Part 16 (1/2)

He saw Mr. Grin, standing there, grinning.

The next thing he noticed was the smell. It reminded him of a butcher's shop or a hospital. Blood, come, s.h.i.+t and s.e.x- all the smells crashed into him. Frantically, he scanned the room, knowing he wasn't going to like what he found.

Jack stood on one side of the bed, still reeling from the train ride. Mr. Grin stood on the other. He was covered in blood. Otherwise, he looked the way Jack felt. Somehow different. Like a s.h.i.+ny, newer version of the John Briggs he knew from work. It made him think of a puffy balloon.

”Where is she?” Jack asked.

”She put up a good fight, s.h.i.+tcrawler,” Mr. Grin said.

”Where is she?”

Mr. Grin reached down to the bed and threw back the covers. Finally, after all the searching, Jack saw Gina.

She was splayed supine on the bed, naked. It looked like she was still breathing but her eyes were closed. She too was covered in blood. Numerous abrasions and bruises were painted across her flesh. Her s.e.x, which she normally kept shaved, looked mutilated. A pool of blood spread around her on the white sheets of the bed.

There were so many questions Jack wanted to ask. So many questions shooting through his mind. But now was not the time. The questions were all secondary. What he really wanted to do was destroy Mr. Grin.

He came around the bed.

Mr. Grin waited, perhaps eagerly, for him.

Mr. Grin was roughly twice the size of Jack but that didn't stop him. It couldn't stop him. The man had told him on the phone that one of them would have to die. This was the end. One way or the other, this had to be the end. Jack wasn't going to die and he wasn't leaving here without Gina. He wasn't going to let Sam's death be for nothing. He wasn't going to lose everything close to him in one day.

He slid the gun from the waistband of his pants, thankful for this leverage. It didn't look like Mr. Grin had any weapons whatsoever.

Two keys left. A gun in my hand. When he thought that, it all felt so close.

Then he had another thought. This will make you a murderer. And he thought that maybe he could have meditated on that. Like maybe he could have found a philosophic way around it. Which Briggs would he be murdering? Which man was the real man? For that matter, which Jack was the real Jack? Was it murder if the other Jack, this Jack, killed someone? He didn't know. Didn't really have any time to think about it. Didn't even know if he really wanted to think about it.

”You know you're gonna die, right?” Mr. Grin said.

Jack aimed at Mr. Grin's head, trying to remember how many sh.e.l.ls were in the gun. Three, he thought. Three sh.e.l.ls and two keys.

The first bullet tore Mr. Grin's left ear off.

Jack wanted to immediately fire the other two bullets at him but then, he thought, that would be it. He might never know the answer to anything. What if Gina died? What if she died before she could tell him anything? What if she didn't know anything?

”I know you,” Jack said. ”Why would you do this?”

Mr. Grin backed up from Jack, held his hand up to his ear and looked down at his b.l.o.o.d.y palm.

”You'd love to know, wouldn't you?”

”Yeah,” Jack said. ”I really would like to know why you decided to single-handedly destroy my life.”

”Put the gun down.”

”What?”

”You heard me, s.h.i.+tcrawler. Put the gun down and I'll tell you. We'll have us a little pow-wow.”

”How 'bout you tell me and I won't shoot you right away.”

”This was supposed to be about two men going at each other hand to hand. Fightin over a lady. Just like men have did for years.”

”I've never fancied myself much of a traditional man.”

”Put the f.u.c.king gun down or I'll jump on this bed and snap her f.u.c.king neck!”

Could Jack live with not knowing any of the answers to this mystery? Would he live at all if he put the gun down?

He didn't know if he would. There was no way he could go hand-to-hand with Briggs. He didn't even really know if Briggs was just a man or if he was something more, something supernatural, capable of inflicting people with brands and forcing them to do his bidding.

Jack faked tossing the gun on the bed and watched Mr. Grin feint toward it. In that split-second he realized the giant man had no intention of telling him anything anyway.

He aimed and fired.

A hole blossomed in the middle of Mr. Grin's forehead.

He took a step back, shook his head, blood flowing freely out of the hole until it collected on the tip of his nose and dripped off.

Jack wished he could quit smiling. This didn't feel like a smiling activity.

”f.u.c.ker!” Mr. Grin shouted, now shambling toward him.

The hotel room was small. Jack didn't have anywhere to run or to retreat to. Nervous, he fired off the final shot.

This one caught Mr. Grin in the left eye. It turned to black pulp. Jack kept waiting for him to stop and just drop dead onto the floor because that was what people who had been shot twice in the head were supposed to do, wasn't it? They weren't supposed to just keep coming like there wasn't anything wrong with them at all.

Before he could even think of what to do next, Mr. Grin had him in his grip, stripping the gun from his hand and throwing it onto the carpet.

Mr. Grin threw him easily into the end table. While Jack's previous pains had all been healed, this rea.s.sured him he was not immune.

Mr. Grin grabbed a large butcher knife from the bed. The knife's blade and handle were already sticky with blood. Jack hadn't seen the knife until now. If he had seen that before, he would have grabbed it while he still had the gun. Then he would have had all the weapons.

Mr. Grin approached him. Bent down over him. Jack smelled the stench like sweaty rotting meat.

He tried to kick him away, feeling helpless, but it was like kicking a stone.

Mr. Grin grabbed the back of Jack's head with his left hand, holding it steady.

”How bout we make that grin permanent, s.h.i.+tcrawler.”

”No,” Jack said, trying to force him off.

”I call the shots here,” Mr. Grin said.