Desperate Measures (15 page)

The address was on the Lower East Side. Pittman quickly wrote it down, tore off the piece of paper, and put it into his pocket.

“Now what other computer files do you want?” Brian asked.

“
I thought so
,” a steely voice said behind them.

Pittman and Brian spun toward the noise.

Gladys must have been listening at the door. She had thrown it open.

She stormed in. “I can’t leave you alone for a minute. You can’t stay out of trouble.”

“Trouble?”

“You
are
hacking. What’s the matter with you? Do you like prison so much that you want to go back there?”

“You’re mistaken,” Pittman said. “I was showing Brian some work I’ve been doing.”

“Get out of my house.”

“We accessed my files at—”

“Don’t lie to me. Your name isn’t Ed Garner. It’s Matthew Pittman. CNN just did a story on you. I recognized your picture.”
Gladys yanked the phone from the modem. “I’m calling the police.”

As words vanished from the screen, she raised the phone to her ear and pressed 911.

“Gladys,” Brian objected.

From another room, the baby started crying.

“Please,” Pittman said.

Gladys spoke to the phone, “My name is Gladys Botulfson. I live at—”

Pittman pressed the disconnect button. “You’re doing something stupid, Gladys.”

“I don’t want any killer near my baby.”

“You don’t understand.”

They stared at each other.

The phone began to ring.

Gladys flinched.

“That’ll be the police,” Pittman said. “They have an automatic record of the phone number of anyone who calls them.”

Gladys tried to pry his hand from the disconnect button.

Pittman used his other hand to grip her wrist. “Don’t do it. Think. How would you like your baby’s father to go to prison
again.”

“
What?”

The phone kept ringing.

“Aiding a fugitive,” Pittman said. “Helping him illegally access computer files. Brian could be put away until your baby starts
high school.”

Gladys’s eyes bulged.

The phone rang again.

Pittman took the receiver away from her and lifted the disconnect button. “Hello?… Yes, Gladys Botulfson lives here.… I know
she called. We were having a bit of a quarrel, I’m afraid. She… Here. Let me put her on.”

Pittman stared at her, then handed her the phone.

Gladys squinted toward the wailing baby, then toward Brian, finally toward Pittman. Her lips were so pursed that the skin
around them was white.

She parted them. “This is Gladys Botulfson,” she said to the phone. “I’m sorry for troubling you. What my husband says is
true. We were having a fight. I thought I’d scare him if I called the police.… Yes, I understand it’s a serious offense to
abuse the emergency number. It won’t happen again.… We’re calmer now. No, I don’t need any help. Thank you.”

Gladys set down the phone. She rubbed her wrist where Pittman had gripped it. Her voice was disturbingly flat. “Get out.”

Pittman picked up his gym bag. “Brian, thanks for letting me get into the newspaper’s computer files.” His look toward Brian
was direct and meaningful: Don’t let her know what files we really accessed.

“Sure.”

“I won’t tell you again,” Gladys said.

“A pleasure to meet you.”

Pittman left the apartment and shut the door behind him. When he got in the elevator, he could still hear Gladys’s loud, accusing
voice from behind Brian’s door.

Pittman had hoped to borrow money from Brian, but that had obviously been out of the question. With a dollar bill, a dime,
and a nickel in his pocket, he proceeded dismally toward where he could catch the train back to Manhattan, although he didn’t
know why, since he didn’t have enough cash to buy a token. The more he walked, the more tired and hungry he became. He felt
defeated.

Ahead, cars at a funeral home caused him to suffer the depressing memory of Jeremy’s funeral—the closed coffin, Jeremy’s photograph
in front of it; the mourners, most of them classmates from Jeremy’s school; Burt next to Pittman (and now Burt was dead);
Pittman’s argument with his soon-to-be ex-wife. (“It’s your fault,” she’d insisted. “You should have taken him to the doctor
sooner.”)

Pittman recalled how, after the funeral, there’d been a somber reception back at the mortician’s, coffee and sandwiches, final
commiserations. But Pittman had been so choked with grief that he hadn’t been able to force himself to respond to the condolences.
He had taken a sandwich that someone had given him, but the rye bread and paperlike sliced turkey had stuck in his throat.
He’d felt surrounded by a gray haze of depression.

