No, he needed to find out what the guy had to say, what he knew about Albertwood and Megan. Then he needed to get him out of the hotel where he could deal with him on a more primitive level.
The guy didn’t look like anything special. Thinning brown hair, maybe a little extra padding around the middle. He looked more like an accountant from Toledo than a gun-toting thug. None of that mattered. He had clearly been asking around about Megan, and that was enough to make him dangerous. St. John pursed his lips, planning his assault. The guy was just dreaming away, not a clue in the world that his life was coming to an abrupt end.
The dream—whatever it had been, wherever he’d been floating—snapped shut. Joel’s head was jerked backward by his hair. At first he didn’t make a sound. For the first few seconds, his mind was still asleep. His eyes bulged from their sockets, his mouth hung open, and he sucked air. The force from whatever had ahold of him was pulling too hard, tugging his head back too far. His neck wasn’t designed to bend backward like that. The extreme angle cut off his air supply.
St. John was on the bed, on his knees, straddling Joel’s waist. He put the silencer under Joel’s chin, jamming it into the soft flesh. Joel winced in pain.
“You are going to keep your mouth shut, or you will die right here right now—understand?” St. John said, leaning down, speaking with his lips barely a half inch from Joel’s ear.
Desperate for breath, Joel nodded.
“I’ve got a nine-millimeter under your chin. I’d love to use it, and I will. Do you understand?”
Again, Joel nodded.
“Good.”
St. John relieved the pressure on Joel’s neck slightly. Joel gasped, desperate to fill his lungs. He coughed and gagged. St. John adjusted his position, lifting his right leg, driving his knee into the small of Joel’s back. This forced him to hold the gun against the back of Joel’s neck instead of under the chin.
Joel’s mind was shaking itself awake. The sensation of someone mounting from behind, seizing him by the hair of his head, and taking him at gunpoint, had at first seemed to be only a dream. But now the pain and the bewilderment were all too real. He was in bed, in the dark of his hotel room, barely able to see at all, and only able to face the pillow under his head and the headboard and wall six inches directly ahead. The weight pressing down at a single point in the small of his back was like being pinned down by the leg of a grand piano. A four-inch circle of scalp felt as though it were being uprooted. A billion points of pain prickled from the back of his head on down his backside.
Finally, his mind steadied enough for a clear, cognitive thought to crystallize:What is going on? What…who’s…what’s happening?
“Are you gonna behave?” St. John said, barely above a whisper.
Joel nodded as best he could.
“Are you listening?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I am going to make this as simple as possible so that we can get this over with. Understand?”
Joel felt a tickle rise in his throat. His coughed hoarsely, then forced out, “Yes.”
“I’m going to ask you a question,” St. John said. “And as soon as you’ve given me a satisfactory answer tothat question, I will ask another question. When you’ve answered that, I’ll ask another—and so on. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“And if you fail to answer any of the questions satisfactorily, I’m going to use the contents of your head to repaint this room.”
Joel might have laughed if he could have gotten any air. Six days ago, he’d been on the road, just another businessman from Missouri following the same basic routine he’d known for most of his adult life. Five days ago, he’d been almost home. New York had been nothing more than a layover on the way to somewhere else. Then he’d glanced up and seen a face. He could have ignored it. But he hadn’t.
Now here he was on his belly in a ritzy hotel room with the lights off, with a stranger on his back, whose face he could not see, with a gun jammed into the back of his neck.
There was a few hundred dollars left in Joel’s wallet on the table by the window, the last of an ATM withdrawal he’d made with a Visa. Also in the wallet was a meager assortment of credit cards, but little else of value. There was an extra suit in the hanging bag in the closet. The briefcase on the table held only paperwork. That would not be a windfall for a thief, but he’d gladly offer it up if the man would just take it and go.
