ribs.
We slide another few inches and I’m able to reach my hand into my pocket and withdraw that cloth. The numbers above the door pass 39 and that car is coming and whatever he or I plan to do, it’s going to be in front of witnesses. He drags us the last few inches and his hands seize on that pistol, a little Colt. 22, and the pressure from his legs around my waist loosens only a bit. We both twist around at the same time, toward each other, just as the elevator dings, and he swivels with the gun as I swivel with the cloth, but I’m a half-second faster and I mash that cloth into his face and hold it there, pin it there, up under his nose and mouth. He bucks wildly but doesn’t fire that pistol and his eyes roll to the back of his head as his whole body goes slack, and his legs finally drop from my waist.
“You all right?” Risina says, stepping out of the elevator car, a Glock in her hand. I’m glad I was a half-second quicker or she might have witnessed something a bit bloodier when she emerged onto the floor.
“He’s checked into 4021,” she says as she stoops over his limp body and withdraws his key card.
“Then let’s show him to his room,” I grunt as I wrestle him up.
No sooner do we have him propped between us than a maid rounds the corner, pushing a cart. She barely glances our way as she moves down the hall. He’s not the first semi-conscious guest she has encountered in the hallway and won’t be the last, I’m sure. Probably not even tonight.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
He comes out of it talking. My guess is he’s been conscious long before he opened his eyes. He was hoping we would give something away while he pretended to be sawing logs, but his patience went unrewarded.
I sit in a metal folding chair in front of him. I hit him with a full wet rag of chloroform-hell, I almost passed out just soaking the cloth-so I estimated we had a couple of hours to make arrangements. We bribed a member of the hotel’s security to take us down the service elevator and get us to our car in the garage. Five thousand dollars and a story about a Motown record producer who tripped himself stupid got us a wheelchair, an escort, and no questions. The lethargic guard might not have bought it from me, but one look at Risina sold the story.
It only took twenty minutes of driving around downtown for us to find what we were looking for: an abandoned warehouse. Shit, you could put on a blindfold and walk around downtown Detroit in any direction and find one. A cursory reconnaissance of the place yielded no derelicts and no security.
So when Deckman finally opens his eyes, it’s the three of us alone, and with his arms and legs fastened tightly, like I said, he wants to talk.
“You have no idea who you guys are fucking with. If you touch one hair on my brother’s head, I will open up a hurricane of destruction on you and your operation you can only dream of.”
I just stare at him with somnolent eyes, like I’m somewhere between amused and bored.
“Where is he? Where are you holding my brother?”
Still, I give him nothing, just let him get himself worked up.
“You might intimidate a lot of people with that thousand-yard-stare, tough guy, but I guarantee you are wasting it on me. We can talk and figure this business out together or you might as well pop me and get it over with, because the more you make me wait, the less lenient I’m going to be when we meet up later under different circumstances.”
“I could give two shits about your brother.”
He grins. “That makes two of us. You got a cigarette I can bum?”
I just shake my head and he shrugs like it was worth a shot to ask for one. I wait for him to strain at his bindings again, testing out their tensile strength. He gives up after a moment, and I lean forward.
“I want to know how to contact Spilatro.”
Some hitters like to use their fists to elicit information, try to break a man so he’ll pour out his secrets, like punching a hole in the bottom of a water bucket. Not me. Like Kirschenbaum did to me in that hotel room in Connecticut, I stagger Deckman by playing with his expectations.
The name “Spilatro” floors him, like a driver who has to jerk the wheel suddenly when an animal darts into the road.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I let him dangle.
After a moment, he sighs and looks up at the ceiling. “You’re the guy, huh? The one he’s gone on about?”
“I’m the guy.”
“Columbus.”
“That’s right.”
“So you kidnapped me to get to him.”
“Means to an end.”
He nods. “So now what?”
“A swap. You for my friend.”
“Oh, yeah. The pistol.”
“Pistol?”
“Black guy in Chicago. Pulled a. 22 from under his mattress. Name was Grant but we’ll always call him the Pistol after that.”
“That’s right,” I say, and I’m oddly comforted that Archie impressed them enough to earn a new nickname. “Spilatro had two guys there.”
“Three, actually. And Spilatro never left the lobby. Pretty straightforward snatch-and-grab except your friend pops up with that pea-shooter right as I get my knee into his back. He squeezed a round off at Bando but missed his head by six inches-I pried the gun away from him after that.” He spits on to the dirty cement next to his feet, making a clear mark in the dust. “That scrawny dog could put up a fight. I’ll give him that.”
“Who broke his nose?”
“Who cares?”
“Little payback from Bando?”
“Does it matter?”
I let that one sail by.
“How long have you and Spilatro been government guys?”
He looks at me sideways. “Who sold you that dope?”
“Two and two makes four.”
“Except you put the wrong numbers into the calculator.”
“Did I?”
Deckman shrugs. “Who’s the chick?” he asks as he cranes his neck to get an eye on Risina.
“Man in your position might choose his words more carefully.”
“I haven’t felt this terrified since my dad got out his belt,” he says flatly.
“Your dad in Northville?”
“My dad six feet under in Birmingham.”
“That’s right. It’s your brother in Northville.”
“You hurt him?”
I shake my head.
“Sure I can’t have a smoke?”
I shake it again and he grins. “How’d you get Lance to give me up?”
“I told him you were dead. Said you left him some money.”
He nods. “Dollar signs was all it took, huh? Surprised you were the first to try it. He tell you I was a government man?”
“I already knew it.”
“Uh-huh. He’s my kid brother. You think I’m gonna tell him I plug guys for money?”
“I don’t care what you tell him.”
