The noise from the street covered their approach. Wells loosened his jacket but left his pistol in his shoulder holster. He and Shafer were going in cold. They needed this guy alive. Wells reached 112 first, flattened himself against the wall, two big steps from the door. The window shade was drawn, the room silent and dark, lacking even the glow of a night-light.
Shafer stood fifty feet away. Wells counted five and nodded at him. Shafer walked noisily to the door, rapped his knuckles against its faded red paint. “Henry! ” he shouted. “That you, Henry?”
No response.
Shafer knocked again, harder. “Henry! Come out, you two-timing prick! ”
“Get lost!”a voice inside yelled back. Wells had heard it before but couldn’t place it.
Shafer hammered away like a woodpecker on meth. Inside, someone stood up and shuffled to the door. “I’m not Henry,” the voice said, more calmly now. “Please go away.”
“Henry! I’m gonna call the cops!”
The door opened a notch, still on the chain. “Henry’s not here.” The tip of a pistol poked through the gap between the door and the frame. “And you need to leave.”
“I am sorry,” Shafer said. “So, so sorry.” He raised his hands and stepped away.
The pistol disappeared and the door swung shut—
But even as Shafer backed off, Wells was moving. He rocketed forward, popped his shoulder into the door, carrying himself back to those crisp fall afternoons at Dartmouth. Two decades gone now. He’d been quick enough then to speed-rush from the outside, tearing past linemen and tight ends on his way to the quarterback. He wasn’t that fast anymore. But he was fast enough.
His shoulder hit the door and he felt the chain pull taut and then snap loose, the screws that held the fastener popping out of the wall. The door made solid contact with the man inside, and Wells got low and kept pumping his legs—never stop moving your legs, that’s where the power comes from, Coach Parker always said. The guy on the other side of the door grunted and went down, and Wells swung open the door and stepped in.
THE ROOM WAS DARK, illuminated only by the glow from the parking-lot lights outside. The man inside sprawled in the narrow aisle between the bed and the wooden chest of drawers that sat against the wall. Wells still couldn’t see his face. The man scrabbled back, groped for his pistol.
Wells leapt down on the man. As he landed, slamming chest against chest, he saw the face of his enemy.
Steve Callar.
Wells’s shock was so complete that for the first time in his life he dropped his guard during a fight. Callar took advantage. With his free hand, his left hand, he clubbed Wells twice. Wells sagged but held Callar’s right arm, the one that held the pistol. Callar heaved his body convulsively and tossed Wells off. They lay sideways beside each other, close enough for Wells to see every pore on Callar’s face, smell the sweet-sour whiskey on Callar’s breath. Then Callar rolled on top of Wells. Wells rolled with him, trying to use his momentum to flip Callar another one hundred eighty degrees and put him on his back. But the space between bed and dresser was too cramped and instead they got stuck side by side again.
Wells chopped at Callar’s face with his right forearm, the trick that had worked on Jim D’Angelo. But he didn’t have the momentum, and anyway Callar was fighting with a rage that Wells couldn’t match. Wells outweighed Callar by at least twenty pounds, all muscle, and yet Callar was giving him everything he could handle—
Before Wells could finish the thought, Callar twitched sideways and pushed his left leg between Wells’s legs and drove his knee into Wells’s testicles.
The agony was so enormous that Wells couldn’t move. Tears filled his eyes, and the air came out of his body. Somehow he kept his grip on Callar’s right arm as Callar tried to tug down the pistol. Callar grinned at him, a hard, crazy smile, and began to wrench his arm free. Wells was holding on with his left hand, his weak hand. His strength was ebbing. In a few seconds more, Callar would have him. Callar felt it, too. His grin widened.
Wells saw the opening.
He shifted his legs to block Callar from kneeing him again. And he hooked his right thumb into Callar’s mouth and pulled back Callar’s cheek. Callar’s face twisted and he snapped his jaws shut, trying to bite Wells’s thumb. But Wells pushed his thumb in farther and tugged until Callar’s cheek tore—
Callar screamed, a desperate bleat. He thrashed his legs and swung his head sideways and scratched at Wells’s face, long fingernails clawing into Wells’s face, as Wells pulled and Callar’s cheek tore further—
When he had done as much damage as he could, Wells pulled his thumb out of Callar’s mouth and made a fist and slammed it into Callar’s jaw, a miniature uppercut. He hit Callar once, twice, and a third time, and then shifted his grip to wrap his hand around Callar’s neck, Wells’s superior strength taking over now. He clenched Callar’s neck tighter, tighter. Callar’s face turned red and his eyes rolled up and foam mixed with the blood running from the corner of his mouth and—
THE LIGHTS FLIPPED ON, and someone pounded on Wells. Shafer.
“Don’t kill him, don’t, don’t.”
Wells rose to his knees and straddled Callar’s chest and relaxed his grip. Callar’s mouth opened, and the blood burbled out of his torn-up face. Wells and Shafer watched him breathe. Then Shafer grabbed the pistol from his limp right hand. Wells picked him up and put him on the bed. Shafer pulled two sets of cuffs from his jacket and locked Callar’s wrists together and then his ankles. The adrenaline evaporated from Wells, and he sagged against the wall.
“We need to go.”
“No,” Shafer said. “Rooms 111 and 113 are empty, and there’s no sirens.”
“That’s Steve Callar.”
“Yeah. I’ve seen his picture. He doesn’t look much like it now.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You should go in the bathroom, get yourself cleaned up.”
WELLS FLICKED ON the fluorescent lights and saw a berserker in the bathroom mirror. A thick, red trail of blood, maybe his own, maybe Callar’s, streaked down under his eye. Spit and phlegm covered his cheeks. Wells turned the tap and dabbed at his face until the wash-cloth was red. Traces of blood lingered, but he looked mostly human. He pulled down his jeans and boxers and winced as he touched his swollen testicles.
Shafer opened the bathroom door, holding a bottle of peroxide and a box of Band-Aids from the first-aid kit in the car. His jaw slipped open as he saw Wells poking at himself.
“Now’s really not the time, John.”
“Funny, Ellis.”
“Next time wear a cup.” Shafer tossed Wells the bottle and the Band-Aids, grabbed a towel, and left. Wells patched up his face as best he could and pulled his pants back up and walked shakily into the bedroom.
“He’s gonna need stitches,” Wells said.
“Stitches? You just gave him a new mouth. He’s gonna need a face transplant, like that French lady.” Shafer pressed at the bloody gash on Callar’s face with the towel.
“It’s not that bad.”
“Remind me never to get in a fight with you.”
“You need reminding of that?” Wells put a hand on Callar’s shoulder. “I still can’t see how he got to his wife.”
Callar groaned and stirred. Wells stepped away, drew his Glock, tried to keep his hand steady. Callar’s eyes blinked open. He poked his tongue though the hole in his face.
“You found me.”
“Saw you cruising the neighborhood,” Wells said.
“But you didn’t know it was me. Until you got here.”