John Lutz Bundle (75 page)

Working only by light filtering in from below, Sherman slowly and quietly used the blade of his long screwdriver to begin prying loose the grate covering the ceiling vent. He knew it was held by a large screw at each corner of its steel frame. Experimenting with the vent cover in his own room, he’d learned he could pry out one side, then move the cover back and forth so the two opposite screws would bend and work as makeshift hinges.

But he wouldn’t use them as hinges more than once. They’d soon break anyway.

After prying loose the nearest side of the vent cover, he delicately removed the loose screws and worked them into his pocket. Then he twisted his wrist while holding the partly lowered grate, extended his other arm, and loosened the first of the bent screws, catching it so it wouldn’t drop to the tile floor.

Carefully he removed the remaining screw with his fingers, clasping the steel vent cover so it wouldn’t drop.

He deftly put the screw in his pocket with the others and held the cover with both hands. He rotated it diagonally so he could lift it and place it on the bottom of the duct, on the far side of the vent where it would remain out of his way.

The white tile floor of the bathroom was just below him now, easily accessible. All he had to do was lower himself carefully headfirst from the duct, catch himself with his hands, then land silently in his stocking feet on the tiles.

He poked his head over the opening and then down into the bathroom. The door was open about six inches to allow illumination to spill into the bedroom, a night-light so Mom could find her way if she had to get up during the night.

He lay silently waiting, wanting to make sure the slight sounds he’d made hadn’t been noticed. With the vent cover removed he could hear Mom’s light snoring. Good. He hadn’t disturbed her sleep. Or was she pretending? He knew she of all people wasn’t above pretending.

He’d come this far, so he forced himself to take the time to be careful. He continued to lie motionless, listening to hear if there was any sound other than Mom’s soft snoring coming from the bedroom. Watching to see if a light appeared on the other side of the door.

The judgment and the blood were near. It would soon be time to act.

He wasn’t even thinking about what might come after. His knife was a silent killer, and he would simply leave quietly the way he’d arrived.

If something went wrong and he couldn’t get near enough to use the knife, he’d use the gun, then make his escape back into the bathroom, leaving the door locked behind him to slow down his pursuers just enough so he could climb back into the ductwork. He would lay the vent cover over the opening and they might not even notice he’d escaped that way. Not at first, anyway, and he only wanted to divert and delay. That was the heart of his secondary escape plan—divert and delay. Once he made his way back to his room and down out of the ductwork, he would replace the vent cover. After that he would improvise. And, if necessary, use his hostage. If the police thought this was going to be a suicide mission, they’d learn otherwise.

For Sherman there was only the firm belief that the next few minutes would go exactly as planned.

And the desire that was like pain.

He’d wait a few minutes while he managed to stop breathing so hard from the effort and tension of working with the heavy steel vent cover. He had the situation under control now. He simply wanted that control to be complete before the next step.

Or maybe he wanted to savor the moment, the anticipation. This was an opportunity he’d never dreamed would come. Of course he was breathless with anticipation. Who among those who understood could blame him?

Mom, just on the other side of a door partly open.

Mom!

He was, after all these years, surprised to be so close to his mother.

In the lobby, Gerald Goodnight, the aptly named night desk clerk, noticed the switchboard blinking. Not a regular, steady blink, but intermittent and frantic.

Probably nothing to get excited about. The switchboard had the high-tech heebie-jeebies and was always sending crazy signals. The blinking would probably stop soon.

It wasn’t a real switchboard, but a simulated one on the computer screen. Goodnight, a tall, gray-haired man with a receding chin and a drinker’s bulbous red nose, had been at the Meredith for more than ten years. He didn’t drink, and for that matter didn’t sleep well, so his looks and his name were both deceptive.

Goodnight was, however, good at his job. He was diligent and provided the deft touch of inoffensive snobbery the management desired.

His diligence was the reason why he was about to walk over to the computer and check to make sure all the wake-up calls for the coming morning had been entered correctly. Even though it was years ago, he remembered well the apoplectic anger of a wealthy corporate type who’d left a wake-up call for his room at 8:00
A.M.
, and received it just before he’d checked out in a rage in the
P.M.
He’d later tried to sue the hotel because he’d missed a crucial business meeting across town. The Meredith had settled with him and avoided litigation. Goodnight thought the man should have backed up his wake-up call with his own travel alarm clock or even wristwatch alarm. That was what Goodnight always did. He knew about hotel staffs.

It wasn’t the first time he’d worked at a hotel in cooperation with the police, either. The last time, the undercover cops had been easy to spot, like actors in a bad gangster movie. But he had to admit these people were good. The phony doorman looked genuine, and the cop pretending to be a bellhop had even managed a few tips. Goodnight had told the guy if he ever needed a different job to drop by. The guy had given him a cop look, and Goodnight knew the man was already in the right business.

The switchboard light was still flickering.

Goodnight thought it would be a neat idea to send the bellhop cop upstairs to see about the blinking phone connection. He could scare some rowdy kids or an unruly guest. But he knew that was only whimsy. Riley the genuine bell captain was the one to handle it.

