Little by little, he'd been insinuating himself back into the running of the office. It began when he was still in the hospital and he'd call to discuss the bigger cases with Kipman or one of his other inner-circle bureau chiefs, like V. T. Newbury, the head of the bureau that investigated official corruption and malfeasance. Then he started hinting that he might "drop by" just in case someone needed a little face time or even to quietly "catch up on some paperwork."
That afternoon, Murrow could have sworn that he saw Karp standing across Centre Street. The man had been wearing a broad-brimmed hat that he'd pulled down to cover most of his face, so it was hard to say for sure, but he had the same build, and when he moved, it was with a limp.
Murrow learned that his Karp sighting was the real McCoy a couple of hours later when he got a call from a terse Marlene Ciampi. "Gilbert, this is Marlene," she said, unnecessarily giving her name, as he would have recognized her voice, and been very afraid, in any dark alley. "I'm sitting here with my husband, Butch. Now, Gilbert, I'm going to ask you a question, and I expect you to answer me honestly."
Gilbert swallowed hard. He didn't need her to say "or else" to understand that this was an "or else" situation. The boss's wife had a temper straight from her ancestral home of Sicily and he wanted no part of it. "Yes, Marlene," he answered meekly.
"Gilbert, did you see my husband today?"
Hoping to be saved by a technicality, he answered, "I'm not sure."
There was a very pregnant pause. Then Marlene hissed. "Gilbert, are you toying with me?"
That's all it took. He cracked like a bad egg. "I think I may have seen him… I was across the street, but it looked like him."
"Way to go down with the ship!" Gilbert heard Karp shout in the background.
"Tell him I couldn't commit perjury," Gilbert pleaded.
"No, Gilbert dear, you did the right thing…the smart thing," Marlene purred. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to cut a liar's tongue out of his mouth."
Gilbert had hung up the telephone feeling like a twelve-year-old kid who'd just ratted out his best friend to avoid getting grounded. And he should know, he'd been that kind of a kid.
It was for his own good, he told himself as he carved a curl of lemon peel into a martini glass. There was nothing I could do. She knew. No sense both of us paying the price.
Still queasy at the thought of his close call with Marlene's temper, Murrow jumped at the sound of Ariadne's voice from the bedroom. "I hope the only reason you're so quiet out there is because you're stretching before the big game."
He paused to consider the merit of her suggestion. Not only was she taller, she outweighed him by fifteen pounds and, except for plenty of soft padding in the right places, was more muscular. Sometimes it paid to be limber when she was in one of her "moods."
"I'm shaking, not stirring, baby cakes," he yelled back. He cut the second lemon peel and plopped it into the other glass.
Murrow left the drinks on the counter and walked over to Ariadne's sound system-a Bose that could peel the paint off the walls when she was having a heavy-metal moment-and inserted a CD of Sinatra's greatest hits.
"These little town blues/are melting away/I'll make a brand-new start of it/in old New York…" Murrow sang along with Ol' Blue Eyes as he picked up the drinks.
A lot of people gave him and Ariadne one look and started to giggle. He figured other men were wondering what the voluptuous sex goddess saw in the pear-shaped little man in the wire-rimmed glasses whose taste in fashion embraced bow ties, vests, and tweed coats with a pocket watch.
To be honest, he'd wondered the same thing. But he gradually came to accept that for some unfathomable reason, she actually thought he was sexy, as well as smart. The fact was, however, that for all their physical differences, they had a lot in common.
For one thing, they loved the same music. Their friends might have been surprised if they'd seen them dressed in tight leather pants, leather vests, and dog collars at CBGB's, the seedy but trendy nightclub on the Bowery, attending a reunion concert of the Ramones. But they enjoyed a wide variety of music, including Sinatra and the rest of the Rat Pack, as well as big-band swing.
