Chapter Text
This cannot continue.
Walking through the tunnels to meet Catherine, Vincent shook his head: frowning, dissatisfied. Too raw and blunt, he thought. There must be some more graceful way of phrasing....
We cannot go on as we have. As we are.
He shook his head again: that was no better. It evaded the point, which was not what they were but what they were becoming. To which Catherine seemed altogether oblivious. As was natural. She had no experience of violence, except through him. Except for the first time, of course – the brutal attack that had brought her within his limits... and the compass of the protection he could not help but offer, want to offer, because nothing was more important than that Catherine be safe from all threats, all fear....
Just as, except through Catherine, through the unimaginable, shining fact of her caring, he had no experience of love. Except for Lisa. Which had ended so badly, so truly, so nearly in death; and must therefore never be repeated. Never risk fully waking what slept so uneasily within him; what ever since he’d kept controlled with such grim and continual vigilance.
“What have you told her?” Father had asked, when they’d talked – carefully indirect, even between themselves, even though alone in Vincent’s chamber – of that vigilance, become so much more difficult with Catherine’s closeness, when she’d come Below to mourn her father’s death.
“Nothing,” Vincent had replied grimly, hopelessly. “What could I say that wouldn’t frighten her?”
The red-shifted times when the Other stirred within him were beyond words or beneath them. There were no words to convey what he felt at such times. He called it “losing himself,” but that was an evasion. For it gave no sense of what, in such moments, he found.
Some things, Vincent had found it impossible to put into words. Even for Father; even for himself. Impossible to speak of such things to Catherine. Yet somehow he must.
In the time since he’d slaughtered the two young men – boys, almost – who’d been foolish enough to consider the dark – his dark – a pleasant place to play their murderous games, Vincent had been rehearsing what he’d say to Catherine. For he must say something.
We must not ever hunt together again. That must never again be what we are to one another.
That, he’d discarded immediately, for it opened the raw and never-spoken question of what they were, or could be, to one another. That, too, was beyond words and best left in silence. Without words, they’d agreed to that, he and Catherine. From the beginning, and still.
You must not go into danger any more. You must not need me that way. There is that within me which savors too much what is required... permitted... in rescuing you. It lives for violence. Through violence. It feeds there. It is becoming strong and reckless. It is not safe for you to allow it its food. I am not safe. For myself... or for you.
But he couldn’t say that either. Catherine, like Father, consented to see only what he himself wished them to see. What was fit for their approval, their love. His lapses into darkness, they rationalized, justified, or simply ignored in their kindness. They had faith in him. And he needed that faith to continue to be what they could approve of. To control what slept within him, so lightly now, so easily stirred, so close to full waking.
And Catherine’s life was her own. To spend as she chose. However she chose. Even, to choose another, although Vincent had stopped encouraging her to do so. Concentrating on finding all the joy possible within the limits that bounded him, that bounded them both, Vincent still believed a parting between them was inevitable. But he hadn’t the strength to urge it anymore. Or to contemplate it long, even within himself. Sometime, surely. But not yet, not now! his heart cried; and he let its voice override all doubts, all prudent concerns.
Yet to arrogate to himself, even in imagination, the right to dictate what Catherine might and might not do in her work, or her life, or her love was unthinkable. He must make no claims, demand nothing she might not wish to give, force no choices upon her. Never. All the choices must be hers. In all things.
Nevertheless in the past weeks it’d muttered continually in his mind, hummed in his heart: This cannot go on. We cannot continue like this. For your life’s sake. For my sanity. For our love.
And therefore he must find a way of telling her, revealing the dark undertow and dreadful feral joy the rescues were becoming to him... in truth, to them both.
But perhaps that final revelation, obvious to him within the bond and therefore not even an insight but a plain fact... perhaps that need not be spoken. The fault was in him. Her only complicity was calling it forth. Loving him. There could be no blame in that. The fault was in him. Him alone. And he must finally say it.
Truth cannot be told so as to be understood and not be believed.
Vincent hoped the poet Blake was right in that pronouncement. Because for these last weeks when he’d refused to go to her balcony, that private place that was theirs alone, he’d been weighed down and all but paralyzed by the conviction that he must speak the truth and hope, and dread, he’d at last be believed... even if it meant Catherine would turn from him in revulsion. Even if that disclosure at last convinced her of the ineradicable ugliness within him, beyond ignoring, beyond redeeming or denying, beyond the reach of the innocently blind, loving faith that could see his monstrous hands – furred, clawed, powerful – as beautiful, as hers. Or himself – unhuman, powerful – as beautiful and hers. Even then. Somehow tonight he must tell her and make her believe....
Through the bond that sang of her, within him – quiet in repose, strengthening and then subsiding with the shift of her moods – he’d been aware, since setting out from Father’s study, that Catherine was approaching him as he was approaching her, both converging toward the agreed meeting at the park threshold.
She’d been thoughtful, unhappy at the separation but had respected his need for it, even though she didn’t know the reason. By her happiness, he’d known when she’d opened his note, delivered to her at work today. Now he felt her anticipation and her liking for the quiet, moonlit park. Suddenly his awareness of her flared into startled uneasiness that, the next moment, blazed into dread... and expectation. Catherine was afraid... and wanted him.
Without hesitation, without thought, all uncertainties swept instantly aside, Vincent ran.
*****
The two helmeted bikers, having knocked Catherine to the ground, seemed to be waiting. As, half blinded by the headlights, Catherine got her knees under her, preparing to bolt among the trees, puzzlement cut into her fear. What were they waiting for? Straddling the cycles, the two men bracketed her, gunning their engines, filling the night with the rhythmic roar. But the bikes didn’t move. The men didn’t move.
Then a different roar broke through. Catherine greeted the sound with a burst of irrational happiness – strong and profoundly sweet. No one could hurt her now. Vincent had come.
