William Bayer - Mirror Maze

"So, you got it all figured, don't you, Clury? Why'd you bother to call?"

"I want to work things out. Sure, I can disappear. But I don't want to see Janet hurt. My new wife either."

What a nice man!

"We'll have to meet and discuss it."

"No problem. Just you and me. No one else. I'll pick the time and place."

Go for it!

"Sorry, can't do that. You'll have to surrender at my office. Think it over. If you're interested, call me back. I'll be at home. No more phone booths. Think about this, too. The Department wants Mendoza closed. if you help me close it, maybe something can be worked out. But you'll have to surrender first." He waited a beat, then hung up.

He's watching, he reminded himself as he walked back to his building.

Move with confidence so he sees you know you've got him by the balls.

After two days of silence he wondered if he'd made a mistake. He thought: Maybe I went too far. Surrender is more than he can tolerate.

But he still didn't see how Clury could disappear again, since, this time, he'd be a wanted man. Also, he was nine years older. He had a nice life as Dan Dell in Crystal River. Could he walk away so easily from everything-wife, business, bank accounts? What were his choices?

At first Janek thought he had him boxed. Now, after two days, he wasn't sure.

Maybe, he thought, Stoney's right. Maybe Clury will throw a bomb. But Janek didn't see the point of that. He viewed Clury as an ice-cold killer, not a nut case. Everything he'd done, the way he'd set up Metaxas and murdered Komfeld, was amoral, logical and totally self-serving. Sol why now try to kill the COPS who were after him? He had to know that if he did that he'd only provoke the formation of a posse.

On the other hand, Janek reasoned, how could Clury walk away from his sweet life in Florida and his new, Young, pretty wife? His only reasonable choice was to surrender, with the hope that he could make some kind of deal.

Clearly he wouldn't plead to a homicide count or anything that would earn him heavy time, but he might be willing to go in for a couple of years just to clean the slate. Yes, Clury's best bet was to help close the Mendoza case, which he might believe he could do without implicating himself. His biggest problem would be to explain who was in his Cadillac when it blew. If he was smart, and Janek believed he was, he would come up with a plausible explanation and some proof to back it up.

What he would not know, of course, was that Phyllis Komfeld had identified him years before to Dakin. Nor would he know that under the Dead Man Statutes, such @'hearsay" could be presented in court, and that Dakin, desperate to save his ass, would eagerly testify.

But there was another side to the thing. Suppose Mendoza had paid Clury to kill his wife? How much money could Clury have gotten? Fifty thousand? A hundred? Not nearly enough to run away on, not nearly enough to take himself to a new life. So, maybe what Clury had said was partly true: Perhaps he was, as he claimed, a burned-out cop who decided one day to walk.

Still, Janek knew, he hadn't walked without money. So, where had he gotten it, if not from Mendoza and Janet's widow's pension? Dakin had said that Cury was dirty, that he hadn't been dealing but had been a double agent. What if Clury had stolen from the group he'd penetrated?

Not the kind of chicken feed Timmy had taken off Keniston, but real money, the kind big-time drug dealers keep lying around-a million, maybe even two? Then his dropout walkout made some sense. And whatever he got to kill Mendoza would have been a little extra cream on top of all that milk.

Yeah, Janek decided, it must have been something like that. What he couldn't decide, however, was which of the two men was most evil: Howard Clury with his bombs and hands-on homicides, or Jake Mendoza with his money and hired killers.

When Clury finally did call early on Thursday, a few minutes after midnight, Janek was about to fall asleep. He groped for the phone beside his bed.

"Yeah?"

"It, s me." Clury's voice sounded less harsh than before. "I'm ready to meet."

Janek thought he heard a note of resignation, as if Clury had been chewing on his options and concluded that none of them was good.

"Glad to hear it," Janek said. "How's tomorrow morning? My office is in the old Property building in the Village."

"No, you don't get it. I'm calling from Newark."

Janek rolled over, then sat up, awake. Suddenly his heart began to pound.

"What're you doing there?"

"I'm talking on my cellular from the hall of mirrors. You know the one.

Your girlfriend's with me. You've got an hour to get your butt over here. The door'll be unlocked. if you don't show by one-fifteen, I'll blow her and the whole place up." A pause. "Oh, yeah, just to show you I'm not bulishitting, here she is to say hello."

"Frank! "

Clury cut her off: "That's enough. Get back on the floor."

Jesus! Janek strained to hear the skirmish: Gelsey's protest, then the sound of a slap followed by a cry. It was the first time she'd ever called him Frank. He knew he was ready to kill for her.

"Frisky little thing, ain't she?" Clury chuckled. "Maybe too hot and young for an old-timer like you."

"If You-"

"Yeah, yeah, if I harm a fair hair on her fair head you'll personally cut off my balls. Something like that, right? Now listen good. You wanted a meeting. You're about to get one. So cut the crap and get over here. And don't even think about bringing someone with you. See, I've turned your girlfriend into a walking bomb and it won't take much to make me set her off."

Trying to stay calm, knowing that only if he did would he be able to deal with this terrifying threat, Janek dressed quickly, then triple-armed himself, securing two seven-shot Beretta pistols, one to each ankle, then strapping on his shoulder-holstered Glock. He stuck his tape recorder into his pocket and hurried down to the street.

There was no time to borrow Aaron's car, so he stood on Broadway trying desperately to flag down a cab. Several passed. Maybe he looked too crazy waving his arms in the wind, with bits of refuse clinging to his shoes. -. a taxi stopped. Janek stuck his head in the front window, flashed his shield.

"Want to make two hundred bucks?"

"Da, yah." The cabby grinned. He was one of the new Russian drivers struggling to learn the city and the language. Janek got into the front.

The cab was a heap, it squeaked and shook, its shocks were shot and the passenger seat had busted springs. None of that mattered. What mattered was getting to Newark before Clury's patience ran out.

"Da, Jersey. First I go Newark Airport, yah?"

The driver, Valyenkov, wanted to practice his English, so Janek nodded, pretending to listen to his chatter even as he tried to work out some kind of plan.

Clury, it was clear, had followed him to Gelsey's, most likely even before his Sunday call. He may even have followed him the same night Timmy did, and, distracted by Timmy's inept tail job, Janek hadn't noticed. At this point, he knew, the how didn't matter. What counted was the why. What was Clury after? What was he planning? Capturing Gelsey, turning her into a bomb, then exploiting her jeopardy to compel a middle-of-the-night meeting in the maze-what could he possibly hope to gain?

"Newark tough town." Valyenkov grinned. "Many car crooks, yah?"

"Yeah, lots of crooks."

Ahead he could see the glow of the airport and the flares that demarcated the bum-off towers at the petroleum storage farms. He could smell their pungent fumes and the marsh gas coming off the Meadowlands and the stink of soot and chemical waste.

I should never have sent in Aaron to frighten Janet. I should have known that would set Clury off. I should have had Sue watch her, no matter how long, until Janet gave Clury away. I was stupid. I couldn't wait, even though the case had been going on nine fucking years. Had to push it.