Distraction - Bruce Sterling [129]
Willis settled back onto the worn heels of her white athletic shoes. “Well then,” she said, and smiled. “Then maybe it ain’t so bad after all.”
Oscar found a jacket, his wallet, and a pair of shoes. He glanced at the slumbering Kevin. To observe strict security, he ought to wake his bodyguard and drag him along in the wheelchair—but it was two in the morning, and the hardworking Kevin had been drinking like a pig. Oscar tucked a telephone in his pocket and stepped into the hall. He closed the door silently, then handed Willis a twenty-ecu European bill.
Willis tucked the cash into a velcro-tabbed orange pocket. “Muchas gracias, amigo.”
“I hope Greta’s all right,” Fred said anxiously.
“Try not to worry,” Oscar told him. Fred was not the brightest light in the krewe. But Fred was a very loyal and good-hearted sort, a man who repaid a kind word with dogged loyalty. “You can go back to the party now. We really want to keep this little business quiet. Don’t tell anyone. Okay?”
“Oh,” Fred said. “Right. No problem, Oscar.”
Oscar and Ms. Willis went downstairs and through the lobby. Dutch party music echoed down the entrance loggia. “Sure is a nice hotel,” Willis remarked.
“Thanks. Maybe you’d like to check in for the weekend.”
“On my salary? I can’t afford a classy place like this.”
“If you’re discreet about this little incident, ma’am, I’ll treat you and any guest of your choice to a three-day stay with full room service.”
“Gee, that’s a mighty generous offer. This Gretel person must really mean a lot to you.” Willis led him down the paved walkway and into the street. A limo-sized white ambulance waited under the pines, with its lights on and the driver’s door open. Willis waved cheerily at the driver, who waved back in evident relief.
“She’s lyin’ in the back, on a stretcher,” Willis said. “It’s a pretty bad break. You want some good advice, compadre? From now on, don’t make your dang girlfriends sneak around in the dark.”
“I’m sure that’s good advice,” Oscar said. He stood up on the bumper and gazed into the ambulance. Greta was lying on a canvas stretcher in a metal rack, with her hands behind her head.
Willis slapped her hands against Oscar’s rump and gave him a hefty shove. Oscar stumbled into the ambulance, and Willis immediately slammed the double doors. The vehicle went as black as a tomb.
“Hey!” Oscar blurted.
The vehicle left the curb and racketed away with a jounce of hydraulics.
“Greta,” he said. No response. He crawled in darkness to her side, reached out. His questing hand landed somewhere on her rib cage. She was unconscious. But she was alive; she was breathing.
Oscar quickly produced his telephone. He was grimly unsurprised to see it fail to register a signal. But there was enough feeble glow from the dial face for him to painstakingly scope out his surroundings. He brought the faint glow of the phone to her face. She was out cold—and for good measure, they’d glued a membrane strip of adhesive over her mouth. Her hands were cuffed with thin plastic police straps. There was, of course, nothing wrong with her ankle.
The back of the vehicle resembled an ambulance, but only at first glance. It had some battered secondhand stretcher gear, but there was no life-support equipment. It was windowless. To judge by the way it took corners, the phony ambulance was sheathed in solid metal like a bank vault. They’d lured him into an armored thermos bottle, corked him up, and driven away.
By phone light, with his fingernails, he slowly peeled the gag from her mouth. He gave her silent lips a healing kiss. There was no heating inside the evil little vault. Greta felt chilled. He climbed onto the stretcher with her and embraced her. He held her tightly, pressing warmth into her body. He was appalled to discover how much he cared for her. She was so human. So far beyond his help.
They’d been disappeared.