The Blonde

by Duane Swierczynski

  Charlie told the front desk what he knew, rattled off a quick description, told them to seal the front doors until he got down there. He’d get the police over here now, and they’d go room to room if they had to.

  Until they found the guy who liked to choke the air out of people. Charlie hoped he’d be with one of his ex-brothers on the force when they found this guy. They’d let him alone in a room with the fucker for a few minutes. Let him see what oxygen deprivation feels like. He also asked the details of the occupant of this room. Yep, as he’d figured. Married. Married, and damn near sitting on top of him in the bed. Like, hello? Ever hear of personal space?

  “Um, ready to go downstairs, Mr. Eisley? There are plenty of people down there to keep you company.”

  2:55 a.m.

  Sheraton Elevators, Right Bank, South Side

  Jack worked out a plan on the ride down. More or less. Once he got to the lobby, he’d play up the anxiety disorder, make someone sit with him. Then he’d map out a plan. All he needed was proof that Kelly White’s crazy story was true. The fact that hotel security saw some big bastard in a suit jacket show up to abduct her wasn’t enough. He needed proof.

  Those files in San Diego, specifically. He had to catch a cab, hop a plane to San Diego, go to the Westin Horton Plaza, grab the files, then call the police, the FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, and anybody else who would listen.

  Except that he would be dead by 8:00 A.M.

  The poison.

  The luminous toxin.

  He was most likely the only guy in Philadelphia with two things racing around his bloodstream—Mary Kates and luminous toxin—with the potential to kill him. Unless you counted AIDS-RIDDEN crack whores. But even those sorry fuckers didn’t have a time limit of five hours.

  Think, Jack, think.

  Even if he were in a plane that was taking off at this very minute, there was little chance he could be in San Diego by 8:00 A.M. Local time, sure, but the poison in his blood didn’t care about time zones. When it did whatever it was supposed to do, Jack would be dead.

  And that’s even if he managed to stay within ten feet of a person the entire trip.

  What if he had to use the bathroom?

  With all of this racing around his head, he hardly noticed the elevator doors open. Charles Lee Vincent led him by the arm across the lobby, telling the desk clerk, “He needs someone to stay with him at all times.”

  And then the desk clerk was saying something about the Philly PD being on their way. “Christ, what a night. There’s some lady passed out up on five, bleeding from her nose.”

  And then Vincent was responding, saying that he was going back upstairs to start looking for this son of a bitch. “Seal the front doors.... Jesus, didn’t I tell you to seal the front doors?”

  “I’ve never locked down completely. Where are the keys?”

  “In my office, top drawer, lockbox marked with a black X in Magic Marker. You’ll see the master key on the left. Says ‘master’ on it. Hit the revolving door, then the two on the sides.”

  “You got it.”

  Jack realized what was going on.

  “Wait! Don’t leave me!”

  “That’s right. You’ve got to stay with him.”

  “I’m just going to your office.”

  “He’s got ...” Charles Lee Vincent started to explain, then decided against it. “Look, I’ll lock up. Stay with him, okay?”

  As Vincent walked away, Jack realized that locking the front doors meant he’d be trapped in here. And then the police would arrive, and then, sooner or later, he’d be locked in a room for questioning. They wouldn’t buy the anxiety stuff. In fact, they’d probably gather around the two-way mirror, passing around bags of potato chips, waiting to see him pop.

  And that would be the end of Jack.

  2:56 a.m.

  Sheraton Hotel, Fifth Floor

  Diet Coke guy had Kelly’s head in his arms, and he was surrounded by other guests who had popped out of their rooms to see what the screaming was about. He looked up at Kowalski. Disappointment washed over his face when he saw that Kowalski wasn’t an EMT. That quickly turned to rage when he recognized him.

  “Hey! What did you do to her?”

  Kowalski knelt down to examine Kelly. She was still breathing, but unconscious. Blood had spurted from her nose, ears ... and yeah, he could see a little rimmed around the bottoms of her eyes, too. Diet Coke guy had some of it on his hands and lips.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Brian.”

