Stay

by Victor Gischler

  The strength leaked from David. He didn’t have much left, but he summoned what he could and struck Yousef again. He still wouldn’t let go. David bashed him again and again, and when the grip loosened, David took hope and bashed him one more time.

  Yousef let go and his arms dropped.

  David backed away, gasping desperately for air. His throat was raw and ragged. It hurt to draw breath.

  David didn’t mind. Breathing was better than not.

  Yousef’s body slid off the stove top and hit the kitchen floor with a thud, where it lay smoldering.

  It was the smell of human flesh that put him over the edge, and the long night and the fact he’d been strangled. All of it together.

  David fell to his knees and vomited.

  He gagged and dry heaved a few more times before lurching to his feet, dizzy, and pushed through the swinging kitchen door into the service corridor beyond. He followed the emergency lights to an employee restroom and entered.

  He bent over the sink, turned on the cold faucet, and splashed his face. Then he scooped water into his mouth. Swallowing hurt his throat, but he scooped in several more mouthfuls.

  There was a Knicks coffee mug on the edge of the sink.

  God, the Knicks suck.

  He realized his mind was drifting and drank more water.

  When he finished drinking, David backed away from the sink until he hit the wall, then slid down into a sitting position.

  He closed his eyes for a little while.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  David’s eyes popped open.

  He took a moment to orient himself. How long had he been out? Maybe five minutes. No more.

  He had one more problem.

  Payne.

  To come through so much, to come this far, and not get Payne. It would all be for nothing. It would be dozens of broken eggs without an omelet to show for it.

  David took out the cell phone and dialed.

  * * *

  Dante Payne fumed in the back of his limousine.

  He drank Scotch and spilled some down his front. He cursed as if it were the Scotch’s fault.

  They made him wait. Him. Payne built his organization from the ground up. In those early days, he’d gotten his hands dirty, and the men respected him for it. He had been feared.

  Now he was treated like … what? Some delicate, milk-skinned prince? Yes, he had men to do his dirty work for him now, but to be treated like he couldn’t do it … like he didn’t have the stones …

  His phone rang.

  Payne grabbed it quickly off the car seat next to him. Maybe this was good news. Perhaps Yousef and the others had at last accomplished their mission.

  He looked at the screen. It wasn’t Yousef. It was one of his men.

  “Ramirez, where the hell have you been?” Payne said.

  “It’s not Ramirez,” said a different voice. “I borrowed his phone.”

  “Who is this?”

  “David Sparrow.”

  A pause. Then Payne said, “You have brass ones, my friend.”

  “Your men are dead,” Sparrow said.

  He could have been lying, but something told Payne he wasn’t. “I can get a hundred more men. And then you’ll be dead. Just a little later. That’s all.”

  “I know,” Sparrow said. “I can’t beat you.”

  Payne didn’t know what to say to that. Was Sparrow going to beg for mercy?

  “That’s why I called,” Sparrow continued. “I can’t beat you, but maybe I can make a deal. But we finish this. Tonight.”

  “What kind of deal?”

  “I give you the flash drive,” David said. “But then you call it square. The DA’s office can’t prove anything without it, and there’s no other evidence. You go your way, and we’ll go our way, and you have my guarantee the DA doesn’t bring any more charges against you. Ever. For as long as my wife works there. Otherwise you’ll get us eventually. You’ve got power, money, influence. You’re holding all the cards. A deal is our only chance.”

  Payne thought about it. “I suppose I’m to meet you in a dark alley, so you can give me the flash drive there.”

  “I know you’re not going to fall for anything amateur,” Sparrow said. “I’m still in the hotel. I’ll leave it in a place out in the open. On the second-floor mezzanine there’s a big ceramic pot with a fern in it. I’ll leave the flash drive there. I’ll be all the way across the hotel.”

  “Double-cross me, and you die,” Payne said.

  “I’ll assume we have a deal.” Sparrow hung up.

  Payne opened a compartment next to his seat and pulled out a nickel-plated .45 automatic. If Sparrow planned some kind of trap, he’d be ready. Dante Payne knew how to handle himself.

  * * *

  Amy was so nervous, her hands shook.

  The only remedy was the eyeliner pencil. Her hands had to stop shaking or she’d put her eye out. David had warned her repeatedly not to use the thing in the car. She could almost hear his voice.

  Hit a bump and …

  She heard the door to the room open and turned expectantly. “David!”

  He was back! Finally! She’d been so worried that her stomach hurt.

  She ran into the next room to fling her arms around her husband and—

  Amy’s eyes went wide, and she opened her mouth to scream.

  A strong hand clapped over her mouth to prevent it. Another hand shoved an automatic pistol in her face.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Payne entered the hotel and walked up the powerless escalator to the mezzanine as Sparrow had instructed. Paramedics were just taking a man on a gurney toward the elevators.

  Payne had to move fast. The police would arrive any minute, might already be downstairs.

  He spotted the large ceramic pot Sparrow had described and fast walked to it. As promised, there was a small paper bag nestled in the fern. He glanced about to make sure no one was looking and then snatched it quickly and retreated back toward the escalator.

  Payne did his best to look inconspicuous as he walked back down the escalator and out to the parking garage.

