Crisscross

by F. Paul Wilson

  When they finished the prayer, Amelia grabbed Maggie’s hand as she rose.

  “Can I fix you some tea, sister? I have some brownies my daughter dropped off. We could—”

  Maggie patted her hand and smiled. “I wish I could stay, Amelia, really I do, but I have another stop to make.”

  “Oh. Yes, of course. I’m not the only one who needs communion, I suppose. I was just hoping…”

  Poor thing, Maggie thought as she replaced the cover on the pyx. So lonely.

  “Tell you what I can do, though,” she said. “I can stop by tomorrow around midday and we can have lunch together. I’ll bring—”

  “Sunday lunch!” Amelia said, beaming. “And you won’t bring a thing. I’ll fix us some nice sandwiches. Do you like tuna fish salad?”

  Maggie wasn’t fond of anything made with mayonnaise, but she put on a brave face. “I’ll bet you make a delicious one.”

  “I do. These old legs may be unreliable, but I can still whip up a mean salad. What time can you be here?”

  “How does one o’clock sound?”

  “One o’clock it is!” She looked years younger. “I’ll have everything ready when you arrive.”

  A few minutes later Maggie was hurrying down the rickety stairway from Amelia’s third-floor apartment, wondering if she might be spreading herself too thin. She had such trouble saying no to people in need.

  She stepped out onto the sidewalk and looked around. The light faded so early these days. She checked her watch. Just five o’clock and already the sun was down.

  Well, only one more stop to go. She checked her list. Mr. Whitcolm lived just a few blocks away. Wonderful. She’d be back at the convent in time to set the dinner table.

  She took two steps toward Fourth Street, then stopped.

  “Thank you, Lord,” she whispered. “Thank you for this second chance to do Your will, and to help those who can’t help themselves.”

  As she started walking again a car pulled into the curb beside her. She angled closer to the buildings. The neighborhood was a lot safer than it used to be, but still had more than its share of drug dealers and other unsavory types.

  “Miss?” said a man’s voice.

  Maggie slowed but didn’t stop. She saw only one person in the car. A very large man, taking up most of the front seat as he leaned across from the driver’s side. His features were indistinguishable in the waning light, his face little more than a pale moon floating just inside the front passenger window, but she was sure she didn’t know him.

  “I’m lost. Can you help me?”

  The car wasn’t flashy like the ones the drug dealers drove, and not a rattletrap like some of their customers’. Just a normal, everyday, respectable-looking Jeep. A family car.

  Still, you had to be careful.

  “I’ve been driving in circles down here,” he said, a plaintive note in his voice. “All I need is someone to point me in the right direction.”

  She’d had to say no to Amelia. The least she could do was help out this lost man. She stepped closer to the car.

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “One of the housing projects.”

  “Which one? Jacob Riis? Lillian Wald? There’s more than one down here.”

  “I’m not sure. My wife wrote it down for me but she has terrible penmanship.” He thrust his arm out the window. A slip of paper fluttered in this hand. “Can you make sense of this chicken scratch?”

  Keeping her distance from the car, Maggie pulled the slip from his fingers and squinted at it in the twilight. He hadn’t been exaggerating about the penmanship. It was terrible. Obviously his wife hadn’t attended Catholic school. She thought she could make out an uppercase M and T on two adjacent words.

  “It might be Masaryk Towers.”

  “That sounds right. Where are they?”

  “Farther downtown. Are you sure…?”

  “Something wrong?”

  She’d never been inside the Masaryk Towers but had heard them referred to as a “vertical ghetto.” It did not seem the kind of place a middle-class white man would want to go.

  “Well, it has a rough reputation.”

  “Really? Maybe I’ll just drive by. If it looks too rough I’ll just keep on going and come back during the day.”

  “That might be a good idea.” She pointed east. “Go up here, make a right on Avenue C, and take it down to East Houston. You can’t miss it.”

  “Thank you very much. Are you going that way? The least I can do is give you a lift.”

  Yes, Maggie was going that way, but no, she didn’t want to get into this stranger’s car.

  “That’s very kind of you, but I have just a little ways to go and I need the exercise.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I thought it only fair to offer.” He held his hand out the window, not quite as far as last time. “Thanks for your help. I just need that address back.”

  “Oh, of course.”

  She’d forgotten that she still had it. She stepped closer, holding it out. But instead of taking the paper, the man grabbed her wrist. As he yanked her forward, his other hand darted from the window and grabbed a fistful of her hair. Her scalp burned and she cried out in pain and terror. He pulled her arm and head through the window and into the car. Maggie screamed and then something hard and heavy slammed against the back of her head. Her vision blurred. She opened her mouth for another scream but then something hit her again, harder this time.

  Twilight became night.

  6

  Traffic had been awful. Everything seemed to be under construction. Three-and-a-half hours since leaving Jersey and rolling onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and they were only in the Reading area. Where in hell were these guys going?

