by Tim Stevens
He approached the glass entrance doors of the apartment block. In the dimly lit lobby beyond, Royle could see the overweight doorman, who’d presumably recently started the night shift, sitting behind a desk with his feet up, reading a newspaper.
Royle pushed open the door and went in. The doorman looked up, then did a double take, as if he’d thought at first it was one of the other residents.
‘Help you, sir?’
‘Good evening,’ said Royle. He’d decided to forgo his usual English accent – it was too conspicuous, especially as he was hoping to be able to leave the doorman alive – and adopt a slightly nasal, Long Island drawl. ‘I’m Dr Robert Murray. I work at the same hospital as Dr Colby. Apartment fourteen? This is for her.’
Royle had procured a buff folder and some plain printer paper at an office supply store on his way to the apartment, and he held up the stuffed envelope.
‘Somebody in her department needed to get this to her urgently tonight,’ he went on. ‘I live nearby, and I offered to drop it off.’
The doorman – a badge pinned to his lapel said his name was Herman Spooner – glanced at the envelope, then back at Royle. His gaze ran up and down the length of his body, taking in his clothes, his demeanor.
Eventually Herman held out his hand. ‘Thanks. I’ll make sure she gets it.’
Royle lifted the packet out of reach with a regretful smile. ‘I’m afraid I have to deliver it to Dr Colby in person.’
Herman looked doubtful. ‘It’s kinda late.’
That suggested to Royle that Elizabeth Colby was home.
‘Not too late, surely?’ Royle indicated a clock on the wall of the lobby. ‘It’s ten to midnight. And this really does have to be delivered tonight.’ He leaned forward, lowering his voice. ‘It’s confidential medical material.’ Royle assumed the man would be suitably impressed, and he was, frowning and nodding as though he quite understood the importance of it.
Herman’s hand hovered over the receiver on the phone in front of him. His face was wracked by indecision.
‘Gee, I don’t know...’ he muttered.
Royle was a patient man. He nodded sympathetically, as if he understood the doorman’s dilemma.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘You’re obviously highly conscientious at your job. I wish the doorman at my apartment block took such good care of me.’ Herman swelled with pride. ‘But think how grateful Dr Colby will be if she gets this tonight, and knows you understood its importance well enough to tell her about it, even at this late hour.’
Royle watched Herman’s eyes calculating the situation. He probably had a shy crush on the attractive young doctor, and was looking for ways to impress her.
‘Okay,’ he said finally, and, picking up the receiver, he hit a button.
A woman’s voice answered across the speaker, surprisingly quickly, as if she’d hurried to the intercom. ‘Yes?’
‘Beth?’ said the doorman, nervous again. ‘It’s Herman. I’ve got a guy here, says his name’s... what, again? Dr Robert Murray. From your hospital. He’s got a pack of paper here for you. Medical information.’ He said the words in hushed tones.
After a moment the woman’s voice came again. ‘Who?’
Royle stepped forward so that he was nearer the phone on the desk. ‘Robert Murray, Dr Colby. We’ve met, though you probably won’t remember me. I’m in Pediatrics. One of your departmental secretaries needed to get some papers to you ASAP and someone told her I lived near you. I agreed to drop it off as a favor. I’m sorry about the hour, but she really was quite insistent.’
He waited. Herman waited.
After what seemed like five minutes, but was really only a few seconds, Elizabeth Colby’s voice came across the speaker, slow and deliberate. As if she was forcing it to be steady.
‘Herman,’ she said. ‘I want you to call the police immediately. Tell them I’m in danger. Tell them this man, the one there with you, is an impostor. That he’s tied somehow to something that’s happened to Professor Leonard Lomax. And Herman... get away from that man.’
Royle reached across and pressed the button to kill the call.
Now that was very interesting. Very interesting indeed.
The doorman was already propelling himself backward on his wheeled chair, his mouth and eyes wide with fear. His hand scrabbled for the cell phone holstered at his belt.
