Bones ik-7

by Jan Burke

  “For the moment,” I agreed. “Listen, here comes the helicopter. Can you hear it?”

  “Yes,” he said with a sigh.

  I got up to turn the landing lights on; Leonard no longer locked that door.

  We had a pleasant visit with Travis and Stinger, who hadn’t seen much of Ben recently. As usual, though, they didn’t stay very long. With promises to get together soon, they took off again. “Travis is a fast learner,” Ben said.

  “Yes,” I said, and started to move back toward the door to the roof.

  “Hold on,” Ben said, “I haven’t forgotten that promise.”

  “I haven’t either,” I said. “I just want to be able to watch for Leonard, and for Jerry, the guy who comes up here to smoke. I don’t want to spill my guts for everybody on staff. I need to be able to see the door.”

  I could see that he was irritated, but he went along with it. Before long, he was dogging my heels. I’ll own up to sauntering. I was in no hurry to have this conversation.

  “Christ, Irene,” Ben said, passing me by. “I’m missing the last half of my left leg, and I’m going to reach that door first.”

  “Don’t give me that,” I said, “you’ve been working out. And I read that stuff you had about the Paralympics — someone wearing one of those Flex-Foot feet was within four seconds of beating one of Carl Lewis’s records.”

  “My upper-body strength is much better than before the surgery,” he admitted, “but I don’t run every day like you do. Besides, much as you might want me to leap tall buildings at a single, artificial bound, we don’t all get to be Super Amp, you know.”

  “Super Amp or not, you’re nowhere near your full potential, and you know it,” I said. “It hasn’t been so long, you know.”

  “I know,” he said, and stopped. He made a little gentlemanly bow when I caught up to him, and said, “After you. Delay all you like. It will not work.”

  I reached a corner and stopped. “Okay. I can see the door from here.”

  “Sure you don’t want to go and open it?” Ben asked. “Maybe the smoker is on the other side with a parabolic mike.”

  “Look,” I said, “you want to hear the unvarnished truth? I’m not anxious to relive that morning with Parrish. Sometimes I think if I ever see his face again . . .”

  I didn’t finish the sentence, because the door to the roof opened.

  “Shit,” Ben said. “I guess you were right about that nicotine fit.”

  But even with the blond hair, even from a distance, even in the darkness, I knew who had come out onto the roof.

  It wasn’t Jerry or Leonard.

  I pulled Ben back around the corner, nearly throwing him off balance.

  “What the—”

  I put my hand over his mouth. “Parrish!” I whispered. “Run!”

  He looked at me in panic and said, “Where?”

  Good question.

  58

  WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1:35 A.M.

  The Roof of the Wrigley Building

  “Back this way!” I whispered, and we quickly ran into the dark and narrow maze of rooftop structures, turning another corner, and another, then hiding behind the air conditioner.

  I hoped that Parrish would venture out to the more open end of the roof, so that we could get back to the door.

  We heard noises, but it was hard to tell where they were coming from.

  “We should split up,” Ben said. “There’s only one of him. He can’t chase both of us.”

  “Unless he brought his helper.” I saw a ladder on a nearby wall, one used for access to the flagpoles. “Wait here,” I said. I scurried over to the ladder, climbed up as far as I dared and cautiously peered down into the little alley we had just traveled. Past our alley, but not far away from its entrance, I saw a strange sight, one that took me a moment to comprehend: a single light moving slowly, bobbing several feet above the ground. Then I realized what it was — Parrish had a camper’s headlamp on, a flashlight that would allow him to keep his hands free for — for things I didn’t want to think about.

  I watched just long enough to determine one thing, then hurried back to Ben.

  “He’s alone, as far as I can tell. He’s bound to come down this alley any minute. But I don’t think we should split up until we have to.”

  “Okay,” he whispered.

  Then the cell phone rang, shrill and loud. It might as well have sent an electric shock through me.

  I swore and fumbled to answer it. It rang a second time and Ben took off running again. I could understand his desire to distance himself from a woman who was wearing a homing device for Parrish.

