Extreme Denial (35 page)

Despite being out of breath, Decker couldn’t allow himself to hesitate. He struck at Giordano, who lay next to him, but in the dark, his blow glanced off Giordano’s shoulder. Giordano had kept his grip on the rock, and although his aim was hampered by the darkness, he managed to graze Decker’s ribs, almost doubling him over. The additional pain made Decker furious. He came to his feet and chopped with the side of his hand, but Giordano stumbled back, avoiding the blow, and swung with the rock. Decker felt the brush of wind as the rock barely missed his face. Wanting to get close to block the next blow, he lunged through the darkness, thrust Giordano back, and heard him gasp when they struck something. Giordano stiffened, his arms outstretched. He trembled. His breath sounded like a leak coming out of an inner tube. Then his arms sank, his body becoming motionless, and the only hiss was that of the rain.

Decker didn’t understand. Straining to catch his breath, he braced himself to continue the struggle. Slowly, he realized that Giordano was dead.

But somehow the body was still standing.

“I told you I heard something!” a man yelled. Flashlight beams arced through the storm-shrouded trees. Footsteps pounded close to the rim of the slope down which Decker had fallen.

I can’t let them see him! Decker thought. He rushed toward where Giordano remained eerily upright. Tugging, he felt resistance and understood sickly that Giordano had been impaled on the jagged stump of a broken-off branch.

The voices and footsteps rushed closer. Have to get him out of sight, Decker thought. Lowering Giordano’s deadweight to the ground, about to drag him deeper into the murky trees, Decker became paralyzed by a flashlight beam that caught him squarely as it glared down from the bluff.

“Hey!” a man yelled.

“I found him!” Decker shouted. “I thought I heard a noise down here! I managed to climb down! I found him!”

“Holy ... !” another man yelled, aiming a flashlight. “Look at all the blood!”

“Can you find a pulse
?
Is he alive?”
someone else yelled. “I don’t know!” Decker shouted. The glare of the flashlights hurt his eyes. “I think what I heard was him falling! The drop must have killed him!”

“But there’s a chance he might be alive! We have to get an ambulance!”

“His neck might be broken! We don’t dare move him!” Rain streaked down Decker’s face. “Is anybody up there a doctor?”

“We need an ambulance!”

Guided by their flashlights, several men were working down past trees on the muddy slope.

“Why did he come this way?” A man reached the bottom. “Couldn’t he see the interstate back there?”

“He must have banged his head in the wreck!” Decker said. “He was probably delirious!”

“Jesus, look at him!” One of the men turned away.

“He must have hit something when he fell!”

“But what about the woman he was with?” Decker said.
“Woman?”

“I heard her voice!” Decker said. “She sounded like she was hurt! Where
is
she?”

“Everybody!” a man yelled. “Keep looking! Someone else is out here! A woman!”

The group spilt apart, scanning their flashlights, quickly searching.

Taking advantage of the chaos, Decker retreated into the darkness. He climbed the slope, slipping in the mud, grabbing exposed tree roots, bracing his shoes on outcrops of rock. Any minute, the group would wonder what had become of him. He had to get away before they suspected he wasn’t part of the search team. But I can’t leave without Giordano’s briefcase. It wasn’t with him when he fell. Where
is
it? If the searchers get their hands on the money, there’s no way I can save Beth.

Heart pounding, Decker reached the top and spotted more flashlight beams near the wrecked Cadillac. Temporarily he was concealed by undergrowth, but the searchers might soon investigate this area. Breathing hard, he crouched, trying to get his bearings. Where had Giordano attacked him? Was it to the right or the left? Decker swung to stare down toward what in the darkness he could barely tell was Giordano’s body. He replayed the struggle at the bottom of the slope. He calculated where they had landed. To reach that area, they would have had to fall from Decker’s left. Giordano must have attacked from—

Decker squirmed on his hands and knees through the underbrush. At the same time, flashlights started coming in his direction. No! Decker thought. He had never felt such a powerful surge of adrenaline. He didn’t think his pulse had ever been so rapid. Pressure built behind his ears. The briefcase. Have to find the briefcase. Need the briefcase. Can’t save Beth without the briefcase.

