David Morrell - Desperate Measures

“Gladys,” Brian objected.

From another room, the baby started crying.

“Please,” Pittman said.

Gladys spoke to the phone, “My name is Gladys Botulfson. I live at-”

Pittman pressed the disconnect button. “You’re doing something stupid, Gladys.”

“I don’t want any killer near my baby.”

“You don’t understand.”

They stared at each other.

The phone began to ring.

Gladys flinched.

“That’ll be the police,” Pittman said. “They have an automatic record of the phone number of anyone who calls them.”

Gladys tried to pry his hand from the disconnect button.

Pittman used his other hand to grip her wrist. “Don’t do it. Think. How would you like your baby’s father to go to prison again.”

“ What?”

The phone kept ringing.

“Aiding a fugitive,” Pittman said. “Helping him illegally access computer files. Brian could be put away until your baby starts high school.”

Gladys’s eyes bulged.

The phone rang again.

Pittman took the receiver away from her and lifted the disconnect button. “Hello?… Yes, Gladys Botulfson lives here.… I know she called. We were having a bit of a quarrel, I’m afraid. She… Here. Let me put her on.”

Pittman stared at her, then handed her the phone.

Gladys squinted toward the wailing baby, then toward Brian, finally toward Pittman. Her lips were so pursed that the skin around them was white.

She parted them. “This is Gladys Botulfson,” she said to the phone. “I’m sorry for troubling you. What my husband says is true. We were having a fight. I thought I’d scare him if I called the police.… Yes, I understand it’s a serious offense to abuse the emergency number. It won’t happen again.… We’re calmer now. No, I don’t need any help. Thank you.”

Gladys set down the phone. She rubbed her wrist where Pittman had gripped it. Her voice was disturbingly flat. “Get out.”

Pittman picked up his gym bag. “Brian, thanks for letting me get into the newspaper’s computer files.” His look toward Brian was direct and meaningful: Don’t let her know what files we really accessed.

“Sure.”

“I won’t tell you again,” Gladys said.

“A pleasure to meet you.”

Pittman left the apartment and shut the door behind him. When he got in the elevator, he could still hear Gladys’s loud, accusing voice from behind Brian’s door.

Pittman had hoped to borrow money from Brian, but that had obviously been out of the question. With a dollar bill, a dime, and a nickel in his pocket, he proceeded dismally toward where he could catch the train back to Manhattan, although he didn’t know why, since he didn’t have enough cash to buy a token. The more he walked, the more tired and hungry he became. He felt defeated.

Ahead, cars at a funeral home caused him to suffer the depressing memory of Jeremy’s funeral-the closed coffin, Jeremy’s photograph in front of it; the mourners, most of them classmates from Jeremy’s school; Burt next to Pittman (and now Burt was dead); Pittman’s argument with his soon-to-be ex-wife. (“It’s your fault,” she’d insisted. “You should have taken him to the doctor sooner.”)

Pittman recalled how, after the funeral, there’d been a somber reception back at the mortician’s, coffee and sandwiches, final commiserations. But Pittman had been so choked with grief that he hadn’t been able to force himself to respond to the condolences. He had taken a sandwich that someone had given him, but the rye bread and paperlike sliced turkey had stuck in his throat. He’d felt surrounded by a gray haze of depression.

A similar gray haze weighed upon him now. Instinctive fear had propelled him into motion. Adrenaline had fueled him. The strength and endurance that adrenaline created had finally dwindled, however. In their place were lethargy and despair. Pittman didn’t know if he could go on.

He told himself that he’d been foolish to believe that he could disentangle himself from the mess that he had fallen into.

Perhaps I should go to the police. Let them try to figure things out.

And if someone gets through police security to kill you?

What difference does it make? I’m too tired to care.

You don’t mean that.

Don’t I? Death would be welcome.

No. You’ve got to keep trying, a voice inside him said. It sounded like Jeremy.

How? I don’t even have enough money to take the train back to Manhattan.

Come on, Dad. All those years of running. Don’t tell me you don’t have what it takes to do a little more walking.

It took three hours. Even though Pittman had switched from his street shoes to the jogging shoes that he’d put in his gym bag, his feet ached and his leg muscles protested. Weak from exertion and hunger, he reached Grand Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, looking for the address that he’d gotten from Sean O’Reilly’s computer file.

He studied the busy street, wary of police surveillance. After all, Gladys Botulfson might have changed her mind. If Brian had said something to infuriate her further, she might have decided to call the police and teach her husband a lesson. Of course, the police wouldn’t know where Pittman had gone unless Brian confessed which file he had accessed. But would he? Or would Brian’s anger toward Gladys prompt him to defy her?

That wasn’t the only thing that bothered him. What if the address Sean O’Reilly had given the authorities was out of date or else a lie? Suppose he wasn’t there?

The latter worry intensified when Pittman finally reached the address and discovered that it wasn’t an apartment building but a restaurant instead, a sign in the front window announcing PADDY’S.

Shit. Now what am I supposed to do?

Needing to get off the street, he did his best to hide his nervousness when, unable to think of an alternative, he entered the restaurant.

He barely noticed its Irish decor-green tablecloths, shamrocks on the menus, a large map of Ireland on one wall. What he did notice was the handful of late-afternoon customers, most of them at the bar.

A few looked in his direction, then returned their attention to their drinks.

Pittman approached the barman, who was muscular, wore a green apron, and stood behind the cash register.

“What’ll it be?”

“I’m looking for a friend of mine. Sean O’Reilly.”

The barman used a towel to wipe the counter.

“I heard he was staying at this address,” Pittman said, “but this is a restaurant. I don’t see…”

“How?”

“What?”

“How did you get this address?”

“My parole officer’s the same as his. Look, is Sean around?”

The man kept wiping the counter.

“Sean and I go back to when he was doing those public-service announcements for the police department,” Pittman said. “When he was telling people how to keep their homes safe from burglars.”

“So? What do you want him for?”

“Old times. I’ve got some stories to tell him.” Pittman drew his key chain from his pocket and held up the tool knife. “About this.”

The bartender watched Pittman remove the lock-pick tools from the end of the knife.

The bartender relaxed. “You’ve got one of those, too?” He smiled and pulled out a set of keys, showing his own knife. “Sean only gave these to guys he likes. Yeah, Sean stays here. In a room upstairs. At night, he subs for me.”

“But is he around?”

“Ought to be waking up around now. He sure was drunk last night.”

A half dozen people came into the restaurant.

“Looks like we’re getting busy.” The bartender poured tomato juice into a glass, added Tabasco sauce, and dropped in a raw egg. “Stairs through the door in back. Second floor. The room at the end of the hall. He’ll be needing this.”