A cool breeze from the bedroom blew softly against his face, and he made a quick decision. He thought he could make it around the corner, if he was fast, and then he might be able to get through the broken window to the outside. It was a good ten or twelve feet to the ground, but—
Don’t let them get you, the gnome whimpered, breaking his concentration.
“Mr. Terwilliger!” Driscoll took another step toward him. “Don’t do it. Lie down on the floor now.” He motioned toward the floor with his weapon. The other two were coming around to Ed’s right—trying to block his escape route, he realized. For the first time, he noticed that there was a bulky silencer affixed to each of their guns.
Move, cried the gnome. While Driscoll still had his automatic pointed in the wrong direction, Ed spun to his right and shoved a lamp—his uncle’s treasured old purple lamp from the Great Depression—in the general direction of the two agents who were closest. They both ducked out of the way, and one of them fired a shot into his blue easy chair. The gunshot sounded like a handclap. Ed ducked his head and rounded the corner into his bedroom, slamming the door shut. That would only buy him a second or two, he knew. He lunged toward the broken window as the agents burst through the door behind him.
There was another quiet shot, and Ed felt a hard impact as a bullet struck him in his right thigh, just above the knee. His momentum propelled him the rest of the way to the window. With a mighty push, he popped the screen out of its frame on two sides. He forced his head through the opening, then his shoulders—fragments of glass still in the window frame dug into his skin through his shirt—and then he was nearly out.
The pain didn’t truly hit him until he was halfway out the window. His right leg buckled, leaving him stuck with his legs inside while his head and upper body dangled outside. Kicking wildly with his good leg, he found he couldn’t gain enough leverage to push himself the rest of the way out. The sun was shining; he could see two children playing on the sidewalk in front of his building. The window seemed to be spinning slowly around him as the blood rushed to his head, making the whole world spin with it.
He could see the ground just overhead. Two more men were waiting for him down there. He hadn’t noticed them before. They were running over and preparing to catch him. It was odd, looking up toward the ground and seeing people looking up at him. Ed decided to worry about them once he got the rest of the way through the window. Ed clawed with bloody hands at the window frame to pull himself the rest of the way out.
It was working. He felt himself sliding out of the window. He was going to be safe. He just had to get past those two men down below...
But he was sliding the wrong way. Something was holding his legs, pulling him back into his bedroom. There was a burning sensation all the way down his side where his skin scraped across the bits of broken glass in the window frame, and the pain in his leg made his vision go double. For a moment he was able to make out his bedroom ceiling, and either three or six men looking down at him.
As a last act of desperation, he closed his eyes and allowed his consciousness to leave his body. He drifted up through the ceiling and into the night sky, but everything faded rapidly to darkness before he could get very far, and he knew with a dreadful finality that they had him.
* * *
That know-it-all son of a bitch.
Sarah had walked along the Miracle Mile for a couple hours, looking into storefront windows at a lot of things she couldn’t afford. When she started getting tired, she had to make the really tough decision: go back and talk to Ed, or spend the rest of the night outside. Not that sleeping on the street was all that terrible; she’d spent a lot of nights in the park before the Guru had found her, and nothing awful had happened to her. Most of the bums and drifters were too consumed with their own problems to notice her, and those who hassled her learned quickly that she was not an easy target.
In the end, she decided to walk to his place and have it out with him. The long walk would give her a chance to cool off and collect her thoughts, and maybe come up with a few choice things to say when she saw him.
She just couldn’t get over how stupid he was. Risking his job, helping crooked lawyers put murderers and criminals back on the street... she couldn’t help but think of the people who had paid the real price, being at the wrong end of some asshole’s gun. Had Ed even thought about that? And he hadn’t even done it for some noble reason! The dumb bastard didn’t have a noble bone in his body.
