The Sixth Station (16 page)

“Who’s saying that?” I demanded, feeling the fury rise in my throat.

“The cute cop told me that’s the word. They’re going to announce tomorrow that a person familiar with the case says you caught him with a young boy and went nuts.”

“What the—?”

“They even say they know who the child is, which of course will never be revealed under the Protection of Minors Act.”

“Oh, my God. Who?”

“I don’t know. But my money’s on that cheap blonde in the jeans at the church.”

“No!”

“Makes sense, right?”

I had to admit that, yes, it made a whole hell of a lot of sense.

“Is there nothing they won’t stoop to?”

“Who?”

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be in this jam.”

Time was short and this wasn’t a gossip call, so I cut it short.

“Listen, I really need you to do something for me. I’m not comfortable getting online much while I’m still on American soil.”

“Shoot.”

“Go to the Fox archives, or better yet, the
Post
morgue.…” A “morgue” is where newspapers and media keep the old clippings, tapes, and papers.

“I know it well. Basement at 1211 Sixth—right? I’m tight with the librarian; she’ll bring me down.”

“Great. See what you can find related to a comet in the year 1982.”

“A comet?”

“A comet. And a blackout in parts of Europe and elsewhere.”

“Okay … but—”

“Also, see if, earlier that year or the year before that, there is anything on a missing girl from Manhattan named—what is it again?” I reached into my bag for my reporter’s notebook and rifled the pages. “Here—first name, Theotokos, with a
k.
Last name, wait a sec—last name, B-i-e-n-h-e-u-r-e-u-x.

“Blessed one?”

“No, I said, ‘B-i—”

Dona cut me off. “Bienheureux—it means ‘blessed one’ in French.”

“You’re kidding me. Seriously?”

“Is this the time for jokes?”

“Not really. No.”

“What else?”

“Also see if there’s anything on a Catholic priest—or maybe not Catholic, but a cleric by the name of Father Paulo—that’s P-a-u-l-o Jacoby; I think it’s J-a-c-o-b-y. Please, whatever you can dig up would keep me indebted to you forever.”

“You already are.”

“Damn! You’re right. Anyway, if you call me from a pay phone tomorrow morning, I’ll tell you where to fax it.”

“Fax? Who faxes anymore?”

“Nobody. That’s why I’m going old-school all the way. Go to a Staples and get it faxed. No e-mail, no nothing. Fax.”

“You got it. Anything else?”

“Yeah. Two things. I need for you and Donald to both buy prepaid phones. And two: If you make any money on the street tonight, send it to me,” I joked.

“You need money?”

“Was Jesus a Jew? Yeah, I need money.”

“Let me figure out how to get you some.”

“Bless you. But I can’t generate any trail, so I don’t know if it’s possible.”

“Right.”

“Now listen up. More than money, I need Donald to get somebody trustworthy who’s not connected to me in any way to book me an e-ticket for tomorrow. Not that anyone he knows
is
trustworthy, but at least they’re all so untrustworthy that they’d never turn. Tell him to make sure that whoever he picks isn’t using a damned stolen credit card or something.”

“What did you ever see in him again?”

“I like bad boys. You like cute cops. Okay?”

“Destination?”

“Ephesus.”

“Turkey?”

“I think you have to fly into Istanbul.”

“But they’ll be looking to track you. You can’t get past immigration anywhere.”

“Maybe. I’m counting on some old foolishness of mine to buy me a few days. See, in some bizarre, desperate bid at saving my marriage, I had renewed my passport in my married name of Zaluckyj.”

“You didn’t!”

“Is this the time to give me a lecture on independence?”

“No,” she said, and I could hear the sadness in her voice. It was all different now. “From where?”

“Toronto. There’s a shot they won’t be looking for that name. Oh, and my first name’s really Alexandra with an
x
—I changed it when I got my first byline at twenty-one because I thought it sounded much more sophisticated. So the passport is in the name Alexandra Zaluckyj.”

“Oy. Anything else I don’t know about you?”

“Sure. Anyway, I’ll set up a Hotmail account, and you both need to do the same. Donald is to just e-mail me the ticket number and confirmation code to the account of … Got a pen?”

“I’ve got my iPhone.”

