Holy Terror (27 page)

He blinked and he was out of his trance. ‘Give me that pen,' he told Sidney. ‘I have to write this down before I forget it. Phenelzine.'

At that moment there was a soft knock at the door and Eleanor put her head in. ‘I heard you talking… I couldn't sleep.'

‘Come on in,' said Conor. He passed her the slip of paper on which he had written the name of Magda Slanic's prescription. ‘Do you have any idea what this is?'

‘Monoamine oxidase inhibitor,' she nodded. ‘It's a fairly common type of antidepressant. My sister used to take it after her husband left her. The creep.'

‘So Hetti's depressed,' said Sidney. ‘Who wouldn't be, the kind of life she's living?'

‘That's not the point,' said Conor. ‘Depression is a long-term condition, right? From what I saw of that bottle, there were only a few capsules remaining. That means that Hetti may soon be going back to the Kaufman Pharmacy for more.'

‘You're not suggesting we stake it out?' asked Sidney, although there was a hint of excitement in his voice.

‘Are you kidding? The Kaufman Pharmacy is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. No, I can do better than that. I know most of the guys that work there. When I was on undercover work, I was always in and out for coffee and a sandwich.
All I'm going to do is ask them to call me the next time Magda Slanic makes an appearance.'

‘It sounds like kind of a long shot to me,' said Eleanor.

‘It is. But long shots are the only kind of shots I've got.'

He was early for his appointment in Central Park. It was crowded outside the entrance to the Children's Zoo: a party of schoolkids had arrived, and they were chasing each other around and screaming and laughing. Conor stayed up against the wall and kept his eyes open for the man in the Panama hat.

Two cops walked slowly past him, and one of them eyed him up and down suspiciously. He almost felt like saying, you don't have to worry about me, officer. I'm not a pedophile, I'm just a garden-variety fugitive.

At 11:35 precisely, a slightly built fiftyish man in a white short-sleeved shirt and sunglasses appeared. He was wearing a Panama hat with a red headband and carrying a magazine under his arm. He stopped in the middle of the chaos of children, and looked around nervously.

Conor didn't step out and introduce himself right away. He checked the surroundings for anybody who looked as if they might be a plainclothes cop or a bodyguard or even a hit man. But all he could see were nannies with grizzling children and harassed
teachers and a cleaner with a Walkman doing a balletic rap dance while he collected up cigarette butts.

Eventually, Conor left the shadow of the wall and weaved his way through the scuffling children, knocking sharply against the man's elbow. The man swung around and said, ‘Hey—!' but he instantly recognized Conor and took an unsteady step back.

Conor held up a large yellow envelope. He didn't have any idea who the man was or what his papers contained, but he was twitchy and clearly exhausted, and his anxiety was pitched like a dog-whistle, undetectable to anybody but him, but keeping his nerve endings constantly on edge.

‘When the money's gone through, I get everything back? That's the deal, right?'

Conor said nothing. He simply didn't know what to say. He handed over the envelope and the man tore it open and peered inside. ‘Shit,' he said. Then he looked up at Conor and shook his head. ‘I used to think you were some kind of a hero. That's rich, isn't it?'

Conor said, ‘Just organize the payment, OK? The sooner this is all over, the better.'

‘You goddamned crook,' the man snarled at him.

Conor would have given anything to be able to tell him the truth. But all he could do was turn and walk away, leaving the man standing amidst the children with his envelope clutched in his hands. Conor thought: I may seem like a crook, but God alone knows what sins are revealed in those papers, that you're prepared to pay $5 million to get them back.

He was walking toward the 64th Street entrance
when suddenly he heard a child's voice cry out, ‘
Daddy
!'

Every daddy in the English-speaking world is called Daddy, so he kept on walking. But then he heard pattering footsteps coming up behind him. He turned, and it was Fay. Dark haired, wide eyed, in a pink summer dress, all arms and legs and tooth-braces.

‘Hey, I can't believe it! It's the sugar plum fairy!' He picked her up and swung her around and held her tight.

‘Daddy, what are you doing here? Mommy said you were locked up in prison!'

‘Prison? Me? Phooey! Only criminals get locked up in prison!'

‘I saw you on the news. They said the cops were looking for you.'

