Private Eye - Part 7

Mort, with his black sports bag in hand, along with Frankie, Mitch and Ray entered the Gerard Marshall Hotel via the revolving glass doors.

They walked across the lobby, with very few people around at the moment, and over to the reception desk, behind which a receptionist lady stood.

“How can I help you gentlemen?” she asked.

“Could you tell me what room Mr. Carlos Vespa is staying in?” inquired Mort. “I need to get hold of him urgently.”

“I’m sorry, but we can’t give out that information. It’s policy, I’m afraid.”

“Well, can you tell me if he’s in the hotel at this present moment?”

“I’m sorry, sir. I can’t give out any information about our guests.”

“Then I guess we’ll just wait.”

Mort, Frankie, Mitch and Ray walked over to the seating area in the lobby and sat down.

About twenty minutes passed, and Carlos entered the lobby from outside carrying a brown paper bag with groceries in. He walked up to the reception desk and placed the grocery bag on the desk.

“Any messages?” he asked the receptionist.

“No messages, but there are a group of men sitting down over there that wanted to know your room number,” she replied.

“Nobody knows I’m here.”

“Well, they shouldn’t really be sitting in the lobby if they have no business being here. What do you suggest?”

Carlos glanced over at the men. Seeing that Carlos was now at the desk, they stood up and started to stride towards him.

“I suggest you get down,” said Carlos to the receptionist.

“What?” she asked, in confusion.

Mort, carrying the sports bag over his shoulder, pulled out an AK-47 and Frankie, Ray and Mitch pulled out hand guns. Without warning, they opened fire as they continued to move closer to the desk.

The few people in the lobby screamed and ran as bullets flew and dust, pieces of marble, wood and concrete ricocheted around the lobby. The sound was deafening.

Carlos jumped over the reception desk while simultaneously pushing the receptionist down by her head. They sat with their backs flat against the inside of the desk, bullets flying overhead.

“Are they shooting at you?!” asked the receptionist, panic in her voice.

“As much as I’d like them to be shooting at you, sweetheart,” said Carlos. “Yes, they’re shooting at me.”

“What the hell did you do?!”

“It’s what I’m gonna do that they’re worried about.”

The mob continued to advance, slowly.

“Approach with caution, gentlemen,” warned Mort. “We know he’s armed.”

Back behind the desk, Carlos and the receptionist sat with their hands covering their heads.

“Dammit, my gun’s in my room,” said Carlos.

“Oh, you’re kidding me,” the receptionist replied.
"You brought a gun too?"

“I’m gonna make a run for it.”

“What about me?” the receptionist asked, fear in her voice.

Carlos then noticed that there was a door in the wall in front of them behind the desk. Maybe a small office?

“Go in that back room and lock the door,” he said.

“Because locking the door’s going to stop a gang of armed men,” said the receptionist, sarcastically.

Carlos didn’t have the patience for this. “Make a run for the entrance door, then, I don’t care what you do. Look, they’re not after you, just sit tight.”

He peered over the top of the desk and to the right he noticed the elevator doors open and a young couple stepping out. He leaped over the counter and sprinted over to the elevator, ushering the couple out into the foyer.

“Come on, come on, move,” he said, hurriedly.

He rushed into the elevator and frantically kept pressing the door close button. Finally the doors closed.

Carlos stood, watching the floor numbers on the display go up.

So, this was it. He was gonna have to shoot his way out of there. The way he saw it, there was only gonna be one outcome: He was as dead as disco.

* * *

The lobby was shot to pieces. Mort, Mitch, Ray and Frankie stood by the elevators, waiting for the lift to come back down.

“I want two of you up those stairs scouring every floor,” said Mort. He pointed to Frankie. “You can stay down here with me and wait by the elevators. He’s got to come back down at some point.”

* * *

Carlos burst through his hotel room door and slammed it shut behind him. He went to his bedside cabinet and took the Springfield handgun out of the draw. He released the chamber and checked it was full of bullets, then slapped it back in.

