Death Will Get You Sober: A New York Mystery; Bruce Kohler #1 (Bruce Kohler Series) (26 page)

“She went in without backup?” It was a dumbass thing to say, but we’ve all watched too many episodes of
Law & Order
.

“You know Barbara,” Jimmy groaned. “She’s so busy being a feminist. She always thinks nothing will happen to her.”

“I know,” I said as soothingly as I could. “Nothing will happen. I’m on my way.”

“I’ll come in,” he babbled. “No, I’ll stay here—wait! no, I’ll call a limo; even the LIE can’t be crowded at this hour.”

The Long Island Expressway is always crowded.

“Jimmy, it’s okay. I’m on it. Patchogue is what, an hour and a half by train? Forget it.” I refrained from saying, “It’ll be all over by the time you can get to the city.” Instead, I said, “I’m on it. Listen, I’m putting on my shoes right now.” I hopped around, the phone clenched between my jaw and my shoulder, suiting the action to the word. “I’ll take my cell phone. Click. I’ve turned it on.” I had finally paid the bill last week.

“I’ll be afraid to call you. You may need not to have it ring,” he said. “I should have made you get texting.”

Jimmy, my man, my rock, was falling apart. It scared the shit out of me. And like him, I began to feel a gnawing worry about Barbara. Not only because Jimmy would be lost without her but because I’d be seriously devastated too if she got hurt. Or worse. We’d been playing at murder up till now. We’d never expected to get hurt.

“I’m leaving now, big guy. Just sit tight. I’ll get her. I’ve got my jacket. My wallet. My father’s bowie knife.” I had snatched it up at random from the shelf it had been lying on for years. It had been a birthday gift one year, but he hadn’t gone out and bought it for me. He’d probably won it in a poker game or traded it for a bottle from some hobo around a trash- barrel fire. “Stay by the phone, and I’ll call you as soon as she’s safe.”

“Do you think I should call 911?” he asked.

“Jesus Christ, man, you haven’t done that yet?” Truth: I hadn’t thought of it myself. “Do it now. I’m going out the door. You get the cops. And tell them not to arrest the handsome dude with the bowie knife by mistake.” Idiots in a crisis, that was us.

“Asshole.”

“Creep.”

When we hung up, I got out the door fast. I galloped down the stairs two at a time, shrugging on my jacket and dropping the bowie knife, loose in its battered leather sheath, into my pocket as I ran. I caught a cab headed downtown on the corner of Second Avenue with a piercing whistle, a burst of speed, and what I hoped was not my quota of good luck for the night. Ten minutes later, I was on the Bowery.

I didn’t want to risk a frontal assault and the probability that I’d waste endless time talking my way in. I walked casually past the entrance, trying not to look furtive, and slipped past a couple of reeking garbage cans into the passage leading to the delivery entrance. The heavy door to the storage and maintenance areas on the floor just below ground level should have been locked. But it wasn’t. I felt the jamb with a finger, not surprised to encounter a sticky wad of gum. A faint odor of cigarettes hung in the air.

The night security guy was nowhere to be seen. So what else was new? The elevator indicator informed me the car was in the sub-basement. When I pressed the button, nothing happened. He had probably turned the automatic mechanism off so nobody would bother him. I ran to the stairs. I had to exert myself to open the door to the stairwell. It was heavy, with some kind of electronic bolting mechanism, but it wasn’t locked. I didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry that no alarm pealed out as I dived into the stairwell.

I panted as I flew up the first two flights. I was still out of shape from all those years of sitting on my duff in bars. I’d have to do something about that. A crisis took a lot more out of me, I discovered, when I met it sober. On the other hand, my wits were working fine. I still wasn’t used to that. I climbed with the bowie knife in my hand. Patients’ knives were confiscated on admission, but I told myself I was not a patient any more. The stairs were dangerous, with or without Barbara at stake. I’d rather stay alive to get arrested than get killed playing by the rules. My eyes darted from side to side. ACOA hypervigilance was a good tool in a crisis.

I forgot to look up. As I breasted the rise at the end of the second flight, I stubbed my toe on something soft. Darryl! What the hell had happened to him? He was either dead or unconscious. I didn’t see any blood or any weapons sticking out or lying around. I thought of checking for a pulse or breathing. But I didn’t stop. If I got arrested with a knife in my hand, I’d rather have been saving Barbara than looking as if I’d just killed Darryl. Barbara hated being saved. She was like a kid about doing it herself. I could imagine what that cry for help to Jimmy must have cost her. The situation must be dire, and finding Darryl on the stairs, knocked out or worse, confirmed it. I doubled my pace. Or tried to. Stairs are aerobic, and my wind was not great.

