He started heading east, then turned north on Park Avenue going uptown. Finally he spoke. No h.e.l.los. No how-are-yous. "You have something for me?" he said.
"Yes," I said. "We"re still worried about an attack coming in via ship or boat. Did you hear about the murders on the container ship out in Arthur Kill?"
He slammed on the brakes, causing the Chevy to skid slightly on the still-wet pavement. Benny and I had to brace ourselves to keep from catapulting into the front seat. We were lucky we didn"t get rear-ended. He twisted the wheel sharply, pulled out of the lane, and parked in a bus stop. A stormy face turned in our direction. "What ship? What murders?"
Whoops. The feds must have hushed it up. But we had a deal. Benny told the lieutenant all. She showed him the pictures she took on her cell phone. He wanted copies. He also wanted to bring down the wrath of G.o.d on the feds. As far as he was concerned, this crime happened in New York City. It was a New York case. Another black mark went into his scorekeeping book.
Johnson did hold his anger in check. I gave that to him. We were just the messengers. I wouldn"t want to be around when he turned it loose.
And now he owed us one.
"To change the subject," I said, "your people ever get names for those two guys killed in the subway a couple of days ago?"
Johnson"s eyes narrowed. He had just picked me up at the Flatiron Building. The men were killed in the subway tunnel between the Broadway stations at Broadway and Twenty-third and Twenty-eighth streets. The engineer said he might have seen a woman running through the tunnels. The lieutenant put two and two together to come up with bingo.
"You want to tell me what that was all about?"
"I might. Answer me first."
"Yeah, we got them ID"d. Two ex-military. Special ops. Dishonorable discharges, both of them. Seem to have disappeared from sight after they left the service. Until they turned into fish chum under a subway train. You want names?"
"If it wouldn"t be too much trouble," I said sweetly.
"All right. I"ll get them for you. So what"s the story?" he said.
I picked my words carefully. I didn"t want to outright lie if I didn"t have to. I didn"t want to tell the truth, either. "They"re working for the other side. We"ve had attacks on our team. They cornered me on the platform. I got lucky. They didn"t."
He said something that sounded like, "Umf." I"m not sure he was happy I didn"t get squashed too. It would have been one headache cured.
I might have had a snotty remark for him, but I felt my cell phone vibrating in my jean jacket pocket. I pulled it out. The caller ID indicated J was calling.
"I have to take this," I said.
J"s voice was urgent. "You"ve got hunters following you."
"How do you know?" I asked.
I heard a m.u.f.fled curse and a muttered word. "Surveillance spotted them."
On us? I thought, and remembered the young man on the street smoking a cigarette the other night.
J went on talking fast. "You, all of you, were tagged by a group of men-vampire hunters, we"re sure of it-as you were going out of the building. I spoke to Rogue and O"Reilly. I can"t get to Greco. A squad is after her. Do you know where she is?"
"Yeah," I said. "At a librarian thing up at the Marriott East Side."
"How close are you now?"
"Ten blocks or so," I said.
"Get there." He hung up.
Chapter 16.
"Tell love it is but l.u.s.t; Tell time it is but motion; Tell time it is but motion; Tell flesh it is but dust." Tell flesh it is but dust."-Sir Walter Raleigh, "The Lie"
"Can you lose a tail?" I asked Lieutenant Johnson. "We have company."
He glanced in the rearview mirror. "Silver Taurus?"
"Could be," I said.
He took off down a one-way street the wrong way.
"We need to get up to Forty-ninth and Lex," I said. "The Marriott" Johnson cut in front of a cab and floored it, jolting us back against the cushions.
"I"ll call for backup." He grabbed his handheld from somewhere on the floor.
New York cops busting vampire hunters? I looked at Benny with a question on my face.
She shrugged. "Why not?"
Johnson wove in and out of traffic. On his way through a red light on Lexington, he asked, "The Marriott?"
"Our partner"s at a librarian something-or-other there. We need to get to her."
"Right," he said.
"No, honest. She is."
