Packard slumped to a knees-up sitting position, chin on his chest, arms splayed behind him, hands flat. He was spent, desolate, panting. His knife-wounded arm ached. His opposite shoulder, too. Near his neck the trapezius muscle was hot. He realized the bullet had nicked him.
It didn’t interest him. None of it mattered. Kate Norris was gone.
TWENTY-EIGHT
1963
Wednesday, November 27th
Charlie knelt near the right rear tire, hastily draped the chain over it. Almost done. He cupped his hands, blew into them, worked his numb fingers, wished he’d brought gloves. Worse than the cold or his damp knees and shoes, the lost time was bugging him – the urgent need to phone Phyllis and Dorothy, Emily and Lynnie, warn them to get the hell out. He groped in the snow, searching for a couple of S-hooks.
Shit. Maybe in the trunk.
He stood, brushed the snow off his shoulders. And squinted into the distance.
Something. There and then not there. Headlights? Yes.
He watched, intent, for a few seconds, trying to get a fix. A truck or a car? The vehicle was now almost broadside to him, approaching slowly through the long curve of road and river, vanishing behind waterside foliage, reappearing, quickly obscured again, or lost against the backdrop of blue-black cliffs. Then, as it emerged from behind a stand of trees, framed against snowy boulders, he made it out. An automobile. Dark. Long.
Fuck.
His stomach felt as if it had suddenly dropped several feet. Charlie did not question which black sedan it might be. He ran to his front passenger-door, yanked it open, grabbed his briefcase off the seat, headed for the rock wall twenty yards away. He was drawn to a point at which a tumble of sandstone boulders and split fragments formed a rough slope at the base of the otherwise sheer face – the only nearby spot that appeared to make some kind of ascent possible. Charlie tried to forget his acrophobia, opened his raincoat, unbuckled his belt, hooked it through the handle of his briefcase and back through his belt-loops so that it hung against his side. Rebuckling, he began scrambling up the irregular, sometimes jagged incline. Fortunately, this being the leeward side, little snow had accumulated, so despite his artless approach and slippery, leather-soled street shoes, the first few feet were relatively easy. But the at-first gradual angle quickly turned steep, the rocks larger, more intimidating than they’d appeared from a distance. And suddenly, both feet slipped. Clawing desperately at anything that might be grippable, he managed to stop his downward slide at the cost of a chin-scrape and twisted left ankle. Slowly, gingerly, he re-planted one foot, then found support for the other. He sucked air through clenched teeth, fighting the pain. His feet were on a narrow shelf, hardly wider than his shoes, his body pressed against a nearly vertical surface. Spread-eagled, toes pointed outward, he hugged the rock, cautiously looked up, searching for his next move. A large snowflake landed on his right eye, blurring his vision as it melted. He winked it away, looked again. Nothing. Noplace to go.
The goddam car – where is it now? Maybe driving right on past, I hope?
Trying to hold that optimistic but unlikely thought, keeping his forehead in steady, only faintly reassuring contact with the cold wet stone, Charlie slowly rotated his head to the right. Then, apprehensively, he peered down, past his armpit. His stomach churned. The maroon Chevvie was about forty feet below, mostly coated with snow. Behind it, a black Lincoln pulled off the road, rolling to a stop. If Charlie had been on flat ground, he would have run like hell. Instead, he remained motionless, watching. Two dark-clothed men climbed out, moved unhurriedly – or was it warily – toward the Chevrolet.
Maybe it’s just a coupla guys wanta help...
Charlie tried to wish the heavier one into somebody other than Moe Saperstein. As if to help it turn out that way, he shifted his gaze to a point a few inches from his nose – to the Entrada sandstone – to a zigzag vein of quartz – and waited, very still. He became aware of sounds, tried to separate them. The moaning, that was wind. The others were more difficult to identify. He decided one was the flapping of his raincoat collar against his ear, which was now too cold-numb to feel the repeated, gentle impact. The other, he realized, was his heart-pulse, feeding back from the rock to his other ear.
