One Got Away

by S. A. Lelchuk

  I was thinking about whatever meeting he had mentioned. “Why Monterey? What’s down here?”

  Coombs grinned. “People come from far and wide to stay at the Cypress. Who am I, to turn down the delights of ocean-side golf and a fried abalone sandwich? Don’t I seem like a fellow who appreciates a good vacation?”

  I ignored his answer. “Why here, though? What’s here?”

  The Cheshire grin stayed on his face even as he shook his head. “I’m afraid this is where your questions end and mine begin.”

  “I’m not done asking.”

  His voice held tolerant exasperation. “Then I’m afraid that you should have been the one to tie me up.”

  I said, “There’s still time for that.”

  “First off, an easy one. Who hired you?”

  “No comment.”

  He nodded toward the stun gun on the counter next to him. “I was forthcoming with you. I expect you to return the courtesy.”

  “And my clients expect privacy.”

  He shrugged. “I know it was one of the Johannessen brats, anyway. I’m just not sure which one. Maybe all of them. They’re a real pack of silver-spoon hyenas, the whole bunch. As a self-made man, perhaps I’m biased, but I personally feel they’re a walking billboard for the dangers of inherited money. If they ever stopped chewing each other’s tails they’d be dumb enough and rich enough to be genuinely dangerous.” His eyes were serious. “And I assure you that whatever they’re paying you, it won’t be worth a fraction of the trouble it brings.”

  I said nothing.

  “What did they want you to do to me?” Coombs asked. His voice was sharper.

  I kept quiet.

  He picked up the stun gun, turning it over in his hand, inspecting it like some dug-up artifact or broken coin from a long-past era. The small device fit easily into his big hand.

  He pressed the switch.

  Instantly an evil blue arc crackled between the two scorpion-stinger points. He let the stun gun drift closer to me. The arc of electricity only a few inches away.

  “You need to answer me,” he said. The charm had left his voice as completely as a train departed from a station. “I really don’t want to hurt you, but I’m dealing with matters that are more extreme and urgent than you realize. Some rather large events are moving rather quickly, and despite my chipper mien, these circumstances have placed me under a certain stress. I can’t afford to let you off the hook. I wish I could, but I can’t. I need to know everything you know.”

  The blue arc had drifted very close to my face. “I’ll use this in three seconds if you don’t start talking, and I’m afraid right now I don’t give two pence for those long legs or that winsome smile. Three.”

  I tried to flinch away from the electricity but there was nowhere to go.

  “Two.”

  I said nothing.

  “One.”

  The jagged arc was almost touching my chin.

  “Okay,” I said. “You win.”

  He took his finger off the switch and the crackling electricity disappeared. “I’m listening.”

  “You’ve been stealing from a powerful, wealthy family. What did you think they were going to do? Nothing?”

  Coombs frowned. “I don’t steal. Please don’t treat what I do as though I’m some common thief. You might as well compare the fellows who pulled off the Great Train Robbery to a pimply urchin shoplifting razor blades from a pharmacy.”

  “You asked. I’m answering.”

  “Very well,” he acknowledged. “Go ahead, please. I won’t interrupt.”

  “You were running around with the family matriarch, embarrassing the family. That was bad enough—but then you tried to blackmail her.”

  Surprise that he didn’t bother to hide flickered in his eyes. “I was blackmailing her? That’s what they told you?”

  “Weren’t you?”

  He was watching me with a thoughtful expression. As though trying to decide whether to say something, or how much of it to say. He reached a decision. “You have no idea what you’re mixed up with. If you think all of this is me trying to coerce a couple extra Swiss watches out of an old lady’s pocketbook, you’re not even in the right universe. There are deeper elements that go far beyond whatever flimflam they fed you.”

  “So tell me.”

  He frowned. “I’m afraid not.”

  “Maybe I can help you.”

  He laughed. “Says the woman trussed up like a chicken.”

  “Then untie me.”

  He shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s impossible. I work alone.”

  “So do I.”

  “Then you understand.”

  I said, “I understand there are exceptions to every rule.”