But he wasn’t a bad guy, not really, she reminded herself. Most of what he’d done was out of desperation. Even now, he was still reeling from his wife’s death. And maybe, maybe it was very slightly selfish for Sarah to want him to live in the present and keep his wife in the past where she belonged. But what he’d said to her in the car had been intentionally hurtful, and she needed to make sure he wouldn’t ever talk to her that way again.
Sarah reached his street as the sun was just coming up. Would he even be home? Would he have waited up for her, or gone out to look for her during the night? No, he had probably turned in early and slept like a baby. Ed was no night owl; he thought he was being adventurous when he stayed up past the end of Mannix.
She pulled out her key—probably his dead wife’s key, for all she knew—and walked briskly across Edinburgh Avenue. His neighborhood wasn’t dangerous, but it didn’t seem wise to be fumbling with her keys on the front step. She couldn’t have survived very long on her own without learning some basic skills.
A soft sound prompted her to look over her shoulder. A man was walking behind her—not too close, but close enough to make her walk a little faster. He seemed nicely dressed, suit and tie, but some of the sickest perverts went around looking like regular people. My father, for example, she thought bitterly.
The man behind her was walking faster now, too. She picked up her pace even more, angling toward the curb to keep some distance between her and the two bums who were hanging around near Ed’s gate. Something was wrong; those two were looking at her—not idly staring as most did, but watching her intently. A moment later they stepped forward to stand directly in front of her. And then a fourth man became visible, crossing Blackburn from the opposite side to intercept her before she reached the gate.
What the—?
Before she could complete the thought, the man behind her rushed forward and clapped a hand over her mouth. He wrapped his other arm around her, pinning her elbows to her sides and nearly lifting her off her feet. She treated him to a couple kicks in the shins, eliciting a grunt of pain but failing to loosen his grip on her. Annoyed, but not yet afraid, she switched feet and bruised his other shin.
She had to get to Ed, had to—
“Miss Greenbaum,” the man whispered in her hear, “stop kicking me. I’m going to take my hand off your mouth. Don’t make any noise. We’re not here to hurt you. We’re with the government, okay?” She nodded, and he removed his hand. The two who had been lurking near the gate still stood in front of her, while the fourth one kept a few feet away to watch for passersby. Sarah was reminded of a group of boys in grade school who had always gotten into trouble whenever the teacher had stepped out of the classroom. They had always assigned a lookout to watch for the teacher. Even so, they had always ended up getting caught.
They’d gotten Ed already; she was sure they had. There was no way she could help him now. She only had one option left. Desperately, she willed the fourth man to come closer. She needed them all together.
“Please,” she said softly.
* * *
Special Agent Kenneth Driscoll crossed the street slowly to avoid alarming the girl. She still hadn’t realized she was being pursued. Agent Relin was only a few yards behind her; Stabins and Meier were preparing to cut her off in front.
Quick as a wild predator, Relin made his move. He darted up behind her and wrapped her in a bear hug before she had time to react. A hand over her mouth kept her from crying out. Driscoll moved to flank her in case she broke away, but i
n a few seconds it was clear that Relin had everything under control. None of the agents had needed to draw a weapon.
Relin whispered something in the girl’s ear, and she nodded, looking alarmed but not panicked. He took his hand away. Driscoll thought she might try to bite, but she kept her teeth to herself.
“Please,” she begged.
“Don’t worry about all this, young lady,” Relin said comfortingly. He had a fatherly manner, a knack for making suspects feel more at ease as they were being hauled away into federal custody. “It’s not you we’re after. We just need to ask you some questions.”
If anything, the girl seemed even more tense. Driscoll moved closer in case she tried to escape.
“Please,” she said again. “Let me go. I don’t want to hurt anybody.”
“Miss Greenbaum,” Relin said, chuckling, “try to relax. No one’s going to hurt―” A frown of confusion came over his face, quickly replaced by a grimace of pain. He let go of the girl and fell to his knees, gripping the sides of his head with his hands. He looked like he was having a stroke.
