Could they get other uniforms, at the last minute, that assassination team? Would they believe his denials? He couldn't just go off to the police, not with Eve and Jeremy out at Mrs. Rheingold's place. If he ran away, but didn't tell anybody anything, would that be enough to spare Eve and Jeremy?
Tina was describing to the enthralled group her own amateur acting experiences in the “gim-nah-sium,” and they were all assuring her she was a natural, she could own the stage if she ever decided to turn her attentions in that direction. Not Tina, he wanted to tell them, her interests are rather gorier than the theater could provide. But he didn't say that, or anything else, until, at a lull in the conversation—or in Tina's part of it—he leaned over to her to say, “I have to go home.”
“Oh, darling,” she said, with great concern. “We are all so enjoying ourselves. Do stay.”
“You stay,” he said. “Why not? Have fun.”
She wanted to, he could see that. She said, “Will you be all right?”
“Of course.”
She pointed a nanny's admonishing finger at him. “Go straight home,” she said, “and do not fret.”
“I will,” he promised, “and I won't.”
“I'll be along after a while.”
“Enjoy yourself,” he told her, and left the bar and walked several blocks before he found a cab. He went straight home, as promised, but he did fret. In his living room, laying the blanket once again on the floor, he stopped and said aloud, “What am I doing? She isn't coming back tonight.”
So, for the first time since Monday, he slept in his own bed, fretful but exhausted, so that he did sleep, and she did not come back, and he was still asleep at nine the next morning when the phone rang, and it was Levrin: “Can you still be asleep? What nerves of steel you have!”
“Oh, God,” he said. He could taste the beer and he could taste the cheeseburgers.
“I need you to drive me,” Levrin said.
“Drive you.”
“Yes, to the airport. Kennedy airport.”
Bewildered, still waking up, Josh said, “You want me to drive you to Kennedy airport? Now?”
“Yes, of course, who else? I am going now to the place where you keep your car.”
“My car?”
“On Eleventh Avenue. It is a Toyota Land Cruiser, very nice car. Surely you remember it. I will meet you there at ten.”
40
TEN-FIFTEEN; BUT LEVRIN didn't seem to mind. He and Hugo and the nameless thug leaned comfortably against Josh's car, arms folded, gazing out over coastal New Jersey, enjoying the sunny warmth of the end of July. Hurrying toward them through the rows of parked cars, Josh called, “Sorry. I couldn't get moving this morning.”
“Not a problem,” Levrin assured him. He was in an amiable mood, probably because his plans for mass murder were about to come to fruition, in just a few hours, uptown. “As always with airports,” he went on, “I have left us extra time.”
“Good.”
Josh unlocked the Land Cruiser and got into the front seat, which wasn't exactly an oven; more a crockpot. Leaving the door open, he quickly started the engine, and told Levrin, sliding in on the passenger seat next to him, “The air conditioner will kick in in a minute.”
“Briefly, we shall open the windows,” Levrin told him, and said something in that other language to the two thugs, who'd climbed into the back. Josh shut his door, they opened all the windows, and he drove out of there, pausing at the farebooth for the clerk to see his monthly pass on the dashboard and to lift the bar out of the way.
Walking hurriedly down from the apartment—it usually wasn't too far to walk—-Josh had told himself that the good thing about this new assignment was that it meant he would be away from home around eleven or twelve, when the assassination team could be expected to arrive, in search of their uniforms. All in all, it would be better not to be there for that moment.
In fact, if Levrin didn't need a roundtrip, if he wanted to be left at the airport, Josh might drive on up to Port Washington, just to see if it were at all possible to get into Mrs. Rheingold's estate, and possibly get Eve and Jeremy out. The assassination team would be gone from there, after all, and everybody's attention distracted by the planned events of the day. He wouldn't do anything dangerous—at least, he'd try not to—but just maybe he could get himself and his family out from under this thing at last.
