Desperate Measures (21 page)

Two blocks to the east was an entrance to Central Park. Jill’s casual clothes—sneakers, jeans, and a sweater—made it easy
for her to run. She clutched her purse close to her side. At the hospital, Pittman had sensed from her comfortable, graceful
movements that she was an athlete, and now her long legs stretched in an easy runner’s rhythm, proving that he’d been right.

They slowed briefly to avoid attracting attention, then increased speed again after they entered Central Park, racing east
beyond the children’s playground, then south past grown-ups playing baseball on the Great Lawn. Finally, below the Delacorte
Theater, Belvedere Lake, and Belvedere Castle, they chose one of the many small trails that led through the trees in the section
of the park known as The Ramble.

It was almost two in the afternoon. The sun continued to be strong for April, and sweat beaded Pittman’s forehead as well
as made his shirt cling to his chest while he and Jill rounded a deserted section of boulders and gradually came to a stop.

In the distance, there were other sirens. Leaning against a tree whose branches were green with budding leaves, Pittman tried
to catch his breath. “I… I don’t think we were followed.”

“No. This is all wrong.”

“What?”

Jill’s expression was stark. “I’m having second thoughts about this. I shouldn’t be here. At my apartment, I was scared.”

“And you’re not scared
now
?” Pittman asked in dismay.

“Those men breaking in… When you shot one of them… I’ve never seen anybody… The way you were talking… You confused me. I think
I should have waited for the police to come.” Jill drew her fingers through her long blond hair. “
You
should have waited. The police can help you.”

“They’d put me in jail. I’d never get out alive.”

“Have you any idea how paranoid you sound?”

“And apparently you think it’s normal for gunmen to break into your apartment. I’m not being paranoid. I’m being practical.
Since Thursday night, everywhere I’ve gone, people have been trying to kill me. I’m not about to let the police put me in
a cell, where I’ll be an easy target.”

“But the police will think I’m involved in this.”

“You
are
involved. Those men would have killed you. You can’t depend on the police to keep you safe from them.”

Jill shook her head in bewilderment.

“Listen to me,” Pittman said. “I’m trying to save your life.”

“My life wouldn’t have
needed
to be saved if you hadn’t come to my apartment.”

The remark made Pittman flinch, as if he’d been slapped. Although he heard children laughing on another trail, the trail he
was on was suddenly very silent.

“You’re right,” he said. “I made a mistake.”

“I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.”

Pittman nodded. “I am, too.” He walked away. Draped over his left arm was his overcoat, heavy with his .45 and one of the
gunmen’s pistols with ammunition magazines from the others in his pockets.

“Hey, where are you going?”

Pittman didn’t answer.

“Wait.”

But Pittman didn’t.

“Wait.” Jill caught up to him. “I said I was sorry.”

“Everything you said was true. The odds are that those men would have left you alone if I hadn’t shown up. For certain, Father
Dandridge would still be alive if I hadn’t gone to see him. Millgate might still be alive, and my friend Burt would be alive,
and…”

“No. Pay attention to me.” Jill grabbed his shoulders and turned him. “None of this is your fault. I apologize for blaming
you for what happened at my apartment. You meant no harm. You only came there because you needed help.”

Pittman suddenly heard voices, rapid footsteps, what sounded like runners on the trail ahead. He stepped to the side, among
bushes, his hand on the pistol in his overcoat pocket. Jill crowded next to him. Three joggers—two young men and a slender
woman, all wearing brightly colored spandex outfits—hurried past, talking to one another.

Then the trail was quiet again.

“You’d be safer if you didn’t stay with me,” Pittman said. “Maybe you’re right. Phone the police. Tell them I forced you to
go with me. Tell them you’re afraid to show yourself because you think the men who broke into your apartment have friends
who’ll come after you. You might even tell them I’m innocent, not that they’ll believe you.”

“No.”

“You
won’t
tell them I’m innocent?”

“I won’t tell them anything. The more I think about it, the more I have to agree with you. The police would question me and
let me go. But I’d still be in danger. Or maybe I could convince them to put me in protective custody. But for how long? Eventually
I’d be on my own, in danger again.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“Stay with you.”

“
Me
?”

