Desperate Measures
Page 14
chain from his pocket and held up the tool knife. "About this." The
bartender watched Pittman remove the lock-pick tools from the end of the
knife.
The bartender relaxed. "You've got one of those, too?"
He answered and pulled out a set of keys, showing his own knife. "Sean
only gave these to guys he likes. Yeah, Sean stays here. In a room
upstairs. At night, he subs for me."
"But is he around?"
"Ought to be waking up around now. He sure was drunk last night."
A half dozen people came into the restaurant.
"Looks like we're getting busy" The bartender poured. tomato juice into
a glass, added Tabasco sauce, and dropped in a raw egg. "Stairs dmugh
the door in back. Second floor. The room at the end of the hall He'll
be needing this.
In a musty upstairs hallway that smelled of cabbage, Pittman knocked on
the door. When he didn't get an answer, he knocked again. This time,
he heard a groan. His third knock caused a louder groan. He tried the
door. It wasn't locked. Pushing it open, he found a sparse room with
its shades closed, its lights off, and Sean O'Reilly sprawled on the
floor.
"The light, the light," Sean groaned.
Pittman thought that the dim light from the hallway must be hurting
Sean's eyes. He quickly shut the door. In darkness, he listened to
Sean keep moaning, "The light, the light."
"There isn't any," Pittman said.
"I've gone blind. Can't see anything. The light, the light. "You mean
you want me to turn the lights on?"
"Blind. Gone blind."
Pittman groped along the wall, found a light switch, and flicked it. The
unshielded yellow light that dangled from the ceiling gleamed and made
Sean start thrashing while he pawed at his face.
He wailed, "Blind. You're trying to make me blind."
Oh, for God's sake, Pittman thought. He knelt and pulled one of Sean's
hands away from his face, exposing his left eye, which was very
bloodshot. "Here. Drink this."
"What?"
"Something the bartender sent up."
Sean clutched the glass and took several swallows, then suddenly made a
gagging sound. "What is it? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, there's no vodka
in this."
"Sit up. Drink more of this." After a struggle, Pittman managed to
make Sean empty the glass.
Sean squirmed so that his back was against the side of the bed and
scowled. His short stature still reminded Pittman of a jockey. He was
as thin as ever. But alcohol had aged him, putting gray in his hair and
ravaging his face. "Who are you?"
"A friend."
"Can't remember."
"That's because you need something to eat."
"Couldn't keep it down."
Pittman picked up the phone. "Order something, anyhow.
The corned-beef sandwich and dill pickle that the bartender carried up
were delicious. Pittman tried to savor them, but his hunger couldn't be
controlled. He hadn't eaten anything since the orange juice and Danish
this morning. Taking huge bites, he gulped the food down. His empty
plate depressed him. From the bed, Sean looked horrified at Pittman's
appetite. "I think I'm going to throw up."
When Sean came back, Pittman had finished the sandwich that the
bartender had carried up for Sean.
Sean sat on the bed, scowled at Pittman, and shook his head. "I still
don't remember."
"You gave me a crash course on how to break into houses. "Doesn't ring
a bell."
"You said I was a natural."
"Still doesn't ring a ... Wait a minute. Weren't you a reporter?"
Pittman nodded. "I gave you . Pittman held up the tool knife. "Sure,
that's who you are."
"But I've graduated," Pittman said. "What do you mean?"
Pittman reached inside his gym bag, took out a newspaper that he'd
bought on the way to the restaurant, and tossed it over to Sean. "The
story under that colorful headline. 'Suicidal Obit Writer on Killing
Rampage.' There's an 'alleged' in there someplace, but it doesn't feel
sincere."
With a frown, Sean read the article. From time to time, he paused,
looked at Pittman, deepened the furrows in his brow, and went back to
reading the story.
Finally he set down the newspaper. "It makes you sound very busy."
"Yeah, all that killing. It's almost more work than one man can
handle."
"Do I need to be afraid of you?"
"Let's put it this way. Have I done anything to hurt you so far?"
"Then you didn't do what the paper says?"
Pittman shook his head.
"Why did you come here?"
"Because of all the criminals I've met, you're the only one I trust."
"What do you want?"
The phone rang.
Sean picked it up. "Hello?" He listened intensely, then straightened
in alarm. "The police are coming up? Jesus, they must have found out
about the washing machines."
