Her face is full of peaceful calm—she never saw it coming. Her throat cut while she slept. She lies on the floor, her long red hair floating in a sea of blood.
The briefcase I gave her is gone.
Goddamn.
Goddamn.
No.
Don’t think about her.
Survival, man.
Stay alive.
I check the shotgun in my hands and all the cartridges have been removed. Right from under my nose. While I was dead to the world and everyone else was dead, period. My twenty grand walking-around money is still taped to the inside of my right thigh, the same place it’s been since we pulled out of Jenison’s compound.
Were they were in too big a hurry to strip me down?
Whoever came in here cleaned house and emptied my gun, then left me right where they found me. There’s not even a drop of blood on my clothes. It all went down while I sawed logs in the next room. They made sure I wouldn’t know a damn thing. What the hell is that?
Am I still dreaming?
The tingle does a spider dance all over me, jacked up by the sudden rush of knowing that it’s always darkest . . . right before you’re 100 percent screwed.
How long were they watching this place? Do they know about the car in the lot three blocks away?
I realize something else.
They took my rig, too.
Goddammit.
Why am I still alive?
This has to be a dream. I tingle all over. My right arm hurts. I look at it. There’s a bloody needle hole that wasn’t there before I hit the blackout, set inside a welling purple bruise, like a meteor crater in the flesh of a giant zombie.
Where they shot me full of something?
Why?
To keep me under while they cleaned house? Is that why I feel like so much hell right now?
I sway on my heels.
Tingle.
Shit . . .
I fall right on my ass, try to fight it while I’m on the floor and it sort of works. Look up at the computer in the corner. Look back at Bennett, her face frozen unknowingly in her endless sleep. Then my eyes fall on the TV screen . . .
There’s a cable box on a little glass shelf right under the flat-screen that says what today’s date is.
October 25.
Just now one in the morning.
Twenty-eight hours since I went to sleep.
10
00000-10
DEAD GAME
It all comes crashing at me like a revelation of God in a bucket of ice water.
They came in here yesterday.
In a blip that lasted just three seconds on my radar.
But it was really twenty-four hours and some change.
I crashed and burned . . . and they just left me in that bedroom. Which means I’m alive because Hartman wants it that way. It has to be Hartman who did this. He’s the only one crazy enough. Just like the store in Austin, killing all those people, making a riot happen. A monster in broad daylight. He sent a message again, and it’s simplicity itself: I’m goddamn dead already and I might as well cut my own throat.
I have to try something, anything.
I have to . . .
The cell in my pocket rings.
The smell of blood crawls up my nose, sharp and wet and stinging, like salt water dripping from a rusty razor. I never got used to that. I always avoided it.
But some things are inevitable.
• • •
“Hello, Mister Coffin.”
I expected to hear the voice of the man who destroyed my life.
It’s not David Hartman.
It’s her.
Jenison.
“Did you sleep well, Mister Coffin?”
Now that I hear the voice, I can smell her in this room.
She was here and she let me live.
“Hello? Are you there, Mister Coffin?”
“Yeah.”
“I asked you a question. Did you sleep well?”
“Okay, I guess. It’s the waking-up part that’s been hard. But you know that already.”
“You did seem quite dead to the world last night.”
“No pun intended?”
“Obviously.”
“What the hell do you people want?”
“Why don’t we talk in person?”
I hear the killer in her voice. That terrible need to be hands-on with her work.
I tell her I’ll meet her in the lobby.
And she says:
“Excellent, Mister Coffin. The drinks are on me.”
• • •
I leave on the ThunderCats sweatshirt, throw on the threadbare corduroy jacket from Goodwill, the one from the long zip-up bag that had our guns in it. They took the guns, left the clothes. Left the bag of Fritos, too. Mighty white of them.
I get the Colt Python I stashed under the sink in the bathroom. They couldn’t have been in much of a hurry to get done with business. They had all the time in the world. That’s why the homies in here got it so bad. And yet they left me twenty grand and a loaded pistol. Maybe they just didn’t think about it. Had me cold, after all. Has to be a camera in here, keeping an eye on me. That’s how she knew right when to call. How much else do they know? What kind of game is this?
I can’t figure it out.
My head is swimming.
My head shouldn’t swim.
I just slept for a day and a night.
Focus, dammit.
Focus.
The ThunderCats logo burns on my chest, just under the jacket, like a target. I shove the gun in my left front pocket. It’s small enough to fit in there. My reflection dances in a wall mirror stained with blood.
I leave Bennett behind me, like everything else.
I took care of her, didn’t I?
I did all I could, right?
It’s not my fault.
Right?
• • •
Right.
Game time.
You bastards.
• • •
I open the door and walk down the hall. Check the time: one forty-five. It smells like a hundred different bad colognes and aftershaves out here, all covered up by that expensive new-carpet scent, and the essence of cleaning fluids. Every ritzy hotel smells the same, even on the penthouse floor. Nobody in the hall. The elevator waits around a corner. The ice machine makes strange clunky sounds in an alcove near the snack vending boxes. Five bucks for fifteen M&M’s and a Diet Coke. Someone’s always stealing from someone else.