A similar gray haze weighed upon him now. Instinctive fear had propelled him into motion. Adrenaline had fueled him. The strength
and endurance that adrenaline created had finally dwindled, however. In their place were lethargy and despair. Pittman didn’t
know if he could go on.

He told himself that he’d been foolish to believe that he could disentangle himself from the mess that he had fallen into.

Perhaps I
should
go to the police. Let
them
try to figure things out.

And if someone gets through police security to kill you?

What difference does it make? I’m too tired to care.

You don’t mean that.

Don’t I? Death would be welcome.

No. You’ve got to keep trying, a voice inside him said. It sounded like Jeremy.

How? I don’t even have enough money to take the train back to Manhattan.

Come on, Dad. All those years of running. Don’t tell me you don’t have what it takes to do a little more walking.

It took three hours. Even though Pittman had switched from his street shoes to the jogging shoes that he’d put in his gym
bag, his feet ached and his leg muscles protested. Weak from exertion and hunger, he reached Grand Street on Manhattan’s Lower
East Side, looking for the address that he’d gotten from Sean O’Reilly’s computer file.

He studied the busy street, wary of police surveillance. After all, Gladys Botulfson might have changed her mind. If Brian
had said something to infuriate her further, she might have decided to call the police and teach her husband a lesson. Of
course, the police wouldn’t know where Pittman had gone unless Brian confessed which file he had accessed. But would he? Or
would Brian’s anger toward Gladys prompt him to defy her?

That wasn’t the only thing that bothered him. What if the address Sean O’Reilly had given the authorities was out of date
or else a lie? Suppose he wasn’t there?

The latter worry intensified when Pittman finally reached the address and discovered that it wasn’t an apartment building
but a restaurant instead, a sign in the front window announcing
PADDY’S
.

Shit.
Now
what am I supposed to do?

Needing to get off the street, he did his best to hide his nervousness when, unable to think of an alternative, he entered
the restaurant.

He barely noticed its Irish decor—green tablecloths, shamrocks on the menus, a large map of Ireland on one wall. What he did
notice was the handful of late-afternoon customers, most of them at the bar.

A few looked in his direction, then returned their attention to their drinks.

Pittman approached the barman, who was muscular, wore a green apron, and stood behind the cash register.

“What’ll it be?”

“I’m looking for a friend of mine. Sean O’Reilly.”

The barman used a towel to wipe the counter.

“I heard he was staying at this address,” Pittman said, “but this is a restaurant. I don’t see…”

“How?”

“What?”

“How did you get this address?”

“My parole officer’s the same as his. Look, is Sean around?”

The man kept wiping the counter.

“Sean and I go back to when he was doing those public-service announcements for the police department,” Pittman said. “When
he was telling people how to keep their homes safe from burglars.”

“So? What do you want him for?”

“Old times. I’ve got some stories to tell him.” Pittman drew his key chain from his pocket and held up the tool knife. “About
this.”

The bartender watched Pittman remove the lock-pick tools from the end of the knife.

The bartender relaxed. “You’ve got one of those, too?” He smiled and pulled out a set of keys, showing his own knife. “Sean
only gave these to guys he likes. Yeah, Sean stays here. In a room upstairs. At night, he subs for me.”

“But is he around?”

“Ought to be waking up around now. He sure was drunk last night.”

A half dozen people came into the restaurant.

“Looks like we’re getting busy.” The bartender poured tomato juice into a glass, added Tabasco sauce, and dropped in a raw
egg. “Stairs through the door in back. Second floor. The room at the end of the hall. He’ll be needing this.”

In a musty upstairs hallway that smelled of cabbage, Pittman knocked on the door. When he didn’t get an answer, he knocked
again. This time, he heard a groan. His third knock caused a louder groan. He tried the door. It wasn’t locked. Pushing it
open, he found a sparse room with its shades closed, its lights off, and Sean O’Reilly sprawled on the floor.

“The light, the light,” Sean groaned.

