Desperate Measures

by David Morrell

  ,'Come on." He tugged at Jill's sleeve and moved quickly along the

  hallway, through the door, and outside into the shadowy bottom of an air

  shaft. Garbage cans lined its walls.

  "It's a dead end!"

  "I tried to tell you." Jill turned to run back into her apartment

  building. "There's nowhere to-,'

  "What about that?" Pittman pointed toward a door directly across from

  him. He rushed over to it, twisted its knob, and groaned When he found

  that it was locked. Doing his best to control his shaky hands, he

  pulled out his tool knife and used the lock picks, exhaling with relief

  when he shoved the door open. It led into a hallway in the apartment

  building behind Jill's.

  The moment he and Jill were inside, he shut the door and turned the knob

  on the dead bolt. By the time the police got it open, he and Jill would

  be out of the area. As they hurried onto Eighty-sixth Street, Pittman

  imagined the police cars arriving at Jill's apartment building on

  Eighty-fifth Street.

  Two blocks to the east was an entrance to Central Park.

  Jill's casual clothes-sneakers, jeans, and a sweater-made it easy for

  her to run. She clutched her purse close to her side.

  At the hospital, Pittman had sensed from her comfortable, graceful

  movements that she was an athlete, and now her long legs stretched in an

  easy runner's rhythm, proving that he'd been right.

  They slowed briefly to avoid attracting attention, then in creased speed

  again after they entered Central Park, racing east beyond the children's

  playground, then south past grown ups playing baseball on the Great

  Lawn. Finally, below the Delacorte Theater, Belvedere Lake, and

  Belvedere Castle, they chose one of the many small trails that led

  through the trees in the section of the park known as The Ramble.

  It was almost two in the afternoon. The sun continued to be strong for

  April, and sweat beaded Pittman's forehead as well as made his shirt

  cling to his chest while he and Jill Founded a deserted section of

  boulders and gradually came to a stop.

  In the distance, there were other sirens. leaning against a tree whose

  branches were green with budding leaves, Pittman tried to catch his

  breath. "I ... I don't think we were followed. "

  "No. This is all wrong."

  "What?"

  Jill's expression was stark. "I'm having second thoughts about this. I

  shouldn't be here. At my apartment, I was scared. "

  "And you're not scared now?" Pittman asked in dismay.

  "Those men breaking in... When you shot one of them ... I've never

  seen anybody... The way you were talking ...You confused me. I think I

  should have waited for the police to come." Jill drew her fingers

  through her long blond hair. "You should have waited. The police can

  help you."

  "They'd put me in jail. I'd never get out alive."

  "Have you any idea how paranoid you sound?"

  "And apparently you think it's normal for gunmen to break into your

  apartment. I'm not being paranoid. I'm being practical. Since

  Thursday night, everywhere I've gone, people have been trying to kill

  me. I'm not about to let the police put me in a cell, where I'll be an

  easy target."

  "But the police will think I'm involved in this."

  "You are involved. Those men would have killed you. You can't depend

  on the police to keep you safe from them. Jill shook her head in

  bewilderment.

  "Listen to me," Pittman said. "I'm trying to save your life. "

  "My life wouldn't have needed to be saved if you hadn't come to my

  apartment."

  The remark made Pittman flinch, as if he'd been slapped. Although he

  heard children laughing on another trail, the trail he was on was

  suddenly very silent.

  "You're right," he said. "I made a mistake."

  "I shouldn't have said that. i'm sorry."

  Pittman nodded. "I am, too." He walked away. hanging over his left

  arm was his overcoat, heavy with his .45 and One of the gunmen's pistols

  with ammunition magazines from the others in his pockets.

  "Hey, where are you going?" Pittman didn't answer.

  "Wait.

  But Pittman didn't.

  "Wait." Jill caught up to him. "I said I was sorry."

  "Everything you said was true. The odds are that those men would have

  left you alone if I hadn't shown up. For certain, Father Dandridge

  would still be alive if I hadn't gone to see him. Millgate might still

  be alive, and my friend Burt would be alive, and

  I NO- Pay attention to me." Jill grabbed his shoulders and turned him.

  "None of this is your fault. I apologize for blaming you for what

  happened at my apartment. You meant no harm. You only came there

  because You needed help."

  Pittman suddenly heard voices, rapid footsteps, what sounded like

  runners on the trail ahead. He stepped to the side, among bushes, his

  hand on the pistol in his overcoat pocket. Jill crowded next to him.

  Three joggers-two young men and a slender woman, all wearing brightly

  colored spandex outfits-hurried past, Mumbling to one another.

