Kiss & Die - Lee Weeks [126]
The bodyguards on the street nodded to him. They frisked him. They checked his boots and up his sleeves. Mann had known they would. He had hidden Delilah along the gap between two ribs. They were rough enough to open up some stitches. He knew they would. He had purposely left his bandage bloody across his chest.
The bodyguard looked at the blood on his hands and stepped back in disgust. ‘Jesus Christ, let him through. He isn’t carrying anything.’
Mann took the lift up to the top; eighty floors in a highspeed elevator.
‘No Mann, please…’ Victoria had raced straight there. She met him as he got out of the lift, she tried to make him turn around. ‘You’re sick. You’re bleeding. Leave it now. Look at your face.’ Victoria went to touch his swollen, stitched cheek. He pulled away. ‘I’m sorry for what has happened. It’s all gone wrong.’
‘Get out of my way, Victoria. You play around with people’s lives all for your own gain. You leave a trail of destruction everywhere you go. You’re a fucking tornado destroying everything in your path. You’re just like him.’
CK’s bodyguard was waiting at the door for him. He held a gun to Mann’s back. Mann put his hands in the air and walked slowly into the Red Salon. As he entered he saw Ng on his knees. His head was bowed. CK stood over him with a gun at his head.
‘Ng? You all right?’
Ng lifted his head and Mann could see his mouth was pouring blood. He looked at Mann with the hopelessness of one in the world between life and death where there was only pain and fear and sad regret.
‘You bastards.’ Mann lunged at CK, the bodyguards held him back and punched him in the mouth. ‘I should have killed you a long time ago, CK.’ Mann wiped the blood from his split lip.
The bodyguards pinned Mann’s arms back. CK smiled. In the gloom of the office Mann saw it was a strange sight like a grinning dog that should not be able to grin.
‘Then why didn’t you? You were not able to then and you are not able to now.’
CK looked Mann up and down. Mann’s wounds were breaking open on his legs. Blood seeped in dark patches through his jeans. Victoria looked anxiously at Mann.
‘Show him.’ CK turned to his bodyguard. ‘We saved it for you.’ The bodyguard came forward, opened his palm and showed Mann Ng’s tongue. ‘You can have it sewn back on if you hurry. Now sign it.’ CK pointed to a table where the contract was waiting for him with a pen.
Ng shook his head at Mann. The front of his shirt was saturated with blood. CK swiped Ng’s head with the butt of his revolver. ‘Sign it. You are wasting precious minutes.’
Mann went over to the writing desk. Its handmade parchment paper contract, a gold Duofold Parker pen waiting for Mann to use. He picked up the document. He glanced over it. He picked up the pen, held it tightly as he pressed, there was the faintest sound of a snap. He signed and leant over the desk, resting as he wiped the blood from his mouth. He recovered, stood back up. His body stopped hurting. His head cleared. His pulse slowed. His bleeding stopped. Mann’s body was turning to icy hatred. A bodyguard stood behind him, a gun at his back.
CK turned to Victoria. ‘This is the time you have waited for. You see me as old now, you think it is your time. You think that I must have grown tired of the business world and I want to retire.’ He paused. ‘Of course that is what you think, my darling daughter. You think you are being so clever: you would play us all. Ensnare Mann with your beauty and your sex, get your greedy hands on his father’s estate and then have me killed. I have no doubt that you would kill me yourself if you had to. But, it seems your ample feminine charms were not enough to turn him and I must do it myself. You will never be strong enough to be my successor. You have failed, my darling daughter.’
CK called and the door opened. Four more bodyguards entered the room. ‘Mann, before I kill you I want you to know that I watched Helen die. I went to that club often. I enjoyed the company of many women there but I had my favourites. They were friends of yours. Some of them you knew