  Jack saw the truck’s turn signal begin to flash and he followed it into a rest area. About time. He needed to make a pit stop and get some gas. But first…

  He watched the driver and his buddy get out of their truck and head for the restaurant area. They locked the cab doors but left the big diesel engine running. Jack hurried around to his trunk and pulled the slim jim from his duffel bag of tools. Then he made his way to the passenger side. The truck cab was old and beat up. Probably didn’t have a working alarm system, but you never knew.

  Jack stepped up on the running board and looked around. The lot was mostly empty and quiet except for the rumble of traffic. Turnpike rest stops did not seem a popular Saturday night destination.

  He slipped the slim jim down between the window and the door panel, moved it around in a circular motion until it caught. Jack took a breath, then pulled up. The lock knob on the other side of the window popped up.

  No alarm. But now the real test: He removed the slim jim and opened the door. The courtesy lights came on, but again, no alarm.

  Great.

  He leaned inside and pawed through the papers piled at the center of the bench. Mostly toll receipts and maps. He picked up a Pennsylvania map and noticed that someone had crisscrossed it with red lines. A place where three of those lines intersected, out past Harrisburg and Camp Hill, was circled. A piece of plain white paper was clipped to an upper corner of the map. Jack scanned the typewritten note and realized it was a set of directions from the Turnpike to “the farm.”

  He wondered how much these two drivers knew. Were they just doing a job, just making a delivery? Or did they know what lay inside that hunk of concrete? Their lack of furtiveness led Jack to suspect they knew nothing, but the only way to be sure was to ask.

  He refolded the map and slipped out of the cab, relocking the door as he went.

  Still a fair number of miles ahead of them. Jack would definitely need a full gas tank. He’d also need a little food and drink before he set out again.

  Looked like it was going to be a long night. He wanted to see this “farm” and find out what they planned for Jamie’s remains.

  And then he’d get answers to his questions.

  7

  Richie Cordova looked down
at Sister Maggie where she sat tied to a nice, sturdy oak chair, looked into her eyes and saw the fear and confusion there.

  He reveled in the moment. Hard to believe that less than an hour ago he’d been terrified, ready to call the whole thing off.

  All well and good to work up a plan to snatch a nun off the street, but getting down to the job of doing it…that’s a whole other story. He’d smeared mud on his plates so no one could report the number, he’d had the sap ready, he’d juiced himself with fury, but when he’d spotted her walking and pulled into that curb…man, he’d switched from being pissed to almost pissing his pants.

  But he’d made himself do it. It was pretty dark, no one around with a clear line of sight—now or never. And he had to do it right. If he blew it, he’d never get another chance.

  He’d pulled it off, clubbing her unconscious and then speeding away with her slumped and huddled on the passenger side floor. But even then he hadn’t been able to relax. What if someone had seen? What if some nosy old bitch had been watching out her window and reported it? Not that it was likely or would even matter. He was driving a nondescript Jeep—had to be a million of them in the city—with unreadable plates.

  Still…you never could tell. Driving along he’d spent so much time looking into the rearview mirror he almost ran down a pedestrian.

  But no one gave him a second look on his way to this urban wasteland west of Northern Boulevard in Flushing. And now he was here, hidden away in a rundown warehouse he’d sniffed out yesterday, where no one would interrupt him.

  And now that he had her here, securely trussed up like a prelibato salami, his fear was gone, evaporated, replaced by a strange elation. He’d always got a kick out of how the blackmail game let him call the shots and generally mess up people’s lives. But that had always been a long-distance involvement, with contact limited to phone calls and mail.

  But this…he’d never experienced anything like this. Sister Margaret Mary was his to do with as he pleased. He wasn’t just pulling her strings, he owned her.

  God, it was like sex.

  And he hadn’t laid a finger on her. Yet.

  He was learning things about himself, things he’d never imagined. This was turning out to be more that just payback, it was a voyage of self-discovery.

  But maybe he shouldn’t go all that deep about it, seeing as what today’s Gemini horoscope had to say.

  You may feel compelled to overanalyze things at work, but resist. A colleague becomes more expressive when you talk first. In time, you’ll see that problems at work were a godsend.

  He was kind of awed by that last part. His problems at “work” were already becoming a sort of “godsend.” And when he thought about it, Sister Maggie was a colleague in a way. At least they’d worked together. Sort of. For sure she was going to become more expressive, and he was definitely going to talk first.

  “Do you know who I am?” he said, moving closer and standing over her. “Do you have any idea the trouble you’ve caused me.”

  She shook her head and made begging sounds through her gag.

  Even though no one would hear her even if she screamed at the top of her voice, Richie decided to leave the gag in place. He didn’t want to listen to no bullshit. It was his place to do the talking, and hers to listen.

  “I’m the guy who took those pretty pictures of you and Metcalf.”

  The way her eyes went wide, showing white all around, shot a bolt of ecstasy toward his groin.

  “That’s right. Me. But guess what happened? Someone came around and messed up all my files…destroyed them. Ain’t that a pity? I don’t know who that someone was, but I think—no, I’m sure I know who sent him. And you’re going to tell me all about him.”

