The Immortalist (50 page)

Cricket was pulled off her feet as Gifford caught her around the waist and swung her about. Dayton stood between two columns, gun drawn, in a marksman's crouch. Cricket saw his look change from resolve to horror in the split second it took him to realize she was blocking his line of fire. Suddenly—a flash of light. Intense heat scorching her underarm. An earsplitting blast. Dayton's gun clattered to the floor as he crumpled into a fetal position to the ground.

“Move!” said Gifford. He swung her around again and hustled her down a long, softly lit corridor, past bank after bank of elevators. They passed a blue-uniformed monitor at the turnstile of every elevator bank. One stepped forward to question them. A wave of Gifford's gun sent him scurrying for cover.

Cricket heard frantic voices from the lobby. A crowd had formed around the stricken policeman.
Where's Hank?
Cricket hadn't spotted him when Dayton was shot. Cricket was afraid to look back. But she felt as if she died a little with each step she took down the dark, polished marble squares of the corridor.

She saw an escalator ahead, and a broad staircase to her left.

“Take the stairs,” said Gifford.

Their heels pattered against the marble steps as they hurried downward. There were two flights, making a 180-degree turn at a small landing. The handrail was polished brass. When they came around the landing, Cricket noticed an ornate brass newel, a column of alternating disks and spheres. A pair of open fire doors at the bottom led to the concourse, the underground shopping mall that connected the buildings of Rockefeller Center. She could see the legs of shoppers passing by.

Just as they stepped off the bottom stair, a commanding voice rang out from above—a man's voice, dry and warm, like musk wafting over charcoal. “Stop right there, Charles.”

Gifford grabbed Cricket and pivoted, shielding himself with her body. “Well, well! Hank Wright!”

Hank was pointing a gun at Gifford over the handrail at the very top of the stairs. He went white as he got a look at Gifford's face. “Holy shit, Charles. Did you get trampled?”

Gifford seemed annoyed by the question. “Is that the policeman's gun?” he asked condescendingly. “Know how to use it?”

“Yeah. Point and click. Now let Cricket go.”

“Come and take her.” Gifford tried to draw a bead on Hank, but the brass rails were in his line of fire. “Your hand's shaking, Hank. Sure you don't need a drink to stiffen you up?”

“When did you start hiding behind women, Charles?”

Cricket saw a shadow moving toward Hank from behind. Hank noticed it, too. As he turned to get a better look, he unwittingly stepped into the open, offering Gifford a clear target. Gifford took aim, but before he could get off a shot, Cricket lurched, throwing him off-balance. By then Hank had disappeared. A few seconds later he was back, holding at gunpoint the source of the shadow—Loscalzo.

Loscalzo's shirt collar was askew and a shock of hair dangled over his forehead. His beady eyes turned to saucers when he saw Gifford. “What the fuck happened to you, Doc?” he gasped.

Hank brandished the gun against Loscalzo's temple. “Listen, Charles. I'll make a trade. Cricket for this piece of shit.”

“You're no chess player,” said Gifford, “or you would never attempt to trade a pawn for a queen.”

“Don't let him shoot me, Doc.”

Gifford chuckled. “He's not going to shoot you. He hasn't got it in him. I, on the other hand, only moments ago demonstrated that I can and will shoot when necessary. Isn't that right, Hank?”

Cricket was terrified by the guns. “Leave it, Hank,” she said, on the verge of tears. “You'll get us both killed.”

“You should listen to her,” added Gifford. “Give the gun to Mr. Loscalzo.”

Hank stood his ground.

Gifford grew impatient. “Give it to him now.”

“Here—you want it?” Hank heaved the gun over the handrail. As it clattered down the stairs, Cricket cringed, expecting it to go off.