  “Brian, did you give her mouth-to-mouth?”

  “She wasn’t breathing. I saved her. And I asked you, What did you do to her?”

  Kowalski sighed. “Spare me.”

  Brian tried to shove Kowalski bacl.ward, and it would have been impressive, had he connected. But Kowalski caught him by the wrist, taking care not to touch any of the blood, then twisted. Kelly’s head bobbed in the guy’s lap as he jolted.

  “Ow!”

  “See this? My girlfriend here’s got AIDS. She’s maintaining, but she passes out like this all the time when her T-cell count gets low. Wash off all of the blood you can. Scrub hard. Rinse your mouth out, too. You’ll also want to get tested.”

  Brian turned white. Good, let him be afraid. Might be the thing that saves his life.

  Truth was, whatever Kelly White was carrying, he’d probably already picked it up with the mouth-to-mouth thing. That’s what chivalry gets you these days.

  Kelly’s head was gingerly lowered to the hallway carpet. Brian stood up, trying not to touch anything else, himself especially, then backed up and elbowed the up button on the elevator.

  “Go ahead, wash up. I’ve got it from here.”

  Kowalski looked around the hallway.

  “Go back to your rooms, folks. She’s going to be okay once she gets hooked up to an IV.”

  He had a decision to make: Take her now, or later? He wasn’t sure Kelly had a chance of making it down to D.C., as planned, without medical attention. Her breathing was shallow, and that much blood from the head was never a good sign. With the multiple distress calls of the past few minutes, the Sheraton was going to be swarming with uniforms. It was going to be tough carrying her out of there, past all of that. And his most recent instructions from his handler covered bringing her in alive, not dead.

  The only chance she had was to let the EMTs take over from here. Hook her up, get her breathing stabilized. He wasn’t equipped for any of that.

  Kowalski could come back for her later. From the hospital or the morgue, if it came to that. Either would be easier to breach than this hotel in the next ten minutes. City EMT response times varied; he remembered reading that Philly had arguably the worst in the nation. Tonight, he hoped to be proven wrong.

  Zero a.m.

  She wanted to cry. He’d fought hard to force his air into lungs she couldn’t feel. His lips mashed against hers, and she couldn’t feel those, either. Maybe she was already crying. She wouldn’t have been able to feel the drops on her cheeks.

  She couldn’t feel anything, but she could see and hear and think. That was the worst part.

  She knew exactly what had happened.

  Back in the lab, she’d overheard them speculating.

  Partial engagement.

  When the self -replicating supramolecular assemblies—oh, how the Operator hated the nickname Mary Kates, even from the beginning—were faced with a choice, they reset to zero. That’s what must have happened to her. The doors of the elevator may have opened a full second, or a fraction of a millisecond, in time; that didn’t matter to the Mary Kates. They reset to zero.

  Leaving her brain-damaged in this oh-so-creative way.

  This was not how she’d imagined it. She thought it would have been quick and efficient. And she hoped she’d live long enough for a bit of revenge.

  Not to look up into the eyes of another man she’d doomed to the grave.

  Her Diet Coke-loving savior.

  Pres
sing his lips to hers, genuine concern in his blue eyes.

  And then the other one showed up. The one the Operator sent.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Brian.”

  “Brian, did you give her mouth-to-mouth?”

  Yeah, this guy knew the score. But he wasn’t a complete dick. Here, he was warning Brian—her savior had a name—to wash up, rinse out his mouth, like that would help. At least it was a gesture of humanity.

  And then the Operator’s man looked into her eyes, and somehow sensed she was still in there, because he touched her chin with his index finger and spoke to her.

  “Now that wasn’t very smart.”

  3:05 a.m.

