The Road to Amber (43 page)

They waited. Several minutes later a man in a dark suit emerged from the building. For a moment Croyd thought it was Chris, but on closer inspection he realized the man to be thinner and somewhat taller. The newcomer approached and nodded to the guard, who nodded at Croyd and said, “There he is.”

“I’m Chris’s brother,” the man said, smiling faintly, “and that’s as close as we can get at the moment. I can speak for him, and it’s okay for you to tell the gentlemen upstairs what you’ve learned.”

“Okay,” Croyd said. “That’s good. But I was thinking about collecting the rest of my money from him too.”

“I don’t know about that. Maybe you better ask Vince about it. Schiaparelli. He sometimes does payroll. Maybe you shouldn’t, though.”

Croyd turned toward the guard. “You’ve got the bitchbox. You call the guy and ask him. The other side’s already hit on me today for what I got. If my money’s not here, I’m walking.”

“Wait a minute,” Chris’s brother said. “No reason to get upset. Hang on.”

He pointed at the walkie-talkie with his thumb and the guard spoke into it, listened, waited, glanced at Croyd.

“They’re getting Schiaparelli,” the guard said. After a longer while he listened to a low squawking, spoke, listened again, looked at Croyd again. “Yeah, he’s got it,” he told Croyd.

“Good,” Croyd said. “Have him bring it down.”

“No, you go up and get it.”

Croyd shook his head.

The man stared at him and licked his lips, as if loath to relay the message. “This does not make a very good impression, for it is as if you had no trust.”

Croyd smiled. “It is also correct. Make the call.”

This was done, and after a time a heavyset man with graying hair emerged from the building and stared at Croyd. Croyd stared back.

The man approached. “You are Mr. Crenson?”

“That is correct.”

“And you want your money now?”

“That’s the picture.”

“Of course I have it here,” the other told him, reaching into his jacket. “Chris sent it along. It will grieve him that you are so suspicious.”

Croyd held out his hand. When the envelope was placed in it, he opened it and counted. Then he nodded. “Let’s go,” he said, and he followed Schiaparelli and Chris’s brother into the building. The man with the walkie-talkie was shaking his head.

Upstairs, Croyd was introduced to a group of old and middle-aged men and their bodyguards. He declined a drink, just wanting to give them the name and get out. But it occurred to him that giving them the money’s worth might entail stretching the story out a bit to show that he’d earned it. So he explained things, step by step, from Demise to Loophole. Then he told them of the attempt to take him out following that interview, before he finally got around to giving them Siu Ma’s name.

The expected question followed: Where could she be found?

“This I do not know,” Croyd replied. “Chris asked me for a name, not for an address. You want to hire me to get that for you, too, I suppose I could do it, though it would be cheaper to use your own talent.”

This drew some surly responses, and Croyd shrugged, said good-night, and walked out, stepping up his pace to the blur level as the muscle near the door looked about, as if for orders.

It was not until a couple of blocks later that a pair of such street troops caught up and attempted to brace him for a refund. He tore out a sewer grating, stuffed their bodies down through the opening and replaced it, for his final bit of subtlety before closing the books on this one.

C
royd took a taxi crosstown, then hiked a circuitous route to his Morningside Heights apartment. There were no lights on within, and he entered quickly and quietly, painkillers, antihistamines, psychedelics, and a five-pound box of assorted chocolates all gift-wrapped together in a gaudy parcel beneath his arm. He flipped on the hall light and slipped into the bedroom.

“Veronica? You awake?” he whispered.

There was no reply, and he crossed to the bedside, lowered himself to a seated position, and reached out. His hand encountered only bedclothes.

“Veronica?” he said aloud.

No reply.

He turned on the bedside lamp. The bed was empty, her stuff gone. He looked about for a note. No. Nothing. Perhaps in the living room. Or the kitchen. Yes. Most likely she’d leave it in the refrigerator where he’d be certain to find it.

He rose, then halted. Was that a footstep? Back toward the living room?

“Veronica?”

No reply.

Foolish of him to have left the door open, he suddenly realized, though there had been no one in the hallway.

He reached out and extinguished the lamp. He crossed to the door, dropped silently to the floor, moved his head outside at floor level, and drew it back quickly.

