by Jon Land
“It’s so nice to have company. If only I could find Kitty. Here, Kitty,” she called. “Here, Kitty… .”
Blaine followed her through the huge marble foyer to a set of double doors. She thrust them open to reveal a grand wood-paneled library dominated by shelves of leatherbound books.
“I feed her in here. Sometimes she hides.” She walked in, eyes peering about, voice higher. “Here, Kitty. I’m getting your dinner ready. It’s your favorite. Here, Kitty. Oh, where is that damn cat!”
“Mrs. Brandywine,” McCracken started, “if you could spare a few minutes… .”
“What’d you say your name was?”
“McCracken.”
“First or last?”
“Last.”
“You have cats, McCracken?”
“No.”
“Don’t. More bother than they’re worth.” She moved to an elegant brass-legged glass table with an antique bowl atop it and a can of cat food resting alongside. Leaning over, she began to spoon its contents into the bowl. “She’ll smell the food and come running. That’s my best hope. Here, Kitty.”
“Mrs. Brandywine, about the setting …”
She swung toward him. “Yes. Wanted to make a collar for Kitty. Something different. Fell in love with the crystals at first glance. Just the kind of thing I had in mind.”
“The expense didn’t bother you?”
“Why should it?” She was spooning again now, tapping the last of the can’s contents out onto the side of the antique bowl. “Here, Kitty!”
Blaine kept himself patient. “The crystals, Mrs. Brandywine, did you tell anyone else about them?”
“Just Kitty. She was very happy. Didn’t run away for a week afterwards. Damn cat. Why do I bother?”
“Was there anyone else?”
She eyed him sharply. “Anyone else what?”
“That you discussed the crystals with.”
“Who else would be interested? Don’t get out much anymore you know.” She was mixing the cat food up now. “Here, Kitty!”
“How did you get into the city the day you visited our shop?”
Lydia Brandywine had to stop and think. “My driver. Victor.”
“Where is he?”
“With the car. I call him when I need him.”
Blaine felt he might be on to something. “Do you have his number?”
“Somewhere.”
“Did he ask you about the crystals when he drove you home from the parlor?”
“Kitty doesn’t talk much,” said Lydia Brandywine. “Sometimes, but not much. Ah, here she comes now… .”
McCracken had time only to register the fact that the padding of approaching paws was too loud and out of place. He swung, too late his eyes told him, and he froze in his tracks.
Kitty was a black panther.
The big cat opened its mouth and snarled from deep in its throat.
“You’re carrying a gun,” said Lydia Brandywine, no longer interested in the cat food and suddenly quite in command of her faculties. “I saw the bulge. Reach into your belt and pull it out slowly. Move too fast and she’ll lunge. Don’t challenge her.”
As if to reinforce the old woman’s words, the big cat snarled again and whipped its paw through the air, claws bared. A single lunge away, a lunge that could be covered in the shadow of an instant. Blaine slid the pistol he’d lifted from one of the 47th Street assassins out of his holster and let it drop to the floor.
“Very good, Mr. McCracken,” Lydia Brandywine said. “Now slide it over here.” When he had, she stooped to retrieve it, all the while keeping her eyes on him. “Now move backward very slowly and settle yourself in that chair. Remember, slowly, and keep your hands by your sides.”
Again Blaine did as he was told. He found the chair with the back of his legs and slowly settled into it. The big cat advanced a bit, staying a lunge away.
“I’m going to leave you briefly. Rise from that chair and she’ll tear you apart. Move your hands from the arms and she’ll tear you apart. She won’t move so long as you don’t.”
Lydia Brandywine kept her eyes on him as she glided past, the gun clutched in her hand, no longer seeming as old. She petted the panther’s head on the way out. There was no phone in this room and Blaine figured she was moving to another to summon reinforcements. More of the men behind the attack on 47th Street, no doubt, and they’d be on their way here in minutes.
The cat snarled again, stretching its lips wide to show its teeth and whipping its long tail from side to side. Blaine knew he could not possibly move before it was upon him. Panthers were in many respects the most dangerous jungle cats, the best fighters, and the most precise killers. He was certainly no match for Kitty, even though he might have been able to disarm the woman. Once she returned, though, there’d be two forces to contend with. So if he was going to move it had to be fast. But how?
He remembered he still had the tranquilizer pistol loaded with one more dart in his right pocket. If he could extract it and fire before the big cat was upon him… . No, even if he scored a perfect hit, the panther would have the second it needed to find his throat. Blaine had to buy himself that second, as well as shoot.
He knew Kitty would lunge at the first sign of motion. But if the motion was deceptive it might be fooled long enough for the tranquilizer to work. Blaine heard Lydia Brandywine’s voice speaking to someone over a phone. He knew the conversation wouldn’t last much longer.
Blaine braced his legs. He was depending on the big cat to be just as quick and deadly as legend had it, so when it attacked he could make the lunge work in his favor. He pushed his legs hard on the floor and tossed his body backward, giving the chair all his weight. As expected, it toppled over. The cat lunged but failed to adjust to his tumble backward. Its leap carried it short, buying him the second he needed.
