Fatal Error

by F. Paul Wilson

  “Isn’t this—?”

  “Yeah, the one you got me.”

  Jack had bought it years ago from Abe as a gift for Julio. Basically a foot-long blackjack—fourteen ounces of lead in a flattened leather sleeve with a wrist strap. A fight ender.

  “What if you need it?”

  “I still got the bat and my little fren.”

  Little fren . . . Julio’s borrowed name for the double-ought, sawed-off ten-gauge he kept under the bar.

  Jack pocketed the sap and headed for the door.

  Out on the sidewalk, the night had quieted some. Only an occasional echoing blare. Drivers seemed to have realized the futility of leaning on the horn. In fact some of the cars were empty, temporarily abandoned while their owners found something better to do—like hang out in Julio’s.

  Jack turned his attention to the bike. It looked like it had seen better days.

  “Kind of old.”

  Juan puffed his chest. “Vintage Yamaha, man. Custom seat, titanium—”

  “Great. I need a quick tour so I can get on the road.”

  “What you use to ride?”

  “Harleys.”

  “Cool. But these ride different.”

  Juan quickly ran through the gearshift, the clutch, and the throttle. Pretty standard, except Jack hadn’t driven anything with a clutch in ages.

  Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Get into an accident and break something major or, worse, wind up dead—what good would he be to Gia and Vicky then?

  But it was the only idea left.

  He thought of them landing and walking into an airport in chaos. Could they rent a car? Maybe, maybe not. Depended on whether the rental companies’ computers were up and running. And then where could they drive? Not into the city. Maybe just catch a shuttle to an airport hotel. Yeah, that might work, but Jack wanted to be with them when they did it.

  So it was Easy Rider time.

  “Remember, this ain’t no Harley. You gotta keep your weight forward on these models. The front wheel comes up easy if you don’t. Keep your feet on the pegs and hug that gas tank with your knees.”

  “Got it.”

  “Yeah?” Juanito looked a little uncertain. “Let’s see you ride.”

  Jack looked at the dead-still traffic on the street. “Where?”

  “Yeah. You gotta point.”

  “I’ll take her over to the museum,” Jack said. “Run her around the lot to get used to her.”

  “Good idea. Want me to come?”

  “Nah. You stay here and hang with your brother. Don’t wait for me though. I don’t know when I’ll be able to return this thing.”

  Truth was, he wasn’t sure what he was going to do with the bike once he got to the airport. No way he could ride Gia and Vicky back on it. If anything happened to it, he’d buy Juan a new one—the bike of his choice.

  “You leave it anywhere, you chain it good.” He touched the pouch behind the seat. “Chain and lock’s in here. Key’s with the ignition.”

  “Got it.”

  He swung his leg over and revved the engine as he got comfortable on the seat. He could half walk, half ride to the museum, only a few blocks from here. Use the sidewalks if he had to.

  “Take this,” Juan said, holding out the helmet.

  Jack looked at his bruised, cut chin. “You say it’s rough out there?”

  “Guy tried to jump me when I slowed down.”

  Jack waved off the helmet. “You hang on to it.”

  “It’s the law.”

  “Somehow I don’t think the law’s gonna be worrying about biker helmets tonight.”

  Besides, if things were heading south out there, he didn’t want anything interfering with his peripheral vision.

  14

  The Museum of Natural History’s lot was deserted and in just a few minutes Jack felt like he’d never stopped riding. On the way to Julio’s earlier he’d picked up an oversize gray Nets hoodie as an extra layer against the cold. He’d slipped it over his jacket. Now he pulled up the hood, tied it tight to give him a full view, and got moving.

  The traffic on Central Park West . . . could he call it traffic? The word implied movement. No movement here. More like a parking lot. And little or no space between bumpers. People had inched forward until they were all practically touching. A lot of drivers had turned off their engines and sat, huddled lumps of frustration behind their steering wheels, staring out at the tableau, despairing of ever moving again.

