It was eight thirty in the morning. Jacobus, returning home from a night's work, was as concerned as he was tired. After all these years in the United States, after obtaining employment in the proper building, after carrying through years of planning without the slightest impediment, there were hints of trouble.
Corescaneu had been stopped by a city policeman, or what appeared to be a city police officer, and made to open his trunk. And then a night later another officer had been prowling around Rota Films on Varick Street.
Jacobus had been given a red light. Nothing new to do until an all-clear signal was given. He slid the key into the door of his home, the upstairs apartment of a two-story house. He slammed the door behind him as he entered. He cursed to himself in Russian, a language he hadn't spoken aloud since his entry into the United States.
Next thing he knew, he cursed, he'd be under surveillance.
He dropped his black metal lunch box in the front hallway and hung up his red-and-black-checked overcoat. He walked into the living room and froze.
He had a visitor, quite uninvited and equally unwelcome. The visitor sat in an armchair in a far corner to his extreme left, the only blind corner in the room. The only place where he wouldn't have seen someone immediately He cursed again to himself. He'd worried about that corner for years. Now every worry was confirmed. The visitor held a small snub-nosed pistol aloft, pointed right at the center of his chest.
"Hello, Sergei. Please don't move."
He glared back.
"Who are you? What do you want?" he asked.
"I have no money. If you wish to rob me-" "Be quiet:' was the command.
"You're an Eastern European.
Hold still. You should like classical music."
A gloved hand went to a radio by the armchair. The radio was turned on and the volume turned up. The music grew louder and, by chance, the crashing end of an orchestral piece neared.
"Firebird Suite. How perfect. I'll bet you're a Stravinsky fan."
Jacobus could read the intruder's intentions. He'd been on the other side of such confrontations in his life. He knew how they worked. He knew also that loud music masks the sound of a pistol.
He wondered if Stravinsky had known that. He wondered if he could jump back and be out the door before the trigger could be pulled.
The sound of drums and cymbals arrived much too quickly. Jacobus whirled and leaped toward the hallway but at the same instant the pistol erupted.
The bullet caught the night custodian in the center of the chest, shattering his breastbone as the shot tumbled upward through the flesh and bone of his body.
The second shot, fired a quarter second after the first, crashed into a rib bone on the left side, traveling into his body straight thereafter and ripping into the right ventricle of the heart. All Jacobus felt was the sudden searing pain in the center of his chest, an intense stabbing sensation, and he understood that he was going to fall.
But the fall itself was experienced only by his body, not by the man who'd inhabited it. His huge frame tumbled against the wall and sprawled over a table and an umbrella stand before rolling onto the floor and landing on its side, one arm outstretched and the other pinned beneath the body.
Gradually the volume of the music was lowered until, as the suite ended seconds later, the radio was turned off. Jacobus, dead before he'd even hit the ground, was motionless, his eyes still open in terror.
The assassin carefully tucked the small pistol into an overcoat pocket.
The body on the floor was inspected gingerly and turned over with a deft toe. The intruder knelt down and delicately felt the wrist for a pulse beat. There was none.
The telephone rang at a few minutes past nine A.m. Thomas was sitting alone in his apartment, submerged in thought.
Whiteside's accusations the suggestions and implications unnerved him.
They challenged the very foundations of truth which Thomas had always accepted: his father's identity. The unswerving, unrelenting patriotism of William Ward Daniels. How could a lifetime of jingoism possibly be questioned?
And yet… Thomas thought. And yet…? The questions wouldn't go away.
Examined from another angle, studied in a different light, William Ward Daniels might have seemed a different man altogether.
And yet it was ridiculous, Thomas concluded. How could a fastidious and dedicated man like Whiteside be so far off Then again, was Whiteside Whiteside? Or was Leslie Leslie?
The bell of the telephone jingled a third time. Thomas answered it and recognized Leslie's voice immediately. It was a voice which he now greeted with both attraction and anxiety, strong feelings pulling in two directions.
"I'm glad you called," he said.
