Desperate Measures (10 page)

"I've never had any trouble."

"You've been lucky. Anybody see you?"

Pittman almost mentioned the cook at the diner, but then he realized that if the detective talked to the cook, the cook would mention the box Pittman had left, and the detective might find the handgun. Pittman's permit allowed him to keep the .45 only in his apartment. It would look suspicious that he had hidden the weapon somewhere else.

"Nobody saw me."

"Too bad. That makes it difficult." "For what?"

"Ok, I don't like your barging in here, and I don't like being questioned when I don't know what this is all about." Pittman couldn't hide his agitation. "Who's your superior at your precinct? What's his telephone number?"

"Good idea. I think we ought to talk to him. Matter of fact, why don't we both go down and talk to him in person?"

"Fine.

"Good.

"After I phone my lawyer-"

"Oh?" the detective said. "You think you need a lawyer now?" "When the police start acting like the gestapo."

"Aw." The detective shook his head. "Now you've hurt my feelings. Put on your shoes. Get a coat. Let's take a ride.

"Not until you tell me what's going on. " Pittman couldn't get enough air.

"You didn't go for a walk last night. You took a taxi up to an estate in Scarsdale and broke in."

"I did what? That's crazy."

The detective reached into his suit coat pocket and brought out an envelope. He squinted at Pittman, opened the envelope, and removed a sheet of paper.

"What's this?"

"A Xerox of a check," the detective said.

Pittman's stomach cramped when he saw that it was a copy of the check he had written to the taxi driver the previous night. How the hell had the police gotten it?

The detective's expression became more sour as he explained. "An ambulance driver heading from Manhattan to the Scarsdale estate last night says a taxi followed him all the way. He got suspicious and wrote down the ID number on the light on the taxi's roof. So after we were contacted about the break-in at the estate, we tracked down the cabbie. He says the guy who hired him to drive up to that estate wrote a check to pay for the ride. This check. With your signature at the bottom.

With your name and address printed at the top."

Pittman stared at the copy of the check.

"Well, are you going to admit it, or are you going to make me go to the trouble of bringing you and the cabbie face-to-face so he can identify you?"

Pittman exhaled tensely. Given what he intended to do seven days from now, what difference did it make? So I broke into a house to save an old man's life, he thought. Is that so big a crime? What am I trying to hide?

All the same, he hesitated. "Yes. It was me." "There. Now don't you feel better?"

"But I can explain."

"Of course."

"After I call my lawyer." Pittman passed the detective at the door to the bedroom and entered the living room, heading for the telephone. "We're not going to have to go through that, are we?" The detective stalked after him. "This is a simple matter."

"And I want to keep it simple. that's why I want to call my lawyer. So there aren't any misunderstandings." Pittman picked up the phone. "I'm asking you not to do that," the detective said. "I have just a few questions. There's no need for an attorney. When you were with the old man, did he say anything?" Pittman shook his head. "I don't understand."

"Did he say anything?"

"What's that got to do with ? So what if ... ?"

The detective stepped closer, his face stern. "Did ... the . old ... man ... say ... anything?"

"Gibberish." "Tell me."

Pittman continued to hold the phone. "It didn't make any sense. It sounded like Duncan something. Then something about snow. Then ... I don't know ... I think he said Grollier.

The detective's features tightened. "Did you tell anybody else?"

"Anybody else? What difference would ... ? Wait a minute. This doesn't feel right. What's going on here? Let me see your identification."

"I already showed you."

"I want to see it again."

The detective shrugged. "This is all the identification I need.

The detective reached beneath his suit coat, and Pittman stiffened, his pulse speeding at the sight of the gun the detective pulled out. The gun's barrel was unusually long. Pittman suddenly realized that it wasn't a barrel but a silencer attached to the barrel. Policemen didn't carry silencers.

"You meddling shit, you give me any more trouble and I'll put a goddamn bullet up your nose. Who else did you tell?"

The tip of the silencer snagged. As the man's gaze flickered down toward his suit coat, Pittman reacted without thinking, a reflexive response. Despite his self-destructive intentions, he had no control over his body's need to defend itself against sudden fear. Startled, in a frenzy, he swung the phone with all his might, cracking its plastic against the man's forehead.

The man lurched backward. Blood streaked his brow. He cursed, struggling to focus his vision, raising the pistol.

Terrified, Pittman struck again, smashing the man's nose. More blood flew. The man fell backward. He walloped onto a coffee table, shattered its glass top, crashed through, and slammed against the floor, his upturned head ramming against the metal rim of the table. Staring at the pistol in the man's hand, Pittman raised the. phone to strike a third time, only to discover that he'd stretched the extension cord to its limit. Trembling, he dropped the phone and searched desperately around for something else with which to hit the man. He grabbed a lamp, about to throw it down at the man's head, when at once he realized that the man wasn't moving.

The man's eyes were open. So was his mouth. His head was propped against the far metal rim of the coffee table. His legs, bent at the knees, hung over the near rim. . Holding the lamp high, ready to throw it, Pittman stepped closer. The man's chest wasn't moving.

Dear God, he's dead.

Time seemed to have accelerated. Simultaneously Pittman felt caught between heartbeats, as if time had been suspended. For seconds that could have been minutes, he continued to stare down at the man with the gun. Slowly he set the lamp back on its table. He knelt beside the man, his emotions in chaos.

How did ... ? I didn't hit him hard enough to ...

Christ, he must have broken his neck when he smashed through the glass. His head hid the metal side of the table.

Then Pittman noticed the blood pooling on the floor under the man-a lot of it.

