by Jon Cleary
“That may work in the House of Commons. But there’s no Opposition in the White House. Nor even in City Hall,” Sam added as an afterthought.
“Don’t curl your lip. There are a lot of people who think City Hall is more than just a bus station. Tom Kirkbride is one.”
“Tom Kirkbride has no ambition. Not real ambition.”
Not like you, thought Michael. He heard the clatter of the Police Department helicopter as it went over the house and down to the wharf below. Once a week he rode downtown by helicopter, one week going down the East Side, the next down the West, like an old-time king surveying his domain: he sometimes wondered if the P.D. pilot had the same thought. He had been doing it every Monday for four years and he still got the same thrill: the tall buildings seeming to shuffle into ranks as he swept by them, the giant spiders’ webs of the suspension bridges glinting in the morning sun, the million mirrors of the windows reflecting the helicopter as it went by: when you stood off from it New York was still the most exciting city he had ever seen. From the helicopter you never saw the maggots that were already at work in the body that was not yet a corpse.
“It’s time I was leaving.”
“I’ll stay and have a little talk with Sylvia. We haven’t seen much of each other this past month.”
“You can drive me down to my dentist,” said Sylvia. “We can talk in your car.”
“How will you get to St Mary’s?” Michael asked; he was forever worried for her, though he knew in his heart she was stronger than he was. “I don’t want you riding around in some crummy cab, with the hackie recognizing you and telling you what’s wrong with me.”
“Lester can pick me up at ten-thirty.” She kissed him, loving him but still wondering why lately she had begun to lose patience with him. “Don’t worry, darling. I shan’t expose myself to any strangers.”
“Sometimes I wonder if it’s all worth it,” he said, and
his father and his wife glanced sharply at him. “There’s some safety in anonymity.”
“It’s a little late for that,” said Sam Forte.
“Yes,” said Michael. “You saw to that.”
Abel Simmons, cruising slowly down Second Avenue like a driver who knew exactly what pace you had to maintain to catch the traffic lights all the way downtown, glanced at his watch. Nine-forty: time to move. He stepped on the gas pedal as he came to East 70th, then had to brake sharply as a green-and-white police car, badly in need of a wash, pulled out from the kerb right in front of him. He cursed; and cursed again when he saw the lights go red at the corner. He halted behind the police car, bouncing his hands impatiently on the steering wheel of the delivery truck. He was going to miss the lights at East 69th and if he did that it could blow the whole show. He could feel the sweat beginning to break on him and his legs began to tremble. Carole was going to be down there in the garage waiting for him, the Forte woman on her hands, the garage jockey wondering what the hell was going on, and all because a couple of pigs didn’t follow their own rules about pulling out into moving traffic. It would serve them right if he took the gun out of his pocket and shot both the bastards in the back of the head.
The light turned green and instinctively his hand touched the horn button. The two cops turned round in their seats and for a moment he thought the guy beside the driver was going to get out and come back to him; he took his hand off the wheel, put it in his pocket and clutched the gun; then he smiled and waved the other hand in an apologetic gesture. Neither of the cops smiled back, just stared at him a moment longer, then they faced forward again and the driver unhurriedly set the police car going. Abel, resisting the tempta-
tion to speed up past them, fell in behind; he didn’t want them following him, for Christ’s sake. He could see the light still green at 69th, but he hadn’t noticed when it had changed and he could not guess when it would turn red. The police car cruised slowly on, the driver and his partner lolling negligently in their seats, and Abel, trembling so much now he could feel his headache coming on again, tried to memorize the number of the car. When this job was over he’d come back here and kill those two pigs.
