The Green And The Gray

16

"So," Fierenzo murmured aloud, parking his fists on his hips as he stood by the iron fence at the mouth of the alley. "This is the place."

There was no answer. Not that he'd expected one, of course. Aside from the usual assortment of trash, the alley where the Whittiers claimed to have been accosted was pretty much empty.

For a minute he gazed over the fence, taking it all in. Alleys were alleys, as far as he was concerned, but this one at least had the virtue of an interesting layout. Three different buildings faced into it, with a six-foot concrete wall along the right cutting off a small courtyard that didn't seem to serve any purpose he could see. A door led from the courtyard into the building on that side, a door the Whittiers' mugger might have found useful if he'd been able to get over the wall.

Of course, if he'd gotten up on the wall, he could just as easily have gone up the fire escape at the back end. Alternatively, he might have made it up the concrete steps beyond the fire escape, gone across the platform that filled the back quarter of the alley, and climbed over the chain-link fence at the far end. Whittier claimed he'd only turned his back for a second, but Fierenzo knew how unreliable witnesses were at judging times and distances.

One thing that was certain was that this whole thing was becoming as frustrating as hell. On the one hand, he had the Whittiers and their wild story, which sounded almost plausible until you started poking at its various corners. On the other hand, he had a collection of equally improbable stories from such diverse sources as the Whittiers' building manager and the cops who broke up whatever the hell was happening in Yorkville last night. On the third hand, he had his own observations, ranging from the strange marks on the Whittiers' trees to whatever had made him drive his car up the side of a lamppost this morning.

And on the fourth hand, he had not a single shred of tangible evidence to tie any of it together.

He shifted his attention to the fence in front of him. The lock on the gate was good and solid, and looked new. A key type, too, which meant it could be picked by someone who knew what he was doing.

"Can I help you?" a deep but courteous voice called.

Fierenzo looked up. A smallish woman was standing on the landing just outside the building to the right, half hidden behind a large black man with the word "Security" embroidered on his shirt.

"Yes," Fierenzo told him, digging his badge wallet out of his pocket and holding it up for the other's inspection. "You have the key to this gate?"

"Yes, sir," the security guard said.

"I'd like to take a look inside," Fierenzo told him. "Tell me, how new is this lock?"

"I put it on Thursday morning," the guard said, pulling a key ring out of his pocket as he came down the steps.

The morning after the Whittiers had allegedly found the gate standing wide open. "What happened to the old one?"

"Someone broke it," the guard said. "Looked like they took a sledge hammer or something to it."

"Did you keep it?"

The other shook his head. "May I ask what you're looking for?"

"Evidence of a possible crime," Fierenzo told him. "Do you mind if I go inside?"

The guard's lips puckered. He'd undoubtedly been carefully drilled in the laws regarding building searches and when and where warrants were and weren't needed. But he'd probably never had anyone ask to inspect his alley before. "You can come in with me if you want," Fierenzo added, trying to smooth over his uncertainty.

"No, I need to get back," the other said, reaching down and unlocking the gate. "Can I trust you not to try opening any of the windows or doors?"

"Scout's honor," Fierenzo assured him. "If there's anything at all, it'll be out here."

"All right," the guard said, pulling open the gate. "I'll be inside if you need me."

"Thanks," Fierenzo said. "By the way, anything unusual happen Wednesday night besides the broken lock?"

The guard shrugged. "I wasn't on duty then, but the night man didn't say anything the next morning. I can get you his name if you want."

"Not just yet, thanks," Fierenzo said. "I'll let you know if I need him."

"Okay," the other said. "Lock up when you're done, please." Turning, he lumbered up the steps, and he and the woman went back inside.

Fierenzo spent the first minute in a low crouch, examining the area around the lock. The lad with the sledge hammer, he decided, had been remarkably accurate. There was a fresh-looking indentation where the previous lock might have been shoved into the metal behind it, but aside from that there didn't seem to be any damage to the gate itself. Straightening up, he went inside, his eyes fixed on the sloping pavement beneath his feet, and walked back to the stone steps.

Nothing.

He walked the route again, eyes tracking slowly back and forth, covering every inch of the ground.

