Jungle Of Steel And Stone

Chapter Two

The short, stocky black running up East Sixty-ninth Street toward Fifth Avenue was holding Victor Raskolnikov's statue under his right arm and carrying one of the art dealer's African spears in his right hand. His white shirt was stained red over the area of his left shoulder, and that arm flopped limply as he ran.

Pushing aside his thoughts of Sharon Solow, Veil Ken-dry took the wrapped painting he was carrying from under his arm and set it down against a fire hydrant. He was about to angle across the street to intercept the runner when he heard a car door open and slam shut close by. He glanced to his right in time to see a gaunt, pockmarked man in a purple T-shirt and grease-stained chinos skip around a late-model black Pontiac and start across the street. Then he saw Veil watching him—and froze. He licked his lips as fear moved across his face like a ripple in water, then abruptly turned around and got back into his car. He turned on the engine and backed down the street in a screech of burning rubber.

Veil sprinted across the street and was loping easily ten yards behind the injured, burdened man when he suddenly realized that the black did not intend to turn at the corner. "Jesus Christ," Veil muttered as he surged forward in a renewed burst of speed. He was only a step or two behind the runner, reaching out for the man's collar, when the black, without hesitation, sped under the red traffic signal and leapt off the curb into the alley of steel death that was Fifth Avenue at 8:50 on a summer Friday evening.

Veil almost stumbled into the traffic, but he broke his momentum by grabbing the pole supporting the traffic signal. He swung out over the pavement, then just managed to pull himself in toward the sidewalk as the side of a taxi brushed against his spine and a loose sliver of chrome caught and tore his shirt. An instant later there was a deafening cacophony of blaring horns and skidding tires, and then, like a discordant echo, the screeching of locked brakes and the crashing of colliding, crumpling metal. Headlights popped, glass shattered. The din slammed against Veil's senses like a physical blow as he spun away from the pole, then watched and waited for almost two minutes before the mammoth chain collision finally ground to a halt.

Now Veil stepped out into the street, carefully picking his way across what resembled a lava flow of broken machinery, vaulting locked bumpers and rolling over crumpled hoods as he searched for what he assumed must be the crushed, lifeless body of the black. But there was no body; somehow the man had made it safely across the street and into the dark green forest-gloom of Central Park.

Veil turned back and immediately went to the aid of an injured motorist in a nearby car. The woman had banged her head on the windshield and twisted her ankle, but did not appear to be seriously injured. Veil wrapped her in his light jacket, then moved on to look for others who might need help. Sirens wailed as police and ambulances converged on the scene from all directions. On Sixty-ninth, a police car's siren died with a loud whoop as two patrolmen jumped out. Veil knew both of the men; one glared at him with open hostility, while the other offered a barely perceptible smile and nod, which Veil returned.

Openly displaying a friendly attitude toward Veil Ken-dry was not something a policeman in any of the five boroughs of New York City could afford to do without risk of career damage, Veil thought with vague amusement.

"Excuse me, sir."

Veil turned in the direction of the rich baritone voice and found himself looking into the dark brown eyes of an olive-complexioned, heavily muscled man dressed in a brown gabardine suit. "Yes?"

"Detective Vahanian," the man said, flashing a gold detective's shield. "What's your name, sir?"

"Veil Kendry."

The detective uttered a soft, almost imperceptible grunt of surprise. Shadows of uncertainty moved in the man's eyes, then were blinked away. "Did you see what happened here?"

"A man ran across the street against the light."

Vahanian looked out over the wreckage clogging the street and shook his head in disbelief. "How long ago?"

"Maybe twenty, twenty-five minutes," Veil replied as he glanced at his watch. "If you're also investigating a theft from the Raskolnikov Gallery, he's your man. He was carrying the idol they call the Nal-toon, and a spear he must have snatched off the wall."

"Obviously you read the papers."

"On occasion. Also, Victor Raskolnikov handles my work. I'm a painter. I know about the Nal-toon; it's been the bane of Victor's existence for the past two months. I don't think he'll ever handle another piece of primitive art.

"I wouldn't blame him. Where did this man go?"

"Into the park," Veil said, pointing across the street. "He was short, maybe five-five or six. Mid-twenties, black—but I don't think he was an American black. He had an Oriental cast to his features."

"It was almost dark twenty minutes ago." "The streetlights were on."

