Endangered Species (46 page)

Schlessinger's bones.

Reduced to hand-to-hand: Schlessinger had lost her gun.  Optimism tent

Anna strength.  Eyes were useless, the world was black .

Her nose was clogged with the smell of dirt and sweat and fear .

Kicking hard, she launched herself over the top of the crumbled earth to

land on the biologist's chest.  Shoving the tire iron down on Marty's

throat, she held on.

The finger was wrenched from her jaws.  Arms, strong as cable, wrapped

around her.  Together she and Schlessinger rolled down the far side of

the bank.  The cross of iron caught on something and was ripped from

Anna's fist.  She felt the tail end of it rake across the side of her

neck.  The fight had been going on less than half a minute but already

Anna could feel her energy peaking and knew that before long she'd be

out of gas.  Fueled by drugs, Schlessinger had the upper hand.

The world twisted.  Schlessinger was on top, her weight pinning Anna to

the muddy earth, her knee planted in the middle of Anna's chest. Fingers

closed around her throat.  Air was cut off.  Muscles were burning up

their reserves.  Anna could feel her limbs growing heavy, her chest

swelling.  Grabbing one small finger, hopefully the one she'd bitten

half through, she bent it back with all the force she could muster.

Schlessinger shrieked, high and wild like a wounded cat, and Anna sucked

oxygen in through a bruised throat.  Shouting and curses battered the

air above her.  Schlessinger still had one hand locked on the soft flesh

of Anna's neck.  Her fist began to pound into Anna's face.  By whipping

her head from side to side, Anna kept the blows glancing off.  One

landed true and she felt her eyeball explode under Marty's knuckles.

Anna jerked the knee of her uninjured leg up and arched her back.

Unseated, the biologist fell away.  Anna was stunned.  She'd practiced

that move a hundred times in self-defense classes all over the country.

It never worked.  But then she'd never been matched with someone her own

size.  The men she'd sparred with usually outweighed her by forty pounds

or more.

Rolling to her stomach, she pushed up on all fours in time to catch a

boot to her right ear.  Down again; night closed around her in black bat

wings, all the hurts heretofore unregistered clamoring for revenge;

revolutionaries at long last loosed from under the thumb of the tyrant.

Doggedly she tried to think how she'd parry the killing blow.

It never came.

Shouts rained down instead, and light scraped across her face .

Anna lifted her head.  A great shadowy hulk that could only be Rick

Spencer clutched a windmill of arms and legs to his chest.  In the

agitated strobe of a flashlight held in unsteady hands, Anna could see

he'd caught Marty.

"Don't move or I'll break your arm."

"He will," Anna mumbled through rapidly swelling lips ." I'd do as he

says if I were you."

Schlessinger continued to struggle.  There was a sickening snap, a

scream, then silence.

"You okay, Anna?" Rick asked.

" I was winning."

" Right."

Anna tried to rise and her left leg collapsed under her ." I'm shot,"

she remembered aloud ." She shot me.  My leg."

"Shit." The flashlight beam had steadied.  By its light Anna could see

Rick threading two pairs of flexi-cuffs from the band of his hat and

securing Schlessinger's wrist ." How bad are you?"

Anna shook her head, remembered she was in the dark, and said: "I don't

know.  Maybe bad."

"Shine the light on her," Rick ordered.

Anna cringed as the beam struck her eyes, then swept down her body.

"God damn," Rick said, and Anna was scared.

"Bad?" Anna tried to keep the fear from her voice and failed.

"I found it." Dot came into the circle of light, the butt of Marty's gun

pinched between her thumb and forefinger.

Rick jerked down on the rexi-cuffs.  Marty cried out and crumpled to the

ground ." Move and I'll break your other arm," he warned .

This time she believed him.  Rick was causing Schlessinger unnecessary

pain.  Police brutality.  Anna was all for it.

Rick took the gun from Dot and ejected the magazine into his hand ."

Glock.  Two rounds left.  And one in the chamber.  Safety is off.  just

I)oint and shoot.  Anna, can you handle it?"

"For now."

Rick handed her the Glock and said to the VIPS, "If Anna passes out or

whatever, you take it and keep the suspect covered till I get back.  If

she does anything you don't like, just shoot her.  Can you do that?"

"Yes indeed," Mona said, with a clarity that satisfied him.

"I'll get the paramedics out here.  I won't be long.  You hang on,

Anna." Taking the flashlight, he set off back toward Stafford at a run.

By the light of the moon, Anna could see Dot and Mona staring at her

with concern.  Schlessinger had neither moved nor spoken since Rick sat

her down.  Most of Anna's body hurt.  Her face felt like hamburger.  Her

left leg ached from groin to knee.  Her head swam and nausea, brought on

by blows to her belly or the blood she'd swallowed, threatened to boil

up out of her throat.

Anna was scared.

"Can I hold Flicka while we wait?" she asked.

tiE K E Y to finding was looking in the right places; an absurd truth

lthat negated the value of the search.  Frederick was feeling let down.

