The Council of Ten

by Jon Land

  He was over her instantly, fighting with her zipper. She worked his pants free, feeling him harden in her hands as she stroked him, matching his moans with her own.

  The man had gotten her tight black jeans past her hips and was hovering into position. Just like the first victim had done all those years ago… . Sabrina drew the courier close and nibbled at his ear. Only after he entered her did she pull the hand wearing the Ring away to prepare her swipe. She maneuvered so she was over him, taking the lead, joining the rhythmic thrusting of his hips.

  Her hands raised toward his throat, the Ring ready, wrist arching for the slice. Then she was in motion, just a flick of the hand was all it would take.

  In her mind it was over. Only when the spurt of blood didn’t come did she realize that something was very wrong. By that time she had already felt her hand forced up and back in a queer motion by the man who had suddenly become a snake beneath her. His action made no sense.

  Until she saw the blood. She realized it was hers at the same time her fingers clutched for the narrow slit across her neck. She felt her eyes bulge and thought at the last how strange it felt not to be able to close them as the world beneath her changed from red to black and then to nothing.

  When Doris awoke, Morris Kornbloom was seated by her bed.

  “You gave me quite a scare there, my girl,” he said, feeling for her pulse.

  Doris’s eyes gazed around her. “Where am I?”

  “The hospital.”

  “Sylvie’s hospital? Good Samaritan?” She started to sit up and had almost made it when Kornbloom’s hands restrained her.

  “Easy. You’re not going anywhere.”

  Doris looked toward the window. Night had obviously fallen some time ago.

  “You’ve been with me the whole time?”

  Kornbloom nodded. “You made me promise. Don’t you remember?”

  “Has anyone … tried to come in?”

  “No one who shouldn’t have. Say, what’s gotten into you, my girl?”

  Her eyes dug into his. “Do you trust me, Morris?”

  His face squeezed together in puzzlement. “What kind of question is that?”

  “Just answer it.”

  “Of course I trust you!”

  “Then get me out of here. Take me home. Tomorrow I’ll check in somewhere else. Tomorrow I’ll explain everything,” Doris promised, wondering how she might go about keeping it. “You said that you trusted me. Then believe me when I say I’m not safe. Not here. Not now. Say you’ll do it, Morris, please!”

  Morris Kornbloom nodded slowly.

  Selinas sat at the Miami Airport bar watching a college football game. He had forgotten who the teams were, but he didn’t care because he was a fan of neither. It was the airport that was the key, preferred by him for its anonymity, bars within airports in particular. Of course, the problem was that weary travelers, cursed by missed connections or delays, often crowded into them for refuge and bartenders were thus firm with any patron looking for just a chair and a game to watch instead of a drink. Since Selinas never drank, this could have been a problem for him. So he had devised a simple system whereby he would slip the bartender a ten upon arriving in return for a bar seat, a single glass of club soda with a twist, and no questions.

  Selinas enjoyed drinking, but it simply wasn’t feasible in his profession. Booze slowed you down, made you sluggish. Even a single drink with lots of water and ice could steal a half second away from you, and too often that was all you had.

  His latest assignments had certainly illustrated that.

  On the television screen, the defense was bringing in its special third-down-and-long personnel. Selinas watched, amazed by the degree of specialization in sports and life in general. It was thought to be the same in his profession, but that was due largely to myth. One man might be great with his hands, another with a knife, a third with a gun, or so went the popular teaching. All bullshit. You could have a favorite, that was natural. But for tenure you had to be almost an expert with any weapon placed in your hand—as well as with the hand itself. Assignments often called for specific means of elimination to be employed, and even then you didn’t know what kind of weapon might be around if an opponent appeared unannounced, even if his footsteps did give him away.

  Selinas heard a familiar gait now and felt his neck muscles tense. The steps turned into the bar and approached him.

  The third-and-long pass fell incomplete.

  “Let’s get a table, shall we?” a voice told him.

