He did not want to kill anyone. He had Crandall’s .32 in his right hand and Frankie Zeppelin’s .45 in the left-hand pocket of his bomber jacket, but he did not want to use either of those guns to kill anyone. He’d already been accused of killing one person, and he did not want to add to that list the actual murder of yet another person. It was too bad, of course, that the person lying on the roof up ahead was armed with a rifle he’d already fired at Michael.
Because if that person wanted to kill him, as seemed to be the case, then he certainly wasn’t going to put down his rifle and come along like a nice little boy. In which case Michael might very well have to shoot him. Perhaps kill him. The way he’d killed people in Vietnam, where it hadn’t seemed to matter much. Kill or be killed. Like tonight. Maybe.
He suddenly wondered why this person wanted him dead.
Crawling across the snow—closer and closer, keeping his eyes on the man as he advanced steadily toward him, ready to fire if he had to, if he was spotted, if the man turned that rifle on him—the question assumed paramount importance in his mind.
Why does this person want to kill me? And then another question followed on its heels, so fierce in its intensity that it stopped Michael dead in his tracks.
Who is the person they’ve already killed?
The corpse wasn’t Crandall’s, that was for sure, even though Crandall’s identification had been found on it.
But there was a corpse, there was no mistake about that, the police of the Seventh Precinct had found a dead man in the car Michael had rented, so who was that man?
Maybe the man in black over there would have the answers to both questions.
Michael began moving toward him again.
He could see the man clearly in the moonlight now. Forty yards away from him now. Black watch cap. Black leather jacket. Black jeans. Black boots. Black gloves.
Crouched behind the parapet facing the street, hunched over a rifle, Michael couldn’t tell what kind at this distance. Telescopic sight on it. The man suddenly got to his feet.
Michael froze.
In an instant, the man would spot him, and turn the rifle on him.
In an instant, Michael would have to shoot him. But no, the man—
Huh?
The man was taking the telescopic sight off the rifle. He was putting the rifle and the scope into a gun case. He was snapping the case shut. He was, for Christ’s sake, quitting! Giving the whole thing up as a botched job!
He rested the gun case against the parapet. Angled it against the parapet so that the wider butt end of the case was on the snow, the muzzle end up. He reached into his jacket pocket. Took out a package of cigarettes. Lighted one. Nice moonlit night, might as well enjoy a cigarette here on the rooftops overlooking downtown New York. His back to Michael. Looking out over the lights of the city. Enjoying his little smoke. So he’d bungled the job, so what? Plenty of time to get the dumb orange-grower later on.
Unless the dumb orange-grower had something to say about it.
It was not easy moving across the snow-covered roof. Silence was the only advantage the snow gave Michael. He glanced behind him once to make sure Chen was still glued in place and out of sight. He saw no sign of the fat little Chinese. At the parapet, the man in black was still enjoying his moonlight smoke, his back to Michael, one foot on the parapet, knee bent, elbow on the knee. Not five feet separated them now. Michael hoped the cigarette was a king-sized one.
The man suddenly flipped the cigarette over the edge of the roof.
And reached for the gun case.
And was starting to turn when Michael leaped on him.
He caught the man from behind, yanking at the collar of his jacket, trying to pull him over backward onto the snow, but he was too fast and too slippery for Michael. He turned, saw the gun in Michael’s hand, knew that his own weapon was already cased and essentially useless, and used his knee instead, exactly the way Michael had used his knee on Charlie Wong last night, going for the money but coming up a little short, catching Michael on the upper thigh instead of the groin, and then looking utterly surprised when Michael threw a punch at him instead of firing his gun.
Michael went straight for the nose, the way he’d gone for Charlie Wong’s nose yesterday, because a hit on the nose hurt more than a hit anyplace else, even sharks didn’t like to get hit on their noses, ask any shark. The man all in black looked like a sixteen-year-old kid up close, but Michael had killed fourteen-year-old Vietnamese soldiers and this kid’s age didn’t mean a damn to him, the only thing that mattered was that he’d tried to kill Michael not twenty minutes ago. Peachfuzz oval face, slitted blue eyes, a very delicate Michael Jackson nose, which Michael figured wouldn’t look so delicate after he made it bleed, which was another nice thing about going for the nose. Noses bled easily, whereas if you hit a guy on the jaw, for example, with the same power behind the punch, he wouldn’t bleed at all.
The kid slipped the punch.
Ducked low and to the side and slipped it.
Michael’s momentum almost caused him to fall. He grabbed for the kid, trying to keep his balance, clutched for the kid’s shoulders, and that was when the kid got him good, right in the balls this time, square on. Michael dropped the .32.
Caught his breath in pain. The kid was turning, the kid was starting to run for the door of the roof. Michael reached out for him, clutched for his jacket, his head, anything, caught the black watch cap instead, felt it pulling free in his hands, and the kid was off and loping through the thick snow like an antelope.
Michael fell to his knees in pain.
Grabbed for his balls.
Moaned.
Did not even try to find the .32 where it had sunk below the snow some two feet away from him. Did not even try to reach for the .45 in his jacket pocket.
The person running away from him across the rooftop was not Helen Parrish.
Nor was she Jessica Wales.
But she was a tall, long-legged, slender woman with blonde hair that glistened like gold in the silvery moonlight now that it was no longer contained by the black watch cap Michael still clutched in his hands close to his balls.
Maybe he didn’t try shooting her because he was in such pain himself.
Or maybe he’d shot and killed too many women.
In Vietnam.
Where anyone in black pajamas was Charlie.
The roof door slammed shut behind her.
And he was alone in pain in the moonlight.
12
“Are you sure she was blonde?” Connie asked.
She was asking about Helen Parrish.
“Yes, she was blonde,” Michael said.
“But Charlie’s daughter has dark hair.”
“She’s the same person, believe me.”
They were driving toward the address in Charlie Nichols’s book. Judy Jordan’s address. Judy Jordan who was also Helen Parrish whose dear dead daddy was Charlie Nichols. In the bar last night, Helen Parrish had told him she was thirty-two years old. Which was about right if the picture in Charlie’s study had been taken fifteen years ago and if she’d been seventeen at the time. It was very cold outside, driving alfresco this way. The dashboard clock wasn’t working, which came as no surprise in a convertible with a broken top-mechanism. Michael waited to look at his watch until they stopped for a traffic light on a corner under a street lamp. It was almost ten o’clock.
He was very eager to see Miss Helen Parrish again.
The fake Miss Parrish, who was in reality—
Well, that wasn’t necessarily true.
It was possible that Judy Jordan was now married, although in that bar last night Helen Parrish had told him she wasn’t married, wasn’t divorced, she was just single. Well, she’d told him a lot of things. But if she was married, and if Helen Parrish was indeed her real name now, which she’d have been crazy to have given him, then her maiden name could have been Judy Jordan, the girl with the long brown—