‘So could I. Where shall we go?’
‘Nathan’s.’
‘Hi!’ The voice boomed out in front of us. It was Alex. He looked exceptionally dapper, smoking a little Mexican cheroot. His eyes were calm and friendly. Beside him stood an older man in a white linen jacket and dark trousers. He was clean-shaven, very tanned and had a thatch of black hair that tumbled over his eyes. I felt at a complete loss for words. I glanced at Jennifer and I could see that she was barely masking her anxiety.
‘This is Seb Tyson, my assistant.’
‘Pleased to meet you.’
‘My nephew and my comparatively new sister-in-law.’
Tyson’s voice was a Southern drawl: attractive, welcoming. ‘I gather you’re almost a New Yorker, Colin. You’ve been here so many times.’
‘Sure.’ I stuttered slightly and cursed myself for it.
‘You have plans for us?’ Jennifer was back to her bright, brisk little self.
‘Seb doesn’t,’ grinned Alex. ‘He’s just taking a few notes. I’ve freed myself for the morning.’ He looked as if we ought to applaud.
‘What are we going to do?’ I asked, desperately trying to sound relaxed.
‘I thought we’d go up the Hudson. I’ve ordered a hydrofoil. You can refamiliarise yourself with the old city. Then we could have lunch at one of the new wharves. How about that?’
‘Sounds great,’ I said.
Alex had obviously gone out of his way to be expansive. Throughout a morning of brilliant sunshine, a spanking new hydrofoil, fully captained and crewed, took us round the Statue of Liberty, and finally up the Hudson, past the University and out into the wooded countryside. The water sparkled jade in the hot sunlight as we flashed over its spumy surface, but I was too nervous to take in anything about my surroundings at all. We ended up in a little inlet to an island in the centre of the river. Alex stretched himself out on the deck and one of the crew poured iced drinks. As I took one of them, I knew my hand was shaking. Had he noticed? I looked across at Jennifer, wondering if she was as afraid. But she seemed calmer, detached.
‘Well, Colin?’
‘Yes?’
‘How are you?’
‘I’m OK.’
‘And Kate?’
‘She’s not so good.’
He glanced at Jennifer.
‘Been tough for everyone. And now on top of it all there’s Kelly.’
Neither of us said anything. We sipped our champagne cocktails dutifully and listened.
‘Jennifer and I talked it all over on the phone. It’s been a lousy business. Her boyfriend was a pusher.’ He paused. ‘But your father – he tried to save her from that kind of life.’ This time he was quiet for several minutes, and I wondered whether he was reflecting or just acting. Did he really think Tim was dead or had he faked the identification of the body? ‘I’d like to rescue that girl. Do something for her.’
‘I thought she was in hospital,’ I said quickly.
‘Discharged herself.’
‘Where is she now?’
‘Somewhere in the city. I’m trying to locate her.’
‘Aren’t you being as idealistic as Tim?’ said Jennifer. ‘What can you really do for her, Alex? You can’t rehabilitate a street animal.’
He shook his head. ‘Surprising what a dry-out can do.’
‘She’d be back on again.’
‘I feel I’ve got to try. For Tim’s sake.’
‘How will you find her?’ I asked.
Alex lit another of his little Mexican cheroots and grinned. ‘I’ve lived inside this city all my life. I know it and love it and hate it. I know the low-life. I know the hidden corners – the mean streets.’
‘Are you searching yourself?’ I asked naively.
He laughed. ‘Good God, no. I put an agency on to it.’
‘Agency?’
‘Specialists,’ he said vaguely.
The fear gnawed at the pit of my stomach. Could he mean Sandmen? I wondered.
Over lunch on a sun-deck attached to one of the wharves we ate oysters and drank more champagne, looking on to the broad sweep of the Hudson which was ploughed by riverboats and launches, their wash silver and blue in the late lunchtime sun. As the champagne hit me I suddenly had the urge to lift up my head and shout: ‘Tim’s alive. Don’t you know that Tim’s alive?’ But surely he knows, I thought. He must do. All we were doing was playing games.
