Time Out of Mind (37 page)
Authors: John R. Maxim
Tags: #Horror, #General, #Psychological, #Suspense, #Memory, #Thrillers, #Fiction, #Time Travel
your sandwich?”
“
No. No, thank you.” He looked at the soup, now cold, and the sandwiches. For some reason he expected cheese and sherry but he didn't want that either. It was odd. He
could actually taste the sherry. Had he had some? Oh yes. Downstairs. A while ago in the study. Listening to piano music? No. Just talking. About Bridey Murphy and some
things.
“
You look exhausted,” she told him. “Why don't you
get out of your things.”
He looked at the twin beds.
“
Jonathan?”
He blinked again. “Do you mind if we move these up
against each other?”
“
No,” she said. “Of course I don't.”
Raymond Lesko's mood was not improving.
He'd made one slow pass on foot down the south side
of Seventy-seventh Street, enough to determine that the old man's car had either been removed from Lexington Avenue by some flunky or towed away by the city, that no lights
burned in Gwen Leamas's second-floor apartment, and that
a man wearing a knitted ski hat, probably the kind that pulls
down over the face, was sitting low in a dark car double-
parked just down the street from her door.
For an hour now, he'd been waiting for something to happen. For Corbin and the dame to show up. For the guy
in the car to make a move toward the foyer of her building.
Lesko's feet were getting more numb by the minute. The
time, he guessed, his eyes being too tired to focus on his
watch in the dim light of the doorway he'd chosen, was about ten o'clock.
He was sure that the guy in the ski hat had not seen him
except when he made that first pass. His head never turned
to see where Lesko was going, which meant, of course, that
the guy probably didn't know from Lesko. It was always
possible that the guy didn't know from Corbin, either, but
there were not many reasons Lesko could think of why a
guy would sit in an unheated car on a night that would
freeze a witch's tit with his head facing number 145 and
being careful to keep it no higher than the headrest of his
seat.
How about that he's not a shooter but he's just muscle
out to put a scare into Corbin and maybe slap him around
a while. Not likely. You never send muscle in numbers
smaller than two against anyone, least of all against Corbin,
who could probably do some slapping around of his own.
are
two of them. The one
who won the coin toss went and worked the lock of 145's
front door and is waiting warm and cozy inside, maybe
even up in the apartment.
were so inclined, because by the time he finished messing
with the front door himself he would surely hear a tap of
the horn from the car warning whoever was inside that
something funny was happening. His other choice, then,
was to wait until the guy inside came out. That wasn't any
good because he would only come out when he decided to
give up on Corbin for the night and that could be hours
from now. Lesko would be too stiff by then to do anything but watch them drive away. Maybe there was a better idea.
Maybe he should just leave a message and go home.
to Gwen Leamas's kitchen. There, he opened her refrigerator and with a gloved hand drew out a quart of milk and
took several swallows from the plastic bottle. He replaced
it and retraced his steps to his position in the living room
near the entrance hall. He sat there, adjusting the small steel
crowbar that was tucked in his belt. He was a big man,
almost Lesko's size but with several inches less girth. The
ladder-back chair creaked as he moved. Garvey had already paced the floor of the hallway and part of the living room,
testing it for squeaks as he put his weight on it and making a mental note of those spots to avoid when he knew that
Corbin and his woman were coming up the stairs. With any
luck it would be quick and quiet. He had already located
Gwen Leamas' s valuables, such as they were. He would
take them when it was done and make just enough of a
mess so the burglary would look kosher to the cops when
they found those two with their heads bashed in. Given the
time, he would jimmy the door whose single lock he had
already picked, thanking the woman in his heart for being
a limey and for not living in New York long enough to
know that four locks are better than two. Used to be everyone had just one lock. Now, with the way things are going,
people are going to start laying minefields in their hallways
before long. Got to get out of this town. Go out to Colo
rado. To Aspen, where there's lots of money and where the
only thing they lock up is their skis. Or to Los Angeles,
where the real big houses all have television cameras and
Dobermans so Charles Manson shouldn't come back but
where all the littler houses just have Lhasa apsos and Shih
Tzus which you just throw into the fridge while you pick
up some walking-around money.
Three short horn blasts outside. .
Three?
What the hell is three supposed to mean?
Ed Garvey listened for sounds on the hallway stairs,
heard nothing, then crossed to a window facing the street
and looked down without disturbing the curtains. He could
see the car but nothing in it past the steamed-up windshield.
Jerk! How are you supposed to see anything, you let the
windshield get like that?
