Escape the Night (44 page)

“Once Peter discovered what I used to force his uncle's sale, Phillip would lose nothing by exposing your extortion.”

“
Your
extortion—
I
can walk away.” Barth stood. “I never saw Phillip after our one meeting. I can tear up those certificates and …”

“Then how will you explain the ten-million-dollar check you wrote to Phillip—particularly when you just told Peter that Phillip sold you the firm.” Englehardt tented his gloved fingers. “Or did my man mishear your conversation?”

Barth felt the loss of his volition like the paralysis of a sudden stroke, terrible in its surprise. “You might well be ruined,” Englehardt continued in a relentless monotone, “since Peter would surely perceive that sale as connecting the secret of his suddenly murdered uncle with the death of Dr. Levy—two murders which are otherwise unexplained.” His tone became steely. “Perhaps you can tell me, Clayton, what John Carey would do.”

“But no surveillance can be worth this to me. You had no reason …”

“Reasons are an invention of the mind, to justify the wishes of the heart. I've finally learned that, even about myself. I offered you Van Dreelen and Carey, using methods of my own, because
you
wished to have it.” Englehardt's smile was slight and chill. “Just as you wished to spy on those few pathetic scraps of your receptionist's life that you had not yet purchased for your own perversions.”

Barth could make no sound.

“Oh, yes, Clayton—I watched
you
, too.”

In the starkness of this twisted man's contempt, Barth felt truth like a bullet in the brain; John Carey's scorn had killed his real father, a man so weak and friendless that Barth had fled his memory to pursue John Carey's firm, right into the arms of a maniac. Trapped, he must watch for the chance to regain control. Carefully, he asked, “What do you intend?”

Englehardt's smile became a frightening parody of beneficence. “To give you Van Dreelen and Carey, of course.” The smile vanished. “Now, do you wish to hear more, or shall I proceed without you?”

Slowly, Barth sat down.

The manager opened Carey's door; Gregorio dismissed him, and walked with Palmer to the living room. Together, they stood over the answering machine.

Palmer pushed “rewind,” and then “message play.” From the tape, a voice said, “Come to my office, Peter. Please, I've …”

There was a click, and the machine went silent.

Palmer turned to Gregorio. “Levy doesn't say anything about a tape …”

“Not on this.” Gregorio kept staring at the machine. “He couldn't—Carey picked up the telephone.”

“Jesus.”

“Find him.” Gregorio turned, white-faced. “Find the Ciano woman, too.”

“Peter Carey killed Levy and his uncle, and so must kill himself.” Englehardt touched his bow tie. “I've designed for him the perfect death.”

Barth could not stop watching the man's gloves. “That's impossible.”

“Applying the fruits of our surveillance to the question of the murderer, we change his identity.” Englehardt spoke urgently: each crisp word heightened Barth's sense of vertigo. “Dr. Levy's file is the blueprint which we alone have read. Now Levy's death will lead the police to discover his concerns—Peter's hatred of Phillip, his latent capacity for violence. They find a message on Peter's answering machine asking that he come to Levy's office just before he died; from Pogostin they learn that the stolen tape discloses Peter's reason for so hating his uncle, and so posit that an irrational Peter may have killed Levy for the tape.

“Phillip is missing. The police now fear that this deadly tape combined with Phillip's sale of the firm to cause Peter's smoldering hatred of him to break the bonds of reason. They discover that, in a tragic piece of symbolism, Peter has taken Phillip to his grandfather's abandoned bindery, and shot him.” Englehardt's eyes shut for an instant, and then his voice began racing. “Phillip is found moldering amidst memories which are Peter's alone, murdered with the same revolver that killed Levy—further proof of Peter's guilt.”

“But Peter
knows
…”

“Only Miss Ciano knows for sure that Peter did not kill Levy.” Englehardt paused for effect. “And only Miss Ciano can lure him within point-blank pistol range. You see, we have her up on the second floor.”

