Slaughter (28 page)

 

J
ordan knocked on the door to Samuel's riverfront hotel room.

Light shifted in the peephole. An unintelligible voice sounded from the other side of the door. Jordan moved over so Samuel could see him.

He knocked louder, so it could almost be said he was about to make a scene.

The door opened, and there was Samuel, wearing nothing but a pair of jeans. He looked worried and scared as he shut the door behind Jordan. Then he made a show about looking at his watch. Rather the white mark on his wrist where the watch would be after he got it from the nightstand in the bedroom and slipped it on.

“We were supposed to meet farther down on the riverfront, at ten o'clock. It's only nine fifteen.”

“I thought this would be more private,” Jordan said.

Standing there in worn loafers, sockless and shirtless, with his hair looking like it had been in a blender, Samuel made a face that was probably meant to scare Jordan, or at least gain the offensive. Some offensive. “I don't like you changing the rules as we go along,” he said.

“Not to worry,” Jordan said.

“Did you bring the money I lent you?”

“Of course I did.”

There was another soft knock on the door.

Jordan ambled over and opened it. Behind him, Samuel Pace took a few steps and then stopped, trying to get a handle on what was happening here.

“Who's that?” he asked in a tight voice, as if someone had him by the neck but hadn't yet squeezed in earnest.

“The photographer,” Jordan said. “Remember? You said you might bring your lady, Eleanor, so she could pose for some shots.”

He opened the door and stepped aside. Jasmine slipped in quickly. She had a digital camera slung around her neck on a broad black strap. Jordan thought she looked old beyond her years.

She got right into the flow, looking around. “Where's Eleanor?”

A slight noise came from the direction of the bedroom. Three heads turned that way.

Tall, blond, and very young, Eleanor opened the bedroom door and stepped into the sun-drenched main room. Her long hair was tousled but in a wild way that was strangely attractive. She wore a sheet like a toga, and looked like something out of a Shakespeare madness play.

She smiled and said, “I'm Eleanor. I hear you want to photograph me.”

As she talked, her gaze traveled from Samuel to Jasmine to Jordan. Her look lingered, and she appeared to want to say something about Jordan's jockey-like size, and then changed her mind.

Still she seemed amused. That didn't set well with Jordan. Neither did Eleanor's seemingly unshakeable confidence. He wanted control of this again. He said, “You're from money, right, Eleanor?”

“Money?”

“Your family.”

Her smile became wider, displaying perfect white teeth. “It shows?”

“Very much so. And I'm thinking you booked the hotel and paid the way for Samuel to be here with you.”

Eleanor glanced Samuel's way and flashed a reassuring smile. Surely somewhere, sometime, she had been a cheerleader.

“That's none of your business,” Samuel said. Feisty, but he could no longer disguise his growing fear. There was an off-key note here that he was beginning to hear but Eleanor hadn't yet discerned.

She moved slightly toward Jordan, who smiled and said, “You ever hear of the Gremlin?”

“No. What is it?”

Jordan seemed surprised and miffed. He stared at her, noting with disgust that she was the taller of the two. “Don't you watch the news?”

“No. I don't have time for that crap. It's all lies, anyway.” She stood more erectly and spread her legs so the sheet was stretched taut between her thighs and emphasized her figure. “The Gremlin . . . Didn't that used to be a car or something? Or wait a second—that building in Russia?”

“Your first guess was right,” Jordan said.

“Anybody'd buy a car called a Gremlin would have to think it was guaranteed to give them trouble. They should have stayed with Jaguar or Rolls.”

“You think your money can buy you out of any kind of trouble, don't you?” Jordan said.

Eleanor sneered. “Matter of fact, I do. My family has attorneys that will drain you like a sun-dried tomato. Not like your pro bono public defenders, you miserable little pissant.”

Uh-oh! The discord was out in the open where everyone might hear and see it.

Samuel said, “Eleanor . . . please!” He could feel his heart hammering.

Jordan had had enough of this. Had really had enough.

He went into the bedroom and returned with a pillow. In his right hand was a small .25 caliber Ruger handgun. He wrapped the pillow around the gun, pointed it at Eleanor, and said, “By God, girl, you've got spirit.” It was a line he remembered from an old movie. Or close enough, anyway.

She stiffened her spine and stared down her nose at him. “You better believe I've got spirit. Enough that—”

He squeezed the trigger.

The shot from such a small gun was muffled by the pillow and didn't make much noise, but feathers from the pillow flew.

Eleanor looked startled, then plucked one of the pillow feathers from the air, stared down at it where it was held loosely in her hand, and said, “This is real goose down. This is a good hotel.”

She closed her eyes and fell.

Jordan looked over and saw Samuel standing rooted to the spot. He saw that the front and one leg of Samuel's pants were stained where he had relieved himself. Walking close, careful where he stepped so he wouldn't get a shoe wet, Jordan used the gun and pillow again, placing the bullet perfectly between Samuel's eyebrows.

It was a hell of a shot, considering the pillow tended to spoil your aim.

Jasmine was standing stunned, her mouth hanging open. Then she looked around as if coming out of a trance, saw all the goose down in the air, and began a crazy, cackling laughter, catching and releasing the feathers, repeating, “My God, it's snowing! It's snowing!”

She fixed her wild stare on Jordan. “I know what you're going to do, you bastard! It's monstrous!”

“Isn't it?” Jordan said.

“
Monstrous!
” she repeated.

He shot her twice just behind her left ear and she dropped straight down to her knees and sat with her legs folded back and her feet pointing in opposite directions. It was probably the way she had sat as a little girl.

Jordan glanced around, waiting for his breathing to level out. The strange thrashing, beating sound rose up around him. Like the earth was vibrating. He fought it back. Everything was under control. If he kept to his plan, things would turn out all right. He kept telling himself that. Repeating it. Believing it more each time.