Gifford dove after it, shoving Cricket down onto her knees with him. Distracted, he missed seeing Hank wallop Loscalzo with a hard left to his face. Loscalzo tottered for a second, then slammed a barrage of punches of his own into Hank's midsection. Cricket had never seen Hank hit anyone before—not even drunk—and she was frightened by the wild look in his eyes. He tore into Loscalzo with blows that seemed powerful enough to crack ribs. But Loscalzo was nimble. He crouched low like a prizefighter, darting in and out of reach. Half the time Hank wound up swinging at air. But Loscalzo's punches connected: kidney, solar plexus, groin. To Cricket the thump of knuckles against flesh was sickening. Each man groaned; each roared. She wanted to shout out for them to stop, but she was paralyzed by fear.

Then Hank slipped. He fell back against the railings, bracing himself with his arm. Loscalzo was on him instantly. Only now it was face punches—left-right, left-right, left-right-left. Loscalzo's hands were a blur. Hank was bleeding from his nose and eyes. He seemed too dazed to put his hands up in defense.

“That's enough, Dom,” said Gifford. “He's finished. Time to go.”

But Loscalzo was mad for the kill. Left-right, left-right, left-right-left. In between face punches he would kick Hank in the ribs. Left-right, left-right, left-right-
thunk
.

Then, just when he seemed done for, Hank gave a terrific groan, grabbed Loscalzo in a bear hug, and hurtled with him down the steps. Down they rolled against the hard marble, flopping like a strange, land-going octopus. When they hit the landing, Hank scrambled to his feet. Groggily, Loscalzo got up, too. But Hank was waiting. Eight inches taller, eighty pounds heavier, he let fly an enormous punch, like Babe Ruth slamming one for the record books, right onto Loscalzo's pointy little chin.

“You fu-u-u-uck!” shouted Loscalzo. He toppled so hard his feet went up in the air. Cricket heard a crack as the back of his skull smashed against the solid brass of the newel. Then he dropped to the floor—out cold.

Hank stood triumphant, looking down on Cricket and Gifford, panting with an open mouth and licking a stream of blood that trickled from his nose. His red, swollen hands looked like sledgehammers. To Cricket he had never seemed more frightening—or more magnificent.

Gifford held the gun on him. “Just what did you think to accomplish by that?”

“Pawn takes pawn,” said a breathless Hank. Heedless of the gun, he kept descending toward them, fists at the ready.

“No, Hank!” shouted Cricket. “Stay back!”

“I'm not letting him take you.”

But when Gifford pointed the gun at Cricket's temple, Hank stopped in his tracks.

“He's standing down, Charles,” Cricket said. “He's no threat to you. He won't come after us. Right, Hank?”

Hank stood panting and glaring, saying nothing.

Gifford slowly let down the hammer. “If I so much as see your shadow, Hank, I'll let both of you have it.”

Hank, still a little punch-drunk, watched through squinted eyes as Gifford pushed Cricket out onto the concourse.

After the pandemonium on the Plaza, Cricket was astonished by the normalcy underground. Lunching businessmen, smartly dressed midtown matrons, and tourists drifted from shop to shop in carefree Friday shopping mode. But with one glimpse of Gifford's face, all that changed. Diners dropped food out of their mouths. Shoppers retreated into doorways. No one dared come near them.

Just ahead of a dry cleaner's, Gifford jerked Cricket to a stop in front of a metal door that led to a service area.

“This is where Mr. Loscalzo and his locksmith's kit would have come in handy.” Gifford fired his gun at the lock. A woman coming out of a drugstore shrieked. Ignoring her, Gifford tried the lock, then fired another round. This time it opened.

“Hurry now.” Gifford moved in double time down a wide, green-tiled corridor.

“Where are you taking me, Charles?”

“We're going . . . we're going to undo the damage you caused, Cricket.” When she looked back at him, she saw his thin cadaver's lips stretched in a grimace, the naked risorius muscles twitching at the corners of his mouth. “I'm not going to let you or anyone else stand in the way of the greatest scientific achievement in history.
In history!
” He shouted these last words so forcefully that droplets of his saliva sprayed the back of her neck. “You are an insect on the rails of an express train. You will not stop the train. You will be
crushed
.”

