Ghosts by Matt Rogers (ap literature book list txt) 📕

Icke heard him.

‘No!’ his voice bellowed. ‘No, no, no, no. You are mistaken, my friend. That’s not how this is going to go. Come in. Hurry.’

King froze halfway down the corridor, gun up.

‘I’m not in the mood!’ Icke roared, still unseen. ‘I’m not going to have a Mexican standoff with a thug like you. Get in here now, and we’ll talk this out like men.’

King thought, You’re not a man. You’re a boy.

But he followed the judge’s orders.

Because that’s what you’re supposed to do.

Yes, Your Honour.

He materialised in the doorway like an apparition.

His worst fears came true.

The room had a desk, a chair, an overabundance of pot plants, a radiator in the corner. A set of handcuffs dangled off the end of the radiator, the loose cuff still swinging. It had been freshly used. A sight to make anyone sick. It showed entrapment, resistance, fear — someone held against their will.

Icke stood behind the desk with Elsa in front of him as a human shield.

A revolver pressed to her head.

It was the first time King had laid eyes on either of them.

Icke was exactly how he’d expected — big, maybe six two. Hair that had receded decades ago, a mixture of whites and reds and greys, and a complexion somehow even worse than Keith Ray’s. Ruddy, pockmarked, like a miniature battlefield across his cheeks. Eyes that blazed bright, but not with natural energy. The man was a stimulant fiend — King knew by taking one look at him. Slater was right. This wasn’t an old judge who knew how to compartmentalise. This was a man who accumulated such insidious power by never taking a moment off, never stopping and considering whether he was on the right path or not. Energy fell as the years ticked over, and he replaced the inevitable decline with a chemical cocktail to speed himself up.

His gun hand shook.

Not from fear.

Just like Ray’s.

Elsa was blonde haired and blue eyed like her mother, small and underfed and expressionless. King had seen the same look on her face in prisoners of war. There was a certain hopelessness, an abandonment of optimism. She thought she’d never get out. The gun to her temple was just a formality, and maybe an escape. If Icke pulled the trigger she wouldn’t have to cry anymore, wouldn’t have to worry, wouldn’t have to think.

There was promise in that.

The only promise she still felt.

Icke said, ‘You’re not a rival, are you?’

King said, ‘No.’

He had his SIG aimed square within the frame of Icke’s fat face, but he didn’t dare pull the trigger. Icke’s finger was tight on his own gun. One shot from King, and there’d be two casualties in the office.

Icke said, ‘No shit. I don’t have rivals. This is my town. So you’re something else.’

King remained still.

Didn’t move a muscle.

Didn’t speak.

A sharp contrast to the overstimulated, sweating, shaking judge.

‘If you were a rival, I’d be aiming at you,’ Icke said. ‘But you’re not. You’re here for her.’

‘I’m here for it all.’

‘So this is a takeover?’

‘No.’

Icke mulled it over. He couldn’t stop shaking. ‘Gloria sent you.’

‘No.’

‘I don’t see her. You’re here instead of her.’

‘We used her,’ King said. ‘To get to you.’

‘That’s not very brave of her,’ Icke said. ‘She’ll need a talking to, after I’m out of here.’

‘You’re staying right where you are.’

Icke jerked Elsa up by the hair. ‘Am I?’

She grimaced.

King looked at her, very briefly. He tried to give her a silent command. Be steady.

She seemed to understand. She stopped struggling.

Icke said, ‘Put your gun down.’

‘No.’

‘Then she’s dead.’

‘Then you’re dead.’

‘I don’t care.’

King smiled. ‘Yes you do.’

Silence.

King said, ‘If that’s the way you think it’s going to go, then pull the trigger.’

Elsa’s eyes blazed.

Hope had returned, which she probably considered cruel, considering she was about to die. Her benevolent rescuer, right in front of her. Freedom so close she could taste it.

Then Icke did something King didn’t expect.

He got brave.

He walked her out from behind the desk, barrelled her toward the doorway. King saw every inch of the movement. He processed every millisecond. The barrel of the revolver didn’t waver once. He had no shot.

Icke kept coming, slow and lumbering.

But coming all the same.

Decision time.

Step back, step out, let him pass.

He couldn’t go far.

Or keep filling the doorway, risk a collision, hope to capitalise in the chaos.

Chaos wouldn’t work this time.

She’d probably die.

King stepped back.

Stepped out.

Let them through.

77

Elsa managed a tiny, ‘No,’ before Icke manhandled her out of the office, his giant weight creaking the floorboards under the thin carpet. To King, nothing else in the world existed. The whole universe, condensed to this one moment, shrunk to Elsa and the barrel of the revolver.

There was no window.

King held.

Icke turned her around as soon as he was out of the office, facing King again. ‘So much for not going anywhere.’

King stood still.

Icke was beginning to feel it. He stopped shaking. The congestion and chaos inside his body fell away, replaced by focus. He got sharper. He held the gun tighter.

King didn’t move.

But he saw the rest of the corridor.

A silhouette, looming behind Icke.

Icke smiled. ‘Tell your friend behind me if he lays so much as a finger on me this trigger gets pulled. If he goes for the gun, the trigger gets pulled. If he goes for the girl, the trigger gets pulled.’

King didn’t react.

His insides twisted.

He said, ‘Stand down, Slater. Come here.’

The silhouette hovered.

King said, ‘Now.’

Slater limped around Icke, past Elsa, and stood next to King.

78

Icke looked at Slater. ‘Your buddy’s smarter than you are.’

Slater said, ‘Is he?’

‘And I’m smarter than the both of you.’

‘Are you?’

‘Of course. Like I wouldn’t be monitoring Keith Ray like the goddamn NSA. A man that unhinged, that depraved?’

King thought, The pot and the kettle.

But he didn’t say a word.

Nor did Slater.

They bristled.

Icke said, ‘I know where you live.’

Silence.

Icke said, ‘Took me a while but I traced it. I’ve already deployed the rest of my men. Say goodbye to those other two. Your girlfriends, I take it?’

King’s phone buzzed in his pocket.

Without taking