“Why should they?” asked Ali. “They’ll simply think we went out to dinner.…”
“Not after last night. MacAuliff made it clear he’d keep an eye on the house. His patrol cars can’t see through to the back lawn but they’ll notice the front. They’re bound to.… Look.” Tanner took his wife’s elbow and led her to the single front window just above ground level to the side of the flagstone steps. The rain made rivulets on the panes of glass; it was hard to see. Even the street lamp on Orchard Drive was not always visible. Tanner took the flashlight out of his pocket and motioned Osterman over. “I was telling Ali, MacAuliff said this morning that he’d have the house watched. He will, too. He doesn’t want any more trouble.… We’ll take turns at this window. That way no one’s eyes will get tired or start playing tricks. As soon as one of us sees the patrol car, we’ll signal up and down with the flashlight. They’ll see it. They’ll stop.”
“That’s good,” said Bernie. “That’s very good! I wish to hell you’d said that upstairs.”
“I wasn’t sure. Funny, but I couldn’t remember if you could see the street from this window. I’ve cleaned this basement a hundred times, but I couldn’t remember for sure.” He smiled at them.
“I feel better,” said Leila, trying her best to instill John’s confidence into the others.
“Ali, you take the first shift. Fifteen minutes apiece. Bernie, you and I will keep moving between the other windows. Leila, sort of stay with Janet, will you?”
“What can I do, dad?” Raymond asked.
Tanner looked at his son, proud of him.
“Stay at the front window with your mother. You’ll be permanent there. Keep watching for the police car.”
Tanner and Osterman paced between the two windows at the rear of the house and the one at the side. In fifteen minutes, Leila relieved Ali at the front window. Ali found an old blanket which she made into a small mattress so Janet could lie down. The boy remained at the window with Leila, peering out, intermittently rubbing his hand on the glass as if the action might wipe away the water outside.
No one spoke; the pounding rain and blasts of wind seemed to increase. It was Bernie’s turn at the front. As he took the flashlight from his wife he held her close for several seconds.
Tanner’s turn came and went, and Ali once again took her place. None of them said it out loud but they were losing hope. If MacAuliff was patrolling the area, with concentration on the Tanner property, it seemed illogical that a police car hadn’t passed in over an hour.
“There it is! There it is, Dad! See the red light?”
Tanner, Bernie and Leila rushed to the window beside Alice and the boy. Ali had turned on the flashlight and was waving it back and forth. The patrol car had slowed down. It was barely moving, yet it did not stop.
“Give me the light!”
Tanner held the beam steady until he could see, dimly but surely, the blurred reflection of the white car through the downpour. Then he moved the beam vertically, rapidly.
Whoever was driving had to be aware of the light. The path of the beam had to cross the driver’s window, hit the driver’s eyes.
But the patrol car did not stop. It reached the line of the driveway and slowly drove away.
Tanner shut off the flashlight, not wanting to turn around, not wanting to see the faces of the others.
Bernie spoke softly. “I don’t like this.”
“He had to see it! He had to!” Ali was holding her son, who was still peering out the window.
“Not necessarily,” lied John Tanner. “It’s a mess out there. His windows are probably just as clouded as ours. Maybe more so. Car windows fog up. He’ll be around again. Next time we’ll make sure. Next time, I’ll run out.”
“How,” asked Bernie. “You’d never make it in time. We piled furniture in front of the door.”
“I’ll get through this window.” Tanner mentally measured the space. It was far too small. How easily the lies came.
“I can crawl out of there, Dad!” The boy was right. It might be necessary to send him.
But he knew he wouldn’t. He couldn’t.
Whoever was in the patrol car had seen the beam of light and hadn’t stopped.
“Let’s get back to the windows. Leila, you take over here. Ali, check Janet. I think she’s fallen asleep.”
Tanner knew he had to keep them doing something, even if the action meant nothing. Each would have his private thoughts, his private panic.
There was a shattering crack of thunder. A flash of lightning lit up the basement.
“Johnny!” Osterman’s face was against the left rear window. “Come here.”
Tanner ran to Osterman’s side and looked out. Through the whipping patterns of the downpour he saw a short, vertical beam of light rising from the ground. It was moving from far back on the lawn, beyond the pool, near the woods. The beam swayed slowly, jerkily. Then a flash of lightning revealed the figure holding the flashlight. Someone was coming toward the house.
“Someone’s worried he’s going to fall into the pool,” whispered Bernie.
“What is it?” Ali’s intense voice came from the makeshift mattress where she sat with her daughter.
“There’s somebody out there,” answered Tanner. “Everybody stay absolutely still.… It could be … all right. It might be the police.”
“Or the person who shot at us! Oh, God!”
“Ssh! Be quiet.”
Leila left the front window and went over to Alice.
“Get your face away from the glass, Bernie.”
“He’s getting nearer. He’s going around the pool.”
The two men moved back and stood at the side of the window. The man in the downpour wore a large poncho, his head sheltered by a rain hat. He extinguished the light as he approached the house.
Above them, the prisoners could hear the kitchen door rattling, then the sound of a body crashing against the wood. Soon the banging stopped and except for the storm there was silence. The figure left the area of the kitchen door, and Tanner could see from his side of the window the beam of light darting up and down. And then it disappeared around the far end of the house by the garage.
