William McGivern - Night of the Juggler

Patrolman Prima removed the police artist’s sketch of the Juggler from his tunic, quickly opened it, and held it in front of Zahn.

“This the guy grabbed the kid?”

Zahn’s eyes narrowed, and he nodded.

“Brown sweater, maniac.”

“Was my daughter tied up?” Boyd asked him sharply.

Zahn shook his head wearily. “I told her to run. I shouted at her to run. But she didn’t.”

“Get a medic for him,” Boyd said to Prima, and while Prima was debating with himself just how many orders he should take from this civilian, Boyd leaped to his feet and within seconds was lost among the dark trees, running north after the imprints of the big Wellingtons.

Patrolman Prima snapped a switch on his two-way radio and spoke into it.

“This is Patrolman Prima. About twenty yards east of the Mall, between Sixty-ninth and Seventieth. We got action here. Lieutenant Tonnelli? Lieutenant Tonnelli?”

“Give me what you got,” Rusty Boyle answered him. “He’s on wheels. I’ll patch it to him through Central. . ”

Within minutes after receiving a positive make on the Juggler and the confirmation that he had crossed Seventieth Street and was traveling north, Lieutenant Gypsy Tonnelli’s unmarked car turned off the Mall and drove at speed through a formal stand of red maples toward the glade where Prima was administering rudimentary first aid to Rudi Zahn.

More equipment had already been dispatched to the scene: light trucks, an ambulance with police medics, communications units and emergency service vans equipped with shotguns and snipers’ rifles, and two teams of expert marksmen. The caliber of the ammo used in the sniper’s rifle was incredibly low, almost a third less than a.22, but with a muzzle velocity so fast that its striking power was such that a human target would go down no matter where the bullet struck it. The scopes on the rifles were powerful enough to bring targets to the cross hairs that would be invisible to the naked eye.

And from the first radio broadcast ordered by Lieutenant Tonnelli, the print and electronic media had been gathering pools of photographers, reporters, TV and radio staffs to monitor the remote-control units already on their way to cover still another of the Juggler’s grisly escapades.

While from opposite ends of the borough, Commanders Slocum and Larkin, in their limousines with sirens wailing, were on their way to give the public what it seemed to want and need: the drama of the human chase, the exhilaration of a televised scrutiny of the police running a monster to ground under the direction and scenario of borough commanders in uniform, twin silver stars gleaming on their shoulders.

Luther Boyd followed the track of the Wellingtons and his daughter’s boots through stands of cut-leaf beech trees which made his task laborious and difficult because a luxuriance of foliage fell to the ground from masses of horizontal branches, and Boyd had to sweep them aside like coarse curtains to find the sign he was searching for. But when he reached the band shell, an open-air theater at the head of the Mall-he was north of Seventieth Street now-he came on a narrow, spongy strip of ground which circled the theater, and it was here, traveling east, that he again found sign of the Wellingtons and Kate’s small boots. Following their trail, he turned north at the eastern end of the theater and made his way past the Mall and band shell through heavy stands of giant sycamores, with mottled gray-white trunks, and huge exposed roots. There were heaps of fallen branches and scattered stacks of underbrush left by the park’s cleanup crews.

He ran a zigzag course, steadily extending its perimeters, but the exposed roots and heaps of windfall timber made an impossible tracking surface; the wood, hard as iron, would require an ax to so much as dent it. And here Boyd lost the Wellingtons.

Instinct told Boyd his quarry hadn’t doubled back on him, so he continued on a northern line until he came to the barrier of Seventy-second Street, brilliant and noisy with traffic. He looked toward Fifth Avenue and saw that the light had turned red against the east-west flow of cars. In seconds, he could cross this conduit and try to pick up the Wellingtons on the turf he could see on the opposite side of the street.

But while he was waiting, his muscles tensed and ready to run, a black sedan pulled up and parked directly in front of him, and from the front passenger seat a man with a huge chest and vivid scar along his cheek stepped out and said, “I’m Lieutenant Tonnelli, Colonel Boyd.”

At the wheel of the car was the young patrolman, Max Prima, whom Boyd had encountered only minutes before in the park. In the rear of the car was Boyd’s wife, Barbara, and he could see the tears in her eyes and the ravaged lines of fear in her face.

“I did what I thought best, Luther,” she said. “You must believe that.”

Recriminations were irrelevant now. She had cast the die, and he would not have to live with it. Whether Kate would or not was another matter. She had added chaos to his simple strategy, and that might destroy their daughter. Like most civilians, Barbara lacked control of her emotions, but none of these bitter thoughts was reflected in Boyd’s manner or expression.

“I know you did what you thought best,” he said. And because he knew Barbara, he added, “I think you did right.”

He could give her that. Maybe not Kate, but a sustaining lie at least.

Gypsy Tonnelli was not a notably tactful or patient man, but something about Luther Boyd, the clean, powerful lines of his body, the tough, cold intelligence in his eyes and face, warned him to proceed discreetly. He wanted and needed his cooperation, which meant he wanted him back in his apartment with his wife, out of the park, out of the search for the Juggler.

“Colonel Boyd, believe me. The best chance of getting your daughter back is to let the police handle it,” he said. “We’ve got the equipment, the manpower-”

Boyd cut him off with a headshake. “You’ve got work to do, and I expect you’ll do it. But I’ve also got a job, which is saving my daughter’s life.”

Tonnelli glanced at the Browning beneath Boyd’s waistband, then looked steadily at Boyd. “You got a permit for that?”

“Lieutenant, I’m not being hard-nosed, but I can’t waste any more time. I have a permit for this particular weapon, and every weapon issued by the United States Army up to and including AR-21’s. I’ll talk fast now-”

“Your wife told me about Fort Benning and the Rangers and-”

“Please give me the courtesy of listening, Lieutenant. I tracked my daughter from where she was grabbed by what I presume to be a psychopath. . ”

“Don’t presume, he is.”

“I’ve tracked him and my daughter this far, to Seventy-second Street.” Boyd pointed north past the streams of traffic. “He’s only a couple of minutes ahead of me. You want to help me take him, fine. Say no, I’m gone.”

There was a new element in Boyd’s tone and manner, and it sent a tiny chill down Tonnelli’s spine.

Luther Boyd’s spirit had been hardened and tempered by the habit of command; it had been drilled into him by his superiors and, more significantly, by the necessity of saving lives, including his own, in combat. It was elemental to the construct of his character; it was not that he was convinced of the inevitable rectitude of his decisions, but he knew that any decision was preferable to indecision in warfare, and he believed this so strongly that it never occurred to him, even fleetingly, that anyone in his command would disobey his orders.

It was this projection of granitic authority that struck Gypsy Tonnelli with the impact of a fist.