Killed on the Ice

by William L. DeAndrea

  I mentioned this to the lieutenant. He said, “I’ve got a man stationed there.”

  “Call him,” I said. “See if you get an answer.”

  The lieutenant raised his radio to his mouth, but he said “Jesus” before he hit the button to call his man. I didn’t listen to hear if either of them answered. In less than a minute Wendy would go into her final spin. Making herself a damn near perfect target no matter where Al St. John was.

  “He’s not there,” the lieutenant said. “Why I ever let you bring a goddam killer into this—”

  “Why does she stay on the ice?” I said, but I knew. She was soaring, wrapped up in her genius. She was being real. In about forty seconds, unless I was totally wrong, she would be dead.

  I had to do something, so I did. I ran among the crowd, stealing sodas. Hot dogs. Popcorn. I was not making myself popular, but I didn’t care.

  When I had an armful, I ran down to the rim of the mezzanine, losing my balance for a second. Falling over would have accomplished my purpose, actually, but I wanted to be around when Al St. John was brought in.

  I righted myself, then gave a heave and threw the garbage out over the ice. Wendy happened to be down this end, and one of the brown shiny sheets of falling soda splashed across the arm and skirt of her white outfit. She fell down, then looked up with an angry, hurt look on her face.

  “Get up, goddammit, get up,” I growled.

  I watched in joy as she rose and sprinted for the exit, holding her wet arm to the side. A little geyser sprang up just behind her. One shot missed. I sent mental signals telling Wendy to speed up. I was booed by thousands, and I stood there and took it until I saw Wendy, at the other end of the ice, stroll into the protecting arms of Policewoman Constant. Then I took a bow.

  “Should have thought of that sooner,” I told the lieutenant.

  “Yeah. Let’s get you out of here. There hasn’t ever been a white man lynched in New York that I know of, but right now, you look good to become the first.”

  The crowd cheered the police for taking me into custody. Over the cheer, we could hear the sound of his radio. It was the man from the press box—he’d just seen someone running from the sheltered area alongside the box. Left the police radio behind.

  “He had a weapon, lieutenant,” the voice squawked. “Target pistol with a scope.”

  “Figures,” I said.

  The lieutenant was doing the equivalent of calling all cars. Garden security people would seal the exits. Spectators were to be instructed to keep their seats. “I don’t care,” he barked at one point. “Tell them Wendy is going to skate again, that the drunk who screwed up the ice has been arrested.”

  The cops would move out in sweeps, carefully but thoroughly, trying to find the culprit.

  Ten minutes passed—no luck. The Zamboni had been out; the ice looked beautiful, the crowd was getting nervous. Lieutenant Martin, who had taken over a refreshment stand for a command post, took a sip of steaming black coffee, made a face, and said, “You know, there must be ten thousand places to hide in this goddam building. Can you get out of here through sewer pipes or something?”

  Nobody knew. Rivetz, who had joined us to report that Wendy was safe and well guarded, said, “How do we know he’s just not sitting among the crowd somewhere? We may have to screen God knows how many thousands of people before we find the son of a bitch.”

  “Fourteen thousand,” I said.

  “Thanks, Cobb. That cheers me right up.”

  I turned to Lieutenant Martin. “Is it okay if I go talk to Arnstein?”

  “Who?”

  “Shirley Arnstein. My Network person in the control room.”

  “What do you want to see her for?”

  “Network stuff. More bad publicity out of this. I want to talk to her about how we’re going to handle it.”

  “Yeah, what the hell. Go talk to her, if she hasn’t slit all the throats in the control room and set fire to the goddam place.”

  “I get the feeling I’m going to have you busting my chops over this for a long time.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think I probably deserve it.”

  “Yeah, but you look like you’ve got something else on your mind.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “You scare me sometimes, Matty,” the lieutenant said. “Keep your eyes open.”

  “I will.”