It was quick, as it always was. Cloak sweeping wide, like wings, Vincent bowled over the first biker. The settling wings mantled and hid what happened then. The other man revved his bike into escape. As the wheels spewed dirt, Vincent lifted his head, rose, and turned – fast, massively graceful – and plucked him off his moving machine. Shoving him against a tree, Vincent disposed of him with two terse swats, left hand and right, and let him drop.
Quick, and now over. The sound of the overturned bikes became a steady purring, like a mechanical satisfaction.
It didn’t make sense.
Quick, gliding, Vincent left the fallen men without another glance and came to her, his gesture urging her toward the culvert.
Scanning for further danger, he said, “Come.”
Quick still, he pulled the lever that slid the sheet steel door shut behind them.
Then it came – the reaction she’d been expecting. He turned to slump heavily against the wall, the wild energy almost visibly fading. It wasn’t fair; she thought and felt that he should have to pay such a price for his courage and championship of her: such a high and radiant gift of protection that always stirred and exalted her in ways she had no words for.
Though the violence was shocking, a brutal eruption alien to his gentle nature, it wasn’t fair that he suffer shame for releasing such feral splendor for her sake. Though he always blamed himself, the violence wasn’t his fault, but that of the attackers who’d provoked it, leaving Vincent no other recourse. There was nothing to be ashamed of in that.
Fierce with her love for him, Catherine caught up his left hand in both hers, gripping tight when she felt him start to pull away. His hand was cold. Wet. Faint tremors ran through it. In the dark of the tunnels she stood looking steadily up at him, throwing her gratitude and her trust against the backlash of self-loathing she knew always claimed him at such times. She felt him turn his head away. But that strong hand that had saved her yet again, that could have easily broken her grip, remained passive within hers, accepting her choice to clasp it, claim it.
“Catherine.” His voice was lower, rougher than usual – as though it were an effort to form words and give voice to them. “They were policemen, Catherine.”
She heard in that comment a distress beyond the predictable sadness. Something very like despair.
He knew as well as she did how forces were mobilized whenever a cop was killed. Thinking he was concerned about the tunnels’ security, given the concerted hunt that was sure to follow this night’s events, Catherine shook her head sharply.
“There have been other deaths in the park, Vincent. No investigation has ever had any reason to look down here. Nobody will now, either.”
Vincent said nothing. They began walking slowly down the tunnel together. She slipped her elbow under his, still holding his hand.
Frowning, Catherine added, “They came after me, Vincent. Knocked me down, and then... waited.”
“But... policemen, Catherine!”
She realized then that she’d misjudged what was upsetting him. A line had been crossed. His own personal line, which separated killing from murder.
Anybody was entitled to defend themselves or those they cared about. But it would be another matter to kill, on whatever provocation, a pair of policemen. To attack the law itself....
She stopped, they stopped, and Catherine released his hand to put her arms around as much of him as she could hold: as fiercely protective of him, in her way, as he was of her, in his.
“They weren’t,” she declared, suddenly certain of it. “Police don’t ride down lone women peaceably walking in the park. I don’t believe it. Whatever they were, they weren’t cops, Vincent. They can’t have been!”
He sighed, and she felt his arms come around her with a tentative clasp. “You know no reason you should have been attacked in that way.”
“You mean, have I robbed a bank or snatched a purse lately?” Another sigh. Maybe a smile it was too dark for her to be sure of.
“They did threaten you… You’re injured, Catherine. Bleeding. I should-”
“It’s nothing. Really. Tore my slacks and ruined a new pair of pantyhose, scraped both hands a little-”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. Should we ask Father-?”
The last thing Catherine wanted to do was involve Father. That would mean explanations, justifications, likely contending with Father’s doubts and disapproval.
“A basin of water is all I need. Really, Vincent, don’t worry, I’m all right--”
Arriving at his chamber, Vincent shed his cloak and lit extra candles. Pouring water from a pitcher into a basin, he silently washed the blood from his hands. Though he made no attempt to hide what he was doing, Catherine knew it was a private moment: he’d be uncomfortable with comment. She turned a chair and sat, trying neither to intrude nor withdraw. Neither look at him too hard nor look away. Letting him be merely a large shape in her mind – comfortable in his company.
Having dried his hands, Vincent filled a small silver dish and, with the gentle solemnity she loved, set about carefully patting a damp cloth over the stinging cuts on her hands, cleaning out the dirt as she tried not to wince too obviously.
Distracting herself with her continuing puzzlement, she stated, “They weren’t policemen. They couldn’t have been.”
Vincent seemed to have accepted her certainty, commenting quietly, “Do you have any idea who might have sent them?”
That was a new, and unpleasant, idea to her. “Do you really think they were sent by someone?”
“Catherine, what happened in the park... hardly seems-”
“-random,” she finished for him, grimly.
He nodded, and their eyes met, sharing the contemplation of that unsettling possibility. Reluctantly, she nodded in turn, admitting it was a possible explanation for an attack otherwise so bizarre and unlikely.
Attending again to her slightly scraped hands, Vincent mused, “Who could have done such a thing? And why?”
Again their eyes met, sharing uneasiness and uncertainty.
“This attack failed. But whoever planned it.... Your knees?” Vincent asked, abruptly changing the subject.
The notion of undertaking the unlovely logistics of getting pantyhose down and pantlegs up under Vincent’s embarrassed inspection wrenched a wry smile from her. “They’ll keep until I get home. Really. I’m not even lame.”
Vincent put the cloth in the dish, and then set the dish aside on his table. He began spreading on her palms clear ointment from a tube he’d taken from a cabinet.
Catherine shut her eyes, caught by a memory of that gentle, soothing touch and all it meant to her. That touch, and the wonderful comfort of his voice, were her first and strongest impressions of him. She’d been blinded by bandages, terrified, in pain. And yet the magic of that voice declaring she was safe and no one would hurt her had commanded her wounded belief. Restored her trust: the deepest of her injuries.
