by Jonas Saul
His shift was over.
Time to move inside and get my wife.
He took one more sip of his coffee and left the café. When he entered the hotel, a young girl was at the counter talking to two men who were checking out. She couldn’t be more than eighteen.
The lobby was almost empty but for the men at the counter and an old man with graying hair sitting alone in a plush chair beside his luggage. Darwin waited. After a minute, the two men thanked the woman and stepped away from the counter.
Darwin walked up. “Good morning,” he said, sounding cheery and bright.
“How can I help you this morning?” the girl asked.
Darwin looked down at her name tag. “Jessica, my friend and I are staying in room 456. I understand he left something for me.”
“Let me look.”
She turned away from the counter and checked a row of small boxes.
“It should be a sunglasses case,” Darwin added. “I have a note on room 456 to not be disturbed.”
“Yes, here it is.”
She turned around with the case in her hand.
“Great, thanks.” Darwin took the case.
“And your name was?” the girl asked as she typed on the computer.
“I’m with the Yuri Pavel party in 456. And if I’m right, he left me a one-hundred-dollar bill inside this case along with my shades. At least that’s what he said he would do.”
Jessica looked over and watched as Darwin opened the case. The money popped up when he did.
“Perfect. Just like he said he would.” He turned to her. “I told him I forgot my wallet at home and he said he’d put the money in the case for me so I could pick it up at the counter on my way back to the room.” He stepped away. “I’ll just head back up—” he patted his pockets and stopped walking. “Oh, damn. My key card was in my wallet, too. Can you give me a replacement?”
“Of course,” Jessica said. She typed on the computer a moment. “Checkout is eleven this morning and the room was only booked for the one night.”
“Has Mr. Pavel already come down to checkout?”
“Not yet, but sometimes guests just leave the key in the room and leave the hotel. Housekeeping confirms to us down here that they’ve vacated the room. I haven’t got confirmation yet, but,” she checked her watch, “you’ve got twenty more minutes until eleven.”
A sinking feeling dropped into his stomach. He was too late.
“Well, as I said, I’ve forgotten a few things up there. The rest of my things are in the room. I’ll come down and give you the key back within fifteen minutes so we’re out on time.”
He smiled wide, showing teeth, trying for the innocent look.
“Of course,” she said, smiling back at him.
As conspicuous as he could, Darwin took in the lobby. It was still empty except for the old man in the chair. At this time he assumed most of the guests would’ve checked out by now. He only hoped Yuri hadn’t. Losing him now would be a catastrophe. If sleeping in the park meant he lost the trail, he would go insane with anger.
Jessica handed him the key card.
“Thank you so much,” Darwin said. “Have a fine day.”
At the elevators, Darwin pressed the button. He waited until the doors opened and then stepped on, hitting the fourth floor and the close-door button at the same time.
When the door closed, he exhaled the breath he’d been holding.
The elevator crept to the fourth floor. As it slowed, he tightened the grip on the barrel of the weapon. His heart raced and his pulse pounded in his head. He was close to Rosina. As close to her as he’d been in weeks. Sweat lined the inside of his hand on the weapon. His grip slipped so he let go of the gun, wiped his hand on the outside of his new hoodie and grabbed it again.
The door slid open.
He waited inside the elevator in case a Russian bodyguard watched all access to the floor. When the doors began to close, Darwin placed his free hand between them. They clunked to a stop and slowly reopened.
He listened but heard nothing. No soft patter of feet on the carpet, no whispered warnings.
He stuck his head out. The hallway was empty. With his gun low and hidden in his left hand, he walked into the foyer of the fourth floor.
The sign on the wall directly in front of the elevator told him room 456 was to the right. The hotel was constructed in an L-shape with the hall on the right going south and the hall on his left going east. That meant he only had to watch his back for as far as he walked toward room 456 and not the length of the other hallway.
Each corridor had cleaning carts topped up with toilet paper, pads, pens and garbage bags as the hotel’s maids cleaned in various rooms. As he drew close to room 456, the door was closed and the nearest cleaning cart was one door down.
If Yuri had vacated, the maid would see that soon enough. Darwin put his back to the wall beside the room and waited, listening for anything behind the wall. Maybe a distant voice, a slammed door, a TV, but there was nothing. He couldn’t wait long. At any second a maid would see him and question his intentions.
