Puppets (41 page)

The penciled note read,
Star Bowl, 8511 Commercial Way, Fort Lee.

51

H
E GAVE HIMSELF TWO minutes to decide what to do as he ran back toward the car. Geppetto would be at the Star Bowl. Geppetto knew Rebecca and Rachel would be there. No doubt Geppetto had put the note there not just to make sure Radcliff knew where to go after he'd completed his task, but so that if Mo lived,
he'd
know, too. An invitation. A challenge.

Decision time. Who to trust? Who could handle somebody as sophisticated as Geppetto? He could vaguely see the lines of probability heading forward from this moment, but the pain in his jaw throbbed like a drum and he couldn't think, couldn't take the time to follow them out. Mo vaulted the bridge railing, got out his cell phone, tried to catch his breath as he dialed Biedermann's number. Nothing. The phone was soaked in muddy water and defunct. He tossed it away, unlocked the car, flung himself inside, and tried Biedermann again using the car unit.

"Yeah." First ring.

"This is Ford. I've got Radcliff, he's dead. I know what he is, I know you're after the puppet-maker. He's going after Rebecca and her daughter. Right now."

"Where are you?"

"The Rappaport murder scene—the swamp. Radcliff found us. He killed Mike St. Pierre. Geppetto's got a place, a lab, near here. He's going to this bowling alley, called the Star Bowl, in Fort Lee, just south of the GW Bridge. Probably there already. Got something complicated planned." He could hardly talk. He caught a flash of his own face in the mirror, covered with muck and blood.

" 'Geppetto,' huh? Okay, Mo you've done great work. Fort Lee—we can be there in ten minutes." Biedermann was suddenly absolutely focused, on full alert, competent-sounding. Something of a relief there.

"You want me to call the New Jersey State Police?"

"No. It'll have to be my team that goes after him. The States aren't going to know shit about this, way over their heads. Bunch of sirens and flashing lights and this'll turn south in a hurry." Mo was thinking,
Yeah, and people will know about
it
—even now, keeping this under wraps was a high priority for SAC Biedermann. "But we'll definitely need some backup, logistical support, crowd control," Biedermann went on. "Let me call them, I'll need to establish our tactical command and give them instructions. You just worry about getting your ass down there. If he's there, Rebecca's going to need you."

"Yeah. Listen—it can't be Ty. I think it's Flannery. It's got to be Flannery."

Biedermann didn't sound surprised in the least. "It's the total shits, isn't it. Okay. I'm gone. Hey, Mo—you've done the right thing here. Calling me first. We'll fix this. This isn't the first time for us, you know what I'm saying?" And the line disconnected.

Mo tried to call Rebecca on her cell phone, got her service, tried to tell himself it meant nothing, she always turned the thing off when she was taking personal time. Then he laid stripes in the gravel as he peeled out.

Sunday night, light traffic, flasher blazing, knuckles white. Mo made the forty-minute drive in twenty-five, barely aware of the pounding ache in his jaw, the screaming pain and unresponsiveness of his index finger, the mud stiffening on his clothes. The highway landscape rushed toward him like a sucking whirlpool, surreal. Here was the rearing bridge, the rooftops of Fort Lee, the exit ramp, and the distant STAR BOWL sign glowing pink and blue neon against a darkening eastern sky. Mo took the curves of the ramp at highway speed, the Chevy's wheels squealing. Then a couple of agonizing minutes of tangled New Jersey streets and the STAR BOWL sign again. The shopping center, mostly dark now, stores closed, parking lots almost empty. He shut down his lights as he approached the front, of the alley.

He'd expected more activity, a couple of MRT vans, perimeter patrol, something. But there were just a handful of civilian cars in front of the Star Bowl. One was Rebecca's Acura.

He got out, trying to figure whether everything was completely wrong or completely all right. The lights were still on in the glass entry of the Star Bowl, nothing had changed since he'd last seen the place. Just a quiet Sunday night in Fort Lee. Maybe Biedermann's guys had parked around back or arrived in civilian cars, part of keeping the profile low. Maybe the whole thing had played out and they'd already taken Geppetto away. Maybe Geppetto hadn't shown up, the horrors Mo had imagined weren't part of the plan after all.

