“Call Alice and tell her I’m gonna be okay,” Fedderman said, looking up at Quinn.
Quinn nodded. “Soon as you’re in the ambulance.”
“Get her on the phone now. I can tell her myself.”
The oversize paramedic shook his head no.
“Sorry, Feds,” Quinn said. “He’s bigger’n I am.”
“Bigger’n anybody.”
“You better cooperate and let them stop that bleeding.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Suddenly pale, as if what happened had finally caught up with him, Fedderman settled down flat on the stretcher and remained motionless while they strapped him in and transported him to the ambulance.
There had been a lot of blood, but Quinn didn’t think the bullet wound was life threatening.
Still, you never knew for sure until the doctors got to you.
A uniform came over and handed Quinn a slip of paper. “Number for you to call.”
Quinn thanked him. He didn’t recognize the phone number written on the paper, but he figured the call would be from Renz. He looked over to where Pearl was filling in a couple of plainclothes detectives as to how the shooting occurred. There were people who looked like reporters huddled around them, but, so far, no TV camera crews had arrived. Quinn decided he’d call Renz back and then get out of there before TV did close in and spot him.
It occurred to him that he was the one tracking a killer. The one who’d just been shot at. And he was the one running from the press as if guilty of something.
Quite a world. Upside down.
It wasn’t Renz who answered Quinn’s call; it was Egan. He’d know about the shooting. When a cop was shot anywhere in the city, it didn’t take long for the word to spread.
“Where are you, Quinn?”
“Outside the park on Central Park West. Shooter was inside the park, firing out.”
“I thought maybe you were the one that got shot.”
Hoped, more like it. “Pearl and I are okay. Fedderman took one in the upper arm.”
“You think the Night Prowler was the shooter?”
“Yeah, I think we can be sure of that.”
“Does anybody in that fucked-up situation think he can be nailed before he gets out of the park?”
“No, and there’s not much chance of it. He was probably out of the park before we went in after him. And even if he stayed in the park, he’d be hard to find. It’s gonna be completely dark soon.”
“Far as you’re concerned, it already is completely dark. You gonna be there awhile?”
“Not much longer. Soon as Pearl and I are done here, we’ll drive to the hospital to check on Fedderman. I’ve gotta call his wife.”
“Okay. Stick at the hospital till I see you there. I wanna talk. I want you to listen.”
“I’ll be there.”
“You better.”
“And Fedderman’s gonna be okay. Thanks for asking.”
Quinn cut the connection.
The Night Prowler sat on the subway, which was rattling its way downtown. He tried to look relaxed. It wasn’t easy. The risk he’d taken! If he hadn’t been alert, even lucky, and made his way out of the park several blocks away on Central Park West, they might have had him. Quinn might have won.
He concentrated on sitting still and looking at the ghostly reflection of his pale face in the opposite dark window. The man in the window, with the darkness sliding past behind him, appeared calm, but tension was running through his body like a spasmodic electrical current. The gun was an unyielding lump beneath his belt at the small of his back, concealed by his untucked shirt. The gun.
He’d missed! He was sure of it!
He’d assumed the detective in the car’s front passenger seat would be Quinn, but the second he squeezed the trigger and caught a glimpse of the man’s profile, he knew it was the other one-Fedderman.
The trailing shots had gone into the stalled car; he was sure of that but couldn’t know if any of the bullets found their mark.
He could hope they had, but that was all. Soon as he got back to his apartment, he’d check TV news. Surely, Channel One would have something on the Central Park shooting. And the other local channels might break into regular programming.
This fucking city will jump to attention when I make it jump!
The Night Prowler shook his head, causing a woman seated on the other side of the subway car to glance up at him curiously, then quickly look away.
He struck a casual pose, a bored expression, while his mind worked furiously. What am I thinking? That’s not what this is about, making the city jump. That’s not what I’m about.
He needed, first of all, to find out about Quinn. Maybe Quinn was dead. It was difficult to imagine, but maybe one of the wild shots into the car had struck him in a vital spot. Maybe he was at least wounded.
Stress.
He could feel the word even as he thought it. Could feel it insinuating itself throughout mind and body. He knew he had to hold stress at bay so he could function at the high level he demanded. That his mission demanded.
Benzene.
But lately the fumes that had carried him to a placid and advanced mental state hadn’t worked their magic as quickly or as well. The body adapted to everything eventually; the Night Prowler knew that.
But he had to do something to relieve his stress. And soon.
Knowing Quinn was dead would help immensely. Would change the world.
But right now he looked down and saw that his hands were trembling in his lap.
The train lurched and slowed and light crept in at the edges outside the dark windows.
His stop.
Almost home.
Alice Fedderman took the news like a cop’s good and faithful wife, stricken with worry but with a calmness about her.
She’d been expecting this for years. Any phone call, long ago and long forgotten, might have brought her the same news. And now here it was.
But not as bad as it might have been. That was the kind of thing you told yourself, that you grabbed hold of and clung to at a time like this.
Her husband was alive.
She was on her way to the hospital and not the morgue.
60
Because of the incompatibility of cell phones and hospitals, Quinn had used a pay phone near the waiting area to call Alice. He’d noticed while talking that his heart rate had picked up again.
He hadn’t thought about his heart during the action at the park until Pearl cautioned him. It had slowed its rhythm and seemed normal since he’d arrived at the hospital. But maybe talking to Alice Fedderman was more of a strain than he’d imagined.
May had waited for phone calls like the one to Alice. So would Pearl, but in a different way, because she was a cop herself.
And I’ll be waiting.
There was a thought that sobered him.
When he returned to the waiting area, a spacious, carpeted alcove off the main hall, a tall, redheaded doctor, wearing wrinkled green scrubs, was talking to Pearl.
