Tracking Time (23 page)

A
s the black of night gave way to gray, Maslow knew he was not in a tomb limited to the size of his own body. Beyond his feet was an open space large enough for at least four people to move around. That was comforting. He was stuck in the back of a cave and needed to get to the front, the mouth, the opening. Out. And he had to get out soon. He had more than himself to think of now; he had to get Allegra out.

Hours after the attack her cries still tormented him. He replayed the horrific moments over and over and tried to calculate from her screams what had happened and how badly hurt she might be. Had she been stabbed by the knife the girl had waved at him? Was she slowly bleeding to death? Who were that boy and girl? What did they think they were doing and why? Were they stoned on something? Would they return? How soon? Never? The questions kept coming. And the big one- what could he do to get help?

Through the long night hours Maslow heard Allegra moaning, struggling to breathe, and he talked to her, kept talking. He had no idea what he was saying. All he knew was that the girl was injured, and she was crying. He wanted her to get up, move closer, and help him get out of there. Then he wanted her to talk to him, but he knew from the sounds she made that she was gagged- she couldn't talk. Then all he wanted was for her to stop crying. And now she had stopped. For an hour or more, there had been no sound from her but the ragged pull of her breath. He could hear the rats scuffling around her.

"Allegra, hang in there, kid," he told her.

Then through a solid wall of pain in his back, Maslow heard the whine of chopper blades and the wailing ambulance sirens. He heard a helicopter come, and he heard it go. It seemed to happen in only seconds. Too fast it was gone. His voice was hoarse from calling. Somewhere outside there was activity. Someone was getting help. But no help came to them.

"Allegra! Hey, Allegra."

No sound now.

A new panic seized him, not that he would die, but that she was dying. She was being eaten by rats as he lay there, doing nothing. They went for the soft tissue, for the eyes first. He was terrified, kept talking to her and calling for help. And when she stopped whimpering, he began clawing at the crumbling ceiling over his head, no longer afraid of the dirt falling into his face. He braced his hands against the earth above and dragged himself forward with his heels and bottom. He was not paralyzed, not helpless. He had only inches, hardly enough room to raise his knees and force his burning calf muscles to grab hold. He forced himself to move.

Again came the memory of childhood when he'd hid under the bed with the springs in his face, how he'd crawled in and out. That had been a safe place. This one could be a grave for two. His arms and shoulders were stronger now, his feet full of the bee stings of reviving life. By centimeters he snaked himself across the sharp rocks of the cave floor, tearing skin off his back and legs and bringing down sand and gravel on his face.

Agonizingly, he shoved himself along, a few inches at a time. Searing pain nagged at the muscles in his buttocks. He kept going. Two more feet, and the solid rock was much higher above his hands. A sudden shifting of a rock over his head made him scramble. He rolled over and inched backward on his hands and knees. He was in open space when a rock gave way and fell on the place where his head and shoulders had been only moments ago. The shelf had collapsed like a sand castle on the beach. The cave was narrower now, the air was foul with thick clouds of sand. His heart raced as he tried to catch his breath. Two rats scuttled over his bleeding hands. He smacked them away and sat up. Ahead of him he could see Allegra's motionless body.

Maslow reached his arms over his head and stretched his back, then he flexed his knees and feet. He was dizzy and disoriented. A lump on the side of his head felt as big as a tennis ball. A gash in his forehead hurt like hell. His stomach growled, but he felt no obvious break in his legs.

"Shhh. It's okay. It's okay," he mumbled. He had no idea he was making the sounds or to whom he was talking. His back still hurt, but his legs were moving. He was muttering, moving along the cave floor, feeling the rough stones with his hands. In the dim light he could see the form of Allegra. A lump, not a very big one. It looked as if her head was half buried in sand. Beyond that, bars and dim light.

"Allegra." He crawled toward her.

His knee snagged a jagged rock. He collapsed forward. His hand slipped into a puddle of stagnant water. Furious movement from the water. A ball-sized slimy something jumped out and hit him in the face with a splat.

"Frog," he told himself.

He covered the last feet and crouched over Allegra's body. She lay half on her side. Her hands were tied behind her back. The side of her face was covered with blood. Her eyes were closed, but her skin was warm. Maslow found the carotid pulse in her neck. One of her own socks was stuffed in her mouth. He pulled the sock out. She was groaning when he tried to untie her hands. Then he saw that her foot was caught under the gate.

