Book of Nathan (25 page)

“That sausage truck got stuck right across from the hotel,
didn’t it, Bullet?” Twyla asked. Only Albany Street separated the Hyatt from
Johnson & Johnson’s executive garage. “I really
would love to see the sausage. Just a
quick look. Can we, please
Bullet?”

Yigal jumped on the idea. “Yes, we should. Good idea.”

I checked my watch. Eleven thirty. I didn’t have the
fortitude to beat off another crazy proposal. The prospect of wandering through
downtown New Brunswick at this time of night put me on edge. But since Central
Jersey’s newest attraction was luring a horde of curiosity seekers, I figured
there had to be a few midnight spectators who would give us cover. Besides, I
wasn’t about to let a couple of would-be assassins dictate every move I wanted
to make. I piled Twyla, Yigal, and Doc into my car and drove to the Hyatt.

After parking the Buick only a few spaces from where Four
Putt Gonzales had been shot in the leg, we headed toward Albany Street. We were
on the sidewalk bordering Johnson & Johnson’s campus when Doc grabbed my
arm. “That truck—I’ve seen it before,” he said, pointing to a nondescript
pickup that made a right turn on a street that ran behind the Hyatt.

“Looks like eight million other trucks,” I said.

“It had an out-of-state plate,” Doc noted. “I can’t place
where I saw it, but—”

An impatient Twyla pulled on the professor’s arm. “It’s just
a truck, Doc. Come on. Let’s go.” She dragged Doc ahead, Yigal and I trailing.

Johnson & Johnson’s property was designed by I. M. Pei
to be a seamless part of New Brunswick. The corporate headquarters’ grassy
perimeter rolls up to city sidewalks without any kind of barrier. Except for
bums and inebriated college students, pedestrians are rarely discouraged from
wandering around the property. On this particular evening, there was a group of
spectators lined up along one side of the garage driveway to get a late-night
look at the disabled Kielbasavan.

“No security,” Professor Waters observed. I caught a quiver
of uncertainty in his voice.

As usual, Doc was right. We showed up midway through a shift
change of Johnson & Johnson’s security guard. Five minutes earlier or later
and we probably wouldn’t have gotten within fifty yards of the garage entrance.
Now there was no one to stop us or about two dozen other Dubensko Kielbasavan
fans from pressing ourselves against the driveway wall and gawking at the
immovable sausage and bun. Twyla began stroking the meat product replica in a
way that made Yigal’s knees go weak. At the same time, Doc noticed a man
standing behind the large
Mother
& Child
sculpture that stood between us and J&J’s front
entrance.

“The thing in his hand,” Doc whispered to me. “It’s either a
video camera or a weapon.”

The distant, dark form shifted to the right. The man was too
tall and heavyset to be either of the Hispanics who had been chasing me since
my visit to Orlando. The pale light filtering out from J&J’s headquarters
lobby caught the object in the man’s hand.

“It’s a camera,” I said. “No big deal. He’s taking pictures
of the kielbasa.”

Doc shook his head. “It’s not the kielbasa he’s videoing.
It’s us.”

“Well, then maybe he wants a few candids of Twyla—”

“He’s been pointing that camera at you, me, and Yigal since
we got here.”

I doubted there was anything sinister about the mysterious
figure. Still, a logical plan would be to blend in with the small crowd, wait
for the next security team to arrive, and then get escorted across the street
to the Hyatt. But aggravation overrode logic. I was tired of being followed,
intimidated, photographed, bombed, and shot at. I was through boxing with
shadows. It was time to go on the offensive, so I called Doc and Yigal into a
huddle. “Let’s go talk to Mr. Candid Camera.”

The professor glanced over his shoulder at the heavyset man
dressed in a lightweight jacket and baseball cap. “That isn’t a good idea,
Bullet.”

“Maybe not, but it’s what I’m going to do. I could use a
little backup just in case.”

“You know, you’re right—he’s probably here to take a little
footage he can send as a video clip to his friends,” said Doc, looking for a
way out.

“If he’s a regular Joe, he won’t mind my striking up a
conversation. But if he isn’t—”

“He could make a run for it,” Yigal predicted.

“Good point. If he does, here’s what we’ll do. Yigal, you
and Doc approach him from either side and I’ll come at him straight on.”

Doc pulled at his hair. “This could turn out bad, you know.”

“Couldn’t be much worse than a few pounds of C-4 blowing up in
your face or fifteen rounds of ammo coming your way,” I said. “Look, you’re
probably right, Doc. Chances are he’s nothing more than some slob fooling
around with his camcorder. Let’s go find out.”

“I’m telling you, I have a bad feeling.”

No more discussion. I ordered Yigal to take the right flank
and Doc the left.

“What if he does
run?”
Yigal wanted to know.

“I don’t know. Chase him.”

Yigal bounced off on a path wide right of the large Henry
Moore sculpture. I nudged Doc on a course heading to the left of the mystery
man and I strode directly toward the target.

As we approached, the man backpedaled toward Johnson &
Johnson’s front door. When we moved closer, he turned and ran full tilt into
Yigal’s zone. His mistake. Panicked, the lawyer exploded into a super storm of
out-of-control energy. Yigal’s arms flapped, his legs pumped, and his head
wagged so ferociously that his yarmulke took off like a Frisbee.
 

“Yigal!” It occurred to me the man in our crosshairs might
actually be a nobody who thought he was a whisker away from being mugged. Being
responsible for someone else’s heart attack was something I didn’t need.

“Yigal!” I screamed again.

Yigal was in a frenzy, whirling his body around like a
mini-tornado. Camera Man cut his sprint to a crawl.

