Jon felt even more attracted to her because she cared about something bigger than herself—unlike a lot of beautiful women. But he still didn’t register most of what she said, lost as he was in a new paradigm of thought about what might be going on in this city. He was thinking about what all this might mean for the Mayor, and even for his seemingly glib and apathetic partner.
“What?” Mallory said, after a little span of him staring into space.
“I have to go,” Jon said, snapping out of it. “I’m not sure anything is going to happen when the sun comes out in the morning, but until I know more about it, you should probably close the bar and lock yourself up in your apartment. Just in case.”
“Can’t do that,” she said, shaking her head. “A lot of customers told me that they plan to be in here drinking to the Dayfall, or maybe so they won’t have to worry about it. My dad says he wants to be here then, too, so even if something does happen, I want to be with him. I’ll go home once everything calms down or turns out okay, ’cause that’s the end of my shift anyway.”
“Okay.… Well, maybe I’ll make sure I’m patrolling this block at that time, and stop in to keep an eye on you. Have a drink ready for me.… How about a Tequila Sunrise? That’ll be appropriate.”
“I already stocked up on orange juice.… I’m sure you won’t be the only one with that idea.”
She flashed that killer smile again, which was half-innocent and half-experienced, and Jon wanted to stay. But he briefly kissed her goodbye and then tore himself away.
Outside, it had started raining, and gathering storm clouds were visible overhead from the light of the city. Jon used his coat as an umbrella, since it was now warm and humid enough that he would have been sweating inside of it. Thunder boomed and lightning flashed a number of times during his walk to the Flatiron Building, a portent of the tempest that would clear away the remaining canopy of darkness overhead during the rest of the night, and make it possible for the daylight to break through in the morning. But it also provided a fitting soundtrack for the gloomy thoughts that were racing through his head about what he was preparing to say to the Mayor when he reached her office.
19
DAYFALL MINUS 5 HOURS
“Why isn’t Halladay with you?” Mayor King said after she dismissed a couple of aides and allowed Jon to enter her office, at his insistence. “I just talked to him on the phone a few minutes ago.”
“Because I don’t know what you’re saying to him,” Jon answered, taking a seat across the desk from her.
“I was just checking up on you,” she said, puzzled. “Seeing how you’re doing, since I haven’t heard much.”
“You told me that you were too busy for me to report in unless I had something substantial.”
“That I did. But Dayfall is only five hours away. So hopefully you have something now?”
“I think so,” Jon said. “But you’re not going to like it.”
“Oh?”
“You told me that you brought in an outsider like me because I was impartial and people would be more likely to believe me if I found out Render was behind the murders.”
“Yes. And he is, right?”
“I’m thinking you also brought in an outsider like me because I wouldn’t already be impressed by Render like so many people in this city are, including a lot of your own cops.”
“In a way, that’s true,” the Mayor said, still visibly puzzled about where he was going with this. “You’re more objective, so you’d be able to see what he’s doing more clearly.…”
“Or believe lies about him.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Knowing that I didn’t have much time to investigate, you prejudiced me against him and planted enough evidence that I would conclude he was behind the chaos and the killings. Then this ‘outsider’ would accuse him, and you hoped that the suspicion it created about GS would be enough to at least even the ground going into the referendum.”
He paused for effect, as her mouth slowly opened in disbelief.
“The worst part is that you actually instigated the chaos and the killings so Render could be blamed for them, because it would be easy for people to think he had the most to gain by them. If I bought into that idea and accused him of it, the city would be suspicious of him and feel safer, which benefits you in the vote. If the panic happens anyway, the city eating itself alive is a small price to pay for you staying in power.”
“Hmmm,” she said after a moment, finally closing her mouth. “You’re right.” But after Jon nodded proudly, she added: “You’re right that I wouldn’t like what you’re saying. Because it’s ridiculous, and I’m really disappointed in you. But I’m really at a loss to know what to do about it. So let me ask.… Why do you think this? You must have some kind of supposed evidence. I’m not sure it’s worth even a few minutes of my time right now, because I don’t think you’ll be working for me after this, but maybe I can show you the holes in your thinking.”
“Fine. I’ll walk you through it,” he said.
“Make it quick,” Mayor King said, looking at her watch.
“Gar Render is rather impressive, actually, and he’s fully cooperated with our investigation, right down to allowing us to corner a suspect and proving the guy couldn’t have been working for him.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because if he was, and we caught him, it would have implicated Render. There’s no way Render, if he was paying him, would have even taken a chance of him being arrested.”
“But you didn’t arrest him,” King said. “I know that from talking to Halladay earlier.”
“Not Render’s fault,” Jon said, and King had no response, so he continued. “Then there’s the fact that at least one of the killers has been using the underground to move around, and you’re the only one other than GS who has access to the keys needed to do that.”
“Hmmm,” she said again. “Well, I haven’t given any of those keys away. I put them in a safe and haven’t touched them since I got them. And you’re assuming Render’s innocence when there could be any number of explanations for your first observation. But go on.”
