Lucky Bastard (31 page)

Well, at least one of us is relieved.

Finally the elevator arrives with a
ding
. The moment the doors open, we step inside the cab. Before I can push the button for the lobby, Tommy appears in the hallway.

“Going somewhere?”

He’s not alone. He has Mandy with him, wearing a red satin dress and no shoes. Tommy must have a thing for red. But right now, he has one hand holding Mandy’s hair, her head pulled back, and the other hand holding a glass syringe with the needle already partially inserted at the base of Mandy’s neck. The syringe is filled with a black liquid. I’m guessing it’s the same low-grade hard Tommy stole from me the first time we met.

I never was good with irony.

“Step out of the elevator,” he says.

Jimmy lets out a little sniffle behind me, and I turn to see that he’s crying and pressed into the corner of the elevator. If he hadn’t already peed, he’d be standing in a puddle of urine.

“Now,” says Tommy.

Instead, I press the button to hold the door open and stand there with my left hand on the button and the other holding a useless cup of Starbucks cappuccino and coffee grounds. Chalk up another one to poor decision-making.

I look at my sister, held hostage by Tommy, the needle of bad luck pressed into her neck.

“Hey, Mandy,” I say.

“I can’t believe you got me mixed up in this, Aaron.”

“Aaron?” says Tommy. “I think I like Nick Monday better. More panache.”

“At least we can agree on something,” I say. “Now let her go.”

“I don’t think you’re in any position to tell me what to do,” he says, pushing the needle in a little farther for emphasis, causing some blood to trickle out. “All I have to do is depress this plunger and your sister’s troubles will just be starting.”

“And all I have to do is throw the contents of this cup on you and so will yours.”

Tommy’s gaze flicks down to the Starbucks cup in my right hand, then returns to my face. “You’re bluffing.”

“Am I? How do you think I took care of your two goons?”

Tommy stands there holding on to my sister’s hair, his thumb remaining on the plunger.

“But if you throw it on me, it’ll get on your sister, too,” he says. “You wouldn’t want to do that.”

“I’ll take my chances,” I say. “What do I have to lose?”

I’m impressed. I even sound convincing to myself.

“Stop screwing around, Aaron,” says Mandy. “This isn’t a game.”

“I’m not screwing around,” I say.

My finger is growing tired holding down the button, and I can feel my shoulders tightening up. Behind me, Jimmy lets out a sniffle. I don’t know what I’m doing or if this is going to work. All I know is that I can’t let Tommy get his hands on Jimmy. If he does, Jimmy’s as good as dead.

“It’s your call, Tommy,” I say.

Before Tommy can respond, an alarm goes off in the elevator, a sudden loud buzzing apparently set off by the doors being held open for too long. With both Tommy and I on edge, we react at the same time. Tommy depresses the plunger and I fling the contents of the Starbucks cup at Tommy and Mandy. As soon as the clumps of wet coffee grounds hit them, Tommy lets go of Mandy and starts yelling and wiping at himself, trying to get the coffee grounds off as Mandy pulls out the syringe then runs off down the hall in her bare feet.

“Mandy!” I yell as the elevator doors close, leaving
Jimmy and me standing there listening to an instrumental version of “Looks Like We Made It” by Barry Manilow. Then the elevator starts to move. But instead of going down, we’re going up, and a few seconds later, the elevator doors open up to Harry Denton’s Starlight Room.

“Come on,” I say to Jimmy.

We step out of the elevator and into the club. My first thought is to get Jimmy someplace safe so I can try to find Mandy, but I don’t know who to trust. And taking the elevator back down is a good way to run right back into Tommy. Plus I’ve decided it’s probably not the best idea to take a ride in an elevator twenty-one flights above ground level while carrying a vial of bad luck.

The Starlight Room is pretty empty for a Tuesday night. Or a Wednesday night. Whatever today is, not a lot of people are at Harry Denton’s. The remains of a buffet table are in the main room, with hot food pans and chafing dishes and a carving station. A few stragglers are still picking at what’s left. It’s a younger crowd and everyone’s dressed up in jackets and ties and dresses, so I manage to blend right in. Except for the ten-year-old kid in front of me who smells like urine.

