West 47th (24 page)

The sun hadn't yet gotten to the dew deep down. He was soaked to the knees. He paused mid-meadow to look skyward. The moon was a leftover piece of tissue.

The barn was large and lonely. No one visited it anymore. The elements were having their way with it, peeling its coats, bleaching it, promoting rot and rust in places. A dying barn. Its roof looked healthy, though, Mitch noticed. That would help prolong its stand.

He'd intended to use one of the exterior sides for the shooting, but now it occurred to him that considering Maddie's handicap it would be more prudent to do it inside where there were walls all around.

He went in. He saw right away the roof actually wasn't all that good. Sunlight was shafting through it in numerous places. No loft. It wasn't that kind of barn. It had high rafters. An owl was asleep in one. Bats were hung from others.

On the left was some farm machinery past use. A hay rake with its big, curved intimidating prongs. Next to it, a hay baler that looked as though it resented obsolescence and would like nothing better than to compact something or someone.

There were other abandoned items. A lot of rat droppings. Mitch heard the scuttling of mice claws on the wooden floor, hornets whizzing.

He returned to the house for Maddie. She had the weapons and everything in a plastic shopping bag that she refused to give up. She slung it over her shoulder and followed Mitch across the meadow.

She'd been in the barn many times when she was sighted but not since. She had a vague recollection of it. Outstanding was the time Uncle Straw had come as close as a trouser leg of being bitten by a copperhead there. The snake had sprung and gotten its fangs snagged in the woolen fabric.

Mitch tried to move the old potbelly cast iron stove that was in one corner. It was too heavy but he outwitted it, disassembled it and put its manageable components back together where he wanted it, out in the open before the rear well.

He counted off ten paces from the stove and placed at that spot the enamel-topped kitchen table with one leg missing and another wobbly. He covered the grimy surface of the table with some newspaper he'd brought along. Laid out the pistols, clips and cartridges.

“You're too good to me,” Maddie remarked.

“Just trying to stay even,” Mitch said, which made the next turn with those words hers. “Hold out your open hand.”

She did.

He slapped the Beretta into it.

“Is it ready to shoot?” she asked.

“No.”

“So why are you giving it to me?”

“So you can load it. A shooter should know how.”

“Give me a clip.”

“They're on the table.”

She found one. “It's empty.”

“Load it.”

She fumbled around before she found the carton of nine-millimeter cartridges. She sure hated fumble. She removed a round from the carton and felt it for shape and size.

Like a tiny, hard penis, she thought, and then, upon second thought, like a not so tiny clitoris. She often thanked the power in charge of handing out such equipment that she hadn't been given a shy, find-me-if-you-can sort.

Mitch told her how to load the clip. A couple of times he was tempted to guide her fingers but knew she'd be miffed if he did.

Finally, she had in all the clip would hold. Fifteen rounds. “Now I put it into the handle, right?”

“The butt.”

“Okay, the butt.”

She inserted the clip partway.

“Ram it in,” Mitch told her.

“That's what the actress said to the bishop,” she quipped. She rammed the clip into place.

Mitch showed her how to break open the barrel of the Beretta so a sixteenth round could be put into the chamber. She did it the second time without his help. “Now?” she asked.

“You ready?”

“In which direction do you suggest I shoot?”

“Wherever except at me.” Letting her shoot the first load on her own would teach her a lot, Mitch figured. She might even want to quit after a taste of it.

She held the Beretta slack-armed, didn't have much of a grip on it. She pointed it at anything and pulled the trigger. Kept it pulled as though that was her only option.

The pistol nearly jolted itself out of her hand. As the sixteen rounds fired in rapid succession her aim was snapped further upwards. The last couple of rounds splintered boards at the peak of the roof.

The owl fluffed itself and turned its back on the disturbance below.

The bats tightened their talons.

The mice scurried to the fields.

