He turned and faced away from me. Using the thick carpeting to maximum advantage, I got right up behind him. ‘Excuse me, is this the forty-first floor?’ I asked.
He spun round and laid his chin down, straight on top of my fast rising fist. I didn’t hit him too hard in case he was a cop, but just hard enough so he wouldn’t be a nuisance to me for the next few minutes. As he crumpled I whipped his gun out. One look at the shoddily made weapon was enough to tell me he was no cop. There was a door right behind him appropriately labelled ‘Garbage’ and I shoved him through it.
I put my ear against Sumpy’s door. I heard the sound of the shower but nothing else. I wanted to surprise the garbage collector’s friends and I didn’t think walking in through Sumpy’s front door would be the best way of doing it. I slid open the lock of the next-door apartment and marched straight in, my gun out in front of me; but there wasn’t anyone to point it at. There rarely seemed to be anyone in this apartment — I reckoned it was a knocking shop for some well-off businessman. I knew my way around it pretty well.
High-rise apartments can be nasty traps — they often have walk-out balconies but rarely actual fire escapes, so there is only one way out: via the door. When I had found myself visiting Sumpy on a pretty regular basis — since she preferred her place to mine, mostly — I decided to build myself a second exit, never knowing when it might come in handy.
There was one wall panel that I had fixed, unknown even to Sumpy. It was in the wall between the shower in Sumpy’s apartment and the shower in her neighbour’s apartment. I pulled out my knife and inserted the blade between two elegant tiles, which depicted a motley assortment of Etruscans enjoying a gang bang. These tiles, together with several more, came away easily and I was then able to lift out the 3-foot high section of panel. Before Sumpy knew what was happening I was inside that shower beside her, hand over her mouth, getting drenched to the skin with water that was a damn sight too hot for my liking.
6
I hoisted Sumpy out into the next-door apartment, then went back for her bag. Her eyelids pulsated open and shut, her eyes were wide with shock. I put her down on a sofa and draped some thick velour towels, from lover-boy’s closet, around her.
‘How many are in there?’
‘How many in there? What are you talking about?’
‘I’m talking about the policemen you said were coming round.’
‘I didn’t let anybody in. I did what you said. I got straight in the shower — I’ve never been cleaner in my life. I heard the door ring but I didn’t answer it. What the hell’s going on, Max?’
‘I’ll explain it to you later, not right now. Just do exactly as I say. Whoever rang your doorbell was no policeman.’ I replaced the panel and the tiles, then started rummaging in more of the closets. I found a smart Calvin Klein dress and a pile of silk Cornelia James headsquares. Either he kept them for his mistress or he liked dressing up himself. Either way he had damn good taste.
I got Sumpy into the dress and tied a scarf around her soaking hair, then got her over to the door. I looked out. The corridor was empty. We walked smartly out and I pressed the button for the elevator. My eyes were riveted to her apartment door. My right hand was inside my jacket clamped firmly round my gun, with the safety catch off and the rate of fire control switched to the notch with three white dots — indicating that one squeeze of the trigger would unleash three short, round-nosed chunks of very hot lead to be delivered at 375 metres per second in the direction of my choice. I was certain someone had gone in there whilst she was in the shower and was waiting for her to come out. It wasn’t going to take too long before whoever it was discovered that Sumpy had vanished down the plug hole.
The lift arrived and the doors opened. As we stepped in, her door flew open and two hefty goons almost tripped over themselves in their rush to get out. The one in front, toting an automatic, saw us. ‘Hey you, stop!’ He levelled the gun at us at the exact moment the elevator doors closed on us, sparing us from any dialogue. I hit the button for the basement and we started, mercifully, to descend.
‘I think we should have stopped, Max.’
‘Sure we should — and had our heads blown off. Believe me, Sumpy, just believe me. Those guys are not cops. I’ll explain it all to you but not right now. Right now we’ve got to try and get out of here in one piece.’
I wondered whether the goons were running down the stairs or waiting for the next elevator. The lift wasn’t quick but however fast they ran, with the head start we had I reckoned we should get down and out of the lift a short way ahead of them.
The doors opened at the basement onto a gaggle of people waiting to go up, and no sign of the goons. I ushered Sumpy out into the underground parking lot. Her conspicuous red Jensen was parked about four aisles down but I didn’t want her to take that — she’d never get past the posse outside.
Apartment building parking lots are always spooky places and this was no exception: dim lighting, smell of warm oil, clicking sounds from warm radiators, faint heavy breathing of extractors. I had my gun out now and was watching the door behind me carefully. Sumpy still seemed very shocked but there was no way I could explain anything to her right now. She was alive, with a fair chance of remaining so if she followed my instructions, and for the time being she would have to be content with that.
There was a green Buick right beside us. I tugged a key off my ring, shoved it in the door lock, and the catch popped up first try. I jumped into the driver’s seat and pushed the key into the ignition. It took some fiddling and jiggling with the steering wheel; then the wheel movement came free, the ignition light came on, the gas needle moved up around its dial. I floored the pedal and pushed the key hard over. The engine fired first time. I jumped out and shovelled Sumpy in. ‘Drive out, right now. Don’t stop for anyone or anything. Drive fifteen blocks, dump the car, get a cab straight to the Travelodge at Kennedy Airport, take a double room in the name of Mr and Mrs John Webb, and I’ll join you as soon as I can.’
She looked at me and opened her mouth to speak.
‘Go!’ I said.
She went.
I stood watching the doorway as she drove around, hit the electric door beam, and the corrugated metal door clanked up; she drove up, out and off. I pulled another silk headsquare from my pocket and tied it around my head. Seated in her car, at a distance I might just fool someone, I hoped.
I ran over to the Jensen, put the key in the lock, and was about to open the door when there was a cracking sound that reverberated round the whole parking lot, closely followed by a volley of whining noises as a bullet scorched itself down the side of a metal girder by my head, then ricochetted off a succession of parked cars. I flattened myself as another bullet followed closely in its wake. I eased myself along on my stomach and poked my head around the massive fender of a Lincoln. Standing crouched in the doorway was one of the goons who had come out of Sumpy’s apartment. He was holding his pistol out in front of him with just one arm, which explained why his aim hadn’t been any better — since I was within accurate shooting range of him. He was looking anxiously around for me, pointing the gun here, there. I decided to indicate my whereabouts to him. Placing both elbows firmly on the ground, I gripped my Beretta with both hands, flicked down the front grip, switched to single fire, aimed at the centre of his body, and pulled the trigger twice in rapid succession. Once would have been enough; by the time the second bullet had travelled the 15-odd feet to where he had been standing it must have found itself spinning through empty space, since the first one had caught him full square in the centre of his chest and carried him out backwards through the door into the corridor to the elevators.