by Ryan Stygar
Andrew seized Adam by the throat and made a fist. Adrenaline surged through Adam’s muscles and he managed to deflect the first punch, but Andrew kept swinging. He beat Adam bloody, then quickly turned to check on his friend.
“Ian! Who the hell is this guy? Ian!?” he whipped around to face Adam. “He’s dead! You son of a bitch!”
Enraged, he lunged at him. Adam rolled between the beds and Andrew flew right past him and crashed bodily into the nightstand between the beds, knocking over a porcelain lamp as he bucked against its wooden frame. Furious, Andrew snatched the lamp by its neck and hurled it at Adam like a fastball.
Adam dropped low to avoid being hit. Springing back to his feet, he threw his arms around Andrew’s hips to try to take him down, but Andrew reacted quickly by wrapping a lean-muscled arm around Adam’s neck. Using his superior strength to force Adam down, Andrew twisted his body behind Adam’s to apply a lethal vice-grip against his throat. Adam threw an elbow back into Andrew’s ribs but nothing seemed to deter the larger and stronger man behind him. The pressure against his throat was building toward a crushing, deadly conclusion.
A brief reflection of light flashed up from the ground, catching Adam’s eye even as the chokehold caused his vision to fade. It was the chrome handle of the tire iron. After losing his grip on the weapon it had skittered beneath one of the queen beds and now lay just beyond arm’s length.
Abandoning his attempt to beat Andrew back with his elbows, Adam tried to lean forward and grab at the weapon. Right as his fingertips grazed the iron bar he was pushed forward and then slammed into the floor. Andrew growled like a beast, squeezing harder and harder while the passing seconds starved Adam’s brain of oxygen.
The tire iron was his final hope for survival. Adam flailed his free arm desperately. Time was running out, his mind was going dark, if only he could reach just a little farther…
Then the miracle happened.
Adam’s body jerked suddenly and Andrew was certain it was the final death spasm. What he didn’t see was the tire iron under the bed… or that Adam’s hand had just connected with it.
Adam yanked the iron from under the bed and whipped it backward like a scorpion’s tail. The iron seemed to flare up from nowhere when it struck Andrew right between his eyes. The triangle-lock on Adam’s neck melted away and Andrew fell back.
“Ooooohhhh!!” he cried. His hands instinctively flew to his cover his face but the damage was already done. Bright red blood spurted from between his fingers while he fell back. When the vice-grip was released, Adam let out a deep gasp as if his head had been held underwater. After his first lungful, his blurry senses began to sharpen.
Fighting off the urge to collapse and pant for more air, Adam scurried onto his feet and swung the tire iron like a baseball bat. Andrew tried to catch it but his attempt was clumsy. His hand missed, and instead it was his forearm that absorbed the full force of the blow. There was a gut-wrenching snap! when the metal broke the long bones in Andrew’s forearm. He shrieked in pain and clutched at his mutilated limb… leaving his head completely exposed.
Without hesitation, Adam slammed the iron bar down into Andrew’s skull like an ax into a block of wood. With a bloody burst of brain and bone, Andrew Kremenski died almost immediately.
It’s over… it’s finally over.
The awful copper smell of blood stung Adam’s nose as he sucked in the putrid air. Hoping to relieve some of the stench, he stumbled to the single window in the room and cracked it open. The air outside was the freshest he’d tasted in hours and he sucked it down with deep greedy gulps.
A pair of headlights flickered on in the parking lot and lit up the whole room. Startled, Adam quickly turned away from the window and pressed his back against the shadow of the wall. Guilt was making him jumpy. Like an escaped prisoner avoiding a searchlight, he carefully inched closer to the window and peeked outside.
The black Mercedes’s headlights cast long dusty shadows across the parking lot while it idled. Inside Adam could see two shadowy figures seated in the vehicle. He found it unsettling that the pair didn’t move. Were they watching him? Did they witness the fight from outside?
Adam shuddered and decided that he still had a chance of getting away if he could clean up the evidence before any police showed up.
