The Oni, page 7
“Two.”
Fuchsia dropped the coat to scoop up his homemade nightstick from behind the radiator. He heaved it through the window.
Carver staggered back. His gun arm rose to fend off flying glass shards. The stick bounced off his shoulder. He heard it clatter on the sidewalk below.
“Three!”
Behind Fuchsia, the apartment door splintered. The cheap lock popped loose, thudding on the linoleum.
Fuchsia clambered out the window. He was lucky the cop’s fingers hadn’t been on the trigger. Jagged glass gashed his leg; he didn’t have time to notice or worry about it. Carver blocked the way down. The officer’s shoes slipped on the wet grillwork, but he kept his balance and he still held the gun.
Fuchsia went for the roof. Cold rain stung his skin.
“Son of a bitch!” Carver screamed. His footing was steady now, but his lower back throbbed where it had banged against the railing. Crimson peppered his face and hand where flying glass had bitten. Eyes watering—from rage, he thought—Carver hauled himself after the criminal. Evans shouted at him from inside the apartment, but the wind whipped his words away.
“I’ll get him!” Carver yelled back.
Weakened by flu, Fuchsia stumbled over one of the eaves. Flesh scraped from his knees and palms. He rose on shaking legs. In shorts and slippers, he found the chilling damp overwhelmed other sensations. He did not feel blood pumping from the severed artery in his right calf, was unaware of the sticky red trail he left on the way to the adjoining roof. His only thought was that, with a good head start, he could reach another fire escape and descend to Eighty-Ninth Street. It would be better to go down through another building, but he couldn’t spare the time to look for a roof trap that wasn’t bolted shut.
If only there was some decent cover up here!
Carver was panting as his free hand grabbed the looped top of the fire escape. He heaved himself up and over. Fuchsia’s blurry silhouette wove ahead of him, he couldn’t tell how far. Rain cut down on visibility, though it didn’t feel as if it was coming down that hard and he didn’t remember reports of fog.
Faces appeared at the windows of taller surrounding buildings. Carver did not see those at all.
Fuchsia tripped, smashing one knee on gravel-strewn tarpaper and gasping for air. Sweat and rain turned to ice on his flesh. He looked back. The blue uniform came up fast. He’d cornered himself. The next building after this was four stories higher and separated from this one by a wide, garbage-filled alley.
“Police! Freeze!” shouted Carver. The patrolman took a two-handed shooting stance, feet spread. “Or I’ll blow your balls off!” He fired a warning shot straight up, then lowered the revolver barrel chest-high.
Fuchsia spat something thick and yellow into the alley. It struck with a sucking noise. No miracle escapes today. He struggled to his feet, raising his hands. It was over.
Behind Carver, the roof trapdoor on Fuchsia’s building popped open. The patrolman swung his head at the sound. Evans thrust his long face out into the drizzle.
“Don’t shoot, Carver!” the detective said. “He can’t go anywhere!”
The rookie’s ears were buzzing. He recognized Evans’s voice, felt relieved that his back was covered. But the sergeant must have seen something that Carver couldn’t, because the patrolman heard only one word distinctly.
Shoot.
The bullet caught Fuchsia high on the left thigh. The pusher twisted sideways at the impact. His right leg, the slashed one, folded under him. His arms flapped wildly for support. One hand slid along the lubricous rooftop and over the lip.
Fuchsia toppled head first into the alley, five stories below.
His scream was horribly brief.
Carver felt locked in position, legs apart, gun stretched out before him. His limbs refused to move. His throat burned. He’d never killed a human being. He hadn’t wanted to kill this one; just stop him.
Evans walked up behind him deliberately, making sure Carver heard his footsteps. He reached the patrolman’s side and gently pried the revolver from stiff but unresisting fingers. Evans slipped the .38 into his raincoat pocket.
“What … ?” rasped Carver. His arms sank to his sides.
Evans walked to the edge of the second roof and peered down into the alley. He turned away with a grimace.
