Philly Stakes (25 page)

Another knock at the door.

Go to it, I urged the phone. You’ve never given up before. Don’t start now.

Silence from outside. Nick listened hard, then relaxed. “One down,” he said. “One to go.” He moved sideways to the kitchen divider and the phone.

And then a form, a shadow, at the front window. Never had a Peeping Tom been more welcome. My random passerby. Our rescuer. Nick didn’t notice.

The persistent caller persisted one more time.

Nick lifted the receiver and slammed it back down.

Macavity, who had been sniffing around Nick’s grocery bag, jumped off the counter.

The window was a mirror on our side, the form on its dark side unidentifiable, obscured as well by the boughs of the Christmas tree, but I imagined him, pressing close for a better view, unable to believe his eyes.

Yes, it’s what you think! Two women at gunpoint. Quickly, run for the police!

“Laura!” The voice came from behind the window.

“No!” I shouted. “No! No heroics—use your brain, not your hormones!”

“Damn!” Nick said, walking to the door.

“Peter!” Laura’s voice was low and awed. “You found me. Peter found me, Miss Pepper!”

Big deal. Wonderful. I didn’t want to put a blight on young love, and Peter had been eliminated now as archvillain, but there were happier, saner options that he had overlooked.

“Come right in.” Nick stood at the front door, a malevolent caricature of the gracious host, his gun pointed toward the street. Peter rushed in, ignoring the gun, ignoring sanity, to kneel in front of Laura and silently inspect her. He seemed satisfied, and stood up. Both she and I shifted to make room on the sofa.

But he didn’t sit down. “You sure you’re all right?” he asked Laura. She nodded. He forgot to ask about my welfare, but I overlooked the slight along with the fact that he’d correctly identified Laura’s “M.P.” as Miss Pepper.

He wheeled around. “What do you think you’re doing, you son of a bitch!” For a moment, I believed. I thought we had gotten to the end of the reel, that by gum, Tom Trueheart had arrived, and Laura and I would be cut free of the train tracks and the villain roundly punished.

Except that Nick advanced on Peter with the gun and said, “What the hell do you think I’m doing? I’m going to kill them, and now you, too, punk. Sit down.”

I thought of Mackenzie boarding a plane even as we sat here about to die. How sad would he be? Would he blame this on Laura?

The phone started up again. “It won’t stop,” I said. “I assure you, it won’t, until I answer it and have a normal conversation with her.”

“How do you know who it is?”

“Trust me.”

“Then answer it,” he said. “And sound normal. Say anything weird, or give her a warning, and I will shoot Laura through the skull. Guaranteed.”

“Amanda!” my mother said. “Thank goodness! I called before and there was no answer.”

Mental telepathy with Peter had failed. Now I could use words, but only if they were coded. Except, my mind was a complete blank.

I looked around the room. Nick watched me warily. Laura and Peter stared. Her eyes were the size of satellite dishes.

“We were cut off!” My mother sounded agitated, worried still. “I thought something bad had happened.”

“How clever of you!” I said. “How true!” Get it, Mom? Something bad did happen, is happening. Call the police. Tell them to get here immediately!

“Don’t make fun of me. I was worried about you!”

“As well you should. You have every reason to feel that way.” Come on, you’re a bright woman. You’ve worried without cause your whole life. Now there’s cause. Help!

“You’re upsetting me.”

“Yes. I mean to,” I said.

Nick walked to the front window, waving his gun at the three of us with each step, and pulled the draperies closed. No more Peeping Toms tonight.

“Fine,” my mother said in the suffering-wounded-resigned voice that, along with the child, arrives on the delivery table. “You want to upset me, upset me. Whatever you say. I won’t take up any more of your time.” She sighed and then decided to do a dollop more of guilt mongering. “I just want you to know that I’ve planned out the vest. Looks like it’ll be very nice with the navy trim. About thirty inches long.”

“Eighty-six.” I didn’t know if she’d recognize that expression for killing something, but it seemed worth a try. Nick flashed a glance. “A great year,” I muttered. “What? What year?”

“Sorry. Measurement.”

“Eighty-six?” my mother said. “For heaven’s sake—that’s seven feet—a bridal gown with train! Are you crazy?” She sighed. “Look, what I was going ask is if you’d like patch pockets from the navy wool. I think they’d look nice.”

“Terrific idea. Navy’s very nice.”

“Big.”

