Her Name Will Be Faith (47 page)

Marcia patted her stomach.
"Junior, you are going to have the neatest
nursery in New York." Then she suddenly shivered. "Let's get
out of
these wet things. Either I'm catching my death of cold, or a
goose just walked over my grave."

"Kiley?" asked
J. Calthrop White. "Is that you, Kiley?"

"For God's sake..."
Kiley started, then realized who was on the other
end of the telephone. "Oh, good morning, JC. Kind of early."

"Kiley, what the hell
have you been doing?"

"I've been sleeping,
JC. It's two o'clock in the morning."

"Haven't you been
watching television?"

"JC, I never watch
television, once I get home."

"Well, let me tell
you that all hell is busting loose out there right this minute."

"Oh, you mean the
storm. Yeah, I can hear it."

"I
do not mean the storm. I mean New York is goddamned well
running
wild. It's all the fault of that goddamned protégé of yours,
Connors. I've told him to
quit."

"You what? JC, I do
the hiring and firing." Outrage at being awakened had given Kiley unusual
courage.

"Well,
you weren't there, were you? And you didn't know what was
going
on. But that's not relevant. Listen to me, Kiley: that asshole may just for
once have hit the nail on the head. Seems this storm could hit
New York after all, some
time this weekend. Now, Kiley, did our bid and the bank guarantee go OK?"

"Well, no, JC. You
told me specifically it was to go on Monday morning
so no one could tell in advance what we were offering. Don't worry, JC,
it'll be faxed out at six o'clock Monday morning.
Bids close noon UK
time, so it'll be there spot on."

"Kiley, what happens
if there are no electrics on Monday morning?"

"No electrics? Now,
really, JC..."

"According to
Connors, this storm could cause a two-day outage."

"And you believe
that?"

"I
don't know whether I believe it or not. I know if it happened it
could
fuck us up. Kiley, I want you to get down to the office right away
and
put in that bid. So it'll stay cold until Monday; even if somebody
does look at it and tell
our competitors it'll be too late for them to do anything about it."

Kiley
hesitated, then sighed. "Okay, JC. But all bids have to be
supported by bank
guarantees. Hunt were going to fax that Monday as well."

"Well, they'll have
to do it today."

"Saturday?"

"Get
them moving. Get someone down there to do it. Come to think
of it…
holy shit! I want all our funds moved out, Kiley. Personal
accounts too. Get them off
someplace inland."

"JC, nothing can
possibly happen to Wall Street."

"Yeah? It's kind of
low down, right? Again, if this asshole Connors is right it could get
flooded."

"JC,
the computers with your accounts in them are in the vaults.
Nothing can get into those
vaults."

"Kiley, those vaults
are under ground. I want my money out of there, this morning. Now get on it.
Have a good day." The phone went dead.

"We might as well leave the bag in Washington's
office while we change,"
Jo
told the children as they staggered through the glass doors into the
lobby of the apartment block. It had been a dreadful walk
back through the rain and the strong blustering wind and the teeming streets,
and she
was exhausted from carrying
the heavy suitcase. The children were pretty
weary as well, but at least they had had six hours' sleep
before setting
off.
Orphans of the storm! That was an apt description of them now. It
was hard to decide whether to curse the ill luck of the
accident or thank
God
it had happened so close to the apartment. Though they were all
soaked to the skin, at least they would be able to change
into dry clothes
before trying again with
Michael's Cadillac.

Washington's office was empty, and she remembered that
she had
advised him to leave while
he could. But it was also unlocked, the light
was still burning, and his pens were lying on the desk
– so he was clearly
still
somewhere in the building. She put her suitcase in one corner, and
encountered several people in the foyer, clutching bags
and hurrying for
the
basement garage. As was usual in big apartment blocks, Jo hardly
knew any of her neighbors, and so she merely summoned up a
tired
smile. But one of the women
apparently knew her by sight, because she
shouted, "Mrs Donnelly! Haven't you heard the news?
We're leaving
town. Aren't you?"

"I'm trying to," Jo
confessed. "We've had an accident. The traffic out
there is something else."

"You poor girl," the woman
said. "You're not hurt?" She peered at
the children.

"We're okay," Owen Michael said.

"Well, say," said the woman's husband, who was
waiting impatiently for his wife to join him at the elevator, "if you want
a ride with us, Mrs
Donnelly, there'll be room."

"That is awfully kind of you," Jo said,
"but actually I've just come
back to change my
clothes and pick up my husband's car. Thanks again."

She hurried Owen Michael and
Tamsin into an ascending car.

"Say,
Mom, is this Hurricane Faith?" Owen Michael asked.

"Naw," Tamsin declared
before Jo could reply. "Faith was much worse
than this."