But if there had ever been anything there, the morning's drizzle had apparently obliterated it. He finished back at the gate, then retraced his path one more time down to the bottom of the slope and the black metal fire escape zigzagging its way upward.

He stopped beneath it, shading his eyes against the mist still drifting out of the sky and trying to recall everything the Whittiers had said. They had been accosted on Broadway by a short, wide man with a hacking cough who had stuck a .45 Colt in their faces. He'd brought them here, shown them a girl named Melantha, and told them to take care of her. He'd then handed Whittier the gun and staggered away toward the rear of the alley, disappearing the moment Whittier's back was turned.

And sometime along in there, the dimmed-out streetlights had come back on.

Fierenzo frowned, his thoughts flicking back to when he'd left Broadway and started down 101st Street fifteen minutes ago. He'd been preoccupied at the time with locating the alley; but he vaguely remembered seeing that half a block north...

He left the alley and walked back to Broadway. There it was: a ConEd cherry picker with someone in the basket working on one of the streetlights.

The crew foreman standing beside the truck turned a New York glare his direction as Fierenzo walked up. "You want something?" he asked in a pronounced Brooklyn accent and a tone that made the question a challenge.

"Just a little information," Fierenzo said, holding up his badge. "What's wrong with the lights?"

"Now? Nothing," the foreman said, the glare softening a little. "But we got a bunch of complaints Wednesday night from here down to 86th that something was screwy with them."

"What time was this?"

The foreman shrugged. "Ten, eleven o'clock. Something like that."

Roughly the same time the Whittiers claimed they'd seen the streetlights go dim, then come back on.

"And you're just getting on this now?"

"Hey, like I said, there's nothing wrong with 'em," the other protested, the attitude starting to come back. "Anyway, it took us the last two days to clean up the mess over on Riverside Drive."

"Yes—the big power outage," Fierenzo said, nodding. "That was Wednesday night, too, wasn't it?"

"Yeah." The foreman shook his head. "Hell of a thing. The people up there said the lights went dim, then a couple seconds later blew up like a six-block fireworks show."

"And what do you say?"

"What do you mean, what do I say?" the other retorted. "They blew up, all right. Dim, I don't know about."

"What caused it?"

"Damned if I know that, either," the foreman said. "It was like something overloaded 'em, only there wasn't any sign of something that coulda done that. Mostly, we just checked the cables and brought in a spitload of new bulbs."

" 'Spitload'?"

The foreman shrugged. "The wife wants me to cut back on the language. The kids are starting to pick it up."

"Mm," Fierenzo said. "Thanks."

He turned and went back to 101st. So there was some marginal confirmation to at least part of the Whittiers' story. Unfortunately, it was once again purely anecdotal. If the Whittiers had been up on Riverside Drive, at least they'd have some blown-out bulbs they could point to. Here on Broadway, there wasn't even that much.

He reached the alley and once again headed down the slope. All right. Whittier had said he'd seen what looked like blood on the gun when the mugger handed it over. An injury might explain the staggering he'd also reported; and if the wound was in the man's chest, it could also explain the wetsounding cough.

But if he was bleeding on the gun, maybe he'd bled on the ground, too. Bending low, his eyes panning back and forth across the dirty pavement, Fierenzo went slowly down the alley one more time, wishing he'd thought to bring a Luminol kit with him.

He reached the stone steps without spotting anything. The man's clothing had probably absorbed most of the leaking blood, at least long enough for him to get out of the alley.

He straightened up, wincing at a sudden kink in his back. Time to cut his losses and get back to the more promising thread of the investigation. By now Powell should have tracked down the cab the Whittiers had blown out of Yorkville in this morning and gotten their destination. Turning around, he glanced one last time up at the building beside him.

And froze. There, on the wall, was a faint patch of darkness on the brick, like the mark left by a man with a blood-saturated shirt who had pressed tightly to the wall trying not to be seen.

Only the spot was eight feet up.

Fierenzo stepped back from the wall, shading his eyes against the drizzle. There were more of the stains, smaller than the first and more smeared out, as if the bleeder had been moving up and sideways along the wall.

He swore gently under his breath. Finally, some tangible evidence. Unfortunately, it made no sense.

