Desperate Measures

by David R. Morrell

  He headed down the stairs but froze as he heard footsteps scraping far below him, coming up the concrete steps, echoing louder as they ascended from the ground floor.

  Invisible arms seemed to pin his chest, squeezing him. One man in the elevator, another on the stairs. That would make sense. No one could come down without their knowing.

  Pittman backed up, straining to be silent. Again in the corridor, he analyzed his options and crept up the stairs toward the next floor.

  Out of sight, he heard the elevator stop and footsteps come out. They hesitated in the corridor. Other footsteps, those in the stairwell, came up to the third floor and joined whoever had gotten out of the elevator.

  No one spoke as both sets of footsteps proceeded along the corridor. They stopped about where Pittman judged his apartment would be. He heard a knock, then another. He heard the scrape of metal that he recognized as the sound of lock-pick tools. A different kind of metallic sound might have been the click of a gun being cocked. He heard a door being opened.

  “Shit,” a man exclaimed, as if he’d seen the corpse in Pittman’s apartment.

  Immediately the footsteps went swiftly into a room. The door was closed.

  I can’t stay here, Pittman thought. They might search the building.

  He swung toward the elevator door on the fourth floor and pressed the down button. His hands shook as the elevator wheezed and groaned to his level.

  Part of him was desperate to flee down the stairs. But what if the men came out and saw him? This way, he’d be out of sight in the elevator—unless the men came out in the meantime and decided to use the elevator, stopping it as it descended, in which case he’d be trapped in the cage with them.

  But he had to take the risk. Suppose the men had left someone in the lobby. Pittman needed a way to get past, and the elevator was it. His face was slick with sweat as he got in the car and pressed the button for the basement. As the car sank toward the third floor, he imagined that he would hear a buzz, that the car would stop, that two men would get in.

  He trembled, watching the needle above the inside of the door point to 3.

  Then the needle began to point toward 2.

  He exhaled. Sweat trickled down his chest under his shirt.

  The needle pointed toward 1, then B.

  The car stopped. The doors grated open. He faced the musty shadows of the basement.

  The moment he stepped out, the elevator doors closed. As he shifted past a furnace, the elevator surprised him, rising. Turning, he watched the needle above the door: 1, 2, 3.

  The elevator stopped.

  Simultaneously, via the stairwell, he heard noises from the lobby: footsteps, voices.

  “See anybody?”

  “No. Our guys just went up.”

  “Nobody came down?”

  “Not that I saw. I’ve been here only five minutes. Somebody took the elevator to the basement.”

  “Basement? What would anybody want down there?”

  “A storage unit maybe.”

  “Check it out.”

  Pittman hurried beyond the furnace. In shadows, he passed locked storage compartments. He heard footsteps on the stairs behind him. He came to the service door from the basement. Sweating more profusely, he gently twisted the knob on the dead-bolt lock, desperate not to make noise. The footsteps reached the bottom of the stairs.

  Pittman opened the door, tensed from the squeak it made, slipped out into the night, shut the door, and broke into a run. The narrow alley, only five feet wide, led each way, to Twelfth Street or past another apartment building to Eleventh Street. Reasoning that the men who were chasing him would have a car waiting in front of his building on Twelfth Street, he darted past garbage cans toward Eleventh Street.

  At the end, a stout wooden door blocked his way. Clumsy with fright, he twisted the knob on another dead bolt and tugged at the door, flinching when he heard a noise far along the alley behind him. He surged out onto Eleventh Street, straining to adjust his eyes to the glare of headlights and streetlights. Breathing hard in panic, he turned left and hurried past startled pedestrians. His goal was farther west, the din of traffic, the safety of the congestion on Seventh Avenue.

  And this time, he did find an empty taxi.

  10

  Burt Forsyth wasn’t married. He considered his apartment a place only for changing his clothes, sleeping, and showering. Every night after work, he followed the same routine: several drinks and then dinner at Bennie’s Oldtime Beefsteak Tavern. The regulars there were like a family to him.