They were both also fascinated with American history. Anyone who ever listened to the way they talked to each other in some settings might have thought that the only book they had in common was the Kama Sutra. But the truth was that most of their evenings together were spent quietly lying in bed, reading aloud from some historical narrative like Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton.
Who would have ever imagined that Ariadne could be turned on by a dramatic rendition of the Federalist Papers, he thought. Speaking of getting turned on…
"You coming?" he called back to the bedroom. "I think the Viagra is starting to wear off!"
"You won't need any Viagra when you see what I bought at VS today," she yelled back.
Murrow smiled and grabbed the martinis before heading out onto the rooftop garden area that was the chief benefit of the loft apartment on Fifty-fifth Street between Second and Third avenues. Ariadne didn't own the place-she couldn't have afforded it-it was on loan from one of her former lovers, a writer who'd "sold out" to author best-selling motivational books.
At first, Murrow wasn't thrilled about staying in the apartment of a former lover. But she'd convinced him that there was something particularly virile about having his way with her in the home-nay, on the very bed-of his rival, so he'd gotten over it.
Outside it was a lovely fall evening, and the air still carried a hint of summer. The roof had a nice clear view of the top half of the Chrysler Building and Midtown city lights, and was high enough not to be terribly disturbed by honking taxis and the smell of garbage. He placed the drinks on the ledge and reached up to adjust his glasses.
Good thing, too, because at that moment, the garrote that dropped over his head would have quickly accomplished its task. As it was, his hand was caught between the nylon cord and his neck.
Back in the apartment, Ariadne paused her primping to listen. She thought she heard a glass breaking, but there was no sound other than Sinatra and the far-off noises of the city. Gilbert could be a little clumsy; she just hoped he hadn't dropped one of the martini glasses given to her years before by an enraptured British Member of Parliament when she was on assignment in London.
"I want to be a part of it/New York, New York," she sang as she brushed out her hair.
There was no one more surprised than she at her attraction to Gilbert Murrow. Karp's estimate of the number of notches on her bedpost was not totally inaccurate. She'd screwed some of the world's wealthiest, most powerful, and even best-looking men for the sake of a story, but she'd given them all up for a nearsighted intellectual who barely reached her chin.
However, she could not have cared less what people thought of her falling for Gilbert. He had a brilliant mind, was well read, and wasn't so in love with his own voice that he couldn't pause long enough to listen to her. And not just listen politely the way some men did when all they really wanted was to get laid. All of this made Murrow more desirable than any athlete with six-pack abs and buns of steel.
Along with the lovable personality traits, Gilbert had a few surprises of his own. For one thing, he was the most attentive and unselfish lover she'd ever known, and with the stamina to keep up with her own healthy libido. He claimed it was from all his years of abstinence. And he was delightfully funny for someone who came off even to his friends as such a straight arrow. He'd also discovered a latent calling for clandestine activities, whether it was assisting her with a story-as long as it didn't involve the DAO-or suggesting having sex in public places where they stood a decent chance of getting caught.
It was almost too good to last, and she worried what was next. Lately, she'd caught him looking at her as if weighing whether to say something, and she felt sure that a couple of times he was about to "pop the question." The idea had filled her with both dread-she'd avoided matrimony like she avoided steppi
ng in the result of someone failing to curb his dog-and, surprisingly, excitement. She'd even tried out the name-change thing. Mrs. Gilbert Murrow didn't work, but Ariadne Stupenagel-Murrow had a sort of magnificently multisyllabic cadence to it.
Ariadne knew that Gilbert was worried about her safety because of the stories. He pointed out a story in the Times that noted that journalism was one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.
"Yes, but not so much here in the United States," she assured him. "Don't worry, honey bunny, killing reporters only brings more reporters and most bad guys know that." She knew that only went so far, and he didn't buy it at all.
The truth was, she didn't know the identities of the men giving her the information for her latest series. One she figured was a fed, maybe FBI, maybe Homeland Security. Someone who didn't like what was going on in the aftermath of the St. Patrick's hostage situation.
