The Big Keep: A Lena Dane Mystery (Lena Dane Mysteries) (10 page)

“Ruby?” I propped myself up on my elbows. She wasn’t scheduled for surveillance that night. “What’s going on? Is it the case?”

“No.” I could hear a dull thumping sound in the background, like somebody throwing themselves against a wall. “I’m in trouble, Lena. This guy, he was one of my tricks, he saw me and—”

A particularly loud thump. “Where are you?” I said urgently, sitting up straight in the bed.

Toka, alerted to the possibility of food or a walk, darted into the bedroom and jumped up on the bed, squashing my shins.

“At work—The Stafford Hotel downtown.” The banging had paused for a moment, but resumed louder than ever, and I had to put one hand over my other ear to hear Ruby. “I’m in the bathroom of room 116.”
 

“I know where that is. I’ll be right there. Did you call the cops already?” I didn’t need details. Details could come later.

“No. He has a gun, and I didn’t want—I was afraid he’d—”

She took a panicked, gulping breath, and I broke in, “It’s okay, it’s okay, I’ll be right there.”

“Be careful, Lena. He’s drunk and high and he—” There was a particularly loud bang, and the cell phone went silent in my hand.
 

Toby hadn’t moved through the whole conversation – how can anybody sleep so deeply? I switched on my bedside lamp and automatically reached over to wake him—but then I froze. Toby was great backup, but if he came with me, and then found out I knew I was pregnant, he’d be furious. I decided to bring my other backup instead.

I dressed quickly in dark slacks and a white button-down shirt, with the Browning in my shoulder holster. I grabbed a dark navy windbreaker and matching baseball cap from the back of my closet. Both had “Homeland Security” written on them in bright yellow script. I left him a note, grabbed Toka and the leash, and ran down to the Jeep with the dog in tow. Well, really, Toka ran down to the Jeep with me in tow.
 

I called the police on the way.

11. Your Neck Will Be Easy

I’d like to say that I hesitated, thinking of the baby. Truthfully, though, as I raced to the hotel my awareness of the pregnancy just sort of fell away. I was focused, my nerves taut and firm, my muscles settling into readiness. This was, in some way or another that I never really thought much about, what I was built to do.

A room at the Stafford is about $350 a night, which makes it one of the nice-ish places downtown. I’d been there once for a wedding, and I knew enough about the layout to stalk straight into the lobby with the dog. Gripping Toka’s leash tightly, I walked straight past the openmouthed doorman, past the guests on the beautifully upholstered sofa, and spoke quickly to the horrified young concierge who tried to flag me down.
 

“The police are on the way,” I told her without stopping. She was African-American, pretty, and competent-looking, but she couldn’t have been more than 22. “Send them to 116. I’m not waiting.”
 

She may have said something else, but I wasn’t listening. The people who work at hotels in the middle of the night are trained on a lot of things, but not how to handle a Homeland Security agent with a pit bull. That’s a problem for management, and it would be a few minutes before she could summon someone.

Moving as fast as I dared, I followed the sign in the lobby that said 110-130, with Toka trotting next to me, heeling perfectly. He could tell that it was game time. I stopped in front of 116, listening at the door, and Toka dropped obediently to his haunches beside me. The hallway was silent, which worried me. If the guy hadn’t passed out, he should still be trying to get into the bathroom. I cautiously put my ear against the door. I heard a small sobbing noise. Someone inside was crying. Leaning back, I knocked briskly at the door.

“WHAT?!” a male voice screamed.

“Homeland Security, sir. Antiterrorism unit.” My voice was clipped and professional, though the hand holding Toka’s leash trembled just a little.

There was a long pause and I heard him stumbling towards the door.
 

“You’re shittin’ me,” came the voice from right on the other side. He was looking at me through the peephole.

“I’m afraid not, sir.” I waited, praying, through another long beat.
 

Finally, he said, “Show me some ID.”

I have three fake ID’s, all highly illegal,which I keep in the back of a closet for this kind of situation. The badge I held up said “Tara Paterson, Homeland Security.” This particular ID happened to be authentic: there really was a Tara, who’d once sworn that she would have me arrested and killed if anyone ever caught me with her old badge. I was taking the chance.

