Darkhouse

Joe shook his head, then sucked in a sharp breath against the pain that pulsed at his temples. He could see Danny hanging for an answer. He didn’t give him one. He reached into the driver’s door and pulled out a bottle of Advil and a blister pack of decongestants. He popped two of each, swallowing them with a mouthful from a blue energy drink hot from the sun.

‘Oh, I forgot,’ said Danny, ‘your in-laws are in from Paris that night, right?’ He laughed. ‘A six-hour dinner with people you can’t understand.’ He laughed again.

Joe pulled out after Elise Gray. Three cars behind him, a navy-blue Crown Vic with FBI Agents Maller and Holmes followed his lead.

Elise Gray drove aimlessly, searching the sidewalks for Hayley as though she would show up on a corner and jump in. The tinny ringtone broke the silence. She grabbed the phone to her ear.

‘Where are you now, Mommy?’ His calm voice chilled her.

‘2nd Avenue at 63rd Street.’

‘Head south and make a left onto the bridge at 59th Street.’

‘Left onto the bridge at 59th Street.’ Click.

The three cars made their way across the bridge to Northern Boulevard East, everyone’s fate in the hands of Donald Riggs. He made his final call.

‘Take a left onto Francis Lewis Boulevard, then left onto 29th Avenue. I’ll be seein’ you. On your own. At the corner of 157th and 29th.’

Elise repeated what he said. Joe and Danny looked at each other.

‘Bowne Park,’ said Joe.

He dialled the head of the task force, Lieutenant Crane, then handed the phone to Danny and nodded for him to talk.

‘Looks like the drop-off’s Bowne Park. Can you call in some of the guys from the 109?’ Danny put the phone on the dash.

Donald Riggs drove smoothly, his eyes moving across the road, the streets, the people. His left hand moved over the rough tangle of scars on his cheek, faded now into skin that was a pale stain on his tanned face. He checked himself in the rear-view mirror, opening his dark eyes wide. He raised a hand to run his fingers through his hair, until he remembered the gel and hairspray that held it rigid and marked by the tracks of a wide-toothed comb. At the back, it stopped dead at his collar, the right side folding over the left. He had a special lady to impress. He had splashed on aftershave from a dark blue bottle and gargled cinnamon mouthwash.

He turned around to check on the girl, lying on the floor in the back of the car and covered by a stinking blanket.

It was four-thirty p.m. and five detectives were sitting in the Twentieth Precinct office of Lieutenant Terry Crane as Old Nic shuffled by, patting down his silver hair. Maybe they’re talking about my retirement present, he thought, narrowing his grey eyes, leaning towards the muffled voices. If it’s a carriage clock, I’ll kill them. A watch he could cope with. Even better, his boy Lucchesi had picked up on his hints and spread the word – Old Nic was planning to write his memoirs and what he needed for that was something he’d never had before: a classy pen, something silver, something he could take out with his good notebook and tell a story with. He put a bony shoulder to the door and his cap slipped on his narrow head. He heard Crane briefing the detectives.

‘We’ve just found out the perp is heading for Bowne Park in Queens. We still don’t have an ID. We got nothing from canvassing the neighbourhood, we got nothing from the scene – the guy jumped out, picked up the girl and drove off at speed, leaving nothing behind. We don’t even know what he was driving. This is just from the father who heard the screech from the lobby. We also got nothing from the package the perp dropped back the following day, just a few common fibres from the tape, nothing workable, no prints.’

Old Nic opened the door and stuck his head in. ‘Where’d this kidnapping happen?’

‘Hey, Nic,’ said Crane, ‘72nd and Central Park West.’ With no clues to his retirement present apparent in the office, Old Nic moved on, until a thought came to him and he doubled back.

‘This guy is headed for Bowne Park, you gotta figure the area’s familiar to him. Maybe he was going that way the day of the kidnapping, so he could have headed east across 42nd Street to the FDR. I used to work at the 17th and if your guy ran a red light, there’s a camera at 42nd and 2nd might have given him a Kodak moment. You could check with the D.O.T.’

‘Scratch that carriage clock,’ Crane said to the group, winking. ‘Nice one, Nic. We’re on it.’ Old Nic raised a hand as he left. ‘You just want to hug the guy,’ said Crane as he put a call in to the Department of Transportation. Thirty minutes later, he had five hits, three with criminal records. But only one had a prior for attempted kidnapping.

Joe could feel the drugs kick in. A warm cloud of relief moved up his jaw. He opened and closed his mouth. His ears crackled. He breathed through his nose and out slowly through his mouth. Six years ago, everything from his neck up started to go wrong – he got headaches, earaches, pain in his jaw so excruciating that some days it was unbearable to eat or even talk. Strangers didn’t react well to a dumb cop.

Hayley Gray was thinking about Beauty and the Beast. Everyone thought the Beast was mean and scary, but he was really a nice guy and he gave Belle soup and he played in the snow with her. Maybe the man wasn’t all bad. Maybe he’d turn out to be nice too. The car stopped suddenly and she felt cold. She heard her mommy shouting.

