William McGivern - Night of the Juggler

“She may have fallen or sprained her ankle,” Barbara said. “Or she might have got turned around, lost her way.”

“Yes, of course. Something like that probably happened. But about the time. You said you learned she had gone into the park about six thirty.”

“Make that six thirty-five,” Mr. Brennan said.

“Thank you.” Gypsy Tonnelli looked steadily at Barbara Boyd. “But you didn’t call the police until six fifty-eight, Mrs. Boyd. Which means we’re starting twenty-three minutes late. Mind telling me why?”

After a brief pause, Barbara moistened her lips and said, “Because my husband told me not to call the police.”

“Why would he tell you a thing like that?”

“He simply thought it best we didn’t.”

“He went after your daughter?”

When Barbara nodded, Gypsy Tonnelli felt a stab of exasperation and anger. Civilians, he thought. Fucking civilians. The last thing they needed right now was a hysterical father running around the park, bawling out his kid’s name.

Barbara correctly interpreted his expression and said, “You’ll send your men after him, is that right?”

Sprained her ankle. . Lost her way. . Of course they had no way of knowing that the Juggler might have his hands on their daughter, but he couldn’t control an illogical anger at their innocence.

“Yes, we’ll pick up your husband, Mrs. Boyd. For his sake and the sake of your daughter. If he got in our way, he could be hurt.”

Tonnelli gave her a soft salute and turned toward his car, but she grabbed the sleeve of his topcoat and pulled him about with surprising strength.

“Then take me with you. Please .”

“I can’t do that, ma’am. We’ve closed off the park. Now we’re going to search it, tree by tree, bush by bush until we find-”

She interrupted him with a frantic headshake. “ Listen . That’s our child out there. And there’s something else you should know. My husband has a gun. I might be able to persuade him to cooperate with you. But I doubt if you can.”

Sweet Jesus Christ, Tonnelli thought wearily. All his Sicilian demons told him that they at last had the Juggler in a trap, but their chances of springing it could be destroyed by this gun-waving hysteric who might fire at shadows, could conceivably wound or kill police officers, but whose actions would surely and certainly warn the Juggler that the police were closing in on him, and with this in mind, he made a quick but reluctant decision.

“Get in the car,” he said to Mrs. Boyd.

Kate Boyd stopped in the middle of a silent glade glowing softly with moonlight and made a practical attempt to assess and try to find some solution to her problems. She hadn’t heard her Scottie barking for the last several minutes and was praying fervently that he had tired of romping about the park and was now trotting back to Fifth Avenue, where Mr. Brennan would find him and take him up to their apartment.

But Kate, in running after the elusive sound of her Scottie’s barks and yelps, had managed to get herself hopelessly lost; she had the worrisome notion that she had been traveling in a wide circle for at least the last five minutes. If she walked east, that would take her back to Fifth Avenue. If she went south, that would bring her out on Fifty-ninth Street, and from there she could walk to her apartment. But the difficulty was, she wasn’t sure which way was east and which was south. Once on a camping trip, her father had taught her how to find the north star by using the Big Dipper; the handle pointed to it, or the tip of the bowl, she couldn’t remember which. In any event, the information wouldn’t help, because while the pale sky was full of stars, she couldn’t seem to find the Big Dipper.

Then there was something about Orion the Giant. His sword-did it point south? Or was it his belt?

In the distance, but quite a way off, she could see an occasional flash of headlights, cars curving through the park’s traffic system. She turned in a slow, full circle, hoping to find a building on the skyline she could identify. But she was too close to the trees for an unbroken view, and the odd spires and lights she could make out were indefinite patterns against the darkness.

And so she stood uncertainly in the moonlit glade, glancing again at the sky but finding no help or reassurance from the stars. .

Gus Soltik stood in the shadows of a huge oak tree and watched her.

. She was lost. He knew that. It gave him a strange sense of superiority, because he was never lost. He didn’t need street names and numbers. He could go anywhere he wanted, guided by subtle instincts, along alleys and docks, across tenement roofs, aware of every smell and stir within range of his acute senses, moving always with relentless but unconscious precision.

His huge hands tightened on the flight bag, and he could feel the strong, hot rush of blood in his body. Now, he thought.

Now. .

Kate heard the approach of his pounding footsteps. She turned and saw a big man in a brown turtleneck sweater and yellow leather cap rushing toward her, and something familiar about him made her wonder if she had met or seen him before.

“Excuse me, sir,” she said, but then she became aware of his slack lips and glazed eyes, and she knew the look of him was wrong, dreadfully wrong, and when his huge hands reached for her, Kate Boyd began to scream for her life.

Rudi Zahn heard her screams. He was about fifty yards away, striding along in his vigorous fashion, when Kate’s first screams destroyed the night’s silence.

Luther Boyd, south and east of the glade by several hundred yards, sensed the merest whisper of that scream and wondered if it had been the cawing of a nocturnal bird or branches of trees twisting against each other in freshening winds.

But he zeroed on that sound like the needle of a radar screen, orienting himself to its location by a stand of Styrax japonica to the left of it and an outcropping of natural rock directly in line with it. And then he began to run.

Rudi Zahn’s first reaction to those screams was a sickening indecision; his fears were so deeply rooted that it was almost physically impossible to take a step toward danger. His instinct was to run in the opposite direction, with the solacing lie in his throat that this was the best thing to do, to find a phone or police officer, professional aid. Then the screaming stopped abruptly, replaced by an even more terrible silence.

His body was trembling with fear, but some emotion kept him rooted to the ground, and that was the rekindled memories of Ilana, whose pale face blazed in his mind like a star. He had watched from a basement window of the priest’s house while soldiers dragged her to the trucks.

She had fought like a hellcat, but no one in the village had raised a hand to save her. The others were willing victims, going to slaughter like cattle, but Ilana had fought back, which hadn’t angered the soldiers, of course; they savored resistance, it added spice to their dreary brutality.

Against his will, against everything he was trying to safeguard for himself and Crescent Holloway, Rudi Zahn ran in the direction of those now-silent screams.

He came into a clearing filled with moonlight and saw a huge man in a brown sweater running toward the shadows of trees with a young child in his arms. The girl’s white legs were thrashing helplessly, but the big man had locked her arms with one arm and had stifled her screams with a huge hand across her mouth.

“Stop!” Zahn shouted, and ran after the man and the struggling little girl.

Gus Soltik wheeled around, his heavy, smudged features working with terror and rage.

“No!” he shouted at the man. “No!” he cried again, his voice high and shrill, almost strangled against the pressures of his corded neck muscles.