  The bar, on East Fiftieth Street, was out of tone with the expensive leather-goods store on its left and the designer-dress store on its right. It had garish neon lights in its windows and a sign bragging that the place had a big-screen television. As Pittman’s taxi pulled to a stop, several customers were going in and out.

  Another taxi stopped to let someone off. Pittman studied the man, then relaxed somewhat when the man went into the bar without looking in Pittman’s direction. After using the last of his cash to pay the driver, Pittman glanced around, felt somewhat assured that he hadn’t been followed, and hurried toward the entrance.

  Pittman’s gym bag attracted no attention as he stood among patrons and scanned the crowded, dimly lit, noisy interior. It was divided so that the beefsteak part of the bar was in a paneled section to the right. A partition separated it from the serious drinking part of the establishment, which was on the left. There, a long counter and several tables faced a big-screen television that was always tuned to a sports channel. Pittman had been in the place a couple of times with Burt and knew that Burt preferred the counter. But when he studied that area, he didn’t see Burt’s distinctly rugged silhouette.

  He stepped farther in, working his way past two customers who were paying their bill at a cash register in front. He craned his neck to check the busy tables but still saw no sign of Burt. Pittman felt impatient. He knew he had to get in touch with the police, but his sense of danger at his apartment had prompted him to run. Once he escaped, he had planned to use a pay phone to contact the police. As soon as he’d gotten in the taxi, though, he’d said the first words that came into his mind: “Bennie’s Tavern.” He had to sort things out.

  He had to talk to Burt.

  But Burt wasn’t in sight. Pittman tried to encourage himself with the thought that Burt might have made an exception and chosen to eat in the restaurant part of the bar. Or maybe he’s late. Maybe he’s still coming. Maybe I haven’t missed him.

  Hurry. The police will wonder why you didn’t get in touch with them as soon as you escaped.

  Feeling a tightness in his chest, Pittman turned to make his way into the restaurant and caught a glimpse of a burly, craggy-faced man in his fifties with a brush cut and bushy eyebrows. The man wore a rumpled sport coat and was visible only for a moment as he passed customers and descended stairs built into the partition between the two sections of the building.

  11

  At the bottom of the hollow-sounding wooden stairs, Pittman passed a coat room, a pay phone, and a door marked DOLLS. He went into a door marked GUYS. A thin man with a gray mustache was coming out of a toilet stall. The man put on a blue suit coat and stepped next to a longhaired young man in a leather windbreaker at a row of sinks to wash his hands. The burly man whom Pittman had followed downstairs was standing to the left at a urinal, his back to Pittman.

  “Burt.”

  The man looked over his shoulder and reacted with surprise, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. “What are you doing here?”

  Pittman walked toward him. “Look, I can explain why I wasn’t at work today. There’s something I need to talk to you about. Believe me, it’s serious.”

  The other men in the rest room listened with interest.

  “Don’t you realize it isn’t safe?” Burt said. “I tried to tell you on the phone today.”

  “Safe? You sounded like you were giving me the brush-off. A meeting. Important people. Sure.”


  Urgent, Burt pulled up his zipper and pushed the urinal’s lever. As water gushed into a drain, he threw his cigarette into the urinal and pivoted. “For your information, those important people were—” Burt noticed the two men standing at the sinks, watching him, and gestured. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  Impatient, Pittman followed him out the door and along the hallway. They stopped at its end, a distance from the rest rooms and the stairs that led down.

  Burt whispered hoarsely, “Those important people were the police.”

  “What?”

  “Looking for you.”

  “What?”

  “Haven’t you listened to the radio? You didn’t see the evening news?”

  “I haven’t had time. When I got back to my apartment, a man—”

  “Look, I don’t know what you did last night, but the cops think you broke into a house in Scarsdale and murdered Jonathan Millgate.”

  “WHAT?” Pittman stepped backward against the wall.

  The man with the leather windbreaker came out of the men’s room, glanced curiously at Pittman and Burt, then went up the stairs.