  He savored for a moment the tears that filled her eyes and ran down her cheeks to the gag, then he rummaged through the toolbox he’d brought along. He wanted the straight dope when he asked a question. That might require a little softening up. Or it might not. He wouldn’t know until he removed the gag, and he didn’t plan to do that for a while.

  A boy’s gotta have his fun, right?

  He found the ice pick and held it up where she could see it.

  “But first, a little truth serum.”

  8

  Jack wasn’t sure how to play this.

  Here he was, following the Blagden truck down this bumpy country road in the dark. The very dark. The moon hadn’t risen, not a street lamp in sight, and he and the truck were the only vehicles on the road.

  They’d turned off the Turnpike miles ago, then wound into these low hills. No way they couldn’t know someone was coasting along behind them. But did they care?

  That was the question. If they knew they’d been hauling a murdered woman’s body across state lines, they’d be more than a little paranoid and watching their rearview mirrors. They might even pull over to let a following car pass.

  But if they believed they were hauling a weird chunk of concrete and nothing more, they wouldn’t care who was behind them.

  Although the truck had made no evasive maneuvers, Jack decided to play it safe and proceed on the assumption that the drivers knew the score.

  So when he saw the truck slow and make a cautious turn onto an even narrower road, Jack drove on by. He spotted two sets of headlights sitting atop a rise. Through his rearview he watched the truck climb to the top of the rise and stop by the headlights.

  Jack killed his own lights and pulled over. He stepped out of the car and found himself facing what looked like an open field, overgrown and bordered by a rickety wire fence. He checked the sky. Broken cloud cover blocked most of the starshine. He looked around for signs that the moon might be rising but found no telltale glow. Good. The less light the better.

  He hopped over the wire and made his way in a crouch through the tall grass toward the lights.

  He dropped lower as he neared the top of the rise, then stopped and squatted just out of reach of the headlights.

  The flatbed and two pickups sat angled around a pit that looked maybe seven or eight feet wide. From the size of the mound of excavated dirt piled to the side, Jack guessed it was a pretty deep hole.

  Deep enough to swallow Jamie’s concrete sarcophagus.

  Four men with shovels, plus one of the drivers, stood around the rim showing not a hint of furtiveness. That persuaded Jack that they probably wouldn’t be able to add anything to what he already knew. He’d made the trip for nothing.

  No…not for nothing. He’d learned where they were burying Jamie Grant.

  The driver on the ground made a signal to his partner in the flatbed’s cab. As Jack watched, the truck’s winch began to raise the forward end of the pillar, tilting the butt over the black maw of the hole.

  Jack’s instincts spurred him to put a stop to this now. Jamie deserved better. But he’d be taking on six men; some of them could be armed. Better to let them complete their work. This way at least he’d know where to find Jamie when the time came to arrange for a proper burial.

  And another reason for holding back: As long as he knew where to find the pillar—literally where the body was buried—it remained a potential weapon against Brady and Jensen. What he had to do now was figure out how to use it to inflict maximum damage.

  So he held his place and his breath and watched the pillar angle up, up, up, then slip off the truck bed and into the hole.

  9

  In Midtown Manhattan an old woman cries out and clutches her back as pain lances through her. Her dog, a Rottweiler, stands beside her, legs stiff, body tense, barking in sympathy.

  She knows the cause of her suffering.

  Another one…they’ve buried another one. They must be stopped before it’s too late.

  But she can’t do it. Someone else must act on her behalf.

  10

  Jack’s thoughts raced ahead of his car as he cranked eastward on the Penn Turnpike. How to get the most out of that pillar…

  Nothing was coming. He was dry…dry as t
he earth they’d backfilled into Jamie’s grave.

  East of Harrisburg he gave up and switched on the radio. Maybe he could zone out on music for a while, then tackle the problem with a fresh head. But he couldn’t find anything he felt like listening to. He wished he’d brought along some of his CDs, but realized he probably wouldn’t want to listen to them either.

  The problem wasn’t with the music, but with him. He wouldn’t feel right, wouldn’t be himself until he’d fixed this.

  He switched to AM and picked up a strong, clear signal from WABC in New York. He hung on through a commercial to see which one of their stable of talk show geeks had the mike tonight, but instead wound up in the middle of the top-of-the-hour news update. He was reaching for the SEEK button when he heard…

  “No word yet on the missing nun. Sister Margaret Mary O’Hara was last seen being pulled into a car from a Lower East Side sidewalk earlier this evening. The witness did not know the make or color of the car, and couldn’t read the license plate. If you have any information on this incident—any information at all—please call…”

  Feeling as if his bones were dissolving, Jack veered through the right lane and onto the shoulder where he stopped and set the shift into park.

  He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, his hands squeezing the steering wheel as if trying to strangle it.

  He’s got her…the son of a bitch has got her.

  But how could he have known it was Maggie?

  An instant of self-doubt pierced him, but then faded as he reviewed all the moves he’d made in the Cordova fix. He was certain—knew—that he hadn’t left the faintest link to Maggie.

  She must have made a slip talking to him.