The Raven

by Mike Nappa

  At the front door of the Ritz, she ran into problems. Hotel security had already taken up stations at the entrance, and they were turning away anyone who tried to enter. Trudi didn’t waste time. She reached in her purse and plucked out Samuel’s detective badge.

  “Atlanta police,” she barked at the security guard. “Out of my way. I’ve got to get to the sixth floor.”

  “Wow, you guys got here fast,” the guard said. He seemed relieved to see her.

  “I was, uh, already in the neighborhood. More are coming. But I’ve got to get to the sixth floor right now.”

  “That way,” the guard said, pointing. “You’ll have to take the stairs. They’ve already shut down all the elevators. They’ll start evacuating as soon as all of our security team is in place.”

  “Evacuating?”

  “Yeah. They’ll start at the lower floors and work their way up to the twenty-fourth floor.”

  “Good,” she said. “Good plan.”

  “When will SWAT get here?” the guard asked. “We’ve got a few guys watching the Grand Ballroom, but they can’t really do anything without SWAT.”

  “Any minute now,” Trudi said. She could see he wanted to ask her more questions, but she didn’t want to waste any more time. “Keep up the good work,” she shouted as she ran away.

  She hit the stairwell jogging and didn’t stop. Just another workout on the Stairmaster, she told herself. The physical exercise actually felt good, relaxing, though running uphill in her fashion boots took a little getting used to. Her fancy red dress was surprisingly responsive, despite the way it clung to her like a glove.

  She checked her phone. It was now 8:09, and Samuel had left Room 614, though he was still on the sixth floor. Hallway, she told herself. Hurry, Tru-Bear! She passed the sign for the fourth floor, then the fifth, and the icon for Samuel’s phone was still motionless, right above her on the next floor up.

  She reached the door to the sixth-floor hallway and paused to collect herself and prepare for what she might find on the other side. Out of habit, she smoothed the sides of her dress and wiped the dampness off her face. She was absentmindedly glad she’d worn perfume.

  Is he alone? she thought. Not likely. But this isn’t a time for caution.

  The clock on her cell phone now read 8:11 p.m. In the distance she thought she heard muffled sirens, but she couldn’t be sure that wasn’t just wishful thinking. She dropped her phone into her purse but left the clasp undone, just in case she needed to get to her gun in a hurry.

  A deep breath.

  A quick prayer.

  And she opened the door.

  44

  Raven

  Atlanta, GA

  Downtown

  Friday, April 14, 8:01 p.m.

  Twenty-six minutes to Nevermore

  From my hiding place inside the bathroom, I have a clear view of Mama Bliss lying on the hotel room bed. It seems like she isn’t moving. The clock on the nightstand tells me she’s been here for seventeen minutes, but it feels like longer than that.

  When Mama Bliss and Scholarship had come barging through the hotel room door, all I could think to do was hide. I snatched my duffel bag and dove into the bathroom, lights out, door partly open so I could keep an eye and ear on what was happening outside. It was a mild shock to see Mama walking across the room as if she did it every day, as if she never really needed that wheelchair. Her sheer commitment to the ruse, for years and years if I understood it correctly, was impressive. Many magicians use similar ploys, appearing to be weak in certain ways in order to deflect attention from what they are really doing, from what are really their strengths.

  You’d have been a good deception specialist, Mama Bliss, I thought to myself. Then I realized that’s exactly what she was, an expert deception specialist, playing for much bigger stakes than I ever dreamed.

  Those revelations were crowded out of my mind when I saw Scholarship push Trudi’s ex-husband into the room in Mama’s wheelchair. Detective Hill was unconscious, which couldn’t be a good thing. Scholarship had a thick bruise starting to swell on his cheekbone. I could only guess how that had happened.

  “You want me to put him on a bed or something?” Scholarship had said.

  “No,” Mama Bliss said. “Just go.”

  He was gone before I could blink. And suddenly it was just me, Mama, and the sleeping Samuel Hill in Room 614 of the Ritz-Carlton hotel.

  The room was quiet.

