by Chris Carter
‘Are you out of your fucking mind, you fucking suicidal prick?’ the driver yelled out his window.
The car to the left of the Mazda – a white Kia Optima – also braked hard, but it had moved about a yard and a half past the Mazda, blocking Hunter’s path. His answer was to jump on and slide all the way across the Kia’s hood – Dukes of Hazzard style – which made the Kia driver’s jaw drop.
Hood-slide done, Hunter landed on a lucky one-car gap. He took two steps forward and waited for the van on the last lane of traffic to go past before finally reaching the curb on the other side. He was now only fifty yards from the Grand Central Market.
One minute and two seconds left.
But Hunter now had another problem. To get to the Grand Central Market, he also needed to get to the other side of South Broadway, a much busier road than the one he’d just crossed.
Hunter checked the display for the crosswalk – twenty-two seconds to the green ‘walk’ man.
‘Nope,’ he said to himself, before once again stepping off the curb – but this time he waited for a gap. It came two seconds later, between a red Jeep Cherokee and a black Ford Fusion. He extended his right hand, signaling the driver of the Ford Fusion to slow down.
The driver did, but he also angrily rammed the horn while cursing from behind the wheel.
Fifty-six seconds left.
Hunter moved forward to the second lane of traffic, and from then on it was like an old videogame where a crazy chicken was trying to cross a busy road. While looking for the right gap to move into, Hunter jigged his body left, right, left, in an almost comical way. He had to allow two vehicles to go past before he was able to clear the second lane.
Forty-nine seconds left.
Hunter got to the third lane and once again did his little body jig before managing to squeeze himself between a white van and a motorbike.
The fourth lane was the easiest to clear, as it was a single lane of traffic flowing in the opposite direction. In central Los Angeles, at rush hour, a single lane of traffic meant bumper-to-bumper vehicles. Hunter quickly rounded a green Chrysler 200 before finally getting to the other side of South Broadway.
Forty-three seconds left.
Hunter covered the distance from his position to the entrance to the Grand Central Market in seven seconds.
New problem – it was two weeks until Christmas and the market was jammed with people. The bathroom was at the very back of the market.
‘How am I doing for time?’ Hunter asked.
‘You have thirty-six seconds left,’ Agent Shaffer replied.
Hunter had no time to stop and think. He had no time to pause for breath either.
‘This is going to be ugly,’ he said, as he reached the market entrance at almost full speed.
Hunter managed to swerve around the couple with two toddlers that was exiting the market, but from then on it became a push-and-shove festival. He had thirty-three seconds to get to the last cubicle inside the male bathroom right at the back of the market, and a crowd of Christmas shoppers wasn’t about to stop Hunter from getting there in time.
‘Sorry,’ he began calling out, his voice urgent and firm. ‘LAPD, coming through . . . LAPD, coming through.’
As he shouted those words in a never-ending loop, Hunter zigzagged, turned, danced a jiggle and did his best to avoid colliding with as many shoppers as he possibly could. The ones he failed to avoid ended up being thrust out of his path in whichever way possible. Some ended up on the ground. Some were pushed onto others, who then ended up on the ground.
As Hunter practically plowed his way through the crowd, he could hear members of the public shouting abuse and words of indignation back at him. Some yelled the most famous of American phrases – ‘I’m going to sue your ass for this shit.’
The pushing, the shoving, the jiggles, the turns . . . all of it ate at his time. It took him twenty-one seconds to get to the male bathroom at the back of the market.
‘Time?’ he asked. ‘How much time do I have?’
‘Twelve seconds,’ Agent Shaffer informed him.
Hunter stormed into the bathroom like a wrecking ball. Once he went past the urinals, he found two rows of four cubicles – one on the left, one on the right. The two last cubicles on the left had their doors shut.
Hunter rushed to the last one and tried the door – locked.
‘Busy,’ a high-pitched male voice called from behind the door.
But of course it would be, Hunter thought.
Nine seconds left.
‘Sir, LAPD, this is official business. I need to get in there.’
