Shorts - Thriller 2: Stories You Just Can't Put Down (30 page)

Ryder strode down the hallway and glanced at the door Li had
just entered. Number 535. Ryder continued down the hall, then paused to look at the numbers on the doors around him. He pantomimed looking down at his hand, as if to confirm his room number. Shaking his head, he pivoted and headed back the way he’d come. It was unlikely that his act was being observed by anyone, but it was worth doing all the same. Ryder had found himself heading the wrong way down hotel corridors for real enough times to know that it was a very believable mistake.

After heading back down in the elevator, Ryder emerged into the lobby. He made his way to the bar, which was ahead of him approximately fifty yards, in a direct line of sight with the bank of elevators. For the next part of his plan to work, Li had to be alone. That meant Ryder had to wait for the pro to leave. He didn’t anticipate it taking more than an hour at most. There was no way that a man like Li, who hadn’t even been willing to pay for a decent hotel, had bought the girl for the entire night.

Ryder ordered a light beer at the bar—he didn’t want his senses to be dulled by too much alcohol—and sat down at the table nearest the entrance. He was just another out-of-town businessman killing time and spending the night alone. There were a couple of other men in the bar likewise doing a little solitary drinking. He wondered what kind of companies they worked for, given the quality of the accommodations. Maybe they just didn’t know what kind of hotel they were booking. Its address—on Pennsylvania Avenue—was decent enough to fool people. He doubted the hotel got much return business, however.

Ryder nursed his beer for the next half hour, but there was no sign of the girl. He had to admit to a little grudging respect for Li. He’d half assumed the man would have passed out by now. He decided he’d better order another beer, just to avoid making anyone curious.

As he stood at the bar waiting for his drink, SportsCenter came
on the TV. The lead story was the Lakers victory in overtime just moments before, a victory that the anchorman called “one of the most exciting basketball games in recent memory.” Ryder just shook his head. It was bad enough that he was stuck in this fleabag hotel, tracking a fat, washed-up spy. Now he’d missed the best game of the season. He was more determined than ever to kill Li and go home.

As Ryder was returning from the bar, beer in hand, he spotted the prostitute emerging from the elevator. She strolled across the lobby, headed in the direction of the registration desk. Ryder sat down at this table to watch her. He took a sip of beer as she stopped at the desk and spoke briefly with the clerk who had checked them in. She slipped him something—a payoff, presumably—and headed for the exit. Ryder glanced around the bar, confirmed that no one was watching him and poured half his beer into the base of a fake tree next to his table. He didn’t want to leave a full beer behind, which might make someone curious as to where he’d gone. He put the bottle down on the table and left the bar.

Riding the elevator back up to the fifth floor, Ryder prepared himself for what he was going to do. Killing a man in cold blood was never an easy task, but he had long ago steeled himself against the emotions connected to the act. He had done it enough times before that, although not automatic, it was the next closest thing to it. Like Michael Corleone so famously said, it wasn’t personal, it was just business. Ryder had a job to do and he planned to do it; quickly, efficiently and without hesitation.

Arriving at the fifth floor, Ryder walked down the corridor to Room 535. He had been in the hotel long enough and was anxious to finish the job and get the hell out of there.

Ryder unzipped the duffel bag, then knocked sharply on the door, two staccato beats. Ryder hoped the man hadn’t sunk into postcoital oblivion. Apparently not, as he heard a fumbling with
the door’s safety catch. “Who there, please?” asked the voice on the other side of the door.

“Hotel security,” Ryder answered. “Please open the door, sir.”

The door opened to reveal Li Jinping standing there in his underwear, a dingy white T-shirt stretched tight over his ample belly. Li blinked at Ryder, bleary-eyed and obviously concerned. “What is a matter, please?”

“Please step back, sir. I need to check the room.”

Li hesitated before taking a step backward, allowing Ryder to enter. He did so, and closed the door behind him.

“You’re Mr. Li, right?”

“Yes, I am Li.”

Ryder already knew who he was, but he figured it couldn’t hurt to check. He reached his hand into the duffel bag and wrapped his fingers around the grip of the .22 semiautomatic pistol. He was about to whip it out of the bag when a soft knock sounded on the door at his back.

Ryder jerked his hand out of the bag with a start. Shit. Was it the real hotel security? Or the cops? Who else would be knocking on the door in the middle of the night? He doubted the hotel had room service. Ryder had to decide how he wanted to play it, and fast. So far he hadn’t done anything too incriminating. But he also couldn’t allow any official connection to be made between him and Li.

