“We didn’t even know if we could make it back,” he said softly. “I left that morning, as soon as we got the news. Wexler thought he’d have a better chance in the dark.” Colt’s eyes filled. I could barely hear him. “It gets awful dark in Sentu at night. The stars … I was afraid to travel in the dark.” He started to bring his drink to his lips, then lowered it. Another shot would probably have finished him. “Even in the day, it was a nightmare. The shellfire never stopped. The jungle was exploding everywhere. The roads … the dirt roads. They were filled with refugees … children, women, bleeding, desperate, dead. And soldiers—you couldn’t tell what side they were on anymore. They’d stop you, check your ID. You didn’t know if they were goin’ to blow your head off or let you pass. They didn’t know. It depended on … God knows … luck, their mood. It was chaos. It was a jungle where all the animals were humans, and all the humans left were either murderers or dead.… They stared at you out of the undergrowth. And the shells kept falling.… Wells, I’ve never been so afraid.”
I stared at that weathered face of his. It was not the face of a coward. Not at all. It was the sort of face you wanted beside you when the shooting started. Calm, hard, unwavering.
“You see what I’m sayin’?” he said to me quietly. “You see what I’m tryin’ to say?”
I opened my mouth to answer. I didn’t answer. I didn’t see. I didn’t understand why he was telling me this. I was drunk and I couldn’t make sense of it.
Colt ran his hand up through his dense brown hair. With the other arm, he pushed to his feet. As he did, his drink fell from his loose grip. The glass tumbled onto the rug, spat its liquor into the shag. I saw the shag darken with scotch. I heard, in my mind, the beer glass shattering when he dropped it in the tavern. I couldn’t shake the idea that everything was connected.
Colt towered over me where I sat. He swayed. He put his hand to his forehead.
“I didn’t just go back there for the story,” he said. “Not just to get the story. Not just to get out.” Stumbling, he headed for the bedroom door.
“Colt,” I said. It came out slurred.
He reached the doorway. He faltered, leaning against the jamb. I heard him say something. His voice cracked as he said it. I couldn’t make out the words.
He straightened, swayed. This time, I heard it.
“Eleanora,” he muttered. “Eleanora, Eleanora, my love, my love.”
He staggered out of sight into the bedroom.
I waited. There were no other sounds.
It took me a moment to fight my way to my feet. I set my drink down on the coffee table. I walked to the bedroom door as if I were balancing on a tightrope. I peered in. Colt lay sprawled facedown across the nearest bed. I saw his back lift and fall with his breathing. I heard him start to snore.
I turned unsteadily. I don’t know why. I dared the tightrope back to the sofa to get my coat. I picked up the coat but decided it would be best to put it on sitting down. I sat down heavily, with the coat on my lap. The sofa seemed very deep, very soft. I blinked. I blinked again. I blinked several times over. Maybe it would be better, I thought, to put the coat on lying down. I lay down. I pulled the coat up over me. I closed my eyes.
I opened my eyes quickly when I felt the whole world start to spin. My stomach flipped as I lay on the sofa. I stared at the lamp in the ceiling to bring the room to a halt. I had to fight to bring all the split images together. For many long minutes, I hung in that precarious place where it is impossible to keep your eyes open and sickening to close them.
Then, mercifully, I passed into oblivion.
An insistent knock—and a taste like sand—brought me round. The room was bright with morning. It was a piercing brightness: the optical equivalent of a dentist’s drill. I groaned when it hit me. I tried to go to sleep again. The knock kept on. My head ached with it. I blinked. I ran my tongue through the sand in my mouth. I sat up. I groaned.
The knocking kept on. I figured it out. Someone was knocking on the door. The door, I noticed now, was not where it usually was. The window was not where it usually was. I, as it turned out, was not where I usually was. The knocking continued to hammer at my head from the outside. A dull throbbing began to answer it from within. I called up the memory of the night before. I remembered Timothy Colt. His hotel room. I looked down at the coat on my lap.
The knocking kept on.