"I filed two motions in probate court for you yesterday. I also filed photocopies of your birth certificate and your parents' marriage license. It's the first step toward-" "Listen to me very carefully," she said.
"It's vital."
"You sound upset."
"Not upset. just concerned."
"What's wrong?"
"The people who are after me" she said.
"They may be very close' His mind drifted back to rural Pennsylvania. The man in the blue car. Grover. Neither of whom she'd face. He received her words with a certain skepticism that remained unspoken.
"Why so suddenly?" he asked.
"There are reasons' she said.
"I can explain. Believe me, Tom, I can explain any questions you have, but not now."
"Why are you calling?" he asked.
"I want you to get out of your apartment immediately," she said.
"This minute. Close it and prepare not to return for several days."
"What are?"
"Just listen to me" she said steadily.
"I'm in a telephone booth.
Neither you nor I have much time."
"Keep talking.
"Leave your apartment and make certain that no one sees you. Go somewhere for the day, places you've never been, places where no one who knows you would look for you. Then tonight you have to meet me "
"Where?"
"Anywhere," she said.
"But it must be someplace deserted. What's the most deserted part of the city after midnight?"
"I suppose Central Park at four A.M.," he said jokingly.
"Perfect."
"What?"
"Perfect,"she reiterated.
"What part?"
"You can't be serious."
"I haven't much time! What part?" Her voice was strident and agitated, as he'd never heard it before. He could hear the sound of traffic behind her, horns and automobile engines. She was indeed in a booth.
"Do you know where the Great Lawn is?"
"I can find it."
"There's a rock formation off the Great Lawn to the east. Between Eighty-third and Eighty-fourth Streets" he said.
"I can be in that area " "I'll find you" she said intensely. A recorded operator's voice sounded on the telephone and he heard her drop another coin into the slot.
"Now do as I've asked. Get out of. your apartment. Prepare not to come back. Don't be seen by anyone you recognize until you see me tonight."
"Can't you tell me what?"
"It's your life I'm talking about" she snapped.
"You can either believe me or you can risk getting killed The choice is yours, Thomas.
Trust me or not. That's all I can say."
"But-' "I have to ring off."
He heard the sound of the receiver being quickly hung up. Then he was hearing a dial tone.
He sat there stunned with the telephone still in his hand. He set it down and looked around the apartment. Trust her or not, he thought to himself If all came down to that. Was she saving his life or luring him to an isolated section of Manhattan where he'd be as easy a murder victim as the unwitting Mark Ryder had been?
He glanced around his cluttered apartment and made his decision.
Shassad stood in the hallway looking down on the body. A photographer from the Medical Examiner's office aimed his camera, flashed a pair of shots, and moved into a different position.
Detective Jack Grimaldi looked at Shassad from the other end of jacobus's corpse.
"We blew it'" he said.
Shassad looked at him with genuine anger.
"I'd say you blew it, all right" he snapped.
"You've got this guy under surveillance and he gets killed under your fat noses. What the hell are you, cub scouts?"
Grimaldi, looking for a hole to crawl into, said nothing. Nor did his partner, Detective Ed Blocker.
Patrick Hearn approached the area where Shassad stood. Behind Hearn detectives from forensics dusted the room for fingerprints.
"They find anything back there?" asked Shassad.
"Some prints," offered Hearn.
"But they're probably his." He motioned to Jacobus.
"Christ," muttered Shassad. He looked at Grimaldi with contempt.
"Okay," he said, 'run through it again for me. From the top Grimaldi drew a breath and measured each word. He retraced the events of that day.
. Grimaldi and Blocker, working twelve-hour shifts, had replaced the previous team assigned to Jacobus. The assignment had begun at Six A.M. on Thirtieth and Park. Grimaldi and Blocker had then followed Jacobus home by car at eight dc lock that morning, watching their mark disappear in the front door of his second-story home.
Aside from jacobus's murderer, the two detectives had been the last to see the custodian alive. But they had perhaps seen the killer, too.
"We parked out front about a block away," Grimaldi explained.
"We watched the house from there. Then about five minutes later Ed went around back."