He squinched up his nose. ‘Complete mix-up. You know how stupid the cops are. I should know. I used to be one.' He narrowed his eyes against the bright sunlight and looked around. ‘Where's your mother? You're not on your own, are you?'

‘Her mother's right here, as a matter of fact,' said a flat voice, right behind him. And there she was, with her dark hair tied back in a severe ponytail, looking even more Audrey Hepburn than usual. She was wearing a silk Hermès blouse in crimson and dark blue, and an off-white skirt that reached just above her knees. He had always thought that she dressed too old and conservative for her age.

‘Paula… you're looking good. Lost a little weight. Suits you.'

‘Can you put my daughter down, please?'

Conor gave Fay a squeeze and said, ‘What do you think, sugar plum fairy? Think I ought to put her daughter down?'

Fay covered her eyes with the back of her hand. She always did that when Conor and Paula started to fence. Conor put his hand into his pocket and tugged out a white handkerchief. He twisted it around, pulled it twice with his teeth, and it took on the shape of a rabbit with big floppy ears.

‘Why don't we ask Mr Rabbitinski what he thinks?'

Fay peered out through her fingers. ‘I'm too old for Mr Rabbitinski.'

‘Come on, Conor,' Paula repeated. ‘Put her down.'

‘You may be too old for Mr Rabbitinski but Mr Rabbitinski still misses you. Come to that, I do, too.'

Fay wriggled and slipped down from his grasp. Paula reached out and took hold of her hand and pulled her away. Conor made Mr Rabbitinski flop over in sadness and disappointment.

‘I thought they would have caught you by now,' said Paula.

‘I didn't do anything, Paula. It's a misunderstanding, that's all.'

‘Of course it is. You've always been so upright and honest, haven't you, Conor? Always done the right thing, no matter how much it hurts everybody around you. You betrayed your fellow officers, you betrayed me, you betrayed your daughter. All for the sake of your precious principles! And now look at you. Wanted for robbery. What price your principles now?'

‘Paula, I really didn't do this. I swear it on my life. I swear it on Fay's life.'

Paula looked at him with such hatred that he felt a physical chill. ‘Don't you ever swear anything on my daughter's life. She doesn't have a father now, because of you. Didn't it occur to you once what it would do to you, breaking the Forty-Ninth Street Golf Club, and what it would do to your family? Who were they hurting? Nobody but the Mafia, the scum of the earth! Why in the name of God didn't you turn a blind eye?'

Conor looked down and realized that he was still holding Mr Rabbitinski in the crook of his elbow. A grown man with a handkerchief rabbit.

He didn't know what to say to Paula. He had broken the Forty-Ninth Street Golf Club ‘because it was wrong'? That sounded so naïve. Yet that was why he had done it.

Paula said, ‘If you're really innocent, why don't you turn yourself in, and prove it?'

‘It isn't as simple as that.'

‘Yes it is. Look, let me show you how it's done.'

With that, she lifted her arm and shouted out, ‘Officer! Officer! Over here, officer!'

‘Paula, what the hell are you doing?' Conor demanded.

But Paula dodged out of his way and continued to wave her arm. ‘Officer! There's a wanted man here! Hurry!'

Conor snatched hold of her arm and stared right into her face. ‘You're hurting me,' she said, with a triumphant smile. ‘But that's what you're good at, isn't it? Hurting people?'

‘
Daddy
!' shrilled Fay. ‘Daddy, the cops are coming!'

For a split second, Conor could see in Paula's face the woman that he had once fallen in love with. She was still there, but she was inaccessible to him now. If only there was something he could say to bring her back. One word. But then he heard one of the cops shout, ‘Freeze, mister! Hold it right there!'

‘
Daddy
!'

He didn't turn around. He ducked past Paula and started to run through the thick of the crowd – deliberately barging his way through school parties and groups of tourists and even a covey of nuns. The cop yelled out, ‘
Hold it! Stop or I'll shoot
!' but Conor knew that he wouldn't risk hitting a child.

He ran past the seal pool and the merry-go-round, and then dodged out of the park by the 64th Street entrance. He ran across Fifth Avenue through the middle of the traffic, almost vaulting over the hood of a taxi; and by the time the cops had come puffing into view, he was turning the corner into 63rd Street and he was gone.

