Escapade (9781301744510)

by Susan Carroll

  "Oh, help. Murder! Police."

  Flinging her hands into the air, the girl vanished, still screaming. Zeke dropped the knife, ready to plunge after her, only to hesitate. It seemed somehow obscene to abandon Addison, leave him in a place like this.

  A ridiculous qualm, for there was nothing he could do for the young man now, only live long enough himself to see the murder avenged. With one last look at the attorney's absurdly youthful features, Zeke staggered out into the corridor. It was already filling up with women, ladies of pleasure in all stages of undress, straggly hair, pale cheeks devoid of rouge, purple hollows beneath their eyes.

  The first girl had already raised the alarm, and they all fluttered about, shrilling like a flock of frightened star¬lings.

  "Oh, there he goes. The murdering fiend!"

  Zeke's appearance set off a fresh series of shrieks. He wanted to clutch his ears as he bolted down a rickety flight of steps. He expected at any moment to come up against the thug with the scarred chin, or some other burly rogue bent on preventing his escape. But he encountered no one until he reached the small foyer below. The front door was flung open to admit a blue-coated officer.

  Zeke gaped at the sight of the dapper Sergeant O'Connell. He would've been prepared to wager that the policeman had never responded to a distress call so fast in his life. He was glad for once the copper was doing his job.

  "O'Connell. Good thing you're here, There's a man dead upstairs and—"

  To Zeke's astonishment, O'Connell leveled his pistol at him. "Halt or I'll shoot" Not waiting for Zeke's response, he began cocking the hammer.

  Although startled, Zeke was quick enough to duck. Instead of plugging him through the head, the shot whistled past his ear, shattering a gilt-framed mirror behind him.

  No need to ask O'Connell what the hell he thought he was doing. The copper's intent was obvious. Zeke didn't give him a chance to take aim again. By the time the second shot sounded, Zeke had plunged beneath an arched doorway.

  Another small passage led him back to the region of the kitchens. A lusty-looking female hovered near the coal stove, looking undisturbed either by the screams or the sound of gunplay. She calmly poured herself a cup of coffee, only glancing up long enough to give Zeke a knowing leer.

  "What's a matter, honey? Your old lady catch you here? The back door is that way, handsome."

  Zeke couldn't even pause long enough to thank her. Finding the door, he hurled himself through it, almost into the arms of another policeman. The copper fell back with a grunt of surprise as though he really hadn't expected Zeke to make it this far or to be so full of fight.

  Before the man could draw his weapon, Zeke sent his fist crashing against the copper's jaw, felling him to the ground. The action took no more than the space of a heartbeat, which was just as well, for he had no time to hesitate, to reflect, only to run.

  He plunged down an alleyway behind the brothel, weaving past the rear entrances of tenement buildings. Where was he going to go? He was not even sure where he was, only that if this was O'Connell's beat, he had to be back in the warehouse district. Zeke was a little familiar with the area. The problem was that O'Connell was even more so.

  In no time at all, the sergeant was hard on his heels. Another shot rang out, and Zeke felt a burning sensation in his right arm. Bloody hell! He'd been hit.

  He stumbled a little and heard a heavy footfall—O'Connell closing in for the kill. Mustering what strength he had, Zeke upended a row of garbage cans, causing the policeman to curse and lose his footing.

  As O'Connell went down, Zeke half-buried him in the refuse and then tore off running. As he clutched his arm, his fingers sticky with the warmth of his own blood, Zeke knew he couldn't keep up this pace. His breathing came in labored gasps.

  Somehow he got himself over a fence, squeezing down the narrow space between two buildings. He had eluded O'Connell for the present, enough that he could lean up against the crumbling brickwork, drawing gulps of air into his tortured lungs.

  He was weakening and he knew it. The shocks to his system in these past twenty-four hours had been too much; only that ages-old instinct for survival had kept him on his feet this long. Just ahead of him loomed the main street, but from the sound of police whistles, he knew the place had to be crawling with O'Connell's minions. Risking a peek round the corner of the building, he saw that he was right. Blue coats, at least half a dozen of them, their guns at the ready, paced the length of the pavement.

