Deadline (37 page)

Yell, I thought. I tried. My voice came weakly.

“Help me. Help.”

My hands burned. I inched along on my chest, one hand on granite, one on the jagged edge of the ice where it had broken on my last heave.

Vern, I thought. Up there.

I moved ten feet along the wall. The ice shattered, and I slid down into the blackness, my arms flailing. I hit something solid. Something down there, two feet under the water.

My feet hit, deeper. I kept paddling, and my hands and feet bumped it until my boot caught and I was thrown forward. I set my foot again and stood up. Slipped. Stood. Up to my knees in the searing water. I groaned at the pain in my hands. My hands were bloody.

I slipped and fell to a crouch, back in the water. Something jabbed my chest and I grabbed it. A metal rod. I was standing on something. A submerged car. The rod was a radio antenna.

My face shook. My limbs were someone else's. The pain was all mine. I put my hands between my legs but there was no warmth there. I rocked in the dark.

I tried to scream. It came out an unearthly, shivering sound.

Something hit the ice.

Close.

Vern. He didn't have to shoot. Just wait.

I looked up. Saw the sky bright at the top of the wall. I measured the distance and let myself fall toward the granite.

My hands hit and I stood, feet on the car in the water, arms outstretched to the wall. I eased myself along. For what? Delay death five minutes. My teeth rattled. I wanted to see Roxanne. I did. We couldn't end on that note. Not fighting.

I felt something above me and looked up.

“Should have let me shoot you. Save you all this trouble.”

I looked up. Vern was looking down, a black figure against the sky. I tried to talk, concentrating on each word, but nothing came out.

“You really call Roxanne, or you bullshitting me?” he said. “Really, Jack. 'Cause if you didn't, hey, maybe there's something we can do. Work something out. Come on, buddy. No crap this time, okay?”

I tried to figure it out. I was too cold. Too cold to think.

If I said I did call, it's too late for him. Word was out. If I didn't call her, I was the only one who knew, except for Vigue. The cab driver. But he doesn't know what he knows. If I didn't call, more reason to kill me? No reason?

My teeth were pounding. I put my hand to my face to stop them and my fingers were blue-gray.

“I called,” I said. “I did. I … I didn't know it was you. God. God, Vern. We're friends. I could help … help you.”

“Could nothing. What? Give me an hour head start?”

“Don't. Don't go after her. Get me out … out of here.”

I could see the gun hanging at his side.

“Go after Roxanne? Jackson, you must think I'm some kind of animal or something. I tried to tell you about this so you wouldn't think that. Too late. Right. I think you're right about too late. Too late for me. Too late for you. Too late to stop this friggin' roller coaster.”

The gun cracked. I jerked. Waited to feel pain. Blood.

There was a thud on the wall. A clatter. Vern's boots came over the edge. Then his legs, his belly, fell and crashed and ice and water showered over my head.

He floated, the back of his jacket puffed with air.

“Thanks,” I said. “Thanks a lot.”

I stood in the water and watched him and felt very tired.

Hypothermia. I was, quite simply, freezing to death.

I couldn't feel my feet. My hands were blue. I took one hand off the wall and tried to flex my fingers. They moved. Barely.

Vern was sinking as the air leaked from his jacket. Air pockets, I thought. Guns in his pockets.

The gun.

It had hit the wall but hadn't come down. If I could fire the gun, somebody might hear. Somebody might come. They might come in time. I slid my hands together on the wall and tried to pull my sleeve off. My fingers wouldn't close on the parka. I clasped one hand with the other and squeezed the right hand shut on the left sleeve. The hand slid up and I shook the coat off, one arm and then the other, and let it fall into the water at my feet. It was wet and heavy and I wondered if I could lift it. I pulled it to my waist and water streamed down my legs. I spread them and swung the parka over my shoulder. Then, like a hook shot in basketball, I swung it toward the top of the wall.

It hit a foot short.

Once.

Twice.

Three times. Each time gathering it up from the water became harder.

I was freezing.

I couldn't feel cold. I couldn't feel much of anything.

Time was running out. I needed something longer but there wasn't anything. No branches. No boards floating. Just Vern.

I crouched and reached for his legs, just below the surface. Pieces of ice bobbed around him and his hair moved under the water. I pulled him by the jacket and turned him over, and his eyes stared upward. There was a dark hole in his temple. I grabbed hold of his hand.

The hand was cold and still. The jacket was sodden and it was hard to work the end of the sleeve over his fingers. I alternately tugged and stuffed the fingers up the sleeve until I could pull the arm of the jacket off him. Then I went to work on the other arm, my fingers like little pieces of wood. Finally, the other sleeve slid off, and Vern turned once and sank out of sight.

The jacket was longer than mine. Not waist-length, but heavier. I gathered up the cloth and felt something in the pocket. I dug the folds. My fingers felt something as if it were miles away.

A box of shells.

I pulled them out and heard one plop into the water. The cardboard box came apart and I quickly rammed the whole mess down the front of my pants.

The coat was heavy as lead. I dropped the sleeves into the water and grabbed the end of the hem and swung it around behind me. Water streamed down my back and I could feel the cold.

Freezing.