  “And yell if you hear or see anything. I got word back from the ice that the bastard is using Devastator bullets. The exploding kind.”

  “The ones the President was shot with.”

  “Yeah, but for him, they didn’t go off.” His tone implied he wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about that. “You might not be so lucky.”

  “I’ll be careful,” I said. I left him fast, before he could read my mind any further.

  I did have something on my mind. I had my fury, but that only kept me going. I was pretty sure I knew where Al St. John was. I could feel the vibrations through the knife he’d stuck in my back, in the Network’s back. It wasn’t going to be easy, fun, or especially safe getting him out of there, but I thought I saw a way to do it that would risk the fewest possible lives. One. Guess whose.

  My famous time sense. My practically infallible, totally useless weird talent. Useless until now. I stuck my left hand in my pocket to keep me from looking at my watch, then headed for the Garden’s TV control room. When I got there, I checked the time on my watch. Five minutes. My estimate had been correct. So far, so good.

  I knocked on the door, and a cop let me in. Lieutenant Martin had told them I would be coming, which was nice of him. I told the cop I wanted to talk to Shirley, and he pointed to a corner of the room.

  The technical crew were telling each other dirty jokes—a technician tells dirty jokes at every available opportunity, and this was Golden Time. They paid no attention to us, which was okay with me.

  “Matt, what is going on? Why do I have to stay cooped up here? Isn’t there something for me to do? Why are you searching for Al? Is the killer after him, too?”

  She said it all in one breath, like one of those compound words in German. It took me a few seconds to sort it all out. When I finally did, and told her I’d explain later, I thought she was going to explode.

  “There is something for you to do, though,” I said, and her frustration turned to eagerness.

  “What, Matt? The officer doesn’t want anyone to leave.” She dropped her voice. “He keeps asking me out, the creep.”

  “He looks perfectly okay to me,” I said. “Anyway, you don’t have to leave here to do what you have to do. Do you think you can get Romeo to let you use the phone?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good. In exactly eight minutes, I want you to pick up the phone and call the Network.”

  “Who do I ask for?”

  Bad habits surface when I’m tired. “Whom,” I said, then realized I was being silly. “Me,” I said. “You ask for me. It’s imperative you speak to me as soon as possible. Don’t take no for an answer. Got that?”

  “You promise you’ll explain this later? And why you were so mad at Harris this afternoon?”

  “Both. But this first. Eight minutes, okay?”

  “Eight minutes.”

  I took a deep breath, then headed back upstairs. I didn’t, however, return to Lieutenant Martin. Instead I went to the room the Network had taken over. The experimental control room. I stood outside, breathing deeply. Al had a key to this room, I’d given it to him myself.

  It was okay to look at my watch now. Three minutes before Shirley did her thing. I tried to see if there was a light on in the room, but the seal was too tight, and nothing leaked past the crack in the door.

  I tried to reassure myself. Al wanted to wait out the pursuit and escape. Even if he wanted me dead, he might not recognize me in the split second I planned to stay highlighted in the doorway.

  Unless, of course, he planned to blast anything that came throug
h. I had to hope he didn’t. Devastator bullets, I thought, and shuddered.

  I got my own key and slipped it quietly in the lock. I began to turn it, then stopped cold. I eased the key back, removed my watch, and put it in my pocket. All I needed was to show a luminous dial to make me a perfect target. I took one last look at it before I stowed it away.

  I had a long two and a half minutes ahead of me.

  I turned the key, opened the door wide enough to get in, then jumped into darkness. Complete darkness in the windowless room.

  I thought I heard a rustling. It could have been my imagination. I stood motionless against the wall about two feet to the right of the door.

  It was time for me to say something. I wondered how my voice was going to sound. I was amazed at how quiet I could be.

  I said, “I know you’re in here, Al,” then dropped to the floor and rolled.

  It hadn’t been my imagination. The muzzle flash was like lightning, and there was a cough and a pop, and the wall I’d been standing in front of cracked open.

