Kill Me If You Can (14 page)

“Mr. Bannon,
I presume,” she continued.

Katherine had gasped at the sight of the gun—who wouldn’t?—but now she bombarded me with questions. “Who is this woman? How does she know your name? What does she want?
Matthew?
”

Krall answered the important question for me.

“Some of what I want is right there,” she said, pointing the gun at the handful of diamonds on the bed. “And I’ll bet the rest is in that black bag—isn’t it, Ms. Sanborne?”

A shiver ran through Katherine’s body at the sound of her name. She whispered in my ear. “Give her the diamonds. Okay, Matthew?”

Krall heard every word. “Spoken like a woman who doesn’t want to die young. I can respect that.”

If Marta Krall had known I was the Ghost, she’d have shot me the second she entered the room. She already had what she came for—Chukov’s diamonds. But Krall wasn’t just a killer, she was a sadistic killer. Thinking I was Matthew Bannon, art student, she figured she could take her time. She wasn’t satisfied just to recover the diamonds. I had made her work hard to find them. She wanted to play with me now.

“So, tell me, Mr. Bannon,” Krall said, “are you sleeping with all your professors or just the pretty ones?” Then she went after Katherine. “I hope he was good in bed, because your affair is going to cost you your life.”

The talking was a big mistake. Those extra few seconds were what I needed. I pushed Katherine to the floor and flung the medical bag at Marta.

She got off a shot, but the bullet went inches wide and suddenly diamonds were raining all over the room. The distraction gave me a second and I barreled into Krall. Her gun fired again, the bullet smashing into the LCD TV, glass shattering in a spectacular fashion. I threw my body at Marta Krall, and her gun went flying.

I rolled, but she dived on top of me and began punching my face. She could really punch, too. I head-butted my way past a hail of fists and sharp elbows and rammed my skull into her perfect nose. She grunted like a man, toppled backward, and, still stunned, staggered to her feet. I sprang up and the two of us were standing face-to-face. No guns. Mano a mano, so to speak.

I aimed a right jab at her beautiful face. She ducked, and I drove a left hook into her stomach. She doubled over, gasping. I charged and hit her again with my full body weight.

I’m pretty sure she expected to crash into the wall behind her, but that’s not what I had in mind. There was no wall behind her. Just an oversize, multi-paned, arched window, and from what I could see from my vantage point, nothing behind it but blue sky.

“Ooooo-rah!”
I screamed, and Krall went flying through the handcrafted Venetian glass window. Arms flailing, she dropped like a stone to the street below.

I was sure the fall would kill her. But she never hit the sidewalk. Venice isn’t famous for its sidewalks. She hit the water. I picked her gun up off the floor, leaned out the window, and scanned the canal.

At least fifteen seconds passed before Marta came up to the surface, sputtering. I could’ve shot her, but I didn’t do it.

Not in front of Katherine.

Katherine whispered across
the room. “Is she dead?”

“Unfortunately not,” I said.

“Matthew, I can’t believe it. She tried to kill us. We have to call the police.”

“No, Katherine. That’s one thing we can’t do,” I said.

“What are you talking about? Of course we call the police. That woman is insane. She knows about your diamonds. She knows our names. What if she comes back?”

“Listen to me,” I said. I put my hands on her cheeks. Her eyes were filled with fear. “Sweetheart, we don’t have a lot of time, and I hate to play the do-you-love-me card, but do you love me?”

“Of course. Yes. Always.”

“Do you trust me?”

She hesitated.

“Let me rephrase the question. I didn’t ask if you understand everything that has happened in the past three days, but do you trust me enough to believe that whatever I ask you to do in the next few minutes will be because I love you madly and will do anything to keep you safe?”

“Absolutely,” she said. No hesitation, and with a hint of a smile.

“We don’t have to call the police,” I said, “because in a few minutes this place will be crawling with cops. If we’re still here, they’ll arrest us.”

“Why? We’re innocent.”

“Even if these cops speak perfect English, there’s no way they’re going to believe a word we say. There’s a bullet hole in our TV, a body went flying through our window, and there are millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds scattered around our room, which—oh, by the way, Officer, just happens to be totally trashed. We have exactly two minutes to grab whatever we can and get out. Trust me. Please.”

I hit the floor and started scraping diamonds off the rug and tossing them into the medical bag. A second later Katherine was scooping them off the bedspread.

