IN ROOM 33

by EC Sheedy

  "Jesus! You are a sick bastard."

  It was as if Rupert hadn't heard him. "It was the Depression years, and I knew he'd exhausted all his financial resources before turning to me in the first place. I made certain I was in a position to get what I wanted—as I always do. And I wanted him. In every way possible. He was so beautiful..." He stared at Wade, blinked slowly. "As you are, Wade. Very beautiful."

  Wade's chest moved. He took in air, but he couldn't feel it; his lungs were blocks of ice.

  "You call me a bastard," he went on, his voice growing stronger. "I see myself as single-minded in getting what I want. Always. I gave Joe an ultimatum. Be in my bed by midnight or the front door of his fancy Hotel Philip would never open—and I'd see him, his wife, and his infant son on the bread lines.

  "Oh, but he was so gloriously stubborn." Rupert's voice was distant now, dreamlike. "But, in the end, he came, of course. The night was—"

  "You odious little prick. He must have hated you."

  "I suspect he did." Rupert rubbed his forehead, and his mouth set into a tight line. "Although not nearly as much as I came to hate him."

  "I take it he preferred his wife."

  "You take it right. But I didn't care. I was young. My love was blind and my passions unbridled. I would make him love me. I signed the papers in the morning, confident he'd never meet the stringent terms of my loan, that there would be many opportunities for future liaisons."

  "Sexual extortion, you mean. But knowing Grandfather, there were no other 'opportunities.'" Wade remembered his granddad's boast about how he'd always paid his bills, his stern lectures to Wade to do the same and never be "beholden to any man." Now he knew why.

  "No. Joseph made every payment—via a third party. I lived in the hotel, but he never looked at me or spoke to me again. I resolved to ruin him, of course—force him to come back to me. But he remained unyielding. Even Room 33 wasn't enough." He chuckled then. "Although it did offer me endless amusement."

  "Room 33?"

  "Brilliant of me, really. The hotel was doing well. Joseph was meeting his payments. It grew increasingly unbearable"—he shuddered—"the rooms full all the time, people coming and going—bringing god-knows-what germs in with them. It was about that time I became concerned about my health. Then that wonderfully ridiculous 'room of doom' article appeared, and when I saw how the hotel's business temporarily dropped off, I had my plan. I simply ensured that similar events were staged on a regular basis. The press is such a wonderful source of ideas."

  Wade, still sitting on the hassock, gaped at the evil in front of him. "You had a family of three murdered to get back at my grandfather?" Saying it didn't make it comprehensible. He was cold to the soles of his feet.

  "He never knew, of course. About any of it. That would have spoiled the fun." His expression clouded. "I'd thought I could break him, that when the hotel failed he'd crawl up the stairs to the penthouse—late one night—and beg me to save him."

  "It never happened."

  "Sadly, no. I did, however, achieve at least part of my goal. Hotel bookings declined, and I was gradually able to exercise much more control over the Philip's inhabitants. Unfortunately, the caliber of the guests did deteriorate as the years passed." He frowned slightly. "In the end, I suppose you'd call it a wash. Isn't that when you don't get exactly what you want, but enough to justify your efforts?" He smiled then, drew back into his chair. "I'm glad we had this opportunity to talk before we leave."

  "You're the one leaving." Wade started to get up, but the gun in Rupert's hand—pointed at his chest with not a wobble in sight—stopped him cold.

  "Remain in your seat," Rupert instructed. "I have more to say."

  Wade relaxed back onto the hassock, eyed the gun. "Shoot," he said, his tone deliberately ironic.

  "Very amusing. Another time and another place and I think you and I could get along nicely."

  "Sure, I always bond well with sickos who stick guns in my face."

  "It's your grandfather's fault, really. All of it. I was prepared to ignore your presence here, but one of the terms of my 'ownership' of this penthouse is that when I die it goes back to the hotel proper." The gun held steady. "When I agreed to the term, it meant nothing to me. I was young, death inconceivable. And I was stupidly love struck. But now—after all I've been put through—the idea of an Emerson owning my home is completely unacceptable."

