The ballet was over at eleven.
Saad timed it just right, got there with the limo as soon as the audience started coming out. He picked up his passengers and again headed downtown.
Hazard managed to get the Packard directly behind the limo. It turned at Columbus Circle and went crosstown on Central Park South. For some reason not so fast now, and Hazard had no trouble staying with it.
The limo’s destination turned out to be the Sherry-Netherland at 59th and Fifth Avenue. It pulled up in front; the passengers got out and entered the hotel. They were going to Raffles, the private club for supper and dancing located downstairs at the Sherry. Saad apparently would wait. He maneuvered the limo into place among the numerous other chauffeured cars standing by there. Cadillacs, Mercedes-Benzes, Rolls-Royces, double and triple parked.
Hazard drove past and around the block. He parked on 61st in a hydrant zone. He walked to Fifth, crossed over and down to the southeast corner of Central Park. Directly opposite the Sherry-Netherland’s entrance. He sat on a public bench, from which he could observe without being noticed. He saw Saad was out of the limo, standing talking with a couple of other drivers.
After a few minutes Hazard got up and walked across the square to the Plaza Hotel. Inside the Plaza he went to the lobby newsstand, bought a roll of spearmint Life Savers and, as an afterthought, a ten-cent-sized Almond Joy that cost a quarter because he was buying it there. He ate the Almond Joy on his way out and back across the square to the bench. He saw Saad was still talking with the other drivers.
Don’t just stand there, you fat little prick. A moment later, as though directed by Hazard’s unspoken instructions, Saad left the group and got into the limo. He turned on the interior light and began reading a magazine.
Hazard had been waiting for that. But now he wasn’t so sure. He had to reassure himself that he’d once seen Cagney get away with it in a movie. He shoved his hand into his left jacket pocket, felt the roll of Life Savers there, and started across the street.
Saad was enjoying the magazine. The girls exposed in it had no less than 42–D. He was so involved with trying to make the photographs come to life that he was taken unaware when Hazard opened the limo’s right front door and slid across the seat. Hand in pocket, Hazard shoved the hard round end of the roll of Life Savers into Saad’s side.
“Don’t say anything,” Hazard told Saad, “just drive.”
Even through his fat Saad could feel the hard pointing pressure of what had to be a gun. He glanced at Hazard’s face, saw the set of it matched the threat. He did as he was told, dropped the magazine into his lap, started the limo, and steered away from the Sherry.
Down Fifth Avenue.
“I don’t have any money,” said Saad. “All I have is ten, maybe twelve, dollars.” He hoped his shirt cuff was hiding his watch.
Hazard let up some on the pressure he was applying with the roll of Life Savers. Only so that he could poke it again even harder into Saad’s side. With his free hand Hazard reached into his other jacket pocket and brought out a photograph of Carl. When the limo had to stop at an intersection, Hazard held the photograph in front of Saad’s eyes.
“You know him?” Hazard asked.
It was a head-on photo of Carl, a good likeness, unmistakable.
“No.”
“Never seen him?”
“Never.”
“How about last Friday night?”
“I was sick. In bed all Friday and Saturday last week.”
The back of Hazard’s neck flushed as he heard the incriminating lie. He told Saad: “His name was Hazard. My name is Hazard.”
Saad couldn’t hide what he felt then. His mouth stayed the same but he started to sweat and his eyes began moving as though looking for a way out. He now knew he was in trouble more serious than a holdup.
On down Fifth Avenue.
“Tell me all of it, and maybe I won’t kill you.”
“I don’t know anything.”
“Don’t shit me.”
“I don’t. I just drive.”
“Okay. You just drive and I’ll tell you where.”
Hazard let silence work on Saad. At 23rd Street all he said was, “Hang at left here,” and when they came to FDR Drive he told Saad, “Downtown.”
“I just drive,” Saad kept repeating.
