Hell and Gone

by Duane Swierczynski

  “I don’t want to talk unless you care to explain where I’ve been for five years.”

  Gedney frowned. “I’m guessing that site seven seven three four has been compromised. That’s a real bummer.”

  “Why did you send me there? Why didn’t you just kill me?”

  “Kill you?” Gedney asked. “Why? When you could serve as leverage?”

  “What do you mean, leverage?”

  “Every once in a while someone comes along trying to make trouble,” Gedney explained. “Guy like you, for instance. Raises a big fuss, laboring under the delusion that he’s doing something heroic. But all you’re doing is getting in the way. So we send heroes like you to site seven seven three four. A special prison. A prison for heroes. See, we couldn’t send heroes like you to an ordinary prison. You’d just join forces and eventually escape. I mean, that’s the kind of thing heroes do, right? So we came up with something special—a way to keep heroes pitted against their fellow heroes, in a state of perpetual conflict. The machinery was already in place; we just had to take advantage of it.”

  “Bobby Marchione,” Hardie said. “The prison experiment.”

  “Exactly. And this is what I’m talking about. Sure, we could have killed him along with everybody else. But that would have been shortsighted. That would have meant ignoring a unique situation that we could use to our advantage. A place for all you heroic types. But it seems you’ve found a way out, which either makes you a hero, or something else al—”

  Gedney moved quickly, slapping away Hardie’s knife hand, bouncing off the bed and tackling Hardie right in his center of gravity. Hardie dropped the knife. Hardie dropped his cane. Hardie went down hard. Pain exploded in his lower spine. What he wouldn’t give for his old body back. Gedney, meanwhile, kept on trucking. On the other side of the room were three doors, side by side—one leading to the hallway and the others, presumably, to a bathroom and a closet. Three guesses which one Gedney would be choosing.

  Hardie cursed himself for his stupidity as he rolled over. To lose it all so quickly in a matter of moments…

  But Gedney surprised him by launching himself into the bathroom and slamming the door shut behind him.

  Thank you, God.

  Hope you’ll forgive me for what I am about to do.

  Hardie pulled himself up from the floor, stumbling a bit as he recovered his cane and the knife. But the stumble was fortunate, because as Hardie raced for the door a bullet blasted through the wood, whizzing by his face before burying itself in the plaster across the room. Another second and it would have buried itself inside Hardie’s head.

  Ah.

  No wonder he chose the bathroom.

  Gedney had a gun in there.

  Gedney was very glad to have a motherfuckin’ gun in here.

  Never thought he’d ever, ever have to use it, though—this was the St. Francis Hotel. Survivor of the 1906 earthquake. Site of countless Industry meetings over the decades, not a single incident. A safe zone. A dead zone. Like a womb, surveillance-wise.

  A womb with a revolver hidden away.

  Not so much to use on outsiders breaking in, but in case a meeting went…south.

  Whatever its intended purpose, Gedney was glad to have the revolver. He kept it trained on the door. He didn’t think Hardie would just give up and go away. And he didn’t think he was lucky enough to have hit the bastard with that first shot. So the next move would be Hardie’s; the finishing move would be Gedney’s. That, or somebody had heard the shot and already called downstairs, but that was unlikely. Big old pile like the St. Francis muffled sound pretty well. Gedney would know.

  So the play was simple. Hardie would either come through that door, or launch something through that door, or try to lure him out of the bathroom with some ruse. No matter what, all Gedney had to do was keep his back to the wall, keep the gun pointed at the door, and shoot when he saw Hardie.

  Gedney had infinite patience; Hardie clearly did not. Or he wouldn’t have marched here straight from the prison to exact his revenge. Gedney fixed his grip on the gun and took a deep, cleansing breath. He was about to consider how infinite patience usually prevailed in these kinds of situations when the tile behind him exploded.

  Not all of it—just a half-dollar-size hole. But through it, Hardie jammed the business end of the cane into the back of Gedney’s little skull and pulled the trigger. The man cried out and the gun dropped out of his hands and made a sharp clank as it landed on the tile floor.

