Holy Terror (6 page)

‘So what's the proposition?'

Conor leaned forward as if he were going to say something quietly; and Sergeant Wexler leaned forward too. Without warning, Conor seized him around the neck and dragged Ray's gun out of his waistband. He jammed the muzzle into Wexler's love-handles. The surrounding officers swung their rifles around and screamed out hysterically, ‘
Drop it
!'
but Conor kept so close behind Sergeant Wexler that none of them dared to shoot.

‘What the hell do you think you're doing, O'Neil?' Wexler raged, in a strangled voice. Til have your guts for this!'

‘I'll be having your guts first. Tell your guys to back off.'

‘The hell I will. You won't shoot me and you know it.'

‘Try me. When did you ever know me to make a threat and not carry it out? I mean,
ever
?'

Sweat was glistening between the prickly folds of Sergeant Wexler's neck. He was panting as if he had just run up and down a fire escape.

‘OK,' he said. ‘But I swear on my mother's life that you're not going to get away with this.' He took a deep breath, and then ordered, ‘Everybody lower your weapons and hold fire. Miskowtec – that means you, too!'

The officers reluctantly did what they were told. Conor recognized some of them – Kosherick, Caploe, Farbar and Murray. They used to think that he was some kind of god. Now they were looking at him all pouchy-mouthed as if they were summoning up enough saliva to spit on him.

Conor turned to the Angel Gabriel. ‘Let's go! And make it quick!'

The Angel Gabriel dragged Doris onto her feet. He said to Darrell, ‘You too, lardass. And the boxes, for Christ's sake! Don't leave the boxes behind!'

Conor waited until the Angel Gabriel and Doris and Darrell were assembled all around him. Then he started to edge his way toward the doors. He held
Sergeant Wexler so close that he could smell his Gillette deodorant.

They pushed their way through the swing doors and emerged into the heat and the glare of Fifth Avenue. The street had been cordoned off for two blocks in both directions, and there were squad cars and ambulances and TV trucks everywhere. Bright lights shone in their eyes and cables snaked across the sidewalk.

‘Hold your fire!' shouted Sergeant Wexler. ‘Everything's OK! Everything's under control!'

‘
Drop your weapons
!' bellowed a distorted voice through a loud-hailer. Conor recognized it immediately, and thought: it just
had
to be, didn't it? Lieutenant Drew Slyman, suspected of being one of the three leading hit men of the Forty-Ninth Street Golf Club – the ‘umpires', they called themselves. Lieutenant Slyman had been implicated in seven Golf Club executions, but Conor had never been able to gather enough evidence to bring him to court.

‘
Drop your weapons
!' Lieutenant Slyman repeated. ‘
Hit the sidewalk! Now
!'

Darrell whimpered in fright, but Conor said, ‘Ignore them. Just keep going.'

The Brinks-Mat truck was still parked at the curb, as well as a white Camaro. Conor could see that the police had deflated the Camaro's tires, presumably thinking that it was the getaway vehicle, but they hadn't disabled the security truck.

‘
This is your last warning
!' said Lieutenant Slyman. But Conor kept on shuffling across the sidewalk until he reached the truck. The Angel Gabriel backed up to it, too, and let go of Doris for long enough to open
the side door. Doris looked wide-eyed at Conor as if she were thinking of making a run for it, but Conor frowned at her and shook his head and mouthed, ‘
Don't
.'

Puffing and sweating, Darrell loaded the safety deposit boxes into the truck. Then the Angel Gabriel opened the cab door and told him to get in.

‘Me? What for?' Darrell protested.

‘You're driving, that's what for.'

‘But I can't!'

‘Ray was going to drive. But Ray just bought the farm. Now,
you're
driving. Got it?'

Darrell climbed up into the cab and sat round-shouldered and miserable behind the wheel. Before the Angel Gabriel climbed in, he took two or three steps forward and yelled out, ‘Listen up! If I see one police vehicle following us – if I see one vehicle that I even
think
is a police vehicle – if I see a police motorcycle or a helicopter – if I see a goddamned
horse
– the woman gets it in the head!'

He waited to make sure that his warning had sunk in. Then he climbed up into the cab, pulling Doris after him, hiking up her skirt to show her stocking top and dropping one of her shoes.

