Bedtime for Mr. Li Read online

  Ryder ordered a light beer at the bar—he didn’t want his senses to be dulled by too much alcohol—and sat down at the table nearest the entrance. He was just another out-of-town businessman killing time and spending the night alone. There were a couple of other men in the bar likewise doing a little solitary drinking. He wondered what kind of companies they worked for, given the quality of the accommodations. Maybe they just didn’t know what kind of hotel they were booking. Its address—on Pennsylvania Avenue—was decent enough to fool people. He doubted the hotel got much return business, however.

  Ryder nursed his beer for the next half hour, but there was no sign of the girl. He had to admit to a little grudging respect for Li. He’d half assumed the man would have passed out by now. He decided he’d better order another beer, just to avoid making anyone curious.

  As he stood at the bar waiting for his drink, SportsCenter came on the TV. The lead story was the Lakers victory in overtime just moments before, a victory that the anchorman called “one of the most exciting basketball games in recent memory.” Ryder just shook his head. It was bad enough that he was stuck in this fleabag hotel, tracking a fat, washed-up spy. Now he’d missed the best game of the season. He was more determined than ever to kill Li and go home.

  As Ryder was returning from the bar, beer in hand, he spotted the prostitute emerging from the elevator. She strolled across the lobby, headed in the direction of the registration desk. Ryder sat down at this table to watch her. He took a sip of beer as she stopped at the desk and spoke briefly with the clerk who had checked them in. She slipped him something—a payoff, presumably—and headed for the exit. Ryder glanced around the bar, confirmed that no one was watching him and poured half his beer into the base of a fake tree next to his table. He didn’t want to leave a full beer behind, which might make someone curious as to where he’d gone. He put the bottle down on the table and left the bar.

  Riding the elevator back up to the fifth floor, Ryder prepared himself for what he was going to do. Killing a man in cold blood was never an easy task, but he had long ago steeled himself against the emotions connected to the act. He had done it enough times before that, although not automatic, it was the next closest thing to it. Like Michael Corleone so famously said, it wasn’t personal, it was just business. Ryder had a job to do and he planned to do it; quickly, efficiently and without hesitation.

  Arriving at the fifth floor, Ryder walked down the corridor to Room 535. He had been in the hotel long enough and was anxious to finish the job and get the hell out of there.

  Ryder unzipped the duffel bag, then knocked sharply on the door, two staccato beats. Ryder hoped the man hadn’t sunk into postcoital oblivion. Apparently not, as he heard a fumbling with the door’s safety catch. “Who there, please?” asked the voice on the other side of the door.

  “Hotel security,” Ryder answered. “Please open the door, sir.”

  The door opened to reveal Li Jinping standing there in his underwear, a dingy white T-shirt stretched tight over his ample belly. Li blinked at Ryder, bleary-eyed and obviously concerned. “What is a matter, please?”

  “Please step back, sir. I need to check the room.”

  Li hesitated before taking a step backward, allowing Ryder to enter. He did so, and closed the door behind him.

  “You’re Mr. Li, right?”

  “Yes, I am Li.”

  Ryder already knew who he was, but he figured it couldn’t hurt to check. He reached his hand into the duffel bag and wrapped his fingers around the grip of the .22 semiautomatic pistol. He was about to whip it out of the bag when a soft knock sounded on the door at his back.

  Ryder jerked his hand out of the bag with a start. Shit. Was it the real hotel security? Or the cops? Who else would be knocking on the door in the middle of the night? He doubted the hotel had room service. Ryder had to decide how he wanted to play it, and fast. So far he hadn’t done anything too incriminating. But he also couldn’t allow any official connection to be made between him and Li.

  Another knock sounded on the door. Louder this time. Ryder put his hand back in the bag and felt for the pistol again. He was tired of pussyfooting around with this job. If drastic action needed to be taken, he was going to take it. One way or another, this was going to end tonight.

  “Li, honey?” A muffled voice came from the hallway. “It’s me, Candy. I forgot my phone.”

  Ryder cursed his luck. It was the prostitute, back just in time to screw up everything. There was no way he could let her see him with Li. Not unless he wanted to kill her, too. He would if he had to, but that would make what he had planned almost impossible to pull off. He had to think of some other way around it.

  He turned to Li and locked eyes with him. “Listen to me carefully. We know you had a prostitute here in your room with you. Is that her at the door?”

  Li nodded, his eyes wide. “Yes, I have girl. But I’m diplomat. You can no arrest—”

  “Shut up and listen to me. I’m going to step into the bathroom. You’re going to get rid of the whore as quickly as possible. Do you understand?” Li nodded. “We don’t want to embarrass the hotel any more than has already happened. So just get rid of her and I’ll handle everything else. Understand?” Another nod.

  None of it made much sense, but Ryder wasn’t giving him time to think. Li was scared and smashed and hardly thinking his best. Ryder was counting on that to make him compliant with his demands.

  The knocking was louder now. “Li? Are you asleep, sweetie? I really need my phone.”

  “Where’s her phone?” Ryder asked. Li just shrugged. Ryder walked over the bed and looked around. There was a bottle of Jim Beam and a glass on the nightstand. Li’s clothes were tossed in a heap on the chair next to the bed. The phone could be anywhere.