Empty. No one in the hall. No further sounds either.

He rose and stepped outside. He walked back toward the living room.

In the dim light from the hallway, as he rounded the corner, he beheld a Bengal tiger, and its tail twitched once before it sprang at him.

“Holy shit!” Croyd commented, dropping Veronica’s present and leaping to the side.

Plaster shattered and fell as he caromed off the wall, an orange and black shoulder grazed him in passing, and he threw a punch that slid over the animal’s back. He heard it growl as he leaped into the living room. It turned quickly and followed him, and he picked up a heavy chair and threw it as the beast sprang again.

It roared as the chair struck it, and Croyd overturned a heavy wooden table, raised it like a shield, and rushed with it against the animal. The tiger shook itself, snarling, as it batted the chair aside. It turned and caught the table’s flat surface upon a smooth expanse of shoulder muscle. Then it swung a paw over the table’s upper edge. Croyd ducked, pushed forward.

The big cat fell back, dropped out of sight. Seconds crept by like drugged cockroaches.

“Kitty?” he inquired.

Nothing.

He lowered the table a foot. With a roar the tiger sprang. Croyd snapped the table upward, faster than he could remember ever having lifted a piece of furniture before. Its edge caught the tiger a terrible blow beneath the jaw, and it let out a human-sounding whimper as it was turned sideways and fell to the floor. Croyd raised the table high and slammed it down atop the beast, as if it were a giant flyswatter. He raised it again. He halted. He stared.

No tiger.

“Kitty?” he repeated.

Nothing.

He lowered the table. Finally he set it aside. He moved to the wall switch and threw it. Only then did he realize that the front of his shirt was torn and bloody. Three furrows ran down the left side of his chest from collarbone to hip.

On the floor, a bit of whiteness…

Stooping, he touched the object, raised it, studied it. He held one of those little folded paper figures—origami, he remembered, the Japanese called them. This one was…a paper tiger. He shivered at the same time as he chuckled. This was almost supernatural. This was heavy shit. It occurred to him then that he had just fought off another ace—one with a power he did not understand—and he did not like this a bit. Not with Veronica missing. Not with his not even knowing which side had sent the stranger ace to take him out.

He locked the door to the hallway. He opened Veronica’s present, took out the bottle of Percodans and tossed off a couple before he hit the bathroom, stripped off his shirt, and washed his chest. Then he fetched a beer from the refrigerator and washed down a French green with it, to provide the Percs with some contrast. There was no note propped against the milk carton or even in the egg drawer, and this made him sad.

When the bleeding stopped, he washed again, taped a dressing in place, and drew on a fresh shirt. He was not even sure whether he had been followed or whether this had been a stakeout. Either way, he wasn’t going to stick around. He hated abandoning Veronica if someone really had a make on the place, but at the moment he had no choice. It was a very familiar feeling: they were after him again.

* * *

Croyd rode subways and taxis and walked for over four hours, crouched behind his mirrorshades, crissing and crossing the island in a pattern of evasion calculated to confuse anybody. And for the first time in his life he saw his name up in lights in Times Square.

CROYD CRENSON, said the flowing letters high on the buildingside, CALL DR. T. EMERGENCY

Croyd stood and stared, reading it over and over. When he had convinced himself it was not a hallucination, he shrugged. They ought to know he’d stop by and pay his bill when he got a chance. It was damn humiliating, implying to the whole world that he was a deadbeat. They’d probably even try to charge him for a bed, too, he guessed, when broom closets should be a lot cheaper. Out to screw him, the same as everyone else. They could damn well wait.

Cursing, he ran for a subway entrance.

* * *

Heading south on the Broadway line, sucking on a pair of purple hearts and a stray pyrahex he’d found at the bottom of his pocket, Croyd was amazed and impressed that Senator Hartmann actually did seem a man of the people, boarding the train at the Canal Street Station that way. Then another Senator Hartmann followed him. They glanced his way, conferred for an instant, and one leaned out the door and hollered something, and more Hartmanns came running. There were tall Hartmanns, short Hartmanns, fat Hartmanns and even a Hartmann with an extra appendage—seven Hartmanns in all. And Croyd was not so unsophisticated as to fail in realizing, this near Jokertown, that Hartmanns was the Werewolves’ face of the day.