  “It’s almost the half anyway,” Selinas responded, turning for the first time. The man at his side was considerably smaller than Selinas and very gaunt. His face had a sunken, angular look and he had virtually no distinguishing marks other than an excess strip of fatty flesh sprouting from his chin. Selinas had many contacts, all nameless, so for fun he gave names to each one based on outstanding physical features, this one’s being “Gib-let,” thanks to that excess chin flesh that looked strangely like the withered crop of a turkey.

  Selinas lowered himself from the bar stool and grasped a leather briefcase at his feet. The contact led him to a booth in the comer.

  “You’ve got to order something,” Selinas told him after they sat down. “They get pissed off here if you don’t drink.” He sipped his club soda.

  Almost immediately a waitress came by with pad and pen ready.

  “Scotch on the rocks,” Giblet said and Selinas smiled inwardly. The waitress departed.

  Selinas slid the briefcase under the table toward Giblet’s side.

  “Did you open it?” he wanted to know.

  “It may be booby-trapped. I’ll leave the finding out to you. Be careful with it, though, it bites.”

  “Any problems?”

  “Lantos was better than I was led to believe.”

  “He was old.”

  “Age means little in his profession.”

  “And the woman?”

  “Your information was precise,” Selinas said because it was all he needed to, not bothering to add that he probably would have let her live if she hadn’t tried for him with that pretty little ring which had become the instrument of her own death.

  The waitress came with Giblet’s scotch and the two men stayed silent until she was well out of earshot.

  “Got another for you,” Giblet said finally. “Plural this time, two to be exact. The Rivero brothers, Miguel and Marco.” He pulled a standard office-size envelope from his jacket pocket. “Details and doubled retainer fee inside.”

  Selinas raised his eyebrows. “Drug runners …”

  “You’ve heard of them?”

  “They tried to retain me once.”

  “And you refused, of course, because they didn’t meet your exacting standard of values for a potential employer. I assume, then, that you’ll accept.”

  “I find the Riveros to be pleasant objectives,” Selinas said.

  “It won’t be easy. They’re well-buffered and almost impossible to find. The barons of South Beach, some call them.”

  “Scum,” said Selinas. “River rats it will be my pleasure to drown.”

  “You must be done by the end of the weekend. Use the usual number to call in the details.”

  “Finish your scotch,” said Selinas.

  The rain started past midnight, pelting the windows of the Breakers with a force that threatened to shatter glass. Thunder rumbled regularly, intermixed with occasional lightning. Doris had all four locks on her door in place and felt reasonably safe. There would be no getting to her that way. The old, elegant hotel was built like a fortress.

  She was still groggy from the extra Demerols Morris had given her at the hospital and knew sleep would come no matter how hard she fought against it. Kornbloom had dropped her off two hours before, with an assurance that he’d be back at nine the next morning and that everything would be all right. Doris wasn’t so sure.

  She turned the television to the cable news channel and left it on even as she lay
face-up in bed staring at the ceiling. The shows meant nothing to her, but a possible intruder might take the volume as a sign that she was still awake. If nothing else, the droll monotone of voices served to make her feel less alone.

  But she was alone. Sophie and Fannie were dead. Now Sylvie, too. All her fault.

  She had tried the phone number a dozen times already since returning to her room.

  No answer.

  No hope.

  It would be passed off as coincidental tragedy. Old people in their seventies. It happens.

  But coincidental tragedy had nothing to do with it. The Business had held them together and now it was killing them, one at a time.

  And there was nothing she could do.

  No, stop it! You’ve got to fight. If not for yourself, then for Andy.

  Doris Kaplan had never been the kind to give up. The grandmothers were perishing from apparently natural causes or similarly explicable tragedies. All she had to do was stay alive long enough to plan a strategy. Killing the others had been easier because they didn’t know what was coming.

  Scratch, scratch, scratch ….

  Doris lurched upward in her bed, holding the covers tight to her chest. She had heard a noise. She was certain of it. But from where had it come?

