And Pam, poor Pam, she’d been used by both of them. He had played upon her passions, used her as a lure; now Hollander possessed her. He had lost.
He got into his car and began to drive. But it was different this time— he was not looking for one of those drab churches with dusty kneeling stools in which he felt so comfortable because they reflected his mediocrity. This time he wanted splendor, soaring columns, arches, flying buttresses. He would go to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. He drove there on the empty chilly streets.
He parked in front on Fifth Avenue, placed his police card on his dashboard, hauled himself up the steps, and tried to open the great gilded doors. Locked, of course—he should have known; too many bums out at night, too many thieves.
He walked around to the side, then right up to the gray wall and stood there pressing his forehead against the granite, feeling the chill of the hard stone upon his skin.
His prayer was different, too, this time, not for himself, his virtue, that he stop the evil and protect the good. This time he prayed for Pam, and as he did, tears filled his eyes. For he had never prayed before for another person. And yet, this time, he did.
“Protect her,” he whispered. “Protect her from the bird. Don’t let them hurt her. If they must kill her, please let them do it quickly ….”
It had been a long time since he had wept, almost a lifetime—not since he’d shot Tarry Flynn. And now he was weeping for a girl he barely knew, whom he’d used badly and hadn’t understood, and who didn’t even know he cared.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
When he saw her wake up, he knew that she had been tamed. He watched her carefully as she discovered she wasn’t bound except by her jesses tied loosely to her cot. Then, when she made no effort to untie herself, he knew she was held captive by her own wish, her need.
He came to her, sat beside her, and stroked her tenderly. She writhed with pleasure, then lay still as he unloosed her jesses. She obeyed when he signaled her to stand.
She moved like an animal. She wore nothing except her feathered cloak.
“You’re tamed, fulfilled,” he said.
She nodded. “You may not speak,” he told her gently, “but you may make sounds if you like.”
She turned to him, smiled as he lay his fingers upon her throat. And then she made a noise that was something like the noise a falcon might make, not a real “aik, aik, aik” but something close, her own sound, the sound of Pambird.
He could see her joy and her relief when she realized that Peregrine was gone, that she was alone with him in the aerie, that her rival had fled or had been pushed out. It was her nest now; her aerie; and now he, Jay, was wed only to her.
He removed her hood. She peered at him. Their eyes met and locked. He studied her pupils, the glow on them, the sheen. She stood very still as he placed a collar about her neck and attached a fine leash to it and then instructed her to move.
She did, in a circle around him. He stood in the center of the room turning, and she moved around him slowly as the dawn broke through the blinds. The triangular window filled with light and the light broke across the floor in stripes and she turned and turned like an animal, as if she were a bird. It was as if she were flying—almost. There was a smoothness to the way she moved, a delicacy, a glide. And he was pleased, for he had tamed her and trained her, made her his falcon, and now he knew she would do anything he asked.
After a while he stopped turning; she stopped, too, then perched. He placed her hood back upon her head to calm her and stroked her throat. She lay back upon her cot and he came close to her and said: “You promised me a kill, Pambird. A good kill, clean and quick. You will do it for me, won’t you? You will be my huntress now.”
She showed her assent by giving out with a hoarse whisper as he stroked her throat again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Janek wasn’t sure why he went to the Empire State Building except that he had two detectives on the observation deck, “the dodo shift” as Sal called it, and he’d been thinking he ought to visit them, if only to say thanks for helping out. But there was more to it—he felt a need to rise above the city, get off the streets, go someplace high and look down. St. Patrick’s had not satisfied him—he needed a real New York cathedral, a skyscraper. So he went to the Empire State a little after dawn that Saturday morning, had to show his badge to get them to run him up to the top. And then to his surprise, he didn’t find the dodo shift, which said something, he thought, about the way he had controlled the case. He didn’t care—it hadn’t been much of an idea anyway. He was just as happy to be up there by himself; he could look down upon the city alone.
It was a magnificent sight: boats crawling up the Hudson, glimmering in the dawn, and the sun breaking from the east, golden light breaking behind the spire of the Chrysler Building, splayed steel domes studded with triangular windows topped by a needle that spoke of man’s yearning to reach for the stars. The configuration of the tower reminded Janek of overlapping feathers on a bird. He dropped his eyes, looked at the stylized heads, the gargoyles at its base. He blinked, looked again, and then counted them slowly, cautiously, because he didn’t want to make a mistake. There were four, two at each corner, which meant that there were four more around the other side he couldn’t see, and that made a total of eight, and they were eagles’ heads—the eight eagles that guarded the nest.
His heart leapt as he raised his eyes again to the tower floor just below the needle. That’s where it was, the aerie, the nest—Pam was there, right there beneath the needle, and Hollander was there, and the bird, too—that was where the falcon had been living, the place she’d flown from and to which she’d always returned unseen. That was Hollander’s secret room.
He knew it, was certain, and he was certain, too, about something else—he was going up there to rescue her; he wasn’t going to call anybody, not even Sal; he was going there without backup, alone.
As he drove across town, he didn’t think about anything except that now he, too, was a rogue cop about to take the law into his own hands. He didn’t care, either—he would just do what he had to do.