“Tell me how I can help.”

The bank Jill used, Citibank, had a branch south of Central Park, at Fifty-first and Fifth Avenue. As usual on a Sunday afternoon,
the avenue wasn’t busy. Making sure that passersby didn’t overhear him, Pittman explained how the police had arranged for
his bank’s automated teller machine to seize his card. “But they haven’t had time to do anything about
your
card. What’s the maximum the bank allows you to take out?”

“I’m not sure. It could be as much as a thousand dollars.”

“That much?” Pittman shook his head. “Not that it does us any good. I doubt you’ve got it in your account.”

Jill assumed an odd expression. “I might have.”

“Well, I know it’s a lot, but this is an emergency. Please, get as much as you can.”

They entered the bank’s vestibule. Jill shoved her card into the machine and responded to the computer screen’s inquiries,
pressing buttons. A minute and a half later, she was stuffing a wad of twenties and tens into her purse.

“Don’t forget your card,” Pittman said. “And here’s your transaction printout.”

He glanced down, wondering what information might be on it that someone could use if the printout had been left behind. The
printout indicated the remaining funds in the account, and Pittman abruptly understood the odd expression on Jill’s face when
he’d asked her about the size of her account.

“Eighty-seven thousand dollars and forty-three cents?”

Jill looked uncomfortable.

“You’ve got a fortune in this account.”

“That printout is confidential.” Her blue eyes flashed.

“I couldn’t help looking,” Pittman said.

“Surely it occurred to you that I couldn’t be living in a large Upper West Side apartment on a nurse’s salary.”

Pittman didn’t answer.

“You mean you had no idea I had money?”

“No. How did—?”

“My grandparents. A trust fund. Some bonds just came due. I’m deciding how to reinvest. That’s why there’s so much money in
the account.”

Pittman studied her with wonder.

“Is this going to be a problem?”

“Hell no. If you’ve got that much money, how about treating a starving man to a decent meal?”

The restaurant—on East Seventy-ninth Street—was small and unassuming: a linoleum floor, plain booths, red plastic tablecloths.
But the veal scallopini, which Pittman recommended, was excellent, and the modestly priced house Burgundy was delicious.

A few tables had been set out on the sidewalk, and Pittman sat in the sunlight with Jill, enjoying the last of his salad.

“That’s your second helping,” Jill said. “I didn’t think you’d ever get full.”

“I told you I was hungry. This is the first decent meal I’ve had in quite a while. Mostly I’ve been eating on the run. You
didn’t like the food?”

“It’s wonderful. But the restaurant doesn’t exactly announce itself. How on earth did you ever find this place?”

Pittman bit into the final piece of garlic bread. “I used to live around here.” The memory made him solemn. “When I was married.”

“Past tense?” Jill set down her wineglass.

“Grief and connubial bliss don’t seem to go together.”

“Now I guess
I’m
the one who’s snooping.”

“There isn’t much to tell. My wife was stronger than I was. That doesn’t mean she loved Jeremy less, but after he died, I
fell apart. Ellen didn’t. I think she was afraid I was going to be like that for the rest of my life. She’d lost her son,
and now she was losing… I scared her. One thing led to another. She divorced me. She’s married again.”

Jill almost touched his hand. “I’m sorry.”

Pittman shrugged. “She was smart to get out. I
was
going to be like that for the rest of my life. Last Wednesday night, I had a gun in my hand, ready to… And then the phone
rang, and the next thing…”

Jill’s eyes widened with concern. “You mean the newspapers weren’t exaggerating? You
have
been feeling suicidal impulses?”

“That’s a polite way to put it.”

Jill’s brow furrowed with greater concern.