Alex did not refer to Kelly again but talked instead of his chances at the coming elections, the state of mugging on the subway and the fortunes of his own legal practice.
‘How’s Norman?’ I asked.
‘In Ninth Grade and feeling it.’ He laughed uneasily. ‘Could you put up with him in the old country for a while?’
I looked startled but Jennifer said very firmly, ‘Any time. He could do with a woman’s influence.’
A few weeks of Norman and I’d face a murder charge myself, I thought.
I was finished by the time Alex dropped us at the hotel. He left promising to take us to the theatre and dinner the next evening. Jennifer looked as exhausted as I did and we sank down in the plush lobby chairs before going through the wearing process of claiming the keys and getting into a lift. The heavily interrupted night, the amazing revelations, the boat ride and the alcoholic lunch had made five o’clock in the afternoon seem like well after midnight. An over-riding dose of jet lag further contributed to our total collapse.
‘What shall we do?’ I asked, sitting with her in easy companionship.
‘Sleep,’ she muttered.
‘That could be a waste of time.’
‘It’s a necessity,’ Jennifer said, her eyes closing.
I leant back in my chair and stretched luxuriously, gazing idly at the throng of visitors coming out of a conference. As I sat there I became aware of being watched, and my eyes were drawn to a girl sitting opposite us, near the reception desk. Wearing a long woollen dress and a rather shabby black coat, she was tall, very pale, with black hair.
‘Do you know her?’
‘What?’ Jennifer was dozing, heavy with impending sleep.
‘Do you know her? That girl over there in the black coat.’
‘No.’
‘She keeps looking at us.’
‘Everyone looks at everything in this city. It’s a cattle market.’
‘She’s coming over.’
‘Colin Wallace?’ She looked at me strangely, with a hesitancy that was oddly appealing.
‘That’s me.’
‘I thought I recognised you.’
I gazed at her blankly.
‘The Wallace look. All that dark hair.’
‘Who are you?’ asked Jennifer.
The girl looked around her nervously. ‘Can I talk to you?’
‘You are,’ said Jennifer icily.
‘Alone. Somewhere private. In your room.’
‘Who are you?’ I repeated softly. But I think I knew then.
‘I’m Kelly,’ she said. ‘Your sister Kelly.’
Chapter Six
We took the lift and then walked up the flock-wallpapered corridor. I kept sneaking glances at her, shocked that she should be here when all Alex’s contacts were looking for her. She made no attempt to talk and did not look at either of us as she strode along.
Once we arrived in Jennifer’s room, Kelly seemed to lose all sense of urgency. She threw herself down on the bed and closed her eyes. Is she going to sleep on us? I wondered, and glancing across at Jennifer I saw that she was thinking the same thing. Then Kelly opened her eyes and all my curiosity about her vanished as she said, ‘They have Tim.’
‘What?’ Who had Tim? What the hell was she talking about? Jennifer was rigid, staring at Kelly intently. Time was suspended and it seemed hours before Kelly spoke again.
‘That’s why I’ve come here. I couldn’t think of anyone else to go to.’
‘The police – ’ began Jennifer.
‘No. If they get involved Alex will have h
im killed immediately. There’s just a chance that we may be able to help him.’
‘We – what do you want us to do?’ snarled Jennifer. She looked completely shattered and I wondered how rational she still was, how she would handle all this.
‘You must help me.’
‘How can we possibly do that?’ she almost screamed at Kelly. ‘We have to go to the police.’
‘No! I promise you that would be fatal. Absolutely fatal. I can help him myself, but I need money.’
‘I can’t raise – ’ began Jennifer.
‘Surely you can raise some.’
‘How much?’ Jennifer sounded deeply suspicious.
‘I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,’ I shouted at Kelly. ‘Who has Tim? What are you trying to tell us?’ I was shaking all over and my body was moist with a chilling sweat.
‘He was in a taxi with me,’ she said. ‘They took him. There is a way to help him. But you have to listen. You have to know what we’re up against.’
‘He’s told us,’ I yelled.
‘Then I have to tell you some more – and you have to listen. Right?’
Making a real attempt to control myself I nodded.