I hear someone cough and there’s no one near me.
My heartbeat hammers my chest.
Tingling.
I push the glowing button on the silver plate next to the elevator door that has an arrow pointing towards the lobby. Something goes ding inside the wall. I take two steps back. Another ding. The red arrow above lights up red. The doors roll open.
Something screams at me. A flabby old woman in a tank top laughing at a skinny man in a suit, who just told a joke she likes. I watch them as they stumble drunkenly out of the elevator, around the corner. Their voices, like phantoms, receding away from me. The elevator is empty.
My heart.
Pounding harder now.
Gotta be calm.
Gotta keep it under control.
I step in and hit L for Lobby.
I think about Bennett back there. Alex. That calm look on her face. I wonder what she was dreaming about when they killed her. Was she a child again, listening to her adopted father’s records and wondering about the eighties? Or was she strung out in terror beneath the blade of a crazy hatchet man? Choking on her own blood, trying to sing a song for me. Going down slow and awful, just the way she said she wouldn’t.
My head is pounding with the thought.
Tingle, tingle, tingle.
Heartbeat, heartbeat, heartbeat.
The car stops on the next floor. I step back from the door, seeing the redness on my face in the mirrored surface of the elevator wal
l next to me. I look like a tomato. About to blow.
An old lady stands there when the doors open, asks me if this is going up. I aim for the lobby with my finger. She says thanks but no thanks. Tells me God bless you, son. The doors close on her. Maybe she’s gone forever, maybe she’s not.
Express, straight down. No stops, all the rest of the way to the lobby.
The fresh air-conditioning hits me in the face as the doors open, the coolness like a Taser burst, the tingling in my head flushing across my skin, making my eyes water for a second.
I almost fall on my ass again.
Catch my snap.
I step across the threshold, and feel like I’m walking somewhere doomed, because I am. The floor is marble. Smoked glass and chrome. Lots of people crowded around the front desk. A huge court area with couches and tables for wireless Internet in the center. Two restaurants closed down for the night—a Chili’s franchise location and something called Teighlor’s Pit. Looks posh, like an upscale barbecue joint. An open bar area, near the Wi-Fi lounge. Security cameras in every nook and cranny. Lots of people. The bar is pretty well traveled this morning. They stop serving booze at two—goddamn Texas church laws. This place is nice and public.
It won’t do me any good.
Not with these monsters.
The tingling in my head begins to transform into a sparkle.
Something grinding inside me.
My heart is doing ninety in my rib cage.
I start to walk across the marble floor, feeling the cold through the soles of my cheap Goodwill tennis shoes. I put my hands in my jacket pockets, hunch over a little. When you try to look anonymous, you end up looking suspicious. That’s why I never wear sunglasses.
The bar, just thirty feet away now.
I’m looking at every face. Looking for the lady in black. For anyone who looks like a bad guy. I’m walking in the crosshairs of a dozen shooters. At least. If they’re smart. If they know me as well as I think they do.
The bar, twenty feet away now.
A guy in a jogging suit gives me a wink. A young lady in a print dress smiles at me as she passes by. I see that the bartender is a dirty-blonde in a blue tank top, her bra straps fighting for space on her shoulders. A piece of plastic hanging off one of the straps says her name is CHARLENE. Hair up in a bun. Five barflies with half-dead soldiers, jabbering at her aimlessly. Six tourists standing around, waiting for their late-night cocktails.
Ten feet away, the bar.
About fifteen people in the place, total. All of them are dead if I do this wrong.
Five feet. Three feet. I order a gin and tonic.
Pay for it with a twenty I tell Charlene to hang on to. She smiles and it reminds me of something pleasant, something comforting. A woman’s smile always does that to me, I guess, even though I’m a walking dead man. My eyes scan the room—the whole lobby beyond the bar area. Low-level lighting in this corner. Careful.
A hand on my shoulder.
I feel it slap there like ice, even through my jacket, and I turn to face a man I’ve never met before. Mussed-up hair and bad sports jacket, thin face like a rat. He’s holding some ice in a glass and has a smoke dangling from his lower lip. Makes a clicking gesture with his thumb and asks me for a light. Slurry voice. I tell him I don’t smoke. He says that’s okay and staggers past me, clunks his glass on the bar and asks for a refill.
I walk casually, ice tinkling in my hand. Find an empty couch sitting in front of a glass table, facing a plush chair. I don’t sit in it. I check every face in the place, twice. Nobody familiar.
I look at my watch. One fifty.
Sink the rest of my drink and go back to the bar.
Charlene asks me if I want another and I tell her no. She gives me another one anyway, says it’s on the house. Sets it on a napkin for me.
I take the drink. I notice there’s something written on the napkin. Looks like a phone number. I look up and she winks at me. I notice she’s very pretty, even with her hair up like that. Her shoulders are creamy, all strapped down. I look at the number again. Then I look back at her.
