Dig Ten Graves (13 page)

     In the room upstairs, the guest was walking around and the floorboards squeaked and groaned under him.  The Carson is a respectable hotel, but it’s also pretty damn old and sad to say you can hear strains of conversation from room to room and floor to floor sometimes, through the vents.  The person in the room above was talking to someone, and the someone answered, but their voices were too low to make out.

     And as long as they weren’t doing anything out of line it was none of my concern anyway.

     Then I heard a weird metallic noise, screechy feedback like from a radio, and something went
ching ching ching
very loudly and one of the someones upstairs said, “Sonofabitch!”

     I rubbed the back of my sore neck and eyed the ceiling as if x-ray vision would suddenly kick in and I’d be able to see what was going on up there.  I’m not the smartest guy around—otherwise I’d be something other than a lousy hotel dick—but I was beginning to get some ideas.

     When I came out of the elevator, Graham said, “Hey, where ya been?  I was getting’ ready to call in the marines.”

     “Never mind that.  Lemme see the registration book.”

    I didn’t wait for him to hand it over; instead, I pushed in behind the desk and found it myself and flipped through the pages.  I grabbed the bottle and took a long pull and my headache started to ease right away.

     “What’s the problem?”

     “When did that Vox guy check in?”

     “Geez, I dunno, what do I look like, the manager?”

     “Well, find out, damnit.”  I shoved the book at him.  “Right now.”

     “Oh come on, Len.  I work the night shift so I don’t have to do stuff like that.”

     “Stop bellyaching and do it, I can’t make heads or tails out of your system.  I need to know when Vox first came here and I need to know now.”

     Grumbling, Graham started flipping through the registration book.  I said, “And one other thing.  While I was upstairs, did anyone come through the lobby?”

     He looked at me curiously.  “Well, yeah.  Mr. Martin came in, you know, in room 810.  Drunk as the proverbial skunk, too.  I think he was down at the—“

     “Did he ring the desk bell?”

     “Yeah.  Did a little dance too, you should’ve seen—“

     “Keep looking for Vox, damnit, why are you staring at me?”

     “Geez-o-pete, what’s got into you?”  He turned his attention back to the book and after a moment said, “Okay, here he is.  Allen Vox, room 405, checked in three days ago.  Had a reservation, pre-paid via Western Union.”

     “Who else checked in that day?”

     “Come on, Len, at least twenty others that day, checking in and out, you know how it is.”

     “Okay, I’ll make it easy for you.  Who was in 505 that day?  The room directly above Vox’s?”

     He glanced down at the book again.  “Let’s see… oh, that’s easy.  A Mister Beale checked in that same day in 505.  He paid cash, up front.”

     “Have you seen this Beale guy since he checked in?”

     “No, Len.  I don’t see anyone on the nightshift, ‘cept Mr. Martin sometimes, when he comes in loaded.”

     “Forget about Mr. Goddamn Martin, will you?  Something’s going on in this hotel and I don’t like it.”

     He looked at me with a mixture of confusion and irritation.  “What?  What’s going on?  Jeez, Len, I wish you’d tell me—“

     “Later,” I said.  “I got some stuff to take care of.  If I’m not back in twenty minutes, call the cops.”

     His eyes got wide.  “The cops?  What the hell, Len?”

     I walked toward the elevator, knowing full well I seemed unreasonable.  But my head still hurt and the more I thought about how those bastards got the upper hand on me the angrier I got.  The Carson was my domain, and damned if I planned on letting a bunch of pasty-faced gunmen call the shots here.

     I pushed the button for the fifth floor, then jumped quickly out of the elevator and headed for the stairs.  If I was right, they’d be waiting for me up there, expecting me to come out of the lift.

     I took the stairs two at a time.  It played hell with my bad leg but I dealt with it. It took me less than a minute to reach the fifth floor.  I opened the door a crack and peeked into the hall.

     Two of the gunmen were there at the far end, in front of the elevator.  The indicator on top said 4, which meant the elevator would open in about ten seconds.  Both of them had their guns drawn and their attention focused entirely in front of them.