And there could be nothing, she thought, more healing than the touch of his beautiful hands – large, delicate, and sure. Against the brutal and horrifying memories and recurring nightmares of men’s hands striking at her, of utter helplessness and terror, she could set her awareness of Vincent’s touch. All that strength, all that gentleness. Then, as now. It was almost worth having been hurt to be tended so, to receive the gift of such unconditional reassurance, such absolute safety....
She thought she’d begun to love him from that first moment.
She blinked, adding to her memories the strong planes of his face – so familiar now, so loved in their alien, leonine symmetry – and tried to remember how she ever could have found them frightening. She knew she had. But she could no longer remember why.
Finished, he was holding both her hands in a light clasp, studying them. “It’s disproportionate,” he murmured.
“What is?” When he made no response, rising to put the first-aid materials away, Catherine said, “Are you feeling... better now? About what happened... in the theater?”
It was a carefully oblique reference to their final confrontation with the two rich thrill- killers they’d stopped from preying on any more helpless prostitutes. “I was glad to get your note.”
“I know.”
“I’ve missed you,” Catherine offered, wanting to draw him out. Not for the first time, she wished that she could know his feelings as directly as he did hers. Wished she had something more to go on than guesswork and the different flavors of his silences.
But he didn’t come through the conversational door she’d opened.
“Have you been aware, lately, of being followed, Catherine? Have you had any suspicion of...a watch being kept on you?”
“If I had,” Catherine replied, as soberly, “I would never have come through the park. I would never willingly jeopardize our secret, Vincent. Or your world.”
“Of course. I only wonder... why now? Why this night? How could they know you would be in a lonely place and unprotected?”
She touched his wrist, bringing his eyes again to her. “I’m never unprotected.” She meant it gladly, warmly; but his gaze dropped and he turned away.
“Vincent, what is it? Your note said there was something you wanted us to talk about…”
He rose to return the tube to the cabinet and slowly shut and latched the doors.
His broad back to her, he said, “Nothing...of importance, Catherine. When we are apart too long, I sometimes... forget what it’s like, being with you. I have thoughts then that... are of no importance, after all, when you are with me. And safe. And we are together.”
When he turned, his slanted, deep-set eyes were calm and very blue. But his tone of voice was the same as when he’d first mentioned the policemen: horrified, frightened, and obscurely defeated.
Whatever it was, he didn’t mean to talk about it. And Catherine knew better than to try to force one of his silences: in the face of pressure, he merely withdrew. And there were distances within him where she’d never gone, where he’d never invited her. He respected the privacy of her apartment; she accepted his deep solitudes born, she thought, of his lifelong awareness of how different he was. How fundamentally alone.
They tacitly ceded to each other the necessary spaces in what was, she’d come to think, a kind of reciprocal courtesy. Never forcing or even acknowledging the agreed limits, never invading each other’s privacies, in a delicacy and consideration almost ritualized through custom and time – like the motions of a dance. Formal. Ceremonious. Profoundly civilized.
Loving Vincent, she’d learned, was much like holding his hand in the tunnel: she could hold on only as long as he was willing to be held.
When he was ready, when it was time, the words would come. Catherine was used to waiting.
*****
Bernie Spirko pitched his cigarette, royally pissed off at himself. Something really major and really weird had gone down here, and he’d missed it. Even tipped off in advance, he hadn’t bothered to bring his camera; he’d been so sure it was just another dingbat call, another scam. Of course he’d come – skeptical or not, he always went – but he’d missed it: two cops down, hog jockeys: practically ripped apart, blood splashed across the freshly greening grass, two in the goddam AM, and nobody had a clue. News with a capital NEWS, and he’d missed it all.
He prowled the floodlit hillside, among the milling cops, looking for a chance to latch onto Shivarelli from Forensics, maybe get a good quote, an attributable speculation. Sandy-headed, sharp-faced boyish, and slight, notepad open in one hand, micro cassette recorder holstered in the pocket of his flapping trench coat, pausing, bowed, a second to shield the flame held to a fresh cigarette and then pacing on, Spirko restlessly patrolled his rightful range: inside the yellow tape of the police crime-scene barrier but on the fringes of the action, never making quite enough nuisance of himself to get ejected back among the civilians.
Cops tolerated reporters because they were all after the same thing: they wanted the truth.
Spotting a flashing different from that of the rotating bubblegum machines of the squad cars, Spirko gravitated in that direction. Martinez, the crime-scene photographer, doing his thing. Spirko hung around casually through that cigarette. As he started to light another, Martinez finished doing all the angles on the second victim.
To open conversation, Spirko remarked, “Nasty stuff.”
Martinez didn’t look pleased to see him. “How’d you beat the meat wagon, Spirko?”
“Lucky guess.”
“Yeah,” Martinez responded sourly - not really skeptical, because after awhile, cops didn’t believe much of anything anybody said. Cynicism. Occupational hazard.
Turning, Spirko fell into step with the larger, older man. “So. What’s my story?”
“You tell me.”
“A bear from the Bronx Zoo who’s got a thing against cops,” Spirko suggested.
“Hey, not bad. Only these guys weren’t cops.”
Startled, Spirko put a hand out, stopping the man. “What? Talk to me, Jesse.” Raising a pointing finger, another kind of hold, Spirko demanded, “What happened here?”
Martinez shrugged. “How should I know? And even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you.”
Spirko let the crack pass, casual again. Patient. “Listen. Jesse. My Instamatic busted. I could use a good negative for tomorrow.”
“You know I can’t do that,” responded Martinez primly.
“Who’s gonna miss one lousy snapshot?”
“Come on, Spirko!” Indignant as a cheerleader the first time somebody asked her price. The usual scamming. It made Spirko tired.
Pointing again, Spirko said, “I got tickets. For the Knicks game. Night after tomorrow. Tenth row, on the floor.”
Martinez smirked. “I don’t follow basketball.”
