The manager crossed the room with Whitley holding a gun on him. Buster was snarling, and the manager looked petrified. I made him sit at the switchboard.
“I want you to call number forty,” I said. “If someone answers, hang up. Got it?”
“Whatever you say,” the manager said.
“Jack, what are you doing?” Burrell asked.
“Sampson’s room doesn’t have a telephone,” I said. “If room forty is where he’s being held, we shouldn’t get an answer.”
I crouched beside the manager as he made the call. He let the phone ring a dozen times, and no one picked up.
“No answer in forty,” the manager said.
I stood up and faced Whitley. “We need to lock this guy up before we go upstairs.”
“Why, don’t you trust him?” Whitley asked.
I saw Whitley grin, and realized this was his idea of a joke. Whitley pushed the manager into a coat closet, and handcuffed him to a water pipe. He was still grinning when he came out of the closet.
The stairwell was next to the reception area. The three of us stood at the bottom, and listened to the crackheads getting high on the second floor. Cops called situations like this a hornet’s nest. It was hard to step into it without getting stung.
I drew my Colt. “I’ll go first.”
“It’s all yours,” Whitley said.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
T he stairwell was poorly lit. With each step, I heard the sickening sound of glass crack pipes crunching beneath my shoes. Reaching the landing, I peered down a hallway strewn with empty pizza boxes.
“What a hellhole,” Burrell whispered.
Buster was the brave one, and led us to the hallway’s end. I stuck my ear to the door of number forty, and heard a TV playing Telemundo inside. Grabbing a pizza box off the floor, I held it against my chest so my Colt was hidden. With my shoe, I knocked.
“Pizza for number forty,” I announced.
Burrell and Whitley pressed their bodies against the wall. The door opened, and a skinny Hispanic missing his two front teeth stuck his head out. He was about thirty, and wore striped boxer shorts and nothing else. It was Pepe.
“What you want?” he asked, smothering a yawn.
“You order a pizza?” I asked.
“Nope.”
“Damn. It’s going cold. You want it? I’ll sell it to you for five bucks. It’s got extra cheese.”
“I’ll give you four.”
“You’ve got a deal.”
Pepe pulled out a roll of bills, and peeled off four dollars. He took the box out of my hands, and I showed him my Colt.
“Shit,” he said.
Whitley swept into the room, throwing Pepe against the wall. I followed and did a visual sweep. The room had a single bed with a night table, and a closed door leading to a bathroom. Lying on the bed were boxes of children’s cereal and candy.
“Where’s the kid?” I asked.
“In the closet,” Pepe replied.
My heart was pounding as I opened the closet door. Filling the space was a dog crate holding a terrified African-American girl with cornrows in her hair and wearing a yellow dress. She looked about five, and held up her hands to block the light.
Buster pressed his nose against the bars, his tail wagging furiously. She lowered her hands, and touched my dog through the bars. I knelt down.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Tyra,” she said fearfully.
“Do you know a little boy named Sampson?”
“Yeah.”
“Where is he?”
“Oscar took him away.”
Something hard dropped in the pit of my stomach. I untied the piece of twine on the crate door while looking over my shoulder at Pepe standing with his hands pressed against the wall. “Why is she here?” I asked.
“Collateral for a drug deal,” Pepe said.
“Why did your partner take Sampson away?”
“Kid kept trying to escape. We couldn’t handle him.”
“Who hired you?”
“Dunno.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oscar dealt with the guy.”
Before I could ask him where Oscar was, a toilet flushed, and Oscar emerged from the bathroom. Also shirtless, his most distinguishing feature was the automatic pistol tucked down the front of his pants. Seeing us, he drew his weapon.
Whitley was in Oscar’s line of fire. Without hesitation, the FBI agent pumped three bullets into Oscar’s chest. The bullets went clean through Oscar’s body, killing him instantly, while also penetrating the plaster wall behind him. In the room next door, someone let out a blood-curdling scream.
“Get on the floor!” Whitley shouted.
I continued to untie the crate door.
“Do it!” Whitley said.
A bullet came through the wall and whistled past my head. It was quickly followed by another. Then I understood. Next door was shooting back.
I hit the floor while Whitley returned the fire. Tyra was huddled in the corner of the crate, crying her eyes out. I hugged the bars, and prayed that no bullets hit her.
Gunfire does something to your nervous system that’s hard to explain. I saw my life flash by several times, and found myself regretting all the things I’d yet to do.
The shooting stopped, and the room fell deathly still.
The fog of gunpowder made it difficult to breathe. Whitley put a fresh clip into his gun, and hurried into the hallway. Pepe had taken a slug in the chest, and was sitting with his back to the wall, his eyes blinking rapidly. Burrell checked his pulse, then shook her head.
“We need to get Tyra out of here.” I opened the crate door, and held my arms out. “Come on, honey.”
The little girl rose to her feet. Her eyes were wide with fear, and she bolted out of the crate, and ran right past me to the room’s single bed, and scurried beneath it.
“For the love of Christ,” Burrell said.
Going to the bed, I knelt down, and stared at Tyra huddled in the darkness.
“Go away!” the little girl screamed.
I said her name, and told her I was going to take her home.
“Leave me alone!”
I knew what was happening. Tyra no longer trusted strangers, and was going to stay hidden until she encountered someone she knew. From out in the hallway came another round of gunshots. Whitley ran into the room.