The tranquilizer gun was in his hand, and he fired as the cat regained its footing and came for him. The slightest fumble would have meant death, but the dart shot out with a fssssssst and thudded into the animal’s extended shoulders. The cat didn’t falter and kept coming. The huge jaws opened wide and lowered over him, teeth bared and breath hot and dripping, and he closed his eyes in terror, latching on to the beast’s throat instinctively.
But the panther was already limp with the weight of unconsciousness. Blaine heard Lydia Brandywine’s heels clicking fast for the library and lurched back to his feet. She had his gun and he was out of darts. He had another weapon, though.
As she crossed through the double doors, McCracken hoisted the sleeping panther up by its neck and let its feet dangle above the floor. It took all his strength and he felt his shoulders popping from the strain. Lydia Brandywine lurched into the room and steadied the gun with both hands a dozen feet before him.
“The gun’s a Brin-10, Mrs. Brandywine,” Blaine said ever so calmly. “Packs quite a wallop. Difficult to keep steady. You might get lucky but then again you might not. Kitty’s only stunned now but miss your first shot and I’ll break her neck. Miss your second and I’ll break yours.”
“No!” the old woman screamed, more out of concern for the cat than herself.
“I’m an animal lover myself, Mrs. Brandywine. Never think of harming one unless I have to. She’s just sleeping now. Still breathing,” he said, making sure to display the contracting chest. “See? But that will change if you don’t drop the gun and slide it over here.”
Lydia Brandywine’s old hands shook uncontrollably for a few seconds before she let the gun drop.
McCracken held fast to the cat. “You called someone. Who?”
“The party that hires me from time to time.”
“To do what?”
“Search out rare, precious gems and then furnish detailed descriptions. The cat, you’re hurting her!”
“No I’m not. You did that with the crystals you saw at Earnst’s?”
“Yes.”
“And then they were stolen.”
“I had nothing to do with
it. Please let the cat go!”
McCracken wasn’t ready to do that yet. “Who are these men?”
“I don’t know. I swear it! They sought me out, paid me enough money so I wouldn’t have to move from my house. I never meant any harm!”
“These men did plenty today. They’re coming, aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Let the cat down.”
“How long?”
“A half hour. Twenty-five minutes maybe.”
“I’ll be going, then. I’ll have to tie you up but I won’t make the bonds too tight. I promise.”
He let the panther down easy and tied Lydia Brandywine into a chair with drapery cords stripped from the wall. He checked to make sure they weren’t too constricting and was halfway to the double doors when he headed back for the glass table.
“She’ll probably be in a bad mood when she wakes up,” he said, lifting the cat food dish up and placing it next to the snoring panther. “I hate to see a good meal go to waste.”
The car screeched onto Lydia Brandywine’s property exactly twenty-seven minutes later. McCracken watched it from a concealed position behind a tree with his Hertz rental stowed safely out of sight. After fifteen minutes the three men returned to their car, and Blaine climbed back into his and followed them all the way back into Manhattan. It was rush hour and he fought with his nerves as the car he was shadowing maneuvered ahead of him, out of sight on occasion. He couldn’t risk being spotted by the men. If they were pros, it wouldn’t take much. He had given Lydia Brandywine his real name and she would have passed it on to them. A check would be made, and the men would know they had problems.
He managed to keep their car in sight right until it swung off Park Avenue onto East 48th Street. They continued on past Lexington and slowed as they crossed over Third Avenue into the Turtle Bay neighborhood, parallel parking into a spot before the low 200s. Blaine pulled past them and double-parked. In his rearview mirror he watched the three men climb out of their car and ascend the steps to the right half of a slate-brown townhouse duplex squeezed between a pair of larger brick buildings. One of the men pulled the steel security grating open and another unlocked the townhouse’s door. Seconds later all three men had disappeared inside.
McCracken saw a space open up almost directly across from the townhouse and reversed diagonally across the street to take it. Tires squeezed against the curb, he settled back against the seat. At this point his plan was to wait until the three men, or at least two of them, departed again before making his way inside the townhouse. Until then, he was alone with his thoughts.
The choice of Turtle Bay for a headquarters or meeting place struck him as strange. After all, this neighborhood was one of Manhattan’s most fashionable, home to numerous celebrities and wealthy businessmen. The townhouses on the north side of the street enjoyed a common garden, Amster Yard, which was not visible from the front; just one of the many features which placed Turtle Bay among the city’s most prestigious residential areas.
Two hours passed. Blaine watched the night fall soundly and the lights come on in the street, those inside the rows of townhouses slowly joining them. Cars continued to line both curbs but traffic had thinned markedly. Across the street, an entry light flashed on over the townhouse he was watching.
McCracken felt something was out of place and gazed up at the windows. None showed any light. Odd. If the men inside were still there, at least some of the lights should have been turned on. Their car was in place and Blaine was certain none of the men had left.