Royle stepped swiftly around the desk and hooked a foot behind one of the chair’s wheels, stopping it abruptly in its tracks. He grabbed Herman behind the head with one hand, knocking his cap off in the process, and slammed the heel of his hand into the man’s fleshy face. The blow drove Herman’s nose bones up into the frontal lobes of his brain, killing him instantly.
Royle heaved the rotund body under the desk, where it wouldn’t be seen unless someone came round the back, and pushed the chair back against it. Now anybody coming through the lobby would simply think the doorman had left his post.
He glanced about him at the deserted lobby, then headed toward the stairs.
Chapter 12
At first the fear paralyzed Beth.
She felt as she had the first time she’d been in the ER as a junior intern and had to deal with a cardiac arrest on her own. Then, as now, she’d been struck rigid with fright and indecision, and had experienced an overwhelming sense of being out of control.
After the man in Prof Lomax’s house had hung up, Beth had sat staring stupidly at the phone, trying to process what had just happened.
Was he a burglar? But then why had he answered the phone?
Whoever he was, Beth knew instinctively that something had happened to the Prof. That he was in trouble.
Or, worse, that he was dead.
Fifteen minutes later, brooding at the kitchenette counter, trying to decide exactly what she was going to say to the police that wasn’t going to make her sound like a crank, Beth had jumped as though electrocuted when the buzzer of the intercom beside her front door had sounded. When Herman had announced the arrival of a Dr Murray, whom Beth had never heard of, she knew there had to be some connection.
Something had happened to the Prof. And now, someone was coming for her.
Herman’s call had been cut off abruptly, the second time that had happened to Beth in the last half hour. For a moment she stood by the door to her apartment, the sudden silence descending on her like a shroud, threatening to suffocate her.
Then she did what she’d done before, all those years ago when she had that first cardiac arrest to deal with.
She sprang into action.
The man who’d been downstairs with Herman had shut him up somehow, and was probably heading up the stairs or in the elevator right now toward her apartment. Most likely he was taking the stairs as they’d be quicker. Beth considered running out into the corridor and knocking on her neighbors’ doors, but she didn’t know any of them all that well, and they might ignore banging on their doors in the middle of the night, which any sensible New Yorker could be forgiven for doing. By the time one of them opened up, whoever was coming up the stairs would already have gotten hold of her.
Instead, Beth ran across the living room toward the short corridor which led to the bedroom and bathroom.
On the way, she stepped into the pumps she’d discarded near the door. And she snatched up her purse from the coffee table where she’d left it. Inside, apart from the usual contents, was a can of Mace.
Beth reached the bathroom and shut the door, resisting the urge to slam it. Through the frosted glass of the single window she could see the blurred outline of the iron fire steps that ran downwards at a slant.
She climbed up on to the toilet lid and fumbled at the latch of the bathroom window. Opening it, she heaved the sash upward.
It was then she heard the noise that caused her innards to clench in sick dread.
Behind her came the sound of the front door to the apartment opening hard against the safety chain. Whoever was out there must have gotten through the locks – picked t
hem, maybe – and was now up against the chain.
Finding that she couldn’t push the sash up any higher, Beth hoisted herself up onto the ledge and heaved herself out through the window into the night air. The purse went first, and once her upper body had cleared the gap she hung the purse’s strap over her shoulder once more, to free up both hands.
Halfway through, when she was out up to her hips, she got stuck.
The window didn’t open all that far, partly as a security measure against somebody who might try to get in that way. Beth was slim, and even though she scraped her breasts painfully against the frame as she crawled through, she made it.
Till she got to her hips and her butt.
Behind her, back there in the apartment, she could hear a rhythmic slamming sound as whoever was out there drove the door against the safety chain. Once, twice, a third time. Over and over.
Outside, Manhattan was noisy, even at midnight. Music blared, nearby and far away. Car horns tooted. Voices yelled in anger and in mirth. Beth arched her back, bracing her arms, hauling her body against the obstruction. Above her, the sky was cloudless, stars visible here and there despite the pollution from the city’s lights.
