steel cylinder. I'd keep my back to him until he came out to wash his hands. I stood there for three or four minutes. I heard him pissing.
It stopped, then nothing. This character was taking too long. I swung my head to the right as if to look out of the small, barred window but carried on with the motions of pissing in case for some reason he could see me and was being hesitant about leaving the stall.
Then, casually looking right behind me, I saw something really bizarre. Through the gap between the bottom of the door and the floor I could see one foot, which seemed to be his right, on the ground and facing the toilet. His tracksuit pants weren't bunched around his ankles. I thought. Weird position, but there you go. Then I noticed that the door was open an inch. He hadn't locked it.
I wasn't going to stop and figure it out. Clenching my right fist around the cylinder, and with my left hand out to protect myself, I started quickly but quietly toward the door. At the last minute I took a deep breath, dropped my shoulder, and barged in.
He banged up against the wall, screaming, 'What the fuck!
What the fuck!' His hands went out to try to keep himself from falling and the door held; his bulk was blocking it.
I had to barge in again. The hard and fast rule of mugging is to be exactly that: hard and fast. Putting all my weight be hind the door, I had him pinned up against the wall. He was a big boy; I had to be careful, I could get fucked over here. I grabbed a handful of his gelled hair with my left hand and pulled his head over to the left, exposing the right side of his neck.
You don't just use your arm to hit somebody. I needed to get as much weight as I could behind the cylinder, the same as a boxer using his hips and the top half of his body to power the swing. I brought the cylinder up in my right and swung my whole body around as if throwing a downward right hook and cracked him just below the ear. The idea was just to take him down, not kill him or give him brain damage for the rest of his days; if I'd wanted to do that, I'd have cracked him over the head a few times. As it was, it wouldn't be his best day out, but tough shit--wrong place, wrong time.
It had been a good hit. He groaned and went down. He was fucked, and without a doubt he would have had star bursts in his eyes, that crackling and popping sensation you get when you go down semiconscious. He'd just want to curl up and get under the comforter and hide. That was why I'd used the cylinder instead of a gun. You can't predict people's reactions to a pistol. He might have been an undercover cop with a gun himself, he might have been some kind of heroic, take-a-chance citizen. Not that it mattered now. The old ways are the best.
He'd banged his head on the tank and smashed his nose;
blood was pouring down his chin. There was a high-pitched, childlike moan coming from him. He was in shitty shape but he'd live. I gave him another one for good measure; I wanted him down and well out. He stopped making a noise.
I put my left hand on his head and held it facing away from me. I didn't want him to be able to ID me. With my right hand I got under his belly and twisted his tracksuit top around toward me, unzipped it, and pulled out his wallet. Then I started to feel down his pockets in case he had another big wad stashed away there. My fingers closed around a plastic bag that filled the ball of my hand. I pulled out what looked like enough white powder to send the guy's entire neighborhood into orbit, all in neat little plastic wallets ready for sale.
No good to me; I left it on the floor, It was then that I realized what he'd been up to while I was at the urinal. Wrapped tight around his left arm was a rubber tube, and there was blood dripping from a small puncture wound. He must have had his left leg up on the toilet seat to support his arm while he was shooting up. I saw the hypodermic on the floor.
As I stood up, my pants felt wet and I looked down. He'd had the last laugh. I'd made him lose control of his bodily functions and he'd pissed himself. And I'd been kneeling in it.
I picked up the key from the floor. That, too, was covered in piss. He was starting to come around a bit; there were a few moans and groans. I got hold of his head and banged it against the toilet to give him the message to stay where he was for a while.
I stepped back from the stall. There was no time to try to clean my jeans. I went to the main door, retrieved the door stops put them in my pocket, came out, and locked the door behind me. I tossed the key into some shrubbery.
I was out of breath and a bit of sweat dripped down the side of my face, but I had to make myself look calm and casual. If another customer happened to come around the corner to use the toilet, I'd say it was out of order.
As I crossed the street I glanced left and behind me.
Nothing. I wouldn't look back again. I'd soon know if something was going on because I'd hear all the screaming and shouting, or the sound of people running toward me. Then I'd have to react--but at the end of the day, I was the one with the big fucking gun.
I passed the bus stop and carried on toward the first alley.
After two more turns I took my coat off, wrapped it around the cylinder, and folded the whole lot up. I took the cap off and folded that into the coat as well. I kept on walking, found a trash can, and got rid of my bundle. I was a new man, or I would be as soon as I put on my glasses.
Once on the road again, I got out the wallet as if I were checking whether I had my credit card. I opened it up and found that I was a family man; there was a very nice picture of me, my wife, and two kids--the family of Lance White. I didn't think Mrs. White would be too pleased with the state of me when I got home.
There was about $240 in the billfold; White had either just been to an ATM or done some early-morning deals. There were also a couple of credit cards, but I wouldn't keep them;
it would be time-consuming to sell them, and if I tried to use them it could only be in the next hour or so but why run the risk of the police doing a trace and ending up with my description from a sales clerk? The rest of the stuff was shit, bits of paper with phone numbers on them. Probably his client list. As I passed another trash can I dumped everything except the cash.
I now had just under $400 in my pocket, enough for the next few days in case I couldn't contact Pat or he didn't come up with the goods.
The piss on my pants was starting to dry up a bit as I walked, but it stank something awful. It was time for a change of clothes.
I reached the Burger King and all the other shops near the hotel. I was in and out of a discount shop in about fifteen minutes, with a duffel containing a new coat, jeans, sweat shirt, and underwear, all bought with cash. Kelly had also got a complete new set of clothes, down to underpants and undershirts.
I had a quick look at my watch on the way up to the room.
I'd been gone about two hours and fifteen minutes, a bit longer than I'd said I'd be.
Before I even got to the door I could see it was ajar. I looked down and saw a pillow keeping it open. I could hear the TV.
Pulling my pistol, I went against the wall, the weapon pointing toward the gap. I felt disbelief, then shock. I felt emptiness in my stomach, and then I felt sick. I moved into the room. Nothing.
I checked on the other side of the bed in case she might be hiding there. Maybe she was playing some game with me.
'Kelly! Are you in there?' My voice was serious, and she'd have known it.
No reply. My heart was pumping so hard my chest hurt. If they had her, why hadn't they jumped me by now?
I felt sweat slide down the side of my face. I started to panic, thinking about her in her house, her father being beaten, scared, screaming for her mommy. I understood that feeling of desperation when you want someone to take all the scary things away.
I forced myself to stop, calm down, think about what I was going to do. I came out onto the patio again and turned left.
I'd come from the right and hadn't seen anything that way. I broke into a run, calling, 'Kelly! Kelly!' in a loud semi shout
I turned the corner, and there she was.
She was just leaving the Coke machine, wrestling with the pull tab on a can. The 'look at me, aren't I a big girl?' smile soon changed when she saw me, weapon in hand, looking as serious as cancer.
