by Alice Orr
“Everything’s going to be fine now, son,” Vic said.
He glanced up at the cathedral doors and said a little prayer that he would turn out to be right. He also found himself wishing he really could be a father to Coyote, and to Sprite as well. He was sure he’d be able to do a better job of protecting them than anybody else had managed so far. Tooley Pennebaker tried her best, and the mother was too sick to do anything. The children’s father had disappeared long ago and most likely wasn’t coming back. Vic had been a kid on his own at too young an age himself. He still remembered how lonely, and how scary, that was. He said another small prayer that Coyote and Sprite might be spared that loneliness and fear. His second glance at the cathedral brought another thought suddenly to mind.
“How did you get inside?” he asked Coyote. “The place was locked up tight when I tried the doors.”
“I found another way in.”
Something in Coyote’s voice, a hint of guilt, told Vic the boy had broken into the church. He probably knew a lot about how to break into places. Vic couldn’t help but wonder what other talents for deception Coyote might have developed. A kid had to master a lot of not-so-nice skills when it came to surviving on his own out in the world. Vic also couldn’t help but wonder how much of what Coyote had done and led them to believe so far might be a product of those deceiving ways. Vic would have liked to push that grim thought out of his head, but he had to be realistic about what might or might not really be going on here.
“Let’s get going,” he said as he stifled a sigh and straightened up.
He left his hand resting on Coyote’s shoulder, but it felt more tentative there, now. Katherine stood up too. She’d pulled off her gloves and was smoothing Coyote’s cropped hair away from his dirt-smudged face with her fingers, but she was looking at Vic. He caught a glimpse of the question in her eyes before he turned away. She must have heard the note of suspicion in his voice. He’d heard it there himself.
“Why don’t we take a little walk and talk a bit?” she said.
Her suggestion let Vic know his guess had been right.
KATHERINE FELT GUILTY about keeping Coyote out in the cold, but she had detected the doubt and distance that came over Vic all of a sudden and knew those doubts needed to be cleared up. Her instincts told her there was no better time than right now for that clearing up to begin. The police would be involved soon. They would certainly have to be called in, the minute she and Vic got Coyote back to Vic’s place. In fact, they should probably take the boy directly to the police station now. She didn’t want to do that, at least not just yet. There was no telling what would happen to Coyote’s story once he had to tell it to a policeman. The best chance they had of finding out the unvarnished truth was to go after it right now.
Coyote shrugged in answer to her suggestion that they take a walk, but he didn’t say anything. She hoped that wasn’t a sign that he intended to clam up now in the face of questioning. As if to confirm that fear, he slipped away from her touch and headed down the church steps onto the sidewalk. He turned left toward Madison Avenue. His bouncy stride had carried him halfway to the corner before Vic called out with some urgency in his voice. “Hey, wait up, kid. Let’s stick together here.” Katherine saw Vic glance furtively around as he hurried on ahead to catch up with Coyote. She glanced around, too, but saw nothing that looked even remotely like danger. Vic and Coyote were at the corner by then. Vic unzipped his jacket and took it off then slipped it over Coyote’s shoulders. Katherine was as warmed by that gesture as Coyote must have been. Vic might have his doubts and suspicions, but he still cared about the boy. She was relieved to see that because she cared so very much herself, about both Coyote and Sprite. Suddenly, she realized, in something of a flash, how important it was to her that she and Vic feel the same way, especially about this one thing. She hurried to catch up with them as they rounded the corner.
“I thought we might walk the other way, back down the hill,” she said as she joined them. “We might find a coffee shop or a restaurant to go into where it’s warm.”
She didn’t know of any place like that in the direction they were headed.
“I like the Plaza,” Coyote said. “I spend a lot of time over here.”
Katherine had grown wise enough in the ways of street kids since she came to the Arbor Hill Center to understand that Coyote might actually mean he’d have lots of places to run away from them and hide again once he was on familiar ground. On the other hand, he might also mean he’d feel safer where he knew his surroundings. He had certainly experienced precious little safety lately.
