Liberty Falling

by Nevada Barr

  “These jokers couldn’t have picked a worse day—or better, depending on how you look at it,” Dwight said. “Everybody’s on the island. They even had a tugboat land, but by the time Andrew got down to the dock to shoo it away it’d pulled out.” He got back on the radio. Anna continued breathing.

  When the Liberty IV docked, the pier was empty. Cal helped Anna ashore. Dwight told his handful of commuters in the lower cabin to stay on board and trotted off in the direction of the statue. In the distance was the chop of helicopters. The cavalry. There was nothing left for Anna to do. She didn’t do bombs and didn’t want to do crowd control. The monument had people for that. For once she would bow out and let others do their jobs. Molly would be proud.

  Weary, sick and too sore to walk straight, she thanked Cal for saving her soggy little life and limped off down the covered dock. Mrs. Weinstein hadn’t stinted on the decorations. Japanese lanterns glowed, pastel moons hung from overhead beams. Piñatas, donkeys and bulls and a pig, grazed the air between them. African masks glowered from the roof supports. Chinese dragons on paper wind socks hung limp in the still air. It would have been a great party.

  Wanting to avoid adventure, Anna didn’t take the wide tourist thoroughfare between law enforcement headquarters and the concessionaire’s building, but turned left at the end of the dock and squeezed through the high wooden gate that hid the ugly utilitarian part of the island from the public. The alley between the headquarters and the machine sheds was filled with the directionless light of evening. No shadows, no edges, lines ran together. Anna moved as if she waded through deep fog. The only thing tethering her to reality was the smell of deep-fried rancid coming from the Dumpsters.

  “Anna,” said a Dumpster.

  She stopped. With an effort, she engaged her mind.

  “Over here.”

  She knew she should have been startled, but she was too tired. Moving all of a piece so she didn’t twist back or neck, she faced the Dumpster that had spoken. In this shadowless world a shadow lay half under the metal bin.

  Andrew. Officer down. “Jesus,” she whispered. She knelt next to him, her hands feeling for cuts, blood, deformities. “What happened?”

  “Shot.” His voice was strong. Good sign. Not scared. Shock killed as sure as bullets.

  “Are you okay?” God, she was tired. It made her stupid and careless. Too late, she looked around the alley for possible danger.

  “They took off a minute ago, maybe less.” Andrew was dragging his lower half from under the Dumpster. A snail’s trail of blood darkened the concrete beneath him. “I was locked with Ben—Idaho you called him. Another guy shoots me in the back. In the buttock. I rolled under here. They didn’t take the time to kill me. He smashed my radio. My gun’s under there.” He pointed to the neighboring garbage bin. “Ben knocked it out of my hand when I got shot. He said something to the other guy about getting something from Mandy, if that makes any sense.”

  It didn’t. Mandy was on Manhattan, preferably dead or in chains. Unless he’d said Mandy’s, Mandy’s house.

  “You go. I got it under control here. I mean, I’m not dying or anything, just useless. Go now.”

  While he talked, Anna squirmed under the Dumpster and retrieved Andrew’s gun. A Glock 9mm, a good weapon. She chambered a round. “I’ll be back,” she promised. Arnold Schwarzenegger had said the same thing in Terminator 2. It sounded more convincing with the accent.

  Anna ran lightly down the alley. Her heart wanted to sprint but she didn’t dare press her luck. Another back spasm would be too costly. Both shoes were at the bottom of the harbor and her bare feet made no sound. Glock first, she rounded the corner slowly, her body partially shielded by ornamental shrubs.

  Patsy’s house was dark but for the window in the back where Mandy slept. The kitchen door stood open. The plane tree hid the walk and half the bench where the interpreter had smoked her cigarettes. Sitting in the dusk, as relaxed as if he’d not just shot a Park Policeman and tried to shoot and drown a ranger, was Andrew Jackson Tucker. His beard was wagging and Anna could see the dull glint of a knife or metal rod belonging to whoever sat beside him screened by the trunk of the tree. Idaho probably.

  Tread soundless, Anna eased closer. Tucker wasn’t as relaxed as she’d first thought. His eyes darted and his hand crawled incessantly around the pocket of his trousers. For some reason he’d pocketed his .45. Two mad bombers sitting on a park bench of an evening, shooting the breeze and fondling their weapons. The scene was hinky enough that it made the little hairs on Anna’s neck stand up, but she had no reason to think things were going to get any better.

  Stepping from the shelter of the shrubbery, she trained the Glock on Tucker. Though she made no sound, he saw her and grabbed at his trouser pocket.

  “Don’t,” Anna said. “Don’t.” She would shoot him. He heard it in her voice and his hand moved reluctantly away from his weapon.

  “We were having a nice talk. Would have ended nice as pie,” Tucker said.

  “You behind the tree, show me your hands. Hands first. Both in view. Move out from behind the tree. Slow. Hands first.”

  Two hands came out, about the same height as Tucker’s face. Whoever it was didn’t stand up. “Get up, move out,” Anna ordered.

  The hands trembled. Tucker reached for them as if to help. A familiar voice said, “Anna?” Tucker’s hands closed over the new arrival’s and, with a short jerk, pulled the other man from behind the tree, an arm wrapped around his throat and another around his gut.