Nothing from Hazard except directions. Off at the Battery Park exit. North on West Street a few blocks and then beneath the West Side elevated highway. Cobblestone pavement, the tires tattooing, a maze of red-and-white wooden barriers with yellow, blinking reflectors. Then about a half-mile stretch of wire mesh fence. The area beyond the fence had been river but was now being filled in for more city living space. Someone would get richer from it.
A wide opening in the fence. A sign that said AUTHORIZED VEHICLES ONLY was disregarded as the limo turned in onto a dirt road, a way created by the daily going and coming of heavy trucks. No one there now. Bulldozers, graders, earth shovels stood around like grotesque, catatonic beasts. The fill wasn’t clean, rather the dumpings of every sort of rubble and junk. Crushed, twisted, mangled, rusted chunks, mounds, slabs, splinters—everything from the skeletons of car bodies to rotting baby-crib mattresses, toilet bowls, and beer cans by the millions. The solid waste of consumers, a massive defecation of installment-plan buying. All this would be pounded down, pressed, and finally topped off with a few feet of good earth on which would be built structures that would be rooms full of future junk, future rubble.
A short way in, the limo’s headlights hit upon a temporary shack with the words ONE MAN ONE JOB crudely handpainted on it. Along with a poster urging SUPPORT THE PRESIDENT TO END THE WAR.
The limo continued to the end of that bad road, to the river’s edge. From there, a clear view of the Statue of Liberty out in the harbor, green giant lady on her private island. In the opposite direction was the money skyline of Wall Street and left of that, closer, just across the highway, the twin towers of the Trade Center, tallest in the world, now lighted up—so high at this close range they gave the impression they were leaning and about to fall over.
Hazard cut the motor, pocketed the key and just sat there, keeping the pressure on Saad. He could sense Saad’s spiraling panic, was waiting, hoping it would come out.
Saad, meanwhile, was not encouraged by his surroundings. The place was clearly right for a killing. He reminded himself that he’d always been a coward and living for a cause was different, easier than dying for one. Saad felt that if all was written as claimed, then his own lack of bravery had been and was meant to be. But he had sworn, hadn’t he? What about honor? His fear had a ready answer. Honor was important only when there are witnesses.
For nearly a half hour Saad argued with his conscience. It was a one-sided argument.
Hazard kept his pocketed hand and the roll of Life Savers aimed at Saad and every so often he’d move it, thrust it purposely to build Saad’s anxiety.
Saad wet his lips, ran his tongue over the bristles of his dab of a mustache and said, “I must have your word.”
“Sure.”
“You won’t kill me.”
“Not unless you lie.”
“The truth is I only did the driving.”
“Where?”
Saad told him about the house that was near Nyack, the interrogation, the George Washington Bridge. He didn’t go into detail and he lied about one part, said with a trace of admiration that Carl had held out, that they hadn’t been successful in getting the information they’d wanted from him. Saad figured the lie was in his favor because it was something Hazard would want to hear.
Hazard believed it.
“It wasn’t anything personal.” Saad was more confident now. “It could have been any one of a dozen people. It happened, unfortunately, to be him.”
Hazard doubted that. “What was the information you wanted?”
“I don’t know. They never told me. And when they decided to kill him I pleaded with them not to do such a horrible
thing, but I was nothing, only the driver.”
Hazard asked who they were.
“Black September.”
“I mean who were the other three?”
Saad told him the full names of Badr, Hatum, and Mustafa. After naming them he felt relieved, as though the blame was no longer focused on him.
“Where are they now?”
“They left the following day.”
“Out of the country?”
“I do not know.”
“You drove them to the airport.” Hazard was guessing but sounded as though he knew.
Saad decided he’d better admit that.
“You took them to the international terminal.”
“I was happy to see them go.”
Hazard nodded thoughtfully.
Saad interpreted it as agreement. He smiled and asked if it was all right if he had a cigarette, started to reach.
Hazard told him no. “Get out.”
