There was a sparkling Rodeo with Kathleen Moore and Gil Boggs, and a final intermission before the corps was going to perform the “Kingdom of the Shades” from La Bayadère. It was after ten thirty, and I told Natalie I needed to get a jump on the crowd and head for home. I was afraid the Minkus music and the endless line of white-tutu’d Shadows would lull me to sleep in my seat.
I dug into my seemingly bottomless pocketbook for the Jeep keys, reminding myself that I had to relocate the redstriped parking area, behind column 5. The walk back to the car seemed farther than it had on the way in, but it was four hours later and I was really dragging. There were plenty of gaping spaces between the automobiles, I noted to myself, and it usually displeased me that so many suburban ticket holders walked out of the theater before the end of the event. Tonight I was one of the guilty leave-takers.
I started the engine, flipped on the headlights, and backed out of the space, heading over to the end of the row toward the ramp down to the exit. As I made the wide turn, a sport utility vehicle larger than my own careened around the adjacent line of cars and came racing at me, head-on.
My foot jammed the gas pedal to the floor and I swerved to the left, speeding down lane Red 4 as the chase car followed closely on my tail. I saw an opening midrow, where two spaces had been created side by side as well as back-to-back, and I barely braked as I nosed the Jeep into a curve and an immediate second left turn.
The dark car in pursuit took the long way around, and I could see that it was skipping two rows to try to cut me off at the top of the ramp.
I was pressing on the horn with my left hand as I steered with my right, hoping that someone would be annoyed by the blaring honk. A Jaguar with two couples in it pulled out in front of whoever was trying to cut me off, and I lurched ahead, hoping to see a security guard at the foot of the incline, where the giant red arrow merged with the equally wide yellow and blue stripes.
Instinctively, my foot hit the brake as a caution, and I immediately recognized that even a second’s delay could be a costly mistake. But I had hesitated as I always did when leaving that garage, choosing between the exits on the north and south sides of the building, depending on which one was open at a given hour.
Just as I decided to make the right turn and go out onto Sixty-fourth Street, where there was a bus stop and, always, a posttheater crowd, the dark chase car came roaring down the steep rise of the garage behind me. Its driver passed me on the left side and cut me off. His engine still running, a male figure with a stocking cap over his head opened the door and got out, running toward me with the gleam of something metallic in his hand.
The empty sport utility vehicle was between me and the mechanical arm of the barrier that would have been my escape. As he slammed his left hand on the hood of the Jeep, I juiced the gas again and jumped the curb of the divider that separates the entrance from the exit gate. My Jeep kept going, smashing against the retractable arm of the entry blockade and cruising up the hill to the wide flat pavement of Sixtyfourth Street.
My repeated pounding on the horn cleared the crossing of pedestrians who were out for a summer stroll on Broadway. I paused to make sure the traffic light was with me, then goosed the car across the busy intersection, never stopping for a moment as I raced through the Central Park transverse and reached the East Side.
18
“You’re not going home alone tonight, Coop. End of story.”
It was midnight, and I was sitting at the corner table in the front of Primola with Mike and Mercer. The third Dewar’s had failed to calm me.
After I had driven through Central Park, I headed directly across Sixty-fifth Street to my second home, the Italian restaurant where I frequently entertained my companions for dinner. I knew that even at eleven o’clock, Primola would be full of people, so I parked at a fire hydrant in front and ran inside to find Giuliano, the owner. He was my friend, and just as important, he was a soccer player who had competed on a World Cup team several years earlier. If he was between me and the door, I’d be perfectly safe until reinforcements arrived.
I told him that someone crazy was following me, so he sat down at my table, asked Adolfo to get me a drink and Peter to bring over the phone. I dialed Mercer’s beeper number and inhaled the scotch as I waited for a callback. He and Mike had just left Varelli’s studio and were sitting in a bar in SoHo, eating dinner and enjoying their first cocktail. It took them half an hour to get uptown to meet me. Once they arrived, Giuliano left us alone to talk, and Fenton, the bartender, kept sending rounds over to the table.
“Obviously, I didn’t want to go home alone. That’s why I called to tell you what happened. But if you two deposit me there and lock me inside, I’ll be fine.” I live on the twentieth floor of a high-rise building with two doormen, and pay dearly for a great sense of security once inside.
“Why didn’t you just go right to the station house, instead of coming here?”
“Because then there’d be a police report, and then somebody would call the tabloids, and then Battaglia would have me under lock and key for the next month.”
“You don’t even know who you’re looking for, blondie. I’ve had blind victims who’ve given me a better scrip than you have.”
“It’s awfully hard to give you a description when the guy’s wearing a mask and gloves.”
“I think it’s time for a slumber party. One of us is gonna hang with you overnight.”
Mercer took it a step further. “And besides that, you are on the very first plane to the Vineyard in the morning. That is, if you’re not going to be by yourself up there this weekend.”
“Clark Kent’s booked in for a visit, Mercer. Ace reporter for the Daily Planet. She’s dumping us for some news jock, m’man. What time of day do they start flying those tin cans?”
Either the liquor or the scare I had just experienced made the idea of a weekend in the country even more attractive than it had seemed earlier in the day. I had completely neglected matters like the sleep clinic investigation for the more pressing problems of the Caxton murder, but I’d push that one back another week as well. “There’s an eight a.m. out of LaGuardia. Probably overbooked this time of year. I’m not sure I’ll get on.”
“Know how much pleasure it would give me to officially bump some investment banker off that flight?” Mike asked. “I’ll take you out there myself.”
I looked at my watch. “Make you a deal. Let me call David Mitchell. If he and Renee are home,” I said, referring to my next-door neighbors, “I can sleep on their sofa, and they can drop me at the airport on their way to the Hamptons in the morning. You two have better things to do, okay? Try solving this mess before anyone else is killed.”
My call awakened David, as we knew it would, but he was more than gracious. Renee made up the sofa bed while Mike parked my Jeep in my garage and Mercer escorted me up to my own apartment so I could grab my robe as well as a shirt and pair of leggings to wear in the morning.
“Want me to wait while you pack things to take with you to the country?”
“I’ve got everything I need up there,” I said, as I gave him a hug and opened the door to David’s apartment with his spare key, which I kept in my dresser drawer. “Thanks. Call me if anything happens before I see you on Monday.”
I undressed, took a steaming hot shower, and wrapped the terry robe around me. I was too jumpy to sleep, but I turned out the light and rested, with their dog, Prozac, curled up by my side.
We left the apartment at seven, and David walked me in to the gate to make sure I got on the flight. There were the usual number of no-shows, and ten minutes before takeoff I boarded the thirty-seat Dash 8 and fell asleep for the short flight to the Vineyard.