by Harlan Coben
I sat back and waited.
"He's here," Eric Wu said into his cell phone.
Larry Gandle looked out the van's tinted window. David Beck was indeed where he was supposed to be, dressed like a street punk. His face was covered with scrapes and flowering bruises.
Gandle shook his head. "How the hell did he pull it off?"
"Well," Eric Wu said in that singsong voice, "we can always ask him."
"We need this to go smoothly, Eric."
"Yes indeed."
"Is everybody in place?"
"Of course."
Gandle checked his watch. "She should be here any minute now."
Located between Sullivan and Thompson streets, Washington Square's most striking edifice was a high tower of washed-brown brick on the south side of the park. Most believed that the tower was still part of the Judson Memorial Church. It wasn't. For the past two decades, the tower held NYU student dorm rooms and offices. The top of the tower was easily accessible to anyone who looked as though she knew where she was going.
From up here, she could look down at the whole park. And when she did, she started to cry.
Beck had come. He wore the most bizarre disguise, but then again, the email had warned him that he might be followed. She could see him sitting on that bench, all alone, waiting, his right leg shaking up and down. His leg always did that when he was nervous.
"Ah, Beck..."
She could hear the pain, the bitter agony, in her own voice. She kept staring at him.
What had she done?
So stupid.
She forced herself to turn away. Her legs folded and she slid with her back against the wall until she reached the floor. Beck had come for her.
But so had they.
She was sure of it. She had spotted three of them, at the very least. Probably more. She had also spotted the B&T Paint van. She'd dialed the number on the van's sign, but it was out of service. She checked with directory assistance. There was no B&T Paint.
They'd found them. Despite all her precautions, they were here.
She closed her eyes. Stupid. So stupid. To think that she could pull this off. How could she have allowed it to happen? Yearning had clouded her judgment. She knew that now. Somehow, she had fooled herself into believing that she could turn a devastating catastrophe ' the two bodies being discovered near the lake ' into some sort of divine windfall.
Stupid.
She sat up and risked another look at Beck. Her heart plummeted like a stone down a well. He looked so alone down there, so small and fragile and helpless. Had Beck adjusted to her death? Probably. Had he fought through what happened and made a life for himself? Again probably. Had he recovered from the blow only to have her stupidity whack him over the head again?
Definitely.
The tears returned.
She took out the two airplane tickets. Preparation. That had always been the key to her survival. Prepare for every eventuality. That was why she had planned the meet here, at a public park she knew so well, where she would have this advantage. She hadn't admitted it to herself, but she'd known that this possibility ' no, this likelihood ' existed.
It was over.
The small opening, if there had ever been one, had been slammed shut.
Time to go. By herself. And this time for good.
She wondered how he'd react to her not showing up. Would he keep scouring his computer for emails that would never come? Would he search the faces of strangers and imagine he saw hers? Would he just forget and go on ' and, when she really mined her true feelings, did she want him to?
No matter. Survival first. His anyway. She had no choice. She had to go.
With great effort, she tore her gaze away and hurried down the stairs. There was a back exit that led out to West Third Street, so she'd never even had to enter the park. She pushed the heavy metal door and stepped outside. Down Sullivan Street, she found a taxi on the corner of Bleecker.
She leaned back and closed her eyes.
"Where to?" the driver asked.
"JFK Airport," she said.
Chapter 30
Too much time passed.
I stayed on the bench and waited. In the distance I could see the park's famed marble arch. Stanford White, the famous turn of-the-century architect who murdered a man in a jealous fit over a fifteen-year-old girl, had purportedly "designed" it. I didn't get that. How do you design something that is a replica of someone else's work? The fact that the Washington Arch was a direct rip-off of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris was no secret. New Yorkers got excited over what was in effect a facsimile. I had no idea why.
