Part 14 (1/2)

Quinn's voice barked in the room. ”Yeah?”

Blister got a pained expression on his face, hearing that ”Yeah?” in one ear from the phone and in the other from the speaker here. ”Boss?” he said.

”Yeah, who's this?”

”Blister, boss. It's you, all right. Is it O.K. to talk while you're on the television?”

On the screen, Quinn pulled the phone from his ear as if it had suddenly gotten hot and burned him. He stared at it for perhaps five pregnant seconds, then stuck it on his ear again. ”What in h.e.l.l did you say?”

”Well . . .” Blister cleared his throat. ”Ain't you on Slob For A Day?”

That did it. Quinn's ”Whaat?” shook the walls. He let loose a stream of profanity, and finally Blister broke in with, ”But boss, you is on television. Right here in the room with me and Shadow and Scott.”

There was sudden silence.

Quinn started to speak, cut it off and jerked his head, the wattled flesh beneath his chin jiggling. Then he said softly, ”You're with Scott?”

”Yeah, that's right, boss.”

”You in the hotel?”

”Yeah, we is all up here in, uh . . . 418.”

Quinn smiled, and it was a smile I would remember in my dreams - if I ever dreamed again - and then he said, ”You got Scott taken care of, ain't you?”

”Sure. Shadow's got his heat on him right now. You want we should shoot him?”

”Not yet. First, you can see me on television, huh?”

”Sure. You and the whole bunch with you there.”

”You can see all of us, huh?”

There was increased movement among the men, heads jerking around, some speaking to others. Two men stood up suddenly, but Quinn waved a hand at them and they sat down.

”That's right, boss,” Blister said.

Quinn asked him, ”Where am I looking at? At you?”

”No, off to the right, sort of.”

Quinn turned his head, asked the question again, and finally Blister said, ”Now. Now you is lookin' straight at me.”

Still smiling that same smile Quinn said, ”Fine. That's all I wanted to know. Now, Blister - ”

I was pretty sure I knew what he was going to say, and I was d.a.m.ned sure I didn't want him to say it. ”Hold it,” I yelled loud enough to make Blister yank his head around toward me. With both men looking at me, and Shadow's gun trained on my chest, and my throat dry as bones in a graveyard, I stepped toward Blister.

”Give me that phone,” I said and extended my hand toward it.

Blister hesitated, gave me the same look he must have given his pants that morning, then decided to ask for help again. ”Boss,” he said.

I clamped my fingers around the phone and yanked it from Blister's ear. ”Quinn,” I said rapidly, ”this is Sh.e.l.l Scott. And you'd sure as h.e.l.l better listen.”

Blister grabbed for the phone again, but then Quinn said, ”I'm listenin',” and Blister let his hand drop.

I said, ”Blister wasn't kidding, you're on television all right. You and your whole gang of thieves.”

”He told me that already.”

”He didn't tell you you're all in big trouble. He didn't tell you your chops are coming in on thousands of TV sets all over Southern California.”

”No, he didn't. Is that right, Scott?”

Quinn didn't sound very impressed. I said, ”Get a set and tune in. Take a look. You and that bunch of high-cla.s.s hoodlums are all stuck. Unless . . .”

”Unless?” He really sounded interested.

I had a feeling it was a losing game, but I went ahead with it anyway. ”Unless you call off the heat and tell Blister and Shadow to let me walk out of here. I would then suggest that you and that whole gang head for the hills.”

He was quiet for a rather long time, staring straight at the camera hidden in that bar down there. He was so still he looked even more like fresh buzzard meat than usual, and I wondered if, unlikely as it seemed, I had shaken him up a little, wondered if he might actually let me walk out of here.

Finally he said, ”Put Blister back on.”

I handed the phone to Blister and stepped back toward the center of the room, slowed down, but kept moving toward the door. Blister was saying, ”Yeah, boss. What you want us to do?” and as he waited for Quinn's answer, even Shadow's eyes were riveted to the screen.

My heart was pounding in my chest, throat, ears, everywhere. Probably I should have known it wouldn't work, and I guess I pretty much expected what happened, because I never stopped moving and was six feet from the door when Quinn answered.

Either he was sure I was conning him, or didn't give a d.a.m.n, or wanted me dead more than anything else in the world, or possibly just rose to his peak of murderous magnificence for the day, but he looked straight out into the room, scowled mightily, and said in a kind of high-pitched thunder: ”Blister, kill the sonofab.i.t.c.h.”

Fifteen.

Well, that was all she wrote. That tore it.

There was no thought now of trying to save my films or tapes, or anything but my skin. Before Quinn even finished the sentence - my sentence - I was jumping through the air, grabbing for the doork.n.o.b and yanking on it. A gun blasted, loud, ear-splitting - so it was Shadow's gun, not Blister's - and wood splintered as the heavy slug bored through the doorframe.

I yanked the door open, bent double and jumped through into the hallway, heard a sharp spat as Blister fired at me. The bullet sang under my ear, nipped at the fabric of my coat. Then my feet landed on the hallway's carpet and I hooked my fingers around the door's edge and jerked it shut. I jumped across the hall as feet thumped inside the room. But I didn't run anywhere, just hit the far wall with my hands and turned, shoving away from it the way a swimmer in a sprint kicks away from the pool's edge, and headed back toward the closed door, right fist balled tight, hoping the door would open before I reached it. It did. It was slammed open hard and Blister loomed in it - but not for long.

I threw my right arm forward, turning my body with it, shoving with my foot and slamming every ounce of strength I had into the blow. That and the fact that I was moving forward as fast as I could turned my fist into an almost lethal club that landed on Blister's nose with a sound that seemed almost as loud as that first shot at me. My knuckles went into his face like a plow in a cornfield, and I felt his nose gush wetness, heard cartilage crunch, felt pain like the brand of a hot poker run up my wrist through the arm and into my shoulder.

Blister couldn't have felt anything after the first fraction of a second. His head snapped back, far back on his thick neck, and he spun as he fell. I don't know if he literally left his feet - but I did. A blur on my right was Shadow and I dived straight past him, reaching for the floor with one hand and for his nearest leg with the other.

His gun crashed again, and I felt the sting of burning powder on one ear, but then my hand closed around an ankle so small it felt like a chicken bone. I clamped my fingers on it, held on tight as I hit the floor and rolled. Shadow's legs went out from under him and I got both hands on that ankle, twisted, heard the sharp snap and the high yell from his lips at the same time. I got my left hand on the floor, shoved myself up with my right hand stretched open, starting to swing. Shadow's face was a yard away, twisted, his mouth open and his eyes squeezed shut. The edge of my palm slammed the side of his jaw and he went out, his face smoothing, jaw angled incredibly far to one side.

When he'd fallen my Colt had flipped half out of his pocket. I grabbed it, jumped to my feet, took time for one sweeping glance around the room - and saw the TV screen go blank. The phone hung dangling at the end of its cord - which meant Quinn would have heard the shots, yells, sound of scuffling; there would be men running up here, charging to room 418. I spotted Shadow's automatic on the floor and bent to grab it, then ran into the hall and turned toward the steps I'd come up last night.

But already feet were pounding on those stairs. I could hear them thundering up like a herd of bison, getting closer in a hurry. There was another way, possibly a better way. The elevator. If all of Quinn's miserable a.s.sa.s.sins had ignored it in their hurry to get up here, and if I could get into the thing unseen, there was a chance I could take it clear down to the bas.e.m.e.nt and out. It was behind me, at the other end of the hall. I spun around, raced toward it, then stopped and aimed the .45 in my left hand at the head of the stairway.