Not My Thing

‘The Whipping room for fifty? Run away, Lucky. I’m busy.’

Lucan had expected this reaction. He knew Lucy to be very tough.

‘Look, Lucy dear, let me explain the setup. A rich client of mine wants to put his wife out of the way for two weeks. She is a little scatty in the head and has caused him a lot of trouble. He just wants to lose her for two weeks so he can do a business deal. He consulted me and I thought of the Whipping room. It’s an ideal place to keep this woman. It’s only for two weeks. No problem. How about it?’

‘Why doesn’t he send her to a clinic if she’s scatty?’

‘Because she isn’t scatty enough and wouldn’t go. She’ll have to be kidnapped, dear Lucy. Now don’t get excited. She’ll be brought here under sedation. She won’t know where she is. You won’t be involved. When the time comes for her to be released, she will again be sedated. You won’t be implicated, and it will be an easy fifty thousand in your pocket.’

Lucy smelt money. That was something she couldn’t resist.

‘What you are telling me is a woman is to be kidnapped and hidden in the Whipping room… right?’

‘That’s it.’

‘And you’re offering twenty-five thousand a week to house her here?’

‘Dead easy money, Lucy,’ Lucan said, flashing on his charming smile. ‘We’ll fix it someone will take care of her. You don’t have to bother. Just shut off the Whipping room and pick up a nice fifty grand.’

‘Kidnapping is a Federal offence,’ Lucy said. ‘No! Go elsewhere. Run away, Lucky. You’re wasting my time.’

‘There’ll be no blow-back. This woman is scatty. The husband will say she’s in a clinic. The cops nor the Feds won’t come into it. Come on, Lucy! What’s your price?’

‘Who is this woman?’

‘Don’t ask me. I wouldn’t know, nor do I care. I’m acting as a go-between. What’s your price?’

Lucy thought. There was a long pause.

‘Two weeks only?’ she asked, staring at Lucan, her eyes hard.

‘No more and utterly safe, Lucy. What’s your price?’

‘For a risky job like this, two hundred thousand,’ Lucy said. ‘For that I’ll rent you the Whipping room for two weeks.’

‘That’s crazy!’ Lucan exclaimed. ‘I could easily find some place else, but I wanted to do you a favour. Look, let’s say sixty a week. How’s that?’

Then began the haggling. After twenty minutes, Lucan, now sweating, agreed the sum should be one hundred thousand a week with a ten thousand cash down-payment. As it wasn’t his money, he didn’t really care. He promised to let Lucy have the down-payment by tomorrow and she agreed the Whipping room would be closed to clients as soon as she had the deposit.

Feeling a little limp, but triumphant, Lucan got in his car and drove fast to the Star Motel.

It so happened that Lepski, sitting in his car, brooding about Carroll, had spotted Lucan as he drove past in his rented Mercedes. Because he hated Lucan, Lepski decided to follow him. He was surprised to see Lucan enter Lucy Loveheart’s residence. He had waited and saw Lucan leave. He wondered what a gigolo like Lucan was up to in Lucy’s brothel.

6

When Jamison had left Kling, he drove up to the highway and headed towards the city. The heavy traffic irritated him. He wanted a long pause to think, so, at the next layby, he pulled in and cut the car engine. He leaned back in the car and lit a cigarette.

A shrapnel bomb!

This man Kling was a true professional! Who would have thought of such a perfect solution but a true professional?

He nodded to himself. An ingenious idea! No one would suspect him. At that early hour of 08.30, when the service would be over, there would be few, if anyone, passing the church. Kling was a professional. He was sure either to disguise himself or to make certain not to be seen when he threw the bomb.

Not for one moment did Jamison consider those people who would be wiped out as they stood in the church doorway, shaking hands and listening to the priest’s blessing.

He thought about Kling. That lean, evil face! Jamison was sure that, given the money, Kling would rid him of Shannon.

On Friday morning, he would be free! He would telephone Tarnia in Rome and gently break the news that Shannon was no more. He would tell her of what a terrible shock it had been to him that this brutal assassination had happened, involving Shannon.

Thinking, looking back, he now regretted not calling in a professional killer long before this. Next month, he would be fifty years of age, which was not the best time in a man’s life to raise a family, but, he thought, better late than never.

Friday!

He then thought he would be faced with forty-eight hours before Kling went into action.

The thought of spending these long, tense hours under the same roof as Shannon, knowing she would be dead on Friday, became unthinkable.

No!