  "It's not an Emerson who owns the Philip, or have you forgotten that?"

  "I've forgotten nothing. And I'm no fool. You and the Cole girl are lovers, and I suspect you, Emerson, have a reason for that coitus other than carnal pleasure. You want this hotel—as your grandfather did before you. And it's been my experience that Emerson men always get what they want—if there is a woman involved." His lip arced to sneer. "Women are ignorant creatures. Put some stars in their eyes, they open their legs. Promise them a trip down the aisle, they open their hearts. Once there, voila! You have them." His smile was snide, knowing. "And if they happen to own a hotel, you have that, too."

  Wade barely heard him. There was a shadow behind Rupert and it moved. Jesus! His heart hammered. Joy hadn't left! He had to keep Rupert's attention on him. "You're dreaming, Rupert." He raised his voice. "The Philip belongs to Joy Cole, and the way things are shaping up, it'll stay that way."

  "Yes, it will because I intend to ensure it does, by seeing you dead, before I see you wed." A slight lift of the gun barrel.

  Wade hurled himself sideways. Rupert fired.

  He rolled into the darkness beyond the sputtering candle; his arm burned as if seared by a branding iron. He held it with his good hand to stanch the bleeding. He'd been lucky. Now all he needed to do was breathe, and get Joy the hell out of here.

  In the halo of light provided by the candle, Rupert struggled to rise from his chair, the gun tight in his grasp.

  "Emerson," he shouted, almost to his feet.

  Ghostly, slender arms emerged from the darkness behind him. Pale and disembodied, a pair of hands gripped his shoulders, yanked him roughly back into the recliner.

  A waterfall of blond hair fell forward to flow over the old man's head.

  "Sit down, you cruel, miserable old man!" Joy had caught him off guard and took advantage of it. She ripped the gun from his hand, and called into the dark room, her voice high, anxious. "Wade, are you there? Are you okay?"

  Wade stepped into candlelight range, holding his bleeding arm; she came right toward him. "That looks bad. I'll call 911."

  "No, Miss Joy Cole, you will not."

  Wade looked past her to see Rupert, on his feet now, a small, glittering pistol in his hand—pointed at Joy.

  "Fuck!" Wade said under his breath. "We've got ourselves a senior Rambo. How many of those have you got in that damn chair?"

  "Enough. A man is nothing without his Plan B." He took a step closer. "Now, to business. Which of you would like to go first?"

  Wade tried to get Joy behind him, but she stepped to his side. Finally, he gave up and moved forward, which gave him a better chance to shield her if he had to move suddenly.

  The old man sneered at Joy's stubborn posture. "I guess you're not as good at keeping your women in line as I thought."

  "Women have come a long way since your century, Mr. Rupert," Joy said. "That would be the fifteenth, right?"

  He ignored her, spoke to Wade. "I've never killed a woman. That was David's forte. All I did was provide a frightened boy a place to bury her body." He gestured with the gun toward the terrace. "Although my act of kindness did prove convenient for me. Whenever I needed something done, I'd simply call my David, and he'd come running. Just like Melly."

  Wade experienced a brief stab of empathy for Grange. Living your life in debt to this creature would be a hell. He'd have been better off paying his dues in the legal system. And as for Wade, he'd had it! He didn't intend to spend another minute listening to Rupert's malevolent bile—or having Joy in the sightline of his pistol.

  He dropped and
lunged, took another slicing burn damn close to the other one, but he took the old man down. No contest. It was like knocking over a stack of kindling.

  He shoved him into his chair—none too gently—and turned to Joy. "Now, call 911."

  While she dialed, Wade removed Rupert's robe sash and secured him to his chair. He also searched it. Hell—who knew?—maybe he'd stashed a couple of grenades. Wade wasn't taking any more chances.

  He stepped back from his task at the same time Joy hung up the phone. Side by side, they stared down at the sullen ancient in the chair.

  Wade couldn't resist asking, "What the hell is with you anyway, Rupert? Your parents force-feed you beets? Lock you in a closet? There has to be a reason a man carries around a load of hate as big as yours for over sixty years."