“I hope you’re not going to try to be an amateur psychoanalyst,” Pittman said. “I’ve heard all the arguments. ‘Killing yourself
won’t bring Jeremy back.’ No shit. But it’ll certainly end the pain. And here’s another old favorite: If I kill myself, I’ll
be wasting the life that Jeremy would have given anything to have. The trouble is, killing myself wouldn’t be a waste. My
life isn’t worth anything. I know I’ve idealized Jeremy. I know that after his death I’ve made him smarter and more talented
and funnier than he actually was. But Jeremy
was
smart and talented and funny. I haven’t idealized him by much. A straight-A student. A sense of humor that never failed to
amaze me. He had a droll way of seeing things. He could make me laugh anytime he wanted. And he was only fifteen. The world
would have been his. Instead, he got cancer, and no matter how hard the doctors and he fought it, he died. Some gang member
with a handgun is holding up a liquor store right now. That scum is alive, and my son is dead. I can’t stand living in a world
where everything is out of balance that much. I can’t stand living in a world where everything I see is something Jeremy will
never see. I can’t stand remembering the pain on Jeremy’s face as the cancer tortured him more and more each day. I can’t
stand…”

Pittman’s voice trailed off. He realized that he’d been speaking faster and louder, that some of the customers in the restaurant
were looking at him with concern, that Jill had leaned back as if overwhelmed by his emotion.

Spreading his hands, he mutely apologized.

“No,” Jill said. “I won’t try to be an amateur psychoanalyst.”

“Sometimes everything builds up inside me. I say more than I mean to.”

“I understand.”

“You’re very kind. But you didn’t need me to dump it all on you.”

“It’s not a question of being kind, and
you
obviously needed to get it out of you.”

“It’s not, though.”

“What?”

“Out of me. I think…” Pittman glanced down at the table. “I think we’d better change the subject.”

Jill folded her napkin, neatly arranging the edges. “All right, then. Tell me about what happened Thursday night, how you
got into this.”

“Yes,” Pittman said, his anger changing to confusion. “And the rest of it.”

It took an hour. This time Pittman spoke discreetly, keeping his voice low, pausing when anyone walked by. The conversation
continued after Jill paid the waiter and Pittman strolled with her along Seventy-ninth Street.

“A nightmare.”

“But I swear to God it’s all true,” Pittman said.

“There’s got to be a way to make sense of it.”

“Hey, I’ve been trying my damnedest.”

“Maybe you’re too close. Maybe you need someone else to see it from a different angle. Let’s think this through,” Jill said.
“We know Millgate’s associates took him from the hospital because a reporter got his hands on a secret Justice Department
report that implicated Millgate in a covert attempt to buy nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union. Millgate’s people
were afraid of reporters showing up at the hospital and managing to question him.”

“They were also afraid of Father Dandridge,” Pittman said. “More so. Millgate’s people were afraid of something Millgate had
told Father Dandridge in confession. Or of something Millgate
might
have told Father Dandridge if the priest had been able to see him Thursday night.”

“Then you followed Millgate to the estate in Scarsdale. You got into his room to help him, but the nurse came in unexpectedly
and saw you doing it.”

“She also heard Millgate tell me something. Duncan. Something about snow. Then Grollier.” Pittman shook his head. “But Father
Dandridge told me that Grollier wasn’t anyone’s last name. It was the prep school Millgate went to.”

“Why would
that
be important enough to kill anybody?”

They reached Fifth Avenue, and Pittman faltered.

“What’s the matter?” Jill asked.

Pittman stared to the right toward a crowd going up and down the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Vendors, buses,
and taxis contributed to the congestion in front. Several policemen on horseback maintained order.

“I guess,” Pittman said, “I feel exposed.” He glanced down at the weapon-laden overcoat draped over his left arm and guided
her back along Seventy-ninth Street. “I want to find out about Grollier prep school.”

“How are you going to do that? The only place I can think of with that information is the library. Or someone at a college.
But it’s Sunday. All those places are closed.”

“No, there might be another way.”

The freshly sandblasted apartment building at the end of East Eighty-second Street overlooked Roosevelt Drive and the East
River. Pittman could hear the din of traffic from the thruway below as he and Jill entered the shadows of the cul-de-sac known
as Gracie Terrace. The time was almost five in the afternoon. The temperature was rapidly cooling.

Jill peered up at the attractive, tall brick building. “You know someone who lives here?”

“Someone I interviewed once,” Pittman said. “When this started and I was trying to figure out how to get help, I realized
that over the years I’d interviewed people with all sorts of specialties that might be of use to me. I’m sure the police are
watching my friends and my ex-wife to see if I contact them, but they’ll never think about people I’ve met as a reporter.”