Gone Tomorrow

FIFTY-EIGHT

Jacob Mark said, ‘I have to go to the cops about Peter.’

He got halfway off the bench before I leaned across Theresa Lee and put my hand on his arm.

‘Think hard,’ I said.

‘What’s to think about? My nephew is a kidnapping victim. He’s a hostage. The woman confessed.’

‘Think about what the cops will do. They’ll call the feds immediately. The feds will lock you up again and put Peter on the back burner, because they’ve got bigger fish to fry.’

‘I have to try.’

‘Peter’s dead, Jake. I’m sorry, but you’ve got to face it.’

‘There’s still a chance.’

‘Then the fastest way to find him is to find Lila. And we can do that better than those feds.’

‘You think?’

‘Look at their track record. They missed her once, and they let us break out of jail. I wouldn’t send them to look for a book in the library.’

‘How the hell do we find her on our own?’

I looked at Theresa Lee. ‘Did you speak to Sansom?’

She shrugged, like she had good news and bad. She said, ‘I spoke to him briefly. He said he might want to come up here personally. He said he would call me back to coordinate the where and the when. I said he couldn’t do that, because I was keeping the phone switched off. So he said he would call Docherty’s cell instead, and I should call Docherty and pick up the message. So I did, and Docherty didn’t answer. So I tried the precinct switchboard. The dispatcher said Docherty was unavailable.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I think it means he just got arrested.’

Which changed everything. I understood that even before Lee got around to spelling it out. She handed me her folded notes. I took them, like receiving the baton in a relay race. I was to go onward, as fast as I could. She was spilling off the track, her race finished. She said, ‘You understand, right? I have to turn myself in now. He’s my partner. I can’t let him face this madness alone.’

I said, ‘You thought he would ditch you in a heartbeat.’

‘But he didn’t. And I have my own standards, anyway.’

‘It won’t do any good.’

‘Maybe not. But I won’t turn my back on my partner.’

‘You’re just taking yourself off the board. You can’t help any one from a jail cell. Outside is always better than inside.’

‘It’s different for you. You can be gone tomorrow. I can’t. I live here.’

‘What about Sansom? I need a time and a place.’

‘I don’t have that information. And you should take care with Sansom, anyway. He sounded weird on the phone. I couldn’t tell whether he was real mad or real worried. It’s hard to say whose side he’s going to be on, when and if he gets here.’

Then she gave me Leonid’s first cell phone, and the emergency charger. She put her hand on my arm and squeezed, just briefly, just a little. An all-purpose substitute for a hug and a good-luck gesture. And right alter that our temporary three way partnership fell apart completely. Jacob Mark was on his feet even before Lee had started to get up. He said, ‘I owe it to Peter. OK, they might put me back in a cell, but at least they’ll be out looking for him.’

‘We could look for him,’ I said.

‘We have no resources.’

I looked at them both and asked, ‘Are you sure about this?’

They were sure about it. They walked away from me, out of the park, to the Fifth Avenue sidewalk, where they stood and craned their necks, looking for a police car, the same way people stand when they are trying to hail a cab. I sat alone for a minute, and then I got up and walked the other way.

Next stop, somewhere east of Fifth and south of 59th.