"Back where?" Shassad asked.
Detective Edward Blocker replied.
"There's a patio behind these row houses" he said.
"It's visible from the side street. I took a stroll down the side street and took a look. I saw a girl."
"Girl?"
"Yes, sir," said Blocker.
"I think it was the girl Shassad looked at him coldly. qaal girl" "The one we chased out of the Garden that night," he said.
"The one at the hockey game. The one we lost in the parking garage."
"Where the hell was she?" demanded Shassad. Hearn leaned on the hallway wall and studiously looked into the vacant eyes of the corpse.
He listened intently and was completely expressionless.
"She was coming down the back staircase from jacobus's apartment" said Blocker.
"They have an outside back entrance."
"And?"
"And she looked around when she got down. I was about a hundred feet from her. She turned and saw me standing there and quickly turned and started the other way."
"Were you wearing a sign?" asked Shassad.
"One that said,
"I am a cop'?"
Blocker looked at his feet, as if waiting for permission to continue.
"Yeah? Then what?"
"I tried to follow her, but there was a fence in the way. She picked me up right away. Saw me trying to get past that fence immediately.
That's when she really started to move."
"Yeah? So? Where'd she move to?"
"I don't know. She might have disappeared into a store and waited for me to disappear. For a second I thought she'd slipped into this blue car."
"Get the plate number?"
"Out of state. That's all I know."
"Marvelous," sighed Shassad.
"Tell me, why do you come to work without your dog and your cane?"
"An expert," offered Grimaldi.
"Had to have been an expert the way she got loose."
"I ran to the end of that block and I looked in every direction.
Gone. Not a sign of her. No one had seen her. I circled back to the car where Jack was'" he nodded to Grimaldi, 'and she hadn't gone past him" it." Shassad listened bitterly.
"You were right," he uttered.
"You blew "Must have been an expert," Grimaldi suggested.
"Had different escapes all planned."
"The trouble is'" retorted Shassad, 'you gentlemen are supposed to be experts, too."
Shassad looked imploringly to Hearn, employing his best how did-they-let-them-get-out-of-the-police-academy expression. Hearn brought Shassad up to date on the subsequent developments.
Grimaldi and Blocker, Hearn explained, had then spent the rest of the day on their stakeout." But toward darkness, in the early evening, Jacobus had failed to show for his twelve-hour night shift.
The day manager of the office building had telephoned him. No answer.
Eventually, the owner of jacobus's home, the man who lived downstairs, was telephoned. The landlord agreed to go upstairs and ring the front bell. No answer to the bell. But when the owner glanced inside, the light in the front hall was still on. And the body of jacobus was plainly visible, even the details, like the pool of blood he lay in.
"Ta-rif-fic Shassad grumbled. He had a terrible headache. He had counted on Jacobus to help put together the pieces of the Ryder Daniels case for him. So much for that.
He glanced at his watch. It was twenty minutes past six.
"Know what we do now?" he asked Hearn.
"Daniels, of course ' "Damn straight," said Shassad with disgust.
"The girl's our suspect, he knows where the girl is. At least he's got to know who the God-damn girl is. Material witness. We pick him up."
Grimaldi looked at his superior.
"Do you want us-?"
"You two head back to the One Nine," he said.
"We'll find Daniels."
"If we can'" added Hearn. Shassad looked at his partner as if to ask what that meant.
"I doubt that he'll be home" suggested Hearn.
Thirty-five minutes later, Shassad and Hearn knocked on the door to Thomas Daniels's apartment. Predictably, there was no response from within.
For Thomas Daniels, there had only been one decision. Whether it was insanity, risk, bad judgment, or simply a lethal brand of curiosity, he planned to meet Leslie McAdam. He was too deeply involved in the case, emotionally and professionally, to sidestep her.
Facts, simple facts, were what he wanted. Positive identifications of the players and their rightful teams, that was what he needed what he had to have -more than anything. There was only one way: maneuver Leslie face to face with Whiteside. Force them to identify each other … or call each other's bluff. It was the most fascinating case of his life, coupled with the most intriguing woman he'd ever met. Stay away? He couldn't. Trust her one final time? He'd have to.
