by Tim Stevens
“Mykels is down,” said Venn. “Shot in the gut. He looks bad. Get EMTs up here ASAP, too.”
As he said it, Mykels retched and spewed up a torrent of blood.
“Scrub that,” said Venn. “I’m getting him out now.”
He hit the key for Harmony’s number.
Heard the ringing tone.
Then: voicemail.
*
What saved Shelly was the mirror mounted high in the corner of the corridor, near the ceiling.
She happened to glance at it as she was putting her phone away. And she saw the figure emerging at the top of the stairs and creeping toward her.
It was the African American cop she’d seen earlier with Venn.
As unobtrusively as she could, Shelly slipped the gun into the waistband of her trousers.
She turned, shaking, a look of disbelief and terror twisting her features.
She shrieked when she saw the cop, and the gun in her hand.
“Please... don’t hurt me...”
The woman held up a hand for silence. She was frowning, sniffing the air, which was pretty rank with the stench of scorched flesh and clothing.
The woman moved swiftly forward, keeping her distance from Shelly, her eyes darting suspiciously from Shelly to the corner where she was huddled.
“Are you a cop?” Shelly whispered, her voice threaded with hope.
As the woman advanced, her phone began to ring. She reached for it with one hand, her eyes on Shelly.
And Shelly saw the dawn of recognition there.
She’d never seen the woman before, but perhaps the cop had seen her face.
Shelly knew there wasn’t time to go for her gun. The cop would fire before she’d gotten it free from her waistband.
Instead, she jumped her.
It was a risk, but a calculated one. In Shelly’s experience, on both sides of the law, a cop was more inclined to hesitate before firing if being attacked by somebody who wasn’t brandishing a weapon. Maybe only marginally, but the hesitation was instinctive.
Her clawing hand met the woman’s face and she raked at her eyes. At the same time she grabbed the woman’s gun-arm by the wrist and twisted it up and sideways, forcing the gun away.
The woman was fast, and strong, and she brought a knee up and rammed it into Shelly’s abdomen. Shelly rode out the shock, the sudden pain, and with her vision swimming she turned her claw hand into a fist and hammered down onto the cop’s nose.
The woman staggered back, dazed, her nose spurting. She tried to bring the gun to bear but Shelly was too fast and followed up with a punch to the cop’s jaw.
The woman dropped, dead weight.
Shelly didn’t stop to make sure she was out for the count. That much was obvious. She didn’t stop to put a bullet through the cop’s head, either.
Instead, she peeked round the corner once more.
Through the smoke and the hellish mass of human bodies, she saw the door to Mykels’ suite opening.
Joe Venn emerged, stooping, and for a moment Shelly thought he’d been shot. But no: he was carrying a load.
Over his shoulder was another big man. African American.
Shelly couldn’t see his face, but she knew it was Louis Mykels.
Just then, commotion from behind her made her turn.
She saw cops piling up the stairs, their guns drawn.
She made a decision.
Looking back down toward the suite, she called: “Hey. Joe.”
Venn looked up, puzzled, as if he couldn’t be sure he’d heard his name.
His eyes locked on Shelly’s.
She grinned.
And ducked out of sight.
*
The approaching cops were perhaps twenty yards away down the corridor.
“Hey,” one of them yelled.
Shelly hammered on the door nearest her.
“Police,” she called. “Open up.”
A second ticked away. Then another.
“Step away from the door and put your hands in the air,” the cop shouted again.
The door opened a crack, revealing a bewildered, terrified eye.
Shelly kicked the door, pistoning her foot out, and felt it crash into somebody on the other side. She barreled into the room and slammed the door and took quick stock.
A middle-aged woman cowered on a couch. A man, presumably her husband, reeled back, clutching his face where the door had hit him.
In two strides Shelly was at the man, jamming the gun in his face, grabbing his arm.
“Up against the door.”
As she’d expected, the man was too petrified to respond, so Shelly dragged him bodily and shoved him against the door.
At that moment the hammering started. The cops’ voices yelled: “Open up.”
Shelly leaped over to the woman and hauled her up and stuck the gun in her ear.
She called: “I’ve got hostages. Come through that door and I kill them.”
The woman screamed. Shelly was pleased. It added a nice, dramatic touch to her words.
Then she heard another voice through the door. One she recognized from years earlier.
“Shelly,”called Venn. “Come out of there. It’s over.”
She smiled.
Oh no, it isn’t, Joe. Not by a long chalk.
Chapter 42
Through the stinking smoke and the carnage, Shelly Anderson’s face appeared like a demon’s.
Venn blinked, not trusting his vision in the haze. But when he opened his eyes she was still there.
The flamethrower. He might have known. It was her style.
Venn stumbled forward, Mykels’ dead weight on his shoulder slowing him considerably. Ahead of him he heard shouts and crashing. He reached the corner and laid the wounded man down as gently as he could and straightened.
His Beretta was already in his hand.
He looked round the corner. At his feet was a rucksack from which protruded the muzzle of the flamethrower.
A bunch of cops was advancing at speed from the stairs.
