“Yes,” I said.
“Sir?”
“It was definitely a gun. A handgun.”
“And did you shoot your girlfriend, Mr. Creed?”
She said it in such a matter-of-fact way I almost didn’t catch the question.
“What?”
“Do you have the gun in your possession at this time?” she said.
“The gunshots came from the room below us,” I said. “The guy who shot Callie is lying on the bed in what I assume is room two-sixteen.”
While keeping 911 on the line, I used my cell phone to look up and dial the hotel’s number. When their operator answered, I put the room phone down and asked for the manager. When the manager got on the line I told him not to evacuate the building. Having all the people out front would delay Callie’s medical treatment. I said, “Lock the exit doors, station a guard at each door, and let no one out. You’re looking for a man or woman covered with plaster.”
He said, “Is this a joke?”
I said, “What’s your name?”
“Bruce.”
“Pay attention, Bruce,” I said, “because mine’s the last voice you’ll hear on this earth. Someone fired two very powerful shots below my room. Blew a hole so wide I can actually see the room below us. The rounds went through the ceiling, through my bed frame and struck my girlfriend in the back. She’s seriously hurt. Ambulance on the way. The guy who fired the shots is dead. I can see him through the hole in the floor. If anyone was with him they’ll be covered in plaster dust.”
“First of all, you didn’t move your bed,” Bruce said. “Our beds are bolted to the floor.”
“Do tell.”
“Second, we’ve got a full-blown panic down here,” Bruce said. “We don’t have the personnel to station people at the doors, or the authority to hold our guests against their will.”
“What type of security force do you have?” I asked.
“I’m not going to answer that question, since I don’t know who you are. But the police have been called, and the sound you’re about to hear will be us evacuating the building.”
“No matter. It was probably one man, acting alone. And he’s dead in the room below us. Here’s what I want you to do, Bruce. Go ahead and keep the doors unlocked. But lock an elevator for the private use of the medical team that’s on the way.”
“What did you say your name was?” Bruce asked.
“Donovan Creed.”
“Well, as we were speaking, I pulled the room record for three-sixteen. That room is registered to a Ms. Callie Carpenter. So it isn’t “your” room, is it, Mr. Creed? In fact-”
“Don’t even think about fucking with me, Bruce,” I said, then noticed Callie had regained consciousness. She spoke in a voice so weak the only word I heard was “Donovan!”
I leaned closer. She coughed and gasped out some words.
What she said was, “I can’t feel my legs.”
I hung up on Bruce, picked the room phone back up, asked the 911 operator what was taking them so long. She demanded I stay on the phone with her, so I did, but used my cell to call my geeks. I told them what happened, and asked them to arrange a private jet to fly Dr. P. from Las Vegas to Cincinnati. Then I called Dr. P., told him where to meet the jet, and asked him what I could do to help Callie till the medics showed up. He asked me some questions about her condition, like, “is there an exit wound on her chest?”
“No.”
“How’s her breathing?”
“Shallow.”
“Any blood or foam in the mouth?”
“No.”
– That sort of stuff. Then he told me to run my fingernail across the bottom of her foot and see if she could feel it. But by then, Callie was dead.
44.
THE MEDICS SHOWED up and worked heroically to get her heart started, and managed to do so, but she died again in the ambulance, and again at the hospital. Each time they managed to bring her back to life.
“She’s a fighter,” one of the doctors said.
“No shit,” I said.
They pulled her away from me and got her on a gurney and started wheeling her down the hall.
I yelled, “Don’t die on me, Callie Carpenter! Don’t you dare fucking die!”
“That girl’s a fighter,” one of the nurses said.
“You have no idea.”
Now I’m in the waiting room, scared to death. Callie and I have been apart nearly three hours and no one’s given me any information. The police have been in and out asking nonstop questions. They’ve researched me and learned enough of my legend to clear the waiting room and station half a swat team with me in case I decide to go Rambo on them, in which case they’ve been ordered to take me down.
Cincinnati SWAT is an impressive group. They’re respectful, which I appreciate, and deadly, which I respect. At some point a police detective tells me the cops at the hotel believe they’ve got the whole story sorted out.
“You’ve just gone from suspect to witness,” he says.
“What happened?”
“Classic love triangle. Guy named Ridley caught his wife cheating with Tom Bell.”
“Who’s that?”
“What planet are
I shake my head.
Detective says, “Ridley thought Connie and Tom were in room three-sixteen, so he got the room below them, intending to shoot them while in the act of sexual congress.”
“Sexual congress?”
“That’s what we call it.”
I make a mental note to tell Callie. She’ll like that. Sexual congress. Finally a congress we can endorse!
“What room were they in?” I say. “Connie and Tom Bell.”
“They made a fuss at the front desk about not being able to get room three-sixteen. But as you know, it was being used. So they took three-fifteen, across the hall.”
“Lucky for them, huh?”
He shrugs.
“What was so important about room three-sixteen?” I ask.
“It’s Connie’s lucky number. Her birthday, March sixteenth.”
“Connie and Tom,” I say.
He nods.
“What’s Connie’s last name?”
“I already said more than I should.”
I nod. Then ask, “What about the gun? I never knew a civilian gun that could bore through concrete like that, though now that I think about it, the floor wasn’t as thick as I would have expected.”
The detective checks his notes. “Nitro Zeliska.”
“What’s that?”
“Make of the gun.”
