by Ben Sanders
The guy took it. ‘I just go straight in?’
‘You just go straight in. Think of us as kinda like your entourage.’
The guy fumbled around at the lock, scratchy metal sounds as he stabbed and missed. Problem with hostages, hugging them close, they could feel your heart beating, knew you were tense.
Ludo said, ‘Come on, line it up.’ Just a whisper, but the helmet made it hissy, some weird octave.
The guy found the slot, twisted, and then pushed open the door, fingertip pressure, the view growing inch by inch. Ludo bunched up a handful of collar, waited a second to get psyched, bouncing slightly on his toes, and then he shoved the guy forward into the entry. The gun was higher now, aimed at his head, where all the nerve shit from the spine tied in with the brain.
Tol said, ‘Should I bring the other guy?’
The place was too quiet, not the sort of hush you’d get walking in unexpected. It had that hide-and-seek feel to it, mightn’t be a quick in-and-out.
Ludo said, ‘Yeah. Bring him over. But don’t leave a stain.’
He stood against the door to keep it open, his human shield a bit wobbly at the knee. Tol stepped back across the hallway and grabbed Carl by the ankle, dragged him to the apartment. The guy’s limbs all splayed as he slid across the carpet, Tol on a lean like he was towing a sled. Ludo stepped forward to give him room, and Tol dropped his load just inside the threshold. Tol pulled the key out of the lock and fussed around with the door for a second, trying to get it closed. Finally the click.
Ludo shook his head to get the sweat out of his eyes, the helmet slopping around with the motion. He said, ‘You try to pull away, I’m going to drill you. OK?’
The guy nodded, a crazy Parkinson’s shake, knees still vibrating. Ludo dug the gun in hard and swung the guy around to the left.
‘Open that door.’
The guy complied. It was a coat cupboard, heavy winter gear all crammed together.
‘All right, same again.’
He hauled the guy over to the next door, made him open it. It was a bathroom, sterile and squared away, bright tile everywhere, buffed like the Cadillac. Henry Lee was on his side in the bath, an adhesive bandage across his mouth. This wild, one-eyed look as he raised his head to look at them. Like some horror-movie shot, a victim being dragged away to hell.
Ludo bent down and ripped off the gag. ‘Where the fuck is Marshall?’
NINETEEN
Marshall
Getting him in the bath wasn’t hard, the dynamics of the situation fairly clear given that one person was winded and the other had a shotgun. Marshall told Henry his lines, and then smoothed the bandage over muffled swearing. He signed off with an ultimatum—‘stay put or I’ll shoot you’—and then he went through to the bedroom.
It was a little airless, sheets giving off a warm-body odour. The vacuum cleaner was still there, a dent in the quilt nearby where the girl had sat. He lifted a corner of the mattress and slid the shotgun in across the slats, placed Frankie’s pistol next to it. Henry’s Python was still in his belt, a backup option if he needed it.
He’d thought briefly about waiting in the living room, getting himself comfy on the couch and shooting whoever came through the door. Then he started pondering collateral, twelve-gauge rounds shredding through partition walls, and it didn’t seem like such a great option. He could’ve put his head out in the corridor, see who was waiting, but he pictured them watching that handle, firing through the door when they saw it move. Likewise if he called 911: bust in when they heard a siren.
He walked through to the living room and stood at the window. A sliding door gave access to the balcony. The glass was probably double or triple glazed, some fancy thermal system, but it ghosted along on its track when he slid it aside, no weight at all.
He pulled the slider closed behind him and stood at the edge and looked out. The streets in their neat lattice, toy-size from up here, impossibly detailed. Dots of people on myriad vectors. Weak traffic noise, the odd horn calling to him. He stood at the end of the balustrade, over by the bedroom, and jacked himself up on the rail. A dizzy moment as his perspective tipped forward, a quick glimpse beyond the vertical, balconies below in a tidy broken column.
He got his footing and waited a second, teetering briefly as he removed his hands. He spread his arms for balance and rose to a standing position, taking it slow to fight the wobbles, feet braced across the corner. It was an awkward little manoeuvre, the overhead balcony making him hunch, a Quasimodo stoop. He reached up and placed his hands on the concrete underside, cool and textured, and then pushed hard, pivoting on his palms as he reversed his footing on the rail, his back to the view now.