  Rupert, until now resolutely looking away from his captors, turned back at Wade's question. His smile was cryptic and cold. "Had my love for your grandfather not transformed itself to hate, I would not have survived. Hatred sustained me, empowered me. It gave shape to my life, a reason for living, and a necessary focus. One cannot live a life without passion. And the most passionate of all emotions is hate." A drizzle of frothy saliva seeped from the corner of his mouth; his eyes, already set deep by the passage of too many years, narrowed to hooded slits.

  Rupert gestured with his chin at Joy, sneered. "You enter this whore of a girl and your body ignites, every nerve and fiber inflamed, straining for sexual release. You are at an apex, a point of ardor without boundaries. A place so high a freefall is inevitable. You talk of love—as I once did to Joseph—and you believe you have discovered heaven." He shook his head. "You have not. What you have done is expose yourself, the searing weakness of your own need. You have risked all that you are. And what you have found is the gateway to your own hell."

  "Jesus..." In Wade's heart, the word came closer to a prayer than it had ever been. The air left his lungs and words left his mind.

  Joy stood beside him in utter quiet, her shoulder brushing his. If there was a response to Rupert's hate-laden diatribe, neither of them knew what it was.

  When they stared down at him in silence, Rupert sneered at each of them in turn and turned his face from theirs. Fine with Wade. In the distance he heard sirens. Even better. The sooner this piece of dreck was out of his sight, the happier he'd be.

  Joy went to the table, picked up the flickering candle, and held it high to enlarge the circle of light. When she spotted a lamp, she walked toward it, put her hand under the shade, and flipped it on. Its light was enough to trap the three of them in a watery glow; they looked like escapees from the local morgue.

  Joy glanced toward the terrace. "Should we go out there? Take a look?"

  Wade shook his head, feeling weak now, and a little disoriented. He pulled himself together. "Let's leave that for the pros. David said Michael was in a large storage box. He shouldn't be hard to find."

  "The planter with the tallest trees. Don't forget that one. And dig deep," Rupert said, keeping his eyes averted. "David's little girlfriend is there. Bones by now, I'd expect. But no doubt her parents will appreciate the remains. Such a shame when a teenage boy, testosterone, and tequila come together. Anything can happen. Not David's fault, really."

  There was a loud knock on the door, and Joy, looking startled and unnerved, moved toward it."They've come for you, Rupert," she said.

  Rupert's head came up on the first knock. His skin was chalk white, his lungs pumped visibly against his rib cage, and his breath came in short sharp gasps. He curled his fingers around the armrests of the chair, embedded his nails deep into the fabric.

  "Take it easy, old man," Wade said, too aware suddenly of the blood running down his arm, soaking his shirt."Just breathe." He grabbed his numbed left arm, held it close to his body, and took his own advice.

  For a second it looked as though Rupert would say something; instead he set his lips into a tight line, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes.

  He was bathed in terror.

  Wade was bathed in blood, and his eyes were glazing over. Damn! He was going to pass out and miss the damned finale.

  Joy came back, followed by two police officers and two paramedics just as Wade sank to his knees.

  "Wade!" she screamed and ran to his side.

  Before he went under, he felt hands pulling at his shirt, another on his pulse. Joy's hand on his forehead? He couldn't be sure.

  What he did hear was a voice... far away now, say, "Greg, get over here, fast! I think the old guy just checked out."

  Checking out... The Philip. Christian Rupert is checking out.

  Chapter 20

  Wade woke up briefly in the ambulance. "You're a lucky bastard," the paramedic named Greg told him. "Two bullet wounds, one a pinstripe, the other a bit meaner. Some stitches, and you should be on your way. Lost some blood, though." Wade's eyes closed on that bit of news. When he woke up again, he was in emergency, a doctor basting him together on one side and two cops asking him questions on the other.

  When his brain opened for business, he did his best to fill them in, and not notice that a certain blond someone wasn't anywhere in the immediate vicinity.