“You gave your word,” reminded Saad, but realized it was useless. Reverting suddenly, he said with hatred, “Weld Iihudi-gahba!” (son of a Jew whore). He opened the door and got out. The moment his feet touched the ground he started to run.
Hazard hadn’t anticipated that. Should have, but hadn’t. He got out quickly and by the light of the Trade Mart towers saw Saad running up the road as fast as his stubby legs could go under the handicap of sixty overweight pounds. Hazard sprinted after him.
Saad expected any moment to hear shots at him, to feel the sting of a bullet entering his back. He knew he’d never make it all the way out to the street. He cut abruptly to his right, stumbled, almost fell, and got off the road, clawed and clambered up a pile of rubble and down to where it was darker. He made his way over the debris and through the maze of junk and, finally, with his lungs aching, flopped down behind the overturned hulk of a discarded refrigerator. He pressed tight against it, closed his eyes, and tried not to breathe so loudly. He heard Hazard coming, the rubble crunching under Hazard’s steps. Hazard paused only a few feet away on the opposite side of the refrigerator. Saad silently begged to God to be merciful and, a few moments later, Hazard moved on, searching.
Saad remained where he was for several minutes, listening, estimating Hazard’s movements, now further and further away. Then slowly, careful to make as little noise as possible, he crawled away from the refrigerator and up a small rise to peek over. He saw the limousine not more than a hundred feet away. He thought he’d run farther than that. He looked in the direction of the street and saw how far he’d have to go to reach there. Too far. He decided on the car. Took a deep breath and made a dash for it.
Hazard heard the limo’s door slam. It occurred to him that Saad might have a spare ignition key. He ran for the limo and when he got to it saw Saad in the front seat. Saad had the limo’s telephone up, calling for help.
Hazard rushed to the rear of the car where the telephone aerial projected up from the center surface of the luggage compartment. He grabbed the aerial and yanked. It gave some but was still intact. He bent it down, put his entire weight on it and it finally snapped off at its base.
Saad knew the phone was dead when crackling static replaced the voice of the operator who’d been late in answering the remote-service signal. Saad hadn’t had time to say a word.
But Hazard couldn’t know that. It was possible Saad had gotten through to someone. He went to the left front door of the limo. Saad moved immediately to the opposite side, hunched down to make himself into as difficult a target as possible, still believing Hazard had a gun. Hazard got the key from his pocket and inserted it into the door lock. Before he could turn the key Saad, risking everything, was across the seat and pressing down the locking button from the inside. Saad had the advantage. Hazard’s fingers could not get enough leverage to turn the key.
There was Saad’s face, less than a reach away but protected by the rolled-up window.
Hazard gave up on the door.
Saad found it incredible that Hazard hadn’t just shot him point blank through the glass.
Hazard hurried around to the other front door. Shoved the key into its lock. But Saad beat him to it, held down its inside locking button.
Impasse.
Hazard backed off to decide what to do. No time to waste, however. Saad’s help might be on the way.
Keeping an eye on the limo Hazard searched around among the debris until he found a suitable hunk of metal, a short I-shaped piece of rusted steel. He went to the driver side of the car, reared back, and let go. He expected the glass to smash and fly but instead it merely turned frosty opaque with a cobweb pattern of cracks, and remained intact except for an irregular four-inch hole at the point of impact.
Shatter-proof.
It took a half dozen full-force blows for Hazard to break enough of the window out. He looked in. Saad was against the opposite side. Hazard opened the door. He saw then that Saad had a knife extended directly at him, a five-inch blade. It was more than a match for the gun Hazard didn’t have. Considerably more formidable than a roll of Life Savers. But Hazard shoved his hand into his jacket pocket, still pretending to have a weapon. Cautiously, Hazard reached around to unlock the rear door. He took one careful step up and in.
Over the seat Saad cut the air with the knife; short, slashing jabs. It was a weapon he knew how to handle, had known since he was a boy.
