Don't Say a Word

“Forty-three bottles of beer on the wall, forty-three bottles of beer …”

  Elizabeth sat erect and gazed out the windshield. She sang without emotion. Her voice was as pure and clear as an electronic tone.

  He had four minutes left when he hit Canal Street. And the traffic there congealed. Saturday night in Chinatown. Thick lines of cars coughed forward under green lights or jammed together at the reds. Out on the street, people strolled past banks and restaurants with pagoda roofs and Chinese facades. Young Chinese couples, old Chinese women, old men; groups of white teenagers in from the boroughs, young black families—all strolling casually on Saturday night. Time to spare, time to kill.

  Three minutes to nine.

  “Thirty-two bottles of beer on the wall, thirty-two bottles of beer …”

  “Goddamn it!” Conrad cried out.

  But then there was Lafayette. An easier flow of cars. He turned downtown. Turned on his emergency lights. Honked his horn. Pushed through intersections against the lights. He had MD plates, and he knew the cops wouldn’t stop him. He just hoped everyone else would get out of his way.

  The car sped on. Past the young crowd bopping down the broad avenue. Past the husky rococo office buildings, the little appliance stores, the walls sprayed with curling graffiti. Past the clusters of people gathered round the three-card-monte players and the black marketeers hawking sweaters and watches and radios: “Check it out.” Then, to his left, there was the Tombs. The prison’s limestone ziggurat stared down at him over its four concrete towers. He had two minutes left.

  He turned right, the wrong way, onto Franklin Street. It was a dark, thin lane under the flat-black granite wall of the Family Court building. There was no traffic. One couple passed by them, taking a shortcut toward Chinatown. Then the street was empty. Conrad hoped he could hide Elizabeth here. The Corsica screeched to the curb next to a NO STOPPING sign.

  Then Conrad’s hands were flashing everywhere. Pulling out the ignition key, turning off the lights, undoing his seat belt …

  Elizabeth turned to him slowly and blinked. “Are we here?”

  “Just wait for me,” he said. “Don’t move. Don’t talk to anyone. If the police come by, say you’re waiting for a doctor on an emergency call. Do you understand?”

  “You’re going?”

  “I have to. They’ll hurt my daughter. I have to meet with them.”

  She gazed at him silently.

  He threw open the door. The toplight came on, and he saw her face clearly. The look in her eyes.

  He stopped, one foot on the pavement, the other still inside.

  “Elizabeth,” he said. She waited. She looked at him. He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

  She didn’t move. Softly, she told him, “Five fifty-five, three-thirteen.”

  “What?”

  “Five fifty-five, three-thirteen.”

  Conrad pressed his lips together. He reached out, touched her arm. Elizabeth looked down at his hand.

  “I’ll be back,” he said hoarsely.

  He got out of the car and slammed the door.

  He had just about sixty seconds.

  Elizabeth watched him go. A small, slender figure, limping quickly into the misty darkness. He looked kind of silly, she thought, running along like that. She did hope he found his daughter, though.

  She smiled, laughed silently. He had hit Dr. Sachs with the chair. She was pretty sure that had really happened. He had hit him right on the head with it. He was just like the Secret Friend. He was the Secret Friend. Only he was real. She was pretty sure of that too.

  She watched him limping off. She thought about his face. He had a sad face, she thought. A sort of saggy, hangdog face. His eyes were like an old man’s, sad and tired. His brow was furrowed, his sandy hair was almost gone. Elizabeth sat in the car, her hands folded on her lap. She watched him go and thought about his face. She smiled. It gave her a warm feeling.

  He was going to help her, she thought. He had said so. Things would not be so cloudy anymore. She would feel better, the way she had when she worked at the day-care center. She had liked that. Dr. Holbein had done that for her. Dr. Holbein had been good too.

  And Dr. Conrad was good. She felt sure of that. The feeling made her calmer, happier. It was like a warm light around her.

  Then she saw his figure limp around the corner and the light went out. She stopped smiling. She was alone here suddenly. All alone in this dark car on this dark street …

  Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t move. Just wait for me.