Parking in front of the Chrysler Building his mind was clear: Assuming Pam was still alive, he wouldn’t let Hollander use her as a hostage or a shield. He would go in blazing, wouldn’t bargain, wouldn’t talk. He’d go for the bird and then Hollander, slay them both. And then he’d rescue Pam.
The tower elevator stopped at the seventy-fourth floor; from there he had to take the stairs. He took them slowly, carefully, as if he were stalking an animal, could feel the hunter’s madness swirling now inside.
His tension built as he looked into offices. There were rooms marked with the call letters of FM stations; he was looking for something else. And on the seventy-seventh floor he found it: the words E. E. CORP. printed on a glazed office door. He played with the letters, instantly decoded them. “Eight Eagles Corporation.” He laughed to himself. He’d found the aerie—he’d been right.
He waited outside, gasping for breath, listening for some sound from within. He could hear nothing, cocked his revolver, paused until he was breathing normally, then turned the knob.
He was surprised to find the door unlocked. He let himself into a small reception room, saw another door at its other end. He crossed the space silently; he could see a strip of light beneath the other door. Perhaps he’d made a mistake and Hollander was waiting for him. Perhaps this intrusion had been foreseen and the surprise would be on him. But still, he knew, he had to continue; he’d come this far, must finish what he had begun. So he gathered his strength and flung himself against the door, burst through, then crouched, holding his revolver out in both his hands, looking for the falcon and for Hollander, ready to kill them both.
The spectacle before him was so stunning, so bizarre he could not bring himself to move. He just crouched there gaping, frozen in the doorway, consumed by his pity and his terror.
Hollander lay dead across the arms of a swivel chair, face to the c
eiling, body limp, his throat cut from ear to ear. Pam stood against the triangle of the window, golden light breaking around her, a dark figure against the glow. She stood still like a statue, a monolith, an enormous bird, her arms outstretched, her posture hieratic, a cape sewn with a design of feathers falling from her arms like giant wings.
The knife she’d used lay on the floor.
Hollander was still oozing blood. But it was her eyes that told everything; they were huge, steady, piercing, much larger than he remembered. And they challenged him with a gleam of slavishness and predation while some strange rasping, some strange animal noise issued from deep within her throat.
They stared at one another; Janek lowered his gun. He saw that she had crossed into another world. And then, suddenly, he understood the route to his redemption. He would reach out to her and lead her back. He would bring her back no matter how long it took.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The great falcon had flown out of Manhattan before the dawn, had crossed the Hudson and the Jersey meadowlands heading west toward wild land. She found the Kittatinny Ridge and from there her flight went easier—she rode the warm air currents lifting from the slopes, glided and soared following the contours, often seeing her own shadow ahead of her upon the brush.
The thermals carried her on effortless flights. She rode them gracefully for miles. It was cold, the second week of November, the season for migration nearly past. Others of her species had flown this ridge weeks before, but though she was late, she covered great distances, a swift dark form against the windblown clouds.
She had found the great flyway along the Appalachian spine, rode it over Hawk Mountain, Pennsylvania; Peter’s Mountain, Virginia; Thunder Hill, North Carolina; heading always south.
Even as she flew, the imprint of her training faded. Without jesses, no longer captive, she found a new exaltation in her flight. And the territory was different, too, composed of trees and brush. There were no people swarming beneath her, only a few animals, mice and rabbits, which scurried when her shadow crossed their paths.
Her hours of flight drew upon her strength; she began to feel hunger the second day. It was over the Carolinas that she saw them, great flocks of migrating Canadian geese. She studied their movements, their formations, devised strategies of attack. Late in the afternoon, a long-supressed instinct emerged and she broke into a flock.
The geese scattered. She picked out a slow flier, towered above it, chased it, then crashed down upon it in a stoop.
The bird fell and she followed it, screaming her triumph to the wind. She fastened upon it on the ground, ravenously tore it up. And then she feasted, enjoying the warm flesh, the warm blood, while an owl in a nearby tree watched enviously, frightened by her great ferocity and size.
Strengthened, nourished, satisfied by her success, her discovery that she could find her own prey now, find her own food, strengthen herself, she flew off to continue her journey toward the warm north coast of South America, riding the thermals, towering and wheeling in the sky, a great falcon loose in nature—wild Peregrine.
SPECIAL AUTHOR’S EDITION SUPPLEMENT
“PEREGRINE”
Q&A WITH WILLIAM BAYER
Q: Your notion of a falcon as killer—where did that come from?
A: Before I answer, please remember that it’s the falconer who’s the real killer in the book. The falcon is just his weapon.
The idea came to me one autumn afternoon on Martha’s Vineyard Island when I happened to look up just in time to see a falcon attack another bird midair. It was an amazing sight and instantly brought back memories of a time when I’d been interested in falconry. The idea for the novel was conceived at that moment: I would write a crime story set in New York in which a murderer/falconer trains a falcon to attack people on command. He would signal his choice of victim to the bird flying high above the city. In reality, of course, that would be impossible. A peregrine falcon will never attack a human, a creature so much larger than itself, nor will it attack any animal that’s not its natural prey. Nevertheless it struck me as a powerful idea. I knew then that if I were to write such a book, the story would have to be stylized and operatic. The trick would be to create situations and characters that would be so engrossing the reader would suspend disbelief.
