The Midnight Club_ A Novel - James Patterson [56]
Over inside the penthouse, a couple of hotel waiters in white half jackets appeared. They carried the usual silver trays, which helped keep room-service food so consistently soggy.
The waiters were followed by the same soldier who had been standing at the picture window. The return of Walrus-man.
“It’s funny the way you begin to feel a kind of identification with people you watch on surveillance,” Stefanovitch grinned.
“Yeah, I could really identify with some breakfast right now. I missed dinner. Ham and eggs! Mmm-mmm good. What is that other stuff there? Lox? That looks so-o-o good.”
The hotel waiters were efficiently setting out the contents from their trays. Room-service guys loved to do that. Tray tops off. Little red rose in a vase.
Stefanovitch remembered that he hadn’t eaten himself. Crime did pay. A scene from The French Connection flashed through his mind—Gene Hackman, standing outside in the cold, watching some fancy French restaurant in Manhattan, while Frog One and his pal sat inside, eating everything in sight.
One of the waiters walked over to the row of picture windows. The waiter did seem to be looking across at the Tropicana. Was there something about the predawn light that made it possible for him to see inside the Tropicana’s windows?
“Do you think they found out something?” Sarah asked.
“I don’t think—”
Stefanovitch was suddenly sitting up in his chair. “No. Hey! Don’t do that, shit-for-brains. Hey. Hey!”
The waiter inside Trump Plaza was pulling the curtains.
“Damn it,” Stefanovitch muttered.
He switched his earphones up.
“Get away from those drapes, you creep.” Sarah had moved close to the picture window. Her nose was against the glass. “What are they saying now? How good their nova and omelets look?”
Stefanovitch listened on his earphones. They were talking about the food.
Suddenly, someone screamed inside the penthouse. A horrible sound came over the earphones.
“What the—” Stefanovitch blurted.
Somebody in the penthouse yelled, “Oh God, no! No!”
54
THE UNMISTAKABLE ROAR of gunfire followed. Loud screams echoed over the headphones.
Stefanovitch pulled the earphones away. “Somebody’s attacking the penthouse. They just hit Trump’s!” he yelled.
Sarah ran to get David Wilkes.
Stefanovitch hadn’t moved so quickly in the last couple of years. His heart pounded. Spasms of incomprehension flickered.
He made it inside the first elevator. FBI men with shocked expressions were strapping on their revolvers. David Wilkes was there, his eyes still glazed. His button-down shirt was un-buttoned.
The elevator touched down and the FBI men ran across the Tropicana lobby. Stefanovitch was left on his own. His wheel-chair nearly lifted off the floor as he burst forward.
Once he was outside the hotel, a cool ocean breeze slapped his face. He was soaking wet: his neck, hair, the back of his shirt. As he reached the far side of Texas Avenue, he remembered the walkie-talkie.
“This is Stefanovitch. What the hell’s happening?”
No answer came back.
Stefanovitch reached the glass side doors into Trump’s. Two security guards were body-blocking the way.
“You can’t come in here!” one of them shouted.
“Police!” Stefanovitch flashed his shield.
Even more confused, they let him inside.
A blur of terrified faces, bodies in bathrobes and pajamas, swarmed across the lobby. Bizarre language punctuated the scene: “There was a shooting upstairs!” “No, it’s a fire.” “I tell you, it’s a fire in the goddamn kitchen!”
Stefanovitch located the express elevator to the penthouse. Inside the elevator, he tried the walkie-talkie again. “David? David?”
No answer came from Wilkes. What had he found in the penthouse? Why wasn’t he answering? What had happened up there?
The padded elevator doors opened. Stefanovitch recognized the acrid odor of gunfire. He proceeded through the open door of the suite. Bodies were sprawled everywhere in the living room. A horrifying scene met his eyes.
The Midnight Club.
55
Isiah Parker; Trump