Pittman didn't understand what Sean was about.
Sean scrambled toward the window, jerked the curtains apart, yanked the
window up, and scurried out onto a fire escape.
Pittman heard heavy footsteps on the other side of the door. He lunged
to lock it.
Fists pounded on it. He grabbed his gym bag and darted toward the open
window. Banging his shoulder as he squirmed out onto the fire escape,
he cursed and stared below toward where he assumed Sean would be
scurrying down the metal stairs. Instead, what he saw were two
policemen who stared up, shouted, and pointed.
Footsteps clattered above him. Twisting, craning his neck, he saw Sean
rapidly climbing stairs toward the roof. Pittman got to his feet and
charged up after him.
"Stop!" he heard a policeman yell from the alley below.
Pittman kept racing upward.
"Stop!" the policeman yelled.
Pittman climbed harder.
,,STOP!"
They'll shoot, Pittman thought. But he didn't obey. He reached the
top, leapt over a guardrail, and scanned the rooftop for Sean. There!
The roofs of all the buildings on this block were connected, and Sean
was sprinting past ventilation pipes and skylights toward a door on a
roof near-the end of the block, his short legs moving in a blur. "Wait,
Sean!"
Pittman raced after him. Behind him, he heard shoes scraping on the
fire escape.
Sean reached the door, tugged at it, and cursed when he discovered it
was locked.
He was banging his shoulder against it, cursing again, when Pittman
caught up to him. "Damn it, I left my keys in my room. I don't have my
knife."
"Here." Breathing heavily, Pittman pulled out the knife Sean had given
him several years earlier.
With a smile, then a desperate look beyond Pittman toward two policemen
who had just climbed onto the roof, Sean yanked the lock-pick tools from
the knife, twisted and poked, freed the lock with astonishing speed, and
jerked the door open.
As a policeman yelled, Sean and Pittman darted through the doorway. At
once, in the dim light of a stairwell, Sean locked the door behind them.
> "The washing machines. They know about the washing machines," Sean
blurted to himself. "Who the hell told them about the washing
machines?" Fists pounded on the door. Sean raced down the stairs.
Pittman followed. "Who told them about the washing machines?", Sean
kept muttering. Or are they after me? Pittman wondered.
"Don't look behind you. Just keep walking toward the corner. They
rounded it. "So far so good," Sean said. He hailed a taxi.
"Don't let the driver think you're in a rush," he told Pittman.
They got in.
"Lower Broadway," Sean told the driver, then started humming.
"Here's your knife back."
"Thanks. I'm sorry I couldn't help pay for the taxi."
"Hey, I'm not in jail. That's payment enough."
They were in a loft on lower Broadway. The loft, which seemed to have
once been a warehouse, had almost no furnishings, and those were grouped
closely together in the middle of what felt like a cavern. Although
sparse, the furnishings were expensive-an Italian-made leather sofa, a
large Oriental rug, a brass coffee table and matching paint. Otherwise,
in the shadows beyond the pale light from the lamp, there were crates
stacked upon crates in every direction.
Sean slumped on the sofa and sipped from a Budweiser that he'd taken
from a refrigerator next to some of the crates. "What is this place?"
Pittman asked. , "A little hideaway of mine. You still haven't told me
what you want. "Help."
"How?"
"I've never been on the run before."
"You're telling me you want advice?"
"Last night I slept in a park. It's been two days since I
I've been scrounging food. I can see how criminals run get caught. They
finally just get worn down."
Then I take it you were smart enough not to try to get in touch with
your family and friends."
"My only excuse for a family is my ex-wife, and I wouldn't ask her for
anything," Pittman said. "As for my friends, well, I have to assume the
police will be watching them in case I show up."
So you came to me."
'I kept asking myself who I knew to get help from but who the police
wouldn't know about. Then it occurred to me-all the people I
interviewed over the years. Some of them have the kind of expertise I
need, and the police would never think I'd go to them."
Sean nodded in approval of Pittman's reasoning. "But I don't know what
advice I can give you. There's a bathroom and a shower in back. You
can spend the night here. For sure, I am. Other than that .
"There has to be something you can tell me."
"If they catch you, you've already got a brilliant defense.
"Oh? What's that?"
"Insanity," Sean said.
"What?"
