That didn't make sense to Springer. Why should Libby want such a thing done? "Are you sure it was a gun?"
'I know a gun when I see a gun."
"But—"
Audrey's hand was no longer linked with his.
"Audrey!" Springer shouted. "Audrey, hold it!"
His words hit unavailingly upon her back as she bolted ahead, went zigging and zagging around and past person after person. Springer had no choice but to follow after her. She angled toward the curb, stepped off behind a bus into a sooty cloud of exhaust, didn't hesitate, assumed Springer was behind her, and continued out into the swiftly moving traffic. Across the grain of its speed, with Audrey leading the way, they darted, scurried, dodged, and several times stood stock still, sucked in their stomachs, and felt the rush of metal come within an inch of their lives. When they finally reached the opposite curb even Audrey had to come to a stop and mentally pinch herself to ascertain that she was still living. Springer got her elbow, grasped it firmly, just short of hurting, to prevent her from taking off on the run again. He steered her across the sidewalk to in front of one of the display windows of Saks.
There, Springer decided, was where he was going to stop and figure out what the hell was really going on.
He looked to the opposite side of the street warily. If the Libby men were still coming, they would stand out in a crowd, but Springer couldn't see them. Nor were they, that he could make out, among the people crossing at the intersection down the street. Perhaps that idiotic death-defying scamper across merciless Fifth had been unnecessary. He looked to Audrey. She shrugged and did a contrite, synopsizing smile. Kept her eyes on beam with Springer's, as though that was her best defense.
How many times in their lives would he have to put up with such melodramatic nonsense? To what extremes would she carry it? He felt like shaking her. To help keep from doing that he turned to the Saks window and the neutrality of two smartly bored, serious-mouthed mannequins dressed in bright red against a black background.
Audrey coupled his arm with hers, claiming him and at the same time securing herself.
Springer resumed loving her without reservation.
If it hadn't been for the Saks awning, the way the shade it provided took the glare off the window glass ... if it hadn't been for the black background of the window display . . . Springer probably wouldn't have seen the man's reflection. He appeared so suddenly and so close behind them it was as though he'd materialized there. Certainly, had the window glass been even a bit glary, Springer wouldn't have seen the pistol. At that he got only a glimpse of its blue-black metal as the man was slipping the pistol down to firing level, keeping it close to his body, using his unbuttoned jacket to shield it from sight.
In that instant Springer realized the man's incredible intention—and the practicality of shooting someone point-blank on Fifth Avenue at the height of rush and indifference. Shots fired from a pistol equipped with a silencer would be unnoticed spits in the din. The victim's collapse would appear to be caused by a stroke or heart attack and before anyone could realize that it was actually a matter of blood and death the shooter, whom no one could remember seeing, would have drifted into being just another of the many sidewalkers, gone.
It was about to happen.
Springer spun around. In the same motion he brought his knee up. It was not a heroic move but one of desperation. He brought his knee up full force into the inverted V formed by the man's stance, felt the flaccid mass of the man's scrotum that his knee smashed. He saw the man's mouth open to an oval in a face gone pale with the awful pain. Despite the distortion of the face. Springer recognized it. It was the one called Fane, the one who'd done the serving that afternoon in Libby's inside orange grove when Springer had delivered the Russian diamonds.
Springer's knee had beaten Fane's finger by the merest split of a second. Now Fane couldn't move that finger enough to pull the trigger. He was like a man turned to stone, incapable of breathing. His legs gave way and the rest of him crumbled. As he went down he lost his grasp of the pistol. It skittered metallically on the sidewalk among stepping feet, and although the pistol appeared real enough no one wanted to get into the trouble of determining whether or not it was. It lay there, something to be momentarily curious about while it was avoided, until a fellow selling twenty-five-dollar rip-offs of three-hundred-dollar Gucci handbags walked over and picked it up. He put it out of sight under the edge of the sheet his wares were displayed on. What pistol?