The door cracked open on a heavy-duty, old-fashioned chain. I was glad I hadn’t bothered with my bolt cutters—it would take me a lot longer to pop that thing than he would have let the door stay open. The dog and I were hit with the smell of tequila and sweat, and something else. I glanced down involuntarily. Yep. The guy had wet himself. My gaze shot back up. The eye glaring at me was dilated, brown, and watery...and six inches above my own. Great. A big guy.
 

He took in my hat and windbreaker, and Toka sitting alert by my leg.
 

“Good evening, sir.” I said pleasantly. “I’m
terribly
sorry to interrupt your night, but we’ve had a terrorist threat against the hotel. We’ve been combing the hotel with dogs, and mine has stopped at your door. I’m afraid your room may be contaminated.”
 

He swayed a little on his feet. The guy looked suspiciously down at Toka, who—thank God—was looking particularly useful and vigilant. I held my breath, waiting. I would never get away with this routine if the guy was sober, but–

“Contaminated with what?”

“Anthrax, sir.”

“Jesus.” He rubbed his grimy forehead with the back of a thick hand. When he lowered it I caught the brown-red smear of dried blood on his knuckles, and I held my breath again, this time to keep from gasping.
 

“Sir, this is very important. How many pillows do you have in the room right now?”

“What?”

“How many pillows?” I asked urgently.

“Uh-” he checked behind the door. “Four,” he said happily, proud of this accomplishment.

I sucked in my breath dramatically. “What’s your name, sir?”

“What? Uh, Mike. Richardson.”
 

Pushing the thought aside, I said, “Mike, I’m going to ask you to open the door and take a few steps back.” Without looking away I reached into my windbreaker pocket and pulled out plastic gloves. “I need to bring the pillows outside the room for removal to our lab.”

He swayed for a moment where he stood, and finally took a small step back. “Kay,” he said sleepily. He closed the door on me, and I heard him taking off the chain. When it opened again I was able to really see the guy for the first time. He was about forty, good-looking in a high-off-his-gourd kind of way, with messy dark hair and wild eyes. I tensed, ready to pounce, as the door was spread wide and he shifted his weight to step back – and then we both heard a small noise in the bathroom – the familiar sound of a cell phone dropped on the floor.
 

Mike’s sleepy face hardened as he remembered Ruby, and he shifted his weight and reached quickly behind his back for a gun. Without thinking, I dropped Toka’s leash with my right hand and pulled the Browning with my left. I had it pointed at his face before Mike realized what it was.

“Whoa, Mike. Put your hands on top of your head, please.” My arms leveled into a two-handed stance, feet apart. It took Mike a second, but he finally snarled at me and raised his arms. Toka, off-leash, returned the growl, ears slicing back and body dropping into a crouch. “Ruby?” I called.

“I’m in here.” Her voice was thready and scared, but there.

“Stay in there for another minute for me, okay?”

“Okay.”

“That fucking bitch,” Mike snarled at me. “Ruined my fucking life.” I glanced at the bathroom door. It looked like solid wood, not easy to break down. I doubted he could shoot anything through it, but I wouldn’t take chances. I needed to get that gun.

“Mike. Michael. Does anyone call you Michael?”

“My wife did,” he said, glaring toward the bathroom door. “Before
she
made her leave me.”

It took me a second to sort out the pronouns, and then I realized that Mike had been one of Ruby’s johns from when she was hooking, and his wife had found out and left him. “When was this?” I asked casually, silently praying that he wouldn’t say “last week.” Bryce and I were sure Ruby had gone straight, but...I’d been wrong before.

Thankfully, Mike’s brow furrowed as he tried to do some kind of serious calendar math. “Three years... no, wait. Was it four?”

I let him ramble on for a moment, backing him up slowly, until the room door swung shut behind me and the back of his knees hit the bed. “Mike, here’s what we’re going to do now. You’re going to turn around really slowly, and I’m going to take your gun away from you. Then I’m going to put handcuffs on you, and we’re all going to sit down and relax.” I kept my voice soothing and nonthreatening.

He shook his head, without removing his hands, so the whole thing looked like a torso exercise. “Can’t take my gun. Need it,” he slurred.

“I don’t think you do, Mike.”

He nodded vehemently. “Gotta shoot the bitch.”

“Mike.” I sighed. “I would really appreciate if you wouldn’t refer to my friend that way. It’s not a nice word.”

“Whatever.”

“Mike, do you see the big dog next to me?”

He glanced down quickly, possibly having forgotten about Toka. “Yeah, so?”

