Bert had done nothing to disabuse her of the idea. She’d even confronted him with it once and he’d retorted with predictable rationalizations-that if you wanted to do business at all you had to do it this way; when in Rome, etc.
Now she knew better. The pilots were accepting that cash in return for shipments of narcotics.
You can go with the kid. Or you can go with the kid and a suitcase full of cash. It’s Ellen’s legacy-Bert owes it to her-and besides let’s face it, disappearing with a year-old infant is going to be hard enough without having to scratch for a living at the same time.
So it needed to be a Thursday night when he came home from his banking rounds and locked the suitcase in the closet.
She was taken by surprise, therefore, when one Monday afternoon he came back from the office at half-past-three with Jack Sertic. She heard them in the living room; she heard the clink of ice in glasses and Bert’s voice: “Here you go. Okay, we can leave about midnight, drive up there easy, no traffic, meet the plane six o’clock in the morning. Get back here by one, two in the afternoon.”
“I think you’re right. It’s safer than sending errand boys.”
“Aeah. Go on home, take a nap. I’m going to get some sleep myself. Can’t keep the kind of hours I did when I was a kid. Meet me back here eleven thirty. I’ll tell Quirini to put up a couple Thermoses of coffee.”
She sat in the dining room ostensibly reading the Times until she heard Jack take his leave. Bert’s footfalls thudded along the carpeted hall. He looked in at her. “How you doing?”
“All right.” She returned his glance stonily, giving him nothing.
He gave her the benediction of a saintly smile-Take your time, darling, I’ve got all the patience in the world-and went away toward his room.
She decided to give it half an hour but the first twenty minutes took forever and that was all she could stand. She put her handbag on the hall table by the front closet, unlocked the door and looked inside. The suitcase was there. Locked-but heavy. No doubt of its contents. And the leather jacket with the diamonds sewn inside.
She hadn’t planned it this way. She hadn’t packed-not even a diaper in her handbag.
Hell, Matty, you can buy whatever you need. This is the bird in hand. Grab it.
Go. Run. Now.
She left the closet unlocked, left the handbag on the table, left her coat on its hanger; no point arousing the employees with clues. Unnerved and empty-handed she went back through the apartment toward the nursery.
When she passed the kitchen door she saw Philip Quirini emptying the dishwasher.
The nursery had been a second guest bedroom before Ellen’s birth. Now it was brightly wallpapered and stuffed toys were strewn everywhere on the floor and in the crib.
Marjorie was with the baby, feeding her with upended bottle.
Don’t hesitate. Look natural. Come on.
She swept right in. “I’ll do that.”
Marjorie surrendered the baby and the formula without remark and retreated into the corner with arms folded.
Cradling the baby, cooing while Ellen sucked at the nipple, she went out the nursery door with her pulse pounding so heavily it poured little black waves across her vision.
Past the kitchen door. Philip putting cups away on their hooks. Don’t go straight down the hall now; might make them suspicious. Go into the living room. Keep talking to the baby. Make it seem aimless-a random wandering through the apartment.
The glasses, half full with the ice mostly melted in them, remained on the bar from Jack Sertic’s visit. She carried the baby to the window and looked down at the avenue. Nothing remarkable down there: traffic crawling uptown in its usual afternoon snarl.
The subway was the best bet at this hour. There was an entrance just a block uptown on Lexington. She’d already decided that; she knew precisely where she’d go with the baby-down the Lexington Avenue line to Grand Central Station, change for the crosstown shuttle, get off at Eighth Avenue, walk two blocks to a car rental agency and hope they had something immediately available. If not, walk straight down the street into the Port Authority bus terminal and catch a bus to any town across the river in Jersey where they rented cars.
Speed was the trick. Get out of Manhattan; get into a car. After that there’d be time to breathe, time to find an open supermarket, time to study maps. But first she had to get the baby out of this apartment.
She carried Ellen to the front hall closet. The bottle wasn’t empty but the baby must have sensed her distress. Probably felt the bashing of her heartbeat. Ellen spurned the nipple and began to cry.
She put the bottle down on the hall table, hooked her handbag over her wrist and reached into the closet: folded the leather jacket over her forearm and picked up the suitcase, cradling the wailing baby in one arm, and turned to struggle with the deadbolt on the front door.
A torrent of adrenaline slammed through her; her palsied hand was barely able to turn the knob.
When Philip Quirini cleared his throat she nearly dropped the baby.
Perhaps it was the tone of the baby’s yelling; perhaps something else. Whatever it had been, she was caught. The Quirinis, husband and wife, came down the hall with carefully expressionless faces, their eyes taking in everything: the suitcase, the baby, the half-open apartment door.
Philip Quirini said very politely, “Let me give you a hand with that suitcase, Mrs. LaCasse.”
Marjorie contrived a sliver of a smile. “I’ll take the baby for you now.”
He had his hand on the edge of the door, blocking her exit; Marjorie was reaching for Ellen. Over the infant’s howls Marjorie said, “The baby’s not supposed to go out in this weather”-what weather? It was a normal day for early summer-and she saw Marjorie’s glance fall upon the suitcase again and saw the determined set of Marjorie’s jaw under the polite cool subservient smile and she knew it was no good: she couldn’t get away with the baby but neither could she turn back now because within two minutes Bert would be told what she’d tried to do and her next stop, and last one, would be commitment to that rubber room.
No choice. None at all.
She surrendered the baby. “Tell my husband I’ll be away for a few days. Tell him not to worry.” And picked up the suitcase and took it with the jacket through the door. They didn’t move to stop her. That wasn’t included in their instructions. They only smiled and she watched the door swing shut, cutting off her view of the baby.
She could still hear Ellen’s yowling when she crossed the vestibule and put her key in the switch that summoned the elevator. The sound dwindled as the baby was carried away toward the nursery.
Would they awaken Bert right away?
Probably.
Chances were she only had a minute or two to get away. Where was the damned elevator?
What else could I have done? There must have been something. Can I go back now and get her? Isn’t there some way?
She scrambled feverishly amid the labyrinth of visions. But all of them were dead ends.
She heard the elevator mechanism. At least it was moving. But where was the car?
Back in the apartment she thought she heard a door slam.
My God. Come on!
Nothing to do but run for it. Hide. Set up a nest somewhere safe. Then come back when he’s no longer expecting it and take the baby away from him.
Footsteps in the apartment. Pounding hard on the carpet. Coming forward. Bert’s stride.
The car arrived; the doors slid open. She kicked the suitcase into the elevator, swung inside, jabbed her key into the slot.
The doors were closing and she just had a glimpse of Bert as he came plunging out of the apartment. He was stretching forward, trying to claw at the closing doors, but they came together before his hand reached them.