What confounded him was the fact that all these things had been readily available to the thief without need of waking him. Joel had been in a deep sleep and would not be of any further value to the man if awake. The guy could have simply strolled around the suite, gathered the goods, then eased back out into the hallway. Joel would have woken stripped of his things, with no further harm done. But now he was a witness to the crime. The man couldn’t leave a witness, and the gun pressed to his neck told him he had no intention of doing so.
Now he deeply regretted leaving the other hotel. He’d been safe and sound. Not only had he failed to find Megan, but now he was being robbed at gunpoint.
He needed to swallow, but his windpipe was still awkwardly contorted. His lips were pulled back from his teeth, and his tongue stood in the gap, as if not knowing where to lay.
“Tuh…take what you want,” Joel Benjamin said, coughing.
Olin St. John tightened his grip on the fistful of disheveled brown hair and twisted. “Shut up!” he hissed.
Pain sparkled around Joel’s scalp. For a thief, he thought, the guy sure is sadistic.
“Where did they take her?”
“What?”
The fist twisted the knot of hair. “Where is the girl?”
Joel’s eyes flashed open.Huh? What the crap was this? Who was this nut job? The tickle ran up his throat again, and he coughed in terrible heaving spasms. “I don’t…”
St. John leaned down, putting his mouth right against Joel’s ear. “Have you forgotten our little agreement?”
Joel’s eyes went wide and frantic.
“Tell me where the girl is? How did you get the picture of her?”
“What picture…what…”
St. John found the photocopy the bellboy had given him. He pulled the folded page from a pocket and slung it open with several snaps of his left wrist. Then he propped it on the pillow, inches from Joel’s nose. St. John leaned over and switched on a lamp on the bedside table.
Joel’s breath left him in a gasp. He was staring at his photocopied picture of Ariel. The realization bloomed with stunning, awful suddenness: the man on his back was no thief.
“Look familiar?”
“Where’d you get—”
“Yeah, I thought that might jog your memory,” St. John said, interrupting. “Now, where is she?” He rubbed the barrel of the silencer against Joel’s cheek.
St. John was warming to the process of interrogation. “Okay, so you show the photo around and you camp out waiting for someone to call up saying they’ve found her. Then you find her, and some of your people haul her away while I’ve got my back turned for a minute. I get everything so far. What still has me puzzled, though, is why you’re still here. I’m mean, you’ve got the girl. And yeah, she was in the hotel, but…” St. John pondered his own train of thought. Had this guy been waiting forhim? That didn’t make sense. They’d sent him on a mission. And he had to get out of the city to complete the mission. Clearly this guy hadn’t been on his toes. He looked like death warmed over. The only realistic possibility was that the guy’s work was done, but he’d taken ill and just collapsed in bed. He nodded slightly. Yeah, had to be.Too bad for him, St. John mused.
The guy had found Megan, and they’d waited until he and Megan went their separate ways for the morning before they moved in on her. But the guy had had the dumb fortune to return here for a little afternoon nap, unaware that their mutual friend, Todd, had double-backed on him and given up the goods.
“Who…” Joel tried cranking his head around to catch even a g
limpse of his assailant. “Who are you?” That was a mistake. St. John leaned in with his knee, driving it against bone and muscle. Joel wheezed, his cheeks fluttering. The pain was so intense that his thoughts blurred.
“Who I am,” St. John began, “is the last person in the world you wanted to screw with.” He wasn’t going to accept this guy mouthing off. “Where’d you get the photo?” He craned his wrist so that the muzzle of the silencer pressed against Joel’s closed eyelid. He wanted him to always remember the reality of the gun’s presence.
“Can’t breathe…please.”Nausea was quickly rising from his nether regions. It was beginning to take real concentration not to vomit. Joel repeated, “Can’t…breathe.”
St. John maintained his hold on the mass of hair but eased the head forward slightly, clearing the guy’s windpipe enough for him to speak coherently. “Make it good or I’ll snap your neck in half.” Again, he said, “Where’d you get the photo?”
“It’s mine.”
“What?”
“I had it faxed from home.”
