There Fell a Shadow (17 page)

Eleanora. Eleanora, my love, my love
.

Poor bastard, I thought. Meeting someone like her. Losing someone like her. He must have loved her pretty damned desperately.

What else could he have done?

T
hat night, I met with Lester Paul.

He'd said ten o'clock. I left the office around nine-fifteen. I wanted to be there first, to scout the place. I grabbed a cab on Vanderbilt. We headed to Madison, then started uptown.

The air was crisp and cold. The night sky was clear. There was no moon that I could see. Rush hour was over, but the sidewalks were still crowded with Christmas shoppers. Some of them carried stacks of packages in their arms or gripped shopping bags in their hands. They looked warm in their overcoats and scarves.

There were lights everywhere. There were colored lights in the store windows. There were white lights on some of the trees. There were golden lights around the gates of the Helmsley Palace Hotel. Spotlights blanketed the stone spires of St. Patrick's Cathedral. Red taillights sped along in front of us. Green traffic lights hung overhead.

There were lights everywhere. But somehow, two stood out. Two headlights. They'd been following me since I left the
Star
.

I don't know why I noticed them. Maybe I'd been watching for it, expecting it without thinking. I'd witnessed a murder, after all. I knew I was a target. Maybe I was just naturally on my guard.

One way or another, when my cab pulled away from the
Star
, I glanced over my shoulder. Through the rear window, I saw the two headlights pull into traffic, too. As we moved toward Madison, so did they. As we headed uptown, they did, too. I didn't think much of it at first. I just noticed.

We passed under the AT&T building, a rose marble tower turned to shadow in the night. Two trees in its open courtyard glittered with lights behind its heavy columns. I glanced back at the headlights. They were still there.

The cab had pulled into the left lane. So had the headlights following. The cab signaled to turn left on Fifty-seventh Street. The headlights edged even further to the left, as if to turn also.

“Go up and through the park,” I said.

“Eh?” said the hack.

“Don't turn.”

He clicked off his signal. He pulled into the center lane The headlights behind us did not make the turn either. They followed us.

“Listen,” I said to the back of the driver's head. “There's a guy tailing us. Can you lose him?”

“Tailing?” the cabbie said in a thick Levantine accent.

“Yeah, it's worth a dime.”

“You no want de Natwal Histry.”

“No,” I said. “Just lose this guy.”

“Lewis Guy?” asked the cabbie. “I no know this place.”

“Pull over,” I said.

We went by the rear exit of F.A.O. Schwarz in the General Motors Building. Stuffed bears and giraffes peered down at me from the second-story window. The cab pulled to the curb.

I shoved some money over the seat in front of me.

“Uh, Lewis Guy?” said the driver.

“Keep the change,” I said.

I got out of the cab. As I closed the door behind me, the headlights went past. I saw a low, sleek, dark-colored car cruise up Madison. I watched its taillights. They turned left one block up, on Fifty-ninth Street.

I glanced at my watch. It was 9:25. Whoever was after me, I had to ditch him fast. If Paul thought I'd brought anyone with me, he might keep his promise to blow my brains out. I needed my brains in case I ever decided to go into another line of work.

I shoved my hands in my overcoat pockets, started walking quickly toward Fifth.

I got to the corner. It was bright and noisy there. The street opened up into Grand Army Plaza. The glass lance of the G.M. Building shot into the sky beside me. The bronze nude of the plaza fountain was surrounded by lighted trees across the way. There were sidewalk Santas ringing bells. The Salvation Army was blowing brass. Shoppers were following the wisps of their breath through the night. All the stores around were open late.

The low, sleek, dark-colored car turned the corner. It rolled onto the Avenue just ahead of me.

I froze. I watched. The passenger door cracked open. Timing the traffic, a slim man slipped into the street. He sidled around the car to the sidewalk. I saw him craning his neck, looking for me. I looked away. I pretended to study the front entrance of the toy store. Shoppers were streaming into the revolving doors and the two other doors that flanked it. A man dressed up as a toy soldier opened the right door and saluted the people going in. A woman dressed up as a clown opened the left door and made faces at the people coming out.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the dark car join the traffic. It eased down Fifth Avenue and was gone. The man who had gotten out moved to the railing of the G.M. Building's sunken courtyard. He leaned over it, pretending to look at the make-believe ice pond and the mannequin skaters set up below.

He was not the man who had killed Timothy Colt. But he looked enough like him to make my gut feel like a cold draft had blown through it. He was small and wiry. He had dark skin. His hair was close-cropped. His eyes were fierce and deep. He seemed even younger than the assassin I had battled in Colt's hotel. He was a kid, maybe seventeen or so. All the same, the aches and pains that had sunk into the back of my mind these past hours now rose to the forefront again. I was in no shape for another fight.

He looked over the railing. Christmas music drifted up from below. “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” The kid was waiting. He was waiting for me to move.

I moved. I headed toward F.A.O. Schwarz.

The toy soldier opened the door for me. He was a young guy. He wore a bright red uniform and a black busby. He had pink spots painted on his cheeks. He saluted.

“I love a man in uniform,” I said.

“Hey, it's a job, all right?” he muttered.

I went inside.

I came into a large bright room. At its center was an enormous mechanical clock. Its big peach-colored face had eyes and a mouth. It spun and moved and sang. The big clock was covered with mechanical toys. They spun and moved and sang, too. Jack-in-the-boxes popped. Ballerinas twirled. Cars raced. A hot-air balloon rose and sank down. All the while, this tune kept playing. This happy little tune about boys and girls and toys.

Around the clock, the shoppers moved to and fro with their brightly wrapped boxes. Stuffed animals—red mice, yellow giraffes, black bears, orange tigers, and dinosaurs of every color—lay on shelves, hung over ledges, sat beneath windows. They watched the shoppers go.