He was gonna have to find another way out of there and make a run for it. He was taking the stairs.

* * *

Back in the lobby, Mitch and Ray were just about to break from Mort and Frankie and head for the stairs when sirens could be heard and police cars and vans screeched to a halt outside the revolving
entrance doors, sirens blaring. Armed police proceeded to exit the vehicles.

“Oh, great,” said Mitch to Mort. “The cops. You’ve got us into a shootout with the cops. You happy? Now we’re dead.”

“No we’re not,” came Mort’s deadpan reply.

He reached into the sports bag by his feet and pulled out an old M1 rocket launcher. Small enough to fit into a sports bag of that size, but still a hell of a surprise to see it. He pulled a rocket out and loaded it, then placed it on his shoulder.

“There ain’t gonna be no shoot out,” he continued.

“Is that a. . .bazooka?” asked Mitch, in disbelief.

Mort fired the rocket at the entrance doors, a trail of smoke spewing from the back as it snaked across the lobby.

Frankie, Ray and Mitch simultaneously ducked, putting their hands to their ears. The rocket blasted through the revolving doors, taking them out completely, and impacted the surrounding cars and vans with a huge, booming explosion, sending pieces of metal and police officers flying. Frantic screams from outside ensued.

Mort turned to Mitch and Ray, who were straightening themselves up. “What are you waiting for? Get up those stairs.”

Ray and Mitch turned and hurried towards the stairs.

“That guy’s nuts,” exclaimed Mitch, quietly.

* * *

Carlos stepped out of his hotel room. What the hell was that noise? He wondered. He proceeded to walk quickly along the red-carpeted,
white-walled hallway and reached a door to a stairwell. He opened it and stepped through.

He started to hurry down the grey stairwell. Two floors down a door burst open and Mitch and Ray entered from below.

Carlos stopped suddenly on the steps and the sound of his feet were heard. Mitch and Ray looked up, and on seeing Carlos, opened fire.

Carlos ran back up the stairs, bullets ricocheting off the walls and black banister, and headed back through the door to the hallway. Mitch and Ray gave chase up the stairs.

Carlos sprinted to the end of the hallway to a door with a ‘STAFF ONLY’ sign printed on it. He pushed on the door but it was locked. Quickly, he put his gun to the keyhole and fired a bullet into the lock, splintering the hinge. He opened the door and rushed through.

Mitch and Ray now entered the hallway from the previous stairwell door and rushed towards the door with the ‘STAFF ONLY’ sign printed on it.

Carlos, by this point, was rushing down the grey, concrete stairwell, using the banisters to propel himself. When he got a few floors down, he could hear the door above burst open and Ray and Mitch rushing down the stairs.

Carlos finally reached the bottom and in front of him was a door to the lobby and on his left was a door to the kitchen. He rushed through the left door.

He sprinted through the kitchen, which was full of metal racks and shelves and utensils and the smell of recently cooked food, but luckily no staff remained. He charged through and exited through a back door into an alleyway.

Ray and Mitch now reached the bottom of the stairs. Mitch opened the door to the lobby and peered through.

It looked like the aftermath of a war zone. The entrance to the hotel was caved in by parts of the fallen building, the walls and floor riddled with bullet holes and debris from the explosion scattering the ground, but there were no people around now.

Ray opened the other door to reveal the kitchen.

“The lobby’s deserted,” stated Mitch. “Not even any cops. The blast from the rocket has caved the entrance in. I’m gonna have a look around for another way out through the lobby. You take the kitchen.”

“I’ll meet you out back somewhere,” replied Ray. “Make it quick, more cops’ll turn up soon and they’ll have this place swooped.”

Ray turned and entered the kitchen and strode through to the other side and out the back door to the alleyway.

Mitch walked across the deserted, bullet-ridden lobby and noticed the door behind the reception desk. He walked over behind the desk, feet crunching on the debris, and heard a sniffle from the ground. He looked down to see the receptionist woman still sitting there, holding her legs into her chest, afraid.

“How’s it goin’?” asked Mitch, bluntly.