Onlookers in the neighboring buildings shouted angry abuse. A hurled bottle exploded with a loud pop somewhere; it never had a chance of hitting either policeman. Evans realized that the longer they stayed in view of the outraged community, the more likelihood there was of a riot. Last night, in Miami, police had shot an unarmed juvenile, and that city was already erupting in violence. The cancer spread too easily.
“Jesus, Carver,” he said when he stood before the patrolman. “You didn’t have to kill him.”
“It was a warning shot,” Carver mumbled. “A warning. I wasn’t trying to hit him.”
Evans shook his head. “Internal Affairs will eat this one up. Christ! Don’t tell me you thought he was going for a weapon in his fucking underwear! He even threw away his stick!”
Carver swallowed, hard. His face glittered with moisture. He raised a hand to clear his vision.
Evans got a close look then. Suddenly, he yanked Carver’s arm aside.
“Don’t rub your eyes!”
“Blurry,” Carver muttered.
“I know. They’re probably full of glass splinters. We have to get you to a hospital.” Still gripping Carver’s arm, Evans led him to the roof trap. “I’ll go down the ladder first. You follow. I’ll watch that you don’t miss your footing. And don’t even think about touching your eyes! Understand?”
Carver nodded. He licked his lips, tasting salt.
Welling up from the street came the wail of sirens, replying to a 911 call. Evans was grateful that someone, at least, was doing something more productive than littering.
Carver knelt by the open trap. His fingers trembled over the metal-edged lip. His uniform clung to his back. Rain dripped down his neck. That object just ahead, slowly sinking—that had to be Sergeant Evans. For all that Carver could see, it might have been a dying vine, or the Loch Ness monster.
“I guess this wouldn’t have happened to Lieutenant Foster,” Carver said gloomily. His lips thinned.
Whup-whup-whup echoed from the direction of Broadway, growing swiftly louder. Evans paused, looking up into Carver’s bleeding face. He sensed the patrolman was fumbling to form an apology, something he rarely did.
“Fucking right it wouldn’t have happened to Amos,” the sergeant growled. “The lieutenant would’ve been in charge, and I’d be the one taking a faceful of window on the fire escape. You want to snap it up? That’s okay, I’ve got your leg. I hear an ambulance whooping away down there, and you need it more than Fuchsia.”
CHAPTER 13
Mrs. Barclay had a touch of the fantastic or surreal about her that had briefly drawn Cooper from her languor, but she began to regress as she crossed the first floor landing. The remaining three flights took hours, it seemed, and when Cooper did reach the top floor she felt as exhausted as if she’d run up. Passing certain doors, she’d heard muffled scrapes and taps and, once, a rush of water. Not every tenant was at work today. Still, although stairs and floorboards creaked beneath her tread, no one looked out to question her.
She stood before the door to Lynda’s room, breathing deeply, gripping the key with bloodless fingers. Her hand crept forward, dragging the arm’s dead weight.
The key slid in easily but refused to turn. Cooper jerked her hand away as if the metal was electrified. The building had apparently decided to make her feel unwelcome.
Her lips curled with impatience. That she should even consider that notion! “Pull yourself together, woman,” she whispered. “You’ve a reputation for being level-headed. You didn’t earn it by fantasizing.”
She experimented, jiggling the key in place. When she withdrew it the thickness of a fingernail, the key practically turned in the lock by itself. Age had worn down the metal tip, The serrations had overshot the pin-tumblers of the lock.
Cooper gripped the doorknob, noting with annoyance her whitening knuckles. To let such a small thing fluster her, even for a moment, was further indication of the overwrought state she’d been trying to deny. Was she trying to do too much too soon? Should she have checked into a hotel and come here tomorrow?
Then she’d have been alone with her thoughts for the entire day.
To hell with that.
Cooper turned the knob. The door swung inward with a faint squeak.
Hazy sunlight poured through the south-facing windows. It reminded Cooper of her first glimpse of the glass-enclosed elevator in the middle of the room at the Medical Examiner’s building, before Lynda’s body rose into view. She rushed forward to close the Venetian blinds. Then she opened a window. The southern exposure combined with radiator steam to make the room unbearably hot on this drizzling but unseasonably warm winter day.
