“That’s over two hundred years ago.”
“There are lots of clubs older than that. The Order of the Garter. The Society of the Cincinnati.” Jenny looked at her watch. “Come on. We’ve been here too long. You can ask her yourself. She’s waiting.”
She stood and led the way past the cashier, through the pack waiting to be seated. Thomas tapped her on the shoulder. “Hey, Jen,” he said. “You never got to tell me what you wanted to talk about.”
“You sure you want to know? It’s not the best time.”
“Of course I want to know.”
“All right then.” Turning, she took his hand. “I’m-” Jenny felt her mouth go dry. Around the room, several men were standing from their tables and hurrying toward the cashier’s desk. They were all of a kind: near her age, fit, neatly dressed. The Romeo who’d been giving her the eye was on his feet, too. She counted five men in all. They’re here.
“Hurry up,” she said, yanking Thomas’s hand. “The club’s here.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re here! The club. The committee. Whatever she called them. We’ve got to hurry. Please, Tommy. You’ve got to follow me.”
Jenny shoved open the door and ran onto the sidewalk. A line of customers three deep waiting for a table snaked down the block. Jenny pushed through the crowd and rushed to the curb. “There’s supposed to be a car here for us,” she said, looking up and down the street.
Union Square West was off-limits to thru traffic. A lone Dodge Dart was parked against the far curb, near the park. Farther up the block, she noticed a Lincoln Town Car, mount of choice for every limousine service in the city. She checked over her shoulder. The men were filing out of the restaurant, spreading out on the sidewalk behind them.
“Where’s the car?” Bolden asked.
“I don’t know,” Jenny said, tugging at her hands.
Bolden looked behind them. “We can’t stand here. We’ve got to-”
Just then, the Dodge Dart parked across the street exploded.
33
Smoke billowed from the hood of the car. Tongues of flame curled from the engine block, the trunk, the passenger seat, lapping at the sky. The heat was tremendous. The line of customers waiting to get into the Coffee Shop had turned into an agitated throng. People stood, stunned and shaken. They held each other. They pointed. They ran. The daring approached the burning car.
“There’s someone inside,” a voice shouted.
“Get him out!” urged another. “Hurry!”
The wall of heat was intense enough to erase even the most heroic notions.
Bolden guided Jenny away from the car. His ears were ringing from the blast, his eyes watering from the bales of smoke. He checked the area near the car for any wounded bystanders, but could find no torn and bloodied shirts, no blackened faces. If it had been a car bomb, he would have been a pile of smoking rags and a pair of empty shoes. He glanced around him. Hidden somewhere among the milling crowd were the men whom Jenny had spotted in the restaurant. The explosion had given them a few seconds.
“It’s her,” she said, pointing. “It’s Bobby Stillman.”
A woman had emerged from the smoke, standing near the hood of the car, braving the fire. She was shouting, beckoning them to come. A tall, pale, pinched woman in her fifties.
Like a hydrogen bomb, all dark energy and fear, ready to go off.
The woman-Bobby Stillman-continued to motion for him to come. “Thomas,” she was saying. He could read her lips. “Hurry!”
But you have to know each other, Guilfoyle had insisted.
It took him another second to fault Guilfoyle on that count, too. He had never seen her before in his life.
Jenny started across the street, but Bolden held her back. He didn’t want to go into a park, where he could be surrounded and overwhelmed. The crowd was his friend. Turmoil. Chaos. He had learned these things as a kid. He understood that it was Bobby Stillman who’d detonated this “smoke bomb,” and that it was a diversion to help him get away. And with that knowledge came the rest of it: that she had known about his kidnapping, and therefore knew Guilfoyle.
He looked at Bobby Stillman a moment longer, and made his decision.
“Come with me,” he said to Jenny.
“But…”
Tightening his grip on her hand, he began walking away, the walk turning to a jog.
They headed down the block to Fifteenth Street, dodging in and out of the masses converging on the burning car. The petitioners had abandoned their tables. The musicians clutched their horns to their chests as if they were cradling their children. Students poured out of the dormitory, rapt expressions testifying that real life beat books any day. Nearby, a siren began to wail.
Someone collided with Bolden. Jenny’s fingers slipped from his. He spun, relieved to find her at his back. “We’re almost out of here,” he said. “Just around the corner.”
Jenny pushed the hair out of her face and nodded.
When Bolden turned back, he was met by a pair of determined brown eyes. A man his own age with straight dark hair stood in front of him blocking his path. Something hard struck Bolden’s ribs. He glanced down and saw that it was a pistol. “Who the hell are you? What do you want with me?”
The man answered with a calm that belied his coiled tension. “Time to stop interfering.”
The pistol pushed harder into Bolden’s ribs and the muscles in the man’s jaw flexed.
“No!” shouted Bolden.
And then the man’s face slackened. His eyes wavered and rolled back into his head. All at once, he was collapsing at the knees. Another man caught him. He was tall, lean, mid-fifties, unshaven, a stubble of iron gray hair peeking out from a longshoreman’s cap. His right hand clutched a fat leather sap. His bloodshot eyes passed from Bolden to Jenny. “Go, sweetheart,” he said, in a rough voice. “Get out of here. Situation’s under control.”
Bolden skirted him and hurried down the sidewalk. “You know him?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Harry,” she said. “He’s a friend.”
“That’s good,” said Bolden. “We need friends.”
At the south end of the street, a police car turned in and accelerated toward them, siren wooping on and off. A second police car followed it. Bolden looked over his shoulder. The scene reminded him of a newsreel from a sixties protest, people scattering, air clouded with tear gas, an atmosphere of rage and incomprehension. The two men were gone-the grim, dark-haired assailant and Harry, the worn-out jarhead who’d knocked him unconscious-both of them swallowed by the unruly crowd. And the others? He knew they were there, looking for him. He told himself that they were closer than he expected. They had to move. To escape. But where?
Two police cars drove past. The crowd opened up to allow them a clear path.
“What is it, Thomas?” Jenny asked, bumping into him.
He rocked a step forward. “Noth-”
He heard the bullet strike Jenny. The impact was as distinct as a slap on the thigh. A red film sprayed from her shoulder. She lurched back a step, falling hard to the ground, striking her head on the concrete. Bolden dove to his left. A bullet ricocheted off the ground where he’d stood. He waited for the crack of a rifle, but none came. He looked around. The tide of pedestrians that had momentarily parted to allow the police cars to pass had engulfed them again. Rising to a knee, he searched the buildings opposite the square for some sign of where the shot had come from. He spotted movement in a third-floor window directly opposite him. A dark figure looming at an open window. A head cradled over a narrow object. Then it was gone.
Jenny was unconscious, her eyes closed, her breath coming in shallow gulps. A hole was cut in her camel-hair overcoat the size of a dime. Beneath it, he saw raw flesh.