“Who the fuck are you?” I said.
“I’m Jimmy Z, the last one you think of, the first one to show,” he said. “Who are you?” His leather jacket was stretched tight over his bulging chest and upper arms. It looked like the seams would split if he flexed his biceps. His long narrow ex-con’s face was as expressionless as his voice. I had a premonition that one of us was going to kill the other at some point.
“Hotel security,” I said. “We had a report of a break-in. What are you doing in Mrs. Evermore’s suite?”
“Um her bodyguard,” he said. “Show a badge.”
“I’m not showing you shit,” I said. “I’m going to put Mrs. Evermore’s necklace in the hotel vault for safekeeping. Then you’re going to answer some questions.” I snapped the jewelry case closed and reached for the black bag on the bed. The Tomcat was a much nicer pistol than his industrial piece. It was an elegant James Bond sort of weapon, stainless steel with an ivory grip. At 4.9 inches long and 15 ounces, it was light and easy to conceal, yet had the stopping power of a.38. There were seven 60-grain hollow-points in the magazine and one in the tilt-up chamber. It never jammed.
But I had to get my hands on it.
“Stop,” he said, raising his pistol an inch or two so that it was pointing at my solar plexus. The hammer was cocked. “You ain’t hotel security. And that ain’t Evermore’s necklace no more. It belongs to Baba Raba now.”
“You better put that pistol away, Jimmy, or you’re going to end up back in the clink.”
He took a step toward me. “Drop the case on the bed and put your hands behind your head, or you’re gonna end up in a funeral parlor,” he said, voice flat and uninflected. All the emotion had been beaten out of him by a sadistic older brother or drunken mother, and by the blackjacks of cops in police departments from San Diego to San Francisco. He had probably killed his first small animals in grade school, moving on to larger prey as he matured.
I was running out of options. “Who’s Baba Raba?” I said, still holding on to the blue velvet box full of long, leisurely rides up the coast and meals in fine restaurants and trips to Cabo and Hawaii.
“Last chance,” he said. The knuckles on his right hand, swollen from hitting the heavy bag, looked like one-inch ball bearings. They were white with tension. Numb heart full of Novocain, he would kill without remorse. He might be able to get away with it, too. He had caught me burglarizing the room. I had a gun that he could put in my hand if he found it in time. His gun was probably unlicensed, but that would be a minor charge. He looked like he could do ninety days standing on his ear. I dropped the jewelry case on the edge of the bed and it bounced off onto the floor.
“Now the hands,” he said.
Everyone likes to be tough. I like to be tough. But sometimes when a sociopath is pointing a hand cannon at you, you feel a little scared, or sad. Sometimes you remember walking along a path by a river with someone you loved who you will never see again. A narrow dirt path overhung with alder trees and bordered by all the flowers of a midwestern spring. Sometimes you remember the hopes you had for your life when you were young. But then you get over that and start calculating your odds of ducking under the gun with a fast tackle.
The odds weren’t good.
I put my hands behind my head, scrambling mentally, looking for an out. There wasn’t going to be anything pleasant in store for me if I let him take me prisoner, arrested at the least, shot and dumped in the desert at the worst.
“Turn around and get down on your knees,” he said.
CHAPTER SIX
Before I could turn my vulnerable back to the large bore of the.45, there was a knock at the half-open hall door and Reggie burst into the room carrying the tray I’d seen in the hallway. He had covered the dirty dishes with a white cloth napkin and tucked another napkin in the front of his pants so that it hung down like an apron.
“Room service,” he shouted.
The weightlifter half-turned, looking over his shoulder at Reggie, then glancing quickly back at me. He turned the gun away from me, holding it flat in front of his body so that Reggie couldn’t see it. “Put it down and get out,” he said.
“Where you want it?” Reggie said, panting a little bit. His face was red with excitement or exertion and I saw some lipstick on his right ear. At first glance, with the improvised apron, he looked a little like a waiter. At second glance, not so much.
The weightlifter was noticing that. As he turned for a better look, I dove toward him, tucking, doing a tight somersault on the thick carpet, and coming up to tackle him from a crouch with a lot of momentum. He clubbed me on top of the head with the.45 as he went down, loosening my grip on his waist. Stomping at me, he kicked free, still holding on to the gun. Dazed, I heard a loud crash as he scrambled to his feet, dishes shattering and metal dish covers clanging, then saw Reggie looming up behind him, metal serving tray raised high. The weightlifter spun toward the noise a split second too late, and Reggie brought the tray down on his head with a bong.
His muscular legs wobbled but held. As Reggie raised the tray for another blow, the weightlifter backfisted him with the.45, striking his forehead with the heavy barrel. Reggie dropped to his knees and the weightlifter reared back his right foot for a kick. I was up on one knee and grabbed his foot as it came back. Lifting and charging toward him as I got to my feet, I flipped him onto his head. His gun went flying and landed under the table near the hall door, which Reggie had left standing wide open. As the weightlifter scrambled after his piece, I dove on top of him, flattening him against the floor and knocking the wind out of him. Before he could recover, I got him in a stranglehold, my right forearm across his windpipe, right hand gripping my left bicep, left hand locked on the back of his head.
He was strong. He got up on his hands and knees and nearly bucked me off. He hit back over his shoulder with one hand and then the other, putting knots on my head, and crashed around, bashing my body against furniture and walls. But I kept his air cut off and after a minute or so I could feel him getting weaker. Finally, he stopped struggling. I kept the choke hold tight, grinding his trachea, not taking any chance in case he was playing possum.
“Less get outta here,” I heard Reggie say in a weak voice. The weightlifter was sprawled flat on the living room floor with his head near the hall door. I was lying full length on top of him. Looking over my shoulder, I saw Reggie leaning against the wall by the bedroom door. He was holding one of the cloth napkins to his forehead. It was red. Blood dripped from the end of his nose. “Too much noise,” he said.
I released the choke hold and sat up on the weightlifter’s back, which twitched and heaved as he started to breathe again with his face in the carpet. He smelled like the jocks I fought in high school: too much sweet cologne not quite covering up the stink of old sweat. Thinking about the beautiful, bewildered lady he had somehow gotten his hooks into and remembering the fear he made me feel, I grabbed his hair with my left hand, turned his head so that his face was exposed and slammed my right fist into his nose as hard as I could in a tight roundhouse. There was a crunching sound as bone and cartilage gave way and blood sprayed on my hand and forearm.
“What’s the meaning of this?”
Looking up, I saw the snowbird from downstairs filling the doorway. She was wearing a white terrycloth robe with the Oasis’s emerald-and-scarlet hummingbird logo perched on her tremendous bosom. Her hair was wrapped up in a white towel turban. A little man with a perfectly bald head and big ears was hopping around behind her, stretching out his scrawny neck and peeking around her bulk from one side and then the other, trying to see into the room.