But from the looks of things, he had other priorities. Because as soon as the cash dropped from the machine, he stuffed it into his overcoat and made for the exit.
By this time, it was already one-thirty on a Thursday afternoon. I didn’t want to chance going back home to
Stormville. The place would be surrounded by cops and reporters. Some of the cops would know me as a friend. Some of the reporters would know me, too, but not as a friend. I had no choice but to go back to Athens. I also had to dump the Toyota. The fire engine-red 4-Runner was more like a red herring in Athens and everywhere else in New York State, for that matter. The second the police found out I was nosing around Athens, an APB would go out with the red Toyota established as the vehicle to ID. Judging by the police sirens I’d heard in Athens, I had to assume that the bulletin had already gone out. And on top of it all, there was the matter of the overcoat man.
An information booth was located between the ATM and a small souvenir shop. The woman behind the booth was reading from an oversized fashion magazine, W, with a very attractive black-and-white photograph of Cindy Crawford on the cover.
Older, slightly overweight, with silver-gray hair puffed up like a beehive, the woman behind the booth was no Cindy Crawford. I must have looked at her for a full minute before she finally caught on that I was standing there. When she did look up, it was all very theatrical, with a long breath and the bifocals removed from the crown of the nose very carefully, very pompously. The temples of the diamond-studded half-glasses were attached to a hair-thin silver chain, and she allowed them to dangle against her chest.
“Yes,” she said, eyes wide but not interested.
Yes must have meant, Can I help you?
“Where can I rent a car?”
Old Beehive let out another breath and held her place in the magazine using her forefinger and thumb like a clothespin. She nodded over her left shoulder, drawing attention to the pamphlet shelves built into the same wall as her information booth. Dozens of pamphlets and colorful brochures had been neatly stacked and alphabetically organized, all of them promoting one rent-a-car agency after another. The usual -Hertz, Budget, Rent-a-Wreck, and about a dozen independents. I picked up a Hertz brochure and checked out the address stamped on the back.
755 Pelham Way, Catskill.
I stepped back to the information booth.
“This close by?”
I held the address out for Beehive to see. She licked her index finger and flipped a couple of pages of the magazine. She had those little half-glasses on again. The little fake diamond studs embedded in the cats-eye frames seemed to enhance her silver beehive, make it so luminescent that I almost had to stand back and take a breath.
“Next exit,” she said, “northbound. Go left off the exit.” She forced a fake smile. “Will there be anything else?”
Not to be outdone by old Beehive, I forced a fake smile of my own.
“You’ve been very helpful and courteous,” I said.
“Tell me another one,” she said, licking her index finger, flipping another page.
“Nice hair,” I said, but I don’t think that’s what she had in mind.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
SOUTHBOUND ON ROUTE 87.
This time in a rented Chevrolet Impala with a white hood, off-white side panels, dark-green trim, and a license plate enclosed in a yellow plastic frame with the Hertz logo on top.
I’d felt less conspicuous in the Toyota.
I switched on the radio, hit scan, and surfed for a local news station. Station 540 appeared on the digital display in light-up yellow numbers.
“Day number four for a corrections officer struck down in the line of duty,” the anchorman announced, “and a warden indicted for corruption and manipulation of evidence. Those stories and more top our news.”
Then, without warning, I felt all the air leave my body. I tried to breathe but I couldn’t. It was as if my lungs had spontaneously collapsed. I felt cold, and the open highway in front of me turned to a wavy blur. My mind spun, and I swore an entire squadron of cops was tailing me. But I must have slowed down without knowing it because the man behind me in a pickup truck laid on his horn. I gripped the steering wheel so tightly that I could feel the tension in my wrists, and I had no choice but to pull off onto the shoulder of the road. I got out of the car and ran down into the ditch and back up the embankment, all the time trying to get a breath but getting only enough air to stay conscious.
Standing there, on the edge of the tree line, with the rented Impala parked where any cop who happened to be passing would notice, I wanted to die.
In my imagination I saw myself in shackles and cuffs.
I’m being led down a concrete corridor with a low concrete ceiling and a yellow line-stripe painted along the center of the floor. I’m brought into F- and G-Blocks, the ghetto blocks, and all the inmates come to the front of their cells to greet me, their former warden, the man who came down hard, the man who tried to empty their cells of the drugs and the booze. Big men, small men, black men, brown men, white men, all with their bodies pressed up against those bars, hollering, jeering, whistling, shouting and screaming for my ass. And me, with my head between my legs, knowing full well that I’m a dead man. No former warden in any prison has got a prayer of chance if he wants to stay alive.
I tried to take three distinct breaths and I tried not to think about any kind of future whatsoever. There was no future. I tried to recall just what in God’s name had gone wrong along the way. How could I not have seen this whole thing coming? How could I not have suspected Pelton as he arrogantly robbed me of my corrections officers when I was already so poorly understaffed? How could I have been so naive as to think I could have singlehandedly removed every drug, every still, every needle and flashpan in Green Haven? How could I not have known that important people were making money off the drug and contraband trade? I had always been aware that some of the COs were on the take. But I never had imagined Pelton on the take. And here I was standing at the tree line trying to get a breath, blaming myself for something that was beyond my control. I had only tried to do my job.