The other source spoke with what sounded like a Russian accent. She pressed to meet with him, but he'd refused.
Okay, enough business for one day, she told herself. One last look in the mirror and she pronounced herself fit for duty.
Out on the rooftop, the assassin struggled to finish off the little man, who was putting up a surprisingly spirited battle-stomping on his feet, and fighting against the garrote like a marlin on the hook.
The job had been more difficult than anticipated from the beginning. The woman was supposed to have been alone and her murder staged to look like another Manhattan break-in where the tenant walked in on a burglar and was killed. He'd also intended on raping her for good measure. He supposed some of his colleagues in the assassination business would think that was unprofessional, but he was a man who liked a little fun with his job, and thought it worked well with the break-in scenario.
The assassin had reached the rooftop by first breaking into an apartment on a lower floor and accessing the fire escape. When the boyfriend arrived at the apartment, he'd cursed but hadn't panicked. If necessary, he'd shoot them both, though he hoped to catch them one at a time so that he could use his favorite weapon, the garrote. It was so much more personal.
The killer was a big man, six foot two and 250 pounds of muscle, but he was having a devil of a time trying to choke the life out of the little shit. Blood was flowing from a cut on his target's hand, and it made the rope slippery. He felt his grip giving way as they crashed into a trellis covered with the vines of a climbing rose. The thorns bit into his back as his arm muscles complained about the unexpected workout.
Maybe I'll just drop him over the edge, he thought. He forced the thrashing man over to the retaining wall. But just when he thought he could force him over, the punk-ass boyfriend put his feet on the ledge and shoved back.
"Oof," the assassin grunted as his intended victim landed on his stomach, but the effort seemed to have taken quite a bit out of his opponent as well. Furious, he rolled over on top of the man, and then knelt on his back to get more leverage as he pulled the garrote tight. "Come on, guy, let's just finish this," he pleaded, winded from the effort.
"Hey, asshole!"
The killer heard the voice behind him and reacted instantly by shoving his victim forward and standing. Without hesitating, he whirled with a back kick that should have caught the woman in the head. But she wasn't standing where she'd been when she spoke, and he struck nothing but air.
Then there was a moment when time stood still and he found himself facing a beautiful Amazon in a push-up bra, crotchless panties, garters, and nylons. But he also noted that the look on her face wasn't one of fear, as he would have expected; it was pure, unadulterated rage.
Only then did he see the baseball bat-the wooden Louisville Slugger. A baseball fan, he recognized Joe DiMaggio's signature on the barrel right before it caught him in the mouth, driving his front teeth down his throat, smashing his nose into a pulp, and propelling him backward toward the ledge.
Dazed, he was, however, not finished. He reached for the pistol in his waistband. But as well trained and fast as he was, he was no match for the angry woman.
"Nobody…" the big blonde snarled. The bat whistled down and caught him on the wrist, crushing the bone. The gun flew out of his hand.
"Fucks…" A backhand blow with the bat caught him on the elbow of his other arm, making it impossible to lift that hand to ward off the next blow, which caught him in the rib cage.
"With my…" The last blow caught him in the side of the head and sent him over the wall and into space.
"Boyfriend," Ariadne concluded as she looked over the edge at the body lying on the sidewalk five stories below. A woman who had been walking her poodle past the building started screaming and frantically yanked on the leash as her dog tried to inspect the pool of blood spreading from the corpse.
Ariadne turned and ran back to Murrow, who was staggering to his feet as he pulled the garrote off his neck and threw it to the ground. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wrapped it around his injured hand. Then, with her arm around his shoulders, they walked over to the wall and looked down.
A crowd had gathered around the body and several people were looking up and pointing at the faces of the man and woman on the rooftop of the building above them. Several were on their cell phones, apparently summoning the sirens that could be heard in the distance.
Murrow pulled back from the edge and looked at Ariadne. "Wow, that's some outfit," he croaked with admiration. "But the cops will be here in a few minutes. You might want to cover up."
