Reluctant Detective (12 page)

25

Anne's panic before she broke into the Hole in the Wall was fleet
ing. The wave passed, her composure returned, and now she felt strangely cold, dispassionate, and clear-headed. She drew her arm back, taking the weight of the door, and opened it enough to reveal
a crack of light. She put her eye to the gap.

To her left, where the light came from, was another door. It was
partly open. Through it she could hear the clink of glasses, the
murmur of people, the sonorous thunk of beer bottles striking the wooden bar, and big speakers thumping out a Toby Keith song. She could see little, though – the edge of the counter at the bar; someone's back, probably the bartender's; nothing more.

She opened the outside door enough to squeeze inside and took care to remove the plastic shim taped to the jamb, slipping it into her pocket – no point in letting them know how she got in – and let
the door close softly behind her. From Sean's description of the Hole
in the Wall, Anne knew she was on a small landing which opened
into the bar on one side and led to a flight of stairs on the other. The
landing was unlit. So were the stairs. It was unlikely that anyone would see or hear her. Still, she remained cautious, careful not to
trip on an uneven riser or step on a loose, noisy tread.

On the second floor enough ambient city light filtered through two
small windows that she could find her way. A hallway lay ahead.
It stretched along the outside wall, above the bar, the coolers, and
the washrooms. The far end of the hallway turned into another
stairwell which descended to the main floor. Another door at the
bottom probably opened into the foyer and the main door into Cutter's saloon.

Anne stood near the first hall window and examined her sketch of the place. It showed two doors opening off the hallway. The first led
to a large storeroom. The second opened into a meeting room and
two offices within it. Sean had said that Carson was in the storeroom,
and he believed that Cutter had hidden the money there, too.

Anne put her hand on the knob to the storeroom. No light seeped
from beneath the door, and it swung open into a gulf of darkness and the sound of a whimper. Anne's penlight threw a small beam
onto the large frightened eyes of Carson White. Then she zigzagged
the beam across the room until it fell upon the suitcase she had been searching for. Carson's mouth was gagged, and he squirmed helplessly in a chair. Anne grabbed the handle of the valise, killed
the light, and backed out of the room. As she left, Carson's whimper
intensified and deepened into a muffled wailing. He sounded like a calf bawling for milk. It was a pitiful, abject display, but it was not one that Anne could disregard.

So she came back, stood in front of him, and shone the light in his eyes.

“Do you recognize me?” she asked.

His head jerked up and down several times.

“Do you want to stay here or come with me?”

He muttered something urgently.

“I'll take that as a come-with-me.

“Let me make things as clear as I can, kid. You're in so far over your head that you've actually defied the laws of teenage stupidity. If you
come with me, then you do what I say when I say it. Understand? If you mess with me, then I'll either turn you over to the cops or, with my dying breath, I'll convince Cutter that you tried to double-cross him. You can stay here and play with the boys downstairs if you
want. No skin off me. Stay or go?”

Carson grunted and jerked his head toward the door.

“Okay then.” Anne loosened the gag around his mouth.

“Thanks.”

“Don't thank me yet,” she said as she untied his ropes. “And you may not want to later either,”

she added.

Carson stood up and moved about, trying to shake off the stiffness in his limbs. He looked at Anne questioningly.

“Now listen. Here's what we're going to do. We're going down the back stairs quiet as mice. How quiet?”

“Quiet as mice?”

“You got it. That means no talking, no whispering, no shuffling feet,
no sound at all. You're going to do that because you know who's at
the bottom of the stairs. Right?”

Carson nodded.

“I'll go first. You follow. I'll open the door and go out. You make
sure that the door shuts without banging.” She motioned with her hand that she expected a response from him.

Carson nodded again.

“My car is just past the front of the club. That's where we head once
we're outside. We don't run. That will attract attention, especially when we cross in front of that video camera. Simple?”

Carson stared at her numbly.

“Okay then. Let's do it.”

