Escape the Night (41 page)

Smiling, the man moved closer.

Charles Carey grinned through the smoke of a Boston bar.

Poor Charles.

He had failed once more.

Oh, Ruthie
…

The man put the cold revolver to his temple.

He felt sharp pains in his chest.

“
Peter
…”

The last sound William Levy heard in life was his own cry.

The red streak of light hit Sutcliffe's chest.

As he fell back, his group dived through the curtain; a cop leaped on Sutcliffe's body; two more jumped at the man.

Wildly, he waved the gun.

Insane screaming filled the air; hands tore at the man. Carey clutched Noelle.

“
I'm losing control
…”

“Don't move,” he told her.

She nodded into his shoulder. “They'll stomp us to death.”

Blood gushed from her eyes
…

Carey's arms tightened around her.

The spaced-out woman had fallen to her knees. People fled around her, boots kicking her head and chest, their arms and elbows battering Noelle and Carey, voices screaming for escape.

“
Peter!
”

An arm hit Carey's mouth. He spun, looked down, saw two cops pulling on the assassin's legs as part of the mindless mob yanked his arms and others beat his suspended torso. Another cop lay on top of Sutcliffe as the searing red light spat sparks into the air.

“My God,” Noelle gasped. “He shot off a fucking
flare
.”

The tape clicked off.

Martin's smile was genuine. Levy had been disappointing; his tape was not.

Martin knew the meaning of his drama.

Quickly, he removed the cassette and put it in his bag, replacing the tape recorder in front of Levy.

Martin did not move him: he had known Englehardt for twenty years, and now knew what he must do. Systematically, he removed the receivers from the telephone and the base of Levy's lamp.

Only then did he stop to look at Levy.

He slumped in his chair, arms dangling, face slack and staring. The blood on his temple had dried with his tears.

Martin felt a surge of anger. To risk so much, his first killing in six years, and there had been no hunt, no echo of his stalking of the Turk except the fecal smell of death.

In death, Levy's cowlick stood up.

Martin turned from him in disgust; for this, he must answer to Englehardt.

But now he had the tape.

Martin felt a surge of adrenaline. Picking up the bag, he opened the outer door, looking up and down the corridor.

Nothing.

He closed the door behind him.

Carey and Noelle fought their way out of the Garden.

The worst panic had passed; the bodies around them shoved and snaked but did not lash out. Behind them, over the sound system, Doug Sutcliffe cried: “
I'm still alive!…
”

Carey's mouth was bleeding. His arm crooked Noelle's shoulders. They did not look back.

“I'm still
al-l-l-ive!
…”

The crowd kept moving.

The loft sounded with Peter Carey's last, repeated scream.

“
Daddy
…”

Slowly, Englehardt looked up at Martin. Their eyes met.

Englehardt fingered his bow tie. “Did you understand?”

Martin kept staring.

Englehardt looked away. “Damn you,” he said harshly. “Now we'll have to kill them.”

Martin smiled down at him. Softly, he asked, “Even Phillip?”

Carey and Noelle pushed through the front door of the Garden.

Night air chilled their faces. A phalanx of police cars, red lights swirling in the darkness, waited on the street for Sutcliffe; to the right, paramedics bore the injured to a separate line of ambulances. Above them, the Garden's electric billboard flashed L-E-E-THAL over and over, like the blinking of an eye.

Noelle stared at it. “Poor Sutcliffe.”

“
Peter!
”

Carey tasted blood inside his mouth. He felt her shiver in the wind.

CHAPTER 14

Noelle traced abstract patterns on a pillow. “It was weird what you said last night—about a gun.”

“Sometimes I sense things.” Carey still saw the nightmare in her gaze. “You know what scared me? That something would happen to you.”

“Or you.” She touched the cut on his lip. “Anyhow, it won't.”

“
You'll always be my Daddy, won't you?
”

Carey's eyes closed. “Just watch yourself, all right?”

“
Always
…”

“Peter?”

He looked at her: even in the morning, drowsy from sleep, she was beautiful.

