David Morrell - The Covenant Of The Flame

Tess thought about it. 'Different.'

'I don't understand.'

'It's hard to explain. He had a… Sure, he was handsome. But more important, he had a kind of… magnetism . He seemed to… the only word I can think of is… he seemed to glow.' Tess raised her chin. 'And by the way, in case you've been wondering, there wasn't anything sexual between us.'

'I never suggested there was.'

'In fact, the reverse. Joseph insisted that we could only be friends, that we could never have sex.'

Craig turned to her, frowning.

'I know what you're thinking, and so did I. Wrong. He didn't say that because he was gay or anything, but because… How did he put it? He said a platonic friendship was better because it was eternal . That's how he talked. Almost poetically. Yes.' Grief squeezed Jess's throat. Sorrow cramped her heart. 'Joseph was special.'

Craig concentrated on driving but continued frowning. They crossed the intersection of Forty-Fifth Street, passing the United Nations building on the right, heading farther northward.

'So.' Tess quivered and straightened. 'What happens next?'

'After the park? I talk to Homicide and tell them we've got a tentative identification of the body.'

'Tentative? That scar is…'

'You have to realize, Homicide needs more than that to be absolutely certain. They've sent the fingerprints they managed to get from the left hand to the FBI. Even with computers, though, it can take several days for the FBI to search its files for a match to those prints, especially given the backlog of cases. But now, with a possible name for the victim, they can speed up the process, go to Joseph Martin's file, compare prints, and… Who knows? It could be the scar is coincidental. You might be wrong.'

'Don't I wish. But I'm not.' Tess felt dizzy.

'I'm just trying to give you hope.'

'And I'm afraid that hope's as rare as loyalty.'

Tess's breathing became more labored the closer they came to Eighty-Eighth Street. Tense, she watched the lieutenant steer right, cross two avenues, and just before the final one, manage to find a parking space. With greater distress, she got out of the car with him, locked it, and in hazy sunlight faced the opposite side of East End Avenue.

To the left, partially obscured by trees, was the six-foot-high, stockadelike, wooden barrier that encircled Gracie Mansion. One of the first New- York- City houses along the East River, it had been built by Archibald Gracie in 1798. Huge, with many chimneys and gables, as well as numerous verandas, it had once been the museum for the city but was now the well-guarded mayor's residence.

Straight ahead, however, compelling Tess, was the wrought-iron fence that encircled the woods and paths of Carl Schurz Park.

'You're certain you want to - ?'

Before the lieutenant could finish his question, Tess clutched his arm and crossed the avenue. They passed through an open gate (a sign warned that no radios, tape players, or musical instruments were permitted between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m.) and proceeded along a brick walkway. Thick bushes flanked them. Overhanging branches of densely leaved trees cast shadows.

'Where?' Tess sounded hoarse.

The guards at Gracie Mansion saw the flames at three o'clock Sunday morning. Just about…' Craig glanced around. There.' He pointed toward a cavelike contour in a granite ridge behind bushes to his right. The mayor's guards are pros. They know, whatever happens, they don't leave their post. After all, the flames might have been a diversion, a trick intended to draw them away and expose their boss. So they called the local precinct. In the meantime, the mayor's guards saw the flames streak from here' - Craig indicated the cavelike contour, then gestured ahead past bushes toward a miniature amphitheater beyond an overhead walkway -'to there , toward that statue.'

Tass wavered, approaching the human-sized statue. It increased in definition, becoming a bronze child, knee raised, peering sideways, downward, toward the brick surface in the middle of the fifty-foot perimeter of the circular enclosure.

The statue resembled a nymph. Perversely, it reminded Tess of Peter Pan.

'And?' In the stone-lined basin, Tess heard her voice crack as she swung toward Craig.

'Remember, you asked to come here.'

'I haven't forgotten. And ?'

The officers from the local precinct found… The rain had pooled on these bricks. The victim…'

'Yes, you told me. He tried to roll in the water and put out the names. Where ?'

'Behind the statue, Tess.' Craig raised his hands and stepped closer. 'I don't recommend…'

'It's necessary.' Tess slowly rounded the statue.

And sank to her hips on a ledge at the statue's feet.

The contour of a man, lying sideways, his knees pulled toward his chest, had been blackened into the bricks.

'Oh.'

'I'm sorry, Tess. I didn't want to bring you here, but you kept insisting.'

With a sob, Tess stooped toward the dismal dark shape on the bricks. She touched where Joseph's heart would have been. 'Do me another favor?' Her voice broke. 'Please? Just one more favor?'

'Take you away from here?'

'No.' Tears streamed from Tess's burning eyes. Through their blur, she begged him silently.

Craig understood. He opened his arms, and sobbing harder, she welcomed his embrace.

Memphis, Tennessee.

Billy Joe Bennett couldn't stop sweating. Moisture oozed from his scalp, his face, his chest, his back, his legs. It rolled down his neck. It soaked his shirt. As he nervously drove through one a.m. traffic in this bar-district of the city, he felt as if he was sitting on a puddle. The problem was that he didn't sweat because of the hot humid night. In fact, he had the windows of his Chevy Blazer rolled shut and the air conditioning on full blast. Still, no matter how much he shivered from the cold air rushing against him, he couldn't stop sweating. Because he shivered from something else and sweated for the same reason. Two reasons actually. The first was tension. After all, he was due to testify before a shitload of government investigators this morning. And the second was a desperate need for cocaine.

Jesus, he thought. How could anything that made you feel so good when you snorted it put you through this much hell when you didn't have it? Billy Joe's insides ached as if every organ scraped against the other. His muscles contracted so forcefully that his cramped hands seemed about to snap the steering wheel. God Almighty. The glare of headlights stabbed his eyes. The blaze of neon signs over taverns made him wince. If I don't get some nose candy soon…

He kept glancing furtively toward his rearview mirror, desperate to make sure he wasn't being followed. Those damned government investigators were worse than bloodhounds. Since Sunday, they'd been tailing him everywhere. They had a car parked on his street when he was at home. Each day since the train's derailment, they'd forced him to give them urine samples, the tests on which he'd passed, because Billy Joe wasn't any dummy. No, siree, boy. He read the papers, and he watched the news on TV, and months ago he'd realized that random drug testing would soon be required for anyone who worked in transportation. So he'd planned for the day when he might be tested. He'd paid his brother, who never touched cocaine, to piss in a sterile jug for him. Then he'd taken the jug home, poured urine into several plastic vials, and hidden them behind the toilet tank in his bathroom. The second he'd heard about the derailment, he'd gone to the bathroom, smeared Vaseline over one of the vials, and inserted it – Lord, that had hurt! -up his rectum. And sure enough, Sunday, a government investigator had knocked on his door, shown him a court order, handed him a glass container, and requested a urine sample.