Critical Space (50 page)

The bar was almost entirely empty, and my watch explained that was because it wasn't yet noon. There was an empty booth near the back and I put myself in it, pressing my back to the corner of the wall, watching the door. A tired woman who had painted her face to look otherwise asked me what I wanted to drink. I told her ginger ale.

"You sure?" she asked, peering at me. "Nothing stronger?"

"Just ginger ale," I said, and from a pocket I pulled some of my remaining bills and had to look at them in my hand before deciding how much to give her. In the end I handed over a twenty and told her to keep the change. She brought me the ginger ale and left me alone.

I looked at the bubbles climbing along the inside of the glass and thought about what I needed to do next. When the last of the soda was gone and the ice cubes were rattling at the bottom, I knew I'd already decided I would kill him.

More people came into the place, men dressed for construction work, and they bought bottles of beer at the bar and settled onto stools and glanced my way. The woman came back and silently replaced my empty glass with a full one.

By the time Natalie arrived my stomach had settled, and after she'd located me she stopped at the bar and bought herself a soda, then came to my booth. The construction workers who had noticed only her body and not her face stopped staring when they realized she was coming to join me, and went back to their third or fourth beers. I wondered if they would be operating any heavy machinery after lunch.

Her eyes looked puffy, the skin beneath them a little darker than usual, as if bruised, and perhaps she had cried already, or perhaps she was waiting for a better time. In a soft voice she told me to scoot over, and I let her in beside me, and after she'd sat she put her head to my shoulder, and for almost a minute neither of us moved.

Then she sighed and lifted her head and said, "I called them. They're on their way here."

"They shouldn't be. They should be heading to their homes and then the hills."

She shook her head. "He went to the office."

My stomach lurched. I couldn't speak.

Natalie read my mind. "They're okay, they didn't even see him, Dale just told me that some guy with a bandage over one eye came in and gave the receptionist a sealed box with a note on it, saying the box was for you. Then the guy left. That was all."

"They checked the box?"

"It's not transmitting anything and the chemical sniffer didn't detect any explosive, and when they used the portable X ray on it, Corry thought it looked like a cellular phone."

"Did they read the note?"

"It said that he would call at nine tonight. It said that if you didn't answer, more people would die."

The construction workers left, and were replaced by a few businessmen and women who had apparently all opted for a liquid lunch, and they were more gregarious than their predecessors, and soon they were laughing over their drinks. One of them, a guy perhaps my age with the body of a slipping jock, was especially loud, and I thought about climbing over the table and beating his face in just to make him go quiet.

Natalie didn't seem to like it, either, and after a few minutes of his prattling, began muttering about assholes and how everyone had them.

Dale came through the door first a little past one, Corry right behind him. Their expressions were stressed and grieving and worried. Corry slid me the box and the note without a word as the painted woman returned to the table.

"If this is a drug deal, you all have to order something," she said. It was meant as a joke, but it lay on the table much like the box itself, and when she saw our looks she added, "Not that you're dealing drugs or anything."

I ordered another ginger ale, and Natalie ordered another Diet Coke. Dale and Corry asked for mineral water. We waited in silence for the drinks to come, and after they had and the woman was gone, I read the note and it said exactly what Natalie had told me it did. Then I opened the box. The phone was small and cheap, no frills, lime green. I didn't turn it on, just put it in a pocket.

"It was on the news on the way over," Dale said. "FBI agent stabbed to death in Madison Square Park."

"Everyone's looking for the guy who did it," Corry said. "There's a description circulating for a possible suspect. It matches you."

That wasn't surprising, but it made the guilt come back as strong as ever, and the looks from Dale and Corry weren't helping.

"Get out of town," I told them quietly. "Get Ethan, get Esme, get the baby, and get out of town, and wherever you go, go there together. You'll be able to watch out for one another if you stay together. Natalie or I will let you know when it's safe."

"How?" Dale said.

Natalie said, "You closed the office up?"

"Of course," Corry said.

"I'll change the message on the answering service. When it says we're open, you'll know it's okay to come back."

"You have any idea how long that'll be?" He didn't ask her: he was looking at me.

"Just tonight," I said.

"That's all?" It was clear in his voice he didn't believe me.

"One way or another, it'll be over tonight. He left you guys the phone for only one reason, because he wants to communicate with me. When he calls, I'll offer him what he wants."

"You'll hand her over?"

"Do you really think this is still about her?" I asked.

"I don't know what the flick any of this is about, Atticus," Corry said, and he got up from the table and waited for Dale to join him, no longer willing to look at me, focusing on the door to the bar.

Dale slid out along the bench, unfolding himself and rising to his feet. He left the bar without another word, Corry following after him.

The businessman who had once been a jock finished telling a joke where the key words seemed to be "Polack," "Jew," and "corn-bread."

"Let's get out of here before I kill him," I told Natalie.

We headed out of the bar, and Natalie stayed close to my side as we left, putting herself between me and the man I'd threatened, and it wasn't until we were outside and at her Audi that I understood she'd been afraid I was serious.

I didn't know how I felt about that.

It was almost four when we returned to the house in Allendale. Natalie had taken a roundabout route through several of the small townships that peppered 17 North, and we'd doubled back twice, just to make sure we were clear. There was no one tailing us that we could see, and I doubted that there was anyone tailing us that we couldn't. Oxford had a more efficient means of finding me; for now, I knew, he was content to wait.

Once during the drive, Natalie switched the radio on to one of the all-news AM stations out of New York, and it hadn't been three minutes before the report of the murdered federal agent came on the air. They weren't releasing Scott's name until his family could be notified, and the search was continuing for the man whom bystanders had seen kneeling over the dead man's body. More information was promised on the hour. When the report was over, Natalie switched the radio off, and we listened to the sound of the wipers clearing rain from the windshield for a couple of miles.