“Here?” Barth heard his father's high-pitched twang. “Carey was
right?
”

“For Peter to die at his apartment could lead to questioning of the doorman. Instead, my operative is bringing Peter to our doorstep through the threat to this young woman. Psychologically, he is far too vulnerable to his guilts and fears to abandon her now.”

“You can't involve
me
in this.”

“You
are
involved, Clayton. My operative is on
your
payroll.” Englehardt's tone became deadly. “This surveillance has cost me far too much already to have been for nothing. We're going to be partners now, for as long as
I
wish it.”

Barth thought of his fantasies, now turned to ash. “Partners,” he repeated bitterly. “In insanity …”

“Insanity?” Englehardt stood, glowering. “I've spent too many years explaining too much to men too stupid to understand. Now
you
tell me our surveillance is insane—you're as small and foolish as the little men who fired me.” His speech took on the molten cadence of dammed rage breaking. “
Because
of our surveillance, we can kill two prominent men in a way that replicates the inner life of Peter Carey as disclosed in Levy's files.
Because
of our surveillance, we can persuade the police that, in a final act of self-destruction, Peter Carey then shot Miss Ciano—his sole alibi, whose desertion the files show he feared.
Because
of our surveillance, we know to kill her after shooting
Peter
with the same revolver used to kill the others—the suicide that Levy foresaw, found with the psychiatrist's tape and Phillip's house key in the pocket of his coat.” He turned on Barth, his last words hushed. “
Because
of our surveillance, we even know to dump them where only Peter Carey would ever choose to die, the center of his most haunting memories and nightmares: the tunnel at Bethesda Fountain.”

“Walk casually,” the voice had said. “As if you're returning home from work.”

Carey slowed to a walk.

They had been watching and listening: placing the call, they knew that he would come for her.

Too late, he remembered Pogostin. A snowflake touched his face, began melting.

They knew what he had forgotten; knew what frightened him; knew his passion for Noelle.

Like their puppet, he was walking toward them.

He moved mechanically up the west side of Fifth Avenue, seeing an ice-silver city he no longer loved: the Pulitzer Fountain, the Plaza, the sudden darkness of Central Park.

Laughter rang in the tunnel
…

Carey felt a hand on his shoulder, saw that he had reached the Pulitzer Fountain. He turned.

“An ugly man,” Noelle had said, “with fishlike eyes and a kind of hanging underlip.”

“Hello, Peter.”

The man's smile was hideous.

“
Who are you?
”

“A friend of Noelle's.” The man spoke softly; pedestrians weaved around them, concerned with their own thoughts. “Now, do you wish to see her?”

Blood gushed from her eyes
.

“Who sent you—Barth?”

The stranger shook his head. “Another.”

Someone else had told them of Barth's past
…

Carey's mind reeled. “How do I know you have her?”

The man reached into his coat. Slowly, he placed something in Carey's hands. “Here,” he whispered. “You see, I've been watching you, together.”

Carey stared at his photograph of Noelle.

“Thank you,” the man said quietly. “That's how I've wished to think of her.”

Foolishly, Carey shoved it in his pocket.

“
It's all right, Peter. I trust you
…”

“She's waiting, Peter.”

He had burned the picture
.

“Because if you abandon her, I will simply take your place. And after that, he cannot allow her to live.”

The laughter of the faceless man echoed in the tunnel
…

In one wrenching moment, Carey believed in all that was happening. He looked into the eyes of Noelle's ugly man. “Then why,” he asked, “hasn't he killed her already?”

The stranger hesitated. “He simply wishes to see you.”

They were counting on him.

“Come, Peter.”

Suddenly, Carey knew that Noelle would die if he obeyed.

“
Come
.”

Peter Carey turned and ran.

Twisting, dodging, he sprinted across Central Park South, bounced off a squealing cab and then careened through Grand Army Square, breaking into a dead run down the pathway to the zoo, into the bowels of Central Park.

CHAPTER 16

Carey ran past a black metal sculpture into the sudden dark.

