A Stranger Lies There (23 page)

We were interrupted by the sound of a bucket being rolled across the floor toward us. It stopped right next to me. The water sloshed around inside, then the wet slap of the mop on the floor at my feet. It took him several swipes to get it all up, huffing and puffing angrily, with the sounds of rinsing and the mechanical wringer in between. My guess was that if he'd had to squeeze the dirty mop out by hand, there would have been a mutiny. Just before finishing, he tripped me up with the mop handle, then slammed it back into the bucket with a loud splash. Still fuming, the man rolled the bucket away.

“That's better,” the leader remarked with the putrid smell gone, then continued. “Your story doesn't make sense, Ryder. How did you know to come to New York?”

“The dead guy was wearing a concert T-shirt when he was killed.” A painful cough. “I found the band on the Web and came out here to talk to them. See if they knew the victim.”

Somebody humphed in disbelief. “You flew clear across country on a hunch?”

“I was desperate. My wife was killed.” A spasm of pain down below, but less severe this time. “Flying out here was nothing. I'm gonna find that killer.”

“I like a man with self-confidence. Really, I do. But that bat still has a few swings left in it, if you know what I mean. So tell me the rest of it.”

“There's nothing else. We didn't know shit. Me or my wife.”

“Gimme the fuckin' bat. I'm gonna whack him myself.”

“I'm telling you, that's it!” I yelled, and it came out high and weak, tinged with panic. Gasping in desperation, I threw him a bone. “We had a theory, but it was probably horseshit.”

“I'm listening.”

“There was a guy I ratted out. Years ago.”

“Name?”

“Turret. Glenn Turret.”

“Turret,” he repeated slowly. A few seconds of thoughtful silence. “Why does that name sound familiar?”

“Antiwar activist in the early seventies. Except he had his own agenda. I got mixed up with him.”

“That's right, the bank job. I remember it, it happened before the SLA robbery with Patty Hearst,” he recounted. “Trial was all over the news. I remember thinking what a loser you were.” Someone laughed. “All you hippies thought you were gonna save the world.”

I didn't reply.

“What does he have to do with this?”

“He just got out of prison.”

“So?”

“So we thought maybe it was more than just coincidence.” A pause. I wished I could see his reaction to my answers.

“What, he held a grudge all these years? And now he's getting back at you?”

“I told you it was bullshit.”

But he seemed interested. “Where was he released from?”

“I don't know. I didn't ask. Turns out he was still inside at the time of the first murder.”

“Well then why the fuck are you wasting my time with it?”

“You wanted everything.”

“Who told you all this? The police?”

“Yeah.”

He chuckled at first, then broke into a hearty laugh, the others joining in. Really amused, like they couldn't believe anyone could be so stupid. Finally, they were done. “Nope,” he said, still not fully recovered. “Never known cops to lie before.”

Why hadn't that occurred to me? The police definitely wanted to keep me out of the case, and saying Turret wasn't out in time should have done it. “What's all this to you, anyway?” I asked.

“Where's Turret now?” Like I hadn't even spoken.

“I knew that, you think I would have come all the way out here on a fishing expedition?”

This time I didn't hear the whiplash movement of air before the blow came. A stinging, red-hot slash just below the ribs that knocked the wind out of me, paralyzing my diaphragm and making it impossible to draw even one molecule of oxygen. My knees buckling again, I jerked downwards, still held by the chain around my wrists. The pain radiated outward like an exploding star. My vision went snowy black. No sound except the muffled rush of blood in my ears, as if I were deep underwater, sinking, with the pressure increasing toward blackout.

Which, for all I knew, could have happened for a few seconds, before my chest abruptly moved, suddenly awakened. I gulped in air like a drowning man. Deep, ragged breaths that brought me back into the room, the ambient light once again visible around the edges of the blindfold, the sound of my own wheezing lungs and what I gradually discerned as raindrops plunking on the metal roof. And the pain eating my stomach away like a cancer.

“That was for being a smartass.” His voice, low and threatening in my ear. “And to make sure you're not leaving anything out. And if you puke again, I'm gonna make you lick it up.”