He had almost crawled past it before he realized what he had touched. Fearing that his heart would surely burst from relief, he grabbed the briefcase. At the same time, his foot nudged something behind him near the edge of the slope. His pistol. He had dropped it when Giordano struck him with the rock. As he shoved the pistol into his jacket, he dared to hope that things might actually work out. He still had a chance to save Beth.

But not if the flashlights came any closer. What if one of them belonged to a policeman? His clothes smeared with mud, Decker crawled farther through the undergrowth, straining not to make noise. He came to where he thought he had initially descended into the trees. Staring behind him, he waited for the flashlights to shift toward an area away from him. The first chance he got, he crept swiftly up through the trees and paused at the edge of the interstate. Vehicles rushed by in the rain, tires hissing, headlights glaring. On the shoulder, several cars had stopped. Most of them were empty, their occupants presumably having gone into the trees to help search for survivors of the wreck. One of the cars was a police cruiser, Decker saw in dismay, but it, too, was empty, although probably not for long.

The police car was next to the Oldsmobile. Esperanza sat in the Olds, slumped behind the steering wheel. Even from a distance, it was obvious that his face was bloody. I can’t wait any longer, Decker thought. He quickly emerged from the trees, tried to use his body to shield the briefcase from anyone looking at him from the trees, and walked swiftly along the side of the interstate.

Esperanza straightened as Decker got in the Olds.

“Can you see to drive?”

“Yes.”

“Go.”

Esperanza turned the ignition key, put the Olds in gear, and sped out into traffic. “You look like hell.”

“I wasn’t dressed for the occasion.” Decker stared behind him to see if they were being followed. It didn’t seem so.

“I wasn’t sure when or if you’d come back,” Esperanza said.

“And
I
wasn’t sure if you’d stay with the car. You did the right thing.”

“I’d make a good getaway driver. In fact, I
was
a good getaway driver.”

Decker looked at him.

“When I was sixteen,” Esperanza said. “You’ve got the briefcase.”

“Yes.”

“What about Frank Giordano?”

Decker didn’t answer.

“Then Beth Dwyer has one less problem.”

“It was self-defense,” Decker said.

“I didn’t suggest otherwise.”

“I needed the briefcase.”

“A million dollars. With that kind of money, some men wouldn’t think about saving anybody.”

“Without Beth, I wouldn’t save
myself”

TEN

—————

1

“Jesus, Decker, this is crazy. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up killing yourself,” Esperanza tensely murmured, lower than a whisper. “Or else you’re giving McKittrick the chance to do it for you.” But they had argued about Decker’s intentions for the last hour, and Decker had made clear his determination. This was the way McKittrick expected the drop-off to happen, and by God, this was the way it was
going
to happen.

Decker felt Esperanza lean into the backseat of the Oldsmobile. He felt Esperanza grab his shoulders and tug him out into the rain. His instructions to Esperanza had been to avoid being gentle, to be as rough as someone would expect a hit man to be with the corpse of someone he had just killed.

Esperanza obeyed, making no attempt to ease the impact of Decker’s body onto the ground. Pain jolted through him, but he didn’t show it, just remained limp as Esperanza dragged him through a puddle. Although Decker kept his eyes shut, he imagined the scene: the battered Oldsmobile next to the refreshment building at the scenic lookout. A little before midnight, in the rain, it was very unlikely that any motorists would have stopped to admire the view from the Palisades. In good weather, the view from the lookout showed the lights of boats on the Hudson and the expansive glow of Hastings and Yonkers across the river, but in bad weather like this, it would show only gloom. On the off chance that a driver might pull in to rest for a few minutes, Esperanza had parked the Oldsmobile sideways toward the entrance to the lookout, preventing anyone on the interstate from seeing what appeared to be a corpse being dragged around to the back of the refreshment building.

Decker heard Esperanza grunt, then felt the squishy impact as Esperanza dropped him into a muddy puddle. Limp, he allowed his body to roll and ended on his left side in the puddle. Peering through half-open eyelids, he saw what appeared to be garbage cans in the darkness behind the building. He heard Esperanza run through the puddle back to the car and quickly return. He saw Esperanza set the briefcase against the rear of the building. Then Esperanza disappeared. In a moment, Decker heard car doors being shut, an engine revving, the splash of tires as Esperanza drove away. The engine became fainter. Then all Decker heard was the distant drone of traffic on the interstate and the pelt of rain on the clear plastic bag tied over his head.