“You will in these seats,” Spirko promised.
Playing the injured virgin scenario all the way out, Martinez started walking away. “Can’t do it, Spirko.”
“Why not?” asked Spirko reasonably. “It didn’t stop you the last time.” Martinez turned. His lined face tightened. “That was different.”
Spirko shrugged broadly. “Not to the captain, it wouldn’t be.” Pulling out the tickets, Spirko strolled closer. “Why don’t you just...take the tickets and make it easier on both of us?”
Not even bothering to scowl, Martinez took the tickets, conceding the game. Spirko clapped him on the shoulder, turning as the morgue ambulance pulled in – no siren, no flashers revolving. There was no rush. They’d all missed it, whatever it’d been.
*****
The city desk editor, yawning, had promised Spirko that if he was fast, he could have a good chunk of the front page to himself, above the fold – especially if he could come up with a scenic picture.
There’d be a picture, Spirko promised. And he could be fast.
Most of the morning edition had been locked in and put to bed. In the nearly deserted newsroom, Spirko jerked his tie loose, settled at one of the unoccupied terminals, and started chain-smoking and keyboarding his taped preliminary notes into the traditional pyramid arrangement, from most to least important, so the city desk editor, with his electronic scissors, would have something to cut out and feel useful.
One call came, announcing a courier’s delivery of an envelope. Spirko said, “Yeah, shoot it to Rourke,” and hung up, knowing that would be Martinez’s promised negative. He didn’t need to look to know it would be what Rourke, the photo editor, called “scenic,” with a good view of the vics and the wounds. Martinez might be a jerk, but he was a reliable jerk. Like a good politician, when he was bought, he delivered and stayed bought. No double-crossing.
Checking his watch, Spirko broke off then to phone a contact he’d cultivated in the precinct house. Bingo. Fingerprints had given them a make on the two vics: one was Frank Summers (two Ms), 28; the other was Claude Oakes (with an E), 31. Both had rap sheets. Local strong-arm stuff, no known mob connections: your basic rent-a- beating for loan sharks and bookies that handled the rougher trade. Not cops, but hardly civilians, either. Your garden variety muscle, low-level street soldiers who’d never come up with a scam like prowling the streets in cop gear, on expensive choppers, on their own hook. They’d been weapons: bought, paid for, and aimed. But at what? And why? And precisely what goddam buzz saw had they run into in the middle of Central goddam Park?
Stripped of the technical language, Summers’ throat had been torn out. Oakes had died of massive blood loss from “wounds of an unknown nature.”
Spirko inserted the new information at the head of his story, right after the lead, and then went on keyboarding as his recorded voice mused, As though an animal did it. What do you know about animals, Spirko? He stopped, thoughtfully squinting at the smoke drifting into his eyes, as the recording went on, I know what I see. Look at the faces on these people! No one knows what the hell is going on here.
He didn’t know either. But he was damn well going to find out.
He was just putting the final tweaks and tucks on his story when the switchboard, having figured where he was, routed another call to him. Eyes on the screen, scowling, he tucked the phone against his shoulder.
“Spirko.”
“I’m prepared,” a man’s voice began, and Spirko juggled the receiver to get his recorder close enough to the mouthpiece to pick up, “to give you a second chance, Mr. Spirko.”
“Okay, you got my attention, Mister...?”
“Names aren’t important,” said the voice tonight’s events had elevated from the status of loony tipster to serious source. A rough voice, Spirko thought: like an educated dockworker making nice for the cameras. He’d heard that voice before, somewhere, somewhere.... Meanwhile the source was continuing, “I’m willing to meet with you. Tonight.”
“Right.” Spirko checked his watch. “How about five?”
“You take me too literally. This night’s play is over.”
“How about noon? We could do lunch. My treat.”
Laughter that sounded like a cough. “I don’t think so. Tonight. As I said.”
If the guy was scamming, it was a bigger scam than Spirko was used to running into. Highly unsmart, he thought, to try to finagle the little stuff, the small details. That would just annoy the guy, convince him Spirko was small potatoes, not up to being given a view of the Big Picture; the source might (God forbid) go someplace else, and there went Spirko’s dreamed-of Pulitzer, right along with him.
Besides, Spirko wanted to know.
“You got it,” Spirko replied in his best no-nonsense, businesslike tone. “Name the place and time.”
“Sutton Place, 666. The penthouse. You’ll be expected. Nine o’ clock.”
As Spirko was saying, “Right,” the line went dead. Not much into politeness, was Mr. F. X. Source.
A penthouse on Sutton, that was beyond high rent; and that voice was used to being listened to, like when he said jump, he knew everybody in range was going to hop without even asking how high? And Spirko knew that voice. A news voice. Something political, maybe. Or maybe even mob, though the vics’ rap sheets hadn’t shown any linkup. Money, Spirko thought, and power. And maybe muscle. Which adds up to what? Which adds up to being very, very polite. And very, very careful.
Five minutes later, he transmitted his story to the editor’s desk for review. Forty minutes later, in the grey dawn, the first papers hit the street with the sixty-point front page screamer WHAT DID THIS? over Bernie Spirko’s byline.
*****
Catherine rose early to have time to buy a paper. Counting out the change for the news dealer took effort, thought. No more than a glance at the headline and the dark rectangle that would surely be a graphic picture was enough to make her instinctively fold the paper double and clutch it tightly. Enough to make her feel tense and exposed. But not enough to dim her determination to find out, both for herself and for Vincent, how much of last night’s ugly mystery had been unraveled. She had to know.
Glancing around, Catherine spotted a coffee shop. Taking a booth, she ordered coffee she didn’t want because that would be safe, unremarkable, normal. People went to coffee shops in the morning and read newspapers there. Whereas a well-dressed woman intently yanking her way through a tabloid, frozen on a street corner and oblivious to passers-by, would have been conspicuous. Different. Dangerous.