  “You’re too late, Matt. Wendy is dead. Your little blossom. I got her.”

  I froze over. Began to open my mouth to tell him he was nuts.

  Lay there on the floor with my mouth open. He was nuts all right—he had to be nuts after the shit he’d pulled—but he wasn’t stupid. He was trying to rattle me, trying to get me to speak. So he’d know where to fire.

  I wanted him to know where to fire, but not just yet. Not for (I estimated) another minute and three quarters.

  I could make out different shades of darkness now, furniture and equipment looming up as blacker shapes. I got my arms and knees under me and made a fast crawl toward a desk. It brought another bullet that exploded against the wall six inches above my behind. For the first time in my life, I blessed Sergeant Mike Polanski, my army DI. “Keep those butts down!” Yes, Sergeant. Thank you very much, Sergeant.

  I felt better with something solid between me and the gun. All I had to do now was get my timing right. And not give myself away.

  Al was talking. “I knew it was going to come down to this, Matt. Just like Freddie. Me and you, me and Freddie. Like always, just the two of us.”

  I wondered who Freddie was, but I wasn’t about to ask.

  “Don’t think you’re going to run me out of bullets, either,” he said. He sounded as if he were on the verge of tears or laughter. Or both. “I’ve got plenty of ammunition. If anybody tries to join our little party, I’ll shoot them in the doorway. This will be just the two of us. We’ll sit here until we can’t stand it any more, then one of us will make a move. Just remember—I’m the one with the gun.”

  He sent another shot across the room by way of punctuation, then was silent.

  After a while, he said, “I did the important one. I got Dinkover. I won’t get away with it, but I got him. And I burned his book and erased it from his computer. All gone. That’s something, right, Matt?” Another pause. “It was you who threw that stuff on the ice, wasn’t it, Matt? Good Lord, it couldn’t have been anyone else.”

  I was trying not to listen to him. As he had pointed out, he was the one with the gun, and if I made any move too soon, I was meat.

  “Why so shy, boss? You were always ready to talk to me before. Taught me everything I know.”

  That’s right, you bastard, I thought, rub it in.

  St. John fell silent. Everything fell silent. I could hear my heart beating, and the more I willed it to quiet down, the louder it got. I concentrated on the time.

  Mistake. I’d never had to concentrate before. I tried to relax and take a guess. The guess told me it was time.

  Moving slowly, I reached to my belt and unclipped my beeper. I lifted it to the level of the desk top and put it down there. Then I slipped off my shoes and raised myself to a crouch. I began to circle to the right. At any second I expected a gunshot, but none came. I made it in silence past the corner, then along the right-hand wall, about halfway down. There was no cover, so I crouched against the wall, holding my breath.

  I might as well have been back in the snowbank, suffocating. I couldn’t dare to let my breath go; I’d pant my last breath as soon as he heard me. I was thinking, Shirley, come on, Shirley, please. I could feel my muscles tense up, as if they planned a suicidal leap just to get it over.

  Shirley, for God’s sake—

  Beep—beeep—beep.

  In the silence, it sounded like a scream. Al St. John started to laugh. “The beeper! I told you to wear it, and you listened!” He snapped off three shots, still laughing.

  The gun was pointed at a right angle from me, and the muzzle flash told me where he was. I’d never have a better chance. I drew in air and dove for him.

  I knocked him to the carpet, and we rolled. He was strong, but I already knew that. I hit him, gouged him, kneed him, but I couldn’t make him drop the gun. I had my left hand on his right wrist, trying to beat his hand against the floor.

  I felt the wrist start to turn. I pushed against it, but it was no use. He was using his stronger hand against my weaker, and he had the strength of madness to work with. He kept laughing.

  I could feel his hand turn. In a second the muzzle would be pointing straight at my face. There was only one thing I could do. Still holding the wrist, I dove to my right and rolled.

