Time Out of Mind (49 page)
Authors: John R. Maxim
Tags: #Horror, #General, #Psychological, #Suspense, #Memory, #Thrillers, #Fiction, #Time Travel
up car, no crash car, nothing. He considered pulling up
behind the BMW and waiting, but if the other driver looked back through his side mirror, they could end up sitting there all morning staring at each other. What the hell, he decided.
Let's get something going here. He pulled up close against
the BMW's door, immobilizing the BMW and its driver,
then reached across and rolled down his passenger-side
window.
“
Good morning.” He showed his teeth. “I'm Raymond
Lesko.”
The face looking back at him reminded Lesko of Marine
top sergeants he'd known. It was square-jawed, deeply
weathered, and topped with a stiff brush of hair gone
mostly gray, The eyes were blue and rock-steady except for
a brief light of recognition that the man was not quite able to control.
”
I beg your pardon?” Lesko saw a movement of the
man's shoulder as he spoke.
“
And your name is Tom Burke, I betcha. A guy named
Ed Garvey works for you, but I think he's on sick leave
now.”
“
Move your car, buddy,” the man said quietly.
Lesko leaned closer, dropping his voice to a confidential
tone. ”I don't want to embarrass you or anything, but a
guy who's head of Security shouldn't get blocked in when
he's doing a tail. You
are
just doing a tail, aren't you,
Tom?”
“
Move it now”—the shoulder did something else—“or
I'll get out and move it for you.”
.Lesko held up one finger and slid back behind the wheel.
He made a show of putting Mr. Makowski's car in park, then shutting off the engine. He held up the ignition key
for the other man to see, stuck out his tongue, and placed
the key on its center. Tom Burke blinked at him.
“
Here's another thing,” Lesko slurred wetly, gesturing
toward the windshield of the BMW, “doing a job like this, I'm a little surprised you'd drive around with a Beckwith Hotels parking sticker on your car. How about your gun?
Can I see it? Do you at least have the right kind of
weapon?”
The square jaw reddened at its jowls but the hard blue
eyes went slack. What kind of dingo is this, Lesko could
see him wondering. That was good. Lesko stuck out his
tongue, showing the key again, then tucked it back between
his teeth. “Except, whatever you got, don't shoot me with
it.” He felt for the left door lock behind him and snapped
it down. “You shoot me, then first you have to come over
here and smash this window to get the door open, then you
have to pry the key out of my mouth so you can move the
car, but by then I'll probably have swallowed the damned
thing. First thing you know we'll both have parking tick
ets.”
Tom Burke's eyes darted up and down the street. Lesko saw angry frustration in them rather than any hope of aid from a third party. But on Burke's last glance to his right,
Lesko saw his eyes widen slightly. That was the direction
of Sturdevant's front door. Lesko shot a look of his own,
no longer than the click of a camera shutter, but enough to
know that more than one person had appeared on the side
walk and that they'd started to move more or
less in his
direction.
“
Look what's in my hand, Tom.” Lesko brought his
right hand into view and tapped the barrel of his .38 against
the doorpost. “See? I'm showing you my weapon. Now
you have to show me yours.”
Burke showed no sign of fear, only calculation and con
trolled fury. His chances, he knew, were next to none in
terms of advantage. The best he could hope for was a stand
off. He could simply sit still. This Lesko character would
not shoot. Not with witnesses on the street.
Suddenly Lesko screamed. It was a gagging, rasping
scream that made Tom Burke jump. It came again, high-
pitched this time. Lesko's face was purple, his eyes bulged.
Burke saw the face and then the gun hand thrusting across
the narrow space between their cars, and he felt Lesko's gun stab painfully into his armpit. “Gimme it,” Lesko
choked, saliva dripping from his mouth. “Gimme the gun.”
Burke froze. It was a face and voice from an exorcist
movie. His chest tightened and his mouth went dry. Lesko
was going to kill him. The armpit was to muffle the shot.
This fucking loony was going to kill him.
“
Okay,” Burke piped. “Easy. Just take it easy.” Slowly,
carefully, he lifted the wooden pistol grip of a cut-down
shotgun into Lesko's view. Lesko snatched it with his left
hand and pulled it into his car, where he dropped it into
the floor well. His hand came back into the other man's
face, snapping its fingers and showing an empty palm.
“
Your piece, your holdout,” he hissed. “Let's have it.”
Carefully, as before, Tom Burke produced a gleaming
Beretta automatic. For a moment he held it beyond Lesko's
reach. “Take the clip,” he begged. “It's enough you just
take the clip.” Lesko's eyes bulged again and he took the
breath for another scream. Burke slapped the gun into his
palm. He winced as Lesko threw it clattering against the
other. Lesko leaned back into his car. With his own gun
held out of sight but ready, he looked over his right shoul
der. Corbin, Gwen Leamas, and Harry Sturdevant had
reached the parking garage down toward Madison and were
pausing at its entrance ramp. He saw the Leamas woman
looking around, upward, as if for the source of the peculiar
shout she'd heard. She seemed more curious than alarmed.
But not Sturdevant. Sturdevant looked nervous. He touched
her arm, and all three disappeared down the ramp.
