William McGivern - Night of the Juggler

He asked one question in a voice an inquisitor might have applied to a man stretched on a rack.

“Is she alive?”

Gus Soltik nodded dumbly, eagerly, filled with a desperate need somehow to soften the hatred and contempt he saw blazing in the eyes of the man who held the gun in his face.

“Date,” he said, in a hoarse, choked voice.

Luther Boyd put a hand on the man’s shoulder and jerked him to his feet, spinning him around and ramming the muzzle of the Browning against his spine. “Take me there,” Boyd said in the same voice he had used before.

Gus Soltik nodded quickly, almost happily and lurched forward, the gun at his back prodding him into a stumbling run.

The direction the Juggler had chosen coincided exactly with Boyd’s earlier estimate of where his daughter might be, and with the realization that this dreadful night might finally end with Kate alive and warm in his arms, he felt a surge of relief flowing through his veins.

“Hot chocolate,” Gus Soltik said, and his voice was soft and gentle and questing. “Boats to ride around the water.”

“Shut up!” Luther Boyd said, speaking quietly and ramming the barrel of the gun harder into the big man’s spine, increasing their speed until they were devouring ground with long, running strides.

Boyd flicked a glance over his shoulder. He couldn’t see him yet, but he could hear the soft purr of the motor on the night winds. Earlier he had monitored Sokolsky’s orders to all forces in the Ramble to return to the reserve unit in the Sheep Meadow. And so this could only be Tonnelli coming after him, stalking him in a police squad car, his Sicilian passions aroused to destroy the Juggler at any cost, including Kate Boyd’s life.

Tonnelli quietly braked the squad car to a complete stop and cut the engine. As silence settled around him, he carefully opened the door and stepped from the car, his eyes tracking back and forth across the darkness of the Ramble. Nothing stirred in that black expanse but the silhouettes of moving trees against a clear sky, and the only sounds he heard were occasional gusting winds that created a delicate rustle among the fallen autumn leaves.

Tonnelli’s hand was on the butt of his gun. He knew that Boyd had a two-way radio, and without any doubt Boyd would know the Ramble had been emptied of all police officers. And would know of the missing parks department truck, of course.

Tonnelli stood quiet and motionless in the darkness for at least thirty seconds, straining for a glimpse of Boyd or the Juggler, testing an almost unnatural silence by turning his head from side to side, trying to track sound and motion like a human radar screen.

At last the Gypsy moved carefully behind the wheel of the car, settled his powerful torso silently into the leather seat, and then turned the ignition and allowed the motor to idle softly before touching the accelerator and letting the car inch slowly toward a tunnel formed by towering fir trees.

Luther Boyd had checked the Juggler with a grip on his arm, and they had stood stock-still after Boyd had heard the sound of the squad car’s engine fade away into the silence of the night. He turned and stared over his shoulder at tangles of underbrush and the slowly swaying crowns of tall trees, trying to analyze Tonnelli’s tactics. Why had he stopped? Was he tracking him on foot now?

Then, after an interval of almost a minute, Boyd heard the squad car’s motor cough softly to life, and he tried to judge whether Tonnelli had got a fix on his position during that beat of silence.

He pushed Gus Soltik forward, prodding him with the barrel of the Browning.

“Faster,” he said, his voice as soft as the whispering winds in the trees.

Gus felt blood welling from the wound in his shoulder, and a sobbing moan grew helplessly in his throat.

“Quiet!” Boyd said, again speaking softly.

Tears were blinding Gus. Each time his heavy boots struck the ground, hot pain streaked through his body. His great chest heaved in spasms, but the air gave him no relief; it was scorching his lungs like the fires he dreaded at the dead mass. He was close to exhaustion, eyes blurred with helpless, agonized tears, when his swinging foot collided abruptly with the gnarled root of a tree, and he pitched forward to the ground, his great weight crashing down against the bullet wound in his shoulder. An involuntary scream was torn from the corded muscles of his throat, and he bellowed in pain again as Luther Boyd seized his arms and jerked him back to his feet.

Boyd clamped a hand with savage strength across Gus Soltik’s mouth, cutting off his screams.

“There’s a cop behind us,” he said, staring into the Juggler’s glazed, terrified eyes. “He wants to kill you.”

Gus Soltik fought back the scream that was trying to explode from his throat, for he realized in the depths of his shredded mind that this “coldness” would stop hurting him while the man with the scar he remembered so fearfully would never. .

Tonnelli hit the brakes of the squad car and quickly rolled down the window. There was silence now, but he had heard those screams and he knew he was on line with them. Removing his.38 from its holster, he took the bullhorn from the dashboard and pot it on the passenger seat, and then, his mood blackly triumphant, he floored the accelerator of the squad car and it raced ahead under a surge of power as if flung into the darkness by a giant catapult.

Boyd heard the sudden, accelerating roar of the squad car’s motor, and simultaneously he was blinded by the brilliant radiance of the car’s headlights. When Boyd spun to face the onrushing car, Gus Soltik collapsed to the ground, now attempting to stifle his screams by pressing the knuckles of his huge hands into his mouth.

Tonnelli slammed a foot against the brakes and pulled down powerfully on the steering wheel, bringing the car to a stop in a four-wheel drag, ten yards from them, the.38 in his hand, the bullhorn at his lips.

“Get out of my way, Boyd,” Tonnelli said.

“Kiss off, Tonnelli. You promised me you’d take him alive, but you tried to slaughter him.”

“Goddamn you to hell,” Tonnelli said, and his amplified voice was hoarse with anger and frustration. “We waste the psycho. Then I’ll flood this park with a thousand cops to find your daughter. He’s first priority. That’s police business. Don’t make me waste you too, Boyd.”

“Our covenant did not include sacrificing my daughter,” Luther Boyd said, his voice cold.

“You’re the bleeding-heart civilian after all,” Tonnelli said, naked contempt in his voice.

“He’ll lead me to my daughter. That’s what matters. Nothing else.”

“You’re wrong, Boyd. There’s more at stake.”

“I’m taking him out of here now ,” Boyd said.

“God damn you!” Tonnelli shouted at him. “They’ll plea bargain him into five years at some mental country club. Then he’s out on the streets with that knife again. How many kids does he get on the next go-round? We got him now, Boyd. I want him dead. Can’t I get through to you?”

“On your feet,” Boyd said to the Juggler.

“One last time!” Tonnelli said furiously. “Out of my way.”

“Try me,” Boyd said quietly. And there was an edge to his tone that had brought battle-weary soldiers to attention in dozens of combat areas throughout the world, but Tonnelli either didn’t recognize it or chose to ignore it.

He nodded grimly. “Right,” he said.

Tonnelli put the car into reverse, and slammed his big foot down on the accelerator. As the car leaped backward, he spun the steering wheel until the grille of the car pointed directly at Boyd and the huddled body of Gus Soltik.

“I’m coming,” Tonnelli shouted and floored the accelerator, but as the car leaped forward under maximum power, Boyd whipped the Browning up with practiced speed and fired a shot that smashed through the passenger side of the windshield.