It was Lou Colchen. Never again would I complain that there was never a cop around when you needed one-but then, I might never again get the chance to complain about anything. Punch had clapped the foul-smelling glove over my mouth the moment the car door had opened, and now I watched as he and his wife exchanged glances.
"Mongo?! You hear me?! I see lights on up there! If you are in there, you may as well come down now, because my orders are to wait right here until you show up! Come on, now! There's no sense in making me wake up the whole neighborhood!"
My captors continued to stare at each other, their expressions mirroring uncertainty. My heart was already pounding, but it began to beat even faster when a knife suddenly appeared in Judy's hand. She started to press the blade to my throat, but Punch, bless his dark heart, abruptly grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand away, shaking his head. He nodded toward the steps, and she nodded back. He took his hand away from my mouth, and then they bounded in unison up the stairwell and sprinted away down the sidewalk, their sneakered feet making hardly any sound.
"Hey, you two! What the hell?!"
I tried to spit, but there was no saliva left in my mouth. I smacked my lips and swallowed until I could work up a little moisture, then croaked, "I'm down here, Lou."
"Mongo? Where. .? I can hear you, but I can't …"
"Under your feet. In the stairwell."
I heard him skip down the steps over my head, then come along the railing until he was a dark outline at the top of the stairwell. A bright light came on, shining full in my face. I closed my eyes and turned my head away as pain shot through my skull.
"Holy shit," the gray-haired policeman said, then quickly climbed down the stairwell to the landing. He set his flashlight down, then used a pocketknife to cut the ropes that bound my wrists and ankles while he supported me under the back with one strong arm. He caught me as I fell, then started to lay me down.
"I don't want to lie down, Lou," I rasped. "Lift me up so that I can grab the railing."
"What?"
"Just do it, Lou."
He did, grabbing me by the seat of the pants and hoisting me into the air so that I could grab the bottom brace on the steel railing over my head. I hung there, breathing deep sighs of relief as my weight served to stretch out the muscles and ligaments in my body, every one of which was cramped, knotted, twitching, and screaming in pain.
Being stretched out felt absolutely divine. As far as I could tell, I hadn't broken any bones during the convulsions, or suffered any serious back injury, which I considered delightfully surprising considering the way I'd been trussed up, worked over, and had thrashed around.
"Mongo. .?"
"I'll be with you in a couple of minutes, Lou. I just need to hang out here a little while longer."
"What the hell happened to you?"
". . Mugged."
"Muggers are going to the trouble of tying up their victims these days?"
"These were kinky muggers. Lou, I'm really happy to see you. I mean, I'm really, seriously happy to see you."
"Jesus, Mongo, you smell like shit and puke."
"You should get a whiff of me from where I am."
I was actually starting to feel better. I released my grip on the railing and dropped to the landing of the stairwell. That turned out to be an overly optimistic estimate of my recuperative powers. Normally, such a drop would have been no problem at all, but now my legs wouldn't support me, and I collapsed in a heap on the cold concrete. Lou lifted me up by the armpits, then sat me down on the steps next to his flashlight. My muscles were already starting to twitch and cramp again, and I arched my neck and back.
"Hey, buddy, I think I'd better get you to a hospital."
I shook my head. "I don't need to go to the hospital. I'll be all right. I just need to do a few more stretching exercises."
"That's up to you. But if you're not going to let me take you to the hospital, you're going to have to come with me anyway. The captain wants to talk to you. Now."
I sighed. "Give me a break, will you, Lou? I just got the shit kicked out of me. I'm still alive, thanks to you, but I really don't feel like chatting with MacWhorter, or anybody else right now. Tell him I'll be there in the morning, but not to expect me too early."
The policeman shook his head. "I can't do that, Mongo. Sorry. The captain's been calling you all afternoon and night. First your secretary says you're out and he doesn't know where you are or when you'll be back, and then he starts getting your machine. My assignment was to find you, no matter how long it took, and I'm not supposed to show my face at the station house unless I've got you in tow; otherwise, I'm going to be walking a beat on Staten Island. He means it, Mongo. You know how he gets. I can see you're hurting, but that's the way it's got to be."
I dredged up another sigh, this one even deeper, louder, and more heartfelt than the first. "You mind if I clean up first? I don't want to stink up the station house."
"You're not going to skip out on me, are you, Mongo?"
"Skip? You've got to be kidding me, Lou. I might try to crawl out on you, but skip? No way."
"Make it snappy, will you?"
"Snap this," I grumbled to myself as I got to my feet and stumbled up the stairs.
Naturally, I was in no hurry whatsoever to get back downstairs, because I was certainly in no hurry to go another round with MacWhorter while trying to keep my wits about me as I figured out what I was going to tell him, which was probably going to be only a slightly less fantastic bubbameister than whatever it was I had told Punch and Judy.
I stripped off my soiled clothes, sealed them in a plastic bag, which I set down by the kitchen door to take out with the garbage. Then I stepped into the shower, turned the water on as hot as I could stand it, then lay facedown in the tub and let the needle spray wash over me as I reflected on how very close I had come to being dead. Very sore was preferable to very dead, I concluded, and started to feel better about life in general.
After twenty minutes or so of stretching out and soaking under the hot water, I got to my feet, soaped up, rinsed off, and got out of the shower. I was moving easier, and it at least felt as if I might be able to get about without looking and feeling like a palsy victim. I dressed in jeans, a sweatshirt, and sneakers, then checked on Margaret and Michael, who were both sound asleep. I considered calling in some outside help to stand guard while I was gone, but then decided that it was unlikely that Punch and Judy would return to the brownstone, at least not so soon. I went to the bar in Garth's apartment, whacked my brain and body with a quarter of a tumbler of scotch, then went back downstairs, double-locking the front door behind me. The policeman was leaning against the hood of his cruiser, sipping at a carton of coffee he'd gotten from the deli up the block.
"You took your own sweet time."
"You'd better cuff me," I said, going across the sidewalk to him and holding out my wrists. "It's procedure, and you know how MacWhorter is about procedure."
He looked at me in an odd way, then crumpled up his empty coffee carton and threw it into a wire trash container a few feet away. "You've got a really strange sense of humor, Mongo. Get in the car, will you?"
Chapter 8
This is bullshit, MacWhorter, dragging me down here in the middle of the night!" I shouted as I marched into the police captain's office. "Don't you sleep?! You're wasting your time, and mine! The first thing I want to do is call my lawyer, and then you and I can sit and stare at each other until she gets here!"
The burly policeman looked up from the stack of papers on his desk. In the harsh light thrown from his desk lamp he looked as if he had indeed not slept in some time, or even bothered to change his uniform. There were sweat stains around his collar and under his arms, and he would certainly not have passed one of his infamously rigorous inspections. He was unshaven, his beard a dark shadow cupping his face, and the large rings under his eyes were the color of bruises. "You don't need a lawyer, Frederickson," he said in a hoarse voice, "because you're not under arrest."