by Howard Owen
Gerald turns right off Fifth to walk the half-block to his office. He has gone only a few yards when he encounters a ghost.
He doesn’t recognize him at first, just knows that he should.
Then it hits him, and he begins to feel the cold for the first time this bright morning as the sweat that has suddenly erupted from his armpits begins to instantly chill.
Jack Stone is facing him on the sidewalk, which is not nearly as crowded as the one on the avenue was. He is wearing some kind of lurid green toboggan and a jacket that wouldn’t warm a person this far north in April, let alone February. He has some kind of bag slung over his shoulder.
He seems, from the way his right hand juts out of the coat’s pocket, to be carrying something. He doesn’t look like the guy did the one time Gerald has been robbed in New York. That one was shaking a little, making Gerald nervous with his nervousness. That time, Gerald finally got his wallet out of his hip pocket with a trembling hand and gave it to the robber without even asking him to leave the wallet itself and the credit cards.
Jack Stone just looks determined, focused, his bloodshot eyes unblinking.
When he moves closer, and Gerald can feel the poke of the gun, Jack tells him that they have to talk.
Gerald Prince wonders how a morning that seemed so promising just two minutes ago could cloud over so suddenly.
On the way to the address he had memorized, Jack had to stop on two occasions to duck into a building, just to escape the fierceness of the wind and cold. Finally, just north of Penn Station, he found the toboggan lying on the street, next to a garbage can. He stopped and picked it up, causing a minor pileup on the sidewalk behind him. People glared as they moved past and regained speed.
He was almost running the last, long east-west block. His watch read 8:53. If he had been late, he didn’t know how he might get into the building and to Gerald Prince’s office uninvited. He doubted that his charm would be enough to carry the day.
He was across the street from the main entrance, catching his breath, when he saw Gerald Prince round the corner from Fifth Avenue. After all this time, there was something in Gerald’s walk that reminded him of Jerry Prince, something that couldn’t be hidden by a black fedora, a tan camel-hair coat and 30 years.
Feeling a little less frozen for the exercise, Jack slipped between two cars and was on the sidewalk walking east before Gerald knew he was there.
Now, with the snub-nosed .38 poking into Gerald Prince’s ribs just enough to let him know it’s there, he knows his moment has arrived. No matter what, it’s going to happen.
“There’s something I need to talk to you about,” he tells Gerald, whose eyes are wide and white.
“Just don’t shoot. Be calm. Remain calm, Jack. Please.”
“Yeah, sure. I’m calm. But we really need to get inside, to your office. I’m freezing my ass off.” Jack smiles, but from the look on Gerald’s face, the effect has not proved to be reassuring.
“All I want to do is talk, and get you to look at something, read something,” Jack continues. “That’s all I ask. Just get us up to your office. I’ll be right beside you, and I don’t really want to shoot you, if I don’t have to.”
Gerald nods his head vigorously.
“Come on,” he says, and Jack follows him the several yards to Mayfair Publishing’s front door.
In the lobby, they have to be buzzed up by a disembodied voice of an individual Jack assumes can see them. A guard sits 10 feet away, talking to a young woman. Gerald explains to the voice that Jack is a new writer, “a new talent,” he calls him.
“New talent,” Jack says. “I like that.”
They ride the elevator alone to the 17th floor. Just before they exit, Jack reminds Gerald again about the need to be circumspect, poking him with the gun.
Jack is surprised and a little disappointed at what he sees on the 17th floor. Most of it seems to be a dark warren of small cubicles, separated by partitions no more than four feet high. Once or twice in their journey to Gerald’s office, Jack sees an editor rise out of his chair in an effort to see someone or something else in another part of the building, like prairie dogs on a TV nature show, popping out of their holes to sniff the air.
And Gerald Prince Books does not even occupy the whole floor. Gerald’s empire seems to take up a quarter or so of it, at most. As they enter into Gerald’s quarter, the people in the cubicles start calling him “Mr. Prince” as he passes by. He does not stop to introduce Jack, and they glance at him with only the mildest curiosity.