“Make love with me, Noelle. Please.”

Noelle's mouth moved closer, hair spilling across Carey's stomach.

Watching in torment and jealousy, Martin touched himself.

“It's all right,” she was crooning. “This time it's all right …”

Slowly, her face bent down.

Martin's hips rose from his chair …

The telephone rang.

Florid, Martin clutched at it. “It's time now,” Englehardt said softly.

Noelle no longer spoke.

“Was that okay?” She grinned at him from beneath the sheets. “Because if it was really awful …”

“Not for
me
.” His head tilted in doubt. “But you don't get anything out of it …”

His father came in her mouth
.

“I do, though. Different times are different—you know that.”

“Like last night?”

“Uh-huh—then we were
both
scared.” Leaning over the side of the bed, she retrieved the
Times
, headlined, “Mock Assassin Spurs Garden Riot,” with a smaller, “Fifty Injured,” above a picture of Doug Sutcliffe recoiling in horror from what seemed a child's sparkler. Noelle murmured, “He looks so pathetic,” and then pity merged with muted professional envy. “Good picture, though.”

Carey was silent. She turned to him. “You okay now?”

The sheet fell from her breasts. Her skin was rich olive, her hair shone in the light. But the best of her, honest and warm, showed in her eyes. Carey wished that he could have this moment, like a photograph, for the rest of his life.

“I love you,” he said.

Hastily, Phillip Carey threw two bottles of men's cologne in the shoulder bag, on top of his ticket to Paris.

In a month, he told himself, it would be spring, the tables would appear in front of small cafés, crowded with faces. The city would be green, the air fresh; on the Left Bank it would smell of bread or pastry or couscous from Algeria. He would savor this, out of reach, and then train slowly through the South of France to Cannes and Monte Carlo. He had the sharp image of a palm tree, and then a second one, more poignant and recurring, of a young man and woman, bodies tan and taut and barely covered, gazing into each other's eyes as if they could not move.

Noelle and Peter.

Phillip stared at the bag.

Englehardt must keep his word, use Noelle to force Peter to forget the past: Phillip would remain in Europe, never to face him again. Peter did not yet remember; there still was time …

He would run to save himself, and then Peter and Noelle would live.

His door chime rang.

Phillip checked his watch. The cab was early; quickly, he closed the shoulder bag and carried it downstairs, placing it in the alcove with his luggage. Rushing, he glanced at the library of his father's books; saw a sliver of the room, a shelf. He opened the door …

A black limousine was waiting.

Like my father's
, he thought oddly, and then Englehardt leaned through its window.

Phillip stopped on the porch.

In silence, the two men stared at each other. Then, quite slowly, Phillip Carey walked to the car.

Englehardt's voice was soft. “It's time, Phillip.”

He looked away. Phillip saw that the driver, a thickset man with rubbery lips, smiled to himself.

Noelle leaned in the doorway, not ready to leave. “So what will you do with Levy?”

“I'm not sure—I guess by now he'll have listened to the tapes.” Carey frowned. “What'll happen, I've got no idea—him knowing, me trying to find out …”

For a moment, Noelle watched him. “Have I ever told you, Peter, what being with you means to me?” He tilted his head, puzzled; Noelle spoke softly. “It's like I step out the door with something we said or did, or the way you touched me, and it's not just me anymore, starting off to work. And if I take a picture, or meet someone, I know that I can tell you what I saw or felt, and that you'll get it—you just keep moving with me, past and future, so that whatever happens in between seems better.” She smiled a little. “Funny, huh?”

He touched her face. “Not to me.”

“Then you can take me along to Levy's, okay?” Still smiling, she kissed him, then started out into the hall. She froze at the Krantzes' door.

He started after her. “What is it?”

Noelle turned, grinning. “I love you, too,” she called, and disappeared around the corner.

Bent over from nausea, Phillip Carey shivered in the abandoned bindery.

A rat scurried past his feet. The rubber-lipped man held a gun to his head, and a check in front of his face. “Now will you sign?” he asked.

