She said into the mouthpiece, "We got here… Sure, he was… Yes, Mr. Flexner, I know it. You want to speak to him?… Fine, we won't be long." She replaced it between them and started up. "Talk about cloak and dagger. You won't believe where we're going."
Deviously, he suggested, "The Trump Tower?"
It made no visible impression. "No."
"Where, then?"
"It's on the West Side."
"You're being mysterious yourself. Is it anywhere I'm likely to know?"
"I shouldn't think so, but it's one of the in places."
He had a depressing image of a trendy nightclub, the sort of venue a wealthy young hotshot like David Flexner might frequent. "Am I dressed all right?"
"Just fine."
She would keep this going indefinitely, and he didn't know New York well enough to pin her down. He didn't like secrecy when he was the one being kept in ignorance. They were heading north, along the Hudson River waterfront. Occasionally they had glimpses of the lights of New Jersey. A diversion sent them away from the river, and they picked up their northward route on 10th Avenue. The Lincoln Tunnel was signposted, but they passed the approach roads and soon after slowed. Joan the driver was obviously counting streets, so Diamond helped.
"Forty-seventh."
"Thanks."
"Which one are we looking for?"
"Forty-ninth will do."
They turned left and tracked the street to its limit, under the girders of the highway. Soon they were back in a dockland area. Presently she turned onto a tarmac stretch between warehouses. Red hazard lights marked the tops of some cranes.
"He's hereV said Diamond in disbelief.
"I told you it was cloak and dagger," she said. She flashed the headlights a couple of times.
A figure came from the shadows of one of the warehouses. "Doesn't look like David Flexner," Diamond commented as if he knew him well.
"This is one of his team," she said, touching the control to let the window down on Diamond's side.
"I hope you'll be waiting," Diamond remarked to Joan as he prepared to get out "I wouldn't want to walk back to my hotel from here."
"I'm in no hurry," she said.
The man stooped to look in. "Mr. Diamond?" The face was unshaven and smelt of liquor. As the face of an executive's personal aide, it wasn't convincing.
Diamond turned to look at the woman who called herself Joan. Even at this stage she returned a level look without a trace of perfidy. If this was a setup-and he now believed that it was-she had played her part immaculately. She'd disarmed him with her poise.
The man outside reached for the door handle. Diamond snapped down the lock.
Joan said, "Why did you do that?" And before she'd got out the words she had released the lock from the central control at her side.
The man outside swung open the door. He was built like the stevedore he probably was.
Joan shrilled, 'Take him!"
Diamond jerked away from the door and made a grab for the steering wheel, whereupon Joan stabbed the sharp end of the keys into the back of his hand. The searing pain weakened his grip. She opened her door and leapt out on her side, yelling something across the quayside.
At the same time the thug leaned inside the car and put an arm lock around Diamond's throat. It was painful and disabling, but it wasn't enough to eject him. He braced his legs to press his back against the seat and groped for the man's face, which was close to his own. He found a handful of hair, but he knew better than to work on that. You go for the eyes and ears.
He slid his hand across the surface of the face, got bitten badly in the fleshy area under his thumb, but succeeded in thrusting the same thumb hard into a fold of soft, moist flesh that could only be the man's eyesocket.
There was a scream and the arm lock loosened.
But there were voices. Someone was shouting, "Get out of my way!"
Something swung in a huge arc towards Diamond's skull. He couldn't duck. He put up an arm a fraction too late. The impact was terrific. His face hit the dashboard and smashed through glass. A second blow crunched into his shoulder. He was lucky to be registering anything.
"You got him," someone was saying.
What now? he thought. Do I come quietly, or play dead?
Someone had two hands under his armpits and dragged him off the car seat. He went limp before hitting the ground.
"Bastard."
Words, he guessed, wouldn't be enough for the man whose eye he had damaged. Two kicks in his kidneys followed. He couldn't stop himself crying out in pain. For this, he got another mighty crack on the head.
He was losing consciousness.
"Grab a leg, will ya?"
He didn't expect to survive. Joan had said this was the "in place" and now he knew what she meant. They were going to dump him in the Hudson River.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
He had swallowed a bellyful of foul-tasting liquid. His eyes were smarting and his nose was blocked. Repeatedly he spluttered and vomited and felt no better for it. Once or twice he opened his eyes and saw nothing. He was aware only of an occasional nudge against his right arm and shoulder. And that he was cold, indescribably cold. Parts of his body must have ached, but the cold subdued every other sensation.
He was face up, most of him submerged.
He remembered nothing. For all he knew, he could be lying in a primeval swamp.
Waiting to die.
A stronger jolt forced his arm across his chest, turning him almost on his side. More of the liquid washed over his face, filling his mouth and nostrils again.
If this was drowning, he wouldn't recommend it as a way to go.
He turned his head and emptied his mouth.
Coughed.
Gasped for air.
Whimpered.
Your strength is going, Diamond. If you don't do something to help yourself, this is where you go under forever.
He flung out his right arm. His hand slapped against a surface slimy to the touch, but solid. He'd hardly begun to examine it when he felt the structure being moved out of reach. He groped for whatever it was and missed, realizing as this occurred that the surface hadn't moved, but he had. As he was towed back to the right, he tried again, made contact and felt for the texture under the slime. Maddeningly, the action of the water rocked him away again.
His brain was beginning to function now. He realized that what he had taken to be nudging was the action of a current pressing him against some kind of obstruction. He pressed his hand hopefully towards it, grasped an object strange to the touch that he let go when he recognized its shape and texture as that of a large, dead bird. Then felt his knuckles come into contact with something smoother, some kind of container, a beer can, perhaps. Mentally he was back in the twentieth century. He was part of the floating rubbish that collects along the banks and shores of waterways.
But there was some reason why the rubbish was trapped here. The current should have carried it downstream. Presumably he was caught against some obstruction.
As his thinking process sharpened, so did the cold-penetrating, demanding to be recognized, persuading him mat it was futile to struggle. Feebly, he reached out again.
His fingers found something that didn't move, about the shape and thickness of a prison bar, only this was horizontal. He held on.
It was securely anchored. Without releasing his grip, he explored the shape, discovering a ninety-degree angle, a shorter length and then, coated with waterweed, the masonry from which it projected. He had found an iron rung attached to a stone structure.
He flexed his arm to draw closer. Then reached over and upwards with his left hand to see if a similar rung was located above the one he was holding.
The hand scrabbled against weed and stone.
Yes. His fingers curled around a second rung.
There was a ladder set into the wall.
But had he the strength to drag himself out of the water? Such an exercise would require an exceptional effort anytime, and he was weak.