The desk, the dresser, and two chairs had been knocked over, and I stood them upright. Then I moved the rest of the furniture so we could get whatever had rolled underneath.

“Ninety seconds and we pop smoke,” I said.

“Pop smoke?” Katherine asked.

“It’s Marine-speak for get the hell out of this hotel room before we wind up doing some serious time in an Italian prison.”

We crawled on the floor, scavenging among the broken glass, shattered furniture, and overturned room-service cart, grabbing as many loose stones as we could find.

A minute later I pulled the plug. “Time’s up,” I said. “You have thirty seconds to throw your clothes in a bag or leave them behind.”

At the two-minute mark I grabbed Katherine by the arm and pulled her toward the door.

“Over there,” Katherine said, pointing to a corner. “Is that diamonds or broken glass?”

They were diamonds, and my trained sniper’s eye could spot at least half a dozen spots where the sparkle was definitely not glass. But we didn’t have time to get them all.

“Leave them. They’ll be a nice tip for the maid,” I said, looking around our formerly glorious room. “Believe me, she’ll have earned it.”

The best way
I can describe what was going on in the lobby of the Danieli was discreet commotion. The manager of the hotel, several of his assistants, four desk clerks, and a couple of bellmen were scurrying about—some of them communicating by radio in hushed voices. But I could hear the overtones of panic.

I caught the words
al quinto piano
repeated several times—“on the fifth floor”—referring to the location from which Marta Krall had just taken her swan dive. Members of the hotel staff were on their way to the room with the broken window. I figured la Polizia di Venezia couldn’t be far behind.

The chaos worked in our favor. Katherine and I strolled casually through the lobby and out the front door with our bags. Had anyone been paying attention, it might have been noticed that we hadn’t bothered to check out. But everyone was far too busy to notice a chatty couple who were debating whether to visit the Peggy Guggenheim collection at the Museo d’Arte Moderna or spend a few hours at the Gallerie dell’Accademia.

If this were New York City, we’d have jumped in a cab and tear-assed down the Grand Central Parkway straight to JFK. But there aren’t a lot of high-speed getaway options in Venice. A gondola would have been romantic but not too smart.

There was a water taxi parked in front of the hotel and we got in.

It was a ten-seater. We were the only two passengers.

“Railway station,” I said. “Venezia Santa Lucia.”

“Cinque minuti,”
the driver said, not moving the boat. He pointed to the eight empty seats.

“What’s going on?” Katherine said. “Why aren’t we moving?”

“He wants to wait five minutes till he gets more passengers.”

I could see cops storming into the hotel. Katherine and I had registered in our own names, so it wouldn’t be long before the local police were looking for us. When they didn’t find us, they’d widen the search. We had to get out of Italy before our pictures were posted at every border crossing.

“Waiting is not an option,” I told Katherine.

She clasped her hands together and looked to the heavens. “God, my boyfriend’s been a little crazy lately,” she said. “Please don’t let him ask me to swim.”

I kissed her on the forehead and turned to the water-taxi driver.
“Siamo in ritardo per il nostro treno,”
I said.

Katherine looked at me.

“I told him we were late for our train.”

The driver shrugged.
“Gli Americani sono sempre in ritardo,”
he said.

“He says we’re always late.
Quanto?”
I said. “How much?”

“Novantacinque euro.”

“Ninety-five euros. How much for
tutto
?
” I said. “The whole damn boat.
Immediatamente!
 ”

“Seicento.”

I dug into my pocket and peeled off three two-hundred-euro notes. The engine turned over as soon as the bills left my hand.

“Siete Americani?”
our taxi driver said as we cut through the water past the Palazzo Ducale.

“No, we’re not,” I said.

He shrugged again. He had all the money he was going to get out of me. No small talk required.

Katherine leaned into my chest and I wrapped my arm around her. “Just in case you were wondering,” she said, “I’m petrified.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “This isn’t exactly what I had planned.”

“Don’t apologize,” she said. “Paris was amazing. Venice is inspiring. Except for that blond bitch who shot at us, it’s been a heck of a vacation.”

I kissed her.

“Where are we going now?” she asked.

“Amsterdam.”

“What’s there?” she said.

“Beautiful canals, great nightlife, and incredible art—the Rijksmuseum has all the Dutch masters. Rembrandt, van Gogh, Vermeer—you’ll love it.”

