Hell's Kitchen (34 page)

“I don’t think you ever mentioned that, no.” Pellam looked out over the parks and neoclassical courthouses. “The money you had saved up? In your savings account . . . it was so you could find your daughter, wasn’t it?”

“Louis told you about her?”

Pellam nodded.

“I wasn’t honest with you about that either, John. I’m sorry. But the fact is I said I’d let you interview me because I thought maybe she’d see me on TV down in Florida, or wherever she is. She’d see me and give me a call.”

“You know, Ettie, that confession to Lomax was a nice try.”

The woman looked in her purse and extracted a handkerchief. Pellam remembered that she washed them in perfumed water and let them dry on a thin string above the bathtub. She wiped her eye. “That was the one thing that hurt me so much—that you’d be thinking I lied to you. Or I tried to hurt you.”

“Never thought that for a second.”

“You should’ve,” Ettie scolded. “That was the whole point. You should’ve gone home to California like you were supposed to. And stayed out of harm’s way. You should’ve gone and you should’ve stayed gone.”

“You thought that if you confessed then the killer’d give up, wouldn’t try to hurt me again. It’s the same thing Billy Doyle did: confessing so your brother wouldn’t get killed.”

“What he did gave me the idea,” she explained. “See, I knew I wasn’t the one who hired that psycho to burn down the building. But somebody did and they were still out there. And as long as you kept poking around that somebody was gonna try and hurt you.”

Ettie gazed at the elaborate verdigris crown of the Woolworth building, sprouting gargoyles. Finally she said, “They took so much away from me, John. My Billy Doyle got taken away by his own nature. And some crazy man with a gun took my Frankie. And Elizabeth got taken off by some fancy man. Even my neighborhood—the developers and rich people’re taking it. I didn’t want ’em to take you too. I couldn’t’ve stood that. I thought, Hell, I’ll be out of jail in a few years. Then maybe you’ll still want to talk to me, keep putting me on tape and listening to my stories. Oh, maybe you wouldn’t and I’d’ve understood that. But I’d rather you were alive and well.” She laughed a frail laugh. “That was the little bit I wanted to save for myself. See, sometimes you
can
fool ’em. Oh, yes, yes, sometimes you can. I’m tired. I think I’d like to be getting home now.”

Pellam strode into the street, directly into the path of an empty cab, which squealed to a halt a foot from him. Pellam escorted Ettie forward, past three burly men hurrying a manacled prisoner toward the courts. The prisoner was the only one of the quartet who nodded respectfully at the elderly woman. Ettie nodded back. They climbed into the cab.

The Pakistani driver looked at Pellam, inquiring silently about their destination.

“Hell’s Kitchen,” Pellam answered.

He blinked.

Pellam repeated it but the cabby just shook his head.

“Thirty-Fourth Street and Ninth Avenue,” Pellam said.

His sunken eyes gazed at Pellam a moment longer, then he stabbed the meter and they clattered off madly through the busy streets.

The next evening, Pellam and Louis Bailey stood in the lawyer’s newly painted office.

They were in identical poses. Leaning out an open window, squinting.

“The governor,” Bailey said.

“No, I don’t think so,” Pellam responded. Though it had been almost twenty years since Pellam had been a resident of the Empire State and he had only a vague idea of what any governor, past or present, looked like.

“I’m sure.”

“Ten bucks,” Pellam bet. It was hardly a lock. But confidence, he had it on good authority, is everything.

“Uhm. Five.”

They shook.

At the far end of the block the limo deposited its dignitary, whoever it might be, on the red carpet of McKennah Tower’s main entrance and the tuxedoed gentleman and several bodyguards entered the building.

“The plate,” Bailey said, “read, ‘NY 1.’”

“It’s probably a Mets pitcher.”

“Then it sure as hell wouldn’t say number one,” Bailey countered sadly. The long black Lincoln vanished around the corner. Bailey closed the window.

Currently playing across the street was perhaps the only topping-off ceremony that had ever been held on ground level. Not being able to fit McKennah’s six thousand invitees on the roof of the Tower, the ceremony was taking place in the building’s theater, a lavish place intended for full-production Broadway musicals and plays. Tonight the placed rocked with MTV music, lasers, banks of video monitors, Dolby SurroundSound, computer graphics.

