Crispin’s voice said, “What?” Franklin waited as the colonel repeated what he had said and then heard Crispin’s voice say, “How does he know that?”
They’re fools, Franklin thought. They don’t know it or will ever know it.
The colonel, still with his hands on his hips in his foolish underwear, asked him, “How do you know that?”
“What difference does it make?” Franklin said. “I quit working for you.”
Franklin saw the colonel’s face change, become cold and made of stone, in the moment before he turned to his flight bag on the chair by the desk. Now he heard the colonel’s voice, also cold, ask him, “What did you say? You what?”
Franklin brought his Beretta out of the flight bag and saw the colonel’s expression change again, the eyes coming all the way open, as he aimed the 9-millimeter pistol at the center of the colonel’s chest. “I said I quit,” Franklin said, and shot him and watched him stumble back and throw out his arms as he fell to the floor. Franklin stood over the colonel, said, “Good-bye,” and shot him again and saw his body jump. He heard Crispin before he saw him appear in the doorway with the towel around him, also with eyes open wide. Franklin said, “Crispin, I quit,” and shot him in the chest and then had to step into the bedroom to say good-bye and shoot him again.
The car keys were on the dresser.
Roy had positioned himself where he could glance through the glass door into the lobby and see the elevator, turn his head only about 45 degrees and be looking up through the courtyard to the fifth-floor railing that was like a waist-high fence all the way around. He was looking up there now, ever since hearing that faint but distinct pop and then nothing and then pop and then two more, spaced, from off somewhere. They weren’t loud ones, but he had heard those hard little sounds from off somewhere before and believed they had come from high up; though the sounds could have come from the street and down into the courtyard from above. None of the hotel guests having breakfast here had looked up or seemed to be wondering or talking about it.
There was a colored maid up on the fifth floor-he believed she was colored-standing by her cart and looking back toward the elevator. Roy watched her. If the gunshots came from up there she would have heard them. But now she seemed to have lost interest in whatever she was watching or waiting for, moving off with her cart, away from the elevator and that alcove where 501 was located. There wasn’t another soul up there. No doors opening, people sticking their heads out to see what that was.
They might’ve caught the nigger Indin lifting the car keys, but they weren’t going to shoot him for it.
The sounds could’ve come from outside the hotel. Roy accepted the possibility, but didn’t believe it. Now some of the guests, he noticed, were looking up too, because he was. He needed a better place to watch from. He could go up to the room they’d taken, 509, stand in there with the door open. Shit, but he’d have to get a key.
Franklin saw the maid at the end of the hall as he waited for the elevator. He didn’t go near the railing to look down, see if anybody was looking up; he didn’t hear any noises or voices. The elevator arrived and he rode it down to the lobby and stepped off. He saw a man and woman standing by suitcases on the floor, talking to the doorman. Franklin walked over to the glass door to look into the courtyard. Everyone at the tables seemed busy having breakfast. He looked toward the registration desk, turned, and kept moving when he saw the guy waiting for the hotel clerk, the clerk talking on the telephone, the guy with his hands flat on the counter. It was the guy who had been with Jack Delaney. The tough guy with dark straight hair Franklin believed was police, sure of it from the way the guy spoke. Franklin hurried and didn’t look back, hoping the guy didn’t see him. He didn’t want that guy to follow him over to the garage. He could have trouble with that one and he didn’t want to shoot anybody else. Though he would if he had to.
They waited in the front seat of Lucy’s car, both watching the square of daylight beyond the ramp. She said, “I might’ve mentioned it a few times before, but I don’t see what this is going to get us.”
“We’re making Roy happy,” Jack said. “He wakes up growling, but he has cop instincts. What seems to be, isn’t always the case. Or the other way around.”
“No one in his right mind is going to leave two million dollars in a car in a public garage. Even with the car locked.”
“I told him that.”
“Then we’ll have to get the keys back to them.”
“We won’t worry about that-we can throw ’em in the lobby. I always thought I was patient, but I don’t think I am.”
“I thought you were, too.”
“We’ll just get started and I’ll probably have to go to the bathroom. Once I was in a hotel room, guy and his wife lying there asleep, when all of a sudden I had to go. I hadn’t even picked up anything yet. I went all the way downstairs… But that was it, I was through for the night.” He touched the front of his jacket. “You know what I did? Left the gun under the seat of my car. I better get it.”
Lucy watched him open the door. “You won’t need it for a while, will you?” Her gaze moved back to the garage opening, the square of daylight, and she said, “Jack, there he is.”
Franklin came along the driveway past the first aisle of cars, past the second aisle of cars… He saw Jack Delaney’s old car, the door open, at the end of the next aisle and the woman’s blue car in the aisle behind it. He saw Jack Delaney appear then, rising next to his car, looking this way, and raising his hand. Franklin didn’t wave back to him. He turned into the aisle where the new cream-colored Mercedes was parked and walked toward it, not looking at Jack Delaney now, but knowing he wouldn’t have time to get in the car and drive off. Jack Delaney would be in front of the car. He didn’t want to hit him with the car, but he would do it rather than shoot him. He looked back again, quickly, and saw it would be difficult even if he tried. Jack Delaney was coming with a gun in his hand.
“Franklin-wait up!”
The guy had his flight bag in one hand and was unlocking the car door with the other. He had it open and was getting in by the time Jack reached him.
“Wait a minute, will you?”
Franklin hesitated and then came out, leaving the flight bag on the seat, raising his hands as high as his shoulders.
Jack pushed the door closed, out of the way. “Franklin, what’re you doing?”
“I was going.”
“With them? After what I told you?”
“No, not with them. I have to go be on the boat.”
“You’re stealing the guy’s car? What’re you gonna do with it?”
“Leave it there-I don’t know.”
“Wait a minute-what’d you tell those guys?”
“I told them I quit and said good-bye.”
“Yeah? And what’d they say?”
“Nothing.”
“Franklin, Jesus Christ…”
Lucy was coming. He could hear her leather sandals slapping on the cement, coming in a hurry. He glanced around. “Franklin’s gonna swipe their car. You believe it?”
“We haven’t met,” Lucy said, looking at Franklin as she came past Jack, between the Mercedes and the car parked next to it, offering Franklin her hand. He brought his hands down slowly and Lucy took one of them in both of hers. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Franklin. I had a friend who was Miskito we treated at Sagrada Familia. You know the hospital for lepers? He stayed with us a long time. His name was Armstrong Diego. Did you happen to know him?”
Jack watched Franklin shake his head. The guy seemed a little awed or surprised.
“Colonel Dagoberto Godoy’s men killed Diego,” Lucy said, “and some of the other patients, with machetes.”
“We’re standing here talking,” Jack said. “Franklin, what was the colonel doing?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean, nothing?”
“They laying there, that’s all.”
“All right, Franklin, is the money in the car?… You’re taking everything, aren’t you?” Franklin seemed more resigned than cornered. Jack watched him nod his head, twice. Just like that. Ask him a question, you got an answer. Jack said, “You are?” And saw him nod again, twice. “I have to give you credit, Franklin, you’re a pretty cool guy.” Jack brought up the Beretta and held it level with the man’s Creole Indian face. “Now you give us the keys. Hand ’em to Lucy.”