Afraid that the man would spring into motion and aim the gun at him, Pittman touched the corpse's arm and shifted the body. He swallowed bile when he saw that a long shard of glass had been jabbed into the man's back, between his shoulder blades.

Pittman's face felt clammy.

He was thirty-eight years old. He had never been in the military. Apart from the previous night and the Saturday seven years earlier when the two men had broken his jaw, his only experience with violence had been through people he had interviewed who were acquainted with violence, either as victims, criminals, or police officers.

And now he had killed a man. Appalled by the blood on the telephone, he gingerly set it on its receptacle.

What am I going to ... ?

Abruptly he worried that somebody had heard the crash. He swung toward the wall behind which the neighbor's television blared-people laughing, an announcer saying something about a trip to Jamaica, people applauding, a game show. He expected to hear urgent footsteps, the neighbor pounding on the door.

Instead, what he heard was the TV announcer giving out a prize on the game show. No matter the noise from the television, his apartment seemed eerily quiet.

What if I was wrong and he really is a policeman?

Breathing with effort, Pittman opened the man's suit coat and took out the police identification that the man had shown him. A card next to the badge said that the detective's name was William Mullen. The photograph on the ID matched the face of the dead man. But as Pittman examined it, he was unnerved to discover that the photograph had been pasted over another photograph, which didn't look anything like the corpse. Pittman checked the man's wallet, and in addition to almost four hundred dollars, he found a driver's license in the name of Edward Halloway, residence in Alexandria, Virginia. Pittman had never heard of any New York City policeman who lived several states away. This definitely wasn't a cop. What the hell was he, then?

The phone rang. Pittman stared. The phone rang a second time. Who would-? The phone rang a third time. Should I-? The phone rang a fourth time. Suppose it's Burt. Pittman picked it up. Listening, he said nervously, "Hello. Pause. Click. Jesus.

In a rush, Pittman entered his bedroom, grabbed a brown sport coat, and pulled his suitcase from his closet. Instantly he put the suitcase back and took out the gym bag he had used when he had still been a runner. He had once interviewed a security specialist, who was an expert in blending with a crowd. One of the hard things, the expert had said, was to find something that would hold weapons or equipment but not be conspicuous. A suitcase was too bulky, and besides, anybody who carried a suitcase into any public building other than a transportation terminal attracted attention.

Conversely, while a briefcase looked more natural, especially if you were well dressed, it wasn't big enough. But a reasonably attractive gym bag was ideal. Enough people went to exercise after work that a gym bag appeared natural, even if the person carrying it wore a suit, although casual clothes were obviously better.

And a gym bag held a lot.

Trembling, Pittman put a fresh pair of underwear and socks into the bag. He shoved in an extra shirt, a tie, his black sweat suit, his running shoes, his electric razor, a toothbrush, toothpaste, and shampoo. What else? is isn't summer camp you're going to. You have to get here fast. That phone call was probably from someone with the gunman.

Pittman hurried into the living room, frowned down at the corpse, and almost took the four hundred dollars from the dead man's wallet.

That would look great to the police. After you killed him, you thought why not steal from him, too?

What about his gun? What about it? Do I take it?

Who do you think you are? John Wayne? You know enough about guns to shoot yourself, not anybody else.

As the phone started ringing again, Pittman grabbed his spare overcoat, opened his apartment door, peered out, saw no one, went into the dimly lit corridor, and locked the door behind him.

In his apartment, the phone kept ringing.

He hurried toward the elevator. But the moment he reached it, extending his right hand to press the down button, not yet touching it, he heard a buzz.

Creaking, the elevator began to rise from the ground floor. Pittman felt pressure behind his ears.

He headed down the stairs but froze as he heard footsteps scraping far below him, coming up the concrete steps, echoing louder as they ascended from the ground floor.

Invisible arms seemed to pin his chest, squeezing him. One man in the elevator, another on the stairs. That would make sense. No one could come down without their knowing.

Pittman backed up, straining to be silent. Again in the corridor, he analyzed his options and crept up the stairs toward the next floor.

Out of sight, he heard the elevator stop and footsteps come out. They hesitated in the corridor. Other footsteps, those in stairwell, came up to the third floor and joined whoever gotten out of the elevator. o one spoke as both sets of footsteps proceeded along the corridor. They stopped about where Pittman judged his apartment would be. He heard a knock, then another. He heard the scrape of metal that he recognized as the sound of lock-pick tools. A different kind of metallic sound might have been the click of a gun being cocked. He heard a door being opened.

"Shit," a man exclaimed, as if he'd seen the corpse in Pittman's apartment.

Immediately the footsteps went swiftly into a room. The door was closed.

I can't stay here, Pittman thought. They might search the building. He swung toward the elevator door on the fourth floor and pressed the down button. His hands shook as the elevator wheezed and groaned to his level.

Part of him was desperate to flee down the stairs. But what if the men came out and saw him? This way, he'd be out of sight in the elevator-unless the men came out in the meantime and decided to use the elevator, stopping it as it descended, in which case he'd be trapped in the cage with them.

But he had to take the risk. Suppose the men had left someone in the lobby. Pittman needed a way to get past, and the elevator was it. His face was slick with sweat as he got in the car and pressed the button for the basement. As the car sank toward the third floor, he imagined that he would hear a buzz, that the car would stop, that two men would get in.

He trembled, watching the needle above the inside of the door point to 3. Then the needle began to point toward 2.

He exhaled. Sweat trickled down his chest under his shirt. The needle pointed toward 1, then the Blobby The car stopped. The doors grated open. He faced the musty shadows of the basement.

The moment he stepped out, the elevator doors closed. As he shifted past a furnace, the elevator surprised him, rising. Turning, he watched the needle above the door: 1, 2, 3.