Then they were at 69th Street. The police car swung slightly to the right and Abel felt his stomach empty, then tighten; but the police car straightened up and went on down Second Avenue, and he swung the delivery truck on to 69th just as the lights turned. He wanted to stop, sit there for a minute or two and regain his cool. But there wasn’t time …
Up the street Carole Cox was already turning into the steps that led up into the small garden fronting the building known as Cornwall Gardens. She was dressed in a plain grey suit, wore dark wrapround glasses and a short curly wig that was much darker than her own straight brown hair; she hoped she looked like a thousand other working girls in New York City, felt sure that she did. Over the past four years she had come to accept anonymity, something she had once thought impossible for her: till she had met Roy in her last year at college and fallen so deeply in love with him, she had wanted recognition, to be an actress, a writer, someone. But even after today she would still be anonymous: that was part of the perfection of the plan.
She paused at the top of the steps, looked down the street and saw Abel driving up in the delivery truck. He had come by here twenty-five minutes ago and she hoped no one had seen them speaking to each other when he had pulled into the kerb across the street; they had exchanged no more than half a dozen words, but it had been necessary to confirm that Sylvia Forte’s appointment with her dentist was still scheduled for ten o’clock. Maybe a signal would have been
enough, but there was always the chance that a signal could be misunderstood. And nothing must be left to chance in this operation.
She saw Abel drive up past her, carefully not looking at her, then swing out of sight down the curving ramp that went under the garden to the basement garage. She hoped Abel had no trouble with what he had to do down there; she felt her palms in her brown kid gloves starting to sweat. She checked her watch: nine-forty-five. She moved on to a side path, watchful that she did not brush her stockings against the scruffy bushes bordering the path. God, how New Yorkers grabbed at their piece of greenery like people prizing shards of a bygone age. A hundred feet by twenty of patchy lawn, an ornamental pool that appeared to be filled with sludge oil, and several clumps of shrubs that looked as if they were hosed daily with acid: Walden Pond-on-6o,th. She glanced up at the tall building above her: how many tenants there ever looked down here hoping for a reflection of Thoreau ? Probably none; but she felt no pity for them. She checked her watch again, feeling impatience taking hold of her like a chill. Nine-forty-seven. Would Sylvia Forte be early, right on time, or late for her appointment ? Then the answer came up the street, the big black Lincoln Continental pulling into the kerb below her. The door opened and Sylvia Forte, red-gold hair so easily recognizable, got out of it …
A faded and dented yellow cab lurched in behind the Lincoln and Lisa Malone got out of it. She shoved two dollars at the driver and moved quickly to the steps that led up to Cornwall Gardens. As she did so she heard the red-haired, elegantly-dressed woman who had just got out of the big black car turn back and say, “I’m early, but I don’t think Dr Willey will mind.”
But / will, thought Lisa, seeing her own appointment suddenly disappearing; and she hurried up the steps. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the white-haired old man lean forward in the rear seat of the black car and say some-
thing; the woman smiled, blew a kiss from the tips of her gloved fingers and followed Lisa up the steps. As they crossed the small strip of garden Lisa saw the dark-haired girl standing to one side, looking down the street as if waiting for someone who had promised to meet her here and was late. Lisa hoped the girl was not another of Dr Willey’s patients who had turned up early for an appointment. Her hollow tooth began to ache again - with impatience, she guessed.
She went into the lobby, crossed to the elevator and entered it. There was no time to check what floor Dr Wille
y was on: the red-haired woman was already in the elevator with her, pressing the button for the tenth floor: that must be where Dr Willey had his surgery. The two woman stood side by side at the rear of the elevator, Lisa looking at the other woman out of the corner of her eye, the woman seemingly oblivious of Lisa. They were both dressed in brown wool suits; but Lisa guessed her own had cost less than half of what the red-haired woman must have paid for hers. Then there was the clack-clack-clack of high heels across the terrazzo floor of the lobby and the girl Lisa had seen waiting outside came quickly into the elevator. She stood in front of the control panel, pressed the master button, then a second button, waited till the doors closed, then turned round and faced Lisa and the red-haired woman. In her gloved hand was a small revolver.
“I am sorry, Mrs Forte, but you will have to see your dentist another day.”