He didn’t know if it was an improvement, with the drop hidden. He wondered if he’d hit terminal velocity before he hit the ground. Thirty-two feet per second, per second, over thirteen floors. Your speed was the tip of the velocity graph when the area beneath the line equalled distance travelled. He’d have to do the math later.
He kept his hands in place, biceps tense with the pressure, and then eased his head out gradually from beneath the balcony. Slowly, treacle pace, a sort of shallow limbo. Teeth clenched as he leaned, as if jaw muscles could aid his balance. He brought one hand up and found the top edge of the balcony, inched his sight line higher to peer over. He could sense the sick shift in forces, his upper body hanging backward over the abyss, dragging his hands outward. A relentless, patient slip, the motion on a micro-scale. That fatal plunge ready to claim him. He removed his other hand from the bottom of the slab and brought it up to grip the top edge, fingers hooked at the middle knuckle.
He was panting. The balcony had a concrete beam at each end, maybe seven or eight inches deep, and a slab between them, only four or five inches thick. But the top edge was too square, tiled surface slick with rain, and he couldn’t get purchase. It was just a smooth shelf, offering no option but to hang by his fingers. The balustrade was glass, fixed to round stainless-steel posts. The apartment’s curtains were drawn, someone’s slippered feet shuffling down the little gap. Water on the tiles by his nose rippling with each breath. The temperature was that dull, mid-thirties cold, not frostbite weather, just low enough to make him numb and clumsy.
He couldn’t do it.
Horns on the street below, a light wind tugging at him. He wondered if people were watching yet, suicide calls going out to 911. He could see his fingertips, bone-white, sliding backward. A tiny, terrifying motion. His centre of gravity hanging out over the street, tugging him slowly, slowly.
You have to get out somehow—
He closed his eyes, knocked his chin against the tiles, thinking.
You don’t have time—
He took a hand off the edge of the tilework, swung it down below the slab, pushed upward hard, finally getting some friction on the dry underside. Then he did the same with the other hand, ducked and swung his head in and jumped down off the rail.
The front door was closed. There was still time.
He opened the slider and slipped in, part of him relieved to be back on stable footing. Maybe he preferred a bullet to the fall.
He stepped through to the kitchen, half-eaten breakfast just cold smears. He rolled open a drawer. Cutlery, nothing big enough. One drawer down and he found ladles, sieves. A bread knife that could take a wrist off. He picked it up and nudged the drawer closed, walked back toward the bedroom, faint metallic noises coming from the entry, like a key searching for the slot.
In the bedroom he knelt by the vacuum cleaner and began pulling out the lead, near-frenzied yanks, fifteen feet in about four seconds flat. He chocked the wheel with his foot, pulled the cord taut, and started sawing, an underhand motion, the black lead bent shallowly across the blade.
More key noises at the front door. Thin twists of plastic curling off the knife. He was into the guts of it now, copper beginning to fray. He sawed like a wild man, some prisoner trying to cut the leash, the captor at the door. Halfway there.
> The lock clicked.
Shit.
He kept sawing, slower now but with more tension, getting there, getting there. Three-quarters—
A ghost-movie creak as the door opened. Marshall gritted his teeth and sawed the last something-of-an-inch, only plastic keeping it together now.
Someone saying, ‘Yeah, bring him over, but don’t leave a stain.’
Come on, come on.
It broke. The final tough thread just let go, like it didn’t see the point of hanging on.
The same voice said, ‘You try to pull away, I’m going to drill you. OK?’
Marshall slid the knife under the bed, picked a few black rinds of plastic off the carpet. The guy said, ‘Open that door.’
Marshall gathered the loose bundle of cable in one hand, stood slowly so his knees wouldn’t pop, put his shoulder against the doorframe, waiting just out of sight. One hand on the Python in the back of his belt.
‘All right, same again.’
