Harrigan returned to the stairs and descended, not bothering to be quiet this time. He peered into what he took to be Sonnenberg's study. More missing items and sparsely knick-knacked shelves. Another flash of anger. Oh yes, Baker. Why am I here, you're wondering, and where is Tina. She's well and happy, Baker. Don't you see the picture in my mind of Tina well and happy? If you'd like to know more than that, I'm afraid you and Dr. Sonnenberg are going to have to show yourselves.
Harrigan passed through the dining room and into the kitchen, where his eye fell upon a sliver of light coming from beneath the basement door. Once more he descended, his weapon leveled. He stopped at the sight of a white cabinet swung three feet or so out from the wall.
“Put the silly thing away, Mr. Harrigan.” Sonnenberg's voice shocked him into a crouch. “And shame on you for strolling into so obvious a trap.”
The words seemed to come from just above his head. A speaker, he realized at once. Also an alternative power source. But where was Sonnenberg? The white cabinet opened farther and Jared Baker's face appeared, his eyes cold and furious. Harrigan backed up a step.
“Easy lad.” He squinted. “You are Baker, aren't you?”
“Where is she, Harrigan?”
“I'm afraid they've taken her, lad. Tanner Burke too. But I don't think they're in any danger.”
“Who, damnit? Who took them?”
“You might ask your friend the doctor.”
“Sonnenberg?” Baker snarled the question toward the speaker in the ceiling.
“Speaking of friends, Jared,” the voice answered, “it appears your confidence in your two recent choices is not entirely well founded.”
“No games, Sonnenberg. Who took her?”
“Stanley Levy.” Harrigan directed his reply more to the speaker than to Baker. ”A strange little man who gets stranger by the hour. Can I assume you know that perfectly well, Dr. Sonnenberg? An answer would be the polite thing.”
“Hmmmph.” Sonnenberg sniffed. ”I detect a certain smugness, Mr. Harrigan. Can I in turn assume that you've experienced an epiphany of some sort?”
”I think so. More than one, in fact. For openers, I believe I know who you used to be.”
”A modest achievement, Mr. Harrigan. Similar in usefulness to finding a pair of socks I once wore.”
“Sonnenberg!” Baker shouted.
‘Tina is well and safe, Jared. So is the woman. I feel I can assure you of that.”
“You had her taken?”
“Not precisely, no,” Sonnenberg answered. There was a vagueness to his voice, as if he were trying to remember something. “Harrigan is quite right about Stanley Levy. But Levy is Domenic Tortora's man, not mine. And I can promise you Tortora would not act against my interests. Those interests do not embrace harm to Tina Baker. She's in protective custody, Jared. She is quite safe.”
“Safe?” Baker raged. “How the hell can she be safe with the father of someone Abel tore apart last night?”
“Oh dear, yes. There is that.”
“Where is she, damnit?”
“Well now, that is a complication, Jared.” The concern in Sonnenberg's voice sounded sincere, even to Harrigan. More than concern, Harrigan thought he heard confusion. “He'll want to speak to you about that, of course. As will I when we have time to chat. But it cannot be now, Jared. I must ask you to please trust me and believe that I would not let Tina be harmed. I've kept her from harm before under similar circumstances. And we've met, you know. We became great friends when she was in the hospital. She called me Grandpa. And my visits helped to ease her pain. They did, Jared. Truly.”
Grandpa! Baker spat the word beneath his breath. Grandpa! He should have known when Tina told him about her visitor. Baker balled both fists and squeezed them white in an effort to control his fury and frustration. The bastard, he thought. The bastard has been working on her head too. Right from the beginning. By God, even if he lives to try it he'll never get another chance. Tears streamed from Baker's right eye. He shook them off.
“Charley, where is she?”
”i don't know” Even Charley sounded worried.
“Sonnenberg must know. Listen to him”
“he doesn't let me listen, he fixed it that way. all i hear is he's all mixed up. but i hear other men. we have to go, baker.”
“We're not going anywhere until—”
“it's the same men, baker, the same men are coming.”
