Cold Hit

20

I called the Four Seasons Hotel and the front desk confirmed that Marilyn Seven had checked out first thing this morning.

“You want me to invite Chapman to go with us tomorrow?” Mercer asked.

“Let him take his mother to Mass. I think we got on each other’s nerves yesterday. If you don’t mind doing this without him, I’m game.”

“Why the mystery from Ms. Sette, do you think?”

“I don’t know. She was very secretive about Lowell Caxton not knowing she was in town. He had no trouble guessing correctly that she was the source of some of our information. Anyway, she seemed to like creating a little suspense. Told me she used to be an actress, and I think she still has a flair for the dramatic. Hey, a little culture on a Sunday morning can’t be too bad for either of us.”

“On one condition. You let me sleep on the couch in your den tonight-consider it that you’re saving me a long ride home, not that I’m baby-sitting. It’ll make Battaglia and the lieutenant happy, and give us a jump start in the morning.”

“You’re in charge, Detective Wallace. Do I get dinner before you lock me in for the night?”

“Seems to me I haven’t had Chinese food in weeks. I could go for some Peking duck at Shun Lee Palace. How about you?”

“My mouth is watering. Give me a few minutes, I’ve got to make a call.” I dialed my house on the Vineyard and Jake answered on the first ring. “How’s the sunset tonight?”

“I’m sitting on the deck with my drink, ready to drive to Louise’s for cocktails and dinner. How’s your day been?”

“Long. We’re just about to leave headquarters now. Mercer and I are going to have dinner together, and he’s going to spend the night at the apartment. We’ve got a date in the morning with a skittish witness on the homicide.”

“I’m glad he’s going to stay with you. It’s smart, till somebody knows what’s going on. Tell him I’m insanely jealous, will you? I’ll call you when I get home tonight.”

“Give my love to everyone.”

Mercer and I drove uptown and spent a quiet evening enjoying a good meal and the ambiance of the handsome dining room. We parked in the driveway in front of my building and Mercer left his police plate in the windshield so the car would not be disturbed overnight. We went upstairs and settled in, flipping channels on the television looking for something to watch and settling on CNN, until Jake called to give me a rundown on the party. I watched a bit more TV until I got drowsy enough to say good night and go inside.

When I awakened, shortly after seven, Mercer had already brought the newspaper inside and brewed a pot of coffee. “Slim pickings,” he said to me as he surveyed the near-empty shelves of the refrigerator.

“Check the freezer. I’ve always got a package of English muffins in there.”

While I showered, he nuked the muffins and put them in the toaster. We sat at the dining room table like a married couple, each coming out of the night’s slumber at our own speed, buried in our favorite piece of the Sunday news. Mercer had his head completely immersed in the Sports section. I skimmed the book review, reading the “Crime” column to scout for new mystery writers, and checked the best-seller lists.

“You’re not drinking your coffee,” I said.

“I hate this flavored stuff. It’s really a girl thing.”

“It’s Colombian cinnamon. I think it’s delicious.” I picked up the Arts and Leisure section and riffled through to find the write-ups on galleries and exhibits. “Here’s a piece about Focus-the place we’re going to this morning.”

“What does it say?” Mercer was dumping the dregs of his cup into the sink and looking in my kitchen cabinets for a different coffee blend. “Mind if I make another pot of dark French roast?”

“Go ahead. Focus is described as a ‘stunning new exhibition space dedicated to long-term installations of works of art that are unlikely to be accommodated by existing museums because of their scale and substance.’ Apparently, like everything else in that neighborhood, the place used to be a warehouse building. It’s massive-forty-four thousand square feet.”

“Is it open yet?”

“Doesn’t seem to be. There’s a scheduled premiere the first week of September.”

“Who owns it?”

I continued to scan the article. “Doesn’t mention. This is mostly a description of what it’s going to have, why it was built, how unusual it is.” I paused to read on. “Hey, we’re in luck. Ever hear of Richard Serra?”

Mercer shook his head in the negative.

“He’s probably the greatest sculptor alive. Had a superb show at the Museum of Modern Art not too long ago. His work is set up now for the opening. Sounds extraordinary. Want me to read it to you?”

“Sure.” Mercer was seated again, waiting for the new pot of coffee to be ready. He picked up the Sports section once more as I tried to describe the show at the gallery.

“It’s called Torqued Ellipses VI. The concept grew out of Serra’s fascination with ships and with steel. Are you imitating Mike Chapman, or are you going to listen to this?”

Mercer put down the paper and I showed him the photograph of the massive steel plates, more than a dozen feet high and several inches thick.

He was impressed. The pieces looked formidably strong, resembling curved hulls of three ocean liners split into a handful of pieces and laid out on the floor of the renovated space like a giant maze, covering more than eight thousand square feet.

