Besides, we'd already met back at Bethesda Terrace. He'd been a split second away from killing me until Owen intervened. But Owen wasn't here to tackle him. It was up to me.</ol>
I lunged for him. It was like trying to dive in one of those birthday bouncy houses, my feet all but giving out underneath me. The best I could do was wrap up his legs and send him toppling over, but his hand was still on his holster.
My guns were in my duffel somewhere. His gun was at his fingertips.
Blindly, I reached for the nearest trash bag, swinging it across my body into his as hard as I could. The gun went flying as he fell back into the pile of garbage, his head banging against the steel wall of the Dumpster with a horrific crack! He should've been knocked out cold.
Instead, he was just getting warmed up.
Screw the gun, said his grin. He'd find it later after he beat me to death with his bare hands.
I didn't even see the first punch, a lightning-fast roundhouse. He hit me high up on the jaw, a bull's-eye to the molars. The only thing that kept me upright was the second punch, a roundhouse to the other side of my head. That one split my lip, the blood spraying everywhere like an exploding packet of ketchup.
His smile grew wider as I fell to my knees. I was practically teed up for him, about to be lights-out. We both knew it. The only thing delaying the inevitable was the one thing he wanted to know. He dangled the question as if it were my salvation, the only way he'd spare me.
"Where is he?" he asked. "Where's the kid?"
I was dizzy, nauseous. My vision was quickly narrowing, blurred and fuzzy around the perimeter. That was why I didn't see it at first, even though it was only a few feet to the left. My duffel.
The chain of the zipper was catching just enough light from the naked bulb overhead. The pull tab was on the near side, within arm's reach. How fast do I need to be? Can I distract him?
The answer came suddenly with the piercing hiss of hydraulic pistons as the trash began to rumble all around us. It wasn't exactly divine intervention, but I wasn't complaining. This wasn't your ordinary Dumpster. It was also a compactor-clearly triggered by weight-and it was about to do its job.
For one second, he took his eyes off me. It was like a reflex hammer to the knee. He couldn't help it. He had to see what the hell was happening … that yes, the wall was closing in behind him.
And that was all I needed. Just one quick second.
Zip.
CHAPTER 46
MY HAND dove into the duffel, feeling for the first piece of metal I could find. I pulled out the Glock as he turned back around.
Surprise, buddy. The wall's closing in from this side, too.
I squeezed off two rounds right to his chest, his body thrashing as if he'd just been jolted with electric paddles.
He wasn't the only one shaking, though. I'd never shot anyone before. The feeling was otherworldly, and not in the good way.
Trying to hold it together, I stood over him. His eyes were closed, his body motionless. The only thing missing was the coffin.
Still, something wasn't right. There's something else missing.
There should've been blood-lots and lots of it-staining his white shirt. The moment he opened his eyes was the moment I realized why there wasn't any. He was wearing a vest.
The shots were still echoing in the Dumpster as the hydraulics of the compactor suddenly hissed to a stop. Another sound, someone's voice, immediately filled the silence.
"Gordon!"
He now had a name. We both looked up at the chute. Gordon's partner was calling down to him. He'd undoubtedly heard the gunfire.
With my Glock pointed at Gordon's head, I raised a finger to my lips. Don't answer. I needed a moment to think, not that I really had one.
"Gordon!" came the voice again, even louder.
The only thing I knew for sure was that I didn't want his partner coming down for a visit.
"Tell him you'll be right up," I said.
Just in case Gordon had thoughts of his own, I tightened my grip on the Glock. As nervous as I must have looked, I'd already pulled the trigger twice.
What Gordon wouldn't have given to know where he'd dropped his gun.
He coughed, his face contorting with pain. The vest had stopped the shots, but the wind had been knocked clear out of him. He was struggling to catch his breath.
"All good," he finally yelled. "I'll be up in a minute."
I didn't look away, not for a second, as I leaned down to pick up the duffel with my free hand.
"You have a badge?" I asked, only to see him shake his head. "How about a wallet?"
"No."