  “Jim.” Anna wavered. “How did you get here?”

  “Tug captain owed me a favor. Looks like I stepped in it.”

  “Shut up.” Tucker kept his head behind Jim’s. Anna couldn’t get a clean shot.

  “You’re almost as stupid as that kid of yours,” Tucker said. “But more useful. Get up.” He stood, dragging Jim up with him. The aluminum walker Anna had taken for a club fell over.

  Jim’s eyes narrowed, grew hard, chips of flint in his wrinkled face. The crippled legs kicked feebly, then stopped. His arms, the only strength he had left, hung at his sides. He didn’t even try to pull Tucker’s forearm from his windpipe.

  Anna kept the Glock where it was, hoping Tucker would make a mistake.

  “This the guy that killed Jimmy?” James Hatchett asked evenly.

  “More or less,” Anna replied. Her arms were beginning to shake. Normally she could hold a handgun out for a good long time. Her recent swim and the outrage to her back robbed her of control. The barrel of the Glock trembled. It would get worse. Precision shooting was no longer an option.

  “Shoot, Anna,” Jim said, and meant it. “Shoot right through me. Kill the bastard.”

  “Shut up, old man.” Tucker worked the .45 out of his pocket and held it under Jim’s jaw. “She can’t do that. She’s got to ‘protect and serve.’ She’s a government lackey. She can’t let you die even to save all those spics and slopes the government’s so fond of. Hell, they’re bringing ’em in by the boatload. Now they want to let the Jews make it mandatory our kids are taught to love their little mud brothers. Most Americans, real Americans, will celebrate the Fourth a little differently from now on. Freedom to be white, freedom to fight ethnic pollution. Freedom to refuse to let a bunch of Jews in Washington and New York brainwash our kids.” Tucker walked backward, towing Jim along, keeping his body between himself and Anna’s gun. Out from under the plane tree, onto the grass, moving toward the sea and Ellis Island, Jim’s useless legs bumped pathetically over the ground. “Let’s go blow up some mud pies,” Tucker said. “You’ll see how Liberty looks failing on a wall of subhuman mud.”

  “Why did Mandy kill Hatch?” Anna asked, to keep him talking long enough for the winds of fortune to blow her way.

  “Stupid cunt. Nearly screwed the whole deal. Ben knocked her into the middle of next week for that stunt.”

  The black eye Mandy had been sporting; a small price to pay for taking a man’s life. The screen door rattled an
d Tucker shouted, “You stay put till it’s over, Ben. I got a little extra business.”

  “What’s happening, Pa?”

  “Do as I tell you.” If Tucker wanted Idaho to stay put, he must be unarmed. Good to know. Anna kept pace with Tucker and his flesh-and-blood shield. He was backing toward the chain-link fence. His boat would be moored there. In the boat would be a neat plastic box. That box would send a radio signal that would set off the C-4 strapped to Lady Liberty’s bones.

  Anna’s arms were shaking so bad she’d stopped trying to use her sights and was pointing the gun as she would point a finger, trusting in years of experience. Sacrifice the one for the many. Blow great bloody holes in James Hatchett that the hundreds of souls in Liberty’s heart might live. Tucker was right, Anna couldn’t do it. Good little lackeys of the United States Government didn’t gun down innocent people, regardless of the temptation—or the cost. It was something she really liked about her job.

  “He’ll kill me, then he’ll kill you,” Jim said. “And blow up the thing anyway.”

  “He’s not fast enough,” she said. Maybe that was true. If she could hold the Glock steady long enough.

  Tucker reached the fence. Leaning against it, he gauged the distance to the boat and the detonator. He readied himself to go down the bank. Once there was dirt between him and Anna, he’d drop Jim and kill her. Anna started to move closer, not letting him out of her sights even for an instant.

  “Stop or I blow his fucking brains out,” Tucker said.

  “And I kill you.”

  Tucker moved the .45 from Jim to point it at Anna. “Or I just shoot you. What are you going to do? Shoot through this old bag of shit? I would. He’s no use to anybody anymore.” The barrel moved back to Jim’s temple. Tucker was having fun.

  Jim fixed Anna with his remarkable eyes. “I’ll give Jimmy your regards,” he said with a hint of a smile.

  “Shut the fuck up,” Tucker hissed.

  Anna knew her part, the only one left to her. The time she’d felt slipping through her hands all week. Now she must buy a little of it back. She lowered the Glock. “Easy,” she said. “I like my job, but I’m not dying for it. Or for anybody’s niggers.” A.J. wasn’t a trusting soul, but she was singing his song and he loved listening. Anna kept talking. A scarred brown workingman’s hand eased to the waistband of a geriatric blue jumpsuit. Silver glinted. A strong old wrist turned expertly, his arm jerked up and back. Jim buried the fish-gutting knife deep between Andrew Jackson Tucker’s ribs.

  Above the beard, the militiaman’s eyes grew wide with surprise. Then his finger closed on the trigger. Half of James Hatchett’s head was gone, his body jerked to the side. The silver barrel of the .45 swung toward Anna. She fired four shots into A.J. Tucker before he hit the ground.