Anonymous phone call to the authorities? Also a possibility.
As they drove east across Manhattan, headed for the Mid-town Tunnel, Josh said, “Are we picking somebody up out there, or am I dropping you off?
“Well, both, in a way,” Levrin told him, and apparently found that funny. Then he sobered and said, “Yes, we will be picking someone up.”
So it would be a roundtrip. Well, there might still be time, afterward.
Saturday traffic was lighter in Manhattan, heavier east of it. It was 11:17 by the dashboard clock when they swept around the curving entrance to Kennedy Airport. Josh said, “Where am I headed?”
“You will want the long-term parking.”
“Long-term parking? I thought we were picking someone up.”
“That is where,” Levrin told him, “we are going to meet the people we are going to meet.” He was still pleasant, but somehow with Levrin there was always the sense that he expected full and immediate compliance with his instructions, without a lot of chitchat.
So if he wanted long-term parking, to pick someone up, that's what he would get. “Fine,” Josh said, and followed the signs, and eventually got a claim ticket from the clerk on duty at the entrance there. As he drove out onto the pale concrete, he said, “Just anywhere?”
“No, no, we must go where the people we are going to meet will go. You will drive all the way back to the fence.”
So he did, soon passing more and more empty spaces, then an area with almost no cars in it at all, and all of them empty. “Somewhere around here?”
Pointing, Levrin said, “At the fence there, go to the right a little, and then we will stop. Yes, like that. Yes, this is good, stop here. So. We open the windows, and then you turn the motor off, and we get out of the car.”
“It's going to be hot out there,” Josh said.
“We don't know how long we shall be waiting. Out you go.”
They all got out of the car, Josh on the side next to the chainlink fence, with raw fields beyond it. Bus stops dotted the broad expanse of the parking area, and a bus far away could be seen moving slowly from stop to stop, but no one was anywhere near this place.
The nameless thug had gotten out on the same side as Josh. Now Levrin and Hugo came around the front of the car, Levrin smiling, saying, “And now, our very pleasant association must come to an end.”
Josh didn't understand. The nameless thug was behind him, the other two in front. He was distracted by seeing Hugo pull from his pants pocket a pair of white rubberized gloves, the kind worn when cleaning the kitchen. He said, “What?”
As Hugo pulled the stretchy gloves onto his big hands, Levrin said, “You have been very helpful, Josh, and very useful, and I want you to know I appreciate it and I thank you for it. But now, you see, your helpfulness and your usefulness are over.”
“But why come—” Josh started, and Hugo took from his other pants pocket a pistol. It was small, but looked efficient. He pointed it at Josh, who said, “No!”
“All relationships must end, Josh,” Levrin said. “Hugo.”
Hugo took a shooter's stance, knees bent, both hands on the pistol, almost hiding it with rubberized white plastic. Josh flinched uselessly away, realizing too late what a fool he'd been, how they'd played him from the beginning, how they'd always meant it to end this way, and then, astonishingly, the other thug pushed forward past Josh, saying something angry in their different language.
Hugo couldn't believe it. His own man was blocking his shot, walking into the line of fire. And Levrin was outraged. He yelled at the nameless thug, waved a fist at him, actually st
amped a foot. The thug didn't care. He yelled back, pointed at the far-distant entrance shack, at the bus still visible across the sea of concrete and cars.
What was he saying? Don't do it here, it's stupid to do it here, someone will hear, someone will see. Take him someplace private, for God's sake.
Levrin did not like being argued with, and neither did Hugo. They both railed at the nameless thug, who then stepped forward and gave Hugo an angry push on the chest. Hugo, even angrier, pushed him back. The nameless thug punched at him, mostly missing. Levrin kept shouting, and Hugo slapped the pistol down onto the Land Cruiser hood to punch back. The nameless thug grabbed him in a bearhug, and they scuffled, Hugo forced back step by step.
