The Big Killing (30 page)

What’s wrong with you?
she asked herself.
He’s full of fun, handsome, and he likes you
.
Why can‘t you accept that?
What she had just been through—however horrible it was—had nothing to do with Rick, was not his fault. He didn’t even know about it. So why was she angry with him for not being sympathetic? Because that’s exactly what she was feeling. It didn’t make any sense. Nothing about this past week made any sense.

She followed Rick’s directions, found the reception area, and settled in to wait. What if she was wrong? What if it wasn’t a locker combination? What if the police had already found the locker? What if there were no tapes? These what-ifs were going to drive her crazy. Well, screw it, she would just be wrong again. She should be used to it by now.

She shifted uncomfortably in the chair. What if Rick didn’t come back? He could just take the cassettes and leave. Her stomach flipped. What a wild thought. She shook her throbbing head. She would tell him she felt ill, which she did, and couldn’t go out to Kennedy with him. He’d said she was pale but hadn’t bothered to ask why.

She stretched her legs out in front of her, flexing, and saw uneven red splotches on her hose, spots of blood on her ankles and shins, and her thoughts spiraled back to the office, Jake, blood, Roberta’s mad eyes, the knife slashing down—

“May I help you?” An attractive brunette in a Caravanserie T-shirt, very tight iridescent blue leotards cut high up the leg, and matching blue tights with white ankle warmers, approached, beaming.

Wetzon started. “Oh, no, thank you, I’m waiting for someone.” She looked at her watch. Seven forty-five. What was taking him so long? She crossed her legs, jiggling her heel. She was shaking with apprehension. She stood up, feeling panic fluttering in her chest, as if she were on a caffeine overdose. It was just a combination of everything: Barry, Georgie, Buffie, Mildred, Jake, Roberta ... Leon and Smith ... Barry, who had been so many diverse things to so many different people, and whose greed had started an avalanche ... but he was not alone in the greed department. And whatever Barry may have been, he didn’t deserve to die.

She suddenly felt almost euphoric with relief that it was Roberta who had committed the murders, not someone Wetzon knew well. Smith was—

“Let’s go, babe.” Rick was suddenly at her side, arm firmly around her, and they were out on the sidewalk, racing. A fine drizzle made the streets shimmer. The rush of passing cars, the reflections of their headlights on the wet pavement, dazzled her. She blinked to clear her eyes, but they didn’t clear.

“Yayho!” Rick shouted a cab down. “Kennedy,” he said, pulling the door open. “TWA, International, and make it fast.” He pushed her into the cab.

“Do you want to put that in the trunk?” the driver asked.

“No, let’s just get the hell out of here.”

So much for her plans. Without a chance to protest, she found herself sitting in the cab beside Rick, speeding to Kennedy Airport. “Did you find them?” she whispered. Had he said International?

“Uh-huh.” He leaned over and unzipped a small section of his duffel. It was a bonanza. She tried to count them in the dark, lost count. How many were there? Twenty? Thirty? “They’re marked,” he said. “You’ll see when there’s some light.

Her hands shook as she pushed aside her datebook and her papers and stuffed the cassettes into her briefcase. The distended case would not snap shut. Frantic, she shifted everything around; finally, she heard the click of the catch.
Look
, she’d say to Silvestri,
see what I’ve done—I’ve come up with what everyone was looking for
. She’d worked it out herself. Maybe this would make up for the fiasco with the key. Then maybe he’d care, just a little bit.... “Thanks so much, Rick, but weren’t there letters and papers in the locker?” The briefcase was heavy and she slid it from her lap to the seat.

“I was running out of time. Didn’t look after I saw the tapes. Just some sweats, I think, reports, junk. So, do I get high marks?” He leaned back in the seat and put his arm around her. Possessively.

They were plunging along dark roads through what had turned into a hurricane rain. Traffic was thin. The sky was at times midnight blue-black, pierced now and then by an eerie violet light. The lights from the traffic and the Triborough Bridge gave the outside world a nightmarish cast. A loud crack of thunder followed quickly on a flash of lightning. A Transylvanian night.

By the time they were in Queens, the cab had picked up even more speed, and it was as if they were flying through darkness. Rick laughed triumphantly.
Shrieking through the night
, she thought, irrationally.

“Well, high marks or not, what do you say?”

