Stone 588

by Gerald A. Browne

  Audrey found the going difficult. It was nearly impossible to compensate for the steepness by leaning forward, and she kept stubbing her toes on the angular juts of the overlapping slate shingles. When she was halfway up she stopped and inserted her pistol into the waistband of her slacks, and that allowed her to resort to a climbing crawl. She reached ahead hand over hand and trusted merely the toes of her sneakers to provide adequate grab. It was much easier. At two thirds of the way up she lowered her head and looked back between her feet—just for the belly-hollowing sensation of it. One good long look was enough.

  She continued up.

  And soon she reached for and grasped the wrought iron. It was sturdier, thicker around than she'd thought it would be, and pocked rough. She pulled herself up so she could see through one of the spaces in its tracery. If she saw a hatch anywhere on the other side of the roof she'd signal Springer to come on up.

  She saw a Wintersgill man.

  The one called Fane, the one Springer had kneed in the crotch. Fane now appeared none the worse for it. He was about six feet to Audrey's right and halfway up the other side of the roof. Barefoot, trouser bottoms rolled up to midcalf. Wearing no jacket now, his backup pistol and holster harness showing. Fane was intent on climbing, making sure of the placement of his feet, not looking up at that moment.

  Audrey ducked down out of sight, pressed herself against the surface of the roof.

  She could, she thought, just pick him off. Let him have it without even a warning. Don't have any compunctions about doing that, she told herself. She was suddenly aware of the force of her outward breaths, felt that the merest tightening of her throat would cause them to become some kind of audible animal sound. Her heart was pounding. Also, she realized, she was still clinging to the wrought-iron tracery. Fane might notice her fingers. She slowly released her grasp, withdrew her hands from the tracery. Her pistol was in her waistband, hard beneath her. She humped up her middle and reached for it. Only for an instant was she careless about her toes, but that was all it took for her sneakers to give up too much of their hold. She slid down the roof a short way, tried to brake herself by turning her feet sideways, putting more of the rubber soles of her sneakers to the slick slate. But the grab of the sneakers was too sudden. Her weight and momentum overwhelmed her ankles and the next thing she knew she was sprawled parallel to the line of the roof. Unable to resist its sharp pitch, she tumbled swiftly down, seeing sky, buildings, roof, sky, buildings, roof. Her full length struck so hard against the stone balustrade at the bottom, the wind was knocked out of her.

  Springer thought she'd just slipped. He knew nothing of Fane. He rushed to her.

  She rolled over and kicked at him, kicked him away. She didn't have the breath to tell him about Fane, nor was there time. Surely Fane had heard the clatter of her pistol on the slate. He'd have his bearings.

  Audrey had her pistol in hand now. She fixed her eyes upon the ridge of the roof, the spot along the wrought-iron embellishment where she thought Fane would show. Her skeet-shooting experience would help. But damn Springer. He was still trying to minister to her, asking her if she was all right, making it more difficult for her to concentrate.

  The first move Fane made was what she expected. She saw only the slight motion of the little black hole that was the muzzle of his silencer as it appeared in one of the curved, smaller spaces of the wrought-iron tracery. Fane was positioning his pistol before bringing his eyes up to aim it. He'd come up to it all at once and then take aim, Audrey figured.

  Which was exactly what he did.

  Audrey saw through the tracery the incongruity of Fane's features, especially the plane of his forehead.

  Springer also saw him now.

  Before Fane could get set to fire . . .

  Audrey squeezed two shots.

  The first hit Fane at the hairline. Because of the upward angle of its course the slug creased through his scalp and glanced off his skull. It hurt but didn't hinder all that much, by no means stopped him.

  Audrey's second shot missed Fane completely.

  It was very close but, nevertheless, a miss. The slug struck the wrought-iron tracery to the right of Fane's head, ricocheted off, and with its hollow nose already spread, entered Fane's left temple to plow through dura mater and cerebral cortex and nerve cells and glial cells and blood vessels. It didn't stop until it had slashed through Fane's middle cerebral artery and was deep in his brain, a kernel of death. The impact of the slug snapped Fane's head to the right. The rest of him followed, flipped over. He slid deadweight down the roof.