It got worse. Barbara lay sprawled like a rag doll on the next landing up. My heart clutched. I turned her over gently. A dribble of saliva ran from the corner of her mouth. Her eyes were closed. She was breathing, thank God.

“Barbara!” I called her name in a fierce and urgent whisper. I shook her shoulders, then remembered I shouldn’t move a person who might have a spinal injury. “Hey, it’s me. Wake up. What happened?” Had she fallen down the stairs? Who pushed her? I couldn’t rouse her. But my efforts made her stir and squirm. It didn’t look like she had broken anything major. Her hair fell over her face. As I pushed it back, I saw what I had missed before: a beaded steel chain pulled taut around her neck. Someone had tried to strangle her but hadn’t finished the job. Darryl? Was he the murderer? Or had he interrupted the murderer? Holding Barbara’s limp hand and trying to think, I realized that I knew that chain. It was a rosary I’d seen before. It ought to have had a crucifix dangling from it. And I knew who always wore it around her neck.

One more flight, and I’d reach the detox. I hated to leave Barbara lying there, but I stood between her and the menace above. I eased the chain from around her neck, uncovering the ridge where it had been pulled tight. Her neck was already turning a bruised blue. I stuck the rosary in my pocket, where it clanked against the bowie knife. I couldn’t remember shoving the knife into my pocket. I must have done it when I went to Barbara. I drew it out and held it in my hand. I’d never knifed anybody, but there was always a first time. I bounded up the last flight to the detox two or three steps at a clip.

An implacable figure stood at the top of the stairs.

“Mr. Kohler,” Sister Angel said. “We have to talk.”

In my head, I heard Jimmy at his most pedantic saying, “The side that takes the high ground has a big advantage.” He said it all the time, with illustrations ranging from Gettysburg to Waterloo to our own close encounter with a troop of mounted New York City cops in Central Park during the Vietnam protest era. At least she didn’t have a horse.

I reached the landing, where I could meet her eye to eye. She looked the same as always: compassionate and steely at the same time, peaches and cream complexion. The bad guys didn’t always look like monsters. It made Sister Angel all the more scary. I knew the force of character that made her a legend on the Bowery would dominate me if I let it.

“The police are on their way,” I said.

“I don’t believe you,” she said.

Teetering on the edge of the landing, I had nowhere to back up. She took my arm in a grip of iron. Those efficient little hands of hers were strong. I had to overcome conditioning I didn’t know I had to grab her by the arms and start wrestling. I don’t think Jimmy could have done it. And I dropped the bowie knife, which skittered away and bounced down the whole flight of stairs. So much for stabbing a nun. I couldn’t have done it, anyway.

She didn’t really want to talk. She wanted to kill me if she could. I saw her grab at her neck for the rosary, her fingers scrabbling as she realized she didn’t have it.

“I’ve got it,” I panted as we scuffled. “You didn’t kill Barbara.” Let her think that Barbara had gone for help. “And you can’t strangle me.”

That was the wrong thing to say. She started trying to push me down the stairs. I shoved back, gaining ground half an inch at a time. I couldn’t believe how strong she was. I would have to start working out. I maneuvered her a step or two downward. Locked in a weird embrace, we gripped each other’s forearms. I had to get above her. She pivoted around me and blocked my upward route. I let go one arm, grabbed the banister, and climbed fast, pulling myself along. She hung on with both hands and followed.

Breast to breast with her and two feet clear of the edge, I felt her check and change her strategy. She grabbed me by the ear. Ow, that hurt. Jimmy, who’d gone to Catholic schools, said they taught all the nuns ear grabbing when they were novices. The detox was home turf to her. Mayhem on the stairs was traditional, but the nursing station made a better killing ground. She marched me along, and somehow I let her do it. She still had the moral ascendancy.

A heavy door led from the stairwell into the detox. It was made of steel and weighed a ton. I got close enough to open it a crack and jam my hip and one foot into it. She was still between me and the stairs, but to get in, she’d have to go right through me. She had another idea. She tried to push it closed on me, using her whole body. If she didn’t slice me in half, I’d have a black and blue mark right down my middle. I struggled to wrench the rest of my body through. All of me in the detox was a marginally better choice than half in and half out. I tucked the arm still on the landing side up close to my body so she couldn’t slam the door on it. I didn’t need a broken arm.

