The Tornado Sojourns (5) – Chapter 4 – Entrapment

 

It was the day after the chance meeting with the Skeet brothers that Coll put the plan, meant to cleanse his shame, into action, and it was a plan hatched when he got his first diagnosis at the Mission Clinic.

The first part was quite simple and involved luring the greedy and grasping Knarf Dann to his house, and he decided the best way to do that was with the lure of money or valuables.

The only snag being that he didn’t have any of either, so he had to be creative.

He spent a couple of weeks trawling street markets looking for any items that might suit his needs, and when he had acquired some suitable candidates he took them home and set about converting the drab worthless junk into shiny expensive looking bait.

Before the Shaxon war he and his wife Silia lead a quiet peaceful life on the agrarian planet Shax.

But when he wasn’t toiling on the land he indulged his hobby which was repurposing any old junk on the farm, like old farm implements and making something aesthetically pleasing from them either for their home or to sell at market.

During the war it preserved his sanity and after leaving the Shaxson system it provided him with a living.

So, once he had accumulated his bits of junk he began to cannibalise the bits from each piece in order to produce the eye-catching bait he was looking for.

The item he finished up with appeared to be an old Earth pocket time piece, complete with heavy chain, made from Gold, in truth the watch itself was a base metal trinket box, painted gold, and the chain was actually a cheap alloy also painted gold.

The whole thing looked very impressive, providing you didn’t look too closely, but he was counting on Knarf Dann being blinded by greed.   

So part one was complete, the second part involved making sure Knarf saw the bait and that would be achieved by way of an improvised meeting.

Coll knew that Knarf was a regular at the local bar at the end of the alley and was generally in the bar between six and seven most evenings, so Coll made sure he was in there in plenty of time, he was worried when he was drinking with the Skeets earlier that they might delay him.

Coll got himself in a position, so he could see through the window and spot when Knarf approached the bar, then he drained his glass quickly and made sure he was on his feet directly in his targets path as he entered, so he was stood blocking his way as he put on his overcoat.

“Get out of my way” He sneered, and Coll made an exaggerated movement to get his arm through the armhole and could see by the expression on Knarf’s face the precise moment he saw the fake Gold Watch clearly visible peeking out of Coll’s inside coat pocket.

“I’m going, I’m going” Coll said and made his goodbyes to the other patrons he had been conversing with, fully satisfied that the bait had been well and truly taken.

He knew he had plenty of time to walk back to his house as the Knarf Dann would have to stay in the bar as was his normal habit so as not to draw suspicion on himself.

Once he was through the front door he quickly took off his coat remembering to retrieve the prize from his pocket and went straight to the sitting room.

He had now reached the third and decisive part of his plan which he had pondered on long and hard.

As he would soon be dead he intended to regain his self-respect by addressing the situation of allowing himself to be intimidated by a petty crook before it was too late.

Before sitting down, he adjusted the angle of his armchair so that it faced the door he had just come in through, but was not visible from the doorway until the door was fully open, then he sat down and with his left hand picked up the Pulsar Laser from the table.

The weapon was his trusted sidearm from his time as a Corvette Captain in the Shaxon War, which hadn’t seen the light of day since he first arrived in Ditton.

He spent most of the previous day cleaning it and fully charged it, then fired a test shot in his lockup.

He covered the sofa with a large heavy-duty flexible alloy sheet that he used to cover his Runabout.

The sheet wasn’t meant to conceal the crime, he just didn’t want to ruin the furnishings for the next tenant.

At first, he thought he would just scare a confession out of Knarf, but it would never have held up in front of a Justice and he would retract it as soon as he could, so he had resolved to kill him quickly and cleanly and then give himself up. 

Coll knew Knarf Dann would come through the front door, so he just sat there and waited, he didn’t suppose it would be long, the lure of a large lump of Gold is very strong to a hardened criminal, and he was proved right, when he heard the wood splinter on the front door.

Knarf Dann had stayed little more than an hour at the bar and was now inside the house.

Coll transferred the weapon into his right hand and pointed it in the direction of the door.

What Coll hadn’t considered until that moment was the possibility that he wouldn’t come alone, but then he thought he was far too greedy to share the spoils of such an easy score.

 

The door handle turned, and the door began to move and suddenly it was wide open, and Knarf rushed in.

“Hello Coll, I thought I’d come for a little visit” He said looking round the room.

“I think you have something for me…”

He left the sentence unfinished when he saw the Pulsar Laser for the first time and started to edge backwards to the door.

“No need to rush off, come in and sit down, make yourself comfortable as you’ve come for a visit”

Nonetheless Knarf Dann carried on edging backwards then Coll primed the Laser and a feint hum could be heard, and his visitor turned white, which caused Coll to smile.

“Sit down” Coll said again, and this time he did sit down on the flexible alloy sheet.

“Is that thing supposed to frighten me?” Knarf said trying and failing to regain his bravado.

“No, it’s supposed to kill you” Coll replied coldly, and Blake started to shake

“No, please” he begged

“You don’t have to kill me, I’ll leave you alone from now on, I promise, please don’t kill me”

“Why should I spare your life, you miserable piece of Adnarian scum?”

“I beg you please don’t kill me, I don’t want to die”

“Did Sonda beg for her life before you beat her to death?” Coll asked coldly, “Why should I spare your life, you didn’t spare hers?”

“It wasn’t me, I’m innocent” he stammered

Coll was shaking with rage now, all the anger at his shame and cowardice was coming to the fore, he wanted to tell Knarf how he had stained his life, how he made him feel about himself, but the words wouldn’t come, instead he sat and stared at the snivelling creature before him and decided now was as good a time as any.