by Frank Deford
At last, Nina sensed something. Slowly, she raised her head, and turning it slightly, saw Constance. She was looking down at Nina with a smug, almost bemused expression. “Hi,” Nina managed to say, as if two old pals had just happened to run into each other.
“You left me,” was all Constance snapped back.
“I know. I’m sorry.” Nina tried very hard, without success, to appear cool and casual. “My feet hurt from these heels.” She rubbed them. “My grandfather always used to say, ‘my dogs are barking.’ I had to sit down, Constance. My dogs were barking.” She forced a chuckle.
But Constance did not respond to the family reminiscing. Instead, without a word, she closed the distance between them, laid her shoulder bag down next to Nina, then leaned back up against the rail that, with the hedge, lined the area. Nina looked up. Constance was glaring at her.
Nina squirmed. She saw a few people at the other end of the Garden. She thought about running to them. Or screaming for their help. But she was still confused and self-conscious. Anyway, it’s gonna be okay. Bucky would be here any minute.
In fact, the traffic had piled up some just north of 79th Street. Delivery trucks.
Hugh went into the Velázquez exhibit, but his mind was so much on Nina that he didn’t rent an audiocassette after all. What would be the point? He couldn’t pay attention to all that information. Instead, he just started to stroll along, looking at the paintings, thinking of Nina. It wouldn’t be but another half-hour before they’d be together in the Tiffany Court.
Constance came off the rail then, and like a man, placed her one leg on the bench, leaning forward on her knee. That was when Nina noticed her Venus earrings for the first time—her Venus earrings, that she’d bought for Bucky. It was all so confusing. Constance seemed so much like a man. Except now, it was a jealous woman who snarled, “You’re trying to keep Bucky away from me, aren’t you?”
Reflexively, Nina leaned back, away from her. “That’s not my job, Constance. I don’t advise. I only seek to show my patients their options.” She started to get up. “Anyway, I don’t think right now is the time to—”
But in a flash, Constance reached out and with her left arm, pushed Nina’s shoulder, shoving her back down hard onto the bench. And then without fanfare but with calculated deliberation, Constance removed the knife from her sleeve and brandished it.
Even before Nina could be scared, she was amazed. Never in her life had anyone threatened her. Oh yes, Jocelyn. But, primarily, she’d been a mystery—only a potential menace. Jocelyn had never confronted her. No one had ever put Nina in real jeopardy before. But now, right here, a crazy woman who might actually feel more like a man, was waving a knife under her nose. And there was no one close enough to see her in trouble. Even: was that a drop of rain she just felt? Now would everyone go inside? Leave?
Nina’s mind raced through what few alternatives she still did have. Scream? Constance would slit her throat at the first shriek. Try and wrestle the knife away? Constance loomed as overpowering as some monster football player. No, I have only one hope. I can only try and run away. Quick. Surprise her. Before she can grab me. Thank God, my spike heels are off. Wait. My heels.
Nina laid her cup of water down on the bench. Her shoes were there. Slowly, she let her hand crawl the few inches down from the cup to where she felt a shoe. Nina wrapped her hand around the toe as she talked. “Please, Constance. Bucky won’t like it if you do anything like this.”
“You really think he loves you?”
“No. He loves you. But I just mean Bucky won’t like it if you hurt anybody.”
Constance sneered. “I know Bucky best of all.” She leaned forward, bringing the blade even closer to Nina’s face. “And I know he doesn’t want anybody coming between us.”
Nina thought: yeah, like Jocelyn. She only said, “Yes, of course.”
Bucky got out of the cab along 83rd Street as it waited for the light up ahead at Fifth Avenue. He hustled down, then dodged the traffic to get across Fifth. But only ducking nimbly, not running. He didn’t know there was an emergency. Besides, now what suddenly occurred to Bucky was that Fernandez or one of the guards would spot him.
So, he came into the Great Hall, greatly feigning nonchalance. But, no. Even as he stepped into the ticket line, it was all there again, the same powerful emotions, and Fernandez and the cops faded from his mind before Ollie and Margareta. Nothing had changed. Nothing ever would. Thank God he didn’t have to go near gallery twenty-seven, but could head away to the Roof Garden. Bucky put on his little silver button.