You couldn't touch the arch anymore. A chain-link fence, not unlike the ones I'd just seen in the South Bronx, encircled it so as to discourage "graffiti artists." The park was big on fences. Almost all grassy areas were lined with loose fencing ' double fencing in most places.
Where was she?
Pigeons waddled with the type of possessiveness usually associated with politicians. Many flocked in my direction. They pecked my sneakers and then looked up as though disappointed they weren't edible.
"Ty usually sits there."
The voice came from a homeless guy wearing a pinwheel hat and Spock ears. He sat across from me.
"Oh," I said.
"Ty feeds them. They like Ty."
"Oh," I said again.
"That's why they're all over you like that. They don't like you or nothing. They think maybe you're Ty. Or a friend of Ty's."
"Uh-huh."
I checked my watch. I had been sitting here the better part of two hours. She wasn't coming. Something had gone wrong. Again I wondered if it had all been a hoax, but I quickly pushed it away. Better to continue assuming that the messages were from Elizabeth. If it's all a hoax, well, I'd learn that eventually.
No matter what, I love you....
That was what the message said. No matter what. As though something might go wrong. As though something could happen. As though I should just forget about it and go on.
To hell with that.
It felt strange. Yes, I was crushed. The police were after me. I was exhausted and beaten up and near the edge sanity-wise. And yet I felt stronger than I had in years. I didn't know why. But I knew I was not going to let it go. Only Elizabeth knew all those things ' kiss time, the Bat Lady, the Teenage Sex Poodles. Ergo, it was Elizabeth who had sent the emails. Or someone who was making Elizabeth send them. Either way, she was alive. I had to pursue this. There was no other way.
So, what next?
I took out my new cell phone. I rubbed my chin for a minute and then came up with an idea. I pressed in the digits. A man sitting across the way ' he'd been reading a newspaper for a very long time there ' sneaked a glance at me. I didn't like that. Better safe than sorry. I stood and moved out of hearing distance.
Shauna answered the phone. "Hello?"
"Old man Teddy's phone," I said.
"Beck? What the hell'?"
"Three minutes."
I hung up. I figured that Shauna and Linda's phone would be tapped. The police would be able to hear every word we said. But one floor below them lived an old widower named Theodore Malone. Shauna and Linda looked in on him from time to time. They had a key to his apartment. I'd call there. The feds or cops or whoever wouldn't have a tap on that phone. Not in time anyway.
I pressed the number.
Shauna sounded out of breath. "Hello?"
"I need your help."
"Do you have any idea what's going on?"
"I assume there's a massive manhunt for me." I still felt oddly calm ' in the eye, I guess.
"Beck, you have to turn yourself in."
"I didn't kill anyone."
"I know that, but if you stay out there'"
"Do you want to help me or not?" I interrupted.
"Tell me," she said.
"Have they established a time for the murder yet?"
"Around midnight. Their timetable is a little tight, but they fi
gure you took off right after I left."
"Okay," I said. "I need you to do something for me."
"Name it."
"First off, you have to pick up Chloe."
"Your dog?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"For one thing," I said, "she needs a walk."
Eric Wu spoke on his cell phone. "He's on the phone, but my man can't get close enough."
"Did he make your guy?"
"Possibly."
"Maybe he's calling off the meet then."
Wu did not reply. He watched as Dr. Beck pocketed his cell phone and started crossing through the park.
"We have a problem," Wu said.
"What?"
"It appears as though he's leaving the park."
There was silence on the other end of the line. Wu waited.
"We lost him before," Gandle said.
Wu did not reply.
"We can't risk it, Eric. Grab him. Grab him now, find out what he knows, and end it."
Eric nodded a signal in the direction of the van. He started walking
toward Beck. "Done."
I headed past the park's statue of Garibaldi unsheathing his sword. Strangely enough, I had a destination in mind. Forget visiting KillRoy, that was out for now. But the PF from Elizabeth's diary, aka Peter Flannery, ambulance-chaser-at-law, was another matter. I could still get to his office and have a chat with him. I had no idea what I would learn. But I'd be doing something. That would be a start.
