Manhattan Heat

by Alice Orr

  “Stick close to me,” he said, speaking low and circling her with his arm. “There may be more of them in the bushes.”

  He felt her head nod slightly against his jacket. He could almost hear her fear in the shallow breaths she was taking.

  “Don’t be scared,” he said. “You’ll be all right.” He knew how crazy that sounded coming from him, since he was the one dragging her around in the first place. He also knew he didn’t mean her any real harm. He was the Southern Gent after all. On the other hand, these park crawlers weren’t likely to be gents from any direction.

  He could see a break in the benches and a set of wide stone steps up ahead to the left. Those steps had to lead to the street. He’d hoped to stay inside the park a while longer, but he’d have to take his chances with the street—if he could just get both of them there in one piece.

  “What you got there, buddy?” The question came in a sneering tone from one of the bench punks and was followed by a low whistle from another.

  Memphis pulled her closer and kept walking. These guys looked even more like trouble now than they had at a distance. They were dressed a lot like Memphis was, in jeans and leather jackets, but he knew that was as far as the similarity went. He was basically a good guy. These guys very possibly were not.

  “How about sharing, pal?”

  It was the same sneering tone. Memphis could pick out who it came from this time. He was at the center of the others, probably their leader. His face would have been ugly and hard even without the leer on it. He was thinking about making a challenge. Memphis could feel it. With his back to the water like this, he wouldn’t be in a good defensive position if they jumped him. He needed to keep that from happening.

  Memphis had spent enough time in the streets to know the importance of attitude. A tough profile could be the best defense when a situation got down to the ground like this one was doing. He pulled himself up tall, to his full six feet two inches, and squared his shoulders. He could feel the muscles tighten into bands under his jacket. He was ready to fight if he had to. His posture would make that plain to anybody who was into the body language of the street. He turned and looked directly into the sneering face of the leader. Memphis fixed his eyes on that face and made his own as hard as steel. It was a bluff, and he knew it. They’d know it, too, but they could decide to respect his nerve in facing them down. That was the way it worked on the street.

  At the same time as he was putting on this tough-guy act, Memphis kept moving toward the stone steps with the woman under his arm almost out of sight behind his body. The characters on the bench made no move to stand up or follow. They just watched and made low, rumbling noises among themselves. Then the leader nodded his head slightly. Memphis put himself on alert in case that was a signal for this crew to go on the attack. Instead, they all relaxed onto the benches. The nod had been an acknowledgment of Memphis, as one tough guy to another. He nodded in return, then deliberately moved his gaze away from the benches to the path ahead.

  He would have liked to keep watching them, but that wasn’t the right attitude to show them. He had to be very cool. He took even strides toward the steps, forcing himself not to move as fast as he wanted to out of there. All the time, he listened for the sound of a surprise attack coming from behind. He didn’t take another full breath till he was pretty much sure that attack wasn’t going to happen.

  They reached the stone steps and started up. He glanced back and saw the benches at the bend of the path. The punks were there watching. They would have made their move already if they had one in mind. Memphis felt relieved even though he knew how crazy that was, considering all the bad surprises he might still have to face tonight.

  Chapter Six

  “We’re coming to the street now, and I’d better not have any trouble from you. Okay?”

  Bennett could hardly believe he was asking for her cooperation. Why would she want to cooperate with him anyway? He’d been dragging her around like a piece of furniture for about as long as she could stand now. The shoes she had on were medium-heeled but not meant for jogging through the park, and her feet were starting to hurt. She could feel a huge run up the side of her stockings, and all of this dashing around had her sweaty and out of sorts in general. Being taken hostage and fending off hoodlums in the park was not what she’d had in mind as a cure for her restlessness.

  “No, it is not okay,” she said, suddenly not caring if the irritation in her voice was diplomatic or not in this situation. “I’m not moving one step farther until you tell me where we are headed and what’s going on here.”

  She’d planted herself firmly on the broad step. She knew he was easily strong enough to pick her up and carry her along with him wherever he wanted to take her. Once again, she also knew that transporting her forcibly would slow him down and make him more conspicuous than he wanted to be. She might have felt a moment of gratitude toward him for getting her away from those gang boys back there, but those feelings had quickly faded once the danger was past. He was the one who had put her in danger. She wasn’t going to make life easy for him because he had to save her neck along with his own.

  If he understood that, he gave no sign of anything but the opposite. Even in the dim light from the pedestal lamps along the stairway wall, she could see his face darken into a more truly menacing expression than he had worn before. For one fearful moment, she wondered if she might be pushing him too hard. Yet again, maybe she was getting to be more like him. Maybe she didn’t have much to lose. If he was going to kill her eventually, he might as well make his try now. In the meantime, she was gambling that murder wasn’t really in his plans again tonight. He brandished the knife in front of her face, as if to let her know just how dangerous a gamble that was.

  “I told you I didn’t want any trouble from you,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Well, you’re giving me trouble, and I don’t want it, either. What’s your name, anyway?’