He reached under her head and shoulders to get her face out of the dirt, and was shocked when her hair fell off in his hand.

M
ike had worked the Special Case unit out of Mid-town North before. On the last case he'd used the tiny office located outside the detective squad rooms. He didn't want to go there now. April had not yet returned from the park so he decided to use the desk she shared with the other supervisor of the squad, Sergeant Teeter. Today was Teeter's day for the desk, but Teeter was out in the field. The department was going nuts on the homicide.

Mike was aware of the meeting of commanders in the park, but it had nothing to do with him. He got his assignments from downtown, and precinct politics didn't affect him one way or the other.

His job was to find Maslow Atkins. When he arrived at Midtown North at half past one, Lieutenant Iriarte was downtown at a press conference, and the squad was packed with detectives from several units, working the time lines to trace Pee Wee's last hours and the people who had been in contact with him.

The roundup of street people had already begun. In the holding cell four bedraggled males were cursing and spitting, muttering to themselves, protesting their innocence of whatever crime had come to the attention of the police. They didn't know that they were a gathering of Pee Wee James's known associates and that the police were looking for his killer. Several were too drunk to process anything. Mike made a quick survey of them. He didn't know any.

Several detectives were smoking. Toxic fumes filled the room. Mike hadn't had a cigarette in nearly two years. Sometimes the smell of smoke bothered him, but he longed for a cigarette now. He couldn't help feeling Pee Wee's life had ended because of his need to show April who was boss. He felt bad about that. She'd stayed behind with the criminalists. It made him think he was in trouble with her again.

Because he had neglected the situation with Pee Wee James last night, he went to interview the last detective to see him alive. He found Detective George Maas typing at the computer on his desk, a number of people crowded around him. George was short and wiry, had kinky hair and a big nose with an ugly red spot developing into a pimple on the tip of it. The man looked unhappy. His mustard yellow tie had a massive coffee stain streaking the front. Under his arms and all around his shoulder holster, he was sweating profusely in his khaki shirt. He appeared to be thinking hard and ignoring the talk around him. Mike had never heard April mention his name. Either the man was new or a nonentity.

"Hey, George, I'm Lieutenant Mike Sanchez, Special Case Squad." He held out his hand to be friendly. The crowd made room.

George examined the hand to see if a demotion was lurking there. "IAB?" he asked suspiciously.

Mike shook his head. He had nothing to do with Internal Affairs. "Special Case," he repeated.

"Everything I know is going in here." He tapped his fingers on the computer board. "It wasn't my call to release the guy."

"What happened?" Mike asked, taking a seat on the corner of the desk and edging out the listeners.

"The lieutenant told me to interview James, then to report what he said. I did. After that, he told me to give him a fiver and let him go." Maas shrugged. "That's what I did."

"Is that usual?"

"What, sir?"

"The fiver."

"Not exactly usual. We do it sometimes." He didn't look happy with this.

"Why this time?"

Maas shrugged. "No idea. I just do what I'm told."

"Did you drive him anywhere?"

"Are you kidding?"

"So you gave him a fiver but didn't drive him anywhere."

"That's right."

"So what did you and James talk about?"

"The guy was a hard-core wino. We've had him in here before. A big troublemaker. Whenever he could stand up, he was fighting."

"What about yesterday?"

"Yesterday he couldn't stand up. He had the DTs. He was shaking all over, thought the sky was raining with insects." George shrugged again. "He couldn't tell a tree from an elephant."

"What did he tell you about the incident on Tuesday night?"

"By the time I saw him, he'd forgotten all about it. All he told me was there was some kind of fairy godmother who was going to give him a twenty every day for the rest of his life. That's about it. At the time he was in here we had a situation with some South American tourists…"

"Oh yeah, what was that about?"

"They were upset a homeless person was sharing the planet with them." Maas smiled.

"What was their complaint?"

"Oh, I'm not sure what they came in about. I didn't handle the complaint. But the lieutenant didn't like it when Sergeant Woo brought the wino in. When she left, the lieutenant told me to get rid of him. So I gave him the five dollars and told him to get going." George seemed pretty stressed. He lit up an unfiltered Camel.