  “Whoever you are,” I said into the phone as I ran in the opposite direction, “call the police!”

  “Irene?” a man’s voice said. Familiar, but who was it?

  I turned a corner, heard footsteps. I ducked down another narrow alleyway and ran like hell. “Goddamn it, whoever you are, hang up and call the police. Tell them Nick Parrish is on the roof of the Express.”

  “This is Phil Newly, I’m—”

  “Shit!” I said, and hung up.

  Wonderful. Satan’s minion now knew where to find his boss.

  Parrish’s headlamp appeared at the other end of the alley.

  I turned another corner.

  Dead end.

  Okay, I thought, okay. Use the cell phone. Call 911, and even if you’re dead, maybe they’ll get here in time to save Ben.

  I called, wondering which police department I’d reach. But the call was routed to the Las Piernas Police.

  “Nick Parrish is on the rooftop of the Wrigley Building—”

  “Hey, Nicky, you Mama’s boy!” Ben called. “Come and get me!”

  “Oh, Jesus,” I said weakly. “On the rooftop of the Express. Send help!”

  I hung up again. I moved forward, not sure what I’d find. No sign of Parrish. No sign of Ben.

  I turned the phone on one more time, pressed the programmed button for “Stinger@FE.”

  I made the call as I continued my way back out of the dead-end alley. “Fremont Enterprises,” a sleepy voice answered.

  “Pappy?” I whispered.

  “Have to speak up,” he said.

  “Tell Travis and Stinger to come back to the roof,” I said and hung up, because I had just seen Ben run past the opening to the alley, and Parrish was not far behind.

  I ran until I reached the opening, turned in the direction they had gone, and shouted at the top of my lungs, “Nick Parrish, you little weasel, I can’t believe you fell for that dumb trick!”

  I heard a small thud, and a light came from behind me. I whirled to see him standing not three feet away from me, grinning. He was standing next to another ladder. He wore a gun in a shoulder holster. That wasn’t his weapon of choice, obviously — in his right hand, he was holding a knife with a long, thin blade.

  “I didn’t fall for any tricks,” he said, moving the knife in a lazy figure eight. “You, on the other hand, were stupid enough to run right past me without looking up.”

  I backed up a few steps.

  “You want to run?” he said, holding up the knife. “Of course you do. Especially now that I’ve killed your little crippled friend.”

  “You haven’t killed him,” I said, hoping I was right.

  “How do you know?”

  “No gunshot, no blood on you or your knife. As usual, you’re full of shit.”

  “I don’t think you’re so certain he’s alive. Call his name. See if he answers.”

  “You aren’t going to get me to be the one to help you find him.”

  “I’ll find him. He can’t move as fast you can.”

  “Shows what you know. I don’t think you can catch him.”

  “Oh, I can. Just as I caught his girlfriend, who completely lost her head over me. She was lovely. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to see his tears when he saw the Ice Dancer this morning.”

  “Wrong again, Nicky. He wasn’t upset at all. She w
as his ex, don’t forget. He really didn’t give a rat’s ass.”

  “Maybe that’s because he’s been boning you behind your husband’s back.”

  Don’t let him get to you, I told myself. Keep him distracted. Let Ben get away.

  “Something out of your fantasies, Nicky? Or were you just trying to upset me? You’ll have to do better. Of course, you don’t know anything about friendships or genuine relationships, do you? You can’t have sex with anyone unless you hold them at knifepoint, right? What woman in her right mind would want to get it on with you voluntarily?”

  He laughed and lifted the knife. “If I wasn’t going to enjoy your screams so much, I’d start by cutting out that tongue of yours. Maybe I’ll start there, anyway.”

  He lunged and I leapt back, instinctively putting my hands out in front of me. I still held the cell phone.

  “What?” He laughed. “You’ll call the police? They’ll never reach you in time. And you may rest assured that no one is coming up those stairs to the roof anytime soon. I’ve blocked the door to the stairwell, and even if they manage to push past that, I’ve secured the door to the roof from this side. A rather sturdy locking bar. Do you travel?”

