Don't Leave Me (16 page)

Stun gunned.

Chuck knew that’s what had just happened to him. As a boy he’d touched a live spark plug once, on a lawn mower, and it zapped and numbed his hand. That was how his whole body felt now, muscles cramping, and strangely, as his juiced brain normalized, it was like coming off a high.

But he was not high. He was low, in a dark motel room, on the floor, looking up.

Stan. Where was Stan?

Chuck was aware of the bed moving. He willed his arms to move, tried to get up from the floor.

Something slammed his chest and forced him back down. A foot.

“Don’t move,” a voice said. He knew the voice. The guy with the knife. Mad Russian. No, Mad Serb. A white spark crackled in the night. From the spark’s location Chuck concluded it was an electroshock baton in the Serb’s hands, and he was showing off his weapon.

Chuck heard a muffled moan. Stan. The other guy must’ve had something over Stan’s mouth. His brother would be scared to death. Chuck tried to move again, but the foot slammed him back to the carpet.

“Where is it?” The Serb asked.

“Where is what?” Chuck said, his voice thick in his mouth.

“Where. Is. It?”

Chuck shook his head, then wondered if the guy could even see that motion in the dark.

“You maybe like another jolt?”

The weapon sparked and snapped again. And half a dozen thoughts banged against each other in Chuck’s mind. The Serb obviously thought Chuck had information about something, and Chuck was supposed to know what that was. He wasn’t dead, so the Serb and his ally weren’t sure where to find whatever this thing was. They were also stupid. Breaking into a motel room to do their interrogation. Too many chances somebody would hear.

He sized up the Serb as being reckless and foolish. But he was a fool with a stun gun. And a knife. Chuck remembered the knife at the scene of the rear ender. This current scene would have to be played delicately.

“Sit me up,” Chuck said. “Then we can talk.”

The Serb kept his foot on Chuck’s chest and snapped the electric prod again. “No, no, my friend. You will talk when I tell you to and stay where I put you. If you want to leave this room with all your fingers and toes, you will not play games.”

Stan moaned again. Definitely a pillow was over his mouth.

Chuck said, “Let my brother go, he has nothing to do with anything.”

“Ah,” the Serb said. “You want your brother to be all right, yes?”

“Just let him go.”

“Don’t be stupid with me, huh? Just tell me where it is, and you know of what I’m talking.”

“You got the wrong guy.”

“Samson. Chuck Samson. I don’t like the name
Chuck.
It is a stupid name. You are stupid––”

“Key word is
stupid
, I get it––”

The baton came down on his leg and zapped.

A fusillade of hot nails ripped up his body. Once in a pickup basketball game a jerk had thrown the ball as hard as he could at Chuck. It smacked him directly in the family jewels and doubled him over, creating pain just like this.

“Don’t make me do that again,” the Serb said.

Another voice, accented, said, “How long we got to keep this going?”

“You hear that, Chuck?” the Serb said. “We don’t have all night.”

Night. His motel neighbor, trying to sleep.

Chuck yelled in full voice, “THANK YOU SIR, MAY I HAVE ANOTHER!”

A moment of silence.

He yelled again. “THANK YOU SIR, MAY I HAVE ANOTHER!”

“Shut up,” the Serb said.

And then it came. The pounding on the wall. The voice of his neighbor screaming invective and threat.

“We got to get out,” the other one said.

Hesitation. The Serb was unsure. In the gloom, Chuck saw him looking back and forth, his hair flying like water spray.

“THANK YOU SIR!”

“Stuff his mouth!” the Serb said.

Chuck grabbed the Serb’s ankle with his left hand, pulled, and fisted him in the balls.

Now it was the Serb who cried out.

Flailing in the dark, Chuck had momentary freedom. He rolled left, away from the Serb’s body, which fell toward the window. Chuck got to the foot of the bed, stomach down, and pushed himself up.

And saw a big mass of humanity pressing down on Stan.

Chuck jumped onto the bed, took one bouncing step and threw himself on the back of the big man. He got his left arm around the guy’s enormous head, then slid it down to the neck. It was a tree trunk. But Chuck managed a choke hold and pulled for all he was worth. Which wasn’t much at the moment.

The big man stood up straight and turned around, like a dog getting ready to lie down. Chuck held fast to the throat but knew this was only a temporary solution. Mad Serb was no doubt recovering, and he was the one with the baton.

“Stan! Get out!” Chuck yelled.

He sensed but did not see his brother getting out of the bed. A moment later the door flew open, and that Chuck did see. The lights from the liquor store sign on the other side of the motel seeped in, yellow and red.

The hulk spun around again and chugged his legs backward, crashing Chuck into the wall. Tiny sparklers gave a little Fourth of July party behind Chuck’s eyes.

But he saw a blur run outside, unmistakably Stan. And then he heard Stan’s startled scream.

Because there was someone else at the door now, shouting, “What the hell are you doing in here?”

The neighbor?

The Serb pounced at him, his baton crackling.

Chuck let go of the big one and ran to the door, not quick enough to keep his neighbor from getting lit up. His body hit the walkway at the same time Chuck smashed into the Serb with his shoulder.

The Serb grunted and jammed waist first into the iron rail. Chuck sent an open palm smack to his right ear, a blow causing disequilibrium when delivered right.

From the hollow thwacking sound, Chuck knew he’d delivered right.

Mad Serb fell to his knees.

The walkway, up on the second story as it was, shook. Chuck knew in a flash it wasn’t because of the fallen Serb. It was his thug partner, loping toward the door.

Instinctively, Chuck jumped to the right, his back to the room. And the big guy flew into the rail at the exact same spot the Serb had gone down.

Chuck saw with a glimpse that Stan, in underwear and tee shirt, was only a few feet away, his eyes wide.

“Let’s go!” Chuck grabbed Stan’s hand and turned him, and started running toward the stairway.

He heard the Serb’s voice shout, “Shoot the legs!”