Fane, meanwhile, was down and retching. His contorted bulk and, to a greater extent, the puddle of his puke was a mess to keep clear of.
Springer and Audrey surely wanted nothing more to do with him. There were three others like him they had to contend with. Springer, a believer now, quickly led the way to the Fifth Avenue entrance of Saks. Anywhere inside seemed, for the moment at least, to be safer than outside on Fifth Avenue. They went in through the Saks brushed bronze doors to three thousand pairs of panty hose on the left and, on a counter opposite, the heads of three neatly decapitated all-white women wearing contented expressions and the annual straw hats. Springer had his hand extended behind him for Audrey to hold onto, for him to be assured that she was there, as they rushed down one of the central aisles, feeling the press of their pursuers in the stir of the air behind them. Those kill-bent men of Libby's would be more determined now that one of their kind had been felled.
Where was safe?
Not at a counter where three lightfooted fellows were critiquing perfumes by sniffing tiny strips of cardboard. Not behind a display of cummerbunds and pleat-fronted evening shirts or at the peninsular end of two aisles where certain previously overpriced summer scarves were slightly reduced and being jostled for.
Nowhere.
Springer and Audrey had reached the rear of the store. The up escalator offered itself. They took it, and during the diagonal, higher ride Springer was able to survey most of the main floor. His eyes were selective, only vaguely regarding counters, the merchandise, the ordinary shoppers, as they sought and . . . saw the three Libby men.
There they were!
Undoubtedly them. They had separated like a combing military unit, each taking an aisle, were headed toward the rear of the store. An instant before the second-floor level cut off Springer's view he believed he saw the Libby man in the center aisle raise his head the slight bit needed to take in the profiled escalator. Springer wasn't certain, couldn't be at that distance, but there was a chance that the man had spotted him.
"We could sneak you into one of the Ladies' dressing rooms," Audrey suggested and added lightly, trying to take the tight edge off, "It'll be close quarters in there, but I could try on a lot of what they call better lingerie."
An intolerant grunt from Springer. He was reasoning that if those Libby men now knew he and Audrey were in Saks, the smart move would be to get the hell out of Saks, as quickly as possible and unseen.
They rushed up the escalator to the third floor. Springer's idea was to take the elevator down from there, to backtrack so those Libby men would be pursuing in the wrong direction. There was a bank of eight elevators and no interim way of telling which was in service. Springer and Audrey paced and waited for the pinging sound and the red light that would indicate one that was going down.
Pingl White light.
Ping! White light.
The waiting seemed an age. Audrey called Springer's attention to a red EXIT on the wall to the extreme left of the bank of elevators. They hurried to it, and as soon as they were on their way down . . . ping! went another up elevator.
Among those who stepped out of it was one of the Libby men.
Springer and Audrey ran down the stairs, dashed out of Saks, and stopped on 50th Street as though they'd run into an invisible wall. There at the curb was a black Cadillac limousine with dark tinted windows, in all respects like the one. Springer couldn't verify the driver, who was looking straight out at them with what seemed to be more than incidental interest.
&
nbsp; "Not hers," Audrey said, noting that the limousine did not have an LHH license plate.
However, there at the curb were three other identical black Cadillac limousines with drivers in them, and pulled up bumper-to-bumper as they were, the license plates weren't visible. Any one of them could be the Libby.
Outside wasn't safe again.
Springer and Audrey fled across 50th Street to the south side entrance of St. Patrick's Cathedral. They took the ten granite steps up two at a time and went in through the open sixteen-foot-high double doorway. Springer intended to use the cathedral as a passageway to 51st Street, to walk straight across the width of it to where another doorway led out. He changed his mind, decided that doing the obvious would be more elusive. He and Audrey went about halfway up the center aisle to a vacant pew. They sat as far in from the aisle as they could, next to one of the huge supporting columns, which concealed them to some extent.