  Zeke ground his teeth, fighting off a wave of dizziness. He had fallen into a most well-prepared trap. It was no good reminding himself he was no longer Johnnie Marceone, but J. E. Morrison, a tycoon with a mansion on Fifth Avenue. Under ordinary circumstances, the prudent thing to do would be to surrender to the police, demand to see his lawyer.

  But these weren't ordinary circumstances. His lawyer was dead, and Zeke knew if he tried to surrender to O'Connell, he'd never make it as far as the precinct house. Not alive.

  He had to get out of here, find some place to hide and quickly. But where? He might be able to make it as far as the docks, take the risk of jumping into the East River, but chances were he would lose consciousness and drown.

  The street out there already seemed to be shifting, threatening to give way beneath his feet. He could barely bring the building opposite into focus other than to tell it was a warehouse of some sort.

  Zeke squinted his eyes, forcing his vision to clear. He had seen that place before. Had it been only last night that he had lingered outside, staring up at one particular window, as moonstruck as any raw kid, waiting for Rory to come out?

  The Transcontinental Balloon Company. Then he had regarded that faded sign with wry amusement. Now it beckoned to him with all the comfort and assurance of a smile on the face of an old friend.

  Likely Rory wouldn't even be there, but with luck he might manage to cross the street unseen, find a way inside the warehouse, seek shelter within its shadowy depths.

  And the way his arm burned and his head reeled, luck was about all he had left.

  At the area back of the warehouse, Rory watched the Seamus being prepared for the demonstration as soon as the man from the government arrived. It was the first time the pale blue balloon had ever been inflated, and the gas bag hissed, suspended a few feet above the rough dock boards, like a piece of the sky held captive, pulling against the rope's hemp cords.

  Tony and Pete rushed about attaching the gondola, slinging the sandbags over the basket's side. Rory knew she ought to be helping, but lethargy seemed to have overtaken her, borne of the shock she had received earlier that morning.

  She still clutched the edition of the New York World in her hands. On the El, she had read the article about Zeke over and over again until she could nearly recite the lurid details by heart. Stanley Addison had been knifed to death in a brothel, Zeke Morrison seen fleeing the scene.

  It was all a nightmare, some hideous mistake. It had to be.

  While Pete began hooking sacks of ballast onto the balloon, Tony stepped back, wiping the perspiration from his brow.

  "Glad you didn't strain yourself helping out, Rory," he grumbled.

  Rory shot him a look of reproach. "How do you expect me to calmly go about my business after seeing this?" She shook the paper under his nose.

  Tony batted it aside. "There's nothing much else you can do. You got any idea where Morrison is?"

  “No.”

  "Then how you gonna help him? We been over and over this, Rory, and I'm tired of talking about it."

  They had been having the same useless argument ever since leaving Grand Street. There was no way to make Tony understand. She just felt so blasted helpless and scared. God help her, she had never felt so scared for anyone in her life as she now was for Zeke.

  "You gotta be sensible, Rory," Tony chided. "You just have to forget about Morrison. Did you ever stop to think he might be guilty?"

  "Of course not!" Her reply waxed a shade too vehement, perhaps bec
ause there had been one awful moment when she had wondered. She couldn't help recalling Zeke's angry phone conversation with Stanley Addison. Zeke did have quite a temper. In the heat of his rage, she could picture him slugging someone perhaps a little too hard, but never could she envision him sticking a knife between someone's ribs.

  Rory fingered the paper, the page creased and worn with her handling. "You just won't listen to me, Tony. There's something wrong about this whole thing. For instance, the World says the fight took place last night. How could it have? I am sure Zeke was at my flat at least until eleven o'clock."

  "There's plenty of night left after eleven, Rory."

  "You're asking me to believe Zeke got beat up by two street thugs, had that awful reunion with his sister, then sneaked out of my flat, looked up his friend Addison, took the man to a brothel and killed him?"

  "So Morrison has a lot of stamina. Look, Rory, I don't know what happened. All I know is what it says there in the paper."