“All right,” she said. “We’ll walk this way, but let’s stop for a minute first and sit down.”
She headed toward a low wall just beyond the fenced-in cathedral grounds where a driveway led to a parking lot for Empire State Plaza visitors. The much-acclaimed architectural marvel was a popular tourist attraction in the daylight hours. By this time of night, and two days before Christmas, the buildings were closed and the streets were deserted. Katherine sat down on the low wall. The much higher wall of the State Museum, a tiered building that always reminded her of an Egyptian tomb, loomed to her back and shut out some of the wind.
“Coyote, we need for you to tell us what exactly you’ve been running away from,” she began as soon as they had joined her.
She drew Coyote down to sit next to her on the wall, but Vic remained standing. She understood he would want to be in a position to watch both them and the street.
“I been running away because of something I saw that I’d be better off if I hadn’t,” Coyote said very fast, as if letting go of a burden he’d been carrying too long.
Katherine had been concerned that he might not be willing to talk and they would have to pry the story out of him. She could tell now that wasn’t going to be the case. She felt her own relief as he hurried on.
“I saw a guy dump a bundle in an alleyway off Broadway. I went there to mail my letter to you about the fund money. I was in front of the post office near the corner of Livingston when the car pulled up down the street and this big guy got out.”
“Is that the black car Sprite told us about?” she asked.
“Yeah. That’s the kind of car it was,” Coyote said nodding.
There was something in the quality of Vic’s silence that let Katherine know how skeptically he was listening to what Coyote had to say. She hoped Coyote wouldn’t read that skepticism and stop talking.
“What happened then?” she asked.
“The man opened the trunk and took out a long bundle. I think it was wrapped in a rug, but the paper didn’t say anything about a rug, so the big guy must have taken that away with him.”
“What paper are you talking about?”
“The Chronicle,” Coyote said matter-of-factly, as if she should have been expecting him to follow the local news while he was on the run. “I been looking for copies in wastebaskets ever since that night, just so I could see if they wrote about what happened. It was in there the second day, how they found the guy right in that same alley where I saw the black car pull up.”
“What guy did they find?” Vic asked.
Katherine could see that Coyote had Vic’s full attention now. She wished the expression on his face didn’t reveal quite so obviously how little he believed of what he was hearing.
“They found a guy named Gilford Vogel. The paper said he worked for a place in Troy that did import stuff. I don’t know what that means, but it said he was a bookkeeper there.”
Katherine guessed that Coyote was providing as many details as he could because he wanted them to think he was telling the truth.
“They had the whole story right there,” Coyote went on. “The paper said the cops think it was a robbery, but I know it wasn’t. I saw who put the guy there. I even saw his face. That’s why he’s been after me ever since.”
“What else did the Chronicle say?” Vic asked, his disbelief more apparent than ever.
“
They told about the guy. Mr. Vogel,” Coyote said. “How when they found him he was stone-cold dead.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
What Coyote was saying had to be too fantastic to be true. Yet, Katherine found herself believing him. Then, he yelled out, “The man from the black car. There he is.”
Those words shattered Katherine’s belief. The child had now obviously brought his fantasy to life in an attempt to convince the adults he wasn’t making things up. She found that so sad and touching she would have taken Coyote into her arms again, the way she did back on the cathedral steps, to reassure him everything would be all right now. Except that Coyote was already running away. He’d shoved his sleeves into Vic’s jacket as they were walking up the hill. That jacket flapped around the small boy’s legs as he dashed off the low wall and straight across the four-lane road toward the other side. Fortunately, there were no cars coming at the moment. Unfortunately, Katherine could now see that Coyote had concocted his fantasy to create a distraction and allow him to run away yet again.
She could tell Vic was just as discouraged by Coyote’s deception as she was. She’d heard Vic sigh loudly when the boy first claimed to see the notorious and maybe imagined man. She’d glanced upward for an instant at Vic then. He’d been staring off toward the looming marble towers of the Plaza with a resigned expression on his face as he shook his head. Then, Coyote ran off and Katherine cried after him, “Coyote, wait,” with her hand upraised. But he didn’t wait. He didn’t even turn around. A figure appeared from the parking lot.