“That’s a pit bull. Have you ever seen a dog attack, Mike?”
 

His eyes flickered to life, and for the first time he looked afraid. “No.”

I began to circle the bed very, very, slowly, getting a little distance from Toka and putting myself in between Mike and the bathroom door. Where the hell were the cops? We should have at least heard sirens by now. I kept talking. “It’s pretty gruesome, actually. On TV it always just looks like a bite, but really there’s lots of ripping and tearing. I guess you could say shredding: Thing is, if I give the command, he’s going to knock you down and bite you in the neck. A pit bull can bite through a steel bar without much trouble, so your neck will be easy.”
 

Toka growled on cue, bless his doggy heart, and I kept talking, inching closer to Mike now. “So, we can do that, or, I can take your gun and put on some handcuffs. You’ll go to jail, but you’ll be alive. Wouldn’t that be better than getting your head bit off by a pit bull?”

He started to cry. “I can’t.”

“Sure you can, Mike,” I encouraged. “All you have to do is turn around.”

He shook his head again. “No.”

I sighed, thinking it over. He was a lot bigger than me, and he was high and drunk and a little nuts. That made him unpredictable.
 

Oh, fuck it. “Toka,
back up
!”

Mike squealed like a teenage girl as Toka leapt, hitting him square in the chest with at least two paws and knocking him backwards onto the bed. Toka squatted on Mike’s chest and put his jaws gently around the frightened man’s neck, not biting down.

“Mike, you are going to want to hold really, really still right now.” I put my gun back in my shoulder holster, pulled my handcuffs off the back of my belt, and cuffed Mike’s hands in front of him. “Toka, off.” The big dog jumped happily off Mike’s chest and onto the floor next to the bed. He wagged his tail at me, his muscular back half wiggling with excitement. I had been skeptical when Toby wanted to take the dog to defensive training, but this time I was very happy to be proven wrong. “Good boy,” I told him.
 

Mike began to cry and whimper. I hauled him to his feet and carefully took the revolver out of the back of his pants. After I emptied all of the bullets, I tucked the big gun into my jacket pocket and did a quick pat down for other weapons. He had a folding knife in his pants pocket, but it was more Swiss Army than combat. I put it in my other pocket anyway, just in case.

Toka and I frog-marched the crying asshole over to the ornate oak desk that was spread over one corner of the hotel room. I pushed him down on the chair and pulled a plastic zip tie out of my other jacket pocket, zipping the handcuffs to the leg of the desk. When I was satisfied that Mike wasn’t going anywhere, I squatted down and gave Toka a quick hug and a kiss before crossing to the bathroom door.
 

I knocked gently. “Ruby?” I said softly. I heard the distant sound of approaching sirens, which seemed like a pretty damn sweet sound at the moment. Then the lock clicked, and I pushed the bathroom door open.
 

The bathroom was tiny. She was huddled against the fake marble sink, a hundred-pound Asian girl with tear-streaked pancake makeup that didn’t do much to disguise the thick white scars that circled each cheek and sliced through one eyebrow. I went over and crouched down in front of her. Ruby’s long hair had fallen in her face, and when she finally lifted her head to look at me I saw that her right arm was clutching her left, which was bent at a very wrong angle. She looked at me, trembling, as I gently took her chin in my hand and turned her head to the side. Blue and purple bloomed around her left eye, which was swollen shut. As the wail of sirens grew louder, I stalked out of the bathroom, crossed the room, and calmly broke Mike Richardson’s nose.

12. The Pickle on the Crap Sandwich

Ruby told me the story as we rode the ambulance to the ER at St. Mary’s, gulping for air as she tried to calm herself down. She usually worked early mornings, but she’d taken an extra shift on the overnight crew, cleaning up the banquet halls after a convention. Unfortunately Mike the douchebag ex-client had been one of the conference attendees. He’d spotted Ruby and seen his chance for revenge. “He said I ruined his life,” Ruby whispered to me. “He said he lost his kids because of me.”
 

I held her free hand in both of mine as the EMT splinted her broken arm. Bryce was meeting us at the ER, but for now I was all Ruby had. “It wasn’t your fault, honey,” I told her, my heart breaking. When I had met Ruby she was a vivacious, mouthy teenager who didn’t take shit from anyone. This scarred little girl was a shadow of that Ruby. “I know he probably made you feel that way, but he made his own decisions.”