And what if he hadn’t come this way when he fled? What if he’d chosen the quickest, easiest, yet shrewdest escape route—dashing under the steel and cement structure of the elevated West Side Highway and darting smack into the teeming, celebrating, fireworks-happy mob near the river? That was certainly the course I would have taken. Except for the rockets’ red glare and the bombs bursting in air, it was pretty darn dark over by the docks. And there’s no better camouflage than an excited, chaotic crowd.
I turned on my heels and started running back in the opposite direction, past the Keller Hotel, onward across West Street and under the highway. I was so hot I was melting. Sweat was streaming down my face, stinging my eyes and seeping like salty tears into my gasping mouth. I couldn’t breathe. When I reached the edge of the madding crowd, I had to stop running for a second, get my bearings, pull some smoky air into my lungs.
Firecrackers were popping all over the place, and every few seconds another cannon would boom. Or another person would scream. Or another bomb would shriek its loud whistle and explode. I was so jumpy I flinched at every eruption. Swiveling my head from side to side and racing up and down the sidelines of the action, I madly searched the throng for Aunt Doobie. Back and forth I ran, like a dog chasing a stick, looking for the man in the black linen shirt—the man I now believed to be a black-hearted murderer.
But it was hopeless. The scene was too crazy. The noise was too noisy. I was too frenzied to see straight. I had to retreat from the fire and fury and fall back to the rear—to the softer, deeper darkness under the highway, where the steady whiz of traffic overhead was almost soothing.
Maybe if I hide here long enough,
I thought,
standing still and straight behind this big support beam, Aunt Doobie will think I’m gone—or that I never chased after him in the first place. Maybe he’ll emerge from his own hiding place and head for home, or back to the Mayflower Hotel, or someplace else significant. Then I can follow him, see where he goes, try to pick up some clues to his identity.
Good plan, wouldn’t you say?
Well, that’s what I thought, too, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Because the next loud explosion I heard was the bang on the back of my head, and after that came nothing but silence.
Chapter 22
HAVE YOU EVER COME AWAKE WITH A start in the middle of the night, so addled and confused you don’t know who, what, or where you are? Well, that’s how I felt that night when my lost consciousness began swooping back into my skull. At first I thought I was a crocodile, lying long and flat against the riverbank, but on my back instead of my belly. Then I thought I was a wounded soldier, bleeding to death in a trench in North Korea, while an unknown enemy warrior was raising his sword to strike again. For a few crazy seconds, I actually believed I was an old, gray-haired woman named Aunt Doobie lying on a slab at the city morgue.
“Wake up, Mrs. Turner,” a male voice shouted in my ear. “Can you hear me?”
Turner? Turner who?
“Paige Turner!” the voice shouted again. “Are you conscious? Open your eyes!”
Paige Turner? Who’s that? What a ridiculous name!
I tried to sit up, but couldn’t make it all the way. My aching head was so dizzy I felt nauseous; I couldn’t see anything but stars. Quickly lowering myself back to a prone position, I lay still for a couple of seconds, blindly attempting to make sense of my physical situation, trying to imagine where I was. I was lying on something hard, I knew, and from the rough, gritty feel under my fingers, I was pretty sure it was cement. Horns were honking overhead. I could hear loud booms and blasts in the near distance, and the steamy air smelled like gunsmoke.
Oh, goody. I’m not in the hospital . . .
“Hey, move back, boys! Give her some air. She’s starting to come around.” The same man was talking, but he obviously wasn’t alone. “Mrs. Turner!” he shouted again. “Open your damn eyes!”
They popped open on command. And my sight was now fully restored. But what I saw made me want to black out again. There, looming right above me—lowering his boyish face toward mine and baring his teeth like a vampire preparing to enjoy a midnight snack—was the last man in the world I wanted to see: Detective Sergeant Nick Flannagan.
Egads!
I screamed the word out loud in my head but somehow managed to keep it off my tongue. (Yes, my self-control actually
does
work sometimes. Not often, but every once in a while.)
