I could have gone for my gun, returned their fire, called it self-defense. But what good would it have done? In the end, going for my gun would have been the foolish thing to do. Not a smart move at all, not with my right foot putting the pedal to the metal, not with the rented Impala veering dangerously to the right side of the road, not with the unmistakable feel of a cold pistol barrel pressed up against the back of my head.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
PLANTED ON HER NECK, a heart-shaped tattoo.
A small red heart about the size of a man’s thumb print, plainly visible just above her left shoulder when she turned to see if the cops were still on our tail. The associations came to me, fast. Vasquez’s cell in G-Block…the manila envelope stored underneath his mattress containing the pornographic stills…an unidentified woman with a heart-shaped tattoo on her neck…an unidentified man with a scar under his chin…
Associations.
Connections.
“Did you kill him?” My right foot pressed down on the gas, I was trying to prevent the Impala from veering off onto the soft shoulder.
“If you only knew,” said the young woman, with the piece pressed to the back of my head.
“But did you kill him?” I had to hold the wheel tight to keep it from going ditch-bound.
“If only you really knew me,” the woman said in a flat, expressionless voice.
The barrel was pressed hard against the back of my skull. Maybe.32 caliber. Maybe smaller. What difference did caliber make at pointblank range?
“Somebody had to kill him,” I said, gazing into the rearview mirror at the heart-shaped tattoo on her neck where her long hair fell to her shoulders. Definitely the woman from the porn stills. Definitely Cassandra Wolf, Vasquez’s girlfriend.
“If it wasn’t you, sister, then who was it?”
I felt her warm breath on the back of my neck.
“If you only knew what I was like,” she said, “you wouldn’t even ask the question.”
I took that as a definite denial.
In my estimation, I had about a mile-and-a-half jump on the cops. By the time I turned off Route 9 for the less-traveled Route 27, I’d increased the distance to maybe two or three miles. Still, it was only an estimate. But it could also have been wishful thinking. I knew that no matter how many miles I put between me and the cops, there would be another pack waiting up ahead. The trick would be to get as far away from the area as fast as the rented Impala could take me, before the roadblocks went up. Meanwhile I had to deal with a woman who had what I guessed to be a Saturday Night Special pressed up against my head.
I took another good look at Cassandra in the rearview.
“How’d you find me?”
“That’s funny,” she said, jamming the pistol barrel hard against skin and bone, “I was about to ask you the same thing.”
“I mean it,” I said, taking a deep breath, trying to shrug away the pistol but only making it hurt that much more. “Tell me how you found me?”
“When the police raided the Stevens House,” she said in a monotone voice barely audible above the racing engine, “Eddy threw me into the bathroom.”
“They had reasonable suspicion?”
I knew full well that the possibility of my presence in town, thanks to Henry Snow, must have tipped Schillinger off as to the whereabouts of Vasquez and Cassandra.
“Eddy tried to stop the police at the door,” Cassandra said.
“Let me guess,” I said, speaking to her through the rearview, “they kicked the door in.”
“I climbed out the window, onto the fire escape, made a run for the river.”
“They didn’t think of blocking the fire escape.”
“We’re not talking brain surgeons here. I hid in the public ladies’ room near the lighthouse.”
“You must have seen me when I got out of the car.”
“I saw everything from the ladies’ room,” she said, voice cracking now, showing the first signs of stress and pressure. “When you got out of the car, I went to get in, but-”
“But what?”
“I couldn’t at first.”
“What do you mean you couldn’t?”
“I mean I couldn’t get into the car.”
“I don’t get it,” I said. “It’s not like I locked it.”
“The minute you took off, some guy in a black overcoat started poking his nose around inside the car.”
I pictured the man from the Miss Albany. I hadn’t lost him after all.
“What was he looking for?” I pressed.
“How should I know?” she said.
I slowed around a curve in the road, making a right turn, heading for Route 87 north toward Hudson. Nobody ahead of me, nobody in back. Still lucky, but not for long.