  Audrey had regained her breath. She flexed and stretched to make sure everything was in place and functioning. Instead of giving in to thoughts of Fane, she apologized to Springer for having kicked him. She ignored her bruises and her badly skinned left knee, and retrieved the two spent casings. More souvenirs.

  The other Wintersgill men would be coming now, Springer thought. They must have heard when he'd opened this hatch and figured, as he had, that there'd be another on the other side of the roof from which they could make a surprise move. Fane had been the first, probably others were already over there. How many? Two from four left two, but there was Groat as well, and the one who'd held the gun on Audrey in the Daimler. So, possibly four. They were professionals. Springer reminded himself. That gave them plenty of edge. He scanned the ridge of the roof, ran his eyes back and forth along it a couple of times, fearing they might at that instant be somewhere along it, concealed by the wrought-iron tracery, taking aim.

  For sure, Springer realized, he and Audrey couldn't stay there. What it had gotten down to was the chance that he was right about there being separate attics, not only on this long section of the roof's cross shape but also farther up, beyond the transept, on the shorter section, the apse. If not? Think positive, Springer almost said aloud.

  He didn't know what to do with his shoes. When he stuck them in his jacket pockets toe first, they were heel-heavy and dropped out. Heel first they were bulky, would get in the way and might cause a costly, possibly even fatal awkwardness. Yet being barefoot made him feel vulnerable. Somewhat against his better judgment he flung the shoes as far as he could and didn't hear or see them land below on 50th Street.

  He and Audrey moved along the walkway to the transept roof. They went up it side by side in their climbing crawl, all the while sensing the Wintersgill men taking aim on their backs. Up and over the wrought-iron tracery, noticing that the spikes on its top were not really as pointed and menacing as they appeared from a distance. Down the other side of the transept roof, feet first, to where the walkway continued and then, on it, around the comer to the roof of the apse.

  It hadn't been mere wishful thinking, Springer saw.

  There was another hatch, identical.

  It would lead to the south-side atric of the apse and there would be a catwalk and a door to another spiral stairway that would take them down to the wide area around back of the high altar called the ambulatory. They wouldn't even hesitate, would walk across the ambulatory, the entire width of the cathedral, with Springer's bare feet padding along the slightly gritty marble floor, would walk across that atmosphere of sibilant implorations and gratitudes, feel the pious air of the place slip more easily, like an invisible silver fluid, down into them. They would leave the cathedral by way of the small northeast door that led to the pathway alongside the parish house that would take them out onto Madison Avenue. With none of the Wintersgill men aware, none of them following.

  Springer tried to lift open the hatch. It was held solidly from inside. He got a better grip on its overlapping lip and pulled up so hard his face was crimson with strain. Audrey had him make room for her, and when they both had good grips they pulled together. Hers was the additional strength needed to make the large hooks and eyes within the hatch surrender the deep holds their threads had bored in the hard, aged wood.

  Twenty-five minutes later Audrey's BMW was fifth on line at one of the exact-change toll booths of th
e Tri-Borough Bridge.

  Audrey was driving.

  Springer was hastily digging for quarters to make up the dollar-fifty toll. He came up a quarter short and had to rummage around in the glove compartment among a bunch of wrongly folded road maps, two plastic windshield ice scrapers, an owner's handbook, and a very old, overlooked, still unopened Devil Dog.

  "They have a lot of preservatives," Audrey said, grabbing the cellophane-wrapped cake from him and placing it on the hump near the hand brake.

  Springer vowed to himself that he wouldn't let her eat it no matter what. As soon as they were on the highway he'd throw it away. He found three dimes, closed the compartment, and sat back.