He got out of the car with his Glock in his hands, but put it away as he approached the door. Bad enough he was coming in here covered with blood and filth, no need to put a gun in the picture. He opened the glass doors, went through the second set and up three steps to the lobby.

The lanes were brightly lit, no sign of trouble.

He paused at the front desk. The old man wasn't at the register, but a quick scan of the alley showed five or six people sitting at one of the lane booths on the left side. And two blond heads, over on the right at lane nine. Rebecca and Rachel, side by side, huddled close. A warmth of relief poured over Mo. Rachel's head was shaking as if they were laughing or goofing around together. But where was Biedermann?

He started down the short flight of steps and was halfway to

Rebecca's booth when it clicked that something wasn't right. The lanes were silent. Nobody was walking around.

"Rebecca?" he called.

Her head whirled in surprise. "Mo! Don't come over here! He's cuffed our hands to the table! He's going to—"

Before she could finish, the lights went out with a
chunk!
The alley became a pitch-black cavern. An instant later the emergency lights went on over the exit doors, a glow that barely made it to the center of the room.

Mo dove to the floor behind a rack of bowling balls. He rolled to the right, froze, listened, then cautiously lifted his head. A dim, low-ceilinged cave, lit only by the insufficient emergency spots, red exit signs, a faint glow from the entry area.

He could make out Rebecca's head over the back of her booth, and though she was craning to look behind her, she was immobile, hunched awkwardly forward. Then the sound of whimpering drew his eye down the left side of the alley, where he could dimly see the cluster of people at lane three also hunched over. Mo groped for his cell phone and remembered it was dead and gone.

And then something slashed out of the dark, hit his temple, sent him sprawling across the waxed boards. A dark shape loomed over him and eclipsed the emergency lights as another blow bounced off the back of his head. The explosion shut the world down, everything shuddered and went small and far away. It was Biedermann, swinging a telescoping steel baton. Mo rolled onto his back and put up his hands to intercept it, but instead of a sharp crack he felt Biedermann's knee plunge down on the center of his chest. The baton came across his throat. Mo's empty lungs labored, but the baton was a crushing bar cutting off all air. No blood to his brain. He dipped just under a roiling surface of darkness. He vaguely felt his Glock being ripped away. He heard it clatter on the boards and then Biedermann's voice: "And that tricky little Ruger, let's not forget that." A tug at his ankle and another skittering noise.
Biedermann bowling with guns,
he thought. The instant the pressure left his throat, he gulped burning air and clawed back from his confusion. In slow motion, he raised his hands to strike at Biedermann's face, but instead of contact he vaguely felt his arm gripped hard and then a sharp bite as a band came tight around one wrist. Then the other. The weight came offhis chest and he felt his arms drawn up over his head.

"To complete Rebecca's informative comment," Biedermann panted, "what I'm planning to do is appeal to your consciences in a dramatic fashion."

He dragged Mo by his wrists past Rebecca and Rachel to one of the ball-return carousels at the head of the lanes. Mo pulled his knees up, waited, and when Biedermann knelt to fix the cuffs to the ball return, he straightened his legs hard. Both feet hit Biedermann in the chest. Knocked him upright, put a surprised expression on his face, but nothing more.

Biedermann jammed his booted foot up under Mo's chin so hard he was afraid the jaw would come off. "Always the attitude," he snarled. "Always. Cocksucker. Okay, one more like that and I'm going to fuck you up badly. But first I'll fuck up your girlfriends, right in front of you. So act nice.
Talk
nice. I mean it, Mo."

Biedermann yanked his arms and cinched the cuffs to a flange on the underside of the ball return. He tested their hold and stood up again. "Much better," he said.

He gave Mo a halfhearted boot to the ribs, then stepped into the lane to kick the guns away. The Glock skated almost all the way to the pin box, the Ruger spun into the gutter twenty feet down.