“Jared, you must go.” Baker heard the rapid clicks of switches again. “Rats!” Sonnenberg growled. “It's too late. Assorted golfers seem to be converging on the house. They also seem to have automatic weapons where their golf umbrellas ought to be.” There were two more clicks. “Rats again! There are two more at the front gate.”
“baker.” It was Abel.
“Not now.”
“they've come killing, baker, call me or leave.”
“Jared, I make you a promise. Save yourself now and I will take you to Tina. You have my absolute guarantee of her well-being.”
Harrigan checked his revolver. “Where the hell are we supposed to go unless you got a tunnel down here?”
“In fact, quite so, Mr. Harrigan. There's a vent in that room behind the air conditioner. It leads to a tunnel that leads to a covered well. Use it when you must. In the meantime, if you and Jared remain in this room and listen, you'll be entertained by the comeuppance of Mr. Duncan Peck. Take Jared, Mr. Harrigan, and retire now. You'll both find this encounter to be most instructive.”
Baker hesitated. He knew he could do little except wait. But not knowing about Tina and Tanner Burke was more than he could bear.
Sonnenberg understood. “Remember my promise, Jared. Go inside. You'll know when it's prudent to leave.”
“I'll come looking for you, Doctor. I’m going to find you.”
“Indeed, Jared, indeed. Sooner than you think. Go back to the city, Jared, and wait. Go back to Central Park. Interesting things happen to you in Central Park.”
Tanner was somewhere in the East Eighties. She knew that much. The neighborhood was German, judging by the names of the stores and restaurants they passed. All the numbered side streets looked about the same, stunted trees on most of them, a scattering of apartment buildings dating from the twenties, and between them rows of brick town-houses and brownstones that were much older.
Stanley tapped her arm and pointed to one of them, a brownstone painted red, its first floor occupied by one of those antique shops that never seem to be open. “By the hydrant,” he said. “Go ahead and park by the fire hydrant.”
As she shut off the ignition, Tanner noticed two young men carrying tennis rackets walking briskly along in her direction. Stanley followed her line of sight. He touched his ice pick once more to her ribs. She winced and looked away.
“You been good so far about not calling for help,” he told her, his voice gentle, “and about not jumping out at some stoplight. I don't know if I would have stuck you if you did, but I would have stuck whoever came to help you, and then I would have been all alone with the kid. You don't want that, do you?”
Tanner shook her head.
“That's good because now you got another temptation. We have to bring the kid upstairs holding her between us. You get a chance to run again, but if you do I got no choice this time. I gotta hurt you. If I can't catch you, then I throw the kid back in the car and we drive someplace else, just her and me. You don't want that either, do you?”
“I'll stay with her,” Tanner promised. She reached behind her and stroked the cheek of Tina Baker, who sprawled unconscious across the rear seat. Stanley took the ignition key and opened his door to the sidewalk, then crossed to Tanner's side and waited for her. With difficulty, they pulled Tina to her feet and struggled up a narrow flight of stairs, holding her erect between them.
The apartment had a musty smell of disuse. Yet Stanley called a greeting as he entered, announcing cheerfully that he was with friends. Tanner heard no reply, although Stanley smile
d and nodded as if a welcome had been spoken from another room. He motioned Tanner forward through the entry hall and a long, high-ceilinged living room into what appeared to be the only bedroom. Its furnishings had a look that was old-fashioned before Tanner was born. An old woman's bedroom. Antimacassars were draped over two embroidered chairs and held in place with pins. The headboard of the double bed was heavy mahogany and its design matched that of a bureau and two end tables. A black-and-white Dumont television, almost three decades old, rested on one end table over a stack of magazines arranged on a lower shelf. There was a copy of Soap Opera magazine, several Reader's Digests, and the yellow spine of a single National Geographic. On the bureau, backed by a tilting mirror suspended by two heavy uprights, there was a silver menorah and two framed photographs of Stanley Levy, one perhaps five years older than the other. These sat on a runner of yellowed Belgian lace along with a tarnished brush and mirror set and a small glass tray that held bottles of colored liquids. Three paintings hung on the walls, all pastoral scenes, all in need of cleaning.