“I thought you were talking about tiny little sculptures. These things look like the base of the Titanic. How does he do it?”

“The article says Serra contacted every mill in the world, until he found a machine that had been used in World War Two, at a shipyard near Baltimore called Beth Ship, that could roll and bend these huge pieces of steel plate. Each one of them weighs twenty tons.”

“So I guess Ms. Sette picked a good spot to hold this conversation. She can tell us about the people running the place. Must be a friend who’s letting her use it.”

I went inside, ran a brush through my hair, and put on some lipstick. I had on a linen pants suit with ballet flats, casual but professional. The morning was overcast and the airconditioning in the car and in the gallery was likely to be cool.

It was shortly before nine when Mercer drove into the quiet street. There were no residential buildings, a scattering of stillused warehouses, and four galleries that probably wouldn’t open on a summer Sunday until after one o’clock, if at all. As Mercer parked, I pointed out the Hi-Line tracks that sliced through the middle of Twenty-second Street, north to south, rife with weeds, just as they had looked when they passed through the Caxton Due gallery and ran on downtown. It still surprised me that neither one of us had ever been aware of the tracks till we saw them when we were here with Mike the week before.

The entrance to the new gallery was quite discreet, a rectangular white sign with very small letters printed in jet black ink: F OCUS.

Mercer put his hand on the doorknob to test it, expecting to find it locked. It gave at once and opened into the dimly lit space. A young woman came forward and invited us in. “Good morning,” she said. “I’ve been expecting you.”

I recognized her immediately as the receptionist who had been at Bryan Daughtry’s office on Thursday, when the three of us had gone there with the subpoenas. The face was less distinctive than the four silver studs in her right ear, the three in her left, and the small ring piercing one of her eyebrows.

I followed Mercer inside. “Is Ms. Sette here yet?” he asked.

“I’m not sure who’s coming, exactly, but you’re the first ones to arrive. I was told to be here to open the gallery and let the police officers in. You’re welcome to look around. I’ll be up front at the door if you need anything. Hope you don’t get seasick,” she said to me, smiling. “It’s a really weird feeling inside those things.”

Mercer and I stood at the prow of the first sculpture, which loomed over us like the hull of a great oil tanker. I rounded the corner and stood in the space between two ends of the first ellipse. When I looked back at Mercer, I couldn’t help but laugh. It was so unusual to see any physical thing that dwarfed him so completely.

“What’s it like inside?”

I stepped between the enormous curved surfaces and started to walk to the far end. It was immediately confusing and disorienting to the senses. I knew I was standing still on a flat surface, but the arrangement of the pieces made the entire thing feel out of proportion and dizzying. To my left, the structure bowed outward and was wider at the top, more than ten feet above my head. The one to my right sloped inward, and when I raised my eyes to see its top, I had a claustrophobic reaction, as though the entire steel frame might fall on me if I so much as brushed against it.

“Whoa, c’mon in, Mercer. It’s almost like a brilliantly artisticfun house. I see what she was talking about-it’s a very bizarre spatial illusion.”

Mercer paused in the entry while I kept walking, about to exit the first ellipse and trail around its outer side to get to the second one, in which the side shapes were set up in reverse. Each of the five forms was angled in a dramatic fashion, different from the others. He caught up to me inside the third figure, bracing himself against a wall the reverse in shape from the last one, which surprised him so radically.

“Don’t lean on it,” I said, half jokingly. “Doesn’t it seem like it would fall over and crush us instantly?”

Mercer was fascinated with the composition of the colossal steel plates, and stopped to bend and rub his hands up and down against the skin of the sculpture. “This mother isn’t going anywhere, Alex. It must have been like moving a bunch of battleships to get it in here. Man’s a genius.”

He straightened up at a sound coming from the front of the warehouse space. “D’you hear that?”

“Sounded like the door closing. Let’s go meet her.” I moved to find my way out of the ellipse and toward the front of the gallery.

“Hold it. That noise after the door closed, that’s what I’m talking about.”

“I didn’t hear it. I must have been speaking to you.”

“Wait here, Alex. Let me see who came in.”

Mercer passed by me, motioning me to stay put as he walked out of my line of sight.

I could distinguish the sound of the hard-soled bottoms of his loafers clicking on the concrete floor, moving away from me. I heard him call out “Hello,” then pause and call it out again, but the words only echoed in the cavernous expanse of the room without eliciting a response.

“Oh, shit!” he exploded. “Hold still, Alex, stay there. I’m coming to get you.”

I heard his first exclamation and started to run, screaming, “What?” as I did, until I heard his command for me to stop.

