The Deed (44 page)

Fumbling with the lock, he dropped the keys and stopped, leaning heavily on the wall, forcing himself to concentrate. The silent, dead air of the stairwell felt like a judgment.

He’d waited at the rendezvous point, in an agony of indecision, for nearly an hour.

Jason had no idea what to do next—who to call, where to go. His buzzing had gone unanswered at Amanda’s apartment, and so he’d returned home partly on the off chance she’d headed there instead, partly as a logical base of operations for whatever was to come.

He clearly couldn’t call the police without telling them everything—and if he did that, and she really
had
escaped but had simply been delayed, all their effort would be wasted. On the other hand, if they’d caught her, her life was surely in danger.

Pushing through the door, he set the briefcase, unopened, on the coffee table. He felt a pang of guilt, acknowledging that a curious part of him still wanted to check out the document—what could it hurt at this point? But it would have been the worst kind of betrayal. He’d already resolved not to so much as look at the damn deed until Amanda was safe, a promise the harried last hour had hardened into a blood oath. He wound his way to his phone, where he saw the blinking message light.

He approached warily, homing in on the tiny beacon and pressed Play, bracing himself for the colossal absurdity of the mundane message sure to follow.

“We know you want this all to work out between us,” said the caller, and Jason gritted his teeth, recognizing the voice. “You know what we’re looking for—bring it over to the Brooklyn Bridge at seven o’clock tonight if you want to make an exchange. At the underpass at Pearl Street, on the north side. Come alone or you’re going home alone.”

Silence.

Jason sat down heavily in the chair by the phone, twirling the pen he’d grabbed off the phone pad, knowing he wouldn’t need to use it; the key information was burned into his forebrain like a brand. His eyes wandered to the table where his briefcase sat, plump with promise. So close…the goddamn deed.

Would they actually harm her, if he showed up with the police? Would they kill her? Really?
I have no idea how to deal with this,
Jason realized. From what his movies had taught him, gangsters used acts of violence mostly so the
threat
of violence would have teeth. On the other hand, lots of people got shot and killed every day. And there was a hell of a lot of money at stake here, potentially, which surely multiplied the danger.

It was amazing, he thought suddenly, just how laughably easy his entire life had been right up to this point.

He stood up and clapped his hands together, trying to call himself to action.

How much did they know? They must have found out about the deed through Amanda’s father, obviously. He wondered if the man knew, or cared, that he’d put his own daughter’s life at risk. But did they somehow not understand that the deed wasn’t transferable—that it was only useful to him? Or did they want to hold it hostage for cash, extort some kind of concession, sell it to a third party?

Maybe they could be reasoned with. There were plenty of millions to go around, if all went as planned; logic screamed that they ought to be able to strike some sort of devil’s bargain. But maybe that only worked for small fortunes you could get your brain around. Maybe a pearl beyond price naturally inspires treachery without bounds. It was suddenly clear, he thought, how curses attach themselves to priceless objects—by their very nature they attract the world’s greediest desperadoes, and the violence they bring with them, like flies to the zapper.

He checked his watch, and realized with despair that it was already time to start heading to the rendezvous, so as not to risk getting stuck in afternoon traffic. But still, cops or no cops? Was this a call to reason, or to heroism?

Of course he had to go to the police, and of course he couldn’t, and both absolutes were so strong Jason was dizzy with the dissonance. One hand was reaching for the phone, the other physically restraining it. He looked over at the briefcase again, tried to rack his brain for some kind of plan.

“I am in
so
far over my fuckin’ head,” he said aloud.

THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE
, 7:00
P.M.

The giant pilings rose like skyscrapers of their own from the muck of the East River; the mighty span blundered halfway onto the island before deigning to circle back and attenuate down to street level. For a hundred years, New Yorkers had walked on water right here, watched square-riggers slice through the whitecaps below; seen magnificent fireworks outshine, for seconds only, the dazzling city lights; walked and driven across to see the Dodgers take the field at Ebbets. The southern, Brooklyn-bound side of the bridge still bloomed with commuter taillights, but here on the Manhattan-bound side the traffic was much reduced; only an occasional car came along to disturb their wait.

The men were outside the car, but keeping a watchful eye on Amanda, sullen in the backseat. “What if he brings cops?” said Vinnie, leaning on the railing.

Freddie, pacing up by the hood, shot him a deprecating stare. “Would you?”

Vinnie shrugged and fell silent, finally, and ashed his cigarette into the side of the railing. It was starting to get chilly; he wished he hadn’t left his coat in the car, but it seemed stupid and weak to go back to retrieve it. He looked over anyway, saw Amanda sitting still in the middle of the backseat, a bitter frown spoiling her hot little mug.
Gotta keep an eye on that one.