"How much worse?"

"Oh..." And suddenly
she began to cry. She was really scared, as
well
as wet and miserable. And she had been scared before.

"Faith isn't going to hurt you here,
darling," Jo promised her. The car
stopped, and they
ran into the apartment. "You two change while I get
the car keys." Seeing all those frightened people had increased her
sense
of urgency, and she had decided against wasting the time
to change
herself.

But the keys weren't in Michael's desk, their usual
resting place. She
knew
he kept a spare set at the office, but where the others were… she
hunted through every pants and jacket pocket in his closet
and every
drawer in the
apartment, while a build-up of panic clawed at her mind,
making
her catch her breath.

"They must be in the pants he was wearing when he
left," Owen
Michael
said logically, emerging from his room in dry clothes. "So we'll
have
to take that ride after all, I reckon."

"If they're still there," Jo muttered. The
lousy, rotten bastard, she
thought,
leaving his car, but taking his keys with him. She called Washing
ton's office, but there was no reply. "You two stay
here," she told them,
and
took the elevator down again. Washington could be anywhere, and
now the foyer was deserted. So was the basement garage,
of people, and there were only one or two cars left as well. One of them was
Michael's
gleaming white
Cadillac El Dorado. When she looked at it she wanted to
scream. And when it slowly dawned on her that probably
everyone had
left the building, even Washington, she
wanted to scream even louder.

She rode back up to the apartment. "We'll call a
cab," she told the
children,
trying to appear calm and unflustered. She flicked rapidly
through the yellow pages – but either the lines were
busy or just not
answering.
Sweat was running down her face as she punched over and
over at the same numbers, until at last there was a reply.
Hastily she
gasped her request.

"Sorry, lady, but there won't be nothing available
for at least two
hours,
if then. If you'd like to leave your name and number we'll get back
to
you whenever we can."

"Forget it," she said. Two hours! Already the
wind was howling outside
the
plate-glass window. There was only one person she could turn to,
now.

"Who're you calling now, Mom?" Owen Michael
yawned and sat on
the
settee; Tamsin had already stretched out on her bed and was fast
asleep.

 "Mr Connors at the TV studio," Jo
explained. "Just to find out what's
happening. Hello," she said. "May I speak with
Richard Connors, please?
I'll hold."

She looked into the street as she waited. The rain had
eased temporarily,
but
the lightning still flashed, and the thunder was continuous, mingling
with the whine of the wind. And she was totally
shattered, emotionally
and
physically. She did not think she had ever been so frightened in her
life,
even if she couldn't let herself show it to the children. But Richard
would be able to help; just to hear his voice would be
a reassurance. The girl came back on the line. "Mr Connors isn't available
right now," she said. "Who's calling, please?"

"Ah… it's Mrs
Donnelly. I'll call him back later," she said, and replaced the phone,
feeling crushed with disappointment. But poor Richard was probably up to his
ears in it, and it wasn't really fair to burden
him with her troubles as well – especially as those troubles were
because
she hadn't taken his advice… or kept her promise.

If
only she could find those keys. Again she looked down into the street. And
having found them, go where? The traffic was worse than when they
had
come in, and even as she watched there was an accident right outside
the
apartment building, causing an immediate pile up of vehicles, and an
immediate accumulation of
angry drivers, shouting at each other and waving their fists.

Yet she had to get out.
She had to find those keys. Not even Michael would be such an idiot as to have
taken them with him without the car.

Owen Michael followed his
mother from room to room, watching as
she
emptied drawers and fished through pockets again. Then she dialed
the
cab company again, but got only busy tones. She tried again and again, and
simply could not get through. She wanted to weep with frustration.

"Mom, we're obviously
going to be here for a while," Owen Michael said. "Why don't we go
back to bed for a couple of hours. We'll make a move when it's daylight."

Jo hesitated. But bed, if
only for an hour, was what she wanted more than anything else in the world.
She'd been up all night, she was cold
and wet
and clammy, and she was additionally exhausted by the nervous
strain
she'd been under for several days. She knew she was no longer thinking
straight. If she could just put her head down for even five minutes, she'd
probably be able to remember where the keys were. Just
five minutes. And by then the traffic would have eased. The storm wasn't
going
to hit before tomorrow morning. There was still ample time to get out of town.

The helicopter dropped out of the dawn murk, swirling in
the near gale
force gusts as it
slowly settled on to the grass. Waiting staffers ran forward
with umbrellas, promptly blown inside out, and with
mackintoshes to
hold
over Mayor Bill Naseby as he jumped from the cabin out into the
rain. People tried to shout information to him, but he
shook his head and
ran towards the
building; talking out there was a waste of time.