Ladies' Night (20 page)

A sudden panic seized him.

He couldn't hear her anymore!
There were more gunshots and shouts and screams coming from the hall and maybe that meant somebody was coming to get him but because of them he couldn't hear.

Where was she?

He looked up — it took all his nerve to do it — and the doorway was still empty, thank god. He could feel the hairs bristle at the back of his neck. Terror was robbing him of everything, of all his determination. He was nothing but a scared little kid all over again because he couldn't find the arrow and he couldn't hear her.

And then he almost laughed.

Because he had a whole
quiver
full of arrows right here on his shoulder. He heard more shots as he pulled one free and strung it, turning it to fit the notch to the bowstring, and went back to his crouch position behind the bed.

He'd get her.

He heard the dragging sounds over the others from the hall and knew she was very near him, just at the door, just bending to the open frame. In his mind he could almost see her. He felt a tightness grip his throat like an arid wind.

He heard more gunfire. His staring eyes blinked once.

And she was there.

She stepped full into the doorway, her form in half-shadow, one eye gleaming.

He pulled back hard on the bowstring. The pull was heavy and it was hard to keep it steady but he knew he had to do it right this time, it had to be over. He saw something glint in the light from the hall. The cleaver — raised over her head, stained with her own blood.

If she can do that
, he thought,
if she can pull it out other and then come back here to use it on me — my god! how could you fight something like that?

She was indestructible!

He suddenly saw himself lying flat on his bed while she cut off his arms and legs and piled them up beside him, saw the cleaver pass through his skull and face, cutting it in half, his dead eyes staring up at her from a dreadful new proximity.

The bowstring cut into his fingers. He pulled harder.

Steadied it. Aimed.

And released the arrow.

~ * ~

Vicious,
she thought
.
Olly
olly
oxen free come out come out wherever you are hiding in the dark, vicious,
peekaboo
eyeseeyou
. “
Yours”
something said but the voice so dim and the evil little thing that hurt her hiding in there in the dark so that she stumbled on the had leg as she peeked into the room and shook her head, no, denying it, denying the voice.

How nice how good the evil cleaver.

Vicious
.

~ * ~

She moved just as he fired, the arrow aimed for her heart rising at its predetermined angle with terrible swiftness in the small space between them and sinking deep into the red cold eye. Andy heard her scream, a throaty roar of perfect agony from deep within, like she was burning, and the impact drove her back against the wall so that he could see her in the light, the open running burn-wounds like patches of decay, the legs caked and clotted with blood, the deep meaty gash in her thigh.

He saw her twisted mouth fill with yellow bile like fast-flowing magma, and bright spouts of blood pouring from her eye.

He stood up, terrified and fascinated, thinking,
please, let her die now. Please
.

But she wouldn't.

With the cleaver still clutched in her hand she reached up to the shaft of the arrow and broke it in half midway down its length. He heard it snap and then his own wailing, his own screaming. She shook her head spraying the room and him with blood. She raised the cleaver and started for him.

He reached for another arrow inside the quiver, his fingers slipping on the shaft, slick with her blood — and he couldn't stop crying. He knew she could hear him and that the dark wouldn't help him if she did but he couldn't stop.

Suddenly the cleaver split the bed in front of him clear down to the box-spring. He threw himself against the wall. The arrow he'd half-removed from the quiver fell to the floor.

She pulled the cleaver out of the mattress and he saw her wipe the blood from her one good eye, almost seeming to smile at him in the half-light. He reached for another arrow. He pulled it free.

There was no time to string it nor any distance now between them so he dropped the bow to the bed and held the arrow out in front of him with both hands. The arrow felt thin, fragile. He clung to its frailty.

She drew back, ready to split him this time.

"Andy!"

It seemed impossible but he heard it. Once and then again. Nearer.

"Andy!"

She heard it too. She turned her head and listened.

"Dad!" he screamed. "Here! Here!"

He saw her in profile for a moment, turning, the broken shaft of the arrow tilting, rising with the upward sweep of the cleaver and then her back was to him and she was poised to strike, down into the shadows at some creeping ghost moving low across the floor in front of her and thrusting something forward into her belly which exploded at her, bursting bits of flesh and bone toward Andy out through the back of her like a grisly
sunshower
.

He saw the cleaver come down and heard it strike. He reached for the bow on the bed, a sudden powerful hatred rising in him because
the gunshot had not killed her, the bitch, the bitch nothing could kill her, he would have to go on killing her forever
.

At her feet he saw his father fire again. She had buried the cleaver in the muscles of his chest and he could barely get the pistol up at all so that the shot went wild into the ceiling. He heard her wrench the cleaver free.

The gun dropped to the floor beside his father's hand . . .

~ * ~

. . .
and Tom didn't care. Because he knew by then. There had been time enough to see the boy alive and then to kill her. He knew he'd killed her. He knew that Andy was alive. He would have wished to live long enough to touch him, he would have wished that very much, but he knew what he needed to know and he'd done what he could. For once
. . .

~ * ~

. . . and Andy heard the muffled chopping sound as the cleaver split his father's skull.

He had the arrow fit to the bowstring and he fired into her back. At the same time he saw a black man's hand reach over his father's body and take the gun.