“You going to keep that thing pressed up against the back of my head forever?” I eased up on the gas just a little more. “We’re on the same team here, sister.”
“I’m not your sister,” Cassandra said. “So don’t speak to me like I’m a second-class citizen. Got it, brother?”
“Maybe I’m a little cranky,” I said. “But then, they think we both killed your boyfriend, and you’ve got a gun to my head, and some freak in a wool overcoat has been tailing me all day.”
“Please. Just. Drive.”
I could feel the jab of the barrel against the sensitive, bony portion of my head, just to the left of the right ear lobe.
Enough was enough.
I sped up, gradually this time, the engine of the Impala revving and the warm air pouring in through the hole in the windshield. The double- and single-story homes on both sides of the road whizzed by. At just the right time, I gave the wheel a slight turn to the left. I braced myself, hit the brake, leaned into the turn, spun the wheel sharp, counterclockwise, resisted the G-force by leaning into the door. The Impala fishtailed 360 degrees. Cassandra flew back hard against the right side of the car, the pistol knocked out of her hand. I was sure of it because I heard the thud of the pistol against the carpeted floor.
I’d been listening for that sound.
I threw the transmission into park, lunged like a diver over the opening between the two front bucket seats. The pistol was on the floor by her feet. I grabbed it before she could and aimed it at her face. Pointblank.
“Now we do things my way,” I said.
“Go ahead,” Cassandra said, laughing hysterically, barely able to get the words out between laughs. “Shoot.”
Sweat ran down my forehead, stinging my eyes.
“You’re crazy,” I said, running the back of my free hand across my brow.
Over my shoulder, I saw a car coming. It was still a ways back, but coming up fast. My eyes stung badly from the sweat pouring into them. I couldn’t make out the type or style of the car. I had no idea who might be driving it. Maybe a cop, maybe the overcoat man. I didn’t know anything anymore. All I knew was this: we didn’t haul ass right then, we’d both have something to cry about.
I took the aim away from Cassandra’s face and planted a bead on the oncoming car.
“The pistol,” she said, “it’s not loaded.”
I turned to her, quick. “What do you mean it’s not loaded?”
“The cops were breaking down the door,” she said, pressing both hands down flat against the floor of the car. “I didn’t have time to escape and load the gun.”
I cracked the cylinder on the black-plated.32. No bluff. All six chambers were empty.
The car was clearly visible now. A white car, whiter than the Impala. Maybe an unmarked cop car. Maybe not. I had no plans to hang around long enough to find out.
I tossed the empty.32 in Cassandra’s lap and swung around into the driver’s seat.
“See,” she said, “I told you it wasn’t loaded.”
I pulled the Colt.45 out of my belt, held it up for Cassandra to see.
“This one is,” I said.
I pulled the car ahead, just a little.
Just then, as the w
hite sedan passed, I ducked down, then sat up again in time to see it turn into a church parking lot just up ahead on the left.
Not a cop after all.
Definitely not the overcoat man either.
I got only a quick glance, but the guy driving the car had a head of gray hair, and he was wearing something that looked like a black T-shirt. A priest maybe. Who would have guessed?
But I had learned a valuable lesson.
I knew that I had to ditch the Impala and go after my third car in a single afternoon. I had to find a safe house and make a plan. Now that Vasquez was dead, Cassandra had to be a part of that plan. Cassandra Wolf had to take her boyfriend, the cop-killer’s, place.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
IT WAS A SMALL, white, old New England-style church with colorful stained glass, clapboard siding, and a steeple shaped like an inverted icicle mounted on an A-frame roof. Directly across the street was a funeral parlor that, in my mind, seemed oddly convenient. Attached to the rear of the church was a good-size, two-story Cape Cod-style house with dormer windows and a small front porch. I pulled into the lot and drove slowly past a wooden placard with Church of the Nazarene engraved on it in black letters against a white background. A daily mass schedule was printed below that.
