A Soft Barren Aftershock by F. Paul Wilson
He knocked—not quite pounding, but with enough urgency to bring even the most cautious resident to the peephole.
Three tries, no answer. Jack put his picks to work on the deadbolt. A Quickset. He was rusty. Took him almost a minute, and a minute was a long time when you were standing in an open hallway fiddling with someone’s lock—the closest a fully-clothed man could come to feeling naked in public.
Finally the bolt snapped back. He drew his 9mm backup and entered in a crouch.
Quiet. Didn’t take long to check out the one-bedroom apartment. Empty. He turned on the lights and did a thorough search.
Neat. The bed was made, the furniture dusted, clothes folded in the bureau drawers, no dirty dishes in the sink. Hollander either had a maid or he was a neatnik. People who could afford maids didn’t live in this building; that made him a neatnik. Not what Jack had expected from a guy who got fired because he couldn’t get the job done.
He checked the bookshelves. A few novels and short story collections—literary stuff, mostly—salted in among the business texts. And in the far right corner, three books on Islam with titles like Understanding Islam and An Introduction To Islam.
Not an indictment by itself. Hollander might have bought them for reference when he’d been hired by Saudi Petrol.
And he might have bought them after he was fired.
Jack was willing to bet on the latter. He had a gut feeling about this guy.
On the desk was a picture of a thin, pale, blond man with an older woman. Hollander and his mother maybe?
He went through the drawers and found a black ledger, a checkbook, and a pile of bills. Looked like he’d been dipping into his savings. He’d been paying only the minimum on his Master Card. A lot of late payment notices, and a couple of bad-news letters from employment agencies. Luck wasn’t running his way, and maybe Mr. Richard Hollander was looking for someone to blame.
Folded between the back cover and the last page of the ledger was a receipt from the Brickell Real Estate Agency for a cash security deposit and first month’s rental on Loft #629. Dated last month. Made out to Sean McCabe.
Loft #629. Where the hell was that? And why did Richard Hollander have someone else’s cash receipt? Unless it wasn’t someone else’s. Had he rented loft #629 under a phony name? That would explain using cash. But why would a guy who was almost broke rent a loft?
Unless he was looking for a place to do something too risky to do in his own apartment.
Like holding hostages.
Jack copied down the Brickell agency’s phone number. He might need that later. Then he called Munir.
Hysteria on the phone. Sobbing, moaning, the guy was almost incoherent.
“Calm down, dammit! What exactly did he tell you?”
“He’s going to cut her . . . he’s going to cut her . . . he’s going to cut her . . .”
He sounded like a stuck record player. If Munir had been within reach Jack would have whacked him alongside the head to unstick him.
“Cut her what?”
“Cut her nipple off!”
“Oh, Jeez! Stay right there. I’ll call you right back.”
Jack retrieved the receipt for the loft and dialed the number of the realtor. As the phone began to ring, he realized he hadn’t figured out an angle to pry out the address. They wouldn’t give it to just anybody. But maybe a cop . . .
He hoped he was right as a pleasant female voice answered on the third ring. “Brickell Agency.”
Jack put a harsh, Brooklynese edge on his voice.
“Yeah. This is Lieutenant Adams of the Twelfth Precinct. Who’s in charge there?”
“I am.” Her voice had cooled. “Esther Brickell. This is my agency.”
“Good. Here’s the story. We’ve got a suspect in a mutilation murder but we don’t know his whereabouts. However, we did find a cash receipt among his effects. Your name was on it.”
“The Brickell Agency?”
“Big as life. Down payment of some sort on loft number six-two-nine. Sound familiar?”
“Not offhand. We’re computerized. We access all our rental accounts by number.”
“Fine. Then it’ll only take you a coupla seconds to get me the address of this place.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. I have a strict policy of never giving out information about my clients. Especially over the phone. All my dealings with them are strictly confidential. I’m sure you can understand.”
Swell, Jack thought. She thinks she’s a priest or a reporter.
“What I understand,” he said, “is that I’ve got a crazy perp out there and you think you’ve got privileged information. Well, listen, sweetie, the First Amendment don’t include realtors. I need the address of your six-two-nine loft rented to”—he glanced at the name on the receipt—“Sean McCabe. Not later. Now. Capsice?”
“Sorry,” she said. “I can’t do that. Good-day, lieutenant—if indeed you are a lieutenant.”
Shit! But Jack wasn’t giving up. He had to get this address.
“Oh, I’m a lieutenant, all right. And believe me, sweetie, you don’t come across with that address here and now, you’ve got trouble. You make me waste my time tracking down a judge to swear out a search warrant, make me come out to your dinky little office to get this one crummy address, I’m gonna do it up big. I’m gonna bring uniforms and blue-and-white units and we’re gonna do a thorough search. And I do mean a thorough. We’ll be there all day. And we’ll go through all your files. And while we’re at it you can explain to any prospective clients who walk in exactly what we’re doing and why—and hope they’ll believe you. And if we can’t find what we want in your computer we’ll confiscate it. And keep it for a while. And maybe you’ll get it back next Christmas. Maybe.”
“Just a minute,” she said.