“Bernie!” Leila stood up beside Alice and the child. “Look! Over there!”
Through her side window came the intermittent shafts of another beam of light. Although it was quite far away, the beam was bright; it danced closer. Whoever was carrying that light was racing towards the house.
Suddenly it went out and again there was only the rain and the lightning. Tanner and Osterman went to the side window, one on each side, and cautiously looked out. They could see no one, no figure, nothing but rain, forced into diagonal sheets by the wind.
There was a loud crash from upstairs. And then another, this one sharper, wood slamming against wood. Tanner went toward the stairs. He had locked the cellar door, but it was thin; a good kick would break it from its hinges. He held the axe level, prepared to swing at anything descending those stairs.
Silence.
There were no more sounds from the house.
Suddenly, Alice Tanner screamed. A large hand was rubbing the pane of glass in the front window. The beam of a powerful flashlight pierced the darkness. Someone was squatting behind the light, the face hidden under a rain hood.
Tanner rushed to his wife and daughter, picking up the child from the blanket.
“Get back! Get back against the wall!”
The glass shattered and flew in all directions under the force of the outsider’s boot. The kicking continued. Mud and glass and fragments of wood came flying into the basement. Rain swept through the broken window. The six prisoners huddled by the front wall as the beam of light flashed about the floor, the opposite wall and the stairs.
What followed paralyzed them.
The barrel of a rifle appeared at the edge of the window frame and a volley of ear-shattering shots struck the floor and rear wall. Silence. Cinderblock dust whirled about the basement; in th
e glare of the powerful flashlight it looked like swirling clouds of stone mist. The firing began again, wildly, indiscriminately. The infantryman in Tanner told him what was happening. A second magazine had been inserted into the loading clip of an automatic rifle.
And then another rifle butt smashed the glass of the left rear window directly opposite them. A wide beam of light scanned the row of human beings against the wall. Tanner saw his wife clutching their daughter, shielding the small body with her own, and his mind cracked with fury.
He raced to the window, swinging the axe toward the shattered glass and the crouching figure behind it. The form jumped back; shots pounded into the ceiling above Tanner’s head. The shaft of light from the front window caught him now. It’s over, Tanner thought. It was going to be over for him. Instead, Bernie was swinging the garden fork at the rifle barrel, deflecting shots away from Tanner. The news director crawled back to his wife and children.
“Get over here!” he yelled, pushing them to the far wall, the garage side of the basement. Janet could not stop screaming.
Bernie grabbed his wife’s wrist and pulled her toward the basement corner. The beams of light crisscrossed each other. More shots were fired; dust filled the air; it became impossible to breathe.
The light from the rear window suddenly disappeared; the one from the front continued its awkward search. The second rifle was changing its position. And then from the far side window came another crash and the sound of breaking glass. The wide beam of light shone through again, now blinding them. Tanner shoved his wife and son toward the rear corner next to the stairs. Shots poured in; Tanner could feel the vibration as the bullets spiraled into the wall above and around him.
Crossfire!
He held the axe tightly, then he lunged forward, through the fire, fully understanding that any one bullet might end his life. But none could end it until he reached his target. Nothing could prevent that!
He reached the side window and swung the axe diagonally into it. An anguished scream followed; blood gushed through the opening. Tanner’s face and arms were covered with blood.
The rifle in the front window tried to aim in Tanner’s direction, but it was impossible. The bullets hit the floor.
Osterman rushed toward the remaining rifle, holding the garden fork at his shoulder. At the last instant he flung it through the outline of the broken glass as if it were a javelin. A cry of pain; the firing stopped.
Tanner supported himself against the wall under the window. In the flashes of lightning he could see the blood rolling down over the cinderblock.
He was alive, and that was remarkable.
He turned and went back toward his wife and children. Ali held the still screaming Janet. The boy had turned his face into the wall and was weeping uncontrollably.
“Leila! Jesus, God! Leila!” Bernie’s hysterical roar portended the worst. “Leila, where are you?”
“I’m here,” Leila said quietly. “I’m all right, darling.”
Tanner found Leila against the front wall, She had not followed his command to move.
And then Tanner saw something which struck his exhausted mind. Leila wore a large greenish brooch—he hadn’t noticed it before. He saw it clearly now, for it shone in the dark. It was iridescent, one of those mod creations sold in fashionable boutiques. It was impossible to miss in the darkness.
A dim flash of lightning lit up the wall around her. Tanner wasn’t sure but he was close to being sure: there were no bullet markings near her.
Tanner held his wife and daughter with one arm and cradled his son’s head with the other. Bernie ran to Leila and embraced her. The wail of a siren was heard through the sounds of the outside storm, carried by the blasts of wind through the smashed windows.
They remained motionless, spent beyond human endurance. Several minutes later they heard the voices and the knocking upstairs.
“Tanner! Tanner! Open the door!”
He released his wife and son and walked to the broken front window.
“We’re here. We’re here, you Goddamned filthy pricks.”