The phone was in a room on the floor above where the woman the cops were guarding was staying; and this kind of thing happened all the time at most hotels. It would be kids, probably, playing with the phone. Or a drunk. Maybe a violent one. If that was the case, Riley could call down and the cops would be there in seconds. If they’d bother with such a thing in the middle of their important assignment.

As if sensing something was wrong, Riley looked over at him from the bell captain’s station. Goodnight gave him an almost imperceptible nod, and Riley ambled across the thick carpet and over to the desk.

Riley was a big man with a bear walk, in his sixties but still strong and fit. He was of good humor but had a combative disposition if necessary. While in the Navy he’d been third ranked in the fleet heavyweight boxing division. He was confident he could handle anything that came up in the hotel, and the hotel had confidence in him. This was why he’d held the difficult position of bell captain for more than seven years.

Riley’s only flaw as bell captain, as far as Goodnight could discern, was that he thought he had a sense of humor. He was the only one who thought that. He could be trying.

“We’ve got a blinker on the seventh floor,” Goodnight said, motioning with his head toward the computer monitor, visible in the alcove behind the desk.

“Want me to send my new bellhop?” Riley asked, throwing a glance in the direction of the undercover cop in his bellhop uniform. He knew the cop bellhop—Neeson—also thought he was a funny guy, and saw him as competition. Maybe someday they could have a laugh-off.

“Don’t try to be funny,” Goodnight said. “Just go upstairs and see what the problem is.”

“Probably the phone,” Riley said. “They act up when the moon’s full. Something to do with the tide. I mean, the same gravitational force only on electronic stuff.”

“Are you serious?”

“No,” Riley said. “It’s probably kids. That’s what it usually is. What’s the room number?”

“Seven-twenty-four. Guest’s name is John Brown. It’s a single.”

“Or was when he checked in,” Riley said. “Did you know there are more Browns than Joneses?”

“Yes,” Goodnight said, though he neither knew nor cared. Nor was it any of the hotel’s business if the man had checked in under a phony name, as long as the guest paid cash or had secured credit.

“We’ll charge him for a double only if she’s ugly,” Riley said.

Goodnight ignored that one. “I don’t have to tell you not to tromp around up there and make a lot of noise that might disturb the other guests.”

“You did tell me,” Riley said. “And just in time. I have my harmonica with me.”

“Harmonica?”

Riley grinned. “A joke, George.”

Goodnight shook his head. “Harmonica. The moon.”

“I was trying to be funny,” Riley said, accepting the passcard master key Goodnight handed him.

“Stop trying,” Goodnight told him. “Really. It’s sound advice. Stop trying.”

He could see Riley’s shoulders quaking with laughter as the uniformed bell captain strolled toward the elevators. The dancing fringed epaulets made it quite apparent.

Over by the potted palms, Detective Jack Neeson, in his jerk-off bellhop uniform, saw the prissy desk clerk who was probably a secret drinker talking with Riley the bell captain. Riley might erroneously see himself as a comedian, but he was no priss, Neeson could tell. He could probably handle whatever was wrong—if there even was a problem.

Riley took something from the clerk then turned away from the desk and swaggered toward the elevators. He had his back muscles bunched in an odd way. Neeson knew that kind of walk—man on a mission.

Maybe I oughta go over and see.

He walked toward the guy behind the desk, Goodnight, who saw him coming and stood in a waiting attitude. Over by the elevators, Riley was pressing the Up button.

Neeson figured it would take a while for an elevator to arrive. If something
was
wrong, they might as well go up together, a couple of guys in funny-looking uniforms. Neeson thought they’d look like characters in a costume movie or one of the operas his wife dragged him to, the general and his adjutant. Riley, with the fancier uniform, was obviously the general. Neeson didn’t like that. He was no second banana.

“Trouble with one of the phones,” Goodnight said, not even waiting for Neeson to ask. He wasn’t sure if he wanted the cop and Riley in the same elevator at the same time. Two giants of comedy in such close quarters. “The receiver’s off the hook and somebody’s playing with it. Probably some kids or a drunk.”

Or a killer, the adjutant thought, and veered and walked faster toward the elevators and the general.

This was nothing to get excited about yet, but certainly it was something to look into.

He saw that he’d figured wrong. This late, the elevator traffic was sparse and there must have been one waiting at lobby level.

The general was gone.

Riley stepped out of the elevator on the seventh floor and saw the guy immediately. He was outside the door to one of the rooms facing the front, possibly 724, where the phone problem was, and hammering on the door with his fist. He wasn’t strong enough to be making much noise.

Single my ass, Riley thought, figuring there was somebody else in the room, probably a woman. The guy was a weirdo he recalled entering the hotel about twenty minutes ago, way over six feet tall, with springy-looking long red hair and weighing not much more than a hundred pounds. As Riley watched, the weird guy began yelling and flinging himself over and over against the door. He looked like a human snake or something standing upright and didn’t weigh enough to budge the door even if it had been cardboard.

