Glenn Cooper - Library of the Dead aka Secret of the Seventh Son

Suddenly she stopped talking, which made him look up. “Why are you so sad?” she asked.

“I’m not.”

“Yes you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

She didn’t look convinced but let it pass and said, “Well, I’m happy. This is the best day of my whole life. If I hadn’t met you, I’d be-well, I wouldn’t be here! Thank you, Mark Shackleton.”

She blew him a kittenish kiss that broke through and made him smile. “That’s better!” she purred.

Her phone rang from inside her bag.

“Your phone!” he said. “Why is it on?” He scared her with his panicky expression.

“Gina needed a number if they accepted our offer.” She was fumbling for it. “That’s probably her!”

“How long has it been on!” he moaned.

“I don’t know. A few hours. Don’t worry, the battery’s fine.” She clicked ANSWER. “Hello?” She looked disappointed and confused. “It’s for you!” she said, handing it to him.

He caught his breath and held it to his ear. The voice was male, authoritative, cruel. “Listen to me, Shackleton. This is Malcolm Frazier. I want you to walk out of the restaurant and go back to your room and wait for the watchers to pick you up. I’m sure you checked the database. Today is not your day. It was Nelson Elder’s day and he’s gone. It’s Kerry Hightower’s day. It’s not your day. But that doesn’t mean we can’t hurt you badly and make you wish that it were. We need to find out how you did it. This doesn’t have to be hard.”

“She doesn’t know anything,” Mark said in a pleading whisper, turning his body away.

“It doesn’t matter what you say. It’s her day. So, stand up and leave, right now. Do you understand me?”

He didn’t respond for several heartbeats.

“Shackleton?”

He shut the phone and pushed his chair back.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“It’s nothing.” He was breathing hard. His face was twisted.

“Is it about your auntie?”

“Yes. I’ve got to go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.” He fought to keep himself together, unable to look at her.

“My poor baby,” she said soothingly. “I’m worried about you. I want you to be as happy as me. You hurry back to your Kerry-bear, okay?”

He picked up his briefcase and walked away, a man to the gallows, small shuffling steps, head bowed. As he reached the lobby he heard the sound of breaking glass followed by two full agonizing seconds of silence, then piercing female screams and thunderous male shouts.

The restaurant and lobby were a whir of bodies, running, scrambling, pushing. Mark kept walking like a zombie straight out the Wilshire entrance, where a car was idling at the curb, waiting for the valet. The parking attendant wanted to see what was going on in the lobby and made for the revolving doors.

Without giving it any thought, Mark automatically got in the driver’s seat of the idling car and drove off into the warm Beverly Hills evening, trying to see through his tears.

Marilyn Monroe had stayed there, and Liz Taylor, Fred Astaire, Jack Nicholson, Nicole Kidman, Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, and others whom he forgot because he wasn’t paying attention to the bellman who could see he wanted to be alone and watched him leave quickly without the customary grand tour.

To the bellman, the guest looked confused and disheveled. His only bag was a briefcase. But they got all types of rich druggies and eccentrics, and for a tip, the mumbling fellow had stripped a hundred off a wad so it was all good.

Mark woke up, disoriented after a deep sleep, but despite the cannon fire in his head, he quickly snapped to reality and closed his eyes again in despair. He was aware of a few sounds: the low hum of an air conditioner, a bird chirping outside the window, his hair rubbing between the cotton sheets and his ear. He felt the downward draft from a ceiling fan. His mouth was so desiccated, there didn’t seem to be a molecule of moisture to lubricate his tongue.

It was the kind of suite that provided guests with quart-sized bottles of premium liquor. On the desk was a half-empty vodka bottle, strong effective medicine for his memory problem-he’d drunk one glass after another until he stopped remembering. Apparently, he undressed and turned off the lights, some basic reflex intact.

The filtered light coming through the living room door was infusing color into the pastel decor. A palette of peach, mauve, and sage came into focus. Kerry would have loved this place, he thought, rolling his face into the down pillow.

He had driven the purloined car only a few blocks when he decided he was too tired to run. He pulled over, parked on a quiet residential stretch of North Crescent, got out and drifted aimlessly without a plan. He was too numb to realize he was more conspicuous in Beverly Hills as a pedestrian than as a driver of a stolen BMW. Some period of time passed. He found himself staring at a chartreuse sign with three-dimensional white script letters popping out.

The Beverly Hills Hotel.

He looked up at a pink confection of a building set back in a verdant garden. He found himself walking up the drive, wandering into Reception, asking what rooms they had, and taking the most expensive, a grand bungalow with a storied history that he paid for with a fistful of cash.

He stumbled out of bed, too dehydrated to urinate, chugged an entire bottle of water then sat back down on the bed to think. His computerlike mind was gooey and overheated. He wasn’t used to struggling to answer a mental problem. This was a decision tree analysis: each action had possible outcomes, each outcome triggered new potential actions.

How hard was it? Concentrate!

He ran the gamut of possibilities from running and hiding, living off his remaining cash for as long as he could, to giving himself up to Frazier immediately. Today wasn’t his day, or tomorrow: he was BTH, so he knew he wasn’t going to be murdered or go off the deep end as a suicide. But that didn’t mean Frazier wouldn’t make good on his threat to hurt him, and best case, he’d spend the rest of his life in a dark solitary hole.

He started to cry again. Was it for Kerry or for fucking up so miserably? Why couldn’t he have been content with things as they were? He held his throbbing temples in his hands and rocked himself. His life hadn’t been that bad, had it? Why did he think he needed money and fame? Here he was in a temple of money and fame, the best bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and big fucking deal: it was only a couple of rooms with furniture and some appliances. He had all that stuff already. Mark Shackleton: he wasn’t a bad guy. He had a sense of proportion. It was that fucker, Peter Benedict, that grasping striver, who’d gotten him into trouble. He’s the one who should be punished, not me, Mark thought, taking a small step toward insanity.

He felt compelled to turn on the TV. In a span of five minutes three of the news stories were about him.

An insurance executive had been killed on a Las Vegas golf course by a sniper.

Will Piper, the FBI agent in charge of the Doomsday investigation, remained a fugitive from justice.

In local news, a diner at a Wolfgang Puck restaurant was shot in the head through a window by an unknown assailant still at large.

He started sobbing again at the sight of Kerry’s body, barely filling out a medical examiner’s bag.

He knew he couldn’t let Frazier have him. The chiseled man with dead eyes petrified him. He’d always been scared of the watchers, and that was before he knew they were cold-blooded killers.

He decided only one person could help him.

He needed a pay phone.

It was a task that almost defeated him because twenty-first century Beverly Hills was bereft of public phones and he was on foot. The hotel probably had one but he needed to find a place that wouldn’t lead them right to his door.