Swimsuit - James Patterson [83]
The gun was pulled away my face. Henri grabbed up a duffel bag and a briefcase with his good hand and arm, slammed the door on his way out. I heard his footsteps receding down the stairs.
I turned to Mandy. The gag was a pillowcase pulled across the inside of her mouth and was knotted at the back of her head. I plucked at the knot, my fingers trembling, and when she was free, I took her into my arms and rocked her back and forth, back and forth.
“Are you okay, honey? Did he hurt you?”
She was crying, saying she was fine.
“You’re sure?”
“Go,” she said. “I know you want to go after him.”
I crawled around, feeling under the spindly legs and ruffled skirts of the wall-to-wall collection of antique furniture, saying, “You know I’ve got to. He’ll still be watching us, Mandy.”
I found Henri’s Ruger under the dresser and wrapped my hand tightly around the grip. I twisted open the blood-slicked doorknob and shouted to Mandy that I’d be back soon.
Leaning heavily on the banister, I walked off the pain in my thigh as I made my way down the stairs, trying to hurry, knowing that I had to kill Henri somehow.
Chapter 112
THE SKY WAS BLACK, but the streetlights and the large and perpetually booked Hôtel du Louvre next door had just about turned night into day. The two hotels were only a few hundred yards from the Tuileries, the huge public garden outside the Louvre.
This week some kind of carnival was going on there: games, big rides, oompah music, the works. Even at this late hour, giddy tourists and folks with kids flowed out onto the sidewalk, adding their raucous laughter to the sharp shocks of fireworks and blaring car horns. It reminded me of a scene from a French movie, maybe one that I’d watched somewhere.
I followed a thin trail of blood out to the street, but it disappeared a few yards from the front door. Henri had done his disappearing act again. Had he gone into the Hôtel du Louvre to hide? Had he lucked out and caught a taxi?
I was staring through the crowds when I heard police sirens coming up the Place André Malraux.
Obviously, shots had been reported. Plus, I’d been seen running around with a gun.
I stuffed Henri’s Ruger into a potted planter outside the Hôtel du Louvre. Then I gamely limped into the lobby, sat in an overstuffed chair, and thought about how I would approach the agents de police.
Finally, I was going to have to explain Henri and everything else to the cops.
I wondered what the hell I was going to say.
Chapter 113
THE SIRENS GOT louder and louder, my shoulders and neck stiffened, and then the looping wail passed the hotel and continued on toward the Tuileries. When I was sure it was over, I reclaimed Henri’s gun, made my way back to the Singe-Verts, and climbed the stairs like an old man. I knocked on the door to my room, said, “Mandy, it’s me. I’m alone. You can open the door.”
Seconds later, she did. Her face was tear-stained, and there were bruises at the corners of her mouth from the gag. I opened my arms to her, and Mandy fell against me, sobbing like a child who might never be soothed again.
I held her, swayed with her for a long while. Then I undressed us both and helped her into bed. I shut off the overhead light, leaving on only a small boudoir lamp on the night table. I slid under the covers, and took Mandy into my arms. She pressed her face to my chest, tethered herself to my body with her arms and legs.
“Talk to me, honey,” I said. “Tell me everything.”
“He knocked on the door,” she finally said. “He said he had flowers. Is that the most simpleminded trick ever? But I believed him, Ben.”
“He said they were from me?”
“I think so. Yeah, he did.”
“I wonder — how did he know we were here? What tipped him? I don’t get it.”
“When I unlocked the door, he kicked it open and grabbed me.”
“I wish I’d killed him, Mandy.”
“I didn’t know who he was. A black man. He wrenched my arms behind my back. I couldn’t move. He said… oh, this makes me sick,” she said, crying again.