Gifford prodded her forward with the gun. They went up a stairwell and came to a tan metal door marked
EMERGENCY EXIT. ALARM WILL SOUND
.

Gifford shoved the door with his hip. A bell-and-hammer alarm began to ring. As they came out into the bright light of Fifty-First Street, Cricket was startled to see both sides of the street lined with police cars. But Gifford was unconcerned—they were all empty. No doubt every available cop had been called in to control the raging mob on the Plaza. That the fracas was still going on was obvious from the dozens of people Cricket saw running farther down the block.

The alarm died away as the tan door swung shut. Gifford marched Cricket across the street, toward a white Grand Marquis parked in a loading zone. Opening a rear door, he unslung the ice chest and gently transferred it to the backseat.

“You drive,” he said, opening the front door for her. “Remember, I'll have a clear shot if you try to make a run for it.”

Gifford went around and got in on the other side. Leaning over, he turned a key that had been left in the ignition. As the engine began to purr, Cricket edged out onto the street and started past the row of police cars.

“At Sixth Avenue up ahead, take a right.”

Driving past Radio City, Cricket once again heard the bell-and-hammer alarm of the emergency door. Turning her head, she was just able to spy the door swinging back shut. In her rearview mirror, she saw the dwindling figure of someone running out into the street—a tall, dark-haired man in a flannel shirt.

Hank?

Four

AFTER A MAD
HUNDRED-YARD DASH TO
the police barricade on Sixth Avenue, a panting Hank Wright could barely get a word out.

Patrolman E. P. Kohl, a portly, middle-aged veteran in a dark blue uniform and eight-point cap, looked at him perplexedly. “Are you all right, mister?”

“H-H-H-Hank Wright . . . scientist . . . Acadia Springs . . .” His swollen lips made him sound not only breathless but drunk.

“Take your time.”

“Gifford . . . Ch-Charles Gifford . . . fugitive . . . d-do you . . . know about him?”

“Yeah, there's an APB out on him. Armed and dangerous.”

“Just seen him . . . he's taken my wife . . . ex-wife . . . hostage.”

“Where?”

“There!” Still doubled over, Hank pointed up Sixth Avenue, in the direction of Central Park. “Just went by . . . white sedan . . . dark blue C-C-Connecticut plate . . . 877-XVZ.”

“You saw him?”

“Yeah . . . Hurry! . . . Can't be more than a few blocks away.”

“Okay. Let's grab my car.”

They left the barricade and hustled back down Fifty-First Street, to a blue-and-white Crown Victoria parked among dozens on either side of the street.

“Get in,” said Kohl. As soon as he had pulled out, he picked up his radio microphone, which squawked with a burst of static. “This is One-Four Officer F. Need to run a ten-fourteen on a white sedan, Connecticut plates, Eight Seven Seven X-ray Victor Zebra. This is a ten–thirty-nine, possible kidnapping in progress, hostage may be present in car. Over.”

They turned up Sixth Avenue and had already reached the Hilton two blocks away before the radio squawked back.

“One-Four Officer F, that's a ten-seventeen on that vehicle.”

Kohl held the mike to his mouth. “Uh, do you have registration data?”

Another squawk. “White Mercury Grand Marquis, registered to Vonda L. Loscalzo, 10299 Wappinger Road, Reiverton, Connecticut. Over.”

Loscalzo.
Hank felt pain shoot through his jaw at the name. “Reiverton—is it far?”

Kohl studied his GPS navigation screen. “Forty minutes.”

“Do they have an airport?”

“Not that I can see. Looks like farm country. Danbury's the closest airport.”

“Don't they sometimes land airplanes on farms? Crop dusters, things like that? Gifford flew out here on his own plane. I'm certain he's trying to get back to it.”

Kohl picked up the mike again. “Can you send out an APB on that vehicle? Include all city, New York State, and Connecticut State units. Notify that suspect vehicle may be headed to that Reiverton address. Approach with extreme caution. Armed kidnapping in progress. Hostage in vehicle. Driver is Charles Gifford, subject of existing APB.”

“Ten-four.”