Slaughter - Lutz John - Страница 58
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Eleanor glanced Samuel’s way and flashed a reassuring smile. Surely somewhere, sometime, she had been a cheerleader.
“That’s none of your business,” Samuel said. Feisty, but he could no longer disguise his growing fear. There was an off-key note here that he was beginning to hear but Eleanor hadn’t yet discerned.
She moved slightly toward Jordan, who smiled and said, “You ever hear of the Gremlin?”
“No. What is it?”
Jordan seemed surprised and miffed. He stared at her, noting with disgust that she was the taller of the two. “Don’t you watch the news?”
“No. I don’t have time for that crap. It’s all lies, anyway.” She stood more erectly and spread her legs so the sheet was stretched taut between her thighs and emphasized her figure. “The Gremlin . . . Didn’t that used to be a car or something? Or wait a second—that building in Russia?”
“Your first guess was right,” Jordan said.
“Anybody’d buy a car called a Gremlin would have to think it was guaranteed to give them trouble. They should have stayed with Jaguar or Rolls.”
“You think your money can buy you out of any kind of trouble, don’t you?” Jordan said.
Eleanor sneered. “Matter of fact, I do. My family has attorneys that will drain you like a sun-dried tomato. Not like your pro bono public defenders, you miserable little pissant.”
Uh-oh! The discord was out in the open where everyone might hear and see it.
Samuel said, “Eleanor . . . please!” He could feel his heart hammering.
Jordan had had enough of this. Had really had enough.
He went into the bedroom and returned with a pillow. In his right hand was a small .25 caliber Ruger handgun. He wrapped the pillow around the gun, pointed it at Eleanor, and said, “By God, girl, you’ve got spirit.” It was a line he remembered from an old movie. Or close enough, anyway.
She stiffened her spine and stared down her nose at him. “You better believe I’ve got spirit. Enough that—”
He squeezed the trigger.
The shot from such a small gun was muffled by the pillow and didn’t make much noise, but feathers from the pillow flew.
Eleanor looked startled, then plucked one of the pillow feathers from the air, stared down at it where it was held loosely in her hand, and said, “This is real goose down. This is a good hotel.”
She closed her eyes and fell.
Jordan looked over and saw Samuel standing rooted to the spot. He saw that the front and one leg of Samuel’s pants were stained where he had relieved himself. Walking close, careful where he stepped so he wouldn’t get a shoe wet, Jordan used the gun and pillow again, placing the bullet perfectly between Samuel’s eyebrows.
It was a hell of a shot, considering the pillow tended to spoil your aim.
Jasmine was standing stunned, her mouth hanging open. Then she looked around as if coming out of a trance, saw all the goose down in the air, and began a crazy, cackling laughter, catching and releasing the feathers, repeating, “My God, it’s snowing! It’s snowing!”
She fixed her wild stare on Jordan. “I know what you’re going to do, you bastard! It’s monstrous!”
How could she know? Guessing? She must be guessing.
“Isn’t it?” Jordan said.
“Monstrous!” she repeated.
He shot her twice just behind her left ear and she dropped straight down to her knees and sat with her legs folded back and her feet pointing in opposite directions. It was probably the way she had sat as a little girl.
Jordan glanced around, waiting for his breathing to level out. The strange thrashing, beating sound rose up around him. Like the earth was vibrating. He fought it back. Everything was under control. If he kept to his plan, things would turn out all right. He kept telling himself that. Repeating it. Believing it more each time.
Calm. That was what he could do better than anyone. Stay calm.
God, his breathing was loud!
He’d known he had to kill Jasmine. He’d had no choice. If two people held a secret it was no longer a secret. And if ever a secret called for solitary possession, it was the one he held so close. When he chose to loose it into the world, there would be storms that had nothing to do with weather, tectonic shifts that had nothing to do with earthquakes.
He slid the gun into his pocket and went into the bathroom, where he brushed and picked the snow-like goose down from his hair and clothes. Then he used a washcloth to wipe his fingerprints from the few places he’d touched.
He put on rubber gloves and went to the living room to get the backpack he’d brought with him. All the implements he’d need were in there, along with a tourist guide to New York
No one seemed to give Jordan a second look as he left the hotel and strode out into the sunshine, wearing Foster Grant sunglasses and carrying his backpack slung by a strap over his right shoulder. He had no remorse. Just as he’d had no recourse.
He’d done fine. He was sure of it. Believed it more with every step away from the carnage. Planned well enough, and executed with speed and conviction, there had been no doubt of the outcome. And when the unexpected had occurred, he’d done what was necessary.
He was safe now, and no doubt about it. Certainly safer than before. That was undeniable. Hell, it was mathematical.
Two people plus one secret equaled no secret.
Even if one of them, like Ethan Ellis, was bound tightly in the web of his past.
71
New York, the present
Pearl supposedly lay in the bed of the woman who’d only visited death. Supposedly because Quinn had invented that woman. The various plastic tubing and wires attached to her were mostly affixed by tape. The electrodes dotting her body sent no signals. At least, none that meant anything.
Nancy Weaver was in similar condition in the adjoining room. Leading to that room were folding doors that could be cast aside to allow full access and create one large room. The Gremlin would be stopped before he could pull a trigger. Probably he would be tackled and cuffed even before he could remove a gun from his belt or his ankle holster.
Probably, Quinn thought, the Gremlin would try to use a weapon with a silencer.
That was the polite thing to do, considering there was staff along with genuine patients in the recovery center. It was one of those medical facilities pretending to be hospitals yet at the same time managing a kind of homeyness that belied the truths of illness and death. There was a small library, a game room, a conversation room, and a dining room for those on the meals plan. There wasn’t much conversation about the occasional empty chair.
A lot of life, Quinn decided, was the art of pretending. That way lay a lesser madness, but a madness nonetheless.
Alone in her half of the adjoining rooms, Pearl glanced around, fixing objects in her mind—the various equipment rolled near the bed or mounted on the wall by the headboard, monitoring, softly beeping. The partitioned-off part of the double room where the other bed was concealed. There was a visitors’ easy chair. Another, smaller wooden chair, and a steel rack on wheels. Pearl glanced toward her wristwatch lying on the metal tray table next to her bed. There were also a green plastic pitcher and a matching cup on the tray. Pearl felt like taking a drink, then decided against it. She might disturb some of the tubing and wires that were only loosely fastened to her.
The idea was to trick the Gremlin into snatching Pearl; he would suspect Quinn of replacing the once dead, now living woman—only to find to his surprise and delight that he had instead what he really wanted the most. Given the not completely unexpected opportunity, he would take Pearl.
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