Holy Terror

by Graham Masterton

  ‘Her mother’s right here, as a matter of fact,’ said a flat voice, right behind him. And there she was, with her dark hair tied back in a severe ponytail, looking even more Audrey Hepburn than usual. She was wearing a silk Hermès blouse in crimson and dark blue, and an off-white skirt that reached just above her knees. He had always thought that she dressed too old and conservative for her age.

  ‘Paula… you’re looking good. Lost a little weight. Suits you.’

  ‘Can you put my daughter down, please?’

  Conor gave Fay a squeeze and said, ‘What do you think, sugar plum fairy? Think I ought to put her daughter down?’

  Fay covered her eyes with the back of her hand. She always did that when Conor and Paula started to fence. Conor put his hand into his pocket and tugged out a white handkerchief. He twisted it around, pulled it twice with his teeth, and it took on the shape of a rabbit with big floppy ears.

  ‘Why don’t we ask Mr Rabbitinski what he thinks?’

  Fay peered out through her fingers. ‘I’m too old for Mr Rabbitinski.’

  ‘Come on, Conor,’ Paula repeated. ‘Put her down.’

  ‘You may be too old for Mr Rabbitinski but Mr Rabbitinski still misses you. Come to that, I do, too.’

  Fay wriggled and slipped down from his grasp. Paula reached out and took hold of her hand and pulled her away. Conor made Mr Rabbitinski flop over in sadness and disappointment.

  ‘I thought they would have caught you by now,’ said Paula.

  ‘I didn’t do anything, Paula. It’s a misunderstanding, that’s all.’

  ‘Of course it is. You’ve always been so upright and honest, haven’t you, Conor? Always done the right thing, no matter how much it hurts everybody around you. You betrayed your fellow officers, you betrayed me, you betrayed your daughter. All for the sake of your precious principles! And now look at you. Wanted for robbery. What price your principles now?’

  ‘Paula, I really didn’t do this. I swear it on my life. I swear it on Fay’s life.’

  Paula looked at him with such hatred that he felt a physical chill. ‘Don’t you ever swear anything on my daughter’s life. She doesn’t have a father now, because of you. Didn’t it occur to you once what it would do to you, breaking the Forty-Ninth Street Golf Club, and what it would do to your family? Who were they hurting? Nobody but the Mafia, the scum of the earth! Why in the name of God didn’t you turn a blind eye?’

  Conor looked down and realized that he was still holding Mr Rabbitinski in the crook of his elbow. A grown man with a handkerchief rabbit.

  He didn’t know what to say to Paula. He had broken the Forty-Ninth Street Golf Club ‘because it was wrong’? That sounded so naïve. Yet that was why he had done it.

  Paula said, ‘If you’re really innocent, why don’t you turn yourself in, and prove it?’

  ‘It isn’t as simple as that.’

  ‘Yes it is. Look, let me show you how it’s done.’

  With that, she lifted her arm and shouted out, ‘Officer! Officer! Over here, officer!’

  ‘Paula, what the hell are you doing?’ Conor demanded.

  But Paula dodged out of his way and continued to wave her arm. ‘Officer! There’s a wanted man here! Hurry!’

  Conor snatched hold of her arm and stared right into her face. ‘You’re hurting me,’ she said, with a triumphant smile. ‘But that’s what you’re good at, isn’t it? Hurting people?’

  ‘Daddy!’ shrilled Fay. ‘Daddy, the cops are coming!’

  For a split second, Conor could see in Paula’s face the woman that he had once fallen in love with. She was still there, but she was inaccessible to him now. If only there was something he could say to bring her back. One word. But then he heard one of the cops shout, ‘Freeze, mister! Hold it right there!’

  ‘Daddy!’

  He didn’t turn around. He ducked past Paula and started to run through the thick of the crowd – deliberately barging his way through school parties and groups of tourists and even a covey of nuns. The cop yelled out, ‘Hold it! Stop or I’ll shoot!’ but Conor knew that he wouldn’t risk hitting a child.

  He ran past the seal pool and the merry-go-round, and then dodged out of the park by the 64th Street entrance. He ran across Fifth Avenue through the middle of the traffic, almost vaulting over the hood of a taxi; and by the time the cops had come puffing into view, he was turning the corner into 63rd Street and he was gone.