Another knock sounded on the door. Louder this time. Ryder put his hand back in the bag and felt for the pistol again. He was tired of pussyfooting around with this job. If drastic action needed to be taken, he was going to take it. One way or another, this was going to end tonight.

“Li, honey?” A muffled voice came from the hallway. “It’s me, Candy. I forgot my phone.”

Ryder cursed his luck. It was the prostitute, back just in time
to screw up everything. There was no way he could let her see him with Li. Not unless he wanted to kill her, too. He would if he had to, but that would make what he had planned almost impossible to pull off. He had to think of some other way around it.

He turned to Li and locked eyes with him. “Listen to me carefully. We know you had a prostitute here in your room with you. Is that her at the door?”

Li nodded, his eyes wide. “Yes, I have girl. But I’m diplomat. You can no arrest—”

“Shut up and listen to me. I’m going to step into the bathroom. You’re going to get rid of the whore as quickly as possible. Do you understand?” Li nodded. “We don’t want to embarrass the hotel any more than has already happened. So just get rid of her and I’ll handle everything else. Understand?” Another nod.

None of it made much sense, but Ryder wasn’t giving him time to think. Li was scared and smashed and hardly thinking his best. Ryder was counting on that to make him compliant with his demands.

The knocking was louder now. “Li? Are you asleep, sweetie? I really need my phone.”

“Where’s her phone?” Ryder asked. Li just shrugged. Ryder walked over the bed and looked around. There was a bottle of Jim Beam and a glass on the nightstand. Li’s clothes were tossed in a heap on the chair next to the bed. The phone could be anywhere.

With Li standing there uselessly, Ryder rushed past him into the bathroom and flipped on the light. There. A pink cell phone was sitting on the counter next to the dirty water glass and no-name shampoo. Ryder grabbed it and returned to Li.

“Give the girl her phone and get rid of her.” Ryder handed it to him. “Do what I say and this will all be over soon.”

Ryder returned to the bathroom and closed the door until it
was open just a crack. He withdrew the pistol from his bag and peered through the gap.

Li opened the door to the corridor and Candy started to step in. Li didn’t move, though, forcing her to stop abruptly. He held her phone out toward her. “Here your phone. I find it.”

“Thanks, sweetie.” Candy took the phone. “I was afraid you’d be asleep.”

“Not yet, but I go bed now. Very tired.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to—”

“No. Very tired. Thank you.”

Li gently urged the girl out and closed the door. Ryder stepped out and slid the security bolt closed.

“Good job, Li.”

“I do what you say. Now you go?”

“I’m afraid not.”

It was then that Li looked down and saw that Ryder was pointing the pistol at him.

Ryder led Li at gunpoint over to the bed. Picking up the remote control from the bedside table, Ryder turned up the volume on the television—conveniently enough, it was already turned on, playing a porno movie—and told Li to lie down on the bed.

Li’s face turned a bright shade of crimson and sweat poured down his face as he started speaking in rapid-fire Chinese, his voice strained and high-pitched. Ryder didn’t understand a word of it, but he assumed the man was pleading for his life. He’d heard it all before, in more languages than he could count.

“Save it,” Ryder said, gesturing with the pistol. “Get over on the bed.”

But Li’s voice grew even more agonized. He was talking so fast he couldn’t even catch his breath.

“Last chance,” Ryder said. “Lie down on the bed or this is really going to get nasty.”

It was then that Li started clutching at his chest. His face had
turned nearly purple and he was no longer even looking at Ryder. His eyes were tightly closed, his face a mask of pain.

A few seconds later, he keeled over.

Ryder looked down at Li, lying on the floor next to a used condom wrapper, his movements slower now, his face a rictus of agony. He watched the Chinese man for a few minutes, but it was obvious that he was on his way out. A few moments later, his movements stopped completely. He was dead.

Sonuvabitch,
Ryder muttered to himself. If that wasn’t the easiest money he’d ever made, he didn’t know what was. Smiling at his good fortune, he put the pistol back in his bag and started making a few alterations to the scene.

Acting quickly, before the lividity in Li’s body could set, Ryder hauled the corpse up onto the bed, arranging him back against the pillows. He turned the volume down on the TV before wiping the remote clean of prints. He then placed the remote in Li’s hand to get his fingerprints on it before dropping it to his side.

Looking down at the corpse, Ryder briefly considered whether he should try stripping the body and dressing him in the woman’s underwear. He couldn’t bring himself to do it, though. Too much risk—and too damn disgusting—even for fifty grand. He did grit his teeth long enough to pull down Li’s boxer shorts. He also reached into the duffel bag and withdrew two hardcore gay porno magazines, not very politically correct in China. He put Li’s prints on them, as well, and laid them on the bed next to the body. That would have to be good enough.

The stage set, Ryder glanced around the room, making sure he hadn’t left any incriminating evidence behind. One of the advantages to doing a job in such a questionable environment was that it would be nearly impossible for the CSI geeks to find any usable DNA. The room probably held the fingerprints, hairs and assorted bodily secretions of enough people to fill RFK stadium.

Ryder exited the room, smearing the doorknobs and locks as he left. He didn’t think anyone would look too closely at the case. Once they realized Li was a Chinese diplomat—and saw the circumstances under which he died—they’d chalk the death up as an obvious heart attack and leave it at that. If anyone on the outside got implicated, it was going to be Candy, not him. But he doubted it would come to that. If there was one thing the Chinese hated more than anything, it was embarrassment.

As he rode the elevator back down to the ground floor, Ryder wondered if his client would be satisfied enough to give him the bonus. It didn’t really matter. One hundred grand was enough for the job, even without the extra money.

Now if he could just get home in time to watch the NBA finals, he’d be a happy man.

Few authors in the thriller community are as borderline 007 as Simon Wood, former racecar driver, licensed airplane pilot, private investigator and world traveler—replete with adventures featuring Transylvanian wolves and Thai railroads. It seems Simon is a bit of an adrenaline junkie.

So it’s no wonder that Nick, the stubbornly love-struck protagonist in “Protecting the Innocent” isn’t adverse to a little risk, either. This story asks you to consider how far you’d go for love. Would you risk your own life? If you’re anything like Nick—or Simon—you might go just a little too far.

“S
ee you later.” Nick kissed Melanie goodbye and watched her walk away. The lunchtime throng on Market Street swallowed her up, but the crowd parted at different times to expose glimpses of an arm, a leg, a shoulder.

He couldn’t get enough of her. The last couple of months had been a whirlwind. It was more than just an infatuation—he felt a connection with her on every level possible. For the first time in his life, he was thinking about marriage, although he didn’t want to share that with her until he was sure she felt the same way. If things carried on the way they were going, he’d test the waters, maybe whisk her off to somewhere romantic and let the moment sweep both of them away.

A friendly sounding voice called his name. Instinctively, he turned.

The man looked familiar and at the same time didn’t. He was tall, blond and well-attired. His suit certainly hadn’t come off the rack.

“Nick Forbes, yes?” The man put out a hand.

“Yes.” Nick took it and shook. “Do I know you?”

“Sort of. I’m Melanie’s brother, Jamie.”

Now Nick saw the resemblance. Melanie had mentioned a brother, but they’d never met.

“If you’re looking for Mel, she’s just gone.” He pointed in the direction of the Wells Fargo building.

“I came to see you, not Melanie.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. You and Melanie have become close.”

“There’s no become about it. We are close.”

“Please let me finish.”

People brushed by them, so eager to get on with their own lives that they paid scant regard to this encounter. It was if the two men had fallen off the world and no longer had any impact on society.

“Your relationship with my sister is a problem.” The smile went out of Jamie’s eyes. Coldness replaced the warmth.

Who did this son of bitch think he was?
Nick thought. “A problem?”

“Yes, a problem. You have to stop seeing her.”

“Look, I don’t know who you think you’re talking to, but you have no right to tell me or Melanie how to live our lives.”

“Yes, I do.” Jamie pressed his fingers into Nick’s chest. “Stay away from her or there will be trouble.”

Nick knocked Jamie’s hand aside. “Is that a threat?”

“Just do as I tell you and you won’t get hurt.”

“Now that is a threat.”

Jamie shrugged the response away like he’d heard it all before. “I’m not going to argue with you anymore. Just do as I say. It’s not a threat. It’s a warning. Break it off with Melanie before it’s too late.” Jamie walked by Nick and let the current of people sweep him away. “I’ll be watching.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Nick called out to Jamie’s retreating form.

Nick picked up Melanie at her condo the next night. He wanted to mention Jamie’s reprehensible scene but couldn’t do it. From what she’d mentioned about him, they were close. Very close. Telling her about what happened yesterday might force her to choose sides.

While he waited for Melanie to finish changing, Nick tried to make sense of what had happened. The guy was just trying to protect his sister. That was understandable. His outburst was almost admirable. Except it wasn’t. It was excessive and totally uncalled for. There was no way Nick could tell Melanie about it. She took his arm and led him to the elevator.

Nick had reservations at her favorite restaurant in the city, a French place called The Fifth Floor. He had planned on taking her to a Greek place he liked on Battery, but he’d switched at the last minute. The reason—privacy. The Fifth Floor was secluded and somewhat exclusive. If Jamie wanted to create a scene, he’d have a hard job.

