The path narrowed a bit and curved gently southwest, aiming for a tunnel that went under the East Drive. As he approached, he could hear the cars humming above and the clip-clop of a horse-drawn hansom cab. At the other end of the tunnel was a circle of light.
But then within the light, he saw something move, a shadow disturbing it, something vertical wavering from side to side. It was a person inside the tunnel, striding toward him. The movement of darkness against light seemed exaggerated, which made the figure appear large and phantasmagoric, like a specter bursting out of a starry well.
Even from a distance he could tell it was a man, and he knew his reaction was crazy — it could be anyone, after all — but Jude retreated. He drifted to the right side of the path, where there were some bushes and a tree, and slipped behind them, moving slowly. He hid, hoping the man had not seen him, and waited, barely breathing. The footsteps resounded against the pavement, getting louder. Seconds later, the figure loped into view as it passed him. It was running, carrying something in one hand.
Jude did a double-take. Something about the man was menacing — his build, the way he carried himself, a look of cruelty. Jude froze in fear. Was that a file folder the man was carrying in his hand? Then, involuntarily, he backed away behind the tree, gliding backward like a shadow. He leaned against the trunk and felt the bark against his hands, not looking anymore but only listening, waiting for the footsteps to fade. It seemed to take a long time.
He waited until his heart stopped thundering in his chest, then stepped back out on the pathway and looked carefully in both directions. No one in sight. He listened — only the whirring of the cars overhead. He took a deep breath, released it slowly, and set out for the tunnel. He ran through it, his footsteps sounding doubly loud to his own ears, and felt a burst of relief when he came out into the blue-black air on the other side.
He decided to keep running and followed the path as it skirted Belvedere Lake and mounted toward the castle way up on a bluff. Just the way Raymond had told him. The steepness of the grade slowed him, but he kept running, not caring now about the noise he was making, wanting only to arrive and find Raymond there. At the top of the rise, he came to a narrow path off to the left, hemmed in on both sides by bushes, just as Raymond had said, and he took it. The path curved and straightened, opening into a small bower with a bench to one side. Raymond was sitting on it in the shadows.
Jude felt the flush of fear leave him, the warming glow of relief. He looked again. Raymond was out of his FBI suit, wearing a suede jacket and a scarf or maybe an ascot. He pretended not to notice that Jude was there, remaining seated.
Jude sat down next to him, caught his breath, was about to speak about the man he had seen. Then it struck him — the odd fact of it, Raymond not talking like this, not moving. He poked him with his elbow. Raymond seemed to stir, rise upright a bit more, then, teetering in slow motion and lunging downward, he fell face forward into Jude's lap. Jude looked down. Not a scarf. It's blood! Raymond's throat was covered with sticky red liquid, and for a moment Jude just stared in disbelief. When he raised the head gently, straightening the body, he pulled his hand away and saw that it, too, was covered in blood. He saw a knife on the ground.
Raymond was dead! He's been murdered!
Jude stood. Raymond's body began to slide again, and he stopped it, propped it back up. He didn't want him to fall on the ground. He wanted him to remain upright in a sitting position. And then he heard a sound in the dark, someone coming behind him on the pathway. He bolted. He ran straight through the woods, into the bushes, past the briars that ripped his sleeve. And when he was out of the underbrush and past another pathway and running across an open field, he turned. And he saw that he was being pursued. A man was just tearing out of the bushes, coming after him. A streetlight cast a funnel of light downward, and as the man ran into it, Jude could see him better, and the sight made panic well up inside him like an explosion in his gut. An Orderly! That hideous whiteness glowed under the light like a snowy top.
Jude darted across the field, flying so fast that his feet barely touched the ground. He did not turn to look behind him, but he knew that the man was still there, still coming after him. The field gave way to a grove of trees, and then another pathway, which he took. He ran so hard that his feet slapped the pavement and began to ache. It seemed to him that he heard an echo of footsteps, the banging retort of his pursuer. He turned and looked. He was right. But the man had not gained on him; if anything, he had fallen behind. He was slower than Jude. This made Jude run even faster.
He came to a waist-high wall of stone that bordered the street, and vaulted it, landing on the pentagonal cobblestones of the sidewalk. Two or three pedestrians looked at him, startled. He ran across Central Park West and down a side street, and just as he turned the corner, he threw a look back. The man had spotted him. He was still coming.
Jude had thought that he would feel safer out of the park, that the sidewalks would be bustling with people. But the side street was riddled with shadows; it was anonymous-looking and frightening. The few people he saw recoiled from him, and he knew they would not help him; he was very much alone. He ran up the street, came to Columbus Avenue. This was a little better, some stores, more lights, bigger sidewalks.
He dashed across the street just as a wall of cars was beginning to move forward, and he instinctively leveled a football straight-arm to hold them at bay. He made it to the other side just in time, past a line of blaring horns. He was totally winded. A door was open, a Korean grocery, and he tore inside, swiveling to look through the window. There on the other side of the street was the Orderly, bouncing up and down, looking for a hole in the traffic. He spotted Jude. The sight made him spring forward onto the street, dodging cars, his arms upraised. He looked lost, confused by all the vehicles speeding by, the horns sounding. He spun around, stepped back just as a car swerved to avoid him, then scooted ahead into the path of another. There was a screech and a thud, a scream.
People mobbed the front of the store, looking out onto the street. The cars stopped, a crowd sprang up out of thin air, a circle of babble. Jude stepped outside. He walked over and waited several minutes, then pushed his way through to the front. A woman in a suit was bending on one knee, holding the wrist of the downed man. Another man was talking into a cell phone, calling for an ambulance.
But it was clearly too late. The figure sprawled on the street, his arms akimbo, was clearly dead. Blood was rushing out from behind his head, a little fountain of red that poured into a widening puddle. It had already reached the woman's shoe, and she replaced the victim's arm upon his chest and stepped back.
Jude stared at the inert body, the feet pointing outward, the puddle of blood. What struck him, what intrigued him, was the face and the head. For the body appeared to be the body of a youngish man. But the face was already wrinkled, like an old man's, and the top of his head, where there once had been a streak of albino hair, was now totally white.
That's why he couldn't catch me, thought Jude.
He's aged.
Chapter 29
Jude was badly thrown by the killing of Raymond. He came back to the Chelsea shaking, and he had trouble telling the story coherently. Skyler had never seen him like that and went down the hall, where some musicians were staying, and came back with a bottle of Jack Daniel's.