A playground was nestled up on my right, but there were fewer than a dozen children in there. On my left, "George's Dog Park," a glorified doggy run, was chock-full of bandanna-clad canines and their parental alternatives. On the park's stage, two men juggled. I walked past a group of poncho-sheathed students sitting in a semicircle. A dyed-blond Asian man built like the Thing from the Fantastic Four glided to my right. I glanced behind me. The man who'd been reading the newspaper was gone.
I wondered about that.
He had been there almost the whole time I was. Now, after several hours, he decided to leave at the exact time I did. Coincidence? Probably.
You'll be followed....
That was what the email had said. It didn't say maybe. It seemed, in hindsight, pretty sure of itself. I kept walking and thought about it a little more. No way. The best tail in the world wouldn't have stuck with me after what I'd just been through today.
The guy with the newspaper couldn't have been following me. At least, I couldn't imagine it.
Could they have intercepted the email?
I couldn't see how. I'd erased it. It had never even been on my own computer.
I crossed Washington Square West. When I reached the curb, I felt a hand on my shoulder. Gentle at first. Like an old friend sneaking up behind me. I turned and had enough time to see it was the Asian guy with the dyed hair.
Then he squeezed my shoulder.
Chapter 31
His fingers bore into the joint's crevice like spearheads.
Pain ' crippling pain ' slashed down my left side. My legs gave out. I tried to scream or fight, but I couldn't move. A white van swung up next to us. The side door slid open. The Asian guy moved his hand onto my neck. He squeezed the pressure points on either side, and my eyes started rolling back. With his other hand, he toyed with my spine and I bent forward. I felt myself folding up.
He shoved me toward the van. Hands reached from inside the back and dragged me in. I landed on the cool metal floor. No seats in here. The door closed. The van pulled back into the traffic.
The whole episode ' from the hand touching my shoulder to the van starting up ' took maybe five seconds.
The Glock, I thought.
I tried to reach for it, but someone leapt on my back. My hands were pinned down. I heard a snap, and my right arm was cuffed at the wrist to the floorboard. They flipped me over, nearly ripping my shoulder out of the socket. Two of them. I could see them now. Two men, both white, maybe thirty years old. I could see them clearly. Too clearly. I could identify them. They would have to know that.
This wasn't good.
They cuffed my other hand so I was spread-eagle on the floorboard. Then they sat on my legs. I was chained down now and totally exposed.
"What do you want?" I asked.
No one answered. The van pulled to a quick stop around the corner. The big Asian guy slid in, and the van started up again. He bent down, gazing at me with what looked like mild curiosity.
"Why were you at the park?" he asked me.
His voice threw me. I had expected something growling or menacing, but his tone was gentle, high-pitched, and creepily childlike.
"Who are you?" I asked.
He slammed his fist in my gut. He punched me so hard, I was sure his knuckles scraped the van floor. I tried to bend or crumple into a ball, but the restraints and the men sitting on my legs made that impossible. Air. All I wanted was air. I thought that I might throw up.
You'll be followed....
All the precautions ' the unsigned emails, the code words, the warnings ' they all made sense now. Elizabeth was afraid. I didn't have all the answers yet ' hell, I barely had any of them ' but I finally understood that her cryptic communications were a result of fear. Fear of being found.
Found by these guys.
I was suffocating. Every cell in my body craved oxygen. Finally, the Asian nodded at the other two men. They got off my legs. I snapped my knees toward my chest. I tried to gather some air, thrashing around like an epileptic. After a while, my breath came back. The Asian man slowly kneeled closer to me. I kept my eyes steady on his. Or, at least, I tried to. It wasn't like staring into the eyes of a fellow human being or even an animal. These were the eyes of something inanimate. If you could look into the eyes of a file cabinet, this would be what it felt like.
But I did not blink.