Lisa felt the elevator going down beneath her: at first she wasn’t sure that the feeling was not just an emotional one. Then the elevator bumped gently to a stop, the doors opened and Lisa, looking past the girl, saw they were in a basement garage that seemed full of cars. A grey delivery truck, its rear doors open, was backed up almost against the elevator exit. A young blond man in coveralls, wearing the same sort of wrapround dark glasses as the girl, stood by the open doors of the truck.
The girl jerked the gun at the red-haired woman. “Please don’t make any trouble, Mrs Forte, or you’ll get hurt. Get into the truck.”
“Jesus!” The young man sounded worried. “Who’s the other one?”
The girl shook her head, then seemed to look at Lisa for the first time. “I don’t know who you are, but you’re out of luck. You’ll have to come with us - “
“Jesus, we don’t want herV
“Shut up!” The gun shook for a moment in the girl’s hand; Lisa flinched, waiting for an involuntary squeezing of the trigger. “I know we don’t want her. But we’re stuck with her. What the hell else do we do with her?”
“Jesus, I don’t know-” Despite the dark mask of the glasses, worry and indecision showed in the thin face of the young man.
Then there was the sound of a car coming down the ramp. The young man swung round, looking on the verge of panic. “I put the chain across the top of the down ramp! The bastard’s coming down the other side!”
The girl jerked the gun at Lisa and the red-haired woman. “Into the truck - quick!”
So far the red-haired woman had not moved. Now she looked at Lisa and, her voice only faintly showing signs of strain, said, “I’m sorry. I think we had better do what they say.”
Lisa could not believe what she was involved in, yet there was no mistaking the blunt truth of the gun in the girl’s hand. She had been engaged to a policeman for six months and married to him for eight weeks: she knew that crime was more than just an abstract headline in one’s daily newspaper. But hearing Scobie talk of it, seeing the occasional mental scar that came to the surface in him, was far different from this. “I’m staying here! I don’t want any part of it - !”
The young man cursed savagely, stepped into the elevator, grabbed her and shoved her out towards the truck. She struggled violently, but he was too strong for her; she felt a
blow across the back of her neck, everything was suddenly blurred and next moment she was flung headlong into the back of the truck. When she rolled over on her back, her gaze clearing, she saw the red-haired woman being pushed into the truck and the girl scrambling in after her. The doors were slammed shut and a moment later she heard the young man jump up into the front of the truck. She heard the other car come down the ramp into the garage, then its horn was tooted twice. The engine of the truck was already running; then the truck jumped forward, the sound of the suddenly revved-up engine roaring in the low-roofed confines of the garage. She tried to sit up, but the girl, sitting on the floor of the truck beside the red-haired woman, leaned across and poked the gun into Lisa’s bosom.
“Lie still! If you move, I’ll shoot you!”
Lisa lay back, sliding to one side on the slippery metal floor as the truck, engine roaring, swung round the newly-arrived car parked outside the attendant’s office and went up the ramp out of the garage. She could see the red-haired woman flattened against the other side of the truck, her face suddenly wide open in her first expression of fear. The girl waved the gun at both women, her mouth snarling wordlessly, then she crawled forward to the partition that separated the back of the truck from the driver’s seat. She hammered on the partition with her hand.
“Abel - slow down! We don’t want to be pulled in for speeding!”
Up front Abel Simmons eased up off the gas pedal, feeling the effort in his calf muscle as if he were trying to lift a weight with his foot. He opened his hands, letting the strain run out of them; his fingers felt as if he had been hanging by them from a cliff-edge. His head was aching, as it always did when he was worried. His face was streaming with sweat and his dark glasses were beginning to fog up. But he couldn’t take them off yet, not till he was out of 69th and had turned up Third Avenue. They had worked out the route a dozen times, taking the longer way, always putting a corner behind
them and moving with the traffic instead of going right across town. All he had to do was not panic.
