Lifeguard - James Patterson [86]
I looked at a black guy in a chef’s hat. “A man went through here in a tuxedo. Which way did he go?”
“There’s a door in back,” the chef finally said, pointing. “It leads into the lobby. And upstairs. The main hotel.”
Room 601, I remembered.
I found the stairs and started up. It was worth a chance. Two teenagers appeared, coming down.
“You see a man in a tuxedo, running?” I asked.
They both pointed up the stairs. “Guy has a fricking gun!”
Six flights up, I pushed open a heavy door and came out in a red plush-carpeted hallway. I listened for Stratton’s footsteps. Nothing. Room 601 was to the left, toward the elevators. I headed in that direction.
I turned the corner and saw Stratton myself. He was down at the end of the hall, struggling to jam a plastic key into a door. I didn’t know what was inside. Maybe more help.
“Stratton!” I yelled, pointing the gun at him. He turned and faced me.
One thing almost made me smile, his cool, always-in-control demeanor twisted into a frantic glare. Stratton’s arm jerked upward and he fired his gun. Flashes careened off the wall near my head. I pointed my gun but didn’t fire. As much as I hated him, I didn’t want to kill him.
But Stratton saw my gun—and he ran down another corridor.
I went after him.
Like a cornered prey, Stratton started trying doors around the elevator landing. They were locked. There was a balcony there, but it led nowhere but outside.
Then a door finally opened—and he disappeared.
Chapter 108
THE STRANGEST THOUGHT flashed through my mind as, gun in hand, I made my way up a darkened concrete staircase, following Dennis Stratton.
Years ago. Back in Brockton. I was wrestling with Dave.
I think I was fifteen; he must’ve been ten. He and one of his goofy buddies had been making idiotic chimp noises while I was trying to make out with this girl, Roxanne Petrocelli, in Buckley Park, just down from our house. I chased him down by the jungle gyms, and had him pretty good, maybe the last time I could ever take Dave. I had his arms and neck pinned back in a kind of full nelson. I kept saying, “Uncle? Uncle?” hoping he’d give up. But the tough guy wouldn’t budge. I kept pushing harder, watching him grow redder in the face. I thought if I pushed any more, I would kill him. Finally Dave cried out, “Okay, Uncle,” and I let him go.
For a second he just sat there, breathing heavily, the color coming back to his cheeks; then he charged at me with all his might and knocked me on my back. As he rolled on top of me, Dave was smirking. “Uncle Al thinks you’re a dumb sonuvabitch.”
I don’t know why that popped into my head as I climbed after Stratton. But it did. One of those weird connections in the brain when you feel in danger.
The stairs rose right up into one of the Breakers’ enormous towers. The stairwell was dark, but outside, huge floods sent chasms of brilliant light shooting into the night. I didn’t see Stratton anywhere—but I knew he was up there.
I kept hearing, like a distant drumming in my head, Uncle Al thinks you’re a dumb sonuvabitch.
I pushed open a metal door and came out onto the concrete floor of the hotel roof. The scene was almost surreal. Palm Beach laid out all around. The lights of the Biltmore, the Flagler Bridge, apartment buildings over in West Palm. Huge floods, arranged like howitzers, channeled massive beams of blinding light at the towers and the hotel’s facade.
I looked around for Stratton. Where the hell was he? Tarps and storage sheds and TV dishes, all in shadow. I felt a chill shoot through me, as though I were exposed.
Suddenly a gunshot rang out, a bullet ricocheting off the wall just over my head. It had missed me by inches.
“So what is it, Mr. Kelly? Have you come for revenge? Is it sweet?”
Another shot cracked into the tower wall. I squinted into the beams of light. I couldn’t find him anywhere.
“You should’ve done what you promised. We’d both