Death Instinct - Jed Rubenfeld [13]
A rear door opened. Into the backseat a boy was flung headlong, followed quickly by another man, taller than the other two, dressed not well, but better, in a striped suit that was once a decent piece of gentlemen’s apparel. He had so much facial hair, copious and black, that his mouth was invisible; his eyes peered out from a thicket of eyebrow and whisker. He slammed the door behind him and barked orders in the same unidentifiable language; the other two men called him Drobac.
Evidently Drobac’s orders were to tie up the boy and get the car moving. At least that’s what the other two began to do. In French, Colette asked Luc if he was hurt. He shook his head. She went on quietly but quickly, “It’s all a mistake. Soon they will realize and let us go.”
Miljan spat a few incomprehensible sentences that stank of onion. Drobac silenced him with a curt shout.
“They can’t understand us in French,” Colette whispered rapidly to Luc. “He didn’t find the box, did he? Just nod, yes or no.”
Drobac barked unintelligibly; the driver, Zelko, jerked the car to a halt. “Quelle boîte?” said Drobac, in French. “What box?”
Colette, who had been facing her brother in the rear seat, now swung back around, her eyes fixed on the street ahead.
“What box?” Drobac repeated.
“It’s nothing—only my brother’s toy box,” said Colette too quickly. “His precious toys, he is always worried about them.”
“Toy box. Yes. Toy box.” Drobac grabbed Luc by the shirt collar and placed the barrel of a gun to the boy’s head. Colette screamed. One of Zelko’s hairy-knuckled hands flew to her face, slapping her. “You lie again,” said Drobac, keeping his pistol in contact with the temple of the struggling boy, “I kill him.”
“Please—I beg you—it’s something for sick people,” entreated Colette. “It’s extremely valuable—I mean, valuable for curing people. It won’t be valuable to you. You’ll never be able to sell it. Everyone will know it’s stolen.”
Drobac gave a command to Zelko, who swung the vehicle into reverse. They headed back to the unlit alley beside the Bat and Table. Drobac smiled. So, inwardly and imperceptibly, did Colette.
Younger, at the front desk of the Commodore Hotel, learned from the reception clerk that no one was in Miss Rousseau’s room. Neither the lady nor her brother had returned. “My key,” said Younger, wondering if they might have gone to his room.
“And you are?” asked the clerk.
“Dr. Stratham Younger,” said Younger.
“Certainly, sir,” said the clerk. “Might I ask for some identification?”
Younger reached for his wallet before remembering that he had given it to Colette. “I don’t have any.”
“I see,” said the clerk. “Perhaps you’d like to speak with the house manager?”
“Get him,” said Younger.
The clerk’s information—that no one was in Miss Rousseau’s room—was incorrect. Twelve stories overhead, a man with black whiskers all around his face and black gloves on his hands stood before Colette’s open closet, looking with irritation at a leather-lined case, the size of a small trunk. The case, Drobac had discovered, was too heavy for him to carry inconspicuously through the lobby and out of the hotel. Laboring, he worked the unwieldy box off the shelf and lowered it to the floor.
The ornate hotel lobby was strangely hushed. People huddled in anxious knots, below palm trees and between marble columns, whispering, disbelieving, each describing where they had been when they heard or heard about the catastrophic explosion on Wall Street. It was the same everywhere, Younger had noticed as he and Littlemore drove uptown: people were paralyzed, as if the reverberations of the blast were still propagating up and down the city, shaking the ground, confusing the air.
He felt perversely like shouting at them. This was not death, he wanted to say. They had no idea what death looked like.
“You are the man claiming to be Dr. Younger?” asked the hotel manager, a tall, bespectacled man in white gloves and evening attire.