Hit: A Thriller (The Codename: Chandler)

by J. A. Konrath

  “I’ll trade you. My name for who you work for.”

  “What if I told you I was freelance?”

  “Even freelancers have bosses.”

  “Not always. But I see what you are doing. Stalling until hotel security arrives. A noble effort.”

  He grabbed my right upper arm and snugged the gun barrel into the side of my rib cage.

  “Any noise louder than a whisper, I will end you,” he said. “It will pain me to do so, but do so I shall.”

  Steering me back toward the mouth of the square and the indoor canal, he nodded at the people cowering and gaping.

  “No worries. I have the offender under control. Go back to enjoying this beautiful evening.”

  “So full of shit,” I said. But I took his threat seriously and kept it at a whisper level.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him smile.

  The juggler stopped in front of us, blocking our path, his harlequin makeup smeared, the diamonds over his eyes looking more like the mask of a raccoon. Maybe he hadn’t been able to balance as well as I thought.

  He extended a shaking finger, pointing at me. “She grabbed my balls.”

  I could feel Heath’s chuckle through the gun’s barrel.

  “Lucky man. Should I be jealous, mamacita?”

  “I mean it. She stole them. I want my balls back.”

  “While I’ll admit this chica has cojones, I sincerely doubt they belong to you.” Heath shoved past the man.

  With my peripheral vision, I could see Heath’s eyes shifting, taking in the crowd on all sides, as if looking for someone. Or trying not to be found.

  The Arlecchino juggler jumped in front of us again, blocking our path. “The bitch owes me.”

  “Chingado. Get out of our way.”

  “Not until she pays me for my balls.”

  An idea blossomed in my still sluggish mind.

  I hated involving an innocent, especially one I’d dragged into this mess, but I wasn’t crazy about letting Heath escort me outside and shoot me, either. Besides the guy could have gone back and picked up his balls in the square himself.

  Instead he chose to be an asshole.

  He stepped closer. “You hear me? You’re going to find them for me or buy me new ones.”

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll go back with you and look for them right now.” I moved as if to step toward the juggler, instead stumbling into Heath. He released my elbow and slipped his arm around my waist, propping me up.

  What a gentleman.

  And that’s when the stupid harlequin reached for me.

  Twisting to the side, I came down on Heath’s gun arm with my now free left hand, a knife edge strike to his radial nerve, forcing him to drop the weapon. At the same time, I grabbed the juggler’s outstretched hand and fitting the back of his hand into my palm like a nesting doll, I swooped down, grabbed Heath’s crotch, and squeezed.

  Heath doubled over while his weapon clattered to the cobblestone.

  Leaving the juggler gripping Heath’s huevos, I jumped back a safe distance from the men.

  “There. Have some balls,” I said, trying to locate the pistol among the dozens of onlookers’ feet scrambling to get out of the way.

  Heath recovered quickly, sending his knee into the juggler’s head, casting him to the ground. Then he turned to face me. The muscles of his face taught with pain, he attempted to give me one of his flirty smiles and failed miserably.

  “Muy bien, querida,” he said. “Now let me see what else you can do.”

  He brought up his hands, dancing up on his toes like a boxer looking for an opportunity to strike. But when he finally did, instead of a punch, he launched into a spinning kick, connecting with my shoulder.

  I rolled with the motion of the blow, but it still shuddered through my spine and sent me flying to the side, my head connecting with a wrought iron railing. My ears rang, an ache seizing my head

  I could smell blood, and when I touched the spot where my scalp hit the rail, my fingers came away red. The crowd cleared the area around me. Shouting rose in the distance along with the alternating squawk and static of two-way radios.

  Struggling to catch my breath and clear my mind, I saw Heath readying himself to come at me again. I preferred martial arts that relied on kicks and lower body strength. But the quickest way to neutralize a kicker was to use his weight and momentum against him, so I lowered my center of gravity, preparing to throw him on his ass when he attacked again.

  He didn’t. At least, not right away.