  Chapter 20

  Eleanor spent all morning on the phone, talking to every theatrical agent she could think of, trying to pick up the slightest hint of Hypnos and Hetti’s possible whereabouts.

  It took a long time. Most of the agents were delighted that she had called them, and wanted to spend hours reminiscing about the old days on Broadway, about Lee Strasberg and Ben Gazzara and Christine White and Harry Guardino and Jay Julien. Every conversation brightened Eleanor more and more, in spite of the urgency of what she was doing, and Sidney sat smiling at her as she laughed and talked.

  ‘What a woman,’ he said, in quiet admiration, as Conor came into the room.

  After his escape from Central Park, Conor had walked across to the Rialto Theater and talked to Sammy the doorman again and some of the cast of Franklin. Hypnos and Hetti must have used their hypnotic influence with enormous skill, because hardly anybody could remember them being there. One young girl from the chorus line said, ‘I remember seeing a man and a woman in the corridor … but I always had the feeling that I shouldn’t look at them.’

  A male dancer said, ‘I saw people who weren’t there. I really began to think that the theater was haunted, you know? By ghosts.’

  Conor returned to Sebastian’s apartment at 1:56 p.m. hot and tired, with no new information at all. ‘Has Eleanor had any luck?’ he asked Sidney.

  ‘Not so far. Everybody remembers Hypnos and Hetti. Who wouldn’t? But nobody has any idea where they are now.’

  ‘How about a glass of chilled Chab-lee?’ asked Ric, pirouetting into the room in black Versace jeans and a white silk blouse. ‘And maybe you’d like me to mop your fevered whatever.’

  It was then that Sebastian’s mobile phone rang. Ric picked it up and said, ‘Ye-e-e-ess?’ Then he frowned and passed it to Conor. ‘It’s for you. Somebody called Morrie Teitelbaum.’

  Conor said, ‘Morrie? What’s happening?’ Then he put his hand over the phone and said, ‘It’s Morrie, from Kaufman.’

  ‘Conor! That broad you wanted us to keep a weather eye out for … she came into the drugstore two or three minutes ago … Jimmy did like you told us and told her we were all backed up in filling prescriptions … she’s coming back here in ten minutes.’

  ‘Morrie, there’s a place waiting for you in Heaven.’

  ‘Forget Heaven. A couple dozen White Owls will do.’

  Conor switched off the phone. ‘That’s it. We’ve found her. Sidney – Ric – Sebastian – do you want to come with me?’

  ‘What about that burundanga shit?’ said Ric. ‘Supposing they blow that all over us again? I mean, God knows what they could make us do next.’

  ‘Take a scarf,’ Sidney suggested. ‘If Perez tries to pull that stunt again, hold it over your nose and mouth.’

  Ric brought out four brightly colored scarves and handed them around. ‘Dear me – we look like the Three Musketeers and D’Artagnan.’ They collected their wallets and their keys and prepared to leave. As they did so, however, Eleanor lifted her hand and said, ‘Sidney! Conor! Wait up a second!’

  ‘What is it, Bipsy?’ Sidney asked her. She was still on the phone.

  ‘I’m talking to Norman Frisch. You remember Norman? He did all the stage sets for April in Augusta. He saw Hypnos and Hetti less than a week ago in the Shark Bar on Amsterdam Avenue.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘He recognized the guy that they were talking to. He was that nutty Southern Baptist millionaire who tried to close down Evangelists at the Lyceum, on account of it was blasphemous.’

  ‘Oh, sure
. I remember that. But I don’t recall what his name was.’

  ‘Victor Labrea,’ said Eleanor.

  ‘Victor Labrea?’ said Conor. ‘That’s the same guy who’s working for Dennis Evelyn Branch. He’s the one who’s holding Lacey.’

  ‘Well,’ said Sidney, gravely, ‘if we can find Hetti, then we’ve got a good chance of finding him. And if we can find him, we’ve got a good chance of finding your Lacey.’

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Conor. ‘But for God’s sake, let’s take it easy. These freaks are capable of anything.’

  They took a taxi to Lexington and 49th, one block south of the Kaufman Pharmacy. It was a sweltering morning, over 93 degrees with 92 per cent humidity, but unlike previous days the sky was curiously brown, like weathered bronze. As he stepped out of the taxi, Conor thought that he could hear the distant indigestive rumbling of thunder.