“Yigal!
Get
out of his way!”

My screaming had no impact on the lawyer, but it flustered
Camera Man. He lowered his head and launched a full-speed assault on the
lawyer, catching Yigal with his shoulder and driving him into J&J’s
manicured turf. Zeusenoerdorf’s attorney was pudgy and out of shape so he was
easy to put down. But he had a Weebles-like quality that had him back on his
feet in a second. Whether it was deliberate or another impulsive act of lunacy,
Yigal took off after Camera Man.
 

With the lawyer flailing away only a few feet behind him,
Camera Man had little choice but to head toward the driveway that led to
J&J’s underground executive parking lot.

Yigal kept charging, arms flapping and head gyrating. He was
nearly on top of the man when the two reached the yellow tape that cordoned off
the entrance to the garage.
  

From the distance, it was impossible to tell if Camera Man
was pushed by Yigal or whether he slipped on the layer of absorbent material
that had been shoveled onto the pavement by the hazmat team. Whatever, the man
tumbled through the tape and slid face-first down the driveway. Yigal also fell
hard but managed to keep himself from plummeting toward the Kielbasavan.

I was too far away to get a close-up view of what happened
next. According to Twyla, the man with the video camera rolled under the
Kielbasavan’s chassis. Still skidding, he slammed into the six-by-six beam
wedged beneath the mobile’s front wheels. The force of the impact dislodged the
wood and the Dubensko motorized sausage broke loose.

Unfortunately for Camera Man, his descent was slightly
faster than the kielbasa’s start-up speed. He banged into the closed door of
the garage an instant before the Kielbasavan hit the entryway, catching Camera
Man with the tip of its twenty-five-foot bun.

Twyla and the other Kielbasavan admirers erupted with a
chorus of gasps and screams. Doc and I raced to the edge of the driveway,
hopping over Yigal who was seated on the ground brushing debris from a gash on
his right arm. We half ran, half slid to what was left of the J&J garage
entrance, ending up on either side of Camera Man. The lower half of his body
had been pulverized by the Kielbasavan—his mangled legs stuck under the front
wheels. Blood gushed from a jagged tear in his neck.

“Damn,” I shouted at Doc. “His artery’s been cut.”

“Got to stop the bleeding,” the professor said, and like
magic, a cotton blouse fell from the sky. Doc quickly turned the woman’s shirt
into a compress and jammed it against the man’s neck. I looked up and spotted
Twyla hovering over the wall wearing nothing but a skimpy bra.

A half dozen men joined Doc and me at the lower end of the
garage driveway. They tried pushing the Kielbasavan uphill a foot or two, but
the vehicle didn’t move.

“Not good,” Doc muttered. “He’s trapped.”

“Check his skull,” I ordered. The injured man’s baseball cap
had slipped forward and the visor covered his forehead and eyes. Trickles of
blood leaked from under the sweatband.

Doc gently removed the man’s hat and then pulled back with a
start.

“My God,” the professor whispered.

“What?”

“It’s . . . It’s Conway Kyzwoski!”

Chapter 16

“Conway.”
I shouted.

Kyzwoski was bleeding out fast and his voice was feeble. Doc
and I had our ears to his face doing our best to decipher what he was saying.

“They’re . . . They’re after you.”

“Me?”

Kyzwoski nodded.

“You’ve been following me—videotaping me?”

Kyzwoski coughed. “Yeah.”
 

“But why?”

“Somebody wants somethin’ you got—computer disk.”

I wasn’t sure what to ask next. Kyzwoski’s gaunt look told
me time was running out for him. “How’d you get mixed up in this? You didn’t
even know who I was until we met at the Wayside Motel.”

“No. They sent me and Ida to Florida to follow you.”

I grabbed him by one of his blood-soaked shoulders. “Who
sent you?
Quia Vita
?
Judith Russet?”

Kyzwoski had enough left to answer. “No.”

“Who?”

Kyzwoski didn’t respond. Instead he gurgled out a few more
words. “Get you on tape . . . after Florida, that’s all I was supposed to do .
. . never wanted to hurt you . . . others got paid to do that.”

“What others?”

Conway reached for my arm. “Listen . . . about my boys . . .
Ephraim and Noah—”

“Great kids,” I lied. “Conway, I need to know what’s going
on. If Russet didn’t hire you, then who—”

“Don’ want the boys to know ’bout this . . .
 
mean a lot if you could make sure—”
 

The man was dying. What was I supposed to say? “I’ll do what
I can.”

Kyzwoski tightened his grip on my arm. “Somethin’ else. Tell
my wife . . . I did my work for Jesus.”

“I will if I see her,” I promised. “Now tell me who you’re
working for. Who’s after me, Conway?”

“Occasio—” The word was barely a whisper.

I leaned closer to Kyzwoski’s bloodied ear. “I don’t
understand.”
 

“Tell Ida that I done the things they asked.
Occasio aegre offertur . . . facile
amittitur.
”

Conway Kyzwoski drew a deep breath. His last.
 

Yigal,
Doc, Twyla, and I could have told the small army of cops the truth—that
Kyzwoski had been hired to track me like a rabbit and accidentally died on the
job. Instead, the three of us made a pact to let the authorities think we had
no previous ties to the man. Making claims that Kyzwoski was actually a
henchman for some mysterious group that had its sights on me would either
convince investigators I was totally insane—or spin me into an eddy of
interviews with one cop after another. It was a risky decision to keep the
truth buried—but I wanted time to help Zeus, not to do coffee and doughnuts at
the local precinct house.