  “What?”

  He looked thrown off track and confused. She supposed that was the effect she wanted, though she didn’t have any clear-cut strategy for dealing with him. She was simply tired of being dragged around and even more tired of feeling totally out of control of what was happening to her.

  “I said I want to know your name, or I don’t budge from this spot.”

  He hauled on her arm and managed to drag her a few inches, but only with difficulty against her concerted resistance. She had stiffened herself into something very close to dead weight to manage that resistance. She wasn’t sure how much longer her strength would last for doing that.

  “What the hell,” he muttered, easing his attempt to force her to move. “For whatever it’s worth to you, my name is Memphis Modine. I don’t have a criminal record. I don’t have much of a record of anything, so it won’t do you any good to memorize my name and pass it on to your cop friends if that’s what you’ve got in mind.”

  “I’d say that won’t be true any longer after tonight.”

  “What won’t be true?”

  “That you have no police record.” Bennett wasn’t sure she could believe that anyway.

  “You’re talking about the woman back at that Stuyvesant place, aren’t you? I didn’t do that.”

  Something else not to believe. Yet it occurred to Bennett that she had never considered the possibility he hadn’t done the murder.

  “You were leaning over her dead body,” she said.

  “I found her like that, just like you found me. Just before you came in, I’d felt her pulse and found out she was dead.”

  “You told me you killed her.”

  “I was trying to scare you into doing what I wanted. And I never actually said I did it. Didn’t you notice that the knife was still on the floor when you came in? I had to pick it up to point it at you.”

  “You could have put it down beside her then picked it up again.” All Bennett could remember was the knife in his hand. She had been too shocked before that to notice anythin
g and too frightened afterward to recall it if she had.

  “Well, I didn’t put it down and pick it up again. It happened just like I told you. Besides, what do I care what you think? You’re coming with me or else.”

  Bennett thought about asking “or else what?” but decided against it. She wasn’t sure how much pushing this guy could take. She did want to stall him a while longer, though she had her doubts about what that could accomplish. If anybody was on their trail to rescue her, they would have caught up by now, or so she guessed.

  “Is that really your name?” she asked. “What did you say it was?”

  “Memphis Modine. And, yes, it really is my name,” he said, some of the growl returning to his voice.

  “That’s quite an unusual name,” she said, still anchored firmly to the step. “Are you from Tennessee?”

  “Look, lady, I don’t have time to tell you my life story right now.”

  “Bennett,” she said. “My name isn’t Lady. It’s Bennett.”

  “And you made fun of my name? Who ever heard of a woman named Bennett?”

  “It’s a family name.” She didn’t add that women in her circle often did have men’s first names. Thurston, Wallace and Wendell were all girlfriends of hers from school. But she was trying to make him relax his control a little. Reminding him of the differences in their social backgrounds wasn’t likely to do that.

  “Is yours a family name?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  His tone spoke much more to her than just those words. He didn’t know because he didn’t know his family. She guessed that and knew it was only a guess, but she also sensed it to be true. She thought of the kids in the foundling home. Maybe having been around them so much was the reason she understood what he had meant by those three words. She didn’t say anything more. She didn’t intend to go all softhearted toward him by any means. He had taken her with him against her will and done his best to terrorize her.

  Even so, when he tugged at her arm again to move her along with him, she no longer resisted. She was going to make a run for it when they reached the street anyway. Then she’d turn him in as soon as she could get to a phone and call the police. Let them sort out what was or wasn’t true about his claims of innocence. She was surprised to feel a twinge of something close to guilt for thinking that.

  He still had a tight grip on her arm as they reached the top of the stone steps, too tight a grip for her to break loose. She didn’t know where the knife might be, possibly in his hand inside the pocket of his leather jacket. She couldn’t tell. She looked around at the scene from the top of the steps. A tall equestrian statue loomed to her left. She was too preoccupied to remember which war hero it represented. There wasn’t much pedestrian traffic on this side of the street at this hour because of the menacing prospect of being too close to the denizens of the park in their nighttime lair. Cars drove by on the roadway. She contemplated whether running out among them was more likely to get her helped or hurt.

  Down the street, along Central Park South to her right, hansom cabs were parked at the curb, hoping to pick up fares for the most popular of the city’s hansom rides through the park. The drivers were out of their cabs, hanging around and chatting in small groups. Bennett deduced that Memphis would head in that direction, trying to put as much distance as possible between himself and the Stuyvesant Club. When they came abreast of the drivers, she would make her move. She knew for a fact that many, even most, of the city’s carriage drivers were Irish, and the Irish had a tendency toward chivalry. She would depend on that tendency to come to her rescue. She had few alternatives for hope of escape at the moment.

