Dave grinned. “That’s a pretty good story, Bernie.”
A small smile flitted across Bernie’s lips. “I know,” he said, looking Dave in the eye and nodding. Suddenly the smile disappeared. Bernie looked weary again. “Okay, okay. So you want to talk, Davy, we talk. Maybe I tell you something, maybe I don’t. A man’s still got his honor, you know. That, they cannot take away from me. So sit down, make yourself comfortable.”
“I’ll stand.”
“Sit, stand, what’s the difference?” Bernie wrapped a pudgy hand around a coffee cup, lifted it to his lips, and took a sip. “You want I should pour you a nice cup of coffee, Davy?”
“That’s my coffee you’re drinking, Bernie.”
Bernie’s face changed. “Your coffee?”
“Yeah. I poured it while I was looking through your files.”
“You’ve been drinking my coffee?” Bernie suddenly leaned back in his chair. The worn expression on his face was replaced by an ironic smile. The smile widened. Bernie laughed. “How wonderful. You drink my coffee. Now, I’m drinking your coffee. Isn’t that wonderful? Davy, it is so wonderful, you don’t know.”
He laughed harder, the guffaws growing into whoops.
Dave frowned. “I don’t get the joke.”
“The joke? It’s a wonderful joke, Davy! Wonderful! And best of all, the joke’s on Bernie Levy!” Shaking with laughter, Bernie rose and, coffee cup in hand, walked across the office. A circular worktable and four straight-backed chairs sat by the northern window. Bernie put a pudgy hand down on the back of one of the chairs, gripped it tightly, and turned to Dave. “It’s the most wonderful joke in the world!”
Suddenly, with surprising strength, Bernie lifted the chair and hurled it through the window. Glass exploded outward, spinning in the night, wind-whipped and looking for a moment like a jeweled storm, an ice blizzard, white light reflected and refracted and sparkling among diamond shards. A gust spun glass needles back into the office. One splinter opened a surgically straight line of red on Bernie’s left cheek. Dave took a halting step forward. Bernie held up his palm, as if to tell him to come no closer. All the sadness in his face had disappeared, and he seemed as happy as a child. “Bernie Levy has only Bernie Levy to blame. Turnabout is fair play. That’s some fine joke, Davy, that’s the best joke of all. Let me tell you, only God Himself could come up with a joke like that.”
Bernie took one last sip of coffee, and, still clutching his cup, stepped into space.
6
It takes an object six seconds to fall a thousand feet. Dave reached the window in plenty of time to see Bernie die. In Vietnam he had, of course, observed enough wet death. It had taken him more time than most to become hardened to it, but hardened he became, and hardened he remained. Nonetheless, the sight of Bernie’s end, even from a height, was bad. Very bad.
Poor pudgy Bernie exploded.
Orphaned limbs, pink strings of flesh, slick grey organs burst onto the street. Blood, quite black under the harsh glare of streetlights, splashed streamers. A car speeding east on Fiftieth Street veered up on the sidewalk, laid a trail of sparks as it careened along a building, and rolled steaming on its side. A woman washed in gore collapsed. Her male companion knelt retching where she lay. People farther away screamed. A lump of Bernie Levy the size of a soccer ball tumbled out into the Park Avenue intersection, there to cause brakes to shriek and fenders to crumple. A dog pulled free of its master’s slackly held leash and trotted eagerly toward the entrancing odor of fresh offal.
Forty-five stories aboveground, David Elliot leaned out a broken window, looked away, felt the wind cold and brisk, and was thankful that the air was so fresh. Speaking to the sky rather than the street, he whispered, “Aw Jesus, Bernie, why the hell did you do that? Christ, it can’t have been that bad. Whatever it was, I would have forgiven you. We could have worked it out, Bernie. You didn’t have to …”
Noises.
Not only in the street below, but also in the halls outside Bernie’s office. Feet running on carpet. The chunky metal sound of pump shotgun chambering a shell. A cool voice, an Appalachian voice: “Careful up there.”
