KILLING SARAI (A NOVEL)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN





Victor





I stop Sarai at the doors to the suite and turn her around to face me, my hands on her arms. I shake her. “Listen to me,” I say and she raises her eyes. “You’re still in character when we walk out of here. Act as you did before any of this happened. Do you understand?” I shake her again.

She nods erratically and then takes a deep breath, swallowing the lump in her throat.

We step out into the hall and I turn the lock on the inside of the suite door before closing it. How safely we get out of this mansion and off this property all now lies in the hands of Hamburg. If he decides he wants us dead more than he wants to stay out of prison and lose his entire fortune, then the next five minutes are going to be complicated. I have one weapon, the gun from the briefcase in the closet. Nine bullets are in the chamber. I’m not entirely confident that I can take out the guards who will be shooting at us with only nine bullets. If I were alone and didn’t have Sarai to protect, I could pull it off.

“Head up,” I whisper harshly to Sarai on my right.

She raises her chin and I slip my hand around her waist as we walk casually toward the glass elevator. The two guards who had been positioned outside Hamburg’s room are nowhere to be seen, but there is one at the end of the hall. Like the others, he’s wearing an earpiece. We walk by him casually and Sarai works her charm, smiling a venomous little smile at him. Beguiled by her, he grins like an idiot until the elevator drops us below his floor.

“Ah, there you are,” Vince Shaw, Hamburg’s assistant says as we exit the elevator on the ground floor. “Are the two of you leaving already? You should stay a while longer. Lucinda is going to play for us tonight.” He stands with his hands folded neatly in front of him.

I smile and shake my head. “I would love to, but I have an early flight to catch.”

“But I want to stay,” Sarai says as Izabel and with a little whine in her voice.

“Not this time,” I say. “You know I always miss an early flight when I don’t get at least six hours of sleep the night before.”

“Please, Victor?” She lays her head on my arm.

I ignore her artificial efforts altogether and reach out to shake Vince’s hand.

“It was a pleasure to meet you,” I say.

“You as well. Perhaps you can enjoy the party longer next time.”

“Perhaps.”

I pull Sarai along next to me as we head toward the exit. Just before we make it to the tall double-doors, I hear Hamburg’s voice carry through the mansion from the balcony of the fourth floor and we stop cold in our tracks.

“Victor Faust,” he calls out over the crowd.

I feel Sarai’s heart beating in her hand as she grasps mine.

I step away from the door and back into the light so that I can see him fully. He has cleaned up nicely in such a short time, his dress shirt tucked back inside his slacks, his gray hair that had been drenched by sweat, slicked back over his head likely by his fingers rather than a comb.

The moment of silence, although only a few seconds at best, is tense. I think Sarai has stopped breathing.

Hamburg smiles down at us, his hands resting over the balcony railing.

“I look forward to seeing you again,” he says.

I nod. “Until then,” I say.

The doorman swings one side of the door open for us as we exit the mansion. Neither of us feel safe until we drive the length of the two-acre driveway and are allowed past the front gate without being stopped or shot at.

I drive around the city for thirty minutes before going back to the hotel to make certain we’re not being followed. Sarai is silent the entire time, staring out the windshield. She doesn’t have the look of someone who is traumatized. She’s doubting me. She’s regretting her decision to have taken part in what happened.

“Sarai—”

“What was that?” she shouts, her head snapping around to look at me. “Why was that woman the hit? She was harmless, Victor. She needed our help! She was innocent! It couldn’t be more obvious!”

“Are you sure about that?” I ask, retaining my calm demeanor.

Sarai starts to yell at me more, but she stops and drops her chin.

“Maybe not,” she says, second-guessing herself now. “But he kept her in that room. She was drugged. Helpless. A prisoner. I don’t understand….” She looks out the windshield again.

“It appeared that way, yes,” I say. “But Mary Hamburg was just as deserving as Arthur.”

“Then who ordered the hit?” she asks, her gaze fixated on me. “Why kill her and not him?”

“Mary Hamburg ordered the hit on herself,” I say and Sarai’s eyes cloud over with disbelief. “The two of them have been involved in numerous cases of rape and murder, accidental deaths caused by erotic asphyxiation, but murder nonetheless, all covered up by their big bank accounts. They’ve been involved in this lifestyle for most of their marriage. A year ago, Mary Hamburg—according to her—decided she didn’t want to be a part of that life anymore. Her demons caught up to her. When she tried to talk to Arthur about them getting out of it, seeking help and straightening out their lives, he turned on her. Long story short, he got her addicted to heroin and kept her locked inside that room so she couldn’t destroy everything they had. But he loved her. In his own demented way, he loved her. That was apparent to me by his reaction to her death.”