I drove all the way around the church to the back of the house. In the meantime, Cassandra got up off the floor of the car and balanced herself on the edge of the backseat. Shards of broken glass covered the vinyl seat cushion. Through the rearview I saw her face, her dark teardrop eyes, her high cheekbones, her full red lips, her equally red, heart-shaped tattoo.
I pulled up to the two-door Pontiac Grand Prix-the same car that had passed me a few minutes before. “I’ve got an idea,” I said. Then I killed the engine on the rented Impala and stuffed the keys into the pocket of my blazer.
“But tell me something first,” I went on, turning to Cassandra, “how are your acting skills?”
The plan went something like this: Cassandra would ring the rectory doorbell, plead her case to the pastor, explain to him that her car had broken down and was now stranded alongside the road a ways back. The breakdown occurred while coming back from her sister’s house near Catskill. Now she had to get back to Albany to pick up her daughter from Public School 21, and if the priest knew anything at all about Albany, he’d know what a dangerous neighborhood Public School 21 was located in. It was very late in the afternoon. She was an hour late. There was nobody in Albany for her to call. She and her daughter, they were all alone in the world now that her boyfriend had split…
The pastor would ask her to at least phone the school. But Cassandra would insist she didn’t have time for that. She’d be unreasonable, she wouldn’t be thinking straight. Please! she’d scream. In the name of God you have to drive me to Albany! She’d appear panic-stricken, desperate.
The pastor, being a man of God, would have no choice but to act the role of the good Samaritan.
I had a clear view of Cassandra from the driver’s seat of the Impala as she walked to the screen door of the rectory and rang the doorbell. If all went as planned, we’d be on our way out of town in five minutes or less.
But for now, I had to wait and hope that her acting abilities were as good as her talents for evading the police. Of course, she couldn’t deny her film experience, but that kind of film didn’t take a whole lot of talent.
She was better than I could have hoped.
It took only about ninety seconds and Cassandra had the pastor by her side, the two of them making a beeline for his Pontiac Grand Prix. From what I could see, the pastor was older than me by four or five years, with very thin arms and legs. His belly, on the other hand, was enormous and hung over his black polyester pants. A black collarless shirt was unbuttoned at the stomach, exposing a white T-shirt underneath. He held a key ring in the fingers of his right hand. Nearsighted, he held it up to his red face while peeling back key after key until he came to the one for the Grand Prix.
Cassandra wiped both eyes with the backs of her hands. She was good. She was very good. Not only had she fooled the pastor into believing her story about a stranded daughter, but she had forced tears. But then, her boyfriend had just been shot and killed, so the tears may have been real, not an act at all.
The pastor unlocked the passenger-side door for Cassandra. He went around to the driver’s side and got in.
That was my cue.
I got out of the Impala, gripped the.45 in my right hand, barrel pointed down at the macadam. I moved fast and silent, careful not to alert the pastor, who, with shaking hands and trembling fingers, was inserting the key into the steering column. The driver’s-side window was rolled down so it must have been a complete surprise to him when I raised the.45 and stuffed the barrel into his ear.
“Don’t move, Father.”
The pastor stiffened, gripped the black steering wheel, white-knuckled.
“In the name of sweet Jesus,” he swallowed, “don’t kill me.”
All life seemed to drain from his face. He breathed heavily, sucking air in and blowing it out fast. I hoped his heart was still good. If his gut was any indication, a massive coronary was imminent. But it was a chance I had to take.
“Shut the car off, Father,” I ordered. “Backseat.”
I unlatched the door, held it open for him. He started sliding out as ordered. But when he was all the way out and standing in the lot, he began to breathe faster than his lungs could soak up the oxygen.
“Nice going,” Cassandra said. “Now the priest is having a heart attack.”
I grabbed the pastor’s shoulders, put my face in his red face.
“Breathe, Father,” I said. “Take your time and breathe.”