“No. A pen. Then tear up the paper. Old-school, remember?”

“Gotcha.” I could hear her digging through her bag while juggling the receiver on the pay phone.

“Shoot.”

“C-A-T-H-A-R-A-Z at Hotmail dot com. Got it?”

She repeated it verbatim. “What is he supposed to pay his connection with for the ticket? I’m sure the Feds and Interpol and everyone else will be looking at his credit card and ATM records.”

“Tell him to go play poker or some goddamned thing. He knows how to get cash better than anybody.”

“Got it.”

“Dona? Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Be careful. Don’t get yourself in trouble because of me.”

“Too late for that, pal. What about your folks?”

“Oh, God. Please tell them nothing. If they know nothing, they can’t inadvertently give away anything. Do me a favor, though. Make sure they get plenty of media exposure. They’ll want to defend me all over the place. The more they’re on camera, the safer they’ll be ’cause the cops will surveil them twenty-four/seven.”

“That should make your pinko parents happy,” she said in her jaded, loving way. “You sure I can’t hint to them that you’re okay? So far?”

“Dona? No. Noth-ing! They’ll know. At Columbia they helped draft dodgers escape to Canada during the Vietnam War. They know they didn’t raise a sissy.” We both let the Canada irony go by without mention.

I really didn’t want to put them in any danger. And my corporate lawyer brother in LA? Definitely not. The twins were only six years old. God—I didn’t want them tainted with
this
filthy brush.

With that we hung up and I put the car into “drive,” and started to pull out.

I could see “Leering Boy” at the store’s glass front door staring out at me. He was wagging his tongue lasciviously.

Instead of shooting him the bird as I would normally have done, I waved politely and drove slowly out of the parking lot and back onto the Thruway.

You can never find a good hit man when you need one.

16

The GPS informed me that it was still 380 miles to Toronto with a driving time of six hours and thirty minutes. With no “Christine” in sight, I headed north. If I could get halfway—drive another three hours and get some rest—I figured I’d be safe enough.

Weary but determined, I drove another 143 miles to Syracuse, exited, and found a Best Rate Motel. I took the satellite phone charger, the registration, and, yes, Sadowski’s ATM card with me; I didn’t want to leave anything in the car.

One look at what passed for a lobby and I knew that for sure no one would remember me here, because, for one thing, no one was around. I actually rang the desk bell (OK, to be fair, it was after midnight), and a sleepy Indian lady came shuffling out in her bedroom slippers and sari.

The deluxe single room with continental breakfast came to fifty-four dollars. I complained, and the woman lowered it to fifty. I signed in as “Rochelle Cherry.” Don’t ask.

It sounds like a whiny stripper.

She handed me the room card and didn’t ask if I had luggage, just pointed to the door and told me to drive around to the back, where I could park my car right near the stairs to my room.

Room 204, which reeked of cigarette smoke, had one sad, sagging double bed, with a crumpled-up tissue still left on the spread.

It partially covered the large cigarette burn in the middle of the horrid orange-and-red quilted bedspread. The whole room looked as beat up as I felt. No need to worry about bedbugs. Even they wouldn’t stay there. I pulled the rubber blackout curtains together and then the white-ish sheer drapes over them, turned on the heat, which sounded like a tambourine band, and headed toward the bathroom-
ish.

The 1970s pink tiles and matching toilet had seen better days. Or maybe not. Regardless, I unwrapped the miniscule bar of Cashmere Bouquet soap in the dish and scrubbed my face with the rough washcloth so hard I nearly bled.

I ran the shower until it approximated something like hot water, peeled off my clothes, and jumped in. I washed my underwear under the shower with the Cashmere Bouquet and prayed I wouldn’t develop a giant perfume rash on my southern regions. I remember Donald telling me once that all men who cheat in cheap motels get caught because they come home smelling of Cashmere Bouquet. If a man smells of it, he’s cheating. Period.

I put my wet undies on the heating unit to dry and, naked, I crawled into the bed and immediately rolled into the middle sag. I plugged Sadowski’s phone in next to the bed, set it to wake me at 6:00, and fell into a fitful sleep.

I was alone in an ancient city in front of a great wall. Everyone was passing by, but only I could see that there was a code written on the wall. Why couldn’t anyone else see it, and, more important, why couldn’t I interpret it?

