When he’d reached Gaby’s window on the fire escape, he’d looked in and seen a man in a bathrobe—thin, balding Mr. Crenshaw, Gaby’s neighbor—talking on the phone in Gaby’s bedroom. Crenshaw looked alarmed as he talked, and hung up almost as soon as Harris spotted him.
Harris knocked on the window, and Crenshaw went from his usual sunless color to nearly true white. Then the man recognized Harris. He threw open the window and started babbling.
“Someone took her, a really huge son of a bitch. Her door’s all over the living room. Thank God they didn’t see me. I’ve called the police . . . ”
Something like an electrical current jolted Harris. All of a sudden he had a hard time breathing. On the other hand, he didn’t feel drunk anymore.
He told Mr. Crenshaw what he’d heard the old man say. “Call the police again, tell them what I saw.” Then he ran back down the fire escape.
Now, as he reached the footpath opposite the Met, the point where he’d started his circuit of the Great Lawn, he had no illusions that he wasn’t drunk. Keeping his balance while he ran was an interesting effort, and whenever he stood still, his surroundings spun slowly counterclockwise. At least he was alert.
No sign of the three guys or Gaby. Maybe the old man was talking about the really great lawn he had in front of his house in Queens or something. Harris cursed and turned off the footpath, crossing through a fringe of trees onto the grass of the Great Lawn itself. It spread out before him, a featureless plain of darkness.
Please, God, let him find Gaby. And if he couldn’t find her right away, please give him a mugger. Someone he could beat and beat in order to release the howling fear and rage he felt building inside him.
As he was making his second crossing of the lawn he saw them. Three reverse silhouettes off in the darkness, given away by their tan coats. He turned their way and trotted as quietly as he could. In his jeans, jeans jacket, and dark shirt, he thought maybe he wouldn’t be spotted too fast.
When he was a few yards away he was sure it was them, and he could see the duffel bag resting on the ground several yards from them. It lay on a line of white rocks twenty feet long.
He was confused. A second line crossed the first at right angles in the middle. The two lines were surrounded by a circle of more white rocks.
X Marks the Spot. Under other circumstances, he would have laughed.
The three men were huddled, talking, just outside the circle of stones, and still hadn’t seen him. He picked up speed, saw the old man notice his presence and turn.
He came up off his jumping foot and brought the same leg up before him in extension—a flying side kick he could tell was picture-perfect. It took the biggest man in the side and the impact jarred Harris from foot to gut.
The huge man felt as though he were made of skin stretched over Jell-O, but he still fell over backwards, hissing out a gasp of air. Harris hit the ground hard but scrambled up instantly. “Gaby?”
The bag said, “Harris?” and her arm reached out of it.
The old man merely said, “Mine.” He took a step toward Harris and reached under his coat.
Harris saw the glint of the gun’s slide in the moonlight. He threw a hard block, cracking his forearm into the older man’s wrist, and the pistol went flying into the darkness.
The old man stepped back, grabbing at his wrist and frowning. “Phipps, I need this young man removed. Adonis, get up.”
“Gaby, get the hell out of here!”
The man with the football player’s build stood his ground and pulled something out from under his armpit.
Harris felt fear clutching at him, but he charged and side-kicked just as Phipps got his revolver out into the open. His kick connected, driving the man’s arm hard into his chest, cracking something, knocking the man clean off his feet.
The gun dropped, but Phipps sat up and scrabbled around for it with his good arm. Harris stepped forward again and rotated through a spinning side kick, straight out of tournament demonstrations, and felt a satisfying crack as his foot connected. Phipps flopped back hard, his head banging on the ground.
Harris almost grinned. From the opening bell to the knockout, one point five seconds. Not bad for a drunk loser. He bent over, grabbed up Phipps’ revolver, and swung it around to aim.
The huge man’s gloved hand clamped on the barrel and yanked. The gun fired into nothingness and came out of Harris’ grip, stinging his hand. The huge man flung it off into the darkness. With his free hand, he pulled his hat away from his head and looked down at Harris. Moonlight illuminated his face.
With his build, he couldn’t be old. But his skin, cinnamon brown, hung in packed layers of wrinkles like earthworms laid lengthwise. No mouth or ears were discernible, but there were eyes, animal’s eyes, deep in the mass of wrinkles. Harris took an involuntary step back, looking for the sign, the seam that proved this was a mask.
But the mouth opened. It was too large and wide to belong to any human. No man or woman possessed a forest of sharklike teeth like those. This was no mask. It twisted into a smile.
The Smile mocked him.
Gaby shoved her way out of the bag and looked around frantically. No one was paying her any attention.
Just yards away was the broad back of Adonis. The big . . . thing . . . was moving away from her. Toward Harris.
He looked scared. No wonder. He was looking right into Adonis’ face. But he dropped into his tae kwon do stance and shouted, “Gaby, run!”
Gaby scrambled to her feet and hesitated. She couldn’t just run out on Harris. But, no, if she could get over to the street, maybe she could flag down a cop. That’s what everybody needed just now. She turned and bolted.
Right into the old man’s arms.
He grabbed her almost tenderly, but he was a lot stronger than an elderly businessman should be. “You can’t leave,” he said, calmly, persuasively. “It’s only half a minute until—”
“You bastard.” She kneed him in the balls.
His testicles seemed to have been in good working order; he bent over with a grunt of surprise and pain, but he didn’t let go. She kneed him again, then slammed the edge of her heel down across his ankle. This time he did let go, staggering to one side. She ran.
One last glance for Harris. He was still up, his body angling back as he directed a kick against Adonis’ knee. She heard the crack of the impact but wasn’t surprised when Adonis didn’t fall or react to the blow. Harris wobbled from the exertion but was still fast enough to elude Adonis’ quick return blow.
Then Gaby got up to speed and raced toward the concealment of the trees.
Harris heard her go but kept his eye on his opponent. The thing called Adonis was big and fast, and the sharp bits on the ends of its wrinkled fingers looked suspiciously like claws . . . and Harris was still drunk. He had to stay focused, now more than in any match he’d ever fought.
Harris backed away, staying just outside the thing’s easy range, and circled around his opponent. Adonis came at him again, swinging a paw as big as a tennis racquet; Harris danced backward, saw how his opponent’s too-energetic swings were pulling him off balance. Another missed slash with those claws, and Harris darted in, planting a hard side kick into Adonis’ gut. He scrambled back before Adonis could recover. Adonis’ mockery of a face twisted in something like pain. So it could be hurt.
Movement in his peripheral vision: the old man was up, his face a mask of anger; he limped in the direction Gaby had fled. But he was moving so slowly there was little chance he’d catch her. At least he wasn’t groping for his pistol.