Jack waited, hoping she hadn’t gone to another phone to call her lawyer and check on his empty threats, or call the Twelfth to check on a particularly obnoxious lieutenant named Adams.
“It’s on White Street,” she said suddenly in cold, clipped tones. “Eighteen-twenty-two. Two-D.”
“Thank—”
She hung up on him. Fine. He had what he needed.
White Street. That was in TriBeCa—the trendy triangle below Canal Street. Lots of lofts down there. Straight down Lafayette from where he and Munir had played the mailbox game. He’d been on top of the guy an hour ago.
He punched in Munir’s number.
“Eighteen-twenty-two White,” he said without preamble. “Get down there now.”
No time for explanations. He hung up and ran for the door.
16
The building looked like a deserted factory. Probably was. Four stories with no windows on the first floor. Maybe an old sweat shop. A “NOW RENTING” sign next to the front door. The place looked empty. Had the Brickell lady stiffed him with the wrong address?
With his trusty plastic ruler ready in his gloved hand, Jack hopped out of the cab and ran for the door. It was steel, a leftover from the building’s factory days. An anti-jimmy plate had been welded over the latch area. Jack pocketed the plastic and inspected the lock: a heavy-duty Schlage. A tough pick on a good day. Here on the sidewalk, with the clock ticking, in full view of the cars passing on the street, a very tough pick.
He ran along the front of the building and took the alley around to the back. Another door there, this one with a big red alarm warning posted front and center.
Two-D . . . that meant the second floor had been subdivided into at least four mini lofts. If Hollander was here at all, he’d be renting the cheapest. Usually the lower letters meant up front with a view of the street; further down the alphabet you got relegated to the rear with an alley view.
Jack stepped back and looked up. The second-floor windows to his left were bare and empty. The ones on the right were completely draped with what looked like bedsheets.
And running right smack past the middle of those windows was a downspout. Jack tested the pi
Not good, but he’d have to risk it.
He began to climb, shimmying up the pipe, vising it with his knees and elbows as he sought toeholds and fingerholds on the fittings. It shuddered, it groaned, and half way up it settled a couple of inches with a jolt, but it held. Moments later he was perched outside the shrouded second floor windows.
Now what?
Sometimes the direct approach was the best. He knocked on the nearest pane. It was two foot high, three foot wide, and filthy. After a few seconds, he knocked again.
Finally a corner of one of the sheets lifted hesitantly and a man stared out at him. Blond hair, wide blue eyes, pale face in need of a shave. The eyes got wider and the face faded a few shades paler when he saw Jack. He didn’t look exactly like the guy in the photo in Hollander’s apartment, but he could be. Easily.
Jack smiled and gave him a friendly wave. He raised his voice to be heard through the glass.
“Good morning. I’d like to have a word with Mrs. Habib, if you don’t mind.”
The corner of the sheet dropped and the guy disappeared. Which confirmed that he’d found Richard Hollander. Anybody else would have asked him what the hell he was doing out there and who the hell was Mrs. Habib?
So now Jack had to move quickly. If he had Hollander pegged right, he’d be tripping full tilt down the stairs for the street. Which was fine with Jack. But there was a small chance he’d take a second or two to do something gruesome or even fatal to the woman and the boy before he fled. Jack didn’t anticipate any physical resistance—a gutless creep who struck at another man through his wife and child was hardly the type for mano a mano confrontation.
Bracing his hands on the pipe, Jack planted one foot on the three-inch window sill and aimed a kick at the bottom pane.
Suddenly the glass three panes above it exploded outward as a rusty steel L-bar smashed through, narrowly missing Jack’s face and showering him with glass.
On the other hand, he thought, even the lowliest rat had been known to fight when cornered.
Jack swung back onto the pipe and around to the windows on the other side. The bar retreated through the holes it had punched in the sheet and the window. As Jack shifted his weight to the opposite sill, he realized that from inside he was silhouetted on the sheet. Too late. The bar came crashing through the pane level with Jack’s groin, catching him in the leg. He grunted with pain as the corner of the bar tore through his jeans and gouged the flesh across the front of his thigh. In a sudden burst of rage, he grabbed the bar and pulled.
The sheet came down and draped over Hollander. He fought it off with panicky swipes, letting go of the bar in the process. Jack pulled it the rest of the way through the window and dropped it into the alley below. Then he kicked the remaining glass out of the pane and swung inside.
Hollander was dashing for the door, something in his right hand.
Jack started after him, his mind registering strobe-flash images as he moved: a big empty space, a card table, two chairs, three mattresses on the floor, the first empty, a boy tied to the second, a naked woman tied to the third, blood on her right breast.
Jack picked up speed and caught him as he reached the door. He ducked as Hollander spun and swung a meat cleaver at his head. Jack grabbed his wrist with his left hand and smashed his right fist into the pale face. The cleaver fell from his fingers as he dropped to his knees.
“I give up,” Hollander said, coughing and spitting blood. “It’s over.”
“No,” Jack said, hauling him to his feet. The darkness was welling up in him now, whispering, taking control. “It’s not.”
The wide blue eyes darted about in confusion. “What? Not what?”
“Over.”
