The beam reappeared an instant later, its angle only marginally different. One moment it was there, and then it had vanished again.
“Strike two,” Morgan said. “Ruby confirms two kills.”
A couple of seconds elapsed, then I heard faint booms from far away, carried by the still morning air, as tiny black pillars of smoke rose from the stadium like funeral pyres. I stared up at the dark sky, but I couldn’t see anything except the last stars of night. If one of them was
“Those two helicopters were destroyed on the pad by
I glanced out the window again. I couldn’t see the fighter, but I could hear the high, thin whine of its engines. The YF-22 was somewhere over the city, closing in fast.
Richard stopped, listened for a moment, and shook his head. “No, sir, there’s no room for negotiation. Break it off now …”
In those last few moments, all was still and quiet. Payson-Smith intently watched his computer screens, the phone clasped against his ear. Jeff Morgan was bent almost double, his hands laced together around the back of his neck. I stared out the window, my heart stopped in midbeat, waiting for the end of my life.
There was a flat, hollow shriek, then the YF-22 rocketed into sight. Racing only a few hundred feet above the rooftops, it howled over the reservoir, banking sharply to the right as it exposed the dull gray paint on the underside of its wedge-shaped wings. The Compton Heights neighborhood was treated to a sonic earthquake as the jet ripped past the water tower, then its nose lifted, and the fighter hurtled straight up into the purple sky.
The jet reached apogee almost a thousand feet above the reservoir. Then it rolled over, veered to the left, and began to go back the way it had come.
My heart started beating again.
“Thank you, Colonel,” Richard said. “We’ll be in touch.” Then he clicked off, put the phone down on the floor, and took a deep breath.
“Well, gentlemen,” he said after a moment as he turned around to look at us. “I think we’re going to stay alive a little longer.”
22
Stretch limos were lined up on Fourth Street in front of the Adam’s Mark, waiting for their turn to pull up to the hotel’s side entrance. Uniformed valets rushed out from under the blue awning to open the passenger doors of each limo, assisting women in silk evening gowns and capes and men in tails and white tie from the car. Then the empty limo would move on, allowing the next vehicle in line to repeat the process.
Tricycle Man waited patiently for his turn at the door, ignoring the amused or outraged stares of the ballgoers behind and in front of his rickshaw. He had gone so far as to put on a black bow tie and a chauffeur’s cap for the occasion; they clashed wonderfully with his tie-dyed T-shirt and parachute pants. The valets tried to hide their grins as Trike pedaled up to the hotel entrance. The rickshaw didn’t have any doors, nor was there a lady who needed assistance, but I handed one of the kids a dollar anyway as I climbed out of the backseat.
“Will that be all, m’lord?” Trike asked, affecting an Oxford accent.
“That’ll be it for tonight, Jeeves.” I reached into my overcoat and pulled out a ten-spot. “You’re at liberty for the rest of the evening.”
“Very good, suh.” He folded the bill and tucked it into the waistband of his shorts, studying a pair of young women in slinky black gowns lingering near the doors. They giggled between their gloved hands as he arched an eyebrow at them. “If you find any debutantes who are in need of a gentleman’s services,” he added, handing me his phonecard, “please let me know and I’ll return immediately.”
“Thanks for the lift, Trike …”
He grinned, then stood up on his pedals and pulled away from the curb. The doorman glowered at me as he held open the door; I caught his disdainful look and shrugged. “The Rolls is in the shop,” I said as I strode past him. “You know how it is.”
I left my topcoat at the chequer and paused in front of a mirror to inspect my appearance. White tie and vest, black morning coat and trousers, faux pearl studs and cufflinks: I looked as if I was ready to conduct a symphony.
It had been a long time since I had gone white-tie. The only reason I owned tails in the first place was because Marianne had insisted upon a formal wedding. She had resented unpacking my tux from the attic boxes and bringing them downtown to my apartment, but it was the only way I was going to get into the main event of St. Louis’s social calendar. This evening, no one in jeans and a bomber jacket would have been allowed within a block of the Adam’s Mark.
Tonight was the night of the Veiled Prophet Ball, and I had come to the ritziest hotel in downtown St. Louis to complete the story I was writing.
No one had arrested us when we emerged from the water tower. In obedience to Payson-Smith’s demands, the ERA squads that had surrounded the tower left the scene. The soldiers piled back into their LAVs, the Apache flew back to Busch Stadium, and when the park was clear of everyone except for a handful of police officers and paramedics investigating the helicopter wreckage in the reservoir, Ruby Fulcrum informed us it was safe to exit the tower.
By then it was dawn, and I was dog-tired. It had been a long night. I barely said anything to either Richard Payson-Smith or Jeff Morgan; I simply walked away from the park, trudging down several blocks of empty sidewalks until I reached the nearest MetroLink station.
It was a long walk; I had to carry a plastic grocery sack filled with computer printouts. I kept expecting to see an ERA vehicle pull over and a couple of troopers jump out to hustle me into the back for a ride down to the stadium, but this didn’t happen. Ruby had assured each of us that we had been given amnesty; our records were scrubbed clean, our names and faces removed from the most-wanted list.
The conspirators would leave us alone now, even if by doing so they ensured their own demise. How could they do otherwise? A sword of Damocles now orbited over their heads, a sword cast not of Damascus steel but of focused energy, and the single hair that kept it from falling was observance of Ruby Fulcrum’s demands … and what Ruby wants, Ruby gets.
I made my way back to Soulard, hiked through the early morning streets until I reached my building, hauled my weary ass upstairs, and stumbled through the broken door into my apartment. I didn’t even bother to take off the clothes I had been wearing for more than two days; I simply dropped the grocery bag on my desk, shrugged out of my jacket, kicked off my boots, and fell facefirst onto my unmade bed, falling asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.
I thought this was the end of the affair, but it wasn’t quite over yet.
At twelve o’clock, just as the church bells were ringing the noonday hour, I was awakened once again by the electronic beep of Joker’s annunciator. I tried to ignore it for as long as I could, but the noise continued until I crawled across the littered mattress, grabbed my jacket from where I had tossed it on the floor, and pulled the PT out of my pocket.
I hesitated before I opened its cover. Instead of Jamie’s face, though, the screen depicted a man wearing an absurd Viking helmet, his features indistinguishable behind the veil of purple silk.
A window opened at the bottom of the screen, scrolling upward to display in fine lines of arabesque typescript:
