Hack (21 page)

I took a deep breath and nothing got worse. I took another. The pain lessened when I didn’t move. Okay. Concussion, wounds on lower legs, left arm, head. Still breathing, heart still pumping. The clock was running. I had to get out of this tomb and I had to get to a hospital. I held my breath as I flicked the lighter into flame again but I didn’t blow up. The only way out was through the trunk wall and into the back seat. But not until Molloy was gone. Otherwise he’d just have a clear shot at me. How long could I wait until I bled to death? The vertical trunk wall was covered with a fake gray felt board and did not look too hard to break. But what was behind it? A steel frame and the back of the back seat, probably. I shut the lighter off and rested in the dark again. My green friend returned, floating still and silent. He seemed to be pointing at something. The way out of the trunk. I ripped my pants legs off and wrapped them around my bleeding leg wounds. I pulled off my shirt and did the same bandaging thing to my left arm.

That was when I smelled smoke.

“Still with me, asshole?” Molloy yelled outside, giddy. “Check it out, bro. You like fire so much, I used your fancy tie in the gas tank. Burns real good. Gonna toast
your
balls now, fuckwad. How you like that? Then I got more fun for you. Hold on, war hero!”

Smoke was seeping in. It was getting hot.

Time to go. I crawled up into the three-foot deep horizontal shelf that had held the tire. I used the metal rod to rip at the wall between the trunk and the back seat. It quickly came apart. Behind it was a framework of solid metal, steel beams. I ripped at it with the rod. Nothing. I banged the steel, used the rod like a crowbar to bend the bars of my cage. I punched it. Nothing. It was broiling and I began choking on the smoke. I could hear Molloy laughing beyond the flames and smoke. I kicked at the wall. Nothing. Then I sensed motion. The car was rolling, picking up speed. But I could still hear Molloy cackling behind me. He wasn’t in the car, which was on fire and rolling downhill. Toward what? The speed fed the flames under me, the floor of the trunk as hot as a skillet. I wanted a fire extinguisher but I already knew there wasn’t one in my trunk world. I continued my attack on the wall. Then I floated, like the car had taken flight. Everything flipped over upside down, banging me around in the trunk. It righted just before smashing into something. The hissing cab bobbed and began a gentle spin. It was cooler.

The fire was out.

Before I could celebrate, the front of the cab nosed lazily down and I heard and felt cold water cascading in from all sides. The cab was floating in water but not for long. I was locked inside a steaming two-ton boat with a heavy engine and open windows. Titanic Taxi. I tried to think. Panic was bad. I tried my lighter. The cab headed down. I felt a shower on my head, extinguishing my lighter. Cold water was squirting in through Molloy’s bullet holes. I felt blindly around the edges of the back seat wall, Houdini looking for a way out. I tried left and right and front and down. I was so tired. Think. What haven’t I tried? I dove desperately for my glowing green man and pulled his trunk release cable for all I was worth.

Nothing.

I let him go. Now, my green buddy seemed to be pointing toward the back seat.

What else? There’s always something else. Up. I didn’t try up. I sloshed water up to my knees and crawled into the tire shelf again. This was it. I punched up, behind the rear seat, behind the rear window. Nothing gave. But it sounded different, hollow. I slammed my fist up into the rectangular panel. Was it giving or was I nuts? I had no leverage, no time. I painfully crawled my whole body into the small shelf space, bracing my back up against the top of the space. I pushed against the bottom with all the strength in my arms and legs, screaming with pain. The water was now lapping against me. Then I felt it on my back and I was drenched. I jumped up and was completely underwater. Something gave way and my head and shoulders popped up. I felt jagged glass and fought and kicked and twisted. My knees hit steel and I pushed off with my wounded legs.

I broke surface and grabbed air. I was out.

There was a ring of dark trees and fuzzy spots of light, tall buildings behind branches. A lake in Central Park. I tried to swim but my arm and legs hurt too much, the wet clothing bandages dragging me down. My shoes were gone. I dipped under the surface several times but kept going. Can’t be far. A half-assed dogpaddle worked, until my shoulder hit a rock. I stood up in a muddy shallow and immediately fell down. I crawled until I was on solid ground. It stank of slimy duck droppings. Drowsy dark birds on either side of the shore muttered, edging away from me, gossiping about the large bleeding guy who had no bread. Slowly I sat up. On the hill above me, dark shapes. A predatory van with no lights on and a shadowy someone standing next to it.