Driscoll took one step toward Relin, but a fierce pain bloomed inside his own head before he could take a second one. Through the cloud of black spots that suddenly marred his vision, he saw Meier and Stabins holding their heads as well. The girl, too; she was gripping her own head tightly with both hands as if trying to keep it from bursting open. Whatever was happening, it was happening to all of them. As the pain increased to a raging flood of agony in Driscoll’s brain, he saw the girl push her way between Meier and Stabins, stumbling and sobbing as she made her escape. None of the agents made a move to intercept her. The pain began to subside a little as soon as she was gone, fading gradually to a deep throbbing in the back of his head.
Driscoll levered himself up onto one elbow to see which way the girl had gone. There was no sign of her, and he hadn’t seen which way she’d run. Wincing, he sat up and checked on the others. Meier and Stabins were sitting on the ground, dazed. And Relin... Driscoll clenched his jaw when he saw the emptiness in Relin’s eyes—the same blank stare he’d seen in the eyes of a hundred murder victims. Driscoll seized his wrist to check for a pulse, already knowing what he would find.
I don’t want to hurt anybody, the girl had said. She had done this, somehow. A trick Terwilliger had taught her? Driscoll couldn’t be sure of that. But if Terwilliger could put images of himself into people’s heads, what couldn’t he do?
The door of Terwilliger’s apartment building opened, and two agents from the other capture team emerged carrying a man-sized bundle. The bundle didn’t struggle as they carried it down the stairs; Terwilliger was either dead or unconscious. Not dead, Driscoll hoped; he needed to speak to the man, to understand how Terwilliger had gotten inside Driscoll’s head. Besides, Wensel would hang Driscoll’s hide on his wall if anything happened to Terwilliger.
Driscoll instructed Stabins and Meier to see to their fallen comrade, then staggered over to the corner of the apartment building to find a good spot to throw up.
34
Monticello
July 1969
Danny was at the streetside grocery, sorting through the bin of Chinese broccoli to find the freshest ones. His mother was picky about her vegetables, and he had to get it right. Most of them were limp and rubbery. He filled a bag with the best ones, then turned and bumped into a man who was standing uncomfortably close to him.
“Siu sam dee-ah,” Danny muttered in annoyance. Some people had no sense of personal space.
“Tien-Ming,” the man said, “Mr. Li wants to speak with you.”
Danny looked up at his face. The stranger was chubby, balding, and quite unremarkable, except that he kept his right hand in his pocket.
“What if I don’t want to speak with Mr. Li?”
“Just come on.” The man put his left hand on Danny’s shoulder and gave him a light shove in the direction of a black sedan that sat idling at the corner. The grocer watched them go without saying a word about the un-paid-for vegetables.
Danny was halfway into the back seat of the car when the man shoved him again, throwing him off-balance so he tumbled into the car headfirst in an undignified fashion. The door slammed behind him and the man got into the front passenger seat. The driver stepped on the gas, and Danny’s next minute or two consisted primarily of attempting to turn himself around the right way against the pull of centrifugal force as the driver swerved to avoid the people walking in the street. Denizens of Chinatown always seemed to prefer walking in the street rather than the sidewalks. Only after he had gotten seated and found a grip on the front seat did he realize that there was another man in the back with him.
“Tien-Ming,” the man said with an amused smile. “I am Li Wei Min.”
Li was nothing like what Danny had expected. He was at least a foot shorter than Danny (who was admittedly rather tall for a Chinese man), and his smiling face made Danny feel like a child talking to an indulgent and jovial grandfather. This somehow made Li seem particularly dangerous. Danny decided to keep his guard up and choose his words with extreme care.
“Hi,” he said.
Still smiling, Li flicked his cigarette ashes into the ashtray and leaned back in his leather seat. He spoke English with a barely detectable accent. “I’ve heard so much about you, Tien-Ming. It’s really wonderful to meet you in person. Did you know that you’re famous?”
“Huh?” Danny scratched his head. “I mean, no, sir. What are you talking about?”