Sweat had formed along St. John’s brow. The room was warm, and he’d suddenly become aware that he was perspiring. The man’s response struck him as odd. He adjusted his posture, now sitting nearly erect. His brow furrowed as his considered the absurdity of the man’s words.Home? A feeling of subtle but intensifying trepidation crept over him. What he was hearing was far from what he’d anticipated.
“Don’tscrew with me!”
“I swear.”
Reaching for the photocopy, snatching it up, St. John said, “Who’s this, in the picture?”
In the last few minutes, based on the chaos that had erupted around him, Joel had submitted various data to himself for debate. First and foremost, he had no earthly idea who this guy was or what business he had with Megan. He was wielding a gun. What involvement would Megan have with such a character, and why? He didn’t have any answers.
“Who do you think she is?” Joel said, fishing.
The time for games was over. St. John put the muzzle of the silencer to Joel’s head, just behind his ear, and pressed it brutally hard. “Two seconds,” he said. “That’s how much life you have left. In two seconds your brains will be displaced and—”
“My wife! My wife!” Joel blurted in a panic. “The photo’s of my wife!”
There was a knock at the door.
St. John froze.
St. John said, “We’re gonna wait right here until whoever it is goes away. You’re not going to make a sound. Understand?”
Joel nodded.
Another knock at the door.
They waited on the bed in utter silence. He kept the gun pressed firmly to Joel’s head.
A voice called from the hallway, “Mr. Benjamin? Hello?”
St. John’s heart rate quickened, and the perspiration on his face thickened. Sweat was getting in his eyes, and with one hand in the guy’s hair and the other holding the gun, wiping his face was a bit awkward. He lifted the gun away for just a second and dragged his right forearm across his eyes and forehead, then put the muzzle back against the guy’s scalp.
“Mr. Benjamin?” the voice called again. “It’s important that I speak with you.”
Then St. John made a decision. The guy at the door would have to be dealt with. They’d have to get rid of him and get back to business. But the situation had evolved, and there was no longer a clear definition of what was to be accomplished. There was no evidence that the guy beneath him was a hired thug. No guns lying about. But he’d been looking for Megan. And what about the photo?
First, though, they’d deal with the clown at the door.
“Okay, get up—slowly,”St. John said, easing off Joel’s back but maintaining the grip on his head and keeping the gun in place. Joel eased up, pushing off with his hands pressed flat against the mattress.
“Easy.”St. John steered him to the side of the bed, and Joel got to his feet. “Now, you’re gonna keep your mouth shut, right?”
“Yuh.”
“We’re gonna ease over to the door and find out who it is and what they want.”
“Okay.”
Moving through the doorway that led from the bedroom to the sitting area, St. John kept the gun aimed at his temple.
“Mr. Benjamin? Please, sir. Are you in there?”
St. John put his eye to the peephole mounted in the front door. Through the distorted glass lens, he saw a man dressed prissily in a nice suit, with a name badge pinned to his left breast. A hotel employee. He considered this for a moment, running through his options. Finally, he whispered softly to Joel, “Answer him.”
Joel faced the wall, and loud enough for the guy on the other side of the door to hear him, he said, “Yes.” St. John watched the man’s reaction through the peephole.
“Ah, Mr. Benjamin. My name is Jonathan Thayber, the hotel’s concierge.” St. John could see that Thayber had a printed form in his hand. He nudged Joel’s temple with the cold steel of the muzzle.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Thayber?”
“Sorry if I woke you, sir. I tried to call first, but you weren’t answering your phone.”
“Is there a problem?”
Thayber cleared his throat, taking a step closer to the door. “Actually, Mr. Benjamin, this is a matter, perhaps better handled in private. If I could step inside, please.”
Joel glanced at St. John, who shook his head no.
“Not a good time, actually. I’m not decent.”
Thayber stiffened, with his arms straight at his sides. “Mr. Benjamin, this concerns your payment status—your credit card, to be more specific—and I’d rather not have to discuss it through the door. I’m sure you’d understand.”
