The Dead Man

Chapter Thirty-seven

Harper and I caught up to Carter and Sanchez as they got on the elevator. I reached for the door as it was closing.

"We've got it from here," Carter said.

I let go and stepped back, slamming my hand against the wall. I'd spent the morning following procedure, playing the role of civilian bystander, my one concern to stay out of the way and not screw anything up and I was choking on the protocol.

"I may not know half of what's going on inside these walls but this is my goddamn institute," Harper said, "and I'm sure as hell not going to sit on my ass and wait for the all clear to sound. My office, now."

Carter was right and Harper was wrong but wrong felt a lot better than right. I followed him into his office where he stopped in front of a bookcase, pulling back the spine of a book that wasn't a book. The shelf parted in the middle, opening onto an elevator.

We stepped on, Harper laughing. "It's good to be rich."

"You convinced me."

He punched the button for the ground floor and the car plummeted like an amusement park ride. Harper's face lit up. "They're taking the local. We're taking the express."

"Where does this thing land?"

"It goes to the garage where I park but it will stop on the ground level at the back of the loading dock."

"Carter and Sanchez will get off at the lobby and then have to find their way to the dock. We'll be inside before they're on the ground."

The prospect sobered Harper. "Should we be afraid of Leonard?"

"He's running and people who run do stupid things. That makes them dangerous."

"But you can take him, can't you? I mean he's younger, but you were an FBI agent, for Christ's sake."

That was enough to make me look for the stop button on the elevator. Harper didn't know better but I did. He was one of the rich boys who kept score with their toys. The secret express elevator was one and I was another.

"Carter was right. We should let the police handle this."

Harper stared at me. "It's the shaking, isn't it? You're afraid we'll find Leonard and you'll come apart into a million little pieces. Well, you might and I might forget to do something that costs me millions of dollars. That's the road you and I are on but I'm not slowing down or getting off. What are you going to do?"

I asked that question every day, wondering what I'd lost to my movement disorder and what I'd surrendered. That was the hard part of taking it easy, the balance I sought more of a deal with the devil, my soul for a steady gait, a quiet day for an empty life. Harper could afford to take chances because it was his money and that's all it was, money. I could put myself on the line, but I couldn't take him with me.

"Go play in traffic," I said as the elevator stopped.

The door opened and I swept my leg against the back of Harper's knees, lifting him off his feet and shoving him as he fell. He hit the floor, rolling against the rear of the elevator, banging his head, stunned and breathless. I pressed the button for the top floor and stepped out, the door closing behind me.

The loading dock was a modest space, the twenty-foot ceiling making it appear larger than it was, the length of the walls matching the ceiling height. Surplus furniture was scattered along the wall to my left, the open door to the trash chute cut into the one on my right, overflowing garbage bags littered along the base of the wall.

The Dumpster had been wheeled across the floor and parked against the entrance from the dock into the building. The door swung back into the dock, the Dumpster blocking Carter and Sanchez who were pounding and shouting from the other side.

The overhead garage door, wide enough to accommodate two semis, was raised, icy air filling the dock. A uniformed officer lay crumpled outside the door, unconscious but breathing, the crowbar next to him and the lump on his head explanation enough.

I jumped off the dock, slipped on a patch of ice and scrambled to my feet, catching a glimpse of Leonard beating a path through the snow up a hill rising to the east of the building. He was two hundred yards ahead and I was twenty-five years behind.

"Leonard!"

He threw me a look over his shoulder, stumbling, clawing against the snow with both hands and digging his way up the slope. An irregular line of pine trees ran along the crest of the hill. He grabbed a tree trunk, hoisting himself over the ridge as a news chopper zeroed in on us, the cameraman leaning out the open side.

I ran after him, my street shoes no match for the snow, tumbling twice before I made it to the top of the hill. He was halfway down the other side, running and falling, jumping to his feet, hell bent for the northeast corner of the campus. I swallowed air and shouted.

"Leonard! Stop!"

Sirens and the chopper drowned out my voice, though I tried again as I sprinted after him.

Volker Boulevard ran along the north side of the campus, Troost Avenue bordering on the east, both major thoroughfares. They were clogged with fast moving traffic now that the streets had been plowed, salt and sand grinding any lingering ice into the pavement, people in a hurry making up for lost time.