     I let the door close gently behind me and walked quickly to room 505, two doors up the hall.  It was unlocked.  Without pausing, I slid in and shut the door behind me.

     The room was an exact duplicate of the one below it—just a bed, a couple of chairs, a beat-up desk in the corner and a small bath attached.  The only difference was the radio set on the desk, attached to a big reel-to-reel machine, and the guy with headphones in front of it.

     He was just beginning to turn and face me when I closed the door, and it seemed to take him a second to realize what was going on.  He started to scramble for a gun that lay on the bed but got caught up in the wire from his headphones.  I crossed the room in two strides and slammed my fist into his temple.  He dropped without even making a sound.

     From out in the hall, I heard the ding of the elevator door opening.  The two gunmen would find it empty and no doubt rush right back to the room.  I grabbed the gun off the bed and positioned myself behind the door.

     Three seconds later, the door crashed open and they came rushing in. 

     I’d like to be able to tell you now that I cleaned their clocks without even breaking a sweat, but lying doesn’t come easily to me.  These guys had a bit more up their sleeves than I’d guessed.

     I slammed the door behind them and grabbed the collar of the closest one, meaning to throw him into his partner.  But the little bastard apparently had eyes in the back of his head.  He whipped around, ducking low, and swept his leg around without missing a beat.  The leg caught me at the ankles and since my footing was off I stumbled into the wall and nearly fell.

     The other one hopped over his partner like a spider and slammed his fists into my solar plexus piston quick—one two three four—and the breath wheezed out of me as my gun went spinning out of my hand.

     What the hell kind of fighting was this?  The two gunmen bounced around like deranged cats, punching and kicking so fast I couldn’t keep up with them.  I’m a pretty seasoned fighter, that’s no lie, but I’d never seen anything even remotely resembling the crazy chaotic attack they mounted against me.

     They punched and kicked me around the room like I was a toy, managing to duck or sidestep every time I swung my fists, moving with eerie fluidity.  None of their attacks hurt much, but they managed to keep me unsteady and on the offensive. 

      I finally managed to connect one punch, a solid hit to a jaw, and the guy went down in front of me.  Then the other one came out of nowhere with an impossibly high kick that caught me right in the upper chest.  I went flying backwards with the force of it, toward the window. 

     I just managed to catch myself before pitching through the glass, breathed a sigh of relief that only made it halfway out of my mouth before he attacked again with another kick.

     The glass shattered behind me and I felt myself falling back, felt the bitter sting of the winter air, felt my feet leave the floor and my body tumble over as I fell from the fifth floor of the Carson Hotel.

     I remember every second of my descent, recall vividly every sensation.  The wind rushing past my ears, my tie snapping in the air in front of me, the seasick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I tumbled end over end.  No, my life didn’t flash before my eyes and thank God for that.  The thought of being seconds away from death was depressing enough. 

     And it seemed to go on forever, not the few seconds it should have taken.  Halfway down I got a good look at the street rushing up at me, the front entrance to the Carson Hotel, before my vision zoomed around to the building again, and I remember thinking
well come on already
. 

     The blue and white striped awning that covered the front entrance of the hotel broke my fall.  And by ‘broke my fall’ I don’t mean it did anything that made me overly comfortable.  Air exploded out of my lungs and I bounced like a 270 pound rubber ball off the awning and toward the sidewalk.

     I hit the pavement and everything went black.

     For a few seconds.

     I opened my eyes and saw the hotel looming over me like the winner in a particularly brutal boxing match.  I was the guy who took a fall in the first round. 

     My ribs hurt.  At least one of them was fractured, I felt pretty sure.  And my bad leg ached a bit more than usual.  By the grace of God or some other deity that looked after boneheaded over-age thugs, I didn’t land on my head and break my neck.

     I sat up without too much trouble.  The ribs screamed.  Yeah, one of them was fractured, for sure.  But so what?  I’d had fractured ribs before, and concussions and dislocated shoulders and broken arms.  It didn’t matter.

     I stood up, breathing harshly, and looked up at the window I’d just been kicked out of.  The curtains blew in and out mockingly and I felt cold rage uncurl from my guts. 

     “That cuts it,” I said to the building.

     I set my jaw and limped back into the hotel. 