  Elizabeth shivered. There were goose bumps coming up on her arms. She rubbed at them with her hands until she felt warmer. She gazed through the windshield at where Dr. Conrad had been. She sang to herself softly.

  “Twenty-six bottles of beer on the wall, twenty-six bottles of beer.”

  A man sat up on the seat in back of her.

  Elizabeth sensed him. She started to turn. She caught a nightmare glimpse of a face stretched tight, of corded tendons, twitching lips, eyes bulging and white. She tried to cry out but his hand flashed at her, clapped over her mouth. He pulled her back, hard, against the seat. Elizabeth’s arms moved wildly, helplessly. She heard a high, screaking giggle behind her: Hee hee hee.

  And then she felt something cold pressed against her throat.

  She had time to realize it was a knife.

  Time Runs Out

  The Criminal Court Annex was an ornate and massive building. An entire block long, its white marble facade swept up over the purple sky. It was a long wall of high, arching windows and chiseled filigree. At its top, stone eagles squatted along a balcony, glaring north toward the Empire State Building, south toward the twin towers and Wall Street. Above them, almost shabby atop all the rest, was a square, off-white tower with a clockface on two sides. That was the clocktower.

  Conrad ran toward it, limping, practically skipping. The damp air blew back his open trench coat. He could feel the seconds being used up like the oxygen in a locked room. He turned the corner onto Leonard Street.

  The narrow lane was deserted. The surge and tilt of the pavement’s old flags glistened and faded beneath a streetlamp’s gleam. The building hung above him. In all that wall of arching windows running up the side of the sky, not a single light was burning. The place looked desolate and empty. Locked.

  He ran to the door and yanked it back. It opened easily. He stepped into the lobby.

  The wide space was full of shadows. The grandiose sweep of two marble staircases. Shapely balusters striping the dark. A tawdry spherical chandelier hanging above him. All still and cold. Conrad thought he could feel the chill coming off the stone in waves.

  He ran under the stairs to the elevators. He knew the way. Aggie and he had come to the Clocktower Museum often before Jessica was born. They had climbed up to the top and kissed and pawed each other … but he couldn’t think about that now. He ran.

  He pressed the elevator button. A door broke open. The sharp light inside the box spilled out onto the floor. Conrad got in and pressed the top button, number twelve.

  His time ran out as the elevator rose. He looked down at his watch and saw the minute hand lean over past the twelve. He felt his throat close as he saw it. They had to wait.

  Not a minute after nine.

  Yes, wait.

  Not a second.

  The elevator rose quickly. A bell rang as it reached each floor. Seven … eight … nine … Conrad raised his face to the ceiling and brought his hands to his head.

  Nine o’clock and you’re through, your daughter’s through. Remember that.

  Please, he thought. Please.

  The elevator door opened. Conrad rushed out.

  There was now a winding stair, a wooden balcony coiling upward. Conrad clutched it, dragging his leg, climbing up quickly into the high dark. He crested the landing. Stumbled down a hallway of closed gray doors. He could feel the minute hand tilting farther past the hour as if the mechanism were inside him. Panting, coughing, he ran to
ward the door at the end of the hall. It came out of the shadows at him. The gray paint on it was chipped. The sign read NO ADMITTANCE. He pushed through.

  A cluttered stairwell. Another flight of stairs, this one a short series of wooden steps. He climbed toward a red metal door at the top. More than the chill of the concrete walls, he could feel the cold of the outside seeping in to him now. He wheezed and coughed.

  “Jesus.”

  He pushed the red door open. He stepped through it onto the roof.

  There was a shock of air and noise. The sough of wind, the susurrus of traffic on the streets far below. The faint, intermittent honking of horns down there.

  He skittered up a small metal ramp to the balcony. The stone eagles squatted on the wall all around him. The white, red, and green lights of the city stretched out in the mist below. The golden crown of the municipal tower rose up in front of him, scraping the starless sky.

  Gasping, he looked at his watch. His stomach turned. Three minutes past nine.

  He took a step across the balcony. He heard a gong.

  It rang out solemn and loud. The sound of traffic vanished under it, rose up beneath it as it faded away. Conrad lifted his eyes and saw the clocktower.