Run, Josh told himself. While they argue, run like hell. Except they'd catch him, and even if they didn't catch him they could still shoot him while he ran.
The gun! It was right there. Grab it, turn, run around the back of the car, away from the fighting, then run as fast as he could for the exit.
Do it now. No time to be frightened, no time to forget how to breathe. Do it.
Josh jumped forward and grabbed the gun. It was heavier than it looked, and he lost his balance for just a second, before spinning away, the gun pressed with both hands to his chest.
Shouting behind him. He ran around the back of the car, but Levrin was already there, arms wide, blocking him, the nameless thug right behind him.
Josh spun back, and there was Hugo, coming toward him between the left side of the Land Cruiser and the fence, gloved hands spread to scoop him in.
No choice, no chance, nothing. Fumbling, he turned the gun, held it in both hands the way Hugo had held it, pointed it more or less at Hugo's body. He was terrified, trembling all over, the gun waving in his grip like a sapling in a storm, but he was so close, how could he miss from this close?
“Stop!” he shrieked. “Stop, I'll shoot! I will! I will!”
“Weakling,” Hugo said, and stepped forward, and Josh's finger spasmed on the trigger.
It shot. The gun shot, it bounced a tremor of recoil all up his arm to his shoulder, it made a flat smack in the air like a faroff small firecracker.
The gun shot, and Hugo stopped. A dark smudge appeared on his white shirtfront. Then he smiled, and came forward again.
No! Stop it! Josh pulled the trigger a second time, but now all the gun did was say click, and Hugo came forward to pluck it out of his hands.
“What,” Josh said. “What.”
Levrin, no longer angry at anybody, had come up behind Josh. “Excuse me,” he said.
Josh, stunned, moved over and Levrin went by him to open the driver's door, reach in, and take the key out of the ignition. Then he said, “Thank you, Josh, you may get behind the wheel now.”
“But—what happened? What happened?”
“You don't understand?” Levrin smiled in comradely fashion. “That was a blank, of course.”
“But, why?”
Levrin pointed at Josh's right hand. “Now, you see,” he said, “there is no question, is there, that you fired that pistol today. Your fingerprints on the pistol, the chemicals from the firing of the pistol on your hand.” With a little bow, “Get into your nice car now, Josh,” he said, “while we wait a little.”
41
JOSH SAT AT THE WHEEL OF HIS Land Cruiser, hands in his lap. A warm breeze blew through the car, from right to left. Outside, while the three chatted amiably in that language of theirs that was all gutturals and throat-clearings, Hugo emptied the spent blank cartridge from the pistol and put it in his pocket. Then he took actual bullets from his other pocket and loaded them into the merry-go-round of the bent-open pistol. Then he snapped the pistol shut, clicked a button on its side that must be the safety, and put it away in the pants pocket the bullets had come from. Then he stripped off the gloves, made a joke about the gloves to the others—something, probably, about how hot his hands got while he was wearing them—and put them in the blank-cartridge pocket while the others laughed. Then he waved both hands to air them and laughed again, this time alone.
During all of this, Josh thought. Or tried to think. Or tried to think useful thoughts instead of the merely despairing and self-despising thoughts that insisted on crowding his mind.
What could he have done differently? Aside from never taking the money, what could he have done recently other than what he'd done? He and Mitch Robbie had played along with the program, which meant they'd both gotten to live a little longer. Robert Van Bark had chosen or stumbled upon the only possible alternative, which meant he'd gotten to live a little shorter. But once they'd decided to take the money—no, once United States Agent had decided to awaken their sleepers—the ending was already determined.
Fire the gun or not fire the gun; no difference. They had surely already worked out some other way, if he hadn't fallen for that trick, to create a stage set more realistic than anything Good Rep had ever contemplated. From the instant Andrei Levrin had first approached Josh on the ferry dock in Bay Shore, this final scene had already been determined.