  From my vantage point inside the bathroom, I had a clear view of the alarm clock on the nightstand. I watched the illumined little green numbers change from 7:46 to 7:47. I have to get out of here, I thought. I have to save Trudi. But something about Mama’s presence made me wait. I knew she kept a gun under her pillow. If I tried to confront her now, would she use it on me? Could I get out before she could shoot me?

  She leaned over and whispered something to Samuel Hill, then pulled something out of a pocket in the wheelchair.

  A small plastic box, about the size of a deck of cards. A bright green light burned at one end.

  Remote detonator, I thought. And then I knew what I had to do. Somehow I had to get that detonator from Mama Bliss. I had to get it more than two hundred feet away from here. If the detonator is out of range, I told myself, it can’t make the bomb explode. If I do that, I save Trudi—and everyone in the Grand Ballroom downstairs.

  I knew that meant saving Max Roman and Pavlo Kostiuk too, but I didn’t care. Collateral criminal rescue was worth the cost of saving Trudi Coffey.

  I peek out of the bathroom again, and now I’m certain she’s not moving anymore. I can’t even tell if she’s breathing at this point. About ten minutes ago, she laid herself down on the bed, putting the remote detonator right next to her. Then she’d folded her hands across her chest and gone to sleep.

  She’d said she wanted to come up and rest during the banquet. Maybe she really is doing that now. Maybe.

  The alarm clock rearranges its numbers until it reads 8:03. I decide to risk being seen.

  I reach out and pull on the bathroom door, opening it wide. Mama doesn’t notice. I step softly into the opening between the bathroom and the rest of the hotel room, but again, she’s unmoving.

  “Mama Bliss?” I say quietly. She doesn’t respond.

  I leave my duffel in the bathroom and walk into the main hotel room. Samuel Hill is groaning faintly, and I see him twitch in the chair like he’s fighting something in his dreams. I step around him, and still Mama doesn’t move. In a moment, I’m standing beside her, looking down on her still form. Her face looks pained, but her body is at rest. Suddenly she takes in a deep breath and exhales.

  I freeze. Does she know I’m here?

  Her breathing returns to a shallow, almost insignificant thing.

  You don’t look well, Mama.

  My plan isn’t fully formed yet. I know I’m going to steal Mama’s remote and get it out of here. But go where? If I head downstairs, I’m actually going toward the bomb. By this time, Scholarship has made his panicky call to the police, and any minute now, the Kipo are going to storm through the ballroom.

  If the hotel is on lockdown, will I be able to get out of the lobby in time?

  The room phone rings, startling me so much I nearly wet myself. Mama Bliss doesn’t react to the piercing sound jangling next to her head. The phone rings four times, then goes silent.

  I notice that I’m breathing through my mouth, and that my mouth feels much too dry. The phone suddenly rings again, and this time I pick it up.

  “Hello?”

  “This is a hotel emergency call,” a recorded voice tells me. “Please stay calm. A—” I hang up.

  The lockdown has begun, I think. That means they’re going to start evacuating the hotel, flooding the lobby with people. But the upper floors will be quiet while guests wait to be evacuated by security.

  The plan finally completes itself in my head.

  Up, I think. Viktor said the remote had a range that went up abo
ut twenty floors from the Grand Ballroom, so I should go up higher than that. To the roof. On the roof it’ll be out of range, and nobody dies.

  I reach across Mama Bliss and palm the remote detonator in my left hand, feeling the coldness of the plastic on the empty spot where my pinky finger used to be. My wrist brushes against Mama’s arm when I pull away, and I feel a sudden clamminess inside me.

  That didn’t seem right.

  I touch her hand.

  Mama Bliss is unexpectedly cold.

  I wrap my fingers around her wrist, and I can’t find a pulse. She’s still breathing though, and now I’m torn. This isn’t sleep, after all. She’s dropped into a coma, maybe some kind of diabetic shock. If I leave her here, Mama Bliss will surely not survive for long.

  She’s been nothing but kind to me. Can I leave her to die here, alone?

  But if I don’t leave . . .

