Rearview (8 page)

16

Dan found a seat on the train where he could face the doors and keep a watch on who came and left. At every station the conductor's muffled voice mumbled instructions over the intercom, the train shuddered to a stop, and the doors opened. And at every station more passengers piled into the car, found seats, and mostly minded their own business. Some read books or neatly folded newspapers, others closed their eyes while iPods pumped music into their ears, and still others stared blankly at nothing in particular, avoiding eye contact with anyone. But in every pair of eyes Dan found malice, ill-intent, and a potential agent of Death waiting for the opportune time to lash out and deliver that final devastating blow.

For fifty-eight minutes, from Suffern to Penn Station, he warily watched the movement of passengers and the game of musical chairs they played, looking for any pattern, any face that appeared out of place, any pair of eyes that continuously met his. And not until the train finally came to a stop in Penn Station and the doors opened did he relax the muscles in his neck and shoulders. Stepping out of the car and into the throng of chaos, he checked his watch. Fifty-four minutes left. That meant it was 1:06 in the afternoon. Sue and the boys had probably finished their lunch by now.

Less than an hour remained, and he still had to find the right subway to get him close to FAO Schwarz, then locate his family.

Pushing through the crowd, he found the concrete stairs descending to the subway terminal. The map on the wall indicated he needed the E train on the blue line en route to the Fifth Avenue station. The toy store was five blocks beyond that.

The train came within seconds and eased to a stop beside the platform. Dan stepped on and stayed close to the door, holding the grab bar that ran the length of the ceiling. His destination was more than a mile away.

At each stop, Dan avoided the migration of passengers and checked his watch, counting off the minutes. And with each tick of the clock, each passing moment, he felt as though that great and terrifying beast, that predator of doom, was approaching, closing in for the kill.

When the train arrived at his station, he stepped off, checked his watch, and said the time aloud: “Forty-six minutes left.”

Five city blocks in Manhattan equals almost three-tenths of a mile. Weaving in and out of pedestrians, dodging dogs on short leashes, and pausing at every intersection, Dan covered the distance as quickly as he could. A light snow fell, powdering the sidewalk and slowing the foot traffic around him. He arrived at the toy store slightly out of breath, his lungs numbed by the cold air.

A glance at his wrist reminded him he had only forty-two minutes. Even if he found Sue immediately, it would not be enough time; it would never be enough time.

Pushing through the double glass doors, he pressed his molars together and grunted in frustration as he entered the cavernous toy store and was greeted by herds and troops and flocks and schools of plush animals of every kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species.

He grabbed the first clerk he ran into, a young girl wearing a green-and-red felted wool elf hat. “Where's customer service?”

She looked him up and down, glanced at the security guard by the door, and pointed to a spacious desk along the right side of the store. “Um, over there.”

Dan picked his way through the crowd. There were so many people, all of them oblivious to the watch on his wrist counting off the final minutes of his life, oblivious to the monster tracking him, gaining ground, building speed and momentum, preparing to crash headlong into him and send him into another realm. Death was on his heels and no one noticed. No one cared.

The clerk behind the desk held a phone to his ear. No older than twenty-five, clean-cut, baby-faced, hair neatly parted to one side, he wore a red polo shirt with a green collar, emblazoned with the FAO Schwarz logo. When Dan approached the desk, the clerk smiled politely and held up a finger. A name tag pinned above the logo read
Brandon
.

“It's an emergency,” Dan said.

Brandon arched his eyebrows and continued to hold his finger in the air as if to indicate that he was the number one employee in the FAO franchise and deserved a substantial raise for the aggravation he endured from impatient and unhappy customers.

Dan smacked the desk with an open palm. “I have an emergency.”

The clerk, Brandon, pointed to the guard by the front door and continued to speak into the phone.

“I need you to page someone,” Dan interrupted.

To the customer on the other end of the phone, Brandon said, “Can you please hold? I'm sorry.” He covered the receiver with his hand. “Sir,” he said to Dan, “can I finish this call?”

“No. Please, there's been a family emergency. I need you to page my wife. Brandon, please.”

Brandon paused, stared at Dan's face, eyeing his cuts and bruises, then said to the customer on the phone, “I'm going to have to put you on hold. I apologize.”

He set the phone in its cradle and picked up the microphone. “Her name?”

“Susan Blakely.”

Forty minutes.

Pressing the Talk button on the mic, Brandon spoke slowly and clearly. “Susan Blakely, please come to the customer service desk. Susan Blakely, you're needed at the customer service desk, first floor.”

