The Waiting Game (Garvey Fields) (2 page)

Coco pivoted and sashayed across to the minibar, she had a nice walk that would only get better with age. She got a single malt miniature whisky out of the fridge and knocked it back before I could get to her. The sensation was new and she coughed and gagged violently dropping the glass and falling to her knees.

“Yep,” I said. “Too far from home, you’d have been easy meat and all over the internet.”

She coughed some more, “I don’t feel good.”

“Probably a roofy, let’s get you to bed,”

She tried to get up herself but was like a deer on ice and skidded back to the floor. I went over to her lifted her up into my arms and carried her to her bed, slipped off her shoes and put a duvet over her. Then I returned to her half-dressed friend.

Her friend appeared to be sleeping too and I saw no reason to wake her, I turned the lights off and left the room.

Back in the corridor, two doors away from the girl’s room I could hear Marley One playing his own records. I got a call from the front desk as I walked towards Marley’s door.

“Yeah?” I said.

“Garvey its Veronica, we’ve got two ladies here say they were invited by Marley One as his guests and would like to come up to his room.”

“Can they hear you?”

“Nope.”

“What’s the deal?”

“Two high classed hookers I’m guessing.”

“Great because all we need is hookers, Marley One and his friends, and a couple of bags of coke. Tell them I am not permitting any guests onto his floor because we’ve had a security scare but if they would like to submit themselves to a security check first I’ll be happy to oblige.”

She did and they said they would send him a text message.

I knocked Marley One’s door.

No joy, so I let myself in and shut the door behind me with my shoulder, Marley was all alone.

He was in a big easy chair surrounded by what looked like a rain cloud of weed smoke. Despite the noise he was on his phone shouting down the mic instead of turning the volume down on the sound system.

“Yeah.” He said to someone. “We had this bitch primed, ready to drop, slipped her a tab, had her twerking and shit. I'm telling you I was looking to put my dick in her ass, shut up nigga, that ain’t gay. So anyway, got a couple of high class hookers and some more tabs, yeah be here in like thirty minutes, house security is a pain in the ass though. Yeah some buck nigga.”

I logged into his rooms audio system from my tablet and turned the music off, I liked modern technology.

He looked up from his phone, “shit man got to go, thirty minutes yeah?”

“I’ve told you once to keep the noise down,” I said.

He smiled; it wasn’t a nice smile, but the kind of smile belonging to a man that really didn’t give a shit. Not so much Disney Club as psychopath. He’d probably been nice once, but a steady stream of hookers and drugs had warped his sense and sensibilities.

“Marley One hears you, he just don’t give a fuck,” he said referring to himself rather annoyingly in third person. “Marley One does whatever the fuck he likes, wherever he likes, whenever he likes, ain’t no one stopped his fine ass yet. So bounce nigga before I straighten you out, feel me?”

I looked around.

“Where are they?”

“What?”

“The audience.”

“What audience?”

“The one you're performing for, because you ain’t acting for me. Seriously aren’t you from Idaho or something?”

“You trying to get hurt?”

“No seriously, you shouldn’t travel without your carer, his job is stop you getting caught doing and saying stupid stuff like you're going to hurt the six-three, two hundred a fifty pound head of security who specializes in executive protection.”

“Don’t mean shit to me,” he said blank faced, still trying to figure out what executive security meant.

“Why you pick that girl?”

“Say what?”

“The girl I had to get away from you, why her?”

“Oh shit, that trick, playa please. Bet you fucked that one time, her ass should be out right about now. She had a fat ass and some titties, all trying to pop out of that mini dress. Came up to me in the bar talking about how she loves my music, can’t dance but I bet she can fuck. That’s what fans are for.”

“To drug a girl, put a dick in her ass, another in her mouth and one in her…”

“Pussy. Yeah shit would have been awesome, ain’t never tried that before. Would have filmed that shit too.