  Scratch, scratch, scratch ….

  Again. Doris fought to focus her ears. She cursed herself for rejecting the hearing aids that Morris Kornbloom had been suggesting for months.

  The sound came again, and she gazed at the drawn drapes hopefully on the chance that it might stem simply from the rain whipping patterns upon the glass.

  Scratch, scratch, scratch ….

  No, it was coming from outside the door! Feet shuffling against the carpet, something toying with the locks.

  Doris felt her heart thumps intensify dangerously and she clutched her chest with both hands. Her life pills were within easy reach along with the ever-present glass of water, but clearly the intruder had to be dealt with first. The phone caught her eye and she grasped it quickly, hitting the number for the front desk.

  “This is Mrs. Kaplan,” she whispered. “Someone’s trying to break through my door. Please send someone. Hurry!”

  “Right away,” the desk clerk responded and outside the door the scratching got louder. “Would you like me to stay on the line?” the clerk asked, but Doris had already dropped the receiver and slid quietly from her bed. If security failed to arrive on time, she couldn’t expect bedcovers to save her. She had to fight. Surprise would be on her side and that might prove to be enough.

  Slowly, with the gleam of the television providing her only light, she crept toward her desk in the left corner of the room. Lightning flashed as she reached it, stunning her and sending her hands clutching again for her chest.

  Atop the desk rested a gold-plated letter opener, an antique heirloom she had cherished for years. Not sharp at the end, but heavy and a reasonable weapon for sure. She grasped it tight within a trembling hand and started for the door, bare feet clinging lightly to the carpeting.

  The thunder stung her ears and masked whatever sounds might have been coming from beyond the door. The scratching sound was gone. Doris thought she heard jimmying around the area of the deadbolt, but she wasn’t sure. She snailed on, right eye aiming for the peephole.

  The hard knocks shook her backward, seeming louder than the thunder.

  “Security, Mrs. Kaplan.” More knocks. “Are you all right? Can you hear me?”

  Doris steadied herself and peered into the peephole. A uniformed guard stood just outside the door, tall and broad. He was wearing a gun. She saw him fumbling for a set of keys on his belt.

  “Mrs. Kaplan, are you all right?”

  “Yes, yes. I’m just a bit shaken. Hold on and I’ll open up.”

  Doris started to raise her hand to the chain, then pulled it back. She had never seen this guard before, but then how many opportunities had she had to become acquainted with graveyard shift security personnel?

  “Mrs. Kaplan?”

  On impulse, she threw back the chain, twisted the bolt, and swung open the door. The guard wasn’t as big as she had thought. He made no move to enter the room.

  “Someone tried to jimmy your door,” he reported. “No question about it. I can see the scratches.”

  “Did you see him?”

  “No, but the exit’s just four doors down. He could have headed for it as soon as he heard the elevator doors open.” He tried to throw her a reassuring smile, the way television cops do. “I doubt he’ll be back. Not tonight anyway.”

  “No,” Doris said, thinking fast. “It’s not like that, you see. I’ve been threatened. Phone calls, a letter. The police haven’t been able to help.”

  The security guard’s face showed concern. “Well …”

  “Could you stay up here? Outside the door, I mean.”

  “I’m on duty, Mrs. Kaplan.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Mark.”

  “Mark, I’ll pay you a hundred dollars to be on duty outside my room.”

  Doris wasn’t sure what woke her or when she had dropped off to sleep in the first place. The storm had intensified and tides of water cascaded against her window. She eased herself from the bed and switched on her night lamp, then moved to the door.

  A glance in the peephole showed nothing. Mark was gone.

  She strained her eye to widen her angle of the door sides. Still nothing. But if Mark were seated in the desk chair she had given him, that would explain it.

  “Mark,” she called softly. “Mark?”

  No answer.

  She opened the door slowly, leaving the chain hinged.

  The chair from her desk was right there. Unoccupied.