  The slight trace of regret on his face could have been real. I couldn’t tell. “In a different life, perhaps. The fact is that you were hired to be my adversary. Now you say you want to be my friend. How should I know who you really are? And since you’re my captive at the moment, any reassurances you offer can’t be believed, due to obvious self-interest.”

  “Okay. I can’t help you and you can’t trust me. Now what?”

  Coombs looked uncertain for the first time all night. “I’ve been wondering that. We’re at something of an impasse. I need to be able to go about my business unimpeded. I’m on an urgent time line. Which means that you cannot be free to go about your business, since your business seems to be following and obstructing me.” He thought some more. “The pragmatic thing would be to suffocate you with a pillow, drag you down to that cliff, and toss your body off the edge. By the time they found you, there’s not a cop in a hundred miles who wouldn’t assume it to be accident or suicide. Or sharks, of course. From a purely logical standpoint, that’s the best way to work this out.”

  I pictured the waves crashing into the jagged rocks. There wouldn’t even be much of a body to recover. The coroner’s office might never even get to offer an opinion.

  “You’d get caught,” I said.

  “No,” he replied with great seriousness. “At the risk of morbidity, I’ve thought it over quite a bit this evening, and I truly don’t think I would.”

  “People know I’m down here.”

  “I doubt that. You work alone—as you said.” He paused, then continued. “But I really prefer not to have to do that. I meant what I said about violence being the last resort.”

  “Then let me go.”

  “Also impossible, I’m afraid. There’s a lack of trust between us at the present moment. I can’t let you free.” He frowned. “It’s a conundrum, it really is.”

  I’d never liked debates where I couldn’t weigh in. Especially when my health was at stake. I took advantage of his indecision to buck my hips, sweep my legs up, and kick the gun out of his hand. He didn’t have time to be surprised. There was a tinkle of broken glass as his drink fell to the floor.

  I wasn’t done. Legs still in the air, I angled my knees out in a diamond shape and got my legs around his neck in a crude triangle choke. For all his caution, he hadn’t taped higher than my ankles. A mistake. I squeezed my thighs together and watched his face redden as he tried unsuccessfully to pry my legs apart. The hem of my dress slid up as I squeezed with all my strength, feeling the delicate fabric tear as he thrashed and clawed at my legs, growing increasingly desperate for air.

  I didn’t know exactly where I wanted to end up, but I had decided that Coombs being momentarily unconscious was a good start. Then I could free my hands and deal with him.

  I squeezed harder.

  Although he was gasping for oxygen, he was strong and clever. He jerked sideways, allowing his weight to carry him off the side of the bed. With my hands taped behind me and my legs locked around his neck I had no choice but to follow.

  I slid onto the floor, taking out the night table with a painful thump, but I kept my legs around his neck, squeezing for all I was worth. His face was scarlet, but he was still far from unconscious. He thrashed and flung
his weight about.

  Then I saw why Coombs had thrown himself off the bed.

  The revolver had landed on the floor. It lay just out of his arm’s reach. I watched his hand stretching toward the gun. I squeezed harder and tried to jerk him away, but he was strong and desperate. A bad combination. He had enough energy to continue reaching, even as I felt him weakening for lack of air.

  His fingers grazed the revolver.

  It seemed an open question of what would happen first: Coombs losing consciousness or shooting me.

  We never found out.

  The door opened and four men walked in.

  15

  My first thought was that our struggle had triggered a noise complaint from another guest. Two of the men were obviously security. Big, hardened, watchful. One was taller and one was shorter but both looked like they spent more time in the gym than in church. Each of them had a tattoo across the back of the right hand. A fanged snake coiled around a five-pointed star. The third man looked very different. He had a slender, reedy build, glasses, a sparse mustache, and thinning hair combed in a severe side part. He wore a gray suit two decades out of fashion, all padded shoulders and wide, pleated pants, and a lavender paisley tie as broad as a cutting board.

  The three of them could have been a night manager and a couple of security goons. Not perfect. It didn’t explain how fast they’d arrived after the noise began. Or why a place this nice would have security that looked like they’d be more at home guarding a back-alley poker game. But enough mental shoehorning could make it work.