That coat!” Lesko pointed to a folded trench coat on Tom Burke's passenger seat. ‘Take out your wallet, put it
in the coat pocket. Do it now.” Burke obeyed. “Now your keys.” Burke freed a large ring from the steering column and moved to disconnect his ignition key. “All of ‘em. In
the pocket. Now. Then gimme the coat.” White with silent
rage, Burke did so. He thought of arguing for all the keys
Lesko had no business having, all the new locks that would be needed on so many Beckwith properties, of the punish
ment he'd face for surrendering them, but he looked at
Lesko's insane face and at Lesko's fingers, which were
pressed hard against his temple as if in an effort to control
a building madness, and he handed the weighted coat
through the window. Lesko threw it.on the floor.
Lesko listened. From behind his car he heard the whine
of another engine climbing a ramp in low gear. Once more he glanced over his right shoulder to see Sturdevant's Mer
cedes pause at the curb cut, its turn signal flashing. Two
heads, Corbin's and Leamas's, were visible in the back seat.
“
Shhhh!” he whispered across to the BMW. “Shut your
eyes real tight so they won't see you. Shut them now.”
Burke' s eyes glazed at the lunacy of Lesko's order, but he
shut them. “I'll count ten,” Lesko told him. “When I say ten you can peek. If you cheat, though, that's very bad.”
Lesko began counting as the Mercedes hummed past his
back. At five he spat the key from his mouth and started
his engine. He was at eight when Sturdevant reached the corner traffic light and disappeared left onto Fifth Avenue.
At ten, Lesko squealed away, leaving the Beckwith security
chief blinking in helpless disbelief.
“
You putz!” Lesko muttered as he caught a last glimpse
of Tom Burke through his rearview mirror. But he was
smiling, pleased with himself for guessing right. Some peo
ple you can out tough, some you can't. Some people, like
old Crew Cut back there, there's just no way you're going
to scare them or bluff them except for one thing. You make
them think you're out of your fucking mind. It also helps
if they're a little stupid.
He saw Sturdevant’s car. It was signaling left again,
about to turn east on Sixty-fourth Street. Lesko crept closer
so the light would not hang him up.
Burke might be a putz, but he's a dangerous putz. A guy like that has probably punched out more people than most
other people have even had bad thoughts about. And no
doubt he's dusted a few, too. And that shotgun there says
he was about to notch three more unless it happens to be
fucking quail season in Central Park.
Lesko reached for the trench coat, which he'd taken
solely to cover the gun collection on Mr. Makowski's floor,
and groped for the wallet in its pocket. He found it and
flipped it open. Burke. Yeah. Chief of Security, Beckwith Hotels. That was another good guess. When he had time to look through the wallet more carefully, Lesko was betting he'd find out the guy was maybe ex-military police or shore
patrol, or maybe one of those psycho’d-out Feds which the CIA turns loose and leaves alone as long as they don't write
books. For sure, he was no ex-cop.
with a partner or a back-up. Burke was alone. One man,
one car. Lesko looked up at his rearview mirror. Nothing.
No one behind him all the way back to Central Park. Which
might explain, he realized, why the company he expected this morning never showed up. I mean, Beckwith Enter
prises is a big company and all that, but it's not like the
Mafia, which has whole clam houses full of killers they can call when they need them. With Ed Garvey on the disabled
list, and Coletti probably still on queer street, maybe old
Tom Burke is all they got left until they can run an ad.
A block ahead, Harry Sturdevant's Mercedes signaled
left onto Second Avenue. Lesko followed, staying well be
hind until Sturdevant signaled again at Seventy-seventh
Street. The English girl's place, he knew. Let's hope they're
not going to hang around there too long. A BMW's a bitch
to hot-wire, but Burke could have a spare key stashed. Let's
also hope Ed Garvey didn't leave a mess so we don't have a call to the cops slowing down the action here.
He waited as Corbin and Gwen Leamas left Sturdevant
with the double-parked car and climbed over a snow mound
toward her door. As on Sixty-ninth Street, there were no p
arking spots except where curb cuts had been cleared. A
half dozen other cars were double-parked. Lesko pulled in
behind a station wagon. Sturdevant, who'd seemed a bit
uneasy when he left his house, showed no sign that he was
concerned about being followed. But he was drumming his
fingers on the dash. Probably a little antsy about those two
calls this morning. Lesko leaned over and lifted a corner
of Tom Burke's raincoat. The shotgun, he recognized, was
a Remington 1100, a five-shot automatic. At least a foot
and a half of barrel, as well as most of the stock from the
pistol grip on back, had been cut away. He whistled. If he'd
been five minutes later, just a few more cars on the road
or the Midtown Tunnel Tolls down to one lane, he would
have arrived just in time to see the three of them splattered
all over Sixty-ninth Street.
little crazy to order a slaughter like that. Sturdevant’ s a prominent guy. And that part of town is all money. The
mayor and the police commissioner would be there even
before the TV cameras. Lesko leaned over for a closer look
at Burke's Beretta. “Oh, Mama,” he said aloud. A model
92. Fifteen shots if it doesn't jam, which this gun won't do
very often. Also six hundred bucks retail. Thank you,
Tommy Burke. I don't blame you for trying to hold on to
it. Lesko sat back and patted Dancer's fifteen thousand dollars, which he still carried in his inside pocket. The rich get
richer.