The Heartbreak Lounge (33 page)

Read The Heartbreak Lounge Online

Authors: Wallace Stroby

BOOK: The Heartbreak Lounge
4.29Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
The bag was almost full when Overcoat looked up and said, “One twenty-five.”
“Not a bad little nest egg,” Santelli said. “Good traveling money. You still planning on traveling, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you'll need these.” He reached into a coat pocket, came out with a white envelope. He set it on the seat beside them, patted it.
Johnny took the envelope. Inside was a blue passport. He
opened it, saw a picture of himself from years ago, before Glades, and the name Richard Martins. Also in the envelope was a New Jersey driver's license and a Social Security card, both in the same name.
“You could pay an arm and a leg for those things,” Santelli said. “Have some scumbag do a crappy job, take your money and then turn you in to the Feds a month later when they start squeezing his balls about some Arabs coming in from Canada. But this … flawless work. And the guy who did it has no idea who you are, never saw you, except for that picture we gave him. Its clean, perfect. Like gold. It's a gesture, from Tony.”
“It was part of the deal.”
“It was. And he's kept it.”
Johnny put everything back into the envelope, dropped it in the bag, zipped it up.
“I guess that's it,” Santelli said.
“Thanks,” Johnny said and reached for the door. Overcoat got it first, pushed it open. Johnny stepped out into the snow, felt a wave of dizziness sweep over him, then settle. He breathed in the cold air, dragged the bag out. There was a quarter-size blood spot on the seat where he'd been. Santelli looked at it, then up at him. Overcoat was watching him too.
“You sure you're all right?” Santelli said. “You need a doctor?”
Johnny shook his head.
“You sure?”
“I'm sure.” He took another step back from the car.
Santelli and Overcoat looked at each other. Overcoat shrugged.
Santelli turned back to him.
“Look out for yourself then,” he said.
“Buona fortuna.”
Overcoat reached over, pulled the door shut. The Lincoln backed away, turned around in the lot. Johnny watched its taillights as it pulled back out onto the highway.
He stood there in the snow for a moment, then got Lindell's keys out. The first button he pushed set the jeep's alarm off, the second silenced it. The third unlocked the driver's-side door with a click.
He climbed in, wincing with pain, set the bag on the passenger seat. He turned the engine on and the stereo started up. Background chatter, voices as if at a party, then Marvin Gaye singing,
“Mother, mother …”
He took his gloves from his jacket, put them on, turned the wipers on, adjusted the rearview. He took a last look up at the lighted office window as he pulled out of the lot and onto the highway.
 