With nothing left in my stomach, throwing up wasn't a problem. Getting enough air to breathe, let alone speak, was. “There's nothing else,” I croaked. “Swear to God.”

“Because if I have to do that again, you'll end up in the hospital. Do we understand each other?”

All I could do was nod.

“Take him down.”

They clicked open the padlock and unlooped the chain. I dropped heavily to my knees. Slowly lowered myself to the floor, where I curled up in a fetal position trying to ease the pain.

They didn't remove the duct tape from my eyes or wrists. “I suggest you pull yourself together and get on a plane back to Palm Springs, Mr. Ryder. Then make like one of those lizards out there and crawl under a rock.” He dropped what sounded like my wallet on the floor next to me. Nobody said a word as they walked away. The lights went off and I felt a puff of air from the open door, then stillness. I was alone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

It took a while to work my hands loose, then I ripped off the blindfold and found myself in an empty warehouse, as I'd suspected. Its echoey darkness suggested far-off corners and unseen spaces. A dark cavern of drifting gray light. Above me, a solitary, smudged window grudgingly admitted only a fraction of the night. I fixed on that window and stayed curled up on the cold concrete floor for I don't know how long, waiting for the burning in my stomach to subside, listening to the sky open up outside. I squirmed like a slug on a sidewalk, trying to find a position that minimized the agony down below.

Practically delirious from fatigue and pain, my thoughts wandered. I caught the scent of oranges still in the air and pictured the early Palm Springs pioneers sitting on their porches after church on Sunday. They'd sip fresh squeezed lemonade in front of acres of sun-drenched citrus groves. The image was so unexpected, so far removed in time and distance and circumstance, that I could only laugh to myself.

Except laughing hurt like hell. Rain drummed in thundering waves on the sheet metal roofing high overhead. Rats scurried and squeaked somewhere nearby. I forced myself to move, gingerly testing my injuries, unfolding my body one part at a time until I was standing upright. I looked down and saw my wallet lying on the floor. It seemed very far away, staring up at me as if to ask how badly I wanted it. At that point, I wasn't sure if it was worth the effort. But I held my breath and bent over, found that the pain wasn't as bad as I'd expected. A quick check of the wallet's contents told me nothing was missing. I put it back in my pocket, my abdominal muscles twitching sorely, but not unbearably with the effort. Maybe the sit-ups I'd been doing since prison had protected me from serious injury.

The chain I'd been secured with hung limp and lifeless in front of my face, suspended from a catwalk that led to an office, where I'd seen the one window. An idea flashed through my head but I quickly dismissed it. My captors wouldn't have left the place open to my inspection if anything in here could tie the warehouse to them. I could make out a razor-thin outline of light around the door they'd used and made my way closer to it. The knob was cold and hard and turned without a sound. The door opened outward into drifting rain. Steady and cool, now diminished to a sibilant hush. In the distance, city lights shimmered between the raindrops and twinkled like stars, as the river, black and shiny as oil, gave motion to the light reflected from its surface. Jersey over the Hudson, I guessed. The stark skeletons of dockside cranes rose into the sky, black spider legs against the smoke-gray clouds.

The salty air followed me away from the docks. Rain streamed down my face and plastered my hair to my skull. In a few minutes I was drenched. Shoes squeaking wetly with every step. Shirt glued to my body like a second skin. But the cleansing downpour felt good, washing away the rankness I'd deposited on myself earlier. I stopped and turned my face upward, eyes closed, until my mouth filled with water and my tongue no longer felt like a thick piece of leather against my palate. I went by more warehouses sheathed in rusting sheet metal. Around listing stacks of wooden pallets and hulking metal cargo containers big as mobile homes. My shadow was invisible on the wet pavement, which reflected only the meager, waterlogged glow of the occasional security lamp. The whole place seemed disused and forgotten, perhaps awaiting a wrecking ball to transform it into another pricey piece of waterfront real estate. I wondered if there was a security guard somewhere nearby, huddled in a tiny guard shack with a portable heater and a miniature TV. Or making the rounds in a slowly creeping automobile with windows shut tight against the weather. If there was, I didn't see one. Nothing moved except the rain. And the puddles as I stepped through them, breaking into random shards of reflected light.

