The Innocent (16 page)

NOTHING WORSE than crappy porn.

Lying in the motel room bed, that was what Charles Talley had been thinking before the phone rang. He'd been watching some weirdly edited porno on the Spectravision Pay-Per-View channel. It had cost him $12.95, but the damn movie cut out all the good stuff, all the close-ups and, well, genitalia both male and female.

What the hell is this crap?

Worse yet, the movie, in order to make up for the lost time, kept replaying over and over the same parts. So the girl would be like sliding down to her knees and then they'd show this guy's face tilting back and then they'd go back to the girl sliding down, the guy's face, the girl sliding down…

It was maddening.

Talley was about to call down to the front desk, give them a piece of his mind. This was the friggin' United States of America. A man has a right to watch porn in the privacy of his own hotel room. Not this chicken-ass soft stuff. Real porn. Hardcore action. This stuff, this soft porn- might as well be put on the Disney Channel.

That was when the phone rang. Talley checked his watch.

About time. He'd been waiting for this callback for hours now.

Talley reached for the phone, put it to his ear. On the screen the girl was panting the exact same way for, what, ten minutes now. This crap was beyond boring.

"Yeah."

Click. Dial tone.

A hang-up. Talley looked at the receiver as if it might give him a second response. It didn't. He put the receiver down and sat up. He waited for the phone to ring again. After five minutes passed, he started to worry.

What was going on here?

Nothing had turned out as planned. He'd flown in from Reno, what, three days ago now? Hard to remember exactly. His assignment yesterday had been clear and easy: Follow this guy named Matt Hunter. Keep a tail on him.

Why?

He had no idea. Talley had been told where to start off- parked outside some big law office in Newark- and to follow Hunter wherever he went.

But the guy, this Matt Hunter, had spotted the tail almost immediately.

How?

Hunter was strictly an amateur. But something had gone very wrong. Hunter had made him right away. And then, worse- much worse- when Talley called him a few hours ago, Matt Hunter knew who he was.

He had used Talley's full name, for chrissake.

This confused Talley.

He didn't handle confusion well. He placed some calls, tried to find out what was going on, but nobody had picked up.

That confused him even more.

Talley had few talents. He knew strippers and how to handle them. He knew how to hurt people. That was pretty much it. And really, when you thought about it, those two things went together. You want to keep a strip joint running and happy, you need to know how to put on the hurt.

So when things got muddled- as they were now- that was always his fallback position. Violence. Hurting someone and hurting them bad. He had spent time in prison for only three assault beefs, but in his life Talley guessed that he'd probably beaten or maimed fifty plus. Two had died.

His preferred method of putting on the hurt involved stun guns and brass knuckles. Talley reached into his bag. First he pulled out his brand-new stun gun. It was called the Cell Phone Stun Gun. The thing looked, as the name suggested, exactly like a cell phone. Cost him sixty-nine bucks off the Web. You could take it anywhere. You could have it out and put it to your ear like you were talking and bam, you press a button and the "antenna" on the top wallops your enemy with 180,000 volts.

Then he pulled out his brass knuckles. Talley preferred the newer designs with the wider impact area. They not only spread out your area of collision, they put less pressure on your hand when you laid into someone good.

Talley put both the stun gun and brass knuckles on the night table. He went back to his movie, still holding out hope that the porno flick would improve. Every once in a while he would glance at his weapons. There was arousal there too, no doubt about it.

He tried to think about what to do next.

Twenty minutes later, there was a knock on his hotel room door. He checked the bedside clock. It was nearly one in the morning. He quietly slid off the bed.

There was another knock now, more urgent.

He tiptoed to the door.

"Talley? You in there? We need to talk."

He peeked through the peephole.
What the…?

It was Matt Hunter!

Panic flooded in. How the hell had Hunter tracked him down?

"Please open up, Talley. I just want to talk to you, that's all."

Talley did not think. He reacted. He said, "One second."

Then he crept back toward the bed and slipped the brass knuckles on his left hand. In the right, he held the cell phone to his ear, as if he were in the middle of the conversation. He reached for the knob. Before he turned, he looked into the peephole.

Matt Hunter was still there.

Talley planned his next three moves. That was what the greats did. They planned ahead.

He would open the door, pretending he was on the phone. He would signal for Hunter to come forward. As soon as he was in range, Talley would hit him with the stun gun. He'd aim for the chest- a big target with the most surface area. At the same time he'd have the left hand prepared. With the brass knuckles, he'd use an uppercut to the ribs.