  Samuel Hill groans, louder this time. The alarm clock skips to the next number.

  A picture falls from Mama’s hand.

  Davis Monroe.

  I don’t have to pick it up and turn it over to know that. I recognize it by what’s written on the back of the photograph. And I see the lines drawn through all six names.

  The burning green light on the remote catches my attention, and I see there’s a timer display on here, as well. According to this, the bomb downstairs will explode at 8:27 p.m.

  Exactly twenty-one minutes from now.

  “I’m sorry, Mama,” I say.

  I know I’ve got to go, but first I take out my cell phone and synchronize my timer app with the clock on the remote detonator. I set it to beep every minute between now and then, so I can keep track of the time without having to look at it. I store the cell in the inside pocket of my tuxedo jacket while I get everything ready to go.

  Too soon the timer next to my heart beeps.

  Twenty minutes.

  I stuff the remote detonator in the left coat pocket of my tuxedo and, before I can talk myself out of it, I reach under Mama Bliss’s pillow and recover her Beretta pistol. That goes in my right coat pocket.

  “Now, what to do with you?” I say to Samuel Hill. The timer on my cell phone beeps again, agitating me because time is slipping by faster than it feels like it should be, too fast for me to keep up with it.

  Nineteen minutes.

  “Come on,” I say, turning the wheelchair toward the door. “It’s time for you and me to take a ride.”

  45

  Trudi

  Atlanta, GA

  Downtown

  Friday, April 14, 8:11 p.m.

  Sixteen minutes to Nevermore

  The first thing Trudi Coffey saw when she entered the sixth-floor hallway was her ex-husband, drooling and unconscious, slumped in Mama Bliss’s wheelchair. The second thing she saw was The Raven, dressed in a tuxedo, standing beside her husband, pushing the call button for the stalled elevator.

  He stared at her with genuine surprise, then his face reshaped to express what appeared to be relief. She scanned the hallway, found it empty, and turned back to the street magician.

  “So, Raven,” she said, “this is interesting.”

  “Don’t call me that, Trudi,” he said. “I mean, you don’t have to call me that. You can call me—”

  “Raven,” she interrupted. She wasn’t about to get friendly with this guy, not now. All she cared about was getting Samuel, then getting as far away from this hotel as she could, as fast as she could. “I can’t help noticing you’ve got my ex-husband, unconscious for some reason, strapped into Mama’s wheelchair.”

  “You look great, Trudi,” he said. She felt like smacking him, but she restrained herself. She needed a minute to assess what was going on. “I mean, wow, Trudi,” he was saying. “Spectacular. You should dress like this all the time. Are those Vince Camuto boots? Very nice.”

  “We’re talking fashion now? That’s the best you can do?”

  “I’m just saying, you’re dressed nice today. It’s a compliment.”

  Just then Samuel twitched and groaned in the wheelchair. She frowned. What is his game? she thought. Aloud she said, “This doesn’t look good, Raven.”

  Something in the hallway beeped, a high-pitched sound like a smoke alarm running low on battery. Did that come from his pocket? she wondered.

  “What’s that?” she said to him, though it was more of a command than a question.

  In response, he reached nervously for the elevator button and pressed it impatiently three or four times.

  “Raven,” she said. She took a step closer, positioning herself close enough to disable him if it came to that. “They already shut down the lifts in the whole hotel. SWAT’s going to be here any minute. So . . . you want to explain what’s going on, or do I step out of the way and let them take you down? I’m giving you a chance here. Maybe you should take it.”

  He didn’t answer. A deep exhale split his lips, and he closed his eyes.

  Trudi heard another smoke-alarm beep come from his vest pocket. Timer? she thought. Those beeps come about a minute apart.

  He opened his eyes and smiled at her. “Trudi,” he said, “I hope you’ll forgive me for what I’m about to do.”

  She started to react, but he pushed the wheelchair toward her, putting Samuel’s body between them. She hesitated to catch the chair, and in that moment, he pulled a gun from a pocket in his tuxedo. He held it unsteadily aimed at her, both hands wrapped around the grip.

