by Lesley Crewe
“I’m calling from the Waldorf Astoria…no, it didn’t happen here… we were in a car…NO…it didn’t happen at the hotel…it’s not happening now. It happened before.” Linda put her hand over the phone. “She thinks it happened here.” She got back on the phone. “I’m sorry, I think you’re confused…no, it’s not an emergency…well, it was, but we tried to call before and we had to stop because bad guys were chasing us.” Linda listened. “No, madam, this isn’t a prank…a man is dead and he’s on a highway somewhere in this city…I don’t know where. I just flew in a few hours ago. On a plane…Look, we’re at the end of our rope here. We haven’t eaten, we haven’t slept, we were mugged and chased by bad guys, we spent two hours on buses carrying a lot of luggage and we’re fried. This is supposed to be a holiday and so far…what? Are you sure? But the guy is still out there…Okay, okay. What’s the number?” Linda snapped her fingers. Gemma reached over and grabbed a pad and pencil by the phone and handed them to Linda. She started to scribble. “So we can call this number tonight? But…okay, fine. We’ll call in the morning. So you’re sure about this? Okay, thanks.”
Linda put down the phone. “She says we can report it to the police in the morning, because it wasn’t an emergency.”
“Wasn’t an emergency?” Gemma said. “What does she know, sitting on her ass in some cubicle? It was an emergency when that guy pointed a gun at us.”
“I’m still trembling.” Augusta held out her hands to show the others. “I don’t feel right sitting here in a fancy hotel when there’s a man lying dead by the side of the road,” Bette said.
“He was a bad man,” Gemma said. “He could have killed us and eight children would’ve been orphans.”
Linda sighed. “Bette, we’re not going to feel right, period, after what we’ve been through. It scared the life out of us. We’ve done our best to report this to someone and the authorities told us we can call in the morning. I think we should order some food, unpack, and get into our pyjamas. It’ll make us feel better. We can call or even go visit a police station tomorrow. What do you think?”
The other three nodded in agreement.
Linda stood up. “Since you three cowards didn’t want to call, I’m first in the shower.”
Stuart lay on the king-sized bed and watched Ryan cavort around the room in her skimpy undies and small spaghetti-strap top. He was exhausted. How was it possible she was still raring to go?
She jumped on the bed and straddled him. “Don’t be such an old bear, Stuart. Come on, we’re in New York for God’s sake. Let’s go clubbing.”
“I took you to dinner. We’ve shagged for two hours. What more do you want?”
“I want to go clubbing.”
“I have an all-day conference tomorrow, in case you’ve forgotten. I told you that before we left home, so don’t get all pouty on me.”
Ryan flicked her streaked hair across his face, and then lowered her head and gently rubbed her lips across his. “Please. Pretty please. I’ll give you what you want.”
God, he hated when she did that. He’d have a heart attack at this rate. He put his hands on her shoulders. “No, Ryan. Now stop, I’ve had enough. It’s been a long day and I have to get some sleep.”
She huffed off the bed and stomped over to the chair by the window. “So I’m supposed to sit here and watch you snore and tomorrow I get to file my nails until you waltz in the door, is that it?”
Stuart got up on his elbows. “For Christ’s sake, I told you before we left you didn’t have to come. I’m not on holiday. I’m working, believe it or not.”
She gathered her knees up under her chin. “Well, this sucks.”
He didn’t bother to answer her, opting instead to get off the bed and shuffle into the bathroom. Leaning over the sink, he looked at himself in the mirror. There were bags under his eyes, a symptom of all these late nights with Ryan. She was up for it twenty-four hours a day. He was up twice, maybe three times if he pushed it. How long would it take before he dropped dead?
He turned on the hot water and cupped his hands under the tap, splashing his face a few times before reaching for a towel. There wasn’t one. They were all on the floor. How was it possible for one slip of a girl to need every towel in the bathroom? He muttered as he reached for the facecloth still folded in a triangle. Once his face was dry, he searched for his shaving kit so he could brush his teeth, but it was nowhere to be seen. The entire surface of the counter was covered with makeup, perfume, and huge black instruments of torture—a hair dryer, curling iron, and something that looked like a fat pair of tongs. He picked it up and wondered what it was for.
