He turned back to the alcove. Slowly Gelsey emerged. Janek was struck by her poise. Standing in a shaft of light cast by a lamp on the plaza, she looked stunning, an object of desire, dressed in black, her dark hair spilling over her shoulders.
A window of the limousine opened. A hand reached out and beckoned.
"Take a few steps," Janek whispered. "Then shake your head."
Gelsey moved forward and shook her head. After a few seconds the car door opened. He made out Diana, and an indistinct figure beside her.
"Gelsey," Diana called.
"Over here," Gelsey called back.
For a moment neither woman moved. Then Diana stepped out of the car.
Janek whispered: "As she moves toward you, retreat a little.
Remember-make her come to you."
Gelsey waited until just the right moment, then took two steps back into the alcove. Diana quickened her pace.
"Stop!" she ordered.
"Backtrack two more," Janek whispered. "Make her understand she doesn't tell you what to do."
Gelsey backtracked. Diana followed.
"This is ridiculous," Diana said. "We can't do it like this. Stop!"
"Okay, take a stand," Janek whispered. "Face her, let her approach."
Diana began to speak even before she was within confidential speaking distance:
"The buyer's gotta be satisfied, Gelsey. He won't buy a pig in a poke."
"Tell him to come here and look. Tell him to bring the money."
"He doesn't want to get out of the car." Gelsey sneered. "Is he a cripple?"
"You're out of line, pet."
"This is my party, Diana. Tell him he'd better hurry before I get bored and take a walk."
"He's paying us fifty K-twenty-five apiece. You don't push around a man like that."
"I bet he's paying a hundred."
"Don't you trust me, pet?"
Gelsey shrugged. "Twenty-five'll be enough to get me out of this crappy town. Go get it. I want to count it. Meantime-here's a peek."
She opened her palm, showed the prototype chip, clasped her hand shut and grinned.
Diana didn't know what to do. As Janek watched, he imagined her growing realization that this time she was not in control.
"All right," Diana said finally, without an attempt to conceal her bitterness. "I'll try to get him to come out."
As Diana walked back to her car, Janek felt he had enough to implicate her in an illegal purchase of stolen goods. Perhaps not as much as he would have liked, but enough to secure an indictment.
"Fade back a couple steps," he whispered. Gelsey retreated into the gloom. When Diana reached the curb, she glanced back just before getting into her car.
There followed a short intermission. Janek tried to imagine what was being said. Diana would describe the quick glimpse she'd had of the Omega, while Kane would contemplate his best next move. Janek believed he would view his odds as good. A police trap was a possibility, but the location wasn't particularly congenial for a trap and Gelsey's hesitancy could be understood in light of her disaffected former employee relationship with Diana. Janek believed it would also occur to Kane that Gelsey knew Kirstin had been killed and would therefore want to unload the chip with minimal risk. Anyway, the object that Diana had described was certainly the Omega. There were few people about, so it would be relatively safe to leave the car, throw a few bucks at the girl, take the chip, shoot her, then split.
Just as Janek finished his reverie, the limo door opened again. This time both Diana and Kane stepped out. Kane was carrying a paper bag.
He thought: The gun's were inside the bag. He watched Diana and Kane approach. "Take two steps forward," he instructed Gelsey. "Stand in the light. Then hold your ground."
As Diana and Kane crossed the World Financial Center plaza, and his own people moved with apparent languor toward their final positions, Janek felt he was watching something akin to the formation of a tableau vivant. There was a rigor to the design these players made that reminded him of paintings by De Chirico showing lonely figures on vast Italian squares. Except in the work of De Chirico, the Mediterranean sun always burned straight down and there were campaniles in the background, while here the scene was played out against a black sky and looming out-of scale office towers. Still, he felt the same strong ambience of ritual, inevitability and fate.
When each figure reached his final position, all motion stopped.
"Show it to him," Diana ordered.
Gelsey stared at Kane. "You killed Dietz."
"Never mind that, pet. Show him the goods."
"You let them think I did it. Why?" Gelsey demanded.
"What's this got to do-?"
"Everything!" Gelsey said. "Twenty-five isn't nearly enough, not for what he did to me." She turned back to Kane. "You want your little thingamajig, you're going to pay a lot more than that!"
Kane looked at Diana. "You said she was cool."
Diana shrugged. "You're pushing it, pet. Better back off before things get nasty."
"Kill me, too? Is that what you're threatening?" Gelsey turned again to Kane. "You killed Kirstin, didn't you?"
At this point Kane must have detected the artificial phrasing that creeps in when a wired witness attempts to provoke a suspect. Perhaps, glancing around the plaza, he was struck by the positions of the other people, and, in that instant, suddenly viewed the scene as false.
He's going to attack! The notion hit Janek a split second before he gave his order:
"He's going for her! Get him! Now!"
Janek flung himself out of the van, rushed across the plaza. Then everything seemed to happen at half-speed. From one side, Aaron, Ray and Sue charged in. From the other, the cop playing the homeless man and the four playing the night cleaning crew converged with drawn guns.
Diana screamed. Then, trying to run back to her' car in her heels, she tripped and fell onto the granite. Kane, seeing he was about to be tackled, pulled a small revolver from his paper bag and rushed at Gelsey.