Pouring a very small glass of the jug wine, Pellam tuned in again to Louis Bailey. The man was ebullient and couldn’t stop talking about the case, while in a dim corner of the freshly painted office Ismail, in his tricolor windbreaker, sat leafing through an old, limp comic. He was wearing his new Nikes.

“I’ve got to meet somebody,” he called to Ismail. “And you should be getting back to the Outreach Center.”

“Yo, inaminute, cuz.”

One of McKennah’s personal secretaries had called earlier and asked if Pellam would like to attend the ceremony. He’d declined but agreed to stop by at nine; McKennah, it seemed, had a memento the developer thought Pellam might like. Pellam assumed it was something from historic Hell’s Kitchen, maybe unearthed when the foundation for the Tower had been dug. Pellam, a die-hard Winnebago dweller, didn’t have much interest in collectibles. But he supposed there was also the chance it was a nice check—for blowing the whistle on Corcoran’s girlfriend or taking such stunning footage of the illegal daycare center.

He stood. “Let’s go, Ismail.”

The boy yawned. “I ain’t tired.”

“Time to go.”

The boy stretched and walked to Bailey, slapped his palm. “Yo, homes.”

“Holmes?” the perplexed lawyer asked. “Well, goodnight, Watson.”

Ismail frowned then said, “Later.”

“Yes, well. Later to you too, young man.”

Pellam and Ismail stepped out into the darkness of Thirty-sixth Street. The crowds were inside the tower by now and the limos were parked elsewhere. The sense of emptiness was strong, Bailey’s being the only remaining residential building between Ninth and Tenth Avenues. McKennah’s choice to build his castle here hadn’t magically turned this neighborhood into populated civilization.

Across the street the construction site itself was obscured by bunting and banners, which fluttered in the hot night breeze. It was dark, cordoned off. The only sound was the faint music from the theater.

“Empty, huh?” he asked.

“Whatcha say, cuz?”

“The street. Empty.”

“Straight up.” The boy yawned again.

They passed a large bulldozer, parked where Ettie’s building had stood.

“What’ll happen to the block now?” he mused.

Ismail shrugged. “Dunno. Who care?”

They walked toward the theater, where McKennah or his assistant was going to meet him. It was an attached building, not part of the Tower itself, and it rose eighty feet into the air above a sleek, glassy
entranceway filled with marble and granite. A sort of Egyptian motif—colors were sand, maroon, green. The lobby was empty now; the festivities were underway.

As he passed the construction site surrounding the theater he peered at the landscaping. No grass had been planted yet but this evening the dirt was covered with AstroTurf and studded with redwood planters containing palms trees. Pellam paused.

“Whassup, Pellam?”

“You go on to the YOC, Ismail. I’ve got to meet somebody.”

“Naw,” he whined. “I’ma hang with
you,
cuz.”

“Uh-uh, time for bed.”

“Shit, Pellam.”

“Watch the language. Now get going.”

His round face grimaced. “Okay. Later, cuz.”

They slapped palms and the boy walked slowly east. The too-big basketball shoes flopped loudly as he reluctantly headed toward the uptown street. He looked back, waved.

Pellam slipped through a gap in the fence and walked over the spongy fake grass.

What
is
that?

He looked more closely at what he’d seen from the sidewalk: The workers had anchored the potted plants to the handles on the exit doors, looping heavy rope through them. He supposed this was to keep the locals from walking off with the vegetation.

But the effect of what they’d done was to tie the fire doors shut.

And to tie them shut pretty damn tight—with coils and coils of thick rope. Of the twenty emergency doors only one wasn’t tied closed. It was slightly ajar. From it
came the mute sounds of applause and laughter and the solid thud of bass from the musicians. He walked to it and looked inside.

The doors didn’t open onto the theater itself but into a fire stairwell that, Pellam guessed, led up to the theater and the loge and the balconies. The corridor was dark, except for the bulbs in the exit signs glowing eerily. The interior doors were chocked open and he caught glimpses of red velvet seats and walls and maroon carpet.

Then something on the wall of the corridor caught his eye. Stepped closer. He saw that it was a rumpled sheet of paper—a map of the west side of Manhattan. It looked familiar and a moment later Pellam understood why. It was similar to the one they’d found after the fire in Bailey’s office. The one on which Sonny had marked all his fires.

Only on
this
map the last target wasn’t the Javits Center; it was McKennah Tower.