The young man operating the portable bar thought he felt a sprinkle. He decided he better push his cart to cover. That was when he noticed his knife was missing. He searched all around the counter, on the shelves underneath. Damn it. Where did that thing go?
The only visitors left who were at all close to Nina and Constance were two men over in the southwest corner, but with the touch of drizzle, they started to head diagonally away, back toward the elevators. One of them happened to glance back. To his friend, he said, “What is that, Bruno? Is that two dykes necking or are they pissed off at each other or what?”
“Or what?” said Bruno, hurrying on to the elevators.
That was the moment when Nina suddenly snatched up her shoe and swung it. The heel dug into Constance’s cheek, and she fell back in pain. The force of the blow was so strong that Nina almost lost her grip on the shoe. But she did hold on, and she swung again, this time skimming the heel into Constance’s breasts. She staggered back, but she stayed on her feet and she held onto the knife, even so.
Nina sprang up and prepared to run by her.
Just Bucky’s luck. Fernandez had to meet someone in the museum offices, which are on the third floor, just below the Roof Garden. He spied Bucky, slightly ahead, as Bucky headed through the European Sculpture Court. Fernandez called out, and Bucky stopped and waited. Fernandez shook his head in disappointment. “Oh, Mr. Buckingham, I thought I had your promise.”
Bucky pleaded, “You gotta believe me. There’s a crisis.”
“No. I want your butt outta here right now or I’m callin’ the NYPD and we’re pressin’ charges.”
“Please. I just wanna go to the Roof Garden. Will you escort me?”
Fernandez was angry. He prepared to call for assistance. But just then, his portable phone rang. “Don’t move,” he snarled at Bucky, as he listened on the phone. “Holy shit!” he cried out all of a sudden. “Clear everybody off the roof. I’m coming.”
“The roof!” Bucky screamed. “What?”
But Fernandez had already lost interest in him. “Crazy woman with a knife,” he called over his shoulder. “Now take off.”
Instead, Bucky chased after him. “I know her, Mr. Fernandez. I can help!”
Fernandez only shook his head and kept running. Bucky stayed with him. “Hold the elevator,” Fernandez screamed.
44
Constance was too quick for Nina, though. She collected herself and sidestepped to the left, cutting Nina off at an angle. Nina backed up, then, as Constance began to inexorably close in on her quarry. And now, with no other recourse, Nina screamed, “Help!” at the top of her lungs.
The young man with the bar cart looked up and caught on quick. “That woman’s got my knife!” he cried out.
The uniformed roof guard, small and scrawny, picked up the phone and called in the report. But then he stayed by the phone—at a safe remove. Everyone else left on the roof scurried away.
Nina was pretty sure she would be killed. Bess, Caterina, Elsa, Jocelyn. She looked about wildly. The little guard had ventured out a few steps, under the arbor. It was only a token effort, but it did give Nina an idea. Just as Constance prepared to close the last few steps, Nina yelled, “Yes! Grab her!”
Constance turned her head—dubiously, only slightly. Bu
t it was Nina’s chance. In that instant, she dashed to her right, the few steps to a bench at the east end of the garden. And then, it was like those people who suddenly lift five-thousand-pound trucks off of little children, for somehow, Nina found that magic, that spirit, that adrenaline. She virtually leapt onto the bench, and scrambled—dove—over the hedge behind it.
Constance swung the knife at Nina but just missed, catching the tail of Nina’s violet jacket, slashing it. Nina fell hard on the other side of the hedge. There was a walkway there for the museum workmen to use. It ran alongside the hedge, providing access to an air-conditioning apparatus that stuck out to the south end. On the east side of the walkway, toward Fifth Avenue, was the glass ceiling that covered the twentieth-century galleries. It consisted of row after row of stylish, modern inverted Vs.
Constance’s knife, snagged on Nina’s jacket, had fallen to the ground. As Constance leaned down to retrieve it, Nina pondered, for those few brief seconds, whether to try and escape by crawling out over the jagged ceiling. Maybe the glass was thick enough to support her. Or maybe, like some human fly, she could maneuver along the metal beams.