Cool, damp air rushed in. Cooper let it push her back until her calves found the edge of the bed. She sat. Plastic buttons on the unpadded mattress dug into her rump. For no good reason, she clutched her purse against her stomach with both arms.
An empty armoire stood at the foot of the bed, doors flung wide, drawers half open. Even the drawer of the night table, which Cooper could reach with her left hand if she dared to let go of her purse, stuck out far enough to bare its yellowed paper lining. The waste basket was also immaculate. Perhaps Lynda Cooper had never lived in this room, after all. Perhaps she’d never existed.
Occupied or not, furnished rooms seem emptier than unfurnished apartments. The difference was between a failed promise and one yet to be fulfilled.
There was nothing here for Francine Cooper.
She wanted to leave. She tried to stand. Instead, she slumped forward, catching her chin in her palm, bracing elbows on knees. Her eyes focused on the relatively brilliant thin white lines between the slats of the ill-fitting blinds. Incredible that the cloud-shrouded sun should still be so high in the sky, after everything that’s happened on this brief winter day: the dawn visit from the Boston detectives, the travel arrangements, the shuttle flight, meeting Lieutenant Foster at LaGuardia Airport, the muted voices and antiseptic smell of the building on First Avenue….
Yet Cooper had had to see for herself. She’d had to.
CHAPTER 14
As a rookie beat patrolman, before he’d even cracked open a book in preparation for the test for Detective Third Grade, Joseph Evans practiced, for half an hour a day, a stride of two feet, give or take half an inch. It had been an experiment in self-discipline, and he was proud of the ability, although he naturally verified the measurement whenever possible before it went into his report. Foster wouldn’t let him get away without a check, even if Evans had wanted to.
Sergeant Evans paced the otherwise empty waiting room. It was too early for regular visiting hours. The distance between walls was eighteen feet one way, ten feet the other.
“Sergeant Evans?”
Evans stopped and turned in mid-stride. At the entrance to the room stood a tall, white-smocked man with a doctor’s ID badge pinned over his heart or where most people thought the heart was. The detective glared without passion or resentment. The doctor repeated himself.
“You are Detective Evans, aren’t you?”
Evans pointed to the shield still pinned to his lapel. The other man shrugged, slightly embarrassed.
“You’re not the same doctor who’s looking after my man in uniform,” Evans rumbled.
“No. A specialist is attending Patrolman Carver. My name is Asprin, William G., and if you don’t make a joke we’ll get along better. I’ve heard them all. The nurse at reception told me you’d be here.”
A jest sprang at once to the sergeant’s mind, made all but irresistible by the doctor’s plea for restraint. As an officer of the law, however, Evans was disciplined in more matters than leg-stride. He choked it back, substituting terseness.
“So?”
Doctor Asprin rubbed the smooth skin atop his skull. The prolonged but inevitable balding process had begun early, in his last year of medical school. Impatient with it, Asprin shaved his head. His schedule and priorities, however, did not permit daily attention to this bit of grooming, and the lower third of his physiognomy more often than not boasted a fine growth of shadowy stubble. Today was no exception.
“I’d like to ask a favor of you, Sergeant. It shouldn’t be too much trouble, since you’re here anyway, waiting for word on your partner.”
“Not my partner.”
Asprin blinked. “Colleague, then.”
“What kind of favor?”
The doctor looked at the sagging couch. He’d prefer to make his request sitting down. The detective was just as clearly in no mood to be seated. Asprin cleared his throat.
“Last night—actually, early this morning—the Emergency Room admitted an apparent mugging victim in critical condition. I specialize in head injuries; he became my patient. Naturally, our staff called the local precinct house to report the crime …”
“Probable crime,” Evans growled. His neck itched. He saw where Asprin was heading and he didn’t want to go along.
The doctor nodded. “As you say. We were told a unit would stop by to take statements as soon as one became available. I realize that this is not a high priority matter. In fact, the desk sergeant was advised that the man was unable to speak coherently and would not be able to do so for some hours. Still, it’s been almost twelve hours since his admission. I can’t stay here all day.”
