Dino spoke into his radio, and a moment later, two uniformed officers approached. Dino gave them instructions, then turned to Carpenter. 'Okay, let's go upstairs.'
'We'll take the other elevator, to the lower floors,' Carpenter said, 'and just do a sweep of each floor. We won't knock on every door. We'll leave that to the search teams and just hope to get lucky.'
Stone and Dino followed her onto an elevator and rode up a floor. They got off and began walking the halls.
Marie-Therese got off at the basement level; at least it was closer to the street. But to her surprise, the floor contained staff offices for the hotel. A securty guard down the hallway spotted her and began walking toward her. Quickly, she got back onto the elevator, hoping he didn't have a key. The ground floor would be crawling with cops, so she pressed three. At least she could walk down quickly from that level.
Carpenter and her two companions completed their patrol of the second floor, and she started toward the stairs.
'No,' Dino said. 'If we get into the stairwell, we won't be able to get out on another floor; we'll have to walk downstairs, and we just came from there. We'll have to take the elevator.' He pressed the call button.
'Do you really think she's still in the hotel?' Stone asked.
'I don't know,' Carpenter replied, 'but it's the only place we've got to look for her at the moment. If she got out of the hotel, she could be anywhere.'
'Let's just keep at it,' Dino said. 'It's called police work, Stone, remember?'
'I remember,' Stone said. They got on the elevator and pressed the button for the third floor.
Marie-Therese got off on the third floor, pushing the cart ahead of her, her handbag back in the hamper. She rounded a corner, looking for an exit, in time to see two men and a woman get off the elevator. They turned and began to walk toward her. She recognized them immediately and fought the urge to run. 'Good morning,' she said in her Spanish accent, as they passed her.
'Good morning,' the three muttered.
They had gone a dozen steps when Carpenter held up a hand to stop them. A gun was suddenly in her hand, and she held the barrel to her lips. Silently, she pointed the weapon at the maid disappearing down the hallway.
Stone and Dino turned to look at the woman. From under her white uniform skirt, a black pant leg had fallen to her ankle.
'Pantsuit,' Carpenter whispered.
Stone and Dino drew their weapons.
59
Marie-Therese knew she had been made. She had the maid's passkey in her hand, and, crouching behind the cart, she grabbed her handbag from the hamper and opened the door to the room nearest her, ducked inside, and slammed the door behind her.
A man emerged from the bathroom. He was enormous – six and a half feet tall, three hundred pounds, she estimated. He was dressed in trousers and a white shirt, and a necktie hung loose at his neck. 'Yeah?' he asked.
She dug into her handbag and came out with the pistol. 'Stand over there,' she said.
'What the fuck is going on here?' he demanded.
Marie-Therese tossed her maid's cap on the unmade bed and began unbuttoning the uniform dress. 'You look like you once played football.'
'Yeah, so what?'
'Ever have a knee injury?'
'Yeah.'
'Remember how much it hurt?'
'Yeah.'
She pointed the pistol at his right knee. 'This is going to hurt a lot more,' she said.
He held his hands out in front of him in a pacifying motion. 'Okay, okay, whatever you say.'
Marie-Therese walked to the window, keeping the gun pointed at him, and looked out. She was only three floors above street level, and she had thoughts of tying the bedsheets together, but there were two police cars parked in the street, their lights flashing. She turned back to her captive.
'Just tell me what you want,' he said.
'I want a ride out of here,' she replied.
Stone, Dino, and Carpenter stood in the hallway, their backs against the wall, on either side of the door.
'Kick it in,' Carpenter said. 'That's what cops do, isn't it?'
'That kind of door don't kick,' Dino said, 'unless you want to break an ankle.' He put the handheld radio to his mouth. 'This is Bacchetti. We've got the suspect cornered in a room on the third floor. I want a SWAT team with a battering ram up here now.'
'Lieutenant, it's Sergeant Rivera,' a voice came back. 'We don't have a SWAT team on site – you didn't ask for one earlier. I'll have to call it in, so it's going to be a few minutes.'
'She isn't going anywhere,' Stone said.
'Okay,' Dino said into the radio, 'tell them to shake their asses.'
'What do we do now?' Carpenter asked.
'Let me see if I can talk her out,' Stone said.
'Feel free,' Dino replied.
Stone moved closer to the door and rapped on it sharply. 'Marie-Therese, it's Stone Barrington.'
'Well, hi there, Stone,' her muffled voice came back. 'What brings you to see me?'
'I want to get you out of here alive,' Stone said.
'Sounds good to me. How do we go about that?'
'It's simple. You open the door, toss out your weapon, and walk out with your hands on your head. I guarantee you'll be safe.'
'Carpenter's out there, isn't she?'
'Yes, she's here.'
'Can you guarantee I'll be safe from her? After the lie about the money transfer, I don't trust her.'
'I sent the money!' Carpenter shouted. 'It's in your account!'
Stone motioned for her to be quiet. 'Carpenter is not going to shoot you, but a SWAT team is on the way, and unless we get you out of there now, they're going to be battering the door down, and anything could happen.'
'Well, we don't want that, do we? All right, I'm coming out. Everybody stand away from the door.'
The three of them backed across the hallway and waited.
'We're out of the way,' Stone said.
'Okay, here I come.'
The knob turned, and the door swung inward.
Stone blinked. A man stood there, a man so big that he filled the whole doorway. His fingers were interlaced across his belly, and from under his arms protruded two female feet, in heels. Marie-Therese peeked over his shoulder, an arm around his neck, and her pistol was against his temple.
'Giddyup,' she said, 'but take it slow.'
The man moved slowly through the doorway.
'Just don't turn your back on them,' Marie-Therese said.
Dino spoke up. 'Hey, I know you, don't I?' he said to the man. 'Weren't you a linebacker for the Jets a while back?'
'Yeah,' the man replied.
'Billy Franco, The Freezer!'
'Yeah, right, now could you just please do whatever it takes to get this lady offa my back and outa my