  They'd gone to the apartment for Springer to put on a pair of loafers. While there, Audrey had disguised her voice and phoned Libby in Greenwich. Hinch had answered and said Mrs. Hull was not to be disturbed, which, despite Hinch's usual phlegmatic monotone, sounded awfully foreboding, Audrey thought. She was most anxious to get up to the Round Hill house and see if Libby was all right. Springer was also concerned about Libby but he was understandably ambivalent. Here they were bound for danger when they'd just spent hours struggling to escape it.

  Three cars to go.

  "What are you thinking?" Audrey asked.

  "About those two guys we killed. What happens when their bodies are found?"

  "More than likely the others will see to it that they're not found. For their own good."

  That sounded feasible. Springer thought.

  "Even if they leave them up there in St. Patrick's," Audrey said, "I doubt that much will be made of it. The church won't want it known, and the police and the church are close. Hoodlums are always killing hoodlums . . . and these days in the strangest places."

  Still, Springer was glad he'd had the presence of mind to throw his shoes away instead of leaving them as clues. By now his shoes were probably on some bag lady's feet or crushed beyond recognition from being repeatedly run over. He glanced past Audrey's profile to the car in the next toll lane over, a blue Plymouth with two men in it. The man on the passenger side was looking Springer's way. Springer had never seen either of the men before so he thought nothing of it. It was just a matter of a stranger momentarily taking in another stranger.

  The BMW moved ahead.

  Audrey dropped the dollar fifty-five into the toll receptacle, exact change was what all the signs demanded, but evidently overpayment was acceptable.

  The BMW took off with a bit of tire squeal. Audrey maneuvered it diagonally across the flow of cars bound for Long Island.

  In the blue Plymouth, Fred Pugh and Jack Blayney, the two State Department men, were just then pulling up to the toll booth, getting change back from a ten. They watched the taillights of the BMW disappear down the ramp.

  "Want I should keep up with them?" Blayney asked.

  "Don't kill us doing it," Pugh told him.

  Besides, Pugh knew where they were going.

  Chapter 38

  Libby.

  All of her in the bergere d la reine, her legs folded under her, her toes finding the snug chasm down alongside the seat cushion. The Scalamandre silk upholstery fabric felt pleasantly compatible with her cotton pajamas, slick through that cotton which had exploded out of prized plants of the Nile delta and been spun into a cloth so fine and light it came close to floating when tossed in the air. Her pajamas were dark blue, piped in white, exactly cut for ampleness. As a general rule she detested feeling bound by whatever she wore, particularly by anything she lounged or slept in. On the second finger of her left hand a thirty-carat Kashmir sapphire performed a solo, shooting flares of blue that needed no accompaniment from diamonds.

  The chair Libby was in was her favorite. In the winter she had it positioned at a nice close angle to the fireplace in her large second-floor bedroom, and although she wasn't one to merely sit and waste time dream-gazing into the flames, the chair would for various hours be her base of operations. A telephone was always within easy reach in the event she wanted to talk to anyone anywhere in the world, and, as well, there was on hand a remote electronic signaling device to summon and have come running whomever of her staffs a particular button designated.

  But it was summer now.

  Her favorite chair was situated before the tall French doors on the south side of her bedroom. Beyond the open doors was her private balcony with its substantial balustrade. It was a dark night, only the merest sliver of a moon, and for some reason the darkness seemed a willing transport for the fragrance of the white alyssum flourishing in the deep loam of the garden bed directly below. Libby had specified on the groundskeeper's plans that, without fail, alyssum be planted there each season—a wide crowded carpet of it—anticipating the contribution that it would make to evenings such as this.

  Earlier in the day she had given thought to keeping the Palmer dinner invitation she'd seen noted on her "possible" agenda. At that time she'd felt it a bit more likely than not that she'd feel like showing up. Dell Palmer was the reason, Lois Ward Palmer's third and youngest-ever husband. It was quite courageous of Lois Ward at her age to marry anyone so vigorous and demanding and straight, was Libby's opinion, while so many other older well-offs under similar circumstances buckled under to their estrogenous shortcomings and chose to charade with the sort of men who were long proved to be light of foot. Chic it wasn't, but courageous, yes. Never mind that Lois Ward had bitten off much more than she cared to so frequently chew, her thirty-eight-year-old Dell was a handsome hound with giveaway large hands and feet, and now, even after six months of marriage, he was doing far better than most at sustaining an acceptable semblance of authentic breeding. The last time Libby had dined at the Palmers', Dell had flattered her four times, twice verbally.