‘The reason that Tim had to fake his own death was because if Alex knew what he suspected he would have been a dead man on Formentera. So he decided to pretend to be one. Laurence spent over a year getting the dope on Alex and he didn’t do it as a way of passing the time. Laurence was black, in case you didn’t know. He came from Harlem and he cared about it more than any place else. Alex got his ticket because he supported a policy of redistributing the black population. That meant getting the blacks out and the whites in. The city would buy up and close down as many buildings as they could. They wanted to break up that community. But Laurence’s folks had lived in Harlem all their lives, and they weren’t letting Alex hijack their homes just like that. So Laurence started doing some research on the guy, and there were a hell of a lot of powerful people in Harlem who were prepared to help him. They got together an interesting file – a file that we let Tim in on. He knew his brother pretty well. I don’t think he was that surprised.’
I felt that my life had now gone completely out of control and all I could do was listen to Kelly in morbid fascination, regarding her as a being from a world that had nothing to do with Formentera – or Wimbledon. She was now talking very quickly, almost feverishly.
‘Tim had always suspected Alex of corruption but he never realised it was on this scale. I called him in Formentera. I knew I was taking a risk but I had to do it. I knew Alex was on the island. He might even have answered the phone. Tim called me back on American time one night. I told him about the Sandmen.’
‘Sandmen?’ I said blankly.
‘Anyone who knows anything about New York knows the Sandman. The guy who comes at night and makes sure you have a really good night’s sleep. Like you sleep for ever. And recently he’s been coming in the day. The media dreamed up the name. It’s been around for over five years now. Ever since Alex got powerful. Senator Barry Low last year. A Congressional Secretary, Alice Dukos, in December. Couple of FBI men in March. Laurence Bradley this September. All unexplained. All visits by the Sandman.’ Kelly paused and then grinned sardonically. ‘Maybe they really thought Laurence was naive enough to have kept everything in his head. But he hadn’t. Everything was on microfilm. All the information he had on Alex. He made two copies of the film and hid them. He told me that. Problem was he didn’t tell me where. He thought it better if I really didn’t know.’
‘Tim never told me that,’ said Jennifer. ‘He never mentioned microfilm.’
Kelly shrugged. ‘Tim doesn’t have a lot of time for explanations right now. That film is hard evidence.’
‘So if that microfilm’s found, Alex is in trouble?’ I asked slowly.
‘Sure.’
‘Have you any idea at all where the two copies could be hidden?’
‘I have now. I discharged myself from hospital as soon as possible and searched everywhere I could think of. Then I went to Harlem and asked Laurence’s father. But he didn’t know anything. It wasn’t until I saw his sister Loretta that I struck gold. He’d told her. She told me. One roll of microfilm was hidden behind a loose panel by the bar on the Staten Island Ferry – the one called the Gateway. The other is with a guy who runs the gift shop in St Patrick’s Cathedral. Laurence used to work on the ferry and, according to Loretta, trusted the guy in the shop. Tim and I tried to get to the ferry this morning. We took a cab from Times Square rather than risk the subway. But the driver took us down by the river. At first it looked as if he was avoiding traffic, but then it happened so quickly that we didn’t know what had hit us. He stopped in a back street and another car drew over in front of us. These guys sprang out, opened the doors and grabbed Tim at gunpoint. They took him away and told me that unless I produced the microfilm by tomorrow afternoon they’d kill him.’
‘Where have you got to take it?’ Jennifer’s voice was cold and suspicious.
‘To the observation room in the Empire State Building. Someone will take it from me there.’
‘How did they get on to you?’ There was now an almost mocking note in Jennifer’s voice and I looked at her in surprise. What the hell was the matter with her? But Kelly didn’t seem to notice.
‘They must have been following all the time. I thought I was clear but you can never really tell. They’re so damned sharp. How they knew about the film I can’t understand. It must have come from someone very close to Laurence because Loretta thought she was the only one to know.’