She stared at me. Her gray eyes were steely now. “Matt, cut the travelogue bullshit. The Italian police are looking for us, and instead of racing back to New York, we’re on our way to a museum in the Netherlands? What happened to
Trust me?
” she said. “So let me repeat the question. What’s in Amsterdam?”

I leaned in close and whispered in her ear, “People who buy diamonds.”

It took fifteen
minutes to get to the train station. I was eager to come clean to Katherine, but just in case our six-hundred-euro captain had a better handle on English than he had let on, we just sat and enjoyed the view.

The next train to Milan was leaving in forty-five minutes. From there we could catch the overnight train to Amsterdam. Flying would take only two hours, but that meant going through airport security, and I had decided to hang on to Marta Krall’s gun.

I bought two first-class train tickets to Milan and reserved a sleeper car for the second leg of the trip.

We sat down to wait at a little coffee bar. I ordered a cappuccino. Katherine had a
caffè con panna,
which is basically espresso topped with sweet whipped cream.

“Do you remember what we were talking about in our hotel room before we were so rudely interrupted?” I said.

“Do I remember? First you nearly gave me a heart attack when you showed me what was inside your little doctor kit, then you said something like—but wait, that’s not all. You were going to tell me another big secret, when the door crashed in.” She sipped her espresso. “Are you going to tell me now?”

I nodded. “Walter Zelvas—the guy who got killed at Grand Central—was a professional killer,” I said. “He worked for the Russian mob. Among other things, they run a global diamond-smuggling operation, and Zelvas was taking off with a bag full of diamonds that he stole from them. They found out, and they hired another hit man to kill him. Zelvas didn’t die from a bomb blast. He was professionally terminated.”

Katherine put her hand up to her mouth. “You’re…you’re telling me the truth, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I swear.”

“But how do you know? How did you find out?”

“I’m the person…they hired to kill Zelvas.”

Her body started to shake. “No. No. No. It can’t be possible. No.”

“Katherine, first of all, it’s true,” I said. “I can’t expect you to understand, but I love you too much to keep it from you. And after what happened in our hotel room, you have to know. That woman’s name is Marta Krall. The people who hired me to kill Zelvas hired her to kill me and get their diamonds back.”

“This can’t be happening,” Katherine whispered. She was staring at the floor now, not at me. She couldn’t look me in the eye.

“I think I know what you’re going through,” I said. “The night I got out of the Marines, my father told me that he’d been a professional hit man. He made it sound almost all right. Logical. He only killed bad people, he said. It was like being an executioner in a prison—a really well-paid executioner. He wanted me to think about doing it, too. At first I wouldn’t even consider it. But eventually he turned me. I kill evil men like Walter Zelvas. And the money I get paid lets me follow my dream—it lets me paint.”

Katherine was in shock. Her face looked tortured. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “I can’t believe it. You kill people? For money? And your father was doing it before you?” She paused, and then she hit me with the same question I had asked my father. “Did he ever tell your mother?”

“Yes,” I said. “He said it took her years to get used to it.”

“Well, I’m not your mother,” she said, sobbing. “Good-bye, Matthew.”

She stood up, grabbed her bag, and started walking.

I jumped up and followed her. “Where are you going?”

“Away from you. There’s a bus that goes to the Venice airport. I’m buying a ticket and flying to New York. I’m going home. Don’t follow me. Don’t call me. Ever.”

I ran after her, took her by the shoulders, and spun her around. “Please, Katherine. Don’t leave.”

I stared into her eyes, but the eyes that looked back at me were empty, lifeless. My mind told me to let her go. She would be safer in New York. But my chest was heaving, my heart was breaking, and the emotions I’ve always managed to keep bottled up inside began spilling out.

“You know how much I love you?” I said, my voice cracking. “Please don’t leave. I’ll change. I’ll do whatever I have to do.”

“Take your hands off me,” Katherine said. “Or I’ll scream.”

My hands dropped to my sides. “Katherine, what I do…what I did…it’s a job, like being in the Marine Corps was a job. But it’s not who I am. You know the real me. Nothing is more important to me than our relationship.”

“You’re wrong, Matthew. I never knew the real you. And our relationship has been built on a mountain of lies. Good-bye.”

She turned and walked off.

I stood and watched her disappear into the crowd, feeling something I can’t remember ever feeling before.

Abandoned.