“Very big. How does nine by eleven sound?” She had to get that, didn’t she? I couldn’t say nine-one-one. I couldn’t say dial emergency. She had to understand what I could say. Didn’t she?

Nick turned off all the lamps. Only the kitchen was still illuminated.

“Have you been drinking? Mandy, pockets that size would reach from your neck to—”

“Mom, I want you to do what I said.”

“Speed it up,” Nick said. “I don’t care how long your mother likes to talk. End it.”

I nodded. “I wish you’d listen to me, Mom.”

“I have been—and I hear somebody who’s had too much eggnog,” she said. “And with that little girl in your house, too! Eighty-six! Nine by eleven! We’ll talk tomorrow. I’m glad everything’s fine. Want some advice? Get a good night’s sleep.”

And that was that.

“I don’t know how many other family members think they need a chatting up tonight,” Nick said, “but I don’t care. Turn on your answering machine.” He stood in the shadowy living room, glowering over his revolver.

I leaned over the counter to the little black box, and reached out my forefinger. My last act on earth, activating an answering machine.

I turned the machine on. Then, inspired, or at least hopeful, I pressed another button, one on top, before I turned around.

“Okay,” Nick said. “I’m sorry, but this is how it has to be.”

“What’s going on?” Peter asked. “Who are you?”

“He killed my father.” Laura was sobbing. Softly, intently, as regularly as breathing. If we lived, I needed to think about that more, later. Think about how much grief she contained now, for so many, many reasons. “And an old man,” she said to Peter.

Nick fanned his gun back and forth across the three of us as he moved to the back of the house. “Wrong,” he said.

I stayed where I was, as near the kitchen light, as far from the sofa and the other two as possible, thinking to at least make target practice harder. Maybe we could coordinate ourselves, rush him from separate angles.

“I didn’t kill Donnaker,” Nick said to Laura. “Your old man did. And that wasn’t the first person he killed.”

Laura slowly absorbed this, physically, as if she were being pumped with it. Her puffed face swelled still more. There was a slick of tears on her cheeks.

“You didn’t do anything. Is that what you’re saying?” Peter’s voice was deep and menacing. I could almost feel his muscles ache to do something, anything. Despite his hair and black shirt, he was a kid. Blustering and unsure, using a belligerent voice as a weapon against a gun. “You had some kind of accident, I guess.”

Nick worked his way behind the counter and stuck his free hand into the brown paper bag. Out came a plastic bag of shrimp. Then a cellophane package of fresh pasta.

Were we going to eat first? Some kind of last meal?

“All the old guy wanted was an explanation,” he said. “It was like his heart was broken. You should have seen him when he realized what my mother’s story meant. Well, hell, you should have seen me when I realized what she was saying. I never had heard about it before. Anyway, all he wanted was for Clausen to make it right. Pay him back. Apologize. Anything. And Clausen killed him. It probably didn’t take much.” Out of the bag came a mushroom basket and green onions, then tomatoes and fresh basil.

“And what were you doing?” I asked. “Watching?”

Nick shrugged. “I wasn’t there. Donnaker was embarrassed, like it was all his fault, because Clausen had been his protégé, his son, can you believe it? I didn’t care. He had his angle, his reasons to be there, and I had mine. He wanted to make peace. I wanted to make a civilized business arrangement. Clausen had contracts to rebuild half the city. There was room to give me some of it. But when the old guy said could they be alone to talk it out, I figured what the hell—there was time to let them settle their score. I went outside for maybe fifteen minutes. Looked around. Nice neighborhood. House next door has this gigantic greenhouse out back.

“Except, when I came in, the old guy’s limp and broken, and Clausen’s standing over him with the cane. I had nothing to do with it. Nothing.” He put a small container of cream next to the vegetables and seafood.

Laura leaned forward. “I don’t understand. Who was he? Who are you?”

“Your father ruined my father. I could have been a rich kid like you. Fair is fair.” Nick reached into the bag again, but no more food emerged. Instead, he took out a small can of lighter fluid. I hadn’t seen one of those in a while. Not since refillable lighters during the golden age of smoking.

“Your mother came downstairs. She heard noises. Called down. Then clump, clump, she wasn’t walking all that steadily, you know. That’s when your father started dragging the old guy. Hiding him. Scared, because she must know him from way back. He was her husband’s boss. Practically his father.”

He pulled out rope—not a great seafaring coil, but twine, to wrap newspapers or packages. Out came matches. The man was prepared.