She glanced back and saw that Constance had picked up the knife and was preparing to come over the hedge. No one else on the roof was anywhere near them. Nina was alone with Constance.
She decided not to risk the glass ceiling. Too dicey. Instead, she turned to her right, to the south end of the building. The walkway came to a dead end there. The drop down was about sixty feet. To the right was the air conditioning unit. But to her left, at the top of the glassy convex wall that shot up from the ground like a modern fortification for an ancient castle, was an unprotected ledge that ran at the edge of the glass ceiling. It could be used by workmen in a pinch. Or by someone running for her life.
Constance had made it over the hedge now, and was stalking Nina almost playfully, holding the knife high. Nina could see, too, the blood dripping down Constance’s cheek from where she’d gouged her with her high heel. In fact, when Constance paused to wipe the annoying blood away with her free hand, she looked down at the blood on her fingers then up toward Nina, shaking her head at her as if to say, naughty girl, naughty girl.
Nina had reached the end of the path. She realized she had no choice. Sure, it would be easier to climb onto the air-conditioning unit, without any fear that she would fall to her death from there. But to what purpose? Constance could easily follow her where there was no escape, then casually slash her to ribbons.
No, Nina had to take the lesser of the two evils, go left down the ledge. She checked it out. Oh, my God. She really hadn’t noticed it before. To even reach that slender two-foot-wide path, she’d have to clear a gap where the two parts of the museum were not quite joined. Between them, it was like a mineshaft sixty feet down. Holy Mother.
Worse, the Roof Garden was about five feet higher than the ceiling path. So Nina had to jump over and down to land on that narrow ledge. She stood, poised.
Constance, raising the knife even higher, took one more step toward her.
Nina thought, if I make it…if I do…and then if Constance does come after me, neither of us can move too fast along that tightrope of a ledge. And I’m smaller, more nimble. At least it might buy a little time. Help must be coming. Bucky…where was Bucky?
And so, Nina thought of Lindsay and she thought of Hugh, she said a little prayer, and then she bent her knees and pushed off, trying to fly the gap.
The elevator reached the Roof Garden. The whole way up, Fernandez, furious, bellowed at Bucky to go back down. He even pulled out his pistol, and when the doors opened, the elevator operator took the cue and grabbed for Bucky. Fernandez shoved him back. “Close the doors,” he screamed. “Close the doors.”
Swiftly, though, Bucky drove his elbow into the elevator man’s gut—just enough to make him loosen his grip. With that, he burst through the doors in the instant before they closed. The little guard who’d called for help was there, ready to bring Fernandez up to speed, and as he did, Bucky brushed past them, dashing out into the Garden. “Stop! Stop!” Fernandez screamed, but Bucky ran out ahead.
And there he saw them. Constance. His Constance. His Double One. Waving a knife. At Nina. Nina standing on the precipice. But, no. Now she was gone. Nina had jumped.
Bucky ran closer, trying to see over the hedge.
Nina flew over the gap. But just barely. Her trailing leg banged hard on the edge and cut the top of her foot. She thudded there, fighting to hold her purchase, to keep from sliding off. Nina looked over, down, where she almost had fallen. She saw the park far below her. She saw her death.
But, if she had escaped falling, she had not escaped Constance. So, quickly now, she began her retreat along the edge. At first, she dared only back up on her bottom, feeling the way behind her. In this fashion, she could keep a lookout fixed on Constance. Besides, on top of everything else, Nina had never been really good with heights.
She could see that Constance had reached the gap herself now. She was getting ready to jump. Soon, she’d be on the ledge with her. Nina had to put more distance between them. Slowly, gingerly, she pulled herself up—first to her knees, then to her feet—all the time trying to keep her eyes on Constance so that she wouldn’t look down.
And that was when she heard the screaming. She dared turn her head. And then she saw Bucky. And behind him: Fernandez. Chasing Bucky, screaming, waving his pistol.
Constance didn’t look back, didn’t see Bucky. She was already in a crouch. She pushed off. She made it with a foot to spare, too, falling forward. But in her concern to hang onto the knife, she lost her balance and had to struggle to keep from pitching over the edge.