Surrounding the warrens are the few precious offices with actual walls and views of something outside the building. Gerald, Jack sees, at least has one of these.
There is a reception area outside Gerald’s office, and here Jack gets to at last, actually, meet David.
“David,” Gerald says, looking back anxiously to his guest, “you’ve talked with Jack Stone over the phone. Well, here he is.”
Jack is surprised. He had imagined David to be a man about Gerald’s size, or smaller, on the pallid side. But when David stands to offer a firm handshake, he sees that Gerald’s assistant is larger than he is, six-three, maybe 200 pounds. He has blond, wavy hair, and looks as if he works out regularly and has a membership in a tanning salon.
“Delighted,” David says, “we were actually talking about you just a couple of days ago, wondering when we could get you up here.”
Jack can see the younger man is puzzled. What the hell, he must be asking himself, is Jack Stone doing here? Don’t we have security any more?
“Hold my calls for the next hour,” Gerald tells David, and he leads Jack into his office.
The office itself is a large step up from the prairie-dog town outside. The noise drops off, and Jack is confronted with a mahogany desk that dominates the room. The ceiling in here is higher, too. Photos of authors and Gerald’s family adorn the corners of the room. Jack spies a picture of Arlene Prince stuck in one subtle nook, almost obscured by a row of books. The one window appears to be in need of cleaning. It looks across the street to another office where Jack can see a woman sitting across from a desk similar to Gerald’s, apparently taking notes.
The only visible whimsy in the office is a dart board on the wall facing the reception area and a single dart stuck into the acoustic tile overhead.
Gerald sees Jack looking at the dart. He tells him that a writer whose name Jack barely recognizes but whom Gerald seems to revere threw it into the ceiling in a pique over a rather drastic editing change Gerald suggested.
“He eventually thanked me for that change,” he adds.
“So, Jack,” Gerald says, sitting down carefully as Jack closes the door, “what can we do for you?”
Jack locks the door and sits in the room’s only other chair.
“I got your message,” Jack tells him, and Gerald looks puzzled.
“The one about me. The one you meant to send to your wife. ‘Old friends with no talent?’”
The little blood remaining in Gerald Prince’s face seems to drain away, and Jack thinks for a moment that he might faint.
“The message?” he manages at last, weakly. “The e-mail?”
Jack nods.
“So,” he says, “I had a fresh copy, and I thought I’d just bring it up here for you to read. I’ve got plenty of time. Just let me know when you’re through.”
Jack reaches into the bag and takes out the block of paper. He drops it on Gerald’s desk and sits. Then, he takes the gun out of his pocket and lays it across his lap. He crosses his legs.
“But, I’ve already read it,” Gerald says, then stops when he sees the look in Jack’s eyes, the way his hand moves just slightly toward the gun’s trigger.
“Right,” he says. “Right.”
They’ve been there for 45 minutes when Gerald’s phone rings.
“OK,” he says. “Put her on.”
“Caitlin,” he whispers to Jack, who is pointing the gun directly at him now.
“
Yes, I think that’d be great. Yes, 7:30 like I said. We need to be there by 6:30, latest. Tel Aviv Taxi. Can you call them, please? Thank you.”
The conversation goes on for perhaps five minutes, and then Gerald tells his wife that he has to go, that he’s with someone.
“Love you, too,” he says, and hangs up.
“We’re going to Virgin Gorda tomorrow,” he says. His voice is shaky, as it might have been 30-some years before, trying to talk his way out of some casually inflicted humiliation. “Were going,” he corrects himself. “Jack, just don’t shoot me, OK? I’ve got two kids and a wife. I’ll do whatever you want.”
“I want you to read the goddamn book,” Jack says, not raising his voice. He is surprised to be so calm, much calmer than he thought he might be. He’s here now. Talent will out.
He motions for his old classmate to resume reading.
Everything is quiet for the next 20 minutes.
Then, there’s a knock on his door.