  Doris slammed the door again and threw the bolt. Breathing heavily, she hurried to the phone and pressed the receiver to her ear.

  There was no dial tone. The phone was dead.

  They had her, her line to the outside severed.

  Her mind sharpened. There had been a bump, a crash of some kind from somewhere. That’s what had woken her. If it had come from the corridor, Mark’s absence would be accounted for. But it also provided an opening, a few more seconds in which she might flee before the killers of her three friends returned.

  Doris jammed her feet into her slippers, threw on her housecoat, and rushed back to the door. Stripping off all the locks, she lunged into the corridor and bolted at her top speed for the two elevators twelve rooms down. The short sprint had her lungs burning when she got there, and she realized with fear as she hit the down arrow repeatedly that her life pills were sitting uselessly back on her night table as usual.

  She heard the elevator gears grinding upward. The Breakers was an old building, its elevators of the old-fashioned, slow-moving variety manned twenty-four hours a day by attendants.

  Footsteps started from down the hall, just around the corner from her room. Reflexively, she jammed the down arrow again and again.

  Finally, the brown doors slid open. The attendant pulled back the cage and looked at Doris with no small degree of shock.

  “The lobby,” she said breathlessly, not bothering to explain further. “Please hurry.”

  Nonetheless, it seemed to take forever for the attendant to get both the doors and the cage closed. At last the car was in motion downward. At the lobby Doris was out of the compartment before the attendant had the cage all the way open again. Clearly she had to flee. The killers could be everywhere by now.

  The lobby of the Breakers was an ornate example of classical construction more befitting an Italian villa than a hotel. It was as long as a football field and fairly wide with plush furniture and marble tables placed regularly about. Doris hurried along the twenty-yard walk to the front desk beneath the vaulted, carved ceiling she had so often gone dizzy staring at. Her heart had begun to thump with dangerous irregularity and she distracted herself with thoughts of safety once the front desk came into view.

  She had jus
t passed her favorite wall ornament, a fifteenth-century Flemish tapestry, when she saw the two men walking directly for her. Doris froze. They seemed to take no notice of her presence and just kept coming.

  And that was why she ran for the first exit she saw on the left. An old woman standing in the lobby in her nightclothes at four A.M. should have been noticed. Doris rushed outside into the pouring rain.

  She began to run, as fast and as hard as her wind and slippers would allow. Her plan was to circle back to the main entrance and find a cab. But she saw none when she cleared the building, so she kept running toward the nearest road, a frantic glance stolen over her shoulder at regular intervals.

  The rain soaked through her thin gown. Her hair was matted and no joint was spared the agony of her first real sprint since giving up tennis twelve years before. She felt the monster in her chest rebelling, begging for letup with a thunderous lurching against the sinews holding it in place.

  The Breakers was fronted by a grassy park lined by trees, and Doris struggled across it toward South Country Road. Her motions felt slow, almost dreamlike, an eternity to pass from one tree to the next. The rain pooled in the grass and her feet sloshed through it. But the only sound she could focus on was that of her own labored breathing. It felt to her as if a piece of food had gone down the wrong way so only tiny bursts of air were able to squeeze through.

  Suddenly she didn’t know where she was. The shapes and sights were familiar, but she couldn’t place them in the context of the building she knew so well. There were footsteps mirroring hers and she turned back to look as her slipper wedged on a string sectioning off some freshly planted grass and sent her sprawling. Her hands dug into the ground and her face mashed against something soft. Her heart fluttered, seeming to stammer, and when she tried to rise there was no feeling in her legs.

  She felt the cold muddy water soaking through her night-clothes and thought, quite inappropriately, how uncomfortable it was to be so dirty. The sound of footsteps nearby had stopped, making her think perhaps she had eluded the men for the time being. If she could drag herself behind those trees just up ahead, she might just fool them and make it. Her right hand pulled, followed by her left. Breath was precious and she savored every bit she was able to catch.