  Jack rode uptown on the downtown-bound side until he found a small pod of cars with enough space between their bumpers to let him through to the park side.

  Now at least he was heading in the direction the traffic was pointing. He found narrow riding room on the shoulder. The sidewalk to his right separated him from the park, and was less crowded than those he’d seen farther west. Beyond a low stone-and-concrete wall, the trees loomed large and leafless against the night sky, the closer ones lit by the sodium streetlights, those farther in little more than dark smudges.

  The park tempted him. He was sure the traverses were as jammed as every other street in the city, but he’d have better off-road opportunities there. A no-brainer if the sun was up. But on this night, in the dark . . . uh-uh. Odds of running into a wolf pack were a little too high. Be a different story in a few months when he’d start the Annual Park-a-Thon to raise money for the local Little League team. Then he’d dress in appropriate tourist gear and wander off the paths, looking to get jumped so he could mug the muggers for donations. But he couldn’t afford any trouble tonight. No time for it.

  So he’d have to settle for ten or so miles per hour along the CPW shoulder. He could have gone faster, but limited his speed for fear of someone opening a car door in front of him. Even so, he felt like he was whizzing by.

  He’d reached the Nineties, closer to the uptown end of the park, and was passing the twin-towered mass of the Eldorado—one of his favorite Manhattan buildings—when a man’s voice called out behind him.

  “Young man! On the cycle! Wait!”

  If the guy had called out, Ay, yo!, Jack would have kept going, but the cultured tone made him look back. An older gent was standing by the open door of a limo two cars back, waving.

  “Please stop!”

  Jack stopped and waited as the man hurried toward him. He looked maybe sixty, with dyed hair, wearing what looked like a cashmere coat. His jaw barely moved when he spoke.

  “Can you give me a ride? I must get to Columbus and Ninety-sixth. I’ll pay you—handsomely, I assure you.”

  That was the West Side. Jack was headed east.

  He shook his head. “Out of my way.”

  As he started to kick off, the guy grabbed his arm.

  “No, wait! I’ll buy the bike from you. The whole bike. How much do you want for it? Name your price.”

  “Sorry. Not for sale.”

  As he began to move off, the guy grabbed him in a bear hug and tried to pull him off the bike.

  “I’ve got to meet someone!”

  Jack drove an elbow into his solar plexus—hard. The guy stumbled back and landed against the passenger door of a nearby car. A faint “Hey!” filtered from within. People on the sidewalk had stopped to watch. Slow night on Central Park West.

  “So do I,” Jack said.

  “Mister Ausler?”

  Jack looked around and saw a big guy in a black suit get out of the driver seat of the limo and start moving his way.

  “Kevin!” the man who’d been called Ausler shouted, his voice thick with fury. “I need that bike! Get me that bike!”

  Now he was moving his jaw.

  Kevin? Bruno or Jeeves would have been more in keeping with the scene.

  Jack gave Kevin a hard look and shook his head. “You don’t want to start something you can’t finish.” Kevin stopped uncertainly by the front bumper.

  Jack then looked at Ausler. “Didn’t your mommy ever say no?”

  “I offered to buy it!”

 
; Jack twisted the throttle and roared off, passing more limos and junkers and even a pickup truck or two—hedge fund managers, secretaries, laborers, all frozen in position. A traffic jam was an equal-opportunity pain in the ass.

  Riding along the park’s western flank, the only cross traffic he’d had to deal with was at the rare traverses. They hadn’t been too bad, but the gridlock at the 110th Street circle stopped him dead. So he turned east and ran along the top of the park. He made good time there until he reached the northeast corner at Fifth. Crossing that took some doing. He turned uptown again on Madison but had to stop and thread his way past every cross street until he reached 125th.

  Harlem’s main drag was a whole different kind of chaos. Almost a party vibe here. It looked like people had abandoned their cars either to walk to their destination or hit whatever bars or food joints they could find. If you couldn’t drive, might as well get comfortable and hoist a few till the jam eased. A bonanza for the street vendors too—people were lined up for shish kebab and falafel and anything else edible. He spotted a couple of places advertising “soul food.” Up ahead he noticed that the rear door of a Budweiser truck had been rolled up and folks were helping themselves to cases of beer and passing out the cans to anyone who wanted one. The driver was nowhere in sight.