He heard the bathroom door open, and then a sort of shuffle step, hostage and hostage-taker, that standard, awkward union. Quieter footsteps as a third person followed. Marshall kept a grip on the gun, leaned out in time to see a guy in a motorbike helmet step into the bathroom. He was carrying an axe, using the thing like a walking cane, blade down. Carl was slumped in a heap in the entry, blood covering his front, chin on his chest, a long way from conscious. The hostage must be Frankie.
He had this fleeting thought that he should just take them right then, whoever they were. He had a shotgun and two pistols, no shortage of equipment.
But how to do it. Maybe shoot the axe man and then try for a second shot on the other guy, who presumably had a gun as well. Kill them both before Frankie or Henry took a bullet, or the axe landed somewhere it shouldn’t, or a round went through a wall and killed a neighbour. Or maybe shoot Frankie’s guy first, and then try for the axe man.
Just do something—
He couldn’t use the shotgun, and the pistols were a risk. The Beretta could’ve been loaded too long, jammed its magazine spring, and the Python might have a heavy trigger, or strike too light. Get himself a right mess, two hostages and a bloodbath.
‘Where the fuck is Marshall?’
He stepped out and padded quietly to the glass slider, slipped out onto the balcony, the bedroom end where he was out of sight. The traffic noise only soft, like listening to a conch. He found the plug end of the cord and threaded it around the base of the corner post and pulled it back through until he had equal lengths. Then he dropped the free ends over the side of the balustrade so the doubled cable passed up and over the rail. He climbed over the balustrade, one leg and then the other, like hopping a farm gate, shimmied along the little lip to the cable. Random quivers down the hanging lengths. Plastic on its own would probably hold him OK, but the copper gave it the real strength. He wouldn’t fall unless he lost his grip. He slid down to the lower level and pulled his getaway line through after him.
Ludo
Once the gag was gone, first thing Henry said was, ‘Frankie, what the fuck?’
Shrugging so high his neck had disappeared. He meant Ludo’s man, obviously, the human-shield guy, sitting down by the toilet now, Tol standing over him.
Ludo repeated his question, more politely the second time, aiming the gun at the open door. ‘Where’s Marshall?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think if I was on his team he would’ve left me in here.’ He spat, but there wasn’t enough kick behind it, all dribble and no fling. ‘Where’re my girls?’
Ludo punched him in the stomach, a right-hand drop with his fist, like a judge’s gavel. Henry said, ‘Gahhhhh,’ through clenched teeth, hunched into folded arms.
Ludo pinched the guy’s nose and shook it gently, Henry saying, ‘Oh shit, no, please, don’t, Christ.’
Ludo said, ‘I find he’s still in here and you haven’t told me, I’m going to take all your teeth out. OK?’
‘Yeah, OK, I get it, I’ve no idea where he is.’
Ludo thought about that, still watching the door. He said, ‘Well, you should’ve told me he’s in here, then. Like a Pascal’s Wager thing.’
Henry seemed to chew on that one for a second. He said, ‘Look, I just. Oh Christ. He put me in here, taped me up, said stay in the bath or I’ll shoot you.’
‘When?’
‘I dunno, whenever he wanted.’
Ludo smiled, Mr. Patient. ‘No. When did he put you in the bath?’
‘I dunno. Like two, three minutes ago.’
Which meant they would’ve seen him leave. He stood up and walked gun-first to the door and glanced out. Still nobody there, but the quiet seemed like a genuine, empty one, rather than that hide-and-seek vibe he’d caught before.
Or maybe he was too easily lulled.
The kitchen and living room were open-plan, easy to check, coffee and breakfast smells still hanging around. He went into the bedroom next, saw the vacuum cleaner sitting there, quilt a little wrinkled. Dents in the carpet like someone had been kneeling. He crouched, getting down more oblique, see the detail better. Could’ve been knees or a shoe or something. Prayers to live, maybe. He checked under the bed—wouldn’t that be classic, find him hiding there—but there was just dust and a bread knife. It had a wooden handle, a little glossy, like someone had sweated on it. Then as he stood up, noticed the vacuum cleaner again, saw this funny little stub of wire poking out the side. The plastic all worn back and the frayed copper strands exposed.
It took him a second to put it all together, and then he shouted, ‘Tol, he’s climbed down.’