Three more quick taps of the horn. And now a white
handkerchief wiping a twelve-inch circle in front of the
driver's face. The sound of an engine starting and a belch
of white smoke from the exhaust.
Garvey let his face show, questioningly, at the second-
floor window. In answer. In answer, he saw an arm at the
driver's side waving him to the street.
Raymond Lesko rolled up the window, then eased himself into the back seat while pulling erect the unconscious body
of the man in the ski hat. His name was Coletti, he'd acknowledged, along with a few other particulars. That was
between the time Coletti told this clown asking directions
to get lost and the time Lesko slammed his elbow several
times against Coletti’s jaw and temple. The gun muzzle
Lesko stuck against his ear had also encouraged him to start
his motor both for the sake of Lesko's comfort and to com
municate some urgency to his friend upstairs. Lesko sat low
in the seat and waited. In less than a minute, Ed Garvey's shadow appeared in the doorway of number 145. He hesitated there for a few seconds, surveying the street, before
shaking his head in confused annoyance and stepping
quickly to the passenger-side door of Coletti's car and
opening it to slide in. Halfway he stiffened, almost levitat
ing, as his peripheral vision took in the fist and the black
metal cylinder in it that were extended toward his face.
“
Shut the door,” Lesko told him. “You grow up in a
barn?”
Garvey hesitated, weighing his chances of rolling back
out to the sidewalk and out of the line of fire.
“
Go for it.” Lesko shrugged. “But make up your
mind.”
Garvey sagged slightly and took a breath. Then he pulled
his remaining leg inside and closed the door. He peered at Coletti, noticing for the first time that Coletti' s eyes were
closed.
“
What'd you do to him?” he asked.
“
Nap time,” Lesko told him. ”I want to see both your
hands flat on the dash.”
“
Who are you?”
Lesko pressed the .38 into his neck. “You don't want to
show me your hands? You want to make me nervous?”
Garvey stretched both arms forward.
“
What I'm going to do now, Ed, is I'm going to reach
over and frisk you. You're not even going to twitch,
right?”
Garvey nodded. Lesko, his gun barrel still pressing into
Garvey’ s flesh, used his left hand to pat the other man down, removing first the small heavy crowbar, then a set of lock picks in a vinyl case, then a long thin screwdriver he carried in his inside coat pocket.
“
Now lean forward, Ed,” Lesko suggested. “I'm going
to see what you got in back. Then you take your right hand
and you pull out your wallet and you just hold it where I
can reach for it.”
Garvey complied silently.
“
No weapon, Ed?” Lesko did not really expect to find a gun or knife. Not on Garvey as long as he was working
a burglary. You can plea-bargain a burglary. But not if
you're carrying. Anyway, Coletti had already surrendered the small automatic he carried in an ankle holster and the
one under his seat that he was holding for Garvey.
“
No,” Garvey answered.
Lesko twisted his front sight painfully into the soft flesh
under Garvey's ear. “That was already a fib, Ed. This here
screwdriver's a weapon. This here jimmy is a weapon.
Here. I'll show you.” Lesko slammed its hard edge down
across Garvey's left collarbone. Garvey screamed and
lurched forward. Lesko could see his right hand grasping
the injured part. Lesko could not see Garvey's left hand but
he knew its fingers were frantically searching for the pistol
under Coletti's seat.
“
Any time you're ready, Ed. You want to sit up straight
please?”
“
What do you want?” Garvey gasped.
”
I think you were going to hit somebody up there, Ed,.
I think you were either going to hit two people with this
jimmy or you were going to stick them with this screw
driver.”
. .
“
You're crazy.”
“
Do I have to get your attention again, Ed?”
“
No.” Garvey flinched.
”
I mean, here I am calling you by your name, which
means Coletti here told me a couple of things, right?”
Garvey said nothing. But he crossed his left arm up to
protect his other shoulder.
Then you're up there for at least a fucking hour. I honk
the horn and you come down but you come down empty.
The lady didn't have at least a couple of rings you could
stick in your pocket?”
Garvey shook his head.
Your wallet here says you work for Beckwith Realty.
It says you're in Security. Coletti says he's in Security too.
Someday maybe we'll all get together and have a good
laugh about that.”
We were checking out something, that's all. We heard there's a dame lives here and she and her boyfriend been
working one of our hotels.”
”
0h, I see, Ed. That explains everything.”
Garvey winced again.
“
Here's what I want you to do, Ed. I want you to open
your window about four inches and then I want you to stick
both your hands out through it just past the wrists.” Lesko
jabbed him. “Do that right now, Ed.”