Anne was two steps down the staircase, Carson close on her
heels, when she heard a commotion in the lounge. The door below her opened, a light flicked on, and she was face to face with Cutter.
Both of them were startled, but Anne moved first. She stepped
back hurriedly, blundered into Carson, and fell backwards on the upper landing. Her grip on the valise loosened, and it almost slipped from her hand. Carson had fallen, too. Both scrambled to recover
themselves. Cutter leapt up two steps at a time toward them.
Anne reached for her .32; Carson's hand fell back against a fold-up
banquet table leaning against the wall. He grabbed the edge and
flung it down the stairs. It landed flat, gliding like a toboggan. Cutter only had one foot planted on a tread when the table struck his shin and knocked him off balance. He fell forward on top of the table and crashed with it on the bottom landing.

“Good job,” said Anne. “Your first step toward redemption.”

Cutter had seen the glimmer of Anne's pistol and decided not to go
after her unarmed. So he snatched his 9mm from under the counter of the bar and, before he headed after them again, he shouted to the
bouncer at the main door, “Nobody leaves! Nobody!”

There were about thirty customers, mostly men, in the lounge. Nearly a dozen were club members or associates. The rest were wannabes or men who gained bragging rights by drinking elbow to elbow with tough guys. Eight or ten women drank and danced among them. A few were as tough as the men, bikers themselves
– branded, tattooed, bold, and brassy – and one step down the
criminal social ladder. Most of the other women needed to dance with trouble to feel alive, and sometimes they found more trouble
than would keep them that way. When Cutter shouted to the
bouncer at the door, they felt the electric thrill of trouble as well as a hint of personal danger and, if their instinct took them a step or two toward the exit, the look in the bouncer's eyes stopped them cold. Instead, almost everyone cleared the dance floor and edged closer to the tables by the wall.

Her original route of escape cut off, Anne retreated up the hallway
hauling the valise with her. The bag was cumbersome. A million-
and-a-half had some weight to it, and that slowed her down. Before she reached the end of the hall, she heard Cutter's boots clambering
up the steps and, by the time she reached the far stairwell, Cutter
had mounted the upstairs landing.

Cutter fired a shot just as Anne slid around the corner. She took
cover there, squatted, and returned fire. The report of her pistol
sounded like a toy cap gun next to Cutter's 9mm noisemaker. But
her shot was wide. The bullet splintered against the stone wall.
Particles grazed Cutter's leather vest; one fragment nicked his ear. She fired a second shot blindly, but that convinced Cutter that his position in the long hallway was too exposed. Even a bad shot could get lucky in those circumstances. So he fell back and clattered down the stairs again, hoping to catch her on the lower level.

Anne used the sound of Cutter's footsteps to guess that he was heading back the way he came. So, before Cutter could retreat to
the end of the hallway, Anne and Carson rushed to the door at the
bottom of the stairs. No time could be lost, but she knew that the
bouncer would be somewhere in the foyer just past this side of the door. He had heard gunshots, knew that there was trouble, and was probably prepared for it.

Anne hit the door hard. It burst open. She led with the valise in
front of her as a shield and the .32 propped on top of it in her right
hand. The bouncer was facing her when she entered the foyer. He wore dungarees and cowboy boots. He had long, dry-looking hair, thinning on top, and an untrimmed beard and moustache. A tank
top covered a body full of tattoos and a belly spilling over a massive
silver belt buckle. He was ready. He had no gun, but he had big
hands like a boxer's. Already he had taken a wrestler's stance, legs slightly bent, arms and hands out and forward as if ready to catch a rain barrel.

When he saw the size of Anne, he grinned. In fact, Anne thought he was about to laugh. Except for a blink of his eye, her gun didn't seem to deter him. He studied it and said: “A Saturday Night Special? That little thing won't stop me, babe.”

