The Shadow Box (8 page)

It also struck him, at about this time, that his phone
had developed an echo. And hang-up calls became more
frequent. Sometimes twice an evening.

Chapter 6

And
there
were more bad nights.

After a while, it was getting hard to tell where the
nightmares ended and reality began. In his dreams he'd
see people he knew . . . from Wall Street and from the
neighborhood as well . . . going about their lives as if he
weren't even there. These had been his friends. A few of
the women had been more than that. But now they didn't
want to know him. And he couldn't find out why.

But always, lurking in the background, watching, is this
man who wants to kill him.

Fallon had no idea who he was. The face kept changing.
You'd think it would be Bart Hobbs but it never was. In
one dream it was even his father. In another it was Bron
wyn. Most often, it was a face or faces that he'd never
seen before. But there was never any doubt, in these
dreams, that it was always the same man underneath.

This man wants to kill him but not right away. He wants to destroy him first. See him lose everything. Every friend
he ever had. Every dollar. Get evicted. Slink out of town
with his tail between his legs and find a bridge to sleep
under. That's when this man will come walking up and
start smashing him with a bat. With Michael helpless, bleeding, but still conscious, the man will drag him to a grave and throw him in it. That's when he'll show his real
face. He'll tell Fallon why as he's pouring gasoline over
him. Then he'll strike the match.

“
Listen to me, Michael. This isn't all that unusual.''

“What isn't?”

“Feeling isolated. Feeling that no one wants to know
you. Ask anyone who's ever lost a job.”

“
This is different.
”

“
Of course it is. You've also lost two loved ones, both to violent deaths, and you've been extremely moody ever
since. People are genuinely sympathetic but they just don't
know what to say to you so they keep their distance.''

“What about being blackballed?”

“That's probably nonsense.”

”
They were ducking me, Dr. Grèenberg. I didn't imag
ine it.”

“No, you didn't. But would you hire you? In your pres
ent state of mind?”

”I was a top producer, Doc. These guys would hire
Jack the Ripper for the kind of commissions I generated”

Fallon and Dr. Greenberg agreed on at least one point.
He, Michael T. Fallon, was getting seriously screwed up.
What ultimately made him decide to bail out, however,
that final straw, was something else. The police were look
ing for him after all.

On the evening of the day before he ran, he had walked
to his local dry cleaner. The shop was on Columbus Ave
nue, three blocks south of his apartment and some eight
blocks north of where the encounter with the muggers took
place. The owner's name was Stanley and he was sort of
a friend. For the past two summers, Michael had played
softball with him in Central Park. Stanley brought out his
shirts and took him aside. He asked if Michael, by chance,
“
had anything to do with carving up two jigs a couple of
weeks back.”

“Me? Why are you asking me?”

A grimace, a raised hand. The gesture said don't waste
your breath. Two detectives, he said, have been around
asking if anyone knows a well-dressed white male, middle
thirties, about six-one,
who, at the time, had his right arm
in a cast. The dry cleaner hooked a thumb at the four
inches of plaster sticking out of Michael's sleeve.

“The story,” said Stanley, “is that this white guy,
armed to the teeth, suddenly attacks these two jigs. Or
maybe one's a semi-jig. Anyway, this guy goes after them,
a knife in one hand, this chrome-plated cannon in the
other. For a change, the jigs had nothing. White guy cut
and pistol-whipped the first one, turned the second one's
knee into rubber and then smashed his face in with the
gun butt. Next he grabbed the first one's leg and made
a wish.

“Basketball's loss,” Stanley added.

“This white guy,” the dry cleaner went on, “was about
to finish it, blow them both away, but some woman
screamed and he took off. Cops got there. Two ambu
lances. Cops said it was drug-related, which they always
do, which in this town it almost always is. They figured
that's two less of them on the street and they wouldn't have made a big deal. But the mayor's office got wind
that they never found any drugs or weapons on those two,
said it must have been a racial thing and made a stink.
Fucking liberals. Guy should get a medal. For the time
being, however, the heat's on to find him so he should
probably make himself scarce.”

Fallon took his shirts and left.

So much for eyewitnesses, he grumbled, walking home.
He could understand, he supposed, why they thought the
gun was his. He was the only one seen with it and those
two would hardly admit that he'd taken it from one of them. But he had never actually touched the knife. It
would have the bald one's fingerprints on it. But they must
not have found it. Maybe it was still under that car the
next morning. Maybe someone else found it and kept it.
All the bald one saw of it, he would have said, was when
that crazy white man reached out and cut him with it.

Would the cops have bought all this? White assailant
has a weapon in each hand and still manages to toss these
two around? When one of those hands is injured? Has a
knife but doesn't stick anyone with it? Has a gun but only
uses it as a hammer? Fallon didn't think so. But his tem
ples were pounding all the same.

In his mind, he saw the police appearing at his door,
pushing their way in, going straight to his freezer. He saw
himself in handcuffs. Mobs of reporters in a feeding
frenzy.
Stalked by tragedy, Fallon nephew snaps
. . .
Turns
vigilante . . . Next on ‘Current Affair.''
He saw the Rever
end Al Sharpton leading a march to his apartment house.
He saw two bedridden thugs, their legs in traction, point
ing fingers at him. And then telling their friends where
he lives.

He reached 82nd at Columbus and started across. A car turned the corner, no headlights, tires squealing. It barely
missed him. The driver lowered his head and kept going.
It's nothing, he told himself. Happens every day. But by
the time he reached his building, he was looking over his
shoulder. He saw that, behind him, a man had rounded
the corner and then stopped. Ahead, in a car double-parked
at the curb, he saw the glow of a cigarette. Even the
doorman was looking at him strangely.

He walked through the lobby to the elevator. The doors
opened as he approached. A man stepped out, Fallon
didn't know him, he didn't live in this building, but Fallon
thought he saw a flash of recognition in his eyes. The man
looked away and hurried on.

Fallon stepped into the elevator, then hesitated. An ele
vator was a perfect trap. They could be waiting as it
opened. He took the stairs instead. Reaching his floor, he
found no one on the landing, no one in the corridor, but
it struck him that they might already be inside.

Michael
. . .
don't do this to yourself.

He knew that he was as near to mindless panic as he had ever been. He forced himself to stop, take a minute
to settle down. He found his keys, worked one lock, then
the other. He pushed the door open and, on a sudden
impulse, threw his shirts into the middle of the room.

No one shot at them. No one leaped on them thinking
they were him. He felt his color rising. Embarrassment
more than fear. He shut the door quickly and walked
through to his kitchen. He opened the freezer. The Colt
was still there in its Weight Watchers box. He pulled it
out. The cold steel stuck to his fingertips. He dropped it
and it fell to the floor. He used a dish towel to pick it up,
then stepped to a window to see if that double-parked car
was still there. It was. He rushed back to bolt his door.

He sat, watching the door, the heavy Colt across his
lap. If the police did come, they would knock. They would
show identification. But if anyone else came
...
if they
tried to force the door or pick the lock
...
he would . . .

“
Michael. . . make a long story short.''

“
I fell asleep. The next morning, I ran.''

His telephone woke him that morning. He answered and
heard a click. That click pushed him over the edge. He would get far away from this city. He would go to Cape
Cod. He tapped out the number of a hotel that he knew
in Hyannis and booked a room for an indefinite stay.
Twenty minutes after that he was gunning his car up
the ramp of his parking garage. A car with two men still
sat at the curb. Fallon blew past it. He lost it in traffic on
Central Park West.