19 Purchase Street (61 page)

Arrange that, Lady Caroline, wherever you are Please?

By then four security men and Sweet had already reached the point where the door had fallen. They had correctly read all the footprints as a deliberate attempt to confuse and therefore thought the noise of the door had probably also been meant to throw them off. Still, while they were in this area they might as well give it a thorough going over, Sweet told them.

They spread out and moved down the hallways of that southwest corner, methodically searching all possible places, closing in gradually on the morgue. Within five minutes they had eliminated every other room.

Two of the men now came into the morgue with their rifles at the ready.

Sweet took one step in and quickly scanned the room. It was where, in the old days, meat had been butchered and kept, Sweet guessed. The concrete floor and especially the big old wooden icebox with its eight green painted doors made him think that. From the size of the doors, only two feet by one and a half feet, it certainly appeared they gave access to individual compartments that weren't very deep.

Gainer was in the third one up on the left. Trying to be as still as death. He knew they were out there. Surely they would open the door, grab his feet and yank him out. Not that it mattered, but it was going to be embarrassing, being found cowering, especially inside such a thing. Maybe they wouldn't bother to pull him out, just find him, kill him in there, close the door on him. In that way make it into a funny old anecdote they could remember and retell for years:

“…
there he was in the morgue cooler all laid out ready to die, so, of course, we accommodated him!”

They'd get a lot of mileage out of it.

Gainer tried to get his mind off them by concentrating on the rack-like platform directly above him. It was identical to the one he was on. Constructed of evenly spaced hardwood slats, no doubt to allow the cold air to get in to the underside of a corpse. A far cry from that modern morgue in Zurich, Gainer thought. Attached to each of the slatted racks were wheels that fitted down into the grooves of steel tracks so that the racks could be rolled out or in with little effort. When Gainer had climbed up to where he now was he'd had trouble keeping the rack from rolling forward. It was that movable. Once he got stretched out on it, the rack stayed in place, but the slightest shift on his part could start it rolling. The rear wall of the cooler was only a couple of inches from the top of his head. It was metal-lined, as were all the other interior surfaces, and there was a metal container at the base of the rear wall for big hunks of ice.

A coldness passed through Gainer from toe to chin. It was beyond a chill, more like an animated gust that could have its own way with anything. As though not yet done with Gainer, it wound under, over and around him. The back of his neck shivered from ear to ear.

A draft, he thought. Probably made by his own fear. However, if as Leslie had said, there were lots of spirits hanging around Ellis, this old icebox for the dead must have a gang of them.

Sweet's voice.

Gainer couldn't make out what was being said.

Sweet was impatient, extremely upset. What was supposed to have been an easy pick-up of cash and a couple of quick killings had turned into a shitty problem. This fucking island, Sweet thought, this fucking island had complicated things and before long, night would add its disadvantage. Well, no matter. He couldn't go back to Hine with nothing but excuses. He'd been right about that falling door being a diversion. He shouldn't have wasted time on it or any of these rooms.

Sweet turned abruptly, shoved two of the men aside and strode down the hall away from the morgue. He was bound for the buildings on the north section of Ellis, where he believed Gainer and Leslie would more likely be. And the money. He didn't order the men to follow, just assumed they would.

All but one did.

He hung back from the others, and when they were far enough ahead and out of sight around a corner he went back to the morgue. He was the man Gainer and Leslie had overheard in the brick passageway, the money-hungry one who was supporting either the habit of a spinner or a shylock. He'd known the morgue was a morgue the moment he'd seen it, and if his need hadn't bit his tongue he would have said so. He'd suspected those little icebox doors that appeared so incapable of hiding anyone, hadn't shared this suspicion because it would have meant also sharing the ten or twenty large bonus. Now, he'd have it all.

He remained quiet. Just outside the entrance to the morgue. Listened, heard nothing. By moving his head gradually to the right, the vertical edge of the entranceway revealed more and more of the room to him, and eventually his view included the green, wooden, floor-to-ceiling icebox. All eight of its doors. He'd thought he might catch the man and the woman in the act of climbing out, but now that he saw the doors were unchanged, he doubted his theory. No reason for them to stay in there when they believed they were in the clear.