The bouncer heard two small clicks as Anne pulled back the hammer on her pistol and fired between his legs. Anne could feel
the adrenaline, and she didn't care whether she hit him or not. The
bouncer looked down, unsure if he had been hit. He had felt the
wind of the bullet ruffle the baggy, denim covering his crotch. One hand dropped down to inspect for damage.

“Look at that. It works on Thursdays, too,” said Anne. “Firing a bit low though. Lemme try that again.”

The bouncer's mouth gaped, his hands went up, and he stepped a
few paces toward the lounge, but still close enough to jump her if
she glanced away.

“You're still in my way, pork chop. Move it,” she said angrily. He backed farther out of the foyer and into the lounge.

As he stepped back, Anne and Carson stepped forward. Another
gunshot splintered wood on the edge of a short wall which divided the foyer from the main lounge. It came from the far side of the bar.
As she stepped back, she glimpsed Cutter's gun sighting for a clear shot. Warbling cries of panicky customers had followed the shot. A
table tipped and drinks shattered on the floor. Someone was crying; someone else shouted, “Shut the hell up, dammit!”

“Drop the bag and you can go,” shouted Cutter from his cover behind the end of the bar. He had a perfect view of the foyer. Two
short walls framed it in and separated it from the lounge. The open
area in between was about twelve feet. It might take two or three
seconds to cross, but that was an eternity to anyone on the hot end
of a shooting range. Should Anne and Carson make a break for it, Cutter had a perfect opportunity to stop them.

Anne and Carson huddled near the foot of the stairs. She didn't
need to peek around the corner to see what Cutter was doing. One
of the mirrors on the opposite wall reflected enough of what she wanted to see. Hole in the Wall customers had crouched down or hugged the floor. The lounge had an empty look to it. At least, if she
shot again, she wouldn't hit an innocent customer, she thought. Then
she spotted Cutter. The top of his head popped up near the end of the bar. Then another head appeared and dipped out of sight. The door behind him moved. Cutter's blond hair bobbed up again. His gun jerked and fired, chipping another splinter of wood from the
door frame above their head.

“You can't get out of here. You're trapped. Make it easy on yourself. Drop that bag and you're free to go.”

Anne took Carson by his collar and pulled him so close that his
ear was nearly against her mouth. She whispered, “Cutter's got
somebody circling around us. He'll be coming down the steps behind us in a minute. I'm going to make a move. When I give you the word,
we're heading for the exit. Don't stop, keep low, and stay close on
my right side… not behind me… Understand?”

“I'm not waiting all night! What's your answer?”

Anne heard a shuffling sound above her. Time was short. She watched Cutter's reflection in the mirror across the lounge and
waited for his concentration to waver. A girl under one of the tables
was weeping uncontrollably and then convulsed into repeated
screams of “I want to go home! Get me outta here!” to her boyfriend and “Somebody call the police!” to anyone else who was listening.

“Shut 'er the fuck up!” said Cutter. He spat out the words in a rage and swung the muzzle of his automatic toward the hysterical woman's boyfriend.

“Now!” cried Anne as she jumped up.

Anne held the valise shoulder-high with her left hand. Using it as a shield, she broke into the open. Her right hand reached across the valise and fired two shots on the run into the mirror behind the bar. The glass exploded. Hundreds of gleaming shards rained down upon the countertop. Cutter, who was nearest the mirror, ducked his head and covered his eyes to protect himself from the falling fragments, and managed to fire two quick wild shots toward Anne.

Anne's third shot struck a fuse box. The slug shattered a plastic
breaker, ricocheted into the box, and blew a circuit.

Immediately, the Hole in the Wall was thrown into almost total
darkness. Cutter heard a pop and saw a dim glow. The fuse box
spilled over with smoke. Then the box and the wall next to it burst into flames.

No one needed to shout “Fire!” Panic had already set in amongst
the customers. They rushed the door, heedless of Cutter's vile threats to get out of his way, and jammed the entrance. Their
anonymity in the darkness and their fear of burning alive trumped any alarm that Cutter could register in their minds.