Page 76 of Nobody's Hero
‘Can I get you anything?’ he asked.
‘A cup of tea would be nice, dear.’ She reached into her handbag and pulled out some teabags. ‘Like your American Express, never leave home without it.’
‘I’ll rustle one up.’
‘Boiling water please, dear. A little milk. The way you Americans make tea is sacrilegious.’
‘Margaret wants a drink,’ Koenig said to Draper when he returned to the living area. ‘You want anything?’
‘I could use a soda,’ Draper replied. ‘Better get some water for this asshole. She’s lost a lot of blood.’
The refrigerator was stainless steel and taller than Koenig. It had an ice dispenser and double doors. Expensive. He opened the door on the left, looked inside. He closed it and opened the other. There was nothing in the refrigerator apart from a six-pack of Classic Coke. Full fat, not diet. The iconic ‘hobble skirt’ bottle. The one Andy Warhol came up with when he wanted a shape to represent mass culture. So distinctive it could be identified when shattered on the ground. But that was all there was in there. No cheese. No cooked meats. No milk. Nothing perishable. Just the Coke. He frowned and checked the cupboards. He then picked up his SIG and press-checked. Pulled the working parts back a fraction to make sure there was a round in the chamber. Instinctive.
‘Gag Nash,’ he said. ‘Hobbs will be here soon.’
Draper didn’t hesitate. She ripped off a strip of the duct tape and covered Nash’s mouth. Tugged it to make sure it was on tight. Koenig got the impression she’d done that before. Draper collected her own SIG and said, ‘How’d you know?’
‘The refrigerator’s empty bar a six-pack of Coke,’ he said. ‘Nothing in the cupboards either. They haven’t been home for days, and there’s no food in the apartment. Only cat chow.’
Cunningham had mentioned Hobbs doted on his cat, and the chow was the gourmet stuff. Line-caught Scottish salmon. Air-dried lamb. Herring and orange. No horse meat in sight.
‘Hobbs must be getting takeout. Nash probably came home to put the oven on. Maybe warm the plates. Or maybe she doesn’t like waiting in line.’
Nash rolled her eyes. Like she was embarrassed by him.
‘There’s definitely no blood on the lobby floor?’ Draper asked.
‘I got most of it. Not enough to fool theCSI: Miamiguys, but there’s nothing to see with the naked eye.’ He turned to Carlyle. ‘Can you join Margaret, please, Bess?’
Carlyle obviously understood the problems with an overcrowded room. She picked up the laptop and left the living area. Without saying anything, Koenig and Draper took up tactical positions. Draper got on the floor with a line of sight straight down the hallway. Koenig stood behind the apartment door and kept his eye glued to the peephole. When Hobbs arrived, he would step to the side and allow him to enter the apartment. With luck, Koenig could take him unawares. If he was cautious and didn’t step over the apartment threshold, Draper would shoot out his knees. They’d done this a hundred times when they were with the Special Operations Group. Apart from the shooting-out-the-knees bit.
Koenig needn’t have worried. He heard Hobbs before he saw him. He was holding two takeout bags. He put them down while he got his keys. Koenig stood to the side. The door opened and Hobbs entered his apartment.
‘How’s Chairman Meow, honey?’ he said, closing the door with his foot. ‘Did Mrs Benowitz give him his medicine? And I hope the fryer’s on – I’ve bought enough tempura to feed the imperial court.’
‘Yum,’ Koenig said, stepping out behind him and crunching the SIG onto the back of his head.
Chapter 81
Hobbs had a head wound. It was bleeding heavily, even more than the bullet hole in Nash’s ankle. Koenig had cracked him on the skull way harder than he’d intended. Although in his defence, he explained, Hobbs was a dangerous man.
‘It’s notmuchof a defence,’ Draper said. ‘Look at him.’
She had a point. Hobbs was round-jawed and droopy-eyed. He had male-pattern baldness and a stooped neck. The bad teeth that Cunningham had mentioned looked like popcorn. In direct contrast to his punky daughter, Hobbs wore a three-piece suit. Turd brown. He looked like the kind of person who clapped when the plane landed. Cunningham had been right; he was kinda breathtaking in his blandness.
‘I can’t get the bleeding to stop,’ Carlyle said, discarding a sodden kitchen towel and pressing a fresh one to Hobbs’s head wound.
‘There’s some superglue under the sink,’ Koenig said. ‘I’ll get it.’ It was in a box of miscellaneous crap. The kind of stuff that didn’t naturally belong in any one room. He unscrewed the top, pierced the foil cap, and said, ‘Ready?’
Carlyle nodded. She pinched the wound together while Koenig drizzled a generous glob all along his handiwork. Simple, but effective. Superglue was used to stop bleeding in Vietnam. Saved a lot of lives. The FDA didn’t approve it stateside, due to its unknown toxicity and because the exothermic reaction could cause tissue damage.
Hobbs’s eyes fluttered open. He took in his surroundings in silence. It wasn’t until he glanced to his left and saw his daughter on the stool next to him that he groaned.
Koenig sidled over to Draper. ‘You’re the interrogation expert,’ he whispered into her ear. ‘How do you want to play this?’
‘Do we have a carrot?’
He considered it for a couple of beats. Decided they didn’t. ‘Nothing I can think of.’