Assault on the Empress (10 page)

When they stopped at the K-Mart, Lewis Babcock had asked, “Why do you want to stop here?”

“Lewis. Hotel rooms offer some potential for improvising weapons, certainly; but when we have such a vastly richer opportunity open to us, we'd be fools not to take advantage of it. Wouldn't we?”

As they had driven from Ernie's sister's house, Hughes had worked up a list. He tore the list in half now and gave one half to Babcock. “Remember with the steak knives, not the ones with serrated edges. Right?”

Hughes went through the store as methodically and as quickly as he could, purchasing a small crowbar, brass-headed carpet tacks, a claw hammer, ammonia, several pressure-sensitive wall switches, a hundred feet of electrical wire, black electrical tape, extension cords and—he counted himself in luck this time of year—an electric fan. The fan was on sale. He located Christmas tree lights. He found two pairs of safety goggles and two pairs of white workmen's coveralls in more or less correct sizes.

Babcock was already at the checkout counter, looking as though he felt slightly stupid. “You have everything, Lewis.”

“I even found your water pistols. They were on sale.”

“Good. I hate spending too much for something,” Hughes enthused.

Out to the car with their purchases and a quick ride downtown, traffic at the hour relatively light for such a large city.

There were a few stares as they walked through the lobby, especially directed at the unbagged box for the electric fan, Hughes felt.

They checked Hughes's room. There had been no messages and nothing was disturbed. Each of them armed with a steak knife, they entered Babcock's room. No messages and nothing disturbed there either.

“You mind telling me what all this junk is for, Mr. Hughes?”

“I'll explain as we go, Lewis. First, check the water pistols that their good and tight and try to judge how true to aim they are at under a dozen feet. Use the shower as your backstop, And” —Hughes smiled—“if it's all the same to you, Lewis, I'd love the one that's shaped like a Luger. The green one.”

“You're joking.”

“No. And I haven't gone senile, either, Lewis. Hurry with that accuracy test,” and Hughes began unpacking the fan….

The green plastic Luger-shaped water pistol, Babcock had told him, shot a foot low at twelve feet and six inches to the left.

Darwin Hughes sat in darkness in a straight-backed chair in the far corner of his room, alone, the water pistol on the table beside him and alongside it, one of the pressure-sensitive switches, the switch bridged off the wall outlet beside the door leading into the corridor. Leading from the wall was an extension cord, which was connected to the two strings of Christmas tree lights over the door.

In the almost total darkness, he could read the luminous face of his Rolex perfectly well. It was 4:00 A.M. If the Devil's Princes were ever going to come, they would come within this next hour. If they didn't come, he would have lost an entire night's sleep for nothing and poor Ernie Hayes would be bound over from his pre-trial hearing and face a frame-up that he might never escape short of the kind of drastic measures that Hughes's brief meeting with Hayes's wife had confirmed Hayes himself would never condone.

The green and red Christmas lights came on.

Hughes took his fist and pounded once on the wall which adjoined Babcock's room. Two knocks came back, meaning that Lewis Babcock as well had seen the signal indicating someone had come through the emergency stairs exit door. The blue and yellow lights would have indicated someone coming down the hall from the direction of the elevators. Earlier in the evening, dressed in their K-Mart coveralls, they had pried up the carpet where it was seamed between the elevators and their rooms, doing the same thing just near enough to the emergency stairwell as well. Using a razor-blade knife to cut out the padding, they had inserted the pressure-sensitive light switches beneath the carpet in the niches cut to receive them in the padding. Running his electrical wire to the wall and then under the carpet edges to their rooms, he had a primitive but effective intruder alert system installed.

While there had still been considerable traffic in the corridor, every few minutes or so the lights from the direction of the elevators would come on. He would automatically click them off with the switch beside him on the nightstand. Once it had passed 2:00 A.M., he began taking the more infrequent lightings more seriously, waiting with his improvised weapons ready just in case it were the real thing.