  The plan was to pull him over on top of me, with the gun harmlessly out to the side. It didn’t quite work. He pulled the trigger before I was through. I was looking in the direction of the gun when it went off. That close, the flash was blinding.

  Al stopped laughing. Stopped moving, too. I gathered my legs and put my hands down in order to stand up. I felt something sticky. Blood. Again.

  The only sound in the room was the beeper and my breathing. I stumbled back to the desk to turn the beeper off. I felt my legs go. Before I passed out, I thought I heard laughing again.

  “We now return control of your television set to you.”

  —Vic Perrin, The Outer Limits (ABC)

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “HE’S COMING AROUND, LIEUTENANT.”

  “Thanks, Doctor. Are you conscious, you goddam asshole?”

  “Lieutenant!” Wendy’s voice.

  “Well, he deserves it. Taking on an armed man. Could have been killed. Damn near was killed. I ought to run him in for stupidity in the first degree.”

  “Merry Christmas, everybody,” I croaked. “I’m in the hospital, I take it.”

  “Still making deductions,” the lieutenant sneered. “What was I gonna tell your momma if you died, huh? Answer me that. Hell of a way to greet the neighbors Christmas morning. ‘Merry Christmas, your fool son got himself killed.’ ”

  “I can’t see anything—am I blind?”

  “You’ve got your eyes closed, Matt.” Wendy was being very patient.

  “Oh.” I opened them, then squeezed them shut again as a big observation light burned into my brain.

  “You’re okay,” the doctor said. “Seems you just fainted.”

  “Good thing, too,” the lieutenant said. “Or else I would have kicked your stupid butt. I’m glad you opened that door before you lost it completely, or you would have starved to death before we could have found you.”

  I didn’t remember doing that. “I fainted, huh?”

  I opened my eyes again and squinted up at the doctor. He was a young black man. Handsome. Nice smile. “Don’t go all macho on us, Mr. Cobb. Could have happened to anyone.”

  After a while they let me sit up, and after another while I began to feel human. I told Lieutenant Martin about the eagle and the Bible and anything else he hadn’t had a chance to be brought up to date on. Wendy interrupted frequently for kisses.

  “Yeah, well we figured the Brophy stuff for ourselves when we broke into St. John’s apartment.”

  “He had the coin collection?”

  “And the stereo. And everything else. In a closet, but not even hidden, otherwise.”

  “He never thought we’d suspec
t him.”

  The lieutenant snorted. “If it weren’t for an old man with a flagpole and a young fool with a Bible, we never would have. You going to church today?”

  “As a matter of fact, I am. What time is it?”

  “I thought you always knew what time it is.”

  “Not after I faint. Humor me, all right?”

  “One thirty A.M. You say some prayers thanking God for saving you tonight.”

  “I will,” I said. “I’ll thank Him for letting me redeem myself. I made it easy for Al all along—I kind of thought it was up to me to stop him. I had visions of you losing cop after cop as you tried to storm the room. So I handled things in a way that let me avoid having that on my conscience.”

  The lieutenant looked disgusted. “Don’t try to bullshit me, Matty. You were pissed off at your pal, so you went for him yourself. You better pray God forgives you for that, too, ’cause I sure won’t.”

  “While I’m at it, I’ll pray we find out why a guy I worked with for three years all of a sudden became a homicidal maniac.”

  Wendy shot the lieutenant a significant look. I pretended not to notice it. Instead, I asked Wendy if she’d repeated her routine.

  “Matt!” she said.

  “Did you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you good?”

  “I wasn’t paying attention, dummy. I was worried about you.” She turned to Lieutenant Martin. “I have to know,” she said.

  “You were terrific. Matty can relax; the Network’s going to have a great show.”

  “No-oo! I have to know why he wanted to kill me.”

  The lieutenant stopped bantering. “How you feeling, Matty?”

  “Fine. Can I go home.”

  “If you want to. Like you to do me a favor first.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Talk to our perpetrator.”

  “He’s aim?”