Domino Page 20

  "Evening," Rowland said politely but his courtesy was met with only a sullen glare from the dark haired woman. Only when she turned back toward the stairs was there a subtle smile on her lips.

  "Hola, Senora Santos," Dusty called to her as she headed for the stairs. "Que pasa? You got quite a haul there."

  "Hola, Senor," she replied under her breath and kept her eyes on the stairs. "Si, trabajo mucho.”

  "What have you all got there?"

  "De todo un poco," Mrs. Santos replied curtly. "A little of everything."

  "Looks like another storm," Dusty commented. "We sure do need this rain."

  "Si," she replied quietly without looking up from lifting the cart of old clothes up the stairs.

  "Senora, did an inspector from the county look at your room today?"

  "No," Graciella said. "Nobody come. Nobody all day."

  "Buenos noches, senora," Dusty called.

  "I'm going up, too," Rowland said.

  "Dinner time for me," Dusty muttered. "See ya, Row." He closed the opening in the wire mesh, folded the racing form, and went back into his office.

  Light from the windows of the apartment building next door to the Hempstead Hotel glared into Clarissa's dark room. It threw mottled, rain spattered shadows that ran down the wall above her bed as she slept. Her restless slumber was needled with fitful dreams, dark and nightmarish. Distant thunder rolled and Clarissa stirred.

  "Clarissa." The sound was a faint whisper through the fog, like the hiss of a swirling mist. It was just the hint of her name, and by the time it reached her conscious mind there was doubt that the sound had ever been there at all.

  "Clarissa." Her mind reached out toward the sound and the familiar voice. She struggled through the cobwebs of languor, her mind slow and reluctant. It was her name. Someone was calling her from far away. They were looking for her. She was running, but from whom? There was no place to hide and she could hear other sounds. Footsteps behind her. A hollow thumping like a heart beating from terror. The sensation of trying to run but her feet were stuck in the mire. Blind terror, shapes behind her in the fog, coming closer. Attempting to run, willing her feet, one foot then the other. Not fast enough.

  "Clarissa." A man's voice, calling, shouting. If they found her they would kill her. She was lost and the panic was agony. Her fingertips groped at the heavy curtain of mist, fighting her way through, tearing at fragments of fear. She could hear his voice, thick and distorted, but vaguely familiar. Hands reached for her, grasping, snatching at her clothes. She stumbled and clawed her way to her feet. She had to escape, had to get away. Faces leered through the fog; Morgan's evil stare; Marco's grinning, twisted smile. Clarissa heard her name again, closer this time. She stopped to listen.

  "Hugo!" she screamed and her eyes snapped open.

  The bed beneath her was soaked with her sweat and her heart was still pounding. "Hugo," she breathed softly, listening for the voice to call her name. The tiny room was still except for the pattering of rain and the occasional clap of thunder.

  She was supposed to be somewhere, meet someone. A car was waiting somewhere to take her some place important, but Clarissa could not remember who or where. Her mind refused to clear and her thoughts were just a jumble of random ideas, vague and distant, like the scattered pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

  She tried to focus on the wire covered clock on the wall but when she did there was a blinding, stabbing pain behind her eyes and squeezing them shut again was a welcome relief. She wanted to sleep but was afraid of the nightmares. She needed to get up, to move, but couldn't remember why.

  "Clarissa!" the voice was a sharp hiss that filled the room.

  "Hugo, I’m here," Clarissa said and forced her eyes open. The room was empty. "Hugo?"

  She struggled into a sitting position on the bed, her arms holding her up. The room swam before her eyes, the walls elongating and contracting as she forced herself to her feet. Someone was waiting for her. Hugo? No, someone else, but she could not remember who. Her knees felt wobbly and weak and she fell back onto the bed, resting her aching head in her hands. Rubbing her temples seemed to help a little, but did nothing to clear her fogged brain.

  "Where are you, Hugo?" she tried to call out. "Please answer me. Where are you?"

  "Clarissa."

  The voice was coming from the hallway. Maybe it wasn't Hugo after all. Maybe it was Rowland. That's who she had been waiting for. Rowland. Dinner at the church. She was pleased that she could form a complete thought that made some sense.