  The question was so unexpected, I didn’t answer.

  “Every airline magazine advertises these little gems,” he said. “Something to supposedly keep you safe in your hotel room. This one is for industrial use. I’ve found it very handy on other occasions.”

  I tried to think of any other access to or from the roof. Only one side of the building adjoined any other buildings; a row of shops that were three stories tall.

  “I have the only key,” Parrish was saying. “You and Dr. Sheridan are my captives, you see. The locking bar won’t hold forever, but it will give me all the time I need.”

  “You don’t have as much time as you think you do,” I said.

  “Then let’s make the most of it. Remember our little game in the mountains? Start running, Irene.”

  I took two steps, pivoted toward him, and hurled the cell phone with all my might. The phone didn’t weigh much, but I hit the target, which was gleaming right at me and not more than ten feet away from me — his headlamp. He yelped and seemed stunned, which was fine by me. I took off running again without waiting to see if I had done any other damage.

  I might not have done so well in the mountains, I told myself, but here it would be different. No altitude, exhaustion, or dehydration to slow me down. I was wearing running shoes, not hiking boots. The surface was flat and relatively free of obstacles. On the downside, I was running in a cage.

  I thought of ducking into the room with the light panel for the landing pad, but I decided I’d be better off knowing where he was, and remaining free to move. One dark row of rooftop structures led to another, and every time I turned a corner, I was afraid I’d meet up with him.

  Where was Ben?

  I heard a helicopter approaching, then the sound of sirens wailing.

  Suddenly it dawned on me that if Travis and Stinger landed again, they’d be in danger of being shot — or shot down by Parrish. Now I really needed to know where he was, and to warn them away. Where could I make sure they could see me, though, and not make a bull’s-eye out of myself?

  I headed for the flagpoles.

  I climbed the ladder cautiously, but quickly, afraid I’d meet Parrish at the top or have him come at me from below.

  To my relief, there was no one else up on this highest of the structures. I was about another twenty or thirty feet above the roof. I heard a sound below me, and saw that Ben was coming this way.

  I took my eyes off Ben’s progress when I saw the helicopter coming closer. Not knowing the official signals to get a helicopter to turn away, I made the universal shooing motion with my arms extended over my head, shook my head no and made a double thumbs-down motion. I even tried to pantomime a gun being shot at them. Some part of this bad mime show must have gotten through to them, though, because they pulled away, hovering higher, and to one side of the building. They didn’t completely leave the area, though, and I was afraid Parrish still might shoot them.

  I saw Ben’s head at the top of the ladder and hurried over to him. “Get away!” he suddenly shouted, and seemed to lose his footing. He was grasping the top of the ladder, bent over the ledge at the waist, apparently straining to pull himself up.

  I ignored his warning and ran closer. I peered over the edge and saw that Parrish, coming up the ladder behind him, had yanked Ben’s right leg from the ladder and was trying to pull him off.

  Parrish was not far from me, but now he had hold of both of Ben’s legs with his right arm. His left hand grasped the ladder railing. He began trying to twist Ben off the ladder. I bent over the edge, holding the ladder rail and keeping most of my weight on the ledge. I grabbed Ben’s belt, trying to counteract Parrish’s twisting motion. The blood was rushing to my head, but with our combined resistance, Parrish wasn’t making any progress.

  Parrish moved up another rung, so that his face was inches away from mine.

  “Now I have both of you. One hard tug, and over you go. Not bad for a panty rustler, eh?” He lurched up and licked my face.

  I let go of Ben’s belt and punched Nick Parrish hard in the nose. It started bleeding like crazy, and for a moment, he loosened his grip on Ben. Ben found a ladder rung with his right leg, while Parrish screamed at me in rage. I took advantage of what I hoped was a moment of near blindness for Parrish and reached for his gun in the shoulder holster. Now he did let go of Ben with his right hand, but not fast enough. I cleared the gun from the holster. He grasped my wrist hard, though, and I let the gun fall to the rooftop below.

