The Equalizer

by Michael Sloan

  McCall and Margaret moved deeper into the lobby. The elevator door to their left pinged open. That was new also, McCall noted. Very modern. The one he remembered was a cage elevator. You had to pull the door and gate open and it shuddered up like getting to your floor was going to be an adventure. An old woman in a fur coat and house slippers led a white poodle on a leash out of the elevator. She was talking animatedly on her cell phone. Margaret had taken off the Mets cap and shaken out her hair. The overcoat was open, revealing the Red Sox T-shirt and painted-on jeans. The old woman glanced at her a little disapprovingly as she navigated the dog around the heavy furniture.

  They walked up to the old teak reception counter, which was also polished to a lustrous shine. There were teak cubbyholes behind it that had once housed keys, but were now pigeonholes for guest messages. There was a large gray machine beside a computer that McCall was sure processed the square digital room keys. Some progress you just couldn’t stop.

  No one was behind the reception counter. There was an old-fashioned antique bell on it, sitting incongruously next to the Dell computer. McCall hit the top of it and the bell rang. You could have heard it out in Central Park. A scuff of feet from an office to the right, and then a man shuffled into view behind the counter. He wore dark slacks and a blue blazer with the name LIBERTY BELLE HOTEL stitched on to the breast pocket. His hair was still brown, but shot through with gray, and thinning. He was probably in his early seventies, very thin, and there was something else about him—an alertness, a quickness of the watery brown eyes in the long face. His breathing was a little asthmatic. And he was clearly surprised to see his next guest.

  “Robert McCall,” he said softly.

  “Does that shuffle really fool anyone, Sam?”

  “Bad guys see an old man, out of shape, not walking so good, breathing you can hear a mile away, they let down their guard a little. Gives me an edge.”

  “You don’t need that edge anymore.”

  “You always need it. You never know when ghosts from your past are going to walk into your lobby. What do you want, McCall?”

  McCall didn’t answer. The old woman finished her cell phone call, gave Sam a wave, and wrestled the poodle to the front doors. In the mirrors behind the counter, on either side of the pigeonholes, McCall watched her leave. No one came in after her.

  Sam Kinney glanced over at Margaret. “We don’t rent by the hour.”

  “You know me better than that, Sam. But I do need a room for the young lady.”

  “Who is she?”

  “You interrogate all of your guests?”

  “Need to know.”

  “She’s a friend,” he said.

  “You don’t have friends, McCall. You know why? Because they don’t live very long once they shake your hand or crawl out of your bed.”

  McCall reached out like lightning across the counter for the older man, grabbing his wrist, holding him tight.

  “Your reflexes used to be faster.”

  “Not against you. Mind letting go?”

  McCall let him go.

  “I need a room,” McCall said again, more quietly. “Low floor. Overlooking the park, if you’ve got one.”

  Sam rubbed his wrist. “We got a lot of empty rooms overlooking the park. The Plaza stopped sending their overflow to us in 1959. But we still get a lot of conventions here. You used to be able to control that temper. Guess a lot of things have changed over the years for both of us.”

  His fingers flew over the computer keyboard. McCall noted they shook with a small palsy tremor. A credit-card-like key spit out of the gray machine. Sam slipped it into a cardboard sleeve with LIBERTY BELLE HOTEL stamped on it.

  “Room six-oh-two. You got luggage?”

  “No luggage.”

  He handed the credit-card-like key to Margaret. “We don’t have room service this late, I just closed the kitchen, but you want something, call down to the front desk. I can usually rustle up whatever a guest needs.”

  She nodded.

  “You go up, but wait for me outside the room,” McCall said. “Don’t go into it.”

  She nodded again and walked a little unsteadily to the elevator. She tapped the button. The door slid open, she walked inside, and it closed. McCall watched the light heading up to number six. Sam Kinney came around the reception counter.

  “Tell me you’re not banging her.”

  “Too old for me?”

  “She in trouble?”

  “Not right now.”

