Desperate Measures (12 page)

He heard a threatening voice behind him. "What ya got in the bag, man?"

Looking over his shoulder, Pittman saw a street kid, tall, broad shoulders, steely eyes, late teens.

"Stuff."

"What stuff?" The kid flashed a long-bladed knife.

"This stuff." Pittman aimed the .45. The kid put the knife away. "Cool, man. Damned good stuff." He backed off, hurrying down the street. Pittman put the gun back in the gym bag.

Madison Square Park was the site of Pittman's favorite section photograph, an evocative early-twentieth-century depiction of the Flatiron Building, where Broadway intersects with Fifth Avenue. The photograph showed a winter scene with snow falling on horse carriages, and to the left, taking up only part of the photograph but seeming to dominate the photo as much as the Flatiron Building did, were the bare trees of Madison Square Park.

Pittman positioned himself on Fifth Avenue about where he assumed that Steichen had stood with his tripoded camera. Although it was spring and not winter, the trees were still not fully leafed, and Pittman used the night to imagine that he'd been taken back in time, that the muffled clop of horses' hooves had replaced the busy roar of traffic.

He had gotten to the park a half hour early. There'd been no other place to go. Besides, although the meal at the diner had given him back some energy, he was still tired from the exertion of the previous night and the considerable walking he'd done all day. Despite his fears, his body felt more fit than it had in over a year. His muscle aches were almost a pleasure. Even so, he had pushed his body to its limit. He needed to sit.

But not in plain view. After briefly pretending that he was ichen, he left where he thought that the great photographer placed his camera and retreated toward the trees, walkways, and benches of the park. At night, he became only one of the park's many indistinct visitors, most of them homeless, lounging on the benches. He thought, and he waited.

On schedule at eleven o'clock, Burt Forsyth got out of a taxi on Fifth Avenue. As the taxi drove away, merging with the headlights of traffic, Burt paused just long enough to light a cigarette, the glow from his lighter possibly intended as a beacon, something to attract Pittman's attention and help Pittman recognize him.

Then Burt walked into the park, passing the war memorial flagpole. Obviously, Pittman thought, I'm supposed to go over to him. He doesn't know where I am.

After staring behind Burt to see if anyone was following, Pittman stood from his shadow-obscured bench.

But as he approached, Burt's expression intensified. He shook his head slightly, firmly in what seemed a warning. He gestured unobtrusively ahead and continued past Pittman.

Pittman did his best not to call out to Burt. I'm supposed to follow, is that it? In case we've got company? To be extra cautious?

As casually as he could make it seem, Pittman took a path that ran parallel to the one Burt had chosen. Burt crossed the park, went up to Twenty-sixth Street, and proceeded to the right along it. Following, Pittman walked by a white marble court building, turned east onto Twenty-sixth Street, ignored the darkened expensive shops on his right, and concentrated on Burt ahead of him.

Halfway along the block, Burt abruptly stepped out of sight beneath a makeshift roof that protected the sidewalk in a construction area. When Pittman hurried to catch up to him, he saw that Burt was waiting in the shadows behind two Dumpsters and a jungle of metal scaffolds.

Pittman veered toward him.

"I don't know what to do, Burt. The television news makes me look like a maniac."

"I told you it was bad. What happened? How did you get into this mess?" "I didn't kill Millgate.

"Then why were you seen running from his room?"

"There's an innocent explanation."

"Innocent? Your fingerprints are on his life-support system. What were you doing in-?"

"Burt, you have to believe me. This is all a big mistake. Whatever caused Millgate's death, I had nothing to do with it."

"Hey, I believe you. But I'm not the one you have to convince. How will you explain to the police about-?"

A sudden shadow made Burt turn from the scaffolding toward the sidewalk. Hearing a noise, Pittman glanced in that direction as well, seeing a man loom into view. The man was silhouetted by a streetlight, so Pittman couldn't see his face, but he could see the oversized windbreaker the man wore.

The man made a gesture, pulling something out.