Across the intersection, there was a wooded area on the right and the wide channel of Brush Creek on the left. Both would give him sparse cover though neither offered a way out. I was closing the gap between us but not fast enough.

When he reached the intersection, he cut to his right, bolting onto Troost, dodging a car and a bus, horns screaming, the driver of a pickup slamming on his brakes, the truck skidding and fishtailing, the back end swatting Leonard like he was a pin ball. He cart wheeled through the air, limp and dead before he hit the pavement, spread-eagled on his back, cars rear-ending around his body in a chain-reaction collision.

I weaved through the tangle of vehicles as people piled out, rubbing their necks and scratching their heads. I kneeled over him. His lifeless eyes were open, his mouth fixed in his signature grin.

Wendy sent me an electronic birthday card a few months after she disappeared, signing it Monkey Girl, the nickname I'd given her when she was little. Simon traced it to a desktop computer in a reading room at the New York City Public Library at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue. I was on a plane the next day, combing the library, staking out the adjacent Bryant Park, mingling with the crowds on 42nd Street and in Times Square and following the endless streams of people bubbling up from the subway or getting on and off buses.

I found her three days later, staggering from an overdose on the sidewalk next to the park. It was five o'clock in the afternoon, people on their way home, rushing past her as if she wasn't there. I was coming down the library steps on 42nd, elevated enough that I could pick her out in the crowd when a kid on a skateboard sideswiped her, bouncing her off a guy in a suit who shoved her into a lamppost. She stumbled onto 42nd and collapsed, a taxi skidding to a stop inches from her head.

I lifted her head into my lap, her glassy eyes struggling to focus, her voice weak and feathery.

"Daddy?"

"I'm here, baby."

"You found me. I knew you would." She reached for my collar, pulling me close, her breath shallow, her face pale. "It's Monkey Girl."

"I know it's you, baby. Hang on. You're going to be okay."

She squeezed my hand. "No I'm not, Daddy, but I love you and I'm glad you found me."

And she was gone, an improbable smile her last gift.

"Jack! Jack! Are you okay?" I looked up to see Lucy bulling her way through the crowd that had materialized. "Oh, my God! I was on my way to the institute and I saw you chasing him down the hill. Who is he? I can't believe he ran into all that traffic. He didn't have a chance."

As she helped me to my feet, I started to shake, tidal waves ripping through me. I held onto her, my head on her shoulder, my knees buckling. She wrapped her arms around me, keeping me upright as my legs gave way, steering me out of the intersection.

"My daughter, Wendy," I said when we reached the curb and I caught my breath, "I found her in New York just before she died of an overdose. She's drifting down Forty-second Street and a kid blows past her on a skateboard, knocks her into a guy who shoves her into a lamppost, and then she spins into the street, practically melts onto the pavement. I got to her, knelt down, and lifted her head up. She looks at me, tells me it's Monkey Girl, like I don't know who she is."

"Monkey Girl. You lost me."

"It was her nickname when she was a little girl. I gave it to her and she gave it to a stuffed monkey I bought her. Anyway, she says it's Monkey Girl and then she dies, but she's smiling, same as Leonard. Neither one of them had a reason to, but they died smiling. Go figure."

My legs buckled again and another pair of hands grabbed me.

"Let me help," Milo Harper said.

They lifted me, one of my arms across each of their shoulders, and dragged me to a bus stop bench, propping me up. I gulped choppy breaths, aftershocks doubling me over.

An EMT dropped to one knee in front of me. "You okay, buddy?"

I waved him off. "It'll pass. It'll pass."

The EMT looked at Lucy who nodded. "Happens every time he chases someone into an intersection," she said, satisfying the EMT.

"Okay, okay," I said a few moments later when my legs were back and I had stopped shaking. "Let's get out of here."

They hung close to me as we walked around the intersection where crime scene techs were taking pictures and measurements while drivers gave their statements and television news crews made their living.

"Hey, Davis," McNair yelled, making his way over to us. "It doesn't get easier than this, does it? Looks like I'll be home for dinner."