The idea of the paper offended her. As a socialite, she’d been enough in the public eye and in the news – even the tabloids – to know how to maintain a seamless, impenetrable public front. She also knew how precious privacy was and how difficult to safeguard. One of the worst horrors of the original attack had been the voracious media attention afterward. “Feeding frenzy,” her father had called it wryly, trying to make a joke of it, trying to protect her from as much of it as he could. But there was a limit to how long one could hide. Like anything painful, the best thing to do was face it immediately and get it over with. Face the press, scars and all, and tell them bland generalities; but never, never, expose your inner life, your true fears and hopes. Because you’d be vivisected. Flayed alive. In public. For people ghoulishly eager to batten on the most intimate details. Whether their response was pity, disgust, or cruel glee at the misfortunes of the social elite, it was equally scathing.
She’d had nightmares about it for months afterward – like the most intense, hellish version of the common dream of finding yourself out in public, stark naked, with people pointing at you, laughing at you. Being absolutely and helplessly vulnerable.
In her work with the DA’s office, she used publicity when she had to. But she loathed and feared it. Stories about her or clips from TV exposure--they didn’t call it exposure for nothing--always left her feeling obscurely guilty of having been seen. Delicate private matters automatically became grotesque when thrown into the glare of public scrutiny. Like being put on display in a freak show. Intolerable. People didn’t understand.
Keeping the secret of the tunnel community’s existence had been for her both supremely difficult and the easiest thing imaginable. Withholding so much of herself from her father, from close friends like Jenny, Nancy, Joe, had been painful, a kind of lying by omission about what had become the most important part of her life. The silence had put an irrevocable distance between her and them. The secret had isolated her. But for the rest, she’d merely added it to all the other precious, private things she concealed with the sort of practiced bland ferocity characteristic of royalty. She concealed Vincent as she concealed herself... because the alternative was death.
Nevertheless she’d bought a paper. And intended to study it down to the last smeared syllable, the smallest photographed detail. She had to know.
She’d just opened the paper to confront the garish headline, WHAT DID THIS? when a familiar voice said warmly, casually, “Hi, Cath.”
Somehow she didn’t flinch or jump, looking up calmly. Leaning against the booth’s coat- rack post was a handsome, bearded man with shrewd laughter-wrinkled pale blue eyes, dark hair slightly longer and wilder than was modish, above a crisp collar and an impeccably tailored grey business suit. His bodyguards stood sentry back by the door, like a couple of fullbacks trying to be inconspicuous.
“Elliot,” she greeted her onetime fiancé, present suitor, and most dangerous topside friend.
Unlike Joe Maxwell, her boss, Elliot now knew the tunnels existed: some weeks ago, she’d led him through the outer passages to save both their lives. Unlike Joe, Elliot had heard and wondered at certain... sounds: Vincent preventing the Gorronista death squad from pursuing them down through the manhole. Unlike Joe, Elliot knew there was someone supremely important, supremely loved, in her life. Someone whose existence meant Catherine Chandler could offer him nothing but wary, half-grudged friendship.
Amoral urban pirate Elliot, whom she trusted and didn’t trust at all, whom she felt safe with and who therefore put her rigidly on her guard, whose kiss had not been altogether unwelcome, as they both knew....
Confident of his welcome, he slid into the booth opposite, smiling.
Smiling back, tense, Catherine remarked, “This is the last place in the world I’d expect to find you.”
His smile broadened, self-mocking, showing lots of even, square, capped teeth: the best that cosmetic dentistry could provide. His voice adopting a rough dem, dese, and dose street accent, he responded, “What d’you mean? I’m an old aficionado of greasy spoons.”
Not magnate/developer Elliot Burch of the calculated press conferences, the fabricated public persona; it was Stosh Kazmarek, the garbageman’s son – the vulnerable private persona known only to her – which that voice offered. Not slumming, any more than she was, it implied. Just a couple of old pals accidentally running into each other in a third- rate diner. Sure, Elliot: we’ll just ignore the bodyguards, Catherine thought sardonically – tolerantly amused, in spite of herself, by his easy, self-deprecating pretense. Elliot was a four-star shark. And her friend. She shook her head ruefully.
“Really,” she said dryly. Sobering, she asked, “Why are you here?”
“I just wanted to see you, Cath.”
His sincerity, behind the entire pretense, made her uncomfortable. He loved her. He did love her. And they both knew it. Her eyes turned aside. “Elliot.”
“I just want you to know I’m here for you. Waiting.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want you to wait for me.”
Earnest, endearingly awkward, Elliot responded, “Cathy, I don’t want to wait either. But the way things seem to be, I don’t have much choice. I mean, you said to me there’s somebody else in your life. I can’t do anything about that.” Almost, it was a question. And it waited a breath for answers, explanations, that didn’t come. He added, “And I can’t change how I feel about you.”
Another waiting pause followed. Catherine felt the weight of sadness, from that ungiving silence, growing in her face. And surely Elliot saw it. His face closed, unreadable. Without another word or glance he rose and left, his exit flanked by his bodyguards with almost military precision.
Catherine sighed, reflecting that Elliot was a master. He’d succeeded in making her feel guilty, if not precisely sorry, for not confiding in him. Not loving him. Using his own real pain as a weapon to jab at her, unerringly finding her vulnerabilities and rousing her compassion. Dangerous.
Steeling herself to open the paper again, she froze, realizing the true incongruity of their meeting in such a place. She’d come here on impulse, to hide. And within five minutes, Elliot had shown up with the plain intention of renewing his suit, under guise of concern. Impossible that it should be a coincidence.
He’s having me watched! And he doesn’t care if I know it. Maybe wants me to know! A warning? Or a threat? And why now: because of what he found in the paper this morning? Because he knows about the park threshold? Because he suspects there’s a connection? Or because he knows there is? Whatever Elliot is, he’s no fool. What have I done? I knew it was a risk to lead him through the tunnels, but I saw no choice. Did I risk too much? Have I put everything – Vincent – in danger? Does Elliot think that if his rival were removed, I’d love him then? Oh, Elliot, what terrible game do you think we’re playing here? How could imagine anyone would win?
