My Sister's Keeper

Chapter 45

45

AS THE LAST STRANDS of pink faded and the sky turned steel gray, I drove past the McLeod Hotel and parked several blocks away. It stood tall and proud at the center of the seediest part of Wilmington. Built in the late 1800s, it had not had a coat of paint since Hitler marched on France. A few windows on the bottom floor had been covered with plywood that had since grayed and curled, threatening to fall off. One window on the second floor was covered by cardboard. I got more than a few strange looks as I walked past the neon signs and cheap bars back toward it.

The prostitutes propositioned me, and the men kept an eye on me. The entrance to the hotel was too narrow and too congested with people I wouldn't dare ask to move, or try to slither through. I lowered my head and walked on by, disappearing into a narrow alley a few doors farther. Stepping over broken bottles, drug vials, and piles of excrement, I made my way to the back of the buildings.

Night was falling quickly. The interior of the block was a menagerie of fire escapes, sagging porches, broken windows, and dilapidated sheds. There was an equal amount of cracked pavement and tall weeds with clear open dirt paths squirreling around the garbage containers and outbuildings. I could feel the presence of people all around, but couldn't see any. I heard a whisper from one direction, a grunt and a moan from another. In the distance a police siren wailed and a woman screamed at a whimpering infant.

I followed a path toward a rotting wooden stairwell at the rear of the McLeod and came upon a man leaning back against a telephone pole watching me. I paused to see what he was going to do, but when I realized there was female down in the shadows in front of him with her face in his crotch, I moved on. Stepping around debris, I entered the stairwell and looked up. The only light came from a bare bulb just inside the door. The stairs had broken treads and missing boards, and grew darker as they went up but still felt safer than going through the front.

It was 7:56 p.m. I presumed room 306 would be on the third floor and began my ascent. Avoiding abandoned toys and beer cans, I had to step carefully as the light grew dimmer. At the third floor, I held my breath and pulled the door open. To my surprise I found the interior clean and well lit. Down the hall someone practiced a classical piece of music on a well-tuned piano and children laughed. I moved quickly to room 306 and although I had no idea what I was going to say when he came to the door, I knocked. Getting a fingerprint might not be that easy. I knocked again—harder—and the door opened ajar. The room inside was dark and I wondered if he was out—or worse—had checked out?

"Mr. Willett?"

Looking around for a glass or bottle or anything that would hold a fingerprint, I heard shuffling in the next room and saw light coming around the edges of the door. Stepping closer, I peered through the tiny gap. There was a man sitting at a metal table. As I cranked my head to see if I could tell who he was, a gun discharged, and the door to the room banged open.

Stumbling backward, I was confronting a man in a black ski mask holding a pistol in his hand, smoke curling from its barrel. Behind him sat Fat Albert, gagged and bound to a chair. There was a hole in the center of his forehead with a column of blood sprinting from it. As the gun flashed up, I lunged for the entrance and a shot whizzed past my head. Bolting up the hall, I burst through the door to the stairwell with bullets zipping by me. Through a crack in the wall of the stairwell, I saw police vehicles with flashing lights skidding to a stop behind the hotel and men scrambling from them.

I clambered down the steps three and four at a time, banged through the door to the second floor, and barreled down the hall with voices behind me shouting, "Stop! Police!" A door swung open in front of me and I dodged past a screaming woman into her apartment, tugged at a window that refused to open, smashed a chair through it, and leapt from the second floor.

I fell to the ground hard, pain shooting through my left ankle as I tumbled backward and—for an instant—I considered the game over. I give up! But the sounds of more police cars screeching to a halt on the street got me going again. I hobbled along the narrow alley to the front of the building, merged into the angry sidewalk crowd squeezing between hookers and addicts, and entered into the darkened interior of the building next door. It was some kind of club.

The air was thick with tobacco, reefer, and stale beer. The only light I could see came from dim colored bulbs in the ceiling aimed at erotic art and life-sized nude statues recessed into the walls. A heavy bass and drums rhythm thumped loudly amid a celestial tinkling of music lacking a melody. I pushed forward through the sweaty bodies and felt a hand grab my crotch.

"Oh, darling," a man purred. I twisted free and limped on. "Over here, lover," another beckoned. The air was hot, musty, and hard to breathe. Beads of perspiration trickled down my sides. My ankle throbbed with pain. I had no idea where this would lead, but knew it was safer than being outside. I moved my wallet to a front pocket and hobbled on blindly, my legs trembling. I could feel my heart beating in my gums as my eyes adjusted to the darkness.

Farther in, the crowd in the aisle thinned and the room angled to the left. Voices whispered and giggled from dark alcoves around me and I could smell the odors of sex—male and female.

What lay behind me was life in prison and possibly death. What lay ahead I could not have imagined.