Less cautious but with automatic rifle at the ready, he entered the room, approached the morgue cooler, jerked open one of its lower doors. Saw the slats of the empty rack. Crouched and took a closer look. Saw all the way in.

He pulled open one of the doors second from the bottom.

Nothing in there.

And then, third door up on the left.

Gainer had to time it perfectly. He used the rear wall to push off with his hands and send the rack rolling suddenly forward. It flew out the open door, and the man caught only a glimpse of the soles of Gainer's sneakers before the end edge of the hardwood rack smashed across the bridge of his nose.

Knocked the man staggering back.

His finger on the trigger of his rifle was included in his involuntary clutching at the pain. He pulled off a burst of shots that were wild and pocked across the ceiling.

He lurched sideways, grabbed at the air as though it might support him, tripped himself, went down hard with his rifle clattering under him on the cement floor. He at once sat up because he knew staying down would be death. He lifted his head as though it weighed more than all the rest of him, shook his head from side to side, and the blood that was streaming from both his nostrils splattered left and right.

By then Gainer was standing nearby with his ASP in hand. It appeared the man would give in to unconsciousness. Which would be better for them both, Gainer thought. The man rolled over onto his side, braced himself and managed to slowly rise up onto one knee. He tried to recover the rifle, groped around for it, finally got it. He was bringing his eyes and the muzzle of the rifle up to Gainer when Gainer killed him.

The racks of the morgue cooler were seven feet long. Gainer pulled out one all the way. He propped it against the wall and with its slats it became a ladder, providing easy access to those high casement windows. Gainer climbed up, pushed one of the windows open. He dropped the automatic rifle out to the ground and then himself.

He immediately looked for Leslie. There, in the weed growth by the west seawall, was where he'd last seen her, but apparently she wasn't there now. He went around the corner to the south side, moved in spurts, kept low and close to the foundation of the buildings, and when he'd gone about halfway along the south side—there she was. Using a contest of tangles between wild rose and greenbriar for cover. The relief Gainer felt at the sight of her told him how worried he'd been. He crawled into the thicket to her. They hugged. A short one and then a longer, tighter one.

“What took so long?” she whispered.

“I almost got lost.”

She was grateful for the ambiguity.

Gainer got to his knees and parted the leaves to look out in the direction of the seawall. He was surprised to find the Riva and the Awesomes tied up only about forty feet away. No sign of the men who'd been guarding them before. That was strange. He'd expected to have to kill those two to get to the boat. Maybe they were hidden somewhere close by. He asked Leslie.

“They're not here anymore,” she said matter of factly with a slightly perplexed shrug.

They decided not to wait for dark. They came out from the brambles. Gainer crouched along through waist-high goldenrod and Queen Anne's lace. Leslie rushed ahead and was behind the wheel of the Riva by the time he reached the seawall.

There were the two guards.

Gainer nearly stumbled over them.

One had a hole in his head, the other in his heart.

Not here anymore? For damn sure.

Gainer unhitched the mooring lines and tossed the fenders aboard. He shoved off from the wall to set the Riva drifting, hoping to catch a current that would take it noiselessly out for a fair distance. At a point twenty feet from the seawall the Riva became caught in a conflict of currents, was held right there.

Leslie started the engine.

It gave off a loud initial growl, then settled into a gurgle as Leslie kept it going as slowly and quietly as possible. Now they made distance, put one, two, three hundred feet between themselves and Ellis.

But that growl carried. It was a sound Sweet and his men were on the alert for. The moment they heard it they recognized it and ran full out for the seawall, where they'd left the boats. They looked out toward the Statue of Liberty, spotted the Riva. Climbed into their Awesomes.

The engines of the four Awesomes roared.