"Just a minute," Vahanian said curtly, then turned and walked back to his unmarked car, which was parked up on the sidewalk. He spoke for a few moments into the car's two-way radio, then returned to Veil. By now, dozens of police cars, ambulances, and tow trucks had arrived at the scene. "Where do you live?" Vahanian continued as he removed a cheap ballpoint pen and small notepad from his inside breast pocket.

"Three eighty-five Grand. It's a loft on the Lower East side."

"How close were you to this man?"

"He was across the street, but I got a pretty good look at him. He was wearing a white shirt without a collar and dark slacks a size or two too big for him. He'd been injured—maybe shot—in the left shoulder, and it looked like he couldn't use the arm."

"Anything else?"

"No. It happened pretty quickly."

The detective replaced the pen and pad in his pocket, then studied Veil for a few moments. "You're very observant," he said, raising his eyebrows slightly. "It looks like you've earned your reputation."

"What reputation?" Veil asked carefully.

Vahanian shook his head. "It's not important."

"Victor Raskolnikov is a friend as well as my dealer. If there's a police line outside the gallery, I'd appreciate it if you'd take me past. I'd like to see if he's all right."

The detective nodded in the direction of his car. "I was going to ask you to come along, anyway. My partner may want to ask you some questions."

"Give me a minute. There's something—" Veil glanced down the sidewalk toward the fire hydrant where he had left his painting, and sighed with resignation.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing," Veil said, walking toward the detective's car.

Vahanian got in, turned on the engine. He backed off the sidewalk, made a tight turn, then made his way slowly back down Sixty-ninth, weaving through an obstacle course of police cars and emergency vehicles. He pulled up on the sidewalk around the corner from the gallery, and Veil followed him through the throng that was gathered at the front and struggling for position in order to see in through the huge display window. There were audible gasps from some of the men and women. As they entered the building a helicopter flew overhead, heading for Central Park.

The long and narrow room inside the entrance—one of four display areas comprising the gallery—was filled with an eclectic mix of primitive art and modern paintings, including three of Veil's. At the end of the room, to the left of a vaulted archway leading to another area, the pedestal on which the Nal-toon had been displayed stood empty, like some wooden creature that had been decapitated. Victor Raskolnikov, impeccably dressed in a dark blue suit and gray silk vest, was standing in a pile of broken glass, steadying himself by leaning on the pedestal. Ashen-faced, obviously badly shaken, the portly Russian was trying hard not to look across the room to where the sagging corpse of a young, uniformed security guard was pinned to the wall by the long, razor-sharp head of an African ceremonial spear that had skewered the man's chest almost in the exact center; blood had spattered over one of Veil's paintings, hung to the left and slightly above the guard's head.

To Veil's right, a few yards inside the entrance, a huge, hulking man who he assumed was a detective was questioning a frail, trembling woman whom Veil judged to be in her mid- or late twenties. The man's back was to him, but he could see the woman's face—and she was clearly terrified. Her face was virtually bloodless, made to seem even whiter by the shimmering blue-black of her long hair and her large black eyes. She kept shaking her head, as if she were denying something. Occasionally a thin, tapered hand would brush away a strand of hair or pluck at her thin lower lip in a curiously birdlike motion.

The woman saw Vahanian, reached a trembling hand out toward him. "Is Toby all right?" she asked in a quavering voice.

Vahanian turned to her, but before he could answer, the huge man took a step to his left and, like some tropical moon, eclipsed the woman from sight. The man's voice came across the room to Veil's ears as a low, slightly menacing rumble.

"Veil!" The Russian who was his friend and mentor lumbered like some circus bear down the length of the room, threw his thick arms around Veil, and kissed him on both cheeks. "God, I'm glad to see you here. This is a terrible, terrible thing."

Veil once again glanced over to where the hulking detective was questioning the woman. Something was wrong, he thought; he was becoming increasingly certain that the woman was terrified of the man, not the situation.,

Vahanian walked over to the other man, and both detectives stepped aside and huddled for a whispered conference while the woman stared down at her feet and hugged herself, as if she were broken inside. Once, the big man looked back over his shoulder, and Veil found himself looking into a round, doughy face with small eyes that reminded him of two raisins lost in a pie; there seemed to be no light, no life, in them. Huge, gnarled hands closed into fists, then relaxed again. Veil held the man's gaze for a few moments, then abruptly turned to his friend.

"What happened, Victor?"

Raskolnikov spread his arms out to his sides in a gesture of helplessness. "I couldn't stop it, Veil. Everything just happened too quickly. Now this man I hired to guard the statue is dead."

"How did it happen?"

