Gladys tried to pry his hand from the disconnect button.
Pittman used his other hand to grip her wrist. “Don’t do it. Think. How would you like your baby’s father to go to prison again.”
“What?”
The phone kept ringing.
“Aiding a fugitive,” Pittman said. “Helping him illegally access computer files. Brian could be put away until your baby starts high school.”
Gladys’s eyes bulged.
The phone rang again.
Pittman took the receiver away from her and lifted the disconnect button. “Hello?… Yes, Gladys Botulfson lives here.… I know she called. We were having a bit of a quarrel, I’m afraid. She… Here. Let me put her on.”
Pittman stared at her, then handed her the phone.
Gladys squinted toward the wailing baby, then toward Brian, finally toward Pittman. Her lips were so pursed that the skin around them was white.
She parted them. “This is Gladys Botulfson,” she said to the phone. “I’m sorry for troubling you. What my husband says is true. We were having a fight. I thought I’d scare him if I called the police.… Yes, I understand it’s a serious offense to abuse the emergency number. It won’t happen again.… We’re calmer now. No, I don’t need any help. Thank you.”
Gladys set down the phone. She rubbed her wrist where Pittman had gripped it. Her voice was disturbingly flat. “Get out.”
Pittman picked up his gym bag. “Brian, thanks for letting me get into the newspaper’s computer files.” His look toward Brian was direct and meaningful: Don’t let her know what files we really accessed.
“Sure.”
“I won’t tell you again,” Gladys said.
“A pleasure to meet you.”
Pittman left the apartment and shut the door behind him. When he got in the elevator, he could still hear Gladys’s loud, accusing voice from behind Brian’s door.
24
Pittman had hoped to borrow money from Brian, but that had obviously been out of the question. With a dollar bill, a dime, and a nickel in his pocket, he proceeded dismally toward where he could catch the train back to Manhattan, although he didn’t know why, since he didn’t have enough cash to buy a token. The more he walked, the more tired and hungry he became. He felt defeated.
Ahead, cars at a funeral home caused him to suffer the depressing memory of Jeremy’s funeral—the closed coffin, Jeremy’s photograph in front of it; the mourners, most of them classmates from Jeremy’s school; Burt next to Pittman (and now Burt was dead); Pittman’s argument with his soon-to-be ex-wife. (“It’s your fault,” she’d insisted. “You should have taken him to the doctor sooner.”)
Pittman recalled how, after the funeral, there’d been a somber reception back at the mortician’s, coffee and sandwiches, final commiserations. But Pittman had been so choked with grief that he hadn’t been able to force himself to respond to the condolences. He had taken a sandwich that someone had given him, but the rye bread and paperlike sliced turkey had stuck in his throat. He’d felt surrounded by a gray haze of depression.
A similar gray haze weighed upon him now. Instinctive fear had propelled him into motion. Adrenaline had fueled him. The strength and endurance that adrenaline created had finally dwindled, however. In their place were lethargy and despair. Pittman didn’t know if he could go on.
He told himself that he’d been foolish to believe that he could disentangle himself from the mess that he had fallen into.
Perhaps I should go to the police. Let them try to figure things out.
And if someone gets through police security to kill you?
What difference does it make? I’m too tired to care.
You don’t mean that.
Don’t I? Death would be welcome.
No. You’ve got to keep trying, a voice inside him said. It sounded like Jeremy.
How? I don’t even have enough money to take the train back to Manhattan.
Come on, Dad. All those years of running. Don’t tell me you don’t have what it takes to do a little more walking.
25
It took three hours. Even though Pittman had switched from his street shoes to the jogging shoes that he’d put in his gym bag, his feet ached and his leg muscles protested. Weak from exertion and hunger, he reached Grand Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, looking for the address that he’d gotten from Sean O’Reilly’s computer file.