  With Li standing there uselessly, Ryder rushed past him into the bathroom and flipped on the light. There. A pink cell phone was sitting on the counter next to the dirty water glass and no-name shampoo. Ryder grabbed it and returned to Li.

  “Give the girl her phone and get rid of her.” Ryder handed it to him. “Do what I say and this will all be over soon.”

  Ryder returned to the bathroom and closed the door until it was open just a crack. He withdrew the pistol from his bag and peered through the gap.

  Li opened the door to the corridor and Candy started to step in. Li didn’t move, though, forcing her to stop abruptly. He held her phone out toward her. “Here your phone. I find it.”

  “Thanks, sweetie.” Candy took the phone. “I was afraid you’d be asleep.”

  “Not yet, but I go bed now. Very tired.”

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to—”

  “No. Very tired. Thank you.”

  Li gently urged the girl out and closed the door. Ryder stepped out and slid the security bolt closed.

  “Good job, Li.”

  “I do what you say. Now you go?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  It was then that Li looked down and saw that Ryder was pointing the pistol at him.

  Ryder led Li at gunpoint over to the bed. Picking up the remote control from the bedside table, Ryder turned up the volume on the television—conveniently enough, it was already turned on, playing a porno movie—and told Li to lie down on the bed.

  Li’s face turned a bright shade of crimson and sweat poured down his face as he started speaking in rapid-fire Chinese, his voice strained and high-pitched. Ryder didn’t understand a word of it, but he assumed the man was pleading for his life. He’d heard it all before, in more languages than he could count.

  “Save it,” Ryder said, gesturing with the pistol. “Get over on the bed.”

  But Li’s voice grew even more agonized. He was talking so fast he couldn’t even catch his breath.

  “Last chance,” Ryder said. “Lie down on the bed or this is really going to get nasty.”

  It was then that Li started clutching at his chest. His face had turned nearly purple and he was no longer even looki
ng at Ryder. His eyes were tightly closed, his face a mask of pain.

  A few seconds later, he keeled over.

  Ryder looked down at Li, lying on the floor next to a used condom wrapper, his movements slower now, his face a rictus of agony. He watched the Chinese man for a few minutes, but it was obvious that he was on his way out. A few moments later, his movements stopped completely. He was dead.

  Sonuvabitch, Ryder muttered to himself. If that wasn’t the easiest money he’d ever made, he didn’t know what was. Smiling at his good fortune, he put the pistol back in his bag and started making a few alterations to the scene.

  Acting quickly, before the lividity in Li’s body could set, Ryder hauled the corpse up onto the bed, arranging him back against the pillows. He turned the volume down on the TV before wiping the remote clean of prints. He then placed the remote in Li’s hand to get his fingerprints on it before dropping it to his side.

  Looking down at the corpse, Ryder briefly considered whether he should try stripping the body and dressing him in the woman’s underwear. He couldn’t bring himself to do it, though. Too much risk—and too damn disgusting—even for fifty grand. He did grit his teeth long enough to pull down Li’s boxer shorts. He also reached into the duffel bag and withdrew two hardcore gay porno magazines, not very politically correct in China. He put Li’s prints on them, as well, and laid them on the bed next to the body. That would have to be good enough.

  The stage set, Ryder glanced around the room, making sure he hadn’t left any incriminating evidence behind. One of the advantages to doing a job in such a questionable environment was that it would be nearly impossible for the CSI geeks to find any usable DNA. The room probably held the fingerprints, hairs and assorted bodily secretions of enough people to fill RFK stadium.

  Ryder exited the room, smearing the doorknobs and locks as he left. He didn’t think anyone would look too closely at the case. Once they realized Li was a Chinese diplomat—and saw the circumstances under which he died—they’d chalk the death up as an obvious heart attack and leave it at that. If anyone on the outside got implicated, it was going to be Candy, not him. But he doubted it would come to that. If there was one thing the Chinese hated more than anything, it was embarrassment.

  As he rode the elevator back down to the ground floor, Ryder wondered if his client would be satisfied enough to give him the bonus. It didn’t really matter. One hundred grand was enough for the job, even without the extra money.

  Now if he could just get home in time to watch the NBA finals, he’d be a happy man.

  * * * * *

  AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

  DAVID J. MONTGOMERY writes about authors and books for several of the country’s largest newspapers, including the Chicago Sun-Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Boston Globe and South Florida Sun-Sentinel. In the past, he has contributed to such publications as USA TODAY, the Washington Post, Kansas City Star, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and National Review Online. He recently completed his first novel, a thriller called Counterstrike. He lives in the Washington, D.C., suburbs with his wife and daughter. His Web site is www.davidjmontgomery.com.

  ISBN: 9781867201144

  TITLE: BEDTIME FOR MR. LI

  First Australian Publication 2019

  Copyright © 2009 David J. Montgomery

  All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher:

  Harlequin Mira ®

  An imprint of Harlequin Enterprises (Australia) Pty Limited (ABN 47 001 180 918), a subsidiary of HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty Limited (ABN 36 009 913 517)

  Level 13, 201 Elizabeth St

  SYDNEY NSW 2000

  AUSTRALIA

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and ™ are trademarks owned by Harlequin Enterprises Limited or its corporate affiliates and used by others under licence. Trademarks marked with an ® are registered in Australia and in other countries. Contact [email protected] for details.

  www.harlequinbooks.com.au