Bucky screamed, “Constance! Constance, darling! Wait for me!”
Nina thought: It isn’t Constance, Bucky. It’s Ollie. But she didn’t say anything, only backed up some more.
Bucky jumped up on that same bench where both of the women had gone over the hedge. Fernandez approached. “Don’t do it, Mr. Buckingham. Don’t move.” And he pointed the gun directly at him.
Calmly, Bucky held his place and answered, “Mr. Fernandez, I’m not the problem right now.” Fernandez considered this, but he also kept Bucky in his sights. For an instant, then, Bucky glanced over his shoulder. He saw Constance advancing, Nina shaking, moving back. “Really,” Bucky said, “I am not the problem anymore.” And with that, even as Fernandez kept the pistol trained on him, Bucky vaulted over the hedge. He landed cleanly on the walkway, and right away, without looking back at Fernandez, he ran to the dead end of the path.
Hugh suddenly found himself at the end of the exhibit. Velázquez in Italy. In Spain? In Saskatchewan? It hardly registered. All he kept thinking about was Nina. And then he came out, past the Velázquez books and calendars and posters, and he turned the corner there. Right away, he realized where he was. Straight ahead, two or three galleries on, was Rubens. Hugh hated himself, but he couldn’t stop himself from heading there, directly to gallery twenty-seven. All right, he would look at that damn painting one more time.
Along the precipice, Nina edged back, inch by inch, Constance moving toward her, cutting the difference with each easy stride. But beyond Constance, now Nina could see Bucky. He had arrived at the end of the walkway, and was looking over the gap, envisioning the leap. Instinctively then, Nina yelled out one word. It was: “Margareta!”
Bucky heard it. Of course, he thought. Of course. He called back, “Yes?”
Constance turned back, saw him over her shoulder, and smiled happily. Nina ducked back a couple more steps.
Bucky jumped. He landed well—the skier in him?—only swaying a little. He was, however, crying. He reached up to wipe at his eyes, and that was when he felt the drizzle. It was steady now; it would be all the more slippery. But, slowly, barely lifting his feet, he began to slide toward Constance. And now it was all three of them,
birds on a wire, inching along, sixty feet up, sixty feet down.
Nina called out—but gently, “Please, they have a gun. Come any closer, they’ll shoot you.”
Constance did glance back, but only for a second. No longer could Nina even guess what she was thinking. Or even: what did she see? After all: who was she in her own mind? But beyond Constance, beyond Bucky, Nina could see Fernandez and some other guards massing along the hedge. At last, they’d lost interest in Bucky. It was only the one tall woman threatening the other, smaller woman with a knife.
Nina held up her hand to Constance. “Please, don’t move,” she said. And to Bucky behind her, “You either, Margareta. Everybody—stay still.”
Constance, though, kept coming toward Nina, unmoved even by the rain. By now, she wasn’t but about six or seven feet away. Fernandez hollered, “Don’t move, lady. Don’t move or I shoot!”
Constance shook her head at Nina: Naughty girl. Then she spoke—although as soon as she opened her mouth, Nina knew it was Ollie speaking. “I knew it,” said the voice. “I knew you’d call the scutters. I knew you wanted Mr. Rubens’s reward.”
Nina shook her head vigorously. She could see Bucky drawing closer to Constance. Oh, she didn’t want that. Don’t be a hero, Bucky. But he took another step. Damn, thought Nina, we’ll all three fall, all three die. All of us.
Nina did a risky thing then. Somehow she found the courage to stop, to hold her ground. And then she held out her hands to Constance, pleading, “Please, please.” She pointed toward the cops. “The scutters. They’ll shoot. They will! Please.” And then Nina added one more word: “…Ollie.”
Constance smiled at that. Fernandez screamed to surrender. She glanced back at him. Then incredibly, Constance began to turn herself upon the ledge, twisting her body, oblivious to what little space she had to operate in and how much more slippery it had become. Fernandez and the other officers looked on, baffled. In fact, it even took Bucky and Nina a few moments before they both realized, almost simultaneously, that Constance was taking her pose as Adonis. Her feet planted correctly, she held out her left arm, raising it, grasping the knife as a spear.