Gripping the paper, she stared at it unseeingly. I’ve been careless with the trust I’ve been given. I have to tell Vincent. Warn Vincent. Tell Vincent- She scanned the lead paragraphs. – that I was right: they weren’t policemen. And that he was right: someone must have sent them. Oh, what I have I done?
*****
Penthouse, in the house on Sutton, only meant the fourth floor. But stratospheric floor numbers weren’t as impressive as the setup Spirko found himself walking into. Nobody at the front door barred with a decorative grill, but unlocked. Doors in the large foyer but not doorbells, all locked except for the middle door that proved to be a brass-sheathed elevator with only one button you could push. Leaving his rippled, golden reflections, Spirko wandered uneasily down a hallway with a carpet you could lose your feet in to the ankles. What he assumed was antique furniture, scattered around as though it was common as dirt. Sculpture. Carved stuff. Along the white walls, lifesize oil paintings of women with powdered hair and snide, constipated expressions; at the foot of a short mahogany stair he descended, a bigger portrait of a snarky looking guy with a pointed grey beard and a ruff.
In spite of himself, Spirko felt definitely out of his league: knowing it was all scam, head games to intimidate him, but uneasy because it was working. This junk was genuine. People actually lived like this. He didn’t like the set-up.
Reflexively, he fished for a cigarette.
In front of him, a pair of etched glass doors stood slightly ajar. Through them he could see a large, dark room and the silhouette of a man seated behind a large desk before a window with lots of small panes. Some street light penetrated the sheer curtains. Off to one side was a lamp, too dim and too far to do any good. The man remained a black outline.
Edging nervously inside, Spirko turned and gestured at the door, feeling forced to make excuses for his intrusion.
“The door was open….”
The man’s voice – a flat, unfriendly monotone: deliberate, controlled – responded, “Sit down. You’re late.” As Spirko approached and took the fancy interviewee’s chair in front of the desk, the man added, “Your cigarette, please. The smoke bothers me.”
Not a request: an order.
Glancing around for an ashtray, Spirko found none and obediently stubbed the cigarette against the sole of his shoe, thinking resentfully, More damn head games. But he kept the anger off his face. He’d put up with worse, to cultivate a source.
“You were also late, last night.” The man wasn’t exactly accusing: more stating a fact, like maybe, after that lapse, he’d decide not to hire Spirko after all.
Spirko wasn’t hunting a job, didn’t have to make nice to this bozo, past a certain point. Past a certain point, he didn’t crawl or back off for anybody. But he kept his tone pleasant, placating. “Hey, I got there as soon as I could. Not every guy that calls me is on the level.”
The man leaned forward the folded his hands, showing the cuff of a suit jacket, a little sleeve. But Spirko still couldn’t see anything of his features. The man said neutrally, “And you’re convinced at this point that I’m on the level.”
Spirko made a face and a dismissive Who: me? gesture. “Sure.”
“Had you arrived at the park...sooner, you would have seen something extraordinary.”
“Like what?”
“Patience, Mr. Spirko. You’re only at the very beginning.”
There was a silence Spirko broke, asking, “Do I get to see you? Or are we just gonna sit here in the dark?”
“My one and only condition is that I remain anonymous.”
“And if I refuse?”
“You’re a fool.”
Spirko smiled. “My editor won’t print the story without a verifiable source.”
“Which is why I won’t be your source. I’ll give you the information. But you’ll have to discover the truth yourself.”
Finger pointed for emphasis, Spirko pushed out of the chair. “Either you show your face, or I’m walking.” He could play head games too.
He’d gone about two steps toward the doors when the man’s voice said sharply, “Spirko.”
He stopped. Looked slowly around.
The man said, “You were chosen with great care... for your tenacity. For your singular character. I don’t think you could walk away from this story if you wanted to. Now, sit down.”
Everybody was a scammer. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. His bluff called, Spirko returned to the chair.
“Take out your notebook,” the man directed. Spirko produced his pocket recorder with something of a flourish, displaying it as he clicked it on.
Settling to talk, the man said, “The pattern of killings began about two years ago. It’s a gruesome pattern of evisceration, throat puncture wounds, and deep slashings. The victims are generally left to bleed to death.”
Spirko put in intently, “Then last night... wasn’t the first time?”
“Nor will it be the last.”
Spirko smiled: finally, they were getting to something interesting. “You’re saying... you know the killer?”
“Not... exactly. But I know why he kills.”
“Why?”
Pause. “To protect someone.”
Another pause. It was as if the guy expected Spirko to extract the details one by one with tweezers, like shrapnel. Or to pay to see each card, like stud poker. A worse tease than a stripper.
Playing the game, Spirko prompted obligingly, “Who?”
“A beautiful woman. A very beautiful woman.” For a second, there was feeling in that voice. Lingering over those words.
Factual again, the voice continued, “She’s the key. You find her; she’ll lead you to the killer.”
“What’s her name?”
Still playing games, making Spirko push for every fragmentary glimpse, the man said, “She’s... an assistant district attorney.” Finally, the source decided to say something straight out: “Her name is Catherine Chandler.”
*****
The spring was not yet far enough advanced to retard the twilight, that still came early even to the tallest buildings.
Having waited for some time in the broken brick passage below Catherine’s building, Vincent climbed to her balcony even though it was not yet fully dark and though he knew she had not yet returned home. Sometimes, as today, it was an agony not to be able to go to her, not to feel her close. Sometimes he hated the daylight that kept him from her.
He paced restlessly, for once insensitive to the thousand diamond lights coming on in the high buildings across the park, trying to concentrate on Catherine nearing and not knowing how much was his true sense of her and how much, wishful thinking. Agitated himself, he found it difficult to distinguish her troubled emotions from his own.
