replayed the scene in his car with the guy who’d messed up the deal, and the rush of the adrenaline when he’d shot the poor dumb idiot. And that’s how he’d do Brant, up close and personal. He owed it to his late brother to keep it in the family, and he really wanted to have that rush again. The look on the victim’s face when you shoved the shooter in his mug.

Shooter?

He laughed aloud, like something out of The Sweeney.

He was still chuckling when he felt the cold barrel in the nape of his neck and he dropped the snifter, the cognac staining his Harrods pyjamas, those suckers had cost, like a bundle. He knew it was Brant, he heard the intake of breath and knew from recent experience it was the moment before the squeeze, and he tried:

‘Sergeant Brant, is this really the smart thing. They’ll know it’s you, I mean, let’s talk this through.’

He was pleased with his calm tone, the matter-of-fact voice he assumed, and then he had a brilliant idea. He knew precisely what to say to stop the maniac.

The first shot went right through, exiting his left eye and the second, a little lower, lodged in the bone of his nose. Rodney and his brilliant idea slumped forward in the chair, blood adding to the already ruined silk pyjamas.

The smell of cordite nearly wiped the aroma of cognac, but with fifty-year-old stuff, it’s hard to quite erase that kind of quality.

The killer used a small Swiss army knife to dislodge the bullet from the bookcase, he considered rooting around in Rodney’s face, retrieving that one. he was whistling “Dixie” as he contemplated his work, then thought the hell with the second bullet. Did he really want to get in the guy’s face?

He was still smiling at his pun as he let himself out.