Palindrome (36 page)

I mull this over, listening to the traffic down on the street.

“Greta?” I ask.

“Would make sense,” Helen says. “Explains how she knew about the tape, why she went to visit Silas in prison. Maybe they were partners, he took it, and she wanted it back.”

I nod slowly.

“Yes,” I say, biting my lip. “And think about why Savannah was tattooed . . . it was like, sacrificial, right? So why would her killer put the same tattoos on himself? Doesn't make sense.”

“So maybe Silas was going to be the next victim,” Courtney says, excitement edging into his voice. “So he stole the tape and turned himself in. To avoid being murdered.”

“Christ,” I mutter.

“Think about it. He became terrified after Greta's visit! That's when the transformation happened. He probably felt safe in that institution until she showed up. Found him. Now he lives in fear of her returning.”

“Oh man,” I say, lowering my head into my hands. “But Orange? Why tattoo Orange?”

“Maybe she's afraid she won't get the tape back. Tried to make a new one.”

This makes too much sense. I laugh.

“Of course, Court. Of course the only person who would be this desperate to get the tape would be the person who was willing, who was
crazy,
enough, to try to make it in the first place.”

“We got played real bad, Frank.” Courtney shakes his head. “Worse than we even realized.”

All I can do is shake my head and stare at the floor.

“It always gets worse,” I whisper.

The three of us stare at each other in silence. I should be colder, just wearing a towel. Maybe I'm just used to feeling like overall shit. My shit receptors are fried.

“Fucking hell,” I mutter. I can't believe how gullible I was. I should have figured this out the second “Greta” told me her story and showed me the police report. “Fucking shit.” I smack myself in the forehead a few times with my open palm.

Finally Helen says softly, “So, Frank. Seems that this woman you're supposed to rendezvous with this evening is, in all likelihood, a serial killer—­”

“
Fuck
!” I stand up and kick my chair over, towel almost slipping off. “Fucking
fuck
!”

“If we don't catch her tonight,” Courtney says delicately, “she'll disappear. Probably to kill again.”

“This goddamn . . .” I kick at the chair, grab the closest object to me—­a bottle of wine sitting in a rack on top of Helen's bookshelf—­and hurl it against the wall over the TV. It smashes into a dozen pieces. Glass and wine fly everywhere.

“Fuck!” I scream, dropping back into my chair and clasping my hands over my eyes to catch hot tears of frustration.

“It's my fault,” I whimper. “Sadie getting taken . . . it's my fault for getting involved with this woman. How did I not see this . . .”

Courtney is behind me, his lanky hands on my shoulders.

“Listen . . .” he says. “It's not just you. I didn't see it either.
Nobody
made the connection—­”

I shove him off me and storm into Helen's room. Throw off my towel and pull on a pair of jeans, T-­shirt, and my jacket, which is stiff with sweat. Shove the pistol from Orange's into the back of my jeans.

I tear back into the living room, huffing, face burning.

Courtney is seated back on the couch beside Helen, and they're both eyeing me with something between sympathy and fear.

“I'm sorry about the wine,” I say, noticing the crime-­scene-­esque stain dripping onto the TV. “I'll clean it up when I'm back.”

“Where are you going?” Helen says warily.

“I'm going to get my daughter back,” I say and look down to the tabletop, where I left my phone and the tape. Neither remains.

Slowly I look back up at the two of them. Courtney is rubbing his cheek with one hand, the other hand is covering a familiar-­looking lump in the pocket of his blue jeans. He's avoiding my gaze. Helen's face is a mask of seriousness.

“Courtney . . .” I say slowly, trying to keep my voice level, under control. “Give them to me.”

“Frank,” Helen says in her all-­business voice. The kind she uses around the office to make it clear she's not looking for a conversation. “This woman is a deranged
serial
killer. I can't allow you to go after her like a vigilante and get you or your daughter killed. I'll have a professional hostage negotiator talk to her, we'll make the swap with a dozen armed officers stationed in a three-­hundred-­foot radius, waiting to take her down once your daughter's back—­”

“You said—­” My voice cracks. “You told me if we found what she wanted, you'd help us do it ourselves.”