There was no way for him to know how wrong he was, or how much worse things were about to get.
From inside their Mercedes SUV, two men wordlessly watched the window of room 204 in the Sunset View Motel. One of the men dialed a number on his flip-phone.
“Dah?” a male voice answered in his native Russian.
“It is done,” replied the man in the SUV, also in Russian. “We saw a struggle in the room. One man is still alive and he is walking around … it is not Andrew Kremenski.”
“Confirm that the traitor is really dead. And make sure none of Dimitri Jordan’s men are in the area. If he catches any Russian’s with that money…”
“We’ll be careful, boss,” the man said. He snapped a loaded magazine into his Beretta pistol and chambered a nine millimeter round. The voice on the phone continued.
“There’s more. I’ve searched Kremenski’s home and there is no sign of the master binder, he must have had it with him. You must find it.”
“If Kremenski had the binder, we’ll find it,” the man answered. His partner double checked his own ammunition and tucked his pistol into his shoulder holster.
The man asked his boss, “And your assassin? What of him?”
“No loose ends; you and Niko will need to catch him and then find a place in the desert for his body. He’s served his purpose.”
The man answered in the affirmative, hung up, and looked to his partner.
“We are going in, do you have the key?” he asked.
His partner, Niko, shot him an irritated look. “I thought you had it?”
The man rolled his eyes. “Idiot,” he muttered. “You had better hope the door is unlocked.”
6
A dam sighed relief when the bright beams of light turned off. In the cover of darkness he hastily yanked the curtain closed and then turned to deal with the mess of evidence in the room. His original plan was to kill Kremenski in his sleep, slip out of the motel undetected, and then bury the murder weapon in a remote corner of the desert. It should have been a cake-walk, but things had fallen apart faster than he could keep up. Now he had to concoct a new plan – fast.
Adam first tried grabbing a tissue from the nightstand and made a pitiful attempt at wiping the blood off the walls; it took about three seconds to realize his efforts were useless.
Without a massive overhaul of the place he would have precisely zero chance of escaping conviction. Evidence seemed to ooze from every corner of the room. In the bathroom he searched the cabinets for something, anything, to help him clean the place up, but was disappointed to discover only a meager ration of personal toiletries.
By the sink there was a small tray filled with bottles of shampoo, a toothbrush, soap, hand towels, a packet of matches and a lavender-scented candle. The cupboards beneath the sink were empty, as was the medicine cabinet behind the mirror.
Wow Adam, he thought when he saw his reflection, you look terrible.
Adam had been living out of his pickup truck for months. Although he managed to remain employed since losing his apartment, his physical appearance had deteriorated accordingly. His black hair, which he wore long at the top and cut short at the sides, had the home-cut look of a man who was too poor for a barber but also too proud to let his hair go untamed.
His eyes were bruised from the fight, but their frosty blue color still shined through. Adam was blessed with boyish good-looks that, in another, more fortunate life, might have landed him a modeling career. Despite his youthful features, Adam still had a strongly shaped chin which hinted at his stubborn knack for survival. Young girls thought he was handsome and mysterious, but older women could see through the façade; good lo
oks aside, Adam Friend was a mess.
Adam scanned over his reflection one more time. It had been a long time since he’d seen the beastly-looking man staring back at him; and he didn’t like him.
His thoughts turned again to the little tray in the bathroom. More specifically, he thought of the pack of matches. A seed of an idea formed in his mind. Perhaps there was a way to make the evidence disappear. It wasn’t a great plan, but it was the best he could come up with. The biggest risk would be leaving the motel to get supplies and then return undetected.
Moving quickly he found one of the duffel bags was full of Kremenski’s luggage. He opened the bag and helped himself to a white t-shirt, clean underwear, and some blue jeans. Figuring it would take about twenty bucks to get what he needed, he grabbed a bill from one of the bags of money, then reconsidered and threw the whole thing over his shoulder. It was just too big a fortune to leave unattended. On that same train of thought, he tossed the metal binder into the bag as well, just in case it was worth something. He then double checked that the door was locked and slipped out of the room.