Evans studied a spot on his tie. When he looked up, he was scowling.
“You want me to take a look.”
“If you could, and sign a form to prove that we did report the incident, in case something more comes of it. The patient is starting to come around a little. You might get a few words out of him before we renew the sedation.”
Evans put a thick hand to his chin. Bad enough he’d have to file a carefully-worded report on the Fuchsia shooting, a report Captain Matherson would want yesterday and which would be scrutinized by the police commissioner, the mayor, and anyone else who felt New York might become another Miami. If Evans looked at Doctor Asprin’s alleged mugging victim, he’d be stuck with enough paperwork to keep him off the streets through another shift and possibly up to New Year’s Eve.
“Our squads have been pretty busy during that time, Doctor,” the detective began. “You’ve heard of last night’s homicide in Riverside Park? Everyone available is combing the area or picking up suspects. Don’t worry. I’ll call in and cut a team loose for you.”
Asprin’s face fell. He worried his lower lip. “That’ll take another hour or two.”
“Maybe not,” Evans said, his tone belying the optimistic words.
“All right, if that’s the best you can do. Annie’ll have a fit about my coming home late again, but…”
“That’s Mrs. Asprin?”
The doctor nodded. “I suppose I’ll manage to calm her down. I usually do.”
“Sure. A doctor’s wife has to expect this sort of thing.” Just like a cop’s wife, Evans mused. He could almost hear Liz saying that. “Hell. What time are you due home?”
“Half an hour ago.”
“This really belongs to Street Crime. I’m Homicide.”
Doctor Asprin rubbed his stubbled chin. “He’s in pretty bad shape, Sergeant. It’s more than possible that, in a matter of hours, the man will fall under your jurisdiction.”
Evans grimaced. The balance was tipped. “I’ll regret this. You’ll owe me, Doctor William G. Asprin. Lead on.” At least, the detective thought, it would keep his mind off Carver for a few minutes.
CHAPTER 15
Doctor Edwin Bailey’s office was on the ground floor of the Medical Examiner’s building, a short distance from the cubicles in which clerks and typists dealt with records of thirty thousand autopsies a year. The clacking of typewriter keys drifted in through the open door.
Not a large office, but comfortable and tidy except to the left of Bailey’s desk, where Amos Foster leaned back in his chair so that the front legs cleared the floor by a hand’s breadth. His long fingers picked apart his empty coffee container. His eyebrows shifted in dubious time with his atonal humming. He appeared oblivious to the white Styrofoam scraps that clung to his sweater or bounced off the stained gray envelope in his lap before they scattered across the tile floor.
“Christ, Amos, are you still here? I thought you’d left with the mother!”
Like his office, Ed Bailey was a small, neat man, with a fine-clipped moustache and eyes of so light a blue they were nearly transparent. He entered the room and slid smoothly behind his desk, noting Foster’s artificial snowfall with a curl of the lip. His white hair was damp from the post-autopsy shower.
“She didn’t care for my company,” Foster explained.
“I hope you don’t think that I do.”
Foster fingered the gray envelope. “I walked over to the Forensic Lab to see what they’d found so far. Thought you might have something for me to take back, too.”
Bailey removed a sharpened pencil from his desk drawer, ostensibly to write a memorandum. Actually, he’d picked it up in order to throw it down again in disgust. He did so.
“The M in M.E. doesn’t stand for Miracle-worker, Amos. My assistants are still closing up the girl. It’ll take hours to work up tests on what I removed. I just popped in here to use my phone to cancel a lunch date, before I go up to the lab on the fifth floor.”
Foster tossed what was left of his cup into the wastebasket. “You can give me a preliminary, Ed. You know I won’t hold you to early guesswork. Hell, let me feel as if I’m doing something! My squad is busting its collective ass digging for leads, while I cool my heels in airports and morgues.”
“Our basement is full of cooling heels, Amos.” Bailey sat back in his padded swivel chair, bracing one foot on the edge of the desk. He’d give the lieutenant what he wanted—there was no reason not to—but not without a little struggle. Just because he played cards with Foster one or two times a month didn’t mean the detective should be spoiled.