  "Rowland," she called out feebly. "I'm here. I'm here. I'll go with you. Rowland?"

  She took another stab at standing and was more successful that time. She took a faltering step toward the door and pitched forward, catching herself on a chair. She aimed one hand in the general direction of the door and caught the knob. Holding on tight, she slipped back the dead bolt and opened the door.

  Her stomach heaved as she peered down the undulating hallway. The floor tiles rose up in a sea of waves toward her. Clarissa clutched the door jamb with both hands and closed her eyes against the pitch and toss of the floor. By sheer will her stomach relaxed and she forced down the rising bile in her throat. When she opened her eyes again he was there, just starting to descend the stairs. He was dressed to go to dinner in his fedora and tweed jacket.

  "Rowland!" she called but her throat was parched and dry and all that came out was a raspy murmur. Rowland did not hear her. He would go to the church kitchen without her. She had to follow him.

  She took one halting step into the hall, testing for motion. Her foot remained firm until she opened her eyes. The hall rolled toward her and the walls seemed to stretch up and away until Clarissa thought that they would tear.

  She caught her breath and planted her feet wide to keep her balance. Rowland would wait for her in the lobby as he had done the past couple of nights. If she hurried, Clarissa would catch up to him downstairs. Where were the stairs? The hallway was so much longer than she remembered. It seemed to be a least two blocks long. It made her laugh and she giggled. She would have to walk two blocks down the heaving hallway just to get to the stairs. This damn place should at least provide a boat.

  The idea struck her so funny that she collapsed laughing. Tears ran down her cheeks and her sides ached. Her hysterical cackling echoed down the hallway and came back in a distortion of her name.

  "Clarissa. Clarissa. Come to dinner, Clarissa. Come to the church."

  It sobered her and she tried unsuccessfully to stand.

  "Who's there?" she cried. "Who are you? Rowland? Damn you, answer me. Where are you?"

  Clarissa clawed her way up the wall until she was on her feet. A sudden gust of wind slammed shut her door and jolted her to scream. A streak of lightning from a window at the end of the hall lit the hallway in stark white light and made the shadows jump at her. She cowered against the wall, digging her broken fingernails into her palms until they bled.

  She had to get to the stairs, to God's Kitchen and to Rowland. He would protect her. He would take her out of this heaving hell and drive her to Virginia's. There was something not right about that thought but she could not remember exactly what. Someone was going to take her to Virginia's to get her engagement ring. The diamonds. The necklace. Morgan Wolfe.

  The sudden terror of that name cut like a saber through the chaotic fragments of Clarissa's murky reality. For a fraction of a second Clarissa's mind cleared and everything fell neatly into place. Byron Roth's murder, Morgan's eyes as he saw her in the window. Her escape from Marco, Virginia stripping her of everything, an axe falling on her fingers. The Hempstead Hotel, Rowland, Dusty, and Randy. Then the curtain closed like a heavy drape and only an acute dread remained. She had to run. She had to escape. They knew where she was hiding and they would kill her.

  Clinging to the wall, she made her way slowly toward the stairs. Twice she stumbled, managed to get her feet under her, and continued on. Painful as it was, she focused on the edge of the
newel post visible at the top of the stairs. She refused to take her eyes off of it. It became her one goal, to reach that post.

  Clarissa stumbled toward the stairwell, sliding along the walls for support, fighting down the rising nausea and the stabbing headache. When her hands finally closed tightly around the banister, she stopped to catch her breath. The stairs twisted and stretched out and downward away from her, bobbing and weaving as if they were blowing in the wind. She could not see the second floor landing in the dark shadows below. The stairs seemed to end down into a black hole. Then, out of that hole rose Rowland, shuffling down toward the lobby.

  She had to follow and not lose sight of the gray fedora. There was no choice but to try to negotiate the waving stairs. She tested the top step, reluctant to put her full weight down. She eased onto the second step carefully, her balance precarious.

  "Clarissa!" The deep, raspy voice came from behind her. She whirled around. A streak of lightning illuminated the empty hallway. She turned back toward the top of the stairs and her hand slipped on the banister. She started to fall, grabbed wildly at the railing, struggling to keep on her feet.

  "Clarissa!"