Adam was uncomfortably aware of footsteps trailing behind him as he left the hallway. The muffled voices were calmly speaking to each other and, thankfully, didn’t seem to notice him as he slipped outside.
There was a gas station less than a block away from the Sunset View Motel and it was there that Adam found a two and a half gallon gas can. He also bought a candy bar to satisfy his hunger pangs.
“Jesus pal, what happened to you?” asked the clerk, handing over the change when he did.
“Rugby club,” Adam lied without skipping a beat. “I’m fine,”
“You might wanna get some ice on that,” the clerk advised.
While he filled up the gas can, Adam gazed at the glowing kingdom of casinos a short distance away. Las Vegas had been hard on him, especially for the past couple of years. Being poor and homeless hurt a whole lot worse while opulent displays of wealth swirled all around him. It was like being lost at sea; surrounded by water, dying of thirst, with not a drop to drink.
Adam came back to the present when the gas pump clicked off. Feeling that his window of opportunity was rapidly closing, he ran back to the motel with the can in hand. He found a discreet side door that led to one of the stairwells and took the steps two-at-a-time as he ran up to the second floor. He first sensed that something was wrong when he was about ten yards from room 204.
A light was glowing from the open doorway. At once his skin grew ice cold. Did he leave it open? He could have sworn he’d shut the door on his way out.
He crept up to the room as if he were approaching a dangerous animal. His heart was already racing, but it went into overdrive when he saw the door.
It was hanging from a single hinge; someone had kicked it in.
Splinters scattered inward from the point of impact and Adam could see that the bodies were still right where he’d left them, but every bag full of cash was gone.
Shit.
Every drawer in the room was hanging open. In the few short minutes it took to get the gasoline, the room had been breached, searched, and ransacked. Voices trailed up from the parking lot and, wanting to be sure they weren’t cops, Adam peeked outside.
That’s when he really started to panic.
Behind an open cargo door, two men in suits were loading the black duffle bags into their SUV. They were rummaging through the bags and arguing with each other. The oldest of the two, distinguished by a streak of gray in his black hair, looked up at the window. The man’s eyes went wide when he spotted Adam watching him.
“Ohh shit!!” Adam hissed as he ducked away, but it was too late. Streak-of-gray jabbed a finger toward the window and barked an order at his partner. The men must have been searching for the rest of the money and the opium binder. Now they knew who had it. Both drew Berretta M9 pistols from their coats and charged toward the motel.
Adam tore the cap from the gas can and then emptied it out as fast as he could. Even with armed men chasing him, he knew he was equally doomed unless he destroyed as much evidence as possible. Shaking out the last drops of gas, he threw the can down to the floor. He then snatched up the pack of matches from the toiletry tray to finish the place off. He was so worked up that he pressed too hard and snapped the matches against the packet three times before one of them sparked.
Oh come on, come onnnn! Luck came through on the fourth match and the instant it caught fire he threw it to the fuel-soaked carpet.
WOOOMMFF!!
A wall of heat blew him back against the wall and singed his hair. Within seconds the flames raced across the floor, rolling over the bodies like a wave and rushing up the curtains and bedsheets. With a roar that grew louder with each passing second, the flames licked out from the doorway and triggered the fire alarm. A sprinkler in the old room popped, but it had been so poorly maintained that the thin trickle of brown water was no match for the inferno. Adam spun on his heels and ran to the exit stairwell. At the end of the hall he caught the tubular hand-rail on the stairs and hooked right to jump down the steps.
That’s where his luck ran out.
He crashed into someone who was just emerging from the top step. Adam’s inertia, made nearly double from hooking around on the handrail, catapulted both of them down the stairs in a tangled mess of limbs. They landed at a concrete wall below the steps. Adam was dazed, but when the man tried to point his gun at him he quickly snatched his wrist and deflected his aim.