Flannagan must have seen the shock and horror on my face, though, because he quickly pulled away and reared back to a squatting position. “How’s tricks, Mrs. Turner?” he asked, smirking, gazing down at me like a gargoyle. “How do you feel? Do you know what day it is?”
“I feel like ca-ca,” I said. “And as for the day, I’m assuming it’s still Monday, the fourth of July. But that depends on what time it is. Is it past midnight yet? How long was I out?”
“Just a few minutes we think.” He looked at his watch. “It’s ten forty-five now. What time did you come down here?”
“Down where?” I wasn’t being coy. I still wasn’t sure where I was.
“Down to the river,” he grunted. “West Street and Barrow. Sit up. It’ll clear your head. Need a hand?”
“No, I can make it,” I said, pushing myself up to my elbows, then all the way to a sitting position. The effort made me dizzy again, but just for a second. And when my head stopped spinning, it actually
was
a lot clearer. Gently touching the painful but thankfully not bloody bump on the back of my noggin, I straightened up and surveyed my surroundings.
Two cop cars were parked close by on West Street. One had a cop in it (I’m guessing he was monitoring the radio calls); the other was empty. Two uniformed police were standing to my left and Flannagan was squatting on my right, just a couple of feet away from the steel highway support beam I’d been hiding behind when I was hit. From where I was sitting, I could see the red-lettered HOTEL sign suspended from the corner of the Keller building.
“You look lousy,” Flannagan said. “I’m going to call for an ambulance.”
“No!” I screeched. “Please don’t! I’m fine. Really I am!” I was lying, of course. My head felt like somebody had hammered a nail into it. But if Flannagan sent for an ambulance, I knew darn well what would happen. They’d take me straight to St. Vincent’s hospital—and then, even if nothing was wrong, they’d keep me there overnight for observation. Maybe all day tomorrow, too.
And I really couldn’t handle that. I had to go to work in the morning! I had places to go and people to see! (Binky was supposed to take me to the Actors Studio, in case you’ve forgotten. . . . Okay, so we hadn’t made a definite date for that excursion yet, but I was supposed to call him at noon, and we would be going there tomorrow. I was certain of it.)
“You gotta be checked out by a doctor,” Flannagan said. “You could have a concussion. Or a hematoma.”
Hema-what?
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “I don’t have a concussion or a hemathingy. I just had a little too much to drink earlier and I guess I passed out. Must’ve bumped my head when I fell. But I’m just fine now. There’s nothing wrong with me that a few hours of sleep can’t fix.” I actually wanted to tell Flannagan the truth at that point—try to convince him to launch a citywide search for Aunt Doobie—but I was too wary to open
that
box. Who knew what else would come flying out?
Flannagan rose to full height and glared down at me suspiciously. Very suspiciously. Did he know more about my, er, situation than I thought he did? “Okay, then, get up,” he growled, stepping back and crossing his arms over his narrow chest. I’ve got a few questions to ask you. We’ll go sit in the car.”
I did
not
want to go sit in the car with him. And I certainly didn’t want to answer any of his questions. But I didn’t want to stay plopped on the pavement either. So, taking the only path that seemed open to me (besides the hospital, I mean), I reached my hands up to Flannagan, asked for his assistance, and allowed him to pull me to my feet. Then I sucked in a chestful of air, squared my shoulders, surrendered my elbows to the two uniformed officers, and let them guide me—as they would a handcuffed criminal—to the flashing patrol car.
FORTY FIVE MINUTES LATER, I WAS STILL sitting in the back of that car. And Flannagan was still sitting next to me, asking one question after another, grilling me like a hamburger, giving me an even bigger headache than I’d had before. I had told him as much of the truth as I could without getting myself, or Willy, into too much trouble, and now we were going over everything again, for the third or fourth time, and I was on the verge of losing consciousness again.
As headaches and hamburgers go, I felt both raw and overcooked.