Stanley excused himself after placing Tina on the tufted pink bedspread, then walked toward what Tanner presumed was the kitchen. She heard a soft voice murmuring and the sound of cabinets opening and closing. She hurried to Tina's side, shaking her without effect, and then to a single large window, which faced an overgrown garden in the rear. A rusty but solid grille covered the window from the outside. Tanner turned from the window and crossed once more to the bed, almost tripping over a telephone wire. A dated black receiver crashed to the floor from the shelf of the other end table. Tanner grabbed it, praying Stanley had not heard. She dialed the operator. Nothing happened.
“It don't work.” Stanley's voice came from the doorway.
He stood watching her with a fabric-covered ice bag in one hand and tape and scissors in the other. “I'd get it fixed, but she'd right away start asking how come I never call her. You want to sit down over there?” Stanley pointed to the chair farthest from the bed.
”I don't want you to get nervous about this,” he said, stripping several lengths of tape from the roll and guiding Tanner's arms behind her with a touch. ”I mean, nothing bad is going to happen, like Tortora's kid tried to do. What about going to the bathroom? You have to go or anything before I put this tape on?”
Tanner blinked and shook her head. “What are you going to do with us?”
“Nothing bad,” he repeated. “Tortora just wants Baker. He don't want to hurt the little girl. Anyhow, I wouldn't let him.”
“But you'll let him hurt her father?”
Stanley shrugged and wrapped the first length of tape around her wrists. ”I think the question is how come Baker wants to hurt Tortora and did a number on Tortora's kid. Not that the kid was that big a loss. It's like when they say it's the thought that counts. It's very disrespectful, what he did. Like a dare, you know? Tortora don't like that. He also wants to know how come. How's that feel, by the way? Not too tight?”
Tanner shook her head.
Satisfied that the tape would hold, Stanley picked up the ice bag and walked to the bed, where he placed it carefully against Tina's ankle. Then he folded back the bedspread and tucked it around her body. Tina gave a small moan.
”A little while, my mother will fix some lunch,” he told Tanner as he moved toward the door. ”I don't know if the kid can eat by then. Later, I come back, maybe I'll bring some Chinese.”
She listened as he walked to the kitchen again and spoke some muffled words. Tanner thought she heard the front door click shut, she wasn't sure. The sound was lost in the clatter of utensils and the soft shuffling of slippered feet. He was gone, she decided at last. His mother would be coming soon. Perhaps Tanner could talk to her. Get her to cut the tape or at least go down to the street for help. She'd have to. How could any old woman, Stanley's mother or not, allow this to happen in her home? Fear, maybe. Maybe she was just as frightened of her strangely gentle but lunatic son. Or maybe she was just as crazy as he is. Tanner shook her head sharply, regretting even the thought. The last thing she wanted to imagine was that the little old woman out there rummaging through drawers filled with carving knives was as mad as Stanley Levy. Tanner began to shiver.
Tina was dreaming once more. It was the halfway sort of dream, she knew, when you're partly awake and partly asleep and it's hard to know what's real and what isn't. Tanner Burke was here. That part couldn't be real. Can it, Daddy? I mean, she's sitting right here in a chair. I should wake up. But I mostly don 't want to and find out I’m dreaming.
Daddy? Are you getting angry? About what? You think she's here too? She is. She really is. Right here in my bedroom.
Daddy, I can't hear. You're yelling. What do you mean, where's my room. You know where my room is. And she's here. Her real name is Liz. Did you know that? She wants me to call her that, and she says only her most special people call her Liz.
Baker snarled aloud, startling Harrigan, who was listening to the sound of moving feet on the floor above. Like a caged animal, Baker paced the few feet of the small room—back, forth, back again—then with another angry snarl reached for the ventilator cover and tore it from its clasps.
“Hey,” Harrigan snapped, keeping his voice at a whisper, “what the hell are you doing?”
“Getting out of here.” Baker ducked his head into the narrow opening. Harrigan snatched at his coat collar and jerked him back.
“What's the matter with you? You stick your head out of that well, you're going to get a hole in it.”