I tried to climb up to the top of the wall but fell back and landed hard on my head. I started bleeding profusely onto the road, where I lay helpless.

No one came to my aid, and I could feel the life draining out of me.

If I could only read the code, I could save myself.

Then someone, a woman, standing over me, unwilling to help, said, “You can’t save the world. You are not the Chosen One.” And she began laughing so hard that tears—which were made of blood—were pouring down her face.

I woke up sweating like a lady in the middle of menopause and sat straight up. My heart was beating so fast I thought it would explode.

Totally disoriented in the blackness of the room, I felt around and felt the creepy polyester quilted bedspread and knew immediately I was in a motel.

I flicked on the light, still disoriented but grateful that I’d been dreaming—until I remembered that the truth was far worse than bleeding on a street in a foreign country unable to read a code.

The reality was that I was being hunted by the police for murder in my own country—and followed by God knows who from God knows where—and my real prospects for getting away with murder, or even getting away alive, were, well, slim, none, and you’re kidding me, right?

I slammed my head back down on the skinny thing that passed for a pillow and tried to get back to sleep. Right then the only thing I had going for me was my brain, and when it was sleep deprived it was a nasty, unworkable thing.

Somehow, I felt like I had been tossing and turning until dawn, but in truth I must have fallen deep asleep, because the next thing I knew I was startled awake by the alarm: Sam Cooke’s version of “You Send Me” on Sadowski’s phone. It was 6:00
A.M.
I switched on the light and crawled out of bed.

I made the little cup of coffee in the machine they provided, loaded it up with sugar and white powder nondairy “creamer,” and gulped it down. I still wasn’t functioning, so I pulled on my clothes (underwear was still damp, so I went commando—forgetting I’d bought some nice old lady underpants at the drug store) and headed down to the lobby for the free continental breakfast. I don’t know which continent it is exactly that serves frozen cheese Danish in a bag for breakfast, but there must be one. Somewhere.

Anyway I gulped down three cups of joe and popped two cheese Danishes into the microwave. They tasted better than anything I can ever remember eating, so I popped in another. Then, like my grandmother, I stuffed another three in my bag, while the Indian lady’s husband, who was in charge of restocking the continental goodies, glared at me like I was the last beggar in Mumbai.

Like you never ate six cheese Danishes, Raj?

Instead of being ashamed of myself, I poured another cup of coffee and took it to my room.

By 6:35 I was wired out of my mind on caffeine and sugar. I turned on the iPad and immediately made sure that the global tracking device was set to “off.” Not that I ever had it working. The idea that a company (and now the authorities) had the ability to track a person wherever and whenever was always something I wanted to avoid—unless I was trapped on a mountain with no way down or something equally as ridiculous.

The free Wi-Fi in the room required a guest name and password. I tried to remember what the hell name I’d registered under. Marie? Roxanne? Then I remembered the improbable Rochelle Cherry and opened a Hotmail account under the name “CATHARAZ.”

I went into the bathroom and took out the scissors. Oh God. I started with my bangs. I’d had bangs since I was two. Snip, chop, slice. And then the bob. Snip, snip, slice, chop, chop. My hair was sticking up all over, and the sink and floor were covered in my lost hair.

Do not leave one single strand. DNA and all that. But what was my crime here? Bad hair?

I opened the box of Féria “R76 Spicy Red” and, following the directions, applied it to my hair, didn’t wait the appropriate time, then washed it out and conditioned it with my head under the shower, the color running in rivulets into the tub. It looked like the aftermath of a brutal slaying.

That was somehow appropriate, because when I stood back up and looked at myself in the mirror, what I’d done to myself was akin to murder. My formerly brunette bob was a red one-inch mess. I looked like one of those aging rocker chicks that can’t get over the fact that she’s no longer a groupie. I looked like my name
should
be Rochelle Cherry.

I dried it with the towel, which left a lot of red on the white towel, so I stashed it in my purse, planning to throw it out somewhere far away. I’d covered enough crimes to know that it’s best not to leave anything suspicious behind. I ran the shower until the red dissipated and then cleaned the tub with the same towel.
What a mess
.