There were no words, just furious, spitting anger as the man struggled to press the muzzle of his Beretta against Adam’s skull. Adam threw a knee into the man’s groin and grasped his wrist with both hands. The man grunted from the pain but clutched his gun even tighter. With all his strength Adam slammed the man’s hand into the concrete floor over and over like an otter cracking open a shell. Skin split against the concrete and knuckle bones cracked in a bloody splat. Howling in pain, the man lost his grip and the weapon skittered away.
“Sergei!” he bellowed. “Sergei come help me!”
Russians.
The gangster threw a punch into Adam’s ribs and rolled on top of him. Adam tried to wriggle free but the Russian was too heavy. Desperate to escape, Adam clasped his hands over the man’s face and jammed his thumbs deep into his eye sockets. The Russian let loose an unholy shriek of agony and instantly fell over.
When Adam pulled his oozing wet thumbs from the man’s ruined eye-sockets, the awful sucking sound made his stomach turn.
Over the deafening blare of the fire alarm and the panicked shouts of guests evacuating from their rooms, Adam thought he could hear a man shouting in Russian from above his head. Looking up, his jaw dropped at the sight of thick black smoke billowing out from the hallway and into the stairwell. Adam leaped over the blind and screaming Russian and scooped up the black Beretta. Anticipating the arrival of the second gunman, he flicked off the safety and aimed at the doorway.
Sergei came exploding out of the hallway half a second later.
“Niko!” he screamed when he saw his comrade writhing on the ground. With hate in his eyes he swung his pistol down to take aim at Adam, but Adam was ready.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
The ear-splitting blasts from the nine millimeter were amplified by the concrete structure of the stairwell. It was Adam’s first time firing a gun in years, but he didn’t stick around to see if his bullets had found their mark. When Sergei reemerged from behind the doorway he fired off two blind shots where Adam had last been standing – but he was gone.
Adam sprinted away from the fiery motel as if all Hell were after him. He ran until his legs burned and his lungs screamed for mercy. Pumping his arms to gain more speed, he pushed himself well past the brink in the hardest run of his life.
Many, many blocks later, Adam finally slowed to a jog, then a trot, then a fast walk. While the Sunset View Motel glowed red under a column of black smoke in the distance behind, he followed the long, dark stretch of road th
at led to his home. There at the far end of an old parking lot was his ‘92 Chevy S10 pickup.
In the distance, the wail of sirens filled the night air. Time was his only ally now; the longer the flames burned, the less evidence there would be to convict him with.
Adam tossed the duffel bag onto the back of his tiny truck and crawled into the truck bed – exhausted. He had a small pile of clothing and from there he took a shirt and laid it over the duffel bag to make a pillow. After locking the window of the hardtop cover he wrapped himself tightly into his only blanket. Adam sighed so hard that his body shuddered – the longest and most violent day of his life was finally over.
It was impossible for him to predict the magnitude of events he had just set into motion. Adam’s sole focus was survival; that his actions would soon have such destructive and far reaching consequences never crossed his mind.
Las Vegas was a giant powder keg waiting to explode… and Adam Friend had just lit its fuse.
7
The Previous Day, Downtown Las Vegas
T he morning before the fire had started like any other Monday morning for Adam. Monday was his day off from work at the Sumatra Hotel and Casino. He had just received his paycheck, which meant he had enough money to buy food and pay a visit to his three year old daughter at St. Judith’s Home. On the way to visit her he picked up a fresh bouquet of flowers for her room and a new children’s book called “The Coral Princess”.
“See Lily?” he said as he pointed to the brightly colored drawings. “That’s Leila the Mermaid, she’s the princess of the Coral Kingdom.”
Lily was smaller than the other children – a result of complications from her mother abusing opioids during her pregnancy. But despite her health problems, Lily was an energetic little girl. Her short blonde hair bounced up and down as she wriggled up onto her dad’s lap to look at the drawings in her new book. She was too young to begin asking questions about her mother, whom she had never met, or why her father couldn’t live with her at St. Judith’s.