Freddie had no such worries; he’d already spoken to Amanda alone, and that was that. He was quite certain there’d be no trouble from her end—she would not be leaving the car until he told her to. People were quite reasonable, he’d always found, once things were put in perspective for them.

Son of a bitch pulled a fast one on me,
he thought again bitterly, as he let his gaze splay out over all the possible approaches, watching for his man.
It won’t happen again.
He’d chosen this spot carefully: lots of exits, and virtually no chance of being surprised. When Jason appeared, strolling down Pearl Street right on schedule, Freddie saw him coming from blocks away.

“Showtime,” he said quietly.

Jason saw the car up on the bridge and the two men beside it long before he could make out their faces, but their identity was never in doubt. No sign of Amanda…in the car, he could only hope, though he couldn’t see through the windows yet. The off-ramp, reached from a U-turn at the end of the bridge, crossed back above Pearl Street, down which he was walking, and sloped gently back down toward the East River, pouring out its traffic into the city and onto the FDR Drive. He tried to record the whole scene: About twenty feet from where the two men stood by the car, an iron stairway led down to the sidewalk in front of him. Either he’d be going up or they’d be coming down.

You’re a salesman,
he reminded himself in a mostly vain effort to calm his nerves.
So sell this thing. Get them to deal.
He glanced down at the briefcase and tried not to think about what a tough sell it was.

Jason stopped at the foot of the stairs, unsure whether to climb up and join them.

“Where’s Amanda?” he said aloud.

“She’s up here,” said Freddie, nodding sideways at the car. “Come on up.”

“I want to see her,” he said boldly.

The man grinned, nodded to the other, who stepped back and obligingly opened the car door. Amanda emerged bedraggled and beautiful and furious; his heart leaped at the sight. Everything he wanted was right within his grasp, if he could only sort out how to secure it.

“Come on up,” the man repeated, a slight shift in intonation indicating that this time it was an order.

“That’s far enough,” said Freddie, when Jason had set foot on the bridge, now twenty feet from the car. “Now show it to us.”

Jason set the case down and unlatched it, reached inside and pulled out the tattered brown leather bag. Holding it in one hand, he looked up, a question, but Freddie shook his head, not yet satisfied. Jason reached in reluctantly and carefully withdrew the ancient parchment, shielding it with his body from the ripping breeze off the water.

“Why don’t you let her go?” said Jason. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“That’s right, you’re not,” said Vinnie from the far side of the car.

“Listen,” Jason replied, gently pinning the parchment against his chest with one hand, not looking at it. “Do you even know what this is? It’s useless to anybody but myself and her, I swear it.”

“Put it back in the bag,” said Freddie.

“Let’s work something out,” said Jason, keeping his eyes on Freddie as he obediently replaced the parchment in the bag and latched it in the briefcase. “She and I are the only people in the world this is valuable to.”

“You still talking? Toss it over.”

Jason paused. “How do I know you’ll let her go?”

Freddie laughed at this. “You don’t. Now toss it the
fuck
over.”

Jason scrambled furiously for a solution, some alternative to giving up his bargaining chip. It was impossible to read Amanda’s expression from this distance, but he couldn’t give up this easily.

“Not until you let her go,” he said brazenly.

Freddie looked amazed. “You hearin’ this unbelievable shit?” he said to Vinnie, then turned back around. “This isn’t a game, you little dipshit.”

Jason laid out his palms in what he hoped would be a placating gesture. “All I want—”

“No, no more talking,” said Freddie, grabbing Amanda with one hand and reaching into an interior pocket of his jacket with the other, drawing out a gun. “I’m going to be as clear as I can. You’re going to toss that bag the
fuck
over,” Freddie continued calmly, “or I start blowing off fingers.”

The gun was a machine Jason had seen in operation ten bazillion times, all of them fictional, and now it was the most real thing he had ever seen, an inescapable black hole at the center of his vision—he literally couldn’t wrench his gaze away.

“You and I both know,” Freddie was saying in slow motion, pinning Amanda’s hand to the rail in front of him, “that after I have to shoot off one of this lady’s thumbs, you’re going to get religion fast and toss that bag over here.” He smiled broadly. “So we’re really just haggling over how many fingers it’s gonna take, aren’t we?”

Jason saw the raw terror in Amanda’s eyes, and spared a glance at Vinnie, who was nervous as a cat, shifting from foot to foot. Now he didn’t know
what
to do. Two or three odd cars had drifted past them down the off-ramp in the last few minutes, ignoring them absolutely, and Jason knew there was no help coming.
Never a damn cop around when you need one, is there?

“If you could just please, please listen to me for a—”

“I’m going to give you a standing five count,” Freddie continued smoothly, unperturbed. “That’ll give you lots of time to think about what you want to do. But if I get to ‘five,’ the very next sound you hear is going to be a gunshot.”

“One…”