  Memphis Modine had been making his own perusal of the street. Now he turned them to the right, just as she had anticipated. He wrapped his arm around her again, pinning both of hers to her sides. In New York City, where most people tended to mind their own business and expected others to do the same, no one was likely to take more than passing notice of an embracing couple on the street. Even if their behavior did appear a bit odd, it would probably not merit more than a glance. Odd behavior was commonplace in New York. It was the gallantry of the hack drivers or nothing, and even they didn’t appear to be paying much attention as Bennett and Memphis passed by.

  Maybe he had some inkling of her plans for escape, because suddenly she knew where the knife was. He had reached across with his free arm under his jacket and had the blade pointed into her side hard enough so she could feel it. She wondered if a knife like that one could cut through leather. She remembered it was a hunting knife. They were used for dressing out deer and the like, so very possibly slashing through leather would be no problem. The thought made her shudder.

  “Are you cold?” he asked.

  She shook her head, thinking how strange a question that was. Why would a hostage-taker be concerned about the comfort of the hostage he had taken, especially when he was the cause of the discomfort in the first place? That didn’t make sense. Again, as she had been when she got her first glance at his face, she was struck by how little this guy resembled a murderer. What did a murderer look like anyway? Wasn’t anybody capable of killing somebody else given the right circumstances? Wasn’t this man in so much trouble that these could be considered the nght circumstances for him?

  Bennett glanced over her shoulder. Behind her and across the street, the spotlighted facade of the Plaza Hotel dominated the corner. The entrance to the Oak Room was only a sprint away. Bennett had been at the Plaza, in the Palm Court for brunch, just this past week. She and her mother had lunch every Christmas, and sometimes in between, in the Edwardian Room. Bennett recalled the chandeliers and lofty ceilings. She couldn’t help wondering if she would ever have lunch in the Edwardian Room again, at that table she liked best, next to one of the tall windows with their lush draperies. The thought of draperies jolted her back to the present. The woman on the floor of the billiard room had been shrouded in drapery pulled down from a tall window. Bennett shuddered again at the memory. Her captor clutched her closer in response once more.

  “Take it easy,” he said. “You’ll get out of this all right. All you have to do is be smart and listen to what I tell you.”

  Bennett didn’t reply. She let what he had said rerun through her mind. She was sure she’d heard a softening in his voice, a hint of concern. She was wondering what that might mean and if there was some chance she could use it in her own behalf, when she heard a screech of brakes just ahead. A long, dark sports car had veered over to the curb between two hansoms. Bennett stared. There was something familiar about that car. She had been so concentrated on running and being scared for what felt like so long now, that she needed a second to orient herself.

  Then she realized what she was seeing. That was Royce Boudreaux’s classic Jaguar roadster. She was almost certain of it. Her heart leapt beneath her breast. Her captor dragged her painfully against him and growled under his breath. Her elation subsided. He had seen the car, too. What match could Royce possibly be to a desperate murderer with a knife in his hand? Royce was among the last men she would consider as equal to hand-to-hand combat. The passenger side door opened, and a long leg emerged. She knew instantly that this was indeed Royce’s car and also that Quint was with him in it. Suddenly she was truly afraid, more so than she had been at any other moment of this ordeal.

  Chapter Seven

  Memphis knew there was trouble even before she gasped and stiffened. He’d heard the car screech to a stop. He could see it now, nosed in behind one of those white carriages. The car was an old-timer, one of those long sports jobs that cost so much to keep on the road only rich folks can afford them. Memphis snapped two and two together and came up with the Stuyvesant Club. That janitor had put somebody on their tail, and here they were.

  Memphis knew he didn’t have many choices of what do do, especially not with this Bennett woman in tow. She was supposed to be a hostage, but he wasn’t using her like one. That was probably because he didn’t
like the idea of it. Taking a woman and using her as a human shield wasn’t something an upright guy would do. Unfortunately, the spot he was in meant he couldn’t be too fussy. Upright or not, he had to take any advantage that came his way.

  Memphis still had Bennett clamped next to him with her arms pinned to her sides. He pulled her around so she was directly in front of him, positioned between him and the sports car. He pulled her across the pavement away from the curbside until they were backed up against the park wall. That way he only had to keep watch to the front and sides. Two guys had gotten out of the car by then, a tall, well-built one from the passenger side and a lankier type from the driver’s side. They were on the sidewalk now and coming on fast.

  The carriage drivers were beginning to take notice of what was going on. The bunch closest to Memphis had stopped talking among themselves and turned around to watch. He could guess which way they’d go once they’d sized up the situation. With the drivers across the way and the guys from the car coming up on his right, Memphis had no choice but to play the hostage card. He pulled the knife out from under his jacket and brought it around in front of her face where everybody could see it.

  “Remember back in that club of yours when I told you I was backed into a corner and had nothing to lose?” he whispered next to her ear.

  “I remember,” she said. She didn’t sound as scared as he would have hoped she’d be, but she was a cool one. Maybe she was scared to death and just not letting it show.

  “That was nothing compared to how desperate I am right now. You keep that in mind in case you should get any ideas about making some smart move on me.”