The doors closed, the train began to move, the tallest Hartmann turned, stared, and approached.

“You Croyd Crenson?” he asked.

“Nope,” Croyd replied.

“I think you are.”

Croyd shrugged. “Think whatever you want, but do it someplace else if you want my vote.”

“Get up.”

“I am up. I’m a lot higher than you. And I’m up for anything.”

The tall Hartmann reached for him, and the other Hartmanns began a swaying advance.

Croyd reached forward, caught the oncoming hand, and drew it toward his face. There followed a crunching sound, and the tall Hartmann screamed as Croyd jerked his head to the side, then spat out the thumb he had just bitten off the hand he held. Then he rose to his feet, still holding the Werewolf’s right wrist with his left hand. He jerked the man forward and drove the fingers of his free hand deep into his abdomen and began drawing them upward. Blood spurted and ribs popped and protruded.

“Always following me,” he said. “You’re a real pain in the ass, you know? Where’s Veronica?”

The man commenced a coughing spasm. The other Werewolves halted as the blood began to flow. Croyd’s hand plunged again, downward this time. Red up to the elbow now, he began drawing out a length of intestine. The others began to gag, to back toward the rear of the car.

“This is a political statement,” Croyd said as he raised the gory Hartmann and tossed him after the others. “See you in November, motherfuckers!”

* * *

Croyd exited quickly at the Wall Street Station, tore off his bloody shirt, and tossed it into a trash receptacle. He washed his hands in a public fountain before departing the area, and he offered a big black guy who’d said, “You
really
a Whitey!” fifty bucks for his shirt—a pale blue, long-sleeved polyester affair, which fit him fine. He trotted over to Nassau then, followed it north till it ran into Centre. He stopped in an OPEN ALL NIGHT Greek place and bought two giant styrofoam cups of coffee, one for each hand, to sip as he strolled.

He continued up to Canal and bore westward. Then he detoured several blocks to a cafe he knew, for steak and eggs and coffee and juice and more coffee. He sat beside the window and watched the street grow light and come alive. He took a black pill for medicinal purposes and a red one for good luck.

“Uh,” he said to the waiter, “you’re the sixth or seventh person I’ve seen wearing a surgical mask recently…”

“Wild card virus,” the man said. “It’s around again.”

“Just a few cases, here and there,” Croyd said, “last I heard.”

“Go listen again,” the man responded. “It’s close to a hundred—maybe over—already.”

“Still,” Croyd mused, “do you think a little strip of cloth like that will really do you any good?”

The waiter shrugged. “I figure it’s better than nothing… More coffee?”

“Yeah. Get me a dozen donuts to go, too, will you?”

“Sure.”

He made his way to the Bowery via Broome Street, then on down toward Hester. As he drew nearer, he saw that the newsstand was not yet open, and Jube nowhere in sight. Pity, he’d a feeling Walrus might have some useful information or at least some good advice on dealing with the fact that both sides in the current gang war periodically took time out to shoot at him—say, every other day. Was it sunspots? Bad breath? It was rapidly ceasing to be cost effective for the Mob to keep chasing him to recover his fee for his investigation—and Siu Ma’s people must have hit at him enough by now to have recovered a lot more face than he’d ever cost them.

Munching a donut, he passed on, heading for his Eldridge apartment. Later. No rush. He could talk to Jube by and by. Right now it would be restful to lean back in the big easy chair, his feet up on the ottoman, and close his eyes for a few minutes…

“Shit!” he observed, tossing half a donut down the stairwell to a vacant basement flat as he turned the corner onto his block. Was it getting to be that time already?

Then he continued to turn with that rapid fluidity of movement that had come with the territory this time around, following the donut down into darkness where the asthmatic snuffling of some ancient dog would have been distracting but for the fact that he was viewing, even as he descended, a classical stakeout up the street near his pad.

“Son-of-a-bitch!” he added, just his head above ground level now, outline broken by a length of upright piping that supported the side railing.

One man sat in a parked car up past the building, in view of its front entrance. Another sat on a stoop, filing his nails, in command of an angled view of the rear of the building from across the side alley.