No! Pittman stumbled back. Trapped, he bumped against garbage cans. cornered, seeing the pistol the man was aiming, Pittman had no other defense except to raise his gym bag, preparing to throw it.

When the man fired, the pistol's silencer reduced the sound of the shot so that it wasn't any louder than a fist against a pillow.

The bullet hit the gym bag, bursting through, missing Pittman as he lost his balance, falling among garbage cans, striking concrete.

The gunman came into the shadows. Pittman stared up at him in panic, expecting the next bullet to be between his eyes. But a metallic clatter startled the gunman and made him swing toward Burt, who had stumbled against a section of scaffolding. The gunman shot him in the chest. Gasping, Burt lurched back.

By then, Pittman was frantically yanking at the zipper on his gym bag.

As the gunman returned his attention to Pittman, Burt collided against the bars of the scaffolding and rebounded off them, pawing at the air, involuntarily grabbing the first thing in front of him: the gunman. Finding Burt's arms around his shoulders, the gunman pulled them away, spun, and shot him again, this time in the face.

Pittman had the gym bag open.

The gunman pivoted toward him and raised the pistol.

Pittman gripped the .45, cocked it, and pulled the trigger. The unsilenced .45 made a roar that seemed all the worse because it contrasted with the three previous muffled shots. The roar felt like hands slamming against Pittman's ears. It echoed, amplified by the narrow confines. Pittman's ears rang as he fired and fired again. Then he stopped.

Because he didn't have a target. The man was no longer there.

The confinement had helped Pittman's aim. The gunman was on his back, blood spewing from his chest, throat, and left eye.

Pittman retched, tasting bile. But he couldn't allow himself to give in. Burt. He had to help Burt. He scrambled toward him, felt for a pulse, but he couldn't find one. No! Burt!

Despite the torturous ringing in his ears, he suddenly heard shouting, a siren in the distance. He felt paralyzed with shock. His eyes stung as he took one last look at his friend, Then, with the siren wailing nearer, his paralysis broke. He rushed to grab the gym bag, shoved the .45 into it, and charged away from the scaffolds.

As a woman screamed on the opposite side of the street, Pittman raced east along Twenty-sixth Street in the direction of Park Avenue. God help me, he kept thinking.

But he and God weren't on the best of terms. Because God had allowed Jeremy to die. So Pittman pleaded to the only element of an afterlife of which he was certain.

Jeremy, listen carefully. Please. Son, please. You have to help your father.

How long do I have before the police come after me? Pittman thought.

An inward voice urged him to run, to keep running, never to stop. But another inward voice, which reminded Pittman of Jeremy, warned him that running would attract attention. Slow down. Act like nothing is wrong.

Behind him, in the distance, Pittman heard sirens. The police would find the bodies. They'd talk to the woman who had screamed when she heard the shots and saw Pittman scramble out of the construction area. They'd start searching for a man with a gym bag who'd run along Twenty-sixth Street toward Park Avenue.

Get rid of the gym bag, the inward voice said, and again Pittman thought it sounded remarkably like Jeremy. Get rid of it? But the bag has my clothes, the gun. Hey, what good will the clothes and the gun do you if you're in jail?"

Walking, trying not to show his tension and his impulse to hurry, Pittman crossed Park Avenue. On the other side, along Twenty-sixth Street, cars and pedestrians thinned. He came to another construction area. Hearing more sirens, he glanced around him, saw no one looking in his direction, and dropped the gym bag into a Dumpster.

He turned south on Lexington Avenue. Sweating, still forcing himself to walk slowly, he skirted Gramercy Park, which was locked for the night. Continuing south, then heading west, hoping he didn't attract attention, he eventually came to Union Square Park and was struck by how much his life had changed in the six hours since he'd gotten off a subway here and had walked to his apartment.

But he couldn't go to his apartment now, that was sure, and he didn't know where else he could go. The police would be watching friends he might ask for help. Hotels would be warned to watch for anyone using his credit card. What the hell am I going to do?