Springer didn't really know St. Patrick's. Like most New Yorkers he only felt he did. It was there and would be there. Springer knew and always appreciated the shimmering way the cathedral's thirty-story spires used the black sheer surface of the Olympic Tower as its looking glass. He also knew the cathedral from above. Whenever he'd shown goods to out-of-town clients who were staying high up at the Helmsley Palace, he'd looked down on St. Patrick's and seen the simple Latin cross shape formed by its vast blue-gray slate roof, the way it seemed embedded in the middle of the city, as though it had been dropped huge and hard and precisely on that spot from some incredible height.
But he hadn't been inside St. Patrick's since he was fourteen, when once, on his walk home from 47th, he'd cut through it just to see what it was like. It had fascinated him in an eerie way, a great haunted place full of statues and whispers and flickers. At one of the tiered racks that held rows of votive candles in little red or clear glasses, Springer had lighted nine candles and was going for a tenth when he noticed the metal offering box there with its slit of a mouth asking for money. He didn't have a dime on him, so he blew out the nine he'd lighted. He thought of it as having reneged on a deal, and over the years one of the many venial vows that he never kept was to go back into St. Patrick's, light ten, and make it right.
Now, seated in the pew with Audrey and his fear, he glanced about to make sure of his surroundings. He hadn't expected St. Patrick's would be such a diversely busy place. In its own way it was only a few notches down from Saks or the avenue itself.
A priest, so distant at the high altar that he was nearly faceless, was saying the late day mass. His congregation of hundreds was possibly outnumbered by the tourists who were roaming about everywhere, admiring aloud various features of the cathedral, firing flashbulbs at the likenesses of saints. Constantly coming and going were worshipers on their own, to sibilate along with their strings of rosaries and recite Hail Marys. There were also nappers. It was hard to tell the nappers from those who were intensely praying with eyes closed. And some people were even using the place to meet and decide where to have a bite to eat before going to a movie. Springer just happened to catch a glimpse of a business deal being made in the pew across the way, a sheaf of cash being exchanged for whatever a Bloomingdale's shopping bag contained.
It was not unthinkable that Libby's men would take advantage of all this commotion. Springer and Audrey had to keep alert. At least being in the St. Patrick's pew might buy them a little time, give their minds a chance to catch up with their bodies.
Audrey appeared shaken. Springer thought. Not quite a furrow, but a discernable bunching of tension between her eyes, some of the fullness of her lips lost to tightening. He was about to take her hand for a buoying hold when she reached down to check on her leg holster and her .451. She slipped the pistol partway out of the holster, testing to make sure it would come out easily enough, then snugged it back into place. She straightened the bottom of her full slacks and sat up. "Do you have an extra clip to spare?" she asked. "I was in such a rush to meet you that I left mine in my makeup kit."
Springer reached under his jacket, removed one of the clips from his holster harness. He passed it to her. She brought her foot up, undid the lace of her white Italian sneaker to make room. She tucked the narrow metal clip down into the side of the canvas sneaker, took up the slack from the lace and tied it. Surely it wasn't comfortable, but now as she sat back again she seemed more relaxed.
"Can you think of any reason Libby would want us dead?" Springer asked.
"No."
"Any reason at all, no matter how absurd it might seem?"
"I wish I'd brought my pendulum."
"Think," Springer urged. "Maybe we can somehow set it straight." He gazed at the exactly geometric yet irregular-looking ribs of the vaulted ceiling ten stories above while he reviewed Libby. He went all the way back to his initial impressions of her, as he'd seen her that first afternoon on the terrace with Townsend and Wintersgill. Libby holding court, sprawled on a chaise like an empress in a silk dynastic robe that must have taken ten Chinese lifetimes to embroider. Her uglied hands hidden by the sleeves of the robe but her bitterness visible, her egocentricity displayed as though it were a privileged fashion. Her every word in his direction had been honed with superiority, meant to slice him thin to the point of transparency. No regard for the pain of it. Was that then the true Libby—or merely a mood of hers he'd just happened upon?
A poke from Audrey.