Back at the motel, he upended the bag from the twenty-four-hour drugstore, spilled its contents into the bathroom sink. He shrugged off his jacket, let it fall to the floor.
The left side of his sweatshirt was sodden with blood. He raised his arms, peeled it off, feeling the pain. The wound was a few inches above his hip, the area around it puffed and discolored. The hole was smaller than a dime, edged in black, dried blood crusted around it and down his hip. The left thigh of his jeans was stained and stiff with blood.
He soaked a washrag in warm water, dabbed gently at the wound. As he touched it, blood began to seep out again. He wiped at it, saw the dark blue bulge just under the skin an inch or two away. The slug.
He turned the Mini Mag on, moved closer to the mirror, shone the beam into the wound. There were flecks of green inside, bits of money that had been driven into him by the bullet. Using the tweezers he'd bought, he picked at them, dragged them out piece by piece, sodden with blood. The pain brought nausea, dizziness. When he got all he could see, he dropped the bloody tweezers in the sink, opened the bottle of rubbing alcohol and half filled a plastic glass. Then he got the Buck knife out, opened it, swirled the blade in the alcohol.
After a few moments, he went to work. He pressed the point of the blade against the skin above the slug, sliced carefully. As the skin parted, blood began to ooze out. He put the knife down, squeezed the new wound with both hands until the slug eased through the incision and clattered into the sink. It was small, a .32 at best. Anything larger would have punched through the ribs, taken the lung.
He rinsed the blade again, scraped at the hole where the bullet had gone in, brought fresh bleeding. When he was done, he washed both wounds with alcohol and hot water, dried them with a towel and then slapped gauze pads over them. He got two banded stacks of money from the bag, set them against the gauze pads to hold them there, then wrapped everything with an ace bandage, cinched it tightly around his waist. Every breath hurt, but the dressings stayed in place.
He washed four aspirin down with a palmful of water from the sink, then got a fresh work shirt and jeans from his duffel, pulled them on. He put the canvas bag with the money on the bed, unzipped it. Into it went the rest of the money from the duffle, the tickets, the Sig, the extra clips and Connor's .38. He'd leave the rest of his clothes, his books. They were baggage from another life, another time.
When he was done, he put the bag in the jeep, shoved his bloody clothes into a Dumpster. He climbed into the jeep, turned the wipers on. It was snowing heavier now, the ground covered, the wind picking up.
Lindell's cell phone was plugged into a charger on the console. He picked it up, punched buttons until he got a signal. He dialed Mitch's number, waited. On the tenth ring it was answered.
“Yeah?” Mitch's voice.
“You're home,” Johnny said.
“Jo—”
“Don't talk, just listen. Are there people with you now?”
“Just Sharonda and Treya.”
“Cops still outside?”
“I don't know. Probably.”
“We'll keep this quick. That thing I told you about. That trip. It's happening tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“There's a place for you too, if you want to come. But you have to walk away from there tomorrow, with whatever's on your back. If they follow you, you'll have to lose them.”
“What about clothes?”
“We'll buy what we need.”
“I don't know … . Sharonda might not—”
“Not Sharonda, not Treya. Just you.”
Silence on the line.
“We've been apart for a long time, Mitch. When I was in Jamesburg, then later in Glades. Things got fucked up. We've got another chance now. But I'm not coming back—ever.”
“I didn't want to tell them anything. I didn't. But they were going to take Treya away.”
“Forget about all that. It doesn't matter anymore.”
“But I've been thinking …”
“About what?”
Johnny unzipped the canvas bag, took the Amtrak tickets out. A man he'd known in Glades, a French-Canadian Hells Angel named Latourre, had told him Vancouver was one of the most beautiful cities in the world. A place to start over. Wilderness, mountains. Cold. Clean.
“It's just that … I've never really had anything before, you know? Nothing worth holding on to, at least. I mean, I'm a fuckup from the word go, right? I've screwed up everything I've ever tried to do.”
“You come with me, you start over. You can forget all that bullshit.”
“What I mean is … it doesn't feel right, leaving them here. It feels like running away.”
Johnny watched the snow, listened to the wind.
“You there?” Mitch said.
“I'm here.” He dropped the tickets back in the bag.
“I wish I could, John.”
“We all walk our path, Mitchy.”
“What?”
“Our path. We all have one. It's laid out in front of us from the day we're born, whether we recognize it or not. And there isn't a goddamn thing we can do about it.”
More silence.
“Take care of yourself, Mitch. And take care of that little girl.”
“Where are you going? How am I going to reach you?”
“Bye, Mitch,” he said and ended the call.
Wind shook the jeep. He started the engine. Snow seemed to blow at the windshield from different angles. He turned the wipers on.
Tomorrow I'll be gone, he thought. Out of here for good, forever. The loose ends tied now, his destiny come round. And only one last stop to make.
At his first kick, the back door exploded inward, showered glass on the kitchen floor. Johnny went in, tracking snow. He raised the Sig, stepped into a hallway. Suitcases here, ready to go. In the living room, a thin blond man, staring at him, frozen.
“Reggie!” the blond man said.
Johnny looked at him, confused, heard thumping steps on the stairs behind him. He turned, saw a man built like a weight lifter come quickly down the stairs, wearing sweatpants, a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, arms thick and veined. He came at him without hesitation and Johnny raised the Sig, shot him through the left shoulder.
It spun him to the side, checked his momentum, but he kept coming. Johnny stepped back, lowered the Sig and fired again. Blood burst from the weight lifter's right thigh and he went down onto his knees.