"You think?" Ariadne asked as she went inside, picked up the telephone, and dialed 911, turning back to face him.
"Well," Murrow gulped, "only as long as you promise to wear it again sometime."
As Murrow and Ariadne pulled back from the parapet, a man who'd been sitting in the back of a stretch limousine down the block and on the other side of the street reached forward and knocked on the partition. "Let's go," he said when the driver lowered the glass.
"Yes, sir, Mr. Kellagh," the driver replied.
As the car pulled away from the curb and rolled past the crowd around the body, Kellagh shook his head and muttered, "Myr shegin dy ve, bee eh."
3
Surrounded by darkness, it took a moment for Lucy Karp to realize that she was in the trunk of a car. Unable to see, she paid closer attention to her other senses-heard the whine of the wheels on the road, and smelled the old rubber of the spare tire and the fumes of a leaky exhaust.
Hope I don't die from carbon monoxide poisoning, she thought, then realized that she was not thinking in English. Euskara? Why am I thinking in the Basque language?
That she understood what she was thinking came as no surprise. She was a hyper-polyglot, a term used by linguists for someone capable of speaking six or more languages fluently. In Lucy's case, she was a hyper-polyglot times ten, having learned nearly sixty unique languages in her twenty-one years, plus a number of variations. In fact, her "gift" qualified her more as a language savant; unlike someone who studied and practiced languages to become fluent, she could pick them up simply by listening to others speak, sometimes in an afternoon.
But why Euskara? Maybe I got hit on the head?
Lucy didn't dwell on her mind's choice of language for long. She had a more serious predicament and needed to think clearly, but her heart was pounding like a drum. Taking a cleansing breath as she'd been taught by John Jojola, a Pueblo Indian police officer from Taos who had become something of a spiritual advisor to Lucy and her mother, she calmed herself and concentrated on noting details that she hoped might somehow help her situation. She could tell it was a big car from the size of the trunk and the heavy, solid ride. American-made…probably a Cadillac or Lincoln.
Lucy couldn't recall how she got in the trunk. In fact, there seemed to be several lapses in her short-term memory. She knew that she was living in New Mexico with her boyfriend, Ned Blanchet, after returning from Manhattan, where they'd helped foil a plot to kill the Pope.
No, wait, my dad got shot, she
thought. Then Ned went back to Taos because the ranch needed him… And he's probably grown a little tired of "vacations" with the Karps… But I stayed until Dad was going to be okay, then I went back to New Mexico.
After that, her mind was drawing a blank. She wondered how long she'd been in the trunk. Hours, anyway.
The road apparently had a lot of curves, judging from the way she was jostled back and forth. And the sound of the tires was a monotonous whine broken only by the occasional growl of a car passing in the other direction. It all added up to the conclusion that she was being transported along a rural two-lane highway in the mountains of New Mexico.
Suddenly, the monotony of the road noise was broken by a thunderous rumbling, as if the car were passing through a storm. She was trying to identify the sound when a whistle shrieked, making her jump and bump her head on the trunk lid. A train. We're driving next to a train.
Soon thereafter the car slowed and turned left onto a gravel road, judging by the crunching sound beneath the tires. They didn't go far, however, before stopping, apparently to allow the train to pass. She could hear it thundering just in front of the car.
Remember all of this, she told herself in Euskara, it will be important later.
The train passed and the car moved forward again on the gravel road, but again, only for a few more feet before it stopped. Someone got out of the car and she could hear voices. Then someone got back in, a gate creaked open, and the car drove forward again.
After what she assumed to be a mile or so-given the time and her approximation of speed-the car swerved to the right and continued on for another mile or so. When it stopped, all four doors opened and she heard footsteps approaching the rear of the car.
Need to escape, she thought. Get to a telephone and tell the cops to drive several hours along a two-lane rural highway that at some point runs parallel to a train track. Then turn on the gravel road…
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