I was turned around inside this torqued ellipse, not certain where the front or back of the gallery would be when I emerged. I could make out the sound of what I thought was Mercer’s shoes pounding toward me, and then something softer, perhaps rubber-bottomed, coming at me from another direction. There was nothing to hide behind or duck under within the shell of the sculpture, and I didn’t have the least idea about whether there actually was an office in the rear of the exhibition space, and if so, whether it would be locked or open.

I was frozen in the same spot, accustomed now to the obscure lighting and the lack of contrast between the gray steel mammoths and the interior walls and ceiling. My yellow linen suit stood out against the dark colors like the bull’s-eye on a target, and my head whipped back and forth, not knowing from which direction my friend would appear.

At the same moment as I saw Mercer’s hand grab the end of the ellipse, I heard him yell, “Alex, DOWN! Now!” The discharge of his gun resounded like a cannon in the open space between the sculptures as he fired at someone I could not see.

I squatted on my haunches as though I were on the starting blocks of a relay, fingertips poised to lift me up and out the moment Mercer gave the next order. His single shot was met by a return salvo of two or three bullets, which pinged off the side of the steel almost even with the level of my head as I crouched and cowered.

Mercer’s left hand reached around for me, and I moved to meet it. Without more than a glance, he grabbed me by the wrist and we started to jog in the direction of one of the other structures, Mercer’s large frame running interference for me as we searched in vain for something that would provide a shield.

“It’s your stocking-mask guy from the garage,” he whispered, trying to catch his breath and check the gun that he usually kept holstered on his ankle.

“The girl?” I knew the answer before I asked the question.

“Dead.” He stopped to listen for noise and heard none. “At some point I’m gonna signal you to run, and you’re gonna move like a gazelle to get to that front door and call in a ten thirteen.”

Word on a police radio that an officer needed assistance was the universal beacon to summon cops to any emergency situation in which another cop’s life was at risk.

“Not without-”

“That’s movie bullshit, Coop. When I send you, you fly.” There was no point arguing. It was a decision I would have to make if an opportunity even presented itself to us.

Mercer stepped in front of me, practically flattening me against the side of one of the exteriors. He must have heard a sound that I had not picked up. He cocked his ear in the direction of its source and moved in a 180 -degree arc as he turned to fire off another round. He swung back in front of me and waited for the return fire, as my sweaty palms pressed an imprint on top of the dark steel.

Now the padded footsteps had drawn closer, and I could actually hear them running across the floor on the far side of this ellipse, toward our position.

“We’re moving,” Mercer mouthed to me as he briefly turned his head to face mine. Again he took me by the wrist, and we dashed around into the sculpture we had stood behind, and through its far end, bullets chasing us and bouncing off the cylindrical walls as we zigged and zagged together.

I trusted that Mercer was trying to find his way to the front door. Despite the variety in shape and curve, every one of the steel walls looked identical to me. Their height and their solidity had become oppressive, and I tried to steady myself as I ran behind him, praying that he had maintained some idea of the relationship between these gigantic barriers to our freedom.

Pure silence again. Mercer bent his head to peer around the edge, then looked back at me and winked. His lips formed the word “now,” and he tugged on my jacket sleeve to try to propel me out in front of him. With blind faith in his instincts, I broke into a trot and sped through the length of one more sculpture. At its far end, I thought I made out the doorway that led to the street and an escape. I looked over my shoulder to make sure that Mercer was coming along with me, and as I did I could see the expression of horror cross his face.

“Down!” he screamed at me again as he saw the gunman run into place behind my back, aiming at me from a site between me and the gallery exit.

Shots were fired from both guns, and someone shrieked in pain. I couldn’t tell whose voice had cried out, but in the split second after hearing the noise, I bolted in Mercer’s direction.

“Stay right here, Alex. I got him.” Mercer’s gun was in his hand as he overtook me and raced toward the masked figure, who was bent over from the waist and trying to run to the door. He seemed to be dragging his left leg.

I ignored Mercer’s order and chased after him as he let himself out the door. When I was within ten feet of the front wall, I could see the body of the receptionist slumped over in a leather armchair, blood oozing from her forehead a fraction of an inch away from her pierced eyebrow. I stopped in my tracks, turning to kneel and check her for a pulse.

As I dropped to my knees, Mercer was edging himself to the long metal bar that pushed out onto the street. Suddenly daylight flooded into the huge space of the gallery as the door was pulled by someone on the outside. A burst of light exploded close to where I saw Mercer standing, at about the same time as I heard the noise of the discharge. The gunman had swung the heavy entrance open from the sidewalk and let off three more shots into the gallery.

Mercer Wallace collapsed to the floor without uttering a sound.