Jack drove a left into his gut, then caught him with an uppercut as he doubled over, slamming him back against the door.
Hollander retched and groaned as he sank to the floor again.
“You can’t do this,” he moaned. “I’ve surrendered.”
“And you think that does it? You’ve played dirty for days and now that things aren’t going your way anymore, that’s it? Finsies? Uncle? Tilt? Game over? I don’t think so. I don’t think so.”
“No. You’ve got to read me my rights and take me in.”
“Oh, I get it,” Jack said. “You think I’m a cop.”
Hollander looked up at him in dazed confusion. He pursed his lips, beginning a question that died before it was asked.
“I’m not.” Jack grinned. “Mooo-neeer sent me.”
He waited a few heartbeats as Hollander glanced over to where Munir’s naked wife and mutilated child were trussed up, watched the sick horror grow in his eyes. When it filled them, when Jack was sure he had tasting a crumb of what he’d been putting Munir through for days, he rammed the heel of his hand against the creep’s nose, slamming the back of his head against the door. He wanted to do it again, and again, keep on doing it until the gutless wonder’s skull was bone confetti, but he fought the urge, pulled back as Hollander’s eyes rolled up in his head and he collapsed the rest of the way to the floor.
He went first to the woman. She looked up at him with terrified eyes.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “Munir’s on his way. It’s all over.”
She closed her eyes and began to sob through her gag.
As Jack fumbled with the knots on her wrists, he checked out the fresh blood on her left breast. The nipple was still there. An inch-long cut ran along its outer margin. A bloody straight razor lay on the mattress beside her.
If he’d tapped on that window a few minutes later . . .
As soon as her hands were free she sat up and tore the gag from her mouth. She looked at him with tear-flooded eyes but seemed unable to speak. Sobbing, she went to work on her ankle bonds. Jack stepped over to where the fallen sheet lay crumpled on the floor and draped it over her.
“That man, that . . . beast,” she said. “He told us Munir didn’t care about us, that he wouldn’t cooperate, wouldn’t do anything he was told.”
Jack glanced over at Hollander’s unconscious form. Was there no limit?
“He lied to you. Munir’s been going crazy doing everything the guy told him.”
“Did he really cut off his . . .?”
“No. But he would have if I hadn’t stopped him.”
“Who are you?”
“Nobody.”
He went to the boy. The kid’s eyes were bleary. He looked flushed and his skin was hot. Fever. A wad of bloody gauze encased his left hand. Jack pulled the gag from his mouth.
“Where’s my dad?” he said hoarsely. Not Who are you? or What’s going on? Just worried about his dad. Jack wished for a son like that someday.
“On his way.”
He began untying the boy’s wrists. Soon he had help from Barbara. A moment later, mother and son were crying in each other’s arms. He found their clothing and handed it to them.
While they were dressing, Jack dragged Hollander over to Barbara’s mattress and stuffed her gag in his mouth. As he finished tying him down with her ropes, he heard someone pounding on the downstairs door. He ushered the woman and the boy out to the landing, then went down and found Munir frantic on the sidewalk.
“Where–?”
“Upstairs,” Jack said.
“Are they–?”
Jack nodded.
He stepped aside to allow Munir past, then waited outside awhile to give them all a chance to be alone together. Five minutes, then he limped back upstairs. It wasn’t over yet. The kid was sick, needed medical attention. But there wasn’t an ER in the city that wouldn’t be phoning in a child abuse complaint as soon as they saw Robby’s left hand. And that would start officialdom down a road that might lead them to Jack.
But Jack knew a doc who wouldn’t call anyone. Couldn’t. His license had been on p
17
Jack was sitting and waiting with Barbara and Munir. Doc Hargus had stitched up Barbara’s breast first because it was a fresh wound and fairly easy to repair. Robby, he’d said, was going to be another story.
“I still cannot understand it,” Munir said for what seemed like the hundredth time but was probably only the twentieth. “Richard Hollander . . . how could he do this to me? To anybody? I never hurt him.”
“You fired him,” Jack said. “He’s probably been loony tunes for years, on the verge of a breakdown, walking the line. Losing his job just pushed him over the edge.”
“But people lose their jobs every day. They don’t kidnap and torture—”
“He was ready to blow. You just happened to be the unlucky one. It was his first job. He had to blame somebody—anybody but himself—and get even for it. He chose you. Don’t look for logic. The guy’s crazy.”
“But the depth of his cruelty . . .”
“Maybe you could have been gentler with him when you fired him,” Barbara said. The words sent a chill through Jack, bringing back Munir’s plea from his first telephone call last night.
Please save my family!
Jack wondered if that was possible, if anyone could save Munir’s family now. It had begun to unravel as soon as Barbara and Robby were kidnapped. It still had been salvageable then, up to the point when the cleaver had cut through Robby’s finger. That was probably the deathblow. Even if nothing worse had happened from there on in, that missing finger would be a permanent reminder of the nightmare, and somehow it would be Munir’s fault.
If he’d already gone to the police, it would be because of that; since he hadn’t, it would be his fault for not going to the police. Munir would always blame himself; deep in her heart Barbara also would blame him. And later on, maybe years from now, Robby would blame him too.