St. John made sure the brass security chain was fastened from the wall to the bracket on the door. He let go of Joel’s hair, dropping the Glock to the middle of Joel’s back. Again, he whispered,“Easy.”
Joel worked the lock, then opened the door until the chain caught. His face appeared in the narrow gap between the door and the doorframe. He offered an awkward smile.
Mr. Thayber inched closer, extending the form in his hand. “Sir, we’ve been notified that your second night’s stay here has taken you beyond the credit limit on your credit card, and has thus been denied.”
“Oh?” Joel was much less concerned with his credit card than he was with the 9mm jabbing him in the spine.
“Perhaps you could use another card to cover the rest of your stay with us,” Thayber offered.
“Right. Could you give me a moment?”
Thayber nodded, “Of course.”
The door shut and the lock engaged. St. John backed away and motioned with the gun for him to head for the bedroom.
“You have another card?” St. John asked in a whisper.
Joel pursed his lips. He gave a slight nod, “Yeah.”Ping. A lovely and unexpected thought struck him. This whole wave of madness, from Monday evening at JFK till now, had followed immediately on the heels of a stopover in some other section of Manhattan. The layover in New York had been four hours. At some point on Monday afternoon, he’d reached the end of his rope. He’d sat and stared at nothing until he’d run out of excuses to keep on as he had for so many years. The depression he’d battled for so long had gotten ahold of him again, and this time with a maddeningly tight grip. He took a cab into the city, heading nowhere in particular. The cab waited while he made a purchase in a pawnshop, which he then stashed in his briefcase, an item intended to end the pain, to end the misery, to snuff out the depression.
But he’d never gotten the chance to carry through. Megan had changed everything.
“Get the card,” St. John demanded.
Joel nodded, suddenly awake with new hope and new possibilities. His credit cards were in his wallet, and his wallet was in a coat pocket. But Joel had no interest in the cards or his wallet or the coat. “Right. I think it’s over here,” he said, motioning with his head toward the table and his briefcase.
Joel switched on a lamp so he could see better. The brass fasteners on the briefcase flipped up in crisp synchronization. He quickly opened it and immediately began shuffling through paperwork and fishing his fingers into pockets, putting on quite a show. He glanced at St. John, swallowing hard at the sight of the gun. “I know they’re in here somewhere.” He needed to go unobserved for three or four seconds. Mr. Thayber helped him out.
Three brisk knocks on the door, and, “Is everything all right, Mr. Benjamin?”
St. John took several steps toward the sitting area and peeked his head around at the front door. He didn’t want the concierge wandering in on them.
In that instant, Joel slipped his hand beneath a leather-bound portfolio inside the briefcase and found the .22 pistol he’d purchased Monday afternoon, and then he stuffed it in his waistband.
St. John motioned with the Glock.
Joel shrugged. “I thought it was in here.”
“Get rid of him.”
The door opened, drawing the chain taut.
Mr. Thayber stood with his hands behind his back, his mouth creased in an impatient but reasonable frown. He flashed his best PR smile and raised his chin attentively when Joel’s face appeared at the door. He put out a hand, expectantly.
Working hard to mask the tremor in his voice, Joel said, “I’m a little under the weather at the moment, Mr., uh…Thay…”
“Thayber.”
“Right. Anyway, I’ve got a card around heresomewhere. How about if I scrounge one up, jump in the shower and run it down to you in, let’s say, about an hour?”
Jonathan Thayber stiffened, the frown deepening. “I see.”
The Glock was drilling a hole in his back. Joel stood there in his slacks, with bare chest and bare feet, his face in the narrow gap of the door.
“Very well,” Thayber said. “In that case, Mr. Benjamin, I most certainly hope to see you at the front desk”—he made a flourish with his wrist, making a big show of checking his watch—“one hour from now.”
The Greater Good Page 20