She tilts her head, like a question. Like, Do you wanna? I shake my head slightly, give her a look right back, like, Maybe next time.
My heart tingles now, along with the sparks in the back of my eyes.
She looks down at her work behind the bar, rejected.
I want to tell her to run. To get the hell away from here. That something very bad is about to happen. I don’t say anything to her. Change my look to urgent instead. Throw my eyes towards the main entrance of the lobby. Run like hell, lady. She jacks up her eyebrows, wondering what it means.
It’s a few minutes to two.
A piston begins to thrum in my head, jackhammering my heart now. I’m working on adrenaline. What the hell did they shoot me full of?
I watch the door of the lobby. I reach into my pocket and run my finger along the smooth cold surface of the gun. Nobody comes. I wander back to the empty couch with the coffee table and sit down.
And I wait, sipping slowly.
Yes, here I am.
Just sitting and sipping slowly.
I try to calm myself.
The tingling is a slow nag in the back of my skull now.
Keep it under control.
The bartender looks at me, concerned. I nod towards the exit again. And when I do that, I see two men, across the court area, near the front desk. Big guys. They look almost familiar. I would know them if I’d seen them before. They’re not walking over here, though—they’re headed for the elevator.
Two more men, opposite side of the court area. Also not looking at me. Headed for the valet station near the sliding glass doors to the outside.
The man who asked for a cigarette is staring me down now from his perch at the bar.
Gordian knot.
I remember the phone in my other pocket. The number on the napkin. I look at the bartender and she winks again, not smiling this time. What does her face remind me of?
Oh.
Yeah.
Now, I get it.
I pull out the phone and tap in the number.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
Click.
A woman’s voice I don’t recognize says hello. I say hello back. It’s not the bartender. She’s still standing there in my line of sight, not talking into a phone at all.
And then the voice says this:
“Baby, get the hell out of there. They’re going to kill you.”
“Who the hell is this?”
Click.
• • •
I try the number again. No answer. The two men who went into the elevator are walking back into the lobby. Very slowly. The other two men I saw are doing the same thing.
I look for the bartender.
She’s gone.
I get up, just as someone comes out of nowhere and sits down in the chair in front of me. She has bright blonde hair and her smile doesn’t remind me of anything. She’s wearing a black blouse and suit coat.
“Hello,” she says.
• • •
I stand there.
Jenison’s expression still doesn’t look like anything, even when she crosses her legs, and yet somehow, I’m trapped by her eyes.
“How are you feeling, Mister Coffin?”
I stand there, looking at her. The men from the elevator are at the bar with the drunk guy now. He doesn’t look so drunk anymore. Now two more men in the lobby, with long overcoats on.
Toni . . . was that you on the phone?
I didn’t recognize you . . . but . . .
The phone is still in my hand.
My thumb almost tries the number again.
“Who were you calling?” Jenison shifts a little when she asks me that and I look at the men in the lobby again, then at the guys she has on the bar. I don’t say anything.
She has no idea who I was talking to.
“I’m starting to get mildly irrit
ated, Mister Coffin. That makes two questions you haven’t answered. Don’t mind my security. They’re just creating a perimeter. I would expect by now you’ve surmised that there is no way you’re getting out of here.”
I sit down. Real slow.
“Why not just grab me? Why all this song and dance?”
“I wanted to illustrate the odds against you, Mister Coffin. Sending a message is important. You’ve not understood that until this very moment, I think.”
“I understood it when those guys shot up the toy store.”
“No, you didn’t. Or you wouldn’t have stolen my helicopter.”
“So you thought you’d leave me passed out for twenty-four hours in a room full of blood, just to scare me? I’m not sure I believe that.”
“You think housekeeping would have called the police? Please, Mister Coffin. My people have been in control of everything inside this building since last night. We’ve been watching you closely. The pills you took had to run their natural course . . . so we just let you sleep while we talked with your friends.”
“Not sure I believe that, either.”
“Believe what you want. I thought we could speak like civilized people, in a place of comfort. After all, there’s no need for us to get ugly with you, Mister Coffin. Torture and murder are such barbaric means of getting what you want in situations like this. We’re just going to have a nice, pleasant conversation.”
I don’t like the way she says that.
Like she knows something I don’t.
She let me walk right out of that room, where they could have killed me in my sleep, just the way they killed Alex Bennett . . . and now here we are . . . and she wants to buy me a drink? Did I think that was all so absurd just a few seconds ago?
I don’t like the way this all seems so pleasant, just like she said.
Pleasant.
That actually sounds kind of . . . okay right about now.
What?
“And please don’t think of any grand escape this time, Mister Coffin. All the bases are covered. You can’t run from us in this building. If you had tried after we spoke on the phone you would have been brought here in any event.”
More thugs in the lobby, behind the first flank. Four now, three on the bar. All exits blocked. All elevators covered.
That seems okay somehow.
As it should be.
This isn’t okay at all.
Resurrection Express Page 17