Eleanor spent all morning on the phone, talking to every theatrical agent she could think of, trying to pick up the slightest hint of Hypnos and Hetti's possible whereabouts.

It took a long time. Most of the agents were delighted that she had called them, and wanted to spend hours reminiscing about the old days on Broadway, about Lee Strasberg and Ben Gazzara and Christine White and Harry Guardino and Jay Julien. Every conversation brightened Eleanor more and more, in spite of the urgency of what she was doing, and Sidney sat smiling at her as she laughed and talked.

‘What a woman,' he said, in quiet admiration, as Conor came into the room.

After his escape from Central Park, Conor had walked across to the Rialto Theater and talked to Sammy the doorman again and some of the cast of
Franklin
. Hypnos and Hetti must have used their hypnotic influence with enormous skill, because hardly anybody could remember them being there.
One young girl from the chorus line said, ‘I remember seeing a man and a woman in the corridor … but I always had the feeling that I shouldn't look at them.'

A male dancer said, ‘I saw people who weren't there. I really began to think that the theater was
haunted
, you know? By
ghosts
.'

Conor returned to Sebastian's apartment at 1:56 p.m. hot and tired, with no new information at all. ‘Has Eleanor had any luck?' he asked Sidney.

‘Not so far. Everybody remembers Hypnos and Hetti. Who wouldn't? But nobody has any idea where they are now.'

‘How about a glass of chilled Chab-lee?' asked Ric, pirouetting into the room in black Versace jeans and a white silk blouse. ‘And maybe you'd like me to mop your fevered whatever.'

It was then that Sebastian's mobile phone rang. Ric picked it up and said, ‘
Ye-e-e-ess
?' Then he frowned and passed it to Conor. ‘It's for you. Somebody called Morrie Teitelbaum.'

Conor said, ‘Morrie? What's happening?' Then he put his hand over the phone and said, ‘It's Morrie, from Kaufman.'

‘
Conor! That broad you wanted us to keep a weather eye out for … she came into the drugstore two or three minutes ago … Jimmy did like you told us and told her we were all backed up in filling prescriptions … she's coming back here in ten minutes
.'

‘Morrie, there's a place waiting for you in Heaven.'

‘
Forget Heaven. A couple dozen White Owls will do
.'

Conor switched off the phone. ‘That's it. We've found her. Sidney – Ric – Sebastian – do you want to come with me?'

‘What about that burundanga shit?' said Ric. ‘Supposing they blow that all over us again? I mean, God knows what they could make us do next.'

‘Take a scarf,' Sidney suggested. ‘If Perez tries to pull that stunt again, hold it over your nose and mouth.'

Ric brought out four brightly colored scarves and handed them around. ‘Dear me – we look like the Three Musketeers and D'Artagnan.' They collected their wallets and their keys and prepared to leave. As they did so, however, Eleanor lifted her hand and said, ‘Sidney! Conor! Wait up a second!'

‘What is it, Bipsy?' Sidney asked her. She was still on the phone.

‘I'm talking to Norman Frisch. You remember Norman? He did all the stage sets for
April in Augusta
. He saw Hypnos and Hetti less than a week ago in the Shark Bar on Amsterdam Avenue.'

‘Oh, yes?'

‘He recognized the guy that they were talking to. He was that nutty Southern Baptist millionaire who tried to close down
Evangelists
at the Lyceum, on account of it was blasphemous.'

‘Oh, sure. I remember that. But I don't recall what his name was.'

‘Victor Labrea,' said Eleanor.

‘Victor Labrea?' said Conor. ‘That's the same guy who's working for Dennis Evelyn Branch. He's the one who's holding Lacey.'

‘Well,' said Sidney, gravely, ‘if we can find Hetti,
then we've got a good chance of finding
him
. And if we can find
him
, we've got a good chance of finding your Lacey.'

‘Let's go,' said Conor. ‘But for God's sake, let's take it easy. These freaks are capable of anything.'

They took a taxi to Lexington and 49th, one block south of the Kaufman Pharmacy. It was a sweltering morning, over 93 degrees with 92 per cent humidity, but unlike previous days the sky was curiously brown, like weathered bronze. As he stepped out of the taxi, Conor thought that he could hear the distant indigestive rumbling of thunder.