  Then the trail was quiet again.

  "You'd be safer if you didn't stay with me," Pittman said. "Maybe

  you're right. Phone the police. Tell them I forced You to go with me.

  Tell them you're afraid to show yourself because you think the men who

  broke into your apartment have friends who'll come after you. YOU might

  even tell them I'm innocent, not that they'l believe you."

  "No.

  ,you won't tell them I'm innocent?"

  "I won't tell them anything. The more I think about it' the more I have

  to agree with you. The police would question me and let me go. But I'd

  still be in danger. Or Maybe I could convince them to Put me in

  protective custody. But for how long? Eventually I'd be on my own, in

  danger again."

  "Then what are you going to do?"

  "Stay with you."

  "Me?"

  "Tell me how I can help." The bank Jill used, Citibank, had a branch

  south of Central Park, at Fifty-first and Fifth Avenue. As usual on a

  Sunday afternoon, the avenue wasn't busy. Making sure that passersby

  didn't overhear him, Pittman explained how the police had arranged for

  his bank's automated teller machine to seize his card. "But they

  haven't had time to do anything about your card. What's the maximum the

  bank allows you to take out?"

  "I'm not sure. It could be as much as a thousand dollars."

  "That much?" Pittman shook his head. "Not that it does us any good. I

  doubt you've got it in your account."

  Jill assumed an odd expression. "I might have."

  "Well, I know it's a lot, but this is an emergency. Please, get as much

  as you can.

  They entered the bank's vestibule. Jill shoved her card into the

  machine and responded to the computer screen's inquiries, pressing

  buttons. A minute and a half later, she was stuffing a wad of twenties

  and tens into her purse.

  "Don't forget your card," Pittman said. "And here's your transaction

  printout.

  He glanced down, wondering what information might be on it that someone

  coul
d use if the printout had been left behind. The printout indicated

  the remaining funds ill the account, and Pittman abruptly understood the

  odd expression on Jill's face when he asked her about the size of her

  account.

  "Eighty-seven thousand dollars and forty-three cents?"

  Jill looked uncomfortable.

  "You've got a fortune in this account."

  "That printout is confidential." Her blue eyes flashed. "I couldn't

  help looking," Pittman said.

  "Surely it occurred to you that I couldn't be living in a large Upper

  West Side apartment on a nurse's salary."

  Pittman didn't answer.

  "You mean you had no idea I had money?"

  "No. How did-?"

  "My grandparents. A trust fund. Some bonds just came due. I'm

  deciding how to reinvest. That's why there's so much money in the

  account."

  Pittman studied her with wonder.

  "Is this going to be a problem?"

  "Hell no. If you've got that much money, how about treating a starving

  man to a decent meal?"

  The restaurant-on East Seventy-ninth Street-was small and unassuming: a

  linoleum floor, plain booths, red plastic tablecloths. But the veal

  scallopini, which Pittman recommended, was excellent, and the modestly

  priced house Burgundy was delicious.

  A few tables had been set out on the sidewalk, and Pittman sat in the

  sunlight with Jill, enjoying the last of his salad.

  "that's your second helping," Jill said. "I didn't think you'd ever get

  full."

  "I told You I was hungry. This is the first decent meal I've had in

  quite a while. Mostly I've been eating on the run. You didn't like the

  food?"

  "It's wonderful. But the restaurant doesn't exactly announce itself.

  How on earth did you ever find this place?"

  Pittman bit into the final piece of garlic bread. "I used to live

  around here." The memory made him solemn. I was married."

  "When "Past tense?" Jill set down her wineglass. "Grief and connubial

  bliss don't seem to go together."

  "Now I guess I'm the one who's snooping."

  "There isn't much to tell. MY wife was stronger than I was. That

  doesn't mean she loved Jeremy less, but after he died, I fell apart.

  Ellen didn't. I think she was afraid I was going to be like that for

  the rest of my life. She'd lost her son, and now she was losing ... I

  scared her. One thing led to another. She divorced me. She's married

  again Jill almost touched his hand. "I'm sorry."

  Pittman cried. "She was smart to get out. I was going to be like that

  for the rest of my life. Last Wednesday night, I had a gun in my hand,

  ready to ... And then the phone rang, and the next thing - - ."

  Jill's eyes widened with concern. "You mean the newspapers weren't

  exaggerating? You have been feeling suicidal impulses?"

  "That's a polite way to Put it."

  Jill's brow furrowed with greater concern.