  The bigger cop finally snapped his notebook closed. "One thing's for sure, the old Philip's had a helluva busy night. Bodies in penthouse planters, huh? That's a twist." He cocked his head. "You know, my dad was a cop, and he took the odd call from the Phil. He said something about a 'room of doom' thing. Said some people believed the place was actually haunted." He raised his eyebrows and smiled. "You ever hear about that?"

  "Yeah, I heard." He winced as the last stitch went in.

  "What's your take?"

  Wade put his head back on the pillow, smiled. "Fiddlesticks."

  "Huh."

  "I'll be happy to tell you all about it... but another time. Okay?" He'd tell them Rupert's part in Room 33, just not tonight. He was tired. All he wanted to do now was go home and lick his wounds. And he sure as hell wouldn't admit the wound hurting the most was Joy's absence.

  "Yeah, okay." He tapped his notepad on the bed. "You take care. Forensics will be around the hotel for a while. So stay away from the penthouse, okay? We get any more questions, we'll be in touch."

  Wade nodded.

  When he was patched to the doc's satisfaction, they wheeled him out with bandaged arm, a sling, and a handful of painkillers.

  The first person he saw outside the ER was Joy. She looked tired, her pale skin in contrast to the purple-and-blue bruises on her throat. She got to her feet and came toward him. For a second it looked as though she'd hug him—which he was all for—but she stopped when she saw his arm.

  "Are you okay? Will your arm be all right?" she gingerly touched the sling.

  He got out of the chair and said his thanks to the attendant before saying to Joy, "The arm will be fine. I'll have a couple of matching scars. Nothing serious."

  "You were lucky."

  He looked at her. "I am now—that you're here."

  Silence.

  "I'm here," she said, giving him an unreadable look. "The question is, for how long? When you're up to it, we have to talk, Wade. About you. Me. The Phil."

  He didn't like that for how long? comment of hers, but he nodded, then gestured toward his arm. "Now's as good a time as any. Talk's about all I'm good for right now."

  "Can you make it to the car?"

  "Yeah, let's get the hell out of here."

  * * *

  Wade downed another painkiller while Joy went to her room to get him an extra pillow to prop up his arm.

  When she came back, she started to fuss over him, and he reached out his good arm and pulled her down beside him.

  "You said you wanted to talk."

  She chewed her lip, appeared to gather her thoughts. Her eyes went all bright and watery. He brushed a tear away with his thumb. "Hey, what's this?"

  She forced a smile. "In a lesser woman, it would be a tear. For a Cole woman, it's a full-blown catastrophe." />
  He waited.

  The smile dropped from her mouth. "I love you, Wade. I've fallen so hard and so fast, it's frightening. Tonight, when you passed out... I thought—"

  "Don't go there. I'm fine. Stick with the 'I love you' thread."

  "I do—love you, I mean—but there's something about me you don't know."

  He brushed a tendril of hair from her forehead. "Go on." Whatever she told him, he'd handle it—if it meant holding on to her.

  "I was married."

  "You told me."

  "I didn't tell you everything." She got up, stood in front of him. "It was years ago. I was twenty-one. His name was Matt Sheldon. We were married for three months, and when I left him I was a million dollars richer."

  Wade didn't like the uncomfortable tightness in his chest. "That's a lot of money."

  "Yes, it is." She stopped, massaged her forehead.

  "That it?" he prodded.

  "No." She shook her head. "From the beginning his parents opposed the marriage—particularly his mother, but she never said why. Matt said not to worry, it would work out when they came to love me like he did. But a couple of months into the marriage, he started acting strange. He didn't seem to have any energy, didn't want to go out. Didn't want to do anything. I tried to get him to the doctor, but he wouldn't listen, insisted it was a virus of some kind, that it would pass. A month after that, I found a note saying he was sorry—'he had to go'—and a bank slip showing a deposit into our joint account for a million dollars."

  "Generous." Wade knew the word bit the air.

  "Yes. Generous." She looked at him."You're thinking I should have given it back. That three months of marriage didn't warrant that large a settlement. And you're right."

  "Why didn't you? Give it back." The question was pure curiosity.