The Anniversary Man (56 page)

The driver of the sedan sat in silence too, and though he couldn′t actually see Irving and Langley, he knew they were there, somewhere back of the glass, somewhere within the light and warmth and safety of the diner.

Such light and warmth and safety were transient, as were all things. What you believed you possessed could be lost in a heartbeat. Taken away forever. Such was the way of the world.

T
ime seemed to collapse in upon itself, for when Irving′s cellphone rang, when he snatched it from the table and saw the unidentified caller ID, it seemed as if they had been talking for no more than a handful of minutes. It was already three minutes to six.

′Yes?′

Karen raised her eyebrows.

Irving snatched a napkin from the dispenser, took a pen from his jacket pocket and wrote down a number. ′Okay,′ he said, and he hung up.

′Let′s go,′ Irving said, little more than a whisper, but compelling in its urgency.

They hurried across the street to a phone booth on the facing side.

They angled their way through the folding door, pressed one against the other, Irving clutching a handful of change, pushing the first of three or four coins into the box. His heart racing, his pulse doubling up, feeling it in his throat, in his temples, eyes wide, breath like smoke, the two of them cramped together as if they were sharing the same skin, and emotions running high . . .

The sound of the coins dropping through the slot and rolling down. The metallic click as Irving lifted the receiver. The sound of the tones as he punched the buttons, and knowing that this was the break, the thing he′d been looking for, praying for, hoping against all intuition and experience that told him something like this could not happen.

In minutes, no more than minutes, he would be face-to-face with someone who understood what had happened to Mia Grant, someone who had exposed a single layer of deceit that surrounded this nightmare, and had come back with an idea, a thought, a belief, a supposition, anything . . .

Perhaps even a name.

And in that moment Irving was aware of how deeply he had submerged his own doubt, his own fear that this could be something else entirely. He had convinced himself that he didn′t care who the Anniversary Man was, didn′t care whether or not they were crazy. He did not want to understand the reasons for their actions. He didn′t care whether it was someone he knew, someone he′d met, even if it was someone with the police department . . .

He just wanted to know, and he wanted them stopped.

′Irving?′

′Yes, it′s me, I′m here,′ Irving gasped.

′She′s with you? The reporter?′

′Yes, she′s here, she′s right beside me.′

′You know Madison Square Park?′

′Yes, I know it.′

′Meet me there. Fifteen minutes—′

′I don′t understand,′ Irving interjected. ′We′re here now, where we agreed to meet, at the diner—′

′We′re not meeting there. I′ve changed my mind. You come to Madison Square Park, or we don′t meet at all.′

Irving looked at Langley. She could see the anxiety in his expression.

What′s happening? she mouthed.

′Where exactly?′ Irving asked.

′There′s some benches in the north east corner. Same corner as the New York Life Building.′

′Yes, I know where that is.′

′Fifteen minutes. Just the two of you. I see anyone else I′m gone. Don′t be late.′

′I got it—′

The line went dead.

Irving stood there for some seconds, his heart threatening to hammer its way right out of his chest, and then he hung up the receiver, started maneuvering his way back out of the booth, Karen Langley beside him, talking as he went, telling her where they were going, that the location had been changed.

′You believe this guy?′ she asked, as Irving grabbed her hand and started across the street toward his car.

′Believe him?′ Irving said. ′Jesus, Karen, I stopped asking myself what I believed a good while back. Right now there isn′t anyone else. Right now I just have to find out what he knows.′

They took Irving′s car, pulled out of the car park and headed south toward Madison Square.

A minute later the dark grey sedan pulled away from the sidewalk and entered the stream of slow-moving traffic right behind them.

They didn′t see a thing.

From the car Irving called Farraday. He told him where he was going, that Langley was with him, that they were meeting Roberts in the park, not at the diner as originally planned. Perhaps something had spooked him. Perhaps he just figured an open space was better. Irving asked for unmarked cars on each corner of the park - West 26th and Fifth, West 23rd by the station, south east at the corner of Madison and East 23rd, and then half a block over from where they would meet Roberts, parked against the curb beneath the shadow of the New York Life Building.

′Roberts was a cop,′ Irving said. ′He knows this shit as well as we do. Put one guy in the driver′s seat, another on the floor back of him. Two guys in a sedan is just too fucking obvious.′

Farraday gave Irving a cleared frequency for his radio. ′Take it with you,′ he said. ′Leave it switched on inside your coat.′

′This has to be airtight,′ Irving said. ′Anyone makes their presence known we′re fucked.′

Farraday understood. He said that no-one would be seen. He gave his word, and Irving believed him.

 

Eight minutes to go and they were still caught in the gridlock between the 34th Street subway and Penn Station. It cleared suddenly, a line of traffic taking the 32nd Street exit. Irving floored the car and they made it to 26th where he turned left and took Broadway down to the edge of the park.

They left the car and walked half a block. Irving held Karen Langley′s hand, a message of reassurance that neither of them were doing this thing alone. They didn′t speak. Seemed that everything needing words had already been said.

Ray Irving ignored a sudden and unnerving premonition, the feeling that he might walk away from this meeting understanding even less of the truth.

 

Stationed at the four corners of the park were unmarked sedans, each carrying two officers and waiting on radio silence. Through the cleared frequency each of them could hear Langley and Irving talking to one another. A row of wooden benches stood empty in the north eastern corner of the park, and it was here that they sat.