‘Official business?’ the man replied, incredulous. ‘You need to take an official dump, is that it?’
Three seconds left.
‘Sir, this isn’t a joke.’
Time was up.
All of a sudden, Hunter heard a sort of muffled cellphone ringtone coming from inside the cubicle.
‘What the hell?’ he also heard the man exclaim from inside.
No more explaining himself to anyone.
Hunter took a step back and, just like he’d done to the gate at the theater’s parking lot minutes earlier, he sent the heel of his right boot onto the cubicle door with all the power he had. The flimsy lock burst immediately. The door swung back as if it had been hit by the shockwave of an explosion, slamming into the cubicle occupant’s knees.
‘What the fuck?’ he jumped up.
Hunter stepped inside to see a half-frightened, half-surprised, overweight man sitting on the toilet with his trousers down to his ankles. In his right hand he had a bunch of crumpled-up toilet paper.
‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ the man shouted.
The phone rang again.
Hunter looked around, searching for where the ring was coming from.
The man on the toilet continued to shout abuse at Hunter.
‘Be quiet,’ Hunter commanded, pointing a finger at the man.
The man shut up.
The phone rang again.
Hunter looked at the man.
The ringing seemed to be coming from behind him.
Hunter angled his body left to look past the large man.
The muffled ringtone came again.
It was coming from inside the toilet’s water tank.
‘Excuse me,’ Hunter ordered, stepping to the left of the toilet, forcing the man to angle his body the other way. Hunter lifted the water tank lid to find a new smartphone taped to the underside of it. He untaped it and checked the screen.
Video call request.
Hunter accepted it, aiming the phone at himself.
‘I was about to hang up,’ the Werewolf said, as his face materialized on the small screen.
‘Well, here I am,’ Hunter replied, a little out of breath.
‘What the hell is going on?’ the man on the toilet asked. ‘Are you playing a game?’
‘Oh,’ the Werewolf sounded surprised. ‘Is there someone there with you?’
‘I was here first,’ the man said out loud.
‘C’mon, Detective Hunter, pan the phone around. Let me meet our new friend.’
‘Sorry,’ Hunter said to the man, before doing as requested.
The man immediately blushed, but the Werewolf didn’t get to see his face, as he lifted his right hand to cover it.
‘What the hell, man,’ he said, his voice angry. ‘I’m on the fucking john here. I don’t want to be part of your kinky toilet-stall game.’
The Werewolf laughed animatedly.
Hunter aimed the phone back at him. ‘Now what?’
‘Do you still have the diary?’
Hunter frowned at the screen. ‘Of course I have the diary, or did you think I’ve dropped it in the past two and a half minutes?’
‘Show it to me.’
Hunter did.
‘Do you have to have this conversation in here?’ the man on the toilet asked. ‘I really need to go and I’m holding on as hard as I can right now, b
ut I’m about to lose the battle.’
‘Sorry,’ Hunter said, his tone sincere. ‘I apologize again for barging in on you like this.’
‘Dude, just go, please.’
Hunter exited the cubicle, closing the now busted door behind him.
‘That was fun, huh?’
‘Yes, hilarious,’ Hunter replied, his voice lacking all humor. ‘So what do you want me to do now?’
‘Discard the old phone.’
Hunter reached into his pocket for the phone, showed it to the Werewolf and then dropped it into the bathroom’s wastebasket.
‘OK, and?’
‘The Westin Bonaventure Hotel, do you know it?’
‘The one in South Figueroa Street?’
‘That’s exactly the one. Five and a half blocks from where you are. Get to the thirty-fourth floor and find suite 3452. Go on foot. When you get to the hotel, use the stairs, not the elevator. You have twelve minutes. Go.’
The Werewolf disconnected from the call.
Seventy-Three
The Westin Bonaventure Hotel and Suites was the largest hotel in the city of Los Angeles – 35 stories high, with 1,358 rooms and 135 suites. The hotel also offered its guests fine-dining restaurants, luxury spa services, swimming pools and a revolving restaurant and bar on the top floor that presented spectacular views over the City of Angels.
