Cathedral

Schroeder stood also. “You can’t leave here. Flynn said—”

Burke turned on him. “The hell with Flynn.”

Roberta Spiegel said, “Go ahead, Lieutenant.”

Langley ripped a page from his notebook. “Here’s the address. Don’t gain entry by illegal means.”

Monsignor Downes said, “If you should find Gordon Stillway, remember he’s a very old man. Don’t excite him.”

“I don’t do anything illegal. I don’t excite people.” Burke turned and walked out into the adjoining office. A heavy cloud of blue smoke hung at face level over the crowded outer office. Burke pushed his way into the hall and went down the stairs. The rectory offices on the ground floor were filled with uniformed police commanders directing the field operations. Burke approached a captain sitting at a desk and showed his badge case. “I need a squad car and a maniac to drive it.”

The captain looked up from a map of midtown. “Do you? Well, the area on the other side of the cordon is jammed solid with people and vehicles. Where is it you’d like to go in such a hurry, Lieutenant?”

“Gramercy Park. Pronto-like.”

“Well, make your way to the IRT station on Lex.”

“Bullshit.” He grabbed a phone and went through the switchboard to the Monsignor’s office. “Langley, is the helicopter still in the Palace courtyard? Good. Call and get it revved up.”

Burke walked out of the rectory into Fifty-first Street and breathed in the cold, bracing air that made him feel better. The sleet was tapering off, but the wind was still strong. He walked into the deserted intersection of Fifty- first and Madison.

An eerie silence hung over the lamplit streets around the Cathedral, and in the distance he could see the barricades of squad cars, buses, and sanitation trucks that made up the cordon. Strands of communication wire ran over the sleet-covered streets and sidewalks. Sentries stood silhouetted against half-lit buildings, and National Guardsmen cruised by in jeeps, rifles pointed upward. Bullhorns barked in the wintry air, and policemen patrolled the sanitized area with shotguns. Burke heard their footsteps crunching in the unshoveled ice and heard his own quickening pace. As he walked, he thought of Belfast and, though he’d never been there, felt he knew the place. He turned up his collar and walked faster.

Across Madison Avenue a solitary figure on horseback rode slowly into the north wind. He stared at the rider, Betty Foster, as she passed beneath a streetlight. She didn’t seem to notice him, and he walked on.

The wind dropped, and he heard in the distance, past the perimeter of the cordon, the sounds of music and singing. New York would not be denied its party. Burke passed the rear of the Lady Chapel, then approached the Cardinal’s residence, and through the lace curtains on a groundfloor window he saw ESD men standing in a room. A lieutenant was briefing them, and Burke could see a chalkboard. Win this one for the Gipper, lads. Through another window on the corner Burke saw well-dressed men and women, the Governor and Mayor among them, crowded around what was probably a buffet. They didn’t exactly look like they were enjoying themselves, but they didn’t look as grim as the men around the chalkboard either.

In the intersection Burke turned and looked back at the Cathedral illuminated by its garden floodlights. A soft luminescence passed through the stained-glass windows and cast a colored shadow over the white street. It was a serene picture, postcard pretty: ice-covered branches of bare lindens and glistening expanses of undisturbed sleet. Perhaps more serene than it had ever been in this century—the surrounding area cleared of cars and people, and the buildings darkened….

Something out of place caught his eye, and he looked up at the two towers where light shone through the ripped louvers. In the north tower—the bell tower—he saw a shadow moving, a solitary figure circling from louver to louver, cold, probably edgy, watchful. In the south tower there was also a figure, standing motionless. Two people, one in each tower—the only eyes that stared out of the besieged Cathedral. So much depended on them, thought Burke. He hoped they weren’t the panicky type.

The police command helicopter followed Lexington Avenue south. Below, Burke could see that traffic was beginning to move again, or at least what passed for moving traffic in Manhattan. Rotating beacons at every intersection indicated the scope of the police action below. The towering buildings of midtown gave way to the lower buildings in the old section of Gramercy Park, and the helicopter dropped altitude.

Burke could see the lamps of the small private park encircled by elegant town houses. He pointed, and the pilot swung the craft toward the open area and turned on the landing lights. The helicopter settled into a small patch of grass, and Burke jumped out and walked quickly toward the high wrought-iron fence. He rattled the bars of a tall gate but found it was locked. On the sidewalk a crowd of people stared back at him curiously. Burke said, “Is anyone there a keyholder?”

No one answered.

Burke peered between the bars, his hands wrapped around the cold iron. He thought of the zoo gate that morning, the ape house, the sacristy gate, and all the prisons he’d ever seen. He thought of Long Kesh and Crumlin Road, Lubianka and Dachau. He thought that there were too many iron bars and too many people staring at each other through them. He shouted with a sudden and unexpected anger, “Come on, damn it! Who’s got a key?”

An elderly, well-dressed woman came forward and produced an ornate key. Without a word she unlocked the gate, and Burke slipped out quickly and pushed roughly through the crowd.

He approached a stately old town house across the street and knocked sharply on the door. A patrolman opened the door, and Burke held up his badge, brushing by him into the small lobby. A single plainclothesman sat in the only chair, and Burke introduced himself perfunctorily.

The man answered through a wide yawn, “Detective Lewis.” He stood as though with some effort.

Burke said, “Any word on Stillway?”

The detective shook his head.

“Get a court order yet?”

“Nope.”

Burke began climbing the stairs. When he was a rookie, an old cop once said to him, “Everybody lives on the top floor. Everybody gets robbed on the top floor. Everybody goes nuts on the top floor. Everybody dies on the top floor.” Burke reached the top floor, the fourth. Two apartments had been made out of what was once probably the servants’ quarters. He found Stillway’s door and pressed the buzzer.

The detective climbed the stairs behind him. “No one home.”

“No shit, Sherlock.” Burke looked at the three lock-cylinders in a vertical row, ranging in age from very old to very new, showing the progression of panic with each passing decade. He turned to the detective. “Want to put your shoulder to that?”

“Nope.”

“Me neither.” Burke moved to a narrow staircase behind a small door. “Stay here.” He went up the stairs and came out onto the roof, then went down the rear fire escape and stopped at Stillway’s window.

The apartment was dark except for the yellow glow of a clock radio. There was no grate on the window, and Burke drew his gun and brought it through the old brittle glass above the sash lock. He reached in, unlatched the catch, and threw the sash up, then dropped into the room and moved away from the window in a crouch, his gun held out in front of him with both hands.

He steadied his breathing and listened. His eyes became accustomed to the dark, and he began to make out shadows and shapes. Nothing moved, nothing breathed, nothing smelled; there was nothing that wanted to kill him, and, he sensed, nothing that had been killed there. He rose, found a lamp, and turned it on.

The large studio apartment was in stark modern contrast to the world around it. Bone-white walls, track lighting, chromium furniture. The secret modern world of an old architect who specialized in Gothic restorations. Shame, shame, Gordon Stillway.

He walked toward the hall door, gun still drawn, looking into the dark corners as he moved. Everything was perfectly ordinary; nothing was out of place—no crimson on the white rug, no gore on the shiny chromium. Burke holstered his revolver and opened the door. He motioned to the detective. “Back window broken. Cause to suspect a crime in progress. Fill out a report.”

The detective winked and moved toward the stairs.

Burke closed the door and looked around. He found a file cabinet beside a drafting table and opened the middle drawer alphabetized J to S. He was not too surprised to find that between St.-Mark’s-in-the-Bouwerie and