Accept her warning and stay away from his apartment indefinitely?
Well, yes. He'd do that, too.
Following her agitated telephone call, he quickly packed a small bag with a few changes of clothing. He set it by his door. Then, pondering his venture into Central Park eighteen hours hence, he considered his own safety. He was not trained in any form of self defense And unlike other attorneys he knew, he owned no handgun.
Foolishly perhaps, but-swept away somewhat by his predicament, he opened a kitchen drawer and pulled out a steak knife. Feeling over dramatic and even a bit silly, he wrapped the knife in a thin cloth and taped it to his left calf. Then he left his apartment.
Killing a day in Manhattan, when one is ill prepared for it, is not the easiest of tasks, particularly when cold blustery weather hampers any enjoyment of the outdoors.
He checked his valise at Grand Central Station. Then he considered his alternatives. Kill the day, but go nowhere near where anyone would expect to find him. Go nowhere where he'd ever been before.
It's your life I'm talking about, she'd said. Trust me.
He considered the reading room of the Public Library. Worth hours anytime. But he'd been there before, scores of times. A library. He went to a branch library on the Lower East Side. There he killed the morning. At lunch he ate in a nearby dairy bar.
In the afternoon, he considered a movie. But not necessarily one he'd wanted to see. He went to a second-run house on the Upper West Side, then, tiring from the vacant hours he was seeking to fill, went to another second-run house a few.plocks away. He nearly dozed off. He fought to stay awake.
Then evening. An hour walking around the city. Then dinner at a Broadway cafeteria. Another movie.
Tired, anxious, and beginning to question the necessity of what he was doing, Thomas found himself in the East Forties at nine thirty. What was he hiding from? Whom was he avoiding? He wondered. More than six more hours to kill. He was sleepy and getting sleepier.
He decided. He would go back uptown to his home block. He would cautiously try to reenter his apartment. He would then nap with the light off and go to the park at the prearranged time.
He took the subway to Seventy-seventh and Lexington. Then he walked on Seventy-seventh Street all the way to First Avenue. Then he approached his own block from the east, rather than from the west, the route he normally traveled. All this, he thought as he walked, as an outgrowth of his father's wartime business. He was marching around on a cold Manhattan night thanks to events of twenty to thirty-five years ago.
He stopped short before coming to Second Avenue. On the avenue, parked by a fire hydrant, was a car occupied by two men. They were sitting, waiting and watching. Staring toward the entrance to his building.
One of them began to turn his way. Thomas whirled quickly. He fought back his instinct to run. He resisted looking back.
Instead he walked briskly, turning again as soon as he reached First Avenue. But he knew that if he'd been spotted -by whoever it was he was avoiding -the area would be alive with people looking for him.
He hailed a taxi. He gave an address in the East Fifties. Andrea Parker's block. Why not? He had to be off the streets. He watched in the rear window of the taxi but was unable to recognize any specific car following. He had the strong sense of being pursued but his pursuers were faceless.
Arthur Sandler? How could anyone be afraid of a septuagenarian who was legally dead?
The taxi dropped him on the corner of Fifty-first and Second.
Andrea lived nearby, on the twelfth floor of a new white high rise.
Thomas hurried into a telephone booth and dialed her number. She answered.
"I have to come up," he said.
"Tom?" she whispered.
"Yes, it's me" he said almost breathlessly.
"I'm on your block. I have to come up and see you. Now."
She laughed coyly and calmly, as if to convey a message.
"Oh, no," she said, without calling him by name.
"Not now."
"Andrea, please. I'm begging you."
"It's awfully late," she hinted.
He glanced around and saw no one he recognized. He spent another plaintive minute, arguing with her. Begging. She refused.
"Look," he finally said, 'you don't understand. It's crucial. There are people after me. I've got to get off the street. I just want a place where I can curl up in a corner for two hours and then go back out."
He could hear her putting her hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone, speaking to someone with her.
"Thomas'" she began.
"Please understand.
