Hidden Prey

miles—we will be all right with steady progress. Calculate. Always calculate.”
    They finally came over the top of the hill, headed into downtown, saw the Radisson ahead, pulled into the hotel parking lot.
    “We could find a public phone, so we wouldn’t have to use your cell phone,” Carl said.
    “I think one call with a cell phone, into the switchboard . . .”
    “But it’s the small things that kill us,” Carl said. “Let me go inside and look around.”
    “Quickly,” Grandpa said, with a small smile. Carl was thinking.
     
    C ARL WENT INSIDE , had a piece of luck: the check-in desk was just inside the door, and he walked on past, as though he had a room, and found the elevators. The elevators were in the central tower, so most of the area around the elevators and stairs was not visible from the desk. And there was only one person at the desk, and apparently another person in a side room . . .
    And he found a pay phone, off the lobby, out of sight from the desk. He turned and went back out. “C’mon,” he said.
    “What?”
    “I got a phone.”
    He took Grandpa through, the old man putting on a hobble as they walked into the lobby. They ignored the girl behind the desk, who ignored them back, and he left Grandpa with the phone. “One minute exactly,” Carl said. “You’ve got change?”
    Grandpa fumbled in his pocket, took out some quarters and dimes. “Go,” he said.
    Carl took the elevator to the seventh floor. Another piece of luck: not as many rooms as he’d feared. The floor was circular, curving away from him, nobody in sight. He waited, looking at his watch. One minute. The phone should be ringing. . . .
    Then he heard it. He followed the sound, four rooms down. Room 745. He paused outside the room, making sure. When he was sure, he walked the rest of the way around the tower, and found nothing but silence. He came back around to 745, and the phone was still ringing. Good.
    He pushed the elevator button, the door popped open, and he rode back to the lobby, walked around to the pay phone. He nodded at Grandpa, who hung up. “Yes?”
    “Yes,” Carl said. He took a ballpoint out of his pocket and wrote 745 on the palm of his hand.
    Before they left, he tried to imagine exactly where Kalin’s room was. It had been to the right out of the elevator, not the last room . . . hard to figure in a round hotel.
    “Wait one more minute,” he said to Grandpa. “I want to look at the stairs.”
    “Hurry,” Grandpa muttered.
    Carl had to know where the stairs went, where they came out—and after scouting them, stopped at the third floor, 345, and walked off the distance between the room and the elevator. Back in the lobby, he held up a finger to Grandpa, then he walked it off, so he knew about where Kalin’s room would be overhead. He marked the position in his mind, went outside, and counted up the building. Third room from the center line, he thought. Maybe fourth. Not second . . .
    But maybe he was wasting his time. The hotel seemed nearly empty, and maybe any light on the seventh floor meant that Kalin was home . . .
     
    T IME TO KILL . They drove up the hill, spotted the Domino’s just to make sure it was still there, and open, continued to the Miller Hill Mall, spent a half hour walking around the bookstore. Grandpa took a leak, they each bought a danish, and Carl found an outdoor-sports section and browsed the books on guns. Grandpa disappeared into politics.
     
    T HE HOURS DRAGGED . At nine o’clock, they couldn’t stand it any more. Grandpa had argued that they should wait until after ten, butwhen Carl looked up and counted, there were lights on the seventh floor, three past the center line. “She’s there,” Carl said.
    “You’re sure?”
    “Just about.”
    “Then . . .”
    “Rock and fuckin’ roll,” Carl said.
    They went out to the Domino’s, waited for the pie. “Get a stinky one,” Grandpa said. “Psychologically, you want her to smell it—it means you’re real.”
    Looking out the window of the pizza joint, Carl wished he had a different car. Basically, a cooler car. An SVT Mustang Cobra would be about right; black, so it could run at night without being seen. With tinted windows, so he couldn’t be seen. A secret box under the floorboards, right under his knees, where he could pop the gun out if a cop stopped him at a crucial point. Bap. Cop goes down, and he’s on his way . . . And you wouldn’t want Grandpa there; can’t