  Sheraton Lobby Eighteenth Street

  The security guy, Charles Lee Vincent, had locked the front doors, much to the displeasure of a curly-haired guy in a tuxedo, who was missing his tie and had his cummerbund slung rakishly over his shoulder. Vincent didn’t seem to give a shit. He pressed the master key into the desk clerk’s hands and said, “Only for the cops and EMT guys. Got it?” He got it. And for the next nine minutes—Jack watched them tick by on the clock mounted above a shimmering koi pool in the middle of the lobby—they stayed locked. The curly-haired guy threatened all kinds of violence, both physical and legal. The desk clerk didn’t seem to give a shit, either.

  Now the cops had finally arrived. Showtime. Red and blue lights danced across the walls of the lobby. If the lobby lights had been dimmed, it would have looked like Disco Night at the Sheraton.

  Jack got ready. All he needed was a cab to be outside those doors. This was a hotel. And sure, it was three o’clock in the morning, but cabs flocked to hotels like iron fillings to a magnet, right? Once he was in a cab, he could get to the airport. There were a lot of people in airports, no matter what time of day. He could feign an illness, get a security escort. Hang with that person the whole time. Buy a flight to D.C. He could use the home-equity credit card. They’d always kept that for emergencies, and Theresa hadn’t closed out the account yet. If this didn’t qualify for emergency, he didn’t know what would.

  In D.C., he’d go to the FBI. The CIA. Homeland Security. Whoever. Someone who would listen to his story, then dispatch somebody to the Westin Horton Plaza in San Diego and verify everything.

  Somebody in the government had to be around at this time of the morning.

  All he had to do was get into a cab, and he would have a chance to breathe again, and think this through a bit more. But D.C. still seemed like the right move.

  There. A flash of dark yellow and black in a checkerboard pattern.

  Go, go, go.

  Slip past the bustle. Pray no one paid him any mind. Quick glance at Charles Lee Vincent: busy with an EMT chick. Laughing about something, probably a dumb joke to break the tension. Yeah, laugh it up. You’re not the ones whose brains could explode at any given moment. Out the door, from the air-conditioned cool into the damp summer night. The cab, dead ahead.

  Jack reached around to pat his butt cheek; his wallet was still there.

  Funny if he didn’t have that, huh? He could go back and tell Charles Lee Vincent all about it: You’re never going to believe what I forgot up in my room. Har har har ...

  The cab rocketed away.

  Fuck almighty. Was there even a passenger in the backseat? No, not that Jack could tell. Did he get a sudden call? Or had someone called ahead and said, “Hey, let’s screw with Jack Eisley’s life a little more”?

  Jack found himself standing alone on the sidewalk as the seconds ticked away.

  He scanned the sidewalk to his right, along the side of the hotel and up the length of Rittenhouse Square: no one. Then to his left. There. A couple, walking away from him, arms intertwined.

  Go back inside, or race forward?

  Forward.

  Jack jogged, then power-walked, then tried to feign a normal pace. It didn’t work. The taller one of the two, a woman, looked behind nervously. Jack blew air through his mouth, then offered a sheepish grin. The woman turned back and hurried the pace a bit. That grin wasn’t fooling anybody. Jack now saw that her companion, the shorter one, curly brunette hair, was also female. Both were young. They must be walking home together after a night out clubbing, he figured, or whatever it is young women do in Philadelphia late on a Thursday night.

  Ten feet. How far was ten feet?

  So damned tough to judge. How long was a car? About ten feet? Did he need to keep a car length’s pace behind these girls?

  His head throbbed.

  The women looked at each other; one whispered and the other nodded. The curly-haired girl appeared to be rooting around in her purse for something. Christ, they think I’m a mugger. Then again, why wouldn’t they think that?

  Down the street, rushing toward them beneath the mercury vapor lights, was salvation: another cab.

  The taller nudged her companion to the right, shot her hand high in the air. High beams flashed and the cab swerved to the left, increasing speed. Jack ran forward, almost pushing the women aside. The cab must have thought he was going to race right into its path, because it braked hard.

  The throbbing in his head worsened.