"You I 're 'entertaining" aren't you?"
"Yes "I don't care" he said.
"My other guest does," she said.
"My aging nemesis Augie, right?" he asked.
"It's immaterial," she said. It was Augie, that proved it.
"The best development of the whole Sandler case," he said, throwing it out as bait.
"Happening right here, right now. You either let me come up or so help me you'll never hear a word of it."
She was slow to respond. She was thinking it over.
Thomas she then began, speaking with a deliberate but negative tone.
"Look," he said.
"We'll compromise. I'll come to the doorman downstairs. He'll ring you. You tell him to send me up. I won't go to your apartment. I'll go to the roof gardens for two hours. I want to be off the street."
There was silence on the other end. Then the recording in the telephone began.
"Please!" he begged.
"I don't have another coin. Decide!"
"All right," she gave in.
"But if you come near my door, I'll call the police ' The police, he thought. Lovely.
"Agreed," he said.
He hung up and turned He jolted to a halt. Two men were completely blocking his way out of the booth. He thought his heart would leap out of his chest. Or stop.
How could he have been so careless? How had he let them close in on him?
"Who were you talking to, Mr. Daniels?" the larger one with the Irish face asked.
"A lady, maybe?" asked the smaller, darker one.
Hearn and Shassad, respectively.
"If you'll excuse me" said Thomas, trying to push his way past.
Hearn's arm was up quickly and blocked Thomas's route, keeping his back to the telephone booth.
"I'm afraid we can't excuse you," said Shassad.
"We'd like to talk with you."
"How about tomorrow?"
"How about now?"
Thomas grimaced at Shassad.
"You're forgetting" he said.
"I'm an attorney. I know my rights. Unless you have a specific-"
"Your janitor friend Jacobus was murdered this morning" said Hearn, "in case you didn't know." Thomas's eyes were riveted 'on the wiry man with the gaunt, sad face.
"Your girl friend, the one who's the hockey fan, was seen leaving jacobus home. You know who she is. You may even know where she is.
That makes you a material witness. If not an accomplice."
Thomas searched their faces, recalling Leslie's words not to talk to anyone familiar, not to trust a soul. just trust her, just once more.
"I don't believe you," he said.
"Want to see a body? Jacobus should be at the Medical Examiner's right now. We'll take you' "Sorry," he said.
"I'm not going.
Shassad grinned.
"Yes, you are. Unless that was your girl friend you were just talking to. If you'd like to take us to see her, we'd appreciate that, too' '
Thomas looked at both men again.
"All right" he said to settle them. They relaxed slightly and Thomas bolted."
It was hardly a race, Thomas had traveled no more than fifteen feet when Shassad grabbed the back of his jacket, slowing him enough for Hearn to grab him by the arm. Hearn chicken-winged Thomas's left arm and shoved him against the side of the building. Before Thomas knew what was happening, he was being frisked. They found the knife.
"What the hell are we carrying this for?" demanded Shassad, as Hearn pulled out the knife and handed it to his partner.
"In case a steak floats by?-.
"It's a dangerous city," said Thomas. He was permitted to turn and face the detectives.
Shassad's face began to break into a sly smile.
"Some attorney you must be," he said.
"A second ago you were a mere witness. Now you're under arrest.
Concealed weapon " He gave a low whistle of satisfaction.
"That's serious stuff, Daniels. You know that?"
"I'm an attorney," Thomas said sourly.
"You don't have to remind me" "Seems I heard a saying once," said Hearn.
"The lawyer who pleads his own case has a fool for a client' The son of William Ward Daniels resisted a response. He was taken to the Nineteenth Precinct, pondering whether his client, the woman who'd be waiting in vain for him in Central Park, had a fool for a lawyer. It was ten fifteen.
Thomas Daniels sat with his arms folded in front of him. The lighting was abrasive in the stuffy small room with grim avocado walls. Patrick Hearn sat at one end of the table, Daniels at the other.
Shassad was more prone to being on his feet. As Daniels listened to him, circling back over the same subject matter an uncountable number of times, Shassad was also more prone to anger.