Calm. That was what he could do better than anyone. Stay calm.

God, his breathing was loud!

He'd known he had to kill Jasmine. He'd had no choice. If two people held a secret it was no longer a secret. And if ever a secret called for solitary possession, it was the one he held so close. When he chose to loose it into the world, there would be storms that had nothing to do with weather, tectonic shifts that had nothing to do with earthquakes.

He slid the gun into his pocket and went into the bathroom, where he brushed and picked the snow-like goose down from his hair and clothes. Then he used a washcloth to wipe his fingerprints from the few places he'd touched.

He put on rubber gloves and went to the living room to get the backpack he'd brought with him. All the implements he'd need were in there, along with a tourist guide to New York

 

 

No one seemed to give Jordan a second look as he left the hotel and strode out into the sunshine, wearing Foster Grant sunglasses and carrying his backpack slung by a strap over his right shoulder. He had no remorse. Just as he'd had no recourse.

He'd done fine. He was sure of it. Believed it more with every step away from the carnage. Planned well enough, and executed with speed and conviction, there had been no doubt of the outcome. And when the unexpected had occurred, he'd done what was necessary.

He was safe now, and no doubt about it. Certainly safer than before. That was undeniable. Hell, it was mathematical.

Two people plus one secret equaled no secret.

Even if one of them, like Ethan Ellis, was bound tightly in the web of his past.

 

P
earl supposedly lay in the bed of the woman who'd only visited death. Supposedly because Quinn had invented that woman. The various plastic tubing and wires attached to her were mostly affixed by tape. The electrodes dotting her body sent no signals. At least, none that meant anything.

Nancy Weaver was in similar condition in the adjoining room. Leading to that room were folding doors that could be cast aside to allow full access and create one large room. The Gremlin would be stopped before he could pull a trigger. Probably he would be tackled and cuffed even before he could remove a gun from his belt or his ankle holster.

Probably, Quinn thought, the Gremlin would try to use a weapon with a silencer.

That was the polite thing to do, considering there was staff along with genuine patients in the recovery center. It was one of those medical facilities pretending to be hospitals yet at the same time managing a kind of homeyness that belied the truths of illness and death. There was a small library, a game room, a conversation room, and a dining room for those on the meals plan. There wasn't much conversation about the occasional empty chair.

A lot of life, Quinn decided, was the art of pretending. That way lay a lesser madness, but a madness nonetheless.

Alone in her half of the adjoining rooms, Pearl glanced around, fixing objects in her mind—the various equipment rolled near the bed or mounted on the wall by the headboard, monitoring, softly beeping. The partitioned-off part of the double room where the other bed was concealed. There was a visitors' easy chair. Another, smaller wooden chair, and a steel rack on wheels. Pearl glanced toward her wristwatch lying on the metal tray table next to her bed. There were also a green plastic pitcher and a matching cup on the tray. Pearl felt like taking a drink, then decided against it. She might disturb some of the tubing and wires that were only loosely fastened to her.

The idea was to trick the Gremlin into snatching Pearl; he would suspect Quinn of replacing the once dead, now living woman—only to find to his surprise and delight that he had instead what he really wanted the most. Given the not completely unexpected opportunity, he would take Pearl.

Helen had assured Quinn that the killer couldn't resist at least trying for the remarkable if fictitious life-after-death patient, but even more he couldn't resist choosing Pearl as his next victim.

Moving her head slightly on the hard pillow so she could see her watch's face, Pearl noted that it was almost ten o'clock. It was Quinn's bet that the killer would pay his visit sometime during the night, when the center was on a looser schedule and there weren't so many doctors and patients in the halls.

Pearl knew that Bill Casey, a uniformed cop who was an old friend of Quinn's, would be getting up from his chair out in the hall by the door to her room. He would walk down to the elevators but veer into one of the small, semiprivate waiting areas—called conversation nooks—where there was coffee along with some vending machines.

Pearl was right. Carrying a half-eaten candy bar, Casey strolled to the conversation nook. He glanced around and moved a small sofa slightly, so if he sat on it he'd have a clear view down the hall. From there he could see the doors to Pearl's and the adjoining room. Fedderman was in the opposite direction on the same floor, seated in an area similar to Casey's. Harold was down in the lobby, watching the building entrance and elevators. Sal was wearing a white robe and might have been mistaken for a patient, idly walking around as if he couldn't sleep.

Quinn saw Casey drift past, peeling the wrapper off a candy bar, and guessed he would have a gruff bedside manner. Soon enough, that shouldn't matter.

They were all in touch with each other via two-ways that would work in hospitals, rehab centers, and other places with radiology and imaging equipment.

Quinn said, “Me,” and entered Pearl's room from the adjacent one.

“Me, too,” Pearl said.

He walked over and kissed her gently on the forehead, as if she were a real patient.

“Everything a go?” she asked.

He smiled. “We just need another player.”

“Weaver all set next door?”

“She's always set,” Quinn said.

“She's gotten the crap kicked out of her more than once when it could have been me instead.”

“She's an adrenaline addict.”

“So are we, Quinn.”

He didn't argue with her.

“So is he,” she added.

Quinn knew who she meant.

He bent over and kissed her cool forehead again. “Get some sleep,” he said, then went into the adjacent room.

The idea was that, faced with a choice between the two women, the one the Gremlin really wanted would seem all the more genuine. If Helen was right, and unless everything she'd learned about human behavior was wrong, the killer would pass on the supposedly back-from-the-dead woman and go for Pearl.

He'd be pressed for time, and would have to make his choice quickly if he were to take a hostage and escape from the building before his presence was known and staff and police would close in.

That was when things would start happening fast.

Pearl thought, Let the games begin.

She closed her eyes, but not all the way.