Englehardt could not look at him; arms folded, he spoke to the floor. “Go ahead, Phillip.”

Barth's check was for ten million dollars.

The bindery was chill, dark and empty—dirty cement, no trace of his father. Phillip's hands were numb with cold. He tried speaking to Englehardt's profile. “I don't care to sign—I know what you'll do.”

Englehardt turned, to face him.

Phillip Carey saw his brother's face, looked away.

Holding out a pen, Englehardt started toward him.

Suddenly, Phillip did not want him nearer. As if by reflex, he patted his empty pocket.

The ugly man laughed softly.

Englehardt's eyes flickered to the man and then back to Phillip. He kept moving forward. “Take it,” he said gently. “We're almost through.”

Phillip closed his eyes. Paris was so far away …

Englehardt's muffled footsteps came closer; Phillip heard him breathing, too near his face.

“
No
…”

Two fingertips grazed Phillip's arm. He flinched, opening his eyes, and then Englehardt placed the pen against his chest.

“Yes,” Englehardt whispered. “If you wish to save Peter. With the firm in Barth's hands, I'll have no need to trouble him. Otherwise …”

Phillip saw Charles Carey grinning at him, alive; the illusion, afterwards, of tears on his father's face.

Phillip Carey took the pen.

Searching for a briefcase, Peter Carey saw the red light of his answering machine.

Last night, he had forgotten to check.

He pressed the “rewind” button, and then the one marked “message play.” As if from far away, Levy pleaded, “Come to my office, Peter. Please—I've heard the tape.”

Carey dropped the briefcase and ran from his apartment.

Englehardt slid the check into his pocket, and slowly backed away.

Martin placed the revolver to Phillip Carey's temple.

Phillip did not weep. There was nothing in his eyes but contempt of living.

“Wait.” Englehardt's taut voice cracked the silence. “Not that close.”

Martin stepped two feet back, and looked at Englehardt.

Englehardt stared past him. Phillip straightened to his full height, taking one last haunted glance around the bindery, and then stared back.

Englehardt inhaled. “I have to,” he said softly.

Phillip kept staring.

Frozen, Englehardt tried instead to picture Barth's astonishment. He could not waver now; born of necessity and fate, his course must be as a surgeon's, the excisions of a cool brain.

When he had first seen Phillip Carey, his hair was black: Phillip's eyes, a clear, light blue, had met with his.

Thirty years later, across a dirty bindery, Englehardt looked away.

He nodded to Martin.

Carey's mouth opened.

In front of him, Levy's office turned to madness: door ajar; cabinets rifled; three police carrying black bags toward the inner office; flashbulbs spitting …

“Oh my God!”

An arm reached toward him. “You can't go in there, sir.”

Carey struck out at the arm.

“
I'm losing control
…”

The policeman shoved him back: Carey saw his creased, sad face. His fist dropped to his side. “He was my psychiatrist,” he mumbled.

The policeman stared at him. Carey turned, wandering down the corridor, aimless …

Levy's receptionist sobbed against the green wall.

Carey touched her shoulder. She whirled, eyes wild and red, bracelets jangling. “Did you find him?” he asked.

Her nod became a hiccup.

“How?”

“Shot.” She pointed to her temple.

Carey stared at her finger. “The
tape
—where is it?”

Her look turned contemptuous, frightened. “What difference does it make?”

“No—you don't understand.” Carey grasped her arm. “It
killed
him.”

“Leave me alone.” She turned back to the wall. “He's
dead
—please, leave me alone.”

Footsteps pounded on the tile. Whirling, Carey saw two men carrying a stretcher. Levy's outline showed beneath the white sheet. The tips of his shoes splayed crazily. “Oh my God.” Almost keening, Carey repeated it. “
Oh my God
, what have I done?”

The woman spun, gaping at him; suddenly, Carey burst toward the stairwell.

There was a phone booth in the lobby. Carey stabbed out seven numbers.

“Photography.”

“Noelle Ciano, please.”

“She's already gone …”

“Where?”

“Who is this?”