  He started to try to pull me over. Ben, who had stepped up a little higher, landed a mule kick in Parrish’s groin area with his Flex-Foot; he apparently missed the nuts but not the squirrel, because Parrish grunted and let go of my wrist but didn’t fall. Parrish quickly made a grab at Ben’s legs again, but only managed to get a grasp on the prosthesis that had so recently wounded him. I grabbed the socket end of it, trying to pull Ben up, even as Ben held on to the top rung for dear life, kicking at Parrish’s left arm.

  There was a bright light above us, and noise and wind; the helicopter was overhead. I couldn’t see them, but knew they could not get too close to us — there were too many poles and wires and other objects up on this part of the roof. The flags were snapping loudly, and the cables beat out a ringing alarm.

  “To the left!” I shouted up at Ben, not knowing if he could hear — whether he did or not, he aimed his next kick better, coming down hard on Parrish’s left arm.

  Parrish lost his grip and nearly fell, but held on to the Flex-Foot as he tried to find his own footing. He managed to get his feet back on a rung midway up the ladder. Ben had moved his right leg up higher, out of reach, and was trying to pull himself up while Parrish kept all his weight on Ben’s left leg. Still holding the Flex-Foot with his left hand, he grinned and suddenly let go of Ben with his right, swinging free. But instead of reaching for the ladder, he took hold of his knife.

  “I’ll make a double amputee out of him,” Parrish said, his bloody nose making his speech sound odd. “But maybe I’ll cut your fingers off first.”

  Involuntarily flexing my fingers, I felt a metal button beneath them. The locking pin release. I pressed it.

  I heard a click and watched Parrish’s bloodied face register a look of horror as the socket and Flex-Foot separated.

  He made wild, futile stabs at the air as he fell backward onto the rooftop with a thumping crack.

  He didn’t move after that.

  59

  WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1:55 A.M.

  Las Piernas

  Ben pulled himself up onto the ledge. I sat up, dizzy after hanging upside down. We were both winded.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  He nodded. “You?”

  “Yes. Sorry about your foot.”

  “It’s probably okay. But aft
er all that work to get up here, hell if I’m going back down there to find out if it’s damaged.”

  “I think someone will bring it to you,” I said, pointing to where the helicopter was landing.

  At the same time, we heard a loud bang that made us jump — the SWAT team had made its way through the door to the roof. In no time at all, Parrish was surrounded. When he didn’t move, they edged toward him.

  “Irene!”

  I turned from the scene directly below to that best-loved voice. Frank was stepping out of the helicopter, running toward us.

  I waved and yelled, “We’re okay!”

  His face broke into a big smile and he ran faster.

  Three members of the SWAT team made it up the ladder before Frank did.

  “We’re okay,” Ben told them. “Is Parrish dead?”

  “No,” one said, “but damned close to it. Looks like he broke his neck. We’re going to take him over to St. Anne’s. It’s just down the street.”

  Frank came up the ladder, carrying Ben’s Flex-Foot.

  “Thought you might need this,” he said, handing it to him.

  “Thanks,” Ben said. “I was wondering how I was going to get down from here without it.” He looked it over and decided that although it was a little scraped up, it wasn’t badly damaged.

  “I don’t think my cell phone fared as well,” I said. When I told him how I’d used it, Frank laughed and took me in his arms. “Parrish just didn’t know what he was up against, did he?” But he was holding me tight, as if needing to reassure himself that I was okay. I held him, too. It felt good, the safest I had felt in a long time.

  “Oh!” I said, coming out of that spell of comfort. “I just remembered something! Phil Newly called me, and it was forwarded from my desk to the cell phone. Can you find the number from the cell phone records?”

  “No need to,” Frank said. “Newly called us.”

  “The police?”

  “Yes. That’s how I found out you were here. Newly said he tried calling you, and you told him you were up here with Nick Parrish and were scared and asking for the police.”

  “Where has he been?”