‘Why have you come to us? Why do you need money?’ said Jennifer. Her voice was neutral now and I guessed at the effort she was having to make to stay calm. The whole story was so incredible that I could hardly believe it. Yet when I looked at Kelly and saw her white strained face I knew she was mixed up in something lethal – something lethal enough for Tim to have hurt us so badly.
‘All I want you to do is to give me some cash. What have you got on you? You must have quite a bit if you were planning to stay for a while.’
‘Alex isn’t that stupid,’ said Jennifer, the mocking note back in her voice though Kelly still didn’t seem to notice. ‘If he had you followed before there’s probably someone following you now. You’ll never be able to get out of here.’
Kelly nodded. ‘I guess that’s right. But I’ve got to make some attempt to get him back.’ She looked away from us quickly. ‘If Tim has been taken by Alex, I don’t give anything for his chances.’
‘Tim told us you were in a hotel,’ said Jennifer.
‘I was going to one,’ she replied. ‘But I stayed with Laurence’s sister in Harlem for the night.’ She got off the bed. ‘I have to go to the bathroom,’ she said abruptly and hurried over to the toilet and slammed the door. Jennifer beckoned me to the window.
‘I don’t believe a word of that,’ she whispered decisively. ‘Not one damn word.’
‘Why not?’ I asked defensively. What the hell was the matter with her? Was she just going to let Tim die?
‘The point is – we don’t even know she is Kelly.’
‘What?’ Shock waves rippled through me and seemed to create a loud noise in my ears. ‘What did you say?’
‘Have you ever seen a photograph of her? Had her described to you?’
‘No.’
‘Then how can you just accept what she says at face value?’
‘Perhaps we ought to ask her to produce some proof of identity,’ I said, stung by her sarcasm. ‘Of course she’s Kelly. Who else could she be?’
‘I don’t know. But nothing in her story adds up. It’s like something made up by a child. Microfilm – crooked taxi drivers – kidnaps. It’s a film script.’
I wasn’t so sure. ‘Hasn’t enough happened that’s like a movie already? What about fake suicides? Dramatic reappearances? What about having an uncle who’s the most bent Congressman in the States? He could equally well be out
to carve up Harlem, and have Sandmen. Where do you start separating fact from fiction?’
But Jennifer was barely listening. ‘If she’s Kelly, she could still be lying. Just be trying to get money out of me. Real life doesn’t have microfilm in hidey-holes.’
I still wasn’t convinced. ‘How can we check her out? We can’t just get rid of her. Suppose she’s on the level? Tim could die again,’ I added.
Jennifer nodded. ‘Can’t think what she needs money for. If there is a microfilm, it must be found. So I’ll go on the fool’s errand with her.’
‘You won’t, I will.’
We stared at each other, locked in stalemate.
‘Someone has to stay,’ she said. ‘What happens if Tim is OK, if he calls?’
‘What happens if he can’t? I’m going with her. It’ll be easier with two.’
‘I can’t allow that – ’
‘You’ve got no choice. I know this city as well as you do.’
‘I’m your stepmother,’ she added and I almost laughed.
‘And I’ve got a mind of my own.’
‘What would your father say?’
‘He might say thanks.’
In the middle of this heated debate Kelly came out of the bathroom.
‘Why hasn’t anyone thought of going to the cops?’ said Jennifer aggressively and Kelly gave her a glance of contempt.
‘I’ve already told you once: if we involve the cops, they’ll kill Tim before we can do any bargaining at all.’
‘So we’re on our own,’ I said.
‘I am,’ Kelly replied.
‘He’s my father too,’ I said angrily. ‘Do you think I’m going to sit here and see him die? Again!’
‘She’s going to.’
‘Why should they keep him alive anyway?’ burst out Jennifer. ‘What’s the point? Microfilm apart – ’ and she openly sneered – ‘he knows far too much about Alex.’
‘Isn’t it worth a try?’ said Kelly. ‘Are you really prepared to sit here on your butt and do nothing? I’ve got a plan, if you’re interested.’
‘What is it?’ I said, desperate to hang on to anything.
‘There’s a guy I know. A vigilante. He could help us.’
Jennifer laughed. ‘It’s purple prose all the way.’
Nightmare in New York Page 4