It hadn't been yet.

But this was the first time the lights had signaled approach from the direction by the emergency stairs.

He shut off his green and red lights, assuming that Babcock would have done the same. He had guarded against one of them falling asleep by installing the lights in both rooms. However this turned out, Hughes somehow felt the hotel people wouldn't be terribly happy with their carpets.

There was a series of knocks on the wall. Hughes signaled back they were understood. To his feet, he moved quickly and silently across the room, his water pistol in his right hand.

The series of knocks had indicated someone was entering the room Babcock occupied.

Hughes's right fist balled on the Luger-shaped squirt gun. He pulled up his safety goggles from beneath his chin.

There was the sound of the safety chain next door being ripped out of the wall.

Hughes worked his own chain off and stepped into the corridor as the first scream came. A tall, thin black man wearing a nylon stocking over his head for a mask wheeled toward him, a .45 automatic in his right fist. Hughes fired for the man's eyes before the .45 could come on line, the startled man screaming something unintelligible as both hands went to protect his eyes, Hughes's body slamming him to the floor.

Hughes could hear the sound of the electric fan now and then, someone shouting, “My eyes. Motherfucker!” Hughes's right knee smashed up into the base of the downed man's jaw, putting him out. Hughes's gloved left fist grabbed up the .45, his right hand sweeping over the slide to chamber a first round if one weren't already chambered.

He was through the doorway, shouting, “Lewis! Me!”

One of the men was down on the floor, rubbing his eyes and screaming, the other man locked in combat with Lewis Babcock. There was a .45 beside the man rolling around on the floor and Hughes caught it up in his right fist as he passed him, crossing the room in two strides, upping the safety of the .45 automatic as he laced the pistol across the side of the third man's neck. The body slumped to its knees. Lewis Babcock sagged back against the wall. “I can't believe it! This idiocy worked.”

Hughes grinned. “Turn off the electric fan, will you. I'll catch a draft.”

He walked over to the other man, satisfied himself the situation was static for ten seconds and went into the hallway. He grabbed the semi-conscious man out of the corridor and dragged him inside the room, then closed the door. The chain was ripped from the wall but the door was otherwise functional.

“Lewis. Call the lobby and complain you heard some people making a terrible racket, looked into the corridor and saw them getting into the elevator.”

“Right. '

Hughes dropped to one knee beside the man who was still rubbing his eyes, crying now. “The tears will do you good, my friend. Get that pepper out of your eyes better than anything else. Let's get rid of this stocking over your beautiful face.” Hughes tore the stocking away. A milk-chocolate-skinned black man in his late twenties or early thirties.

“Pepper?”

“You didn't notice the fan? When you and your friend entered the room, my associate Mr. Babcock turned on the fan—all the way to high. We had twenty pounds of finely ground black pepper in nice neat little one-pound plastic bags. Just shake the bag open in front of the fan and you have an instant blinding pepper storm that even penetrated these things.” Hughes held up the stocking. “But not these.” And he tugged his goggles down to his neck. “Guns make a lot of noise and might interrupt our discussions up here. These don't.” Hughes produced one of the steak knives and held it to the man's throat.

“Hey, man—”

“What's your name?”

“Ahh—”

“Tell me your name.” He pressed the knife against the tip of the man's nose.

“All right—all right! Balthaszar Roman, man!”

“Balthaszar? Ever called ‘Balls' for short?”

Balthaszar Roman actually grinned.

“Sometimes, yeah.”

Hughes moved the knife and pressured it against Roman's testicles just enough so he'd feel it. “If you don't very shortly tell me what I want to hear, your pals will never call you Balls again. Understand?”

The man's upper lip glistened with sweat. He nodded vigorously.

“All right. We're public-spirited citizens. Who pulled the trigger on Officer Hayes's partner, Mike?”

Balthaszar Roman licked his lips.“I can 't—”

“I can understand a man of scruples. I'll wager you won't even cry out when I saw your nuts off.” Hughes increased the pressure with the knife.

