One of them shook her head and said, "I don't know anything about that," but the other one said, "That was at the St. Andrews. I saw them all coming out when I was coming to work."
"What time was that?"
"One o'clock…"
Lucas, Shrake, and Larkin jogged toward the white limestone structure at the other end of the block, Larkin and Shrake chatting now, Lucas feeling that they just didn't believe, but he felt the impatience pushing him, a hand in his back, and halfway up the block he stepped up the pace. The St. Andrews was a new hotel, less than four years old, but modeled on the St. Paul, with a similar rose garden in the front. A Toyota Sienna was parked in the drive. Lucas detoured around the garden, leading the other two by fifteen feet as he came up to the double front doors.
The lights were down in the hotel lobby; he could see lots of marble, plush red carpet, wood paneling, and gold paint. To one side, a single woman stood behind the check-in desk, doing nothing, and Lucas felt a tingle.
Shrake and Larkin came up and Lucas said, "She looks like a fuckin' cigar store Indian. Get your hands on your guns ' ready…"
They went in all at once, Lucas at the point, and six feet inside the doors, Lucas saw a second woman, this one in a gray suit with an odd face, something wrong here, and he dropped his gun hand to his side and suddenly the woman behind the desk dropped out of sight and the suit-woman lifted her hand and at the same time screamed, "Cops," and opened fire, flashes like firecrackers on the Fourth of July, and Lucas went down and rolled right and windows shattered and furniture exploded; he heard somebody screaming and he kept rolling and rolling and then somebody opened up with a machine gun '
Chapter 25
Cruz recognized the big dark-haired cop as soon as he came through the door-recognized him from the press conference. Didn't know how they'd broken it down, but here they were. She saw Ann hit the floor and she screamed, "Cops," and pulled the little pistol and opened fire. She wasn't a good shot, and hardly knew what she was doing, but bullets are bullets and she put as many as she had in the air, the cops scattered and then Lane was there, his mask still up his face, with the Uzi, and he burned through a clip and then Cohn was there, shouting at them, and they broke toward the back of the building, and Cruz registered the fact that Lane was carrying the tool bag: now the jewel bag.
They turned a corner in the hallway and at the far end of the hall, a cop was crouching in the doorway, and hesitated, and Lane fired a one-handed burst at him and the cop went backward-Cruz had the impression that he was scrambling, not hurt-into the street, and they ran down the hall and now Cohn was firing backward, back where the original cops were from, and they reached the stairway to the skyway.
Lucas rolled and rolled and the couches and the chairs in the big reception area were useless as cover and so he kept scrambling and the bullets coming in were way too high. Then stopped. In the sudden silence, he heard Shrake screaming at him, "They're moving, they're moving."
The only place they could move to would be down the hall behind them and Lucas had rolled far enough to the side that he was out of their line of fire, and he rolled to his feet and let his.45 lead him toward the hallway. From the mouth of the hallway he peeked down its length, saw nothing, and then Shrake was coming up from the side and Lucas shouted, "How bad are you hit?" and Shrake shouted, "I'm okay," and Lucas shouted, "You've got blood running down your face," and Shrake brushed at it and said, "I'm okay, it's glass, a glass cut." Lucas shouted, "What about Larkin?" and Shrake shouted back, "He's okay, he's got some glass cuts, he's okay, he's trying to get people into the skyway."
Lucas shouted, "I'm going down the hall," and Shrake shouted, "Go," and Lucas went, saw the stunned face of the clerk behind the reception desk, saw the shambles of the strong room through the door, passed it, did a peek at the corner and saw a tall man in a dark suit all the way at the end of a long hall, at the foot of a red-carpeted stairs, and the man saw him and fired three or four shots that zinged off the wall, and Lucas was about to peek again when a man called to him from a side room, "Help us, we've got a dead man here," and
Lucas saw a dry country face close to the floor, a man on his hands and knees under a gold plaque that said "Nondenominational Chapel," and he said, "Help's coming," and he did another peek, saw a clear hallway, and launched himself into it.
Shrake came up and shouted, "Where'd they go?" and Lucas shouted back, "Up the stairs." He stepped into the hallway and there were two quick gunshots from the open ground-level door and two bullets smashed plaster off a pilaster next to his head and he went down and somebody from the doorway shouted, "Police!" and Shrake screamed, "Hey-hey-hey-hey we're police, police here, for Christ's sakes," and then Larkin came up and waved his hat around the corner, and then out with his hands up, and they heard more shouting outside.
A uniformed cop came in, his face white and scared, clutching his gun like a hammer, and he shouted, "You got them?"
Lucas shouted back, "They went up, they're in the skyway," and they heard another gust of shots from up above, and Lucas and Shrake ran up the stairs, following their pistols.
Cohn, Cruz, and Lane made the top of the stairs, breathing hard, paused in a niche of a wall. Lane slapped another magazine into his Uzi and Cohn asked Cruz, "Where'd they come from?" and she said, "I don't know-but it's the same guy we saw on television. The big dark-haired guy."
"Okay." Cohn looked both ways. "We got a fifty-yard run to the parking garage. If they're in the garage, we go down the side stairs and out the side and go for the street car."
"They won't let any cars out of the garage," Cruz said. "I think we gotta go for the street car. Right into the ramp, then down the stairs. That'll bring us out on…"
"We know. Let's go."
They ran then, sprinting, Lane still carrying the bag, but he heard clinking sounds as he went, and looked back and saw a trail of gold bars, like Hansel's bread crumbs '
They ran through the glass tunnel of the skyway, across a street; as they were coming to the entrance, a cop opened the door and stepped into the skyway, saw them, ducked back as Lane let loose another volley with the Uzi, and then they were at the entrance and they could hear the cop running down the stairs that led to the street-the stairs they were going to take.
"We go down the entrance ramp, the car ramp," Cruz gasped out.
They were at the ramp when the big dark-haired cop popped through the door behind them, fired a shot, and Cruz felt it hit her in the small of the back, felt a ripping wound at her stomach, and she went down and gurgled, "I'm hit'"
Lane fired a burst from the Uzi over her head, and then ran on down the ramp. Cohn was ahead of her, fifteen feet away and lower, already going down the ramp, and she saw him lift his gun, thought he was shooting at the cop. She never saw the muzzle flash.
Cohn shot her in the forehead and followed Lane down the ramp.
Wherever they were, they'd left the skyway-Lucas and Shrake could see sixty or seventy yards of it, and it was empty. "Parking garage," Lucas said. Shrake shouted at Larkin, who was coming up behind with his radio: "They're in the parking garage, the Clayton Ramp, get your guys outside…"
"There's gold bars," Larkin gasped. "There's little gold bars all over the place…"
Lucas ran toward the door, waited until Shrake caught him, then Shrake yanked the door and Lucas, ready to fire, saw the three of them just disappearing down the parking ramp and fired once, twice, and saw one of them go down. Another one opened with the Uzi and they both dodged back into the hall, behind the concrete blocks, and the slugs banged off the door and went God-knows-where, but neither one of them was hurt.