* * *

Shit. Molloy was still there. My metal rod was gone. Maybe he couldn’t see me in the dark. Why didn’t he leave? All that shooting, cops should have come. But they didn’t. Maybe this happens every night in Central Park. I froze. The figure did not move. If it wasn’t Molloy I should yell for help. But if it
was
him, he’d come down and finish the job. I had nothing left. While I debated what to do, the figure got into the van and vanished into the dark. I waited for Molloy to take another crack at me but he didn’t come. Run, motherfucker.

“I’m alive,” I said out loud. I sounded strange. Overkill, that was Molloy’s mistake, I decided. He could have just shot me or he could have burned me or drowned me but the jackass did them all together. Overkill led to underkill. Right.

I crawled achingly toward the light.

My ghostly green buddy was gone and I was bathed in bright light in a hospital bed, pale faces hovering above me. I was bandaged and ached everywhere except my torso. Actually, that hurt, too. Mary Catherine moved closer on one side, Izzy on the other. Both began talking at once. They stopped and each apologized and invited the other to speak. I couldn’t wait.

“Did you get him?” I asked Mary Catherine.

“Matt Molloy?” she asked.

“Who else?”

“No. Your friend Jack Leslie was behind the wheel of the cab at the bottom of the reservoir. Not surprising he drove off a cliff, him being so dead.”

“Molloy is in the wind,” Izzy continued. “We’re looking.”

I asked how long I had been out.

“A day and a half,” Mary Catherine said. “They kept you doped up while they removed about ten pounds of metal from you, bullet fragments and shredded steel belting and rubber. You lost a lot of blood. You’re a tetanus test case.”

“I have to ask,” Izzy interrupted. “Matt Molloy did this to you, right?”

“Fuck, yes,” I answered. “He fired through the closed trunk. Thank God for American-made steel belted radials.”

“Not a very good bulletproof vest,” Izzy observed. “Really ripped you up.”

“Best I could do on short notice. Now the rest of me matches my face,” I said to Mary Catherine, gesturing to my facial skid marks. “Tell me you got the bastards.”

She hung her head.

“My boss, the U.S. Attorney, said you were probably a murderer and he saw nothing in our jurisdiction to investigate. He socializes with your boss, Lucky Tal Edgar.”

“‘Lucky’ is right,” I said.

“
I
got them,” Izzy bragged. “I got search warrants for the
Mail
computers, records and phones before lunch. We interrupted them in the middle of large-scale file shredding and computer dumping. You know they have a whole room full of industrial-strength shredders? The NYPD computer people are trying to recover the data now.”

“You hope,” Mary Catherine told him. “Your District Attorney got a big chunk of her last re-election campaign war chest from the owner of the
New York Mail.
”

“If Mary Catherine couldn’t get the U.S. Attorney to come in, how did you do it, Izzy?”

“I told the judge I was investigating the murder of one
New York Mail
employee and the mysterious disappearance of another. I said I had a witness unconscious in the hospital and that lives were in danger.”

“My life?” I asked.

“We discussed several possibilities. You. Another serial killer victim. Maybe Matt Molloy. Gotta get the evidence.”

“So we have evidence from the
Mail
on the serial killings and the Joyce case?” I asked hopefully.

“The recent stuff was the first shit they erased,” Izzy said. “The computer guys are looking to recover whatever they can. Huge amount of stuff, it’s going to take time. Fingers crossed.”

I cursed Lucky Tal, his boss Trevor Todd, and all their minions and suggested they had sexual intercourse with their mothers and various barnyard animals. It didn’t make me feel better.

Then I told them everything. Almost. I recounted dropping my phone, Leslie with the gun, the wild ride, my bailout, the trunk thing. I left out the part with my flaming knife and my ghostly green pal. Then the fire, the flying, the sinking, the swimming, the van, the ducks. Izzy said he would put out an alert for a black van. Maybe Molloy fled in one.

“So, Shepherd,” Izzy asked, “did Molloy murder his partner or did you kill Jack Leslie in lawful self-defense, after he fired a gun at you and you were in fear for your life?”

“What are you comfortable with?” I asked.

