The Sixth Station (15 page)

Sitting there in the dark, without caring that Wright-Lewis was probably peeking out her window at me, I then turned on the radio. I was desperate to know what had transpired at the tribunal that day.

I tuned to 1010 WINS and caught them midstory—something about a murder.

On the second day of the trial, they bother with a routine murder at the top of the hour?

Then I got it. “The body had been found bound and naked and shot through the temple,” the female reporter was saying. “The priest, a favorite in the Turtle Bay / United Nations area, had last been seen opening the gate to the rectory of the Church of the Holy Family to allow former
New York Standard
reporter Alessandra Russo to enter.”

The next voice was that of Ron Pearl, the NYPD spokesman whom I’d known for twenty years. “Alessandra Russo has been on our radar since the incident with the terrorist, ah, alleged terrorist, ben Yusef at the UN yesterday,” he said as though he weren’t an old friend. “As of four
P.M.
this afternoon Ms. Russo remains the prime suspect in the murder of Father Eugene Sadowski.…”

Then it went back to the beat reporter. “According to one police source, who spoke to me on the condition of anonymity, Alessandra Russo’s fingerprints were found on the murder weapon. This is Juliet Papa reporting.”

I banged my head on the steering wheel. Dead? The guy I’d just cursed out to Dona? I was overcome with grief—until I began to process the reality of what I’d just heard: “Alessandra Russo’s fingerprints were found on the murder weapon.…”

Of course! I’d handled the gun and I’d recently been fingerprinted for clearance for the tribunal. I had been set up! And somehow this nightmare I’d entered was connected to the man on trial, the one his nutty followers claimed to be the new Jesus.

So what now? Return to the city and give myself up to face murder charges? Run for my life? Or find out if the United States had killed Baby Jesus thirty-three years ago by high-tech missile?

I tried Donald. He picked up after half a ring.

“It’s me,” I said. “Don’t ask any questions but just let me know if you know why I’m being set up.”

“Honey,” he said. Damn. He never called me “honey.” He was scared for me. “Run like your ass is on fire. They’re probably tracking my calls.”

“I’m on an untraceable satellite phone.”

“Why do you have an untraceable satellite phone?”

“I said no questions.”

“Right. So, listen. It’s time to get outta Dodge, babe. As in get the hell out. As in right now. Got it?”

“Got it. And Donald? Next time, call the morning after.”

He didn’t laugh. I hung up. I typed “Toronto International Airport” into the Caddy’s GPS, made a very careful U-turn, and headed due north.

Damn!
Shining like a beacon in my rearview mirror were the headlights of a car higher up the street making the same U-turn I’d made. Then those headlights went out. I could still hear the engine hum as the car came closer and closer. It was like “Christine”! Even though I couldn’t see anything on that dark street, I knew it was too close to me and I was too close to the cliff. If I slipped on the wet road, the car could careen onto the grassy part and fly over the cliff.

Nonetheless, I hit the accelerator and said the second prayer I’d said in less than two days to a god I didn’t believe in, in the first place.

My tires screeched as I navigated the road. I could see the end of the street up ahead. Before I reached it, I tried to shut off the car lights, but the Caddy’s damned safety feature would not allow it. Talk about stupidity! So I made a sharp right and a then quick left, passing an inn and onto a flat, straight road again, with my car lights like a beacon to the pursuers.

I couldn’t see it in my rearview mirror, but I could still hear it, and it sounded like it was right on my ass.

The safest bet I figured was to drive into the town of Rhinebeck and onto the main drag, where, hopefully, stores and restaurants would still be open and where whoever it was in that lightless car following me would be exposed to the lights of the town. Of course, I would be exposed as well, and now that I’d somehow turned into a wanted fugitive, it wasn’t a great choice, but it was better than leaving myself open to whatever/whoever it was that was following me.

I could see streetlights up ahead. Thank God. The town was indeed alive—in fact, throngs were gathered on the sidewalks and spilling out onto the street. What the hell? Equinox festival or something equally insane that brought out the neo-hippies?