Hazard decided he had to make his move. He waited a moment and then made it all at once. Into the back seat, the fingers of his left hand curled slightly but tensed, his wrist stiffened as he’d been taught by the DIA instructors. His left hand by-passed the knife and the fleshy heel of his hand chopped at Saad’s forearm, sending it aside, away. Hazard’s right hand was already made into the most powerful of all karate fists—the oyayiuhi ipponken: four fingers folded in tight and solid, thumb bent with its tip pressed hard down on the second knuckle of the forefinger, a fist strictly forbidden in karate matches because of its lethalness.
In continuous motion with his left, Hazard brought his right hand around and even remembered to rotate it at the last possible moment for a snap of maximum power. Perfect strike. It caught Saad flush on the left temple, sending him against the steering wheel and instrument panel. He slumped down, his dead weight settling.
Hazard pulled Saad back to the seat, shoved him over, and propped him up and put the chauffeur’s cap on him. He looked asleep but Hazard was fairly sure he was dead. Blood was coming out of Saad’s left ear.
Hazard picked up Saad’s knife, got out, and threw it into the river. A harbor police boat was coming downstream at that moment, a short way out, patroling. Hazard’s plan for Saad had been the river but now with the boat and possible phone call, he decided to get away from there.
He drove out and turned north to Jay Street, went up the ramp and, when he was on the West Side elevated highway, felt very exposed. Cars coming. Cars passing. The city to his right looking as lighted and awake as always. The power of the limo felt unfamiliar and he had to restrain his foot not to use it, kept exactly on the fifty limit. He switched on the radio. Music. A piece of soul. He dialed away from it, got some bad news. The Mets had lost in the ninth on a wild pitch.
He glanced over at the body of Saad and thought of Carl. And again when the lights of the George Washington Bridge came into view. He turned off at the 125th Street exit and headed downtown on Riverside Drive, thinking about how to dispose of his passenger. Maybe just leave him in the car somewhere. But remembering Binzer and the DPL license-plate inquiry made Hazard cancel that idea. He couldn’t rely on Binzer to keep that quiet. No, he had to put the body some place where it wouldn’t be found for a long while, or never. Where?
The limo was stopped for a light at 102nd Street when Hazard heard it. He thought he’d merely imagined it but then he heard it again, definitely.
A short moan from Saad. He wasn’t dead. Almost, but not dead.
Hazard’s first thought was to hit Saad again. He pulled over. All it would take was a sin
gle blow in the same spot. He took off Saad’s cap and made his own right hand into that lethal fist.
But then he couldn’t do it.
Saad was just a lump of a man, too helpless.
Hazard tried to call up enough hate. He told himself he had to. He told himself it was an act of mercy. He reminded himself of the consequences, the danger, if, by some remarkable means, Saad recovered.
Three, four times, Hazard was about to deliver the final blow but he just couldn’t do it.
By then it was ten to three.
Hazard drove around awhile, avoided the major avenues and was headed east on 98th Street near Amsterdam when he saw the lettering on the truck:
SANTIANO & SONS
Brooklyn, N. Y.
The dark green garbage truck was collecting along that street. Two men were feeding garbage into its wide rear opening. No neat tied-up plastic bags in this area. Plain old classical cans, overflowing.
Hazard took special notice of how the men worked, hoisted the heavy cans up and emptied them in. And when the rear of the truck was full enough one or the other of the men banged loudly on the side, a signal for the driver to activate the device that scooped the load into the huge body of the vehicle.
Hazard drove by. A tight squeeze. He had to go slow and he got a long, closer look. He circled the block and kept a discreet distance behind the truck, matching its stops and starts to the end of that crosstown block. He used the time to empty Saad’s pockets. A half pack of Egyptian cigarettes, a ballpoint pen, ring of house keys, and, from Saad’s back trousers pocket, a worn, much-sat-upon wallet containing, among other things, sixty-four dollars.
Half way down the next block the truck stopped at an alley that ran deep between two larger buildings. The alley was half below street level. The two garbage men disappeared down into it.
Hazard Page 10