‘Twelve minutes to cover five and a half blocks on foot.’ This time it was Garcia’s voice that came to Hunter’s ear. He was obviously riding with SWAT Agent Shaffer. ‘Then thirty-four floors up through the stairs? That’s just nuts.’
‘There’s not much I can do about it,’ Hunter replied, already exiting the bathroom at speed.
‘If you exit the market through the back doors,’ Garcia said, ‘it will drop you on South Hill Street. Go right, not left. Take West Third Street, then it’s a straight run for four blocks until you hit South Flower Street. Go left for another block and you’ll get to the hotel back entrance, which is two levels below the main lobby on South Figueroa Street, but faster to get to.’
‘Good thinking,’ Hunter said, bursting through the emergency exit door at the back of the market. That saved him from having to plow through the crowd once again.
Eleven minutes and forty-one seconds left.
Just as Garcia had suggested, Hunter swung right on South Hill Street, in the direction of West Third Street. He covered the half-block distance in seventeen seconds.
Eleven minutes and twenty-four seconds left.
Once Hunter got to West Third Street, just like Garcia had informed him, it was a straight, four-block run until South Flower Street.
Crossing the roads posed a little bit of a problem, but not as much as Hunter had expected. In total, the crossings cost him an extra twenty-three seconds. Hunter’s new problem was his boots, cowboy-style and fake leather but with a one-and-a-half-inch heel. Definitely not made for running.
His feet had already started to hurt by the time he got to the Grand Central Market. By the time he had covered two blocks on West Third Street, they were begging for mercy and his pace was beginning to slow down.
‘I should’ve thought of changing my shoes before I left,’ he gasped.
By the time he finally covered four blocks and arrived at the corner of West Third and South Flower Street, he could feel that his boots had claimed skin and quite a bit of it. His pace had also seriously deteriorated. Altogether, from the market to his current position, including the extra twenty-three seconds at the road crossings, Hunter had used six minutes and twenty-nine seconds out of what was left of the twelve minutes.
Four minutes and thirty-two seconds left. To climb thirty-five stories.
From the street corner where Hunter was standing, there was still a block and a half to go until he reached the Westin Bonaventure Hotel, but right then, his feet were screaming at him: ‘Please, no more.’
‘Screw this,’ he said to himself.
‘Screw what?’ A worried Agent Shaffer asked in his ear.
‘My boots,’ Hunter replied, as he quickly leaned against the side of a building, took both of them off and left them on the sidewalk. That cost him another seven seconds. ‘Ask someone to please pick them up. They’re right at the corner of West Third and South Flower.’
‘What do you mean – “pick them up”?’ Agent Shaffer asked. ‘You left your boots behind?’
‘Yep,’ Hunter replied, as he took off down the road, wearing only socks on his feet. ‘They were killing me.’
His pace improved a little, but it still wasn’t his best. His boots had already caused the kind of damage that would force anyone to hobble as they walked, let alone run.
Hunter disregarded the pain as best he could and, in an awkward, half-limping sprint, covered the final block and a half in thirty-one seconds.
‘I’m at the hotel,’ Hunter said, his voice labored. ‘Time?’
‘You have three minutes and fifty-four seconds left,’ Agent Shaffer replied.
‘Awesome,’ Hunter said, zooming past the hotel valet and the porter before entering the back lobby.
There was absolutely no way that the hotel porter wouldn’t notice a hobbling-running man entering the hotel in his socks, which by then had already ripped to shreds.
‘Sir,’ the porter called in a loud voice, taking off after Hunter.
‘Police business,’ Hunter shouted back, without looking over his shoulders.
Before the porter could get through the doors, he was approached by a slim dark-haired woman, who placed a strong hand on his shoulder, stopping him. She, very stealthily, showed him the badge that she was holding in her left hand, while whispering a few words into his left ear.
