One Dead Witness by Nick Oldham

clock.
4.03, the green figures informed her. Time to get up in just over
three hours’ time.
    She cursed, gingerly resettled herself in the bed, eyes wide
open, all senses switched on full blast.
    ‘ Sleep ... sleep ... deep sleep,’ she willed herself
rhythmically.
    From outside she heard a noise which sent a shock right
through her. A kind of scraping that put her teeth on edge. Metal
on metal. Then a cracking, snapping sound, like a dry twig being
broken in two.
    She listened hard. Her body tensed up.
    Silence.
    She relaxed, breathed out, certain she was hearing things that
were not there.
    It came again, the scraping.
    She flung back the duvet and shot out of bed in an instant,
crossing the room, drawing the curtain back just far enough to see
out. Her car was parked in the short driveway in front of her
house, partly obscured by a tree in the garden.
    She put a hand over her eyes to eliminate the glare from the
nearby street lamp.
    Nothing. No movement. Bugger all.
    Just imagination. Or cats screwing.
    She uttered an expletive, let the curtain fall back, trotted
to the 100, then dropped wearily back into bed.
    At 4.10 she closed her eyes and was immediately
asleep.
    At 4.11 a full house brick, expertly aimed, exploded through
her bedroom window, shattering glass with a sound like a shotgun
blast. It powered its way past the curtain and landed on Danny’s
pillow, only inches from her face, showering her with
glass.
    A particularly nasty shard sliced into her left
cheek.
     
     
    ‘ This is nice, Steve, I’m really impressed,’ Myrna nodded
approvingly. She heaped another forkful of the excellent Arroz con pollo into her
mouth and licked her lips after she had consumed it.
    ‘ Yeah, and it’s also owned by Mario Bussola,’ he said, adding
begrudgingly, ‘and every damn cent we spend in here goes from our
accounts into his. We are helping to support his
lifestyle.’
    ‘ Aw, it don’t stop it being nice though,’ Myrna said through
another mouthful of chicken. ‘We might as well get something good
out of this before we all lose our ‘jobs,’ she concluded
wickedly.
    Kruger frowned, unhappy at being unable to relax. Had the
circumstances been different he could really have enjoyed the
evening and no doubt have chanced it with Myrna, even though she
was strictly a ‘no no’ on his list as far as women were concerned -
i.e. married and employed by him. A very uncool
combination.
    He tried to chill out and soak in the atmosphere. It wasn’t
easy, not least because of the radio under his left arm, gun at his
back, earpiece in his ear and transmit button stuck to his
palm.
    The Club Montoya was a nightclub situated in the basement of
the Hotel Montoya. The hotel was perhaps one of Bussola’s finest
establishments, if not the finest of the seven hotels he owned. It
was also one of South Beach’s hottest locations. The hotel was Art
Deco done to death, all the rage with the young business end of
Miami, with four themed restaurants, two pools, a sports complex
and very, very superior-priced rooms.
    The nightclub, open from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. every day, and
soundproofed from the hotel, had become very much the place for
everyone who was anyone to be seen in. Gays, Latinos,
cross-dressers. Even white male heterosexuals.
    It had a dozen bars and two restaurants, one of which clients
had to skirt through to enter the nightclub proper. This was the
one in which Kruger and Myrna were sitting. It served expensive,
but highly palatable Cuban food.
    Kruger hoped the information given by Felicity about her
wayward husband’s whereabouts ‘sometime tonight’ was good gen.
Otherwise it would be a wasted evening and Kruger wanted to spend
as little time and effort on a case which would bring his company
nothing in terms of money or kudos.
    He hoped to end it tonight by jumping onto Bussola’s trail,
finding him with a piece of unofficial ass, reporting the news back
to Felicity, together with some evidence, and then - zap!