The spot I picked was about three feet to the left of where Vern had fallen. If he shot himself with the gun in his right hand, the gun should go to his right. My left. I picked it up with both hands.

It was heavy to lift, all sodden wool. I swung over my right shoulder and it reached the top, the spray draining back down the granite. Again. It slid back.

Nothing.

The sound. I'd hear the metal scraping and I'd trap it against the wall as it came down. I hoped. I had to hope.

I swung again, a foot farther to the right. Something fell and I lunged. Missed it.

It floated. A piece of board a foot long.

Again, I told myself. I screamed. The sound was lost. I swung the jacket.

Something clattered. I fell against the granite, pinning the fabric against the rock. Frisked it.

Nothing.

My feet had disappeared underneath me, somewhere beyond the point where feeling was lost. I was going. Slowly, it was working its way up.

When I couldn't stand, I'd fall. Like Arthur.

I looked up for another try. I'd heard it. Up there, five feet away. Just five feet.

The jacket came up slowly. I swung. It slapped the rock and something scraped and I nearly fell as I pinned the jacket as it fell toward me.

This time I felt it. I put my hands underneath it, two lumps of flesh. I let the jacket fall toward me until a black butt showed against the granite.

I reached one hand up slowly and gripped the gun above the butt. I drew it toward me.

I was armed.

The snow would muffle the sound. If someone heard it, they would listen, hear nothing, and dismiss it. I raised the gun to the sky and pulled the trigger with both hands. My fingers moved by millimeters and the gun banged and kicked.

I screamed.

Shoot and shriek.

I did it four times. The fifth time the revolver clicked. I lowered it and dug in my pants for the other shells.

It took me precious minutes to fish out a shell. Several more minutes to break open the cylinder. Trying to aim the shell into one of the chambers, I dropped it into the water.

The cold.

Methodically, with no other hope, I shoved my hands inside my pants.

I got six in the gun, one at a time. Shrieking hoarsely, I fired into the sky. Once. Twice. Until the gun was empty again.

I was tired. I felt like sitting down.

“Fight it,” I screamed. “Fight it.”

I had six shells left. After that I had screams. Screams until I ran out of those too.

“Fight it!”

I dug in my pants again.

Stopped.

Something. Something up there. I'd heard it.

I shrieked and fumbled for the shells. Dropped one. Got one in. Another.

Two more made five.

I heard it again. Someone was up there.

Shrieking, I raised the revolver and fired. I shouted.

“Help me! Help me! Help me!”

I heard a voice and stopped.

“Put the gun down and put both hands up.”

“Over here!” I screamed. “Over here!”

It was over. There'd be cops. Ambulance. A hospital. They'd get me out. Out of this and into warm.

I shouted again. No words. Just joy.

Standing in the water, I looked up. There was someone standing above me.

Vigue.

27

H
e looked down, his boots on the edge of the wall.

“My God, get me out,” I said, my teeth rattling uncontrollably.

“Put down the weapon,” he barked.

“It's … it's me. I've got to get out … fast.”

“Fine. Just put the gun down before you hurt somebody. What's that there?”

I looked down.

“Vern's. Vern's jacket. He's gone. Shot himself. I've got to get out now. Out of here. Get me out of here.”

I leaned against the wall, my right hand holding the gun, finger frozen to the trigger. Vigue bent to one knee.

“What'd he tell you?”

I didn't understand.

“Get me out!”

“They're coming. Soon. What happened? With Vern.”

I tried to follow the questions.

“He's gone. Killed … killed himself. Tried to kill me. Arthur wanted out. He killed him.”

“What'd he say about me?”

“Nothing. I don't know. You knew him. About him. Where are they? Where are they?”

“Coming. Just take it easy. Take it easy.”

“Out. Out. Get me out!”

He was kneeling on the edge of the wall. His hand came down.

“Toss the gun up here,” he said. “Just throw it up here.”

I listened. I heard my teeth chattering.

No sirens.

I pushed off the wall. Took the gun in both hands. Pointed it at Vigue's face.

He smiled.

“Jack. I'm here to help you. You've got to get to a hospital. Now drop the gun.”

With a frozen thumb, I pulled at the hammer. It started to slip and I caught it. Vigue's smile disappeared.

“You shoot me, we're both dead. We've got one dead. Let's not make it three.”

“Call them.” My jaw clenched. “Slow. Get out the radio and call. Talk loud. I want … I want to hear them answer.”

He reached for the portable on his belt. The radio came into view. He raised it slowly to his mouth. He licked his lips.

“Call.”

“Twelve-one to comm center. We've got a man in the canal. Off the access road.”

The dispatcher answered. He hadn't read the location.

“Tell 'em. Tell 'em it's where Arthur died.”

My fingers were frozen. I couldn't pull the trigger.

“I'll kill you. I will.”

Vigue looked down at me.

“Twelve-one, comm,” he said slowly. “That's the access road. Same place where we had Arthur Bertin.”

28

T
hey said the rescue crew had to pry the gun from my hands. I didn't remember it. I didn't remember much, just glimpses of lights and shouting, and a doctor slitting my clothes with giant shears as big as hedge clippers.

It was five o'clock Wednesday afternoon when I woke up, groggy from Demerol. My hands were wrapped in bandages. I thought I had all my fingers; I wasn't sure.