He trotted to the men’s department and asked to try on the jacket in the window. He liked it, a tailor came and marked some alterations, then he paid for it and went back outside. A UPS van was parked in the spot once occupied by his car. Jesus, had it been stolen?
The UPS driver stopped on his way into the store. “Was your car the Bentley parked there?”
“Yes. Did you see who took it?”
“Tow truck. They take them to a police garage downtown on the West Side. You can Google it for the address.”
“Thank you.” He sat there, steaming, until Cheree came out.
“Where’s the car?”
“Towed. I have to go downtown and pay the fee to get it back.”
“Oh, swell. Well, I’ll hoof it up to Saks while you do that. Call me when you’re ready to pick me up for lunch.” She started up Fifth Avenue, while Calhoun looked for a cab; it took fifteen minutes, and he got inside gratefully. “You know the police garage downtown where your car goes when it gets towed?”
“Sure.”
“Let’s go there. Can I have some air-conditioning?”
“Sorry, it’s broken.”
The drive downtown took all of half an hour, and Calhoun had sweated through his shirt by the time they got there. He paid the driver, went inside, and presented himself at a window.
“Help you?” a man in a uniform said.
“My car was towed about forty-five minutes ago on Fifth Avenue in the Forties.”
“What kind?”
“Bentley Mulsanne.”
The man checked his clipboard. “Not here yet — I’d have noticed. You can wait for it.” He pointed at some uncomfortable-looking chairs.
Calhoun took a chair, one with a leatherette seat, patched with duct tape. There were half a dozen other people waiting, and it reminded him of being in the holding cell in Katonah. He took several deep breaths to calm down and cool down. No air-conditioning here, either, just a fan. An hour and two trips to the window later, he once again presented himself at the window.
“Ah, the Mulsanne,” the cop said. “Not here yet.”
“How long can it take for the truck to drive here from Fifth Avenue? It only took me half an hour in a cab, and it’s been an hour and forty-five minutes.”
“License number?”
“New York, TCF-1.”
The cop turned to his computer and did a search. “Ah, here’s the problem: they took it to the Queens garage.”
“Queens?”
“Sometimes we get short of space here, and they get redirected.” The man handed him a card with the address, and Calhoun went outside to get a cab. Nothing, and he could see for blocks. He started trudging east, and took off his jacket to cool down. Finally, he found a cab on Ninth Avenue and gave the driver the address in Queens. He called Cheree.
“Yes? You hungry?”
“Starved, but the car is at the police garage in Queens, and I’m on my way there. Go ahead and get something. I’m going to be a while.”
“Okay.”
He hung up and waited the forty minutes it took to get to the Queens garage through heavy traffic, then presented himself at the window. “Bentley Mulsanne, New York plate TCF-1.”
“Nice ride,” the cop said, and checked his clipboard. “Oh, yeah, it’s upstairs. Check out with me, and I’ll give you the keys.”
“How much?”
“Let’s see, a hundred and twenty-five for—”
“A hundred and twenty-five dollars?”
“That’s for the ticket, plus the towing charge — that’s another one-fifty.” He checked his computer. “Oh, and you’ve got a few other tickets.”
Calhoun’s heart sank. “How much?”
“Let’s see, there’s eleven at one-twenty-five each, plus late-payment charges, comes to twenty-nine hundred bucks. Cash or credit card?”
Calhoun handed over a card. “I haven’t got that much cash on me.”
The cop ran it. “Sorry, it didn’t work. You got another one?”
What was going on here? He paid his bills on time. The second card worked. He signed the slip and was given the keys.
“Fourth floor, space 103,” the cop said.
“Where’s the elevator?”
“Out of order. The stairs are over there.”
Calhoun trudged up the four airless flights and found his car. It was blocked in by two others.
“Help!” he yelled repeatedly. No one around, no keys in the cars. He went back down the stairs to the window. “My car is blocked in by two others.”
“Sorry about that.” The cop picked up a phone and paged somebody, then hung up. “He’s on the way.”
Calhoun trudged up the four flights again, and by now he was light-headed, as well as soaking wet. He got to the fourth floor just as the second car was moved, but he didn’t make it to the Bentley. His knees buckled, and the lights went out.
He woke up in an ambulance, the siren going, an oxygen mask strapped to his face. The ambulance came to a stop.
Calhoun lifted the mask “Where am I?”
“Bellevue Hospital,” the EMT said.
46
Calhoun was taken into the emergency room and put on an examination table in a curtained-off cubicle. A doctor who appeared to be a recent high-school graduate examined him and strapped a blood pressure cuff to his left arm. He pressed a button and the cuff inflated.
“Ow!” Calhoun yelled. “Too tight.”
“Sorry about that,” the kid said. “No adjustment available. Just relax and enjoy the calm.”
The calm was a cacophony of screams, curses, and shouts of “Nurse!” A woman with a clipboard showed up, asked for the name and phone number of his doctor, then sat down next to his table and took an incredibly detailed history.
“I’m hot,” Calhoun said. “Can you make it cooler in here?”
“Sorry about that — it gets a little cooler for a minute when someone opens the outside door.”
“Can you prop the outside door open?”
“I never thought of that,” she said. She left and didn’t come back; it never got any cooler. The blood pressure cuff automatically reinflated every three minutes. The young doctor came back after an hour and a half and checked the recorded tape. “Your blood pressure is elevated,” he said. “One forty-five over ninety.”
“It usually is,” Callhoun said. “What’s wrong with me?”
“You may have had a heart attack,” he said. “What were you doing when you fainted?”
“I had just climbed four flights of stairs twice,” Calhoun replied.
“Any chest pains?”
“No, I just got dizzy.”
“Well, we’ll keep you on the machine for a while.”
Calhoun checked his watch: after four o’clock. “Can I get out of here now?”
“We can’t discharge you until your doctor arrives and signs you out.”
“But I feel fine,” Calhoun lied.
“We aren’t going to discharge you only to have you collapse and die on our doorstep.” He left the cubicle.
Calhoun tried to sleep but could only doze fitfully. His cell phone rang; it was still on his belt. “Hello?”
“Don, it’s after four. Where are you?”
“I’m in the emergency room at Bellevue.”
“What’s wrong?”
She wouldn’t be too concerned, he thought; after all, there was eight hundred grand in the safe, and she had the combination. “I had to climb eight flights of stairs at the police garage, and I passed out. There’s nothing wrong with me, but they won’t discharge me until my doctor comes and signs me out. Call him, will you, and tell him to get his ass down here?”