And don’t think I can’t appreciate the irony in
that
.

I head toward the bar, looking around for a familiar face, anyone who might be able to help, but the handful of drunks at the bar are all strangers. I can think of only one person I might be able to trust, and even that’s a question mark since I barely know her.

“Is Tuesday Knight here?” I ask at the bar.

“No, sir,” says the bartender, who’s so good-looking he makes a Ken doll look like the Elephant Man. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“Not unless you can turn back time or tell me how to deal with an angry sister infected with bad luck.”

“Sir?” he says.

“Glass of water.”

I need to get this bad luck out of my pocket and into something I can use as a weapon against Tommy. Although I’ve been told more than once that I carry a concealed weapon in my pants, somehow I don’t think that euphemism is going to help me in this situation.

“I need to use the bathroom,” says Jimmy, speaking of concealed weapons.

“Again?”

“It’s different this time.”

I point toward the bathrooms past the far end of the bar and away he goes. For a second I wonder if I should go with him, but I can see the restroom doors from where I’m standing, so no one can get in or out without my noticing.

I glance toward the elevator and watch to see if the doors open, but so far no sign of Tommy. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I figure it’s only a matter of time before he makes an appearance.

I turn back toward the bartender as he arrives with my water, grab the glass, and prepare to follow Jimmy into the bathroom to mix up my bad-luck cocktail. Then, out of the
corner of my eye, I see an explosion of color duck out of sight into one of the booths. I walk over to see if it’s who I think it is, and I find Doug slouched down in one of the booths, wearing a guilty smile.

“What are you doing here, Bow Wow?”

“Just enjoying the view, Holmes,” he says, sitting up.

He must have followed me to the Drake and come upstairs to look for me.

“I thought I told you to go home.”

“I won’t get in the way. Word.”

“The word is home. That’s where you should be.”

“Come on, Holmes,” he says, whining and giving me his puppy-dog face. “I’m part of your posse. Let me help.”

The truth is, as much as I want to send him on his way, I do need his help. I know this is probably a bad idea, but I seem to be so full of them today I can’t help myself.

“Do you have your cell phone?”

“Right here, Holmes.” He pulls it out, his expression serious and eager.

“Good. What I want you to do is call 911 to report a kidnapping.”

“A kidnapping? Foshizzle?”

Whatever that means.

“Tell them that the kid’s name is James Saltzman, Jr. and he lives at 1331 Greenwich,” I say. “And that Tommy Wong, who lives on the twentieth floor of the Sir Francis Drake, is the one who kidnapped him.”

“Oh, snap!”

This would be so much easier if I could understand what Doug was saying.

“Then wait for the police downstairs. You got it?”

“Got it,” he says, sliding out of the booth and glancing down at his foot. “Sweet!”

“What?”

“My shoelace came untied.” He bends down to retie it. “That means I’m about to receive some good news.”

Or it means he should tie his shoelaces tighter.

“Great,” I say. “Just don’t forget what I told you.”

“I won’t forget,” he says, standing up. “You can count on me.”

“And whatever you do, don’t mention my name.”

“Sure thing, Holmes,” he says, dialing 911. “Bow Wow is on the case!”

I watch him walk toward the elevator, talking to the emergency operator, using words like
gaffle
and
peeps
. I’m wondering if I should have just made the call myself when I notice the elevator doors closing and I realize I’ve missed seeing whoever came out. When I look back toward the bathrooms, I see the door to the men’s room swinging shut.

Shit.

Behind me, Doug is telling the operator that Tommy Wong is kickin’ it at the Drake as I run to the bathroom. When I bang open the bathroom door, I stumble inside and find no one at the sink, no one at the urinals, and no one in the stalls. Just sticky tile and an unflushed toilet.

Men really are disgusting pigs.

