The Kills

40

What a fitting place to meet a violent end. The Kills. Much smarter of Hoyt than heading out to the Atlantic, which had been my greatest fear. He probably figured that Mercer Wallace would have marshaled every coast guard boat and NYPD harbor launch in that direction. So vast and far too obvious. I had to give Hoyt credit for his quick thinking.

The green sign posted at the entrance to the waterway saidKILL VAN KULL. I knew there once were "kills" all over Lower Manhattan, a vestige from the Dutch colonization that meant "channels" or "creeks." This one was obviously a viaduct to the shipyards along the Jersey shore, so busy with traffic that no one would give special notice to an innocuous little Whaler weaving among the mix of commercial and sport vessels.

"Why don't you anchor somewhere?" I asked, my voice trembling. "I can call my office and someone can search for whatever it is you want."

"You're not going back, Alex. You know that. And I'm not looking for a plea bargain here. It's very simple. You tell me what I need to know, or you don't. And if you don't, more people will have to die, don't you think?"

He was talking about Mercer and Mike. Hoyt had to kill me, whether I told him what he wanted or not. I knew too much about what he had done. He could still hope the others hadn't figured everything out.

But if he wasn't just going to dump me in the water, on the open seas, he must be figuring to torture me before he finished me off. That's why he chose this route.

There was a small bridge ahead and a sign that saidSHOOTER'S ISLAND. Hoyt opened the deep compartment on the dashboard in front of him, the one from which he had pulled the rope. He lifted something out, a metal tool that looked heavy as he hoisted it and let it fall with a loud clang on the countertop. I guessed it was a wrench.

"So what's your plan?" I asked, sitting back on my heels, my arms bracing me against the side of the boat behind me.

"To find out where you've got it, Alex. A simple piece of paper. That's all I want. Then no one has to get hurt. No one else, I mean."

So Graham Hoyt and Peter Robelon both thought Paige Vallis had the means to legitimize the little gold coin that they both coveted. A legal form, signed by the secretary of the treasury more than half a century ago, that would monetize the Double Eagle. One sheet of paper, smuggled out of Egypt by Paige's father, perhaps, after King Farouk was deposed. The document that together with Queenie's coin would make their possessor a multimillionaire.

Why couldn't there have been two Eagles validated for the great Farouk? An identically matched pair, one of them undiscovered until now? No one had ever been sure of the exact count of the handful of coins smuggled out of the Mint, then or now.

"I meant your plan for me," I said.

Graham Hoyt had studied the lives of the great collectors, the greedy Farouk among them. There were newspaper accounts at the time of the king's lover, the exotic dancer from Harlem. He had schoolmates like Tripping and Robelon, who also knew the legends and the myths of the accumulated treasures. They'd all heard the story of the tutor who didn't want gold or jewels, but who busied himself with Farouk's documents. Then, too, Hoyt must have followed the great auction, the amazing story of a twenty-dollar piece of gold that fetched millions because of the paper that made it legal.

He was slowing the speed as we neared Shooter's Island. There was no sign of any human life ahead. No people around, no one to call out to. It looked like a wildlife preserve.

"Terrible place for an accident," he said, steering with his left hand and picking up the wrench in his right.

"The cops won't buy it. You told your captain I wanted to see the Statue of Liberty, not some goddamn bird sanctuary." I was fidgeting wildly now, trying in vain to make him worry about people doubting why we were here. I glanced at the desolate scrap of land, nestled off the northern coast of Staten Island, New Jersey's border in the distance, and nothing but the Kills behind me.

"Funny thing about that. My captain will probably remember-once I remind him-that when you were on board yesterday I mentioned this little island to you. How curious you were about its spectacular heyday a century ago, when Teddy Roosevelt came here to launch the Meteor III -Kaiser Wilhelm's racing yacht. You asked to see it and I obliged."

"So now you have a problem with the steering, you crash-land on the shore, and I go overboard, which accounts for the terrible crack in my head," I said, pointing at the wrench. "An accidental drowning."

"Save a friend, Alex. Just tell me what Paige gave you, one last time?"

He was maneuvering the boat into place, looking around behind him to make sure that no one was anywhere near us on the wide side of the Kill, far from landfall in Jersey. On my right, the only living things were egrets and herons, surrounded by tall stands of salt-marsh cordgrass.

Hoyt was making his last reconnoiter before, I assured myself, he got ready to use the wrench to torment me into some kind of cooperation.

With my left arm balanced on the side rail, I pulled on the plastic line of the fishing rod that I had found when I cracked my head against it, stowed in its place along the length of the boat. I yanked it until I could grasp the cold metal hook in my right hand. Sitting back on my haunches, I lunged at Hoyt's left hand, ripping the skin with the long, sharp claw of the silver hook.

He screamed, and the wrench dropped to the floor as he reflexively grabbed at his bloody left hand with his right. I stabbed again, catching on a bone in his right wrist this time, doubling him over and bringing him to his knees as he shrieked in pain. A cacophony of birds began mocking him from the island, screeching in reply to his ungodly sounds.

I reached behind me and pulled my feet out of the noose he had made. I looked up and there was blood everywhere. Hoyt had buried his face in his hands and was trying to bite out the hook that was embedded in his wrist.

I didn't know how to stop the boat, which was moving slowly past the tip of Shooter's Island, headed south into the next kill that separated Staten Island from New Jersey. I crawled across the floor and picked up the wrench, striking Hoyt on the back of the head. He collapsed onto the floor and continued to writhe and moan.

Once on my feet, I checked our distance from the small island preserve, which was blessedly close. I sat on the side of the boat, swung both legs over, and, careful to avoid the engine, kicked away and threw myself into the water. I swam the ten feet to shore, startling all the wildlife, and pulled myself up onto land to catch my breath.

I looked back and the boat was still moving, farther away, with no sign of Hoyt at the wheel.

As fast as I could travel in my bare feet, I ran in the opposite direction from which we had come. The brush and rocks were rough on my soles as I tried to pick my way through the under-growth. Bird droppings were everywhere, and my feathered companions squawked and flew off as I invaded their habitat. Gulls circled overhead in protest, and I plugged along as best I could, until I finally caught sight of a tanker coming toward the entrance to Arthur Kill.

My frenetic gesticulations did nothing to stop the larger vessels that passed through the channel, but someone must have radioed to the authorities the sight of a human trespasser on Shooter's Island. Fifteen minutes later, an NYPD harbor launch was steaming at me, and I waded out into the chilly water to greet it.