Mike inhaled the secondary smoke, not liking Maas one bit. "Turns out that wasn't such a good move," he murmured.

"The homicide could be a coincidence. Nobody believed a word he said." Maas went back to his typing.

"Time will tell." Mike got off the desk. The crowd in the squad rooms was thinning now. People were going out into the field.

He returned to April's office and sat down at her desk. Her office had remarkably little of her in it. Not a single thing of a personal nature was on her desk. Only a little plaque with her name on it indicated she even sat there. A tissue box was the extent of niceties. Mike swiveled back and forth in her chair. Last night on the news a Department spokesman had quoted the highly favorable park safety figures. Today, dozens of detectives were heading out to the homeless shelters, train stations, and public parks looking for people who had known and fought with James, and for the knife that cut off his finger.

A lot of people were asking questions. Mike wanted to talk with the two kids who had spoken to April about Zumech and his dog. Something wasn't right there. Zumech was convinced of a Vietnam angle. He wasn't so sure. He dialed April's number. When she answered, she told him there was a break in the Atkins case.

"Maslow's father has a girlfriend," she said through static.

"No kidding," Mike said.

"And Maslow has a twenty-year-old sister."

"How'd that come out?"

"Maslow's father told Jason Frank. He'd wanted to keep it confidential."

"How does the sister fit in?"

"This may sound a little far out,
chico,
but my guess is the girl is his mystery patient."

"The one you saw last night?"

"Yes. Where are you?"

"Sitting at your desk. Look, I'm sorry about last night. The whole thing. You made the right call on Pee Wee. I blocked you. My mistake."

"Yeah," April said.

The deadpan Chinese used to be impossible for him to read. Now it was way too easy. Chinese silences were full of meaning.

"You have an address on the sister?" he asked

"I do."

"Have you located her?" he asked

"Not yet."

"You coming in?" he said finally.

"Uh-huh."

That was the best he could get out of her. "Fine, I'll be waiting. We'll find him," he assured her. About Maslow.

"Do you have a plan?"

"Yeah, I have a plan. Go back to square one."

"Better hurry up," April murmured. "The clock is ticking."

G
race Rodriguez was shocked when she entered the Midtown North Precinct and connected with New York City law enforcement for the first time in her life. The building was old and bare of any comforts whatsoever. Hard surfaces everywhere were covered with decades' accumulation of black grime from city streets. She noticed the signs warning of pickpockets in several languages, police equipment she couldn't identify. The officers looked large and rough in their blue uniforms. The faces of the most wanted criminals posted on the walls looked no more frightening to her than the officers with the weapons hanging from their belts. Not even the sight of several Latinos comforted her. None of them smiled at her. Inside the precinct everybody was either busy or trying to look busy, and the people at the front desk were sharp-voiced and impatient, like the waiters in coffee shops.

When she went to the desk and asked for the person in charge of the Maslow Atkins case, she was told to sit down and wait. She sat on a hard chair and watched uniforms walk back and forth. Both the men and the women had a special police walk that frightened her. None of them looked at her or asked her if she needed help. She felt unimportant and invisible. This frightened her, too.

Throughout her adult life, Grace had always identified with poor people who couldn't speak English well, didn't have jobs and nice homes, and couldn't properly care for their kids when they were sick or in trouble. And she'd seen the movies where the police were corrupt and mean. But now she saw that being in a police station was like entering poverty itself. When she went to the bathroom, she was shocked. It was worse than any hospital, post office, train station, court building she'd ever seen. She couldn't imagine why any of the people she saw here would want to work in such a place or how they might be able to find her daughter.

After an hour, she was so agitated she went to the desk a second time and asked who was in charge of the case. She wanted a name. No one seemed to know who was in charge. After a few minutes of calling on the phone, a mean-looking Hispanic woman sitting at a lower desk said, "Sergeant Woo."

"Sergeant Woo?" Grace swallowed the bad taste in her mouth. She wasn't sure what kind of name that was. "Could I see him?" She was becoming indignant at the way she was being treated. So many people walking in and out. No one paying attention. "I have to leave soon."

"She's out in the field," came the cold answer.

"Can I talk to someone else?" she said. "I need to talk to someone now."

"No one is available."

