Paul Levine - Night vision

That stopped me.

He really thought I did it. He was willing to cut a deal to save his own skin, but he really thought I murdered Alex Rodriguez. Which meant, of course, that Nick Fox didn't kill him.

Pam said, "As you just indicated, Mr. Fox, you can't prove a thing. You have no-what do you call it? — hard evidence. Just the pathetic ramblings of a man I assure you is quite unbalanced. Now, this has really gone too far, and I have a plane to catch." The breeze was blowing her auburn hair into her eyes, and she brushed it away.

"Wait," I said, the fog in my mind beginning to lift. "Of course. Nick, was Rodriguez keeping you informed of everything he did in the Diamond investigation?"

"Sure. You told him not to, but he worked for me."

"Rodriguez wanted to interview Pam again. He told the professor. What do you know about it?"

"Fingerprints. She was never considered a suspect, but she was one of the last people to see Marsha alive. Rodriguez thought it was just covering the bases to get them. Compare with latents from the apartment. Apparently, he never did."

"No, she must have kept putting him off. But she couldn't just refuse to give him the prints. How would it look? At the same time she figured he was the only one interested, and if he wasn't around anymore…"

"You're quite mad," Pam said.

"I must be, to have gotten involved with you." She shot a glance toward the end of the bridge where her cab waited. I couldn't keep her from leaving, but as long as I kept talking I figured she would stay put. "The story's not over yet, so humor me. The problem is, she can't strangle a cop. Then she gets lucky. A gun drops into her lap, a. 38 registered to me. Better yet, my fingerprints all over it. So are hers after she fires it, but that's fine, too. After we go to my place, I'm knocked out with the large economy-size dose of vodka and Darvon. She leaves to meet Bobbie but stops at Cindy's and picks up the gun. Next day or so, she calls Rodriguez, says she'll stop by his house, save them both some trouble. He could have a fingerprint kit there. He's expecting a helpful witness, but he gets a slug in the chest. Then she dumps the gun where it's sure to be found. Her prints are easily explained. One shot in the apartment, two witnesses. Second shot?

Must have been fired by that hothead Lassiter. Now I see, Nick. You didn't frame me. She did."

Again, three toots from an air horn. A big Bertram with a tuna tower was idling near the bridge. The tender hit his buttons and the traffic gate came down next to us.

Nick Fox thought about it. "It's just crazy enough to be true, and easy enough to find out. Dr. Maxson, we're going to check your prints against the latents from the apartment. If they don't match, you'll be free to go. If they match, I'm going to hold you on suspicion of the murders of Marsha Diamond and Alex Rodriguez. As for the death of Mrs. Blinderman, Jake's got his own ideas, but there's no proof, so that's between you and your Maker."

Pam Maxson didn't stop to plea-bargain. She ducked under the traffic gate, ignoring flashing lights and warning signs in three languages, and headed up the bridge. She moved quickly, but the bridge had already started its jerky ascent. She stumbled after three steps, the heels of her beige pumps wedging into the steel grid work, each opening big enough to swallow a man's fist. She fell to her knees, then kicked off her shoes. Regaining her balance, she started again, on all fours now, slowly climbing hand over hand.

The bridge tender saw what was happening and hit the air horn, which bleated a frantic warning. Drivers poured out of their cars, pointing, laughing at the crazy woman scaling the drawbridge. Others began honking their horns, cheering her on, the same yahoos who holler "jump" at the guy on the ledge. One middle-aged man leaped from his custom van, video camera already running.

I called after her. "Pam! No. There's nowhere to run."

Nick Fox grabbed me by the arm. "Let her go, Jake." I shook him off and moved closer to the foot of the rising span. As she climbed uphill, the increasing grade slowed her. In a moment I knew she would never make it. The opening at the mouth yawned wider. She couldn't reach the top, and if she did, she couldn't jump it. So she hung there, a hundred feet from the base of the bridge, clinging to the steel grating with both hands, digging her bare feet into the open grids, poised at a precarious angle as the bridge shuddered even higher. Then she looked back over her shoulder at me. In the eerie green haze of the vapor lamps I could not make out her face. She was calling to me, but the cacophony of horns drowned her out.

I wasn't doing any good where I was, so I sprinted to the tender's shack and pounded on the wall. "Stop it! Bring it down."

I looked through the window, covered with a metal screen. The tender was on the far side of sixty, a skinny guy in a Yankees T-shirt, propped on a dirty pillow in an old wooden swivel chair. He pointed to the Bertram about to chug through the opening and shook his head. I didn't care about a rich guy's tuna tower. I tried the door. Locked. But it was peeling plywood, and one good shoulder caved it in. I faced the control panel, a series of black and red buttons, four three-foot levers.

"Which one?" I demanded. "How do I stop it?"

He froze, eyes widening. "Unless you're from DOT, you're not allowed-"

"Which one!"

"It's against regulations to-"

I grabbed the front of his shirt and lifted him from his chair. "Tell me!"

He was frightened senseless. I dropped him onto his pillow, my eyes skimming the control panel. Under a button covered with red plastic was a hand-lettered sign: emergency hydraulic stop. I smashed it with my fist and grabbed for the lever where the sign said, descend, east span. I leaned back and pulled. It didn't give.

"No!" the tender yelled. "It's got-"

I bent my knees, grabbed the lever with two hands, and yanked it toward me, hard. It jerked away like an ornery gearshift when you've missed the clutch, gave a bit, then pulled loose, and I nearly fell over backward.

"— to stop before you bring it down."

A hydraulic whoosh from deep inside the bridge slowed the huge piston that was pushing the span upward. A second later, from somewhere inside the motor, there was a clangor of metal. The span was just reaching its peak, and it jolted and quaked. Below us, in the belly of the mechanical beast, sparks shot from the motor housing, orange bursts reflecting off the water below. The span lurched to a stop, first pitching, then yawing, the vibrations reverberating through the metal. Beneath my feet I felt the main bridge sway.

I looked out the window of the shack. Pam Maxson had lost her grip. She slid down twenty feet, her face scraping the metal. She caught hold again, a death grip on the hot steel. There was a grinding of gears, and the bridge shuddered again and began its descent, and again she lost hold. The Bertram gunned it and just made it through, a bare-chested fat man at the wheel blasting his air horn and screaming obscenities.

Pam's slide slowed, but still she could not hold on. She slid another ten feet and was bleeding from the nose and mouth, a crimson trail across the steel. Then the span shook once more and stopped dead, electrical sparks crackling from the heavy cables strung along the railing. From beneath us, a puff of gray smoke drifted like a cloud from the motor housing.

"Shorted out," the tender said, shaking his head mournfully. I'll hook up the emergency generator, but it'll take a bit."

I ran from the shack. The drivers had stopped their honking. As the main bridge continued to sway they held their steering wheels in white-knuckled grips. A ten-foot gap separated the main bridge and the tilting span. Nick Fox saw what I had in mind, moved toward me, and started to tell me to forget it, then changed his mind. If I didn't make it, so much the better for him. I ducked underneath the traffic gate, took three giant steps, and leaped across the gap, landing on all fours on the span. I scrambled upward like an overgrown monkey. When I stopped, I latched onto the grating with one hand to steady myself and reached up, toward her, with the other. She was ten feet above me and three feet to the side. An instant later, she lost her grip again.