Johnson pulled up in front of the impressive neocla.s.sical facade of the Marriott East Side. "The Taurus turned off two blocks back," he said as a white-gloved doorman opened the car door to let Benny and me out.
"I"ll sit here and watch the entrance," Johnson said. "Couple of uniforms are on their way."
"Thanks," I said as I slid across the seat. I turned back toward him for a moment. "Keep watch for some big guys. In black leather. Possibly carrying chains."
"Nice," he said, and rolled his eyes. "Armed?"
"Oh, yeah," I said as I got out of the car and started after Benny. She was sashaying toward the lobby doors, bellmen rushing to let her in.
Once inside Benny pasted on a big smile, unb.u.t.toned her jacket to show the impressive cleavage visible above her red silk cami, and, with swaying walk, approached the concierge. I hung back, my body rigid with tension, and kept looking around nervously as we crossed the lobby.
Benny reached the concierge"s tall mahogany desk, where he sat as if in a pulpit. "Well, hi, there," she said in a slow drawl filled with the South, as if she had all the time in the world. My nerves ratcheted up a few notches. "My friend and I, we"re supposed to be attending that conference you"re having. You know, with all the librarians."
I watched with admiration. I had not yet met any man who could or would deny Benny anything. The concierge, his hair neat and his beige suit immaculate, did his best not to stare at her chest. He failed.
"Librarians?" he asked, and tore his eyes from Benny to look at his computer screen. "No librarians, but we have an American Society for Indexing c.o.c.ktail reception tonight. Could that be it?"
"Why, it surely is," she purred, "And you found it quicker than two shakes of a lamb"s tail. Now, where did y"all say it was?"
"In the Fountain Room. Sixteenth floor. The elevators are over there," he said, and pointed.
"You are just the sweetest," Benny said, and melted him with a look filled with promises. Then she walked casually away from his desk.
It was all I could do not to break into a trot. I had to resist the urge. We needed to keep a low profile. I hoped we could grab Audrey and get her out of there before anything happened. Vampire hunters wrapped in chains and carrying wooden stakes couldn"t just waltz in the front door, so we might get lucky. But what if they found a back entrance? Anxiety crept over me like a nasty night crawler.
A portable sign sitting by the elevator said, ASI c.o.c.kTAIL RECEPTION. FOUNTAIN ROOM AND TERRACE. 8:00 TO 11:00.
FLOOR 16. I turned it around to face the wall so any vampire hunter getting this far wouldn"t see it. A futile gesture, but I did it anyway.
I tapped my foot impatiently during the elevator"s climb upward.
"That ain"t going to make it go any faster," Benny said.
We scooted out on the sixteenth floor, walking fast, following the signs to the Fountain Room and terrace. We pushed through double doors into a large, crowded room that appeared even larger and more crowded because of the mirrored walls.
I checked the premises. There had to be three hundred guests or more. Most of them were women. Most wore gla.s.ses. Some carried books. Others opted for a food plate in one hand and a winegla.s.s in the other. They looked gentle and scholarly, for the most part.
Laughter erupted from various parts of the room. I didn"t hear any screams. That was a good thing.
We started politely shouldering our way through the guests. We avoided the buffet table, where the crowd was thickest. Near one of the mirrored walls we pa.s.sed a slim young Asian man setting up a software demonstration at a folding table. I paused.
"Do you know Audrey Greco?" I asked.
He smiled a serene, Buddha-like smile. "Audrey? Oh, yes."
"Have you seen her?" I pressed.
"Out on the terrace, near the fountain. She was there a few minutes ago."
"Thanks," I called to him as I tapped Benny on the shoulder and pointed toward the open terrace doors. The hairs on the back of my neck started to p.r.i.c.kle. It wasn"t a good sign. "Hurry," I said to Benny.
I spotted Audrey"s dark hair and white face as she stood talking with a group of women. She glanced up and saw us, her face puzzled.
I reached her side first. "Audrey, trouble"s coming. You have to leave," I said with urgency.
