“No, thanks,” he said, and paused. “So you don’t know anything about this schedule, huh?”
“Nothing at all.”
“And you’re sure you don’t know anyone named Joseph Phelps.”
“Positive. Who is he?”
“A stockbroker. Never handled any accounts for you, huh?”
“Never.”
“Or anyone in your family?”
“Not that I know of.”
He looked at her.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Well... thanks, anyway, Miss Kidd,” he said, “I appreciate your time.” He turned toward the door. “Incidentally,” he said, “if anyone should ask about Mr. Phelps, he’s at the Fifth Precinct. Until we book him, anyway.”
“I can’t imagine who would ask,” she said, and followed him to the door. “Goodbye, Mr. Reardon,” she said, and opened the door for him. She locked it behind him the moment he was gone, and then went back into the living room. She turned the knob on the library door, opened it a crack.
“He’s gone,” she said, and turned on her heel and went to where she’d left the brandy snifter on the coffee table in front of the fire.
Sarge came into the room. He looked enormously troubled.
“He knows,” he said, and went immediately to where his coat was hanging in the entry hall.
“Not from anything I said.”
“No, you were very good. But he knows. Or is damn close to knowing.” He nodded. “Call Olivia at the Park Lane.” he said, buttoning his coat. “Tell her a dumb cop is about to blow this thing skyhigh. Would you do that, Jess?”
“Sure,” she said. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t want to lose him,” he said.
He kissed her on the cheek.
“I’ll be back,” he said.
He had told Sandy he’d meet her at a little alter five, so he went directly to her apartment from the last Kidd on his list, wondering how Ruiz and Gianelli were making out, wondering if Phelps had finally told Farmer and Hoffman anything. He lighted some candles, draped his jacket and shoulder holster over a wooden ladderback chair in the living room, and then started a cannel-coal fire. He poured himself a scotch, went to his jacket again, took his notebook from the inside pocket, and carried notebook and scotch to the beanbag chair. Sitting, opening the notebook, he sipped at the scotch and tried to make some sense of it.
Approx ten P.M. Sunday night, December fourteenth. Amin Abbas killed getting off the Washington shuttle...
Reardon sipped at the scotch again.
Approx eleven P.M. Sunday night, December fourteenth. Associates hijack ambulance, appropriate body, search for timetable, discover it’s missing.
He nodded, looked at his notebook again.
Lunch Monday, December fifteenth, say around twelve, twelve-thirty. D’Annunzio shows Dodge the timetable. Or maybe gives Dodge the briefcase Abbas left on the plane. Either way, Dodge is now in possession of the timetable.
Approx six o’clock Monday night. The Arabs kill Peter Dodge and recover the timetable. Seven o’clock, same night. The Arabs kill D’Annunzio because he’s seen the—
There was a sound at the front door.
“Sandy?” he said, turning. “It’s open.”
The door was indeed open. As he watched, it opened even wider. The person standing in the doorframe, however, was not Sandy. It was a man who appeared to be six-feet two-inches tall and two hundred and thirty pounds wide, give or take, someone who looked vaguely familiar though Reardon couldn’t imagine why. The man came into the room swiftly and deliberately, walking past the ladderback chair over which Reardon’s holster and jacket were draped, coming directly to where Reardon was trying to get up as quickly as he could from the low beanbag, reaching Reardon just as he managed a half-crouch, and punching Reardon full in the face with his huge clenched fist.
As Reardon tried to extricate himself from the beanbag yet another time, the man brought his knee up and into his jaw, and then hit him over the bridge of his nose with the clenched fist, wielding it like a hammer, whap, blinding little arrows of light splintering up into his head, and whap again, he is going to kill me. Reardon thought, before I even get out of this fucking beanbag! The man was bigger than Reardon, and stronger than he was, and he had cold-cocked him in the fucking dumb amoeba-beanbag chair that kept trying to swallow him. and Reardon knew that if he didn’t do something fast — why did police work always get down to having to do something fast? — the big guy would stomp him into the floor and throw him into the fire or out the window because this was playing-for-keeps time. This Reardon knew with every gram of intelligence he possessed.
He abandoned trying to stand up, gave up any idea of shoving himself up out of the beanbag, rolled out of it instead, onto the floor and away from a kick the big guy aimed at his head, rolling, rolling, the big guy following him until finally his back hit the wall on the other side of the room, and the big guy reached down for him and grabbed him by the shirt, and yanked him to his feet, and Reardon brought his knee up into his groin, and the big guy yelled and let go of his shirt. Reardon knew he had to get to the gun. This guy would kill him. he was too big and too strong. Reardon desperately needed his pistol. But it was in the holster across the room, and the big guy was between him and the holster, bellowing now in rage because he’d been kneed in the balls, ready to tear Reardon apart in anger now.
The anger hadn’t been there earlier. Earlier there had been only the methodical pounding and kicking, the certainty that brute strength would prevail, but now there was anger, and Reardon figured the anger would work better for him than it would for the big guy. Anger had a great deal of energy going for it — you didn’t start up with a guy who was angry because he could easily kill you with the power of his rage — but that’s all it had going for it.
Anger made you dumb.
Anger made you reckless.
Anger made you lose.
“Come on, you dumb fuck,” Reardon said, playing into the anger, dropping his hands at his sides and sticking his chin out, and then side-stepping to the left, ducking away as the big guy threw another punch at him. “Missed, you asshole,” Reardon said, and opened himself up again, balancing himself on the balls of his feet, ready to dart left or right depending on where the next angry punch — there it was, a sharp left jab, he pulled his head to the right, danced away, and grabbed the nearest candlestick by its stem.
The candle fell from the socket, hitting the floor, the wax breaking, the wick holding the pieces like a spinal cord, the flame snuffing out at once. Reardon swung the candlestick toward the big guy’s head, the base aimed at his left temple. A big hefty arm came up, diverting the blow, the candlestick base catching him on the left cheek and opening a cut there, nothing serious, nothing to stop him from reacting with a short, sharp, right-handed jab to Reardon’s gut.
“Ooof!” Reardon went, and the big guy fell upon him in earnest.
Now I die, he thought, now the son of a bitch kills me. His punches were angry, more powerful because of the anger behind them. He stalked Reardon like a trained killer — Jesus, is he a pro? Reardon wondered — battering him, pounding him, knocking over chairs and tables to get at him, slamming him against the wall and punching him when he bounced off the wall again, anger, anger — and then the mistake that anger caused. Shoved out at him, and closed in on him, both fists bunched for the kill, but shoved him in the direction of the chair with the gun slung over it, momentarily letting his anger get between himself and his own good sense, letting Reardon at the same time get between him and the gun.