Come on, she thought, numb with panic. Please. Just a little farther.
The fire escape was a few feet away above her. Beth let go of the window frame and lunged for the railing, catching hold of it. She hauled on it, trying to pull herself through the window. Agony shot through her arms and her hips as she felt herself stretched taut as a bowstring.
It was working. Inch by painful inch, her pelvis was clearing the gap.
And the second after she noticed this, Beth heard the chain on the living room door give way and somebody come crashing into the apartment.
Chapter 13
Venn could probably have kept the woman talking on the line for longer, but he didn’t think it would have helped much.
She already sounded suspicious, not to say afraid of him. She’d given him her name and that was all he was likely to get out of her on the phone. To obtain more, he needed to meet her face to face.
Venn killed the call, aware that she’d probably be straight on to the police. He flipped open the Filofax he’d found in Lomax’s desk and paged through it to the pages labeled K.
And there she was. Beth Colby. There was an address and three numbers. One each for work and home, and one for her cell phone.
Venn tore the page out and stuffed it in his pocket after memorizing the address.
Somebody who knew the professor had made contact. It might a lucky break. Then again, it might not. This Beth Colby might just be some student of the professor’s who was clueless about his disappearance.
But Venn wasn’t exactly drowning in options.
The address was in Lincoln Square on the Upper West Side. Crosstown from the professor’s townhouse. Venn figured he had a short time to get there. He didn’t think the Colby woman was going to go anyplace. There was no reason she’d suspect she was in any danger from the stranger who’d just answered Professor Lomax’s phone. But if the cops took her call seriously, not only would they send a patrol car or two round to the professor’s house, they’d likely pay Ms Colby a visit, too.
And Venn didn’t want to walk into an awkward situation.
His luck held, because he succeeded in flagging down a cab almost the moment he stepped out of the professor’s house.
Venn gave the address. ‘Step on it,’ he said.
The driver, a middle-aged Somalian, took the proffered twenty-dollar bill without a word.
And he did, indeed, step on it.
Venn was used to travelling at speed. As a Marine, of course, he’d been in his fair share of hair-raising flights, on land as well as at sea. As a cop, he’d been renowned for staying on the tail of his prey no matter what the obstacle. But even he felt shaken by the manic trip the cab driver took him on. Hairpin bends, last-minute handbrake turns round corners, hair’s-breadth escapes from major fender-benders. The driver left a symphony of yells and horns and screaming tires in his wake as he cut round the perimeter of Central Park and headed west.
He was tearing down Broadway, sending late diners and showgoers scattering in alarm, when Venn leaned forward.
‘Go down there.’
‘Is not the right street yet. Another block.’
‘Just take me there, okay?’ Venn wanted to be dropped off away from the apartment block’s entrance so that he could scout around a little, getting a feel for the layout of the area in case he needed to make any rapid exits.
The driver shrugged, grinning in the mirror. ‘You the boss.’ And he executed another handbrake turn, one that flung Venn against the rear door.
‘Stop!’ Venn slapped the driver on the shoulder. The man’s reactions were fast. Before Venn had gotten the syllable out, the guy slammed on the anchors. The cab howled to a stop, slewing sideways a little as it did so.
Up ahead, Venn had seen something he didn’t at first register for what it was. From the rear window of an apartment block, high up, around four floors, a human figure was protruding. It was a woman, only her head, arms and torso visible. She seemed to be stuck, and even from up there Venn could hear her desperate cries and grunts as she struggled to free herself.
Venn flung open the door of the cab and dived out, his hand already moving inside his jacket to the grip of the Beretta. The woman’s gasps were turning into small screams now. She’d seized the fire escape railing and was hauling for all she was worth, frantic to get all the way out. From the way she was thrashing around, Venn could see she was terrified.