Charles Talley opened the door.

He started talking on the phone, pretending someone was on the other line. "Right," Talley said into the stun gun. "Right, okay."

He gestured with his chin for Matt Hunter to step inside.

And that was exactly what Matt Hunter did.

MATT HESITATED in the doorway to Room 515 but not for very long.

He had no choice here. He couldn't stay in the corridor and try to talk to him. So he started to move inside. He still was not sure how to present this, what role Talley was playing. Matt had decided to play it fairly straight and see where it led. Did Talley know he was part of a setup? Was he the guy in the video- and if so, why had the other picture been taken at an earlier time?

Matt entered.

Charles Talley was still talking on his mobile phone. As the door started to close, Matt said, "I think we can help each other out."

And that was when Charles Talley touched his chest with the cell phone.

It felt like Matt's entire body had suddenly short-circuited. His spine jolted upright. His fingers splayed. His toes went rigid. His eyes widened.

He wanted the cell phone away. Off him. But he couldn't move. His brain shouted. His body would not listen.

The gun,
Matt thought.
Get your gun.

Charles Talley reeled back a fist. Matt could see it. Again he tried to move, tried to at least turn away, but the electrical voltage must have stopped certain brain synapses from firing. His body simply wouldn't obey.

Talley punched him in the bottom point of the rib cage.

The blow landed against the bone like a sledgehammer. The pain burst through him. Matt, already falling, dropped onto his back.

He blinked, his eyes watering, and looked up into the smiling face of Charles Talley.

The gun… get the damn gun…

But his muscles were in spasm.

Calm yourself. Just relax…

Standing over him, Talley had the cell phone in one hand. He wore brass knuckles on the other.

Matt idly wondered about his own cell phone. The one on his belt. Cingle was on the other end, listening. He opened his mouth to call out to her.

Talley hit him again with what must have been a stun gun.

The volts raced through his nervous system. His muscles, including those in his jaws, contracted and quaked uncontrollably.

His words, his cry for help, never made it out.

Charles Talley smiled down at him. He showed him the fist with the brass knuckles. Matt could only look up and stare.

In prison, some of the guards used to carry stun guns. They worked, Matt had learned, by overloading and thus disrupting the internal communication system. The current mimics the body's own natural electrical impulses, confusing them, telling the muscles to do a great deal of work, depleting energy.

The victim is left helpless.

Matt watched Talley pull back his fist. He wanted to grab his Mauser M2 and blow the bastard away. The weapon was just there, in his waistband, but it might as well have been out of state.

The fist headed toward him.

Matt wanted simply to raise an arm, wanted to roll away, wanted to do anything. He couldn't. Talley's punch was aimed straight for Matt's chest. Matt watched as it moved as though it were in slow motion.

The knuckles smashed into his sternum.

It felt as if the bones had caved in on his heart. Like his sternum was made of Styrofoam. Matt opened his mouth in a silent, anguished scream. His air was gone. His eyes rolled back.

When Matt's eyes finally regained focus, the brass knuckles were heading toward his face.

Matt struggled, but he was weak. Too weak. His muscles still wouldn't obey. His internal communication network remained shut down. But something primitive, something base, was still there, still had enough survival instincts to at the very least turn away from the blow.

The brass knuckles scraped off the back of his skull. The skin burst open. Pain exploded in his head. His eyes closed. This time they did not reopen. From somewhere far away he heard a voice, a familiar voice, shout, "No!" But that was probably not real. Between the electrical currents and the physical punishment, the brain's wiring was probably conjuring up all sorts of strange delusions.

There was another blow. Maybe another. Maybe there were more, but Matt was too far away to notice.

"TALLEY? You in there? We need to talk."

Cingle Shaker perked up when she heard Matt's voice through the cell phone. The sound wasn't great, but she could make out enough.

"Please open up, Talley. I just want to talk to you, that's all."

The reply was muffled. Too muffled to make out. Cingle tried to clear her head and concentrate. Her car sat double-parked by the front entrance. It was late. Nobody would bother her.

She debated heading inside now. That would be the smart play. Matt was on the fifth floor. If something went wrong, it would take her a while to get up there. But Matt had been fairly adamant. He felt his best chance was to brace this Talley guy alone. If she was spotted before they talked, that would only complicate matters.

But now that there was a muffled voice, Cingle could be reasonably sure that Talley was not in the lobby. In fact, from her vantage point, nobody was in the lobby.