Grace felt tears sting behind her eyes. All she wanted to do was find her daughter. "This is important! When is she coming back?"

"We'll let you know."

Grace returned to her chair and wondered if she should call Jerry. He lived on Park Avenue and was an important man. No one would dare to treat him like this. But calling Jerry was out of the question. He didn't want anyone to know he had a daughter. He was the one who'd put them in this position in the first place, the strange limbo of being alone and possessed. Jerry didn't approve of her taking any independent actions when it came to their daughter. At the same time, he wasn't there to take care of things himself.

Secretly, Grace had always believed his story that he was a good man caught in a bad situation, that he wanted to do the right thing for her and Dylan, but didn't want to hurt his wife and son. She'd thought that his loyalty to the two of them demonstrated his sensitivity, not his selfishness. She'd always wished that his wife, who was mean and ugly and old and would certainly take half his fortune should they divorce, would just die to spare them the agony.

So many times when she'd been hurt or angry with Jerry for one slight or another, she'd tried so hard not to feel that she was, in the end, alone. Now she knew that she and Dylan were indeed alone.

She was thinking that she had come to the wrong place with her story when a beautiful Chinese woman, exquisitely dressed in a rust-colored suit and purple blouse, came in the precinct door.

The officer at the desk shouted at her, "Sergeant, someone's looking for you."

The woman stopped at the desk to talk to him, and he pointed at Grace. Immediately she came over.

"I'm Sergeant Woo. How can I help you?" She had a low voice with a slight New York accent.

Grace was shocked. This Chinese woman was in charge of Maslow's case? Jerry had told her the Mayor himself was involved. The police department was doing everything possible to find him. Jerry would not be happy to think this woman was the best they could do. Grace herself was not very optimistic about a Chinese woman detective.

"Ah, I wanted to talk to someone about Maslow Atkins."

"Good. Thank you for coming. Have you been waiting long?" the woman asked politely.

Grace had gotten to her feet. Now she looked down at her hands. Yes, she had been waiting long. She had some information, but now she wasn't sure she wanted to give it. The detective's face was polite but unreadable. Grace didn't feel comfortable talking to her.

"They didn't know who was in charge," she said after a slight hesitation.

"I'm sorry, it's very chaotic around here today. I guess no one sent you upstairs to the detective unit."

"No."

"Well, come upstairs now. We'll find a quiet place to talk. It's only on the second floor, do you mind taking the stairs?"

"No. That's all right." Grace followed the Chinese woman cop without a Chinese accent. She didn't know what she was going to tell her.

Upstairs, behind the door that was marked "Detective Unit," they walked into a room full of smoke. A lot of people in plain clothes were in there, walking around smoking and sitting at the desks, talking on the phones. The sergeant ignored them. She stopped outside a tiny office with a glass window in the door. Inside a man with a big mustache was sitting at a desk with a plaque that read "Sergeant April Woo" on it. Grace realized that the detective's name was April. She felt sick and wished she hadn't come.

"Would you wait here for a moment?" The sergeant went into her office. Her back was to the window. Grace couldn't see her face or hear what she said. The man came out. The woman sat down at her desk.

"You may go inside now," the man told her. He, too, spoke in a polite manner.

Grace could tell he was Latino. She gave him a grateful smile and went into the office.

"Sit down," Sergeant Woo said.

Grace sat down. The man with the mustache came in and sat down in the chair beside her. He had a nice smile and was wearing a very strong aftershave that was sweet and spicy and familiar to her.

"Lieutenant Sanchez is in the Special Case Squad. He's in charge here," Woo said.

Grace stared at the two of them. She realized the cops she was dealing with were Spanish and Chinese. She wondered if this was not a very important case, after all. No one here seemed to know what was going on or who was in charge. Where were the Americans?

"I'm Grace Rodriguez," she said softly. "Thank you for seeing me."

"Thank you for coming in," said the lieutenant called Sanchez.

Grace sniffed, trying to hold on to her composure. Cops were tough, she knew. And her child was illegitimate, named after a seventies folk singer. Her Dylan had turned out to be as strange as the singer was, a weird duck, delicate as glass-and missing since yesterday. Grace felt ashamed about having to describe her difficult child like an item for the lost and found. The two cops waited.

"Maslow Atkins is my boss's son," she said, flushing deeply.