But at least the fireworks had stopped. The waterfront was dark and silent now. The ominous presence of the two police cars had put a damper on the frenzied fun, causing the fire-bugs to pack up all their bombs and rockets and move upriver. The area around the Keller Hotel was dead as a doornail, too. Having been alerted that the cops were in the vicinity, the partygoers had—very slowly and systematically—exited the bar in small groups and slunk away in the opposite direction, back toward the heart of the Village. (I know this for a fact because I sat there in the car and watched them go. Willy and Farley left together, by the way, looking quite animated and gay. And by that I mean
happy
.)
“Getting tired yet, Mrs. Turner?” Flannagan prodded. “Had enough?” He was taking pleasure in interrogating me. You could tell by the way his thin lips kept curling up in the corners.
“I’ve had more than enough,” I said, “but apparently
you
haven’t. How long do you plan to keep me here?”
“As long as it takes for you to tell me the truth.”
“And what makes you think I’m not?”
He let out a nasty chuckle. “And what makes you think I’m a stupid fool?” He loosened his tie (finally) and glared at me across the back seat. “Look, I know your game, Mrs. Turner. I know you’re a nosy reporter for
Daring Detective
magazine, not just a secretary as you told me at our first meeting. Did you think I never learned how to read? I’ve seen your name in the papers on several occasions—in connection with one murder case or another—and it’s a damn easy name to remember.”
Aaaargh!
“But that doesn’t mean I was lying to you,” I insisted. “Ask my boss Brandon Pomeroy if you don’t believe me. He’ll tell you I’m a secretary, and nothing
but
a secretary.”
“Then he’d be lying, too.”
Score one for the perceptive detective.
“Okay, okay! So I’m a nosy crime writer. I didn’t reveal myself before because I was afraid you might tell my boyfriend, Dan Street, about my connection to this case. I’m sure you know him. He’s in homicide in the Midtown South precinct, and he’s forbidden me to inquire into any more unsolved murder cases—ever! If he thought I was working on a story about the Gray Gordon murder, he’d kill me.”
“Oh, yeah?” Flannagan jeered. “At the rate you’re going, somebody else is gonna beat him to it.”
He had a point. I wouldn’t have believed it yesterday—even the Baldy and Blackie incidents hadn’t convinced me that I was in serious danger—but the Aunt Doobie incident tonight had made a deep and painful impression. Now I
knew
I was at risk.
“If you know what’s good for you,” Flannagan went on, “you’ll tell me the truth—and I mean the
whole
truth—about what’s been going on. You’ll tell me everything you’ve learned about the case so far, and you’ll stop meddling in the investigation right now. And here’s another tip: You’d better quit dressing like a dyke and hanging out with homosexuals. Willard Sinclair, in particular. He might do to you what he did to Gray Gordon.”
“Oh, come off it, Detective Flannagan!” I sputtered. “You don’t
really
believe Willy killed Gray! You can’t! Willy is a kind, gentle, and very
squeamish
man. He’s as dainty and fastidious as your grandmother. He couldn’t bring himself to carve up a turkey, much less a human being!”
“Leave my grandmother out of this.” Flannagan fired up a Camel and blew the smoke in my direction. “You could be wrong about your homo pal, Mrs. Turner. Ever think of that?
Sinclair is our number one suspect. He’s the same blood type as the killer.”
“Yes, he told me that, but—”
“But what? The proven facts don’t mean anything to you? You’ve decided the fat little faggot is innocent, and that’s the end of it? I thought you were smarter than that, Mrs. Turner. You’re just begging for trouble. For all you know, Willard Sinclair was the one who knocked your block off tonight.”
By this point I wanted to knock off his. “Don’t be ridiculous! Willy didn’t even know when I left the bar. I shot out of there in a flash because . . .”
Take it easy, Paige. Slow down. Be cool.
I fully intended to tell Flannagan about Aunt Doobie, but I wanted to choose my words carefully, make sure I didn’t reveal more than was good for me. Or Willy.