Christ almighty! He’s been on this floor the whole time!
Dave wheeled away from the window, raced across the office, flung himself into the closet, cowered in the dark. The door to Bernie’s office flew open. Dave heard a thump and a shuffle. His mind’s eye formed a picture of the scene — standard assault tactics: one man prone in the doorway, his trigger finger tense; another kneeling, drawing a wide arc with a shotgun or automatic rifle as he searched out targets; a third man crouched behind and above, doing the same.
“Clear?” Ransome speaking from outside the office.
“Clear. But we got a problem.”
“What?”
“The Yid’s scragged himself. Done the dive.”
A burst of sirens from the street muffled the first half of Ransome’s answer. All Dave could hear was, “… should have known he couldn’t take the heat.”
“We’ve got minutes before the local law arrives.” Ransome was in the office now, in control, issuing orders with a soft, cool drawl. “Wren, take three men and move our gear down to base. Use the stairs.”
Base? Have they set up a base of operations on another floor?
“Bluejay, get on the horn — use a scrambler — tell pathology I want the subject’s blood sample ASAP. Tell them to put it in an ambulance and siren it up here double time.”
Blood sample? Where the hell did they get a blood sample? You haven’t had a blood sample taken in months, not since Doc Sandberg … uh-oh. Oh yes you have …
“Sir?”
“DNA fingerprinting, Bluejay. I intend to sprinkle a little of the subject’s blood on that broken glass.”
“I read you, sir. Nice going.”
“Move it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Another voice, duller, older. “I don’t get it, chief.”
“Bluejay and I will arrive a few minutes after the law. It will be suggested that this was not a simple suicide. Who the prime suspect is will also be suggested. Forensics will find two blood types at the scene of the crime. Bingo, it’s murder. And when they autopsy the subject, it will be bingo again.”
Autopsy? Now we know the kind of deal he wanted to offer you.
Ransome continued, “Greylag, I want you to open the spigot with the media. Maximum exposure. Radio, television, the papers. Lunatic throws boss out window. Maniac murderer on the loose. Mad dog. Shoot to kill. By 8:30 we’ll have every law enforcement officer in New York looking for him.”
“What if he decides to leave the city?”
“Contra-psychological. He’s one of us. He won’t cut and run.”
“Still …”
“Point taken. We’ve got coverage of everybody he knows or might try to contact, correct?”
“Yes, sir. Double teams.”
Jesus! How many regiments does this guy command?
“Okay. How many ways are there off this island?”
Greylag paused to think: “Four auto tunnels. Sixteen or seventeen bridges, I guess. Three heliports. Four or five subway routes, maybe more. The Ferry. Four airports counting Newark and Westchester. Three train lines. Oh yeah, he could take the cable car to Roosevelt Island and then …”
“Too much. We don’t have the resources to cover it all.”
“I could call Washington.”
Washington? Oh God, are these bastards from the government after all?
“At the moment, that is not a desirable option.” There was a new note in Ransome’s voice — slightly querulous, slightly uneasy. “Not desirable at all. Just put some men on the major arteries and at the airports. That’s the best we can do. The rest of you men, pass the word — if anyone bumps into the local law, keep it cool. These are New York cops, not the kind of Speedy Gonzales greasers you’re used to dealing with. They don’t bribe cheap. Keep your lips zipped and avoid confrontation. Okay, let’s mo
ve out.”
“Radio, sir. Incoming message for you. Urgent.”
“Give … Robin here … He what? … Beautiful, just beautiful.… Acknowledged. Robin out. Okay, you men, listen up. Wren is down on the seventeenth floor with a punji stake through his carotid.” His voice was as emotionless as a robot’s.
Dave, crouching in the closet, gnawed his lip. Thought those letter openers weren’t lethal, did you, pal?