The two exchanged glances. "Take your time."

"I don't know whether you have spoken with Mr. Atkins. I asked him to tell you about us, but-" Grace sniffed. "Well, he's a very private person."

The Spanish lieutenant nodded. He seemed like a nice man. Grace chewed on her lip. She hadn't wanted it to come out this way. She hadn't wanted to harm her daughter. She'd wanted her and Jerry's story to end well. She'd always expected it would. Now her hopes were down the toilet. She could never trust him, never be with him again. She cared only for her daughter. Saving Dylan. The two cops waited. She took a deep breath. "Jerome Atkins and I have a daughter. Our daughter, Dylan, is twenty and missing since yesterday." There, she said it. Her eyes overflowed and tears coursed down her face.

She couldn't help it. The Chinese detective passed over the tissue box. Grace took one and pressed it to her face.

"I'm sorry. I haven't been able to tell anyone about this. It's been hard. No one knows about my life. I'm sorry."

"No problem. We cry all the time, don't we, Lieutenant?" Woo said.

The lieutenant nodded. "Your daughter, Dylan, does she know her half-brother, Maslow?"

Grace shook her head. "Jerry didn't want Maslow to know about us. So, I didn't think so. But Dylan found out about her half-brother years ago. She's always been passionately interested in knowing him. Her father was dead against it."

"And when did Dylan contact him?" this from the Chinese.

"Ahh, well, she might have been following him. I don't think they knew each other. Dylan promised her father that she wouldn't contact him. But she was angry at him and… you know kids. They don't always keep their promises." Grace dabbed at her eyes.

"Angry at… Maslow?"

"No, her father."

The two detectives exchanged glances again. Grace was afraid she'd said something she shouldn't have.

"Maybe I'm wrong. I'm just-I'm very upset. I don't know where she is, and he's missing, too. It's all so horrible. Both of them missing. It's-"

"Miss Rodriguez, did you know your daughter is seeing a psychiatrist?"

Grace was shocked. "Dylan? No. She would never- what makes you think that?"

"Do you have a photo of her?" Sanchez asked.

"Um, not with me. I can get one." Grace put the tissue to her nose. A psychiatrist? Where was this leading? Had Dylan gone crazy? Was she in a hospital?

Sergeant Woo pulled a thick stack of photos out of her purse and shuffled through them. Finally she found the one she was looking for. "Is this Dylan?"

Grace took the picture and stared at it. Her daughter's thin face stared out at her from a frame of long black hair.

"Where did you get this?" Grace was astounded. "It was taken yesterday afternoon at Maslow Atkins's office."

"No!" Grace couldn't believe it.

"Maslow is a psychiatrist. Dylan was in treatment with him. She called herself Allegra Caldera. When we spoke with her, she was waiting for her five p.m. appointment."

Grace closed her eyes. A little tear squeezed out. She never would have imagined that her daughter could devise such a scheme. Amazing. Dylan had outwitted her father and found her own way to get to know her brother. Grace dabbed at her wet eyes. She couldn't help feeling a little surge of pride at her daughter's ingenuity. Waiting for her appointment! So there had been a man in her life. A brother. A giggle erupted from her throat like a bubble in a fish tank. Dylan had a touch of her father's deviousness. "Where is she?" she asked.

"Maslow and Dylan had a fight on Tuesday afternoon, and Dylan may be the last person who saw him before he disappeared," Woo was saying.

"What?" The fabric of Grace's suit was soaked under the arms.

"She was seen with him just before he went into the park."

Grace was confused. "But you said you saw her yesterday in his office. Did she know why you were there? Did you know who she was?"

"Yes, she knew we were looking for Maslow. No, she didn't tell us she was his sister. She was pretending to be someone else. She didn't appear to know he was missing."

"Well, how did your conversation end? Where did she go? You don't suspect her of anything…?" The question hung in the air.

The Chinese woman spoke softly. "I told her I wanted to talk with her again. She said that was fine with her, gave me a fake telephone number, and took off." Sergeant Woo looked as disturbed by the whole thing as Grace was.

The lieutenant got up quickly and left the two women alone together. The Chinese detective kept her for a long time asking her many questions about Dylan's life and her activities in the last few months, but although Grace talked a great deal, she didn't seem to know her daughter very well.