Tom Piccirilli - The Cold Spot

He drove slowly through the parking lot peering through the slits between drapes. He spotted some addicts getting wasted, a couple of teenagers watching television getting ready to jump each other, and some drunks with nowhere else to go. Only two rooms had the drapes completely drawn. They were side by side. Chase backed into a spot directly across from them.

He looked for a car that had some real muscle to it but couldn’t spot anything a wheelman would drive. That meant Earl Raymond either parked off site, wasn’t here at the moment, or the crew had already moved on.

“If they’re here, they’ll be in one of those two rooms,” Jonah said.

Angie had one of Lila’s.32s on her now, not quite as small as the Bernadelli but in a tight, closed room you wouldn’t need much more than that. “Or maybe both.”

“That means we have to go into both, at the same time,” Jonah said. “If you hadn’t left the pawnbroker alive we could’ve taken more time and checked things over for as long as we needed to. But this has to end tonight.”

“I want it to end tonight,” Chase told him.

“If you’re still in a talkative mood, get over it now. We go in fast and hard. You ice them or they’ll ice us. They’ve been smarter than you so far because you haven’t wanted to take this all the way. Are you ready to do that now?”

“Yes.”

Angie’s current was riding a little high. Chase could feel her ramped in the backseat. He found her eyes in the rearview and felt a flush of shame for having dragged her into this mess. The old man owed him but she didn’t. He wanted to tell her that she should stay behind, but he knew she’d just give him the whole full-partner spiel again. He didn’t want her baby daughter to grow up without a mother, stuck with a father like Jonah.

Jonah kept watching Chase another few seconds, trying to read the truth. Finally he turned away and said to Angie, “You ready?”

“Yep.”

“Let’s go.”

It was difficult turning the engine off. Chase pocketed the keys and felt the brutal weight of Ellie Raymond’s 9mm against his body. He thought, This isn’t how it should be. I just want the driver. Me and Earl, we should be doing this one on one, with nothing else except our cars. We should rip through the night shredding road, our tires smoking. We should get it up to triple digits and haul ass along empty highways, alone except for the engine and the radio.

Chase tried to hit the cold spot but every time he did he found Lila there, filling it with warmth.

Not much of a plan, really. Jonah took the room to the left, #19, and Chase the one to the right, #18. He got out his tools. He thought they should count to three and do it together, but before he could start he heard Jonah abruptly breaking down the door. So it was like that. No time to slip the lock.

Chase kicked the door in on #18. It wasn’t as easy to break down doors as they made it look in the movies. It hurt and it threw him off a step. Now he was three-four seconds behind, and by the time he got his bearings he saw, with a mixture of relief and revulsion, that he’d found them. Ellie Raymond and two men were inside, scrambling for their weapons.

And goddammit, his grandfather had been right. Chase still was in a talkative mood. He had things to say. The world sped up around him and he was fast enough to meet it, but he couldn’t get out all that was inside him. He heard gunfire next door and wondered if the other guys on the string had come back from Atlantic City early or if Jonah had walked into a drug deal or some shit like that. Ellie Raymond was bending forward, and Chase finally got a good look at her without the disguise. Lovely, firm, vicious, cool and cold, radiant with her lips flattened but her eyes alive with joy. She was an adrenaline junkie, she wanted it rough and wild. She recognized him and let out a heartwarming giggle. The sound of it knifed through his chest. His gaze slid sideways and he saw one of the men moving, digging for a gun under the bed. These people, they all had pistols clipped to the bed frames, they all wanted to cap whoever might fuck them. The guy looked a little scared, worried. His face was flat and ugly, and he had a terrible scar on his forehead. Slip Jenson. Chase checked the other guy and knew, right then, there, that’s him, that’s Earl, the mad-dog shooter, the driver. The guy was smiling, sure. He was all flash. He was handsome as hell, a hard-stepper like his sister, taking it as rough as he could because he liked it that way. Chase wanted to talk but had no idea what to say. Maybe he wanted to ask them their story, what made them this way. They all had their hands on their pistols now. If he couldn’t talk to Earl then they should at least meet each other’s eyes, make that connection, where they both understood that this is the moment to settle all accounts. But Earl was looking at Chase’s chest, bringing up a Glock. The Jonah in Chase’s head said, Fucking shoot them already. The Lila in his head told him, Sweetness, it’s time, it’s time. Of course it was. Chase started firing and so did they.

I t happened fast.

The room was small but large enough for two double beds, with a nightstand between them. Earl was behind the bed farthest away, Ellie between the two, Slip Jenson closest to Chase, so he was the one Chase popped first, even though he didn’t have anything against the guy. Jenson’s flat, ugly face got even flatter and much uglier, exploding in a cloud of gristle and bone chips. Chase went down for cover, but Ellie Raymond had her gun hand propped up on the mattress and she shot at Chase as he was moving. The bullet took him high in the right side, spun him around, and took a chunk of meat out from just under his ribs. She’d clipped the lung. He didn’t feel it yet but knew he would soon. Already his breathing changed and he had to suck wind. Chase fell on top of Slip Jenson’s corpse and the dead man spit blood across Chase’s throat.

Ellie Raymond was taking the fight to him. She dove on top of the bed, firing twice, three times, the bullets tearing up the carpet around him. He thought, How could she miss me? Then he realized this was her weakness. She wanted the juice to last so she stretched the action out.

The next one caught him in the lower leg and this time he felt it immediately and he couldn’t help but cry out. It made her toss off another giggle. Still grinning, Earl spoke one word. “Don’t.”

So maybe he wasn’t quite as crazy as his sister, or maybe he just didn’t want her to go it alone like this.

Chase stuck his arm under the bed and fired twice up through the mattress and heard Ellie scream.

He rolled and went for a different angle, trying for Earl across the room now. Earl dogged it into the bathroom, slammed the door, and Chase heard glass shattering.

All of this, and the fucker runs for it and leaves his own sister behind. Ellie showed such loyalty for this? Chase wondered if she’d understand her brother had left her to die.

He tried to stand but his wounded leg wouldn’t support him and he went down again. Son of a bitch. He made the effort again and managed to keep on his feet. He checked Ellie Raymond, laid out across the bed on her back. She was gut-shot and panting, her face slathered in sweat.

“That’s my gun,” she said, holding her bubbling stomach, her face tight with pain.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice strange because there wasn’t enough wind in it.

“I thought you didn’t like guns.”

“I don’t,” he gasped, and shot her twice in the heart.

Weird feeling, having only one lung inflate. Not enough air getting through. Felt like he was slowly drowning. Chase stepped out the door and checked Room #19. There was a businessman with no pants on cowering on the bed with an enormous naked black hooker sitting next to him.