“Ah, screw it.” He opened the bathroom door, shut off the light, and was about to fall back into bed when Ryan said, “I need ice. I’m drinking every bottle in this mini-bar, since you won’t take me out. I deserve at least that.”
“Fine.” Stuart turned around and grabbed the ice bucket off the table, then opened the hotel room door and rounded the corner. He stopped dead in his tracks. Room service was pushing a cart into a doorway two doors down. He quickly retreated and shook his head. He could have sworn he’d seen Bette. He looked again, but she was gone. Maybe he was going nuts? Guilt was doing a number on his head. He went back to his room and shut the door.
“Hey! Where’s my ice?”
“I don’t want to go out in my bathrobe. The liquor’s cold, anyway.” Ryan gave him a filthy look. “I’ll get it myself, shall I?” She jumped up and grabbed the ice bucket.
“You can’t go out like that.”
“Watch me.” She opened the door and sashayed down the hall. “Maybe I’ll meet a bell boy and we can do it in the broom closet. At least that’s exciting.”
“Ryan, get back here.”
“Make me.” She kept going.
CHAPTER SIX
The bad guys were in a dither. The smuggled diamonds hidden inside the teddy bear had been snatched out of their hands moments before they were meant to be delivered. Heads rolled on the decision to use the young mother with the baby.
Then came worse news.
“The driver. He’s dead,” confirmed the voice on the phone.
Candy hit his forehead with the palm of his hand. “I knew it. I knew it. This just goes from bad to worse.” He slammed the phone down and glared with his piggy eyes at the young woman in the chair in front of him.
“It’s a professional job.”
“It couldn’t be. She was a lady. Look in the bag. Everything’s in there…her passport…even her wallet has two hundred bucks in it. Who’d be stupid enough to leave that behind?”
Candy reached into his pocket, unwrapped three Life Savers, and popped them in his mouth. “She walked off with five million in ice, Gracie. I’d say she was very, very clever.”
Gracie looked at him, wide eyed. “I did what you wanted. I brought the stuff over. What’s going to happen to me? ”
“If it were up to me, I’d kill ya, but higher-ups want to keep you for a while. You’re the only one who knows what this broad looks like. You may come in handy. For now. Let’s just say you’re expendable, and so’s your kid.”
Gracie looked as if she might faint.
“Go over it again. You’re sure there’s nothing you can tell me about this woman? Did she say where she was going? Anything that would help track her down?”
She didn’t speak.
Candy yelled in her face. “What do I look like, a priest? I don’t got all day.”
“No. Nothing.”
“She didn’t say a word?”
“She said Keaton was lovely.”
Candy hit the table with his fist. He yelled for his beefy henchmen, whom he’d nicknamed Dumb and Dumber after a botched job in the Bronx. Candy wasn’t the sort who let someone forget their mistakes.
Dumb came through the door first. He was all muscle, with a blank stare that registered nothing, whereas Dumber possessed a permanent sneer. He carried the baby out in front of him as if he were radioactive. “Yeah, boss?”
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Gracie jumped up and grabbed her baby. Keaton held on to her for dear life.
“Your brat stinks,” Dumber said.
“So do you,” Gracie yelled at him.
Dumber put up his hand to slap her. Gracie flinched but didn’t back down.
“Cut the crap.” Candy crunched on his Life Savers and then put the rest of the roll in his mouth. “Yous guys take this chick to the safe house. Then come back here. We got work to do. We have to find this Bette Weinberg, and if not her, then her relatives. She’ll give us the goods when she knows we have her family.”
When Dumb and Dumber left, Candy got on the phone. He called a few associates, and one of them gave him the information he needed. Freddy the Fish lived in the east end of Montreal. He got Fish on the phone and gave him Bette’s address.
“Rough up anyone who answers the door. I wanna know where this bitch is and I don’t got a lotta time.”
