She looked westward. A big police van was parked on the corner of Fifth, and across the street from it was a television truck. On the far side of the Avenue were the reviewing stands that had been assembled in front of the park.
She looked directly below her. A long line of police scooters were angle-parked on the street. Dozens of helmeted police officers were milling about, blowing into their hands or drinking coffee. Their proximity made her feel better.
She turned and sat facing the bed. She noticed that he had put on his jeans, but he was still sitting on the bed. She became apprehensive again, and her voice came out low and tremulous. “Who—who are you?”
He got off the bed and walked to her. “I’m your lover of last evening, Mrs. O’Neal.” He stood directly in front of her, and she had to crane her neck to look up into his face.
Terri O’Neal was frightened. This man did not act, look, or talk like a crazy—yet he was going to do something to her that she was not going to like. She was sure of that. She pulled free of his stare and turned her eyes slightly toward the side panel of the bay window. A loud scream would do it. She hoped to God it would do it.
Dan Morgan didn’t follow her eyes, but he knew what was out there. “Not a peep, lass. Not a peep …”
Reluctantly she swung her head back toward him and found herself staring into a big, black silencer at the end of a bigger black pistol. Her mouth went dry.
“… or I’ll put a bullet through your pretty, dimpled kneecap.”
It was several seconds before she could form a thought or a word, then she said softly, “What do you want?”
“Just your company for a while.”
“Company?” Her brain wasn’t taking in any of this.
“You’re kidnapped, darlin’. Kidnapped.”
CHAPTER 7
Detective Lieutenant Patrick Burke sat huddled against the cold dawn on the top riser of the reviewing stands and looked down into the Avenue. The freshly painted green line glistened in the thin sunlight, and policemen stepped carefully over it as they crossed the street.
A bomb squad ambled through the risers picking up paper bags and bottles, none of them containing anything more lethal than the dregs of cheap wine. A bum lay covered with newspaper on the riser below him, undisturbed by the indulgent cops.
Burke looked east into Sixty-fourth Street. Police motor scooters lined the street, and a WPIX television van had taken up position on the north corner. A police mobile headquarters van was parked on the south corner, and two policemen were connecting the van’s cables to an access opening at the base of a streetlamp.
Burke lit a cigarette. In twenty years of intelligence work this scene had not changed nearly so much as everything else in his life had. He thought that even the bum might be the same.
Burke glanced at his watch—five minutes to kill. He watched the uniformed patrolmen queue up to a PBA canteen truck for coffee. Someone at the back of the line was fortifying the cups of coffee with a dark liquid poured from a Coke bottle, like a priest, thought Burke, sprinkling holy water on the passing troops. It would be a long, hard day for the uniformed cops. Over a million people, Irish and otherwise, would crowd the sidewalks of Fifth Avenue and the bars and restaurants of midtown Manhattan. Surprisingly, for all the sound and fury of the day there had never been a serious political incident in over two centuries of St. Patrick’s days in New York. But Burke felt every year that it would happen, that it must happen eventually.
The presence of the Malone woman in New York disturbed him. He had interviewed her briefly in the Empire Room of the Waldorf the previous evening. She seemed likable enough, pretty, too, and undaunted by his suggestion that someone might decide to murder her. She had probably become accustomed to threats on her life, he thought.
The Irish were Burke’s specialty, and the Irish, he believed, were potentially the most dangerous group of all. But if they struck, would they pick this day? This day belonged to the Irish. The parade was their trooping of the colors, their showing of the green, necessary in those days when they were regarded as America’s first unwanted foreigners. He remembered a joke his grandfather used to tell, popular at the turn of the century: What is St. Patrick’s Day? It’s the day the Protestants and Jews look out the windows of their town houses on Fifth Avenue to watch their employees march by.
What had begun as America’s first civil rights demonstration was now a reminder to the city—to the nation—that the Irish still existed as a force. This was the day that the Irish got to fuck up New York City, the day they turned Manhattan on its ear.
Burke stood, stretched his big frame, then bounded down the rows of benches and jumped onto the sidewalk. He walked behind the stands until he came to an opening in the low stone wall that bordered Central Park, where he descended a flight of stone steps. In front of him rose the huge, castlelike Arsenal—actually a park administration building—flying, along with the American flag, the green, white, and orange tricolor of the Republic of Ireland. He circled around it to his right and came to a closed set of towering wrought-iron gates. Without much enthusiasm he climbed to the top of the gates, then dropped down into the zoo.
The zoo was deserted and much darker than the Avenue. Ornate lamps cast a weak light over the paths and brick buildings. He proceeded slowly down the straight lane, staying in the shadows. As he walked he unholstered his service revolver and slipped it into his coat pocket, more as a precaution against muggers than professional assassins.
The shadows of bare sycamores lay over the lane, and the smell of damp straw and animals hung oppressively in the cold, misty air. To his left seals were barking in their pool, and birds, captive and free, chirped and squawked in a blend of familiar and exotic sounds.
Burke passed the brick arches that supported the Delacorte clock and peered into the shadows of the colonnade, but no one was there. He checked his watch against the clock. Ferguson was late or dead. He leaned against one of the clock arches and lit another cigarette. Around him he saw, to the east, south, and west, towering skyscrapers silhouetted against the dawn, crowded close to the black treelines like sheer cliffs around a rain forest basin.
He heard the sound of soft footsteps behind him and turned, peering around the arch into the path that led to the Children’s Zoo deeper into the park.
Jack Ferguson passed through a concrete tunnel and stepped into a pool of light, then stopped. “Burke?”
“Over here.” Burke watched Ferguson approach. The man walked with a slight limp, his oversized vintage trench coat flapping with every step he took.
Ferguson offered his hand and smiled, showing a set of yellowed teeth. “Good to see you, Patrick.”
Burke took his hand. “How’s your wife, Jack?”
“Poorly. Poorly, I’m afraid.”
“Sorry to hear that. You’re looking a bit pale yourself.”
Ferguson touched his face. “Am I? I should get out more.”
“Take a walk in the park—when the sun’s up. Why are we meeting here, Jack?”
“Oh God, the town’s full of Micks today, isn’t it? I mean we could be seen anywhere by anybody.”
“I suppose.” Old revolutionaries, thought Burke, would wither and die without their paranoia and conspiracies. Burke pulled a small thermal flask from his coat. “Tea and Irish?”
“Bless you.” Ferguson took it and drank, then handed it back as he looked around into the shadows. “Are you alone?”
“Me, you, and the monkeys.” Burke took a drink and regarded Ferguson over the rim of the flask. Jack Ferguson was a genuine 1930s City College Marxist whose life had been spent in periods of either fomenting or waiting for the revolution of the working classes. The historical tides that had swept the rest of the world since the war had left Jack Ferguson untouched and unimpressed. In addition he was a pacifist, a gentle man, though these seemingly disparate ideals never appeared to cause him any inner conflict. Burke held out the flask. “Another rip?”