Q: You mention an old interest in falconry….
A: That was back when I was in high school. I read a poem, “The Second Coming,” by Yeats. The famous first lines go: “Turning and turning in the widening gyre/The falcon cannot hear the falconer.” I was so struck by the concept of a relationship between a man and a wild bird, I went to the library where I found and read a couple of books about falconry. Inspired by the difficulty of training a wild predatory bird to hunt, it occurred to me that falconry was more than a sport, that it was also an art.
There was a funny upshot to this early interest which developed around the time I had to write my college application essay. I decided to create a false story about being a falconer, and the emotional high it gave me to train and hunt with a peregrine falcon. It was a pack of lies as I had never flown a falcon in my life, let alone trained one, but it made for an original essay and helped get me into my first choice college. Thinking back I realize that was probably my first piece of successful fiction. Later, at the start of freshman year, when I attended a group meeting with a dorm counselor, he mentioned the skills of some of the people in the room. There was a cellist, a champion fencer, a one-time child actor who’d starred in a TV series, and then turning to me he said: “There’s also a young man here who practices the noble ancient art of falconry.” Eyebrows shot up. People looked around to see who this amazing fellow was. I blushed. It seemed my lie had followed me to Harvard!
Q: Janek is one of the three principal characters in PEREGRINE, but your novel SWITCH is regarded as your first Janek book. Didn’t PEREGRINE appear before SWITCH?
A: It did. Janek isn’t the lead character in PEREGRINE, but he plays a strong role. I liked him and decided to turn him into a series character. I also felt he needed to be changed, developed a bit differently. I probably should have used a different name for the NYPD detective in the SWITCH-WALLFLOWER-MIRROR MAZE trilogy, but I didn’t and thus the confusion. In the trilogy Janek is the main character. In PEREGRINE he’s a strong secondary. So I suppose, speaking literally, PEREGRINE is the first Janek book in that it’s the first of my novels in which he appears.
Q: PEREGRINE won the Best Novel Edgar Award. Were you surprised?
A: Very! And also, of course, very pleased. Winning that prize, arguably the top award in the mystery/crime writing field, was a huge encouragement. Before receiving the honor, I was a little known fiction writer whose books hadn’t sold very well. The Edgar gave me credibility with the public and with major publishing houses. My next novel, SWITCH, became a New York Times best seller.
There’s a side story about the publication of PEREGRINE. My publisher, a small house called Congdon & Lattès (which has long since gone belly-up) was run by a guy whose main claim to fame was that he’d come up with the title for Peter Benchley’s famous novel JAWS. He disliked my title, PEREGRINE, claimed it was “too soft,” and insisted I rename the book. When I refused, he went behind my back, organizing a title naming contest among the salesmen. The title they came up with, RAPTOR, didn’t appeal to me at all. It was too much like JAWS, too angry, and far as I was concerned, it was misleading, suggesting the novel was about some kind of rogue monster killer falcon akin to the great white shark in JAWS, rather than about a falcon trained to kill by a human serial murderer.
We had a big fight about this and in the end I had to retain a lawyer. Congdon, the publisher, finally backed down, but then out of pique refused to support the book with advertising and promotion. As a result sales were poor. But then nine months later when the book won the Edgar, they picked up. Several of Congdon’s people wrote to congratulate me on the award, admitting I’d been right to stand up for the principle that it’s an author’
s prerogative to title his or her work. Alas, Congdon, who has since passed away, didn’t have it in him to apologize.
Q: Any movie interest in PEREGRINE?
A: The book was under option continuously for years. French readers particularly liked it, and several French producers took out options, the first of whom was murdered under mysterious circumstances. Finally a French pop star, Mylène Farmer (often described as “the Madonna of France”) bought it outright. She wanted to play Pam, but her singing career took precedence and as a result the project stalled for years. Finally another French producer, who’d long admired my book, bought it from her. He’s been trying ever since to put together a production, so far with no result. Now with CGI (computer generated animals), I think the book could be made to work, so I’m hopeful that someday my story will reach the screen.
Q: Tell us what happened to the first producer?
A: His name was Gérald Lebovici, regarded at the time as the most powerful executive in French cinema. One evening I was in the Rizzoli bookstore in New York, when I happened to glance at the newsstand where they offered a bunch of European newspapers. A huge headline on the front page of France-Soir caught my eye: LEBOVICI ASSASSINÉ!” I bought the paper and read the story. Apparently Monsieur Lebovici was in his office, when he received an urgent phone call. He left in a hurry. The following day his body was found in the front seat of his car parked in an underground garage, with six bullet holes in the back of his head and neck. To this day no one has been arrested for the crime. One theory is that it was political; apparently he’d been flirting with extremist French leftist groups. Another is that he was killed over a business dispute. No one knows, but one thing’s for sure: he wasn’t killed because he held an option on the film rights to PEREGRINE!
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