"Hey, what's all thm sirens about?" a stoop-shouldered, beard-stubbled man asked. He was slumped on a metal bench, holding what was obviously a pint of alcohol concealed in a paper bag. His overcoat had no elbows.

His hair was mussed. He had two missing front teeth. Pittman had the sense that the man, who looked sixty, was possibly thirty. "Damned if I know." Exhausted, Pittman sat next to him. The man didn't respond for a moment. "What?"

"The sirens." "Huh?"

"You asked about the sirens, what was causing them. "They're disturbin' my peace In' quiet."

"Mine, too."

"Hey, I din't say you could sit there."

Siren wailing, dome lights flashing, a police car raced around the park and sped north on Broadway.

"Another one," the man said. "Disturbin' my ... Damn it, you're still sittin' there." The man clutched his bottle. "My bench. I din't say you could . Another police car wailed by. "Take it easy," Pittman said.

"Yur tryin' to steal my bench," the man said louder. "I told you, take it easy."

"ere's a policeman?"

"I'll pay rent."

"What's 'at?"

"I'll pay rent. You're right. This is your bench. But I'll pay to share it with you. How does ten dollars sound?"

"Ten ... ?"

"And I'll trade you my overcoat for yours."

The woman who had screamed when Pittman scrambled from the bodies would tell the police that the man with the gym bag had been wearing a tan overcoat. The coat that Pittman wanted to trade for was dark blue.

'Trade?'

"I want to share the bench."

The man looked suspicious. "Les see your money."

Pittman gave him the ten-dollar bill he'd gotten from the cook at the diner, the last cash he had, except for a few coins.

"And the coat."

Pittman traded with him. The man's coat stank of perspiration. Pittman set it beside him.

Switching his bottle from hand to hand, the man struggled into the coat. "Nice."

"Yep. "Warm. .'Yep.

"My lucky day. " The man squinted at Pittman, raised the bottle to his lips, upended it, drank the remainder of its contents, and dropped the bottle behind him onto the grass. "Going' for another bottle. Guard the bench."

"It'll be here when you get back."

"Damn well better be."

The man staggered from the park, heading south on Broadway.

As another police car wailed by, Pittman slumped lower on the bench, hoping to blend with the park's other residents.

The night's chill in combination with the aftermath of adrenaline made him hug himself, shivering. Urgent thoughts assaulted his mind.

Burt had said he suspected a detective was watching him from a table in the restaurant. Maybe it wasn't a detective, Pittman thought. Maybe it was the gunman, who followed Burt from the restaurant, hoping I'd be in touch with him.

But the gum-nan didn't need to kill Burt. Burt wasn't a threat to him. In the darkness, Burt wouldn't have been able to identify him.

Pittman felt colder. In the shadowy park, he hugged himself harder. The son of a bitch, he didn't have to kill Burt!

A movement to Pittman's right distracted him. Still slumped on the bench, he turned his head, focusing sharply on two figures moving toward him. They didn't wear uniforms. They weren't policemen, unless they were working under cover. But they didn't move with the authority of policemen. They seemed to creep.

Predators. They must have seen me give money to the-guy who was on this bench. Now they want money, too. Pittman sat up. The figures came closer.

If there's trouble, I'll attract the police.

Pittman stood to walk away, but the shambling figures reached him. He braced himself for an attack.

"Goddamn it," a slurred voice said. "Git away from him. He's mine. I foun' him. He's rentin' my bench."

The figures glared at the man in Pittman's overcoat, who was coming back with a bottle in a paper bag.

"Din't you hear me? Git. " The man fumbled in his grimy pants and pulled out a church key-style bottle opener. He jabbed its point at them. "Move yur asses away from my bench. 'S mine. Mine and his."

The sullen figures hesitated, then shifted back toward the shadows from which they had risen.

"Bastards." The man slumped onto the bench. "They'da taken my bench in a minute. Gotta keep watchin'."