Strange thing was, I believed him. In his line of work you don't really carry ID around with you. In any event, I wasn't about to risk searching him.
"I should kill you," I said.</ol>
"But you won't."
He was right. Shooting a man in self-defense was one thing. Shooting him in cold blood was something else entirely. Something I wasn't.
"Who's behind all this?" I asked. "Who wants the kid dead?"
He just stared at me. If he knew, he wasn't telling. Where had I seen that before?
Would I really be bothered by the moral implications of an injection that could make him tell me what I wanted to know? Nothing is ever black and white.
Not even the truth.
CHAPTER 47
"REAL SLOWLY," I said, "I want you to pull up your right pant leg."
If I was ever going to leave that Dumpster alive, I couldn't risk his having a second gun. He pulled up his pant leg to show me there was no shin holster.
"Now your left one," I said.
No shin holster there, either.
"Satisfied?" he asked.
"Not yet," I said. "I want you to tie your shoelaces together."
I was expecting him to give me a look that said You've got to be kidding me. Instead he just said no.
"No?"
"That's right," he said. "No."
But it was the way he said it. Cocksure. As if he'd suddenly regained all the leverage. Really?
I knew exactly what he was thinking. Forget the shoelaces, if I couldn't kill him, the only things about to be tied were my hands.
"Fine," I said.
But it was the way I said it. And had he been paying a bit more attention, he would've stopped smiling well before I lowered my aim and fired one shot into his right foot.
"Motherfucker!" he screamed as the dime-sized hole in his black wing tip gurgled blood like a garden hose.
He grabbed his foot and I grabbed the side of the Dumpster, climbing out with my duffel. I walked straight out the basement door to the back of my building, through the alley, and onto the sidewalk. As soon as I turned the corner, I hailed a cab.
Only after telling the driver the address did I lean back in the seat and think about what I'd done, or more to the point, how I hadn't thought twice about doing it.
Most people will live their entire lives believing they know exactly who they are and what they're capable of. But that's only because most people will never have to find out for real.
I ran my tongue over my split lip, tasting the warmth and slight saltiness of my own blood.
This was for real, all right. As real as it gets.
CHAPTER 48
"JESUS CHRIST, what happened?" asked Owen as he opened the door.
"Oh, nothing really," I said. "I just beat up a fist with my face, that's all."
He leaned toward me for a closer look. The closer he got, the more he winced. "I'll go get some ice."
He backtracked to grab the ice bucket near the television and headed off down the hallway while I put down my duffel and made a quick turn into the bathroom. I opened one eye slowly to the mirror. The other eye was already swollen shut. Cut me, Mick … .
I washed off all the blood and gave the hand towels a proper burial in the garbage pail below the sink. Housekeeping could put them on our tab, because there wasn't enough bleach in the world to bring those puppies back to white.
That got me wondering as Owen returned with a full ice bucket. I just wanted to make sure.
"You didn't check in under Winston Smith again, did you?"
"Of course not," he said. "Care to guess, though?"
I wasn't really in the mood. Then again, I was the one who'd brought it up. "Fine," I said. "I'll take Fake Names for five hundred."
Turns out, the kid did a pretty decent impression of Alex Trebek. "Eric Arthur Blair," he said.
I stared at him blankly with my one good eye. I had no clue.
"What is George Orwell's real name?" he answered.
Of course. The kid was as consistent as he was clever. That might have explained why he'd chosen to hide out in another hotel, this time in two adjoining rooms at the Stonington down in Chelsea. Frankly, though, I didn't know which genius to believe.
On the one hand was Albert Einstein's definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
On the other hand was Owen channeling the Fodor's travel guide to Manhattan. "There are over two hundred fifty hotels in this city, totaling over seventy thousand rooms," he informed me. "As long as you weren't followed here, I think we're good."
He looked at me, cocking an eyebrow. That was my cue to assure him that no, I hadn't been followed to the hotel.
"Besides," he added, "we're both in desperate need of some sleep, as well as showers." He sniffed the air around me. "And one of us is a little more desperate for that shower than the other, if you don't mind me saying. Where the hell were you?"</ol>