"The young woman over there came in with a young man. The man, he had a very strange look in his eyes—and he was looking at the statue from the moment he came in the door. He never said a word, just started walking straight toward the statue. The woman screamed and tried to stop him; she grabbed his arm and shouted at him in this funny language, like nothing I've ever heard before—click! click! click! Very strange. The man just pushed her away, grabbed one of the spears off the wall, and used it to smash the glass case over the statue. He moved so fast that he caught Frank—the guard—by surprise. Frank yelled at the man to stop, and when he didn't, Frank kind of panicked, I guess. He drew his gun and fired—hit the man in the shoulder, I think. Then the man threw the spear at Frank. Veil, I've never seen anyone move that fast. One moment Frank was aiming and getting ready to fire again, and the next moment he was dead." The Russian paused, swallowed hard, then gestured toward the opposite wall without looking at it. "Like that."

"Your guard did hit the man, Victor. I saw him. He escaped into Central Park after causing the damnedest chain collision you've ever seen on Fifth. But they should have him soon. By now there'll be an army of cops beating the bushes for him, and they're using a helicopter. I just hope your statue isn't damaged."

"I don't give a damn about that statue!" Tears suddenly glistened in the art dealer's eyes. "I paid a lousy three thousand dollars for it. What's three thousand dollars— what's anything?—compared to a man's life? The newspapers sure as hell made a big stink about it, but they couldn't tell me what I should do with the damn thing. The police wouldn't take it off my hands because they said it was legally mine. The United Nations made a stink, too, but they wouldn't take it. If they took it, then they wouldn't have anything to make a stink about. I didn't want to sell it to just anyone, Veil, because I felt very deeply in my heart for that tribe. All I wanted was my money back, and that didn't seem unreasonable. Then this gangster business came up and the courts said I couldn't sell it to anyone until a complete investigation had been made, but the judges wouldn't take it off my hands, either. Hell, I figured I might as well keep the statue on display for the publicity value. But I didn't want the tribe to lose it to some thief, so I hired a guard to make certain it stayed safe until somebody told me what I was allowed to do with it. I simply should have sent it back to the tribe in the beginning. Then I wouldn't be responsible for this man's death."

"Take it easy, Victor," Veil said evenly. "You aren't responsible for anything but being a very decent man caught in a bind and trying to find the right thing to do. You didn't fire a gun to protect a piece of wood, and you didn't throw the spear."

"Are you Veil Kendry?"

Veil turned to find the big man with the doughy face and dead, raisin eyes standing very close behind him. "I'm Kendry," he replied evenly.

"You've met Detective Vahanian," the big man said in a rumbling, phlegmy voice as he jerked a thumb in the general direction of the dark-complexioned man who was standing off to one side, trying not to look embarrassed. "I'm Detective Nagle. I understand you witnessed what went on up the street."

"Yes. As I told your partner—"

"I know what you told my partner, and I don't need to hear it again. You're the one who needs to be told something."

"You sound like a man with heavy things on his mind," Veil said in a neutral, flat tone. "Why don't you unload them?"

Nagle leaned even closer, to the point where his face was only inches from Veil's, and Veil could smell beer and garlic on the man's breath. "You've got a bad rep, Kendry," Nagle rumbled, planting the thick index finger of his right hand in the center of Veil's chest.

"Do I?"

"You do. For one thing, I hear that you have a habit of sticking your nose in police business. I hear you think you're a hotshot private investigator."

Veil considered pushing the finger away from his chest but instead stepped back. Nagle grunted with satisfaction.

"You'd better back off from me, pal."

"Am I to take it that you're feeling a bit cranky this evening, Detective Nagle?"

Nagle frowned. "I'm in a good mood, Kendry. You'd better hope you never see me in a bad one."

Veil glanced across the room to where the woman was staring at him, the expression on her face frozen somewhere between fear and amazement. "Look, Nagle," Veil said easily, "I don't know what your personal problems are, and I don't care."

"You watch how you talk to me, chief."

"You picked up wrong information somewhere. I'm not an investigator, private or otherwise. I'm a painter."

"You bet your smart ass you're not a PI. You've got no license. If you had, it would have been pulled long ago. The point is that you act as if you were a PI. You've had run-ins with cops all over this goddamn city, and cops most definitely do not like amateurs stepping on their toes. We've got more than enough bag ladies, bums, street jugglers, and street musicians; we don't need a street detective."

"From time to time I do a favor for a friend."

"You seem to have a lot of friends."