He studied the busy street, wary of police surveillance. After all, Gladys Botulfson might have changed her mind. If Brian had said something to infuriate her further, she might have decided to call the police and teach her husband a lesson. Of course, the police wouldn’t know where Pittman had gone unless Brian confessed which file he had accessed. But would he? Or would Brian’s anger toward Gladys prompt him to defy her?
That wasn’t the only thing that bothered him. What if the address Sean O’Reilly had given the authorities was out of date or else a lie? Suppose he wasn’t there?
The latter worry intensified when Pittman finally reached the address and discovered that it wasn’t an apartment building but a restaurant instead, a sign in the front window announcing PADDY’S.
Shit. Now what am I supposed to do?
Needing to get off the street, he did his best to hide his nervousness when, unable to think of an alternative, he entered the restaurant.
He barely noticed its Irish decor—green tablecloths, shamrocks on the menus, a large map of Ireland on one wall. What he did notice was the handful of late-afternoon customers, most of them at the bar.
A few looked in his direction, then returned their attention to their drinks.
Pittman approached the barman, who was muscular, wore a green apron, and stood behind the cash register.
“What’ll it be?”
“I’m looking for a friend of mine. Sean O’Reilly.”
The barman used a towel to wipe the counter.
“I heard he was staying at this address,” Pittman said, “but this is a restaurant. I don’t see…”
“How?”
“What?”
“How did you get this address?”
“My parole officer’s the same as his. Look, is Sean around?”
The man kept wiping the counter.
“Sean and I go back to when he was doing those public-service announcements for the police department,” Pittman said. “When he was telling people how to keep their homes safe from burglars.”
“So? What do you want him for?”
“Old times. I’ve got some stories to tell him.” Pittman drew his key chain from his pocket and held up the tool knife. “About this.”
The bartender watched Pittman remove the lock-pick tools from the end of the knife.
The bartender relaxed. “You’ve got one of those, too?” He smiled and pulled out a set of keys, showing his own knife. “Sean only gave these to guys he likes. Yeah, Sean stays here. In a room upstairs. At night, he subs for me.”
“But is he around?”
“Ought to be waking up around now. He sure was drunk last night.”
A half dozen people came into the restaurant.
“Looks like we’re getting busy.” The bartender poured tomato juice into a glass, added Tabasco sauce, and dropped in a raw egg. “Stairs through the door in back. Second floor. The room at the end of the hall. He’ll be needing this.”
26
In a musty upstairs hallway that smelled of cabbage, Pittman knocked on the door. When he didn’t get an answer, he knocked again. This time, he heard a groan. His third knock caused a louder groan. He tried the door. It wasn’t locked. Pushing it open, he found a sparse room with its shades closed, its lights off, and Sean O’Reilly sprawled on the floor.
“The light, the light,” Sean groaned.
Pittman thought that the dim light from the hallway must be hurting Sean’s eyes. He quickly shut the door. In darkness, he listened to Sean keep moaning, “The light, the light.”
“There isn’t any,�
� Pittman said.
“I’ve gone blind. Can’t see anything. The light, the light.”
“You mean you want me to turn the lights on?”
“Blind. Gone blind.”
Pittman groped along the wall, found a light switch, and flicked it. The unshielded yellow light that dangled from the ceiling gleamed and made Sean start thrashing while he pawed at his face.
He wailed, “Blind. You’re trying to make me blind.”
Oh, for God’s sake, Pittman thought. He knelt and pulled one of Sean’s hands away from his face, exposing his left eye, which was very bloodshot. “Here. Drink this.”
“What?”
“Something the bartender sent up.”
Sean clutched the glass and took several swallows, then suddenly made a gagging sound. “What is it? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, there’s no vodka in this.”
“Sit up. Drink more of this.”
After a struggle, Pittman managed to make Sean empty the glass.
Sean squirmed so that his back was against the side of the bed and scowled. His short stature still reminded Pittman of a jockey. He was as thin as ever. But alcohol had aged him, putting gray in his hair and ravaging his face. “Who are you?”
