Carol O'Connell - Mallory's Oracle

The metal in her hand smoked and his heart burst in the same moment. Her face filled his last seconds of life as she bent over him and nudged his body with the barrel of her gun. Her face was cold, without passion for the kill. The golden one was a different kind of animal than he had ever known. And then, she had moved on, and the dog stared at the sun until it went black.

A woman was cradling the torn and broken four-year-old boy. Mallory took the child from her arms and laid him down on the grass, elevating the broken bleeding arm. She clamped off the fountain of blood from the severed artery with the pressure of her hand. Her eyes perused the crowd of unfamiliar faces, searching for the one who was no stranger. Riker elbowed his way through the crowd to kneel alongside of her. She had known he could not be far behind.

"Give me your belt," she said.

He stripped it off and handed it to her. She looked up to the closest civilian. "Get the ambulance. Use the phone in the NYU building. And you," she said to a near woman, "there's a doctor's office in that brownstone. Go get him. Tell him it's a lawful police order if he doesn't move fast enough. Riker, put some pressure on the artery." Riker's hand replaced her own over the wound. "That's a major artery. Keep the pressure on till the ambulance gets here."

Hands free, she bound the broken arm with the belt and a skateboard. She commandeered Riker's jacket and two other jackets to cover the child and keep him warm, to minimize the damage of shock that was already settling into his enormous eyes. The pain would come later. Now he was only crying for his mother.

She stood up, waved goodbye to Riker and moved quickly across the park, leaving him to the first aid and the paperwork of a dog bite. She smiled as she put more distance between them. Riker was a department legend. No suspect had ever shaken him off a tail. This was a first, and he would be a long time getting over it.

"Hi, Charles. It's Riker. Is Mallory around?… You got any idea where she might be?… How did you know?… Yeah, I've been following her during the day, but the brat gave me the slip… It's important that I find her, like now, this minute. If she wanted to lose me, and she did, she's onto something… Yeah, I'm worried, too."

Riker hung up the pay phone in front of the supermarket and turned east on Bleecker Street. It was early yet, not quite dark, but the Hallowe'en costumes were spotting the streets with purple tinsel hair and monster masks. A giant tube of toothpaste walked by, and then a leafy plant on two legs. A smallish gang of werewolves and ghouls who did not come up to his recently rebuckled belt were being escorted down the street under the protective eyes of two moms. It was rare to see a child without a bodyguard in any part of the city. The smallest of the monsters wore a trendy mask from a science-fiction movie.

"Boo!" the child yelled at Biker, who obliged him by putting up his hands and yelling, "Don't hurt me!" The children laughed, and the bodyguards herded them on as Riker headed south toward the precinct.

Oh, kid, he said to himself, you don't know what scary is.

" "The paladin will die!" That's Mallory, isn't it? Isn't it, Edith!"

The scrawl was faint red and overlayed with scouring powder. Charles had not been breathing as he read it, and he had to make a conscious effort to resume. Edith Candle was twisting a tissue into shreds, leaving the kitchen.

He followed her down the hall, stopping at the door to Max's library. His eye for the thing out of place drew his attention to the clutter on the octagonal table. He could see the heavy scrollwork of an ornate silver frame which lay beneath a newspaper, exposed only by one corner. His eye went to the mantelpiece where the set of three frames sat intact. This one on the table would be a match.

Edith was pulling on his sleeve. "I'm very upset just now, Charles. I'm really not up to having any company today."

Ignoring her, he walked into the library and stood by the table. Within inches of the silver frame was a large manila envelope bearing the return address of a New York clipping service. It lay on top of hastily concealed scraps of paper. As he lifted the newspaper off the frame he uncovered a photograph of Mallory, a close-up taken at Louis's Markowitz's funeral. Her beautiful face was trapped behind the glass of the silver frame. Charles crossed the room in two strides and grasped Edith by the shoulders.

"Who is going to kill Mallory, Edith? Who?"

"I can't tell. My gift is not that strong."

"Screw the gift. You set her up. Who's going to kill her?"

"You don't know what you're saying."

He went to the mantel and picked out the portrait of the young bride-to-be. "Her fiance lived in this building. His name was George Farmer. George Farmer killed his fiance the night before the wedding, and then he turned the gun on himself. He's a vegetable now, isn't he? lying in a private hospital, staring at the ceiling. I'm told he drools a bit now and then. But he wasn't the one who died, so he didn't merit a silver frame. That's how it works, isn't it?"

"My gift carries a terrible burden, Charles. I tried to avert that tragedy. But I failed."

"Hardly a failure, Edith. By your obscene standards it was a roaring success. And Cousin Max? You killed his concentration, didn't you? You were the last person he wanted to see that night. That's why my parents stopped bringing me by for visits with you. They knew you manipulated his death. And now you've set Mallory up to die. You worked the damn thing out, didn't you? Of course, the old women, the seances, who would have better insider information than you? Who's going to kill her, Edith?"

"I can't believe you're saying these things."

"Originally you were planning to orchestrate an accident with Herbert and his gun. Martin was going to be the victim this time. Just a little something to keep your hand in, right? Herbert's a rather twisty, frightened little man, isn't he? Probably wasn't much of a challenge for you."

"Charles, you're distraught. You don't – "

"But then, along came Mallory with all her violence, all her hate, all that beautiful young energy waiting to be fired like a bullet. And you changed your plans. Do I have it right? Where has she gone?"

"I don't know. I only know that she's in danger."

"That much I believe."

He touched the edge of the silver-framed portrait on the desk. "Kathleen Mallory is not your trophy." He brought down his fist to break the glass and free her image. The blood streamed from the tear in his hand. He left a red palm print on the door as he quit the apartment with the wadded photograph of Mallory in the closed fist of his good hand.

Mallory took stock of the VCR, the color television, and the most expensive stereo known to audiophiles and burglars. It didn't fit with the peeling wallpaper and the threadbare carpet. The air was ripe with spaghetti sauce, and the stronger smell of garbage wafted up from the air-shaft window which had been opened against the heat from the clanking radiator.

A Dobermann puppy padded into the room, eyes blind to his surroundings, dazed and favoring a foreleg as he walked. The little boy sat on the floor in front of the television.

The boy looked up at her as though from a great distance and not the few feet that separated them. His yellow eyes rolled after her as she followed Redwing into the next room.

The kitchen, which was also the bathroom, had the same proportions as the front room. A purple shower curtain hid the tub, all but its lion's-paw feet. A dirty gold drape of black orchid print was concealing the toilet, but not the smell of the plumbing backup.

"Sit, sit," commanded Redwing, smiling with all her teeth.