I was holding on to the railing now, two levels above the obsolete train tracks cutting through the center of the gallery, dizzy from the combination of vertigo and the question that Wrenley had just asked me.
He broke into a run before I did, and was upon me in a second, grabbing my free arm and spinning me around to face him. He was holding a small-caliber revolver in his right hand, the kind that was probably used to put a hole through the brain behind Marco Varelli’s ear.
“Did Anthony’s wound get worse? Is that how you found him? I couldn’t come up with a physician anywhere to treat him. He’s not exactly John Wilkes Booth. Just couldn’t find a taker. And all I needed was another day or two to tie up loose ends so I could get myself out of town for good. I didn’t want this to happen.” His grip tightened on my wrist.
“So you, Ms. Cooper, will have to be the sacrificial lamb. You might take a terrible fall, say, from the level above us.” He prodded me in the ribs with the gun.
“You can’t get out of this building without me-alive and well.” My voice must have been trembling as I tried to construct a reasonable bluff. “If you kill-” I stopped, unable to complete a sentence that held the implication of my own death. “If you try to hurt me, you won’t be able to walk out the door. There are police officers stationed in the front and back of the building. They have orders not to let anyone in or out without my approval.”
Wrenley stood still, not knowing whether to believe me or not. With the gun held against me, he lifted the glasses off my nose and placed them on himself. Now I blinked as I tried to avoid the direct glare. “Why should I think that’s true? Have you seen the trucks unloading out front for the Dia exhibit? Not even a police car could get through that block.”
“There are two men in plain clothes standing at the entrance of the gallery,” I lied, “and a patrol car with two others out in back. You have yourself to thank for that. It all started after your efforts to kill me the first time, didn’t it? There have been bodyguards taking me everywhere since your attempts on my life.”
I remembered the day I had met Chapman and Wallace here to interview Bryan Daughtry. We had interrupted his meeting with Wrenley. My Jeep had been parked directly in front of the gallery, with my identification plate in the windshield. It was he who must have had me followed from Twentysecond Street to the garage at Lincoln Center. He’d had plenty of time to alert Bailor to try to run me down that night, after the ballet. Wrenley must have thought I’d known more than I did. Maybe he had relied on Mickey Diamond’s made-up headline.
He was considering his options. “I can offer you a livelier proposition, then. You’re going to be my passport out of town.”
Anything that would get me away from this unlikely mausoleum. “What do you mean?”
“Take me downstairs with you and have them drive us wherever I decide to go.”
My panic heightened at the thought of putting another police officer within range of a man with a loaded gun, of exposing Brannigan and Lazarro to this murderous thief. “That might not work,” I said. “If they don’t know you, they won’t fall for that.”
“It can’t be your friend Chapman down there, can it? He just called you from somewhere else. So it must be some uniformed cops who pulled this duty. I’m sure they don’t know you and all your colleagues, do they?”
I couldn’t figure where he was going with this, so I gave an honest answer instead of trying to outguess him. “They’re precinct cops. They don’t know me well.”
“And tell me how well
My head was spinning. I couldn’t follow him. The name sounded vaguely familiar but I couldn’t think of who or what he meant. “Who?”
He reached into his left pants pocket and pulled out the gray security badge issued by my office, which dangled from a silver-colored metal chain. With one hand, Wrenley slipped it over his head and let it hang around his neck, like I wear mine at the office. Now it clicked. Charlie was a young assistant who worked in one of the trial bureaus. Like McKinney, he was a morning jogger.
“I picked this up at the front desk today when I came down to your office to see you. Tsk, tsk, tsk-they ought to be much more careful with those I.D. tags when you people leave them lying around. I actually had other plans for this, in case we needed to get past the doormen at your apartment building. But it will do fine for you to introduce me to your bodyguards. You can say I was here working on the case when you arrived. Charlie Rosenberg. Shit, some of my best friends are Jewish.”
“But the photograph-”
“Can’t even make it out with all the use the badge has had-dark hair, pleasant smile. I’ll pass.”
I thought of the morning two weeks ago, right after Deni’s body had been found, when Mike and I came back from Compstat and McKinney’s tag had been mislaid in the pile at the front desk. I was so pleased at the time that he had trouble getting back into the building that I hadn’t raised a stink about the lax security.
Wrenley poked me again. “Where’s your tag? Put it on.”
“It’s in my bag.”
With his free hand he reached inside my oversized tote, never taking his eyes off me. It was hopeless that he’d find anything in it. He gave out a quick laugh. “I guess Chapman gave you away. Since he told me there’s no gun in your bag, why don’t you get the I.D. badge out yourself? And leave the sharp pencils inside there.”
I set the bag on the floor and knelt down, riffling through it to feel for the chain and pull it out. It snagged on something and I grabbed at it. Now I could feel the plastic bag in which I had placed the toilet articles for Mercer. I pulled up the small plastic razor blade case and palmed it, bringing the chain and gray tag with my name on it out of the handbag. Still crouching, I hung the chain around my neck and pocketed the slim blade holder as I reached my hand to the floor to stand up again.
Wrenley jabbed at me to move toward the staircase. We were closer to it than to the lift in the far corner. There was no point making a dash to the elevator with a gun at my back. “Down the steps, Ms. Cooper. Let’s try the back door, where you say the car is waiting.”
I descended the stairs slowly, my hand shaking as I tried to grip the banister. We had gone from the fifth level to the fourth. I turned on the landing and went down to the third floor, where the old Hi-Line tracks ran through the length of the building.
“Hold it right there,” he said sharply, drawing up by my side as I reached the bottom step. He rested a foot on top of the nearest railroad tie. “You’ve got to get this quivering under control, Alex. It’s Alex, isn’t it? These cops have to think we’re partners, too, don’t they?”
Wrenley didn’t realize Battaglia was running the Children’s Crusade. Most of my colleagues were kids right out of law school, staying in public service only as long as they could resist the lure of the high-paying private sector. Someone Wrenley’s age would be an executive or supervisor, and not likely to be out in the field working cases or taking orders from me. Even if I could calm myself down, Brannigan was bright enough to know that something was wrong with this picture. I would put us all in grave danger.
He lowered his right arm, his gun to his side but still visible. “Never send a rapist to do a man’s job.”
“What?” I asked.
“Deni wasn’t supposed to be murdered. Maybe I can make you more comfortable if you understand that I’m not a killer. Well, I didn’t set out to be one. You just need to get me safe passage out of here, and then I’ll simply disappear, leaving you unharmed. But we can’t go anywhere until you settle down and stop shaking so badly.”
I didn’t believe him for a moment, but it was clear that he wasn’t letting me move until he saw my tremors subside. “Tell me what you mean. If you want me to stop shivering, explain to me why Deni had to die.”
“Two words: Anthony Bailor.” Wrenley braced his back against the banister.
“You knew him in Florida?”
“Much to my father’s regret. Wrong side of the tracks and all that. I met Anthony during my brief stay in a juvenile home, back when I was a delinquent. A quaint term you don’t hear much of these days, do you, Alex?”
I was certain we had run a rap sheet on Wrenley and it had come up clean.
“You look puzzled. I was fifteen at the time. My father’s lawyer was good. Had the case sealed because of my age. Knew enough to get the fingerprints and photos back. Most of them are too lazy to follow through on that, as you probably know. But then, it wasn’t all bad. After I met Anthony I never had to do second-story work again.
“I’ve had an eye for nice things all my life. Couldn’t always afford them. But I was able to get myself invited into the right homes for cocktails and dinner. Called Anthony a week or two later, gave him the layout and a schedule, arranged myself an alibi for the time of the burglary, and I built myself up a very nice little collection of