Audrey got very still. Her fingers tightened around her winegla.s.s. "Is it Shally?"
A friendly-faced woman with tortoisesh.e.l.l gla.s.ses and long black hair framing her face like a Madonna"s veil stepped closer, concerned and protective. "Is there something wrong?"
"Yes," I said, reaching around her to grab Audrey"s arm.
"Maybe we can help." Another woman with blue steel in her voice moved forward. She had neat gray hair held back by a headband, and a thin face that brought to mind New England. Behind her rimless eyegla.s.ses her glittering eyes demanded attention-or silence.
"I don"t think so-" A tremendous crash from the Fountain Room interrupted me, followed by another and another. Our heads swiveled in that direction.
Coming in low and at a run, like a military a.s.sault team, four vampire hunters charged into the crowd. They were swinging their chains in front of them, attempting to clear a path through the densely packed room. Tables and chairs fell helter-skelter to the floor.
Masked, dressed in black, and bulky with muscle, the intruders attempted to shock and scare the guests as much as to clear them out of their way. Meanwhile their heads moved from side to side, surveying the room, as they tried to locate Benny, Audrey, and me, and coming inexorably in our direction.
Instead of scattering like frightened doves and giving the vampire hunters access to the terrace where we stood, the indexers closed rank. With practiced precision they swarmed like killer bees toward the a.s.sailants. Those nearest to the hunters grabbed chairs and held them like Clyde Beatty, stopping the chains" arcs with the rungs. Others took chairs and shoved them into the hunters" path to slow them down, all the while deftly ducking the blows aimed their way.
The sweet software guy let out a karate yell and went into a Bruce Lee fighting stance. Like a whirling dervish he twisted his body and landed punishing blows on the leading hunter with his fists and feet.
The crowd closed in as the big hunter feinted backward, trying to fend off the wild attack. A chair hit the big brute from behind at the same time the software guy executed a flying kick. His Nike smacked into the hunter"s thick Adam"s apple, propelling the invader into a mirrored wall.
The gla.s.s shattered. The hunter went down and didn"t get up.
But the other hunters advanced.
Rushing forward and screaming like a banshee, a large, substantial woman in a powder blue pantsuit picked up a huge three-ring binder from a table and hurled it into the face of the hunter in the lead.
"You go, Carolyn!" somebody yelled. Everybody else got the idea immediately. Hundreds of books flew through the air like guided missiles.
Meanwhile a middle-aged man with a Ted Koppel shock of brown hair falling over his forehead picked up a wine bottle from the bar and thwacked a vampire hunter from behind. The hunter wobbled but stayed upright. Ted Koppel reached for a second bottle while he yelled to another man, "Hit him with the pinot, Richard!"
Richard did. The knackered vampire went down.
Outnumbered, outmanned, and outwomanned, the two remaining vampire hunters stopped their forward movement. It was a major tactical error. Pepper spray appeared in the hands of a dozen women, who surged forward and blitzed them at close range.
I had been poised, ready to rush into the fight, but the woman with the steely voice had immediately grasped my wrist, holding me back.
"No. We can handle them," she said, brooking no argument. She spoke in a brisk tone to the woman with the black hair. "Cheryl, we need to get Audrey to safety. Can you get her and her friends out?"
"Sure, Deborah," Cheryl said, and motioned us toward a side door. We didn"t hesitate.
The four of us ran down a long corridor that led to a service elevator. We could hear the melee behind us continuing. Once we were in the elevator, safely descending, I turned to our guide and said, "Thank you."
"You looked a little surprised at what happened up there," the woman called Cheryl replied in a soft, melodic voice.
"Your friends were very impressive," I said.
"Yes, yes, I"d have to say we were."
"I never in all my born days thought librarians could fight like that," Benny said, running fingers through her hair.
"Oh, not all indexers are librarians." Cheryl laughed. "That"s a common misperception. Only some are, but all indexers are extremely organized. Our job is to construct pathways to information. We have a habit of looking for patterns.