Exceptional Clearance
Page 29
Worthington’s back arched in delight as he broke into gales of raucous laughter. He scooped Valarie up out of the suitcase and, holding her in his arms, waltzed around the room, singing, “Oh … how we danced … on the night … we were wed.…”
Vinda tilted his head back so the ambulance attendant could swab the gash on his forehead; he jumped from the sting of the anti-infective solution.
The rest of the team were canvassing the spectators on the chance that Worthington had come to inspect his handiwork.
Commissioner Leventhal climbed into the ambulance. “How do you feel?”
“Like I just had a close encounter with a herd of buffaloes.”
“You’re going to the hospital, Lieutenant,” the attendant said. “We’re going to need X-rays. And that gash needs suturing.”
“Later,” Vinda said. “Stick a Band-Aid on it for now.” Inclining his head toward the PC, he asked, “Any word on injuries?”
“Not yet. Thanks to your fast thinking, I don’t expect there’ll be many. We’ve been receiving garbled transmissions from a couple of Bomb Squad detectives trapped in the boiler room, along with the chief engineer. Apparently they were in the process of deactivating the devices when the damn things blew. Emergency crews are trying to get to them now.”
“He suckered me, Sam.”
“Sometimes we make a wrong turn in the Job, you know that. We’re only human, John. Don’t start beating yourself.”
A policeman climbed into the ambulance, saluted the police commissioner, and asked, “Lieutenant Vinda?”
“Yes.”
“Jessica Merrill asked me to try and find you. She says she needs to talk to you,” the cop said.
Pushing the attendant’s hand away from his head and sitting up on the bunk, Vinda asked, “Where is she?”
“We have her stashed in our RMP inside City Hall Park.”
Agueda and Hagstrom were circulating through the crowd gathered in front of the Municipal Building when Agueda saw Vinda and a policeman crossing Centre Street, heading toward City Hall Park. “I’ll be right back,” she told Hagstrom.
Jessica Merrill slumped in the rear of the police car. His face grimacing from pain, Vinda slid into the seat next to her. She looked at his bandaged head and his stained clothes and said, “I’m sorry. I just couldn’t bring myself to believe that it was Michael.”
“Why do you believe it now?” he asked, delicately touching the bandage over his head wound with his fingers.
“I heard the bulletin; then I remembered his obsession with explosives. He and Otto Holman were always talking about them. And then it came back to me. That awful day at Rue St. Jacques, he slipped something into my shopping bag. He told me he’d bought a present for a friend. But I hadn’t seen him buy anything all day.”
His clean suit, Vinda thought. He said, “Worthington and Griffin are the same man. You knew that, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“What hold does he have over you?”
“Valarie was my half-sister.”
Vinda’s surprise was real. “What?”
“My sister,” she repeated. “Frank Griffin was a good man. And he was good to my sister, very loving, gentle. His world fell apart when she was killed. He disappeared for a while. Then one day he telephoned and asked to borrow money. I’d just gone through an expensive divorce and had a run-in with the IRS, and didn’t have it to lend him. He got it from someplace, and then asked me to contact a plastic surgeon my parents had known from the other side.”
“And so he had his face changed, right? And you helped him get parts when he became an actor, calling himself Michael Worthington,” Vinda said. “But you never knew about the fangs he had made, right?”
“What are you talking about?”
Vinda ignored her question and asked angrily, “Weren’t you aware of his delusions about Valarie being alive?”
“I knew. I couldn’t tell anyone. He loved her so much that he wouldn’t allow her to die.”
Vinda thought fleetingly of Jean, wondering if he too could have let his grief turn into madness.
“I knew it was delusional, but what real harm did it do anyone, I asked myself. I felt responsible for him. He was the only real family I had left, the only person who really cared about me.”
“Where is he now?”
“I’m not sure. A while back he rented a small storefront on Forty-seventh Street off First Avenue to use as a rehearsal studio. We used it together once.”
“Do you know the address?”
“No, but I can point it out to you.”
The car’s door was jerked open. Agueda stuck her head inside, and said, “How ya feelin’, Lieutenant?”