If I had to guess where I made my mistake, I would say that I hadn’t made a mistake at all. I would say that Pelton had made the mistake when he’d appointed me super of Green Haven Maximum Security Penitentiary.
But now I was making a mistake by not getting back into the rented Impala and doing what I’d intended to do in the first place. The sooner I could locate Vasquez, the sooner I could get to the bottom of what had happened out there on Lime Kiln Road. And the sooner I could catch Logan and Mastriano in their lies, the sooner I’d be out of this mess. Of course it all depended on finding Vasquez, and then it all depended on him talking without killing me first.
By now I was breathing more comfortably so I walked back to the car and got in. The second I pulled out, I noticed a blue sedan pull up behind me, not exactly on my tail, but about three car lengths behind. The sedan was obviously the kind of unmarked car an undercover cop would drive, but there was no way to be sure. I tried to get a good look inside, but the glare from the windshield made it impossible to see anything but shadows and darkness. I tried instead to get a look at the plates. But even from that distance, I could see that there was nothing official about them, nothing indicating local or state police. But then, that didn’t mean anything either. The driver could still be an officer of the law and if I had spent any more time on that embankment, he would have pulled me over. For now, I had to maintain those steady breaths and the speed limit and not give this cop (if he was a cop) any reason to believe that I was anyone other than some jerk who had happened to stop by the side of the road to relieve himself.
Whoever and whatever he was, persistence was one of his finer qualities. After a few miles, he decreased the distance between us and practically pulled up onto my fender.
I adjusted the rearview to get a better look at him. Now I could see that it wasn’t a cop driving the sedan at all,
at least not a uniformed cop. It was the overcoat man. How he’d managed to follow me all the way out to the Hertz office and back without my noticing was anybody’s guess. I knew then that he had to be a professional, and I knew there would be no getting around him. Especially if he worked for the law. I also knew I couldn’t pull a gun on him any more than I could blow him away.
My God, I thought, as I punched the gas pedal of the Impala, just who the hell can I trust anymore?
No one, a little voice inside my head told me. Not a fucking soul.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
THE OVERCOAT MAN TAILED me all the way to the Athens exit. But after I pulled off and paid my toll, he was suddenly nowhere to be found. Ten minutes later I reached the outer limits of town. Things had changed in the short time I’d spent away. Now Athens was lit up with dozens of red and blue flashers from the cop cruisers and EMS vans that blocked off the roads. All along Main Street I could see the reflections of the flashing lights in the picture windows and storefronts of the two- and three-story crackerboxes that lined the main drag.
Yellow barricades had been set up around the perimeter of the downtown. I could only drive in so far before I had to turn the Impala around and cut across one of the narrow side streets that would lead me to North Water Street and the Stevens House. But North Water Street was just as congested as Main Street with cops, fire trucks, onlookers, and on-the-spot satellite crews.
I parked the rented Impala in the middle of the road because I couldn’t go any farther without running someone or something over. I took a quick look at the river. The Hudson flowed thick and gray-black on an overcast afternoon. A barge floated in a southerly direction toward Manhattan, pushed along by a red-and-black tug.
I got out of the Impala and walked along the sidewalk toward the corner of North Water Street. I moved on past the old buildings, some of them covered in wood-slat siding, others covered in rust-colored asphalt shingles made more for roofs than facades. Along the river, the tug pushed the barge past the glowing yellow light from the lighthouse.
I pushed and shoved my way in toward the front door of the Stevens House. I saw her then, in the very second that I broke through the crowd-Chris Collins reporting live via satellite for Newscenter 13. The same cameraman I’d seen inside Mastriano’s room at Newburgh General now supported a shoulder-mounted video camera and aimed it in the direction of Collins’s face. The camera was the only reason she did not get a look at me right off. She stood only a few feet away from me, with her back to the Stevens House entrance. The glow from the camera-mounted spotlight made Collins’s wide black eyes light up like big black marbles. Her hair was parted just to the left of center and hung down stylishly, curling below the ears, barely touching her narrow shoulders. She wore a bright red suit with matching blazer and miniskirt. Intent eyes stared into the camera, away from me, directly at her viewers.
Collins held the aluminum-tipped microphone to her mouth. The black head touched her red lips. I stepped back into the crowd before she had a chance to spot me. At the same time, the cameraman lifted his right hand, palm up. Like opening a switchblade, he snapped his index finger into position. He brought his arm down fast, pointed directly at Collins. Her legs went rigid, high heels pressed together, left leg bobbing just a little at the knee. Then everything about her went absolutely tight, absolutely rigid.
On the air.
“A significant portion of the mystery is solved this Thursday afternoon,” she announced, a slight smile growing on her strong, confident face. “Eduard Vasquez, convicted cop-killer and recent Green Haven escapee, has finally been found, but not alive. The slain body of Vasquez was discovered only moments ago by a group of law enforcement officials who’d received a tip from an anonymous caller who, it is alleged, recognized a suspicious, as of yet unidentified man driving the streets of Athens in a red Toyota 4-Runner.”