  The result was an impassable vehicular thicket. He could walk his bike along the crowded sidewalks but time was running out.

  Jack needed 125th Street. It led directly to the Triboro Bridge. Only a few more blocks and he’d hit its ramp. The Triboro, true to its name, was actually a series of three bridges linking the Bronx, Manhattan, and, most important, Queens, where it led to the Grand Central Parkway, which in turn led to LaGuardia Airport. The bridges were linked by a long, high viaduct with no lights to slow the flow. Traffic should—should—open up there.

  Well, he could try a parallel approach. He turned around and headed back down Madison against the traffic, then turned east on 124th.

  Much better. Not good, but at least he was able to find a path through the cars. At Second Avenue he saw a sign to the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge. What the—?

  Oh, yeah. They’d renamed the bridge back in ’08, but nobody called it the Kennedy or the RFK. It was the Triboro and would always be the Triboro. Even the traffic guys on the radio still called it the Triboro.

  Jack angled left onto the ramp and ran into real trouble.

  15

  “Lady?” Weezy said, edging into the darkened bedroom.

  She’d never had to address her before by name and “Lady” sounded kind of awkward. But awkwardness be damned, she wasn’t answering.

  “Lady?”

  Still no response.

  Weezy stopped at the bedside and turned on the lamp. The Lady lay stretched out in her housedress, her arms at her side, her expression peaceful. She said she didn’t sleep but her eyes were closed and—

  She wasn’t breathing.

  Weezy dropped to her knees beside the bed and shook her. Her whole body moved. She seemed to be hollow, made of papier-mâché.

  “Lady!”

  A breath, then a barely audible, “Yes.”

  “I thought you were dead!”

  Her eyes remained closed as she spoke. “So weak.”

  Too weak to open her eyes?

  “You weren’t breathing.”

  “I don’t need air to exist, only to speak.”

  “Anything I can do?”

  A thin smile. “Just go on being you. Now . . . I must conserve my strength.”

  “Sure. Of course.” Weezy rose and backed away. “Conserve it. Every ounce. I’ll be outside if you need me.”

  Need me? For what? What could she do?

  She reached for the lamp. “Do you want the light out?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Weezy left it on and returned to the front room.

  “She’s fading away,” she whispered to no one. A sob broke free. “We’re losing her.”

  16

  The Triboro ramp was at a complete standstill. The tollbooths were bad enough. Each of the narrow lanes between them was blocked by a car that couldn’t move forward or backward. Jack inched his bike past a Mini Cooper only to face the worst jam yet. Cars feeding toward the first bridge were packed so close they couldn’t open their doors. Certainly no room for his bike.

  He spotted open space far to the left—the exit to Randall’s Island. Nobody seemed interested in that. Well, why not give that a try? Maybe he could find a way back up to the viaduct that would put him past this logjam.

  A real rush to be able to feed the bike some gas down the empty ramp. After what he’d been through, thirty miles an hour felt like ninety.

  He’d been here once or twice since moving to New York. Mostly a sports park with tennis courts, soccer and football fields, a couple of baseball diamonds, but also home to an FDNY fire academy and some sort of mental hospital.

  Down on solid ground again, he followed a road paralleling the phalanx of huge columns that supported the viaduct looming a good hundred feet overhead. The light was poor down here and he had to depend on his headlight. He was rolling along, looking for a way back upstairs when the light picked up a hint of movement up ahead on the right near one of the columns. Could be nothing, could be bad news, like someone ducking out of sight. His headlight would have been visible for a while now, allowing time to set a trap.

  As he sped through his options, he pulled the sap from his jacket and looped the thong around his wrist. He could have gone for the Glock nestled in the nylon holster in the small of his back, but he was going to need two hands to handle the bike. Still . . .

