A Friend in the Glass (An Auden & O’Callaghan Mystery #3)

Chapter Thirty-Three

Somehow, after everything that had happened, it wasn’t as late as it felt. The city was quieter as Sam and Rufus made their way back toward the Savoy, but it wasn’t quiet, and it wasn’t still. The wind curled around buildings and seemed to be behind them no matter how many times they turned, the sound of it competing with the crunch of their footsteps. There were still cars and people, a cyclist ringing the bell on his bike as he tried to beat the light. The city that never sleeps. Sometimes, apparently, it tossed and turned in bed.

The Savoy wasn’t asleep either when they got there. The lobby was full of shadows, with pools of golden light here and there to soften the darkness. An efficient-looking young woman stood at the front desk, clicking and clacking madly at one of the computers. From the bar came the clink of glasses, the swell of voices, a burst of laughter.

As Sam approached the desk, the young woman looked up at him. She put on a practiced smile and said, “Welcome to the Savoy. How may I help you?”

“I’m here to see Del Jolly. He told me to come up to his room.”

“Of course. The elevators are right over there.”

“The thing is,” Sam said, “he forgot to tell me his room number. We met at the convention, and we were in a rush.”

The woman gave him a considering once-over. Apparently, chasing a murderer on foot, being hit by a car, and then being thwacked with a metal pole gave you a certain look, because she offered the practiced smile again and said, “I’m so sorry, but we can’t give out guests’ private information.”

Rufus interjected with “Can you give him a ring?”

“Let me see what I can do. What name should I tell him?”

“He probably won’t remember my name,” Sam said, “but you can tell him we met at the Stonefish panel, and I brought those papers he asked about.”

More of that practiced smile. Sam tried smiling back. It didn’t seem to go over well, because she turned her attention to the computer a little more quickly than was necessary and started punching keys with frantic enthusiasm. Maybe he needed a little practice himself.

After a few seconds of energetic computering, the woman picked up the phone and placed the call. Del must have picked up right away because she said, “Yes, Mr. Jolly? There are a couple of men here who’d like to see you. Yes, two of them. They said they met you at the Stonefish panel and brought some papers. Yes. Ok. Thank you, have a wonderful evening.” As she returned the phone to its cradle, she beamed at Sam and said, “Room 918.”

On the ride up, there was no Muzak, no piped-in environmental sounds, only the hiss of machinery: the cables and pulleys, oiled metal, air circulating in the shaft. The elevator dinged when they reached the ninth floor, and the doors slid open. 918 was to their right, three rooms from the elevator. The door was propped open—the swing lock between the door and the frame so that it couldn’t close—and a DO NOT DISTURB sign hung from the handle. On the other side, the room was dark.

Rufus took off his beanie and shoved it into a pocket. Voice hardly more than a murmur, he said, “Nice to see we’re being expected. I hope Del’s got a mini bar because I could use a drink or four.”

Sam took a deep breath and rapped on the door. The sound died away, and silence padded in after it. He took another deep breath as he worked Chad’s gun out of his waistband. It was a cheap piece of shit—a Hi-Point, small enough to disappear inside Sam’s grip, and it had an American flag design in black and silver on the barrel that had probably made some idiot cream his Jockeys. In theory, though, it would do the job. If it didn’t stovepipe on him. Or fuck, blow up in his hand. He knocked again, but there was no answer. Nudging Rufus to the side, Sam pressed himself up against the wall and nudged the door open.

No shot. No flash. No clap of gunfire.

Instead, the light from the hall unfolded across high-traffic carpet. Sam held the door with one hand, taking in shadowy details: a desk, a sofa, a wet bar, a recliner—

The gloom made it hard to tell for sure, but Sam’s mind followed the irregular bumps and knobs of shadow outlined against the recliner. It might have been something else—a blanket, maybe, or a pile of clothes. But it wasn’t.

“Someone’s in there,” he whispered. The door seemed heavier than it should have been, and he fought the urge to drop his hand and let it swing shut. “A body. In the chair.”

“ What ?” Rufus hissed. “Who? Can you see?”

Sam shook his head. He checked the hallway; they were still alone, but not for long. He reached through the doorway with the hand holding the gun, found the light switch just inside the room, and flipped it. A single overhead light came on immediately inside the room.

Still nothing. No one burst out of hiding. No one fired.

It was enough light to make out Del’s face in profile. The entry wound from the bullet looked small, almost clean, on the side of his head—at that distance, like a little black circle. The other side, where it had exited, would be a lot worse.

“Stay here,” Sam whispered and stepped into the room.

“Like fuck.” Rufus’s counter was barely audible. He slipped into the room behind Sam.

Sam flipped the swing lock out of the way and let the door close. It settled into its frame with a click. Now Sam could smell it—piss, blood, what he thought was a lingering whiff of gunfire. They would have killed him here; it would have been too much trouble to maneuver a corpse through the Savoy. It had probably happened not long after Sam and Rufus got away from Chad and Shane the day before.

As Sam moved across the room toward Del’s body, he was vaguely aware of Rufus splitting off toward the bathroom. The thud of Sam’s pulse wasn’t really a sound, but it kept time for the whisper of the room’s HVAC system, and the hoarse rattle of the wind wrapping itself around the building, subsiding, and picking up again. Del already had that shrunken look that people took on after death. A hint of gray stubble showed on one flaccid cheek. Rigor had come and gone, but one hand was still curled into a claw, and his big, expensive watch had slid on his wrist and was now upside down. When they’d dragged him over there. When they’d hauled him into the chair like a sack of meat.