If the mugger had had a block and tackle setup on the rooftop for a quick getaway, why bother going sideways along the wall? Why bother hugging the wall at all, for that matter? And Whittier's own testimony said the streetlights had been back on by then. How could he possibly have missed seeing someone pressed against a wall twenty feet away?

But logical or not, the evidence trail itself was clear. Assuming the dark stains were indeed blood that had managed to survive the rain, the man had definitely been moving up and sideways along the wall.

Heading straight for the fire escape.

The wall blocking off the tiny courtyard was a good six feet high, and it had been years since his academy days when Fierenzo had routinely had to climb such things. But he wasn't as out of shape as he'd feared, and he made it to the top with a minimum of sweating and hardly any cursing at all.

From there it was a simple matter of hauling himself up onto the fire escape.

There were no bloodstains on the bottom two landings. But then, he hadn't expected there to be. The pattern on the wall had been angling upward, toward the third or possibly the fourth of the seven landings.

He found the expected stain on the third-floor railing: a small one, wrapped halfway around the bar as if the bleeder had barely had the strength to pull himself up and roll over onto the landing. For a moment Fierenzo studied the mark, then crouched down to examine the grating that made up the landing's floor.

He was still searching for bloodstains when he heard a faint noise from above him.

He looked up. There was nothing on the next landing, and the interference between the grating meshes made it impossible to see anything higher than that. But he had definitely heard something.

Moving as quietly as he could on the metal steps, he continued up.

He had passed the fourth landing and was halfway to the fifth when the noise came again. This time it was loud enough for him to identify as a suppressed cough.

For a few seconds he stood still, thoughts of desperate men and shoot-outs flashing through his mind, wondering if it was time to call for backup. But then the cough came again: and this time, he could hear an edge of pain or fatigue to it.

And if he couldn't handle a lone, injured man who'd been out in the cold for three nights, he had no business being a cop in this city. Checking to make sure his Glock 9mm was riding loose in its shoulder holster, he continued up.

There was no one on the fifth landing, or the sixth. He was on his way to the seventh and final landing when he heard the cough again.

Only this time it had come from below him.

He looked down. The fire escape was bars and metal mesh, without a single shred of cover anywhere on it. And yet, unless the mugger was also a ventriloquist, Fierenzo had somehow walked right past him.

He was back on the fifth landing, looking for something—anything—out of the ordinary, when something like a movement at the building side of the landing caught the corner of his eye.

He looked quickly in that direction, but there was nothing there but more mesh and wall. He was staring at the spot when the movement came again, a subtle rippling in the pattern of the building's brickwork. His eyes seemed to refocus themselves....

And there, tucked into the angle between the mesh and the wall was a vague, half-curled-up outline of a human being.

He had no memory later of having drawn his gun, but suddenly it was in his hand. "Freeze!" he snapped at the outline, wondering fleetingly if this was what it was like to go insane. "Police. Let me see your hands."

For a handful of seconds nothing happened, the pause giving Fierenzo time to notice both the irony and the absurdity of his standard cop's command. Show me your hands, he said to the invisible man.... The outline quivered with another cough; and then, like a window curtain being pulled back, the image hardened and solidified.

And there on the landing lay a short, stocky young man, curled around himself against the cold, gazing at Fierenzo with half-hooded blue eyes. His shirt beneath a thin jacket was stained dark with dried blood. "Who are you?" he asked hoarsely.

It took Fierenzo two tries to find his voice. "Detective Sergeant Thomas Fierenzo, NYPD," he said, squatting down beside the man. "Who are you?"

The man's eyes dropped to the gun in Fierenzo's hand, and he smiled weakly. "You won't need that," he said.

"Probably not," Fierenzo agreed, slipping the weapon back into its holster. Judging from the man's drawn face and half-closed eyes it was clear he wasn't in any shape for a fight. More importantly, both his hands were in sight and empty. "What's your name?"

The man took a careful breath, as if still uncertain of the state of his lungs. "Jonah," he said. "Who are you working for?"

"I already told you," Fierenzo said. "The police."

"I mean who are you really working for?" Jonah asked, his face hardening. "Cyril, or Aleksander?"

"My boss is Lieutenant Cerreta, 24th Precinct," Fierenzo said stiffly. "If you're implying—wait a second," he interrupted himself as his numbed brain began to catch the rails again. "Cyril? As in...