"What are we going to do?" she asked.

"You're going to protect Alena. I'm going to meet with him."

"He'll kill you."

"The deal will be he lets it go or he doesn't get the money back."

"He won't let it..."

"Natalie, his employers have pulled the plug, he's operating on his own now. He needs the money. He'll do what I say to get it back."

She frowned, adjusting her grip on the wheel, and I caught her toss me a glance that said she knew I was being simple and stupid, and she wasn't buying it.

"And you really think he'll leave it at that?"

"Of course he will," I lied. "We're all professionals."

Dan let us in the door with a gun in his hand, and I left Natalie to tell him we'd be moving again soon. There was concern on Dan's face as we entered, and I knew the concern wasn't for me, and I wondered once more what had passed between him and Natalie. The guard in the front room told me Alena was in the basement, and I went through the door, quickly shutting it behind me, and then to the stairs, descending three at a time. The owners had a variety of exercise equipment and hobby supplies scattered throughout the basement, and Alena was using an old workout machine with pulleys and rubber resistance straps to lift weights, doing lat pull-downs on a bench. She was wearing a black T-shirt and the brace was still wrapped around her leg, and the sweat was coming off her so I knew she'd been at it a long time.

When she saw me she released the bar, letting it go back into position.

"Who was it?" she asked.

"Scott."

"How?"

"He stuck a knife in his chest in the middle of Madison Square Park."

She reached for her cane and got to her feet. She used the corner of her shirt to wipe her face. Then she looked at me.

"Critical space," she said.

"I'm going to hear from him at nine tonight. He'll tell me that he knows where my parents live, where my brother lives, where my third-grade teacher lives, and he'll tell me that he'll kill them all unless I give him his money back."

She nodded, watching me as I came off the last step and began walking around the room. There were bowling trophies on a shelf with a box of Christmas tree lights and a half-finished model of a '68 Mustang convertible. On one wall was a reprint poster for
Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

"And what will you tell him?"

"I'll tell him he can have his money and in exchange he leaves us alone. Gracey and Bowles pulled out on him this morning, he's working solo now, and I'll remind him of that, and I'll remind him that if he kills me he's never getting the cash. He'll listen to that."

She adjusted her weight on the cane, nodding. "He will."

"Then I'll name a place and a time for him to meet me. I'll tell him that I will meet him there. I'll give him every assurance that I'll be there alone, because I will be." I looked back at her, at her full mouth drawn tight with concern, at her brown eyes that always seemed just a little too big for her face. The perspiration on her brow had run along her cheeks, trailing lines that were like tears. It felt as if it had been years since we'd danced, instead of only two weeks.

"And then?" she asked.

"And then I'll kill him."

There was no visible reaction on her face, no sign that what I was saying disturbed or frightened or even amused her, and for an instant I felt a rage flash through me, blindingly hot, and I hated her for her calm and dead heart, and for what she was doing to mine.

"You will need a good location," Alena said.

"I've already got one in mind. If you're up for a short walk, I'd like you to check it with me."

I suppose she had already guessed where I was talking about, because she went to the stairs and said, "I will get a coat and meet you at the door."

There was a gate in the fence at the backyard, and Miata trotted out ahead of us as we crossed into the wetlands that had once been a farm. The earth was littered with dead leaves, dried and broken twigs, and the roots from the many frees made the ground uneven and poked out treacherously. We took it slow and I gave Alena my arm. With her arm through mine we probably looked like any other couple out for an early evening walk with their dog.

The path forked at an enormous maple that had been large when the farm was still in good order. An old tire hung from one of its branches. Empty bottles of beer and crumpled snack wrappers littered the wet ground around its base. We turned left, and the path narrowed. Miata snuffled along, nose to the ground. On our right, through gaps in the brush and frees, we could see the water beside us, reeds and more brush breaking its surface. It didn't look deep, more a marsh or a swamp than a pond.

After six minutes we passed a small stand that had been built by the State of New Jersey as a bird-watching post. It was made of wood, rotten in places, and had once been painted green. I climbed it while Alena waited below, and had a complete view of the water and the surroundings. The whole area was rimmed with frees, and I could hear the whisper of tires on the Franklin Turnpike to the east. Another bird-watching stand had been erected on the opposite side of the marsh, and it looked as dismal and frail as the one on which I stood. To the north, jutting into the water with its front stoop sagging, was an abandoned farmhouse.

When I climbed back down I told Alena what I'd seen, and we agreed that a closer inspection of the farmhouse was in order, and so she took my arm again and we continued on our way. Miata disappeared around the bend ahead of us, and when we rounded it we found him seated in the middle of the path, chewing on his thigh.

There was no clear path to the house, and I had to push my way through the brush and into the water before I could reach its side. It wasn't much of a home, only one room, and through the long-since-broken windows I saw a small empty space of broken floorboards, more trash. I left Alena on the path and crept around the side, and discovered the only door was the one I'd seen facing the water. I waded in, the cold water filling my shoes, opened the door, and stepped inside.

Kids had used it as a getaway, a make-out spot, although it was hard for me to imagine the place as romantic. Yellow newspapers and rusted tin cans were scattered about, and perhaps two or three hundred cigarette butts floated in the corner where the water was steadily rising over the floor. In another year, or two, or five, the building would collapse with its rot, but for now it was holding the line, fighting valiantly to stay stable. Teenagers would yet lose their virginity within its buckling walls.

This would be where I would do it, I decided, and went back to join Alena.

"There's only one way in," I said. "Unless he decides to break down the wall, he'll have to go around to the door. He'll have to come out the same way."

"Sounds perfect."

"I'll come back after we return to the house, put the card in the far corner."