"Yeah. I make friends easily."

"I've even heard it said that you have friends in very high places in Washington, like in the CIA."

Veil resisted the impulse to laugh. "Well, you couldn't be more wrong about that. But you'd be surprised how many of those street people you mentioned need a friend to take care of business for them. Sometimes I take money; more often I accept goods or services. But I'm not a private investigator, and I've never pretended to be."

"Are you a bad-ass, Kendry? Some people say you're a bad-ass."

"I can't help what people say," Veil replied, casually turning his head to watch as a police photographer began snapping pictures of the corpse hanging on the wall.

"Let's cut through the bullshit, chief. The message I have for you is short and sweet: I'm a much bigger bad-ass than you are. I'm telling you to stay the fuck out of my way. I don't know what you're doing in the neighborhood, or if you have any connection with these other people. If you do have a connection, it doesn't mean diddly-squat. If you're even thinking about poking your nose into this idol business, you think again. If you don't, it's possible you could lose whatever it is you do your thinking with. I don't want to see your face again. Got it, chief?"

"I hear what you're saying," Veil replied flatly, his face impassive as he stared back at the police detective.

"You carrying a gun?"

"I don't have a permit to carry a gun."

"That isn't what I asked you, chief," Nagle said tightly. "You just made a mistake. Turn your ass around and lean against that wall."

Veil did not move. "Are you trying to harass me, Nagle? I'm not a lawyer, but I can't think of any reasonable cause I've given you for searching me. I'd hate to see a lawsuit or a review board hearing keep you from your diligent pursuit of this case."

"You long-haired bastard!" Nagle reached for Veil, and suddenly lost all feeling in his right arm, below the elbow. Amazed, he looked down and saw that the other man, moving so quickly that the motion had been imperceptible, had gripped his arm and was pressing a thumb into a nerve inside the elbow.

"Excuse me, Detective Nagle," Veil said as he released the arm. "Are you all right? I thought you were going to fall."

Feeling slowly came back into Nagle's arm. The detective glanced down at his elbow, then back up at the man with the long blond hair and pale blue, gold-flecked eyes who stood before him. The man's face wore an expression of genuine concern—an act, for the eyes were absolutely cold and appraising.

Nagle roared with rage and swung a wild, roundhouse right fist at a head that was suddenly no longer there. An instant later he felt arms wrap themselves around his waist, fingers that felt like steel rods pressed into his solar plexus, and he doubled over with a gasp. But he did not fall; he could not fall. The powerful arms held him up while the fingers, hidden from view, continued to press and knead, jab and squeeze, until sickness began to burn at the back of his throat. Veil's voice, soothing and solicitous, came from somewhere behind his right ear.

"Just relax, Nagle," Veil continued. "You'll be all right. Vahanian, you want to give me a hand here? I think your partner's just a little drunk; I smell booze on his breath. I hope he's not going to be sick."

Then the fingers were abruptly gone from his belly, the arms from around his waist. As if on cue and conspiring against him, his stomach churned and its contents splattered over the front of his jacket, slacks, and shoes. Then he fell forward. He tried to twist around, slipped, and sat down in the pool of vomit.

Veil stood over the soiled detective, waiting calmly. All activity in the gallery had stopped, and there was silence, broken only by Nagle's gasps, retching, and coughing. The police photographer, two morgue attendants, a patrolman, Vahanian, the woman, and the spectators beyond the plate-glass display window all gaped in astonishment. Raskolnikov kept shaking his head, as if the muscles in his neck had gone into spasm.

Finally Nagle stopped retching. He took a deep, shuddering breath, wiped away a trail of spittle that hung from his mouth, then unzipped his blue windbreaker and reached for his gun.

Raskolnikov grunted with alarm and started to step forward. Veil stopped his friend by planting a hand firmly on his chest, and by then Vahanian had stepped between Veil and Nagle. The stocky detective reached down and hauled his partner to his feet by the front of his jacket. Nagle's face was brick-red, the small eyes aflame now with rage, hatred, and humiliation. He lunged for Veil, but Vahanian—displaying amazing strength for a man at least seventy-five pounds lighter than his partner—managed to shove Nagle back against the wall, where he held him.

"Stop it, Carl!" Vahanian shouted. "You're losing it!"

Vahanian dropped his voice and, still holding the other man firmly against the wall, put his mouth close to Nagle's ear and spoke in a low murmur. Veil, his ears trained two decades before to pick out sounds of life and death from a cacophony of jungle noises, could make out just a few words and phrases.