“I want a cut.”
“Yeah, yeah. We’ll sort out the details later.”
Fish hung up the phone.
Dumb and Dumber blindfolded Gracie and bundled her, the baby, and her belongings into the back of a beat-up van and drove to a run–down apartment. They parked in the alley behind and took her up the back stairs. After unlocking the door, Dumber pushed her inside. Only then did he take the blindfold off.
Gracie squinted for a minute and looked around at the slovenly surroundings. “Love what you’ve done with the place.”
Dumber shoved her along the hallway. “Shut up, you stupid bitch.” He opened a bedroom door and threw the stroller and bags on the floor before he forced her inside. “And that brat of yours better keep his yap shut too.” Dumber slammed the door behind Gracie and locked it.
“This is a fine mess, isn’t it buddy?”
Keaton bobbed his head up and down.
Gracie sat on the old mattress and propped herself up against the wall so she could nurse Keaton. He’d take a little and then doze off, which was just as well; it kept him quiet. And she needed him quiet.
She didn’t want to call attention to him at all.
Her fingers lingered on his silken hair. “You can’t cry, little guy. I know you take after your big-mouth daddy, but you gotta listen to me. It’s for your own good.”
Gracie looked around. The room was dark and it smelled musty. She had no idea where she was, but one thing was certain: She had to get out of there or they would kill her and her baby. They’d also kill the lady who helped her in the bathroom, this Bette, and the Keaton woman. Gracie had been desperate enough to smuggle diamonds over the border, but she hadn’t signed up for murder. That’s why she wouldn’t open her mouth to Candy about Bette. She had to get to the Waldorf and warn them.
She put her two fingers softly down Keaton’s back and slid four one hundred dollars bills out of his diaper. “Thanks for not pooping on it.”
In the first panicked moments in the restroom, she’d taken all six hundred of it, but quickly changed her mind. Everyone travelled with some money. Her plan had been to walk out of the bathroom and buy a ticket to anywhere, but as soon as she did she ran smack dab into Dumb and Dumber. They’d been in another car; when they saw their pal squeal off with four women they realized something had gone wrong with the plan and rushed into the airport to find Gracie. They took her by her arms and walked her quickly to the exit, Keaton still crying in his stroller.
Gracie needed to act fast. The longer they kept her here, the more that could go wrong. She lay Keaton down, and as she did, he filled his diaper. “That was good timing.”
He grinned in his sleep.
It gave her an idea. She took off the diaper and put it to one side. Then she cleaned up her baby. There were still a few outfits and diapers in the other bag she’d taken on the plane, so she took what she needed and dressed Keaton in a couple of layers before laying the four bills across his head. On went his hat, which she tied snugly under his chin.
Next she placed him in his stroller, while she took the sheets off the bed, folding one of them to wrap it around her middle. The other sheet she smeared with baby poop. Then she picked up Keaton and smeared some on his clothes. She folded the stroller and laid it on the floor where it could be seen and left her knapsack open on the bed.
“Okay, buddy. You’ve got to help me. Stay very quiet.”
She walked over to the closed door and pounded on it. “Hey. Hey! I gotta clean up my kid.”
“Shut up,” came a voice from under the door.
“Great. You want shit everywhere stinkin’ up the place, that’s your business.”
“Aw, crap. It does smell like crap.”
Dumber unlocked the door. “Holy shit, what a stink. Take that brat and wash him off. Don’t you got no sense?” He gestured to Dumb. “Look at this mess. It’s everywhere.”
Dumb looked in and wrinkled his nose. “Some people just ain’t brought up right.”
Gracie pushed past them. “I don’t need a lecture. I need some water.” She made sure she pointed Keaton’s little backside in their direction.
“Get that brat away from me. He reeks,” Dumber winced.
Dumb pointed a finger at her. “Don’t try nothin’.”
Gracie rolled her eyes. “Where the hell am I going? My stroller’s in the other room. I don’t have any supplies for the kid and I don’t have any money. Like I’m going take my baby out in the middle of the night? Don’t be stupid.”