During the drive, Nick’s animal instincts kicked in. He sensed a car was tailing him. This wasn’t the first time he’d had this feeling. For the past couple of weeks, he would have sworn he’d seen the same car outside his home, at the gym and parked across from his job. If it wasn’t a car, it was someone following him on foot. He’d put it down to paranoia, but after Jamie’s warning, he wasn’t so sure.

“You’re quiet tonight,” Melanie said.

He dragged his gaze away from his rearview mirror and the Acura that had been trailing him since he left the office. “Just a little distracted is all. Sorry.”

She smiled at him. “Well, don’t be. You’re with me tonight. I demand attention.”

He laughed. “Yes, my queen.”

“That’s more like it.”

He looked back in his rearview. The Acura was gone.

The hostess showed them to a corner table. Nick took the seat that gave him the best view of the bar leading into the dining area. If Jamie planned any sort of confrontation, he’d see it coming.

They ordered. Melanie chatted and Nick struggled to concentrate on what she said. She called him on it a couple of times and he apologized, promising to do better. He expected Jamie to appear at any moment, but he didn’t show. By the time the entrées were served, Nick felt this wasn’t the night Jamie would make his scene. His tension lifted and clarity seeped in. A thought came to him.

He wondered if he’d really been accosted by Melanie’s brother and not by some jealous ex-boyfriend. Melanie had mentioned she hadn’t had much luck in the relationship department over the years. The men she bared her soul to always ran out on her. Was it possible these men might not have run out, but have been helped on their way?

“You’ve mentioned your brother, Jamie, but you’ve never told me much about him.”

“He’s a great guy. I’m sure you two would really like each other. He’s older than me by a couple of years and of course that makes him my protector. He’s always looking out for me. I don’t know what he wouldn’t do for me,” she enthused.

This description matched the guy Nick had met yesterday, but that still didn’t mean anything.

“Have you got a picture of him?”

“Of course. I’m surprised I haven’t shown it to you before now.”

Melanie fished in her purse and removed a photo from her pocketbook. Nick took the picture and examined it and his theory went up in smoke. The Jamie in the picture was the Jamie on Market Street. Nick squeezed out a polite smile and handed the picture back.

“He looks how I expected him to look.”

“The three of us should go out together.”

“I’d like that,” Nick said, and meant it. It would be a good opportunity to show this guy how happy he made his sister. If that didn’t work, he doubted Jamie could keep a lid on his jealously and he’d expose himself for the person he really was. Either way, it’d be a win-win for Nick. “Jamie doesn’t have to play third wheel. He should bring his girlfriend. Make it a double date. I haven’t double-dated in years.”

“Jamie doesn’t have a girlfriend. I don’t know why.”

I do,
Nick thought. “Maybe he doesn’t put himself out there,” he suggested.

They skipped dessert and hooked up with some friends at a club, but left early to go back to Melanie’s condo. They fooled around and Melanie wanted him to spend the night, but he couldn’t get Jamie off his mind.

He went home, his head full of Jamie. Goddamn the guy for thinking he could destroy his relationship with Melanie. Well, he wasn’t going to stand for it. Jamie’s threatening ways might have worked with Melanie’s past boyfriends, but they wouldn’t with him. His blood was up when he went to bed, but it turned icy cold when he picked up the newspaper off his stoop the following morning. The
Chronicle
had been turned to the third page. The headline read Man Killed in Senseless Mugging.

It took Nick a minute to realize the newspaper wasn’t current, but six months old. The story detailed the botched mugging. A Wells Fargo employee—Miles Talbot, twenty-six—had been returning home after a night out in the city. He’d been stabbed repeatedly on the Embarcadero and his wallet and valuables had been taken. His body had been dragged from the main thoroughfare and dumped under the archway of Pier 26. After Nick read
the story, a vague recollection of the incident filtered through. The cops had never found the person responsible.

There were no prizes for guessing who’d left this piece of San Francisco history for him. It was a cheap and tactless attempt to intimidate him. It was also vague. Was Jamie saying that if he didn’t stop seeing his sister, he’d end up in the same condition? Christ, it was as pathetic as it was infuriating. Nick went to toss the newspaper in the trash, but a second thought struck him. He’d taken the news story for a veiled threat. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe Talbot’s murder was an example of what happened to Melanie’s boyfriends who didn’t take a hint. The strength went out of his legs and he flopped into a chair at his kitchen table.

Had Melanie’s brother killed this guy? It seemed incredible that he would resort to that. Nick couldn’t bring himself to believe it, but an itch at the back of his skull believed it was not only possible but true. There was only one way to find out.