The smell was starting to get into Sam’s nose, settle there. It stung his nostrils—that was the body’s way of telling him to get the fuck out of here—and it made the hair on the back of his neck bristle. He tried breathing through his mouth, but it wasn’t much better.

Del was dead.

Colonel Bridges was dead.

Evangeline was dead.

Nobody was going to flip on Jen Nasta. Nobody was going to talk. The recordings weren’t worth shit.

He heard himself breathing through his mouth, the plosive bursts of it. He stared at the blackout curtains. If you pulled them open, there’d be eight million people pressed up against the fucking glass.

Went was still dead.

A soft sound suggested Rufus had come up behind him. Sam said, “Let’s go.”

But when he turned around, it wasn’t Rufus. It was Lew.

Lew looked even worse than he had earlier that evening. The scrapes and scratches on his face had stopped bleeding, and now they had that raw, inflamed look of a wound before it scabbed. A drying line of rust-colored flakes snaked down the side of his neck to stain his shirt. He’d fixed some kind of impromptu bandage where the bullet had caught him, but it was over his jeans, and it looked like the graze was still seeping. Sam’s first, disjointed thought was that he couldn’t believe they’d let him in the Savoy looking like that. But in one hand, Lew held a compact pistol, the gun aimed at Sam’s chest. So maybe that had something to do with it.

“Drop it,” Lew said.

Sam tried to take a slower, deeper breath, but he couldn’t. The air kept exploding from his lungs.

“Drop the fucking gun,” Lew said.

“You killed Went,” Sam said. His mouth was cottony. Anesthetized. He had the strange sense that he was falling.

“Fucking pathetic little cocksucking fuck. He was crying when I got there. He wanted a hug. The little faggot tried to kiss me.” He ran his free hand across his mouth—unconsciously, maybe. Or maybe not. Went had always thought he had a beautiful mouth. “I did him a favor. Now drop the gun.”

Sam noticed the slightest movement over Lew’s shoulder—Rufus crept on the worn-out soles of his shoes toward the open closet, silently reaching for the iron mounted to the wall beside the accompanying board.

“We heard the recordings. She’s got Del talking about all of it.”

“I’ll shoot you right here if I have to. Or we can do this nice and easy, Sam. It’ll be over fast.”

Sam didn’t say anything. He tried to swallow, but his throat was too tight. He knew he should be thinking about the gun. He knew he should be focused on the gun. But his brain kept strobing. Went loading up on mashed potatoes in the chow. Went freaking out because he’d walked through poison sumac to take a leak. And that final night, his brain building the image out of bits and pieces: Went alone in the barracks. Until Lew showed up.

He’d been a kid. And Sam had promised himself he’d watch out for him.

Maybe Lew felt it, the change, the decision. His own expression hardened.

Rufus had unhooked the iron without making a sound. In the same split second that Lew’s grip on the pistol tightened, Rufus swung the iron against the back of Lew’s head.

As Lew stumbled, Sam launched himself forward. He brought the cheap little pistol up and then hammered down on the side of Lew’s head with it. The force of the blow redirected Lew sideways, and he hit the coffee table. His gun went off—for an instant, the muzzle flash was blinding, and then Sam’s ears rang from the sound of the shot. The stink of gunpowder filled Sam’s nose. Blinking to clear his vision, he closed with Lew again. The other man was trying to push himself up from the table, but between the blows to the head and his injured leg, he was having a hard time. Sam kicked Lew’s hand and felt something—one of the tiny bones there—give. Somehow, Lew held on to the gun. He got off another shot. The muzzle flash dazzled Sam again, and then, in the darkness that swept in, the afterimage floated in front of him. He grabbed Lew by the arm and dragged him off the table, riding him down to the floor. They landed hard, the jolt zinging up to Sam’s hip. He slammed Lew’s hand against the floor once, and then he yanked the gun free. He felt Lew’s index finger snap when it caught in the trigger guard.

Scrambling to his feet, Sam aimed the piece-of-shit pistol at Lew. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t hear—the sound of the gunshot was like a bell being rung inside his head. He felt like he was on fire.

From a long way off, Lew was shouting, “Don’t! Don’t! Don’t! We can make a deal! I’ll tell you about Del, about Stonefish—” Panic sharpened his voice. “I’ll talk!”

Sam’s hand trembled. The gun dipped, floated, centered on Lew again. His finger tightened on the trigger.

Rufus grabbed Sam’s shoulder. “Sam, come on, please don’t. This piece of shit isn’t worth your life. If you shoot him you’ll be in prison until you’re dead. Please.”

It was like pushing something that was too heavy, almost impossibly heavy. Like trying to move a boulder. And that distant part of himself recognized that yes, it was like that, because this had been a weight on him, crushing him, for a long time. So long that, some days, he wasn’t even aware of it anymore.

And then, slowly, it began to shift. His chest hitched. His breathing came thin and high. He wanted to close his eyes or cry or both. But he didn’t. He fumbled the pistol toward Rufus and dried his hands on his jeans and limped away.