     Graham’s eyes about popped out of his head when he saw me.  “Hey,” he said.  “How’d you… I mean… hey, where’d you come from?”

     I grabbed the bell off the desk and slammed it four or five times against the wood, then threw it on the floor.  It broke into several pieces, and the listening device inside skittered across the lobby.  I went after it, picked it up, and shouted into it, “Listen up, you pasty bastards!  I’m coming for you!”

     I threw it toward Graham, who caught it and stared at me in horror.

     “Wait a minute,” I said.  “Gimme that back.”  I grabbed the device from his fingers and shoved it in my inside jacket pocket, then made my way to the stairs and rushed up as fast as my bruised and battered body would allow.

     The two crazy-fighting gunmen met me halfway between the third and fourth floors.  One of them swung over the railing from above me, screaming something nonsensical, his foot speeding at my head. 

     But I wasn’t having it, not this time.  I braced myself and took the blow against my shoulder, caught his ankle and jerked him down so that his body landed hard against the concrete steps.  The breath went out of him and I slammed a fist into his gut, and another under his chin. 

     The other one, on the landing above me, decided on a more conventional tactic—he pulled his gun. 

     I rushed him, roaring like a bear, and that must have alarmed him because his face got even whiter and he took a step back and pulled the trigger without really aiming.  The bullet ricocheted off the railing two feet from my head and I barreled into him.

     His gun bounced away and we both tumbled to the hard concrete floor, me on top, and I grabbed a fistful of his hair and pounded his head a few times.

     “Toss me out the window, will you?” I snarled at him.  “Who are you guys and where’s the lady?”

     He didn’t answer right away, so I pounded a couple more times.  “Answers, boy.  I don’t like little guys running around the Carson with loaded guns.  And I don’t like being kicked around like a rag doll.  And I especially don’t like being tossed out windows!  So gimme some answers, pronto!”

     From between bloody teeth, he whimpered, “Okay, okay!  We’re… we’re FBI, man!   We’re the good guys!”

     That stopped me.  I said, “FBI?  What?”

     “We’re the good guys, please… get offa me!”

     I frowned at him.  Hoover’s boys, at the Carson?  Waving guns around? 

     I let go and pushed myself off him but didn’t help him up.  He managed to get himself into a sitting position against the wall and rubbed the back of his head gingerly.  “Jesus, man,” he said.  “We’re FBI.  You… you’re interfering in official government business.”

     I said, “If you’re FBI, why the hell wouldn’t you identify yourselves?  What the hell kinda government business involves knocking out the hotel detective?  I don’t care if you’re FBI, OSS, or USDA.  What the hell are you doing in my hotel?  And where’s the lady?”

     “I… I can’t tell you that.  You’ll just have to trust that—“

     “Trust my Aunt Fannie.  Lemme see your badge.”

     He reached into his coat, pulled out a wallet and held it out to me.  I snatched it from him and looked inside.

     Sure enough, there was the big shiny badge and official identification card of an employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  It had the guy’s picture and everything.

     I tossed it into his lap.  “Fine,” I said.  “So you’re FBI.  I still wanna know where the lady is.”

     He shook his head.  “No can do.  Government bus—“

     “If you say government business one more time, I’m gonna re-commence to busting your head.”

     “I’m sorry, but it can’t be helped.  This is a classified operation.”

     His gun had landed on the other side of the landing.  I picked it up, waved it at him and said, “Your jurisdiction ended the second you walked into the lobby of this hotel.  The Carson is my beat, understand?”  I touched the barrel against his cheek.  “I’m gonna ask you one more time.  Where’s the lady?”

     I must have looked just crazy enough to do it, because his eyes got wide and the confidence that comes with being a ‘government official’ drained out of him.  He sputtered, “Okay, okay!  Take it easy!  She’s downstairs.”

     “Downstairs?  Where downstairs?”

     “In the basement of the building.  Mr. Beale took her down there, down to the boiler room, for safe-keeping until we could extract the subject.”

     I said, “Extract the subject?  What the hell are you talking about?”

     He shook his head.  “I can’t say anymore.  You big stupid lug, you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.”