  He posted Sidney outside the Hallmark gift store, directly opposite Kaufman. Sebastian he positioned at the east intersection of Lexington and 51st, in case Hetti left the pharmacy and started to head north. Ric stood point on the east side of Lexington at 49th. Conor himself went inside.

  The pharmacy was coldly air-conditioned and brightly lit. Conor took a quick look around the shelves of hairsprays and cut-price perfumes to make sure that Hetti wasn’t here already. When Conor had first graduated from the Police Academy, there had been a long counter at Kaufman with pound cake under domed glass covers and a narrow kitchen at the back from which they served up meatloaf and mashed potato and chicken with stringbeans and gravy. All that was gone, but Morrie was still here and so were three or four others who remembered Conor coming in hungry and exhausted at eleven o’clock at night.

  ‘She ain’t back yet.’ Morrie was barely visible over the top of the counter. A freckled bald head, thick 1970s sideburns and heavy-rimmed glasses.

  Conor checked the Dexatrim clock on the wall. ‘You told her ten minutes?’

  ‘Shell be back,’ said a tall, gingery pharmacist from the back of the dispensary. ‘She comes in regular. Very strange woman. Gives me the heebie-jeebies.’

  Morrie said, ‘How’re things going, Conor? I heard about that robbery business down at Spurr’s. They still trying to nail you for that?’

  Conor nodded. ‘Drew Slyman’s on my tail. He’s the kind of guy who believes you’re guilty even after you’ve been proven innocent.’

  ‘Drew Slyman? I never took to that guy. A gonef.’

  They were still talking when Morrie gave an upward jerk of his head and said, ‘Hey… that’s her coming now. You want to step back in here?’

  He opened the side door and Conor stepped into the dispensary, keeping himself out of sight against a row of shelves. He heard the door open, a momentary blare of traffic noise, and then he heard Hetti’s stiletto heels approaching the counter. He could see her reflected in a curved make-up mirror on display on one of the opposite shelves. She was wearing a black straw wide-brimmed hat and a short black dress with a sparkling silver brooch. She looked as if she were going to a funeral in Beverly Hills.

  ‘Sorry about the delay,’ said Morrie, and handed over her pills. ‘The usual warning… don’t take this in conjunction with alcohol or any other prescription drugs, especially phenylpropanolamine.’

  Hetti put the pills in her purse. Then she lifted her head and said, ‘You’re agitated about something. What’s wrong?’

  ‘Excuse me? Agitated?’

  ‘Yes … I can sense it. Something’s not quite right.’

  ‘Hey, everything’s fine. My wife’s put her back out. One of my sons got caught for drunk driving. The cat’s sick and my mother-in-law’s coming to stay the weekend. Why should I be agitated?’

  Hetti paused for a long, long time. Conor stayed rigidly still, his head pressed back against boxes of dextromoramide. If he could see her in the make-up mirror, then all she would have to do was look toward it and she would be able to see him. But she kept her eyes on Morrie, saying nothing, her eyes as dead as black beetles.

  ‘Hmmm …’ she said at last, and turned to go.

  Conor was about to move when she stopped, and turned around again. ‘There’s something… I don’t know what it is. You should let me give you some hypnotherapy some time.’

  ‘Sure. Sure thing. Pleasure to see you. Have a nice day.’

  Hetti walked out of the store. Morrie waited for a moment, peering out into the street. Then he touched Conor’s arm and said, ‘OK, that’s it. She’s crossing 50th, she’s headed downtown. Good luck, that’s all I can say.’

  ‘Thanks, Morrie. Mazel tov.’

  Conor pushed his way out of the pharmacy into the street. It was like walking into a steam laundry. Sidney had already seen Hetti and was walking down the opposite side of Lexington Avenue, eighty or ninety feet behind her. Ric had seen her, too, and had detached himself from the comer of 49th Street to walk three-quarters of a block ahead of her.

  Conor looked back and Sebastian was there, too. They had her boxed in, whichever direction she decided to go.

  Hetti stopped at 49th Street. She crossed over Lexington Avenue and continued to head west, up the slope of 49th Street toward Park Avenue. Conor whistled and waved to Ric that he should head in the same direction on 48th, and hurry, so that he came out onto Park ahead of her.