  On his way he opened the bag and took out what was inside.

  He stopped walking.

  Payne blinked at the item to make sure he was looking at what he thought he was looking at. A coffee mug that said NEW YORK KNICKS.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  He hurled the mug against the wall of the parking garage where it shattered.

  What was the point of that? If Sparrow had meant to taunt him, it only meant the man’s eventual death would be doubly painful.

  Payne walked back to his limousine, spitting curses. He opened the back door to climb in and—

  Lightning white pain exploded between his eyes.

  Hands grabbed Payne by the jacket and yanked him into the back of the limousine. He reached for the .45 in his belt and the same hands took it away from him.

  He felt something hot and sticky trickle down his nose and over his lips. He blinked his vision back, touched his forehead, and looked at the blood on his fingers.

  Payne turned his head and saw David Sparrow in the next seat, pointing his own .45 at him. In his other hand he held a leather blackjack. Sparrow looked haggard, but there was something wild and lethal in his eyes.

  “The hotel has a security office with cameras that monitor all the entrances. In one of the few places in the hotel that gets power from the backup generators,” Sparrow said. “All I had to do was give you a reason to show yourself. By the way, Larry Meadows says hello.”

  Sparrow brought the blackjack down hard on Payne’s kneecap. He felt it break, and fiery pain exploded down his leg. He yelled and cursed.

  “I don’t even know who that is,” Payne said angrily.

  “No, you wouldn’t, would you?” Sparrow said. “You have men to handle people like Larry. So you don’t get your hands soiled.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “I thought about what I was going t
o say to you,” Sparrow said. “You know what I realized? I don’t have anything to say to you. Not one thing. You’re just something that needs to go away, so I can have my life back.”

  “So you’ll shoot me with my own pistol? What’s that supposed to be, poetic justice or something?”

  “It’s convenient,” Sparrow said. “After I shoot you, I can put the gun in your hand and make it look like suicide.”

  Payne scoffed. “I shot myself. After I broke my own kneecap?”

  “Shit happens.”

  “You’re not going to kill me, and I’ll tell you why,” Payne said. “Because you’re a smart man, and you see an opportunity sitting in front of you. I underestimated you, that much is clear. So, here I am a rich man and you—how did you put it before? You’re holding all the cards. Or at least one .45 caliber card that at the moment is enough. I’m sure we can come to an agreement that would be mutually—”

  Bang.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  The last flight of stairs almost killed him.

  The thought made David laugh. After all he’d been through … to be killed by the stairs of the Royal Empire Hotel seemed an absurd injustice. His own fault for shutting off the power and killing the elevators.

  He’d seen the police lights out on the street even as he left the parking garage. The cops would be busy downstairs for a while, but eventually David would have to face the music. There would be lots of questions to answer. David would do his best to take the heat off of Amy. He’d take the blame. He didn’t even care anymore as long as his family was safe.

  And if he could drag his bedraggled ass up just a few more stairs, he could throw his arms around her and kiss her and tell her he loved her and that she was all he needed in the entire world.

  And to hell with the Army.

  He opened the door to the penthouse and stepped inside. “Amy!”

  David rounded the corner into the living room. “Amy, where are you? I—”

  David froze, his stomach twisting into a knot.

  “Hello, government man,” said Yousef Haddad. His voice was a grotesque croak. “It seems we still have some unfinished business.”

  The front of Yousef’s face was a lumpy purple mess from the beating David had given him with the skillet. One ear and one side of his head were blackened with major third-degree burns. His lips were gone from half of his mouth, exposing cracked teeth. Hair scorched and patchy.

  In all of that mess, one eye looked out clear and bright with hatred.

  He held Amy by the neck. In his other hand he held a Glock to the side of Amy’s head.

  “I’m sure I’ve looked better,” Yousef said. “If you’re curious, my entire back is burned. When the shock wears off, I imagine the pain will be excruciating. In any event, I don’t expect to live.”

  “There’s an ambulance downstairs,” David ventured. “Maybe—”

  “I rather think we’ll all be beyond the need for an ambulance after I’m finished,” Yousef said.

  David swallowed hard.

  “I’ve been hanging on waiting for you to arrive,” Yousef told him. “I’m going to die, and a dying man should get a last wish, don’t you think?”

  David said nothing. Amy caught his eye. She had a look on her face like she was trying to get him to read her thoughts by sheer willpower.

  One of her hands was very slowly moving around behind her to her back pocket.

  “There’s a nice balcony behind us.” Yousef gestured with the Glock. “I thought to throw her off. You can watch her all the way down.”

  Amy’s hand slowly dipped into the back pocket of her jeans.

  “Listen to me, Haddad.” David knew reasoning with the man was useless, but he wanted to keep Haddad’s attention focused on him. “I’m the one who lied to you. I said your family would be safe. Take it out on me, okay?”

  Yousef pointed the Glock at David’s face. “Trust me, government man. After you’ve watched her die, it will be your turn for pain.”

  Amy’s hand came quickly out of her back pocket, the little silver automatic David had taken from Gina glinting silver. She brought the gun around to take aim at Yousef.