Knapsack slung over his left shoulder, the bulky suitcase clutched in his right hand, Worthington stood on the corner of First Avenue and Forty-seventh Street, sucking in the invigorating air. Their Calvary was over, their Trinity secured. Now he could get on with His work.
His eyes looked across the avenue and came to rest on the large bronze sculpture on the grounds of the United Nations. Saint George on horseback, poised triumphantly above the wreckage of a Soviet SS-20 and an American Pershing II missile carved into the shape of a dragon. He had read about the piece in the newspapers; it was titled Good Defeats Evil. Good defeats evil, he said to himself over and over, convinced that it was a message from Him. Stepping off the curb, moving sideways around stalled automobiles and buses, he made his way to the other side of the street.
Agueda drove the RMP up onto the sidewalk, blocking the entrance to Worthington’s rehearsal hall. Guns drawn, the detectives smashed open the door and charged inside. A fast search of the premises revealed no one there. The television was on.
They rushed back outside and found Jessica standing by the car pointing across First Avenue. “There,” she said.
Agueda hit the accelerator and the RMP shot off the sidewalk into First Avenue, ricocheting off a car’s fender. Heedless of the traffic, she forced her way across to the other side.
Hearing the commotion behind him, Worthington turned and saw the police car maneuvering his way. When he saw Vinda and Jessica together in the back, his eyes filled with hate. Hurriedly shrugging off his knapsack, he grabbed a grenade from it, pulled the pin, and lobbed the missile at the onrushing police car.
“Get down!” Agueda shrieked, cutting the wheel sharply to the right and diving under the dashboard.
Vinda shoved Jessica to the floor and covered her with his body. The RMP rammed into the side of a bus. The grenade exploded, piercing the body of the RMP with steel splinters. The main force of the explosion was taken by the engine block. It lifted the car up and blew out its tires and windshield.
“Adriene?” Vinda called frantically.
“I’m all right, I think,” Agueda called back.
“Me too,” Jessica said.
Vinda reached out and shoved the door open, crawling over Jessica into the roadway. “Adriene, get on the radio and get us some help. And stay here with Jessica. This guy might try to double back here to take her out.”
Crouched under the dashboard, Agueda snatched down the radio and transmitted, “Ten-thirteen, Four-seven and First.”
Worthington had leaped over the railing and was running through the United Nations Park with his suitcase banging against his leg and his knapsack clutched in his other hand.
Vinda leaped over and ran after him. A burning anger filled him with resolve. This lunatic was not going to go meekly to the looney bin. This case would be marked closed by “Exceptional Clearance.” Without warning, he found himself in the middle of a hail of bullets. He dived to the ground, rolled over on his side, and saw two United Nations policemen, with their guns drawn, running toward him. He quickly pulled out his credentials and, holding his shield above his head, screamed, “I’m a cop! I’m a cop!”
The United Nations policemen ran up to him. “What the hell is going on?” one of them demanded, just as the explosion of anot
her grenade sent both policemen sprawling to the ground. One of them rolled over on his back, moaning, as blood spread across his chest.
Worthington darted along the esplanade that ran along the side of the General Assembly Building, heading toward the East River. Tourists scattered in panic. Vinda, in close pursuit, suddenly halted, took aim, decided he did not have a clear shot, lowered his weapon, and again ran after him.
Worthington ducked behind the Statue of Peace. Vinda dived to a prone position behind a bush, aiming his revolver at the statue. Worthington bolted, making for the graveled footpath. Vinda fired two rounds that missed, then popped up on his feet and ran after Worthington.
The gardens led down to a promenade deck that overhung the shoulder of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Drive; below the highway the East River lapped at the stone embankment of the seawall.
Rushing up to the deck’s railing, Worthington looked over his shoulder, saw Vinda, and climbed up on the railing. He pulled on his knapsack and, clutching his suitcase to his chest, jumped down onto the highway, oblivious to the mass of speeding cars.
Vinda saw him running north along the shoulder. He aimed, and fired one round. Worthington was hit in the leg; he fell and dropped his suitcase. Valarie flew out, falling to the ground. Vinda jumped down after him.
