something else al—”
Gedney moved quickly, slapping away Hardie’s knife hand, bouncing off the bed and tackling Hardie right in his center of gravity. Hardie dropped the knife. Hardie dropped his cane. Hardie went down hard. Pain exploded in his lower spine. What he wouldn’t give for his old body back. Gedney, meanwhile, kept on trucking. On the other side of the room were three doors, side by side—one leading to the hallway and the others, presumably, to a bathroom and a closet. Three guesses which one Gedney would be choosing.
Hardie cursed himself for his stupidity as he rolled over. To lose it all so quickly in a matter of moments…
But Gedney surprised him by launching himself into the bathroom and slamming the door shut behind him.
Hardie pulled himself up from the floor, stumbling a bit as he recovered his cane and the knife. But the stumble was fortunate, because as Hardie raced for the door a bullet blasted through the wood, whizzing by his face before burying itself in the plaster across the room. Another second and it would have buried itself inside Hardie’s head.
Ah.
No wonder he chose the bathroom.
Gedney had a gun in there.
Gedney was very glad to have a motherfuckin’ gun in here.
Never thought he’d ever, ever have to use it, though—this was the St. Francis Hotel. Survivor of the 1906 earthquake. Site of countless Industry meetings over the decades, not a single incident. A safe zone. A dead zone. Like a womb, surveillance-wise.
A womb with a revolver hidden away.
Not so much to use on outsiders breaking in, but in case a meeting went…south.
Whatever its intended purpose, Gedney was glad to have the revolver. He kept it trained on the door. He didn’t think Hardie would just give up and go away. And he didn’t think he was lucky enough to have hit the bastard with that first shot. So the next move would be Hardie’s; the finishing move would be Gedney’s. That, or somebody had heard the shot and already called downstairs, but that was unlikely. Big old pile like the St. Francis muffled sound pretty well. Gedney would know.
So the play was simple. Hardie would either come through that door, or launch something through that door, or try to lure him out of the bathroom with some ruse. No matter what, all Gedney had to do was keep his back to the wall, keep the gun pointed at the door, and shoot when he saw Hardie.
Gedney had infinite patience; Hardie clearly did not. Or he wouldn’t have marched here straight from the prison to exact his revenge. Gedney fixed his grip on the gun and took a deep, cleansing breath. He was about to consider how infinite patience usually prevailed in these kinds of situations when the tile behind him exploded.
Not all of it—just a half-dollar-size hole. But through it, Hardie jammed the business end of the cane into the back of Gedney’s little skull and pulled the trigger. The man cried out and the gun dropped out of his hands and made a sharp clank as it landed on the tile floor.
Hardie had gone in through the wall of the walk-in closet, which he accessed through the second door. He listened, tried to remember Gedney’s height. Then he used all his might to force the cane through the wall. He might have missed completely. The cane might have snapped. But there was no way he was going through that bathroom door—it was a suicide move. Better this than nothing.
After he pulled the cane out of the hole in the wall, Hardie shook it free of plaster dust as he walked back around to the bathroom. He kicked in the door, crouched down, recovered the gun, slid it into the back of his trousers. Then he picked up Gedney, who was dazed and bleeding, and slowly dragged him across the carpet.
Gedney woke up to find his face pressed up against the cool glass of the window in his room. His eyes rolled down, saw bustling Union Square below.
“Where’s Abrams?”
“You won’t do this,” Gedney said. “You won’t put me through this window.”
“Oh, I won’t?” Hardie asked, keeping his grip firm against Gedney’s back, supporting both of them with his one good leg. The gun he kept pressed against Gedney’s head.
“That’s Powell Street directly below us. Too many people down there. Throw me out the window and I’ll be taking innocent lives with me.”
“You’re assuming I’m going to push you. Maybe I’ll just blow your head off.”
“You would have already done it. You want something from me, don’t you? Information. Or maybe a deal. Isn’t that right, Mr. Hardie? You’re a bruiser but you’re not a stupid man.”
Hardie thought about this.
“Good point. Let’s go for a walk, then. You’re not going to give me any trouble, will you? I don’t think you’re stupid, either.”
“But why go anywhere? We can talk right here. No eavesdropping. The walls are soundproofed.”
“Unh-unh. I’ve got a special place in mind.”
With the gun pressed against the base of his spine, Gedney was forced into the hallway. Again Hardie marveled at how huge the spaces were in this old hotel. You could fit entire rooms in the hallways. Then again, maybe they just seemed wide because he’d been cooped up inside a mildewy cell under Alcatraz for Christ knows how long.
“We really should have stayed in the room,” Gedney said, and right away Hardie pushed him forward, making him walk faster and faster until he was in a light jog and nervously turning his head backward, trying to find Hardie’s eyes and muttering, “What you are doing?” but Hardie just kept pushing him faster and faster until they were actually running, Hardie’s left knee screaming like you wouldn’t believe. But it didn’t matter, because this was a short run, ending when they reached the bank of picture windows and Hardie threw Gedney’s body through the glass.
And just before that moment, Hardie whispered: “Bobby Marchione says hello.”
Gedney’s screaming, twisting body fell at least ten stories down to the roof of the structure that connected the old St. Francis Hotel to its new wing.
No innocent people down there.
On the roof.
Hardie didn’t need any information from Gedney after all. Hardie had picked up the man’s smartphone, checked the address book. Abrams had five addresses. All L.A.
Maybe Doyle would help him pinpoint the correct one.
—Oscar Wilde
HARDIE RAPPED THREE times on the metal door of the garage. Some stooge in a jumpsuit answered. Before the door was even half opened Hardie jammed the tip of his cane into the man’s ample belly and gave the button a squeeze. The stooge’s eyes rolled back in his head; the stooge went down. Pressing his cane to the ground, Hardie slid himself in through the open doorway, kicked the door shut behind him.
Two other guys in jumpsuits were already up and yelling and racing toward Hardie. One of them had a tire iron. The other, a gun. Hardie spun himself around, leaned against the nearest car.
Reached into his jacket pocket, where he kept the gun.
But the guy with the tire iron reached Hardie first, which is probably why his partner with the gun hesitated. No need to waste a bullet on an intruder when you could just cave in his head with a piece of metal. They hadn’t seen what had happened to their buddy; they assumed this was just some crazy old geezer with a cane.
Hardie lifted his cane. The jumpsuit smacked it to the side with his tire iron. Hardie felt the shock of the blow