Cyril?"

For a moment Jonah stared at him with an expression that made Fierenzo wonder if he ought to rethink the man's threat potential. Then the look faded, and the eyelids half-lowered again. "You're not with them," he said, breathing hard as if the simple act of giving Fierenzo a hard stare had worn him out. "But you do know them?"

"By reputation only." Fierenzo cocked an eyebrow. "I haven't met Melantha yet, either."

He'd hoped dropping the girl's name would spark a reaction. He hadn't been prepared for quite the reaction he got. Jonah's eyes snapped fully open, his throat suddenly tight. "Where is she?" he demanded, his right hand groping to a grip on the lapel of Fierenzo's coat.

"None of that," Fierenzo warned, grabbing the other's hand and starting to pry the fingers away.

Jonah's left hand lifted—

And to his astonishment, Fierenzo found himself looking down the muzzle of the strangest-looking gun he'd ever seen.

"Take it easy," he said quickly, abandoning his efforts to pry Jonah's hand away from his coat. "I already said I haven't met her. I don't know where she is, either."

For a moment Jonah didn't move. His weapon, Fierenzo noted distantly, looked more like an elaborately carved judge's gavel with flattened sides and a shortened grip than a real handgun. But there was no mistaking the purpose of the small hole pointing at the detective's face.

And then, to his relief, Jonah's right fingers loosened their grip on his coat, the hand falling limply onto the landing. "She has to be all right," he murmured. His gun-hand wavered away from the detective's face, opening as he let go of his gun.

Fierenzo was ready, darting his hand down to catch the weapon before it fell onto the landing. But his hand caught nothing but empty air. "I'm sure she is," he said absently, his eyes searching vainly for the gun. Still, with appearing and disappearing men, what was the big deal about appearing and disappearing guns? "Right now, we have to get you to a hospital."

"No!" Jonah insisted, grabbing weakly at Fierenzo's hand as he reached for his cell phone. "No hospital. If you take me there, they'll find me."

"We can put you under police protection," Fierenzo assured him. "You'll be perfectly safe."

"Aleksander will walk right past them," Jonah said wearily. "He'll ask nicely, and just walk on past."

Fierenzo opened his mouth... closed it again. Cyril had walked past the doorman and super in the Whittiers' building simply by asking. Did Jonah think cops would behave the same way if Aleksander showed up and also asked nicely? Apparently, he did.

And he might be right. "You still need medical attention," he said.

Jonah shook his head. "All I need is food and rest."

"What, from that?" Fierenzo countered, gesturing to the blood-encrusted shirt.

"It happened Wednesday night," Jonah said. "If it was that bad, I should already be dead."

He had a point, Fierenzo had to admit. "I'll make you a deal," he said. "If you can get down the fire escape without bleeding, blacking out, or coughing up blood, I'll take you somewhere besides a hospital. Otherwise, it's straight to St. Luke's. Agreed?"

Jonah gazed at the detective a moment, as if weighing the other's trustworthiness, then nodded.

"Agreed."

"Good," Fierenzo said, straightening up and extending a hand. "Let's get you out of the cold."

Jonah was built like a wrestler, and felt like he weighed as much as two of them. Fortunately, once Fierenzo got him on his feet he was mostly able to navigate on his own. They made it down the fire escape, and Fierenzo left him in the alley while he retrieved his car.

"Where are we going?" Jonah asked when they were finally on their way.

"My apartment near Lincoln Center," Fierenzo told him. "My family's visiting relatives in Illinois, so it'll just be the two of us."

"Sounds good," Jonah said. Already his breathing sounded better, Fierenzo decided. At the same time, he seemed considerably sleepier than he had on the fire escape.

And in fact, before they even hit the next street, he was snoring away.

Fierenzo grimaced. Lieutenant Cerreta, he suspected, would have a world-class fit when he found out about this. But if it finally gave Fierenzo a handle on the case, it would be worth it.

In the meantime, he still had the Whittiers to deal with. With a little luck, maybe he would have their set of puzzle pieces in hand by the time Jonah was ready to give up his.

And with a little more luck, maybe the two sets would actually fit together.

Fishing out his cell phone, he popped it open. Time to check Powell's progress with the Whittiers'

cab.