“Excuse me,” I said. “This is irrelevant but—what was all the food about?”

“If Laura hadn’t been here, I’d have had to wait for another time. We’d have eaten.”

“Listen,” I said, “if Alice Clausen saw you that night, she’ll remember. If you…hurt us, she’ll be able to figure it out.”

“Don’t make me laugh. She’ll be lucky if she remembers her name when she dries out.” He pulled rags out of the bag. “I went there to make a deal. Clausen wanted things, and I wanted part of them. He was going to own the whole damned city—why shouldn’t I get my share? Call it my father’s long-withheld commissions. With interest. We had a lot to talk about.”

“Isn’t it usually called blackmail?” I asked.

He flashed a dark flare of resentment. “I call it the truth. We could have made a deal, but he was crazy, threatening me, waving Donnaker’s cane, which I wasn’t about to have used on me. He forgot. He wasn’t dealing with an old man this time. I’m stronger and quicker than he was. So I’m sorry—but not for him. For me! What good is he to me dead? I’m back to square one.”

“Grow up, Junior!” I snapped. “Stop looking for the deal of the century.”

“I’m not into career counseling just now,” he said.

“I don’t understand anything!” Laura clutched the sofa cushions and looked close to hysteria.

I watched Nick carefully unwrap the twine. “Don’t do this,” I said. “Clausen was an accident—a scuffle, self-defense. This is on purpose. They’ll figure it out.”

“How? If the kid hadn’t come downstairs that night, nobody on God’s earth could connect me with what happened.”

“Well I’m not waiting for anybody to find anything out! You’re dead meat now!” Peter shouted as he leaped up, looming, black hair wild and eyes on fire. The suede chair tumbling backward as he propelled himself toward the counter.

“No!” Laura screamed, standing and rushing toward him.

Macavity smelled big trouble. His hair prickled and, unwilling to risk even one of his lives, he abandoned us, racing up the staircase. Which made me realize why you don’t hear too much about Famous Cat Heroes.

Then I forgot Macavity and feline cowardice, because Nick lifted the gun and pointed—he didn’t aim, he didn’t seem to think.

“Stop!” I screamed, but he pointed. And shot.

Peter seemed to rise up, float, then arch and buckle backward onto the floor.

The noise, the sight, exploded inside me. I was filled with screams and blackness and had to grab the counter to prevent myself from falling.

When I opened my eyes, Laura was bent over Peter, crying, repeating his name. She lifted her hand off his sweatshirt. It was covered with blood.

I had seen a million gunshots in movies and television, read about them casually in mysteries, and they were nothing, absolutely nothing, like this thing that had happened here and now in my living room in real life, to a real human being.

Peter groaned.

“He’s alive,” I whispered with gratitude.

Nick’s face was impassive, no more than vaguely interested as he squirted lighter fluid onto his rags.

I took a deep breath, inhaled, and bent over to inspect, to help, to acknowledge what had just happened to Peter. His eyes were open, constricted with pain.

There was blood on his chest, on his side. I didn’t want to see what it meant, to track it to the wound. If the truth be known, I wanted to cry. But I looked. I pulled up his sweat shirt, took another deep breath and saw. “It’s your arm,” I said with enormous relief. “Your arm. The inner part, so it bled onto your chest.” I grabbed one of my oversized napkins off the table and made him a flower-spattered tourniquet.

Nick watched, shaking his head. I knew why my actions amused him. I was trying to stop Peter from bleeding to death so that Nick could then burn him—all of us—to death. Great irony.

Because even if Laura could stop crying and Peter could stop bleeding, how could we possibly stop Nick? My escapist flights of fancy had all been blown away by the shot. Please, I thought, grabbing straws. Let somebody have heard that deafening blast. Somebody who won’t later have to say she didn’t want to interfere.

My prayer was answered. Inaccurately. “Turn it down!” somebody shouted from the adjoining house.

Nick moved around my living room methodically, the gun always pointed in the direction of the three of us. With his free hand, he draped one rag on the Christmas tree, then surveyed the room. “You know, none of this had to happen.” He sounded weary. “It’s your fault, Mandy. The police were sure it was Laura. Why didn’t you let well enough alone? Her mother was sure it was Laura. I heard her say it that night, when she came in. ‘What did you do?’ she said.” He pointed the gun at Peter, lying on the floor. “He was sure she did it, weren’t you kid?”