Behind him, he heard the blond man pulling at the front door, working the locks. Johnny moved quickly, caught him by the back of his shirt, spun him around and kicked his legs out from under him. He went down hard and Johnny leaned over him, touched the warm silencer to his forehead. The blond man closed his eyes.
Johnny sucked air, the pain in his side flaring. The weight lifter was moaning on the floor, holding his injured leg. Johnny twisted the silencer into the soft skin between the blond man's eyes.
“Where is she?” he said.
The blond man's eyes opened.
“You're him, aren't you?” he said.
“I'm him.”
“She's not here.”
Johnny looked around the room, caught the collar of the man's shirt, dragged him farther away from the door. He put the silencer behind the man's right ear.
“Where is she?” he said again. “I'm not going to ask much longer.”
The blond man had gone rigid, eyes shut, tears leaking. The weight lifter was watching them, hands clasped over his bleeding leg.
Johnny turned to him.
“You know, don't you?” he said.
“Fuck you.”
“You do know,” Johnny said. He used the Sig to pin the blond man's head to the floor.
“Leave him alone.”
“Tell me where she is,” he said. “And tell me now. Or I'm going to shoot your friend through the head.”
“This is bullshit,” the weight lifter said, pain and anger in his voice. “This hasn't got anything to do with us.”
“Not the point,” Johnny said. “Counting to ten. One, two—”
“Stop it.”
“Three—”
“She's at a hotel. They took her there.”
“Who?” Johnny said. “Who took her there?”
“Those people. That man.”
“What man?”
The blond man was shaking now, as if with a seizure.
“What man?” Johnny said.
“Harry,” the weight lifter said. “His name's Harry.”
Johnny took the Sig away, straightened. The blond man didn't move or open his eyes.
“What hotel? Where?”
“I don't fucking know, man. They didn't tell us.”
“You talk to her since?”
“Jack has.”
“Today?”
“She called. She didn't say where she was. I'm telling you the truth. We
don't know
.”
Johnny eased the hammer down on the Sig, slipped the safety on. He reversed the gun in his grip, raised it and brought the butt down hard on the blond man's right knee. He cried out, shuddered, but his eyes stayed closed.
“You stay there,” Johnny said to him. “Don't move.”
He went past them into the kitchen, saw the weight lifter begin to crawl across the floor to the blond man.
There was a cordless phone resting in its base on the counter. Johnny picked it up, hit Star 69, got a local number back. He dialed it and a hotel operator answered.
“I need you to help me,” he told her. “Someone called me, left this number but not the room they were in.”
“What's the name?”
“Might be registered a couple different ways. Try Ellis first.”
Computer keys clacked. He saw a phone book atop the refrigerator. He set the Sig on the counter, pulled the book down, began to flip through the pages.
“No guest by that name,” the operator said. “Want to try another?”
“Rane.” He spelled it.
More keys clacking. He paged quickly through the book to the INVESTIGATIONS heading, traced his finger down the listings until he got to RW SECURITY. There was a small ad for it in a corner of the page, with a silhouette of the state of New Jersey. At the bottom of the ad, in smaller type, was RAYMOND J. WASHINGTON. NJ STATE LICENSED. BONDED. INSURED.
“No one by that name either, sir.”
“Let's try another. Washington.”
The sound of keys and then “That would be a Miss Washington?”
“Yes.”
“That's Room 916. Should I connect you?”
“No,” he said. “That's all right. I'll call back.”
He hung up, flipped through pages until he found the listing
for the hotel, the address. He ripped the page out, went back and tore out the RW ad as well. If he had the wrong hotel, or if she'd already left, it would be a place to start again. But he knew it was the right hotel, that he'd find her there. Things were falling into place again, the path revealing itself.
He took out the Buck knife, used the blade to slice through the cord that led from the phone base to the wall outlet. Back in the living room, the blond man was sobbing softly, the weight lifter cradling him in his arms.
On an end table by the couch, a cell phone was plugged into a charger. Johnny unplugged it, dropped the phone on the floor and crushed it with a boot, heard it snap and splinter. He kicked the pieces across the floor.
“I should kill you both,” he said.
“Just get out of here,” the weight lifter said. “Leave us alone. Just go.”
He raised the Sig, pointed it at them.
“You try to call her, warn her,” he said. “And I'll be back.”
“We don't know where she is,” the weight lifter said. “I told you that.”
“And why should I believe you?” Johnny said. He thumbed back the hammer.
The weight lifter looked straight into the muzzle.
“If you're going to do it, do it,” he said. “If not, then just leave us alone.”
Johnny looked into his eyes, lowered the gun.
“Brave man,” he said.
He eased the hammer down, raised his jacket and slipped the gun into his belt.
“Don't hurt her,” the weight lifter said.
Johnny shook his head.
“I'd never do that,” he said. “She's my girl.”
Then he went back through the kitchen and out the ruined door into the night.
 
He cruised the hotel parking lot, wipers on, looking at cars. There was a station wagon parked near the front entrance, a black man at the wheel. No Mustang.
He drove around the side of the hotel, parked near the dark restaurant. There was a service entrance back there by the Dumpster, fire doors. He got out of the jeep, walked through the snow and climbed up onto a loading platform. The first door he tried was locked, the second opened when he pushed on it. He stepped through into a dark kitchen area. The wind shut the door behind him.
 
He rode the elevator to the ninth floor, walked down the carpeted hall counting room numbers. When he got to 916, he knocked twice, stood at an angle away from the peephole.
“Who is it?”
He knocked again.
He heard the chain being undone. When the door started to open, he put his hand against it, shoved. She stumbled back and the door thudded into the wall.
He stepped in, shut the door behind him, heard it lock.
“Hey, baby,” he said.

Other books

One Mile Under by Gross, Andrew
Los asesinatos de Horus by Paul Doherty
The Huntress by Michelle O'Leary
Black May by Michael Gannon
My Family for the War by Anne C. Voorhoeve
The Strangers of Kindness by Terry Hickman
Postcards from Cedar Key by Terri DuLong