The Inner Circle Read Online Free Page B

handed them back to us. “What’s the plan?”  
    “The plan,” Carver said, hefting his Glock 30, “is we take him as soon as possible. But first he has to get his room number. Once he has that, we’re set.”  
    “And, um—” Ronny paused, clearly not sure how to continue. He sat there in the driver’s seat, a large man with a full beard who had once been a trucker hauling food orders for restaurants across the country. His St. Christopher’s medallion hung limp from the rearview mirror. “And what about the girl?”  
    “At this moment,” Carver said, making sure to look at each of us in the eye, “the girl is the main objective.”  
    We were silent, waiting for him to say more.  
    He didn’t. Instead he pulled out his phone and dialed the Kid, put him on speakerphone.  
    “Any info on this place yet?”  
    “It’s been like twenty seconds.”  
    “Any info?”  
    “No.”  
    “Then forget it. We’re headed in now.” He disconnected and shoved the phone in his pocket. He checked the Glock’s magazine, reinserted it, racked the slide, reached for the door handle. Looked back at us and said, “Let’s do this.”

 
     
     
    8

    Yes, it was true—he had lost his cool. Mason would be the first to admit it. That fucking thing had come up to him in the bar, placed a hand on his arm, and started talking to him, asking what he was doing later, if maybe Mason would like to come back to its place. So what was Mason supposed to do, standing there with a he/she/it touching his arm? Probably not clock it in the face and then knee it in the crotch—where it used to have a dick, or maybe still did—but that’s what happened.  
    That was something Mason, at that moment, needed to have happen.  
    What he didn’t need was Simon calling him once he’d left the bar, once he’d gotten in the car and started it up. He didn’t need Simon’s fucking voice berating him for acting like an asshole in public.  
    “I mean, goddamn it, Mason, do you want your family to suffer?” Simon had never sounded this worked up, this agitated. “Do you want me to go to Gloria and little Anthony and tear their fingernails off? Do you want me to break their fingers, their hands, and just work my way up their arms? Is that what you want?”  
    Mason hadn’t responded as he sat there in the car, listening to the rain, to his own thoughts.  
    Simon sighed. “Okay, I get it, Mason. You’re tough. Nobody messes with you. But that’s the thing I don’t think you quite understand yet. Nobody messing with you? That’s the way it used to be. Now you have no choice. Got it? Unless you really do want your wife and son to die. Is that what you want, Mason? Say it is and I’ll make sure it happens right now. I’ll even let you listen.”  
    Mason closed his eyes. “No.”  
    “What was that? I’m sorry, Mason, I don’t think I heard you.”  
    “ No ,” Mason repeated, this time with more emphasis.  
    “Now that’s more like it,” Simon said. “So have you decided about that ... other thing we discussed?”  
    Mason said, “What other thing?” Knowing very well what Simon meant.  
    But of course Simon didn’t answer him. He just gave Mason directions, to a hotel farther up Miami Beach. He told him go inside and introduce himself as William Simmons. He told him to accept the key given to him and go up to his room, and that once he got there ... well, now that was going to be the interesting part, wasn’t it?  
    So that Friday evening, about a quarter past two in the morning, Mason Coulter entered the Beachside Hotel. He stepped out from under the light rain to find a marble-tiled lobby with potted plants everywhere. A restaurant called The Cove sat to his right. It was closed, completely dark. A gift shop called The Sand Castle sat to his left. It too was closed, also completely dark.  
    A man stood behind the check-in counter. He was the only person in the lobby. He was about Mason’s age,