  "Since when did you start believing everything you read, Bertelli?"

  Tony swore, flinging his hands wide in a gesture of frustration. "I told you, Rory. I'm done arguing. I gotta go help Pete. Someone needs to worry about the fate of this company since you don't seem to care anymore."

  He strode away, with Rory glaring after him. His remark stung, all the more so because he was right. Not when he said that she didn't care- that wasn't true. But for the first time in her life something took precedence over her balloons.

  Ever since she had met Zeke, the man was never far from her mind, especially not now when he was in such terrible trouble. She wondered if she would ever see him again.

  That last thought was so daunting, she thrust it away. Tony barked an order for her to fetch some more iron filings for the hydrogen generator, and she started to do so when she heard a footfall on the concrete floor of the warehouse.

  Tony's younger brother emerged through the double doors, slipping out onto the dock with a sheepish expression on his face. Angelo clearly expected a rebuke from Rory for being late and looked agreeably surprised when none was forthcoming. "Morning, Rory," he said, glancing toward Pete and Tony and the balloon looming overhead. "Geez, looks like all of you have been busy."

  He stripped off his jacket. His dark eyes so like Tony's gleamed with excitement. "Say, Rory, what's all that hubbub out on the street? Coppers are prowling everywhere. I never saw O'Connell so stirred up since the time that street kid tossed a firecracker under his horse."

  "I don't know what it's about," Rory said. She tensed with apprehension at the mention of O'Connell's name. She was being absurd. Simply because Zeke was a wanted man, she needn't suppose every activity of the police was now connected with him.

  Yet she couldn't shake off the same vague fears that had troubled her last night. It still struck her as odd that O'Connell had identified Zeke so readily. Perhaps she ought to take a casual stroll on the street, just to see what was going on.

  While Angelo rolled up his sleeves and prepared to help with the generator, Rory moved toward the warehouse.

  "Don't forget those filings," Tony bawled after her, and Rory replied with an absentminded nod of her head.

  She slipped inside the warehouse's darkened interior. Even with the sun streaking through the small grimy windows, the building was gloom-ridden and Rory had to pick her way with care. She had just reached the deeply shadowed area by the steps leading up to her office when she heard a strange noise.

  She stopped. Someone was behind her, someone breathing hard. Before she could move or cry out, an arm seized her about the waist. The newspaper she had been carrying flew out of her grasp.

  Rory drew breath to scream, but the sound died in her throat as a voice rasped in her ear. "No, Rory. Don't! It's me."

  "Zeke?" she quavered, her heart pounding, torn between hope and disbelief. She whipped about, her hands colliding with his chest. His face loomed above her, streaked with dirt and sweat, his dark hair disheveled, his eyes tired but glittering bright at the sight of her.

  "Oh, Zeke, I've been so worried about you."

  She flung her arms about him, catching him in a fierce hug. Instead of returning the embrace, he flinched, sucking in his breath.

  "Zeke, what's the-.” She drew back, staring at her hand. It was streaked with blood. Horrified, her gaze flew to his crimson-soaked sleeve.

  "Zeke! You've been hurt."

  "Shot. By the police." He gave her a wan smile. "It's been a helluva morning, Aurora Rose."

  "Don't try to explain anything now. Just let me look at your arm."

  "It's all right. The bleeding's nearly stopped. I think the bullet passed through."

  Despite his protests, she tore away a section of his sleeve, working as gently as she could. He paled, clamping his teeth together. To her relief, she saw that he was right. Likely the shot had gone clean through, leaving a relatively neat hole through the fleshy part of his arm. Still he seemed to have lost a fair amount of blood.

  "We have to get you to a doctor."

  "Not possible. The police are looking for me everywhere. I'm in a lot of trouble, Rory."

  "I know. I read about it in the papers."

  "The papers?" Despite the pain and exhaustion hazing his eyes, Zeke looked startled.

  "Never mind about that now. I guess I'll have to do what I can to bind up your arm myself. You stay right here."