". . . witnesses . . . got you on the drinking . . . not worth the trouble . . ."

Gradually Nagle stopped struggling, although his face remained the color of flame. Vahanian, careful to keep his right hand pressed against Nagle's chest, turned to face Veil. For a fleeting moment something that might have been respect flickered in his dark eyes, then was gone, replaced by the cold, hostile glint of a cop staring at an outlaw.

"I hope you appreciate the size of the pass you're getting on this one, Kendry."

"Oh, I certainly do. I certainly hope Detective Nagle is feeling better soon."

"Shut up!" Vahanian snapped. "Now you're pressing your luck with me! What I'm saying is that this is a once-in-a-lifetime pass you'll never get again." He took a deep breath, continued in a calmer voice, "We've got your statements, names, and addresses. If we have more questions, we'll know where to get in touch with you."

Nagle had gotten his second wind. Suddenly he bellowed and tried to run through Vahanian to get at Veil. Like an outweighed but fiercely determined offensive lineman, Vahanian blocked Nagle with his forearms, put his head down, and drove with his legs, pushing the bigger man toward the exit. A uniformed officer, barely able to suppress a grin, hurriedly opened the door. The crowd that had gathered outside quickly split, and Vahanian pushed Nagle out and into a car parked on the sidewalk. A few moments later Vahanian was behind the wheel, and the car shot out of sight with a squeal of spinning rubber.

Inside the gallery, the photographer finished his work. The morgue attendants removed the body from the wall, slid it into a plastic bag.

"My God, Veil," Raskolnikov breathed in a quavering voice. "What did you do to him?"

Veil looked at his friend, smiled. "Just helping a police officer—"

"You are crazy, my friend. You know that."

"—who became ill while performing his duty."

"What are you doing here, anyway?"

"I was on my way to get your opinion on one of my latest pieces."

"You have a painting with you?"

"I did have; somebody stole it. Just a minute, Victor."

Veil walked across the room to the woman who was standing absolutely still and looking profoundly forlorn, like some fragile piece of living sculpture that had been abandoned to the elements of confusion, fear, and panic and was in danger of shattering. She was a wounded woman, Veil thought. A man crucified on a wall by a spear was not the first horrible scene she had witnessed.

"I'm Veil Kendry," he said softly, looking directly into the large, liquid eyes and smiling gently. "The man who stole the idol is a friend of yours, isn't he?"

The woman swallowed and blinked; her eyes slowly came into focus on Veil's face, and the spare movement of her head was in direct contrast to the desperate, naked plea in her eyes.

"He's all right, at least for the time being," Veil continued. "The last time I saw him, he was disappearing into Central Park."

"But he'd been shot. . . ." The woman's voice was faint and breathy, as frail as her body.

"A shoulder wound and, judging by the way he was moving, not too serious. The cops probably have him by now, so he may already be on the way to a hospital."

The woman's eyes were the most expressive Veil had ever seen, and what they flashed now was relief. Her lips managed to form a shaky, tentative smile, and then she abruptly turned her head away, as if to hide whatever else might show in her eyes.

"I'm Reyna Alexander," the woman said, her voice muffled slightly by the thick strand of hair that had fallen across the side of her face. "Thank you for telling me that." "You're welcome. I'd say you need a drink."

The woman shook her head. "I don't drink."

"Tea, then. Victor brews the strongest pot of tea this side of the Urals." Veil paused, then continued seriously. "You need something strong in you, Reyna. You need time to wind down."

"No. I just want to go home."

"Is anyone there?"

"No."

"Then I don't think that's a good idea—not for a while, anyway. You're suffering from shock."

"I want to go home."

"Where do you live?"

"Wesley Missionary College."

"How did you get here?"

"I have a car."

"Then I'll drive you. I know where the college is; I only live a few blocks from there. You don't have to be afraid. I'm quite harmless."

Now the woman looked at him again; there was a new emotion reflected in her eyes that Veil could not read. "That's not true. You're a very dangerous man; I could feel that all the way across the room. And you must be insane to talk that way, and do whatever it was you did, to Carl Nagle."

"That seems to be the consensus of opinion. You sound as though you speak from experience."

Fear shimmered across the surface of the black eyes. The woman pressed her lips tightly together and shook her head. "I don't know what you mean."

"I'm not dangerous to you."

Reyna Alexander studied him for a few moments, then nodded her head. "I know that, Mr. Kendry. And I would appreciate it if you'd take me home. Thank you."