  Fingers hooked under the door handle. It was greasy.

  “Hey! Fucking asshole!”

  “Medical emergency,” Jack muttered, and yanked open the door.

  “Sir, those girls hailed me first.”

  “I don’t care. Just drive.”

  Jack slid across the seat and slammed the door shut. Then he autolocked the back door. The taller girl, whose eye shadow was eerily dark, and lipstick unearthly white, pounded on the window, shouted, “Asshole!”

  The cabbie turned around and regarded him carefully. “Wait. I know you. You’re the guy who puked in my cab before.”

  “Could you please just drive? I have plenty of money.”

  “You’re not feeling sick again, are you?”

  Another pound, one that shook the cab. “Motherfucker!”

  And a tug at the door.

  “I didn’t puke in your cab. We pulled over, remember?”

  Jack saw that the curly-haired girl was walking around the back of the cab, headed for the other door. He reached across and locked that door, too.

  “God, you’re a dick. This is no way to treat women.”

  “Fifty bucks just to drive away. Now. ”

  Angry slapping on the other door now. One slapper, one pounder—these girls made quite a team. Pretty soon, the tall one would peel back the roof of the cab and reach down for Jack, opening her jaws wide, endless rows of teeth ...

  “Just fucking go. It’s life-and-death.”

  The cabbie shifted his vehicle to drive and gave a short burst of horn. Both girls jumped back, a bit startled. The cab lurched forward, the engine coughed, and then the driver continued up Eighteenth Street.

  “Okay, Life and Death. Where do you want to go?”

  “The airport.”

  “Again?”

  “Fuck the flat rate. Charge me whatever you want. I need to get to the airport.”

  “Well, here’s the sad thing. I’m not going anywhere near the airport. I’m off duty.”

  “What do you mean? You just picked me up.”

  “You notice the meter’s off? I thought I was going to pick up those two ladies back there. Odds are, they were headed somewhere in Center City. I thought I’d make a last buck before punching out.”

  “I need to get to the airport as fast as I can.”

  “I would, but I got an errand to run. There’s a package that needs to make it to a friend of mine at Fourth and Spring Garden. That’s not on the way to the airport.”

  “I’m desperate.”

  “I can see that. You’ve had a night, haven’t you?”

  “Please. I just need a ride to the airport.”

  “Tell you what. Indulge me for a few minutes, and I think we can work something out.”

  Jack rested back into the seat. Whatever. He’d been
indulging people all evening. Why not a cabdriver?

  “Only a few minutes?”

  “Not even. Say, you’re not a Mormon or anything, are you?”

  3:15 a.m.

  Little Pete’s

  It was too soon for another breakfast. Worse yet, he was alone this time. Ed’s head was tucked away behind the front desk of the Sheraton. Least Ed had company—plenty of cops and rescue workers and hotel staff—buzzing around him. Not Kowalski. He was totally and utterly alone, sitting at a table recently wiped down by a stocky Slavic woman with at least three hairs growing out of a mole on her chin. Good smile, though. So there’s her.

  Kowalski spun his cell phone on the tabletop and stopped it with a single index finger. It landed on the number one. He held it there; the phone speed-dialed.

  This is Katie. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

  No jokes, no cutesy voice. That was Katie. Businesslike in every way except the important ones.

  It had been months now, but he hadn’t called to cancel the voice-mail service from her local phone provider. She had no other relatives—her half-brother was out of the picture—so there was nobody else to cancel it for her. Kowalski kept it going just to hear her voice. Seventeen words. That’s all he had left. Every week, he called the access number to erase all of the hang-up calls. He was the only one who called her phone number anymore. Sometimes, he’d hang on the line, and he’d hear his own sigh. He hadn’t known he sighed till then. He’d always thought he had better control than that.

  The phone on the tabletop vibrated. It looked like a hovercraft, gliding over a sea of Formica.

  Kowalski answered it.

  His handler.

  “How close are you? I have someone coming in to meet you in a little over an hour.”