  It was right in front of him, right above him. A sculpted marble block with the illuminated clockface peering out at him. And on the face, the great black hands on the roman numerals. And the hour hand was on the nine, and the minute hand was directly on the twelve.

  The clock was slow.

  The second gong sounded.

  Still time! Still time!

  Then, as he stared, a black silhouette—the black silhouette of a man—passed behind the lighted clock. The gong sounded a third time.

  Conrad stumbled toward the clocktower door.

  The gong sounded again. Conrad pulled the door back, charged into the tower blackness. A narrow, winding staircase twisted up into nothing. The gong sounded a fifth time. The air in here shivered with it. Conrad grabbed hold of the banister and began to climb.

  He hauled himself upward, straining, gritting his teeth against the pain. The gong sounded. He dragged his right leg after him. It felt like a concrete block with a lightning bolt trapped inside. The gong sounded again, a seventh time. It got louder as he neared the top. His head was aching with it.

  Not a minute. Not a second.

  Still time! he screamed in his mind. Still time!

  He swung around the stair’s final arc. There was the opening above him that led to the clockroom. The gong sounded the eighth time. He was up, he was through the hole. He took another step, another. He came off the stairs onto the floor.

  There, inside the cramped chamber of the mechanism, the last gong rattled the air like the bars of a cage. Conrad felt the vibrations go through him. The red sunset clouds broke over his vision, shimmered, floated. He closed his right eye, fighting them back. Slowly, the sound of the gong faded. Conrad stood slumped, wheezing softly. In front of him, at the center of the tiny room, gears and cogs and wheels rose in a turning, shifting tangle of machinery. They hummed and whispered. A shaft running from them to the clock’s hands turned. The minute hand keeled past the hour with a buzz and a click.

  Against the white of the clockface, a man’s shadow moved out from behind the mechanism.

  In the Clocktower

  “You cut it awfully close there, Doc,” he said. “My watch shows almost five after.”

  “Your watch is fast, Sport.” Conrad was still breathless. But he tried to keep his voice steady. Calm. Authoritative. The doctor is in.

  Sport chuckled easily. “My watch is fast,” he said. “I like that. My watch is fast.”

  There was a sudden flash of red light. Conrad felt the pain of it piercing his right eye. He turned his face half away. The light faded to a yellow glow. The man called Sport had lit a match. He was holding the flame to a cigarette.

  As the match flared again, Conrad saw the kidnapper clearly. Jesus, he thought, he’s so young. In his late twenties; thirty, at most. Lean and fit in jeans and a patched tweed jacket. And handsome too, with a round, boyish face, a shock of brown hair falling into his eyes. And those eyes; there was a fierce black fire of intelligence in them. They were an artist’s or a student’s eyes or …

  Sport waved the match out. His face was blanketed with shadows.

  “What’s the matter, Doc?” he said. “You look a little worn out. You weren’t hurrying on my account, were you?” He laughed. Conrad didn’t answer. Sport waved the cigarette at him. “Just kidding. Just kidding, Doc. Don’t get all bent out of shape. I told you before: you’re all right with me. Really.”

  Conrad kept his silence. Fought to breathe more slowly. Straightened his shoulders. The doctor is in.

  Sport laughed again—a little nervously, Conrad thought. “All right, all right, so you’re not talking to me. Big Mr. Shrink. I’m crumbling. I can’t deal with your silence. So, uh, let me ask you this: Just what is that kerazy old number anyway? I mean, if you’re not talking to me, let’s get down to it, right?”

  Now Conrad spoke; slowly, steadily. “Where is she? Where’s my daughter, Sport?”

  Through the dark, he saw the other man shake his head. He heard him chuckle again. “Psychiatrists,” Sport said. “Always answering questions with questions.” Conrad saw the red glow of the cigarette pointed at him. “First, we talk about the number, then we talk about the kid. Follow? First the number, then the kid. It’s really simple once you get the hang of it.”

  “No.” Now the sweat began. Conrad felt it gather in his hair, felt it rolling down his back, from his armpits, down his sides. “No, you said she would be here. I would give you the number, you would give me my girl. That was the agreement.”