He yelled again: “Lauri!”
Blam!
Against the door, causing him to bounce back about three feet, only to coil his long body and hurl himself again.
Blam!
Useless. “Lauri!”

“Hey, sport!” Riley said, when he was about ten feet from the man.

Weirdo noticed him for the first time. His eyes were wide, maybe afraid, and he looked young. Riley wondered if the skinny guy was on drugs.

“You gotta help me get in there!” the guy yelled. “My girl’s in there and I think she’s in trouble.”

“Whaddya mean, trouble?”

The man splatted himself ineffectually against the door again.

“Stop that!” Riley said. “You’re gonna hurt yourself.”

“Then help me get in! I think somethin’s goin’ on in there. A rape or worse!”

“What makes you think so?”

“I followed my girl here. Saw her go in there with this guy I don’t trust!”

“And?”

“And what?” The weirdo’s long body moved in a kind of springy wave, like he was about to charge the door again.

“Are you John Brown?” Riley asked.

“Huh?” The weirdo paused and stared at Riley.

“Is he the one with your girl?”

“I’m not him an’ neither is he!” the weirdo said.

Riley gently touched his bony shoulder, preventing another assault on the door. “We’ll see,” he said, in the face of such determination. He knocked on the door. “But you say and do nothing, understand?”

The weird guy nodded, but Riley didn’t for a second believe him.

There was no reply to his knock.

“I don’t want the other guests disturbed, you got that?”

Another nod from the spring head. “Yeah. Yeah.”

Riley knocked again. Louder.

Still no response.

“Okay,” Riley said. “You stay out here and I’m going in and take a look. For all we know somebody might be in there taking a shower.”

That seemed to really disturb the weird guy, but he said nothing.

Riley used his pass card on the lock and the door opened, which struck him as wrong, since usually by this time of night the guests had fastened their security locks.

He stuck his head in. The light on the desk was turned on.

“Hello? Anybody?”

Then he noticed the desk chair was gone. Then he saw it lying sideways on the floor near the bed. Then he saw the woman taped to the chair, and the phone off the hook and lying near one of her feet.

Riley charged all the way into the room, the skinny guy right behind him, almost pressed to his back. He heard the guy cry, “Lauri!”

She was alive, at least, Riley saw, as he stooped beside the girl. Her eyes were wide and staring at him. As gently as possible, he peeled the duct tape from across her mouth. She drew in a deep breath through her mouth, worked her lips, licked them. Then she said something odd.

“Wormy?”

Riley pulled the small pocket knife he carried from his pocket and began cutting the tape that was binding her arms. The blade was dull from cutting cardboard and envelope flaps, and he had to saw with it frantically. It was slow going, but he was getting there.

“Call my dad!” the girl said, looking pitifully up at him. “Please! He’s in the duct.”

He frowned at her. “Duck?”

“Duct!”

Riley stared at her. “Your dad’s in a duct?”

“Not my dad!
Call
my dad!” She spat out a phone number.

Riley wasn’t listening. He was concentrating on cutting away the tape without damaging flesh, making sure the girl was all right. She was young like the skinny weirdo, probably not even twenty. Talking like she was on drugs.

“My dad’s Detective Frank Quinn,” she said

Riley stopped cutting. “Give me that phone number again.”

She did, then glanced beyond the ridiculous fringed epaulet on Riley’s shoulder and saw Wormy wriggling his way up through the bathroom ceiling vent.

Neeson stepped out of the elevator on the seventh floor and looked up and down the long, carpeted hall.

No sign of Riley.

The elevator door closed behind him with a soft rushing sound.

Neeson turned left, toward room 724. The hall was softly lighted by fancy-frosted glass sconces every ten feet or so. His shoes made no sound on the plush carpet as he walked swiftly and observed the even room numbers, making sure he was going in the right direction, unconsciously counting cadence.

Seven-sixteen.

Seven-eighteen.

Seven—

He saw that one of the doors ahead was open and he walked even faster, no longer observing numbers.

Now was the time.

Sherman somehow knew that all his celestial luck was with him in this single moment. When he felt like this, he’d never failed.

Careful to make as little noise as possible, he eased his body forward, lowering his head through the vent opening into the bathroom of Mom’s suite.

Take your time…

He stuck his left arm through the vent, letting it dangle, and touched, barely touched, the white plastic shower curtain, simply to acclimate himself, to begin the process of becoming one with his surroundings so he could move with the necessary sureness and stealth.

The only sounds he could allow himself to make now would be his bare hands contacting the tile floor when he eased his way headfirst through the vent opening and the balance of his weight shifted, and then the soft thud of his stocking feet landing on the tiles. He had to manage to keep his balance. That would be the only real challenge.

It would be almost done then.

He’d move silently, through the partly open door to the bedroom, avoiding touching it so as not to risk even a hinge squeaking and alerting Mom.

Then the knife.

The knife.