  “You’ve got to let me go,” he said. “You don’t understand, and I don’t have time to explain. But I’ve got to get up to the roof. So, you know, back off or I’ll shoot.”

  Trudi almost laughed. She stepped around the wheelchair until there was only empty space between her and The Raven. She took another step, closing the distance between them.

  “Give me the gun,” she said, holding out a hand. “You don’t know how to use it anyway. And that way I don’t have to break your fing—” She stopped.

  He tried to cover it, but she’d already seen the gap on his left hand.

  No pinky, she thought. Mob justice. Oh, Raven. Why didn’t you listen to me?

  “Trudi, please,” he said. “Just let me go. Please.”

  She sighed. She nodded and let her head drop, keeping her eyes focused on the gun pointed at her chest. She saw his grip relax and his arms slacken just a bit.

  That’s my cue, she thought.

  She dropped to a three-point stance and swept her left leg toward him, fast. She heard the sickening crack from where her chunky heel hit his left ankle but kept her leg moving for solid follow-through. He toppled over instantly, totally caught off guard by the leg sweep. The gun fell from his hands, and she’d recovered it before he could reach down to grab his ankle in pain.

  She put a boot under his chin, pressing just enough to threaten his breathing without actually suffocating him.

  “Seriously?” she said. “Pulling a gun on me? Is that your way of apologizing for standing me up? Because if it is, it leaves a lot to be desired.”

  He choked a laugh, in spite of himself. He raised his hands above his head and waited. She stared into his eyes, and something in them made her relent. She stepped back. He sat up on the ground, rubbing his ankle with one hand and holding his neck with another.

  A beep sounded from inside his coat.

  “Trudi”—his voice was pained—“you’ve got to let me go. You’ve got to, or hundreds of people are going to die.”

  Trudi didn’t say anything, but her brain was working in overdrive. She finally put it together.

  “When this is over,” she said, pointing at the amputation on his left hand, “I want to know what happened there. But right now just tell me how much time is left.”

  He sighed and reached into his left pocket. Trudi saw the little lights on the plastic box, saw the timer display counting down, and recognized it as a remote detonator. She assumed it was for the bomb downstairs.

  “Thirteen minutes,” he said.

/>   “Then?”

  “Boom.”

  Samuel jerked in his chair. Some kind of bad dream, she thought. Or maybe he’s hang-gliding in his sleep. Hard to tell with an adrenaline junkie like him.

  “Are you involved?” she said quickly.

  He shook his head. “Trying to stop it. Trudi, they’re going to kill hundreds of people.”

  “Who? No, never mind. That’s a question for later.”

  “You’ve got to let me go.” He held out the remote so she could see the timer ticking down. Too soon it hit twelve minutes, and she heard another smoke-alarm beep come out of The Raven’s tuxedo.

  “What’s your plan?” she said.

  He struggled to his feet. She could tell by the way he favored his left leg that she’d given him a good bruise on that ankle. He’d have trouble walking until the swelling went down.

  “It has a two-hundred-foot range. About twenty floors. I’m going to take it to the roof, get it out of range until the police can defuse the bomb.”

  “Give it to me,” Trudi said.

  “No,” he said.

  “Give it to me before I kick your teeth in.”

  “Trudi—”

  “Look,” she said. “I don’t know if you’re involved with this or not. I hope you’re not. But either way, you can’t keep the remote detonator. If you are involved and I let you go, then you’ll just blow up the ballroom as soon as you get away from me.”

  Beep.

  Eleven minutes. Why is time slipping by so fast?

  “If you’re not involved,” she continued, “then you still have to give it to me. I might have broken your ankle just now. You’ll never make it up eighteen flights of stairs and onto the roof before time runs out. So, Tyson, give me the remote.”

  He started to say something, closed his mouth, then shook his head in admiration. “We would have been great together, you know,” he said. He held out the remote. “Our kids would have been beautiful and smart.”

  Trudi tried not to smile, but she was unsuccessful. “Now, take my ex-husband and get out of here. Security should be in the stairwells by now, so ask them for help. Go.”