26
Tanner had seen these two patrolmen numerous times in the Village, directing traffic and cruising in radio cars, but he didn’t know their names. They had been recruited less than a year ago and were younger than Jenkins and McDermott.
Now he attacked. He pushed the first policeman violently against the hallway wall. The blood on his hands was smudged over the officer’s raincoat. The second patrolman had dashed down the basement stairs for the others.
“For Christ’s sake, let go!”
“You dirty bastard! You fucking punk! We could have been … would have been killed down there! All of us! My wife! My children! Why did you do that? You give me an answer and give it to me quick!”
“Goddamn it, let go! Do what? What answer, for God’s sake?”
“You passed this house a half hour ago! You saw the Goddamn flashlight and you beat it! You raced out of here!”
“You’re crazy! Me and Ronnie been in the north end! We got a transmission to get over here not five minutes ago. People named Scanlan reported shots …”
“Who’s in the other car? I want to know who’s in the other car!”
“If you’ll take your Goddamned hands off me I’ll go out and bring in the route sheet. I forget who—but I know where they are. They’re over on Apple Drive. There was a robbery.”
“The Cardones live on Apple Drive!”
“It wasn’t the Cardones’ house. I know that one. It was Needham. An old couple.”
Ali came into the hall from the stairs, holding Janet in her arms. The child was retching, gasping for air. Ali was crying softly, rocking her daughter back and forth in her arms.
Their son followed, his face filthy from the dust, smudged with his tears. The Ostermans were next. Bernie held on to Leila’s waist, supporting her up the stairs. He held on to her as though he would never let her go.
The second patrolman came slowly through the doorway. His expression startled the other officer.
“Holy Mary Mother of God,” he said softly. “It’s a human slaughterhouse down there.… I swear to Christ I don’t see how any of ’em are alive.”
“Call MacAuliff. Get him over here.”
“The line’s dead,” said Tanner, gently leading Ali to the couch in the living room.
“I’ll go radio in.” The patrolman named Ronnie went to the front door. “He won’t believe this,” he said quietly.
The remaining patrolman got an armchair for Leila. She collapsed into it and for the first time started to weep. Bernie leaned over behind his wife and caressed her hair. Raymond crouched beside his father, in front of his mother and sister. He was so terrified he could do nothing but stare into his father’s face.
The policeman wandered toward the basement stairs. It was obvious he wanted to go down, not only out of curiosity, but because the scene in the living room was somehow so private.
The door opened and the second patrolman leaned in. “I told Mac. He picked up the radio call on his car frequency. Jesus, you should have heard him. He’s on his way.”
“How long will it be?” asked Tanner from the couch.
“Not long, sir. He lives about eight miles out and the roads are rotten. But the way he sounded he’ll be here faster than anyone else could.”
“I’ve stationed a dozen deputies around the grounds and two men in the house. One will stay downstairs, the other in the upper hallway. I don’t know what else I can do.” MacAuliff was in the basement with Tanner. The others were upstairs. Tanner wanted the police captain to himself.
“Listen to me! Someone, one of your men, passed this house and refused to stop! I know damned well he saw the flashlight! He saw it and drove away!”
“I don’t believe that. I checked. Nobody in the cars spotted anything around here. You saw the route sheet. This place is marked for extra concentration.”
“I saw the patrol car leave!… Where’s Jenkin
s? McDermott?”
“It’s their day off. I’m thinking of calling them back on duty.”
“It’s funny they’re off on weekends, isn’t it?”
“I alternate my men on weekends. The weekends are very well covered. Just like the council ordered.”
Tanner caught the tone of self-justification in MacAuliff’s voice.
“You’ve got to do one other thing.”
MacAuliff wasn’t paying attention. He was inspecting the walls of the cinderblock cage. He stooped his immense frame down and picked up several lead slugs from the floor.
“I want every piece of evidence picked up here and sent down for analysis. I’ll use the F.B.I. if Newark can’t do it.… What did you say?”
“I said you’ve got to do one more thing. It’s imperative, but you’ve got to do it with me alone. Nobody else.”
“What’s that?”
“You and I are going to find a phone, and you’re going to get on it and make two calls.”
“Who to?” MacAuliff asked the question because Tanner had taken several steps toward the cellar staircase to make sure no one was there.
“The Cardones and the Tremaynes. I want to know where they are. Where they were.”
“What the hell …”
“Just do as I say!”
“You think …”
“I don’t think anything! I just want to know where they are.… Let’s say I’m still worried about them.” Tanner started for the stairs, but MacAuliff stood motionless in the center of the room.
“Wait a minute! You want me to make the calls and then follow up with verification. Okay, I’ll do it.… Now, it’s my turn. You give me a pain. You aggravate my ulcer. What the hell’s going on? There’s too much crap here to suit me! If you and your friends are in some kind of trouble, come clean and tell me. I can’t do a thing if I don’t know who to go after. And I’ll tell you this,” MacAuliff lowered his voice and pointed his finger at the news director, his other hand on his ulcerated stomach, “I’m not going to have my record loused up because you play games. I’m not going to have mass homicide on my beat because you don’t tell me what I should know so I can prevent it!”
The Osterman Weekend: A Novel Page 19