  Heath glanced to one side, eyes rounding a touch.

  Figuring he was trying to fake me out, I didn’t look.

  Good call.

  He came at me with a whirling movement, combining an evasive maneuver with a spinning kick. Originating from the Brazilian martial art capoeira, the meia lua de compasso packed a wallop. I’d once seen a MMA fighter use it to take out a much larger opponent a mere twenty seconds into the fight.

  I managed to evade, lunging to the side and getting hit only by the wind as his leg streaked past. His momentum carried him beyond me, and he was out of range before I could strike back.

  But instead of turning around to come at me again, he kept going, leaping over a series of railings and steps.

  I set out after him, reaching the canal just in time to see him jump over the last rail and down to the water.

  Voices sounded behind me. I expected security to be on us by now, or even the police, but these voices were neither. They spoke Spanish, one tinged with an accent I’d just recently heard.

  I glanced back, spotting Football Face towering over the crowd. Judging from the panic of the crowed surrounding him, he was armed and not being too subtle about showing it.

  How had they followed us from Chicago?

  I turned my attention back to Heath. He was already on the other side of the canal, pulling himself up on the railing, his clothing perfectly dry.

  The guy could walk on water now?

  I scanned the area, quickly realizing what he’d done. Just as the first gunshot exploded in the air behind me, I jumped over the rail and into the canal.

  Heath

  Heath had just made it over the railing on the other side of the canal, when the shooting started. Pino and his man Smith.

  Chingado!

  He’d seen them enter the square, seen the moment they spotted him, seen them draw their weapons.

  Pinches pendejos! It wouldn’t be long before Las Vegas PD’s tactical team would be swarming the place.

  Heath had to get out of here.

  It was his own fault. He should have killed Simone in the suite. Then he would have been able to disappear, clean and free. Women had always been his weakness, but this one… she seemed to flow in his veins, as hot as his own blood.

  Keeping low, he raced down the corridor. People shrieked around him. Shop owners slammed their doors. And behind him all hell broke loose.

  Simone would likely not survive, and for that he was sad. But life was short, as always. And he knew she had lived hers well. A woman as passionate as she could not help it.

  Heath would light a candle for her next to the one for his sweet mother.

  He reached the bend in the canal, the faux street opening up to the escalators. Three hotel security guards ran past him, rushing toward a situation far over their heads. A group of shoppers crowed to get on the down-flowing side for the moving staircase. Three women in front stepped on board, standing still and letting the escalator carry them down, apparently oblivious to the trauma everyone else ran from.

  Heath turned away, intending to find the elevator.

  Just then, a group of police officers headed up the hall, blocking his path, leaving the escalator as the quickest way out.

  He stepped on board.

  Shouts came from the floor below, and as he started down the escalator, the Russians stormed around the corner. One by one, they filed onto the ascending escalator,

  Too late to
reverse course, Heath stared straight ahead, trying to make himself as still and unnoticeable as possible. He focused on reading his surroundings. The fragrance of flowers piped in through the ventilation system of the hotel. The beeps and bells of the slots in the casino below from people refusing to leave their winning machine, even if all hell was breaking loose one floor above.

  Heath had to admire their dedication.

  The first man pulled even, the behemoth wearing the dolphin shirt, him gliding up, Heath gliding down.

  Heath could feel the man’s scrutiny and the accompanying rise in his respiration and heart rate. He could hear the low rumble of their conversation, even over the screaming back in the Grand Canal mall. He forced his breathing to deepen, forced his pulse to slow.

  The first man passed him. Next came the one with fuzz covering his head like yellow feathers on a baby chick.

  The third was the average-looking cabron. Heath was again struck by how unremarkable he was. If he’d passed him without the others, even he might not have picked the man out as a threat.

  Then the man turned his head, glanced at the ring on Heath’s finger, and smiled, lips pulling back to show those hideous teeth.

  Chandler

  “Training will save your life,” The Instructor said, “but so will instinct. The more you train, the better your instincts become.”