“Venn,” he called. “Cop. There was a woman...”
“She went in there,” one of the officers shouted, indicating a door.
Venn saw the crumpled figure, then, against the wall on the other side of the corridor.
Harmony.
He knelt beside her. She was unconscious, and her face looked beat up. But she was alive.
The cops were already pounding on the door.
Shelly Anderson’s voice came from within: “I’ve got hostages. Come through that door and I’ll kill them.”
“”She will, too,” muttered Venn. He called back, telling her to give it up.
There was no way she could get to Mykels, or whoever she was after, now.
By now the corridor was filled with police officers in flak jackets. The officer in charge tried to shoulder Venn aside, but he stood his ground.
He leaned his ear close to the door, but heard nothing but muffled sounds.
Then: the sound of glass smashing.
Venn kicked open the door, felt it strike somebody on the other side. It bounced back and he shoved it fully open and burst into the room, cops crowding in behind him.
A man was on his hands and knees by the door, peering round, looking stunned. Venn guessed the door had hit him.
A woman lay whimpering on the floor.
The window opposite was a gaping hole, the cold night air breezing in.
Venn ran to the window and looked down. Nothing but a sheer drop to the sidewalk.
He looked up.
And saw the drainpipe running beside the window, and Anderson’s foot disappearing over the sill of a window on the floor above.
“She’s gone up, she’s gone up,” he shouted, and barged past the cops toward the door.
Chapter 43
The feeling of being high, of walking on a two-feet-deep cushion of air, still hadn’t left Blowfly.
He’d memorized Melinda’s instructions to t
he letter. Take the elevator to the fifth floor. Then, at her signal, come down the stairs to the floor below, and find suite 46A.
He thought he understood why she’d told him to go to the fifth floor first. Presumably, most of the police would be concentrated on the fourth floor and below, so floor five would be relatively unguarded. Blowfly felt a flicker of pride at this understanding.
It made him think he was, perhaps, worthy of Melinda after all.
She’d said: “All you need to do is get close enough, Wayne. You know what to do next.”
Yes. He certainly did.
The digital display above the elevator doors indicated 5. The doors opened smoothly.
The corridor beyond was empty.
Blowfly stepped out and, his back straight, walked toward the stairs.
Well, waddled was probably a better word. He was weighted down, and movement was a little awkward. Still, it was bearable.
And after all of this, when he and Melinda were far away from it all... he’d do something about his real weight problem. He’d start running. Shed a few pounds.
Make her love him even more.
As Blowfly began to descend the stairs, it didn’t occur to him that, by definition, there wasn’t going to be any after this at all.
*
The cops moved fast under Venn’s direction, heading toward the stairs leading up to the floor above, Venn in amongst them.
Before the first of them reached the stairs, a man stepped into the corridor at the bottom. He was youngish, overweight, and scared-looking.
“Hey, man,” he said, staring at the advancing cohort of officers. “What’s going on?”
“Get outta the way,” shouted the lead cop.
“My room’s only along here,” said the guy in a shaky voice, pointing.
“Then get inside and lock the door.”
Venn and the other cops pushed past the fat guy and began piling up the stairs. Venn’s blood was up.
Shelly Anderson, he thought. Our unfinished business is about to get finished.
He was halfway up the first flight of stairs when he stopped. One of the cops cannoned into him from behind.
Anderson wasn’t going to kill Mykels. And she knew she wasn’t, not now that he was surrounded by cops.
So maybe she was just trying to run away. But he knew her as somebody who took pride in finishing what she started.
And she’d like nothing better than getting one past Venn.
He pushed his way back down the stairs, provoking angry snarls from the ascending cops.
Venn stared down the corridor, where the overweight guy was waddling away from him.
There’d been a hefty guy sighted at the scene where Micky Wong’s body had been dumped.
Venn saw Lovett and the patrolman who’d helped them, together with two other officers, come round the corner. Lovett had cuffed Torvald and was hustling him along.
The fat guy was headed toward them, moving faster than Venn would have expected.
The guy was wearing a bulky jacket, which looked a little warm for this time of year.
Shelly Anderson flashed through Venn’s mind. What he’d thought earlier about her style.
She went over the top. She’d used an RPG launcher once before, and today a flamethrower.
Bombs weren’t out of the question with her.
Venn broke into a run.
He couldn’t risk shooting the guy in the back, for two reasons.
First, if the man was wearing a bomb, he’d risked triggering it.
Second, he might be wrong, and end up shooting an innocent man.
Lovett caught Venn’s eye and nodded in triumph. Then he frowned, as he saw Venn advancing on the fat guy.
The guy was ten yards from Lovett and Torvald and the others. Near them, Harmony was sitting up against the wall. Another cop was kneeling by her side, helping her out.
The fat guy turned his head at the last minute, sensing or hearing Venn coming up behind him.
Venn slammed into him and got an arm across his throat from behind and grabbed with his other hand at the front of the man’s jacket, wrenching down the zipper.
And there it was, attached to his chest with an elaborate series of straps and hooks.
The guy’s hand came up.
And he ripped at a wire, tearing it free.
Venn winced.
He grabbed the man’s shoulder and span him round.
On his chest, a tiny digital display winked, counting down the seconds in red numbers.
Nine... eight... seven...
Venn looked at the elevator doors, a few yards back.
He grabbed the guy under the arms and half-pushed, half-dragged him toward the doors.
Six... five...
Venn punched the button.
Four... three...
The doors slid open and Venn shoved the guy into the elevator car with a boot in his ass, thanking God that the car was empty.
He hit the button again.
One...
Venn threw himself sideways and backward as the explosion smashed against the closing doors, buckling them like tin foil. The flame and debris spun out into the corridor and from the lift shaft itself came a wrenching, grinding noise.
Venn raised his head.
He was intact.
He stood up. Turned to face the others.
Lovett and the cops were staring in disbelief and confusion.
Torvald, though, looked only a little flustered.
He let out a slow breath.
“Detective Venn,” he said, his voice steady. “Thank you. That man was going to kill me.”
Venn stepped up to the others. He nodded at Lovett.
“Take his cuffs off.”
Lovett said, “You gotta be shitting me.”
“Take them off.”
Lovett shrugged, rolled his eyes like he was humoring a madman. He snapped the cuffs off Torvald.
Torvald massaged his wrists. He nodded at Venn.
“Thank –”
He was cut off by Venn’s fist smashing into his face. The blow broke his nose, split his lips, and took out three teeth.
He reeled back against Lovett, who stepped aside and let him fall to the floor.
Venn said: “Now you can cuff him again.”
You never hit a cuffed man. It was cowardly.
Chapter 44
They gave up looking for Shelly Anderson in the hotel after a full three hours.
The lead cop shook his head in disgust. “Every goddamn room,” he said. “Every broom closet. Every service hatch.”
Venn said, “For what it’s worth, I let her escape once before too.”
“Yeah, but...” The cop shook his head again.
She’d probably holed up somewhere, thought Venn, and then crept out when the search moved on. She was like that. Small and quick and evasive. Maybe they’d find a paramedic somewhere, unconscious or dead, stripped of her uniform, and maybe Shelly had made her escape that way, riding in an ambulance.
Venn stayed at the hotel all night. There was so much coming in from all sides, so many demands, so many questions, that he wondered if he’d ever get a chance to sleep again.
Harmony was going to be okay, though her nose would need a little work. She was pissed that Anderson had gotten the best of her, though.
Once again, as he’d been with the cop, Venn was forgiving. “She’s not your ordinary perp,” he said.
*
At a little after six in the morning, well after daybreak, when Venn was seriously starting to flag, Harpin arrived back at the hotel. He’d been downstairs waiting, the night before, and had taken Torvald into custody himself.
“We’ve still got a lot to ask him,” he said. “But he’s given us the basic picture.”
Torvald had confessed to poisoning Martha Ignatowski at the fundraiser, but denied beating her to death that evening. He said Mykels had done that.
“She was blackmailing both of them,” said Harpi
n. And he explained about the incident with the college student, Alison Schecter, nearly thirty years ago.
“I don’t get it,” said Venn. “Why was Ignatowski blackmailing them? She was loaded.”
“Martha Ignatowski was broke,” Harpin said. “Not broke like you or I might define it, but down to her last couple of million. I found this out late last night, when I finally got a warrant to check out her accounts. Turns out her husband was starting to develop dementia toward the end of his life. He’d screwed up a whole load of investments, mismanaged his finances generally. She was left with a lot less than she’d originally expected.”
“Did Torvald admit to hiring these Triad guys to kill Mykels?” said Venn.
“Oh yes. We told him one of the Triad guys had given up his name, and he must have figured we were telling the truth, even if we weren’t. He claims he didn’t hire Anderson, though. So maybe Mykels hired her to kill Torvald. We’ll find out sooner or later.” Harpin laughed sourly. “Torvald’s been remarkably co-operative, all things considered. Either he’s had an attack of conscience, which I doubt, or more likely he’s angling for some kind of plea bargain. He figures his wealth will get him out of this one. Well, that’s not gonna happen.”
Mykels was in a stable condition in ICU. The bullet had, luckily for him, come from one of the Triad handguns rather than a rifle. He’d survive, most likely.
“So you got him,” said Venn. “Ignatowski’s killer. Plus their co-conspirator, Torvald. Not a bad weekend’s work.”
“No,” said Harpin. “You got them, Venn.” There was nothing maudlin, or even resentful, in his tone. He was simply stating a fact.
Venn shrugged. “Like we agreed at the beginning. This was always your investigation, Harpin. I was just there to lend a hand.”
*
By ten in the morning, Venn was ready to drop, and the detectives from the local precinct told him he could go home.
He’d called Beth earlier, and she’d insisted on taking the day off work. He’d protested, but only half-heartedly.
Venn declined the offer of a ride back to his home, preferring to walk. It was only a half hour’s stroll, and he needed the fresh air.
As he stepped onto the street, relishing the warmth of the spring sunshine on his face, his phone buzzed.