City lights vanished in the tangle of naked trees; he saw only a shattered gaslight, skeletal branches, the cord dangling from a vandalized emergency phone. The path kept twisting downward.

“
Faster, Daddy
…”

He had come here with his father …

Footsteps echoed behind him. Each breath sucked cold air deeper in his throat; the pavement was slick. He slipped, caught himself with one hand, stumbling forward with his palm scraped open as he saw the wrought-iron gate ahead.

“
Time to feed the seals, Peter
…”

Closed.

Footsteps pounded closer. Carey glanced back; the stranger's shadow became larger, nearer. He could not stop.

The gate loomed ahead.

Forty feet, thirty …

Twenty …

Ten feet high …

Carey leaped, catching the bars; straining, he pulled himself to the top of the fence, lost his balance …

“Peter!”

Carey jumped from a half crouch.

Hurtling down, he hit the cobblestones inside the zoo.

Pain shot through both knees: he pitched forward and smashed one shoulder, forehead striking dank stone. He began crawling; rose, stunned and disoriented, saw the shadow of a clock tower …

He turned.

Two stone eagles staring; aviaries; the empty seal pool.

“
Is that what it's like to die, Daddy?
”

Metal rang; the stranger, climbing. There were cages all around him.

“
I would never let you die, Peter
…”

Starting toward the pool, he heard the thud of his pursuer landing, and then footsteps slapping behind him.

“
Would you like to hear some music?
…”

Carey began running across the darkened square and up the steps on the far side, veered right and then left in a headlong rush toward the second gate—leaping, hanging on, pulling upwards as the steps came closer. He turned; the shadow ran toward him.

Reaching the top, Carey jumped as the shadow leaped for the bars.

Martin reached the top and jumped for the other side.

A kind of singing rose inside him; landing, he felt no pain, heard in Carey's stricken footsteps the rhythm of
syrtaki
dancers, beckoning from a warm taverna …

Carey vanished in the dark.

Eagerly, Martin started up the trail from the zoo, following the sound of Peter's footsteps.

Carey's path had no reason or design. Martin smelled his panic like lemons in the wind; the thought of his woman warmed him like retsina …

He need only keep Carey from reaching his apartment, and then Noelle would be his.

He would drive him to the center of the park.

Reaching the crest of the trail, he ran toward the dark expanse of Sheep Meadow without regard to Carey and then turned abruptly north along a wide swatch of cobblestoned road marked by benches, dead trees and winged statues which looked like harpies in the dark, placing himself between the meadow and the echo of Carey's footsteps, pounding senselessly along the Mall …

He was tracking again, and Carey was cut off.

Carey sprinted down the Mall.

Stark, parallel lines of trees moved like sentries at the corners of his eyes; their arching branches cut the sky to a sliver of purple at the line's end. From gaslight to gaslight, his shadow rushed forward, retreated, rushed forward, retreated …

His pursuer's footsteps hammered from his left.

Carey could not see him.

The beat of his own running sounded in his ears with the roar of his pulse and the ragged rhythm of his breathing. Sweat froze on his forehead; his coat was hot and confining; snow fell on his face and hair. He felt himself lose speed, his shoes slipping …

He stumbled, rushed forward again. Through the trees, he heard footsteps running with him.

The man was steering him away from his apartment …

“
We've been watching you
…”

Suddenly, the Mall became an open plaza.

Carey started across the sweep of cobblestones: arc lights captured each movement for the stranger; the moonlit Band Shell gave no shelter; the plaza stretched endlessly before him, bare stone longer than a football field.

The shadow ran parallel, flashing from tree to tree. Its footsteps sounded closer. In the distance Carey saw thick stone pillars, the traverse, steps falling to a pit of darkness.

The lake.

Leaves crunched beneath his feet; his side throbbed. The shadow curled thirty yards to his left, poised to cut him off. Carey slipped again, caught himself.

“
It was dark when I fell, Daddy
…”

The shadow burst toward him at an angle; twenty yards, fifteen. The pillars of the traverse grew larger: Carey saw where instinct was leading him.