  Hardie had gone in through the wall of the walk-in closet, which he accessed through the second door. He listened, tried to remember Gedney’s height. Then he used all his might to force the cane through the wall. He might have missed completely. The cane might have snapped. But there was no way he was going through that bathroom door—it was a suicide move. Better this than nothing.

  After he pulled the cane out of the hole in the wall, Hardie shook it free of plaster dust as he walked back around to the bathroom. He kicked in the door, crouched down, recovered the gun, slid it into the back of his trousers. Then he picked up Gedney, who was dazed and bleeding, and slowly dragged him across the carpet.

  Gedney woke up to find his face pressed up against the cool glass of the window in his room. His eyes rolled down, saw bustling Union Square below.

  “Where’s Abrams?”

  “You won’t do this,” Gedney said. “You won’t put me through this window.”

  “Oh, I won’t?” Hardie asked, keeping his grip firm against Gedney’s back, supporting both of them with his one good leg. The gun he kept pressed against Gedney’s head.

  “That’s Powell Street directly below us. Too many people down there. Throw me out the window and I’ll be taking innocent lives with me.”

  “You’re assuming I’m going to push you. Maybe I’ll just blow your head off.”

  “You would have already done it. You want something from me, don’t you? Information. Or maybe a deal. Isn’t that right, Mr. Hardie? You’re a bruiser but you’re not a stupid man.”

  Hardie thought about this.

  “Good point. Let’s go for a walk, then. You’re not going to give me any trouble, will you? I don’t think you’re stupid, either.”

  “But why go anywhere? We can talk right here. No eavesdropping. The walls are soundproofed.”

  “Unh-unh. I’ve got a special place in mind.”

  With the gun pressed against the base of his spine, Gedney was forced into the hallway. Again Hardie marveled at how huge the spaces were in this old hotel. You could fit entire rooms in the hallways. Then again, maybe they just seemed wide because he’d been cooped up inside a mildewy cell under Alcatraz for Christ knows how long.

  “We really should have stayed in the room,” Gedney said, and right away Hardie pushed him forward, making him walk faster and faster until he was in a light jog and nervously turning his head backward, trying to find Hardie’s eyes and muttering, “What you are doing?” but Hardie just kept pushing him faster and faster until they were actually running, Hardie’s left knee screaming like you wouldn’t believe. But it didn’t matter, because this was a short run, ending when they reached the bank of picture windows and Hardie threw Gedney’s body through the glass.

  And just before that moment, Hardie whispered: “Bobby Marchione says hello.”

  Gedney’s screaming, twisting body fell at least ten stories down to the roof of the structure that connected the old St. Francis Hotel to its new wing.

  No innocent people down there.

  On the roof.

  Hardie didn’t need any information from Gedney after all. Hardie had picked up the man’s smartphone, checked the address book. Abrams had five addresses. All L.A.

  Maybe Doyle would help him pinpoint the correct one.

  30

  It’s an odd thing, but anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco.

  —Oscar Wilde

  HARDIE RAPPED THREE times on the metal door of the garage. Some stoo
ge in a jumpsuit answered. Before the door was even half opened Hardie jammed the tip of his cane into the man’s ample belly and gave the button a squeeze. The stooge’s eyes rolled back in his head; the stooge went down. Pressing his cane to the ground, Hardie slid himself in through the open doorway, kicked the door shut behind him.

  Two other guys in jumpsuits were already up and yelling and racing toward Hardie. One of them had a tire iron. The other, a gun. Hardie spun himself around, leaned against the nearest car.

  Reached into his jacket pocket, where he kept the gun.

  But the guy with the tire iron reached Hardie first, which is probably why his partner with the gun hesitated. No need to waste a bullet on an intruder when you could just cave in his head with a piece of metal. They hadn’t seen what had happened to their buddy; they assumed this was just some crazy old geezer with a cane.

