Powder Burn - Carl Hiaasen [37]
Casually, with studied indifference, with the movements of a man who has all the time in the world, Mono stretched. He worked his shoulders. And then he turned to face Meadows.
“Buenas noches, caballero,” Mono said.
Mono wore white shoes, white pants and a white belt. He wore a white silk shirt open nearly to the waist. From his neck hung a thick golden chain. His bushy black mustache was artfully trimmed. His shiny black hair was combed straight back. On his left wrist he wore a large gold watch. In his right hand he held a long knife. The knife shone dully in the fluorescent lights.
Meadows saw all this without seeing. Never had he experienced such twin currents of anger and shock. His knees trembled. His right eyelid began to tic. He almost vomited. Yet he was so angry he almost threw himself at Mono. He might have—but he didn’t. Christopher Meadows whirled and ran.
His leg ached from the first step, a searing, tearing pain that embodied his fear. He must stop. No, he must run. It was more of a limp than a run as Meadows approached the garage elevator. He could not stop. To stop was to die.
Gasping, Meadows reached the elevator. His hand clawed along the pastel wall for the down button. It lit at a touch. The indicator light atop the door showed the elevator on level three. Meadows could hear it begin to move. He looked back. Mono was about thirty yards away, running softly with effortless strides.
Meadows forced his hands against the elevator doors, as though to pry them open. Then he heard the elevator stop. The indicator read four.
Meadows shivered. His whole body felt chill, as chill as a corpse in the morgue. His breath came in great sobs as he pushed himself away from the betraying elevator and staggered toward a gray metal door marked Stairs.
The door was stiff. It would not move. Meadows pushed with all his strength. Finally it gave, opening into a barely lit, cavernous concrete stairwell that smelled of damp and urine.
Mono reached the door a moment later, before it could close. As Meadows started down the stairs, his leg felt as though it were on fire. Every step grated in the fillings of his teeth.
The garage stairs zigzagged down to the concourse level; two landings per level. Each set of stairs had ten steps. Meadows clutched the dirty handrail to help himself down the stairs. After six steps Mono was only a few inches out of range.
On the eighth step Meadows tripped. His weak leg collapsed, and he fell onto the landing. Rolling once, he crashed with his back against the unfinished cinder-block wall. He lay there, gasping like a landed fish, defenseless.
Mono was in no hurry. He looked down at his victim like some Aztec priest measuring his next sacrifice, gauging where to thrust the killer knife. Mono seemed to be enjoying himself. He had killed in more public places. In this little-used stairwell no one would even hear the screams. Supremely confident, he took a white linen handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his brow and then carefully laid the handkerchief on the third step as a buffer for his immaculate white pants. Mono sat down.
“Ahora te cago, gringo,” he whispered. “You are feenesh.”
Meadows, as still and as tense as a trapped animal, shouted at him, “You can’t do this to me! What have I done?”
“For me you are unlucky. That is enough. Will you die like a man or crying like a woman?”
Mono tossed aside the cigarette and sprang lightly to his feet. He even remembered to pick up his handkerchief. Perhaps that is what triggered Meadows, the ultimate indignity of watching his executioner carefully replace his handkerchief in white pants.
Meadows didn’t move quickly, but in his arrogance Mono anticipated no movement at all. Meadows levered himself up along the wall until he was in a half crouch. When Mono came at him with the blade, Meadows did not rise but pushed off against the wall with strength he never knew he possessed.
Meadows aimed his right shoulder at Mono’s groin. He felt the knife rip his shirt