“You have a dog, kid?”
“No, ma'am.”
“Jesus. What's with you fucking fuzz? Ma'am, ma'am, ma'am.”
“Sorry.”
“Your partner? Slezak?”
“Ceepak.”
“Yeah. Ceepak. He seems like a good man. Decent.”
“Yes. He does.”
He sure seems that way.
You ever talk to a bag lady for fifteen minutes? It's totally random. A barrel of laughs.
Gladys tells me all about Karl Marx and the redistribution of wealth and how Henry will always have the Milkbones he needs provided he contributes to society to the best of his ability.
Then she gets into some guy named Friedrich Nietzsche and says his tendency to seek explanations for commonly accepted values in the less-elevated realms of animal instinct was crucial to Sigmund Freud's development of psychoanalysis.
I nod and say “Is that so?” a lot.
All the time, I keep waiting to hear the rifle shot, the snap-pop report, but I guess I won't because Ceepak screwed on that silencer.
He's been up in Room 215 a long time.
I'm sure he's interrogating Squeegee, pumping him for information about Ashley. If he gets what he needs, will he still pump a bullet into the guy? I hope not. But I keep thinking about a certain pedophile chaplain in Germany who, as far as I know, nobody ever heard from again.
And why does Ceepak need a sniper rifle?
If his animal instinct is telling him Jerry Shapiro, a.k.a. Squeegee, needs to die, why doesn't he just use his pistol? The rifle with the sniper scope seems kind of dramatic. Seems like overkill. But maybe he forgot to pack a silencer for the pistol. Maybe a pistol silencer is the one thing he doesn't have in his cargo-pants pockets.
“Danny?”
Ceepak is on the staircase behind me. He's holding the rifle at his side.
I sniff the air, searching for “transient evidence,” just like he taught me to. The air reeks of gunpowder.
“Jesus!”
Gladys sees the rifle.
“What did you fucking do?’
“Ma’am, you need to leave here. Now.”
“What did you fucking do, you fucking liar?”
“You need to take your dog, find any of your friends who may be habitating here with you in the hotel, you need to find them and tell them all to leave. You have ten minutes.”
“Where's Jerry?” She lurches toward the staircase. Ceepak holds up his hand and stops her.
“Ma’am, you do not want to go upstairs. You want to vacate these premises.”
“You motherfucking …”
“Ma’am, like I said-you need to take your dog, find your friends, and evacuate this location. You need to do so immediately.”
Ceepak checks his watch.
“You now have nine minutes and thirty seconds.”
Gladys is crying. I can see the tears clearing a white path down her dirty cheeks.
“You lied to me … gave me your fucking word….”
Ceepak doesn't say anything.
“You goddamn motherfucking son-of-a-bitch liar!”
Gladys tugs her twine leash and Henry stands up.
Her shoulders are shaking as she drags Henry toward the front. When she steps outside, she hesitates, thinks about coming back in to drag her friend's dead body out of the room upstairs.
“You have nine minutes,” Ceepak shouts.
“Motherfucking fuzz!”
Henry snarls.
The two of them run and disappear into the darkness.
I turn to Ceepak.
“Did you?”
“Danny? Don't make me say things I'd rather not say.”
I've never seen Ceepak look so intense. Veins pop out of his arms. His eyes dilate. It's as if he's possessed of some unnatural energy.
Guess killing a man gives a guy a rush.
“Don't force me to tell you a lie,” he says.
“You mean another one?”
Ceepak just lets it hang there.
He steps off the staircase and leans the rifle against the railing and pulls out his pistol. He checks the clip, slides off the safety.
He points it to the floor and fires.
The explosion rings in my ears.
“Listen up!” Ceepak shouts. “If you can hear me, you need to leave here immediately. It is not safe for you to remain in this location. Repeat-it is not safe to remain here! You have eight minutes!”
He puts his gun back in his holster.
“We need to leave.”
“Yes, sir.”
I am so quitting this job.
It sucks.
Ceepak sucks.
“Danny?”
“What?”
Now there's some kind of sadness in his eyes. Like he wants to explain something but he can't.
“Do you know where the old train depot is?”
“Yeah.”
“We need to go there. Immediately. To release Ashley.”
“He confessed?”
“He told me where we could find Ashley.”
Ceepak stalks across the lobby. I follow him because, at the moment, I don't know what else to do.
We negotiate our way across the crumbling parking lot and climb into the Ford. I feel like creamed shit on toast. My muscles ache, my joints creak, I feel like I'm somebody's grandmother with arthritis. I need a beer.
Ceepak takes the walkie-talkie off his belt and motions for me to drive away from the hotel.
“We need to relocate to a more secure position or we run the risk of becoming collateral damage,” he says. He's in that cold, military-speak mode. Sort of numbs you to the horror of what you're actually doing if you use big words to describe it.
Ceepak radios headquarters.
“This is Ceepak for Cosgrove.”
I start up the engine. Ceepak points to the abandoned Ship John lighthouse, like I should drive over there. I'm on autopilot, so I head in that direction.
“Ceepak for Cosgrove. Ceepak for Cosgrove.”
“This is Cosgrove, go.”
“Implement the mobilization plan.”
“You found her?”
“We have high-probability intelligence on her location.”
“Where? Where did the bastard stash her?”
“The old Pennsylvania Depot up here at the north end. She is detained in the baggage room. Request an ambulance and all available backup.”
“Do you have the perp in custody?”
The Ford rocks. I hear something bang the rear window like a sonic boom from a low-flying 747. I check my mirror.
The Palace Hotel has just exploded.
“Repeat-did you apprehend the perpetrator?”
“Negative. We encountered an unanticipated snag.”
A snag?
“It seems the hotel was wired to blow.”
“What?”
“Implosion. I suspect Mendez. Demolition and arson are his areas of expertise. I sense he went overboard. C-4 plastic explosives coupled with strategically placed petrol canisters. Like dropping a stick of dynamite down a gas pump. The hotel has collapsed and is on fire. Request immediate fire department support.”
“Are you guys okay? You and Boyle?”
“Affirmative. We were able to vacate the building two steps ahead of the fire.”
“So Squeegee is dead?”
Ceepak waits a second before he responds.
“I did not see him exit the building. Copy?”
“Roger. Copy.”
I figure he's got a plan. This is how you hide the bullet when you gun down your suspect instead of arresting him. You set off the C-4 and gasoline you were lucky to find all wired and ready to blow. You burn down the whole building so everything melts. You cremate the body in a towering inferno, which then turns into a pile of rubble. It's messy, but it works.
“Grab the girl!” the chief growls. “We'll meet you up at the depot!”
“Roger that. And chief?”
“Yeah?”
“Alert Ashley's mother to our situation. Be best if you did so immediately. Her daughter is safe. It's all good.”
“Will do. I'll tell her you kept your word!”
There are some more explosions behind us. The fire must've found extra gas cans.
“Request second alarm on fire department response….”
“Will do. Ceepak?”
“Yes sir?”