  Hardie lifted his cane. The jumpsuit smacked it to the side with his tire iron. Hardie felt the shock of the blow all the way up his arm, across his shoulder, and down into his chest. The tire iron went up, and then began its swift descent toward Hardie’s face. Hardie let himself drop down to his ass and grunt as he swung the cane back around. The tire iron struck the car so hard it created tiny white sparks. Hardie thrust the cane up under the guy’s ribs, hoping there had been enough time for the damned thing to recharge. He thumbed the button and—

  CLICK

  Nothing.

  The guy lifted the iron again. Hardie used his free hand to reach into his jacket pocket.

  BLAM

  The guy was flying backward into the side of another vehicle.

  The third guy, the one with the gun, screamed, took aim, fired.

  Almost at the same time, Hardie twisted the gun around in his jacket and fired again.

  The first bullet went SPACK into the car.

  The second bullet ripped through Hardie’s jacket and sliced through the third guy’s stomach.

  He moaned, dropped to the floor.

  Hardie removed the warm gun from his jacket, aimed, and gave the third another one in the head, then turned his attention to the second guy in the jumpsuit and shot him in the head, too.

  As soon as Hardie struggled up from the floor, a man in a pair of greasy overalls came bursting into the room, cursing about all the noise. Hardie nearly shot him in the head until he recognized him as Doyle, the second lawyer.

  Doyle looked down and saw the bodies, then Hardie. Recognition washed over his face.

  “You.”

  Hardie raised the gun an inch. “Don’t move.”

  Doyle moved like he was on fire.

  Shit.

  What was it with these lawyers bolting like jackrabbits? Did they all run track in their spare time?

  But he couldn’t risk shooting and accidentally killing the son of a bitch.

  Not before he talked about Abrams.

  Hardie hurled himself toward Doyle, limping as fast he could. He ended up catching him and bodychecking him into a table. Doyle’s hands reached out wildly for the closest sharp tool or blunt object. There was no time to fuck around. Hardie put the cane under Doyle’s neck and pulled back hard, as if doing a barbell pull-up. Doyle’s cry was choked out immediately. But then he shifted his body weight back onto Hardie. No cane, no support. Hardie’s right leg tried to support the weight, but it was too much. It shook wildly before giving out. Both men tumbled to the floor, Hardie hanging on to his cane as if it were the only thing preventing him from a sixty-story drop to a hard sidewalk.

  “Where’s Abrams?”

  “Eat me.”

  “Which address in L.A.? Tell me and you’ll live.”

  “Eat your mother.”

  The contact file on Gedney’s phone had five L.A. addresses. House in Holmby Hills. House along the Venice Canals. Office in Century City. Some building in Arcadia, California. Some other building in Thousand Oaks, California. So which one would it be? The revenge clock was ticking.

  And only Doyle knew the magic answer.

  Hardie briefly considered running through the addresses one by one, but he expected Doyle to say pretty much the same thing. Shame he couldn’t have hung out with Bobby a little while longer in that hellhole. Hardie was sure the man would have had some fantastic interrogation tips to share. So instead he settled for choking Doyle with the cane until he passed out. There was a certain finesse to doing such a thing. You want them out, but not out forever.

  After he was sure Doyle was unconscious, Hardie relaxed his grip and rolled away. He was exhausted down to the marrow in his bones. He couldn’t remember feeling so tired. Old Man Hardie.

  He reached out and put his hand against the nearest vehicle—the big black car he’d seen when he first entered the garage. Using the cane and the car, Hardie somehow made it back up to his feet. Only then did he realize what he was touching.

  Jesus Christ.

  He hadn’t seen this thing in more than five years.

  The Coma Car.

  Well, technically, it was a Lincoln Town Car. But the last time Hardie had seen this—or its older cousin, because this thing looked brand-new—he’d only been able to enjoy it from the inside. While unconscious.

  And it was the last thing he remembered before waking up in prison.

  A trunk-release trigger was mounted under the dash. Hardie popped it, then walked around to the back to fully admire Doyle’s ingenuity. As he remembered, the trunk contained a fully functional life-support system. Complex and expertly engineered, to be sure, but even a first-year nursing student could figure out how the needles and hoses and wires would be inserted in a living human being.

  “Doyle, buddy, we’re going to Hollywood,” muttered Hardie.