The receptionist burst into tears. Mitch just shrugged, turned away and opened the door. There
was a small office inside.

He entered the tidy office and walked over to the other side where a big window was left open. It was evident that this is the way that Mort and Frankie got out. But where were they now?

* * *

Ray looked left and right after coming out into the alleyway from the kitchen and decided to run left towards the back of the hotel. As he rounded the corner, the butt of a gun hit him in the mouth and he crashed to the ground, dropping his gun. Carlos grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him along the back of the hotel, then stopped and propped him up against the wall, blood dripping from his mouth.

He stood over Ray, gun trained down on him. “I want answers.”

“I ain’t tellin’ you nothin’,” answered Ray, defiantly.

“Well, let’s find out how long that attitude lasts. What’s the substance I found in Ben West’s blood?”

“Go to hell.”

Carlos fired a single shot into the ground next to Ray’s leg. He flinched.

“The next one won’t miss,” warned Carlos. “What is it?”

“I strongly advise that you concern yourself with something else. Like getting outta here.”

Carlos, without hesitation, shot Ray in the right kneecap, causing Ray to let out a piercing
scream and clutch at his knee.

“I guess Harry was right,” said Carlos, calmly. “That does look painful.”

A blood-soaked moment passed whilst Ray, gritting his teeth in pain, tried to compose himself.

“You better start telling me something,” continued Carlos.

“I can’t!” protested Ray, his voice a hoarse growl. “If I tell you anything, I’m a dead man.”

Carlos held his gun up and waved it. “This ain’t a water pistol, my friend. And it’s just as effective on heads as it is on knees.”

“You don’t seem to understand just how much of a walking corpse you are,” continued Ray. “There is a man hired to kill you that will not stop until you are gone. This guy is sub-human, I swear it. He’s got no emotion. And if he doesn’t get to you first, the organization will.”

Carlos put the barrel of the gun against Ray’s other knee. “I presume you want to retain the ability to walk.”

“All right! Dammit!” shouted Ray.

“The substance,” said Carlos. “What is it?”

Ray let out an exasperated sigh. “It’s called System Three. Once it gets into the blood-stream it stops the heart and causes death within three seconds. It doesn’t matter where on the body it enters, it’s drawn straight to the heart, like a magnet. It’s a guaranteed fatal hit every time.”

“Why make something like that?”

“They’re selling it off as a weapon to terrorist and other mob factions, forming alliances,
particularly Russians. They can make bullets with it. With this stuff you can shoot someone in the foot and they’d be dead in three seconds. From any distance. System Three is gonna give more power to whoever possesses it. And soon the organization is gonna own this city with a weapon like that.”

“Where are they producing it?” pressed Carlos.

“Please, I’ve told you enough,” resisted Ray. “Just let me go.”

“Where?!” screamed Carlos, gun still trained on Ray‘s knee.

“On the top floor of one of their hotels! They’ve converted the entire top floor into a lab and storage space.”

“Which hotel?”

There was a long, drawn out pause. “The one right here. In LA.”

Ray hung his head and shook it, feeling utterly defeated and afraid of the consequences.

There was a crunch of gravel further up the alley. Carlos looked up and noticed Mort peering around the corner at them. Carlos fired off a few shots, spraying up brick dust from the wall and making Mort step back around the corner.

“Thanks,” said Carlos, to Ray. “Appreciate it.”

Carlos took off down the back of the hotel and rounded the corner at the far end.

Mort re-appeared and picked up Ray’s discarded gun. He walked over to Ray and stood over him.

“Help me up! Please! We gotta get outta here before the cops arrive,” pleaded Ray.

“Mr. Draft is going to be very disappointed in you, giving all that information away,” said Mort bluntly, yet with a hint of menace in his voice.

“Look at my leg!” screamed Ray, frantically. “He shot me in the kneecap! He was gonna kill me!”

“Mr. Draft trusted you.”

Mort aimed Ray’s own gun at his head.

“Please!” begged Ray.

Then there was a loud crack. And the world went dark for Ray.