“Tyrone! Tyrone did it, man.”

“Tyrone did it. Is Tyrone with us, Balthaszar?”

“He was in the hallway man!” Balthaszar Roman's eyes were still streaming tears from the pepper and perhaps from the realization of what he had just said.

“Ahh. Now. Another question, Balthaszar. Is a Mr. Jones with us, too?”

“Yeah, over there.”

“And Tyrone decided he wanted vengeance on Ernie Hayes because of the affair involving Jones's sister, correct?”

“Ernie Hayes kicked the shit outa Tyrone when he went after her like that with the belt.”

“Why would officer Hayes have done a thing like that, now. A clear-cut case of police brutality if I've ever heard it, Balthaszar. You should have lodged a complaint.”

“Man—”

“Shut up, Balthaszar. That's so you can listen very carefully. Now. If Tyrone killed Officer Hayes's partner, how did officer Hayes wind up just walking around dazed when he was picked up?”

“We stopped the car with a garbage truck we stole. Hadda snow plow on it. Hayes banged up his head on the steering wheel.”

“Lewis?” Hughes called out.

“There was a big bump on Ernie's head.”

“You're doing wonderfully well, Balthaszar. Now. What happened next?”

“Tyrone had it figured we'd smoke Hayes and his partner, but then with Hayes unconscious and his partner kinda that way, Tyrone says he got himself a better idea. Ya know?”

Hughes smiled. “No. But you'll tell me, I'm sure. What happened then?”

“Tyrone says he's gonna fix Ernie Hayes good. We throw Hayes in the car Randy was drivin ' and Tyrone—he takes Hayes's gun and smokes the other pig with it. Then we dump Hayes in some alley, man.”

“What about the cocaine, Balthaszar?”

“Gimme a cigarrette, huh?”

“Bad for your health. Almost as bad as not answering my questions.” And Hughes prodded him again in the crotch with the knife. “Where's the cocaine?”

“Princes owns a junk yard over on South Michigan.”

“So?”

“There's a fifty-four Cadillac. Red with black upholstery. What's left of it. He got the coke in the trunk inside the spare.”

“That's very inventive, Balthaszar.”

“Look, man—lemme go now, huh?”

“Balthaszar, you have two simple choices You can become a public-spirited citizen too or you can have serious problems.”

“Man—I say shit 'bout Tyrone, he gonna burn my ass he hear.”

Hughes looked at Lewis Babcock. “Lewis. When Tyrone makes his break for the door—”

Tyron Cash was up from the floor, breaking into a dead run. Babcock picking up the straight-backed chair and smashing it across Cash's back as he made for the door, putting him down.

“You see, Balthaszar, Tyrone heard every unkind word you said about him. Now, those two choices again. Either go to the Drug Enforcement Agency people with your story or go out on the street. If Tyrone doesn't get you, I will. Lewis?”

“Yeah?”

“My little tape recorder still running?”

“It certainly is.”

“Aww shit.”

“Precisely.” Hughes and Babcock had assessed the situation while installing the improvised alarm systems in the hallway. Counting on getting Tyrone Cash to talk about himself and still keeping him in one piece might have proven impossible. And, if Randy Jones was either so hopelessly loyal or terrified that he wouldn't step in when his own sister was being beaten with a belt, Jones might prove intractable as well. That had left Balthaszar Roman, the one with the least violent reputation of the three and probably the easiest to intimidate.

“Here's what you're going to do. I have a friend who did me a favor earlier this evening. I called him up in Washington and asked if he could get a squad of DEA personnel to station themselves across the street discreetly all night. He called me back and said that he could. I told him to tell them that a man wearing white coveralls would walk out of here and come and speak with them. Now, you can either do that, Balthaszar, in which case you'll be given the fairest treatment possible and protection from your friend Tyrone and the rest of the Devil's Princes, or you can just walk outside and try to hide from Tyrone, whom I will promptly let go, and me.”