  Which is when he heard movement behind him.

  * * *

  “Charlie?”

  Deke Clark.

  More or less the last person Hardie expected to see in this garage. Deke—who’d really gotten old. Still, he held a gun, classic two-hand grip.

  “Hi, Deke.”

  “Where the fuck have you been, man.” A statement, not a question.

  “They sent me away.”

  “I know. Believe me, I know. They sent me pictures. I’ve been looking for you for five years. I hired people to go looking for you. But you vanished without a trace.”

  “Well, I’m back. So what are we going to do?”

  Deke looked around the garage, saw the bodies lying in pools of their own blood. “You do that?”

  “You would have, too.”

  “Who’s the guy on the floor?”

  “His name’s Doyle. He’s one of the ones who sent me away.”

  “Law firm of Gedney, Doyle, and Abrams,” Deke said, then sighed. “The police found Gedney. On the roof of the St. Francis.”

  “Yeah. He’s another one who sent me away. There’s this one. Doyle. Fuckin’ Abrams will be next.”

  Deke tensed up. “You don’t understand, man. Stop for a minute and consider your situation. The world thinks you’re a killer. That’s right. Far as everyone’s concerned, you killed an innocent woman five years ago and went on the run. Now you show up and start killing more people? Don’t you realize the road you’re headed down?”

  “You don’t know what these sons of bitches did to me.”

  “I know, Charlie. Believe me…I. Know. They’ve been threatening to do the same thing to me, Ellie, everyone close to me. They deserve to die screaming for what they’ve done. But this isn’t how we fight them. We drag their asses out into the light and we burn them.”

  Hardie said nothing. Deke Clark was one of the smartest and toughest guys he’d ever worked with—besides Nate Parish, of course—but now his eyes were full of fear. Maybe Hardie would have been the same way had the roles been reversed.

  “Come on, Charlie. Let’s go. Let’s get out of here.”

  “No. I’m not finished.”

  “Finished what? You have nothing to finish. You come back with me and you start explaining. Other pe
ople will finish this. You? You’re done. You don’t have to do this anymore. We can get help. You’ve got to stop now and come home.”

  Home.

  That’s when it occurred to Hardie.

  “Do you still have people on Kendra and Charlie?” he asked.

  Deke swallowed. “They’re fine. Perfectly safe.”

  “You’re not answering my question. Does the bureau still have a detail on my wife and son?”

  Deke couldn’t lie; he was practically incapable of it. Hardie knew that.

  “Listen, Charlie…”

  “Goddamn it, how long you been retired?” Hardie asked. “The person who answered the phone said you were gone.”

  “It’s been a while, man. Look, back when you went missing…”

  “How long have Kendra and Charlie been without protection, goddamn it!?”

  After a quiet beat, Deke said: “I look after them.”

  “What, do you sleep in your fucking car outside their house and keep constant vigil? Does Ellie join you? You living your life making sure nobody kills my family? Who’s watching your family? You got a detail for that?”

  “Hardie…”

  Hardie leaned on the cane and turned away from Deke. All this time he could relax with one assumption: that his wife and son were being looked after. Deacon Clark was the fuckin’ Boy Scout of the Philly branch of the FBI; his word was bond, you needed nothing else. He’d never imagine Deke leaving the FBI. Never. No way. The man was one drunken night away from having J. Edgar Hoover tattooed on his dick. Hardie had always comforted himself with knowing that Deke would never fall down on the job. Even if Hardie were to die, Deke would honor his promise.

  But his family was wide open, exposed.

  And right now in the worst danger of their lives.

  All because of him.

  Deke couldn’t tell if the man was crying or ready to collapse or laughing from nervous exhaustion or what. All he knew was that it was finally time for Charlie Hardie to come home. He slipped the gun inside his jacket pocket and walked over to Hardie, put his hands on his shoulders, told him everything was going to be okay, even though it probably wasn’t. Right here, in this room, were three men Charlie had killed. Another on a roof just a dozen blocks away. No matter what had happened, you can’t make murder go away. He could feel Hardie trembling a little under his touch.