“High marks,” she said, her words muffled by his lips.

“You taste sweet,” he said. “So sweet.” He was holding on to her, even as she shrank away.
Ice cream man
, she thought.

“Too many Perriers while I was waiting for you,” she said matter-of-factly, trying to keep her heart steady. What was wrong? Something kept teasing her memory. She was having trouble breathing.

Silvestri had called her Les.

“I wish we could have been together one more time before I left,” Rick said.

“We are together.”

“You know what I mean, little girl. I want to make love to you, really make love to you. I don’t want you to forget me.” His hands were on her breasts.

She was frightened. “But not in a cab, Rick,” she said with a firmness she hadn’t believed herself capable of. Outside, it was dark and violent. The lights were bouncing in the rain. Thunder rumbled. Shadows carved hollows in Rick’s face. She had no idea where they were.

“You’re so straight,” he said, turning her face to him. “I didn’t want it to end like this.”

What did he mean by that? Did he mean to hurt her? Was he going to try to take her on the plane with him? Against her will? She was cold, freezing cold.

Over Rick’s shoulder she saw with relief the signs for the TWA terminal. She was determined not to get out of the cab when Rick did. She would just say goodbye and take it back to New York and Silvestri.

“Come on,” Rick said, hurriedly shoving bills at the driver. She was on the side by the sidewalk, so she stepped out of the cab to let him out. Cold rain flew in her face and dampened her hair and clothes in a few seconds. She was eager to get back into the cab and away. Rick came out after her, grasped her elbow, and dragged the duffel with him, slamming the door. The cab took off.

“Wait—” she cried, but it was lost in the noise of the announcement that TWA flight 310, to Mexico City, leaving at nine o’clock, was now being boarded.

“That’s my flight,” Rick said, pulling her along with him. Around them passengers were rushing about with luggage, children in hand: Skycaps were wheeling loaded carts. “No, I’m taking this on with me,” he told the attendant, hanging on to his duffel.

She couldn’t go beyond the metal detector, and as they neared it, she felt her sense of dread begin to dispel.

“I’m going to miss you, babe,” Rick said, keeping his eyes on his bulging duffel bag as it went through the metal detector. His fingers absently played with her hair, and before she realized what he was doing, he had pulled out the pins that held it up. It tumbled in slow motion down to her shoulders. “This is the way I want to remember you,” he said.

She was annoyed and showed it. Above her was a huge sign advertising Disneyland. Mickey Mouse and all the gang. The Mouseketeers, the Three Musketeers, Barry, Georgie, Buffie ... No, Buffie had said Barry was D’Artagnan. Who, then, was the third Musketeer? The one Buffie had called after Georgie was murdered.

The metal detector went off with a small buzzing noise, and Rick leaped forward. “Wait a minute,” he shouted, “I’ll get that. Must be my keys.” He was wildly agitated. “Here, I’ll show you.” He opened the duffel and pulled out some keys on a ring, zipped up the duffel, and they sent it through again. No buzzing this time. “See, I told you,” he said. He set the duffel down, leaving it, and came back to her. He looked distracted. His eyes were black and they frightened her.

“I want to remember you as you look right now,” he said, with an odd laugh. “Pissed as hell at me, and beautiful.” He kissed her on the lips. “Right person, bad timing.” He touched her cheek for a moment with a peculiar gentleness, then he broke away. She watched him racing down the hallway to his plane.

She shook herself. Something was terribly wrong. He wasn’t going to San Diego, he was going to Mexico. She’d enjoyed—no—needed him, but she wouldn’t miss him. Hell, she hadn’t even liked him in her dreams. But he had helped her get the cassettes.

Smith had never liked him, seemed not to trust him. Smith. Wetzon felt a ripple of guilt run through her. Smith was innocent, only concerned for Wetzon, and Wetzon had doubted her, even suspected she might be involved in the murders. Suddenly it all seemed so absurd.

Sighing, she turned to go and bumped squarely into Silvestri, who had been standing close enough to touch her, perhaps even to read her thoughts.

“Goddammit, Silvestri. What are you doing here?” She was angry and embarrassed.

“Working on a case. Besides, weren’t you coming to see me?” He was looking down at her appraisingly. He did not move away. She touched her hair, self-conscious. It was the second time that he had seen her romantically entwined with Rick.

“Yes, but I said I’d get back to you.”