Pittman thought that the dim light from the hallway must be hurting Sean’s eyes. He quickly shut the door. In darkness, he
listened to Sean keep moaning, “The light, the light.”

“There isn’t any,” Pittman said.

“I’ve gone blind. Can’t see anything. The light, the light.”

“You mean you want me to turn the lights
on
?”

“Blind. Gone blind.”

Pittman groped along the wall, found a light switch, and flicked it. The unshielded yellow light that dangled from the ceiling
gleamed and made Sean start thrashing while he pawed at his face.

He wailed, “Blind. You’re trying to make me blind.”

Oh, for God’s sake, Pittman thought. He knelt and pulled one of Sean’s hands away from his face, exposing his left eye, which
was very bloodshot. “Here. Drink this.”

“What?”

“Something the bartender sent up.”

Sean clutched the glass and took several swallows, then suddenly made a gagging sound. “What is it? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,
there’s no vodka in this.”

“Sit up. Drink more of this.”

After a struggle, Pittman managed to make Sean empty the glass.

Sean squirmed so that his back was against the side of the bed and scowled. His short stature still reminded Pittman of a
jockey. He was as thin as ever. But alcohol had aged him, putting gray in his hair and ravaging his face. “Who are you?”

“A friend.”

“Can’t remember.”

“That’s because you need something to eat.”

“Couldn’t keep it down.”

Pittman picked up the phone. “Order something, anyhow.”

The corned-beef sandwich and dill pickle that the bartender carried up were delicious. Pittman tried to savor them, but his
hunger couldn’t be controlled. He hadn’t eaten anything since the orange juice and Danish this morning. Taking huge bites,
he gulped the food down. His empty plate depressed him.

From the bed, Sean looked horrified at Pittman’s appetite. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

When Sean came back, Pittman had finished the sandwich that the bartender had carried up for Sean.

Sean sat on the bed, scowled at Pittman, and shook his head. “I still don’t remember.”

“You gave me a crash course on how to break into houses.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“You said I was a natural.”

“Still doesn’t ring a… Wait a minute. Weren’t you a reporter?”

Pittman nodded.

“I gave you…”

Pittman held up the tool knife.

“Sure, that’s who you are.”

“But I’ve graduated,” Pittman said.

“What do you mean?”

Pittman reached inside his gym bag, took out a newspaper that he’d bought on the way to the restaurant, and tossed it over
to Sean. “The story under that colorful headline. ‘Suicidal Obit Writer on Killing Rampage.’ There’s an ‘alleged’ in there
someplace, but it doesn’t feel sincere.”

With a frown, Sean read the article. From time to time, he paused, looked at Pittman, deepened the furrows in his brow, and
went back to reading the story.

Finally he set down the newspaper. “It makes you sound very busy.”

“Yeah, all that killing. It’s almost more work than one man can handle.”

“Do I need to be afraid of you?”

“Let’s put it this way. Have I done anything to hurt you so far?”

“Then you didn’t do what the paper says?”

Pittman shook his head.

“Why did you come here?”

“Because of all the criminals I’ve met, you’re the only one I trust.”

“What do you want?”

The phone rang.

Sean picked it up. “Hello?” He listened intensely, then straightened in alarm. “
The police are coming up?
Jesus, they must have found out about the washing machines.”

Pittman didn’t understand what Sean was talking about.

Sean scrambled toward the window, jerked the curtains apart, yanked the window up, and scurried out onto a fire escape.

Pittman heard heavy footsteps on the other side of the door. He lunged to lock it.

Fists pounded on it.

He grabbed his gym bag and darted toward the open window. Banging his shoulder as he squirmed out onto the fire escape, he
cursed and stared below toward where he assumed Sean would be scurrying down the metal stairs. Instead, what he saw were two
policemen who stared up, shouted, and pointed.

Footsteps clattered above him. Twisting, craning his neck, he saw Sean rapidly climbing stairs toward the roof. Pittman got
to his feet and charged up after him.

“Stop!” he heard a policeman yell from the alley below.

Pittman kept racing upward.

“
Stop!
” the policeman yelled.

Pittman climbed harder.

“STOP!”