Thomas looked at his watch. It was one thirty in the morning.
"All right," said Shassad, "we'll start again from the top. Where were you at eight o'clock this morning?"
"I've already told you. Home in bed. The answer hasn't changed" "No witnesses?"
Daniels stared at him cynically,
"Unfortunately no' "When did you hear form your'client'last?"
"This morning at nine. She telephoned me, he repeated grudgingly.
"Why did she call you?"
"To discuss her case. I filed motions for her yesterday."
"Where is she?"
"Damn it, Shassad," retorted Daniels, "the answers aren't going to change no matter how many times you ask. I've told you everything I know."
Shassad turned quickly and angrily, leaning forward on the table, pushing his contorted face to within inches of Daniels's.
"Damn it!" he roared. "What's her name?"
Daniels was silent, Shassad's eyes fiery and inches away from his own.
"Where's she live?"
Silence again.
"Where is she?"
More silence.
"God damn you!" he roared. He turned over two chairs beside the table and sent them crashing against a wall and a filing cabinet.
"Son of a bitch! Trying to be the hotshot like the old man, huh? Fuck the cops, huh? All right! You wanted it!"
Shassad burst from the room and was gone for less than ten seconds. He returned with the steak knife taken from Daniels earlier.
The knife, tagged as evidence and now shielded in a plastic bag, was flung down on the table in front of Daniels.
"See that?" roared Shassad.
"See it? That's something your old man was never dumb enough to do!
Concealed weapon. You won't cooperate with me, I don't cooperate with you. How'd you like to go out to the desk sergeant and be booked for that? Huh? That can mean jail, you know. You want that?" Shassad was leaning forward on the table again, above the knife, shouting.
"Lawyer-client relations are confidential," said Daniels placidly.
"I don't expect you to understand a tricky philosophical concept like that" He glanced at his watch.
"That's why you're a cop" Shassad moved back slightly, changing his tone of voice.
"What's the matter. You catching a train or something?"
"What?"
"Nothing" said Shassad.
"If you want to book me on a weapons charge, go ahead" said Daniels.
'I'll have bail posted before you can get back to your car."
Shassad grabbed the knife angrily.
"Fuck it!" he spat violently. He stormed out of the room and didn't return.
Hearn was expressionless as he sat in silence across the table. He made a final attempt at his role of arbitrator.
"Hey, look:'he said at length, 'why won't you cooperate with us? My partner there's under a lot of stress. Can't you give us a break?"
"How can I?"
"You must know where she is. How about if you bring her in, let her talk to us. You can be here. If she's innocent, if she was in trouble, well listen. She must have had a reason to have been there' "
"I don't know a damned thing about it" said Thomas.
"What else can I say? That's the gospel " "I'm sure," intoned Hearn blankly.
Thomas looked at the detective, a man who was as tired and disgusted with his job as Daniels was. He felt a strange affinity toward the man, then wondered absently how many hundreds of times his father had been in similar situations, hauled into police stations to spend the night lying to the local constabularies. Thomas felt diminished in his own opinion of himself. He'd never been in this situation before. Yet having arrived, he found it easy to… well, to lie.
He glanced at his watch. Two ten. Hearn was watching him.
Shassad reappeared, nasty as ever.
"Go home," said the detective.
Thomas looked at him.
"What?"
"You don't understand English now? I said go home. Patty," he said, turning to Hearn, 'tell him in Gaelic or something. Tell him to get his ass out of here. It's my good deed for the day. Plus I don't want to go to night court' Thomas looked with puzzlement and a touch of suspicion to Hearn. Hearn shrugged as Shassad departed.
"The knife, we keep" said Hearn.
"You can go, but you'll have to stick to soft foods for a while."
"I own another knife," Thomas offered.
"Try leaving it in your kitchen," suggested Hearn.
"Go on. Get out of here. You'll hear from us again" It was two thirty when Thomas walked out the doors of the precinct house. He was painfully tired and the first steps he took were in the direction of his apartment.
But then he stopped. Leslie's warning had been clear enough.