  The fourth man was different.

  The fourth man was hugely fat. He must have weighed more than three hundred pounds. Black cowboy boots made out of what looked to be glinting, pebbled stingray added several inches to his height. A mop of tightly curled black hair frothed above swarthy skin and a pair of raucous black eyebrows seemed, like Pyramus and Thisbe at their wall, to be separated by only the tiniest of margins, and equally eager to rejoin. A giant diamond stud sparkled in his left ear. His broad, jowly face grinned at nothing in particular and his right hand bore the same snake and star tattoo as the other pair. He looked like a cross between an out-of-shape pirate and some kind of cryptocurrency billionaire.

  Coombs and I had stopped fighting as the door opened. My legs fell away and he rubbed his neck, gulping in fresh oxygen, the revolver on the floor, forgotten. Both of us sat up, startled and watchful.

  I eyed the con man. Had he somehow gotten word to friends of his? His expression told me a lot. There was a new emotion on his face. Not happiness or relief. Not the delighted look of a man seeing his buddies coming to help at exactly the right moment. Something else.

  Fear.

  I wasn’t sure if I liked that.

  The fat man laughed as he saw how I was taped up. He spoke with a heavy accent. “So kinky, Dr. Coombs. I had no idea of your elaborate taste.” He bent to take a closer look at me. He was so fat that bending seemed its own challenge. “And she’s a pretty one, too, very pretty. Does she charge extra for you to tie her up?”

  He saw the silver-plated revolver and picked it up with an appreciative whistle. Coombs’s face tightened as the barrel drifted toward him. “So kinky,” the fat man said again. “Bondage, gunplay… I’m impressed. I thought you would be more vanilla in your tastes. A man full of surprises.” He looked down at me. “I’m curious. What do you charge for this kind of fun?”

  I considered my reply. There might be worse things than him thinking I was an escort. “Depends on the work,” I answered. “Sliding scale.”

  “Who do you work for? I know them all.”

  “I freelance.”

  His eyes were all over me, taking in my torn dress and unshielded legs. “Well, come find us if you ever need a job. You’re old, but still pretty enough.”

  “What are you doing here?” Coombs muttered.

  The fat man turned to Coombs like he had already forgotten my existence. “You see, I got tired of all the talk. So much talk, with you, endless, so frustrating. I had an idea—didn’t I, Albert?”

  The reedy man in the boxy suit nodded. “A very good idea.”

  “Dr. Coombs—do you know what my idea was?”

  “No,” said Coombs in a strained voice.

  “I thought, too much talk—enough! Why not go pay a visit to our doctor? So we can finally meet. What do you think of my idea?”

  Coombs looked like he was struggling to keep a measured tone. “How did you find me here?”

  The fat man grinned. “This is my town, Dr. Coombs. We have eyes and ears all over, everywhere, all eager to talk, to be helpful. Besides—we were expecting you.”

  “Tomorrow. I had thought we had agreed to choose a meeting place tomorrow.”

  The fat man laughed. “But I wanted to see you now. I’m not a perfect man, I admit. After all, I’m only human. I have flaws, shortcomings, as do we all. And one of these flaws is impatience. I am afflicted with great impatience.”

  Coombs started to climb to his feet but the fat man shook his head. “Stay, for a moment. You’re so comfortable.” The revolver drifted down the length of Coombs’s body. “Another failing of mine is my temper. I’ve always suffered from a bad temper. Why, I don’t know. Genetics, perhaps.” The revolver continued to drift as he spoke. Coombs watched the barrel move. “Even as a young child, my mother was always begging me, please, calm down, such rage, you can’t live with such anger in you. She called me her little thunderstorm. But try as I might, I couldn’t get rid of this temper of mine. It’s here to stay, I’m afraid.” He held up a hand with a thespian’s flourish. “Like my hand, my fingers. Part of me.”

  Coombs said, “We had agreed to meet tomorrow. That was the plan.”

