Vincent Zandri - The Innocent

“When the police raided the Stevens House,” she said in a monotone voice barely audible above the racing engine, “Eddy threw me into the bathroom.”

“They had reasonable suspicion?”

I knew full well that the possibility of my presence in town, thanks to Henry Snow, must have tipped Schillinger off as to the whereabouts of Vasquez and Cassandra.

“Eddy tried to stop the police at the door,” Cassandra said.

“Let me guess,” I said, speaking to her through the rearview, “they kicked the door in.”

“I climbed out the window, onto the fire escape, made a run for the river.”

“They didn’t think of blocking the fire escape.”

“We’re not talking brain surgeons here. I hid in the public ladies’ room near the lighthouse.”

“You must have seen me when I got out of the car.”

“I saw everything from the ladies’ room,” she said, voice cracking now, showing the first signs of stress and pressure. “When you got out of the car, I went to get in, but-”

“But what?”

“I couldn’t at first.”

“What do you mean you couldn’t?”

“I mean I couldn’t get into the car.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “It’s not like I locked it.”

“The minute you took off, some guy in a black overcoat started poking his nose around inside the car.”

I pictured the man from the Miss Albany. I hadn’t lost him after all.

“What was he looking for?” I pressed.

“How should I know?” she said.

I slowed around a curve in the road, making a right turn, heading for Route 87 north toward Hudson. Nobody ahead of me, nobody in back. Still lucky, but not for long.

“You going to keep that thing pressed up against the back of my head forever?” I eased up on the gas just a little more. “We’re on the same team here, sister.”

“I’m not your sister,” Cassandra said. “So don’t speak to me like I’m a second-class citizen. Got it, brother?”

“Maybe I’m a little cranky,” I said. “But then, they think we both killed your boyfriend, and you’ve got a gun to my head, and some freak in a wool overcoat has been tailing me all day.”

“Please. Just. Drive.”

I could feel the jab of the barrel against the sensitive, bony portion of my head, just to the left of the right ear lobe.

Enough was enough.

I sped up, gradually this time, the engine of the Impala revving and the warm air pouring in through the hole in the windshield. The double- and single-story homes on both sides of the road whizzed by. At just the right time, I gave the wheel a slight turn to the left. I braced myself, hit the brake, leaned into the turn, spun the wheel sharp, counterclockwise, resisted the G-force by leaning into the door. The Impala fishtailed 360 degrees. Cassandra flew back hard against the right side of the car, the pistol knocked out of her hand. I was sure of it because I heard the thud of the pistol against the carpeted floor.

I’d been listening for that sound.

I threw the transmission into park, lunged like a diver over the opening between the two front bucket seats. The pistol was on the floor by her feet. I grabbed it before she could and aimed it at her face. Pointblank.

“Now we do things my way,” I said.

“Go ahead,” Cassandra said, laughing hysterically, barely able to get the words out between laughs. “Shoot.”

Sweat ran down my forehead, stinging my eyes.

“You’re crazy,” I said, running the back of my free hand across my brow.

Over my shoulder, I saw a car coming. It was still a ways back, but coming up fast. My eyes stung badly from the sweat pouring into them. I couldn’t make out the type or style of the car. I had no idea who might be driving it. Maybe a cop, maybe the overcoat man. I didn’t know anything anymore. All I knew was this: we didn’t haul ass right then, we’d both have something to cry about.

I took the aim away from Cassandra’s face and planted a bead on the oncoming car.

“The pistol,” she said, “it’s not loaded.”

I turned to her, quick. “What do you mean it’s not loaded?”

“The cops were breaking down the door,” she said, pressing both hands down flat against the floor of the car. “I didn’t have time to escape and load the gun.”

I cracked the cylinder on the black-plated.32. No bluff. All six chambers were empty.

The car was clearly visible now. A white car, whiter than the Impala. Maybe an unmarked cop car. Maybe not. I had no plans to hang around long enough to find out.

I tossed the empty.32 in Cassandra’s lap and swung around into the driver’s seat.

“See,” she said, “I told you it wasn’t loaded.”

I pulled the Colt.45 out of my belt, held it up for Cassandra to see.

“This one is,” I said.

I pulled the car ahead, just a little.

Just then, as the white sedan passed, I ducked down, then sat up again in time to see it turn into a church parking lot just up ahead on the left.

Not a cop after all.

Definitely not the overcoat man either.

I got only a quick glance, but the guy driving the car had a head of gray hair, and he was wearing something that looked like a black T-shirt. A priest maybe. Who would have guessed?

But I had learned a valuable lesson.

I knew that I had to ditch the Impala and go after my third car in a single afternoon. I had to find a safe house and make a plan. Now that Vasquez was dead, Cassandra had to be a part of that plan. Cassandra Wolf had to take her boyfriend, the cop-killer’s, place.

IT WAS A SMALL, white, old New England-style church with colorful stained glass, clapboard siding, and a steeple shaped like an inverted icicle mounted on an A-frame roof. Directly across the street was a funeral parlor that, in my mind, seemed oddly convenient. Attached to the rear of the church was a good-size, two-story Cape Cod-style house with dormer windows and a small front porch. I pulled into the lot and drove slowly past a wooden placard with Church of the Nazarene engraved on it in black letters against a white background. A daily mass schedule was printed below that.

I drove all the way around the church to the back of the house. In the meantime, Cassandra got up off the floor of the car and balanced herself on the edge of the backseat. Shards of broken glass covered the vinyl seat cushion. Through the rearview I saw her face, her dark teardrop eyes, her high cheekbones, her full red lips, her equally red, heart-shaped tattoo.

I pulled up to the two-door Pontiac Grand Prix-the same car that had passed me a few minutes before. “I’ve got an idea,” I said. Then I killed the engine on the rented Impala and stuffed the keys into the pocket of my blazer.

“But tell me something first,” I went on, turning to Cassandra, “how are your acting skills?”

The plan went something like this: Cassandra would ring the rectory doorbell, plead her case to the pastor, explain to him that her car had broken down and was now stranded alongside the road a ways back. The breakdown occurred while coming back from her sister’s house near Catskill. Now she had to get back to Albany to pick up her daughter from Public School 21, and if the priest knew anything at all about Albany, he’d know what a dangerous neighborhood Public School 21 was located in. It was very late in the afternoon. She was an hour late. There was nobody in Albany for her to call. She and her daughter, they were all alone in the world now that her boyfriend had split…

The pastor would ask her to at least phone the school. But Cassandra would insist she didn’t have time for that. She’d be unreasonable, she wouldn’t be thinking straight. Please! she’d scream. In the name of God you have to drive me to Albany! She’d appear panic-stricken, desperate.