Ransome’s frosty monotone continued, “Gentlemen, this is slovenly. I asked for a full sweep of those stairwells after this afternoon’s incompetent attempt to lure the subject into a firefight. I am disappointed in the results. Let us try to behave a bit more professionally from now on. Given our subject’s uncooperative attitude, caution is called for.”
“Sir, are we going to get him?”
“Affirmative, Greylag. If we don’t get him on the streets, we’ll get him when he comes back here. He will come back, you know.”
Like hell!
“Good. I’d like a little private time with Mr. Elliot.”
“Negative. I’m first on the chow line. There won’t be any leftovers.”
PART 2. DÉJÀ VU
“… he did not feel that war consisted of killing your opponents. There is a contradiction here.”
— Patrick O’Brian, H.M.S. Surprise
CHAPTER 6
DAVE GOES FOR A RIDE
1
Admit it, pal, you’ve always wanted to do this.
Absolutely.
More fun than you’ve ever had in your entire life.
Close. Very close.
The guy in the BMW isn’t taking you seriously. Flash him.
Dave hit his high beams. The BMW’s driver had his ear glued to a cellular telephone. He refused to move, straddling two lanes, and blocking Dave’s passage. Dave snatched the microphone off the dashboard, flicked a toggle switch, and angrily growled. “You in the Beemer, this is a police emergency. Either you get out of the road or you go to jail.”
The amplified sound of his voice echoed through the crowded streets. The BMW’s driver glanced over his shoulder, gave a disgusted look, and pulled to the side. Dave stepped on the accelerator. Accompanied solely by his sardonic guardian angel, he roared through the Manhattan night in a stolen police car.
Yeah!
* * *
The keys had been in the policeman’s pocket. They were conveniently tagged with the number and license plate of the vehicle to which they belonged. Dave had glanced at them warily, and was prepared to drop them on the tiled men’s room floor when his inner voice whispered, Hey, pal, you’ve just flattened a uniformed law officer during the performance of his duties — or at least whilst taking a bladder break — and duct-taped him to the handicapped toilet. Add to that the fact that you have stolen his clothes, his badge, his sidearm, and his hat.
But not his shoes.
Only because they didn’t fit. Plus you’ve killed five, maybe six guys who just might be federal agents, stolen money from everyone you’ve met, phoned in a bomb threat, placed life-endangering traps on the fire stairs of a Park Avenue office tower, perpetrated countless aggravated assaults and felonious breakings and enterings, cooked up a batch of home brew explosive, and boosted telephone company property. Oh yeah, also you are wanted for the murder of Bernie Levy. So what are they going to do to you if you steal a police car too? Worst case, maybe they add another few centuries to what’s already going to be ten thousand years in Sing Sing.
Dave shrugged and pocketed the keys. He strolled out of the forty-fifth floor lavatory just as another officer was entering. Dave nodded at him.
“Whadadeal,” the policeman grumbled. “Guy’s got his own private can and he turns leaper. Kee-rist, can ya believe it?”
Dave replied, “So I tell the lieutenant I wanna take a dump, just once in my life, in a private Park Avenue can, and he says no, there might be evidence in it.”
“Said the same to me. Kee-rist, can ya believe it?”
Five minutes later Dave was on the ground floor, pushing his way through the crowd of police and camera crews in the lobby. No one so much as looked at him. As he’d expected, the patrolman’s blues made him even more invisible than his telephone repairman’s disguise.
The patrol car was right by the curb. Dave slipped in, started the ignition, grinned broadly, and drove into the night.
* * *
At Eighty-seventh Street and Broadway, Dave yanked the wheel left, gleefully sending the police car into a four-wheel drift, and gunning his way west. In the middle of the next block he switched off the siren and flasher. He slowed, pulled right, and eased the vehicle up to the curb. There was just enough space for it next to a fire hydrant.
There may not be a law on the books you haven’t broken today.
Marge Cohen said she lived on Ninety-fourth Street. Dave planned to walk the rest of the way. Keeping the patrol car — or even being near it — was too risky. Someone would be noticing its absence soon.