Dan tapped his hand on the desk while he scanned the crowd for the first glimpse of his wife and boys. Over by a giant plush giraffe, a young girl, no more than six or seven, made silly faces while her mother snapped pictures. Near the escalator to the second floor, two boys tossed a stuffed monkey back and forth while their little sister hollered for a chance. By the glass doors, the girl in the elf hat spoke to the security guard. Both of them looked at Dan.

A minute passed, raising his heart rate and dotting his forehead with a cold sweat.

Dan turned and found Brandon back on the phone. “Can you try it again?”

He tightened his mouth and covered the receiver with his hand. “Sir, it's only been a minute. Give them some time.”

He was right. It was a big store. Three floors and a ton of square feet. Navigating a crowd like this would slow anyone down. Besides, Sue didn't know it was an emergency; she had no reason to hurry.

“Try again, please.”

Brandon said good-bye to the customer on the phone, glanced at the guard again, and finally picked up the microphone. He kept his eyes on Dan as he said, “Susan Blakely, please come to the customer service desk immediately.”

Scanning the throng of shoppers, Dan again was acutely aware of the closeness of his pursuer. And again, as it did on the train from Suffern to Penn Station, a strange and foreboding paranoia overcame him. In every face in the sea of shoppers he found indifference and ignorance, and yet there was a method to the asymmetry by which they moved, a dark intent, as if they were all puppets, dangling from strings controlled by a greater force. A shadow of malevolence moved over the crowd, hovered in the room. Death loomed here, walking among the shoppers, tapping this one on the shoulder, nudging that one, seeking a tool, an instrument of disaster. It was near, so close Dan could feel its breath on the back of his neck, a rapid, hungry pant.

Death came for him in a full-on charge, eating up ground like . . .

. . . like there was no tomorrow. No morning, no kissing Sue good-bye, hugging the boys. No classroom time, no dinner with the family or evening rituals—baths, stories, prayers. This was it. The end of the line.

Another minute passed. Thirty-eight.

And no sign of Sue.

A forced sigh and audible groan escaped Dan's mouth. He had the dreadful feeling they weren't in the store, that they'd left and were somewhere else in this city of eight million.

Panic set in then, tightened his chest, restricting the amount of air making it to his lungs. His palms turned sweaty and vision blurred. He had to get out of the store. Pushing his way through the mass toward the front door, he noticed a man in a black suit making his way out of the store. He told himself it could be anyone, anyone at all. New York had millions of people in it and this store saw thousands of visitors every day. Surely it wasn't uncommon for someone to shop in a black suit. But the man seemed to navigate the crowd effortlessly, as though he floated just above the floor and glided not around but through the shoppers. When he reached the door, he turned and scanned the first floor of the building and Dan caught a glimpse of his face. It was Constant. There was no mistaking it.

Dan shoved past a woman with bags in both arms, nearly knocking her over. Forcing his way through the swarm of holiday shoppers, he blew past the guard at the door and found himself outside in the falling snow, surrounded by more people. But no Constant.

Dan's head began to throb again and his vision blurred briefly. Buildings towered above him in every direction and seemed to spin in a slow turn, as if the whole city had been built on a lazy Susan and he now stood at the axis.

Thirty-seven minutes.

Forgetting about Thomas Constant and his cursed watch, Dan turned in circles, searching the crowd of people around him, all of them going about their own business, paying no attention at all to the man who would die in a little more than half an hour. Gone was the sudden paranoia that had gripped him so violently in the confines of the store, but it had been replaced with a great desperation.

He needed more time to find Sue. Please, God, he needed more time to be with his family.

His chest constricted further. His heart beat like a piston at full throttle.

This was it. It was over. He'd die in New York City surrounded by millions of people yet totally alone. How sad. He'd been given seven more hours to live and had done nothing with it.

He'd come to the end of his own ability, that place on the precipice where to step out even one inch farther meant tumbling headlong into the great unknown. All he had now was threadbare faith and a desperate man's hope. There, in the middle of a throng of strangers, Dan Blakely cried to God for help. He couldn't do this on his own. He now realized that something had been missing in his life. Ever since he had blamed himself for his father's death, he'd been too ashamed to seek God's help, his mercy. If only he had come to this point while there had still been time to make a difference in his life, in the way he raised his sons. But it was no use lamenting what could not be changed. He was just a man on borrowed time, narrowly staying out of Death's reach. Soon that grim repo man would come knocking to take back what was stolen.

Again he combed the crowd, hoping, praying,
willing
Sue and the boys to be among them, to materialize from the darkness that encroached upon him from every side and tell him it had all been a bad dream or a momentary slip into insanity, a hiccup in his brain.

And then there they were, as if they'd dropped from heaven, standing by the fountain not fifty feet away. Jack was squatting, rolling a toy truck around in the snow. Murphy was eating a big cookie, and Sue watched the multitudes shuffle by.