Sarai shakes her head slowly, trying to take in the truth.

“How do you know all of this?”

“I read the file,” I say. “I usually don’t, but in this case I thought it was necessary.”

“Because I was with you,” she says and I nod. “You knew I’d have questions.”

“Yes.”

She looks away.

“How could he keep her out of the public view for so long? Somebody would’ve had to know something. Their kids. The letter said they had kids.”

“Yes, they did,” I say. “Two children who both live in Europe somewhere and wanted nothing to do with either of them. And Hamburg didn’t keep Mary out of the public eye entirely. He claimed she was on her deathbed. Terminal cancer. Every now and then, when a public appearance was necessary to keep any suspicion away, he would dress her up, drug her up and wheel her out to sit beside him in a wheelchair for no more than a few minutes. It was enough of an appearance for people to see that Mary Hamburg did indeed look to be dying of cancer because of her weight and the effects the heroin had on her. No one asked questions.”

I bypass the valet and pull into the parking deck of our hotel and I turn off the engine.

We sit in silence for a moment, shrouded by the dim blue-gray lighting embedded in the concrete beams above us.

“But how did she order the hit on herself?” She runs her hands through the top of her hair. “I just don’t—”

“There were few people allowed inside the room where she was hidden. Maids only. Illegal immigrants. Fearful for being sent back to their country, and likely for their lives, Arthur Hamburg knew they wouldn’t speak. At least, that’s what he thought because it was one of the maids who helped Mary Hamburg set up the hit.”

“She should’ve just killed herself,” Sarai says. “If it was me, I wouldn’t go through all the trouble.”

“You would if you couldn’t bring yourself to take your own life. There are many people like that out there, Sarai. Ready to die, but afraid to do it themselves.”

She doesn’t respond.

“Do you think they’ll come after us?” she asks.

I open my door and get out and then move around to her side, opening hers. “Right now, no. He would’ve done it before we left if that was the case.” I reach out my hand to her. She places her fingers into mine and I help her out of the car.

After shutting the door I add, “Hamburg has far too much to lose. But that’s not to say he won’t devise some kind of plan to take revenge on me in some way that he believes he can’t be linked to it.”

“Or me,” she says and looks at me hopelessly. “He could take revenge on me.”

I hit the alarm on the key ring twice and the car beeps, echoing loudly through the parking garage.

This time I don’t respond.

I walk with her to the elevator and up to our room on the top floor. I don’t think much at all about Arthur and Mary Hamburg or what went down tonight. Mostly I think about Sarai and what she went through with me. She didn’t die, but I feel like another part of her did. And it’s one hundred percent my fault. I knew I shouldn’t have taken her there. I am fully aware of my own actions and how inexcusable they are. I came to terms with it the moment Sarai didn’t back out of the last chance I gave her. It should’ve been me, right then, who put a stop to her having anything more to do with it.

I chose a different path.

And I don’t regret it.

There are a few more things that Sarai and I need to talk about and I fully expect the way I touched her in Hamburg’s suite to be among the first. I prepare myself for it, but when we walk into the room and she kicks off her heels, she stuns me when she says, “I want to kill him.” She sits down on the end of the bed and turns her head to look up at me, resolve at home in her eyes. “That man needs to die, Victor. He needs to pay for what he’s done. He needs to pay with his life. Just like she did.”

There is my proof. Sarai has the blood of a killer; there’s no mistaking it anymore. I know I didn’t make her that way. Life did that, not me. But I know I’m the one who ultimately pulled the shroud from her eyes to make her see it.

“It’s only a matter of time before a hit is ordered on him too,” I say.

I take off my jacket and tie, draping them over the back of a chair.

“We should’ve done it when we had the chance,” she says.

Breaking apart the buttons of my dress shirt, I glance over at her sitting there, staring off at the wall, and I wonder in what way she’s imagining she’s killing Hamburg. It’s bloody. It’s vengeful. I’m sure of it.

I lay my shirt over the chair with my jacket and walk toward her, stepping out of my shoes on the way.

“If we did it tonight,” I say, sitting down on the end of the bed beside her, “we wouldn’t have made it out of there alive. It wasn’t part of the mission. Every mission must be planned precisely. Stray from any part of it and you triple your chances of exposing yourself or getting yourself killed.”

We sit in stillness, both looking out ahead, both married to our thoughts. I wonder if hers are about me. I can’t help but for mine to be about her.