  Frustrated, Burt waited until the man disappeared. “Look,” he said quietly, sternly to Pittman, “we can’t talk here. The police might be watching me in case you try to get in touch. In fact, I have a hunch one of them’s at a table next to mine.”

  “Where then? When can we talk?”

  “Meet me at eleven o’clock. Madison Square Park. The entrance on Fifth Avenue. I’ll make sure I’m not followed. Damn it, what did you get yourself into? I want to know what’s going on.”

  “Believe me, Burt, you’re not the only one.”

  12

  Pittman was so disoriented that only when he was out on the shadowy street did he realize that he should have asked Burt to lend him some money. The Metro ride from Scarsdale into Manhattan and the taxi from his apartment to the restaurant had used all his cash. He had his checkbook, but he knew that the stores open at this hour would accept checks only for the amount of purchase. That left…

  Pittman glanced nervously behind him, saw no sign that anyone was following him, and walked quickly toward Fifth Avenue. There, a few blocks south, he came to the main office of the bank he used. The automated teller machine was in an alcove to the left of the entrance. He put his access card into the slot and waited for a message on the ATM’s screen to ask him for his number.

  To his surprise, a different message appeared, SEE BANK OFFICER.

  The machine made a whirring sound.

  It swallowed his card.

  Pittman gaped. What the…? There’s got to be some mistake. Why would… ?

  The obvious dismaying answer occurred to him. The police must have gotten a court order. They froze my account.

  Burt was right.

  “Haven’t you listened to the radio? You didn’t see the evening news?” Burt had demanded. Pittman walked rapidly along a side street, checking several taverns, finding one that had a television behind the bar. Since the Chronicle and all the other New York City newspapers came out in the morning, they wouldn’t have had enough time to run a story about anything that happened to Jonathan Millgate late last night.

  The only ready source of news that Pittman could think of was a cable channel like CNN. He sat in a shadowy, smoke-filled corner of the tavern and in frustration watched the fourth round of a boxing match. He fidgeted, not sharing the enthusiasm of the other patrons in the bar about a sudden knockout.

  Come on, he kept thinking. Somebody put on the news.

  He almost risked drawing attention to himself by asking the man behind the bar to switch channels to CNN. But just as Pittman stood to approach the counter, news came on after the fight, and Pittman was stunned to see his photograph on a screen behind the reporter. The photo had been taken years earlier when Pittman had had a mustache. His features had been heavier, not yet ravaged by grief. Nonetheless, he immediately receded back into the shadows.

  “Suicidal obituary writer kills ailing diplomat,” the reporter intoned, obviously enjoying the lurid headline.

  Feeling his extremities turn cold as blood rushed to his stomach, Pittman listened in dismay. The reporter qualified his story by frequently using the words alleged and possibly, but his tone left no doubt that Pittman was guilty. According to the Scarsdale police, in cooperation with the Manhattan homicide department, Pittman—suffering from a nervous breakdown as a consequence of his son’s death—had determined to commit suicide and had gone so far as to write his own obituary. Newswriters who had desks near Pittman characterized him as being depressed and distracted. He was said to be obsessed with Jonathan Millgate, an obsession that had begun seven years earlier when Pittman had become irrationally convinced that Millgate was involved in a defense-industry scandal. Pittman had stalked Millgate so relentlessly for an interview that Millgate had considered asking the police for a restraining order. Now, in his weakened mental state, Pittman had again become fixated on Millgate, apparently enough to kill him as a prelude to Pittman’s suicide. Warned of the danger, Millgate’s aides had taken the precaution of moving the senior statesman from a New York hospital where he was recovering from a heart attack. Pittman had managed to follow Millgate to an estate in Scarsdale, had broken into Millgate’s room, and had disconnected his life-support system, killing him. Fingerprints on the outside door to Millgate’s room as well as on Millgate’s medical equipment proved that Pittman had been inside. A nurse had seen him flee from the old man’s bedside. A check that Pittman had given to a New York City taxi driver who drove him to the estate had made it possible for the police to narrow their investigation to Pittman as their main suspect. Pittman was still at large.

