Irony was the only word for it. The sudden silence in the lobby had acted like the mother of all starter pistols. Welcome to all hell breaking loose, part 2.
My view from behind the couch was of the front entrance, the double doors now bursting open as cops with their guns drawn split off left and right, high and low. Most of the hotel guests remained hiding behind whatever cover they’d found, and those few who ventured out into the open were quickly barked at to take cover again lest the shooter have thoughts of opening fire for a second time.
If only anyone knew where he was.
“Mezzanine!” I shouted.
Every hand on every gun immediately swung up to the overhanging balcony. I stood and turned, thinking I’d see Elizabeth still heading up the stairs, but she’d already disappeared.
So had the shooter. It has to be the Dealer, right?
“Clear!” yelled two cops in unison after reaching the mezzanine. They were echoed by another at the elevator bank and still another by the entrance to the hotel’s restaurant. Everywhere was clear.
Except nothing was clear. There was no Elizabeth. No Dealer. No idea where they were.
I went about gathering my shoes in front of the couch, the seat cushions now tufted with bullet holes. That was it, though, for my immediate to-do list. All I could do was wonder if there was something more I could be doing. Should be doing. Sitting on my ass didn’t feel right.
Where the hell are you, Elizabeth? This whole thing doesn’t feel right.
Suddenly every gun was swinging wildly again, no two in the same direction. A loud crashing noise had come from somewhere beyond the lobby, but where? And what was it, exactly? It wasn’t a gunshot; it was more like something falling hard to the ground. Real hard.
I craned my neck trying to trace the sound, which was nearly impossible given the size of the lobby. It was too cavernous, too much like an echo chamber. Everyone was clearly thinking the same thing.
Including the hotel manager. I’d seen him pop up from his hiding place behind the front desk as though he were the target in a game of whack-a-mole. His hair looked as if it had been through a wind tunnel.
That’s all I needed, though—one glance at the guy to remind me of Elizabeth shutting him down earlier in the upstairs hallway. In a matter of seconds, she’d given a master class on human behavior.
Human beings are pretty simple once you figure out what they want.
What does the Dealer want right now?
Chapter 38
I MADE a beeline to the front desk. “Where is it?” I asked the manager. More like demanded. “Where’s that back exit?”
You would’ve thought I’d asked the guy to tell me the square root of pi he was blinking so rapidly.
“The back exit!” I repeated.
“Down the stairs behind the elevators,” he finally answered.
Instinct and nothing more had me heading toward those stairs on my own. I would’ve kept going, too, if my brain hadn’t kicked in.
Never bring a knife to a gunfight? Hell, Dylan, you’re not even bringing anything.
I didn’t get very far. The police had every path into and out of the lobby covered, and those not standing guard were talking into their radios or interviewing hotel guests, who were finally allowed out from hiding.
“Hey, excuse me,” I said, approaching a cop underneath the mezzanine balcony. He was wrapping up his questioning of a Wall Street type in a slick suit who had the look of a guy who would later be in a bar bragging about his near-death experience to anyone willing to listen. I could almost see the overpriced IPA in his hand.
“Yeah?” said the cop, although he couldn’t have sounded less interested if he tried. He was far more concerned with whatever he was checking on his phone.
“I need your help,” I said. “I’m here with Detective Elizabeth Needham, and she’s now—”
“What did you say your name was?”
“I didn’t,” I said. “What I’m trying to tell you is that the guy doing all the shooting is probably looking for a way out of here, and there’s a—”
“Back exit. Yeah, we know,” he said. “We’ve got men out there already.”
“Okay, but what about between here and there?”
“What about it?”
“This guy isn’t an idiot,” I said, “and he’s not just going to turn himself in.”
“Idiot or not, he ain’t a magician. We’ve got every door covered.”
“No, as a matter of fact, we don’t,” came Elizabeth’s voice.
I turned to see her halfway down the stairs from the mezzanine, the look on her face making my question all but redundant. “No luck, huh?”
“I lost him in the stairwell,” she said. “He nearly took my head off with a fire extinguisher when I looked up over the railing.”
The officer immediately went for his radio. “Suspect headed for the roof,” he announced.
Easy there, Dick Tracy. Elizabeth leaned in a bit so she could read the cop’s nameplate. “He’s not headed for the roof, Officer Jenkins,” she said.
“Did he use that back exit?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “He didn’t use any exit.”
“Then where the hell is he?” asked Jenkins. “Where did he go?”
Chapter 39
IT WAS way too early the next morning.
“You don’t have to be here,” said Elizabeth.
“He asked,” I said. “He wanted you to bring me, right?”
“Yes, you were summoned,” she answered, tacking on some air quotes. “But he’s the mayor, not the king.”
“Are you sure he knows the difference?”
The reception area outside Mayor Deacon’s office suggested the Taj Mahal rather than City Hall. Trump’s Taj Mahal, that is. The curtains were red velvet, the chandelier was dripping crystal, and the walls were painted with gold leaf.
“Trust me, the mayor knows the difference,” said Elizabeth. “Kings don’t have to get elected.”
Or reelected, for that matter.
Edso Deacon, the former air force pilot who went on to amass untold wealth in Manhattan commercial real estate, won his first term as mayor on a two-pronged promise. As a slogan, it was everywhere.
Deacon: Tough on crime, tough on poverty.
After the election, Deacon indeed made good on his campaign promise to do more for the poor. He spearheaded a host of programs that were shown to make a difference.
Crime, though, was another story. As in the cautionary tale about all political honeymoons. They always end.
Deacon’s programs to fight crime were eventually seen as ineffective. There were no results to tout, no statistics to point to. In fact murders and violent crime were actually up since he had been elected.
The press had taken notice. A lot of notice. One story after another centered on Deacon being the mayor of a dangerous city—although not for much longer if things didn’t change.