Worthington pulled himself up onto his feet. Grabbing the highway’s railing, he limped away from his tormentor. Running behind a big reel of construction cable stored on the highway’s shoulder, Vinda took careful aim and ordered, “Griffin, stop!”
Continuing to drag himself along the railing, Worthington took another grenade out of his knapsack and leaned over the railing, trying to catch his breath. “I hate all of you!” he shouted at Vinda. He pulled the pin and started to lob the grenade.
Vinda fired two rounds. Worthington sagged from the bullets’ impact, dropping the grenade.
Vinda ducked behind the wheel of cable. The explosion hurled Worthington over the railing. Vinda rushed up to the barrier and saw him covered in blood, clinging to the rocks, with the water’s hungry current tugging at his legs.
Worthington’s dazed eyes sought Vinda’s, his hand reaching up toward the policeman. “Valarie, Valarie,” he pleaded weakly.
Vinda turned and saw the doll on the ground. He picked it up. For a second he considered tossing it down to the dying man; then he remembered all the young women the man on the rocks had killed so remorselessly and horribly. Young lives needlessly and cruelly snuffed out. He put the barrel of his gun to the head of the doll and fired.
“Valarie!” Worthington shrieked, as the current yanked him from the rocks and swallowed him.
Vinda hurled the deflating, ridiculous doll after him and watched it vanish below the black water, weighted down by its habit.
Vinda stood there, staring into the river, and then he heard the approaching sirens, and his name being shouted. He turned and looked up at the promenade and saw Adriene crying and waving down to him.
Vinda shakily waved back to her. He felt a rush of joy pour through him and a sense of profound release, as if some heavy burden had been lifted from him. He did not know how their future together would play out, but, as he called out her name, he knew that the past had been buried and he had finally returned to life.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank the following people for their help in the writing of this book: Anthony E. Gragrasso, M.D., Surgeon, Connecticut State Police, Assistant Medical Examiner, for taking the time to tell me about forensic medicine. Garry Goldstein, D.D.S., Chairperson, Department of Prosthodontics, NYU School of Dentistry, for explaining to me how the human mouth works, and for making me such a delightful pair of fangs. Evan Cohen, D.D.S., for allowing me to turn him into such an agreeable vampire. Stephen Burke, M.D., Associate Attending Surgeon, The Hospital for Special Surgery, for taking the time to explain to me how to treat a shattered kneecap. My pal, Barry Zide, M.D., Associate Professor of Surgery, NYU Medical Center, and a great reconstructive plastic surgeon, for spending so many hours with me, showing me how to take apart and reconstruct the human face. Jerome Levin, Ph.D., for his guided tours through the paranoid mind. My buddy Jim Pollack for teaching me about “fast ropes” and plastic explosives, and other very nasty things. Jennifer Weider for the use of her poem “Dinny’O.” Knox Burger and Kitty Sprague for their many hours of wise counsel, and for being there whenever I needed them. My friend and editor, James O’Shea Wade, for his many suggestions and his magical pencil.
I would like to thank Chief of the Department Robert J. Johnston, NYPD, for his suggestions and advice. Captain Bob Syndrones, Commanding Officer, Public Information Section, for opening any doors I needed to walk through. Lieutenant Donald O’Donnell for his many kindnesses.
A special thank-you to the Crown Family for again pulling it together and making it all work, and especially Jim Davis and George Wilson for a terrific cover.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
William J. Caunitz was a thirty-year veteran of the New York City Police Department. During his career, he achieved the rank of lieutenant and was assigned commander of a detective squad. At the age of fifty-one, Caunitz began publishing crime novels, which were noted for their realistic depictions of the daily workings of a police precinct, as well as for their sensational plots. He wrote seven novels, and the first, One Police Plaza, was made into a television movie. Caunitz died from pulmonary fibrosis in 1996. His last work, Chains of Command, which was halfway completed at the time, was finished by Christopher Newman, author of the Joe Dante series.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1991 by William J. Caunitz
Cover design by Andy Ross
ISBN: 978-1-5040-2831-8
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