  “Fuck your plan,” the fat man exclaimed, then seemed to catch himself. He smiled down. “You see? There I go again. My doctor tells me I must control it, this terrible temper of mine. He uses such fancy words, anger management, impulse control… I’m a simple man, I never graduated high school. What do I know about such things? He says all this anger is not good for my heart, unhealthy, he even suggests pills, medication. Modern medicine—it can do anything, yes? Anything except save us from the grave, I suppose.” The fat man grinned at his own words, eyes shrewd and wicked. “But who knows what these tiny little pills do? Maybe they turn my brain to mush, make me sleepy and stupid… who can tell? So, I told my doctor, the pills, no thank you, I’ll have to live with this ferocious temper of mine, this lava, bubbling away in my heart. I’ll take my chances, we must all live with the consequences of the decisions we make. Isn’t that right, Albert?”

  “Absolutely, Mr. Z,” said the reedy man from behind him. A real yes-man.

  As if following my thought, the fat man explained, “Albert is my accountant.” His voice contained pride, as though he was telling us about a fancy new car. “When there’s money at stake, I like him close to me. He knows so much about money, figures, finance. Like a human calculator. He attended the MIT Sloan School of Management—the very best.”

  “You’re too kind,” Albert said. He tugged at his tie modestly. “Far too kind.”

  “And I didn’t tell my doctor this,” Mr. Z continued, “but I even thought to myself—well, perhaps, every gray cloud has a silver lining, yes? Perhaps this rotten, nasty temper of mine, this impulsiveness, can be a virtue, in its own way? Like tonight. For me to think, why wait, why go on, with this endless talking, this endless negotiating, this bellyache? Why? Why not pay a visit to our new friend and see what we can accomplish in person?”

  He tapped the barrel of the revolver against his hand. “Cutting to the chase, I believe you call it. Is that right, Albert? This expression?”

  Albert’s voice sounded, dependable as an echo. “Absolutely correct, Mr. Z. Cutting to the chase it is.”

  Coombs’s eyes reminded me of something. An elementary-school field trip to a science museum, watching as a mouse was placed in a python’s tank. The mouse’s glistening eyes, i
ts quivering whiskers.

  Coombs’s face was like the mouse.

  “You know that this was not entirely in my hands,” he said. “Banks, wire transfers—these things take time. We’re almost there.”

  The fat man ambled over to the welcome basket of fruit. He put down the revolver and rummaged around, coming up with a packet of salted almonds and a tin of bonbons. He tore open the almonds and ate them in two handfuls, licked salty crumbs from his lips, and turned to the bonbons, prying up the lid with a fat thumb. “You don’t mind, Dr. Coombs, that I’m eating your pretty little chocolates?”

  “Please,” Coombs managed. “Be my guest.”

  The fat man gave a big booming laugh. “Your guest! Exactly! A play on words! Because here, in this fancy, beautiful hotel, we are your guests! And later, perhaps I can return the hospitality. Perhaps you can be my guest.” Already halfway through the chocolates, Mr. Z stooped to the bar cart and rooted up a bottle of Belvedere. He poured vodka into a glass, scooped into the ice bucket, and looked up, disappointed. “It’s melted.”

  “Happy to step out and get more,” Coombs suggested.

  The fat man liked that. He laughed. “I bet you would be. So happy, maybe you’d fly all the way to London for more ice, wouldn’t you?” He sipped the warm vodka, shaking his head as though conducting an unpleasant chore. “Vodka without ice is like…” He stopped. “I’m stuck! What is it like, Dr. Coombs? Tell your guest what it’s like. You’re such a talker, so smooth, so slick—I’m sure you have the perfect analogy for my warm vodka.”

  Coombs stared at him as though stuck in a bad dream. “I—I’m afraid…”

  “Your tongue, Dr. Coombs! If you don’t use it, I will take it for myself. Vodka without ice is like…”

  Coombs lipped his lips. “I don’t know, perhaps… like a fox hunt without foxes?”

  Mr. Z broke into uproarious laughter. “Exactly! Vodka without ice is like a fox hunt without the little fucking orange foxes!” He tilted the vodka into his mouth, set the empty glass down, licked his lips. “Yet sometimes we must accept that things cannot be perfect. Like warm vodka. Not perfect, but still, I drink it, because it is better than no vodka.”