Were the police the people he was to have avoided? Or were there others? He glanced at his watch again and conceded that one more hour, killed at the end of a quiet bar, might not be so painful.
He marked an hour at a Second Avenue bar. Then he exited the bar at three thirty and began walking toward Fifth Avenue and the park. The streets were reasonably quiet as he walked cross town.
Twice, then a third time, he looked behind him. Always there was someone, al› out a block and a half away. He was at Seventy-third Street and Park Avenue when it dawned on him. He hadn't been released through goodness, kindness, or even chance.
The detectives had seen him glancing at his watch. Figuring he was concerned about the time for a reason, they'd decided to let him lead them to Leslie. They were following him. Thomas had no idea how many there were. But he knew, since two deaths were already involved, there had to be several.
He continued to walk uptown, stepping up his pace. He had twenty minutes to elude an entire squad of experienced detectives and get to the park. And with so few people on the street, he was that much easier to tail. If only he had Leslie's Experience, he thought.
Leslie's experience? Of course!
He led the pursuers farther northward, then toward Madison Avenue. Then he cut back toward Lexington, as if hoping to have thrown them. He led them to Seventy-eighth and Lexington where, halfway down the block, he saw the sign he wanted.
READER AND ADVISER, MADAME DIANE. It was almost four A.M. but Madame Diane's lights were still on and her door was still open.
The early-morning hours were ideal for those disturbed souls needing tea readings and advice.
Thomas walked halfway down the block, then quickly cut into the gypsy's street-level door. He darted up the steps and through the corridor, receiving a surprised look from the Madame herself, who stepped into the hall and shouted at him.
Then he heard footsteps on the stairs where he'd entered. His pursuers. Thomas was down one of the back stairways and out into an alley moments later, just as Madame Diane was asking the detectives if she could help them. No, she hadn't seen anyone, she told them, but if they cared to brew some tea, maybe…
At the end of the alley, Thomas climbed over some abandoned wooden crates and over an iron gate which was closed at night. He jumped from the top of the gate onto the sidewalk, nearly skidding on an icy patch.
But when he looked around, no one was anywhere in sight. He ran northward two blocks, then started in a half run toward Central Park.
It was already ten past four. He hoped she'd still be waiting.
Against every bit of good judgment he had, he wanted her to be there.
He entered the park at East Eighty-first Street. He walked north- ward toward their chosen rendezvous point. He would have liked to walk slowly and cautiously, not knowing what else might be lurking in the shadows on even the coldest of nights. But he was already late.
He neared his destination, the rock formation which was shrouded with shadows a few hundred feet from the Great Lawn.
An ideal place for a covert meeting, yes. Equally serviceable for a murder. He imagined the headlines the next day.
"MAN ESCAPES POLICE SURVEILLANCE, KILLED IN PARK
"Would they say that a mugger had done it? (Like Mark Ryder?) Or would the mystery woman be suspected?
Was he crazy? he wondered. Would his father have come here?
Maybe he should have let the police follow him? Or had they anyway?
No, he'd definitely lost them. Definitely.
He neared the rock formation and squinted through the darkness.
There was no sound, no movement. All he could see before him was his own breath, a ghostly cloud each time he exhaled. He tried to allow his eyes to accustom themselves to the dimness.
He was staring straight at the rocks. Gradually they took shape through the shadows. He took a step closer and continued to stare.
His eyes focused and he felt his heart jump for an instant.
A human form. Dead? Alive? Male? Female? He took a step closer.
"Tom?"
He nearly jumped at the soft intonation of the voice-it was asif it called in hushed tones from a cemetery. But he recognized it.
"Leslie," he said.
"Thank God."
"Are you all right?" she asked, implying that there'd be some surprise if he weren't.
"Yeah. Fine. I've had a day, let me tell you," he said.
"I have, too." ,I'm not surprised" he said.
There was a pause. He stepped closer to her, standing just a few feet away now. She stepped to him and gave him an affectionate kiss.
He said nothing, not knowing where to begin. She sensed his unease immediately.
"Something is wrong" she said.