I moved toward the clock. I glanced over my shoulder. The toy soldier outside saluted again. He opened the door and admitted the punk who was following me.

The punk had made a mistake. He'd panicked when I went inside. He'd come after me too quickly. Now we saw each other over the shoppers passing back and forth. We gazed at each other for a long moment.

He was afraid. I saw it. It was in his eyes. His mouth was open. His tongue kept darting forward to wet his lips. He was not as cool as his assassin buddy.

He had to decide what to do quickly. He decided. He came at me.

I turned away. A doting grandmother carrying an elephant tottered toward the cashier. An eager father rushed the other way toward the dinosaurs. I slipped between them and headed around the clock. The clock sang its little song.

I thought I'd find the rear exit now. It wasn't there. The way out seemed to have vanished. There was nothing against the back wall but a glass elevator. To the left was an escalator heading up to the second floor. At the base of it, a mechanical teddy bear said, “Oh, I do love robots! They're on the second floor! Merry Christmas.”

I went for the elevator. I didn't look back. The floor felt slippery under my shoes as I dodged a young man with a tiger under each arm.

The doors to the elevator were on the other side, facing the rear wall. I was lucky. They opened just as I came around to them. I jumped inside and pressed the button marked two.

The elevator rose swiftly. I looked out through the glass wall. The wide, bright floor full of animals dropped away beneath me. As it did, I saw the punk come around the singing clock. He searched for me desperately. He looked up and spotted me as I rose into the air. He dashed toward the talking teddy bear. He began to shove and weave his way through the crowd on the escalator.

Second floor. The door slid open. I shot out into the glassy stares of a thousand golden-haired dolls. Some of them chattered at me in singsong voices. I slid past the knot of people waiting for the lift. I cut left, passing the top of the escalator. I looked down there as I went by. The crowd was rippling with the punk's progress through it. He was about halfway to the top.

I didn't stop to meet him. I walked on as fast as I could. I had to dump this charmer. Had to find the rear door. Get out, make my date. Meet with Paul alone.

Now I was barreling down a wild hallway. Lights blinked. Plastic figures larger than life turned this way and that to either side of me. A cowboy, an Eskimo, an astronaut flashed by me as I humped along.

I reached the hallway's end. The punk topped the escalator. A woman cried out as he shoved her aside. He started swiftly down the hall.

I swung around. Before me was a vast array of electric trains. Big ones trudged from signal light to signal light. Tiny silver streaks zipped through miniature villages in the Alps. There was an old freight rattling round an oval. I almost stopped to ogle them. I didn't. I skittered past the train tables. Turned, kept walking.

There were ray guns to the left of me. Robots to the right. Somewhere, an alien on a television screen was growling. I headed straight on. There, up ahead, was an entire city in miniature: a little skyline of multicolored snap-together blocks. Skyscrapers, brownstones, stadiums, the works. All of it in stunning combinations of yellow, blue, red, and white.

As I headed into the midst of it, a youth who seemed to be made of flesh and blood stepped forward and called to the shoppers around him. He was a tall, strapping fellow with lots of yellow hair. His voice was sharp and loud.

“Hi, everyone, I'm the Lego man, and this is Lego Land, come on in, you know you can, and try your hand in Lego Land …”

And so on. He kept up the patter. He was pointing at a round table. Children and adults were sitting there, making their own creations out of the little blocks.

“Try your hand, it's Lego Land, come and see the Lego man!”

I hustled past him. Finally I saw what I wanted. It was right there ahead of me. There was the entrance to another hallway like the one I'd come down. Just beyond that entrance was another escalator. It had to lead down to the rear entrance. I was practically running for it.

I was at the edge of the hallway when the punk came out of it.

He'd gone around the other side, cut me off. He'd come tearing down the hall. I guess he'd slipped on the slick floor. He slammed right into me.

I let out a cry of fright as we collided. I thought maybe he had a knife. One of those curved jobs, like his buddy had used on Colt. Maybe he'd already slipped it into me and I hadn't felt it yet.

I reacted without thinking. I grabbed hold of him, caught him by the front of his coat. I hurled him to one side.

“Wo-o-oh!” he commented.

He skated across the floor, backpedaling on his heels. The edge of the little round table caught him right behind the knees. He went down on top of it. The crash sent a spray of yellow, red, white, and blue into the air.

The table turned over. The punk went with it, thudding onto a bed of scattered plastic.

“Gentlemen!” cried the strapping blond. “Gentlemen, stop it! This is Lego Land!”

I didn't wait to argue. I pivoted and headed for the escalator.

“Wells!”

The scream stopped me. It was high-pitched, broken. I turned. The punk had clambered to his knees. He pointed at me.

“Stay out of it, Wells!” he screamed. “Stay out of it or you're a dead man! He'll kill you, I swear, you saw him and he'll kill you, and we don't want anyone else to die, but you saw him and he'll kill you if you don't stay out of it I swear …” He was babbling. He was terrified.

For a moment I stood confused. I ran my hand up through my hair. My hand came out covered with sweat. I considered staying, grabbing him, making him talk. I glanced at my watch. It was quarter to ten.

Just then the toy soldier came running around the far corner. He tore past the trains, holding his busby on his head.

“What's happening here?” he shouted.

“Trouble in Lego Land!” cried his blond colleague.

The toy soldier spotted me. He pointed as he ran. “That's the guy who made fun of my uniform!”

“Oh my God, somebody get him!” shouted the Lego man.

“Wells!” the punk screamed hoarsely. “Wells, I'm warning you!”

That did it. It was unanimous. I bolted for the escalator. It was thick with shoppers. I shoved past them. Women cried out. Men cursed. Packages tumbled down. I hopped over the scattered boxes as I hit the ground floor.