Bronx Requiem(87)

Ciro quickly turned in to the lot and took the first parking spot he found.

Demarco opened his door. “C’mon. This could be interesting.”

As they hustled toward the motel entrance, Ciro slipped on a pair of leather sap gloves. Each finger was filled with four ounces of steel shot. Demarco pulled a retractable-steel baton from his back pocket and carried it out of sight behind his wrist and forearm.

They rushed through a set of sliding-glass doors into a small foyer, turned right, and walked through another set of glass doors into a lobby crammed with a small couch, two armchairs, and a table. The checkin counter occupied the far wall.

There was no sign of the hotel clerk. They took seats on the couch. Ciro folded his arms, hiding his hands, trying to look as if he often sat in the poor excuse for a lobby in a bad hotel in the Bronx. Demarco kept his steel baton under his right hand and wrist.

Four black men walked into the lobby. One average size, one large, two extra-extra large. The cramped space had suddenly filled with dark clothes, tattoos, bling, and muscle. The smallest of them seemed to be the leader of the group. He wore a tracksuit, leather coat, and sunglasses even though the sun had set hours ago. They all stood in the lobby posturing, glaring, accustomed to intimidating people, especially in a gang of four.

Tracksuit headed toward the checkin counter, but stopped to look at Demarco and Ciro.

“Who the f*ck are you?”

One of the XXLs, wearing a three-quarter-length leather coat, loomed over Demarco, arms crossed over a huge chest to make himself look even bigger.

Demarco spoke before Ciro answered. “Nobody. We’re just waiting for a friend.”

Tracksuit turned to Demarco and said, “Well, wait someplace else, you dumb-ass nobody motherf*cker. Go on. Get the f*ck out of here. Both of…”

Before he finished the sentence, Ciro exploded off the couch and punched him in the face, breaking his nose, cheekbone, and sunglasses. Tracksuit’s head snapped back. A line of blood splattered the wall behind him. He fell unconscious onto the table between the two armchairs, breaking the glass top.

Demarco rammed his foot into the knee of the man standing over him, buckling his leg. He jumped off the couch as the man fell sideways, leveraged his right elbow into the big man’s jaw, breaking it with a muffled snap. Demarco twisted away as XXL fell toward the couch and backhanded the steel baton across his head, cracking the back of his skull and knocking him out.

The man closest to Ciro swung at him and hit the side of Ciro’s head. Snarling, Ciro threw a roundhouse punch into the man’s forearm, breaking the ulna bone. Ciro followed it up with punch after punch to the body, breaking ribs and rupturing internal organs with his steel-shot covered fists.

The fourth man, the last one into the lobby, managed to draw his gun. Demarco whipped the flexible steel into the man’s wrist, his long reach extending another seven inches. The baton cracked the radius bone and broke the scaphoid bone, but not before the thug got off a shot, firing a bullet into the side of the couch. Demarco took one step and hooked a full-force heavyweight knockout punch into the man’s temple.

Four down, four out, multiple broken bones, one ruined knee, a bruised liver, a ruptured spleen, a collapsed lung, seven seconds.

Ciro kicked the leader, asking, “Who’s getting the f*ck out, now, huh?” Kick. “Huh?” Kick, kick. “Who’s getting out now, tough guy? Motherf*cker!” Stomp. Kick.

Demarco deftly stepped over the heaps of men and rushed to the checkin counter. He leaned over to find the hotel clerk crouched down out of sight, hands over his head. Demarco grabbed his shirt collar and pulled him to his feet.

“What room is she in? A black girl. Tall. Young. What room?”

The man yelled back, spluttering, “Four eighteen, four eighteen.”

“Stairs?”

The clerk pointed south.

Demarco ran toward the first-floor corridor, yelling to Ciro, “Get rid of the surveillance disc, then get the car. If you see her, stop her.”

*

Three blocks south on the Sheridan Expressway service road, Floyd Whitey Bondurant thought he heard the faint crack of a gunshot. His driver was already headed toward the Expressway Motel. Bondurant had been driving around the Bronx, checking in with his men, who had been trying to find Amelia Johnson without success. The two motels in the area were logical choices, and when he heard the gunshot he yelled at his driver, “Punch it!”

Bondurant’s men never questioned him. The driver floored the accelerator on the 2009 Lexus RX 350. The car leapt forward. Within a block, they had reached sixty-seven miles an hour.

A look of fierce concentration and anger descended on Bondurant. He had very prominent cheekbones, a massive forehead, a pronounced chin. He would have looked more frightening if his eyes showed, but he always wore sunglasses to protect them from the light. He pulled out a large-frame Taurus PT 24/7 loaded with .40 caliber bullets. There were fifteen rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber.

Bondurant sat in the passenger seat. His deep voice rumbled at the man in the backseat, “Elliot, get your shit ready.”

Elliot already had his gun in his hand.

*

The gunfire awakened Amelia instantly. She did not hesitate; she did not look out the window. She grabbed the Glock, picked up the red laundry bag, slipped into her ballet flats, and ran out of the room.

The door to the back stairs was only fifteen feet away. She smacked the release bar and hit the stairs, running down so fast she almost ran out of her shoes.