It was so packed that I had to slow way down so that I didn’t plow down any pedestrians—or more accurately, spectators—since I saw they were all standing still and staring off in one direction. I checked my rearview mirror and saw—nothing. Where the hell had the car gone? Two seconds before the damned thing had sounded like it was practically attached to my bumper, and now—gone.

I very slowly navigated my way down the street. Everyone was standing mesmerized in front of a tavern with a sign that read
BILLY’S LOCAL, SPORTS BAR AND CAFÉ
. These people in the street and on the sidewalk were just the overflow crowd; the place was jammed inside. But oddly I didn’t hear any of the loud noise, or
woo-woo
ing that is the language of sports bars. In fact, it was way too quiet.

As I slowly drove past, and the people moved aside, I glimpsed what it was that had had them all so fascinated: On every one of Billy Local’s giant 3-D flat screens was the face of Demiel ben Yusef. Filmed earlier in the day, the footage showed a close-up of ben Yusef’s calm demeanor and slight smile as he was being walked out of the tribunal, shackled, wearing the same clothes he’d worn the day before, his Rasta braids reaching down to his waist in the back.

People had gathered to see the spectacle together. Remarkable. In an age when everyone had become so insular, each of us so comfortable staring alone at our own computer screens at night and communicating virtually—even virtually having sex—the folks of Rhinebeck had joined together as a community to watch this remarkable event.

Instead of the shouting, fist-waving threats, and arguments that had become commonplace wherever and whenever ben Yusef showed up, everyone in this town seemed to be taking it all in calmly.

The reporter in me was of course desperate to jump out of the car and start interviewing people, but I’d somehow ducked that car following me, so I wasn’t taking any chances.

Instead, the fugitive I’d just become kept moving ahead at only 10 or 15 mph with my eyes trained alternately on the parting crowds and the rearview mirror. I felt like I’d entered
The Twilight Zone.

A middle-aged, plump woman with out-of-control gray hair, wearing a tie-dyed schmata, approached the car. She walked in front and stood there, causing me to slam on the brakes.

She walked to the driver’s side and smiled at me through the closed window, demanding I look at her, which I finally did. Her eyes seemed glazed over.

Jeez, just what I need—a town full of stoned lunatics.

She lifted her left hand, which caused me to flinch, but instead she crossed herself twice—the first one in the traditional manner and the second one starting at the chest!

Have another toke, lady, before your high wears off.

She pulled back a bit, blew on the glass, and lifted a single finger. In the fogged area she drew a double cross with these sorts of
v
shapes at the four ends. I acknowledged it with a nod of my head, as though I were one of them, when in fact I had no damned idea—then—what the hell she meant, but it seemed to satisfy her. She moved away from the car and waved me on like a demented traffic cop.

Had the whole world gone insane in my one-day absence?

And where the hell was the car without the lights?

15

I wouldn’t find the answer to that question until the next day. Meantime, the GPS was barking orders: “Make a slight left, make a slight right, obey the local traffic ordinances.” If I weren’t afraid of being completely lost (or more than I already felt), I would have shut the damned thing off. “Christine” was not following me—or so it seemed—which should have given me more than enough food for thought.

When you think you’re not being tailed, then for sure you are.

With the satellite radio tuned to Fox, I listened for any updates on the story, watching in the rearview mirror for the tail.

I exited off the turnpike in Albany. It was a big enough city that for sure there had to be a twenty-four-hour drugstore. It was a little after 9:25.

At a strip mall, I found a CVS and went quickly as possible through the aisles, picking up a small Crest, a hairbrush, a travel hair dryer with an international currency switch, disposable razors, a thick cloth headband with an elastic closure at the back, six cotton gramma panties—all white—in a bag, and a good pair of surgical-looking scissors.

I browsed the hair-color aisle. Blondes have more fun, but I wasn’t looking for a good time, so I was thinking redhead.

I picked up a box of L’Oréal Féria with a seductive-looking model on the front with bright red hair. It was a color called “R76 Spicy Red.”
Punk red. Too old for that one—perfect!
The directions seemed pretty easy, but since I had no ability to do anything but comb my hair, I knew I could end up bald or worse—with clown hair. But the price was right: $9.95 including everything. Since the kit had shampoo and conditioner already in it, I didn’t have to buy those.

