John Lutz - In for the Kill

Neeson leaned with his back against a wall, almost out of sight over by some potted palms, and paid attention to the other guests coming and going, to the real bellhops hustling to get their bags and stack them on luggage carts. It looked to him like a hard job. Those guys deserved their tips.

Not that they didn't also have some fun. There must be a thousand jokes about bellhops.

Pearl was in 624, the room down the hall from Myrna Kraft's, seated at the corner desk and wearing the headphones again. Not that there was much to hear other than what might be the faint sound of Myrna breathing deeply in her sleep. Myrna had gone to bed and didn't even snore. Which kind of aggravated Pearl, who'd been told that she, Pearl, softly snored, at times.

Quinn was standing at the window again, peering out at the night and using his cell phone to check on positions since their two-ways didn't work worth a damn in the prewar building with its thick walls. Pearl could hear him talking, but with the bulky earphones on her head had no idea what he was saying. Her back was getting sore from sitting so long, and she was getting bored.

She kept one earphone on and used her own cell phone at her other ear to check her machine at home for messages.

There were two. The first was a reminder of a standing appointment for a mammography next Monday. The second was her mother, berating her for not calling or showing up for her lunch with somebody named Milton.

Milton?…

Then Pearl remembered-she was supposed to be introduced to Mrs. Kahn's incredibly eligible nephew at lunch at the assisted living home. Pearl had stood him up, along with her mother and Mrs. Kahn.

Pearl breathed hard through her nose. Damned complications! She didn't need this crap. Not now. Not ever.

Screw it! Screw all of them!

Pearl refused to let her anger rise. She had her life to live. She didn't need coercions and complications from her mother or Mrs. Kahn or her nephew Milton-from any of them, especially her mother. She didn't deserve it and wouldn't put up with it. She felt like spitting out her guilt.

"Something?" Quinn asked, noticing the puckered expression on her face.

"Nothing!" Pearl said.

Screw all of them! You, too!

He turned back to the window and his cell phone.

Sherman glanced at his watch and saw that it was past midnight. Time to move.

He'd used a larger ketamine dose this time, figuring it just right. Lauri had made it okay on the way up in the elevator, and into the room. She couldn't have gone much further without her legs giving out.

She'd slept deeply at first, but now she was conscious again, if barely, seated in a wooden chair, her arms and legs taped to the chair's arms and legs, a rectangle of tape firmly fixed across her mouth. She wasn't going to make a sound. She wasn't going anywhere. She and the chair were one, as if they'd been manufactured together out of a single piece. The white box was on the floor behind the chair, where she couldn't see it.

So far, he was pleased. Everything was falling neatly into place.

Her fearful eyes followed him as he moved about the room. He thought she'd still be unconscious if she weren't so terrified. He smiled at her. She looked back at him hazily, bewildered. Poor girl. In her mind, time had slipped a cog. Was maybe still slipping. There was so much she didn't understand.

He slipped off his suit coat and laid it carefully folded, lining out, on the bed. Then he removed his shoes and tucked the legs of his suit pants into the tops of his black socks. Her eyes watched him, wondering.

Let her watch.

He swiveled her chair slightly so she could see in through the open bathroom door.

After winking at her, he scooted a second, smaller armchair into the bathroom, placing it just so. Then he returned and from the white box withdrew a nine-millimeter handgun, a key-chain penlight, a long screwdriver, and a large folding knife with a thin blade. He preferred to use the knife, but the gun was an added measure prompted by the fact that he knew full well he was entering a trap.

Though not the way his pursuers anticipated.

The hotel renovation plans had made it simple. Many of the building's original air vents had been retained, and additional ductwork was installed to facilitate air-conditioning. The ceiling vent in the bathroom was twenty-eight by thirty inches, and led to a steel duct that connected to other ductwork, including that for the bathroom vent in the room one floor below and one over, room 620. The rectangular ducts were lined on the outside with insulation beneath three-quarter-inch wallboard, so not only were they spacious enough to crawl through, they would allow for fairly quiet passage.

Sherman stood up on the chair and used his screwdriver to remove the vent cover, then propped the steel enameled grate against a wall.

With knife in pocket and gun and screwdriver tucked into his belt, he took a long last look at Lauri, whose eyelids were fluttering.

She'd make the perfect hostage, if he needed one. But either way, later, at his leisure…

With the brimming confidence of the chosen, he lifted himself into the vent.

Lauri opened her eyes wide and watched the dark pants and socks disappear as Joe wriggled his way up into the ductwork.

She was exhausted but able to stay awake-mostly due to fear. That time she'd drunk too much with Joe and gotten sick had stayed in her memory. No way was she going to let it happen again. She'd thought they were not only going to have sex tonight but that it would be something special. He'd told her as much, took her to a swank restaurant, then a hotel room. She didn't want to mess things up by getting so drunk she'd be sick. So before and during dinner, when he wasn't watching, she'd transferred most of the contents of her vodka martinis into her water glass.

Most but not all.

She understood now the missing segments of her memory, her unnatural weariness, her nausea. She'd been drugged, and it wasn't the first time. If she'd consumed all the contents of tonight's drinks, she'd probably be unconscious now.

Lauri had no idea what Joe Hooker was up to, but she knew who he was. She'd heard Pearl and her father mention the Meredith Hotel. And of course she knew what case they were working on.

She decided not to use what energy she had blaming herself and trying to figure out how she got here, how she could have been so naive. She'd instead use her time and energy trying to get away.

She was taped so tightly she couldn't move her arms or legs even an inch, and there was no way she could use her tongue or jaw movement to work the tape across her mouth loose.

The Butcher was a professional. She'd heard her dad, Pearl, and Fedderman speak of him almost in admiring terms. She shuddered, cold even though he hadn't yet undressed her. That would come later. Whatever his plans, they wouldn't include her surviving the night.

She craned her neck and saw the phone on the nightstand by the bed. It seemed far away.

Desperately she tried to shift her weight, rocking the wooden chair back and forth. Several times she almost toppled, making her catch her breath, but eventually she captured the knack of using momentum to move the chair gradually across the carpet, toward the phone, inch by inch.

And when she got there?

She'd worry about that when-if-it happened.

He was cautious moving through the ductwork, occasionally using his penlight to see ahead of him. Progress was slow, but it wasn't difficult for him to propel himself forward using his elbows and knees. Mainly, he didn't want to make too much noise.

And he didn't. He soon developed the knack of not lifting his elbows and knees, only sliding them and then increasing and decreasing pressure, as he used them to gain traction. Once he heard voices from below, a man and woman arguing, like a distant radio or TV playing too loud. Another time he heard a phone faintly ring, once, twice, then silence. He reasoned that if he could barely hear these sounds, anyone near them wouldn't be able to hear the slightest of sounds he might make in the ductwork.