“You got issues you need counselling for, but that’s by the by. Keep the volume low, people are trying to sleep. In the big wide world you're a rising star smashing things to create a persona. At this hotel however you are a guest like the rest, but with a reputation that doesn’t do you favors. So because I’ve got a job to do I'm telling you nicely, keep it low or you will be leaving the hotel early with a headache.”

He smiled that little nasty smile again.

He picked up the audio remote from the table and turned on the most profane track he could find and turned the volume up high.

I wasn’t in the mood to push the teeth in of a rising star; it didn’t look good on the old resume so I resigned myself to pulling out the power lead of the audio system. He could entertain himself playing tunes on his cell phone.

I bent down next the system.

I’ve been hit in the head with a sap, brick and a shoe, but never a crystal highball glass.

That was until that moment.

The glass was cheap and didn’t have enough body to concuss me; it would give me a little welt mark and nothing else.

I stood up and took a step back, Marley should have done the same, but he didn’t so I slapped him with an open hand. It wasn’t my hardest strike but I had technique and calloused palms that added extra sting. The blow took him off his feet and into the couch; he reached into an open bag next to it and came out with a gun.

“They teach you moves like that in Idaho?” I said.

“Whatever man, I always bring the noise and this here Dessert Eagle is my spokesman,” he said smiling and fired a round.

The gun was loud and its roar was timed with gunshots on the track playing. The mirror next to the TV shattered, glass flew off it and cut my cheek like I’d shaved with a crooked razor and nicked myself. I could feel the wet of the blood begin to roll down my face.

I sprung off my feet and speared him with my left shoulder hitting him hard in the solar-plex. I used my right hand to knock the gun out of his hand and under the couch. I rolled off him and as I got to my feet I grabbed a handful of his dreadlocks and dragged him up, I had a lot of strength in my core.

He squealed in pain, but I wasn’t done.

Motherfucker tried to shoot me.

I employed some dirty boxing, punching him twice in the jaw with right hand, my left twisting his locks like dried out mop. I turned my hand violently as I hit him a third time.

Then I let go.

Stupid.

He should have got the message but I’d hurt his pride, so he hit me in the jaw with as much force as he could. The look on his face suggested he’d hurt his hand.

I grinned.

I caught his hand; goose necked his wrist so that he bent over, and punched him three in the stomach.

I had a nasty short punch.

I let go.

This time he vomited.

A lot.

I stepped back, picked up the gun and went to the bathroom, got him a towel and threw it at him. Next I went into his bedroom. Threw his clothes and accessories in his holdall and dragged it back to the lounge area.

Marley One was wiping his face with the towel, but still coughing. He braced himself against the back of the couch, his face wet with sweat.

“Get dressed,” I said. “And do it fast or go out now as you are, makes no difference to me but I'm not sure how your fans on Facebook and Instagram would take to a picture of you in this state.

He looked at me with hate and stumbled into the bathroom.

2

Quinn gave me one of those looks that said ‘what the hell have you done?’ when I came out of the elevators. His face was even paler than usual and scarred. Marley One came out of the elevator ahead of me dressed in designer jeans, designer walking boots, a fleece made from alpaca wool and pea coat made of unicorn hair. He walked like someone sulking, which he was, but his face didn’t look beat up. It was more like he’d been crying.

Despite his behavior I thought I was being nice pulling his holdall behind me, I’d even taken the time to enlist the help of Sebastian the night porter and computer whizz to assist with two further bags and the guitar Marley One probably learnt to play during his amateur dramatics days.

We arrived at the front desk with little drama, Quinn just stared.

“Is there a bill for a Mr. Marley One?” I snapped at the night manager, Veronica looked like she was stifling a giggle.

An image of her top bursting open flashed through my head.

“I don’t think…” Quinn began, trying to avoid eye contact with Marley One.

“Good, right, this way please Mr. One” I said and walked towards the front doors. The automatic doors slid open; an S-Class Mercedes was waiting in the valet area. I’d text Veronica ahead to arrange safe transfer to wherever Marley One desired, which was hopefully a plane to Idaho.