"All that business about your being suicidal. I assume that's another
exaggeration. Pittman didn't respond. "You mean it's true?" Sean
asked in surprise. Pittman stared at his Coke can. "Your son died,"
Sean said, "and you fell apart."
"That's right."
"My sister died when I was twenty-five. She was a year younger than me.
Car accident," Sean said. "And?"
"I nearly drank myself to death. God, I loved her."
"Then you understand," Pittman said.
"Yes. But it's a little different now, isn't it?"
"How do you mean?"
"When you're tired and hungry and scared."
"I feel like I'm being selfish. My son was wonderful. And here I'm
thinking about myself."
"I don't presume to tell you how to grieve. But I will tell you
this-you can't go wrong if you do what your son would have wanted you to
do. And right now, he'd have been telling you to look out for your
ass."
The shower was primitive, just a nozzle over a plastic stall with a
drain in the concrete floor. There wasn't any soap shampoo, or a towel.
Pittman was pleased that he'd had the foresight to put a toilet kit in
his gym bag. He found two steel chairs that he put near the shower's
entrance, draping his sport coat over one, his slacks over the other.
There wasn't any door to the shower, and after he came out to dry off
with his dirty shirt, he discovered that, as he had hoped, the steatn
from the shower had taken some of the wrinkles out of his jacket and
pants. He put on fresh underwear and socks, decided to save his
remaining clean clothes by putting on black cotton sweat suit, and
returned to Sean among the crates.
Sean had opened a cabinet, revealing a television, and was watching CNN.
"They sure like you."
Yeah, pretty soon I'll have my own series."
'Well," Sean said, opening another beer. "From the newspaper and now
this, I have a pretty good idea of their side. What's yours?" He put
his feet on the coffee table. For the second time that day, Pittman
explained.
Sean listened intently, on occasion asked a question, and tapped his
fingers together when Pittman finished. "Congratulations.
"I've been a thief since I was twelve. I've spent half my life in
prison. I've had to go underground times because of a misunderstanding
with the mob. I've been married to four women, two of them
simultaneously. But I have never ever had the distinction of being in
as much trouble as you are. And all this happened since two nights
ago?"
.'Yes."
"Worthy of the Guinness Book of World Records."
"At least you're amused. I can see I made a mistake coming to YOU."
"Not so fast. Who sent the gunman to your apartment?"
"I have no idea."
"Why would someone want to make it seem that you killed Millgate?"
"I have no
"Damn it, don't you think you'd better start having some ideas? As near
as I can tell, from the moment you killed that man in your apartment-"
"Accidentally. "
"I'm sure that makes a difference to him.... Ever since then, you've
been running."
"What else was I supposed to do?"
"You wasted time going to that computer expert. Why was it a waste of
time? Because your only purpose was to find a way to get in touch with
me. Why? Because you want advice on how to keep running. Sorry."
"In the first place, you don't need that kind of advice. You've been
doing damned well on your own. In the second place, if all you do is
keep running, the only thing you'll accomplish is to get tired. Then
you'll make a mistake, and they'll grab you.
'But there's no alternative."
'Isn't there? Reverse direction. Hunt instead of being hunnted. God
knows, you've got plenty of targets."
"Hunt? That's easy enough for you to say."' "Well, I didn't expect you
to leap for joy at my advice. From what you've told me, it seems to me
that you've been running away since your son died. Running from
everything.
The suggestion that Pittman was a coward made his face become hot with
anger. He wanted to get his hands on Sean and punch the shit out of
him.
"Touched a nerve, did I?"
Pittman inhaled, straining to calm himself.
"guess you don't like the advice I'm giving you," Sean said. "But it's
&nbs
p; the only advice I've got. I'm an expert. I've been running from things
all my life. Do what I say, not what I do."
Pittman stared, then parted his lips in a bitter smile.
"What's funny?" Sean asked.
"All this talk about running. For twenty years, I ran every day. All
that time. Where was I going?"
,.To the finish line, pal. And if you're still thinking about killing
yourself, if I were you I'd want to go out a winner, not a loser. You
can destroy yourself-that's your business. But don't let the bastards
do it for you."
Pittman felt his face get hot again. But this time it wasn't because he
was angry at Sean. Instead, his fury was directed elsewhere. "Bastards.
Yes."
For a moment, he didn't move or speak, didn't breathe. His powerful