Eye Sleuth (28 page)

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Opposite me, a man was fitting a key into the door at the foot of the staircase. His back faced me but I knew instantly it was Matt Wahr. A small gun stuck out of his trouser pocket. Like the rabbit spotting a snake, I froze. My suspicions about Wahr had been on target. He wasn’t a decent, law-abiding man, an image he’d projected brilliantly for years at the college. I’d actually felt guilty doubting him. Was it hard for him to stop thieving when he was on a slithery slope down?

Wahr had to be the “big guy” the bullies mentioned. Whatever was going on was dangerous. Mary Sakamoto got that right, although how and where she belonged in the equation was still puzzling. Turning off the questions, I focused on the immediate problem. The bullies had covered their faces but Wahr hadn’t covered his because he didn’t know I’d see him here. But I had. Sure it was his back but it was a full and unobstructed view and I’d recognized him. Retreat, and a speedy one, was my only option.

My aversion to the tunnel disappeared in a flash. Now it beckoned as a safe place. Wahr locked the door he’d been standing outside, the key grating loudly in the quiet. Not risking another look, I tiptoed back across the office. Ducking under the desk I fumbled for the hidden entrance to the tunnel, pushing in a panic. The panel stayed solidly in place. I pushed again and again until I remembered to tap and it gave way in smooth silence.

I was squeezing through the opening when I heard, loud and clear, a damn cell phone ring. Startled, I moved too fast and kicked over the chair behind me. It hit the bare floorboards with a horrendous crash. Wahr called out but the words were lost as I scrambled through the panel, grateful when I heard it slide shut behind me. What would Wahr think when he saw the fallen chair? If he’d put the sleeping bag at the end of the tunnel, he knew about the tunnel. Would he come in after me? No prize for the answer to that question. The image of the gun jammed in his back pocket galvanized me. I bolted down the tunnel in a clammy chill, following the phosphorescent line and reaching the end of the tunnel in no time flat.

Panting, I leaned against the wall and sucked in deep breaths then, desperate to find an exit, ran my fingers over the planks. Ah, a vertical line. Carefully, I traced a horizontal line connecting to it and finally realized it was the outline of a small door. How to get it open? My exploring fingers couldn’t find any grooves like those on the entry to the hidden room at the Meeting House so I tugged and pushed at the top edge of the doorframe. Nothing. I worked my way down the outside edge of the frame, pressing firmly, and finally heard a faint snick, the sound a small magnet makes when it releases or pulls something shut. The door sprang back a little. Pushing it farther open, I stepped through the opening into a crowded storeroom. The place was silent and dim. When my eyes adjusted, I could make out stacks of boxes that almost filled the storeroom. I threaded my way across to the door, jittery and super-cautious. Still no sounds of life. I sniffed. Food smells and something else, the yeasty aroma of beer. A Sam Adams would go down well right now.

Warily, I looked out. Plain cement stairs, no covering, to the right. A narrow, low-ceilinged hallway, its floor the same bare cement as the stairs, stretched in front of me. This was a basement. Up the stairs had to be the quickest way out to the safety of the outside world. My breathing quickened at the thought. I crept out into the hall and started up the stairs. Where was I? For sure this wasn’t the basement of 34 Gramercy Park or the National Arts Club. How far had I gone in the tunnel? Under the park? Across to the other side, to the Gramercy Park Hotel? Wherever I was, it was a place that cooked food and had beer so it wasn’t one of the large apartment buildings fronting on Gramercy Park.

Halfway up the stairs, I heard a faint sound from the storeroom that stopped me dead in my tracks. It was the soft snick the door from the tunnel made when it opened. Someone had come out of the tunnel. I looked back. It was Matt Wahr. He stood in the doorway staring up at me, a worried look on his face. This wasn’t the urbane Matt who’d worked at SUNY, this was an anxious man. Someone stepped out from behind him. It was Allan.

“I spy the eye sleuth!” he said and laughed, a grating chuckle that wasn’t remotely funny. “Those two morons who brought you to the Meeting House thought you’d escaped but I had a feeling you were hiding somewhere nearby. Clever of you to find the tunnel. Or was it dumb luck? Come back here. I want to talk to you.”

The tone was harsh, peremptory. Gone was the ingratiating geek from the office next to mine.

Call me Contrary Mary––I ran in the opposite direction. I burst onto a landing. It looked like another basement with its bare walls and a naked light bulb in the ceiling. The tunnel must have come out in a sub-basement. I heard running on the stairs. The hall here was the same low-ceilinged, drab gray as the floor below but it offered a choice of ways to go: right or left. I didn’t stop to think, just took off. It’s more natural to turn right. That’s if you’re right-handed. Left-hander that I am, I took the unnatural route and spurted left.

I hared along the narrow corridor. Either the drumming of my heart was drowning out the sound of chase behind me or I was in luck and they’d taken the other turn, the way right-handers would. Another bend in the corridor and I skidded to a stop in surprise. I was back where I’d started. Allan leaned against a wall, waiting. Matt stood next to him, still looking worried. I stood panting, sweaty from the fear-driven flight.

“Time we had a talk,” Allan said. “Get down the stairs.”

He pointed to the sub-basement. My heart sank but I knew better than to argue. He probably had a gun in his hip pocket like Matt. I crossed to the stairs, hesitating at the top. Allan came up behind me and tapped my shoulder, nudging me forward.