  “Oh,” said Sport. “Oh, Doctor. Doctor, Doctor, Doctor. Am I a bozo? Am I a chucklehead? No, no, no, my friend.” He put one hand in his pocket. He made an elaborately casual gesture with his cigarette hand. “It’s going to take me several hours to check out whether this number is the one I want. When I’m sure that it is, you get your daughter back. By midnight, I’d say, at the latest.”

  “No,” said Conrad again. His breathing was regular now, but the pulse in his temple was hard and fast. “I’d have no guarantee that—”

  “Doctor.” All at once, Sport’s voice stretched tight. He was talking through gritted teeth. He took a step forward. “I must not be explaining this well. Okay? The thing is: I’m a decent guy. I don’t want to kill anyone. Not at all, okay? But I do want that number. Oh, yes. I want that number so very badly that I would happily cut your child to pieces to get it. See? I would kill her, your wife, your whole family: in-laws, that annoying uncle with the palmtree tie, the whole lot. Okay? So—you’re thinking, well, you bluffed me out once before. Maybe it’ll work again. And hey, I respect you for that. Really. I told you so. But we are now at a whole different place in the proceedings. Understand? We are now smack-dab at the center of things and I have to move one way or the other. The question before the committee is simple: What’s the fucking number? You have thirty seconds to answer it. That’s nonnegotiable. No slow clocks, no refunds. Thirty seconds and then I’m walking out of here and your daughter is suitable for dog food.”

  Conrad licked his lips. He took one shaky step toward the other man. “That’s no good. You could’ve killed her already.” He tried to control his voice.

  And Sport said, “Twenty-five.”

  “Or you could kill her afterward. It’s no good, Sport.”

  “Twenty.”

  “Up here, hell, you could kill me,” Conrad said.

  “You’re right. I could. Fifteen.”

  Conrad’s eye fluttered closed again. His temple throbbed. I’ve got to call him, he thought. I’ve got to turn and walk out of here. “You’ve got to let me talk to her at least or no deal,” he said.

  “Ten seconds, Doc,” said Sport. His teeth showed gray in the dark as he sneered.

  Then, suddenly, Conrad’s fists were cle
nched in front of him. He was screaming, the spit flying from his lips. “You piece of shit! You demented piece of fucking garbage! You scum! You scumbag! You scum!”

  “Five—four—three …”

  “All right,” said Conrad.

  “One.”

  Conrad’s hands fell to his sides again. He looked away from the other man. “Five fifty-five, three-thirteen,” he said. “That’s what she told me. Five fifty-five, three-thirteen.”

  The clockwork hummed. The minute hand buzzed as it moved imperceptibly. For a long, long moment, both men could be heard breathing hard in the little room.

  “All right,” Sport said then hoarsely. He dropped his cigarette, crushed it under his foot. He stepped forward until he was standing next to Conrad. Conrad turned to him, faced him. They were inches apart. They were about the same height and their eyes met directly. Conrad could see the younger man’s eyes glittering. He could see his lip curling.

  Sport let out a soft snort. “Who’s the piece of shit?” he said. “Who’s the piece of garbage? Right? Big man. Big cock. I thought you were tough. Big shrink, big Mr. Psychiatrist. Big fucking cock with your smart cunt of a wife. Without your bullshit and your money, your fancy degrees, just man on man—what are you then? You follow? What are you?”

  Sport spit at him. Conrad recoiled but the spittle hit him on the cheek, just under his right eye. Conrad wiped it off with a trembling hand.

  “Who’s a scumbag?” Sport said softly.

  He walked away. He walked to the top of the spiral stairs. Slouching, his hands in his pockets, he paused there. He glanced back.

  “Wait here five minutes,” he told Conrad. “Until fifteen after by the big clock. Remember: we’re still watching you. At fifteen after, go downstairs, get back in your car, and drive to your office. Go inside and don’t leave. If you do leave, we’ll see you. If we see you …” He drew a hand across his throat. “It’ll be coitens for da goil.” He laughed. He had to fight to stop the chuckling. “But seriously: If you’re a good boy, you can come out at twelve o’clock. The kid’ll be on the sidewalk right in front of your building.”