Suddenly Pellam’s eyes stung and he caught a whiff of astringent fumes. Like the cleanser in Bailey’s office several days ago. He remembered smelling it just before the light bulb exploded.

But of course it wasn’t cleanser at all. It was that homemade napalm. And here was its source, right in front of him: Four drums of the stuff. They lined the wall. The tops were off.

A noise behind him.

He turned abruptly.

The young blond man stood with his head cocked. A mad smile was on his face and his eyes danced in the reflected light from the Tower.

“Joe Buck,” he whispered, “Pellam, Pellam. I’m Sonny. It’s so nice to meet you at last.”

The Colt had already cleared Pellam’s belt and was half-cocked when Sonny swung the long wrench and connected with Pellam’s forearm. The bone gave with a crack and the blow was so hard it laid open a large patch of skin. Blood flew. And Pellam, eyes rolling back in his head, collapsed back into the tunnel, gasping, hitting his head on the side of an oil drum, which rang, muted, like a bell on a foggy day.

Sonny set aside the wrench and slipped Pellam’s gun into his waistband. Then, from his pockets, he took a pair of handcuffs.

And a cigarette lighter.

Pellam’s first thought: There’s no pain. Why doesn’t it hurt?

It’s
loose.
My arm’s loose. . . .

Blood flowed from the gash on his arm.

Sonny, a caste mark in Pellam’s blood on his forehead, bent down, fishing in his pocket. He emerged with a small silver key for the cuffs. His hands shook. His wispy hair floated around his head like water.

Why no pain? Pellam thought, staring at his shattered arm.

“If you’re wondering who was in that lawyer’s office,” the crazy young man said matter-of-factly. “That was your friend Alex. The snitch-bitch. Wheeled him from my place in an oil drum—bent him nearly double. Now
that
was an unpleasant trip for him, I’ll bet. And left him under the tanning lamp. Had to get all you faggot cowboys off my back.” He opened one latch on the cuff.

Sonny nodded toward the theater. “This’ll be the last one. Come on, front row seat.” Sonny grabbed Pellam by the collar and pulled him to his feet. “We’re going
out together, Joe Buck, fucking Antichrist . . . You, me and about five thousand other good folk.”

He kicked an oil drum over and the soapy liquid flowed through the corridor and into the theater itself. The second drum followed.

“This is my juice,” he said matter of factly. “I invented it myself. See, you couldn’t do this with gas alone. Gas is shitty. Low flashpoint, big flare, cool fire, and then it’s over with. I knew this pyro one time . . .” Sonny began to unlatch the second ring of the cuff. His hands shook badly. He paused, inhaled deeply. While it nauseated Pellam the smell of the liquid seemed to calm Sonny down. He began working on the cuff again. He continued. “He used gasoline. Thought he was soooo cool. One time he had this job on the third floor of an old tenement. He takes two five-gallon cans up, douses the place and breaks a lightbulb so when the guy comes in and flicks on the light up he goes. Then he starts going through the guy’s drawers, looking for jewelry or something. What he doesn’t realize is that gas vapors’re heavier than air and while he’s fucking around upstairs the gas fumes are flowing down to the basement. Where there’s . . . guess what? Ta-dah . . . A pilot light in the water heater. I think they found part of his skeleton.

Pellam choked. There was probably a hundred gallons of liquid flowing into the building. Pellam remembered what Lomax had told him about the Happy Land fire. A mere gallon of gas had turned the place into an inferno.

“Let’s go, Midnight Cowboy.” Sonny touched Pellam’s shattered arm. The bone shifted and, at last, a searing jolt of pain shot up into Pellam’s shoulder and
neck and face. In pure reaction he lashed out with his left palm, catching Sonny in the jaw. It was a weak blow but it caught the young man by surprise and he stepped back a few feet.

“You shit.” He shoved Pellam against the wall.

On his knees Pellam scooped up a handful of the napalm, splashing it into Sonny’s face. It missed his eyes but splashed on his mouth and nose and he stumbled backwards, screaming in pain. He dropped the cigarette lighter, which Pellam grabbed. He started for the young man. But Sonny was madly pulling the Colt from his belt.

“Why did you do that?” he cried. He sounded incredulous. His cheek was bright red. His mouth was swollen. But his eyes were clear and brimmed with madness. He lifted the pistol, pulled the trigger.

Pellam turned and stumbled through the door.