Maddie was astonished. She hadn't expected such ferocity. It was as though the Beretta was a lethal infuriated creature on the end of her arm, one that would do her bidding. She liked the smell of the exploded gunpowder, the way the concussion caused her ears to ring.

Now Mitch taught her. The importance of a solid stance, rigid arm, a tight two-hand grip. The advantage of holding her breath and squeezing the Beretta's trigger rather than jerking it.

She improved with each load. The cast iron stove became her target, her adversary. Her sense of direction was uncanny. Mitch spun her around several times to try to confuse her, but she brought her aim to the stove and fired at it.

Her hits rang and ricocheted. Eventually, almost as many hits as misses.

The smoke from so many explosions layered in the air in the barn. The carton of ammunition for the Beretta was depleted. Mitch told her it was.

Again, she'd astounded him, he thought, and again he'd enjoyed it. His blind love, on her way to being a sharpshooter. However, enough was enough. They should go out to the bluff, its mossy spot, do anything to one another. The proposal didn't get out of his mouth because …

“Now,” she said, extending her arm, “hand me the Glock.”

Chapter 18

“The patient's name.”

“Kalali.” He spelled it for her.

“First name?”

How many Kalalis could there be in this hospital, Mitch thought. “Roudabeth,” he replied.

“Are you a relative?”

“Brother-in-law.”

“Her condition is improved.”

“How much improved? Is she conscious?”

“All I'm allowed to tell you is her condition is improved and that she's no longer in intensive care. For anything else you'll have to speak to her doctor.”

“What room is she in now?”

The middle-aged woman with the teenage hairstyle and nearly no chin had already caused her computer to escape from Kalali. She took a persevering New York breath and punched it up again. “Room eleven eighteen east,” she informed Mitch in a tone that conveyed that was the last he'd get from her.

He gave her a New York ambiguous thanks and went from patient information to the last-minute gift and other stuff shop off the lobby. Not especially to buy anything, only to sort of hyphenate what might be his next move.

He hadn't intended on being there at New York University Hospital this morning. On his way downtown he'd admitted how much he wasn't looking forward to another day of poking around 47th. At practically that same instant someone vacated a taxi right there and Mitch climbed in. He'd allowed his intuition to tell the driver where to go.

All along he'd been hoping for a conscious Mrs. Kalali. She'd seen the swifts, might be able to make them from the police photo files. At least she could describe them. Mitch had kept up on her condition, phoned the hospital to inquire twice each day, even during the weekend from Straw's. Each time he'd been told there was no change.

But now on Monday morning apparently there'd been a change. Mrs. Kalali was improved. That might mean she was no longer unconscious, perhaps well enough to talk.

He put back the butterscotch Life Savers he was about to buy and went out to the elevator. The up one he chose made a lot of stops. By the time he got off on eleven he was disguised in an attitude of belonging where he was and knowing where he was going.

Everyone at the nursing station of 11 East was busy. Mitch didn't stop and wasn't stopped. Room 1118 was at the far end of the corner. A private room with its door closed.

Maybe, Mitch thought, Mrs. Kalali was being given a sponge bath or was using a bedpan. He prepared himself for any such encounter, would do a medically blasé face, say he was Dr. Laughton, beg pardon and retreat.

He went in.

Mrs. Kalali was face up, eyes closed, head bandaged like a turban. Oxygen leaders were clipped to her nostrils. The only animated thing was the registering of her vital signs on the monitor above her bed.

She might be only sleeping, Mitch thought, might respond if he called out her name. He went close to the side of the bed, stood over her. She appeared insubstantial, still in the throes of trauma. Would it be dangerous to startle her? He'd arouse her gently with a whisper, was about to when the toilet was flushed in the room's private bath.

A young man came out. Preoccupied with himself, the hang of his suit jacket, buttoning it, correcting his shirtsleeves. He was fair-haired and somewhat on the pretty side. When he became aware of Mitch his composure deserted him.

Mitch was experienced with awkward moments. “Has she come to?” he asked with impersonal interest.