He knocked on the door, stepped back three feet and brought the gun up. The time to be discreet was over. If Rosina was inside the room, he would shoot the thug who opened the door and barge in with one less man on their team. If a maid saw him with the gun at the ready, she could call downstairs, but Darwin would have Rosina by then and even if the police showed up and took them into custody, it would be better than leaving Rosina with the Russian Mafia.
But no one answered the door.
A maid stepped out of the room next door. He lowered the gun beside him just as she looked up. She smiled. He smiled back. He raised the key in his hand, twisted it back and forth in the air and nodded at her. She returned the nod, gathered a small pile of towels and disappeared backwards into the room she had been cleaning.
“That was close,” he whispered under his breath.
If Yuri had left with Rosina, the last thing Darwin wanted was to be picked up by the authorities now.
He inserted the key into the slot on the door, pulled it back out and watched the light turn green. Then he pulled on the handle, and opened it with most of his body hidden behind the wall.
“Housekeeping,” he said into the open door.
After getting no response, he stepped inside and closed the door behind him. The room was a mess, the three beds unmade. The room came with two doubles. A cot had been brought in to handle a third person.
Probably Yuri took one bed, Rosina the other, and his bodyguard the cot. Or they made Rosina sleep on the cot.
He checked the bathroom and the hall closet, but it was clear Yuri had left the hotel.
“Damn,” he slammed his hand against the bathroom door.
How would he find his wife now?
He had at least ten minutes. That was enough time to search the room. Maybe they left something behind that would lead him to their next stop of the meeting place.
He started in the bathroom but found nothing in the garbage other than a spent razor and used Q-Tips.
In the main room there were two empty Vodka bottles and two cigars doused in an ashtray. The window sat open, otherwise he would’ve detected the residual cigar smell right away.
There was nothing else in the room other than messy beds. No other garbage or notes or business cards. He was at a dead end.
To lose Rosina when he was so close meant that he had failed her. His eyes watered. He had no idea where to go next.
Then he remembered the papers in his back pocket that Agent Williams had given him in the Crown Victoria after picking him in Barrie. He pulled them out, unfolded them, and placed them flat out on the room’s desk.
He crumpled up the papers on Arkady and his bodyguard as they had been taken care of. He flipped through the rest, discarding the ones he didn’t need and putting into a separate pile the ones of the faces and locations he didn’t recognize.
He had thinned the file considerably. Under
the paperwork that showed known businesses associated with the Russian Mafia, the FBI had listed the restaurant on Queen Street that Yuri owned. It also listed an adult store in North York on Finch Avenue.
He stopped browsing and snapped his fingers.
That’s right. The Italians run a store in Mississauga.
The entire nightmare had started in an adult store in Mississauga when Darwin had been given an address of an abandoned airplane hangar. He had been in the store to purchase a bottle of mint tree, a minty liquid that Rosina used for her teeth and bathing. She loved the stuff. But what Darwin got was an address that day to a meeting where he thought he would be able to work on his phobias in a group setting.
How ironic.
That day started his foray into the world of the Mafia, but he’d come out the other side with his phobias healed. The group setting wasn’t traditional, but the end result was the same.
There was a knock on the door. Then a soft voice said, “Housekeeping.”
“I’m still here,” he said.
The door opened anyway.
The woman who had been cleaning next door stepped inside, towels in her hands.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess I didn’t hear you.”
“I’ll be done in a moment.”
Darwin gathered the papers up and folded them together. He stuffed all of them in his pocket as the maid moved farther into the room.
“Excuse me,” Darwin turned to her. “I haven’t checked out yet.”
The towels dropped away from the woman’s hand and a gun popped up as the door behind her closed. The petite woman aimed it at his face and ordered him to sit.
Darwin was too far away to swat at her and not stupid enough to reach for his own gun.
He backed up and sat in the chair by the desk.
“It’s past checkout time,” the woman said. “Time for you to go.”
“Interesting way for the hotel to ask their guests to check out.”
She two-handed the gun and slipped her finger inside the trigger guard.
Darwin closed his eyes and braced for the bullet.
Chapter 16
The bullet didn’t come. He opened his eyes. The woman sat on the corner of the bed, the gun still up. More than eight feet separated them. Too far to attempt to knock the weapon out of her hand and too far to rush her.
“Who are you?” Darwin asked. “Who do you work for?”
“No talking. We wait. When my backup arrives you can tell your story.”
Police?
