And then, while rifle fire erupted and muzzle blasts glowed in the night like angry, flaming eyes, Gus Soltik fled in terror toward the sanctuary of the trees.
Luther Boyd threw aside the scarlet-yellow leaf he had been examining and wheeled in the direction of the fusillade of gunfire that was exploding through the dark trees on a line far to the east of him.
He experienced a sick and savage anger at Tonnelli’s betrayal, for these were not the precise and meticulously squeezed-off shots of marksmen aiming only to wound. No, this was barrage fire, random and reckless and murderous, and he knew from its volume and intensity that it was designed not to disable the Juggler, but to execute him.
Tonnelli might believe this was a first priority, a cop’s duty, in fact, but if they killed the Juggler, his daughter might also die, because only that psycho knew where in the vastness of this park Kate Boyd was held captive.
In his anger, Luther Boyd felt in his gut that Gypsy Tonnelli didn’t give a good goddamn about that. He wanted only this dramatic, crowd-pleasing performance, that notch on his gun. .
Gypsy Tonnelli ran across the glade to Manolo’s lifeless body, laboring for breath and feeling despair in the uneven stroke of his heart. Ahead of him the line of marksmen were fanning out through the woods where the Juggler had disappeared, like a figure of myth, vanishing into the mystery of the night after wielding the savage, sacrificial knife.
Tonnelli was screaming into his two-way radio, “Command! Command!”
To responses he cried, “Scramble our choppers. The Juggler’s about two hundred yards west of the drive, between Seventy-seventh and Seventy-eighth.” Breathing hard, his mouth open, the Gypsy stopped running and looked down at Manolo’s small, slack body, the white fur jacket stained scarlet with his blood.
Samantha knelt beside Manolo and put a hand out toward him but didn’t touch him. Then she looked up at Tonnelli with tears glistening in her enormous white-rimmed eyes.
“I told you I was scared for him,” she said.
Close to hysteria, she repeated herself, but now her voice was shrill and ugly. “I told you I was scared for him.”
“We didn’t want this to happen,” Tonnelli said. There was naked anguish in his face. “Jesus, we didn’t want this to happen.”
“No, you didn’t want it to happen,” Samantha said, “but you made it happen, Gypsy. And if you’d made the bust, you wouldn’t give a shit one way or the other, would you?”
Gypsy Tonnelli ran the tip of his thumbnail slowly and painfully down the length of his disfiguring scar and looked from her accusing eyes toward the black trees.
Detectives Carmine Garbalotto and Clem Scott hurried into the clearing where Sergeant Rusty Boyle lay on the ground, hands gripping the wooden lever of the tourniquet fashioned by Luther Boyd.
The big redhead was pale, and despite the cold wind blowing in eddying gusts across the glade, there were blisters of perspiration on his upper lip and forehead. The helicopters were flying again, and the sound of their blades and the powerful lights from their fuselage hurt his ears and eyes.
Carmine Garbalotto flipped the switch on his two-way radio and called the CP. He gave the approximate grid coordinates of their position and yelled for an ambulance. Clem Scott knelt beside Sergeant Boyle and took over the task of maintaining pressure on his thigh above the wound.
“You’ll be fine,” Scott said.
“Sure. Got it stopped in time.”
“Who’s the dead one?” Scott said, glancing at Ransom’s body.
“Funny,” Rusty Boyle said, in a voice weary with pain. “I mean, he’s fine, too. Just fine.”
Out of his skull, Scott thought.
“They find the girl?” Boyle asked him.
“Not yet, Sarge.”
“The Juggler?”
“No. But some clown who drove in to look at the action was found lying with his head busted in a gutter on the East Drive. Said a guy that could be the Juggler pulled him out of his car about twenty minutes ago.”
“So the bastard’s on wheels now.”
Luther Boyd now knew that the Juggler was alive. On Babe Fritzel’s radio he had monitored Lieutenant Tonnelli’s screamed orders to the command post, and while he knew that Rusty Boyle was also alive, he didn’t as yet know the Juggler was on wheels, for that exchange between Scott and Sergeant Boyle hadn’t been on the police channel.
Boyd felt a stir of hope. He had, in a sense, infiltrated the police positions and had access to their movements and intelligence reports through Babe Fritzel’s two-way radio.
Boyd felt secure behind enemy lines; in classic guerrilla tactics, attack from the rear inevitably offered the promise of ferocity and surprise.
But there was a dreadful irony in the fact that now Boyd must save the Juggler before Tonnelli’s units could trap and destroy him.
Checking his watch and with the radio an aural spy at his ear, Boyd ran east. .
Chapter 24
The Arsenal is situated at Sixty-fourth Street and Fifth Avenue, south and east of the Mall. Constructed in the middle of the nineteenth century for the function its name suggests, at various times in its existence it has also been used as a police station and a weather laboratory. Presently this four-story edifice with crenellated towers is the headquarters for Central Park’s recreation and cultural affairs administration. Its rear abuts on a quad formed by the animal and bird houses, the rows of bear caves, and the park’s cafeteria. In the middle of the quad is the seal pond, guarded or decorated on all four corners by the figures of giant stone eagles.
There are no guards or attendants inside the animal and bird houses at night. There is no external security, except for random checks by pairs of policemen on bicycles and the occasional cruising squad car from the 22nd Precinct on Transverse Three.
The Arsenal is locked at the close of the business day, and only one man remains on duty, a night watchman whose presence is required by insurance regulations.
Lanny Gruber, on duty that particular night, sat in his small office on the first floor just off the main entrance preparing to enjoy his supper.
Lanny, a middle-aged man with kind and thoughtful eyes, had poured coffee from a thermos and was in the act of unwrapping a ham sandwich when something made him pause and glance toward the open door of his office. Was it a sound or simply his nerves? Glass breaking in the basement? Couldn’t be. . It had been a dreadful and disturbing night for him because he had seen the police artist’s sketch of Gus Soltik on television and had recognized it. He had called the 22nd Precinct, but they already had his name. And there had been another brutal and senseless tragedy in the park. A young Puerto Rican boy, to judge from his name.
But Lanny felt a reluctant compassion for Gus Soltik. In Lanny’s view, Gus had made a pathetic attempt to understand a world that for the most part ridiculed and despised him.
Then he heard another sound, a footstep in the corridor. He felt his heart lurch with fear. There was a gun in the locker across the room, but before he could rise, Gus Soltik, his face haggard with confusion and pain, limped into his office. He stopped at Lanny’s desk, blood dripping from the fingers of his left hand. The single word he spoke came with a gasp of anguish.
“Help,” he said to Lanny Gruber.
“Yes, I’ll help you, Gus,” Gruber said, speaking slowly and quietly, using the warmth of his voice as he might use a gentle hand to stroke a frightened animal. He was a realistic man and was keenly aware of his own danger. He fully understood that whether he lived or died would depend on whether or not he could exert a calming effect on Gus Soltik and make him understand that he must call the police.
“Help,” Gus Soltik said, and extended his right hand to Lanny.
Then he spoke again, another single word which Lanny didn’t understand. “Cage.”
A certain expectancy in Gus Soltik’s manner gave Lanny confidence.