Sister Angel made little panting sounds and grunts as she fought me. Disgusting.

“His glory is invincible,” she panted. “I am the angel of mercy, and I cannot fail. You must be the sacrifice, the blood of the lamb of God.”

Now she was really giving me the creeps. The woman was crazy. It made me feel a little better about not being able to take her, though. Weren’t mad people supposed to be exceptionally strong? Or was that a myth? I’d have to ask Barbara. As I thought of Barbara, I instinctively chose to take the fight farther from her rather than closer. I squeezed through the door. Sister Angel slithered in before I could slam it. Now we were in the detox. We tussled our way down the hall. I hauled her one way; she chivvied me the other. Now neither of us had the advantage.

Fixed to the wall about halfway along the corridor was a red metal bin marked Sharps. They used it for discarded razor blades and hypodermic needles. As we swept by the bright red bin, Sister Angel plunged her hand into it and fished out a used syringe. She stabbed at my face with it. This was beyond hardball. I could end up with hepatitis C or HIV. I redoubled my efforts, trying to knock the syringe out of her hand without the needle scratching my face or piercing my clothing.

The nursing station door hung open. The place showed signs of a scuffle: chair overturned, the computer half off the desk with the keyboard dangling, papers everywhere. Barbara must have found something on the computer. I’d like to see it, but not with Sister Angel’s death grip on me. Once she got me in there, I wouldn’t be able to get away. The whole fight had felt defensive on my part. Even fighting for my life, I couldn’t make myself use force beyond what it would take to stop her. I set my heels and dragged in the other direction.

Momentarily, the momentum swung her way. We burst through the door of the nursing station together. I grabbed the phone. She got hold of the cord and jerked it out of my hand, but the syringe flew across the room. She looked around for another weapon, relaxing her grip on me.
Ha!
I thought.
Now I’ve got you!
Then she got hold of the computer keyboard, ripped it off its cord, and started beating me over the head with it. She drove me down to my knees. I was clinging to her legs and wondering if I could bring myself to bite a nun when a strong blow to my head cracked the world open and I saw first stars, then nothing.

When I came to, Sister Angel lay unconscious on the floor. It looked as if she’d been snowed on. Shredded paper, I thought, then saw that it looked more like foam. The mystery was solved when I discovered Barbara lying just outside the door, not down the stairs where I had left her. She had been knocked out again, or maybe fainted. But a small copper fire extinguisher lay a couple of inches beyond her slack fingers. It rolled when I stubbed my toe on it.

A few minutes later, the police came pounding up the stairs. Jimmy had called 911 after all. Even better, he must have told them about me. They clearly didn’t regard the guy kneeling over the girl as a suspect, but brushed past us into the nursing station. Barbara came to as I bathed her face with a cloth I’d found in the laundry room. I hadn’t squeezed it dry enough. Water dripped onto her closed eyes.

“Did they get Sister Angel?” she asked.

“Yes, it’s all right. The cops are here.”

She didn’t open her eyes.

“Bruce.”

“I’m right here.” Conscientiously, I added, “Jimmy is on his way. His sister had a girl out in Patchogue. Eight pounds, five ounces.”

Her eyes flew open, and she sat bolt upright. She clutched at my arm.

“You didn’t rescue me! You didn’t rescue me!”

I looked down at her with a tender expression that must have been a revelation to my face.

“Shh, it’s okay. I didn’t rescue you. You rescued yourself and me too.”

“Ahh.” She sank back onto the floor with a wince of pain. “I remember. She was killing you. So I bopped her on the head with the fire extinguisher and sprayed her.”

“You did a great job,” I said. “Lie down.”

She lay down.

“I’m not a damsel in distress.” She sat up again, grabbing my arm with both hands and pulling at it like a chinning bar. She looked anxiously into my eyes. “I’m not, right? Promise?”

“Promise. You did it all by yourself.”

I reached out and stroked her hair. She gathered me against her, letting go of my arm to lock her arms around my torso. For a moment, the old attraction between us was so strong that I was afraid we might have to do something about it some time. And here I’d thought on my side it was just the booze. For a moment, we breathed heavily and in unison. Then she let me go. After that she winked at me, and it was okay.