“They're in New York someplace.” Baker's eyes were flaming. “Get out of my way, Harrigan.”
Baker never saw the punch coming. He saw a burst of light that flashed from his temple and felt his knees crash to the floor. Harrigan saw his eyes glaze over. They blinked as if confused, and tears came from one of them. They were clearing. Harrigan thought he saw the beginnings of a grin as he hit Baker again and a third time. He caught Baker as he fell forward.
“Sorry, lad. We have things to learn here first.” Harrigan peered anxiously into Baker's face, a Hail Mary on his lips that the three blows had been enough.
In Tina's half-dream, she saw her father falling. First he was angry, really angry, then he sort of melted down. Floated down. Not angry anymore. Just kind of lost and calling out for people. For her and for Tanner. For Liz. And for someone else whose name sounded like Abe. Like he was trying to say the name and he couldn't.
He was floating down now but she was floating up. She could see a woman there, right there in the chair, like in her dream. Same hair. Same face. Oh gosh, it's really Tanner Burke. It's Tanner Burke right here in my— Wait a minute. This isn't my room. And there was that man. With the needle. And there was someone who tried to choke the man with a cord. No, wait. That was a real dream, that last part. Tanner? I mean, Liz?
“Wake up, honey,” Tanner whispered urgently. “Look. Look at this tape.” She'd pushed her chair closer to the bed and half-turned so Tina could see her wrists. “Tina, honey, try. See if you can reach this tape.”
Tina raised one hand, searching toward Tanner's wrists with her fingertips. The hand hovered two feet short of its mark and then fell lazily to the bed.
“Try, Tina. Scooch over closer and try again. Tina, try . . .” She froze at the sound of the door opening.
Tanner could not see at first. The knob turned and then the door swung in. First a tray appeared with plates and glasses on it, all balanced on one hand while another grasped the edge of the door to close it. Now, by twisting her neck, Tanner could see the woman out of the corner of her eye. She wore an old, ragged bathrobe that reached all the way to slippered feet. Her ill-kept hair was drawn back in a wiry bun the way Golda Meir wore her hair. Golda Levy? Tanner saw at once the resemblance between the woman and her son. But she was young. Too young, Tanner thought, to be the mother of anyone the age of Stanley Levy. The woman smiled gently at Tanner Burke and brightened further when she saw that Tina was rousing.
“You l
ike egg salad?” she asked. “There's some nice soup also.”
Tina answered with a sleepy smile. It was a dream after all, she realized, at least the part about the man with the needle. There wasn't any such man at all. Just this old lady. And I'm with Tanner Burke and we're going to have lunch.
The old woman placed the tray on the bureau and smiled at one of Stanley's photographs. “While we eat we can watch the television. General Hospital is almost on.” She shook out a napkin and laid it across Tanner's lap. “Then after, maybe you'd like if I read to you. You like Sherlock Holmes? I could read The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire if it ain't too scary for the girl here.”
Tanner swallowed back a sob. Tears of exhaustion and helplessness appeared in her eyes and a dull, sinking horror throbbed in her stomach. The gentle old lady holding a spoonful of soup toward her mouth was not Stanley Levy's mother after all. It was Stanley Levy himself. And the person smiling sweetly before her chair seemed to have no idea in the world that she was Stanley Levy.
16
Ed Burleson was the first through the door left ajar by Connor Harrigan. Two more men followed, snapping the safeties off their automatic weapons, and fanned out inside, directed by a wave of Burleson's hand. Burleson, like Harrigan, knew at a glance that the house was unoccupied. He touched one man's shoulder and pointed to the sliding patio doors at the far end of the living room. The man crossed and opened them, allowing Michael Biaggi and the man called Peterson to enter.
Behind Burleson, in the driveway, Duncan Peck sensed it too. He brushed off the restraining hand of an agent stationed near the gate and walked slowly toward the door, disappointment keen on his face. Ed Burleson heard his footsteps on the gravel and turned to intercept him.
“It's not safe yet, sir,” Burleson told him quietly.
“Our friend has flown the coop, I take it?”
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