“Hey, don’t call me stupid.”
“Sorry. I’m going to give him a bath, is that all right?”
“Hurry up.”
They went back to watching their porn video.
Gracie closed the bathroom door and thanked God there was a window. She quickly took the dirty clothes off Keaton, unzipped her hooded sweater, and unwrapped the sheet from around her waist before turning on the water in the tub full blast. Then she picked up her sleeping baby and held him against her chest, slipping the sheet around the back of her neck and crisscrossing it over his body as tightly as she dared. The two ends wrapped around her waist and she tied it in the front. On went her sweater, which she zipped up over Keaton.
All set. She splashed a little water around. “Who’s a stinky boy? Yuck.”
Dumber yelled, “Make sure he’s clean, and then wash that shitty sheet.”
“I will, don’t worry.”
She climbed up on the radiator and pushed the window open. It wouldn’t budge.
“Damn.” She jiggled it and looked for a lock. It was painted shut, so she had to risk making some noise. She shoved at the window. It gave a little.
“What was that?” Dumb said.
“The toilet seat.”
She whacked it again and it opened. “If we’re on the tenth floor, buddy, we’re screwed. I ain’t Spiderman.”
Keaton gave a little grunt.
“Shhh, baby. Just a little longer.”
The men were moving around. She had to go—it was now or never. It was a good thing she was small; it was difficult getting out the window. It turned out she was at the back of a rundown apartment, with wrought-iron stairs zigzagging to the ground. “Thank you, God.”
Gracie ran down the stairs as fast as she could and had to hang off the emergency ladder and drop the last four feet to the pavement below. That’s when Keaton protested. She kissed the top of his hat. “Thanks, little man. You did a good job.”
She disappeared into the dark.
The phone rang. And rang. And rang.
Finally, a hand reached from underneath the duvet and groped for the phone, picking up the receiver and pulling it back underneath the covers.
“Mmm?”
“This is your wake-up call.”
“Mmm.” The hand tried to replace the phone but didn’t quite make it, so the receiver fell to the floor.
The four friends snored on.
Around eight, Gemma threw the covers off her head. “What the hell is that noise?”
The other three showed
signs of life and started to move around.
Bette yawned. “What noise?”
“It sounds like a buzzer.”
Linda solved the mystery. She reached over the side of the bed and picked up the phone. “Oops.” She replaced it on its cradle. “That must have been the wake-up call.”
Augusta sat up and stretched. “We left one for seven. What time is it?”
“It’s nearly eight.”
“So what’s the plan?” Bette said.
“Instead of calling that number, I think we should go to a police station. At least we’d see a bit of the city, because you know darn well that if we call they may send someone up here and we’ll never get out of this room. What do you think?”
“I think you’re right. Let’s get a move on,” Gemma said.
They quickly took turns showering and made coffee in their room. They’d eaten so late the night before that no one wanted breakfast. Gemma stared out the hotel window. “It looks like a great day out there. If we were in a parallel universe where everything went right, I wonder what we’d be up to today?”
Augusta joined her. “Having a wonderful time seeing the sights. I’ve always wanted to go to a hot dog stand, for some reason.”
“Of all the places you could go, you want a hot dog from a street vendor?”
“They always look so good on Law and Order.” Linda called the airline to see if her luggage had arrived but was told that no, there was no sign of it. Frustrated, she banged the phone down. “My suitcase is still having a wonderful time in Spain or Greece or the North Pole for all I know.”
Since Augusta was around the same size, she lent Linda some clothes. When Linda came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, she pulled at her crotch. “Damn, I wish I didn’t have such a long torso. I feel like I’m being carved in two.”
She ended up putting Kleenex in the bra, and then stuffed some in the shoes Gemma lent her so they’d stay on her feet. She stood in the middle of the room. “Okay, this will have to do. Now, it’s off to the police station first and then to the Canadian consulate to report Bette’s missing passport.”
“We might have to leave you behind, Bette,” Augusta said. “Just think, you’ll never see Ida and Izzy again.”
