Chapter 7: A Date with Danger III.
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The driver gets them to the Westlin Hotel in faster time than it took for them to go to the restaurant. Johan lets himself out as the driver gets the door open for Tammy. Neither one of them speaks as they head into the massive building. The driver drives away as he was told.
Tammy gets into the elevator first with Johan behind. He steps away from her, forcing her to use her key. He takes a couple of steps to the door as the elevator closes. As it begins to slow down to stop on their floor, he reaches over and grabs the key. He steps out with the key as Tammy complains.
"Hey! Those are mine!", Tammy complains.
He stops in the middle of the hall and turns to her. "They were yours. I gave them to you; I can take them back. Now go get your things. Take off your clothes and leave them on the bed undamaged along with the American Express Black card I gave you. You're walking home to that flea-ridden trashcan of a hotel. And don't call me again. You got 10 minutes.", he tell her before looking at his watch.
Tammy holds in her anger as she walks by him to the suite she used. She makes a straight line for the bedroom and starts taking off her dress. She then quickly puts on her jeans first and then her blouse she takes out from her backpack while stuffing the purse inside the backpack. She takes off her shoes and puts them by the dress on the bed and sits there as she buttons herself up. He walks in after five minutes had past, as Tammy was buttoning her blouse up. He walks in a circle, looking into every room until he finds her in the smaller bedroom. He steps in into the room and looks at her. Tammy freezes from buttoning her blouse.
"Can't I have some privacy?", Tammy looks up at him.
He pulls out the gun from the back of his pants and aims it at her. She just freezes further in place, trembling where she could.
"You remember one thing. I am a Polancco. With a phone call I can make people happy by building a new school or community center for them or I can make people grieve their dead with a properly placed bomb from an associate. Before we met, you were nothing to me. After we met and got to know you better, I thought that we could be more than just stepbrother and stepsister. I thought that we could be friends, and as a friend, I would help you find our missing sister. But no, you refused me and now I refuse you. I could kill you here and now and nothing will be said about except for a tabloid article next to some ad for fat removing massage crème. Instead I am going to make your life miserable. You will never know where your mother is buried and where your sister can be found. ", Johan tells her. He then moves his gun to Tammy's bag and fires a couple of rounds into it. He then shifts to the pink helmet he gave her and puts a couple of rounds into it, puncturing and cracking the protective case in several places. He then reaches for her backpack and throws it out of the room into the main living room space. "Now Get Out!" he yells at her.
She manages to grab her shoes and run out of the room into the main living room, She grabs to the top of her bag and heads out of the suite to the main hallway. Johan fires a couple of more rounds at her, deliberately missing. She panics as she presses the elevator call button while huddling under it. A couple of rounds fly through the suite's door and hit the wall by the elevator door. She was about to give up hope when the elevator's bell rings and the door opens. She throws her bag and shoes into the elevator and crawls inside. She reaches for and presses the only button on the lower part of the panel. The door closes and the elevator start to head down, but a couple of rounds penetrate the elevator door. The bullets bounce around and then fall to the floor. She gathers them and puts them in her pocket. As the elevator goes down, she finishes putting on her shoes and gets up, putting on her backpack.
Once the elevator doors open at the lobby level, she runs out and heads to the door. She continues running for another three or four blocks. She does not know, she lost count until she stops by a lamppost and heaving for her breath.
Back in the suite, Johan takes out his cellphone and makes a call.
"Yes. I want that roach motel burned to the ground. I want nothing left but ashes.", he says to the device. There was no reply, just the call ending from the other end.
Tammy walks around for another few more blocks, circling the tourist area. She decides to hail a taxicab, but none stop for her. She continues to walk back to the hotel though not wanting too. A taxicab stops to drop off a couple at the hotel. She runs for it before anyone else can, pushing the male companion out of the way and slamming the door. She tells him where to go, the hotel she rented a room from before. He takes his time trying to get a higher fare by cheating. It takes more than a half hour to take her there, but the fire department blocked much of the street as they fought a fire, a fire that was consuming the hotel.
Tammy got out of the cab and started screaming, "NO! THIS CAN'T BE!" ITS NOT POSSIBLE!" She grabs her backpack and pulls it out of the cab to make sure the driver does not get away with it.
The driver steps out of the cab and faces Tammy, "Where's my money!"
Tammy does not answer as she watches the place burn down. The Italian police approaches them, asking question.
"Who is she?", one of the officers asks.
"Some skank I picked up at the Westlin half hour ago.", the cab driver tells them.
One of the officers looks inside the cab and sees the meter still running. "A half hour from the Westlin?", the officer asks. "My grandmother with her cane can walk there faster than that! You trying to cheat this girl?"
"Traffic was horrible downtown.", the cab driver tells them.
"Get in the cab and leave before we decide to run an inspection.", the other officer tells him.
"I Want My Money!", the cab driver yells at them.
"Drive away from here a free man or you're coming with us in handcuffs." The first officer tells him.
The cab driver is heard cursing as he enters his cab. One of the police officers looks inside it see if she had any more stuff, and then closes the door to let the cab driver go away.
All Tammy can think was what Johan told her, "With a phone call I can make people happy by building a new school or community center for them or I can make people grieve their dead with a properly placed bomb from an associate." All she can say is "No..."
"Aren't you that girl who survived that accident here a few days back?", the first officer asks.
"She is.", his partner tell him, "I think that burning hotel was where she was staying."
"Oh well. It was bound to happen. Some crack head dropping his pipe and setting the bed on fire. It was bound to happen.", the first officer says.
"Yeah, these old structures are tinder boxes..." the second officer replies.
Tammy takes her backpack and runs. Like before she runs for a few blocks and stops by a lamppost to catch her breath. She cannot figure out what as going on, other that thinking Johan had something to do with this. "But why", she thinks, "Because I would not let him go all the way with me, he has to burn the hotel? What kind of person is he?"
She spends the night walking around, slowly and unknowingly heading to the tourist area again. Somewhere along the way she finds a park and walks into it. The noise of the city fades as she heads deeper into the park. Instinctively she looks up into the trees until she finds one to her suiting. Jumping up she grabs a low hanging branch and climbs up higher into the tree. Once she thinks she is high enough, she settles down to rest. As it is said in many squirrel circles, "Once you learn how to sleep in trees, you learn to be very still."