Was the building on fire? Or was there somebody in there, trying to harm her?
And was it the Colby woman? It certainly looked like it might be her apartment. It was the right block.
Venn ran forward so that he was directly under her. Cupping one hand to his mouth, he called, ‘Miss.’
She continued to writhe and twist like a netted fish, seeming not to have heard him.
He was about to call out again when the woman screamed. This time it wasn’t a half-gasp, but a full-blooded cry of terror.
The next moment, she was through the window, her legs swinging to crash into the metal of the fire escape. Venn heard her cry out in pain and felt his heart leap as she let go of the rail with one hand.
But she managed to hang on.
And it was then, beyond her, that Venn saw the man leaning through the window, his arm outstretched, a gun aimed straight at the woman’s upturned face.
Chapter 14
Without thinking, and with reflexes born of thousands of hours of simulated and actual situations in which failure to react quickly would have meant certain death, Venn drew the Beretta and snapped off two shots in rapid succession.
It was a close thing. He was directly under the dangling woman, and the other man with the gun was directly above her. Venn’s shots sang narrowly past the woman and she screamed again, swaying violently. Above her, the man ducked back through the window and Venn heard his shots ricochet off the brick wall into the darkness.
She was looking down now, her face white with fear. Venn beckoned urgently with his free hand, keeping the Beretta trained on the open window beyond her. If she dropped now, he’d catch her. At least, he told himself he would.
With a yell the woman’s grip slipped off the rail and she fell. Venn dropped his gun instinctively, holding out both arms. But she jerked to a stop once more, and he realized she’d grabbed on to a rung of the fire escape further down, so that she now hung adjacent to the third floor.
Venn rolled on one shoulder, diving for his dropped gun and coming up in a crouch just as the man’s silhouette appeared through the window again. This time the other man got off two shots, three, and this time they were aimed at Venn. He rolled again, hearing the bullets spang off the sidewalk around him, and came up firing, taking only a split-second to aim. This time he hit the fire escape near the window, the bullet striking the metal with a clan
g.
The woman was swinging under the fire escape, climbing her way down step by step, one hand at a time. That was good, Venn thought. The fire escape would afford her a degree of cover, while he concentrated on taking out the man above.
In the distance, drawing nearer, Venn heard sirens.
He supposed gunfire in the night on a New York street did tend to attract the interest of the cops. This wasn’t the 1970s anymore, after all.
Venn dodged out from under the fire escape and loosed off another two shots with the Beretta. Damn, he was even closer this time. The guy up above jerked back out of view and Venn thought he heard a muttered curse. A cry of pain was what he’d been after, though.
The woman was making steady progress, swinging like a monkey down the underside of the metal stairs. Venn saw her reach the level of the second floor. Then she dropped, landing with a yowl as one of her ankles gave way.
He peered up, couldn’t see the guy at the window, and duckwalked over to the woman. She’d sat up. She wasn’t wailing, so he assumed her ankle couldn’t be that badly hurt.
‘Are you okay –’ Venn started to say, before the woman’s hand came out of the purse he noticed slung across her shoulder. She held her arm straight out toward him.
There was a sharp hiss, and Venn felt one of the most agonizing sensations he’d ever experienced sear across his eyes.
He staggered back, landing on his ass, his free hand clawing at his eyes, trying to tear the pain away somehow. Even in the depths of the agony he realized what had happened.
She’d Maced him.
He couldn’t see, felt as if he’d never be able to see again. Through the red darkness he tried to say, ‘Wait, you’ve made a mistake, I’m on your side,’ but the words didn’t come out properly through his distorted face muscles.
And in any case, he registered footsteps. Her footsteps, scurrying away into the night.
Choking, every nerve end screaming, Venn nevertheless understood that he needed to forget about the woman for a moment, because his priority was to stay alive. And if that guy up there with the gun saw Venn on his butt, clutching at his face and feeling sorry for himself, he’d put a bullet right through the back of Venn’s head.
