After he pulled the cane out of the hole in the wall, Hardie shook it free of plaster dust as he walked back around to the bathroom. He kicked in the door, crouched down, recovered the gun, slid it into the back of his trousers. Then he picked up Gedney, who was dazed and bleeding, and slowly dragged him across the carpet.
Gedney woke up to find his face pressed up against the cool glass of the window in his room. His eyes rolled down, saw bustling Union Square below.
“Where’s Abrams?”
“You won’t do this,” Gedney said. “You won’t put me through this window.”
“Oh, I won’t?” Hardie asked, keeping his grip firm against Gedney’s back, supporting both of them with his one good leg. The gun he kept pressed against Gedney’s head.
“That’s Powell Street directly below us. Too many people down there. Throw me out the window and I’ll be taking innocent lives with me.”
“You’re assuming I’m going to push you. Maybe I’ll just blow your head off.”
“You would have already done it. You want something from me, don’t you? Information. Or maybe a deal. Isn’t that right, Mr. Hardie? You’re a bruiser but you’re not a stupid man.”
Hardie thought about this.
“Good point. Let’s go for a walk, then. You’re not going to give me any trouble, will you? I don’t think you’re stupid, either.”
“But why go anywhere? We can talk right here. No eavesdropping. The walls are soundproofed.”
“Unh-unh. I’ve got a special place in mind.”
With the gun pressed against the base of his spine, Gedney was forced into the hallway. Again Hardie marveled at how huge the spaces were in this old hotel. You could fit entire rooms in the hallways. Then again, maybe they just seemed wide because he’d been cooped up inside a mildewy cell under Alcatraz for Christ knows how long.
“We really should have stayed in the room,” Gedney said, and right away Hardie pushed him forward, making him walk faster and faster until he was in a light jog and nervously turning his head backward, trying to find Hardie’s eyes and muttering, “What you are doing?” but Hardie just kept pushing him faster and faster until they were actually running, Hardie’s left knee screaming like you wouldn’t believe. But it didn’t matter, because this was a short run, ending when they reached the bank of picture windows and Hardie threw Gedney’s body through the glass.
And just before that moment, Hardie whispered: “Bobby Marchione says hello.”
Gedney’s screaming, twisting body fell at least ten stories down to the roof of the structure that connected the old St. Francis Hotel to its new wing.
No innocent people down there.
On the roof.
Hardie didn’t need any information from Gedney after all. Hardie had picked up the man’s smartphone, checked the address book. Abrams had five addresses. All L.A.
Maybe Doyle would help him pinpoint the correct one.
30
It’s an odd thing, but anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco.
—Oscar Wilde
HARDIE RAPPED THREE times on the metal door of the garage. Some stooge in a jumpsuit answered. Before the door was even half opened Hardie jammed the tip of his cane into the man’s ample belly and gave the button a squeeze. The stooge’s eyes rolled back in his head; the stooge went down. Pressing his cane to the ground, Hardie slid himself in through the open doorway, kicked the door shut behind him.
Two other guys in jumpsuits were already up and yelling and racing toward Hardie. One of them had a tire iron. The other, a gun. Hardie spun himself around, leaned against the nearest car.
Reached into his jacket pocket, where he kept the gun.
But the guy with the tire iron reached Hardie first, which is probably why his partner with the gun hesitated. No need to waste a bullet on an intruder when you could just cave in his head with a piece of metal. They hadn’t seen what had happened to their buddy; they assumed this was just some crazy old geezer with a cane.
Hardie lifted his cane. The jumpsuit smacked it to the side with his tire iron. Hardie felt the shock of the blow all the way up his arm, across his shoulder, and down into his chest. The tire iron went up, and then began its swift descent toward Hardie’s face. Hardie let himself drop down to his ass and grunt as he swung the cane back around. The tire iron struck the car so hard it created tiny white sparks. Hardie thrust the cane up under the guy’s ribs, hoping there had been enough time for the damned thing to recharge. He thumbed the button and—
CLICK
Nothing.
The guy lifted the iron again. Hardie used his free hand to reach into his jacket pocket.
BLAM
The guy was flying backward into the side of another vehicle.
The third guy, the one with the gun, screamed, took aim, fired.
Almost at the same time, Hardie twisted the gun around in his jacket and fired again.
The first bullet went SPACK into the car.
The second bullet ripped through Hardie’s jacket and sliced through the third guy’s stomach.
He moaned, dropped to the floor.
Hardie removed the warm gun from his jacket, aimed, and gave the third another one in the head, then turned his attention to the second guy in the jumpsuit and shot him in the head, too.
As soon as Hardie struggled up from the floor, a man in a pair of greasy overalls came bursting into the room, cursing about all the noise. Hardie nearly shot him in the head until he recognized him as Doyle, the second lawyer.
Doyle looked down and saw the bodies, then Hardie. Recognition washed over his face.
“You.”
Hardie raised the gun an inch. “Don’t move.”
Doyle moved like he was on fire.
Shit.
What was it with these lawyers bolting like jackrabbits? Did they all run track in their spare time?
But he couldn’t risk shooting and accidentally killing the son of a bitch.
Not before he talked about Abrams.
Hardie hurled himself toward Doyle, limping as fast he could. He ended up catching him and bodychecking him into a table. Doyle’s hands reached out wildly for the closest sharp tool or blunt object. There was no time to fuck around. Hardie put the cane under Doyle’s neck and pulled back hard, as if doing a barbell pull-up. Doyle’s cry was choked out immediately. But then he shifted his body weight back onto Hardie. No cane, no support. Hardie’s right leg tried to support the weight, but it was too much. It shook wildly before giving out. Both men tumbled to the floor, Hardie hanging on to his cane as if it were the only thing preventing him from a sixty-story drop to a hard sidewalk.
“Where’s Abrams?”
“Eat me.”
“Which address in L.A.? Tell me and you’ll live.”
“Eat your mother.”
The contact file on Gedney’s phone had five L.A. addresses. House in Holmby Hills. House along the Venice Canals. Office in Century City. Some building in Arcadia, California. Some other building in Thousand Oaks, California. So which one would it be? The revenge clock was ticking.
And only Doyle knew the magic answer.
Hardie briefly considered running through the addresses one by one, but he expected Doyle to say pretty much the same thing. Shame he couldn’t have hung out with Bobby a little while longer in that hellhole. Hardie was sure the man would have had some fantastic interrogation tips to share. So instead he settled for choking Doyle with the cane until he passed out. There was a certain finesse to doing such a thing. You want them out, but not out forever.
After he was sure Doyle was unconscious, Hardie relaxed his grip and rolled away. He was exhausted down to the marrow in his bones. He couldn’t remember feeling so tired. Old Man Hardie.