  The drop into the canal wasn’t far, less than four meters, but when my feet hit the gondola it bucked as if I’d dropped from fifteen. I absorbed as much of the concussion as I could with my knees, but the craft tipped and bobbed anyway, leaving the gondolier with arms outstretched like a tightrope walker, struggling to keep his footing.

  “Hey,” said a skinny older man in the back of the boat. “What are you—”

  I didn’t answer, instead grabbing the oar from the gondolier’s hands. Channeling my inner Olympian, I jabbed it to the concrete bottom of the shallow canal and half-pole vaulted, half-jumped to the next boat.

  Raised voices sounded behind me, and I didn’t have to look back to confirm I’d been spotted by Muscle Man and Football Face.

  The next two boats were close enough for me to leap from one to another without any help from the oar. Two bounds and I dove for the far wall. Grabbing the bottom rail, I pulled myself up, scrambled over, and fell flat to the cobblestone on the other side.

  I crawled along the floor on my belly. At the bend in the canal, I struggled to my feet, just in time to see Muscles crossing over one of the bridges, heading me off.

  He leveled the barrel of a Glock 19 at me.

  I raised my hands. I might be good under pressure, but even I got a little nervous when a gun was pointed at me by someone obviously not afraid to use it, even in a crowded mall.

  “Where is Bratton?”

  “In his room.”

  “You will take me there.”

  I shook my head and turned my body so he could see the blood matting my hair and trickling down the side of my face. “I’m hurt.”

  “You will take me there.”

  “I can give you the number and the key.”

  “So you can send me to the wrong room? I don’t think so.”

  “Why would I do that? I don’t care about Bratton. He’s just a john. Please, I’ll tell you everything I know. Just let me find a doctor. This really hurts. I’m starting to feel dizzy.”

  “Muy guapa, muy joven y muy obediente.” His mouth tilted into an ugly sneer. “And you expect me to believe a hooker can fight like that?”

  Shit. He’d seen me sparring with Heath.

  I glanced over my shoulder, looking for a way out, a place to take cover close by.

  Football Face closed behind me, having taken a different bridge.

  Double shit. They had me hemmed in.

  There was only one way out.

  I flung myself over the rail and plunged head first into the shallow water.

  Heath

  When Comrade Sharkteeth raised his OTs-23 Drotik, a Russian-made machine pistol, Heath’s fist had already started its arc. He hit the man with a hammer blow to the side of his head, the force shuddering up Heath’s arm and sending his attacker spinning to the side just as he pulled the trigger.

  A three-round burst sprayed the frescos.

  Screams shrilled from the crowd around him, bouncing off marble and ornate moldings.

  People scrambled on the moving steps, jostling, falling, a chaos of fear.

  Comrade Dolphin Shirt and Comrade Chick Fuzz pulled their weapons, but Heath was already on the move. He swung his feet up, landing his ass on the escalator’s moving railing. Then with a mighty shove, he leaned back, feet first, and slid down to the first floor, kicking panicked people out of the way.

  With only three of the Russians accounted for on the up escalator, he wasn’t surprised to find two more of them at the entrance, the tattooed cabrones he’d noticed earlier. One stepped out in front of the doors, blocking Heath’s way. His hand darted to the small of his back, no doubt grabbing the pistol he had stashed there.

  Heath didn’t wait for him to draw the weapon.

  He loved capoeira for its rhythm, its art. But this time, he forgot all that and went straight for a martelo de estalo, or cracking hammer, a roundhouse kick that utilized the top surface of the foot.

  He connected solidly with Tattoo’s ribs, and the man crumpled to the side, breath whooshing from his lungs.

  Heath kept moving, racing through the doors and out of the building before the second man even knew what was happening.

  Several police cars filed into the entrance of the Venetian, and Heath slowed down, hoping the flashing light bars and sirens in the distance would prevent the Russian geniuses behind him from opening fire. But at only midnight on a Friday night, plenty of people moved by on the street, gawking at the first responders.