She decided to head in.

Surveillance was far from Cingle's forte. She was simply too noticeable. She had never been a Rockette or dancer of any sort- yes, she'd heard all the rumors- but she had given up trying to dress herself down years ago. Cingle had started developing at a young age. By twelve, she could pass for eighteen. Boys loved her, girls hated her. With all the years of enlightenment, that was pretty much the norm.

Neither one of those attitudes bothered her much. What did bother her, especially at that young age, were the looks of older men, even relatives, even men she trusted and loved. No, nothing ever happened. But you learn at a young age how longing and lust can twist a mind. It is rarely pretty.

Cingle was just about in the lobby when, through the phone, she heard a strange sound.

What the hell was that?

The lobby's glass doors slid open. A little bell dinged. Cingle kept the phone pressed against her ear. Nothing. There was no sound, no talking at all.

That couldn't be good.

A sudden crashing sound came through the earpiece, startling her. Cingle picked up her pace, ran for the elevator bank.

The guy behind the desk waddled out, saw Cingle, pulled in his gut and smiled. "May I help you?"

She pushed the call button.

"Miss?"

There was still no talking coming from the phone. She felt a chill on her neck. She had to risk it. Cingle put the phone to her mouth. "Matt?"

Nothing.

Damn, she'd put on the mute button. She'd forgotten about that.

Yet another strange sound- a grunt maybe. Only more muffled. More choked.

Where the hell was that damn elevator?

And where the hell was that mute button?

Cingle found the mute button first. It was on the bottom right-hand corner. Her thumb fumbled before touching down. The little mute icon disappeared. She put the phone to her mouth.

"Matt?" she shouted. "Matt, are you okay?"

Another strangled cry. Then a voice- not Matt's- said, "Who the hell…?"

From behind her, the night man asked, "Is something wrong, miss?"

Cingle kept pressing the elevator call button.
Come on, come on…

Into the phone: "Matt, are you there?"

Click. Silence now. Absolute silence. Cingle's heart beat as though trying to break free.

What should she do?

"Miss, I really have to ask you-"

The elevator door opened. She jumped inside. The night man stuck his arm out and stopped the door from closing. Cingle's gun was in her shoulder holster. For the first time ever in the line of duty, she pulled it out.

"Let go of that door," she said to him.

He obeyed, taking his hand away like it didn't belong to him.

"Call the police," she said. "Tell them you have an emergency on the fifth floor."

The doors slid closed. She pressed the five button. Matt might not be happy about that, about getting the police involved, but it was her call now. The elevator groaned and started ascending. It seemed to move one foot up, two feet down.

Cingle held the gun in her right hand. With her finger off the trigger, she repeatedly pushed the five button on the elevator console. Like that would help. Like the elevator would see that she was in a hurry and pick up speed.

Her cell phone was in her left hand. She quickly redialed Matt's cell phone.

No ring, just his recorded voice: "I'm not available right now-"

Cingle cursed, pressed the end button. She positioned her body directly in front of the crack in the door so as to get out of the elevator in mid-opening and as soon as humanly possible. The elevator buzzed with each floor, a signal for the blind, and finally came to a halt with a ding.

She hunched over like a sprinter starting in the standing position. When the doors started sliding open, Cingle pried them apart with both hands and pulled herself through.

She was in the corridor now.

Cingle could only hear the footsteps, not see anyone. It sounded like someone running the other way.

"Halt!"

Whoever it was did not let up. Neither did she. Cingle ran down the hall.

How long? How long since she'd lost contact with Matt?

From down the corridor Cingle heard a heavy door bang open. Emergency door, she bet. To the stairwell.

Cingle was counting off the room numbers as she ran. When she reached Room 511, she could see far enough up ahead to see that the door to Room 515- two doors ahead of her- was wide open.

She debated what to do- follow whoever was running down the stairs or check in Room 515- but only briefly.

Cingle hurried, turned the corner, gun drawn.

Matt was flat on his back, his eyes closed. He was not moving. But that wasn't the really shocking thing.

The really shocking thing was who was with him.

Cingle almost dropped her gun.

For a moment she just stood there and stared in disbelief. Then she stepped fully into the room. Matt had still not moved. Blood was pooling behind his head.

Cingle's gaze stayed locked on the other person in the room.

The person kneeling next to Matt.

The face was tearstained. The eyes were red.

Cingle recognized the woman right away.

"Olivia."