The car hit a bump, throwing both of them up toward the ceiling. “Slow down, please,” Li called to the driver. To Danny he said, “You’ve become quite well known in some circles in the year that you’ve been working for Mr. Wang. They call you the Hawk. Because you strike such fear into the little sparrows, you see?”
Danny looked at him blankly.
“Mah jong, sparrows. You’ve beaten quite a few of my associates at the game. You’re as good as they say?”
Humility or hubris? Danny opted for the middle ground and said, “I played a lot as a kid.”
Li laughed. “You’re still a kid, Tien-Ming. Just wait till you’re my age. How do you like working for Mr. Wang?”
This sounded to Danny like Li was edging toward his reason for abducting Danny in his car. It occurred to him that he didn’t know how many of the details of his service to Wang were known, or supposed to be known. “He treats me well,” he said after what he hoped was not too long a pause. “After some gangsters vandalized my mother’s shop a year ago, Mr. Wang hired me to help me pay for the repairs.” He said this with the intention of getting a reaction, but Li didn’t seem to notice.
“That’s terrible. The vandalism, of course, but also the fact that Wang didn’t just offer to rebuild your mother’s shop himself. He has a lot of money.”
So do you. “I guess he wanted to cultivate my work ethic.”
Li looked out the window. The driver was taking them up toward SoHo, and Li seemed to like watching the girls walking along the sidewalk on this unseasonably warm spring day. Danny hardly spared them a glance. The car drove past the school with the face of Blake on the wall, which Danny had visited many nights since he’d first discovered that face. He had hoped to find the person who had painted it, but they were probably long gone, painting new works of art on virgin walls in another part of town.
“How much does he pay you?” Li said, still looking out the window.
“He takes a quarter of whatever I win.”
Li turned to look at him. “Do you think I’m stupid?”
“No, sir.”
“Then don’t talk to me like you think I’m stupid. If anyone is stupid, it’s Wang for wasting your talents so pitifully. You may be one of the best cheaters in the history of the game, if what I’ve heard is true.”
“I don’t cheat,” Danny insisted.
“There are other mahjong parlors in the city besides Wang’s, you know. I’ll give you $750 a month to leave Wang and come work for me.�
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Danny didn’t answer him. They sat for a while in silence as the driver took them up toward Midtown. Several things ran through Danny’s mind at once. That was a lot of money—much more than what he was taking home from Wang’s parlor every month. He could live comfortably on that much money, and his mother and sister as well. But money wasn’t the only thing to consider; he also had to think about what Wang would do to him if he defected. Would Li protect him as well as Wang had? Which of the men was more of a danger to him? Then another thought came to mind. “My family. If Mr. Wang―”
“Oh, I’d take care of your family. No one will hurt them as long as you’re on my payroll.”
As long as you’re on my payroll. And if Danny left Wang’s employ just to find that he didn’t like working for Li, then what? It was only a question of which of the two men would get to him or his family first. “I appreciate the offer. But I―”
Li raised a hand to cut him off. “One thousand dollars a month, then. Don’t be foolish. Wang isn’t paying you nearly what you’re worth.”
“It’s not the money.”
“What else is there? One thousand, and protection to you and your mother and sister. My offer has two sides. Think of it as a coin.” Li held up one finger as if to say “hang on just one minute,” then dug into his pocket and pulled out a nickel, which he held in front of Danny so he could see the face of Thomas Jefferson. “The head of the coin is the good side. If you agree to help me, I will pay you nicely and protect you from Wang. Life will be very good for you, very lucky. The tail―” Li turned the coin over and showed him Monticello. “The tail is the bad side. If you reject my offer, life will be very unlucky for you. Very unlucky.” He smiled as he said this, as though he had great confidence that Danny would never be stupid enough to choose that side of the coin.
“I get carsick,” Danny said. “Can you stop the car?”
Forest of the Mind (The Book of Terwilliger 1) Page 32