TWENTY
Marshall
He figured the situation was straightforward. If they knew he hadn’t made it out the front door, he was either still in the apartment or he’d gone over the rail. It wouldn’t take them long to find he’d chosen the latter option. In hindsight, he could’ve made it easy for them, left the knife by the vacuum cleaner, make it obvious he’d cut himself a getaway line.
He climbed down two floors, 14 to 12, getting quite adept by the second go, and let himself back inside via someone’s unlocked sliding door. The place had its lights off and curtains drawn, and he could see from the dial on the wall that the air-con was humming at a drowsy 68. The owners were probably still asleep. He walked through the dim living room, cable looped on his shoulder, flexing his hands to counteract the friction burn. He paused in the entry hall to consult the evacuation map, and then he opened the front door and stepped into the corridor.
There was nobody waiting. Plush and empty hallway in both directions. He made a left and walked along to the stairwell on the far side of the elevator core, slipped through the fire door and eased it shut behind him.
No classy décor in here. Steel checker-plate stairs with prison-bar balusters, and a thick skin of white paint. Red evacuation signs shouting at him. The hollow, wind-tunnel note of extractor fans.
There was guesswork involved, but he figured that given there were two stairwells and two guys after him, they’d split up in order to work their way down. And if he were in their shoes, doing the looking, he’d assume his target would climb down only one floor, minimise the balcony antics. Which made a two-floor descent prudent, because now he could come up behind them, provided they didn’t take the elevator.
He drew the Python and stood at the edge of the stairs, looking upward through the narrow slot between opposing flights. The handrails in scissor patterns either side, squashed by perspective. He moved carefully to the mid-floor landing, between 12 and 13, and laid the cable beside him.
It was less than a minute before he heard the door open, one and a half floors above him on 14. The latch clicking shut, precise and final, and then feet in a brisk patter on the stairs. Just the one guy, rushing down to intercept him. No doubt his friend was in the other stairwell.
Marshall waited in a crouch. The guy reached the mid-floor landing, a squeal of rubber as he turned, and Marshall glimpsed that it was the axe man
coming for him. Only half a flight between them now. It felt too fast, this sudden convergence, options gone before he’d barely thought of them. Committed now to what might’ve been a bad decision.
He started moving as the guy neared the bottom, both of them three, and then two, and then one stair off the platform, their motion in brief symmetry, up versus down. He could see the blueprint of events, a template through time for him to mimic: the guy going for the door, Marshall slipping in behind, his slight lag working in his favour. Gun in the spine, and an arm around the throat.
The axe man reached the landing, a faceless killer in his helmet, but he was moving too fast for Marshall to risk a grab. He hung back, crouching at the top stair as the guy threw open the fire door and slipped out into the corridor. Marshall heard his footsteps fade, three strides and then nothing, the door creeping closed against its pneumatic arm, and as the tongue touched the latch he got up and crossed the landing—
Just as the little window went dark, and the door crashed open again.
If he hadn’t raised his arm, the impact would’ve smashed his nose. The force of it knocked him straight back on his ass, and he rolled with the fall and came up on his knees, the guy looming over him, close enough Marshall’s instinct was to fire, and he did: squeezed the Python’s trigger and got a click for his trouble.
The guy hadn’t even stopped, the axe swinging back mid-stride, prepping for a chop, a tree-felling blow that could bust a lung.
Marshall stayed low and lunged forward, slammed his shoulder front-on into the guy’s knees and then jerked upward, lifting him, the guy’s own momentum helping with the flip, Marshall aiming him headfirst down the flight of stairs behind him. An amazing feeling to reach that threshold, the gorgeous cusp of balance, the guy tipping and beginning to flail. He dropped the axe and it skated down the stairs, riding the lip of the tread. He grabbed for something firm, missed the balustrade, got a hand in the back of Marshall’s collar. Marshall felt the tug, the rearward lurch, and he dropped the gun as he windmilled crazily, reflex action, like it might keep the picture upright. They crashed down together, the axe man on his stomach, Marshall on his back, the gun tumbling with a clatter. They arrived in a knot on the landing, crushed against the wall, the axe man wrapped round Marshall’s shoulders, a four-limb hug like some human limpet.