With a paper-wrapped bundle containing Greg’s clothes beneath his arm, Dave began walking back east on Eighty-seventh. The sight of a cop on foot was sufficiently uncommon that some few people glanced at him. Most didn’t.
He turned north on Broadway. It had been years since he had been in this part of town. Yuppie gentrification had infested the neighborhood. The bars he passed sported potted ferns and campy names. What used to be junk stores now sold antiques. The clothing shops’ mannequins looked like Cher on a bad night. The streets were still dirty, though, littered with the very special detritus that only accumulates on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
Walk like a cop, pal, not like a tourist.
Dave slowed his steps, forced himself into a rolling John Wayne gait, and made a point of looking watchful.
That’s more like it.
He was north of Ninety-first Street before he found what he wanted. Green neon above the entrance announced “McAnn’s Bar and Grill.”
If you can’t trust an Irish pub, what can you trust?
He pushed the door open. The place was dim. It smelled of draft suds, old sawdust, and hot corned beef. The joint’s patrons weren’t yuppies, never had been and never would be. They looked like they’d been at their tables a long time. One or two gave him the eye, and then went back to nursing their beers.
He walked to the bar. The bartender was already pulling him a Ballantine. Dave hated the brand. He accepted it anyway.
“Can I help you, officer?”
Dave lifted his mug. “This is help enough.” He took a sip. The slightly metallic taste reminded him … so long ago … reminded him …
Ballantine was Taffy Weiler’s favorite beer. The redheaded refugee from New York had carted who-knows-how-many cases of the stuff up into the Sierras. Afterward, just before they left, Dave had made him collect all the empties. Taffy wanted to leave them where they lay. Dave had been furious at the idea of the least blemish marring the beauty of …
“Want a shot to go with it?”
“Pardon?” The bartender had broken Dave’s chain of thought.
“I asked if you wanted a shot to go with your beer?”
“Not on duty.”
The bartender snorted. “That hasn’t stopped your partners. Say, you’re new on the beat, aren’t you?”
“Temporary duty. Usually I’m out in Astoria.”
“My name’s Dunne. Call me Jack.”
Uh … right, pal, so what’s the name on that nameplate you’re wearing? No peeking!
“Hutchinson. Everyone calls me Hutch.”
“Figures.”
“You got a phone book, Jack?”
“Sure.” The bartender reached beneath the bar and lifted a thick Manhattan White Pages. He watched while Dave flipped through the C’s. Cogan, Coggin, Cohan, Cohee, Cohen … Lots of Cohens. Pages of them. Cohen, Marge? No listing. Cohen, Marigold? Ditto. Cohen, M.? A couple of dozen. But only one on Ninety-fourth Street. Just off of Amsterdam. It had to be her.
He passed the directory back to the bartender. “Thanks. Is there a phone — a private phone I can use?”
“In the back. Local call, I presume.”
“Very.”
“Be my guest.”
* * *
It wasn’t Marge Cohen that he called, and it wasn’t a local number. It was AT&T International information. Dave wanted a telephone number in Switzerland.
2
Marge’s building was a four-story brownstone, the sort that native New Yorkers find charming, but that reminds out-of-towners of the Great Depression. No lights shone through its grime-streaked windows. A flight of pitted concrete stairs led to its grilled front door. Dave heard the sound of snoring. Someone seemed to be sleeping among the trash cans beneath the stairs.
According to the bank of tarnished mailboxes in the foyer, M. F. Cohen’s apartment was on the ground floor and in the rear. Apartment 1B.
Dave looked for the buzzer and intercom system. Somebody had ripped it out of its mountings. He shrugged, and shimmed the lock with his credit card.
Inside the walls were grey with inattention. The carpet was worn and stained, the hall lights dim. The building smelled of age, mold, and indifference. The landlord didn’t spend much on upkeep, and probably wouldn’t until the tenants threatened a rent strike.
Dave knocked on the door to apartment 1B.
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