The driver hoped out in a nicely pressed navy blue uniform and loaded Marley One’s stuff into the trunk. Marley got into the car and put the window down.

“I’m sorry,” he said slowly, but it didn’t sound like an apology, so I waited for the rest. “I’m sorry for you man; you should have let me play my music. Shit ain’t pretty after this motherfucker.”

 I went back into the hotel after that and back to Marley’s room to make sure he didn’t have some overdosed girl in his bathroom and used condoms blocking up the toilets u-bend. I didn’t look at Quinn as I walked to elevators; there wasn’t anything he could say to me that would useful right then. I used the passkey to let myself back in and looked around the room for the spent shell from the stupid little boy’s big gun. It had ended up in the trashcan, I bent down and reached into get it but I didn’t get up straight away. There was something more interesting than a discarded bullet shell in it.

I took the small bin and emptied its contents onto the coffee table, bits of torn paper that had once been a letter with words from newspapers pasted onto it, tumbled out. It was like putting a puzzle together for the few minutes I spent figuring out which piece matched which. When I was done the letter read:

A HUNDRED GRAND BY FRIDAY DONALD. DAY AFTER YOU PLAY AT HUMMINGBIRD OR ITS BYE BYE. FROM HER BROTHER.

“Wow,” I heard myself say quietly. I put the pieces into one of the hotels survey envelopes and put that in my pockets.

I locked the room behind me and waited in the silence of the hallway for a while, then went to Coco and her friend’s room. I knocked gently and put my ear against the door, I could hear someone getting off a couch heavily then cursing as they misjudged the coffee table in the dark.

“What?” said the skinnier of the two guests in the suite.

“Garvey, head of security, can I have a quiet word?”

“Go on, I can hear you clearly.”

“The door makes communication less personal.”

“So let yourself in then,” she said and I heard her walk away from the door, flick the lights on and drop heavily onto her bed. As I entered she was just turning on a program on the Discovery Channel about poisonous frogs.

“You’re not sick, and you’re not drunk,” I said coolly. “Were you and your friend looking to run some kind of game on Marley? Perhaps film him raping you or your friend, steal from him, maybe threaten his family?”

She didn’t bite. It was a stab in the dark anyway. The likelihood that someone left what was essentially a blackmail note and then stayed the night a few doors away was a remote one.

“Guys like that are easy to manipulate.”

“How so?”

“They just want sex, and most of the time a promise is enough to get something out of them. In most cases it’s unlikely you’ll get anything after they’ve got what they wanted.”

I admired how calculated she was.

“Was it your friend’s turn tonight?”

“Something like that, what do you care.”

“He drugged and intended to ass rape your friend with a few of his buddies riding shotgun in her mouth and, well you know.”

She winced, “they drugged her?”

“Slipped something in a drink I think.”

“Wouldn’t have happened to me, I’m too paranoid. Silly girl. I usually work with far more experienced talent.”

“Any way, that show is over.”

“Why?”

“He decided to check out and seek accommodation elsewhere,” I said and watched her for a reaction.

“You men make me sick; think you know all the angles. Well fuck you,” she the feminist in a sudden rage and stormed off to the bathroom slamming the door loudly. Then she locked it from the other side.

I decided then would be a good time to look around the place for glue and offcuts from newspapers. Coco slept on one of the twin beds, I checked her pulse and her breathing, she was okay. I lingered longer than I should have looking at her body, one of her heavy breast had moved in such a way to be almost leaving through the top of her dress.

There was a bag at the foot of the bed, it was wrong.

In the bag was an invoice, a book by Leo Sullivan and a Beretta, I took out the invoice and slipped it into my jacket pocket.

“Jesus, you still here?” she barked as she came back into the room. “You know what happens to pervy security that decides to let themselves into the room of single young females scantily dressed?”

“Don’t know, maybe they get shot.”

Her face lost all its humor and she glared at me, then looked to the bedroom where the bag was.

She knew.

“Did you know he was in Chicago you know Marley One hasn’t played in New York for about two years and back then he was a support act for Jay-Z or someone?”