Through the glass of her French doors, he heard the slight sounds of her key in the lock, the hall door opening. He turned, backed a step, to be out of view if anyone had accompanied her; but no lights came on, inside. A moment later the French doors were flung wide and Catherine threw herself into his arms, exclaiming, “Vincent. I hoped so much you’d be here!” Abruptly stiffening, she swung away, continuing distractedly, “We can’t stay here, someone might be watching-”
Vincent let himself be towed a step before realizing she meant to pull him inside. Beyond the doors. Into her apartment. He stood fast, and Catherine spun around at the end of her extended arm.
“Vincent--it’s not safe!” she protested.
He knew far better than she where the danger lay. There could be no compromise. Still holding her hand, he settled cross-legged on the tile flooring, where the balcony’s outer parapet would be concealment. After a moment, Catherine knelt down beside him, even though still in her working clothes, high heels, garnet-red skirt settling in lovely soft folds around her....
For several minutes they sat silently, all other concerns shed in the many-layered communion of being together. The bond made and kept him continually aware of her from minute to minute. Always his sense of her underlaid every waking moment and slid, below consciousness, into his dreams, as well. But being with her, touching her, brought an intensity of awareness that the bond alone could not grant him.
Feeling her immediately begin to relax, sensing her happiness and knowing he was the cause, knowing each word and each touch would bring a response from her, always filled Vincent with thankfulness, humility, and a deep, peaceful joy. Her presence was his greatest delight and his heart’s home.
There were no other places. There was only here, and away from her. There was no other comfort except to hold her and feel her breathing and alive and happy within his embrace.
“All day,” he said at last, “I have felt your disquiet, Catherine.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I make it hard for you sometimes, don’t I?” Not waiting for an answer, Catherine went on, “But I was right, Vincent: they weren’t policemen. Two hired thugs.”
“I know.” Explaining, Vincent said, “A helper sends down newspapers. For Father. And Father, in turn... called my attention to the item.” As Catherine looked him steadily in the eyes, almost certainly visualizing that conversation, Vincent felt obliged to defend Father: “He is naturally concerned, Catherine. For me. For us. The park is so close for such an... incident. He fears anything that might call attention to our world.”
“Naturally,” Catherine said in a neutral voice, trying to mute her answering resentment of Father’s anxious concerns. Vincent gathered her closer and was glad when she settled more comfortably, peaceable against his chest.
“But your unrest has only deepened,” he commented. “What else have you learned?”
She brushed back the veil of her honey-colored hair, still winter-dark, lacking the sun- streaks with which summer would gild it. What a wonderful thing, he thought irrelevantly, to have in his mind all the seasons of her hair. To have had the gift of so much time....
“Nothing,” Catherine declared, constraint renewing. “I thought.... I had a suspicion this morning. But it’s nothing, Vincent. There can’t be anything to it. Because…” She bit her lip, choosing words carefully. “Because I was hurt last night.” She displayed her reddened palms, whose scrapes and scabs were still visible. “Not severely. But hurt. And the person I suspected... would never do that. I know that. Once I’d thought it out, I knew I’d been wrong. But it’s possible... someone might be watching,” she finished in an unhappy, worried voice. As though it might be her fault, her doing.
Vincent held her silently for a few moments. Glad merely for that. Letting the peace again enfold them both. Presently, quietly, he observed, “You’ve seen Elliot.”
She flushed. “How did you know?”
“I know your feelings toward him. I... noticed.” He didn’t say the obvious, that it’d been Elliot whom she’d suspected. He felt there was no need. Nor did he ask what Elliot had said to her, wanted of her. That was Catherine’s private affair. Unless, of course, she chose to volunteer it, share it....
“I think,” Catherine said slowly, “he knows just enough to make him... uneasy for me. I think he came... to offer his concern, more or less. Maybe even his help, if I was willing to ask for it. Which I wasn’t. He knows I have secrets, but he’s never pressed me about them. He’s respected my privacy.”
“Which our bond leaves you little enough of,” Vincent commented, without emphasis.
“Vincent--”
“I know it’s hard for you sometimes,” Vincent went on, knowing the instant she realized he’d repeated virtually her own words of a moment ago. Feeling her smile, seeing her sharp, mock-accusing glance.
Then she sobered, meeting his eyes with that direct grey-green gaze that always stole his breath and made him feel, for an instant, as though his heart had stopped. And she said, “Sometimes it’s awkward. I never want to hurt you. Sometimes I forget how much... how much you’re with me. Always. But there’s nothing about me I’m truly afraid for you to know, Vincent.”
Leaning back against the parapet, Vincent looked upward; but it was still too early for stars to pierce the city’s half-light haze. Or perhaps tonight there would be no stars: he could smell rain on the wind.
“One cannot foresee everything,” he commented quietly. “And plans go awry. Certainly those men, last night, never expected to encounter... me. That surely was not part of the plan, at least as they knew it. Is it possible, Catherine, that the plan might have gone awry in another way, as well? Might it be that their instructions were to overtake and frighten you and that... they exceeded their instructions? In the heat of the pursuit? That they were told to stop you and were not overcareful how they did so? Might the intent have been more in the nature of a warning... than a true attack? For the outcome was... disproportionate, Catherine. They had guns. They had not even drawn them. I have thought about that today. Whether my reaction was... disproportionate.”
As Catherine turned within his arms, to see his face more clearly in what, to her, would be dimness, Vincent explained, “Father pointed out to me... how many such... incidents there have been, of late. How strong my... fear for you has become, and how often it has proved justified. How closely I attend to what I feel of you, within, so that I am often inattentive to what is about me, what I’m doing. The children have remarked on it, Catherine. They find it amusing, when they must repeat a question three or four times before I can notice and respond. Father finds it... less than amusing. I am in a constant state... of expectation, Catherine. Anxiety. And therefore perhaps I magnify, exaggerate, any sense of threat I feel. Perhaps... what I do... has become disproportionate. I cannot judge. I’m too close to it. When I feel your fear, it’s as if... I cannot think, I cannot choose. Your fear, my fear, fills me and leaves room for nothing else. And I simply strike out. They were not police, Catherine. But I didn’t know they were not. I didn’t care. In that moment, it didn’t matter to me who they were. I simply struck them down. I’ve thought about that today, as well. Father... is concerned for me. And I have no answer for him.”