“We had a little unfinished business.”

“With me?”

“With the good doctor.”

“Rick?”

“Yup.”

She half-turned, seeking Rick in the streaming crowd. But he was gone. A child began to cry and its mother tried to soothe it, crooning in Spanish. Why did Silvestri want to talk to Rick?

“A little question of unauthorized commerce.” Silvestri always seemed to be able to read her thoughts. He was scowling, but it wasn’t at her. His attention seemed to be elsewhere.

She was so tired. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Silvestri. I have something to give you. The cassettes Barry made of Jake Donahue’s conversations. Barry had a secret locker at the Caravanserie. Rick helped me get them.”

He looked down at her; his eyes were slate-colored. “Along with a cache of drugs, uppers, downers, painkillers, Quaaludes, you name it. Drugs and money. A hell of a lot of money. Oh, and papers, letters, and a diary.”

“What? I don’t understand.”

“He took the stuff out of Stark’s second locker. The one you had the combination for.”

“No, it can’t be.” Her head spun. “Rick said there wasn’t anything else there.” Something eluded her. “What does the locker, Barry, everything ... what does it have to do with him?”

“Stark and Pulasky were buddies. They grew up together. Pulasky was his connection. Just coincidence that you and I ended up at York Hospital after being sideswiped, but it made it easy for Pulasky to approach you. He had to find out if Stark had told you anything. York Hospital, for your information, Ms. Wetzon, does not have an emergency outpatient program.”

“I can’t believe this—” The Three Musketeers, Buffie had said. Georgie, Barry, and Buffie, only Barry was D’Artagnan. Rick was the third Musketeer, the man Buffie had run to when she was alone and frightened, after Georgie died.

“Pulasky went back to the hospital that night because he’d been told by a resident that narcotics was doing a search of the lockers. The serious drugs were kept in a special cabinet.”

“Then the key—” she said. “It was
Rick
who put the key in my pocket?”

“Yeah.” Silvestri shoved his hands in his pockets. “It was the new key to the drug cabinet. They had just changed the lock. He was being watched. He’s been lifting drugs from the hospital for a long time. We had someone undercover there. Pulasky was feeding the stuff to Stark, who sold it on the Street. When the hospital authorized a search, he got worried we were on to him, so he parked the key with you temporarily, figuring he could get it back easily enough.”

“I don’t understand why he let me have the tapes. He could have used them....”

“Who knows? We’ll ask him. Didn’t cost him anything; didn’t mean anything to him. They weren’t what he was after. It was easy enough to let you have them. It made you happy, didn’t it?”

“I feel like a fool,” she said miserably. “Now I understand why the police were so conspicious that night at the hospital. I thought it was because of you.”

The corners of Silvestri’s mouth lifted slightly. “It was a little of both. You’d better stand here, out of the way.” He stepped back, pulling her with him. “We’re going to bring him through.”

“You’ve taken him off the plane—oh, God—”

“We had to catch him with the stuff.”

“Will he be handcuffed?”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t want to see him. I don’t want him to see me, please.” She was shivering. He’d think she gave him away. But she hadn’t. Why did she care what he thought, damn him. He’d made a fool of her. But there was something horribly humiliating about having people see you in handcuffs, she thought, projecting. What nonsense. He deserved to be treated like that. “You’re saying that Barry was the Wall Street connection,” she said, her back to the hallway down which Rick had disappeared. “And Rick was his supplier.”

“Yup.”

Silvestri was not looking at her. He was watching something happening behind her. They were taking Rick away. She knew she had to face him. Turning slowly, she saw three men in street clothes, one carrying the duffel, several airline security guards, and four uniformed policemen walking toward them. Rick was positioned between two of the men in street clothes, his gray head down; his hands were behind him, and she knew, without looking, that they were cuffed.

Unexpectedly, Wetzon felt anger well up. “You bastard,” she yelled, “you were running out on Buffie.” Rick’s head came up. Their eyes locked. Then he dropped his head and the entourage passed from view.

Wetzon turned back to Silvestri, shaken by her rage. Her cheek brushed the rough wool of his jacket. “Oh, shit. How stupid could I get? Rick was hanging around me trying to get the key back, trying to find out if I knew where Barry had stashed the money and drugs. That’s why my things weren’t where they should have been....” She looked up at Silvestri unhappily.