When I come out of the bathroom, I don’t see any sign of Tommy or Jimmy in Harry Denton’s, either in the bar or in the lounge area.

“Did you see a ten-year-old kid come through here?” I ask the bartender. “Or an old Asian guy in a red smoking jacket?”

“I didn’t see any kid,” says an old-timer sitting at the bar, more drunk than sober, “but some Asian Hugh Hefner just went that way.” He points to a door beneath a stairway exit sign.

I run to the exit and push into the stairwell and am racing down the stairs as I hear the sound of a door shut below me. When I reach the entrance to the twentieth floor, it’s locked. I need a key card to access the floor. I run down another flight to see if I can get in that way, but the door is locked, as is the stairwell door on the floor below that.

And I’m thinking I just got played.

I race back up the stairs, wishing I’d adhered to a more consistent exercise program, relieved to find that I don’t need a key card to get back into Harry Denton’s. But my relief is short-lived as an alarm sounds, followed by half a dozen people who come bursting through the stairwell door, followed by the smell of smoke and burning fabric. When I walk inside, I find the lounge area filled with smoke, the tablecloths covering the buffet tables on fire, and the nearby silk drapes in flames. The ceiling sprinklers have gone off, but the fire is spreading and a couple of
people are trying to put out the fire with extinguishers. The more-drunk-than-sober guy who told me he saw Tommy go down the stairs decides to help by picking up a chair and throwing it through one of the windows.

I guess he wanted some fresh air.

The sprinklers soak my suit as the fire spreads from the drapes to the booths, the sound of approaching sirens coming through the broken window from the streets below. I’m about to see if the elevators are still working when I see Doug trying to stamp out some flames with his Nikes.

“Doug, what are you doing?”

“Fighting a fire, Holmes,” he says, his untied shoelaces in imminent danger of catching on fire. “And it’s Bow Wow.”

“Right. Sorry. But aren’t you supposed to be down in the lobby, waiting for the police?”

“I know,” he says. “But this gizzled ho in a red dress came out of the elevator, and next thing I know, she’s knocking over the buffet table and starting a fire and everything went off the hook.”

Mandy.

I look around but don’t see any sign of her.

“Where did she go?” I say.

“Last I saw, her dress was on fire and she was heading for the elevators.”

Shit. I run to the elevators and press the button, but nothing’s happening. Probably shut down due to the fire. I turn around looking for where Mandy could have gone
and see the bathrooms and the
EXIT
sign for the stairs and another door that says
NO EXIT—ALARM WILL SOUND
. I’m about to head for that one when someone grabs hold of my hand.

I turn to find Jimmy staring up at me, his hair and face and clothes soaked. It takes me a moment to realize that he’s holding on to my right hand. His luck should be pouring into me. But there’s nothing. Not even a hint of the euphoria I would expect to feel. Apparently, the wax and paper that melted into my skin is acting as some kind of an insulator or barrier. Whatever it is, Jimmy’s luck is still inside him.

“What happened to you?” I say.

“I thought I saw the old Asian guy, just as I was coming out of the bathroom, but he didn’t see me, so I ran into the women’s bathroom to hide.”

“Did you see a woman in there? The one in the red dress we saw before?”

Jimmy shakes his head.

“Shit,” I say, then turn around and look at Doug, his Nikes starting to melt and his shoelaces smoking. I wonder if
that’s
good luck. “Doug, come on! We have to get out of here!”

“It’s Bow Wow, Holmes.” Then he realizes his feet are about to go up in flames and he gives up his valiant but futile attempts at being a firefighter.

I lead Jimmy and Doug through the exit door, planning to run down all twenty-one flights if we have to
and hope we can get out of the building without running into Tommy. But that hope vanishes when we see Tommy coming up the stairs below us, followed by two of his goons. And they’ve got guns.

With Harry Denton’s on fire and the elevators shut down, we don’t have any other option. So we run back into Harry Denton’s and through the other exit door and up another flight of stairs to the roof.