“Mr. Prince?” It’s David. “Are you all right?”
Jack can hear the door handle being worked.
“I’m fine,” Gerald answers. “Just fine. We’ll be another hour or so. Hold my calls.”
“You know, you have that meeting at 11.”
Gerald looks at Jack, who shakes his head.
“Cancel it,” he tells his assistant.
“Cancel it? Are you sure?”
“Yes, dammit. Cancel it. And don’t disturb us again.”
“Keep reading,” Jack tells him when David goes away.
Gerald Prince thinks to himself that it just never ends. He feels like crying. He has worked his whole life to be rid of the likes of Jack Fucking Stone, and here he is, almost 48 years old, being bullied into reading a moron’s manuscript. An armed and dangerous moron.
He’ll admit that Jack Stone wasn’t as bad as some of them. He even saved little Jerry Prince from the crueler elements on a couple of occasions. But he always did it the way you’d stop a bully from picking on a cripple, out of pity rather than anything like friendship. The lion pulling the thorn out of the mouse’s paw.
Gerald reads with half a mind toward the pages in front of him. He is careful not to flip them too quickly.
By 11:15, he has torn through 80 pages. His mouth is dry, and he wishes he could call David and have him bring some coffee or bottled water. It occurs to him, dimly, because most of his conscious thoughts are about staying alive, that the manuscript really isn’t that bad, once it gets going. He is sure he can find something soothing to say about it, although he’s not sure it will do any good.
He looks across the desk at Jack Stone, who doesn’t seem to have blinked since they sat down more than two hours ago.
“Pretty good,” he says.
“Yeah, it is.”
“You know,” Gerald continues, clearing his throat, “it’s a different world up here. People say and write some pretty cruel things sometimes without really meaning them.”
“So I understand. Read.”
Gerald has been reading for another 20 minutes when there’s another knock on the door.
“What?”
“Mr. Prince? Ah, actually, I’ve brought you some lunch. I thought you and your guest might want something to eat. I got a couple of Reubens and pasta salads from that stand just down the street. Can I come in?”
He is so anxious, so transparent. Gerald can’t believe David thought at one time of becoming an actor. He can almost smell the cops. It has become very quiet out there. Gerald is wondering whether he should duck under the desk before somebody kicks the door in and all hell breaks loose.
Before he has time to make a move, though, Jack Stone has jumped to his feet with amazing quickness and come around to Gerald’s side of the desk. The gun is now firmly planted in the back of his neck. His kidnapper pulls the chair Gerald is sitting in away from the window.
“David,” Jack says, “I want you to take those Reubens and stick them up your ass, if that wouldn’t actually be too much trouble. If you or anybody else tries to come in here before I’m ready for you to come in, I’m going to use this .38 on the back of Mr. Prince’s head, and you’ll have to spend the rest of the afternoon cleaning up the desk and walls and carpet.
“David? You understand? Everybody out there understand? This might end OK, if you’ll give us a few hours here. Or it might not. But if you come charging in here right now, I can assure you the worst possible outcome.”
There is dead silence for a minute or more, and then another voice, soothing and practiced, comes through the door.
“Mr. Stone? Howyadoin’? I’m Lieutenant Lewandowski. We just want to make sure everybody gets out of this safe and sound. My job is to keep anybody from doing anything they might regret.”
“Stay away from the door, and the chances of that get a lot better. And stop disturbing us. Mr. Prince is trying to read in here.”
Jack Stone leans forward.
“Keep reading, Gerald,” he whispers.
Gerald picks up the next page and does as he’s told. Outside the window, he can hear helicopters and sirens. He thinks of himself as the mean-joke headline in the next day’s Daily News: “DELETED. Spurned writer to editor—Drop dead, really.”
When Jack Stone realizes there are police right outside Gerald Prince’s door, he almost panics, almost just starts firing into the wood, hoping for luck. He gets a grip, though, the way Bobby Witt used to tell them when they were coming down to the last 30 seconds, two points behind. Nothing bad is going to happen, he keeps assuring himself. The old man won’t let it happen. Just ride it out, Jack. From the look on Gerald’s face, he realizes that he is talking to himself again. Gerald seems to understand that logical persuasion might not carry the day.