“Vic,” she cried out, but he had already joined the chase in pursuit of the large man in the black coat who was obviously after Coyote.
Two cars drove by in quick succession then, and Vic had to wait for them. Katherine gasped as he stumbled to a halt at the very last minute to keep from running in front of the second car. The driver hit his horn with a loud blast. Vic charged off again when the car had passed, but the man in the black coat was far ahead by now. Coyote was farther ahead still and had disappeared over the barricade that blocked the steps to the Plaza mall. The mall area was kept closed to the public at night, but only low, metal guardrails blocked access. Coyote scrambled over them easily and was out of sight.
Katherine’s suede boots with their high, narrow heels, which had been so perfect for hostessing Vic’s open house, were nothing but an impediment now. She hurried as fast as she could manage after the parade already in Coyote’s wake. She stumbled several times in her haste but managed not to fall. She thought about calling the police, but decided they might not arrive in time to give Vic the help he needed. She’d have to do her best to provide some of that herself.
She ran to the Plaza Mall and struggled over first the guardrails at the bottom of the steps and then a second set of rails at the top. By that time, Vic had caught up to the bigger man somehow, and the two of them were grappling along the marble walkway that bordered the mall. Skyscrapers towered overhead. Maple trees stripped bare of leaves by winter lined the walkway. To the left, the long reflecting pool had been pumped dry to prevent freezing and cracking in the frigid months. Vic and his opponent veered dangerously close to the edge of that pool, locked in a battle grip from which lunging arms and fists emerged to land blows whenever and wherever they could. Coyote was nowhere in sight.
“Vic, watch out for the edge,” Katherine screamed as she ran toward the struggling men.
She was too late with her warning. They were already toppling over the rim and rolling into the snowy pool bed a few feet below the level of the mall. Vic landed at least two solid punches, the second to the jaw of the big man, who staggered backward with a grunt. Katherine was about to pull off her coat and jump down onto the pool bed herself when Vic glanced her way.
“Stay back, Katherine,” he yelled.
She was startled by the strangled sound of his voice. He was out of breath. She wasn’t surprised that fighting a man so much superior in bulk would have Vic combatting exhaustion as well. What happened next did surprise her, and not happily. The big man took advantage of Vic’s moment of inattention by wrapping huge arms around Vic’s chest from behind and squeezing visibly hard. Katherine knew she mustn’t listen to Vic’s insistence that she stay out of this fight. She was unbuttoning her coat and dragging at the sleeves when a boy’s voice rang out behind her.
“Let go of him!”
A well-aimed chunk of ice hurtled through the air past Katherine. She turned to find Coyote a few feet behind her, armed with several chunks of ice and snowballs. She heard a grunt of pain and looked back at the two in the reflecting pool. Coyote’s ice missile had hit its mark. The big man stumbled backwards a step, holding the side of his face. A second chunk struck him on the top of his head, and he winced again. Katherine remembered Vic mentioning his work with Coyote on his pitching skills. Those efforts were definitely paying off now. Vic didn’t waste the opening Coyote’s attack created. He was after the bigger man in a shot, pounding and pummelling him till he went down on one knee in the pool bed. Still, the man was a powerfully built opponent. Vic would need help. Unfortunately, another glance back at Coyote revealed that he now had on only his own thin jacket.
“Where is Vic’s jacket?” Katherine cried out.
Coyote looked at her for a moment as if he didn’t understand what she was asking.
“Where did you leave Vic’s jacket?” she repeated. “I have to find it.”
“Back there.”
Coyote gestured toward the stand of barren trees at the edge of the walkway. Katherine hurried in that direction with her half-unbuttoned coat flying behind her. Overhead, lights illuminated the mall, but the tree-lined area was still very much in shadow. She strained to see into the darkness. She thought she might have spotted a clump that could be the jacket. She prayed she was right and that Vic’s gun would still be in the pocket. She feared that Coyote’s snowball barrage and Vic’s pummelling would hold this mountain of a man at bay only temporarily. She was headed toward what she hoped would be a more decisively effective weapon when a woman’s voice rang out, echoing in the emptiness of the long mall and against the marble buildings.