“Not yet.”

“But anytime now, so the doctor told me.”

The young man acted like someone being cornered. He evaded Mitch's eyes and left without another word.

Mitch wasn't about to lose him, whoever he was. He followed him down the corridor and into the same elevator. They didn't speak during the descent. Mitch allowed the young man to exit first, then tagged along behind him to the hospital cafeteria there on the ground floor. At this morning hour all but a few tables were vacant.

The young man took a carton of chocolate milk and a plastic-wrapped egg salad sandwich to a table next to the window. Mitch got an iced tea and closed in, chose the table next over.

Outside on practically the same level was the East River Drive. The hurrying traffic on it was distracting, a lot of taxi yellow. The river beyond contaminated-looking.

Continuing to avoid with his eyes, the young man said: “You're the police, aren't you?”

Mitch did a shrug that could have been taken for a yes.

“I knew you'd be showing up about now.”

“Why didn't you run?” A good prompt, Mitch figured.

“Why should I? I didn't do anything.”

“Depends.”

“What do you mean depends?”

“Eat your sandwich.”

“I intend to.”

“Tell me about you and Mrs. Kalali.”

“Nothing to tell.”

“Why were you up there with her?”

“Just looking in on her.”

“A concerned visit.”

“That's all.”

“Your first time here probably. You been here before?”

“Could I see some police identification? I refuse to say anything more until you show me identification.”

Mitch complied, went into his jacket pocket, but, as though diverted by a sudden realization, he brought nothing out. “I just now made you,” he said. “You work girls at a bust-out bar on 43rd.”

“Not me.”

“I'm sure of it.”

“That's ridiculous.”

“What name do you go by?”

“Roger Addison.”

A dubious grunt. “That's not a real name.”

“It most certainly is.” Roger presented his driver's license.

Mitch pretended to examine it suspiciously front and back. “Guess you only resemble the guy who works that bust-out,” he conceded.

“It so happens I work at Saks.”

Mitch let him suck up some of the chocolate milk before telling him: “You're in deep shit Roger.”

“I didn't do anything.”

“Tell me about you and Mrs. Kalali.”

“Like I said, there's nothing to tell.”

“If she comes out of the coma there'll be plenty to tell, won't there?”

An indifferent shrug from Roger. His flushed complexion didn't go along with it.

“Maybe what you're hoping is she doesn't come out of it,” Mitch said.

“That's not true.”

“Then why are you hanging around here claiming you're family so you can sit bedside at all hours?”

An accurate assumption.

“I've been keeping a sort of vigil,” Roger admitted. “I want to be the first person she sees when she comes conscious.”

Mitch could relate to that.

“Besides,” Roger went on, “one of the doctors told me it's possible that things said to her may be registering.”

“So you've been having one-sided conversations.”

“It's frustrating.”

“I'll bet. What is it you say to her?”

“Mainly I want her to understand that what happened wasn't my fault. There wasn't supposed to be any violence.” Roger dropped his head and remained downcast for a long moment. He came up with: “I should have a lawyer, shouldn't I?”

“Can you afford a good one?”

“Not really.”

“You claim you didn't do anything.”

“I didn't.”

“Tell me what you did do and I'll tell you if it's anything.”

“I have to be at work at noon,” Roger stalled.

“That gives us a couple of hours. Is your story longer than that?” Mitch threw in a smile because it was so evident Roger could use it.

Roger began on the sandwich. Took small bites and chewed slowly. Each swallow brought him closer to disclosure. He had such a need to vent that once he opened up it came pouring out.

He told how he'd met Mrs. Kalali at Saks. He hadn't taken up with her for what he could get out of her. At least that wasn't his only reason and, after a while, as they became more involved, he hardly gave a thought to what he might gain. She was dreadfully unhappy. Her husband was vilely abusing her. There was such satisfaction in being meaningful to her, Roger said. Besides, he had always been physically attracted to mature women.