A familiar chill gripped him, a slow shudder following in its wake. He lunged from the car and hurried up the steps to the townhouse’s entrance. The steel grating had not been locked, leaving him only the door to negotiate past. Just a single lock which Blaine had out of the way in under thirty seconds. The door opened into darkness. McCracken stepped inside and waited for his eyes to adjust before pressing on. His vision sharpened and he saw a front hall with narrow rooms on either side of it, one of them a kitchen, and none furnished. The stairs leading upward curved a few yards before him. Leaving the lights off, he started to ascend, silently in case someone might still be upstairs.
The steps broke to the right as they neared the second floor and Blaine froze. Before him a pair of shoes protruded from a door. At the top of the landing he saw the blood, a pool of it in the center of the room’s hardwood floor. The room smelled of must, mold, emptiness.
And death.
The other two bodies had been propped up together along the wall in a neat posture, as if they had been searched after death. Each displayed a single bullet hole, like a ruby in the middle of the forehead. All three had been gut shot as well, which accounted for the blood on the floor. The bullets in their heads had been merely to finish them.
Whoever had done the shooting liked to inflict pain. Or had been ordered to.
McCracken stepped further inside. This room had a huge draped window overlooking the lush garden. The killer could have gained entry to the garden from another of the townhouses and once there could have made a straight route here, entering through the back. His task completed, he would have left the same way. That was why Blaine never saw him.
But had that task been completed satisfactorily? The killer had left the men alive long enough for questions, but they must not have pleased him; signs of a search were evident among the room’s meager furnishings. The stuffing of the furniture had been sliced up and scattered. The drawers from the room’s single desk had been pulled out and their contents tossed around.
McCracken had seen all this before. The apartment must have been a temporary headquarters for a team of agents. Right down to the black rotary telephone; standard issue in mobile operations.
These men had worked for the government!
And now they were dead. Killed by whom, though? McCracken felt the anxiety of confusion tearing through him. He had assumed all along the three men were part of the force behind the 47th Street assassins and the man with the tranquilizer pistol. Now, he wasn’t sure. A second party had made itself known—a brutal and efficient killer.
His heart thudding now, Blaine noticed a yellow legal pad sticking out from under the desk. He moved over to inspect and found the remnants of tape just where he expected them. Yes, standard procedure would dictate that the assigned team make notes at all stages of the operation to ensure accurate reporting. These notes would be kept hidden, usually taped to the underside of a drawer where a casual search would leave them unnoticed. This too was procedure.
Unfortunately the killer must have also been aware of this; the ragged fringe at the pad’s top indicated a number of pages had been torn free. All the pages that remained were blank.
But not totally. McCracken placed the pad atop the desk and grabbed for a pencil. Using the side of the point, he skimmed lightly over the top remaining blank page to trace out whatever had been written on the preceding sheet. The notes contained on it would have been the most recent. It took several minutes of very subtle work with the pencil before the outlines of words and phrases became visible. He found mention of the crystals, of Lydia Brandywine, and Earnst’s gem parlor.
And at the bottom, by itself, a four-digit number. The very last entry the dead agents had made.
McCracken went ice cold.
The number was T.C.’s room at the Waldorf.
Chapter 7
BLAINE RACED BREATHLESSLY the two blocks toward the Waldorf. His thoughts had shut off by the time he reached the hotel’s majestic entrance. They brought only pain, the realization of a hurt too horrible to accept.
He sped through the Waldorf s doors and took the marble steps leading up two at a time. He rushed to the elevator bank and pressed the up arrow. A compartment slid open and he was inside it immediately, pounding the CLOSE DOOR button as if it would make the machine get started faster. Twelve floors later he stepped out and dashed to T.C.’s room. The door was locked, but the security bolts
and chain were not in place. He had it swinging open over the carpet less than thirty seconds later.
T.C. sat in a chair by the window, propped up facing the television. Blaine held his breath as he approached and let it out only when he saw the small red hole in the center of her forehead.
Blaine came closer, chewing his lips, fighting back tears. He wanted her to be alive, to be playing possum to confuse the man who had come to kill her.
He had spoken to her five hours before, six maybe. Told her to stay put. Maybe if he had sent her home they wouldn’t have found her. Maybe she’d still be alive. Maybe …
He could see her rushing to the door not long before to respond to a knock, thinking it was him probably. The end would have happened very fast. No struggle. Little pain.
McCracken sank down on the bed, too shocked to cry. He fought to still his shaking.
“Damn,” he moaned. “Damn… .”
T.C. was dead, and he had helped kill her. He accepted the responsibility because he needed the rage that went with it, needed the guilt to push the grief back. The pain in him was sharp and lingering, worse than any bullet or knife. He wanted her back. He wanted it to be eight years ago all over again so he could have another chance.
Why? She hadn’t known anything, damnit!
Whoever was behind the killings in the townhouse was undoubtedly behind hers—the same killer, even, judging by the bullet wound. That there were two forces operating here was obvious. But which was responsible for what? Who was behind the “Hasidim,” the man with the dart gun? What had happened to require such a killing spree? The wild bullets in the street, three dead government agents, T.C., and possibly more.
McCracken buried his rising grief and guilt and forced himself to think. The dead agents were his only lead. They would lead him to someone in the government who knew more of what was going on and how the crystals were connected.