Catherine settled back, thinking, cheek against his chest. And after a time she said, “Those men meant me harm, Vincent. They didn’t just knock me down. They knocked me down... and then waited. I don’t understand it, but I’m certain. We were right to be afraid. It wasn’t... disproportionate.”
Vincent sighed. He’d almost found a way of saying it – what must be said. And yet hadn’t said it. Catherine had found no revulsion in his almost-confession. He breathed the sweet scent of her hair. “Please, Catherine. Be very careful. I cannot always come to you. You could be hurt... so quickly. Or in daylight. Where I could not reach you. The fear of that haunts me. Please.”
For answer, Catherine lifted one of his hands. As he watched, suspended, she pressed a kiss against it – affirmation, a pledge. Affirmation of what, a pledge of what, his whirling senses couldn’t interpret. It was a moment before he realized the shock of cold against his hot face was thin, chill rain, drifting down.
Awkwardly abrupt, trying to rise and at the same time help Catherine in rising, he said, “I should leave--”
“No, Vincent. Stay. But we can’t stay here. Come in. Please.” Vincent was astonished, shaken.
Except for once, carelessly, when he’d visited her balcony injured, long ago, Catherine had seriously asked him in only once. Months ago: the second anniversary of their meeting. A ceremonious occasion, for which she’d prepared a special meal, a fire, and decorations. Difficult to refuse. Or to want to refuse. And he’d almost gone, would have gone in spite of his misgivings, had not the phone interrupted them. And he’d backed away with a sense of reprieve, that that perilous boundary remained uncrossed. And he’d felt the same relief in her. And so had been unsurprised that in the time since, she’d never renewed the request, the invitation. For beyond that boundary, everything between them would become profoundly unsafe.
Though he’d told her nothing, or next to nothing, of his fears and his desires, nothing of the heated dreams that came more frequently now, she knew. Knew enough to have tacitly cooperated in maintaining the safe, accustomed distances, not risking the precious much they had for the cloudy more neither of them could be certain of – the distances, and the cautions, that were hers as much as his. Never spoken, so never acknowledged. But always there.
It frightened him now, how much he wanted to go in. It was as if his thinking blurred, or became something other than thinking. The lingering scent of her hair, the light contact of her fingers upon his wrist, the memory of her lips pressed against his hand, filled all his awareness so that no room remained for any other consciousness. For a moment all the care and careful distances became senseless to him and Catherine became everything: beckoning, warm, accepting.
Softly, prosaically, she said, “It’s raining, Vincent.”
And suddenly the rain shocked him again, as though he’d been elsewhere or asleep and had just reawakened to the fact of it, the bodily experience of it. Catherine will be cold, he thought. And still didn’t move, looking past her at the French doors, still standing ajar. And at the shadowy private space beyond those doors.
The apartment seemed suddenly like a cave filled with dangerous, alluring possibilities. It became like looking down from some roof at the street far below and wondering for an instant how it would feel to fall – imagining the rush of air, the terror, the wondrous sensation of flying....
It felt as though they were an immense distance apart and rushing together at great speed. He could feel it in her too, the beat of her blood. Falling into one another and trying to believe the flying could go on forever, yet both dreading and desiring the shattering collision.
Catherine’s eyes were caves, too – dark, enormous, with depths in which he’d be utterly lost and it would all feel like flying. There was rain on her lifted face. On her lips. In the hollow of her throat a wet shadow gathered.
He wanted to taste that wet darkness. Drink of it. Head tilting, he drew her nearer, bending. And felt, against his back, the edge of the parapet. And remembered suddenly where he was... and who he was.
The hunger, denied, had grown explosive. Monstrous. Dangerous. Full of hardened layers of rage. A lifetime’s starvation demanding to be fed, caring nothing about how it fed or what became of its prey in the feeding. Something that knew only violence, did only violence. An ugly, animal hunger that was the abysmal opposite of love. Which any woman would reject in horror. And which must therefore never be allowed to touch Catherine.
It had no place here.
This was the balcony. Their place, his and Catherine’s. And nobody’s place, neither truly his nor hers. A place between, a ceremonious and enchanted bridge between worlds, where brutal hunger could find no foothold. Where irrevocable things could not happen. Where there could be no falling.
Drawing back, he said, “I think... we should not, Catherine. I--” Finding no way to finish, he shook his head.
And again, he felt Catherine’s relief as what she’d braced herself against, or for, turned aside and needed no bracing, after all. Relief... and yet sadness, disappointment. Something that felt, to him, like resignation.
Folding her arms, head bent against the mist that had already jeweled and darkened her hair, Catherine promised, “I’ll be careful, Vincent.” As though there’d been no interruption in their conversation, no interval of inchoate wildness sparked by their fear for one another, the impulse to protect and comfort, and to seek protection and comfort. The outer pressure whose effect was to force them inexorably closer.
Catherine said steadily, “We can still choose.”
And Vincent thought that perhaps there’d been no interruption. Perhaps, silently or aloud, they’d been contemplating the same awareness all the while. Her danger, however arising; his reaction... that was the same reaction, whatever its intent.
“Yes,” Vincent said, shaken with gratitude for her forbearance, her patient steadfastness, her courage. On some level, somehow, she knew.
He didn’t trust himself to embrace her. But his look was an embrace, perhaps conveying something of the wildness and the wanting still.
“Yes,” he said again. “Take great care, Catherine. For us both.”
“I will.”