“That was before I knew she's a
murderer,
which makes it infinitely more likely that she'll simply kill both you and your daughter as soon as she has what she wants if she thinks she'll get away with it.”

I force myself to breathe. A film of red is slowly descending over my vision; my hands are quaking in rage.

“You don't understand,” I gasp to Helen. Courtney chews on his pinky and inspects the leather grain of his armrest. “It has to be
her way
or it's
over
. Now give me the tape and my phone, and let me go get my daughter back!”

Neither budges. I feel a vein popping out above my right eyebrow. My chest feels like it's squeezing my heart up through my neck.

“
Courtney
!” I plead. “You know what I mean. You've heard Greta. She's not human. If she thinks the police are involved, it's over!
It's OVER
!”

Courtney fidgets beside Helen on the couch. His hand squeezes the rectangular bulge in his pocket. He looks at Helen, then back to me.

“I think . . .” he practically whispers. “I think she might be right, Frank.”

My pulse is spiking, a low bass-­drum sound track thumping through a vein in my neck. I feel this slipping out of my control.

“Don't bullshit me,” I say. “You want to listen to it yourself. You know if I walk out with this you'll never hear it. That's all you care about, admit it. You care more about that fucking tape than you do about Sadie!”

“No, Frank.” He shakes his head, eyes getting wet. “I really think Helen's choice gives Sadie the best chance. And if we let you walk out and something happens to either of you, that blood is on our hands.”

I rub my eyes. Getting light-­headed. Hard to think clearly, knees quivering, entire body feeling like it's going to explode.

Helen and Courtney sitting calmly on the couch. Are they right? I can't think. Helen slowly reaches for her cell phone, which is resting on the bookcase just below the wine stain on the wall.

“So,” she says gently, fucking patronizing me. “I'm just going to call my office—­”

“Put down your phone,” I say. My hand works on its own accord, grabbing the pistol out of the back of my jeans. And before I can think it through, I'm pointing it first at Helen, then at Courtney.

Helen opens her mouth but doesn't say anything. Courtney's eyes are wide.

“Frank,” he says.

“I'm sorry.” I'm choking on my own words. “You have to give me my phone and the tape. I'm so sorry, but give them to me.”

“Fr—­” Helen starts.

“You don't have children,” I say, gun shaking in my hand, salty tears on my lips. “Neither of you. You'd do the same in my position. I have to. You don't understand Greta . . . She has some kind of power. It's like she's in my head. She knows everything about me.”

Courtney stares at me in disbelief.

“Give me the tape.”

Shaking his head, he pulls first my phone, then the tape, out of his pocket and sets them on the glass coffee table. I grab them both and scoop them into the side pocket of my jacket, then lower the gun, tuck it back into my waistband.

“Now the blood's not on your hands,” I say softly. “I forced you. Both of you.” I wipe my nose with my sleeve. “This case fell into my lap, not either of yours. And I'm genuinely sorry for bringing all of this fucked-­up madness into your lives. But you're done now. Both of you. You've helped me as much as you can. You're relieved. I have to go finish this now, alone.”

They stare at me.

To Helen I say, “I'm not going to tie you up, but I hope you have the sense to wait until tomorrow to go after Greta. Once I have my daughter back.”

Helen doesn't respond. Stares at me like she doesn't know who I am.

“I'm sorry,” I say again to both of them. Give a tight-­lipped nod and step out into the hall, letting the door slam behind me. I stomp down the stairs, mind replaying what just happened on a loop. I burst out onto 86th Street, still unable—­or unwilling—­to process the last five minutes of my life. Instead I grip the bulge in my jacket pocket and focus on the feel of the hard plastic beneath my fingers.

Q
UARTER TO SEVEN.
It's dark outside. An automated man's voice over scratchy PA informs patrons that the museum will be closing in fifteen minutes, prompting cries of protest from every kid in sight.

I sit motionless on a stiff bench, staring at the prehistoric skeleton of what looks like an eight-­foot-­tall beaver with claws and fangs. Check my phone for the fiftieth time in the past half hour, just in case I missed her call.