“A friend.”
“Can’t remember.”
“That’s because you need something to eat.”
“Couldn’t keep it down.”
Pittman picked up the phone. “Order something, anyhow.”
27
The corned-beef sandwich and dill pickle that the bartender carried up were delicious. Pittman tried to savor them, but his hunger couldn’t be controlled. He hadn’t eaten anything since the orange juice and Danish this morning. Taking huge bites, he gulped the food down. His empty plate depressed him.
From the bed, Sean looked horrified at Pittman’s appetite. “I think I’m going to throw up.”
When Sean came back, Pittman had finished the sandwich that the bartender had carried up for Sean.
Sean sat on the bed, scowled at Pittman, and shook his head. “I still don’t remember.”
“You gave me a crash course on how to break into houses.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“You said I was a natural.”
“Still doesn’t ring a… Wait a minute. Weren’t you a reporter?”
Pittman nodded.
“I gave you…”
Pittman held up the tool knife.
“Sure, that’s who you are.”
“But I’ve graduated,” Pittman said.
“What do you mean?”
Pittman reached inside his gym bag, took out a newspaper that he’d bought on the way to the restaurant, and tossed it over to Sean. “The story under that colorful headline. ‘Suicidal Obit Writer on Killing Rampage.’ There’s an ‘alleged’ in there someplace, but it doesn’t feel sincere.”
With a frown, Sean read the article. From time to time, he paused, looked at Pittman, deepened the furrows in his brow, and went back to reading the story.
Finally he set down the newspaper. “It makes you sound very busy.”
“Yeah, all that killing. It’s almost more work than one man can handle.”
“Do I need to be afraid of you?”
“Let’s put it this way. Have I done anything to hurt you so far?”
“Then you didn’t do what the paper says?”
Pittman shook his head.
“Why did you come here?”
“Because of all the criminals I’ve met, you’re the only one I trust.”
“What do you want?”
The phone rang.
Sean picked it up. “Hello?” He listened intensely, then straightened in alarm. “The police are coming up? Jesus, they must have found out about the washing machines.”
Pittman didn’t understand what Sean was talking about.
Sean scrambled toward the window, jerked the curtains apart, yanked the window up, and scurried out onto a fire escape.
Pittman heard heavy footsteps on the other side of the door. He lunged to lock it.
Fists pounded on it.
He grabbed his gym bag and darted toward the open window. Banging his shoulder as he squirmed out onto the fire escape, he cursed and stared below toward where he assumed Sean would be scurrying down the metal stairs. Instead, what he saw were two policemen who stared up, shouted, and pointed.
Footsteps clattered above him. Twisting, craning his neck, he saw Sean rapidly climbing stairs toward the roof. Pittman got to his feet and charged up after him.
“Stop!” he heard a policeman yell from the alley below.
Pittman kept racing upward.
“Stop!” the policeman yelled.
Pittman climbed harder.
“STOP!”
They’ll shoot, Pittman thought. But he didn’t obey. He reached the top, leapt over a guardrail, and scanned the rooftop for Sean. There! The roofs of all the buildings on this block were connected, and Sean was sprinting past ventilation pipes and skylights toward a door on a roof near the end of the block, his short legs moving in a blur.
“Wait, Sean!”
Pittman raced after him. Behind him, he heard shoes scraping on the fire escape.
Sean reached the door, tugged at it, and cursed when he discovered it was locked.
He was banging his shoulder against it, cursing again, when Pittman caught up to him. “Damn it, I left my keys in my room. I don’t have my knife.”
“Here.” Breathing heavily, Pittman pulled out the knife Sean had given him several years earlier.
With a smile, then a desperate look beyond Pittman toward two policemen who had just climbed onto the roof, Sean yanked the lock-pick tools from the knife, twisted and poked, freed the lock with astonishing speed, and jerked the door open.
As a policeman yelled, Sean and Pittman darted through the doorway. At once, in the dim light of a stairwell, Sean locked the door behind them.