  He saw that the elevator light had hit number six and stayed there.

  “I don’t want any trouble here, McCall, I’m retired. I like peace and quiet. I like old Mrs. Gilmore and her fat poodle and the other Algonquin denizens that live here. I’m too old for guys in dark coats with guns to come in looking to blow your head off.”

  “I can go somewhere else.”

  Sam sighed. “No, you can’t.”

  “I don’t expect you to have my back, Sam. But if bad guys come into the hotel looking for her, call me.”

  He took a card off the desk, edged in gilt. He saw the name SAM KINNEY—MANAGER on it. He wrote his cell phone number on the back of the card.

  “You’re the night manager?”

  “And usually the day manager. I don’t sleep a lot. I heard through the grapevine that you’d resigned.” McCall said nothing. “Control was okay with that? He hasn’t sent some young turk to prove he’s got a bigger dick than yours? That he can take out a member of the old guard?”

  “They sent someone, but not to kill me.”

  “Doesn’t mean they won’t.”

  “No, it doesn’t.” McCall handed Sam the card. “I’m not expecting trouble here, Sam. I’m not staying here. The room is only for the young lady. And not for long. It’s an extraction. Do you need her name?”

  “No.”

  “You want me to sign the register?”

  “What are we, back in Tangier together? I don’t have a register.”

  “You want a credit card?”

  “All I want from you, McCall, is that you get your lady friend out of here as soon as you can. And you don’t come back.”

  “That’s the plan. Can you put your hands on a jar of Noxzema?”

  “Sure, we got a gift store here, sells all that crap.”

  “Can you bring it up to the room? Along with one glass of Glenfiddich. Straight.”

  “Noxzema and Scotch. I won’t ask.”

  McCall walked to the elevator and hit the button. The light descended from the sixth floor.

  “What were you hit with?” Sam asked.

  “Baseball bat.”

  “Blow like that to the side of the head, you should be dead.”

  “The assailant wasn’t an expert.”

  “He gonna go for a second whack?”

  “He’s not playing baseball anymore.”

  Sam nodded. “I figured.” He looked down at the phone number on the back of his card. “There were times, over the years, when I wished I had this number.”

  “You have it now,” McCall said.

  The elevator arrived. He stepped into it, hit the button for the sixth floor, and the door started to close. He saw Sam Kinney put the card into the breast pocket of his Liberty Belle Hotel blazer. Mrs. Gilmore struggled back into the lobby with the white poodle who looked as if he wanted to make a dash for the elevator door before it could close. McCall’s last image was of Sam Kinney’s face breaking into a fond smile at the old lady and her pooch.

  Margaret was waiting for McCall outside room 602. The corridor was dimly lit; the carpet had seen better days. McCall took the key from her and slid it into the slot. There was a whirring sound and a green light appeared. He entered the room, but didn’t switch on the light. Margaret stood nervously, still frightened. After a few moments, he returned to the doorway. He took Margaret’s arm and gently moved her inside, closing the door. He snapped on the light switch. It activated lamps on either side of a small desk. There were two more
lights on bedside tables on either side of a queen bed and a standing lamp beside the window with a glass shade. Margaret walked immediately to the window and looked out. Rain sparkled on the glass. Low thunder rumbled from New Jersey.

  “I don’t have anything with me,” she said.

  “I’ll bring back some toiletries and clothes for you in the morning.”

  There was a knock on the door. McCall opened it. Sam Kinney carried a tray with a jar of Noxzema and a cut-glass tumbler filled with a warm, amber liquid.

  “Room service,” he said ironically. “Enjoy.”

  He closed the door. McCall turned back to the girl.

  “Sit on the bed and take off your T-shirt.”

  She looked at him, then tossed his overcoat and Mets cap onto a chair and sat on the edge of the queen bed. She pulled the T-shirt over her head. McCall sat next to her and opened the jar of Noxzema. He gingerly applied the soothing white cream to the cigarette burns on her breasts. She watched him as he did it, wincing a little.