Success had rendered him of no further use to Molly Pigeon and he

dreaded the call he must make telling her the good news, yet looked

forward to it with the feverish optimism of a young lady in a Jane

Austen novel.

He'd been home in Chicago for several days.  The clutter of his

apartment, once a comfortable refuge, felt claustrophobic.  The chirpy

attention of Danny and Taters, his two budgies, merely reminded him of

how pathetic'his social life had become.  Anna had called twice and he'd

let the machine answer.  Before they spoke again, he needed to talk with

Molly.  Tonight was the night.

Chicago was in the clutches of August, his window-mounted air

conditioner unequal to the task of making the house livable.  Clad in

underpants and a T-shirt, he sat in the living room feeling he should

dress for the phone call and condemning himself as an idiot for the

thought.  Idiocy won out.  He slipped a worn pair of khakis over his

Fruit-of-the-Looms and sat down again facing the telephone.

Putting off knowing the inevitable for a few more minutes, he picked up

the folder from the coffee table.  Molly had given him hers at their

last meeting and he smiled at the skull and crossbones, the dripping

dagger.  He'd saved it like a memento; he drank Scotch neat to feel

close to her.  In short, he clung to all the trite signs and symbols of

romance ." Can't help myself," he said to Danny.  The little bird hopped

to the phone receiver and looked up at him expectantly ." I've never had

the time to devise any symbols for myself."

The folder contained notes from the work he'd pursued on Molly's case.

He'd used government time and equipment but didn't feel a shred of

guilt.  In the past twenty-five years he'd donated more hours of his

life to the federal government than he'd ever tallied up.

His instinct on the plane had been right; Molly's was a sin of omission.

He'd traced the three people who'd pressed her hardest to represent them

or theirs in the wake of the Lester Mack defense .

Second time out he hit pay dirt.  One of the supplicants was a woman, a

well-educated divorc6e, with one son.  At eighteen, that son had been

arrested for the rape and torture of a sixteen-year-old high school girl

who later died of injuries inflicted.  Dr.  Pigeon had refused to

testify on the boy's behalf.  He'd been sentenced to life, had served

three years, then died in a knife fight in the prison cafeteria.  Six

days later Lester Mack was released, alive, well, and walking the

streets a free man.

To the bereaved mother, this chain of events was cause and effect; proof

Molly Pigeon could have freed her child and had chosen, instead, to be

instrumental in his murder.

Frederick hadn't been able to interview the woman himself .

NYPD detectives had done the honors.  Given an audience of apparently

sympathetic men in suits, she had confessed to the notes and messages.

What she would be charged with remained to be seen .

Nice upper-middle-class lady under the strain of grief-odds were she'd

be given a slap on the wrist and Molly would be left looking over her

shoulder for a while.

Not altogether satisfying in Frederick's opinion but par for the course.

Bureaucrats made lousy heroes.  There were too many Occupational Safety

and Health Administration rules to allow for riding in on white horses

and rescuing damsels in distress.  Not to mention the civil suits the

average superhero would leave himself open to.

He put down the file, lured Danny off the phone, and lifted the

receiver.  Molly answered just as he was about to hang up, not willing

to face her answering machine.  It was good to hear her voice.  He let

himself relax enough to lean back in the chair as he told her of the

dead convict and his mother's confession.  Molly listened without

interruption, and when he finished, she waited a moment, letting the

information soak in.

"Well," she said finally, "speaking as a citizen, I can't say I'm

overwhelmed with relief.  Professionally, I expect this will be the end

of it.  The first crush of grief is past.  She frightened me, she got

some attention.  She knows I know she knows, so to speak, and should my

body turn up in an alley, the police will know where to start asking

questions."

That's about it," Frederick said; then because he wanted to comfort, he

added :" don't think you'll hear from her again.

"No," Molly agreed.

Silence crept between them.

"Have you heard from Anna?" Frederick asked.

More silence, then: "I've been out most evenings."

"Neither have l." He wondered if he was telling the same lie as Molly ."

You know I have feelings for you," he said awkwardly.

"I know."

No help there.  He waited with growing discomfort ." And you?"

he asked when he couldn't take it anymore.

"It doesn't matter," Molly said flatly.  He knew it was true.  Molly was

Anna's sister.  He'd expected nothing less.  Still, he'd hoped, been

intoxicated by the fantasy.

"Will you tell her?"

"Tell her what?" Molly was being intentionally obtuse.  He waited and

she relented ." No.  And neither will you.  Ever."

Frederick stirred his Scotch with his finger.  The ice cubes had melted

in record time.  Like my love life, he thought with a dose of self-pity.

It was time to hang up, but as he knew there'd never be another call, he

procrastinated.

"Somebody should tell her something before she moves to Chihe said,

because he was angry and to keep Molly with him a cago, little longer.

A short bark of laughter struck across the phone line ." I wouldn't

worry about it.  Anna will never leave the wilderness."