Psychosphere

Chapter 1 Two pairs of eyes watched Richard Garrison and Vicki Maler leave their holiday residence and disappear into the maze of steep narrow streets leading down into the heart of the Greek island villa≥ two pairs, neither one aware of the other. One pair belonged to a thief, the other to an assassin. The latter, Joe Black by name, was seated at a table on the raised patio of the taverna where the pair he watched normally breakfasteda taverna they were obliged to pass on any excursion away from their accommodationwhose open-air eating area presented Black with a distant but unobstructed view of the door to their courtyard, seen above rising tiers of flat white rooftops. The village, dropping down into a valley or bay, seemed to have been built on much the same lines as an auditorium or amphitheatre; for which kindness Black gave the ancient architects a generous ten. It made his task as observer that much easier. Black woreLederhosenand braces, a wide-brimmed straw hat and an open-neck shirt loud with red and yellow flowers. He was not Germandespite his dress, his fat face and cigarbut Cockney: the hired hand of a middling Mafia boss, Carlo Vicenti, who once owned a quarter-share of one of London's less reputable and far more profitable casinos. Richard Garrison now owned that quarter-share, a fact which irked Vicenti more than a trifle. Hence Joe Black's presence here in Lindos, Rhodes, the Aegean. Black was not alone on Rhodes: a second hit-man, his brother Bert ("Bomber Bert Black," to his dubious circle of friends), waited in Rhodes town itself. Bert was the "hard" part of the team on this occasion. That is to say, his was the hand which would directly terminate Garrison's life. Brother Joe's role was simply to tell him when to do it. Just a minute or so after 11:00, the subjects of Black's covert surveillance emerged from an alley into the narrow "main" street, crossing it to climb wooden stairs to the breakfast patio. He waited for them to seat themselves close by, waited again until they engaged the waiter's attention and started to give him their orders, then folded his shielding newspaper and left. He glanced only once at the pair as he went, his eyes lingering momentarily on the black-as-night lenses and frames which Garrison wore. A blind man, this Garrison, allegedly. Black snorted as he descended the stairs to the street and made his way towards the open village square and coach-and-taxi booking office. "Huh!" The damnedest blind man he had ever seen! And his mind went back to the first time he ever came into contact with Garrison... That had been at the Ace of Clubs, where on occasion Black had used to do bouncer (or "floor attendant" as the dealers and their minders preferred it). The "blind" man had come in one night with his woman, also blind, the first time they had ever visited the place. The last, too, if Black's memory served him correctly. As patrons, anyway. He snorted again: "Huh!" Well, and hadn't once been enough? That had been, oh, six or seven months ago, but Black remembered it like yesterday... ...Remembered Garrison buying one large pink chip worth fifty pounds sterling, and the way he had casually crossed to the central roulette wheel to toss the chip onto the table's zero. And how with the next spin the ball had dropped, as if pre-ordained, directly into that very slothow in fact it had fallen into that slottwicein succession. And how Garrison had let the spoils of his first incredible gamble ride! The gasps of shock, astonishment and appreciation that went up then had been the summons which brought the boss,Lumley, Brian is the author of 'Psychosphere' with ISBN 9780312851910 and ISBN 031285191X.