Everything had been going so well until the blonde bitch had unexpectedly appeared in the picture. There had been no trouble with the garage jockey. He had been lounging in a chair in the tiny office as Abel had pulled up the truck, swung down and entered the office. He had looked up, both hands holding a comic book in his lap, the transistor radio behind him playing a number from No, No, Nanette; he had said nothing as Abel had come at him with the butt end of the gun, just opened his eyes wide in a visual parody of the banal words of the song being sung behind him. Maybe the guy had been slow-witted; Abel had felt sorry for him as he had fallen backwards. His chair had tipped over right in front of the toilet where Abel meant to hide him. Abel had come in here two weeks ago on the pretext of looking for a job; two minutes in the tiny office had been enough for him to remember its lay-out. This morning it had taken him less than a minute to gag the guy with the tape he had brought with him, tape his hands behind him, then shove him into the toilet and lock the door.
The music had stopped and a disc jockey, a licensed con man, was burbling a message: “Does that pluck at the old memory strings, you older gals? If you want your own taste of nostalgia, why not try Sara Lee’s Cherry Pies - “
Abel had switched off the radio, run back up the ramp and put the chain across the entrance, hanging the Garage Full sign on it. Two minutes later he had had the truck waiting outside the elevator, back doors open, engine running, everything ready just for Carole and the Forte dame to put in an appearance. Then the elevator doors had opened and there were Carole and the Forte dame and the blonde bitch besides. Then to top it all there had been the guy who took no notice of signs, who drove down an Up ramp-Jesus, what if they had met him halfway up the ramp!
The sweat broke more profusely on him, blinding him this time as it ran down into his eyes. He caught the green
light at the corner, barely seeing it through his fogged-up glasses, swung right up Third and at once whipped off the glasses. He rubbed them quickly on his thigh, then put them back on; they were still smeared but at least he could see through them. He saw the light still green at 70th and he speeded up, caught it and turned right again. At the end of the block, at Second Avenue, the light was red: it stared at him like an hemorrhaged eye. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket, wiped his glasses clean, mopped his face and put the glasses back on. Then he willed his cool to come back, telling himself the worst was now over. Even if the guy who had driven down into the garage found the attendant in the toilet, they wouldn’t know what else had happened. It could be hours before anyone learned there had been a kidnapping.
The light turned green and he moved the truck on, driving at a good speed but not fast enough to catch the notice of any prowling pig. He saw the police ca
r he had seen before and for a moment his foot lifted off the pedal; but the police car was parked at the kerb, the driver was missing and his partner was reading a newspaper; he drove on, laughing to himself at them. Just below East 60th he turned sharply left, heading for the Queensboro Bridge. Once on the bridge he speeded up a little, the tyres whirring on the metal surface beneath the truck. He came down on to Queens Boulevard and almost at once had to slow down again. The women shoppers were just making their appearance, cruising their cars down the boulevard as if they were pushing trolleys down the alleys in a supermarket: Hold it a minute, Josie … No, it don’t matter, I thought I seen something … Look, there’s a parking space! … No, you missed it … Abel cursed them: goddam women were all alike. All but the lovely one in the back of the truck. Carole: the greatest thing that had ever happened to him in his whole screwed-up life.
In the back of the truck Carole sat with her back braced against the partition that separated her from Abel. Mrs Forte and the blonde sat on either side of the truck, facing each
other, and she watched them carefully, wondering which one of them was going to speak first. Neither of the women had said a word since they had been bundled into the truck; maybe, she mused, they had both been so scared they had been struck dumb. She herself had been scared when Abel had grabbed the blonde girl; God knows what he had intended doing, but it had looked as if he were going to kill her. She would have to watch him carefully too: he seemed to lose his head too quickly when things got panicky.
Sylvia Forte smoothed back her hair, then looked at her trembling hand and cupped it in the other hand. She looked across at Lisa. “Perhaps we had better introduce ourselves. I am Sylvia Forte.”