He Googled Miles Talbot’s murder. The hits revealed various incarnations of the story he’d read in the
Chronicle.
There were a few more column inches dedicated to announcing when the investigation went cold. None of the hits revealed the one fact Nick looked for—the name of a girlfriend. He called Wells Fargo and asked for Talbot’s extension. He received the expected awkward silence before the switchboard operator said, “I’ll transfer you. Hold one moment.”

Nick was connected to Julia Chastain in the private clients department, who spoke in a hushed tone. “You wanted to speak to Miles Talbot?”

“Yes. Is he there?”

“No.”

“Okay, I’ll leave a message.”

“You don’t know, then.”

“Know what?”

Julia gave him the Cliff’s Notes version. He acted suitably
shocked and tossed in the factoid that he’d been an old college buddy of Talbot’s, which took him closer into her confidence.

“How did his girlfriend take it?”

“Melanie Lassen? I don’t know. I imagine she took it hard. Do you know her?”

Nick sagged under the weight of the confirmation. It was as if his flesh couldn’t support the immense weight of his bones. It was an effort to speak but he forced the words out. “Yeah, I know her.”

Julia said something but he wasn’t listening anymore. He thanked her and hung up.

The guys in his office wanted to hit Gordon Biersch for lunch. He possessed the desire to drink, but not the thirst. He hit the streets instead. He stood in line at a Subway, but walked away before his turn came. He was wandering along Spear Street when a voice interrupted him from his thoughts.

“Looks like you’ve read some bad news,” Jamie said.

He had a smug look plastered over his face. Nick would have loved to have wiped it off for him, but this wasn’t the time or the place, so he bottled his disgust.

“Ha, ha, very funny.”

Jamie fell in at Nick’s side. “I take it you’ve worked out the meaning.”

“Yes.”

“Then you’ll be getting out of Melanie’s life.”

“You can’t control her like this. She’s a woman, not a child.” Nick failed to keep his anger in check. “And you’re not her father.”

“From that, I assume you’re going to continue with the relationship.”

Nick didn’t have a choice. He couldn’t abandon Melanie. He guessed this was the decision Miles Talbot had come to and he had paid the ultimate price. Still, Nick couldn’t walk away.

“The murder of a man isn’t enough of a deterrent for you?”

“No. Not even if it was a dozen.”

Jamie shook his head in disbelief. “I can’t make out if you’re dumb or brave, but I’m leaning toward the former.”

Nick grabbed Jamie by the throat and slammed him up against the smoked glass windows of a faceless building. Jamie made no effort to fight Nick off. “You can’t break us up.”

“It’s looking that way,” Jamie said with sincerity.

A handful of people streamed from the office building. A couple of guys puffed themselves up to look more foreboding than they were. “We’ve called the cops,” one of the men said and held up a cell phone.

Nick released his hold on Jamie and wiped his hands on his pants. “Just leave Melanie and me alone.”

Nick backed away from Jamie as Jamie’s unwitting supporters closed in around him, asking him if he was okay.

Nick turned his back on them and walked away.

“Ask her about the others, Nick,” Jamie called out after him. “Miles Talbot wasn’t an isolated incident.”

Nick lay in Melanie’s bed. A sheen of sweat glistened on his chest. He’d made love to Melanie like it was the last time. It left them breathless, but for totally different reasons. He couldn’t get Jamie’s parting remark out of his head. What had he meant? He’d killed for Melanie before? How many times? Two? Five? A dozen? How did anyone get away with that many murders and how did Melanie cope? She’d have to think she was some sort of kiss of death with a trail of dead boyfriends left in her wake. That was if she even knew they were dead. Melanie said her boyfriends had run out on her, not died on her. Christ, he should go to the cops, but with what? He needed something concrete to give them. If he went to them half-cocked, he’d achieve nothing beyond alienating Melanie and blowing any kind of future with her.

“Wow, don’t look too depressed.” Melanie returned to the bedroom with a glass of water in her hand. She slipped between the sheets and pressed her naked body up against his. She offered him the glass and he sat up and took it. “You can’t be sad after all that.”

“No.” He sipped the water. “I was just thinking.”

“About what?”

“Stuff.”

She pinched his arm playfully. “Come on, spit it out. What’s eating you?”

“I was wondering how important I was to you.”

“Very.”

“Really?”

She took the glass from his hand and placed it on the nightstand. She took his face in her hands and stared directly at him. Her eyes shone with a brightness that blinded him. “At this very moment in space and time, you are the most important person to me.”

“At this very moment.”

She smiled. “Yes. What’s all this about? Are you feeling insecure?”