Strange the way it had ended, so close to getting away, only to take a bullet from a Chinese fisherman. He’d seemed irritated and a little sad about it. She hoped he didn’t feel too badly; it all just struck her as funny now. The utter randomness of it. Except, of course, not at all. They’d all, for their own selfish motives, come to this godforsaken town, this godforsaken hotel. None of them were innocent. They’d all tallied the risks and chosen to stay out of greed or revenge. Or both. The very essence of human purposefulness in all its venal glory. So it was pure arrogance to think she would leave unscathed from this meat grinder. Lea could accept that now.
The gunfire sounded far away. Soothing in its way. Lea licked her lips. What she wouldn’t give for a sip of water, but the kitchen sinks might as well have been in New York.
A stack of boxes blocking the dining-room door tilted and spilled across the floor. A figure squeezed through the opening and slunk toward her. Lea considered where she might hide, then realized the utter pointlessness. Whoever it was would be doing her a mercy.
Gavin Swonger stole into the moonlight, weaving his way toward the servant staircase. He paused a few feet away, almost close enough to reach out and touch. He hadn’t seen her, and the dying part of her hoped he left her in peace. The living part thought that was about the stupidest thing it had ever heard. The living part won out. For now. Her lips spoke his name but couldn’t muster so much as a whisper. Had she died? Become a ghost in her own silent film? He moved on, and an animal panic seized her.
“Gavin,” she whispered in a voice filled with gravel.
Swonger looked back in her direction. A big goofy smile spread over his face that made her want to cry. She was too thirsty for tears.
“Been looking all over for you,” Swonger said.
“Here I am.” She waved weakly to him.
Swonger knelt beside her, smile dissolving when he saw the blood.
“What happened?”
“Got shot.”
“You think?”
“What’s going on out there?”
Swonger shook his head. “Dog, it’s bad. World War Four and shit. Bodies everywhere. How is it upstairs?”
“About the same. What are you doing here?”
“We’re looking for you.”
“We?”
“Gibson’s back at the Toproll.”
“You guys are idiots.”
“Yeah, been feeling like that for a while now. So what’s up with the dress, Duchess?”
“Shut up, Gavin.” She took his hand and squeezed it; he squeezed back.
“Okay, the hell with this Notebook shit. Let’s get you to a hospital, yeah?”
“Yeah,” she agreed, not letting go of his hand.
“Swonger!” Deja Noble stood over them both, gun at her hip. “Saw you creeping off. Who you got there?”
Swonger moved aside so Deja could see. “Thought I’d try the back stairs. Found her here. Got to get her to a hospital.”
“That’s good thinking, but the only thing we got to do is get to the fifth floor while Terry has them boys tied up out front.”
“I got to help her.”
“Isn’t any helping her. Bitch is dead. She just don’t know it yet.”
“She’s not dead.”
“Let’s go.”
“No.”
“No? Say that again.”
Swonger licked his lips.
“Give me your damn gun.” Deja put her hand out expectantly. “Time to get gone.”
Swonger pointed his .45 at her in answer. Deja stared at it. She almost looked proud. One of her men stepped into view, rifle trained on Swonger’s forehead. Deja gestured for him to hold his fire.
“Sure this is your play?” Deja asked.
Swonger shrugged at her. “Only if it’s yours.” Gone was his bluster and cockiness; in its place Lea saw calm and determination. Deja saw it too.
“Give me the gun,” she said, but her voice lacked the weight it had once had. She kept her own gun against her hip.
“Clock is ticking. This the conversation you want to be having?”
Deja glanced at the servants’ stairs, then back to the muzzle of Swonger’s .45.
“All right, then. I’ll catch up with you down the road.”
“No need for that.”
“Oh, there’s need. But you get your girlfriend to the slab on time. Tell me later, you think it was worth it.”
With a disappointed shake of her head, Deja disappeared up the stairs. Her man pivoted and followed her up the stairs backward, rifle on Swonger until he disappeared from view. Swonger’s arm fell to his side, and he let out a shuddering sigh.
“I thought I was going to die.”
“Join the club.”
Swonger snorted with laughter despite himself. “That ain’t funny.”
“It’s a little funny.”
“Forget that; you owe me. Ain’t no dying now.”
“Deal.”
Swonger hoisted Lea to her feet and slung her arm around his shoulders. She could feel him shaking, not from fear but from the adrenaline throwing a house party in his chest. Together, they squeezed through the dining-room door and hobbled out through the lobby. Deja’s men had fought their way up the staircase but at a terrible cost. Smoke hung over a lobby torn apart by small-arms fire. One of the double front doors lay across the floor, ripped from its hinges; the walls were splintered. Bodies lay contorted and mangled where they’d fallen, as if a child had scattered his action figures across an imaginary battlefield. These had been living men once. It was a haunting, ghastly landscape. Lea heard music: Jimmy Temple’s eternal Christmas soundtrack had survived the carnage—David Bowie and Bing Crosby traded verses on “Little Drummer Boy.”
Pa-rum-pum-pum-pum.
Out on the street, Swonger paused to adjust his grip. He looked at Lea with concern. In the last few minutes, sensation had returned, and a shrill squeak escaped from between her clenched teeth with each agonizing step. It had left her out of breath and bathed in sweat, but all she could manage were short, jagged gulps like a fish on a cutting board.
She managed a grateful grimace. “Didn’t think I was going to ever be outside again.”
“Me either. Feels like a dream,” Swonger said. “Okay, just a little farther. Car’s around back. You good to make it?”
Lea nodded as Margo’s red pickup truck rounded the corner and stopped in front of them. Old Charlie rolled down the passenger window, took one look at Lea, and cursed with Shakespearean eloquence. Margo leaned across him, the left side of her face an archipelago of stippled bruises that would fuse into one large mass before long.
“Oh, Gilmore. What have they done to you?”
They propped Lea up in the backseat of the cab and used a seat belt to keep her from tipping over. While they worked, Swonger gave Margo the short version of events inside the hotel, and Margo told him about Truck and her baseball bat. She said that she’d waited as long as she dared but that it was high time to get to a minimum safe distance.
“Where’s Gibson?”
“He went after you,” Margo said.
Swonger looked back at the hotel. His expression changed.
“You sure?” Margo asked. “He’s a big boy.”
“Yeah . . . ,” he said. “I gotta get my car anyway.”
Margo reached a hand across Old Charlie, and Swonger shook it. He looked back at Lea.
“You owe me. Don’t forget.”
“See you soon,” she promised.
“Now would be good,” Old Charlie said.
Swonger stepped back off the running board, and the pickup leapt forward. Lea looked back and saw the spire of the Niobe Bridge in the moonlight, rising stoically above the Ohio River. It was a lovely old bridge, and she wondered if she’d ever see it again. As they left Niobe behind, Lea listened to Margo and Old Charlie argue the pros and cons of area hospitals. It was about the most beautiful sound Lea had ever heard.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE