Maid of the Mist (31 page)

Corrigan rolled out on to the sidewalk. He got to his knees. He looked at the ruined front of the car. Then at the tyres. Flat. With two arrows sticking out of each of them.

Corrigan turned. In a line across the road, between him and Lelewala, the False Faces. With bows drawn and pointed at him. And at the front the man who needed no False Face, Tarriha.

Corrigan got shakily to his feet. There was blood streaming out of a gash in his brow. Barely twenty yards away, Lelewala stood above the Niagara, staring into its blackness.

'She must do this,' Tarriha said.

'Don't be daft,' Corrigan gasped.

'She must! It is the only way the great evil will be destroyed.'

'What evil? For Christsake, Tarriha, you can't just let her . . .'

'The
evil.
The drugs.'

It's over, Tarriha! The Old Cripple is dead. They're all under arrest. Now come on . . .'

Corrigan lurched forward. There was a stretching of bows. He stopped. 'Tarriha . . . please . . .'

'Arrests? What good are arrests?
If
they go to prison they will be out in a few years. You don't send evil to prison, you destroy it . . .'

'Oh for Jesus's sake. . .' He looked desperately up the wall to Lelewala. She was edging even closer. 'Stand back!' Corrigan yelled. 'Lela! Please! Gretchin! Please! It's just a nightmare!' If she heard, she did not respond. Corrigan turned despairingly to Tarriha. 'What good is this going to do? She's going to die, for nothing! Don't let her waste her life on some crazy superstition. Please! Just let me talk to her!'

'She must die, so that others might live. It is written.'

'Where's it written?' Corrigan yelled, in a big fucking fairy book? C'mon!'

It is written.'

'Well fuck you! I'm going to talk to her.'

He brushed past Tarriha and pushed his way through the line of False Faces. She was on the edge, leaning out. He hurried towards . . .

An arrow skittered off the ground beside him. He did not stop.

Then an arrow ploughed into his leg. He fell silently to one knee.

The Falls thundered.

Then, slowly, he began to rise. He stood for a moment, then continued his walk towards Lelewala, dragging his arrowed leg after him.

The False Faces drew back their bows, ready to finish him. For a second there was only the roar of the Niagara and the beat of his heart; he did not look back, did not see the old Indian's hand rise, did not see the bows drop.

He limped on.

'Lelewala!' he called.

There was no response. The river was too loud. He wanted to dive at her, wrap his arms around her and pull her back from the precipice. But it wouldn't work. She would go over. He had to talk to her. He had to snap her out of it.

'Lelewala!' He was right beside her now. He sat on the wall. She was above him. Wincing at his pierced leg, he clambered up on to the wall beside her. She turned confused eyes to him.

'Sahonwadi. . .' she said half-dreamily.

'No . . . no! Frank . . . Frank Corrigan . . . c'mon . . . Gretchin . . . it's Gretchin . . . just come to me . . . please just come back from the . . .'

She wiped at her face. The spit of the Niagara, the tears of her confused mind.

'Corrigan . . .' she said vaguely, 'I must. . .'

'No! You mustn't! There is no evil! It is gone . . .'

She shook her head, it isn't gone, it will only go if I. . .' She leaned forward.

'No!'

He put out his hand. 'Gretchin . . . please . . . don't . . . you're going to Hollywood . . . you're going to make movies . . . David Hasselhoff. . .'

The slightest smile stroked her face. Her head moved to one side. There was a sudden clarity in her eyes. For a second she held his gaze.

Then she jumped.

She was gone.

Swallowed.

'Noooooo!'

Corrigan stood for the briefest of moments. He glanced back at Tarriha. The old Indian's hand was raised in salute. Corrigan nodded. He was a policeman. It was what policemen did.

He jumped after her.

Jimmy Morton hurried down the steps outside the mansion. Elation glowed like radioactivity on his face. 'Like a prisoner-of-war camp in there, Mark.' He rubbed his hands together. 'I knew we could do it.'

'Yeah,' said Stirling. He was sitting on the top step. They'd been inside for a preliminary look. A look at the disbelieving faces. They were fighting among themselves. They'd hardly flinched at the Old Cripple losing his head, but they had not taken well to surrendering their wallets and their expensive jewellery to Popov's men, and they had certainly not taken well to real cops arriving and treating them like the dirt they were.

Now they were locked in. There was no way out. Stirling was going to let them sweat for a while, especially Chief of Police Dunbar, grovelling and threatening in the same mouthful. Madeline had it all on tape. She was about to conduct an interview with Stirling with the mansion in the background. Then he would call in reinforcements from St Catharines. Hell, from Toronto as well. The
Maid of the Mist
crewmen were swaggering about the car park, giving high-fives and complicated masonic handshakes, firing bullets into the air. It had gone like a dream. Nobody injured, nobody killed. Sure, some had escaped, bouncers in smart suits scampering across the grounds like frightened rabbits, and sure, they hadn't searched half the building yet, but that could wait. They were in control.

They were heroes.

Even the seventy-year-old, coming up to him now with a grin so wide his false teeth threatened to slip out. 'Wasn't it great!'

Stirling nodded. Morton nodded. They didn't know what to say to him.

Yes, they were heroes.

But there was a feeling of . . .

'Anti-climax?' Maynard said, pulling off his balaclava.

Stirling shrugged. 'We expected a gun battle. To get shot, or die. But they were locked up waiting for us.'

'So what?' Morton said. 'We have them. We
have them.
We got the bad guys.'

Stirling smiled. 'I suppose it makes a change for you.'

Behind them Stirling's police radio crackled. 'All cars, report of a suicide attempt at Niagara Falls. One woman, one man, man identified as suspect Frank Corrigan.'

'Jesus Christ,' said Stirling. He turned and raced across to his car
.

'Jesus Christ,' said Maynard, and raced after him.

'Do you want me to wait. . .' Morton began, and Stirling and Maynard shouted back together, 'Yes!'

In moments the police car was spitting up gravel.

Morton shook his head. Beside him the seventy-year-old said: 'Maybe I should have gone along with them. I gotta taste for this now.'

Morton smiled. The old guy was juggling something in his hand. Batteries for his pacemaker, maybe. 'What you got there?' Morton asked. 'Souvenir?'

'Aw, shit,' the old guy said sheepishly, 'hope you don't mind.' He opened his hand, raised it up. A small black rectangular box sat in his palm. There was a switch on top. it was up on the stage, beside the dead feller. I think it has something to do with all that musical equipment, y'know? My grandson, he's into Pongo and all that shit; I thought. . .'

Morton took the box out of his hand. He turned it over, examined the blank underside, then flipped it back. 'Looks harmless enough,' he said. 'Wonder what it does?'

He flicked the switch.

The great Niagara roared.

The False Faces stood along the wall, peering into the dark waters.

Suddenly there was a sound that for a brief moment eclipsed that of the Falls. They turned and looked to the skies above the town and saw a finger of fire shooting up into the starry night.

'It is done,' Tarriha said.

Frank Corrigan stood among the ruins of the mansion. The snow that had prevented them coming out here for most of the morning had now tailed off. He stood with his head bent back, looking at the grey clouds peeking through the holes in the ceiling. He shook his head slowly. Then he took out a cigarette and lit it, cupping his hands around the match, drawing the poison in slowly.

'Now look a little to the left,' Madeline called.

He looked to the left. At the remains of the auditorium where Mohammed Salameh had hosted the convention, and where he had been murdered.

'Now pan round to the right,' Madeline shouted.

He turned slowly, trying not to look at the camera. He took in the ploughed-up lawn, covered in snow but speckled by spikes of burned and broken furniture.

'Now, slowly, Frank, look down . . . you notice something . . . you bend to retrieve it . . .'

He bent, he lifted it, he wiped the dirt and ash from it, the dirt and ash the crew had applied not fifteen minutes before. It was one of Pongo's platinum discs. Not the
Lelewala Cycle,
of course. Where was that now? Number one in a dozen countries.

Poor Pongo. Only his tapes had survived, packed away in metal containers and loaded into a limo ready for his escape. Pongo had been found in the front seat, cut to pieces by flying glass. The tapes had been given a dance mix by a top New York producer and a suitably morbid video of Pongo had been put together, and the combination had sent the single and album straight to number one. If he hadn't been dead, Pongo would have been ecstatic.

Corrigan dropped the disc back into the rubble.

'OK,' Madeline called, 'that'll do us here.'

The cameraman dropped his equipment from his shoulder. Madeline hurried across the debris and hooked her arm through Corrigan's. 'You all right?'

Corrigan nodded.

'OK,' she said, 'just a few more shots down by the Falls, and that's us, OK?'

'OK,' he said. She unhooked her arm. He pulled at the sleeve of his uniform. 'I shouldn't even be in this,' he said.

'Hey, relax, they're not going to arrest you.'

He smiled. They
had
arrested him. They were going to throw the book at him, the biggest book they could find, a hardback with studs in the cover. But the public outcry had been too great. He was released. He was given a medal. And then they asked him, quietly, to leave. Yes, he was a hero, but they had no place for heroes.

And he did. He had no choice, really. There was a book deal, there were the calls from Hollywood. He'd flown out. The movie was being made. He'd tried to ask for script approval, but he'd already signed the contract, and that was that. He had no idea how it would turn out. It didn't much matter. He had enough money now. Internal Affairs was still making a claim on the money that had been paid into his bank account for the house, but it wasn't his fault if somebody wanted to pay over the odds and then disappear off the face of the earth. He'd hold on to it until somebody came forward. Internal Affairs were just pissed off because in all the excitement two of their top officers had been left languishing in a car boot for three days
after
the explosion at the Old Cripple's mansion and had needed emergency hospital treatment.

He missed work. He still called by the station the odd time, but he knew it made everyone feel uncomfortable, especially Stirling. He ran the place, and he ran it different. He was a stickler for paperwork and doing things by the book, even though he wouldn't have been where he was now if Corrigan had been a stickler for the same things.

Madeline drove them along the Parkway. There weren't so many tourists about in the winter season, but to his eyes the Falls looked even more beautiful at this time of year. Cold and austere and frightening, like a governess in an old novel. They parked the car and he stood by the wall while Madeline discussed what was required with the cameraman. The documentary was due to air on her station the following week. Discussions were ongoing with one of the big networks across the border. Madeline was expecting big things from it. She was pretty and petite and charming, yet bolshie too. He liked that. They'd gone out for dinner a few times in the six months since he'd been dragged out of the Niagara, more dead than alive, but there'd been no spark. She was bound for bigger things and he couldn't see himself leaving Niagara. It was home. He had enough money now, but he'd probably start looking around for a job soon. Something in security, maybe. Something at the casino.

'OK, Frank, if you can just look out over the Falls for us,' Madeline said. 'Just look lost in thought. Not
that
lost. You look like you're going to fall asleep. Open those eyes a bit, think of Lelewala.'

He thought of Lelewala.

She was down there.

Why he had survived and she hadn't, he would never know.

Luck.

Her body had not yet surfaced.

It might never.

Some fish might be using it for a bungalow.

He didn't like to think about it, but always would.

He felt a tear coming to his eye.

There was a sharp intake of breath from Madeline. She'd seen it. She let the camera hold on him for a moment, then said
Cut.
She turned immediately to check if they'd captured the tear clearly.

She came to him, smiling. 'That was great, Frank, really great.' She reached up and wiped it from his eye.

He smiled and turned away. The old Indian, Tarriha, had said she would never be found, because she had been claimed back by the spirits. Corrigan thought that was pish, and told him so. Tarriha was taking part in the documentary too, although he was still haggling over a price. He had faded a lot in the past few months and the perceived wisdom of the elders of the Tuscorora Iroquois was that it wouldn't be too long before he too was claimed back by the spirits.

When they were certain they had everything, Madeline and her cameraman climbed into their car. He turned down a lift. She wound down the window and smiled at him and promised to call him about going out for another drink or a meal, but he knew that she wouldn't, and he didn't mind. He stood with his arms folded in front of him, leaning on the wall, watching them drive away.

A tourist stopped and asked if he could take a photograph. Corrigan straightened, pulled his shoulders back and tried to look heroic.

'No,' the tourist said, 'will you take one of me against the Falls?'