Calling his attention to two men moving up the far side aisle on the right. They stood out from the tourists, were both taller, hefty, looked menacing in their proper dark suits. One had a plain brown paper bag in hand. A gun in it?
Audrey crossed her legs so her right ankle was resting on her left knee. That put her pistol within an instant of her lingers. Springer's right hand went reflexively in under the left side of his jacket. They watched the two men come up the side aisle, peripherally saw them stop at a spot about twenty-five feet away beyond a section of pews that were mostly unoccupied. The men didn't appear to be taking special notice of Springer and Audrey, as, of course, they wouldn't. In fact they seemed rather detached from their surroundings, oblivious to the milling tourists. Next, Springer and Audrey expected, the two men would cross over to the near aisle and sit in the pew just behind them and be within point-blank range of the back of their heads.
However, the two men turned away and gave their attention to the tiered rack of votive candles positioned in front of one of the small railed-olf chapels along that side of the cathedral. There was the sound of metal scraping marble floor as they moved the pedestaled rack a couple of feet away from the railing. The glass candleholders rattled in place. One of the men knelt and, with such a big bunch of keys it was like a nosegay, reached in under and unlocked the metal offering box that was a permanent part of the rack. He pulled out the drawer of the offering box. It was so crammed that bills and coins dropped to the floor, causing him, annoyed, to express the need for larger drawers that would require fewer collections. The other man held the mouth of the bag open so the contents of the drawer could be dumped into it. The stray money was retrieved. The drawer was noisily replaced, locked, and tried, and the tiered rack shifted back into position. The two men, church custodians, continued on up the aisle to the votive candle rack of the next side chapel.
The false alarm was such a letdown for Springer and Audrey that it was therapeutic, slackened their tension a bit. Springer fixed his eyes almost straight ahead on the baldachin that served the high altar. Gleaming, golden bronze, intricately detailed with figures, floral finials and tracery, the archlike baldachin created the impression that the altar was standing on the doorstep of some surely holy realm. Springer noticed that on the topmost point of the baldachin, about five stories up, was the figure of an angel. He didn't know that it was the Archangel Michael but he saw that the figure had a sword and it occurred to him how that supported Audrey's theory. If an angel couldn't go anywhere without a sword, who should?
While Springer's eyes remained on the b
aldachin, his mind resumed with Libby. It seemed to him that her initial vitriol was something she just had to get out of her system. Because since then she'd been consistently congenial toward him. More than that. She'd gone out of her way to be generous, well-intentioned. Only the day before yesterday she'd phoned and inquired about Jake, said she'd taken the initiative of contacting the Head of Medicine at Johns Hopkins for his recommendation of an oncologist to care for Jake, whoever in the world was most advanced and knowledgeable in the area of osteogenic sarcoma. She'd been referred to a doctor in Edinburgh, had spoken with him, explained the circumstances, and persuaded him to make Jake his priority case. One of her personal jets would fly Jake over. Everything would be arranged. Please, allow her to help, she'd said. And now, two days later, she'd sent her private armed guard out to kill him?
A Libby man.
Springer saw him come in by way of 50th Street. No doubt about him. He was the one who had spotted Springer in Saks. He had gray hair with some blond left in it, but dark eyebrows. His saunter conveyed that he was disregarding where he was. At the center aisle he turned his back to the high altar and searched the pews with his eyes, took his time, systematically scanned the pews on the right and the left.
Springer and Audrey were to the left of him only about fifty feet away. They felt obvious, were tempted to duck down out of sight, but any quick move would draw attention.
'Pray," Springer whispered to Audrey.
Slowly they knelt on the red plastic-covered knee rest, placed their hands on the back of the pew in front of them, hunched forward, and lowered their foreheads to their hands. Over their knuckles they could still see the Libby man. He stood there for a while longer, concentrating his survey on the pews to his right. Then, apparently satisfied, dropping his shoulders a bit as he gave up, he turned and walked out the 51st Street doors.
Stone 588 Page 41