“Giordano’s deal with McKittrick was the money
and
my corpse,” Decker had insisted while he and Esperanza drove anxiously from town to town, worried about the time they were losing, desperate to find a convenience store. They had started their search at 10:30. Then the time was 11:00, then 11:15. “We have to be there by midnight.” Twice, the stores they did find open had not had all the materials Decker needed. At 11:30, they had finally gotten what they needed. Esperanza had parked on a deserted country lane and done what was necessary.

“Why can’t I leave the money along with a note, supposedly from Giordano, that says he won’t kill you until McKittrick makes good on his promise?” Esperanza had tied clothesline rope around Decker’s ankles.

“Because I don’t want to do anything to make him suspicious. Be sure the knots are in plain view. It’ll be dark behind that building. I want it to be obvious to him that I’ve been tied up.”

“But this way, if he isn’t convinced you’re dead, you won’t have a chance to defend yourself.” Esperanza tied Decker’s arms behind his back.

“That’s what I’m hoping will convince him. He won’t believe I willingly made myself completely vulnerable to him.”

“Does this knot hurt?”

“It doesn’t matter whether it hurts. Make it real. Make it look as if I couldn’t possibly be alive and not show any reaction to the way I’ve been tied.
He has to believe I’m dead
,”

“You
might be
dead by the time he gets to you. Decker, this plastic bag scares the hell out of me.”

“That’s the point. It might even scare
him.
I’m counting on it to be the finishing touch. Mark me up. Hurry.”

Needing something that looked like blood, Decker had used what a pathologist once explained to him were the easiest-to-obtain materials to fake it—colorless corn syrup and red food dye.    .

“Make it look as if they really enjoyed beating me,” Decker insisted.

“They mashed your lips. They messed up your jaw.” Esperanza had applied the mixture.

“Hurry. We’ve got only fifteen minutes to get to the dropoff site.”

Esperanza quickly tied the bag around Decker’s neck and then murmured a Spanish prayer as Decker inhaled and forced the bag to collapse around his head, the plastic clinging to his face, sticking to his skin, stuffing Decker’s nostrils and his mouth. Immediately Esperanza poked a tiny hole in the plastic that filled Decker’s mouth and hurriedly inserted a cutoff piece of a drinking straw, which Decker gripped between his teeth, allowing him to breathe without breaking the vacuum that made the plastic bag stick to his face.

“My God, Decker, does it work? Can you get enough air?”

Decker had managed to nod slightly.

“The way that bag sticks to your face, you look like a corpse.”

Good, Decker thought as he lay in the muddy puddle, in the dark, behind the refreshment building, listening to the rain pelt the plastic bag. Provided that he breathed shallowly, slowly, and calmly, the small amount of air he got through the straw was enough to allow him to remain alive. But with each slight inhalation, panic tried to force itself through his fierce resolve. With each imperceptible exhalation, his heart wanted to beat faster, demanding more oxygen. The cord that secured the bag around his neck was tight enough to dig into the skin—Decker had insisted on that, also. Everything absolutely had to look convincing.
And feel
so—the cold rain would lower Decker’s exterior temperature, making his skin feel like that of a corpse losing body heat. If McKittrick for one moment doubted that Decker was a corpse, he would put a bullet through Decker’s head and settle the matter.

The danger was that McKittrick would shoot him no matter what, but Decker was counting on the grotesque appearance of his face to make McKittrick decide that further violence wasn’t necessary. If McKittrick felt for a pulse on Decker’s wrists, he wouldn’t find one, the tight ropes having sharply reduced the flow of blood. He could try to feel for a pulse along Decker’s neck, but to do so, McKittrick would have to untie the cord that secured the plastic bag—time-consuming and disgusting. That left pressing a palm against the ribs over Decker’s heart, but he wasn’t likely to do that, either, because Decker had landed on his left side—to feel the ribs over Decker’s heart, McKittrick would have to turn the body over and press his hand against the repulsive mud that adhered to Decker’s clothes.