  Yousef caught her wrist.

  Twisted.

  There was a snap, and Amy screamed, dropping the gun.

  David tensed to make a play, but Yousef brought the Glock up fast.

  “Too slow, government man.”

  Amy’s arm hung limp at her side. Her breathing came shallow, skin going ashen.

  Yousef said, “I think she has more fight left in her than you do, Sparrow. Maybe she—”

  Amy spun on Yousef and struck with the other hand, burying the eyeliner pencil deep into Yousef’s good eye. Yousef screamed, blood spurting out over Amy’s fist.

  David was already moving. Yousef tried to bring the Glock around again, but David leaped and grabbed it just as Yousef pulled the trigger.

  The pistol went off an inch from David’s ear and the world exploded in sound. David screamed.

  His momentum carried him forward and they went stumbling back out onto the balcony. David kept pushing forward until the small of Yousef’s back hit the railing. David smashed Yousef in the face with a forearm, and the momentum carried Yousef over—

  —and down.

  David watched him hit with a crack on the cement below between the pool and the spa.

  He staggered back into the penthouse suite, bells still going off in his head. He knelt next to Amy and gathered her in his arms, careful of her injury.

  “Let’s go,” David said. “Let’s get you downstairs. Get you some help.”

  “Is … is he…?” Amy looked toward the balcony.

  “We’re all done with him,” David told her.

  They walked out to the hallway together, David turning them toward the stairs. The apartment had its own generator he reminded her and then explained about shutting off the hotel’s power, putting the elevators out of commission.

  Amy sighed. “That’s a lot of stairs.”

  “Sorry,” David said.

  At that moment the lights came back on. Somebody had found the switch.

  “See?” David said, escorting her onto the elevator. “Things are looking up already.”

  * * *

  They staggered out through the main entrance of the lobby, holding each other up. The street was bathed in the red and blue lights of the emergency vehicles. Paramedics tended the injured, and police officers took statements. Shriners hovered in the background and wondered where their convention had gone.

  David took Amy to a paramedic. “Broken arm.”

  “Okay, man,” said the paramedic. “We got this.” He set Amy on the curb and began to gently prod the arm. David kissed her on top of the head, then headed for the nearest cop.

  He presented himself to the officer. “Hey, I think you’re looking for me.” David swayed on his feet, just about to fall over.

  “We’re looking for a lot of people, pal,” the cop said.

  David explained who he was.

  “Holy shit.” The cop turned to his partner. “It’s that fucking guy. The one from TV.”

  There was a brief discussion about whether David should see one of the paramedics or be handcuffed first.

  A man in a dark blue suit pushed his way through the crowd. He looked so clean and so groomed and so well pressed that David thought he might be computer generated.

  “I think I can handle this for you, officer,” the man in the suit said.

  “Oh, yeah? Who the hell are you?”

  “Agent Joseph Armand.” He flashed his ID. “FBI.”

  “Shit,” the cop said. “Fine. He’s all yours.” The cop stomped away looking half pissed and half relieved.

  “You look like you’ve had quite a night, Mr. Sparrow,” Armand said.

  David turned his head, pointed at his good ear. “Talk into this one.”

  “A friend of yours named Charlie Finn said we might be of assistance to each other,
” the FBI man explained. “Would it be all right if we had a conversation?”

  David grinned. “As long as we can do it sitting down.”

  EPILOGUE

  “Mommy!”

  Anna ran up the driveway and threw herself at Amy.

  “Watch the arm!” Amy said.

  They hugged, and Brent joined in a second later, squeezing her tight. Both children were pink. They’d gotten some sun out by the pool according to Amy’s sister.

  “How about me?” David asked.

  Anna and Brent launched themselves at David, hugging him tightly around the neck. Anna kissed his cheek.

  Then she pointed at the cast on Amy’s arm. “I know why you sent us to Disney,” Anna said. “It was so you could go on your own vacation. You went skiing, didn’t you? Brent says people break all their arms and legs when they go skiing.”

  Amy laughed. “What?”

  “I’ll let you handle this,” David said. “I’ll help with the bags.”

  He paused to give Amy’s sister a hug and then found Jeff unloading the luggage.

  “Hey, David.”

  “Welcome back, Jeff.”

  Jeff rubbed the back of his neck and shuffled his feet, embarrassed. “I hate to say it, David, but I guess I better give you the heads-up. We charged a lot of stuff to the room. Just didn’t want you to have a heart attack when the credit card bill came in.”

  David offered his hand, and they shook.

  “Thank you. Thank you for taking my children away from danger. And for bringing them back in one piece.”

  A lot happened the next few weeks, most of it good.

  Between the FBI’s intervention and Bert’s full confession as part of his plea bargain, David and Amy were cleared of any wrongdoing in an expedited fashion. The FBI seemed especially pleased to get their hands on Calvin Pope’s flash drive. David didn’t ask what they planned to do with it but guessed multiple political careers would soon be destroyed or made depending on how well Washington’s power brokers could work the spin machine.

  David really didn’t give a damn.

  The doctor told David his damaged eardrum would heal, loss of hearing would be minimal.

  David arranged for a repairman to come out to the house and fix the garage door.