Izzy and Mary Catherine chuckled.

“Well, we found one ejected shell casing on the back floor of the cab, along with the emptied nine millimeter, wiped clean of prints. The rest of the ejected brass was grouped near a burned spot on the rock above the reservoir, uphill from where the cab went airborne, consistent with Molloy firing at you inside the trunk. One deformed round was recovered from the right passenger door panel, consistent with someone firing level in the back seat. Your friend Mary Catherine here has night-vision video of you, apparently unarmed, getting into the cab, with your hands up. Looks like an abduction to me. The video recorded a flash and a bang as the cab sped away. Only one gun was recovered at the scene but no knife.”

“A knife?” I asked.

“Didn’t I tell you?” Izzy said. “Leslie was stabbed to death. Once. In the heart, by somebody who knew what they were doing.”

“You mean like Matt Molloy?”

“I might be comfortable with that. He tried really hard to kill you. Several times.”

“And maybe he and his buddy killed several people to boost newspaper circulation.”

“Maybe. No evidence yet,” Izzy said. “Do you remember your ordeal, sir?”

“Maybe. Not yet.”

“Traumatic amnesia is a tricky thing,” Izzy said.

“I hope so,” I told him. “You bugged my phones.”

“Could be,” he replied.

“How else did you know to be hiding in the park at that moment? What happened? Your guys and Mary Catherine’s people fell all over each other?”

They both looked at the floor.

“I’m sorry, Shepherd. I let you down,” Mary Catherine said sadly. “We didn’t know Lieutenant Negron and his men were going to be there. He didn’t know
we
were there. They got away with you in the confusion. It’s a miracle no one was killed. Well. Almost no one.”

“I apologize for handcuffing you,” Izzy said to her. “It’s your fault, Shepherd.”

“Go ahead, blame the victim. Who has my phone?” I asked.

“I do,” said Izzy. “We’re done copying it. I’ll bring it next time.”

“Thanks. I think.”

“So…” Izzy continued, “your paper has put out a statement that it is cooperating fully with our investigation.”

“Are they?”

“Hell no. Total stonewall of lawyers. We went to the Human Resources department and the woman in charge claimed she never heard of your pals. Leslie and Molloy had their own office in the basement, with lots of bugging equipment, burglary tools, cameras, radios, you name it. We were there all night, copying computer files, seizing paper ones, hauling everything out except the floor. We weren’t the first ones there, though. Half the file cabinets were empty. From the dust you could see two desktop computers had been removed.”

I asked how I had got to the hospital and was told an anonymous caller reported a man had been hit by a car on Park Drive and was crawling in the roadway, bleeding and rambling about ducks.

“Ducks?” Mary Catherine asked. “What was that all about?”

“I don’t remember. I have traumatic amnesia, remember?”

I suddenly remembered Skippy.

“He’s being taken care of by a friend,” said Mary Catherine.

“Whose friend?” I asked.

“Yours,” Mary Catherine replied. “Your girlfriend, the vet.”

“Jane?”

“She called 911 and reported you missing. She was directed to me,” Izzy recounted. “She said she was your girlfriend and she couldn’t reach you and that you went to meet the Hacker. We told her you were alive and gave her your keys. Was that okay?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Jane seems very nice,” Mary Catherine beamed. “She was very worried about you and relieved that you were alive. She was here while you were unconscious and said she would be here tonight, after work. So, tell me about her.”

“I can’t. Traumatic amnesia, remember?”

A doctor came in and checked me, then ran over the long menu of damage, including a mysterious funnel-shaped burn on my left forearm. Most of my wounds were the result of slugs that were broken up and shredded by the tire and exited the far side as a confetti of lead and steel that, fortunately, had lost most of its punch and ended up in my skin or the muscle underneath. Painful, ugly but not life threatening. I would never have a career as a pantyhose model. I thanked my doctor for saving me and was thankful for the
New York Mail
health insurance plan that paid for it.

Izzy and Mary Catherine spoke to the doctor in the hall before coming back in and just looking at me and each other for a while.

“What?” I finally asked them.

“The doctor said it’s okay,” Mary Catherine said, unfolding a
New York Mail.

“Sorry. So much for the good news,” Izzy muttered.

“This is today’s paper,” Mary Catherine explained.