  26

  REGARDLESS OF HOW divinely inspired, New York frowned upon unauthorized persons shooting people with borrowed guns. Anna spent seven hours with three different law enforcement agencies giving statements, defending her actions, accepting congratulations, being bullied and drinking bad coffee. Drowning in polluted salt water was beginning to seem like the good old days.

  It was late afternoon on the fifth of July before she got to the hospital to see her sister. Once again Molly had been moved out of ICU. For good this time, Frederick insisted, and Anna believed him. Frederick welcomed her as the conquering hero. Molly tried to scold her for old times’ sake, but Anna could tell her heart wasn’t in it. Multiple bypass surgery, a near-death experience, age—something had finally mellowed Dr. Pigeon. Anna could see a new and beautiful softness in her sister’s eyes.

  Frederick settled Anna in a comfortable chair, plied her with water and left her to tell her story in her own way. Anna had thought she’d want to but found she didn’t. Living it had been enough. It wasn’t a tale of high glamour, riches gained or lost. It was a nasty little story of hatred, fear and ignorance.

  “I’m flying home tomorrow,” she said, and felt guilty at how relieved she sounded. They were unoffended. Anna was reminded there might be something called unconditional love and found the energy to go on.

  “Tucker is dead—twice. Jim’s knife would have killed him in an hour or so. Andrew’s bullets made it happen a little sooner.” Anna wasn’t hiding anything. Molly and Frederick knew she’d shot the man. The whole country knew. The press Mrs. Weinstein brought in to get the political goody out of the festivities had descended on Anna et al. like ravening beasts. “Idaho—Ben—Tucker’s eldest from his first marriage, half brother to Agnes Abigail, was arrested, no problem. Without Daddy around to tell him what to do, he gave up without a fight. He was working under the name Ben Thomas. When Tucker took an alias his son did too. Mandy was arrested later. The security guard let her go but she was tracked down at the apartment on the Lower East Side where the Tucker/Thomases were staying. Bad news is, she can’t be made to testify against Ben or vice versa. They’re married. Agnes was her sister-in-law. Mandy shoved Hatch to avenge her death, thinking it would impress A.J. and her husband. Make her one of the revolutionaries.”

  “What was this Ben/Idaho going into Mandy’s house to look for?” Frederick asked.

  Anna hoped he’d forgotten that. “A picture,” she said. “He had it on him when he was arrested. I’d seen it once. I thought it was a military shot—somebody’s regiment or something. There were kids and dogs around. That should have tipped me off. Military pictures are sans civilians. The shot was of his Idaho militia group. Tucker was in it and so was Ben, though he had hair, so I might not have recognized him. Ben/ Idaho was removing anything from Mandy’s room that could incriminate them.”

  “And you a trained observer,” Frederick teased.

  “And me a trained observer,” Anna admitted.

  “I don’t understand. Did Mandy get on with the Park Service and then get transferred to the statue just to set up this job?” Molly asked. “That’s a little tricky. It took you years to get on permanent.”

  “No. Mandy was already at the statue when Ben got the job. He was the inside man. Then she was recruited. Idaho wooed and won her. Six weeks start to finish. She was easy pickings. A misfit, a malcontent. She needed a cause. Wanted to belong. Wanted to get even. A cult groupie waiting to happen. So Idaho stepped in.”

  “And the little girl jumped?” Molly asked.

  “We think so. Her pack had to have been taken by her father. I remember his boots, he was front row center after she fell. The only thing that makes sense is she had detonators, blasting caps she was going to leave in the statue for her half brother. When Hatch took her for a pickpocket she was sharp enough to know if she got caught the plot would be exposed. So she jumped.”

  “Died for the cause,” Frederick said.

  “At fourteen it seems like the thing to do,” Molly added sadly. “Children soldiers. We’ve been murdering them since the beginning of time.”

  “Do they know where this guy got the C-four?” Frederick asked.

  “Not for sure. The speculation is he stole it from a mine or mines in Idaho. Some of the more isolated sites have pretty poor security.”

  They digested the precariousness of life for a moment.

  “Corinne’s still in a coma,” Anna finished. “Even if she comes out of it, she’s going to be a mess.”

  Nobody said anything. The room should have been thick with the sorrow of the world, but it wasn’t. Molly and Frederick had a lightness about them that permeated the air, lifted Anna’s spirits though she wasn’t sure why.

  Molly had her hands under the coverlet, as she’d had once before.

  “Have you got another kitten?” Anna demanded.

  Molly laughed. “Not another kitten.” She took her left hand from beneath the sheet and waggled her fingers. The emerald caught the light, the gold shone.

  Joy boiled up in Anna so fiercely she had to clamp her teeth hard and close her eyes so she wouldn’t start crying.

  “Are you okay?”

  “We don’t ha
ve to do it.”

  “Oh my gosh.”

  “We were only kidding.”

  The backpedaling made Anna smile. As soon as she had herself under control she would tell Frederick to send for the tailor. The sooner she got fitted for that peach silk tux, the better she would sleep at night.

  Her sister was going to be looked after.