I leaned back against the wall, pretended to fiddle with my cell phone. When I saw a shadow appear at the other end of the hall, I turned to look at the guests that were coming.
I nearly dropped the phone when they came into view.
I recognized the first man immediately, and I dove for
Amanda just as Raymond Benjamin pulled a gun from his coat and opened fire.
I heard Amanda scream as bullets smashed into the wall above us. I thought we were safe, but then I heard another, deeper yell, turned to look, and saw Curt Sheffield on the ground, blood pouring from his leg.
"Curt!" I screamed.
I pushed Amanda toward the other end of the hall where an exit door was visible, and by that time Curt had taken the gun from his hip holster. Benjamin was reloading when Sheffield emptied three bullets into the hallway. Ray Benjamin managed to dive for cover, but two of the bullets struck his sidekick square in the chest.
The younger man went toppling backward, his back smacking against the wall, where he slid down, leaving a bloody smear.
Benjamin was gone. I heard footsteps running toward the elevators. He was getting away.
I knelt down by Curt. His hand was pressing down on the wound, hard, but blood was still seeping through his fingers.
"Benjamin," Curt said, the pain evident in his voice.
"Don't let the fucker get away."
Amanda appeared beside us. She'd taken off her fleece, then rolled it up and tied it around Curt's leg. He howled in pain as she pulled the loop together, trying to stem the flow of blood.
I looked at them both. Amanda had taken her cell phone out. She said, "I called 911. Make sure he doesn't hurt anybody else."
I nodded, then sprinted for the exit door. My pulse raced as I looked for the stairwell. A diagram of the floor plan was on the wall; the stairs were just to my left. I ran for them, banged the door open and hurtled down the stairs as fast as I could.
By the time I got to the first floor I was out of breath.
When I shoved open the stairwell door, I could hear panic in the lobby. Several people were screaming, a rolling cart was overturned and an elderly man looked to be unconscious. I ran toward the lobby exit, but then another thunderous gunshot exploded in the night, and I dove behind a marble wall for protection. I waited a minute, unsure of what to do, then took a few quick breaths and ran for the exit.
As I ran into the warm evening air, I heard a car's ignition turn on and a pair of brake lights come on at the other end of the parking lot. I ran for it, saw a dark BMW peeling backward. It backed up into a pool of light cast by a lamp, and I read the license plate numbers, punched them into my cell phone.
I couldn't chase Benjamin's car. The fight was over. I had to see how my friends were.
Just as I ran back into the lobby, the elevator door opened and out came Curt Sheffield, hobbling, leaning on
Amanda for support. The fleece was soaked through with blood. I heard sirens approaching from outside. I ran to
Curt.
"Christ, man, how is it?"
"I'll live," he said through gritted teeth. Then he took one hand from Amanda's shoulder and grabbed my shirt.
"The Reeds," he said. "They're gone."
"But we found this," Amanda said. She pulled a man's leather wallet from her pocket. "It was down at the other end of the hall, through a set of double doors. I thought I heard another noise, like several people running down the stairs. It's Robert Reed's. They must have been approach-274
Jason Pinter ing the room. He was going for his room key, then dropped it when he heard the gunshots. The key is still inside."
"I saw them," Curt said, the pain evident on his face.
"Damn it, if only I could run…"
Amanda helped him sit, kept pressure on his wound.
I took the wallet, opened it. The key card was nestled inside one of the slits inside. I went through the rest of it.
Credit cards. Driver's license. And a small slot for photos.
I opened it up. There was a picture inside that looked awfully familiar.
The shot was of a young boy. It was taken from behind, from a close distance. There was nothing special about the shot. The boy's face was turned away and he was in midstride.
I slipped the photo from the wallet and turned it over.
On the back of the photo was written one word.
Remember.
36
Curt had seen the Reeds approaching from the other end of the hallway. The family looked happy. Curt recognized
Robert from his driver's license photo. And when he saw that Robert was with a woman and two children, he knew for sure that this was the family we'd been searching for.
I confirmed with the hotel restaurant that the Reeds had finished a late supper just a few minutes earlier. Then they'd gone upstairs. They must have seen Curt lying outside their room, blood everywhere. That's when they'd run.
On the way to the hospital, Curt said they'd likely seen the body at the other end of the hall, as well. If so, they probably recognized the dead man. If they knew Raymond
Benjamin, chances were they'd met his flunky. And with all that death and blood, they must have known Ray
Benjamin had come for them.
We followed Curt to the Harrisburg hospital, the primary hub for all the medical centers in the Harrisburg area. They'd taken Curt right into surgery. Amanda and I sat in the waiting room as a doctor explained that the bullet had nicked his femoral artery. Luckily the bullet had missed severing the vessel by half a centimeter, other-276
Jason Pinter wise, he said, we'd be having an entirely different conversation.
I'd given the license plate number to the Harrisburg chief of police, a burly man named Hawley who had a look on his face that said as soon as they found Benjamin, the three of us would have hell to pay. An APB was put out on a dark BMW with New York plates, but an hour later the license plate was found abandoned in a gas station in
Bethlehem. Raymond Benjamin was gone.
Curt would be laid up for several days. Amanda and I slept in the hospital that night, occasionally shifted positions in the waiting room. Amanda waking up on top of me, then moving; me waking up leaning on her shoulder, not wanting to move.
When morning came and the doctors confirmed that
Curt was out of danger, we went in to see him.
Our friend was heavily sedated. His leg was swathed in bandages. We approached his bed, cautious, unsure if he could hear us or understand what happened.
As I got closer, I heard Curt whisper, "Henry."
"I'm here, buddy." I took Curt's hand in mine. Amanda stood beside me. I noticed her absently rubbing her hands on her jeans.
"The Reeds," he said. Curt swallowed, with some difficulty. Then he licked his lips. "The Reeds, man. They recognized Benjamin. They were scared."
I nodded, squeezed his hand.
"Find them," he said. "Now, get out of here before somebody else shoots me instead of you."
Amanda and I walked out of the hospital like two zombies who hadn't slept in weeks. Her eyes were bloodshot, her tank top caked with sweat and dirt. Her blouse was in some medical waste bin. Now she wore a gray sweatshirt, two sizes too large. The only thing that had survived the night physically and emotionally intact was our car.
We began the drive back to New York in silence.
Amanda turned on the radio. Found some talk station that neither of us listened to, but it at least punctured the quiet. When we saw a rest stop, we pulled in and got a few fast-food burgers for the road. We ate without talking, arrived in New York three hours later barely having said a word.
When we pulled onto the Harlem River Drive in Manhattan, I turned to Amanda.