Hunting Sweetie Rose

CHAPTER 60.

I pushed at the arms of the chair to get up. A hundred nails of pain knocked me right back. My right side had gone stiff in the hour I’d been sitting. I rocked myself forward and managed to stand.

What I’d ignored in my haste came clear in an instant.

A set of elevator doors that should have been guarded, because they were unlocked.

A cop, sent by Plinnit, who wasn’t in the penthouse.

The faint, lingering smell of old sweat. That smell should have turned me around, sent me right back down in the elevator. Because I’d known that smell. It had been all over me, kicking, in back of a shack in Minnesota.

Now, he’d been heading toward the dark end of the hall. Down toward the emergency door, I hoped.

The foyer; I could get back to the foyer. Press the elevator button, step in, push another button. The doors would close. I’d be safe.

I moved slowly toward the door. One fast low dash past the kitchen, through the living room, and into the foyer, and I would be gone.

The desk lamp behind me went out. As did the glow down the hall, from the lamps I’d turned on in the living room and the foyer. Everything had gone dead.

The power had been cut, by the man who smelled of old sweat. He’d have a gun. Or a knife.

I froze. For an instant, my mind flirted with crazy hope: Surely they’d notice, downstairs. The glossy-headed concierge, or the manager out now from behind his closed door, would realize the power had been cut in the penthouse, and would ride the elevator up to investigate.

My gut twisted: No; they wouldn’t notice. Sweetie’s penthouse had been dark since she ran. Same old, same old; Sweetie’s home was supposed to be dark.

I had to move. I edged into the hallway. To my left was nothing but darkness, down the hall to the back of the penthouse. To my right, through the hall, the living room sofas and chairs were blurred dark shapes backlit by the lights of the city. The man with a gun, or a knife, could be anywhere, left or right.

Red, white, and blue stars flashed outside, lighting up the living room. Car horns went off as another burst shot into the sky.

It had to be now. Hugging my side, I ran through the hall, past the kitchen, through the living room, and into the darkness that was the foyer. I misjudged the distance, slammed into the elevator doors. I found the button, pushed it hard, and turned around to put my back against the door. I’d kick at him if he came.

No sound came. No whine of a motor, no cinching of a cable.

It couldn’t be. I turned around, found the button again. Still, no sound.

Elevators were always powered by a separate circuit. Master switches didn’t kill elevators; they killed lamps and refrigerators and televisions. Not elevators, not ever.

Unless that damned Duggan, or some other well-meaning security son of a bitch, had installed an override that would cut power to the elevator, a fail-safe to keep people out.

Something I’d never find, not in the dark.

I stabbed at the button again and again. Nothing.

I pulled out my cell phone. I couldn’t call the front desk; I didn’t know the number.

I could call 911. Except the man who smelled of old sweat would hear, and know exactly where I was. I’d be slashed or shot before the first police vehicle could get anywhere near the Wilbur Wright.

Another burst of fireworks exploded outside, these blue and orange. Chicago Bears colors, I thought to think, grasping for anything but fear.

Emergency stairs. Down the long hall.

Where the bastard had to be.

Unless he was in the kitchen, or one of the bedrooms. Unless he was in the living room, only ten or twenty feet away, waiting for me to make my move.

The blues and the oranges faded and were gone. For one insane second, I wanted to shout into the darkness: There was nothing left, not for him, not for me. All that remained was old files and the dried stain of the last of the guard’s life. Her money was gone. There was nothing to take, not anymore.

More fireworks would come, and I needed darkness now. I stepped gingerly out of the foyer, straining for the sound of a breath, the smell of old sweat.

A thousand yellow pinpoints fired in through the windows, lighting me up brighter than a man on fire.

I ran, clutching my side, past the kitchen on my right, the study on my left, toward the blackness at the end of the hallway. Behind me, the yellow pinpoints fell away. Again the hallway went black.

One step, another, and another, each one bringing me closer to the door, and to safety.

Something grabbed my foot, pitching me forward onto something large, bundled, and high. Pain, hot and deep, roiled up from the wound at my side. I reached out to fight the thing on the floor with my good left hand.

I touched fabric-and hair, wet, sticky hair, not moving.

Sweet Jesus, someone else was dead. Plinnit’s man, had to be.

I rolled away, fighting the panic, bumped into the wall. Pushing against it, somehow I got myself up. Behind me, a new burst of fireworks exploded through the living room and into the hall, washing everything in red, soft and gauzy.

Ahead, a shape rose from a crouch.

He came low, with incredible speed, and knocked me back down onto the carpet. He had no weight; he was all fingers and long jagged nails, clawing at my skin, frantic to get at my face and neck. Lips, wet huge lips-an animal’s lips-parted against the soft flesh under my chin as his teeth fought to bite into my flesh.

He smelled of oil and sweat. He smelled of death.

I pushed up with both arms. He fell back. My side ripped open, stitches tearing loose, wetting the side of my shirt with what was left of my blood.

Someone screamed. It was me.

He came again, a panther, slamming me against the wall with a soft grunt, tearing at me with his animal fingernails, biting my flesh, tasting my blood.

I kicked at the smell of him, and caught him somewhere soft. His breath came out, hot and foul, just above my head. I kicked again. He howled, and dropped onto me. I hugged his head, found a greasy ear, and tugged. He thrashed against me, working his wet jaw to find my skin with his teeth. I folded his ear into my fist, dug in my fingernails, and ripped.

He screamed.

Another starburst, blue and red and white, fired into the hall. In the new light, I saw his eyes, wet and glinting. I knew those wet eyes.

From Hadlow… and from somewhere else.

I squeezed hard at his ear. He bucked and broke free.

The pinpoints of reds, blues, and whites began to melt.

He whimpered; his breathing, ragged, panting, was becoming fainter. He was crawling away. Suddenly, he stopped and, more horribly, started scratching at the floor. In the last light of the reds and the blues and the whites, I saw him. He was clawing at the floor, like a dog.

For what he must have dropped. His gun, or his knife.

My right side was soaked. The stitches had shredded my flesh and torn loose. I’d bleed out, if I didn’t get out of there.

The last of the light dissolved. The hall went black.

Somehow I stood. Nothing mattered except getting out of there. I charged the sounds of his gasping lungs and scratching hands. I kicked blindly into the sick feral noises in the dark. My foot caught his underbelly. He howled, but still he scratched at the carpet. He’d kill me when he found it, the gun or the knife. I kicked him again. He grunted, a soft exhalation. Still he kept on, clawing at the carpet.

Fireworks, incredibly happy and purple and white, flashed from behind me, their colors soft on the grease of his hair.

He stopped his insane scratching, and with the agility of an animal, certainly nothing human, he rose. Instead of turning to charge me once again, though, he ran, a twisted wretched mass, toward the back of the penthouse. He hit something solid, there was a bang and then the squeal of unused hinges, and suddenly a long rectangle of yellow light flooded into the hallway. For an instant he teetered upright, a grotesque, misshapen figure frozen in the blinding light. Then he was gone. The door slammed shut. The hallway went dark once again.

I had nothing left. I leaned against the wall, wanting only air. My cheek was hot against the soft cool fibers of the silk wallpaper. I breathed, deeply. It was almost a miracle.

My right side was sodden. I couldn’t stay. I had to get down for help.

I put a foot forward, and, leaning my left shoulder against the wall for support, I moved toward where the yellow light had been. Ten steps, nine, and I felt the cold metal of an emergency door. I pushed the panic bar and the door swung out.

Doubled over, clutching at my torn flesh, I hobbled into the harsh safe light at the top of the stairs.