Ended up in this room, on the top floor of the Museum of Natural History, without even thinking about it. Feet just carried me over the cold sidewalks on autopilot. I think I suspected I'd find the dinosaur skeletons comforting; used to be one of my favorite spots in the whole city when I was a kid.

Scaffolding of enormous, flesh-­eating creatures, with jaws big enough to snap me in half used to evoke a sense of wonder; these things were once
real.
This whole island was covered in foliage and reptilian predators. That's a
fact
.

But there's no wonder tonight. The skeletons just make me sad. Make me imagine my own skeleton someday being displayed in a museum for field trips of giggling fifth-­graders.

“
This is a relic from the turn of the twenty-­first
century, kids: Pathetic Man.
”

Maybe some little fat kid with a shit-­eating grin will point and laugh at my bones.

“
I wouldn't want to be that guy
!”

Mousey librarian-­esque teacher takes him seriously.

“
That's right, Toby. Do you see the way his lower vertebrae are ground down? That's from years of horrible posture, likely due to fruitless, joyless toil. If you look closely at his skull, you can almost see how unhappy he still is. Do you see it?
”

“
Didn't they have yoga back then, m
iss?
”

“
They did, Toby. But he probably was too lazy or jaded or stubborn to give it a chance.
”

Then the teacher leads her kids on to the next exhibit: successful, happy man. Walks upright, thick bones because he works out regularly, and some of his teeth are even still there because he sees the dentist four times a year. Field trips come and go all day, comparing the motionless forms of first me, then my proud companion. Finally at the end of the day the kids file out and the lights go dim. Just the two of us alone in the dark, save the night janitor coming to buff the floors a few times a week.

A uniformed guard breaks my reverie.

“Museum closing. Time to go, pal,” he says.

“Thanks,” I say, rise up from the bench and stretch a little, then walk out past the rest of the skeletons, follow the flow of exiting patrons. Hands in my jacket pockets. Left on the phone, right on the tape. Get a little comfort each time I confirm that both are still there. Get a little more each time I feel the cold butt of my pistol jabbing my right butt cheek.

If there's one takeaway from the last half hour, it's that museum security really isn't up to snuff.

I pull my collar tight around my neck as the revolving door casts me out into the wet night. I buy a scarf from a street peddler, using one of my last hundreds. When he eyes me suspiciously, I tell him to just keep it.

Laugh to myself as I walk off, thinking that for all I know, the whole $15K was counterfeit. Walk south for a while, then duck into a crowded Starbucks, order the biggest bucket of medicine I can, and squeeze into a counter between an older Hispanic woman and a pretty young college student working on her laptop.

It's starting to snow a little. I watch Columbus Circle pedestrians progressively note this and open up their umbrellas, like a choreographed dance.

Between the street and me floats the hideous, pale specter of my own reflection in the window. My eyes are like buoys floating on pits of tar. Can hardly even bear to study it. Pull the lid off my coffee so I can chug it faster.

Check my phone. A little after eight. No missed calls.

Feeling surprisingly relaxed, not sure why. Check to make sure the tape is still in my other pocket. Have a sudden craving for a cigarette. Polish off my coffee and toss the cup, head out into the light snow. It's only once I'm outside that I remember I don't have any cash for a pack of American Spirits. Think about going back into Starbucks when I feel my phone vibrate.

Pull it out. Blocked number. It's her.

“You're calling early,” I say, shielding the speaker from the wind.

“Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

“If you're lying, you'll never see her.”

“I'm alone.”

“Come to the lobby of the New York Palace hotel on Madison,” she says. “In fifteen minutes, I'll call you to tell you where to go from there. You try anything, Lamb, the whole thing is off.”

“I don't know if I believe you,” I say, ducking into a pay phone kiosk so I can hear her better, heart pounding, but feeling strangely alive for the first time in a while. “This tape is your life's work, isn't it? You probably want it as badly as I want my daughter back. I saw what you did to Orange's place and to him. You're as desperate as I am. How about this: You bring my daughter to the island in the middle of Columbus Circle. We'll do the handoff right there, in public.”