He was young too, my captor ' no more than twenty, twenty five tops. He put his hand on the inside of my arm, right above the elbow. "Why were you in the park?" he asked again in his singsong way.
"I like the park," I said.
He pressed down hard. With just two fingers. I gasped. The fingers knifed through my flesh and into a bundle of nerves. My eyes started to bulge. I had never known pain like this. It shut down everything. I flailed like a dying fish on the end of a hook. I tried to kick, but my legs landed like rubber bands. I couldn't breathe.
He wouldn't let go.
I kept expecting him to release the grip or let up a bit. He didn't. I started making small whimpering sounds. But he held on, his expression one of boredom.
The van kept going. I tried to ride out the pain, to break it down into intervals or something. But that didn't work. I needed relief. Just for a second. I needed him to let go. But he remained stone like He kept looking at me with those empty eyes. The pressure built in my head. I couldn't speak ' even if I wanted to tell him what he wanted to know, my throat had shut down. And he knew that.
Escape the pain. That was all I could think about. How could I escape the pain? My entire being seemed to focus and converge on that nerve bundle in my arm. My body felt on fire, the pressure in my skull building.
With my head seconds from exploding, he suddenly released his grip. I gasped again, this time in relief. But it was shortlived. His hand began to snake down to my lower abdomen and stopped.
"Why were you in the park?"
I tried to think, to conjure up a decent lie. But he didn't give me time. He pinched deeply, and the pain was back, somehow worse than before. His finger pierced my liver like a bayonet. I started bucking against the restraints. My mouth opened in a silent scream.
I whipped my head back and forth. And there, in mid-whip, I saw the back of the driver's head. The van had stopped, probably for a traffic light. The driver was looking straight ahead ' at the road, I guess. Then everything happened very fast.
I saw the driver's head swivel toward his door window as though he'd heard a noise. But he was too late. Som
ething hit him in the side of the skull. He went down like a shooting gallery mallard. The van's front doors opened.
"Hands up now!"
Guns appeared. Two of them. Aimed in the back. The Asian guy let go. I flopped back, unable to move.
Behind the guns I saw two familiar faces, and I almost cried out in joy.
Tyrese and Brutus.
One of the white guys made a move. Tyrese casually fired his weapon. The man's chest exploded. He fell back with his eyes open. Dead. No doubt about that. In the front, the driver groaned, starting to come to. Brutus elbowed him hard in the face. The driver went quiet again.
The other white guy had his hands up. My Asian tormenter never changed his expression. He looked on as though from a distance, and he didn't raise or lower his hands. Brutus took the driver's seat and shifted into gear. Tyrese kept his weapon pointed straight at the Asian guy.
"Uncuff him," Tyrese said.
The white guy looked at the Asian. The Asian nodded his consent. The white guy uncuffed me. I tried to sit up. It felt as if something inside me had shattered and the shards were digging into tissue.
"You okay?" Tyrese asked.
I managed a nod.
"You want me to waste them?" I turned to the still-breathing white guy. "Who hired you?"
The white guy slid his eyes toward the young Asian. I did the same.
"Who hired you?" I asked him.
The Asian finally smiled, but it didn't change his eyes. And then, once again, everything happened too fast.
I never saw his hand shoot out, but next thing I knew the Asian guy had me by the scruff of my neck. He hurled me effortlessly at Tyrese. I was actually airborne, my legs kicking out as though that might slow me down. Tyrese saw me coming, but he couldn't duck out of the way. I landed on him. I tried to roll off quickly, but by the time we righted ourselves, the Asian had gotten out via the van's side door.
He was gone.
"Fucking Bruce Lee on steroids," Tyrese said.
I nodded.
The driver was stirring again. Brutus prepared a fist, but Tyrese shook him off. "These two won't know dick," he said to me.
"I know."
"We can kill them or let them go." Like it was no big deal either way, a coin toss.
"Let them go," I said.