She turned his way and their eyes met. A confused look froze her face, a mixture of surprise and panic.

17

Without even a glance at his watch, Dan ran to her. He didn't care how much time was left now; he wanted to make the most of every minute.

He reached her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, hugged her tight.

“Dan, what on earth are you doing here?”

Dan stepped back and pulled Jack and Murphy to him. “Hey, guys, how are ya? Are you having a good time?”

“It was awesome,” Murphy shouted.

“Yeah,” Jack said. “They have a huge castle made out of LEGOs.”

Sue turned Dan to her and cupped his face. “Honey, is everything okay? What happened to your face?”

Dan smiled and brushed away her concern. “I was in an accident but I'm fine. The car isn't, but it doesn't matter. I'm here. I found you. I can't believe I found you.”

“Dan, honey, what's wrong?”

The boys both looked at him, waiting for an answer too.

“Nothing. I just wanted to surprise you and tell you all I love you.”

She didn't believe him. Her eyes had always offered a clear view into her soul. “You came all the way to New York City . . . How did you get here?”

“Train. Subway.”

“You came all the way here on a train and found us in all of this—” she waved her arm in the air—“just to tell us you love us.”

Dan kissed her on the mouth. “It's not
just
to tell you I love you. I do love you. And I want to thank you for everything you do for this family, the sacrifices you've made and make every day. I admire you, Sue, more than you'll ever know. You're such a strong person. And I love you so much.”

She gently pushed him away and held him at arm's length. “Dan, you're scaring me. Something's wrong.”

Dan hadn't the heart to tell her, yes, there actually was something wrong; he was going to die in thirty minutes and leave her a widow and the boys fatherless. And now that he'd found them, they would get a front-row seat to his most unfortunate and untimely death.

“Babe, nothing is wrong,” he said and hoped she couldn't read his lie. “I came here to surprise you and the boys.”

“And you didn't let even a car accident stop you.”

“Right. Nothing was going to stop me.”

She touched the gash over his left eye, then the abrasion on his cheek. Her touch was soft and caring. “Did you get checked out by a doctor?”

Dan put his hand over hers and pressed it to his face. “I'm fine. No need for doctors to slow me down.”

He knelt in front of Jack and Murphy and pulled them into a hug. “I love you guys. You know that, don't you?”

Jack kissed him on the cheek. “I'm glad you came, Dad.”

“Me, too,” Murphy said. “Didn't you have to teach today?”

Dan glanced at Sue. “Nope. I took the day off, got someone to cover my classes for me. I'd rather be here with you bugaboos.” He ruffled Murphy's hair. “The best sons I could ever want.” A lump made its way to his throat; tears pressed against his eyes. “You make me very happy and I'm so proud of both of you. I can't wait to see the kind of men you grow up to be. Honest, strong, courageous. I bet you'll both make great dads.”

Sue had her fist to her mouth and tears now puddled in her eyes. Dan stood and kissed her on the forehead, then pulled her hand away and kissed her on the lips. “I love you, Susan. Remember that always.”

“Dan . . . please—”

“Let me finish.” Time had to be getting close, but he refused to look at his watch. “We've been through a lot, made a lot of memories, had so many good times together and as a family. I want to remember them forever. But if everything else fails, please know one thing . . . that I love you more than life itself.”

He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tight. It felt right, her in his arms, her hair against his face, the smell of her perfume. He didn't want it to end. He needed more time. He needed his family and they needed him.

But his time was almost up. He could feel the clock ticking down, the end growing closer, as if he'd just awakened from a dream and knew he was only minutes from the alarm sounding.

Dan scanned the crowd. The agent of Death was there, somewhere, blending into the masses as they came and went, shuffled along. Maybe a gunman or a mugger or a suicide bomber.

Sue's hand rested on his arm and she said, “Dan, what's wrong? What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“Something. Tell me.”

“No. Nothing.”

He suddenly had the crushing intuition that he should not have come, not like this. He'd put Sue and the boys in harm's way.

Jack tugged on his jacket. “Daddy?”

Eyes combing through the throng of pedestrians, searching for anything misplaced, anyone behaving oddly, Dan placed a hand on his son's head. “Nothing. Nothing at all. Sue, take the boys and go inside the store.”

“Why?” Her voice was tight with panic. “What's wrong? Tell me.”

“Just—”

There, not fifty yards away, a shrouded face.

Dan stepped forward for a better look, dodged to the left.

Sue grabbed his arm. “What do you see?”

He did not try to shake her loose. He took another step forward. The crowd parted and
he
came into full view.

Thomas Constant.