I left without saying anything else. I walked the forty-five blocks back to the hotel. I took off the blue blazer, and the tee-shirt, got a black mock turtleneck shirt and a gray silk tweed sport coat out of the closet and put them on. I took off the chinos and put on a pair of jeans. I left the black Oakleys on the bureau and put on a pair of horn- rimmed Ray Bans. I went into the bathroom and got some hair spray that I'd brought for the purpose, and drenched my hair with it. I combed my hair straight back, being careful to tuck it behind my ears. Then I headed back to Patricia Utley's house and got there at a quarter to two. Steven put me in the library next to a phone, and left me alone. At three minutes past two, it rang.
The voice said, 'Mr. Vance.'
It was the same voice, deep, flat, disinterested with an internal vibration as if a vast and infernal machine were generating something deep below the surface.
'Yeah.'
'Wear what you were wearing this morning. Carry a paperback copy of Hamlet, and stand by the entrance to NBC studios at three-fifteen.'
'Okay.'
He hung up the phone. I took out the.357 and checked it and put it back. Normally I left the chamber under the hammer empty. This time I had all six rounds in the cylinder. I knew it was loaded. I had reloaded it carefully an hour ago in my hotel room. It was just sort of a practice swing before going to bat. Ritual. I put the gun back and left the strap unsnapped. I made sure my coat was unbuttoned and made a couple of practice draws. Everything was just like it always was. The holster was old and broken in. I'd pulled a gun-often in practice and sometimes for real-enough so that it was as automatic as checking my watch. I did it again. A couple of practice swings. Then I left Patricia Utley's library and went to the front door. Steven was there to let me out. On the front step I turned and put out my hand. Steven took it and we shook.
I went down the steps, turned right, walked the block and a half to Fifth Avenue, crossed to the park, and walked down Fifth Avenue on the park side toward Rockefeller Center. I got there at twenty of three, walked past the skating rink and the statue of Atlas and went into Thirty Rock from the Fifth Avenue side. It was eight minutes to three… I waited behind my Ray Bans just inside the door while my pupils dilated in the diminished light. I didn't see the Gray Man, but I would, and I'd see him before he saw me. He'd be looking for a guy wearing a blue blazer with his hair hanging over his ears. When he'd last seen me I was clean shaven with a crew cut. Now I had a beard and a Pat Riley slick back. He'd only seen me two or three times in his life. And the last time was nearly a year ago. He didn't expect to see me. He thought I was dead… I walked slowly along the lobby toward the NBC studios. There was a steady movement of people in both directions through the lobby. I didn't see them. Everything I had was focused on the Gray Man. He was not at the studio entrance in the pass-through in the middle of the lobby. I kept on going along the lobby, circled it slowly, came back past the studio entrance on the other side of the pass- through. It was 3:15. The foot traffic through the lobby was steady, enough to swell a progress, but no more than that. I had time to look at everybody. And I did, without seeing them. He was the only one I'd see. The rest were so peripheral as to be without meaning, blurred by their inconsequentiality. Amorphous. Their footfalls must have made sound in the black marble space, but I heard nothing, the procession of passersby was spectral and the space through which I walked was soundless and narrow… I circled slowly through the inessential lobby, through the ethereal silent crowd, and he was standing by the shop window across from the passthrough appearing to look at nothing. His gray raincoat was unbuttoned over a gray turtleneck shirt and dark gray slacks. His shoes were black suede with thick gray rubber soles. His thick gray hair swept back smoothly from his face as if it had never been otherwise. He was clean shaven. His skin was still sallow. And deep lines ran from the flare of his nostrils to the corners of his mouth. He still had his earring. His hands were strong and thick and long fingered. His nails were manicured and buffed. He hadn't changed since he'd almost killed me. His face was without expression. His bearing without affect. He was completely still as he waited, looking for a guy carrying a book by William Shakespeare… I looked at him for a while, feeling nothing. Things never stirred the feelings that you have invested in them. Rugar was merely a man in a gray coat looking blankly at the people walking past… I walked past him too, and when I was close I turned and hit him in the face with my left hand and then my right. If you've been a fighter, you have learned how to hit. You know about shortening your arm extension and getting mostly body into the punch. The two punches were good ones. They rocked him back against the black marble wall. His head banged against it. His hand went inside his coat. I pressed my body hard against him, trapping his hand between his stomach and mine. I put my gun up under his chin and pressed the muzzle hard into the soft tissue under the point where his jaw hinged on the right side. With my left hand I got a handful of his hair and banged his head back against the marble wall again. My face was an inch from his. I could see his eyes refocus and the intelligence begin to work in them. He knew me. It hadn't taken him ten seconds to understand what was up. I wanted to keep banging his head. I wanted to bang it until it split open and his life seeped out. But I didn't. It wouldn't get Ellis Alves out of jail. I got the genie far enough back into the bottle to do what I had set out to do more than a year ago. I held him against the wall while I got my breathing under enough control to speak. Around me I was vaguely aware of a lot of scuttling and movement.
'It's me,' I said to Rugar. 'Lazarus… come back to tell you all.'
Chapter 48
I KNEW SOMEONE would call the cops, and the first one showed up about forty-five seconds after I hit Rugar. It was a young black guy walking toward me very fast from the Sixth Avenue end of the building. There was a Rock Center security guy with him, pointing toward me. The young cop had his gun drawn and pointing at the floor, held in against his right thigh as he walked. His finger was outside the trigger guard.
When he got close enough he said, 'Put the gun down.'
I said, 'I'm a private detective. This guy's wanted for attempted murder in Boston.'
'Maybe he is,' the cop said. 'But I want that gun down on the ground, now.'
'Guy's too dangerous,' I said. 'He's got a gun, left side.'
'I'll take care of the gun,' the young cop said. 'You lay yours down and step away.'
'Call Manhattan Homicide,' I said. 'Detective Eugene Corsetti. My name's Spenser.'
'First put down the piece,' the cop said.
He was in a shooter's stance now, gun held in both hands, steady on my back.
'Don't drag this out,' I said. 'You aren't going to shoot until you know the deal. Call Corsetti.'
Rugar started to speak and I jammed the gun barrel harder up under his jaw hinge. His head was bleeding. Blood smeared the marble wall behind him.