  “Pull down your jeans.”

  She unbuckled her belt, unzipped her jeans, and pulled them and her panties down to just below her knees. Gently he applied the Noxzema to the cigarette burns above her pubic hair.

  “Do this again yourself before you go to bed.”

  “I like the way you do it.”

  “I was afraid you wouldn’t bother.”

  He set the jar of Noxzema on the bedside table and got to his feet. She pulled up her panties. Looked down at her legs, as if embarrassed by the needle tracks there. Pulled up her jeans and stood.

  “I’m going to get clean. I haven’t used since you dragged me out of that alley.”

  “Must be tough.”

  She put her T-shirt back on. “Yeah, I got the shakes real bad last night. But I rode it out.”

  McCall nodded. She stood beside the bed, a little awkwardly.

  “Will you stay with me tonight?”

  “That wouldn’t be a good idea.”

  She pressed her hands together.

  “I want to thank you. I don’t know how. Sex is all I’ve got. I’ve been giving ten-dollar blow jobs since I was twelve. I was very popular in grade school.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “It’s always been my lifeline. Don’t you like girls?”

  “I like them fine.”

  “Just not the ones who get passed around like a communal toothbrush,” she said bitterly. “You think I’m disgusting.”

  “I think you’re hurt and you need to heal.”

  “Why? Why should you care about me? I’m not worth you unzipping your fly and taking a piss on my face.”

  “Who did that?”

  “One of the johns. He said a golden shower might wash out my foul mouth. I told J.T. what the pig did to me and he laughed. He said I was anyone’s whore to do whatever they wanted. My body belonged to him and to them. I’m not worth saving.”

  Sobs suddenly racked her. She doubled up, as if they were physically painful, sitting back down on the bed. McCall sat beside her. Put his arms around her.

  “Everyone’s worth saving.”

  “Even you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Nobody gets something for nothing. What do you want from me?” She turned in his arms and looked up at him. Her eyes were pleading again. “What do you want?”

  “For you to be safe.”

  “But why you?”

  “Why not?”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “There was a terrific movie made in the sixties called Zulu. It was Michael Caine’s first movie role. A regiment of British troops are surrounded in a remote African post called Rourke’s Drift by two thousand Zulu warriors. They’re facing certain death. A young soldier breaks down and asks his Color Sergeant—I can’t remember the actor’s name, but he was great—‘Why us, Color Sergeant? Why us?’ The Color Sergeant looks down at him and says in a quiet, gentle voice: ‘Because we’re here, lad.’ I was there. That’s all.”

  “You could have walked on. But you didn’t.” She smiled through her tears. “That’s what makes you my guardian angel.”

  “If you’re lucky, I won’t be in your life long. Stay in this room. Don’t leave it for any reason. Don’t open the door unless it’s me or Sam Kinney, that’s the manager. He’s an old friend. Do you understand?”

  “Sure.”

  “No bolting out into the night because you think the darkness will swallow you up. It won’t. It’ll stifle you.”

  “Okay.”

  He gently wiped the tears from her face.

  She gripped his hand.

  “I’m a really good fuck.”

  McCall burst out laughing. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “You got someone special?”

  He thought immediately of Elena Petrov. He hadn’t seen her in over three years, but she was always there, hovering in a corner of his mind, her gorgeous eyes laughing at him.

  “There was someone. It was a while ago.”

  “You don’t see her anymore?”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I.”

  “When can I have the Scotch?”

  “Right before you go to bed. Don’t knock it back. It’s a good blend. Sip it. It’ll make you feel better. It’ll help you sleep.”

  She reached up and touched his face. “Can I kiss you?” she whispered. “Just lightly, on the lips?”

  She didn’t wait for a response, leaned up, and kissed his lips, very gently and very tenderly. Then she sat back.

  “See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  “Not bad at all.” He stood up. “Remember what I told you.”

  “Yeah, yeah, stay put, don’t run, don’t open the door to anyone but you or Mr. Grouchy downstairs. I got it.”