If she was a cop, why didn’t she identify herself right away? Would he be right in assuming she would know the FBI agents up here in Canada dealing with Darwin and the Red Mafia dispute? He decided to take a gamble.
“You’re wasting valuable time,” he said.
“Shut up.”
“I will have your job when this is over.”
“I said, shut up.”
“Why the delay with the backup? They busy cleaning up all the bodies left behind by The Scythe?”
Her eyes flickered.
Got you.
She met his gaze. This time she didn’t tell him to shut up. Her silence was enough to let him know she was listening.
“My search has led me from the catastrophe at the restaurant on Queen Street last night to the aftermath at the strip club. My sources told me Yuri Pavel would be in this hotel with a hostage. I’m trying to locate The Scythe before he continues his spree and you stalling me here is outrageous.”
“What? But they said …”
“I know, I know. My name is Special Agent Kirk Williams.”
If she had met Williams, his gambit was over. If not, he was on a tangent.
“You look young to be—”
“So do you,” Darwin cut in.
“What happened to your face?”
“Didn’t you hear what happened to us yesterday in Barrie? Our car was stolen on the way into town?”
“Yes, we had to send another car out to the agents stranded on the highway. They were pretty pissed that guy Darwin got away.”
“Darwin Kostas is almost as bad as the Mafia.”
“I’ve heard he’s some kind of hero throughout our ranks.”
She lowered her gun to rest it on her leg.
Darwin raised his hand slowly so as to not cause alarm. Then he circled his face. “Darwin did this. That’s why I’m dressed this way. I’m hunting him and the Russians.”
“Are you armed?”
“Of course. I’m surprised with your training that you’re just asking me that now.”
Sirens outside the building were loud enough to hear through the thick walls.
Shit. Gotta go.
“Can I show you something?” Darwin asked.
She hesitated.
“It’s in my back pocket.”
“Slowly,” she said.
Without any sudden movements, Darwin twisted in his chair and pulled the pile of papers that he was done with and unfolded them.
“Here, look at these.”
He tossed them on the bed closest to him. The woman walked over and picked them up. She scanned through the pile while the sirens pulled up out front and were turned off.
“These are confidential FBI releases from their files,” she said. “At least that’s what it looks like to me. How is it you have these?”
“How would I have them if I wasn’t FBI?”
“Do you have ID?”
“Have you ever worked undercover? Not just dressed as a maid, I mean deep cover?”
She shook her head.
“If I was searched at the strip club, that would’ve been it for me. Now, I’m running out of time. I’m going to leave.” He stood from the chair. “Your team can sweep this room, but you won’t find much. In our experience, Yuri never leaves prints behind. I’m just pissed that I was an hour too late.”
“Last question.”
Hurry up, hurry up. At any second someone’s coming through that door and I’m toast.
“How did you get in here?”
“This key card.” He held it up. “The front desk gave it to me. We’d called it in an hour before I got here. You’d be surprised at the access we can get.”
She bought everything he was selling. She lowered her weapon.
He walked up to her and held out his hand. She shook it.
“Pleasure to work with you, Agent …”
“Shelly Paulson. I’m not an agent. I’m an Inspector with the RCMP. Although I’m pretty new at it.”
“Brave of you to do what you did, but you were too late. The Russians have left the building. I’ll favor you in my report.”
He stepped past her and walked to the door.
“Wait,” she called.
He grabbed the door and waited, knowing each second counted.
“Don’t you want these files? Aren’t they confidential?”
“Shred them. Those are the files of the Russians who are dead now.”
As he opened the door and stepped out, the elevator pinged. He turned away from it, walked as fast as he could to the next door in the hallway and stood by it for a brief moment. He watched the end of the hall toward the elevator.
Then five men filled the entrance, briskly heading his way.
He banged his foot on the door in front of him and pulled his shoulder back as if he had just shut it hard. At this time in the day, right after checkout, he didn’t have to worry that anyone was in the room. Unless they were staying for more than one night.
He turned away from the five men and walked without purpose, slowly making his way down the long hallway, acting as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He listened to everything behind him, trying to make out if they were closing in on him.
The men reached the door to room 456 and knocked. Shelly opened it. Their voices traveled down the empty, quiet corridor.
Three doors away from the end Darwin picked up his pace.
“Shelly Paulson, and yours?�
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The voice was distant, but he discerned who the speaker was and what they were saying.
“We’re with the FBI. This is Special Agent Scott and my name is Special Agent Williams.”