“Can’t…get…air,” he stuttered, in a voice so forced I could actually feel the pain and struggle in my own lungs.
“I’m not going to hurt you!” I shouted, my heart pounding against my rib cage. “I just need you to get into the back of the car.”
“Right…pants…pocket,” he said. “Breathilator…right…pocket.”
“Get his freaking breathi-whatever!” Cassandra shouted.
“I heard him,” I said, feeling around in the right-hand pocket of the pastor’s black pants. When I found the breathilator I pulled off the cap and stuffed the round inhaling end into his open mouth. The pastor took a breath while I squeezed down on the device at the same time. What a team we made. By the time I took the breathilator away, he was already beginning to breathe normally.
“The good Lord,” he said, between breaths, “has blessed me with many things. Good lungs is not one of them.”
“You okay now?” I said, taking a look around the parking lot to make sure we hadn’t been spotted.
“Yes,” he said. “Better.”
“Good. Now get back into the car.”
The pastor stuffed himself into the back. No arguments, no struggles, no heart attacks. I took another quick look around. Nothing but a slightly overcast afternoon and the wavy, mirage-like heat rising off the blacktop.
I got in and started the car.
“Take the pastor’s belt off and tie his hands at the wrists.”
Cassandra’s eyes were wet and heavy looking. She faced the floor of the car.
“There’s no need for that, my son,” the pastor said in a fabricated voice he might have used during his Sunday sermon. “I’ll give you no trouble.”
“Do it,” I said, pulling out of the lot and turning left, northbound.
Cassandra turned, extended her slim body into the back, reached for the pastor’s belt, and unbuckled it. I watched in the rearview as she slid the belt out from between the loops and told the pastor to hold his wrists out. Then she wrapped the belt around them until the slack was gone and the belt was buckled tight.
There was a pause for a second or two while I drove past the open fields browning in the unusual summerlike heat and past the scattered wood-framed cottages and bungalows.
“You’re that warden, a
ren’t you? And you’re that young woman. You murdered that escaped criminal, that man who killed the policeman with the pregnant wife. Not that he deserved to live, but who are you to judge?”
I kept the speed at an even forty-five. Not too fast, not too slow.
“Would it help, Father,” I said, “if I told you that both of us are innocent?”
“Your guilt,” the pastor said, “is entirely your affair, as is your inevitable council with the Almighty Himself. What does not have to be inevitable is your lack of repentance. What you need to ask yourself, my son, is this. Just what do I profit through my corruption that I should gain the world but lose my soul? Why must I lie, cheat, kill? Son, you can still be saved so long as you admit to your crimes, turn yourself in, turn your soul back over to Jesus Christ, your Lord and Savior-”
“Cassandra,” I said, “gag the pastor.”
I reached into my pants pocket, pulled out a hankie.
“I won’t be able to breathe,” he protested.
“Make sure his nostrils are clear,” I said.
“See,” he said, “this is exactly what Fm talking about, case and point.”
“Sorry it has to be this way, Father,” I explained, as Cassandra turned and stuffed the hankie into the pastor’s mouth. “But I believe your opinion about the state of my salvation is not relevant.”
Of course, the pastor had no way of responding. But he was not to be silenced either. He mumbled something nearly indiscernible through the gag. Something that sounded like, “May God have mercy on your souls.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
I HAD LEFT MY mobile phone inside the Toyota, leaving me with no choice but to call Val from a wall-mounted pay phone outside a twenty-four-hour supermarket located just a couple of miles south of the Albany city limits. But before that-before I got out of the Pontiac-I made the pastor lie down on the backseat, out of sight. In the meantime, Cassandra, through the opening between the bucket seats, kept the barrel of the.45 pointed in the direction of the pastor’s head. What the Father did not know was that I had discharged the clip and slipped it into my pocket before handing the piece over to Cassandra. It was one thing trusting her with the.45. It was quite another trusting her with a loaded.45.
The Innocent Page 16
