Ramm glanced back at the heaving breasts of Bitsy, saw a spot he’d not yet covered in soap, or by his lips, and thought twice about answering the urgent ringing of his doorbell. But then, for what he had in mind he’d need all of his strength.
‘I’d best get that,’ he said. ‘It’s probably the pizza guy.’
‘We can eat later,’ Bitsy pouted. ‘That’s if you’re still hungry.’
With an appraising eye cast over her voluptuous curves, Ramm winked at her. He nodded at the shower stall. ‘This is simply the entre.’ He gestured at the large bed in the adjoining room. ‘That there’s for afters. But for the main course we have a couple of Joey’s special twelve inchers. We’ll both be thankful of the extra nourishment.’
Bitsy’s eyes flashed with lurid delight, and her voice was breathy. ‘I’m sure I just had a twelve inch as my entre, I’m not sure I could take any more.’
Ramm grunted out a laugh. ‘Thanks for the compliment, but you exaggerate surely?’
‘And there was me thinking that wasn’t a loofa you kept running up and down my back.’
Bitsy retreated beneath the warm water, pulling too the glass door. Ramm listened to the doorbell, but didn’t rush to answer it. Through the misted glass he watched Bitsy lather up, and was glad that he’d ordered the Joey Special, with all the trimmings on top. Bitsy was voracious, but Ramm was all for sating her appetite.
The bell continued its incessant ringing. Joey had a fifteen minutes promise: if his pizza arrived late, the customer didn’t pay. Whoever had delivered the takeout food wasn’t prepared to go back to the shop empty-handed.
‘OK, I’m coming. Give me a second, will ya?’ Ramm didn’t head directly for his apartment door. He went to the closet in the corner of his bedroom and pulled open the doors. Hanging among his suits and shirts was a shoulder holster, in it a matte black pistol. As he walked through the living room for the door he spun the chamber making an unnecessary visual check that the gun was fully loaded. He picked up his wallet from the coffee table. There was a spy hole in his door, but Ramm didn’t place his eye to it. Too many people had fallen foul of the old “shoot through the spyhole when it grows dark” ploy. Ramm never used the spy hole. It was there to draw in the unwary assassin, while he viewed them through the hidden fisheye lens of the CCTV camera hidden lower down the doorframe in an artistically designed, but wholly natural-looking knot in the wood. He checked out the small monitor on the wall next to the door.
Outside stood Old Gampie, the regular delivery guy from Joey’s place. He was holding two boxes flat on both his palms. He wasn’t the one pressing the doorbell. Two large men stood close enough behind him for the steam from the pizzas to mist their shades. One of them leaned past Old Gampie, keeping steady pressure on the doorbell. Ramm frowned.
He pushed the gun down the back of his towel, then rattled the door chain. The two guys in shades stepped aside, so that Ramm would see only the delivery guy on opening the door. Both of them took out guns he was unhappy to note, so it stood to reason they were up to no good.
Regardless, Ramm opened the door.
Gampie was no more Italian than Ramm was. He was an African American, an old school tough guy from Harlem back in the day. Nowadays his Afro was cropped short and white as snow, his flared jeans, silk shirts and platform shoes replaced with a red cotton jacket, with JOEY’S stitched on the breast pocket, khaki trousers and pumps. One time, Ramm had seen the old guy’s shirt fall open and he’d seen the faded clenched fist tattoo on his pigeon chest. Back in the seventies Gampie was into Black Power, but now he was as faded as his tattoo, and barely had the power to lift more than a couple of twelve inch pizzas at once. Ramm liked the old fella and was pissed that he’d been caught in the middle of Ramm’s troubles.
The old man didn’t speak. He rolled his rheumy eyes right and left. Ramm winked at him.
‘I shouldn’t have to pay for these,’ Ramm said, as he quickly took hold of the boxes. ‘Your fifteen minutes is up. I just bet these are cold by now.’
‘Uh-uh. Scalding hot,’ Gampie told him, with another roll of his eyes.
‘That’s good,’ Ramm said, and flipped open the top box. Hot steam wafted up. ‘Mmm. Extra garlic, too.’
Ramm handed Gampie forty bucks and told him keep the change. ‘Now go on, get outta here, or you’ll be late for your next customer as well.’
Grateful for the quick escape, Gampie spun on his heel and alighted the stairs down to street level. His flight was enough to draw the attention of both big guys for the few seconds it took Ramm to drop his wallet and the unopened box, and to dip one hand under the steaming hot pizza in the other.
As the first of the big guys stepped around the frame to wedge open the door with his foot, he was met by the twelve inch special that draped over his entire features like a hot rag. Melted mozzarella wasn’t quite napalm, but you wouldn’t know it from the muffled shriek of agony as the man clawed at his burning face, dropping his gun in the process. Ramm ignored him, snapped a hand down on the wrist of the second man and dragged him into the open. Ramm nutted him full in the nose. The bridge of the man’s nose flattened and his shades slipped down his face as it lengthened in pain and shock. Ramm dragged the man inside and kicked him over. The man stayed on his knees, his fingers prodding and pushing as he tried to reshape his features and to stem the flow of blood. He too had dropped his gun, and Ramm toed it out of reach.
The first man had bent at the waist as he clawed melted cheese and peperoni out of his eyes. Ramm grabbed hold of his jacket collar and dragged him inside, flinging him down by his pal. From behind his back, Ramm withdrew his revolver and pointed it lazily in their direction. He stooped to pick up the man’s dropped gun and set it aside, while wondering who had sent these bums after him.
A slow clap answered the unspoken thought.
Ramm turned to regard the third man walking up his steps.
The middle-aged man was smiling lazily, his teeth as white and perfect as in a toothpaste advertisement. His hair was as neat as his tailored suit, only a few shades darker than his tanned skin. Ramm recognised the guy.
He was called Adrian Cannon. A big cheese, multi-millionaire entrepreneur, a humanitarian and philanthropist supposedly, a player definitely. Lately Cannon was a regular guest speaker on the TV news since his daughter Shelly had gone missing. All of his connections hadn’t meant a damn thing when it came to getting his daughter back.
Ramm let the man see his gun.
Cannon smiled, giving him a flash of his pearly whites. ‘You won’t need that pistol, Mr Ramm. I come in peace.’
‘So what’s with the dumb clucks you sent to ring my bell?’ Ramm made a quick check of the men behind him, but neither was in a fit state to trouble him.
‘Oh, they were just a little test. To ensure I’d found the right man.’
‘All you had to do was come to the door, state your business, and I’d have confirmed you’d come to the right place.’
‘I knew I was at the right place. I only had to ensure that I had the right kind of man. I wished to witness first hand how you handled yourself in a pinch, before offering you a fortune in cash.’ Cannon stood on the threshold. He cast a glance over his two incapacitated thugs. ‘Seems the rumours about you were unfounded. I’m very impressed, Mr Ramm.’
‘I’m not. You made me waste a good pizza, and it’s not the only thing getting cold. You have a job on offer I take it? So come in and let me close the door.’
Cannon stepped inside the hall, avoiding the splatters of cheese and blood decorating the floor. His men had regained enough of their composure to blink up at him in shame. Cannon aimed one of his searchlight bright smiles at them. ‘Don’t worry guys; you’ll still receive the agreed fee for your assistance. Now I suggest you get yourselves out of here before Mr Ramm decides to make you clean the floor.’