“The washing machines. They know about the washing machines,” Sean blurted to himself. “Who the hell told them about the washing machines?”
Fists pounded on the door.
Sean raced down the stairs. Pittman followed.
“Who told them about the washing machines?” Sean kept muttering.
Or are they after me? Pittman wondered.
28
“Don’t look behind you. Just keep walking toward the corner.”
They rounded it.
“So far so good,” Sean said.
He hailed a taxi.
“Don’t let the driver think you’re in a rush,” he told Pittman.
They got in.
“Lower Broadway,” Sean told the driver, then started humming.
29
“Here’s your knife back.”
“Thanks. I’m sorry I couldn’t help pay for the taxi.”
“Hey, I’m not in jail. That’s payment enough.”
They were in a loft on lower Broadway. The loft, which seemed to have once been a warehouse, had almost no furnishings, and those were grouped closely together in the middle of what felt like a cavern. Although sparse, the furnishings were expensive—an Italian-made leather sofa, a large Oriental rug, a brass coffee table and matching lamp. Otherwise, in the shadows beyond the pale light from the lamp, there were crates stacked upon crates in every direction.
Sean slumped on the sofa and sipped from a Budweiser that he’d taken from a refrigerator next to some of the crates.
“What is this place?” Pittman asked.
“A little hideaway of mine. You still haven’t told me what you want.”
“Help.”
“How?”
“I’ve never been on the run before.”
“You’re telling me you want advice?”
“Last night I slept in a park. It’s been two days since I bathed. I’ve been scrounging food. I can see how criminals on the run get caught. They finally just get worn down.”
“Then I take it you were smart enough not t
o try to get in touch with your family and friends.”
“My only excuse for a family is my ex-wife, and I wouldn’t ask her for anything,” Pittman said. “As for my friends, well, I have to assume the police will be watching them in case I show up.”
“So you came to me.”
“I kept asking myself who I knew to get help from but who the police wouldn’t know about. Then it occurred to me—all the people I interviewed over the years. Some of them have the kind of expertise I need, and the police would never think I’d go to them.”
Sean nodded in approval of Pittman’s reasoning. “But I don’t know what advice I can give you. There’s a bathroom and a shower in back. You can spend the night here. For sure, I am. Other than that…”
“There has to be something you can tell me.”
“If they catch you, you’ve already got a brilliant defense.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“Insanity,” Sean said.
“What?”
“All that business about your being suicidal. I assume that’s another exaggeration.”
Pittman didn’t respond.
“You mean it’s true?” Sean asked in surprise.
Pittman stared at his Coke can.
“Your son died,” Sean said, “and you fell apart.”
“That’s right.”
“My sister died when I was twenty-five. She was a year younger than me. Car accident,” Sean said.
“And?”
“I nearly drank myself to death. God, I loved her.”
“Then you understand,” Pittman said.
“Yes. But it’s a little different now, isn’t it?”
“How do you mean?”
“When you’re tired and hungry and scared.”
“I feel like I’m being selfish. My son was wonderful. And here I’m thinking about myself.”
“I don’t presume to tell you how to grieve. But I will tell you this—you can’t go wrong if you do what your son would have wanted you to do. And right now, he’d have been telling you to look out for your ass.”
30
The shower was primitive, just a nozzle over a plastic stall with a drain in the concrete floor. There wasn’t any soap, shampoo, or a towel. Pittman was pleased that he’d had the foresight to put a toilet kit in his gym bag. He found two steel chairs that he put near the shower’s entrance, draping his sport coat over one, his slacks over the other. There wasn’t any door to the shower, and after he came out to dry himself with his dirty shirt, he discovered that, as he had hoped, the steam from the shower had taken some of the wrinkles out of his jacket and pants. He put on fresh underwear and socks, decided to save his remaining clean shirt by putting on his black cotton sweat suit, and returned to Sean among the crates.
Desperate Measures Page 12