“All right!” I shouted. The sound of my own voice ricocheted off my internal organs like a pinball. “All right,” I said more quietly.
I tried to push myself off the sofa. It seemed a long way. I tried again, my stomach heaving.
I stood. The room rocked this way and that. The knocking—which had paused when I shouted—started up again. I cursed. I turned slowly to find the door.
“I’ll get it!”
The voice startled me. It was Colt. He had come, not from the bedroom to my left, but from the bathroom to my right. He came striding out vigorously. He was dressed and pressed and ready to meet the day. His wiry frame was wrapped in a natty tan suit with a western cut. There was a string tie in a neat bow around his neck. His chin was clean-shaven. His hair was wet and slapped back on his skull as if he’d just come out of the shower.
I groaned at the sight of him. He grinned at me as he passed to the door.
“You look awful there, friend,” he said. “Go on back to sleep for a while.”
I made the only response I could think of without the use of a pistol. Colt laughed. He grabbed hold of the doorknob and pulled the door in. I stumbled into the bathroom.
I heard Colt say: “Well, hey!” He sounded surprised and pleased.
I heard a low, breathy voice answer, “Compliments of the house, Mr. Colt.”
Colt laughed. “Fine by me.”
I relieved myself, then stumbled to the sink. I splashed water on my aching face. I looked up in the mirror. It was not a pleasant sight. The usual crags and lines of a thin, fierce face had sagged in the light until I looked like a basset hound. Above the high hairline, my gray hair lay damp and tangled.
Behind this travesty, I saw the reflection of the sitting room. A bellboy had entered carrying a tray. He took it to the coffee table in the center of the room.
As he bent forward to put the tray on the table, I saw Colt come up beside him. The reporter reached into his pocket, brought out his money clip. He thumbed through it for a tip. I turned away from the mirror. Walked to the bathroom doorway.
I was looking out the door when the bellboy straightened, turned around. He and Colt faced each other in profile before me, Colt to my right, the bellboy to my left. The bellboy, I saw through bleary eyes, was dressed all in black, like the doormen. His face was dark brown with deep-set, intense eyes. He wore his hair cut close, almost in a crew cut. He couldn’t have been more than twenty, if that, but dark lines creased his brow and pinched the corners of his mouth.
Colt fumbled with his money clip. He found a couple of bills and held them out to the kid. The bellboy killed him.
I saw it this way. Suddenly the kid had a knife in his left hand. He must have slid it out of his shirtsleeve. It was a wicked-looking dagger. Its blade was short and curved like a scimitar’s. It flashed once as he brought it up under Colt’s ribs. It went into the reporter with no more noise than a whisper of tearing cloth and flesh. Colt gave a soft little “oof.” He bent forward with the blow. As he did, his killer twisted the knife expertly. Colt’s face went blank. He hadn’t even had time to be surprised.
With a smooth flick of the wrist, the bellboy pulled the dagger free. As he did, Colt keeled over. He hit the coffee table. The tray rattled with the blow. Colt rolled onto the floor, landing on his back. At last he lay still, his eyes staring up at the ceiling, his arms splayed inelegantly. Blood was bubbling up through the hole in him.
That’s when I realized he was dead. That’s when I cried out: “Colt!”
That’s when the bellboy turned and saw me.
That’s when he
knew he had a witness.
Only the slightest hesitation raced across the young-old face of the assassin. His eyes shifted toward the door. He was wondering if he should break for it. I was still staring dumbfounded, my eyes flashing back and forth from the killer to the body of Timothy Colt. Not five seconds had passed since the kid had pulled the knife.
The fountain of blood burbling out of Colt’s midsection grew weaker. His white shirt was now soaked scarlet. As I fought to grasp the fact of the reporter’s death, the bellboy made up his mind. He came for me.
It was an expert approach. He moved in, crouched low, the knife gripped lightly, held close to his side. He kept his intense eyes trained on my chest, like a basketball player watching for the fake.
I tried to rouse myself. I was dull with hangover and shock. I glanced at the door to gauge the possibility of escape. The killer thought with me. He circled around me as he came on until he had blocked the path to the exit.