  “I may send one other person to you. His name’s Mickey and you can trust him. No one else.”

  McCall turned toward the hotel door.

  “So your name is really Robert McCall?”

  He turned back. “To most of the people in the neighborhood, I’m Bobby Maclain.”

  “But I know the truth.”

  “Keep it to yourself.” He scribbled something down on the pad of Liberty Belle Hotel notepaper on the bedside table. “That’s my cell phone number. If you’re frightened, or if you just want to talk, call me. Doesn’t matter what time it is.”

  He didn’t give her a chance to respond, opened the door, and closed it behind him. He paused for a moment in the corridor and listened to the sobs racking her body again.

  When McCall walked out of the elevator the lobby was empty. The old couple had left. Mrs. Gilmore was probably up in her apartment feeding Hershey’s Kisses to her white poodle. Sam Kinney was not behind the reception counter. Shadows flowed from the corners of the past. McCall listened to the sighs and snatches of conversations in them. In his head. The past spoke to him. But maybe it was the present that was beginning to resonate.

  The iPhone in his coat pocket vibrated. He took it out as he pushed through the glass lobby doors. Outside it was raining a little harder. He looked up the street both ways. No pedestrians. Light traffic. He pressed the button on his iPhone.

  “Hello?”

  Katia’s voice was distraught. “Robert, Natalya’s gone. I went to Washington Square Park, but she’s not there. She couldn’t be at the Public Library this late. I went all the way back to the nightclub, but none of the cocktail waitresses or the dancers have seen her. Sully, that’s the doorman, said she hadn’t been there tonight.”

  “Calm down,” he said into the cell phone. “Where are you now?”

  “Back home. I thought maybe she’d be here when I got back. She’s not. They’ve taken her, Robert. Oh, my God, they’ve taken her.”

  “There’s an all-night coffee shop in the East Village on Second Avenue and Ninth called Veselka. I’ll meet you there.”

  He disconnected and waved for a yellow cab that was cruising toward
Broadway.

  CHAPTER 13

  She was waiting for him when he got to Veselka’s Coffee Shop on Second Avenue. It was crowded even at this late hour. People with nowhere else to go, or not wanting to go home. Katia was still wearing her black dress under a raincoat belted at the waist. She’d ordered a cup of black coffee, but hadn’t touched it. McCall slid into the table opposite her. She looked at the side of his head.

  “You’re hurt.”

  “I took a fall. Tell me about Natalya.”

  She reached over and gripped his had.

  “I haven’t heard a word from her.”

  “Is there a friend’s house she would have gone to?”

  “She has no friends.”

  “She could have been in an accident, hit by a car. Paramedics would have taken her to the emergency room at one of the hospitals. Bellevue, probably. Did she have ID on her?”

  “Yes, her library card has our address on it. But I know they took her.” She let go of his hand. “I’m sorry to call you. I didn’t know who else to call.”

  “I’m glad you did.”

  “Is your real name Bobby Maclain?”

  “It’s McCall. Robert McCall. What’s the name of the man who was in the back of the Lexus waiting for you?”

  She looked around the coffeehouse, as if expecting to see him sitting at one of the other tables. She looked out the rain-streaked window into the stormy street. She did not see him, of course, but she lowered her voice anyway.

  “Bakar Daudov. He’s Chechen.”

  “And he works for Borislav Kirov?”

  She nodded. “He’s an enforcer. Is that the right term?”

  “Yes. What happened tonight after I left?”

  “Mr. Gardiner walked out and didn’t come back. I had several dances, but none of the men propositioned me. I didn’t see Daudov all night. No one spoke to me at all. I finished my shift. The other girls told me I’d been terrific. That I was a natural dancer. They were glad I hadn’t gone upstairs. But it was clear in their eyes. It’s only a matter of time.”

  “You went straight home?”

  “Yes.”

  “How’d you get there?”

  “I took a cab. It’s not that far to walk, but it was raining when I left the club.”

  “Did you call home before you left?”