There Fell a Shadow (6 page)

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 insanity 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.

The assassin reached the window. It was tall and pivot-hung. He grabbed hold of it and swung it in. He hoisted himself to the edge of it so that from the waist down he was inside. From the waist up, he was hanging seven stories above the earth.

The door opened. People began rushing in.

The assassin hurled himself out into the open air.

“E
esh,” said Fred Gottlieb. “What a mess.”

He was talking about my face. It lay—this face of mine—pointed up at the ceiling of a hospital room. It felt lumpy, like a potato. Like a potato that hurt. All of me hurt. My eye watered. My throat was sore from being choked. My arm stung from being stabbed. The rest of me throbbed in a sort of generalized agony.

Fred Gottlieb stood in the doorway, shaking his head. “Eesh,” he said again.

The homicide detective was about my age. A burly man, built thick and low to the ground. His tan corduroy jacket was stretched tight across his shoulders. His purple paisley shirt was stretched tight across his chest. The shirt was unbuttoned at the top. Generous tufts of hair spilled out of it. It was barely buttoned at the bottom; his round belly pushed against it, trying to break free. His face was circular and rocky. His curly black hair receded on top from a wide brow. He was clean-shaven, but the stubble on his cheeks was thick and black, adding to his look of gruffness. Only his eyes gave him away. They were small and brown and deep, like little pools of water in the ground.

He shuffled into the room. It was a regulation hospital box. Four green walls. Two stark beds. Bars over a window with a river view.

There was a metal chair next to my bed. Gottlieb pulled it close, sat down.

“They tell me they're going to let you out as soon as they get your X rays back.”

I nodded. The sore throat made it hard to talk.

“You think that's such a good idea? I don't know.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “You don't look so good.”

“Thanks,” I whispered.

“I read an article in
Newsweek
, they said because of hospital overcrowding they sometimes release patients too soon. A couple of days later, they find them dead in the bathtub. It's a terrible situation.”

I nodded.

“On the other hand,” he went on, “you could stay here, they put someone in the bed next to you with an infectious disease, you have to share the bathroom. You're here for a couple of cuts and bruises, the next thing you know: hepatitis. You didn't get a blood transfusion, did you?”

I tried to smile with the unsplit corner of my lips. I shook my head.

Fred breathed a sigh of relief at the same time as he hunched his huge shoulders in concern. Beneath his open jacket, his holster showed a moment. The black butt of his detective special blended nicely with his shirt's lavender swirls.

“Hospitals,” he proclaimed softly, “are very unhealthy places. It's a terrible situation.”

I nodded.

He widened his eyes wearily. “So,” he said. “So what's the story?” I opened my mouth. Gottlieb said: “Wait: maybe you shouldn't talk. Here, I'll give you a pad, you can write it down.”

I stretched my neck to ease the pain as a laugh escaped me.

“Right, that's stupid, too complicated,” Gottlieb said. He waved the idea away with his hand. “I'll tell you what.… Fill in what we don't have already, all right?”

I nodded.

“Okay.” He nodded back. “What we have so far: we have Timothy Colt, the big-time famous journalist, and he's dead. He's murdered.” He shook his head. “Such a waste, too. A successful man like that.”

My eyes shifted away from the detective's stern face. I thought of Colt. His tough cowboy features. The humor and the sadness in them. I didn't get to know him very well, but I got to like him. And I knew his work. He was one of the good ones.