I had two ways to go and a second to choose. I could either retreat into the bathroom and fight cornered, or move out into the room and keep away from him as best I could. I saw that unswerving stare, that curling blade, no more than two steps away. I moved out into the room, my back to the wall. I crouched low with my open hands held up before me.
He sprang. I thought—crazily—of Antoinette, the tiger. He sprang like that. A single, flowing motion, swift as death. But in the moment before he leapt, I saw him reverse the position of the knife in his hand. He held it ready to deliver a quick forehanded slash at my cheek. That would turn my head to one side and leave me open for the returning backhand that would plunge the blade into my throat. It was a good move. If I’d never seen it before, I’d have never seen it again.
But I had. A drug ring enforcer from Washington Heights had shown it to me to impress me with his abilities. I was impressed. Impressed enough to remember.
The assassin reversed the blade in his hand. I had a fraction of a second to prepare. He sprang and slashed in one motion. I leaned way back, as if dodging a right cross. The blade flashed by my eyes. For an instant, Colt’s killer was exposed, his arm extended. In that instant, I drove the stiffened fingers of my hand deep into his armpit.
He cried out, fell back a step. He should have been hurt bad. He wasn’t. He recovered and jumped at me. He swept the knife up toward my gut.
I dodged to the left. I felt the blade pass by my shirt. I slammed into something—a lampstand. It toppled over and so did I. I hit the floor on my back. The wind was knocked out of me. This was definitely one of the worst hangovers I’d ever had.
The killer had stumbled a step away from me, carried by the force of his own missed jab. He steadied himself and turned. He leapt on top of me, pinning my arms with his knees. He raised the knife for the kill.
I lifted my right side off the floor. The movement took all my strength, but it pitched him over. I rolled in the opposite direction. Scrambled to my feet. Spun around just as he rushed me again.
I caught his knife hand by the wrist. His fingers gripped my right hand as I went for his eyes. We locked like that, inches apart, my eyes burning into his, his into mine, our teeth bared, our hot stale breath whistling into the small space between us. I tried to knee him in the groin. He blocked it with his legs. He tried to cut his way free. I shoved him. We both went down.
We rolled over and over on the floor. The blade of the knife kept flashing on every side of me. I kept fighting for a grip on his wrist, losing it, finding it again just before he plunged the dagger into me. I was bigger than he was, but he was tough like jerky, sinewy. I was fighting for my life, but he was doing a job he knew well.
I was weakening. The booze of the night before seemed to have eaten away at me. The cigarettes of a lifetime were making me wheeze as we rocketed back and forth across the stale shag carpet.
We went over again, the two of us, locked together. His brown face was twisted with effort and rage.
We slammed into the coffee table. I was hit hard. I landed, dazed, with my head on Colt’s leg. The killer pulled his left arm free and belted me in the mouth. I felt my lip split. He jerked his knife hand clear.
Again the blade went up as he sat atop me. I threw my left arm in front of my face. I felt the metal pierce the flesh just below my elbow. I screamed as he yanked the knife out again. I reached down and grabbed his balls and made a fist. He screamed and rolled off me. He curled up on his side, moaning softly. I curled up on my side, coughing dark phlegm. I could feel the old cigarettes welling in my lungs. I could not catch my breath.
My head was swimming. My forearm burned. I fumbled for purchase on the coffee table. I slipped, hacking, and splashed into Colt’s bloody shirtfront. I felt the give of the breath-empty flesh beneath. I slipped off him to the floor again. His blood was smeared all over my cheek, and the carpet shag stuck to it. I got up on my hands and knees. I could not stop coughing.
Vaguely, I saw the assassin uncurl. He climbed to his knees, too, bent over, heaving, cradling his crotch with his hand. He swept the floor with his eyes. I realized he was looking for his knife. He’d dropped it. I looked around frantically.
We saw it at the same time. It had been flung over near the sofa. We both started crawling to it. I got there first. I wrapped my fingers around the handle—a golden handle with rubies inlaid. But before I could use it, the assassin climbed onto my back. He grabbed my head under the chin and tried to rip it off my neck. He dug a thumb in my eye for good measure.