“The suspect shot a trusted lieutenant of Render’s, making it unlikely they were on the same team.”
“Sometimes you have to sacrifice a pawn to win the game.”
“Gotham Security gives its agents on the streets a list of people that need protection. I saw one of the lists and my name was on it, but Halladay’s wasn’t.”
“Meaning what?”
“GS thinks I need protection from someone, and it’s not them, obviously, because they’re trying to protect me. The only criminals I’ve encountered that might want to take me out are ones who are working for someone else, and you’re the most likely candidate. Halladay, on the other hand, has no love lost for GS, but he seems to like you. And we know whose payroll he’s on.”
Rialle King laughed. “You think Frank Halladay can be bought?”
“Maybe not in the conventional way, but you’re looking the other way on some things that Render wouldn’t, if he was in charge. That could be enough to make Halladay prejudiced towards you, and maybe even do some dirty work on your behalf.”
She laughed again, but Jon went on.
“The last nail is that there’s ten grand in Turnia Carter’s account that we traced to your office. You told me Render was paying them to create panic about Dayfall, but the money trail leads to you.”
“Well, that I can explain,” she said, nodding and sitting back in her seat. “Turnia Carter is a college friend of my daughter Ria, and they’ve kept in touch since then. She confided in Ria that she was feeling guilty because she was being paid to slant her research—she was torn because the pay and notoriety are great, but she knows this could hurt her friend’s mom. It was all pretty vague but I could tell what was going on from talking to Ria, who did not want Turnia to get into any trouble. She made me promise that I wouldn’t let the cat out unless it was absolu
tely necessary. So we tried to offset whatever GS was doing for her by Ria giving her the ten thousand, which was the most I could manage to earmark for research from my budget without raising red flags. But it hasn’t been enough to turn her, obviously. It was like a bidding war, and I lost.”
“If this is all true,” Jon said, thinking she was a very good liar if it wasn’t, “why didn’t you tell me about it?”
“I was trying to keep my promise to my daughter. I was hoping you would discover the GS bribe and deal with it, so she wouldn’t blame me for whatever happened.”
“And if I discovered your bribe?”
“Then I would explain it to you, like I just did.” She made a gesture with both hands that said, It’s as simple as that. “In fact, I knew you would probably find out, because after you interviewed Turnia, she called me to ask if it was okay with me to give you permission to look at her bank account. I just thought you were a better detective than to assume the worst about me.”
“Halladay could have told you all this when you talked to him,” Jon said, “giving you time to come up with your story.”
“It all can be verified,” King said. “You can talk to Ria if you must, though I’d rather not involve her if we can help it. But I think something else Halladay told me is more pertinent to what’s going on here.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, speaking of being prejudiced, he was concerned that you seem to have fallen under the spell of a GS sympathizer, who also happens to be ‘hot as shit,’ to use his words. Love is blind, Detective Phillips, and sex makes you stupid.… There’s a reason for those clichés.”
“Is that what you think?” Jon said, caught a bit off guard.
“I think you’re young, and like a lot of young cops, you can rush to judgment too soon. But you’re talented, too, so as stupid as some of your ideas are, you’re probably on to something with the others.” She sat up in her chair and leaned toward him. “I’m going to give you another chance, if you promise to think this all through some more. But if you don’t get your head straight in the next few hours, I’ll have no choice but to take action.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“You’re damn right I am. And you can make use of the door, please—I’ve got work to do.”
Jon nodded and left the office, more off-kilter now and not sure what else to do.
He felt like he needed to get his bearings and think through all of this before talking to Halladay, Amira, or anyone else, so he walked out of the building and across the street to Madison Square Park. There were still plenty of cars on the street, but the storm had left the park almost deserted.
At first Jon used his jacket again as an umbrella, but then gave up and let the unusually warm rain drench him as he situated himself on a bench facing north about a third of the way into the park. The clouds above flashed and rumbled slightly more often now than during his previous walk, and the tops of the highest buildings around the park were hidden in the fog generated by the storm. Only the lighted clock on the Met Life tower to his right was bright enough to shine through, and it was just a dim yellow, moonlike sphere. He couldn’t see above the first five floors or so of the Gotham Security base to its left, or the thin glass monolith of One Madison to its right. The whole scene was colored even more blue-green than before, because the light from the industrial UV lamps was bouncing off the clouds, fog, and maybe even the rain.
Because of those features, the park seemed even more otherworldly than usual, an impression heightened by the two huge sculptures planted in the patch of grass to the left of Jon’s bench. They were of similar shape and size, at least ten feet tall and a little less than five feet wide, and both obviously represented Manhattan because there was a solid ring like a wall around the bottom and a cityscape of buildings projecting diagonally up from the tall center columns above them. There were only two differences between the sculptures: the one on the left had a moon extending from the top and buildings that were well defined and recognizable (Jon could make out the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings, for example); the other one had a sun at the top and buildings that were noticeably unfinished, looking almost like they were melting.
