In the night room Page 0,64

she was a true gamine. Then he realized that the red pattern on her blouse was water-soaked blood spatter.

She took an uncertain step toward him, and the planet seemed to wobble on its course. His stomach dropped to the floor, but the floor wasn’t there anymore. He was floating in midair, with all the hair on his arms sticking straight up. He recognized her, and for a moment the recognition brought him into the purest fear he had known since Vietnam.

“This can’t be happening,” he said. “Is your name Willy?”

“I think I need your help,” Willy said. “Do we know each other?”

22

Poor Willy—she was looking for an explanation of the strangest experience of her life, and she thought she had come to the right place. Kalpesh Patel had stopped at the corner of 103rd Street and Broadway, helped her get the bags out of his taxi, refused to take any money, and sped off in the general direction of Columbus Avenue and Central Park. She began aimlessly to walk down Broadway, trying to figure out how she could get out of town. New York represented the dual threat of Mitchell’s henchmen and the NYPD, all of whom had probably been shown pictures of her face before being sent out to find its owner. Money was no problem: she could get in a cab and tell the driver to take her to Boston, or Pittsburgh, or any large city where she could hide out until Mitchell got tired of looking for her. But she didn’t trust the driver of her hypothetical taxicab. One night he might tune in to America’s Most Wanted and run straight to the police.

By the time she reached Ninety-sixth Street, she was thinking about long-distance buses. Buses went everywhere, and no one ever paid any attention to them, basically because they carried poor people from one place to another. If she got to Port Authority, she could pay cash for a ticket and travel anywhere she wanted. Willy did not think you had to keep validating your identity to get on a bus. She wished she had asked Kalpesh Patel to take her to the Port Authority building—the way that man drove, she could be there in minutes.

Willy moved to the curb and stuck out her right hand. With her left, she kept a good grip on the handle of the white leather bag stuffed with hundred-dollar bills and on the rolling case. Traffic flowed past her. The only cabs she saw already had passengers. The air grew darker and cool enough to make her wish she were wearing a jacket. A jacket would conceal the bloodstains, too—she had received a few curious stares. Then she thought of Tom again, and a molten current of panic, guilt, and despair ran through her.

A cold wind whistled down Broadway, and Willy shivered as she tilted forward to scan the approaching traffic. In the untimely darkness, a yellow light glowing from the top of a cab two blocks up had the brightness of a beacon. A menacing roll of thunder filled the sky, and distant lightning flashed. Willy hoped the cab would arrive in advance of the rain.

The lights changed again.

One block away, a pale car that looked exactly like Mitchell Faber’s Mercedes turned the corner into Broadway. It could not be Mitchell’s car. Like Mitchell’s car, however, it seemed to move down the block with the swift, elegant shiver of a predator. A walnut-sized knot of fear located in the middle of her chest dialed up the volume of her general panic. She could not keep standing there as the Mercedes shimmered and shivered toward her.

Willy was bending over to pick up her bags when she looked back up the street at the Mercedes that could not be Mitchell Faber’s and saw, with a terrible clarity, Giles Coverley at the wheel and Roman Richard beside him. Her only thought was to get far enough ahead of them to avoid being seen, and, one bag in each hand, she started running down the sidewalk.

Under a long barrage of thunder, the sky darkened by another degree. Willy darted across the sidewalk, and when her hand touched the door of a nearby shop, she heard the blasting of horns and the slamming of car doors. Her fear widened its wings and touched her heart. She heard clattering footsteps, looked to her left, and saw Coverley and Roman Richard running toward her through the traffic.

Willy took off—like an antelope sprinting for its life.