Leslie asked the Riva for all it had, and suddenly it surged forward. She made a tight turn to head for any part of Manhattan. It seemed to Gainer from the way they were cutting the water and the way the wind was buffeting that no one could catch them. He wasn't accustomed to going that fast on water. He looked back toward Ellis, saw the four Awesomes rounding the southeast corner. Their hulls raised up by their speed, they formed black triangles with the horizontal line of the water. He kept his eyes on them, saw how quickly they were growing larger and knew they were overtaking.

Leslie glanced back at them. She beat on the teakwood wheel of the Riva with the heel of her hand, as though to make it realize it had to go faster, but the speedometer needle was laying on forty-five and there was no more throttle to give it.

The Awesomes came up behind them, four across in a line like a squadron on the attack. Doing ninety. They could run rings around the Riva. As they drew closer, slapping against the wake of the Riva, the men not behind the steering wheel of each Awesome leaned up and out, aimed their automatic rifles ahead and opened fire. Bullets sang against the wind a foot or two above Gainer and Leslie. Bullets hit the water, causing lines of splats along both sides. Impatient shots. In another few seconds the Awesomes would be alongside at point-blank range.

Gainer couldn't just not fight back. He took up the automatic rifle. It felt heavy but not solid. He turned and kneeled on the seat, hunched down, used the top of the seat cushion to support his aim. Aimed at the men in the nearest Awesome.

The trigger would not squeeze. Where the hell was the safety release? Gainer felt along the rifle's housing, found a couple of protrusions and finally one that moved a notch.

The Awesomes were on them now.

Leslie threw the Riva into reverse. Cut down so suddenly on its speed that the Awesomes swooshed past without getting off a shot, out-maneuvered by their own swiftness.

Gainer tracked them with the sights of the rifle, squeezed the trigger, was surprised by the rapid fire burst and the upward bucking, as though something was trying to yank the rifle from his grasp. Before he could let go of the trigger the rifle fired another burst at the sky. The goddamn thing. Gainer didn't know it and it didn't seem willing to let him.

Leslie turned the Riva hard to the left and gave it full power. The hull of the boat nosed up abruptly, loomed like a mere surfboard, all its underside showing. For Gainer, the Trade Towers and other buildings of the city skyline were nearly on their side, the line of the water almost vertical. The Riva came within inches of flipping over. Its hull finally smacked down on the water.

Leslie stayed with it, put it on course, made a run for the New Jersey shore a quarter mile away.

The Awesomes turned and continued the chase. They were coming on so fast now that only their propellers were in the water. Leslie gained some distance by cutting around the front of a string of garbage barges that a tug was pushing down the Hudson—six laborious barges, each sixty feet long and setting too high in the water to see beyond. They got in the way. The Awesomes had to check speed, go upstream a ways to get around them. By the time the Awesomes were in the clear and able to go full ahead again, the Riva was approaching the New Jersey side.

A graveyard of barges.

Hundreds of old wooden ones, of all sizes.

Silt bound, stuck in the umberish shallows that were as much mud as water. All but the thickest wood of their bones rotted from them, they lay as though haphazardly dropped dead there from some great height. The way they were situated, their relative angles and overlaps either formed channels or blocked them.

Leslie randomly took one of the offered openings. Between two long railroad barges. She slowed the Riva to twenty-five, which was still too fast considering all the pilings and hulls that barely showed above the water line. Hunks of wood large as telephone poles and waterlogged not quite to the sinking point had to be watched for.

Leslie steered the Riva right and right again, left and left again, going by instinct, hoping not to choose a blind alley.

The Awesomes followed into the labyrinth. Each took a different way in, cruising, stalking the Riva. One caught sight of it for an instant through the ribs of a huge hulk, but there was no access to it and by the time a wide enough way was found the Riva was gone from there.

Leslie's idea was for the Awesomes to be distracted by searching in among those abandoned barges while she slipped the Riva out and across the river to safety. However, she herself had lost direction. The sun-setting sky told her which way was east, but the channels were circuitous and they more or less determined which ways she could go, and she always seemed to end up headed wrong.