Which made him at last stop gnawing at the past and start to think instead about this final scene. It was inevitable, had been from the beginning—yes, yes, we know that—but it was being prolonged.
Once they had his prints on the gun and the evidence on his hand, why had they delayed? Why not kill him now? He was in the position of the lobster who has been brought into a kitchen, but then for a while it seems to the lobster that nothing is happening.
What water was Levrin boiling?
Maybe Levrin had been telling the truth when he'd said they were to meet someone else here. Maybe they had some reason they didn't want to kill him until some other person, or some other piece of evidence, had been brought here.
So now at last he was thinking more productively. If he wanted to have a future, he had to think about the future, and leave the past alone. Think about the immediate future, between now and when Hugo would put his gloves back on. What was there in this final interval that he could somehow turn to his own advantage?
And why, come to think of it, couldn't he have a spare ignition key in the glove compartment?
Well, he didn't have a spare ignition key there, no one keeps a spare ignition key there, that's regretting the past again. Think about the future.
Who or what are Levrin and the others waiting for? Could they be bringing Robbie here, so they could both be killed together, and left with the “evidence” of their monstrous crimes?
Then he knew. In an instant he knew, and in the same instant he understood why he hadn't wanted to know. Why he had wanted to shield himself as long as possible from the ending.
They were waiting for Eve and Jeremy.
42
FIFTEEN MINUTES OF SILENT HORROR. Fifteen minutes of begging for this not to be true, but knowing it was. Fifteen minutes while the rest of the globe rolled on but he stayed fixed on the spike of that knowledge.
Seeing the result. The three bodies in the car, in the sun, to be found…when? There would be no anonymous phone call, nothing to muddy the waters, nothing to take from the clarity of the story Levrin and the others would leave behind.
Josh Redmont, traitor, in despair over what he had been part of, had murdered his wife and child and had then taken his own life. The proof would be clear and indisputable, and the fact of his having murdered his family and then killed himself would be the proof that he had indeed been part of the massacre at Yankee Stadium. He and Mitch Robbie, and whoever else they had gulled into this enterprise. The fall guys, the scapegoats.
What could he do? What could he do? He couldn't even get out of the car; they'd stop him, not brutally, but firmly. No unnecessary extra bruises on his body.
Meanwhile, those three stood beside the car, up near the front on his side, talking together, easy, calm in their manner and calm in their minds. How could they do this? How could such people exist? To murder an innocent inoffensive family, for some…what?
For
some temporary geopolitical advantage, to somebody somewhere, which would probably, given the history of such things, not even accomplish anything. If all the schemes and machinations of these realist political tough guys were any damn good, the world would be sorted out by now, wouldn't it? For good or for ill, somebody would have won.
But they don't care, they're pragmatists, they ride roughshod over real human beings for ephemeral advantages in a contest that never ends. They've traded in their humanity for something they think is better. They don't smell their own stink.
Do they always have to win? Do they make their messes and just move on, untouchable, full of their rotten expertise? Was there nothing for him to do but play the part of mouse, among these cats?
Think outside the box, Robbie had said. No, he'd said he could think outside the box, but Josh couldn't. Are you thinking outside the box now, Mitch? For how long?
Some craven corner of his mind wanted to beg, to plead for mercy, if not for himself at least for Eve and Jeremy, but he wouldn't give in, he wouldn't give them that. If there was some escape from this (no, there wasn't), it wouldn't come from their compassion.
Then, after a full quarter of an hour, his mind jolted forward with a new thought at last, but an odd one, so odd he didn't even question it, just leaned his head leftward out the car window and said, “Andrei?”
Levrin, pleasant as ever, turned to raise an inquiring brow. “Yes, Josh?” There was a faint smile on his lips; maybe he was anticipating the plea for mercy now.
Josh said, “Could I see the note?”
That surprised him. He took a step closer, away from the other two. “What was that?”
“You've done a suicide note, haven't you? Could I see it?”
Money for Nothing Page 17