John became curious enough about the artist’s meaning and the material used (bronze, he guessed) that he got up from the bench and walked toward the sculptures to get a closer look.
As a result, he didn’t see the masked figure emerge from the cover of the street behind him and move purposefully in his direction.
20
At first glance, Jon thought the sculpture with the sun at the top was predicting doom for the city, because of the “melted” look of the buildings on that one. But when he got closer he realized it had a different meaning, because he could read the inscriptions on the solid rings around the bottom of each. The one with the moon at the top said, “What we are” and the one with the sun said, “What will we be?”
As Jon got close to the sculpture on the left, he could tell that his guess was right and it was made out of bronze. But he reached out to touch one of the semi-vertical buildings with his hand anyway, appreciating the detail in the metal. As he did, an unconscious instinct suddenly caused him to jerk his upper body slightly to the right, and a long blade flashed by his neck and slammed into the statue, sending sparks flying. Jon turned his whole body to the left and managed to pull back just enough that a backhand slash of the knife barely missed him. This only took a second or two, but even in that short time his brain registered that his attacker was the Dayfall Killer they had seen on the video from the office building, the one with the short “bowling ball” figure and the utilitarian black mask.
If the attacker would have simply slashed back the other way again with the knife, it probably would have connected. But fortunately he brought it to his waist in a stabbing position and lunged toward Jon, probably wanting to make sure the young detective wasn’t only wounded by the next attack. The time it took for this adjustment, however, was just enough to allow Jon to roll his body around part of the big sculpture and put it between him and the killer.
Jon thought of fleeing toward the street, but his heart was already pounding from the shock of the attack, and he wasn’t sure he could outrun the powerfully built man to the edge of the park. Just as he was about to try it anyway, for lack of a better plan, several gunshots rang out behind him and a couple of bullets sparked on the metal of the statue.
Jon glanced back to see Halladay walking calmly toward him across the grass with his gun extended, and then looked forward again to see that the killer had immediately taken off running in the other direction, keeping the statue between him and Halladay’s gun, and quickly disappearing through some bushes into the busy street beyond. Now that Jon had seen how fast the little man could move, he was glad that he hadn’t tried to outrun him.
“You all right?” Halladay asked when he reached Jon, who was breathing hard.
“Yeah, barely,” Jon said. “Thanks to you.”
Halladay holstered his gun and then smacked Jon upside the head.
“Ow,” Jon said. “What the hell was that for?”
“I’m only here because the King told me what you said to her, so I went looking for you, to tell you what a fuckin’ dumbass you are.”
“Why?”
“For thinkin’ the Mayor is crooked.”
“I know she is now,” Jon said.
“How’s that?”
“I’m on the GS protection list, and sure enough, right after I confront the Mayor, an assassin tries to kill me.”
“Och!” the older cop said, shaking his head. “Did it ever occur to you that your protection list might be a hit list?”
“Yeah, but—”
“But you’re not thinkin’ with your head right now, Casanova.”
“The Mayor just threatened me, Frank. That’s a fact.”
“What did she say, exactly?”
“Something about taking action if I don’t drop my theory about he
r.”
Halladay raised his hand slightly, as if he was going to hit Jon again, but the younger cop moved backward a little.
“She was talking about firing you, Piss-Pants.” He shook his head again, then turned around to head back to the Flatiron Building. “Come on, you need to hear the latest from the Princess.”
The rain seemed even stronger to Jon, and the storm more menacing, on the brief walk back to headquarters. Or maybe it was just because he was more confused now than when he had walked out.
As he realized that he might be back at square one, a hopeless feeling began flooding over him in concert with the rain. He tried to buoy himself by remembering why he had taken this job in the first place, but that just made it worse. He had now alienated the Mayor, who was the one person who could give him the kind of recommendations he wanted for the future, and the motivation of catching the killer was ebbing because his chances seemed so slim. He remembered Anton Versa, the police chief in Philadelphia, talking about the “bigger picture” of helping the rest of the cities that would experience Dayfall, but right now that was being crowded out of his mind by the picture of a beautiful woman who, he suspected, was going to end up being a big disappointment for him. Anger at her was growing in him, mixed with anger at himself for letting his heart screw up the case.
The adrenaline from that emotion was enough to offset the feelings of hopelessness, and once he was back in the building, Jon washed his face and changed his clothes, and then went to join Halladay and Amira in the lab.
“What’s up?” he said when he got there, trying to make a new start.
“A lot,” Amira said. “We’ve got new info on the Dayfall murder locations, the chaos crimes, the NYU teachers, and your … uh, friend at the bar.” She glanced at Halladay, who raised his eyebrows. “Which do you want first?”
“The order you just said,” Jon answered, wanting to make sure he didn’t allow Mallory to be the priority in his mind, and not wanting Amira and Halladay to think she was.
Dayfall Page 13