The bullet caught her in the chest and the arrow in the small of her back. She fell backwards onto the bed and he heard the arrow snap beneath her weight. A bright gaping wound seemed to spread itself slowly across the middle of her chest. He snatched another arrow out of his quiver. He knew she was dead but he did not feel safe and without the arrow it was not enough.

And he guessed it was not enough for the black man either because he saw him step over his father's body and fire pointblank into her open mouth.

The room was still.

He smelled gunpowder. He smelled blood. He recognized the black man as Dan the security guard. Another man he didn't know stepped into the room, looking ashen in the pale dawning light.

They looked at each another and no one made a sound.

Dawn
, thought Elizabeth.
Oh yes
.

The sky was a murky New York grey. The streets were quiet. The sounds next door had stopped.

A cop would be perfect now.
There's a body in my room, officer. Please check the people next door. Look for the boy. I haven't got the nerve
.

She opened the window. The morning air was cool, scented with burning.

She could probably use the hall now. Everything seemed quiet there too but she was not going to risk the hall. Not again.

The tree was very close to the window and the branches were thick enough to support her. She stood on the heating unit and put one a leg out and an arm and grabbed the tree. There. She stared back at her open window. She hugged the tree trunk, thinking of the woman lying on her floor, until the shivering stopped.

She let herself slowly down.
I'm surprised someone hasn't tried to break in here before, she thought. It's not real hard
.

The peat in the garden was wet with dew. She'd forgotten her shoes. There was broken glass on the sidewalk so she walked down the middle of 68th Street toward Broadway.

Bodies. Abandoned cars.

If there are police around
, she thought,
I'll find them at 72nd Street
. There wasn't any traffic so she stayed in the middle of the street. It felt amazing to be able to do that — to walk down the middle of Broadway for god's sake in broad daylight. The city was empty.

Apart from the dead.

She tried not to look at the dead.

She would tell the police first about Tom and Andy. Get them to check. She hoped they were okay.

The sky was brightening.
I wonder if anybody can see that I'm not wearing panties under these pants
, she thought. She'd forgotten them like she'd forgotten the shoes.
I don't suppose it matters but I wonder if anyone can see
.

Somewhere a few blocks uptown she heard a car door slam. She walked toward the sound.

~ * ~

Lederer
kept shaking his head. He couldn't believe the way his chase had ended.

They'd picked up the woman in the prowl car again at Grand Central Station, their own vehicle miraculously intact after going through the porn shop window except for two busted headlights and a dented grille.

The woman was just cruising, looking for somebody to give the crunch to. Then there they were again, trying to broadside her off the road or make her over-drive herself and smash into something.

She'd over-driven herself all right.

She'd turned onto the ramp to the Port Authority parking garage at about forty miles per hour, ricocheting off half a dozen parked vehicles on the first floor and then another half-dozen on the second — and they'd thought,
well, when she gets to the top we've got her. One more floor and she's got to stop
.

She never did.

She never even got to the third floor. It was an incredible sight, really. She rounded a long turn. And then instead of making the next one — instead of even trying to make it — she just kept going, right into the brick wall. And straight through it. So that when
Horgan
slammed on the brakes they saw a hole in the wall like
somebody'd
used a cannon on it and the sound was still booming through the whole garage.

They got out of the car, went to the hole in the wall and looked down. It was a hundred feet to the sidewalk, maybe more. The car was just burning away to nothing. It had landed on top of a newsstand, magazines all around, and he could see them burning too like tiny sparks off the main circle of flame.

They drove back down and saw the National Guard units set up and moving traffic at the Lincoln Tunnel. And just after that they got the order.

The plan was for the police and the National Guard to round up and evacuate every guy in New York City. Cuff them if they had to but get them out of there. They had the city divided into sectors according to precinct, bridge and tunnel exits all closed to inbound traffic. Women were to be brought in for testing. Or else shot on sight. Your discretion.

Quite a goddamn order.

Take this one now.

Did you take her in or shoot her?

She was walking toward them up Broadway at about 69th Street, right in the middle of the street. Damned pretty girl. Body of an athlete. You could practically see right through what she was wearing.

"You want her?" said Horgan.

"Not much."

"Well I do."

Haven't you had enough?
thought Lederer. Horgan stopped the car and slid the gearshift into park, pulled his pistol out of its holster and stepped out of the car. She was running toward him as though her life depended upon it — but they were tricky, some of them. He'd seen it happen.

He watched Horgan take his stance and bring the pistol up, take aim and fire. The girl crumbled to the pavement and lay there writhing. Horgan got back in the car.

"I'm not sure you killed her."

"Maybe not. She was moving. Not that bad a shot though. I'll do better next time. Practice, practice."

"Do me a favor. Hold off on the next one. I want to get back to the station, call the wife. Okay?"

"Sure."

But Lederer could tell he didn't much care for the idea. There were always some cops who enjoyed their work a little too much and he guessed that Horgan was one of them. The man was sweating, mopping his brow. The car actually smelled of Horgan.

He'd never really liked the guy.

He settled back and wondered what in god's name he was going to say to Millie about all this, wondered until they reached the station.