eyes and short cut, expensively untidy hair was black. He had a Mediterranean look. As Cobb watched a lean, gorgeous, tanned beauty in a long green dress, low neck line and smooth rounded cleavage, decorated with pearls came over and stood at the end of the table by the roulette wheel. Her auburn hair was ‘up’ showing a smooth tanned neck. Cobb was smitten.
He placed five twenty pound chips around the table, all on black numbers and a hundred pounds in chips on the black.
When red nineteen came up, the ball clattering to a halt in the ‘cup’ there was an unhappy sigh from the older lady.
“Now you owe me a spin. “ She said laughingly.
Again the good looking young man smiled faintly.
Both he and Cobb repeated their bets, Cobb knowing that he’d be out in two turns if he lost again, but he and the young man were lucky. The spinning wheel slowed clattering the ball into black twenty. A pile of chips to the sum of three hundred and sixty made its way to Cobb’s left and Cobb got his two hundred. The older American woman laughed aloud when she got her three hundred and sixty.
“Now we’re even. We make a good team!” The young man didn’t reply, but gave a knowing look to the girl in the green dress. She returned the look. The American woman saw the connection and accepted her defeat at the perfectly manicured hands of the younger woman. The young man was not to be the lady’s.
“Maybe I’ll try ‘blondie’ here, what say handsome?” She leaned over Cobb’s way.
“Sure I’m going red this time if you want in?”
“Hey! Fellow American! We should stick together baby.”
The young man bet tens around the black ten and Cobb bet red, putting fifty on red and a hundred on the red three. The lady put all of her chips, seven hundred pounds, on red three.
When the wheel clattered to a stop it was black two. The old lady groaned. Cobb rose to go.
“What say you buy me a drink handsome and we’ll call it quits.” The American woman stumbled as she got up. Cobb nodded. As she walked towards him he noted her mutton dressed as lamb look, but figured her for a sure thing in her state.
“I’m staying at Claridge’s, you want to come back, get a little champagne and room service?” he asked giving her wink.
“You rogue, you want to take advantage of a rich widow.” She took his arm.
“It’s a thought at that.” He said and led her to a taxi. She wasn’t a dream girl, but it wouldn’t be a total loss if he got laid.
A taxi took them back to the hotel, she was drunkenly noisy and Cobb had steered her quickly through reception up to the room. She was impressed with the suite. They ordered champagne and food. He ordered a bottle of bourbon and got good and drunk. The American woman, Betty, was well preserved bodily, plastic surgery had been good to her, but Cobb couldn’t have slept with her sober. She guzzled champagne and chattered inanely.
After finally getting into a ‘clinch’ they staggered to the bed and sweated half an hour away together, she thinking of the young man and Cobb fantasising she was the auburn haired girl.
Betty, blind drunk, flopped unconscious after their first coupling and Cobb drank some bourbon, smoked a cigarette and went back to the bed and ‘used’ her whilst she was comatose. Finally he left her slumped on the bed, had a shower and drank some coffee. It was two in the morning when he arranged spare blankets on the suite lounge sofa and settled down with the television.
He’d ordered cold cuts and crusty bread along with fruit, salad and snacks. He watched the news eating a beef and horseradish sandwich. News twenty four was covering the riot at Underworld. When they mentioned Mason’s name he chuckled. So Mason knew he’d lucked out and had gone for a night out, silly man. Still he hoped the ‘fella’ got away. They’d got on well during the time on the submarine. Betty’s snores made him look in on her. He covered her tanned old skin with the duvet, thinking her not too bad when he didn’t look too hard.
He went back to the sofa, turned off the television and fell asleep thinking about how sore the old broad was going to be when she woke up.
London
2AM
April 19th
‘Leash’s face seemed to glow golden brown in the light of bedside lamp. She stirred when he eased himself away. Mason looked at the clock. It was two in the morning. He knew he had to get out of the house.
The sound of the shower woke ‘Leash’ and she stood in the bathroom doorway naked with ruffled black hair watching him shower.
“Are you going?”
“Yeah. I have to move on. “The shower stopped and he stepped out and towelled himself. She went downstairs and he heard the kettle boiling. He was quickly dressed and when he got to the kitchen she stood arms folded by two cups of coffee on the kitchen side. She had lit a cigarette. He held the stolen Sig 220 in his hand.
“Those things will kill you.” He said waving the weapon at her cigarette.
“Ditto tough guy.” Her smoke waved at the gun barrel.
He tucked the pistol in the back of his waist band and picked up his coffee. He broke a short silence between them.
“Look I’m in the UK to do this one job. It’s a big job and a lot of money. After that I have to head for a non extradition country, like South America or something…” He trailed off. He'd never before wanted to say what was on his mind at that moment, but the feeling he got when he looked at her was strong.
“If you’d like to hook up… I could contact you… I mean…” Again he trailed off and she moved towards him, dropping her cigarette in her freshly made cup of coffee. She put her arms around him and held him tight.
“I’d like that. I had a feeling about you. It’s got stronger now.” She ended the embrace and put her face close to his, kissed him gently, twice on the lips. “Do your job, get out and call me I’ll come running, really I will.”
“Listen,” his face became serious, “The people after me are good, really good, so they will get here sooner or later. Tell them nothing. Tell them we met, you cut my hair, we arranged to meet and we spent the night together. Tell them nothing else. I’m not a bad man ‘Leash’, I just kill for a living. The people I kill have generally done something bad so it’s like pest control. Thousands of people are killed in accidents every year, through doctors’ negligence, company health and safety lapses, you name it. I was a soldier once and I killed on government orders, so killing isn’t so bad if there’s money or a reason behind it. They’ll tell you I’m evil, that I’m a murderer, but they’ll kill me on sight if they see me and say it’s in the interests of national security. Don’t believe what they tell you about me. When we get together again I’ll tell you all about me and my life and you can decide. I wish I had time now. I’ve wanted to share my story with someone for years, now you’ve come along I’ve got to go…”
‘Leash’ touched his face gently. “It’s okay Marc I understand.” Mason suddenly laughed.
“My name is Mason, Peter Mason, sorry I forget sometimes.” ‘Leash’ laughed too and held out her hand to shake.
“How do you do Peter Mason I’m Aliesha Jones.”
They laughed and embraced. They said goodbye quickly and from the open doorway she watched him walk away. Tired she went back to bed, able to smell him on the sheets. She smiled and early morning day dreams of life on a tropical beach in South America filled her head.
Mason went to the motorbike, wheeled it into the road and started it up. He followed the map in his head back to the Bickenhall Hotel. He kept to back roads, twisting and turning through an indirect route, not just because of those giving chase, but because he had no helmet and he didn’t want the police to stop him. Two or three times on the short winding journey his mind turned to ‘Leash’, but he shook her out of his head. He had to be serious and clear headed, no time for school boy romance now.
He rode up to within fifty metres of the hotel, parked the bike and dropped the key down a drain. He walked past the hotel and saw an open window, two floors up. Each window on the white frontage had a ledge above the old sash window. The first floor windows had a balcony and rails. Mason jumped, scrabbled and made a route up to the open window as if the hotel front was a climbing wall. Finally standing on the narrow window ledge he slowly
