The Ex

52

They sat in the back of the cab, not touching each other, the varicolored light from outside playing over their faces in patterns of brightness and shadow created by motion. Something in the trunk rattled each time they hit a bump. There was a strong, spearmint scent in the cab, as if the previous passenger had been chewing gum.

On the other side of the cab’s windows, heavy traffic, bright lights, flashed past rapidly in the night. David’s face was tight with strain. Molly’s was an emotional blank; she’d had more than she could bear and her system had shut down.

Tires screeched and a horn blared. The cab rocked as it veered, but it didn’t slow. Momentary fear passed like a shadow over Molly’s face.

Traffic at the next intersection was lodged in gridlock. The taxi reduced speed, then threaded its way through the maze of barely moving cars and miraculously found the clearance to accelerate with a roar as it jounced in a back-breaking race over the pot-holed pavement.

Salter pushed with all his might on the horn buttons, but the horn was silent.

“Piece of crap!” he said loudly. “Fucking city budget!” Too many of the unmarkeds were junk.

He cranked down the window. “Police! Out of the way!”

The well-dressed guy driving the Mercedes that had cut him off merely stared at him.

“Police!” Salter screamed again, and made a motion as if to flash his badge.

Now the guy in the Mercedes nodded and rolled down his own window. “I thought you said ‘Please,’” he explained, before slowly driving into a narrow space between a truck and the curb and allowing Salter to pass.

Salter hit the accelerator and peered through the wind-shield at the street ahead, but he couldn’t see the cab. The driver must be Mario Andretti or some such whiz.

“Shit!” Salter said, slapping the dashboard hard enough so that something broke loose inside it and tinkled down to make a sound like a coin revolving lopsided on a hard surface. The FBI was slated to enter this case in the morning. They’d love to hear about how the missing kid’s parents got in a cab and disappeared.

He noticed there was noise coming from the cellular and picked it up.

“What the hell’s happening?” Benning asked.

“They’re gone. Jumped ahead of me in heavy traffic and I lost sight of them.”

Salter expected to hear curses on the other end of the line, but Benning was silent. Maybe thinking about the FBI.

“I got the hack number,” Salter said. “We can get the cab company to contact the driver.”

“No,” Benning said immediately. “Not yet. We don’t want anything to happen that might spook these people while they’re in the cab. We’ll give them time to reach their destination, then have the cab company contact their driver and we can learn where he dropped them. Give me the cab’s number.”

Salter did, then said, “Still want this line kept open?”

“Why? So you can give me more bad news?”

Salter thought he’d better not say anything else.

He broke the connection and continued driving in the direction the cab had been going when it disappeared.

David gripped the back of the front seat and leaned forward to speak through the opening in the Plexiglas panel. “Faster! Can’t you go faster?”

The driver, a swarthy man with a bizarre haircut bunched mostly on the top of his head, ignored him. In the strobe-light effect of passing lights playing over his face, there was an ominous glint in his eyes.

“Faster!” David urged again.

The driver glanced at him in the rearview mirror. “Don’t understand. Faster? I go fast. Can’t fly, go fast.”

David squirmed with frustration. “Oh, Christ!”

The mirror showed another glance from the driver. “Pardon you. Not English, please.”

David drew a deep breath, then exhaled and sat back in the seat, accepting the fact that he wasn’t going to be able to communicate with the driver. “Okay, okay. Sorry. We’ll get there when we get there.”

The driver reached up and adjusted the mirror, and his eyes met Molly’s.

The cab picked up speed.

Ten minutes later it came to a rocking halt in front of a tall apartment building on East Fifty-fourth near Second Avenue.

David and Molly piled out of the cab, David still clutching her arm. He dug a wad of bills from his pocket and tossed them in through the driver-side window. The driver retrieved them from his lap, quickly examined them, then stared after his two fares, who were hurrying to the building entrance.

David heard the cab pull away as he tried to remember the number code Deirdre had used to gain entry. He was good with numbers, and he thought he had it. He deftly pressed the buttons on a security keypad.

There was no result.

He gripped the handles of the thick glass doors and yanked on them, but the doors wouldn’t open.

Then through the glass he saw the lobby elevator door open, and a man and woman dressed up to go out emerged and crossed the tile floor toward the street doors. The man was wearing a white dinner jacket. The woman had on a long violet dress and was carrying a small white purse on a gold chain.

David stood to the side as a shrill beeper sounded, and the man pushed open one of the heavy doors and held it for the woman. The man nodded to him, smiling, then rested a hand on the small of the woman’s back as they walked on.

David grabbed the edge of the door as it started to swing closed.

Inside the lobby, he knew where they had to go. He guided Molly into the small, mirrored elevator and pressed the button for the thirty-fourth floor.

Molly leaned back against the reflecting wall and stood perfectly still.

David throbbed with rage and hope as the elevator ascended like a rocket.

On the thirty-fourth floor, the elevator door opened and Molly and David stepped out. An elderly man carrying a white poodle edged past them to enter the elevator, staring at them curiously as the door slid shut.

Practically dragging Molly, David made his way down the corridor.

She seemed to have figured out where they were now. She knew she was going to enter the place she’d seen on the videotape. Her step faltered, and for the first time since they’d gotten in the cab, she began to display deep fear and hesitancy.

But before she could summon up any resistance, they were at the door to apartment 34F.

David tried the knob. It rotated freely, but the door was locked.

“Okay,” he said softly, “I’m getting good at kicking in doors.”

He backed up a few steps, turned slightly sideways, and raised his right foot.

As he was about to kick, the knob turned and the door swung slowly inward about six inches.

Molly and David looked at each other.

David stepped in front of her, trying to control his fear, and reached out and nudged the door with his hand.

It made no sound as it swung open wide.

Molly’s eyes bulged. David drew in his breath with a gasp almost like a scream.

A very tall, redheaded man was standing a few feet inside the doorway.

He was covered with blood and there was a knife protruding from his shoulder.