‘If you hurt those people …' Conor cautioned him.

‘You're a civilized man, Chief O'Neil,' said the Angel Gabriel, and actually grinned. ‘No wonder you had to quit the police department.' Just before he slid the door shut, Conor heard him say to Darrell, ‘Cut across to Eighth Avenue. Then head uptown.
Move
!'

Darrell started the engine. Several police officers
stood up from behind their cars and took aim with their rifles, but Lieutenant Slyman shouted, ‘
Hold fire! Hold fire
!' Conor could guess why: the Brinks-Mat truck was heavily armored and there was far too high a risk of ricochets. It pulled away and started to head downtown, leaving a black cloud of diesel exhaust.

‘Satisfied, you piece of shit?' spat Sergeant Wexler.

Car doors slammed like a cannon volley as the police prepared to set off in hot pursuit, but Lieutenant Slyman called out, ‘
Hold it, hold it, hold it
!' and two senior officers stepped out into the street and waved at the squad cars to stay where they were. One siren gave a single mournful whoop and died away. Engines were switched off and doors were opened again. Above their heads, a police helicopter flackered around and around in deafening, frustrated circles.

‘You're just going to let him go?' one officer was shouting.

‘That's the decision. We'll keep track of him, OK?'

Conor kept his elbow around Sergeant Wexler's throat and the .44 pressed deep into his gut. ‘You're choking me, you bastard,' Sergeant Wexler told him.

‘Sorry, sergeant. It's all in a good cause.'

Conor quickly looked around. Several police officers were still pointing their guns at him, but shoppers started to pour out of Spurr's front entrance, some of them crowing and sobbing in
hysteria. There was a tidal swirl of confusion. Police officers and press and paramedics started to mill around the sidewalk, and several people broke through the cordon at the end of the block.

Lieutenant Slyman ordered, ‘
Stay back! Everybody stay back! We still have a situation here
!'

Conor was trying to find a car: any car, so long as it wasn't a police vehicle. All he could see was a taxi at the intersection with West 48th Street and a black Lincoln limousine on the corner of East 47th, just behind the police cordon. The taxi had been abandoned and the driver had probably taken the keys; but the Lincoln's chauffeur was still sitting behind the wheel. Conor could see the sun shining off the peak of his cap.

‘Come on,' Conor told Sergeant Wexler, ‘let's get the hell out of here, on the double!'

Three or four police officers were already beginning to advance toward them, their weapons raised, but they were obviously still doubtful about what exactly was happening. Conor jostled Sergeant Wexler across the street, in between the tangle of parked squad cars. One of the police officers shouted, ‘Hey! Stop them! Those two! Stop them!' but there was so much confusion that none of the cops around the cars really understood what was going on, particularly since Sergeant Wexler was in uniform and Conor's face was so familiar.

Conor dragged Sergeant Wexler under the police tape and around the front of the Lincoln limousine. The chauffeur was talking on his mobile phone and didn't see them at first. Conor pulled at the doorhandle but it was locked. The chauffeur looked
up, startled, and Conor pointed the .44 at him.

‘Open the goddamned door! Now!'

White-faced, the chauffeur sprang the central locking. Conor opened the door and said, ‘Out!'

‘What?'

Conor didn't have any time for discussion. He pushed Sergeant Wexler away and dragged the chauffeur out of his seat.

‘Don't kill me, sir,' the chauffeur begged him. He was pink-faced, only in his twenties. ‘My wife just had twins.'

‘You want to stay alive, keep out of the way,' Conor warned him, climbing into the white leather driver's seat. ‘There's going to be some strays flying.'

Sergeant Wexler turned back to his colleagues and hoarsely screamed, ‘O'Neil's here! He's here! He's trying to make a break for it!'

He made a girlish and ineffectual effort to throw himself onto the Lincoln's hood, but Conor jammed his foot on the gas and the huge black limousine hurtled out of East 47th with its tires shrieking. The police officers had just reached the intersection and they crouched down and leveled their guns at him. He heard three distinct shots and one of the rear windows cracked. But then he was bouncing across Fifth Avenue, and speeding along West 47th, and all that he could see of Sergeant Wexler and his men were two puffs of smoke in his rear-view mirror and a stirred-up ants' nest of uniforms.