  He stood at the top of the stairs, a dark figure, and his face in shadows. All she could see was a toothy grin.

  "No!" she screamed and half ran, half slid the rest of the way down to the second floor landing.

  "We need to talk, Clarissa," his voice was cunningly smooth. "Here, give me your hand." A black gloved hand reached out to her from the shadows.

  The urge to run from the man was overwhelming. She had not seen his face but there had been something deadly familiar about him. Something screamed at her to flee, to get away and she crawled across the second floor landing on her hands and knees until she reached the stairs. She pulled herself upright by hanging onto the banister. Then she froze. Coming up the stairs toward her was the drunk she had met on the stairs the day before. He still had the cap pulled low over his brow but this time he was looking straight at her.

  "You come with me," he ordered and reached out to grab her hand.

  "Leave me alone," she cried. She quickly glanced back up into the dim stairwell behind her, but the man who had reached for her was gone.

  "Come on, damn it," the drunk snapped angrily.

  She backed up awkwardly, kicking out at him. He grabbed her wrist and she screamed, trying to twist her way free.

  "Let go of me," Clarissa pleaded.

  "He won't hurt you if you come with me," the drunk insisted.

  "Stop it, let go," she screamed at him. She kicked out again and again as he dragged her down the to the first floor landing. With her free arm she tried to hit him. All she succeeded in doing was knocking off the baseball cap. That was enough. It was no drunk that held her. She recognized the face of Alex Rogers even through the mental haze. Panic seared through her, the fragments of reality coalescing enough for her to know that she had been discovered and death waited only moments away. "Please, let me go!" she screamed.

  "Shut up!" he demanded.

  She sunk her teeth into Alex's arm and he yelped with pain.

  "Clarissa!" he said. "I can get you out of here. Come with me, now!"

  She bit deeper the second time and he pulled his hand away. Clarissa ran down the last few steps into the lobby, around the corner, and crouched in the small recess behind the stairs.

  "Clarissa! Wait!" she heard Alex call as she watched him run toward the hotel's front door. He searched through the lobby and, not finding her, he went out into the rain. She saw him through the glass door. He looked both ways down the sidewalk, then he went to the right toward the alley between the two buildings.

  McKinnon eased open the back door of the Hempstead Hotel and stepped out into the light drizzle in the alley. Black gloved hands adjusted the gray fedora further down on her brow and pulled up the collar of the tweed jacket. An old white MGB with a black rag top was parked at the end of the alley, its headlights facing the street.

  "Good, still here," McKinnon sighed and slipped behind the wheel. The assassin had watched the missionary woman park it a few minutes ago. Saved her the trouble of finding another vehicle to use, It only took only moments for her practiced hands to hot wire the engine.

  McKinnon let the motor idle. It would be only moments now and the assassin's greatest asset was patience. Clarissa would emerge from the front door of the hotel and head toward the soup kitchen. She would cross the alley in front of the MGB for the last time. McKinnon would be waiting. The job would be done, the car abandoned in the dry Los Angeles riverbed and set ablaze. McKinnon smiled. This had been an easy hit with only one minor complication, already taken care of. McKinnon's gloved hand shoved the gear selector forward into first gear and revved the motor. "Come on, Clarissa," the assassin hissed quietly and played restlessly with clutch and gas pedal.

  Clarissa could not follow Rowland now. Not with Alex Rogers outside. She had to find a place to hide until he went away. She crept silently toward the cellar door. The pain behind her eyes was nearly blinding her as she groped for the door knob and turned it. It opened with a click and she eased the creaking door open. She stood at the top of the wooden stairs, peering down into the darkness. Only the first few weaving steps were visible in the muted light from the hallway.

  "Randy?" she called softly, her voice still edged with panic. "Randy, are you down there?"

  There was no sound in the cellar and the wooden steps appeared to be buckled and warped. Clarissa took a hesitant step down. "Randy," she hissed. "Randy, where are you?"