Guns drawn, Gino Borgese and Moe Saperstein paused on opposite sides of Charlie’s car. Borgese observed the not-quite-fastened chain on the right rear wheel, the fresh footprints that led toward the base of the cliff. Then up. And saw Charlie. “There.”
Saperstein looked, nodded.
Charlie was unsure at first of what he was seeing over his right shoulder. Perhaps ten feet away, a corner, and just beyond it, where the rock wall continued, it appeared to be set back – and – different. The grain. That was it. The erosion-pattern angled slightly downward, in contrast to the upward-slanting texture directly in front of him. That could mean a separate section of rock, a space between them. Maybe even a passageway? In his eagerness, instead of inching, he took a wide lateral step to his right, nearly lost it, recovered, ventured another step. Two or three more and... He allowed himself to look down again through the snowfall and enfolding darkness. Saperstein – Charlie conceded that it was he – seemed to be exploring the Chevrolet’s trunk. The other one, the slender one, where the hell was he? Then Charlie located him. He was semi-visible, his torso inside the Lincoln. He withdrew. He was holding a long slender object of some sort.
Ohhh, Jesus.
With renewed, panicky determination, Charlie stretched – stretched more – and found the corner with his fingertips. Wrapped his hand around it.
Borgese made sure the clip was fully seated, pulled the bolt. Then he raised the old M2 carbine to his shoulder, carefully aligned the sights on Charlie. And slowly, deliberately squeezed.
Charlie heard the whine, the cha-pop as the bullet tore dusty chunks out of the rock, inches from his left hand. A fraction later, he heard the gunshot. The shallow ledge below his feet narrowed to virtually nothing as it met the corner. Another round struck just above his head. A small, sharp stone-fragment nicked the fleshy part of his cheek, caromed off his shoulder. Charlie felt the warm blood-trickle, licked it from the side of his mouth.
Sonofabitch. Sonofabitch. Sonofabitch.
Charlie managed to hook his instep-and-heel on what little remained of the ledge, leaned his torso rightward, again half-expecting that this move would be his last. And found himself at the corner.
Yes!
The sandstone was cleaved, as if by a giant axe. But too narrowly to fit himself into. Just above him, however, on the opposite side of the seam – delineated by a coating of snow – was another shelf, a setback that looked wide enough to accommodate him, seemed to promise passage beyond where it vanished between the towering walls. Whether or not it led anywhere was impossible to judge from his position – and worse, the parapet was just beyond his reach.
Shit! What, three lousy fucking inches?
He had to get there. Tightening his uncertain grip on the corner, left ankle protesting the weight he was placing on it, Charlie cautiously, slowly extended his right foreleg. And won. His shin – painfully – found a tiny outcrop. He raised his foot, planted it on the step, carefully shifted so that his body-weight was above his flexed knee – and pushed off, propelling himself with all the spring he could muster toward the snowy platform. And managed a questionable two-handed grip on the edge. Unsure that he could hang there for more than a few seconds, trying to psych himself for his next move, Charlie felt the impact, like a sudden, sharp finger-flick in his back, just below the shoulder. Then he heard the rifle-shot, understood that he’d been hit. Charlie closed his eyes, puzzled by the movie he was seeing. Black & white. This cowboy riding hard, firing over his shoulder at his pursuers. Suddenly he’s hit, arches back, then slumps over the saddlehorn.
What the hell is---?
Charlie smiled. His first Western. The Tivoli Theater on 63rd Street. Maybe eight years old, he’d wondered what it would feel like to be shot.
Okay. Warm, a dull ache. Big fucking deal.
Two more rounds tore into the sandstone, distressingly close. Charlie abrupty got back to business, muscled his way onto the ledge.
“Damn!” Borgese lost him again. Worse, his shots had apparently missed. Disgusted, he slung the carbine over his shoulder, reached into the Lincoln, grabbed a flashlight from the glove-box. He stuffed it into his belt, slogged past Saperstein, toward the base of the rockfall. “C’mon.”