He could see her face now, clearly enough to recognize her.
"I'm afraid my client owes her counsel a lot of answers" he said.
"Meaning?"
"Jacobus'" he said.
There was a hesitancy, then, "What about him?"
"You should know," he said.
"You killed him. Whoever you are."
"Tom," she said, acting hurt but shocked.
"What are-?"
"No, no "he said, his voice rising, "no more of the double talk. No more of the deception. I want the truth out of you. For once. I'm still your attorney and I'm still on your side. But I'm tired of being the dumb sucker in the middle." "I've never lied to you," she said defensively.
"Not true."
"Why?" she retorted sharply.
"It's not what you say, my dear," he said caustically.
"It's what you don't say. Right now, for example. You still haven't denied shooting Jacobus " She didn't answer. She took one step a4ay in the darkness, making him squint to see her.
"A nice little old man "he said.
"Eccentric, maybe. Quarrelsome, at times. But you killed him, didn't you? Why?"
"All right " she said, turning toward him.
"Yes. I did. So what?"
"So what? You shot him and you say
"So what'?"
"He was trying to kill you," she said.
"He and some others "Oh, brother," he said with disbelief "Tell me a better one. Explain the man in the blue car."
"You'll know eventually. Soon, in point of fact "Yes, sure," he said.
"That's what I mean. You never lie completely, just omit the truth.
The man at Grover's house a few mornings ago was the same man who was in the parking garage the night you disappeared. Correct?"
"Correct " "And yet at Grover's you wouldn't even look at him, much less admit that you knew him. Correct?"
"Correct again."
"And you do know him. He's a… how shall I phrase it? An 'associate' of yours. He got you out of the parking garage. You were in his car. The trunk, I'd guess."
"Very good'" she allowed.
"And Peter Whiteside and George McAdam," he pressed.
"They're alive, aren't they? As alive as you or I "Of course," she admitted.
"Their names on the Avianca passenger list was a hoax. I've always known that."
"Then why-?"
"I didn't want you seeing them."
"And the reason is that they could identify the real Leslie Mc- Adam," he suggested.
"Correct?"
She nodded.
"What about the real Leslie?" he pursued.
"Arthur Sandler's daughter. Dead or alive?" He waited. When she didn't answer, he thought he knew.
"Dead?" he concluded.
"Right?"
She took a step or two away again. His attention was riveted upon her.
He half expected her to make a run through the darkness. Or pull a weapon.
"Well?" he said.
"I came here for answers. Before I do one more thing for you, I want answers. And you know where you can start?
With your identity. I want to know who you are and what you want."
"You'll know soon enough," she said, turning again.
"Men?"
"Soon," was the calculated reply. But the voice was not Leslie's. It was a man's voice and came from behind Thomas.
"Now, in fact' The accent was American. Thomas Daniels spun around in terror, his vision clouded by his own breath.
But he could see well enough to discern the features of the man before him. The man from the parking garage, from the blue car, from Grover's front porch. The man was standing fifteen feet away and holding out before him the unmistakable form of a pistol, a long-nosed weapon with a thin mean-looking barrel which strongly suggested the presence of a silencer.
"Please," said Paul Hammond, hesitantly and mustering courage.
"No heroics."
Thomas looked at the two of them, bitterly and with exhaustion.
He was freezing. He'd been awake for twenty hours. He was too tired and cold for heroics.
"Damn you both" he said bitterly. He looked at Leslie, the most fascinating woman he'd ever met.
"Damn you in particular," he cursed. How could he maneuver her now?
"It's all been necessary," she said. That soothingly sweet voice again, the cultivated accent of royalty.
"If you've been frightened or inconvenienced, I'm truly sorry."
"Inconvenienced?" He looked at the form of the gun.
"And you're 'sorry'?" He looked back and forth again.
"If you're so damned sorry, why did you bring me here?"
"Because, Mr. Daniels," said the gunman, 'your time has come."
Leslie spoke next.
"You're going to disappear," she said sweetly but authoritatively.
"And I assure you, no one will ever find you."