‘What’s the deal with the second million he keeps asking about?’ Amanda said.
I shook my head; I was paranoid about a sticky microphone Krantz might have left behind. We ate cheese and bread and talked about World Wars One and Two, and then we finished our drinks and went outside where there would be only cheese-fed, native Wisconsin insects and not bugs imported from Chicago, made of plastic, batteries and bits of metal.
She touched my hand, questioning. ‘What happened to the other half of the two million we found at Second Securities?’
‘I held that half back to bargain with, in case I got double-crossed about where your father was,’ I said.
‘And now?’
‘Somebody’s owed something out of this,’ I said.
SEVENTY
The meds couldn’t put me to sleep that night. I eased onto my good side to read the bedside alarm clock. If it was close enough to dawn I’d quit struggling to sleep and get up to read about soups and wars and sleuthing Brits.
No red numerals shone from the top of the nightstand. The alarm clock had died.
I reached to switch on the lamp. The lamp didn’t work. The power to my room was out.
I found my phone. It was four-fifteen.
A moment after I laid back, I heard something click faintly, one-two, in fast succession, out in the hall – followed, after a delay, by a third, softer sound, a thud. Perhaps someone was out there, checking on the power. Then I remembered that there was no staff in the resort, except for the manager, and she’d likely be asleep in her rooms. It was the middle of the night.
There were no other guests, either, except for Amanda, probably also sound asleep.
And me, sleepless, with jitters that would jump at anything.
One-two; another pair of clicks came, followed again by the third sound, the soft thud.
I grabbed my crutches from the other side of the bed, and levered myself to stand. Moving had set the stitched bullet wound in my left arm and the torn ligaments in my legs to throbbing. I waited until I’d steadied and hobbled to the window.
The resort was dark. The entire building had lost power. No one was awake to notice.
Except for me.
Click-click; the new sounds seemed slightly louder now. Again, they were followed by a strange soft thud. I started toward the door.
The fourth pair of fast clicks came when I was still only halfway across. Definitely louder, definitely closer.
By the time I got to the door and pressed my ear against it, I was sweating like a man standing under a hot August sun. Fifth and sixth sets of noises had come, increasingly louder. By now I’d recognized them for what they were: doors were being unlocked with one of the big, square-cut metal keys. The first click was the sound of the lock bolt retracting, the second the sound of the bolt snapping forward after the door was opened. The soft thud following each delay was the sound of the door being gently closed.
Rooms were being searched.
‘Damned dumb, bored kids, looking for booze,’ the resort manager had called the intruders who’d broken in.
Damned dumb, bored kids didn’t search an empty resort, room by room, looking for booze.
I pressed my eye to the magnified peep-hole. A light flashed for an instant, out in the hall. Tiny prickles shot across my scalp as I understood. Someone was using a pencil beam flashlight to quickly scan the rooms.
A new pair of clicks came loud. And, after only a second, the thud.
He’d spotted my Jeep parked in the lot, broken in for food, and for sanctuary. Until everyone was asleep.
The next clicks came loudest of all. I could hear him through the wall. He’d opened the room next door. Too soon, the soft thud came. He’d closed the door.
I could hear him breathe, out in the hall.
I pressed against the wall, steadying, seeing the faint low shape of the bed – my unmade bed. In an instant’s flash of his light, he’d know I was there.
Metal scratched on my door. He’d slipped the master key into my lock.
I leaned one crutch against the wall, pressed back to brace myself, and raised the other crutch like a bat.
First click; the bolt retracted.
Second click; the bolt sprung back out. The door was opening.
His breathing was heavy, labored, not two feet from my face.
The pencil beam of light moved unsteadily, low across the carpet toward the bed.
The beam halted. He sucked in air. His flashlight had found my shoes, next to the bed.
The floor creaked as he stepped softly into the room.
SEVENTY-ONE
I swung my crutch like I was swinging for the moon, aiming high where I hoped was a head. I hit him with such force that the impact knocked the crutch out of my hands and slammed me back against the wall.
He shrieked, dropping his flashlight, but he didn’t go down. The black shape of him turned on me like a monster, stretching his arms out for me like giant bat wings. I pushed off from the wall and half charged, half fell onto him. We went down with me on top, beating at his face with my good right fist, once, twice, three times, until I connected with something small. It crunched. I’d caught his nose, shattered a bone.
Exhaling hard, whistling wet through his nose, he raised up his hands to flail at my head.
I had no strength; my body was on fire with pain. I had to get away. But his giant hands reached up and found my neck. I beat down at his smashed wet nose again. He pushed me off, rolled on to his side and then onto his belly, to get up, to kick at my head.
I clambered on his back, put a knee into the small of it, and grabbed the hair at the back of his head with my good right hand, to force him down on his chest.
He reared back to raise his knees to buck me off. I dropped my hands around him, down to the carpet to steady myself, and found aluminum with both hands. The crutch that had been knocked from my hands now lay perpendicular under his chest. Tugging at the crosswise crutch with both hands, I forced my knee deeper into his back. My gunshot arm and torn legs raged in pain. But to let up was to die.
He took in a great breath, raised his head and got his knees up, six, eight inches, contorting into the beginning of an arch, but it was no good. I had him pinned. He slammed down face flat on the carpet, except now the front of his neck lay on the crutch.
Pushing all my weight through my knee deep into the small of his back, I tugged the crutch hard up under his neck. Hot blood flooded down my left arm; my stitches had torn loose from my flesh.
His right hand fluttered up, weak, trying to loosen my grip.
‘Die, you son of a bitch,’ I heard myself scream to the body writhing beneath me. ‘Die!’
Something snapped loudly, wonderfully. The hand that had been flailing up to find me fell limp. I did not let up. I let the blood run hot down my left arm; I let my torn legs rage in pain. I tugged on both sides of the crutch until I could tug no more. And then I counted to a hundred.
Finally, I had nothing left. I fell off him and began to crawl out of my room. I could hear nothing but the frantic gasping of my own breathing.
At some point I tried to rise, at least up to my knees, to head down the hall, to find Amanda. Surely he’d found her first. But I had no strength. I slumped back to the floor and sort of rolled, kicked and crawled the dozen yards to the lobby.
There was a fire extinguisher mounted on the wall. And a fire alarm. I reached up and managed to pull the red handle down on the alarm.
Horns on, battery back-ups sounded down both halls. White lights flashed like lightning strikes.
I fell back; I could do no more.
‘Dek?’ Amanda’s voice sounded after a time, from far away. Her breath found my cheek, on the floor. ‘He’s here?’
She didn’t ask who; the blood running out of my torn left arm had already told her.
‘The Escalade,’ I managed to whisper. ‘Get us inside, lock the doors, drive us away.’