“What? Up there? In this? You gotta be kidding.”
Borgese did not answer.
“Shouldn’t we get help?”
“No fucking time.”
Saperstein reluctantly followed, hurried to catch up.
The thirty scary feet along the icy, up-sloping ledge turned out to be the easy part. Inching along, Charlie struggled to keep his footing, fighting the aches in his back and ankle, the now-heightened chronic soreness of his old fracture. He began to hear Saperstein’s grunting and cursing. Getting closer. He reached for his .38 – then quickly changed his mind. This was not the place for a showdown with these guys. Without bothering to try for a visual fix on them, Charlie momentarily overcame his terror of heights, limped-scurried the last few perilous feet, breathlessly entered the narrow cleft – and stopped, discouraged. The path ahead, this tradeoff for no longer having to worry about falling to his death was, beyond the couple of yards he could make out, cruelly tight, dark, its direction, depth and traversability unknowable. The voices of Saperstein and his pal penetrated Charlie’s funk, the hurts, his heavy breathing. Almost blindly, he moved sideways, inched up the cramped, icy notch, the vertical, parallel walls on either side rising to god-knows-where in the blackness. Several yards in, the already marginal passageway narrowed further. Charlie doubted he could make it, scraped both ears getting through. Then, for an indeterminate distance it widened. Though enabling him to walk tentatively forward, shoulders squared to his direction, his vision extended only as far as his outstretched hands, which he held high to protect his face. And even they were intermittently obscured by the blur of snow faintly reflecting the near-gone light. Worse, the damned trail might dead-end with his next step, trapping him. Characteristically, he was slightly cheered that this had not yet happened. Moreover, picturing Moe Saperstein’s girth added a dollop of encouragement, there being no way that lardass could negotiate the path – which meant that for now at least Charlie’s pursuers were reduced by half.
Right. Like that’s gonna get me to a phone?
Ow.
Charlie discovered with his forehead that the passageway branched off in two directions, both equally dark. For no particular reason, he chose the left fork. It continued to climb, then turned suddenly, funneling the relentless, bitter wind and snow at his face, body. There were moments when it, and the hurt and exhaustion were nearly too much, when Charlie flirted with stopping. But there was just plain no way he was going to let these pricks beat him. The reasons swam fuzzily past... faces. Women. Randomly – or so it seemed to Charlie. Nicole DiMartini, Phyllis, Jacqueline Kennedy, his mother, Marjorie Brodax, Lynnie, Dorothy. All of them were in color except for Jackie Kennedy. She was in grays, blurred, as if viewed on an old television screen. As the latter faded, a déjà vu something about her look made him tune her in again. Yeah, there... The expression. Stunned, like do they have any idea of what they’ve done? Of the awfulness? Where else had he seen it...? Whoa – it was like Nicole DiMartini’s expression, just before she closed her eyes for the last time.
Then, abruptly, Charlie was in the open. Or as open as snowflakes and almost-darkness permitted. It took him a second to reorient. If he had a map – and was curious – he’d have learned that he had crossed over from Slakes Canyon to a place known as Armadillo Ridge, at the top of Muleshoe Canyon. For Charlie it was enough that he was no longer sandwiched between walls of stone. He looked back, tried to locate the slot through which he’d just emerged onto the ridge. It was no longer visible, but he had to assume that at least one of his pursuers wasn’t far behind. He quivered, shoved his hands into his armpits, took a couple of deep breaths to oxygenate his blood, to energize himself. And achieved more than he expected. He coughed, causing sharp, alerting jolts in his back and ribcage. Which recalled the sadistic cocksucker who’d beaten on him in the Reno parking lot, his subsequent near-death experience at the hands of Joe Bob Millgrim.
Okay, Charlie, old news. Put it in gear, pal.