The porter looked down at the badge and first frowned at her words before his eyes widened in surprise.
A second later, the woman disappeared into the hotel.
By the time the woman entered the back lobby, Hunter had already climbed four flights of stairs, which only got him to the main hotel lobby on South Figueroa Street, two levels up.
There were two zigzagging flights of stairs per level. Hunter took the steps two, sometimes three at a time. At that pace, he would cover a whole flight of stairs – fourteen steps – in about four to five seconds.
‘Time,’ Hunter asked again, as he climbed the stairs past the main lobby.
‘Three minutes twenty-seven seconds left.’ Garcia this time.
‘Not great,’ Hunter said, getting to the first floor. ‘Not great at all.’ He carried on climbing two, three steps at a time, but he could already tell that he wouldn’t be able to make it to the thirty-fourth floor in time.
By the time Hunter reached the sixth floor, his legs were starting to hurt. The muscle burn from the lactic acid build-up was also weakening him.
Two minutes and forty-two seconds left.
From the ninth floor onwards, Hunter had to use the hand-rail to help his aching legs.
‘Time?’ Hunter asked through heavy breathing, as he hit the tenth floor.
‘You have exactly two minutes, Robert,’ Garcia told him. ‘Which floor are you on?’
‘Moving on to the eleventh,’
‘Shit!’ Garcia exclaimed.
‘That’s helpful,’ Hunter came back. ‘Thank you.’
Hunter knew that even if he could climb ten floors in one minute flat, he still wouldn’t make it to the thirty-fourth floor in time. Despite that knowledge, he would give it his best shot.
The next ten floors felt like a marathon. Somehow Hunter found the energy from somewhere deep within him and he managed to cover them in one minute and eleven seconds.
Forty-nine seconds left.
Thirteen floors to go.
Begging his legs not to give up, Hunter was now covering a floor in about eleven seconds.
Floor twenty-two – thirty-eight seconds left.
Floor twenty-three – twenty-seven seconds left.
Floor twenty-four – sixteen seconds left.
Floor twenty-five – five seconds left.
Hunter’s legs were starting to shake. His heart sounded like a rave.
Four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . .
Hunter was halfway between floors twenty-five and twenty-six when the phone in his pocket rang. It was the phone he had taken from the toilet water tank inside the bathroom at the Grand Central Market.
With a trembling hand, he reached for the phone, but he could already imagine what the Werewolf was about to say to him.
Hunter accepted the request for a new video call.
‘Tsk, tsk,’ the Werewolf said with a shake of the head, as soon as his face materialized on the phone’s screen. ‘Please tell me it ain’t so, Detective. It looks to me that you haven’t really made it to the thirty-fourth floor in time.’
Hunter never stopped climbing. The phone in his right hand shook from left to right, as he carried on taking two to three steps up at a time.
‘That was an . . .’ Hunter said, completely out of breath. He had reached floor twenty-six and was busy moving on to floor twenty-seven. ‘Impossible task . . . and you know it.’
‘Are you still going for it?’
Hunter said nothing in return.
Floor twenty-seven reached, on to floor twenty-eight.
‘Wow, I must admit, I do admire your commitment.’
Floor twenty-eight.
‘Do you . . . still want . . . your diary?’ Hunter half asked, half coughed the words.
Floor twenty-nine.
‘Ha-ha-ha-ha.’ The Werewolf laughed a humorless laugh. ‘Please, Detective, don’t tell me that you’re trying to bargain with me.’
Floor thirty.
‘Well . . . if you still . . . want it . . . I . . . still . . . got it.’
Floor thirty-one.
‘I like you, Detective Hunter. You’re not the type that gives up on a fight, no matter how much that fight seems to already be lost.’
Floor thirty-two.
‘I respect that in people. Which floor are you on right now?’
‘Thirty-three . . .’ Hunter’s voice was a whisper.
‘What, really?’
Hunter coughed, trying to drag some more oxygen into his lungs. He could feel his legs turning to jelly under him and he grabbed onto the wall for balance.