  The sky grew increasingly somber. Large, widely separated drops of rain began to measle the sidewalk. As Hetti reached Park Avenue a dazzling stroke of lightning struck the top of the PanAm building, followed by a bellow of thunder. The rain began to quicken, and by the time Conor and Sidney had got to Park Avenue, it was coming down in torrents.

  ‘Where is she?’ said Sidney, frantically looking around. ‘Don’t tell me we’ve lost her.’

  ‘No – there she is,’ said Conor. And there she was – entering the revolving doors in the front of the Waldorf-Astoria.

  They splashed across the street, into the shelter of the hotel’s canopy. Conor cautiously looked through the doors. He could see Hetti in the vast, glossy 1930s-style lobby. She was standing beside a banquette, talking to a florid-faced man in a yellow flannel sport coat. He had a heavy black mustache and cropped black hair. Hetti was nodding, and making a circling gesture with her right hand. The man was leaning forward slightly so that he could hear her better, but by the expression on his face he didn’t look very impressed with what she was saying.

  Sidney recognized him immediately. ‘That’s your man,’ he said. ‘There was an article about him in last month’s Theater. How religious pressure groups are threatening freedom of expression.’

  Ric joined them, shaking his hair like a wet dog, then Sebastian. ‘Look at this silk shirt. It’s supposed to be dry clean only!’ There was another crackle of lightning, and another avalanche of thunder. Beside them, the Waldorf-Astoria’s doorman lofted a huge umbrella and crossed the sidewalk to greet the arrival of a white stretch Cadillac. Out of the front of the car climbed the greasy-looking bodyguard who had accompanied Hypnos to the Rialto Theater. He was wearing a smart gray suit now, although his cheek still bore two maroon bruises from Sebastian’s kicking and there was a band aid across the bridge of his nose.

  They pulled up their collars so that the bodyguard wouldn’t recognize them, and half shielded their faces with their hands, but they needn’t have worried. There were too many wet people clustering in the hotel’s entrance for them to be noticed. Besides, the bodyguard was preoccupied with taking care of his charge: a blond fortyish woman in a short white Valentino dress who was climbing out of the softly lit white-leather interior of the Cadillac’s back seat.

  The bodyguard ushered the woman into the hotel, while a miserable-looking bellhop scurried out and collected shopping bags and packages from Bergdorf Goodman, Norma Kamali, Charles Jourdan and Galeries Lafayette.

  The blond woman went directly toward Hetti and Victor Labrea. She bent over and kissed Victor Labrea’s cheek and he took hold of her hand. Conor saw heavy gold rings on all of his fingers, and a gol
d chain around his wrist that could have been used to bring up an anchor.

  The woman picked an invisible hair from the man’s shoulder with long, purple-painted nails, and every now and then she patted him or stroked him. She ignored Hetti; and from the way she was standing and the way that she was gesturing, Conor could see she didn’t like Hetti being there at all. At one point, it looked as if they were arguing.

  Suddenly, the conversation broke up. Victor Labrea stood up and began to walk toward the elevators, with everybody else promptly following him.

  ‘This is it,’ said Conor. ‘Let’s find out what room they’re in.’

  ‘And then what?’ Sebastian demanded.

  ‘We go in and rescue Lacey and take back the stuff from the safety deposit boxes, that’s all.’

  ‘We just “go in”? We just “rescue Lacey”? We just “take back the stuff”?’

  ‘Do you have any other suggestions?’

  Sebastian flared his nostrils and perched his hands on his hips. ‘Other suggestions?’ He hesitated for five or ten seconds, then he said, ‘No, I guess I don’t.’

  ‘Let’s do it, then, before it’s too late.’

  They crossed the Waldorf-Astoria’s lobby with its chandeliers and its gleaming pillars and its art deco statues. The thunder and lightning and the mid-morning darkness gave it a heightened sense of imminent apocalypse. Expensively dressed men and women milled around the reception desk, confused and irritated and not a little alarmed that the storm had washed out their shopping expeditions to Bloomingdale’s and their lunch dates at the Quilted Giraffe.

  In spite of the blandly tinkling piano music, it had something of the atmosphere of The Poseidon Adventure: the world turned upside down.

  Conor walked quickly to the concierge’s desk. The blond woman’s bags and packages were propped up on a trolley, ready to be taken up to her room. The concierge himself was talking on the phone – a smooth, bald character with steel-framed eyeglasses.

  ‘May I help you, sir?’ he asked, covering the telephone mouthpiece with his hand.