Faintly seen off to the right, the terrain appeared to slope downward. Hopefully the beginning of a trail. Charlie headed for it through the snow that in places was already drifting shin-deep. Closer, he saw that it was indeed a narrow path, bordered on the right by the cliff-face, falling off on the left to who-could-tell-where. The descent was gradual at first, quickly became steep for a few yards, then undulated back to gradual. To maintain his balance and keep from slipping, Charlie pressed against the nearly snow-covered wall, which further amplified his hurts. And did not prevent him from sliding on an icy patch, falling on his sore hip. Bracing against the side-wall, he pulled himself to his feet, resumed his descent, more cautiously, the aches throbbing now. Wind numbing. Snow heavier. No escape from it.
Suddenly he hit a steep incline, stumbled forward, tried to arch back, to get his feet under him, ahead if possible. The ice added to his momentum. Instinctively, he put up his hands, palms forward. They hit a white, snowy surface, quickly pushing through to the underlying stone, which stopped him just short of smashing his face. The impact, plus his weight, caused the stone to move a few inches. He saw that it was a boulder, somewhat taller than himself, resting on a relatively flat area of the trail. It had been lodged against the face of the cliff, was now angled slightly away, forming a small vee-shelter. Charlie turned, backed into the space, cringed at the ache in his shoulder, shifted to relieve it. Slid to a sitting position, rubbed his ankle. At least he was out of the wind. He held the backs of his bluish hands close to his face, flexed them, turned them over. They were bloody from a number of small cuts. The old callus was torn, the one that had never entirely gone away. The one on the middle fingertip of his right hand that he got throwing his sinker – his ticket to the Bigs.
Man, when that was workin’ they couldn’t hit it for shit.
He shoved his hands into his pockets. One of them found the little canister. He withdrew it, looked at it.
A fucking accident. What this whole megillah had come down to. No – a lot more than one.
Charlie reflected. The cold, his wound, his waning strength, the oppressive weariness. His mind going in and out. He stuck his right hand under his coat-collar, over his left shoulder, fingertips lightly probing the tender spot on his wingbone.
Shhheeeit.
The pain was searing. White. His fingers came up wet, sticky. He put them to his tongue, tasted blood. And for the first time, began to doubt his chances. Really doubt them. He looked off, into the storm, tried to wiggle his toes. He wasn’t sure if he’d succeeded. Charlie knew he wasn’t a quitter, but this – it was different.
Different how?
Charlie pondered it. Sluggishly, it dropped into place.
It’s about not bullshitting yourself anymore, pal. What the hell, you gave it your best, you got their money, you did the only thing you could do. All...the...moves... Wait a minute, schmucko, you’re still doin’ it. What about getting to that goddam phone? What about – all of them? Was that so...fucking...smart...? Gotta do...what...?
His brain – his ability to think – seemed to be shutting down. His thoughts more disjointed. Charlie hated it. He wrapped his fingers, as far as their stiffness permitted, around the little cylinder.
They’re gonna catch up t’you in a few minutes. So, whaddya figure the odds are you offer ‘em this, they let you off the hook...?
Yeah...
Charlie tried his toes again. They hurt.
Fucking shame there’s no way to nail ‘em for what they did... What’s my mother’s phone nu
mber...?
Then he was back in the Courthouse men’s room – with Nicole. What was it he’d said to her? Something about knowing the truth? He looked at the canister.
Someone should know about this...
The snow and wind were diminishing. He gazed out, across the canyon. He could make out vague, snow-defined shapes. A long way to the other side. Slowly, he forced himself to stand, moved slowly, unsteadily toward the edge of the trail. His hip had stiffened. He looked down.
Nah. That’s where they’d expect me to dump it.
Charlie turned. The effort made him lightheaded.
Jesus, what is going on?
He tightened his jaw, made himself regain his balance. Above, edged by snow that outlined it against the almost-night sky, another shelf.
Footsteps? Charlie stood very still...
Nothing. He attempted to judge the ledge’s depth. Tried several grips on the canister in his palm, found one that felt right. The wind was coming up again. He wished the little container had more heft.
Fuck it.
Charlie reared back in an abbreviated windup – which turned out to be fiercely painful in places that hadn’t hurt before.
The Sixteenth Man Page 27