  Heath crossed the arched bridge to the boulevard and mixed with the rubbernecking crowd, hiding behind a gurgling fountain.

  A few seconds later, the man with El Diablo tattooed on his arm emerged from the doors, two others behind him, their weapons tucked discreetly away. Following the path Heath had taken, the three fanned out, sifting through the crowd.

  Time to adios.

  Flowing with the crowd, Heath crossed South Las Vegas Boulevard at the light. The night was cool, the desert in summer, and a barely there breeze ruffled the leaves of palm trees in the median. A crowd gathered on the opposite sidewalk, and he mixed among them, drawing several venomous stares from people. When the volcano show began, he understood why.

  A mixture of fire and water, music and explosions, the volcano outside the Mirage Hotel was blindingly spectacular.

  It also might provide exactly what he needed.

  Heath blinked, trying to clear the ghost of the fire’s brilliance from his eyes. He wound through onlookers, moving closer to the lake and the cauldron of fire in its center. He was sure it would be hot enough. All he required was 60 degrees Celsius. Just slip the ring from his finger, give it a gentle toss, and let the fire show and a little time solve the problem for him.

  So close. So easy.

  He darted to the front of the crowd…and ran smack into an iron wall of a man.

  The man muttered something that sounded like izvinite, and Heath froze.

  Although Heath was fluent in several languages, his area of expertise was focused in Mexico, South and Central America, Western Europe, and the Middle East. He had little experience with the languages of Eastern Europe or Asia, but it didn’t take much to recognize the Soviet ring of the word.

  He glanced at the man out of the corner of his eye, noting how the orange of the volcano flame reflected off the yellow fuzz on the man’s scalp.

  Chingado.

  The man’s giant mitt of a hand closed around Heath’s arm.

  Lifting his knee and quickly extending his leg in a ponteira, Heath delivered the simple front snap-kick hard and fast into the brute’s groin. Although the man tried to protect himself, he was too
slow. He doubled forward, releasing Heath’s arm.

  All Heath needed.

  He spun and shoved his way free of the crowd. Where Chick Fuzz was, he knew the others would be also, and he ran like El Diablo himself was on his tail.

  Up ahead, a bright light caught his attention, shooting into the sky like a beacon.

  The laser streaming from the tip of the Luxor pyramid.

  It was far down the Strip, but if he could catch a taxi, he might be able to make it, before the Russians or the Venezuelan or, if she was still alive, sweet Simone caught up with him.

  It was worth a try.

  Dodging groups of tourists and clumps of palm trees, he made it to the end of the block, then crossed against the light, picking his way through traffic to reach the Roman columns of the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace. Heath kept going, past fountains and grand entrances and rows of arborvitae, his breathing settling into a rhythm. The men chasing him were big and armed, but he was thrifty, fast, and smart.

  He liked those odds.

  Shouts erupted behind him, along with the trample of heavy, running feet. But as he turned on the speed, the distance grew.

  Soon the muscles in his legs started to burn, his lungs hungry for oxygen. The sweat came quickly, but it didn’t do much to cool him in the desert heat. Even at night, Vegas was an oven. He kept moving, dodging around tourists and handbillers passing out pamphlets, jumping over the occasional drunk passed out on one of the sculpted sidewalks. He was in spectacular shape, but even he couldn’t keep up this mad dash forever. Already he could feel himself tiring, his strides slowing, growing shorter.

  Although Heath could no longer hear the Russians, he knew they wouldn’t give up so easily. They’d catch up, weapons ready. And when they did, he had to make certain they wouldn’t be able to find him.

  He crossed the boulevard again at the intersection of Flamingo Road, this time taking the escalator up to the footbridge connecting the Bellagio to the tube-like entrance of Bally’s. He kept moving, searching for a place to stop, to hide, a spot where he could keep an eye on his surroundings and yet no one would think to look.

  He passed Bally’s and looked up, his gaze tracing the glorious architectural lines of an Eiffel Tower two thirds the size of the real one.