“Let him up right now, or I kill the kid.”
Katherine spun around and looked immediately at Coyote, expecting him to be in the clutches of whoever had shouted those cold, impassioned words. Coyote was poised with his arm raised to throw another snowball, but there was no one with him. Katherine followed his transfixed gaze down the marble walkway in the direction of the opposite end of the Plaza. The mall lights reflected in the pale blond hair of the tall woman walking toward them.
“Lacey Harbison,” Katherine breathed, recognizing the woman who’d visited her office two days before.
Even more shocking than this woman’s unexpected arrival was the presence of the child she was gripping by one arm and pushing along in front of her. Sprite’s small face was white against the night. Her eyes were huge and terrified. Katherine leapt forward, ready to drag the child away from the woman. Then she saw the gun pointed at Sprite’s head and backed off.
“Let him up out of there like I told you,” the Harbison woman shouted.
Back in the pool bed the two men had stopped struggling to stare at the blonde with the child. Vic had apparently managed to overpower the bigger man after all. He was lying flat in the pool bed with Vic on top, clutching the other man’s throat. Katherine watched with a sinking heart as Vic released his grip and rose slowly to his feet. The big man labored to his knees. She could hear him gasping for breath.
She could also hear Sprite sobbing softly and longed to run to her.
“You all right, Cuda?” Lacey Harbison asked. The big man nodded in reply. Maybe he was so winded he couldn’t speak yet. Nonetheless, when he finally rose to his feet, looming even larger and broader than Katherine had previously registered, he’d regained enough strength to lunge at Vic, who stepped quickly out of reach.
“We’ve got no time for that now. Get up out of there,”
Lacey Harbison said, gesturing with the gun still frighteningly close to Sprite’s bare head. “Where’s the other kid?”
Katherine’s glance darted to the spot where Coyote had been standing only a moment ago. He was gone. She scanned the walkway and back among the trees, but he was nowhere in sight. Once again, he’d managed to slip away. This time Katherine was grateful for the street-learned craftiness that allowed him to disappear so skillfully.
“He’s gone,” the big man Harbison had called Cuda growled as he hauled himself out of the pool bed. “I’ll find him.”
“No time for that now,” Harbison barked in a tone that left no doubt who was truly in charge. “We’ve still got this one.” She yanked hard enough at Sprite’s arm to make her cry out. “I think we’ll be able to make a deal for the other brat. Either that or this sweet little girl ends up good and dead.”
The cultured tone and charming smile Lacey Harbison had put on in Katherine’s office had vanished now. Even in this imperfect light she could detect a glint of viciousness in Harbison’s eyes. She looked as if she would be entirely capable of following through on the threat she’d just made. Katherine clenched her fists at her sides and willed herself to stay very still. Vic remained standing in the reflecting pool. He wasn’t moving either. She guessed he had also recognized the potential for heartlessness in Lacey Harbison.
“We’ll be in touch with you tomorrow,” she said, glaring at Vic. “You be sure to be home when we contact you.”
The big man named Cuda had joined her by now. He grabbed Sprite away from his accomplice. Katherine saw Vic flinch at that, but he stood his ground. He obviously knew as well as Katherine did that they’d better not make any kind of move while Harbison and Cuda sauntered away with little Sprite, still terrified and at gunpoint.
Katherine barely noticed when Coyote materialized beside her out of the shadows cast by the trees. Vic’s jacket was draped over Coyote’s arm, but there was no use going for the gun in the pocket now. All the three of them could do was watch helplessly as the three others disappeared from view beyond the massive Christmas tree at the State Street end of the mall. The multicolored lights twinkling from the branches of the tall hemlock mocked the sudden hollowness in Katherine’s heart and the holiday joy she could no longer feel.