Beidermann rubbed his chest. "You know, that one
hurt.
Rebecca, would
you
tell him to try to be more cooperative? He has such a hard time doing what I ask. It's this fucking attitude problem, maybe he needs some counseling . . .?"

"Mo, please do as he asks. Please." Rebecca's voice had an edge he'd never heard.

"I made some calls on my way down here," Mo gasped. "I knew it was you. I called the State Police, they'll be here any minute. This is a hopeless situation for you. If you need a hostage, take me, let the ' others go. You don't need to hurt anyone else."

Biedermann was crossing behind Mo and didn't answer immediately. Mo twisted his head to see that the big man had gone to the booth where Rebecca and Rachel were tied. He slid onto the seat next to Rachel and put an arm around her shoulders. Muffled weeping continued at the other booth.

"Nah, you didn't call them. I've been monitoring my scanner, and the only trade those boys're seeing tonight is speeders on the Garden State Parkway. And you're wrong about the other thing, too. I
do
need to hurt people tonight."

"What do you want, Erik?" Rebecca asked. "What is it you need from us?"

"Oh, ho! What I really need, what I
needed
anyway, was a
life.
What I need
now
is to tell a very sad story."

"We'll listen. We'll gladly listen. You don't have to—"

She was cut off as Biedermann reached across the table and drove his fist into her face. The smack of impact echoed in the room. Rachel began squealing quietly.

"Save the sensitivity and compassion. It's a little late."

Mo scanned the dark room, looking for opportunities, resources. His vision had adapted enough to see a still figure down in one of the lanes at the far end. Down at the booth at lane three, he could just make out a tight half-circle of heads, six of them, one just a kid. All bent hard over the central table.

The booths were plump vinyl horseshoes, wrapped around small tables that held built-in electronic pin displays and scoring materials. Biedermann sat at one end of the horseshoe of booth nine, wearing a black turtleneck and a pair of shoulder holsters. His right arm was draped around Rachel's shoulders. Rebecca sat across from them on the opposite arm of the U and like Rachel was leaning awkwardly forward against the edge of the metal table, hands and lower arms out of view beneath. Biedermann had cuffed their wrists to the table's pedestal with the same convenient, disposable Flex-Cufs that he'd used on Mo.

Mo tested the straps, then groped at the underside of the ball return. It was hard to feel anything there, with fingers numbing from the cuffs and the useless right index finger Radcliff had broken. He turned to sit awkwardly facing Rebecca, leaving his hands pulled to one side against the ball return. Fifteen feet away from her, and he could do nothing to help.

"Down at lane three," Biedermann called, "we have six good citizens of Fort Lee. There were seven, but one of them was uncooperative and had to be put down. But I won't kill you, Mo. Counting you and the girls, we got nine people here. The plan is that two or three of you will walk out of here alive because I need living witnesses. I need messengers to the world at large. If you're nice, it'll be you and Rebecca and Rachel."

When the people at the far booth heard him, the weeping intensified and a chorus of pleading broke out. It subsided quickly as Biedermann half stood and shined a flashlight in their direction. He sat back down and stroked Rachel's hair. Rachel leaned away, still making the grinding squeal in her throat.

"He means it," Rebecca said. "Survivors are central to his agenda."

"No! He's bullshitting!" Mo called. "He just wants us to be submissive. He—"

Rachel shrieked as Biedermann did something up near her face. A second later something small fell to the floor and rolled unevenly near Mo. In the dim light he could just make out its shape against the floorboards: Rachel's nose ring. Rachel was crying now, snuffling through the blood in her torn nostril.

"Attitude, Mo. Attitude." A glower deepened the shadows on Biedermann's face. "You, too, Rache—stop that racket. There comes a time to acknowledge when you can't fight it. I think you're there now."

Rachel went quiet. She looked out of her mind, pale and frozen, eyes wide with fear, blood running from her nose down her chin. But even in the bad light, Mo could see there was something very different in Rebecca's face, something he'd never seen there before. An emotion her sunny face wasn't well suited to: absolutely unmoving, lips flat and thin, brows level, eyes—what?