  Pittman stared at the television and strained to keep from shaking. His sanity felt threatened. Despite the differences, surely everyone in the tavern must know it was his photograph they’d just been shown. He had to get onto the street before someone called the police.

  The police. Pittman walked in alarmed confusion from the bar, keeping his head low, relieved that no one tried to stop him. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I ought to go to the police. Tell them they’re mistaken. I tried to help Millgate, not kill him.

  Sure. And what about the man you killed in your apartment? If he’s still there, if his buddies haven’t moved him. Do you expect the police will take your word about what happened? As soon as they get their hands on you, they’ll put you in jail.

  Is that so bad? At least I’ll be safe. The men at my apartment won’t be able to get at me.

  What makes you sure? Seven years ago, two men broke your jaw while you and they were in custody in Boston. Security might fail again. And this time what happens to you could be lethal.

  13

  When Pittman entered the diner, he watched to see if anyone looked suspiciously toward him. No one seemed to care. Either they hadn’t seen the story about him on TV or else they didn’t make the connection with him. After all, no one here knew him by name, except for the cook who was usually on duty at this hour, and the cook knew Pittman only as Matt.

  “How you doing, Matt?” the cook asked. “No show for several weeks, and now you’re back two nights in a row. We’ll get some weight back on you quick. What’ll it be tonight?”

  Still dismayed that the police had arranged for his bank’s automated teller machine to seize his card, Pittman said, “I’m low on cash. Will you take a check for a meal?”

  “You’ve always been good for it.”

  “And an extra twenty dollars?”

  “Hey, you don’t appreciate my cooking that much. Sorry.”

  “Ten dollars?”

  The cook shook his head.

  “Come on.”

  “You’re really that low?”

  “Worse than low.”

  “You’re breaking my heart.” The cook debated. “Okay. For you, I’ll make an exception. But don’t let this get around.”

  “Our secret. I appreciate this, Tony
. I’m starved. Give me a salad, the meat loaf, mashed potatoes, plenty of gravy, those peas and carrots, a glass of milk, and coffee, coffee, coffee. Then we’ll talk about dessert.”

  “Yeah, we will get some weight back on you. You sure that’s all?”

  “One thing more.”

  “What is it?”

  “The box I gave you last night.”

  14

  Outside the diner, Pittman sought the cover of a nearby alley. Crouching in the darkness with his back to the street, he opened the box, took out the .45 and the carton of ammunition, and placed them in his gym bag.

  He heard a threatening voice behind him. “What ya got in the bag, man?”

  Looking over his shoulder, Pittman saw a street kid, tall, broad shoulders, steely eyes, late teens.

  “Stuff.”

  “What stuff?” The kid flashed a long-bladed knife.

  “This stuff.” Pittman aimed the .45.

  The kid put the knife away. “Cool, man. Damned good stuff.” He backed off, hurrying down the street.

  Pittman put the gun back in the gym bag.

  15

  Madison Square Park was the site of Pittman’s favorite Steichen photograph, an evocative early-twentieth-century depiction of the Flatiron Building, where Broadway intersects with Fifth Avenue. The photograph showed a winter scene with snow falling on horse carriages, and to the left, taking up only part of the photograph but seeming to dominate the photo as much as the Flatiron Building did, were the bare trees of Madison Square Park.

  Pittman positioned himself on Fifth Avenue about where he assumed that Steichen had stood with his tripoded camera. Although it was spring and not winter, the trees were still not fully leafed, and Pittman used the night to imagine that he’d been taken back in time, that the muffled clop of horses’ hooves had replaced the busy roar of traffic.

  He had gotten to the park a half hour early. There’d been no other place to go. Besides, although the meal at the diner had given him back some energy, he was still tired from the exertion of the previous night and the considerable walking he’d done all day. Despite his fears, his body felt more fit than it had in over a year. His muscle aches were almost a pleasure. Even so, he had pushed his body to its limit. He needed to sit.