As Jack looks across the room, he sees that the fog that followed him up all the way from Virginia has managed to seep into Gerald Prince’s office. He shakes his head and some of it goes away.
He asks Gerald if he has anything to eat. He can smell food through the door. David, the twit, really did go out and get lunch for them.
Gerald starts to say no, very apologetically, when he remembers the peanuts. He’d bought a can of them from one of the secretaries, who was helping raise money for her daughter’s school class, then put them away in his desk drawer yesterday, completely forgotten.
“Peanuts?” Jack Stone asks.
“Yeah. Virginia’s finest, the label said. My day for reminders of home.”
Jack smiles.
“Where?”
“This drawer right here.”
“You know what’ll happen if your hand comes out of there holding anything but peanuts.”
“I know.”
Jack nods. Gerald reaches in, as carefully as if he were retrieving a cobra. When he slowly produces the peanuts. Jack has him open the can and pass it to him.
“Bon appetit,” he says, pouring out a handful and passing the peanuts back.
Gerald takes a handful for himself and puts the can between them. He finds that, in spite of everything, he does have an appetite for peanuts. Given a choice, he might have picked foie gras and Sauternes for his last meal, but this might have to do.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
It soon becomes impossible for Gerald to read anything or concentrate on anything much beyond staying alive.
The street outside has been blocked off. When he dares to peek, he can see blue and red lights reflecting off the building across from Mayfair Publishing. Most of the windows in that building seem to be filled with the faces of the morbidly curious, who ignore bullhorn voices telling them to stay back lest they get shot. Gerald can imagine them all doing play-by-play on their cell phones for those not lucky enough for a ringside seat.
Lieutenant Lewandowski calls through the door every 30 minutes or so. Jack refuses to talk to him, other than to warn him to stand back. The lieutenant knows his name now, alternates calling him Jack and Mr. Stone, trying to find some finger-hold.
At 2:15, Gerald’s cell phone rings, and Jack lets him answer. The phone on Gerald’s desk seems to have been disconnected.
“Caitlin,” he says.
Gerald Prince starts half a dozen sentences before he is able to finish one.
“Listen. Listen!” he says, finally. “It’s going to be OK. Jack just wants me to read the rest of his very good book here, and then he’s going to let me go.”
Jack only stares at him.
Gerald’s wife seems a little calmer, from the end of the conversation Jack can hear. He tells her to definitely not come down to the scene and to absolutely not call his mother in Virginia, and to pick up the kids from school so she can tell them what’s happening to Daddy before anyone else can.
After five minutes, Jack motions for Gerald to get off the phone.
“I love you, too,” Gerald says as he’s about to hang up. He assures her again that everything soon will be all right.
“The kids,” he says when he hangs up. “The kids are in school. Caleb’ll handle it pretty well. Rosa, though. Damn, Jack, she’s only 9 years old.”
Jack thinks for a brief moment that Gerald Prince is going to attack him, force him to shoot. Then Gerald falls back in his chair, tears welling in his eyes.
Jack Stone shrugs.
“You know, Gerald,” he says, “I really don’t know quite how this is going to turn out. I’ve been thinking about it, and it’s still a mystery to me. I might just give in to my urges and shoot you, or the guys behind that door might decide to bust the door down and take their chances, in which case I’ll probably shoot you anyhow.
“Or—who knows?—the whole thing might work itself out.
“But however it goes, you shouldn’t be too hard on me. I’m not the one that jerked his old buddy around for months. I’m not the one that sat up here in his Manhattan office laughing at the poor, dumb son of a bitch down there just trying to do one damn thing right. I must have been good for a lot of laughs. ‘I’ve got this asshole truck driver down in Virginia that thinks he can write, won’t leave me alone. Keeps sending me crap. Can’t get rid of him.’ What a hoot.”