“Keep going.”

The two followed close on my heels. A battery-operated lantern was on the floor in the storeroom and the windowless room filled with low light when Matt switched it on. A duffel bag and two wooden chairs were in the far corner.

True, my mouth was Sahara-dry but I was determined to dig for answers even though they might hand out lies. Allan was irritated but pulled out a bottle from the duffel bag and tossed it to me. I drank greedily then burped noisily. The hell with manners.

“You asked Matt’s wife about Lou,” Allan said and I shivered at the hard edge in his voice.

Yeah, and you want to know about Fred Anders’ work. You set the bullies on me. You and Matt have done more than cook the books.

“Yes, I asked about Lou,” I replied. “When I visited Matt’s wife, I saw the huge painting in the living room signed ‘Lou, Jr.’ and recognized it from the student exhibition on at the club when my godmother was attacked. Lou Junior is Matt’s nephew.”

“Was. He was my nephew. He’s dead and now his dad is dead.”

Wahr looked at me, sorrow in his face. “Young Lou was jailed, drunk driving,” he said. “He had an accident, two pedestrians were killed. He got into drugs when he was in jail. Do you know how easy it is to get drugs in jail? He overdosed. He’s dead.”

I shuddered in disbelief. At last the reason for Lou Kralle’s vendetta. Allan watched coldly. He was a far greater threat than Matt’s violent cousin, Lou. Allan and Matt were playing for big stakes. I was in the way and now I’d seen them, I was expendable. I fiddled with the bottle of water, took another sip, agonized at what I’d been told. I decided to go for broke.

“You’re selling Fred Anders’ work to another country for military use?”

“More than one country wants the technology,” Allan said.

His face was an ugly, calculating study. Why had no one seen it before? Is it that we see naked corruption rarely or do we shield ourselves from the pain?

I let the door swing in his face and as I was hurrying to a stall, I spotted a basket by the first washbasin. It was full of those books of matches restaurants use to advertise their business. I grabbed one and dropped it in my pocket just as Allan kicked the door open and followed me, standing in the doorway, holding it open. I frowned at him, clapped my hand to my mouth and rushed into a stall and bent over the toilet, slamming the door shut behind me. I made convincing retching noises as I pulled out the matchbook from my pocket and saw that it had the name of the place on it.

We were in Pete’s Tavern, round the corner from the Meeting House. Pete’s was the historic landmark where O. Henry wrote the classic Gift of the Magi at his favorite booth by the front door. I desperately needed thinking time. I’d been to Pete’s Tavern a few times and knew the general layout. If I could make it up to the main floor… then what? The front door would be locked. A window, now that was a definite possibility. If I could get a window open, I could…. I took deep breaths to calm myself and flushing the toilet, slowly left the stall.

“Get back to the Meeting House,” I heard Allan say to Matt. “If those morons are still hanging around, tell them to get lost, leave the area. They’ll get paid.”

Ah, another piece of the puzzle. Allan was having duplicate units made. I didn’t have to act to put on a subdued look but if Allan thought I was cowed, he was wrong. I wasn’t going to give up that easily. Allan might want to kill me but he’d need the right place, probably back in the tunnel. Allan eyed me, the familiar look of smug satisfaction back on his face even though this time, he had a gun, not that his ego needed any bolstering.

“What now?” I asked, my voice low.

I had a wild idea. It might work if I could take Allan off guard. He moved to the door, waving me ahead of him. Slowly, I walked past him into the hall. Pivoting swiftly and planting my feet firmly on the floor, I grabbed Allan’s head in both hands and pushed. As he staggered back against the door, I rubbed my thumbs across his eyes.

If I could dislodge his contact lenses, I’d gain time. Allan jerked his head back, as I’d anticipated. That was good for me and bad for him. It would almost certainly get at least one if not both of the contacts off his corneas, perhaps out of his eyes. Either way, once his contacts were askew, he’d be relatively blind, hampered by the swift, unexpected change in his vision.

Right before I left for England, when I’d given Allan the vision exam he wanted, I’d changed his prescription from the monovision contacts he wore to multifocals. When the new contacts I’d prescribed were delivered, I checked and found the lab had made a mistake filling the prescription so I sent the contacts back. The replacements had come in a day ago and I hadn’t had time to check them. Allan was still wearing the old, monovison contacts. Or had been until I dislodged them. Allan yelped and his hands flew up to his face. I didn’t wait to find out how far off his corneas the contacts had been dislodged.

I tore along the hall and took the stairs two at a time up to the main floor of Pete’s Tavern. Running to the closest window, I wrestled with the lock. An ear-splitting alarm blared when I shoved the window open. Fine by me. Clambering through the window, I jumped down onto the deserted sidewalk. The noise of the alarm hadn’t brought anyone to the windows of the places up and down the street. Car alarms don’t turn heads any more, why would this alarm be different? I spurted down the street, heading for Third Avenue, risking a look back at Pete’s. The alarm clanged on. Of Allan there was no sign. A cab cruised by and the driver looked over to see if I was interested. My hand shot up and I flailed frantically, even though I was the only person on the street. The cab stopped and I scrambled in gratefully.

“Put the meter on and pull up a little closer to Pete’s Tavern. Lock the doors. D’you have a phone? I’ve got to call the police.”

The cabbie gave me a hard look to see if I was serious. I must have passed the wacko test because he grabbed the mouthpiece of his two-way unit.