I turned the cart and headed to the checkout, which had no line, thank God, at this hour. My immediate impulse was to pull out my AmEx card, but for the first time it consciously hit me that since I was suddenly on the lam (I always wanted to say that—or so I thought until I actually was on the lam), I could no longer use a credit card—nor even get money from the ATM.

I reached into my red bag, knowing that surveillance cameras were watching me—and everyone else.

Do not look in any way like you’re trying to boost even a hairpin.

I rooted around until I found my wallet and counted up the cash I had on me—$176.46. I quickly added up what was in my cart and realized that I didn’t need a $50 hairdryer. I put it on the side. The damned scissors were $22, but that wasn’t something I could skimp on—even though I suspected that I’d have to leave them behind. Damn! I estimated the total at less than $45.

As I was checking out, my bag started vibrating and then ringing with an old-fashioned bell-ringer sound—the phone. Afraid to pick it up, I smiled weakly at the sneering kid, who didn’t notice since he was staring at my breasts.

“Ya phone’s ringin,’” he said without looking up.

Do not call attention to yourself.

Yes, I know,” I answered, handing him $45. His sneer turned into a leer.

“Boyfriend?”

I grunted, which he interpreted as an answer, and nodded his head conspiratorially.

Moron!

I waited for my change, which he counted out in my hand: three quarters. “The penny’s on me.”

“Thanks.”
Sport.

I rushed back to the car, which was one of three or so in the entire parking lot, hit the “unlock” remote key, and hopped in quickly, happy to hear the automatic lock click behind me.

Duck your head; surveillance cameras must be everywhere.

I reached into my bag and dug out the phone. “Unknown voice mail.”

I immediately hit the voice-mail arrow and heard Dona’s lovely voice. “What the hell?” was how she started. Then: “Call me back. I’m at a phone booth. Or filthy phone kiosk, anyway. In case the number doesn’t come up,” which it didn’t, “call me back at, let me see here, what the heck does it say on the phone thingy? Oh, it says nothing. You can’t call me back.

“Try to hit ‘call back’ or something. It’s getting cold, but I’ll hang around another half hour or so. I’m wearing a skirt so short my ass is out. I’m fairly sure I’m not being watched. I figure I’m okay because, well, remember that cute cop? I looked him up. We just had a, hmmm, I guess you’d call it a date. He’s got my back.”

What a woman
.

When I hit the “call back” button on Sadowski’s magic phone, it automatically brought up a Google map, and I saw the exact place she had been standing when she made the call: Thirty-eighth and Tenth—near the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel.

Good girl.
This was serious hooker territory. And here I thought she’d worn that skirt for the cute cop. I had always teased her that she had the legs to be a hooker while all I had were the shoes. Anyway, nobody would find it suspicious for a woman to be near a pay phone in that location. That’s why the Russian mobsters who ran the girls there put in these phones under some legitimate guise. I knew (everybody did, actually) that these were the only busy pay phones left in the city. Hookers got calls from their Russkie pimps there, because when the heat was on, the cops couldn’t trace their “dates.”
Brilliant!

I hit “call back” again, and after a few seconds, I could hear it ringing.
Please, please, please be there.

“You all right?” was what she said when she picked up, and I had to fight back tears.

“No.”

“Where are you?”

“Not a good question.” I knew she wouldn’t have been able to map my location anyway because she was at a pay phone and I was on a secure line.

“Right.” I could hear the wind whistling behind her and car horns of impatient drivers desperate to get into the tunnel.
All so far away and normal.

She took the phone away from her ear, and I could hear her telling some tunnel-bound husband looking for a quickie on the way home to his wife, “Sorry, honey—I’m booked tonight.”

Then back to me: “Sorry. So Donald managed to do something or other to get your number. You heard about Sadowski, I assume?”

“Yes. I’m just sick about it.”

“Me too.” And then as though she weren’t dropping a big bomb, added, “They’re saying you killed him in a jealous lover’s rage.”