  ," hope you're not going to try to be an amateur psychoanalyst," Pittman

  said. "I've heard all the arguments- 'Killing yourself won't bring

  Jeremy back.' No shit, But it'll certainly end the pain. And here's

  another old favorite: If I kill myself, I'll be wasting the life that

  Jeremy would have given anything to have. The trouble is, killing

  myself wouldn't be a waste. My life isn't worth anything. I know I've

  idealized Jeremy. I know that after his death I've made him smarter and

  more talented and funnier than he actually was. But Jeremy was smart

  and talented and funny. I haven't idealized him by much. A straight-A

  student. A sense of humor that never failed to amaze me. He had a

  droll way of seeing things. He .Could make me laugh anytime he wanted.

  And he was only fifteen. The world would have been his . Instead, he

  got cancer, and no matter how hard the doctors and he fought it, he

  died. Some gang member with a handgun is holding up a liquor store

  right now. That scum is alive, and my son is dead. I can't stand

  living in a world where everything is out of balance that much. I can't

  stand living in a world where everything I see is something Jeremy will

  never see. I can't stand remembering the pain on Jeremy's face as the

  cancer tortured him more and more each day. I can't stand ... "

  Pittman's voice trailed off. He realized that he'd been speaking faster

  and louder, that some of the customers in the restaurant were looking at

  him with concern, that Jill had leaned back as if overwhelmed by his

  emotion, Spreading his hands, he mutely apologized.

  "No I" Jill said. "I won't try to be an amateur psychoanalyst."

  "Sometimes everything builds up inside me. I say more than I mean to."

  "I understand."

  "You're very kind . But you didn't need me to dump on you."

  "It's not a question of being kind, and you obviously needed to get it

  out of you. "It's not, though."

  "What?"

  "Out of me. I think - Pittman glanced down at the table. "I think we'd

  better change the subject.

  Jill folded her napkin, neatly arranging the edges. "All right, then.

  Tell me about what happened Thursday night, how you got into this."

  "Yes," Pittman said, his anger changing to confusion. "And the rest of

  it."

  It took an hour. This time Pittman spoke discreetly, keeping his. voice

  low, pausing when anyone walked by. The converSation continued after

  Jill paid the waiter and Pittman strolled with her along Seventy-ninth

  Street.

  "A nightmare."

  "But I swear to God it's all true," Pittman said.

  "There's got to be a way to make sense of it."

  "Hey, I've been trying my damnedest."

  "Maybe you're too close. Maybe you need someone else to see it from a

  different angle. Let's think this through," Jill said. "We know

  Millgate's associates took him from the hospital because a reporter got

  his hands on a secret Justice Department report that implicated Millgate

  in a covert attempt to buy nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union.

  Millgate's people were afraid of reporters showing up at the hospital

  and managing to question him."

  "They were also afraid of Father Dandridge," Pittman said. "More so.

  Millgate's people were afraid of something Millgate had told Father

  Dandridge in confession. Or of something Millgate might have told

  Father Dandridge if the priest had been able to see him Thursday night."

  "Then you followed Millgate to the estate in Scarsdale. You got into

  his room to help him, but the nurse came in unexpectedly and saw you

  doing it."

  "She also heard Millgate tell me something. Duncan. Something about

  snow. Then Grollier." Pittman shook his head. "But Father Dandridge

  told me that Grollier wasn't anyone's last name. It was the prep school

  Millgate went to."

  "Why would that be important enough to kill anybody?" They reached

  Fifth Avenue, and Pittman faltered. "What's the matter?" Jill asked.

  Pittman stared to the right toward a crowd going up and down the steps

  of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vendors, buses, and taxis

  contributed to the congestion in front. Several policemen on horseback

  maintained order
.

  "I guess," Pittman said, "I feel exposed." He glanced down at the

  weapon-laden overcoat draped over his left arm and guided her back along

  Seventy-ninth Street. "I want to find out about Grollier prep school."

  "How are you going to do that? The only place I can think Of with that

  information is the library. Or someone at a college. But it's Sunday.

  All those places are closed."

  "No, there might be another way.

  The freshly sandblasted apartment building at the end of East

  Eighty-second Street overlooked Roosevelt Drive and the East River.

  Pittman could hear the din of traffic from the thruway below as he and

  Jill entered the shadows of the cul-de-sac known as Gracie Terrace. The

  time was almost five in the afternoon. The temperature was rapidly

  cooling.

  Jill peered up at the attractive, tall brick building. "You know

  someone who lives here?"

  "Someone I interviewed once," Pittman said. "When this started and I

  was trying to figure out how to get help, I realized that over the years

  I'd interviewed people with all sorts of specialties that might be of