Chapter 13
I waited for the workers to leave, and, of course, they didn’t. In fact, they stared at me a little more intently than I would have liked.
Jennifer said, “Hey, let’s just go back to the car. Wait on Dunkin. It’s not like we’re in a rush.”
I glanced at them and said, “Yeah, I guess.”
We turned to leave, and the lead maintenance guy advanced, saying, “Do you know the man who lives here?”
Turning to him, a little miffed, I said, “Why do you care?”
He pulled a small semiautomatic pistol out of his pocket, aimed it at my head, and said, “Because I do.”
Jennifer’s jaw dropped open. The other two men circled around behind us. One of them worked the door—whether he had a key or something else I couldn’t see—and it swung open. The man with the gun said, “Inside.”
What the hell?
It was surreal. I stood there for a moment, a little bit stunned, and he waved the pistol, saying again, “Get inside.”
We entered, finding that Dunkin lived like every other bachelor on earth. It was a pigsty. Meaning it was also full of weapons for Jennifer to use.
I had no idea at all of why this was happening, but that was sort of irrelevant. The five-meter target was the men threatening me. The fifty-meter target was why. They’d learn the hard way that I was pretty damn good on a five-meter target.
We entered a den full of beer cans and pizza boxes, with a few choice implements lying around the room. Jennifer looked at a bottle opener with a corkscrew on the bottom, then at me. I nodded.
The lead “maintenance worker” said, “We don’t want to hurt you. We only want to know where Clifford Delmonty is. That’s all. Tell us and you can leave.”
I raised my hands and tried my best to sound like a coward. “Hey, come on, what’s going on here? We just came for a vacation. He gave us a room. I don’t know anything about anything. Please.”
The Asian pointed the pistol at my head and whispered, “You lie. You know where he is, and you’re going to tell us where he’s gone. Right now.”
He flicked his eyes to the man behind Jennifer, who grabbed her around the waist. She shuffled forward, ostensibly in shock and trying to get out of his grasp, but moving inexorably toward the table with the corkscrew. The man jerked Jennifer’s hair back and put a blade to her neck, halting her advance.
I screamed, “Stop! Stop! I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please, don’t hurt us.”
The lead man said, “We have no desire to harm you. Just tell us where Clifford Delmonty is.”
I said, “I can’t tell you what I don’t know. Please. We’re just here on vacation.”
He nodded at the man holding Jennifer, who placed the blade of his knife under her breast. He turned to me and said, “We can do this a long time. The death will not come quickly.”
And that was enough. He had sealed his fate. I’d toyed with talking our way out of this, because we really didn’t know anything, but the threat of them carving up Jennifer was something I just couldn’t let stand.
I felt the beast stir, but needed to close the distance to the pistol in the man’s hand. I baited him, still playing the role, saying, “Don’t hurt her. Please. Please don’t hurt her.”
Like a fish sensing food, he took the bait, believing he was about to crack me. He advanced on me and placed the barrel against my forehead, saying, “Where is he?”
Jennifer was within arm’s reach of the corkscrew, and the position of the knife the man held wasn’t lethal—well, I was sure I’d hear about it later, but it wasn’t a death thing.
I locked eyes with her for a split second, then turned to the man with the pistol, feeling the steel against my skull. I raised my hands in a gesture of surrender, getting them at eye level. At the level of the barrel.
I whimpered, “Okay, okay, anything. Anything.”
“Where is Clifford?”
I said, “I told you—we don’t know. We just got here from America. We were supposed to meet him here after he got off work.”
He jammed the pistol harder into my head, leaning into my face and saying, “Do you really want to die?”
I saw his elbows bend, presenting me with what I wanted. I now just needed a little bit of momentary doubt. A hesitation.
I said, “Do you?”
The comment put him off balance, and the gun relaxed against my skull. I saw confusion in his eyes and slapped the pistol away from my head, trapping his wrist and rotating violently against the joint, whirling around in a tight circle, feeling his wristbone shatter as he flipped through the air.
I slammed him on his back, jerked the pistol out of his hands, jammed it into his temple just like he had done with me, and pulled the trigger, exploding his brain out of the back of his skull.
I leapt up, seeing Jennifer’s captor impaled with the corkscrew straight through his right eye, her arm working the weapon while the other one controlled the blade he had used against her. He screamed and began violently thrashing.
I shouted, “Off! Off!”
She bounced back and the man doubled over, grasping the corkscrew. I shot him in the head, dropping him to the floor. I turned to the third man, and he took a running leap to the door. I fired once, hitting him, but not a death shot. He bounced against the doorframe, and then went through it, running flat out.
I let him go.
Jennifer looked at me, hands on her knees and breathing heavily. I checked my newfound weapon, then took a breath myself. We stood for a pregnant second, saying nothing. Finally, she broke the silence, saying, “What the hell just happened?”
She was looking at me like it was my fault. I said, “What?”
“What was that? Don’t give me a load of bull about how this was a surprise. Why are we down here? What did you do?”
Incredulous, I said, “Me? Are you serious? I didn’t cause this. I should ask what you were doing on the internet during the flight down.”
She took a deep breath, kicked the guy at her feet, and said, “You were going to let him cut me.”
I smiled and said, “There’s a shortage of perfect breasts in this world. It would be a pity to damage yours.”
And the Princess Bride quote resonated, defusing the situation.
I bent down to search the guy I’d shot and she sighed, following suit with her target. She said, “What’s this about?”
I found nothing worthwhile on the man at my feet, which in and of itself was important. I said, “I have no idea, but I know someone who does. We need to get the hell out of here.”
She stood up, saying, “Not going to argue with that. This guy is clean. Not even a fast-food receipt.”
Which meant this wasn’t a simple break-in. I pulled out my phone and dialed a number, saying, “Let’s go.”
Chapter 14
Chen Ju-Long had the apartment complex in sight when he saw a man come bursting out of the gate holding his hand to his thigh. Chen recognized him. He said, “What in the hell . . .” and whipped into the small parking space out front.
His female partner rolled down the window and said, “Get in.”
The man spilled into the back of the car and they were gone, heading back the way they had come. The man in the back was panting, holding his leg. The woman leaned over and said, “Move your hand.”