  Thick brush lined the left side of the road, creating a gauntlet of sorts. He could stop and go back and look for another route, but there might not be one. He needed a way through here that would avoid trouble without slowing his progress.

  As he closed in on the column, he made up his mind. Leaning low over the handlebars, he maxed the throttle and veered left, away from the column. The bike leaped ahead—

  —and someone jumped from behind the column, swinging what looked like a two-by-four. It passed through the space where Jack’s head would have been had he remained upright, but now it missed both high and wide.

  As Jack glanced right to see if his would-be attacker was alone, something hit him from the left. He felt an arm go around his waist in a partially missed tackle. He slipped free but the impact was enough to unbalance him. He squeezed the brakes for all they were worth as the bike tipped. It went over, but he had his arms and legs tucked as metal scraped pavement. He was into a roll as he hit the ground, minimizing the impact. Still it knocked some of the wind out of him, and pain knifed through his right hip as it caught on the rim of a pothole.

  Damn. Same leg that Valez had gouged.

  The failed tackler was on him before he could regain his feet. In the glow of the bike’s headlamp, he saw a boot flashing toward his face. He managed to block it and keep rolling. The move caused a stab of agony from his hip, and then a second kick caught him in the ribs—a glancing blow because of his roll, but it still hurt like hell.

  Continuing to roll, he spotted the Buford Pusser wannabe approaching, two-by-four raised. He found the handle to the slapper—still attached by its thong—and took a wild swing, putting as much arm and wrist into it as he could manage from the ground. Nearly a pound of whipping lead connected with the tackler’s knee. The guy let loose a cry of pain as his leg gave out. He pitched forward, landing next to Jack. With a howl of rage he made a gouge move at Jack’s face, going for the eyes. Jack grabbed his wrist and rolled him atop him just as his buddy took a fence-buster swing at Jack’s head. The board caught the tackler across the back; ribs cracked like twigs as the air went out of him in a strangled whoosh.

  Jack took another wild swing with the slapper and caught the batter’s ankle. With a surprised yelp he hopped backward, grabbing at his lower leg. Jack lashed out with a kick from his uninjured leg, hooking the go
od ankle and unbalancing him. He landed hard on his ass with a pained, stunned look.

  Jack rolled the grunting, gasping tackler off him, struggled to his feet, and hobbled over to the batter before he could recover. The guy took a wild swing at Jack’s legs with the board but missed. Jack stepped in and backfisted him in the nose, snapping his head back, then dropped on him, planting a knee in his ample gut. The guy gave out an agonized grunt. He rolled back and forth, groaning and writhing as he clutched his belly. He bent a knee and as Jack saw it rise he swung the slapper, putting his back, arm, and wrist into the blow. The lead weight caught the kneecap dead center. He was pretty sure he heard it shatter before the guy’s echoing scream blotted out all other sounds.

  After making a quick full turn to see if the immediate area held any more surprises, Jack limped back to where the tackler lay on his side, trying to catch his breath as he struggled to rise. Jack flipped him over onto his back and disabled him the same way—another scream, another shattered knee.

  He straightened and stared at the two writhing, groaning figures. He wanted to say something to them but his hip hurt like hell and his brain was stuck in a nonverbal gear that wanted to kill instead of speak.

  He pulled the Glock and worked the slide to chamber a round. The tackler looked up at him, fear widening his eyes.

  Not for you, Jack thought. Just insurance.

  No need for something so final. No threat to him now—or to anyone else. Chaos might reign in the city over the next few days, but these two oxygen wasters would not be part of it.

  He put the pistol away and turned to where the bike lay on its side. On the other hand, if the bike was disabled and he wouldn’t be able to get to LaGuardia tonight, he might revisit the kill option.

  The bike had stalled after the fall. He righted it, and in the backwash of the headlight, checked it out as best he could. No major structural damage he could see, no odor of leaking gas. He got on, put her in neutral, kicked the starter, and felt a flood of relief as she sputtered to life.