′This scares the living crap out of me,′ Karen Langley said at one point, and Ken Hudson, looking at them through binoculars from his vantage point at West 26th, understood precisely what she meant. The emotion she felt was something with which he was very familiar. People literally lost their minds. It was something he would never wish on anyone, especially a civilian, especially someone dragged into this thing through no real choice of their own. He watched them, Irving and Langley, two narrow silhouettes on a park bench between the trees, and he knew that Irving, despite his training and experience, would be caught between the necessity to meet this Karl Roberts and the drive to protect Karen Langley. Rock and a hard place. Couldn′t do one without the other.

No more than three or four minutes after they were seated, Irving saw someone cross the grass to his left and make their way toward the trees. He had on a long overcoat, tan-colored from what he could make out, and he seemed purposeful but cautious.

Irving′s stomach turned over.

From another police car, Vernon Gifford saw a second man exit a cab at the corner of East 25th and Madison and make his way toward the park railings. He had on a black jacket, hands buried in the pockets, shoulders hunched and head down, his face obscured by a baseball cap. The uniformed officer back of the driver′s seat, crouched down in the rear foot-well, felt the pressure of Gifford′s back as he pressed against the seat. He was sweating profusely, could feel the corner of his radio digging painfully into his thigh, but he couldn′t move.

Words were exchanged between the four stationed teams. They were now watching four people - Irving and Langley, the tan overcoat, the baseball cap.

Seventy twenty-nine Irving rose slightly as the man in the overcoat crossed his line of vision, turned left, and then started to walk slowly toward them. His heart ran ahead of itself.

Vernon Gifford watched as Baseball Cap followed the railings and entered the park through the north eastern gate. Gifford sensed something was awry. He shifted awkwardly, reached for the door lever, told the officer behind him to move slowly into the front seat once Gifford had cleared the car.

′Moving in,′ Gifford said across the radio. ′Everyone stay back for the moment.′

Gifford eased the door open and slipped out soundlessly. He closed the door behind him and hurried down the sidewalk to the corner. His breathing was heavy - white ghosts ahead of him as he exhaled. He felt the extraordinary tension of the situation.

Screw this up and they were all fucked.

Screw this up and God only knew how many more might die.

He withdrew his .38 and slowed down. He reached the railings just as Tan Overcoat appeared behind a tree to the left of the path. He was the better part of fifty yards away, but he had Irving and Langley in his sights on the bench, saw Baseball Cap approaching them from the rear, and Tan Overcoat now walking toward them from the trees. He felt the sweat along his hairline break free and run down the side of his nose.

′Baseball Cap from the rear,′ he said into his mouthpiece. ′Tan Overcoat from ahead. Unit Three: send your lead man out to the far right of the park and come in slowly. Unit Four on hold. Irving? You have an unidentified man in a baseball cap approaching you from the rear, and the man in the tan-colored overcoat ahead of you. Raise your left hand and touch your ear if you read me.′

Gifford watched as Irving slowly raised his hand and touched his ear.

 

Irving lowered his hand and sat forward. He gripped Karen′s hand firmly as he saw a shadow emerge from back of the trees and walk toward them. Overcoat was now directly ahead of them. He approached slowly, his hands in his pockets, his head bowed. He wore a scarf, wound around the lower half of his face. Even at five yards Irving couldn′t make out his features, but there was something about the certainty with which he approached that told him this was Karl Roberts, that something might at last break on the case, something to resolve the deadlock within which he had found himself for the last endless number of days . . .

Karl Roberts was no more than ten feet from where Irving was now rising from the bench.

Irving did not dare look over his shoulder, but perceived the presence of whoever might have been behind them. The man in the baseball cap. Had Roberts brought along his own security?

From Gifford′s vantage point it appeared that Baseball Cap had not been seen by Overcoat. Gifford went down to the ground, aware that any movement would alert Overcoat to his presence. He lay on the cold, wet grass, the .38 in his hand, his heart pounding, his breathing labored as he tried to make no sound at all.

 

′Mr Roberts,′ Irving said.

′Detective Irving,′ the voice came back, and Karl Roberts crossed the last few feet between himself and Irving, unaware of Vernon Gifford spread-eagled on the grass no more than fifteen feet from where he paused.

′Please,′ Roberts said. ′Sit down.′

Irving backed up and sat beside Karen.

′You are afraid for your life,′ Irving said.

Roberts, standing ahead of them, coat to his knees, scarf wrapped around the lower half of his face against the cold - and against being identified by whoever he believed might be the anniversary killer - seemed to sigh audibly. Irving knew this could not have been the case - not with the sound of traffic in the street behind them, not with the sound of his own breathing, the thundering of his own heart - but he sensed it nevertheless.

Perhaps, Irving believed, there was resolution for both of them here. In hiding, unable to speak to anyone, Karl Roberts would perhaps find his own escape as he communicated what he knew to someone who had been involved in this thing even longer than himself.

′Afraid?′ Roberts said. ′Yes. Afraid of everything. Afraid of my own shadow these past few days.′

′So what is it that you know?′ Irving asked. Again the disturbing feeling, the dark edge of premonition around everything.

′This is Karen Langley?′ Roberts asked.

′Yes, this is Karen Langley.′

Roberts nodded. ′Thank you for coming . . . I know this must be terrible for you—′

′It′s okay,′ Karen said. ′Really. I wanted to come. I wanted to help in any way I could.′

′It′s appreciated,′ Roberts said, ′but unfortunately this is a hell of a lot worse than I think either of you could have imagined.′

Irving felt a chill of disquiet. ′Worse?′ he echoed. ′In what way? How could it be worse than it already is?′