‘Hayley! Hayley!’ Then, ‘Where’s my daughter? You’ve got your money. Give me back my daughter, you bastard!’

Her mommy sounded really scared. She’d never heard her shout like that before or say bad words. She was banging on the window. Then the car was moving again, faster this time, and she couldn’t hear her mommy any more. Donald Riggs threw open the knapsack, his right hand pulling at the tightly packed wads.

Danny reached for his radio to run the plates of the brown Chevy Impala that was driving away from Elise Gray: ‘North Homicide to Central.’ He waited for Central to acknowledge, then gave the number: ‘Adam David Larry 4856, A.D.L. 4856.’

Joe was on Citywide One, a two-way channel that linked him to Maller and Holmes and the 109 guys in the park. He spoke quickly and clearly.

‘OK, he’s got the money, but he hasn’t said anything about dropping off the girl. We need to take it easy here. We don’t know where he has her. Everyone stand by.’

Danny turned to him and gave his usual line. ‘And his voice was restored and there was much rejoicing.’

Halfway down 29th Avenue, Donald Riggs stopped the car, reached back and lifted the blanket.

‘Get up and get out of my car.’

Hayley pulled herself onto the seat. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I knew you’d be nice.’

She opened the door, got out and looked around until she could see her mother. Then she ran as fast as her little legs could carry her.

Joe and Danny were behind Riggs now, Agents Maller and Holmes behind them. Danny was holding for the information on the car. Joe was distracted. He had a feeling this was bad; the kind of bad that happens when everything is too easy, when the maniac is so fucked up, it gets scary calm. He looked at Danny.

‘Why would the guy give this woman her child back without a scratch?’ He shook his head. ‘It’s too easy.’

He slammed on the brakes and, arm out the window, waved the Crown Vic ahead of him. Agent Maller gave a quick nod and took the right, eyes locked on the car ahead.

Joe turned around and saw the swaying shape of a mother and daughter reunited. Too easy. He got out of the car, grabbing his vibrating cell phone from the dash. He flipped it open. It was Crane.

‘We got your perp.’

‘Brown Chevy Impala,’ said Joe.

‘Yup, ’85. Riggs, Donald, white male, thirty-four, born in Shitsville, Texas, locked up for petty larceny, scams, bad cheques, collared at the scene of a previous kidnapping.’ He hesitated.

‘And be advised, Lucchesi, he was done for C4 in Nevada in ’97. We got ourselves a boom-boom banjo-player.’ Joe dropped the phone, his heart pounding.

‘I got ESU and hostage negotiation on stand-by,’ Crane said to no-one.

Joe began to run. He willed his heart to carry the new pace his legs had taken up.

Donald Riggs had reached the corner of 154th and 29th. He rocked back and forth in his seat, skinny fingers clenching the wheel, eyes darting around, taking in everything, registering nothing. But something caught his eye. Behind him, a black Ford Taurus pulled into the kerb and a dark blue Crown Vic overtook it. A rare heightened awareness flared inside him. He kept driving, his breath shallow as he slowed to a stop at the next corner. Then a sudden burst of activity drew him in. Two men stepped out of a Con Ed van by the entrance to the park. They walked quickly to the back and pulled open the doors. Two others stepped out. In the rear-view mirror, the dark blue car loomed back into sight, driving alarmingly on the wrong side of the road. Donald Riggs lurched across the passenger side, grabbed the knapsack, pushed open the door and tore out of the car towards the park. By the time Maller and Holmes screeched to a stop seconds later, the four FBI agents in Con Ed uniforms were surrounding an empty car. ‘Go, go, go!’ roared Maller and all six men ran for the park.

‘You used my pager!’ says Hayley, amazed, pointing down at the belt around her waist and the black box with its flashing yellow light. Her mother stands up, confused, searching out anyone who can understand what this is, but knowing in her heart the answer. Her pleading eyes stop at Joe.

‘You stupid bitch, you stupid bitch, you stupid bitch …’ Donald Riggs is running wildly across the park, clutching at his knapsack, concentrating on a small dark object in his hand. He stops, rooted. His eyes widen and deaden as his mind and body shut down. Then a twitching afterthought of a movement connects the thumb of his right hand to the black button of a detonator.

Elise Gray knows her fate. She makes a final grab for her child, hugging her desperately to her chest. ‘I love you, sweetheart, I love you, sweetheart, I love you.’ Then a frightening, shockingly loud blast tears through them, the bright light stinging Joe’s eyes as he watches, now motionless. Then red and pink and white, splattering grotesquely, as a confetti shower of leaves and splintered bark falls around the place where a mother and daughter, seconds earlier, didn’t even make it to goodbye.

Joe was absolutely still, paralysed. He couldn’t breathe. He felt a new throbbing pressure in his jaw. His eyes streamed. He slowly sensed warm concrete against his face. He pulled himself up from the pavement. Too many emotions flooded his body. The radio on his belt crackled to life. It was Maller.

‘We lost him. He’s in the park, heading your way, along by the playground.’