Desperate Measures (31 page)

"I've had it with skirts. And those useless pumps," she said. "I don't care who I have to make an impression on. All this running. From now on, it's sneakers, a sweater, and jeans. And how the hell did the police know we were at Meecham's? Who could have .

Pittman stared grimly ahead. "Yes. That's really been bothering me." He concentrated. "Who?"

"Wait a minute. I think I- There's only one person who had that information. The man I phoned."

"At the alumni association?"

"Yes. This evening, he must have called my father to suck up to him by bragging how he'd done me a favor."

"That's got to be it. Your father knows that the police are looking for you. As soon as he heard from the alumni association, he phoned the police and sent them to the address the man gave you.

"We've got to be more careful."

Pittman steered onto Charles Street, trying to keep his speed down, not to be conspicuous. As other cars switched on their headlights, so did he.

"Exactly," Pittman said. "More careful. What were you doing back there?"

"I told you, putting on my jeans."

"No. I mean back at the house. In the bedroom. It looked as if you weren't going to leave with me."

Jill didn't respond.

"Don't tell me that's true," Pittman said. "You actually thought about staying behind?"

"For a second Jill hesitated. "I told myself, I can't "keep running forever. The police don't want me. It's Mill gate's people who want to kill me. I thought I could end it right there. I could stay behind and give myself up, explain to the police why I've been running, make them understand you're innocent."

"Yeah, sure. I bet that would have been good for a few laughs at the precinct." Although Pittman could understand Jill's motives, the thought that she would have left him caused his stomach to harden. "So what made you keep going? Why didn't you stay?"

"The story you told me about how you'd been arrested when you were trying to get an interview with Millgate seven years ago."

"That's right. Two prisoners, probably working for Millgate, beat me up while I was in a holding cell."

"The police weren't quick enough to help you," Jill said.

"Or maybe the guards were bribed to take a long coffee break." Pittman continued to feel bitter that she might have left him. "There's no way the authorities could guarantee your safety . So that's why you came with me? Your common sense took over? You listened to your survival instincts?"

"No," Jill said. "Self-preservation.

"No. That's not why I came with you. It had nothing to do with worrying whether the police could protect me."

"Then ... ?"

"I was worried about you. I couldn't imagine what you'd be like on your own."

"Hey, I could have managed."

"You don't realize how vulnerable you are."

"No kidding, every time somebody shoots at me, I get the idea.

,Emotionally vulnerable. Last Wednesday, you were going to do the shooting."

"I don't need to be reminded. It would have saved a lot of people a lot of trouble."

Jill squirmed from the back into the passenger seat. "You just proved my point. I think the only reason you've managed to get this far is you had somebody cheering for you. I've never met anybody more lonely. Why would you want to keep going if you didn't have anything to live for, anybody to care?" Pittman felt as if ice had been placed on his chest.

Unable to speak, he drove through the shadows of Boston Common, reaching Columbus Avenue, using the reverse of the route Jill had taken.

"The reason I decided to stay with you," Jill said, "is that I didn't want to be apart from you.", Pittman had trouble speaking. "You sure did a lot of thinking in a couple of seconds."

"I've been thinking about this for a while," Jill said. "I want to see how we get along when life gets normal.

"If," Pittman said. "If it ever does get normal. If we can ever get through this."

"This is a new feeling for me," Jill said. "It kind of snuck up on me. When you introduced me as your wife .

"What?"

"I liked it." Pittman was so amazed that he couldn't react for a moment. He reached over, touching her hand.

A car horn blared behind him as he steered from traffic and stopped at the curb. His throat feeling tighter, he studied Jill, her beguiling oval face, her long corn-silk hair, her sapphire eyes glinting from the reflection of passing headlights.

He leaned close and gently kissed her, the softness of her lips making him tingle. When she put her arms around his neck, he felt ripples of sensation. The kiss went on and on. She parted her lips. He tasted her.

He felt a swirling sensation and slowly leaned back, pleasantly out of breath, studying her more intensely. "I didn't think I'd ever feel this way again."

"You've got a lot of good feelings to catch up on," Jill said. Pittman kissed her again, this time with a hunger that startled him. Shaking, he had to stop. "My hart's beating so fast.

"I know," Jill said. "I feel light-headed."

Another car horn blared, passing them. Pittman turned to look out his side window. Where he'd stopped was in a no parking zone - "The last thing we need is a traffic ticket."

He pulled from the curb.

Immediately he noticed a police car at the corner of the next street. He tried to keep his speed constant, to peer straight ahead. It seemed to take him forever to pass the cruiser. In his rearview mirror, he saw the police car move forward not in his direction, but along the continuation of the side street.

He loosened his tight grip on the steering wheel. His brow felt clammy. He was more afraid than usual.

"Where are we going?"

Pittman shook his head, squinting at the painful glare of headlights on the crowded Massachusetts Turnpike. For several minutes, he'd been pensively quiet, trying to adjust-as he assumed Jill was-to the powerful change in their relationship. "We're heading out of Boston. But where we're going, I have no idea. I don't know what to do next, We've learned a lot. But we really haven't learned anything. I can't believe that Millgate's people would want to kill us because we'd found out what happened to him in prep school. "Suppose he wasn't molested."

"The circumstantial evidence indicates-"

"No, what I mean is, suppose he'd been willing," Jill said. "Maybe Millgate's people believe that the old man's reputation would have been ruined if-"

"You think that's what his people were afraid of?"

"Well, he confessed something to you about Grollier, and they killed him for it. Then you had to be stopped. And me because they have to believe you've told me what you know.