With a yell, I let the knife go and thrashed around wildly, trying to shake him. He slammed into the sofa and fell off me. I crawled toward the knife again.
The room blurred as my left eye streamed. I lost my sense of perspective. I was groping for the handle. I was stretched out, reaching out, when he jumped back on top of me. He tried to bite my cheek. I raised my arm, and his teeth sank into my shoulder through my shirt.
“Agh!” I said. I rolled onto my back. With my free fist, I hammered and hammered at his face. His mouth slackened. He dropped away. Wheezing, I went for the knife a third time. He grabbed hold of my ankles. The gold handle swam into my sight, but I could not get it. I stretched as far as I could and took a swat at it. The dagger spun away over the rug, out of reach.
The assassin let go of me. He got to his feet and went for the knife. I swung my legs around and tripped him. He toppled forward with a grunt. He smashed face first into the coffee table. His nose exploded in a pink blast. He bounced onto the floor.
Sobbing, I began to crawl slowly toward the open door. It heaved and yawed in front of me. Blood poured down my forearm. Tears poured from my damaged eye. Snot poured out of my nose. The door and the hall and escape got closer bit by bit.
Behind me, I heard the killer moving, groaning, sobbing like me. I wondered if he’d try for the knife. If he went for the knife, I might have a chance, time to get out.
I pitched forward about a foot from the door. My face fell into the soft carpet. It felt very comfortable, very warm. I considered resting there a while. Not long. A minute, maybe two was all I needed. Just enough for a little shut-eye. Instead I reached up, grabbed hold of the edge of the door. Pulled myself onto my knees again. Crawled a few more inches.
I got out. I got my head out the door. My head was stretching into the hall. Then he got me.
He must have left the knife behind. He must have chased after me, crawling, too. He collapsed on top of my legs. He wrapped his arms around them. I was flattened by the impact of it.
Cursing in a language I’d never heard, he began to drag me back into the room. I had no more strength to fight him. I raised my head a little.
“Help,” I said.
No one answered.
When he had me inside, he dropped me. He pushed the door shut. I rolled onto my back. Wearily, he fell onto me. He wrapped his hands around my throat and squeezed.
Everything seemed strangely silent then. Almost peaceful in a way. I saw his face contorting close to me. I saw the ins
anity in his eyes. I saw the dark circle of blood where his nose and mouth had been. I felt my lungs heaving for air. But there was no sound. Everything drifted before me in slow motion. It was as if I were underwater: the world was floating dreamily into darkness.
Dreamily I lifted my hand and dug my thumb into the gory hole where his nose had been.
I surfaced immediately as the silence was shattered by his squeal of pain. He flew off me like a man who’d accidentally sat on a hot stove, his arms wide, his mouth open. He sat down hard on the floor, not far from me, cradling his face in his hands. I propped myself onto my elbow, turned over, and vomited violently onto the rug.
And, as there had at the beginning of this lovely winter’s morning, there now came a knock at the door. There came a shout: “Is everything all right? Is everything all right in there?”
The knocking became a pounding. Someone was hitting the door with his fist.
I tried to call out. I could only make a high, whistling sound deep in my throat. The knocking continued. I wondered if maybe I’d been struggling to wake up all this time, struggling to answer the door, to make the knocking stop. Maybe all this had only been the nightmare of a moment.
There was a shout. “Open up in there. Now!” It was the voice of authority. Hotel security maybe. Or the manager.
I began to think about getting to the door again. Maybe I could slide on my belly, dragging myself along the rug. As I was considering this, my old pal was on the move. He took hold of one of the chair arms and pulled himself to his knees. From his knees, he grabbed the high back of the chair and pulled himself upright. He was breathless, crying.
Outside, there were more voices now. The knocking had stopped. I thought I heard the jangle of keys.
The assassin staggered to the window. He lurched toward it like a zombie in an old horror film.
A key scraped in the lock. I heard the latch turning.