The Thousand - Kevin Guilfoile [167]
The cook shook her head.
“Who did it?”
“Another big guy,” the butler said. “But not him.”
Now Kloska was on a giant spiral staircase, working his way toward the third floor. One step following another, not sure if he was chasing one killer or two or ten or if Canada Gold was even in the house.
He stepped off onto the second floor, down a wide hall, following the sounds of voices behind one of the doors. He opened it carefully, his gun drawn, finger just off the trigger.
It was a chapel, no doubt a holdover from the days when priests lived here. Instead of an altar, there was a small stage with music stands and chairs. A dozen nervous people dressed for the opera in black ties and long gowns. Seven were Chinese, three men and four women, most of them holding instruments—a violin, a viola, a flute, a cello. They didn’t look like they spoke English.
The Chinese were the only ones in this house who seemed frightened of his gun.
“Is everybody okay in here?”
Nods, murmurs. They didn’t seem happy to see him, which made him a little annoyed to be rescuing them. “It’s not safe here,” Bobby said.
“You want us to go outside? It’s craziness out there.”
Bobby said, “Somewhere in this house is a man wanted for murdering at least three people, and I can’t look for him if I’m worried about you people. There’s an officer outside and more on the way. You are safer out there than you are in here.”
They stared at him, not moving. Someone mumbled a translation to the oldest Chinese man. The defiant way he looked at Bobby reminded Kloska of Solomon Gold, which was enough for Bobby not to like him.
“What is it going to take to get you people to move your asses?”
The answer came in an explosion from upstairs—a sucking of air, a wave of heat, and the painful, pungent odor of chemicals and smoke.
70
SMOKE CURLED, descending slowly behind them, a member of their improbable party. Each step down on the Woodward twister was a leap of faith to the next invisible plank of wood. They heard voices below, lots of them, and footsteps becoming faint.
“They could run up these stairs right into us and we’d never see them,” Nada said.
“People run away from fire, not toward it,” Peter said. “We’re going to run away, too, right behind everyone else, and we’re going to get lost in that mess outside.”
She could feel her spider again, the two halves of her cleaving together. The pain was gone, but she still had double vision caused by the reactivation of the device or maybe by the smoke, and she kept blinking it away as they moved slowly down, down, around toward the short bridge to the second floor.
Maybe Peter really was here to help her.
Farther below, she saw the body of the doctor, arms and legs at unlikely angles, the right side of his face browned with old blood, his shirt soaked with stuff that was newer, wetter, more crimson. It looked like he’d been shot.
Russo, Nada remembered now. His name is Russo.
And just as she thought it, the billowing smoke cleared, like clouds halfway down a mountain. Materializing on the first floor were two of Jameson’s dressed-up guests and a third man with a gun. He had cop hair and cop shoulders and he wore his T-shirt tight like a cop.
But this was no time to trust anyone.
Nada leapt to the second-floor bridge and dashed down the hall. The cop shouted after her and she heard Peter running behind her.
The second-floor hallway was long on this side and formed a rectangular circuit around the floor. In the center of the rectangle was the chapel and on the outside of it were alcoves with windows and guest bedrooms and the gallery of Burning Patrick’s art that looked like her father’s den, plus adjoining offices for Jameson and for Myra.
If that cop was coming up the stairs, he’d be there before they could make the end of the hall.
Nada pushed on the chapel door and slipped inside. Peter followed. She turned and pointed the gun, still keeping him at bay.
“This is a bad idea,” he said, his hands exposed to her, the knife slowly twirling in