  A foolish thing to say, for Zeke didn't appear as though he were likely to go anywhere. She had no idea where he had been all this time. She only marveled at the strength that had brought him this far.

  Hastening, she fetched water from the washroom behind the office upstairs and some strips of the silk material she used in sewing the balloon panels. When she returned, Zeke had sagged down on the bottommost stair.

  But at her approach, he straightened, his eyes still keen and aware. He frequently clenched his jaw and cursed under his breath as she proceeded to clean the wound. But that didn't stop him from asking questions.

  "What'd you mean before- about the papers?"

  Rory told him about the article that had appeared in the morning's edition of the World.

  Zeke grunted. "Damn that Duffy! How'd he get such a story and so fast? Someone's not wasting much time."

  Rory ordered him to stay quiet while she bound up his arm. But it did no good, for Zeke continued. "Rory, I don't know who is behind all this, but I swear to you, I am innocent."

  "Hush, Zeke. You don't need to tell me that."

  "You ought to know all the dangers if you are helping me. Even the local police are involved."

  "O'Connell?"

  Zeke nodded. "I should've listened to you last night. I think he plans to kill me and make it look like I was shot running away."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "I don't know, but I need to get away from here."

  Rory fully agreed with him, but as she observed Zeke's drained features, she didn't know how he was going to move one more step, let alone escape the police pursuit.

  Before she could even begin to think what to do next, she heard Tony coming through the warehouse, shouting for her.

  "Don't bother hunting for those filings no more, Rory. We don't need them."

  Rory moved to cut Tony off before he could see Zeke, but it was already too late. Tony sauntered toward the stairs, only to draw up short. He stared first at the bloodied clothes littering the floor, following the trail to Rory, then beyond to Zeke.

  "Holy hell! Where the devil did he come from?"

  "Zeke is trying to get away from the police," Rory said, her words tumbling out in a rush. "They shot him."

  "Guess that's what they usually do to runaway murderers."

  "Tony! Zeke is not a murderer,only a suspect. And O'Connell is shooting to kill."

  Tony relaxed some of his belligerence, but he still said, "Well, whatever kind of trouble Morrison is in, it's his problem. He shouldn't be getting you involved."

  "Tony!"

/>   But Zeke spoke up. "For once I agree with Mr. Bertelli. I should never have come here."

  "No, you should have just collapsed on the street out there so O'Connell could shoot you again,” Rory cried. "And if neither you nor Tony have anything sensible to say, I wish you would both be quiet so I can think what to do."

  Tony lapsed into a dour silence, but Zeke said, "If I only could make it back to Fifth Avenue, out of O'Connell's precinct. I have powerful friends that can help me get clear of this mess."

  "There's no way at all," Tony said, shaking his head. "My brother says the police are all over the streets. They'll probably start a building-to-building search soon."

  "Right. Then I shouldn't be found in here." He braced himself with his good arm, struggling to his feet. Rory placed one hand on his shoulder, gently restraining him.

  "No, stop, Zeke. Tony is wrong. There is a way, a very good way to get you out of here."

  She glanced back at Tony. The boy seemed to comprehend what she was thinking instantly, for he protested, “Oh, no. You just forget it, Rory. It's completely out of the question."

  But Rory caught Tony's arm, pulling him a distance away from the steps. They got into a heated discussion with much gesturing of hands, but Zeke could not hear one word. He leaned wearily against the step rail, feeling his mind going hazy again.

  What had he been thinking of, creeping into Rory's warehouse like this? If he had been more himself, he would never have done such a thing, never risked bringing the danger to her door. He had staggered in here almost out of a blind instinct, a wounded animal going to ground in the first familiar place. Now he would have given all his strength to be able to stagger out again.

  Rory rushed back to his side, Tony hard after her. Whatever she had been saying to the boy, he still looked unconvinced, but resigned.

  "Zeke, we have a plan," Rory said, but she was interrupted by a loud hammering on the warehouse door.

  The three of them froze, not moving, barely breathing. The knocking raged louder, a voice calling out in O'Connell's unmistakable brogue, "Open up in there. This is the police."