Straits of Fortune - Anthony Gagliano [85]
“You get the van?” he demanded.
“It’s in the parking lot, top floor of the garage, just like you said,” Nick answered eagerly, like a Boy Scout anxious to earn a merit badge.
I rubbed my throat and managed to coax my vocal cords back to life while Williams wiped the blood from his nose with an edge of the bedsheet.
“So I guess you switched sides again,” I said to Nick. “Too bad. I was starting to like you.”
Nick looked me up and down and smirked. “What did you expect me to do?” he asked. “Stick with a loser like you? Get real, would you?”
“Let’s go,” Williams said, glancing quickly at his watch but never once moving the gun from where it was still aimed at a point between my legs. Then to me: “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “You’re thinking this gun doesn’t have a silencer and I won’t risk making that much noise in here, but think again. Get up, and get up slow.”
I got up, and as I did so, Williams again pointed the gun at my forehead. “Where’s the Colonel?” I asked. “I want to speak to him. He owes me some money.”
“Funny you should say that,” Williams responded. “He’s anxious to see you, too. Now pick up the whore. We’re getting out of here.”
Nick glanced at his sister. “Is she all right?”
“What do you care, you little prick?” Williams boomed. “Just shut up and open the goddamned door. You two have caused enough trouble already.”
“Jesus,” Nick said. “You don’t have to yell.”
I bent down and scooped Vivian up in my arms. I was still in pain from the beating, and my legs had lost much of their spring, but I managed to straighten up. She was barely 110, but I felt like a man struggling under the gravity of Jupiter.
Williams smiled at the sight of my obvious struggle. “What’s the matter, Vaughn?” he asked. “You too weak to carry her?”
I walked with difficulty past Nick and into the hallway, hoping that a maid on her rounds might spot us and call the front desk, but no such luck. Williams followed behind us as Nick opened the door to the stairs that led to the garage. Vivian felt dead in my arms, and I wasn’t in much better shape myself. I had to stop twice to rest. Each time I did, Williams nudged me in the back with the gun.
Nick had parked the van next to the exit into the garage, for which I was grateful, since my back was about to crack with the effort of carrying Vivian down three flights of stairs. Nick slid the van’s side door open and stood aside while I placed his sister on the backseat. I had never been so happy to put down a beautiful woman in my entire life.
Then Williams told me to stand with my back to him and my hands against the van.
I don’t know who jabbed me with the needle, but I jumped as I felt the point penetrate the skin on my left shoulder. I didn’t know who was holding the gun right then, Williams or Nick, but it didn’t matter. I kicked backward with my left foot and felt it hit something human. I spun around in time to see Williams staggering back, his hands waving in the air as he fought to keep from falling, and Nick looking on horrified as I made a run for it.
I ran a good twenty feet before I was back on Jupiter again. Only this time I was running through a swamp as well. My legs started to vanish under me as though they were being erased while I ran. I stumbled, fell, and got up again, footsteps coming up hard behind me. Somebody grabbed me and pulled me around hard. It was Williams. I swung at his head with everything left in the bank, but my arms had disappeared, too, and I felt myself falling for what seemed like forever without ever hitting the ground.
When I opened my eyes, it was night. The sky was clear, and the stars glittered above me like peaceful angels, distant but benign, light-years away, too far to do anything but bear witness to the earth. I smiled up at the stars. I was glad to see them. The constellations began to make sense. Was that Mars with its faint rosy