A team of paramedics hauled a stretcher out the front door of the Stevens House. One man at the feet, another at the head, two on each side. Vasquez’s body was on the stretcher, a dark red blood stain on the white sheet where it covered the face. You could see the imprint of his nose, lips, and sunken eyes. Cops in uniform followed the stretcher out the door.
“Vasquez appears to have taken a bullet at close range,” Collins went on, “with a heavy caliber firearm, sources told me just moments ago. But for now, that’s all the vital information police officials will offer. However, when asked to confirm rumors about whether or not Jack ‘Keeper’ Marconi met the description of the ‘suspicious man driving the streets of Athens,’ Martin Schillinger-the detective in charge of the Vasquez apprehension operation -refused to comment. What he was able to tell us is that Marconi does indeed own a red Toyota 4-Runner that fits the anonymous man’s description.”
I pictured Schillinger’s chubby white face. Then I saw the real thing following the uniformed state troopers out of the Stevens House. I took another step back, pressing against the wood-slat exterior wall of the bed-and-breakfast so that I was no longer in Schillinger’s line of sight.
“There is also speculation that Keeper Marconi was spotted by more than one witness walking side by side with Cassandra Wolf, Eduard Vasquez’s longtime girlfriend. Although nothing is official, such allegations make Marconi and Wolf prime suspects in the shooting death of the deceased cop-killer. The thirty-two-year-old Wolf, who had been sharing a room with Vasquez here in the Stevens House bed-and-breakfast under the assumed name of Hewlet, also fled the scene at approximately the same time that Marconi was purportedly seen.”
I looked away from Collins, beyond the crowd, out toward the tugboat and the barge it pushed. In my mind I sprinted through the crowd, dove head first into the river water, swam to the barge, stowed away to New York, and made my way south to Mexico. I’d change my name, grow a beard, grow my hair, blend in, drop out.
I felt sick to my stomach and deprived of oxygen.
“This is Chris Collins reporting live from Athens.”
She relaxed her arm, let the mike drop against her thigh, and took a deep breath. The cameraman had already moved away from her and shifted his focus to the EMTs who had loaded Vasquez’s body into the back of a black Chevrolet Suburban with tinted windows. The same kind of truck that took Fran away one year ago. The crowd grew so quiet that you could hear the small waves breaking on the western shore of the Hudson, the tugboat and barge having cut a heavy wake when they pushed through.
The townspeople of Athens fixed their eyes on the final scene-with the red, white, and blue lights from the cop cruisers flashing off the rear windows of the Chevy Suburban after the heavy double doors had been closed and secured. Call it shock, call it another panic attack, but I must have fallen into a semiconscious state. Because when Henry Snow, the gas station attendant, stepped out of the crowd in his light blue uniform, raised his oil-slicked right hand, and shouted out my name, it didn’t quite register, didn’t quite sink in. Until I heard the distinct sound of shoe leather slapping against concrete.
It happened fast.
I heard the order shouted by Marty Schillinger to apprehend the man in the dark blazer. But just before that, I made an all-out dash for the Impala, gaining maybe ten or twelve steps on the cops. With cowboy boots slapping hard on the pavement and air shooting out of my chest and mouth, it was like the Impala was in one of those dreams where you reach out for something that isn’t there. The closer I came to the car, the farther away it appeared. Cops shouted, threatened to shoot. A distinct, all-at-once high-pitch cry from the crowd told me that weapons had been drawn.
At the Impala, I searched through the pockets of my blazer for the small key ring with the yellow plastic attachment shaped like a little number “1” and the word Hertz printed on it in bold black letters.
The cops worked their way closer, service revolvers drawn.
My brothers, my fraternal order.
I looked over my shoulder, once. The crowd was on the ground, men and women on their stomachs, some of them lyi
ng on top of their children.
I could see them all now-Chris Collins alongside Schillinger, microphone in hand, cameraman behind her, filming the scene for history, posterity. “Warden Gunned Down after Jumping Bail.” What a story it would make. Uniformed cops on their knees behind their black-and-whites, using the cars to shield their bodies. Shield them from what? All side-arms drawn, aimed at me.
The sharp crack of the revolver echoed off the walls of the buildings along North Water Street. So did the shots that followed.
Who had given the order to shoot?
Someone had to have given the order.
Maybe someone thought I’d gone for my gun. But I hadn’t gone for my gun. I was going for the keys to the rented Impala. I searched until I found them, finally, in the right-hand pocket of my blue jeans. But not before a slug blew a hole in the windshield. “Shoot the tires!” one cop screamed. “Go for the tires!”
He was right. That’s what I would have done. Shot out the rear tires. But no one shot out the tires. No one shot at me as I managed to get back into the car. I turned over the engine, threw it in reverse, fishtailed and hit a Volkswagen Beetle on its driver’s-side panel, then sideswiped the tail end of a red pickup on the right. The rear windshield exploded the second I threw the floor-mounted automatic transmission into drive.
Don’t look back, Keeper. Never look back.
Bastards had no idea what they were doing.
My fraternal order. Just what the hell did they know about the truth?
The Innocent Page 15