  As the day passed, so also did most of Libby's inclination toward the Palmer dinner. She called Lois Ward and, not wanting to waste much effort on it, offered the most transparent kind of excuse. It was so readily accepted Libby was put back a bit. The least Lois could have done, Libby thought, was coax a couple of times. It made her wonder how much of a bore people considered her to be.

  Fuck introspection.

  Came twilight she leisurely bathed the day from her. She was in a pleasant passive mood, confident of life, not chafed by any of the usual looming vulnerabilities. Up to above her head in a sense of well-being, she dabbed her personal Guerlain here and there, chose to put on the dark blue pajamas, and took to her favorite chair.

  For ten minutes precisely she allowed two of the dogs in. The black-and-white King Charles spaniels responded with the anticipated enthusiasm, unable to suppress a few zealous yaps as they bounded in and saw Libby's hand patting the signal which offered a share of the bergere and herself to them. They smelled not at all doggish, even their breaths were sweet. Libby wooed them each by nuzzling them in the hollows under their chins with her knuckle. The last she gave to them was a two-handed squeeze, feeling their tiny rib cages squirming as she put them to the floor, dismissed.

  She ordered dinner, decided it should be early and light and served to her there. A double Gloucester cheese souffle, baked to a crisp around the sides, and endive salad, a brochette or two, and a bottle of Swiss white for a change. She had the wine brought in advance, a '52 Dezaley I'Arbalete from the slopes that formed the bowl that held Lake Geneva.

  While sipping, Libby went over the preview catalogue of the Fasig Tipton sales soon to be conducted in Saratoga. One yearling in particular piqued her intuition. A Secretariat colt with some Hoist the Flag in him. Using her solid-gold DuPont pen, Libby circled the lot number several times, which, in her mind, despite whatever bidding-up there might be by Texans, Japanese, or Kuwaitis, made the colt already hers.

  Faced away from the door, she heard it being opened and closed but she didn't look around to see who it was. Long ago she had developed the attitude of conserving energy by being presumptive about the nearly constant scurry and bustle that went on around her, chambermaids, waiters, and such. It did oc
cur to her now, though, that whoever had entered hadn't bothered to knock and, still without looking in that direction, she made a reproachful comment. She did not realize it was Wintersgill until he'd come deeper into the room, well within the periphery of her vision.

  "Thomas!" The single word carried her surprise and vexation.

  Wintersgill acknowledged her with a nearly imperceptible nod. He appeared to be mainly concerned with the room. He looked about it slowly as though it were something being presented for his selection. Libby's strict edict that no one was allowed into her private apartment unless invited included Wintersgill. It had been three years since he'd been in this bedroom with her.

  "What is it?" Libby demanded.

  No reply from him.

  She sat up abruptly, placed her wine goblet on the table at the arm of the bergere. It was a feint on her part, an incomplete motion meant to forewarn that strong action would be taken. "I want you out of here this minute," Libby said with an unequivocal clip. "Out!"

  "We have matters," Wintersgill said as much to the setting as to her. He drew over a side chair that was intended to be admired more than bear weight. He sat diagonally opposite her with one leg crossed over the knee of the other, the fingers of both his hands loosely laced.

  Libby resumed her comfortable position in the bergere, told herself she would put up with this not a second longer than five minutes. She hoped that she would be able to return to the mood she'd been in. What was this all about, anyway? Why didn't Thomas come right out and say? If he was there to again campaign for marriage she would discharge him, banish the son of a bitch despite the inconvenience it would cause, send him packing to his former job of socializing on behalf of various charities such as little ballet companies and obscure repositories for the elderly, maneuvering, for a commission, the expiatory tithes of well-offs. A step back into that kind of whoring would serve him right. Just let him even mention marriage.