I kept the river to my back, looking for a way out. Eventually I came upon the guard shack I'd envisioned earlier, between two red and white striped wooden gates. Both were snapped off and lying in splinters on the ground. The shack's windows were broken out, the door hanging halfway open on its one remaining hinge. If I blew on it, it would probably fall over. I peeked inside, knowing full well there wouldn't be a working phone, and kicked myself for not thinking to look for one in the warehouse office. It likely wouldn't have mattered though; here, on the wall beside the doorway was an empty phone bracket, with a hole spilling tangled wires. On the opposite wall, an empty clipboard hung on a nail. Broken glass littered the floor and desk. A wooden stool had toppled over, its round cushion ripped open and exposing rotted foam. A half-formed face appeared in the decomposed material as I turned away.

Leaving the yard behind, I continued into the city and found myself on 49th Street, in what looked like a working-class residential neighborhood. Everything had been washed clean by the downpour and the cars parked along the curb glistened under the streetlights. Above them I could see the midtown skyscrapers puncturing the cloud cover. Tendrils of drifting mist reached between them like fingers. The rain was lightening, falling in random flurries, and I could feel the heaviness in the air subside.

My watch said it was close to 2 a.m. Hardly any traffic. I walked by a parked car with the dome light on and two people inside, talking. The window was cracked and I could smell cigarette smoke. The driver closed up quickly when he saw me. Couldn't say I blamed him. My stomach muscles felt each step. I wasn't sure how much further I could go without sleep. I stumbled over my own feet. Small animals darted across my peripheral vision, disappearing when I tried to focus on them. I hadn't seen a cab yet, and wondered if I'd have the strength to flag one down.

A slow-moving vehicle crept up behind me in the street, engine idling, the thump of rap music getting louder as it approached. I kept my eyes forward and my pace steady. When the car pulled even with me I looked over: a late-seventies Cadillac with rust-spots and no hubcaps. Four young men inside, all of them checking me out behind closed windows beaded with raindrops. The driver had his arm stretched idly over the steering wheel. The guy behind him in the back seat bobbed his head to the beat. They continued on, scoping me out as they passed. We momentarily lost sight of each other behind a large two-axle panel truck parked at the curb, squeezed between all the other vehicles that lined the roadway. Beyond it, the car rolled further up the one-way street. I looked back and saw nothing but empty sidewalk. I was on my own, not able to remember how far back I'd seen those people. Up ahead, about ten car-lengths away, brake lights went on in the middle of the block, a bad sign.

I stopped next to a pile of cardboard and newspaper leaning against a stoop. They edged into a space at the curb, obscured by a van parked behind them. The music momentarily got louder as the doors opened, then shut off. Then they were facing me, dark figures against the glare on the wet sidewalk. They started toward me and I froze, my mind turning over on itself like an animal stuck in the mud.

The newspaper moved beside me, and I looked down and saw an older man digging his way out of it.

“Boy, am I glad it stopped.”

“Walt?” I said disbelievingly.

He got up, shedding cardboard. Brushed off his filthy wet clothes.

“Can't stand the rain.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Trying to stay dry, of course. Called the cops earlier so I could take my clothes off in front of them, but they never came.”

“Why would you—”

“Night in jail's better than this,” he said, indicating the weather.

“I haven't seen you since you got out.”

I'd forgotten about the young men approaching until he looked over at them. “Why don't you boys move on up the road?”

The one in front stopped and the others followed suit, as if they were unsure how to react. “Sure thing, old man,” one finally said. They reluctantly turned around, sauntered back to their car.

“Punks,” Walter muttered, bending to pick up a heavy laundry bag. “Now what's that you were saying?”

For the life of me I couldn't remember. “I … I'm glad you were here.” I smelled alcohol, though not very strongly.

“Man, you look worse than I do, and that's the truth. You get beat up or something?”