  The patch of light on the stairs went suddenly dim. Clarissa felt the slight pressure on her back a moment too late to stop the fall. She pitched forward and plunged into the darkness. The wooden railing arched toward her and she reached out and grabbed hold. It arrested her fall but wrenched her already sprained shoulder. Her cry of pain was lost in the jarring slam of the cellar door above. Clarissa eased herself down to the bottom step. Her head swam and her knees buckled. She collapsed onto the cement cellar floor, her breath coming in ragged gasps. She lay there in the dark and strained to hear any sound. The cellar door above her was still closed, shutting out the light. Only the dim gray light from the grime covered cellar windows afforded any light at all.

  She tried to stand but her legs were like jelly and she could not get them under her. Her shoulder stung with a stabbing pain. Clarissa slumped back onto the floor. Then she heard them. Slow and heavy, dull scraping footsteps and the creak of the wooden boards. With all her strength she tried to push herself along the floor back into the blackest shadows but she was not fast enough.

  A streak of lightning illuminated for a second the figure standing on the bottom step. Marco grinned and pulled tight the black leather gloves on his hands.

  "Hit bottom, Clarissa?" he sneered as he dropped down off the last wooden step. "I see Morgan's paid killer never showed up. Figures. If you want something done right, you can't trust it to no stranger. That's what Morgan pays me for. To see that every job is done right."

  "Please, Marco," Clarissa whimpered. "Don't do this."

  "That's what Virginia said," Marco bragged.

  "Virginia?" Clarissa's mind fought feverishly to put the random links together. "Where's Virginia?"

  "With her Indian ancestors," Marco replied.

  "My God," Clarissa cried.

  He was standing over her, flexing his fingers, the grin gone from his face. Before she could draw a full breath to scream, his hands closed about her neck. Clarissa clawed at the black iron fingers as they pressed deeper into her throat and held her pinned to the floor. Marco held a switchblade knife. The blade snapped up in front of her eyes, turning slowly in Marco's hand. Her eyes followed it as it rose high above his head, then began its deadly descent toward her chest.

  Suddenly, Marco's arms went rigid. His eyes widened and a groan escaped from his lips. The fingers around her throat went slack and Clarissa forced herself to breathe. Marco fell toward her, and t
he force of his fall on her chest knocked the little bit of air out of her lungs. She recognized the bone handle of a carving knife protruding from Marco's his back, struggling to recall where she had seen such a knife. She glimpsed a shadow detach itself from the others. Then she lost consciousness.

  CHAPTER 12

  Morgan snapped shut the briefcase and secured the combination lock. He handed it to an elderly valet standing in front of his desk in the den of the Wolfe estate.

  Will that be all, sir?" the valet asked.

  "My suitcase is packed, Peter?" Wolfe asked. "I'll be gone just until next Thursday."

  "Yes, sir," the valet responded.

  "Did you tell Dalton I wanted to see him?'

  "He's waiting in the living room, sir. I'll tell him to come in."

  Peter did not make a sound as he bowed slightly and slid out of the double doors of the den as if he were on casters. A moment later, the black security guard knocked softly.

  "Yes, Dalton," Wolfe called. "Come in."

  The guard entered and stood at attention, waiting for Wolfe to address him.

  "Alex Rogers has not checked in all day?" Wolfe asked.

  "No, Mister Wolfe," Dalton replied. "His car is no longer registering a signal on the scanner. We assume he's dismantled it. The last signal was from the area of Wilshire Boulevard and Bristol Avenue near the Wilshire Towers Condos. That was at nine thirty two this morning."

  "Where the hell is Marco?" Wolfe demanded.

  The guard hesitated, a look of uneasiness crossed his face. He swallowed the knot in his throat. There was no easy way out of this. He was damned if he told and damned if he didn't. He had worked for Morgan Wolfe for four years. Dalton knew all too well the unquestionable loyalty that Wolfe demanded. He was witness to the consequences if that allegiance was in any way violated. The Roth brothers were the most recent example and Dalton suspected there had been others.

  The guard also knew Marco Camponello. Growing up in the south central Los Angeles neighborhoods, Dalton had been the leader of one of the most notorious gangs, the Blades. He had been convicted of murder and sent to the maximum security prison at Vacaville. Eight years later, social and political strings were pulled to obtain his release and he found himself in the employ of Morgan Wolfe. The job was personal body guard. He had little choice, take the job or spend the next twenty years in prison. It was made very clear to Lewis Dalton that his freedom and his life were one hundred percent dependent on his job performance.