He sped westward across Sixth Avenue, Seventh Avenue and Broadway, flashing his lights and blaring his horn. At the intersection with Eighth Avenue he looked wildly left and right. At first he
could see nothing but taxis and private cars and a huge tractor-trailer with a huge steaming bowl of chicken soup painted on the side, Momma Somekh's Finest. The traffic signals changed to green and a taxi driver behind him leaned on his horn, urging him to move, but he stayed where he was, even when another driver pulled up behind the taxi and started hooting at him, too.

The Lincoln's air conditioning was set to Nome, Alaska, and the sweat on the back of his shirt started to chill.

The signals changed back to red. At that moment the Brinks-Mat truck appeared two blocks to his left, turning out of West 45th Street and heading uptown. As it passed him, Conor could see the Angel Gabriel through the green armored glass, pale and intent; and Doris, too. The lights were still red, but he jammed his foot on the gas and the huge Lincoln fishtailed into Eighth Avenue in a cloud of blue tire smoke.

He swerved to avoid a Pony Express motorcycle messenger and bumped against a taxi, ripping off his nearside mirror. Horns blared all around him in a furious fanfare. With less than six inches to spare, he passed an elderly blue Datsun filled with nuns. Angrily they tooted their weak little hooter at him and shook their fists. ‘Forgive me my trespasses, sisters,' he said, under his breath. He caught up with the Brinks-Mat truck and tucked the Lincoln in behind it, only inches away from its rear fender.

As it slowed up for Columbus Circle, on the south-west comer of Central Park, he nudged the Lincoln's front bumper into the back of it. Not too
hard – he didn't want to damage the limousine too badly, but enough to give the Angel Gabriel an unpleasant jolt. He swerved to the left so that his car couldn't be seen in Gabriel's side mirror and then collided with the Brinks-Mat truck a second time.

Instantly, the Brinks-Mat truck accelerated and took a sharp right turn, almost tilting onto its side. It started to speed eastward on Central Park South, weaving in and out of the traffic and blasting its horn. Conor stamped his foot on the gas and went after it. The huge limousine dipped and bounced as he steered it around a mail van, a U-turning taxi and a slow-moving garbage truck. Its tires set up a hallelujah chorus, and Conor was followed all the way along the street by a barrage of angry car horns.

Darrell was having difficulty handling the security truck, especially at this speed. It weighed nearly four and a half tonnes, and its armor plating made it much more top-heavy than a regular truck. He crashed it into the side of a taxi, ripping off the rear fender and crumpling the doors. The taxi slewed away and mounted the pavement, colliding with a fire hydrant. Water fountained into the air and momentarily blurted on the roof of Conor's limousine.

Halfway along Central Park South, Darrell was confronted by a bus and two automobiles driving three abreast. He hovered behind them for a few seconds, swerving from side to side in an attempt to find a way through. But he must have seen in his mirror that Conor was overhauling him fast, because he suddenly rear-ended the middle car and forced it forward, its tires smoking on the blacktop.

The car driver lost control. His vehicle hit the side of the bus and then the car next to him. Pieces of broken plastic rattled against Conor's windshield and he instinctively ducked his head. The Brinks-Mat truck forced the automobile out of its path, and the automobile spun around 180 degrees and hit the car next to it head on. Both of their hoods flew up.

Conor could see that the gap between the bus and the two wrecked cars was scarcely wide enough for him to drive through, but he put his foot down even harder and rocketed toward it. There was a complicated crashing and squeaking as his second side mirror was torn off and the limousine's door panels crunched against the side of the bus. But he forced his way through the gap and used every ounce of the Lincoln's 210 horsepower to catch up with the Brinks-Mat truck as it neared the Grand Army Plaza, the intersection with Fifth Avenue.

As they reached the side entrance of the Plaza hotel, Conor managed to steer the Lincoln up alongside the Brinks-Mat truck so that they were bumping and grating against each other in a spectacular cascade of orange sparks. He twisted the wheel hard over to the left and the two vehicles, locked together, skidded diagonally across Central Park South and mounted the curb. They narrowly missed a horse-drawn carriage, and even above the grinding of metal Conor could hear the passengers scream. Pedestrians scattered as they bounced and jostled their way down the footpath into Central Park, tearing up railings and ripping up shrubs.