"Killed him to protect his reputation? I just can't There's something more," Pittman said. "I don't think we've learned the whole truth yet. Maybe the other grand counselors are trying to protect their reputations . They don't want anyone to know what happened to them at Grollier. "

"But what exactly? And how do we prove it?" Jill asked. She rubbed her forehead. "I can't think anymore. If I don't get something to eat .

Glancing ahead, she pointed to the right toward a truck stop off the turnpike, sodium arc lamps glaring in the darkness.

"My stomach's rumbling, too." Pittman followed an exit ramp into the bright, eerie yellow light of the gas station/ restaurant, where he parked several slots away from a row of eighteen-wheel rigs.

After they got out of the car and joined each other in front, Pittman hugged her.

"What are we going to do?" She pressed the side of her face against his shoulder. "Where do we go for answers?"

We're just tired." Pittman stroked her hair, then kissed her. "Once we get something to eat and some rest ...

Hand in hand, they walked toward the brightly lit entrance to the restaurant. Other cars were pulling in. Wary, Pittman watched a van stop ahead of them. The driver had his window down. The van's radio was blaring, an announcer reading the news.

"I guess I'm needlessly jumpy. Everybody looks suspicious to me, " Pittman said - He made sure that he was between Jill and the van when they came abreast of the driver's door. The beefy man behind the steering wheel was talking loudly to someone else, but the radio was even louder than his gruff tone. Pittman turned toward the van. "My God."

"What's the matter?"

"The news. The radio in that van. Didn't you hear it?" "No."

"Anthony Lloyd. One of the grand counselors. He's dead.

Dismayed, Pittman ran with Jill back to the Duster. Inside, he turned on the radio and switched stations, cursing impatiently at call-in shows and country-western programs. "There must be a news station somewhere.

He turned on the car's engine, afraid he would weaken the battery while he switched stations. Ten minutes later, an on the-half-hour news report came on.

"Anthony Lloyd, onetime ambassador to the United Nations, the former USSR, and Britain, past secretary of state as well as past secretary of defense, died this evening at his home near Washington, " a solemn-voiced male reporter said. "One of a legendary group of five diplomats whose careers spanned global events from the Second World War to the present " Lloyd was frequently described-along with his associates - as a grand counselor. To quote the reaction Of Harold Fisk, current secretary of state, 'Anthony Lloyd had an immeasurable influence on American foreign policy for the past fifty years. His wisdom will be sorely missed.' While the cause of death has not yet been determined, it is rumored that Lloyd-aged eighty-died from a stroke, the result of strain brought on by the recent apparent murder of his colleague, Jonathan Millgate, another of the grand counselors.

Authorities are still looking for Matthew Pittman, the former reporter allegedly responsible for Millgates death."

The news report changed to other topics, and Pittman shut off the radio. In silence, he continued to stare at the dash board.

"Died from a stroke?" Jill asked.

"Or was he murdered, too? It's a wonder they didn't blame his death on me, as well."

"In a way, they did," Jill said. "Their story is that the first death caused the second. "

"Died from strain. " Pittman bit his lip, thinking. He turned to Jill. "Or from guilt? From worry? Maybe something's happening to all of them. Maybe the grand counselors aren't as strong as they thought."

"What are you getting at?"

"We'll have to eat on the road and take turns sleeping while the other drives. We've got a lot of miles to cover."

Shortly before 7:00 A. M., in dim morning light, Pittman parked near the well-maintained apartment building in Park Slope in Brooklyn. Traffic increased. People walked by, going to work. "I just hope she hasn't left yet. If she has, we could end up sitting here all day, thinking she's still in the apartment." Pittman used his electric razor to shave.

Works outside the house.

You're certain she's working? if you'd ever met Gladys, you'd know she'd definitely prefer to be away while her husband works at home and takes care of the baby." He sipped tepid coffee from a Styrofoam cup. "Do we have any more of that Danish left?" Jill glanced coffee on the around, peered at her Styrofoam cup of sta dashboard, and grimaced. "I can't believe I'm doing this to myself. I hardly ever drink coffee, and now I'm guzzling it. Yesterday morning, I was eating doughnuts. Last night, chili and French fries. Now it's the gooiest Danish I ever ... And I can't get enough of it. After years of eating right, I'm selfdestructing."

,There.,' Pittman gestured. "That's Gladys."

A prim, sour-faced woman stepped out of the apartment building, tightened a scarf around her head, and walked determinatively along the street.

"Looks like she runs a tight ship," Jill said. "Tall to her makes you of mutiny."

"But we won't have to talk to her." "Right." Pittman got out of the car.

They walked toward the apartment building. In the vestibule, Pittman faced a row of intercom buttons and pretended to study the name below each button as if looking for one in particular, but what he wAy did was wait for the man and woman leaving the building to get out of his sight in time for him to grab the door as it swung shut. Before it could lock itself, he reopened it and walked through with Jill, heading toward the elevator.

When the door to 4 B opened in response to the knock, Brian Botulfson-who still wore his pajamas, had rumpled hair, and looked exhausted-slumped his shoulders with discouragement the moment he saw Pittman. "Aw, no. Give me a break. Not you. The last thing I need is-"

"How are you, Brian?" Pittman asked cheerily "How have you been doing since I saw you last?"

In the background, Pittman heard an infant crying harshly, not the usual baby cry, but a hurt cry, a sick cry.

Pittman remembered it well from when Jeremy had been an infant. "Uh-oh, sounds like you've been 'up all night." Pittman entered.

"Hey, you can't-"

Pittman shut the door and locked it. "You don't seem very happy to see me, Brian."

"The last time you were here, I got in so much trouble with ... If Gladys was here .

"But she isn't. We waited until she left."

Jill was preoccupied by the cries from the baby. "Boy or girl?" "Boy."