The Fifth Angel Page 6

  These monsters never got the death penalty. They never served life sentences for the things they did. Instead they were turned free to prey on the innocent again and again. The only chance society had was when they finally killed one of their victims. But even then, there were no guarantees they would be caught or put away forever.

  Jack found a criminal whose victim was the same age as his own daughter and felt a charge of fury and repugnance surge through his core. As he studied the black-and-white photo of the man named Roland Lincoln, Jack ground his teeth. His hands tingled with a film of hot sweat. His eyes widened and he took in the face, memorizing its features: the thick fishy lips, the broad pale forehead; the thin wispy light-colored hair, the small flat ears and scrawny neck. And the glasses—large black plastic frames with thick lenses that magnified the man’s dark faraway eyes.

  Jack took a yellow pad from his briefcase and ground the ball of his pen into the paper, scribing out the name and the address. He put the pad away and returned the book to the indifferent receptionist on his way out. Tidwell was nowhere to be seen.

  CHAPTER 15

  Jack spent the rest of his afternoon with the local lawyers from Karlston & Banky going over the staffing details of the U.S. Fuel transaction. When they invited him to dinner afterward, Jack declined, saying he had work to do back at his hotel.

  After checking in Jack changed out of his blue windowpane suit, strapped on his gun, and slipped into a black nylon sweat suit and running shoes. He pulled on a worn Yankees cap over his hair and walked out onto the street. In the fading orange sunlight he found a sandwich shop around the corner. He bought a bottle of water and a turkey sandwich. He wasn’t hungry, but he knew he should eat. That was part of his plan. With the water bottle sticking out of his pocket, Jack walked down the sidewalk studying a map until he came to a trash can on the corner.

  He glanced at his watch and tossed the sandwich in the can. His stomach couldn’t handle it. The map went back in his pocket. He located a pharmacy and bought a bottle of Maalox, his second that day. He chugged it down as if he were gassing up a car then wiped the chalky fluid from his lips. He tossed the empty bottle along with the water into another trash can, then set off at a steady jog down Fifth Street, out of the city center and toward the university area.

  Within several blocks the buildings and streets began to decay, until Jack was running alongside decrepit graffiti-stained homes with boarded windows, crumbling grimy brick storefronts, and vacant lots of rubble peopled with rusted junk cars. The setting sun, crimson now, cast long purple shadows that softened the squalor. The residents of this neighborhood clustered like fungus in dark nooks, porch steps, or inside menacing vehicles parked along the curb. They drank from brown bags and smoked and murmured among themselves until Jack passed by them, a strange specter. They stared, sullen and silent.

  Sometimes a young man or two with sagging elephant pants would step boldly and belligerently into his path; Jack would have to trade his sidewalk for the street. At one point a young woman, either drunk or on crack, began to trail him on a bicycle, pestering him with an incessant banter about what a pretty white boy he was. Jack kept his face set sternly and staring straight ahead, determined to run through them without a sign of fear.

  After a couple of miles the black sky extinguished the last glow of the sun. Jack turned off Fifth Street and began to climb a hill. The decay began to lessen, but only a bit. It was still a rough neighborhood when Jack passed the cove of three-story apartment buildings where Lincoln lived. He ran a block farther then crossed the street and jogged slowly back, reconnoitering. Across the street from the apartment building was an old abandoned clapboard home whose gaping black windows and door frames as well as a terrific hole in the roof were charred around the edges. On one side was a tangle of overgrown bushes. Jack looked around, saw no one, and darted into the unlit crevice between the bushes and the house.

  For nearly two hours he stood leaning against the burned-out house, absorbing the pulse of the neighborhood. Dogs barked. Mixed races of people drifted in and out of apartments. Cars patched with duct tape and fiberglass came and went like beetles belching blue fumes from broken muffler pipes. An old house across the street trembled from within with the throb of hate-filled rap music. It wasn’t until around ten that the pulse of the neighborhood began to ebb.

  This was his penance for failing as a father. This was the only way he could make good on what had happened. He felt an almost biblical conviction that he had been cast into a pit of misery for a reason. That reason was to save others from the same fate. The only way he could do that was to follow through on his carefully laid plan.

  At ten-thirty he took a deep breath and crossed the street. Building A was the one on the left, and Jack went up the steps and into the open-air alcove in the center of the building. On the wall by the stairs was a scarred directory of mostly handwritten names. Number 16-A was blank. Jack stepped over a brown smear of dog crap and mounted the crumbling concrete steps with his heart thumping madly. Number 16-A was on the third floor and all the way to the back of the building, not far from an iron railing that overlooked the house still shaking from the rap music’s bass. Between the house and the apartments was some additional parking lit by a single streetlight and bordered by a chain-link fence.

  The hidden spot behind the Dumpster in the parking lot would be the perfect place for him to sit and watch Lincoln’s movements. He turned to go, then jumped back with a cry of surprise. Roland Lincoln had silently emerged from his apartment and stood staring at Jack, blocking his path.

  Lincoln was dressed in a white open-collared dress shirt, dark pants, and sneakers. He seemed to float, standing ghostlike in the eerie blue hue cast by the glow of the street lamp. He blinked at Jack, but otherwise his face was expressionless.

  “I’m a police detective,” Jack said. The words rushed out before he even thought about them. His chest was pounding with fear. Then, pointing toward the noisy house below, he said, “I’m watching that house. Drugs.”

  Lincoln stared for another moment. Then his enormous eyes seemed to shift their focus past Jack out at the rumbling house whose windows vibrated like the wings of an angry insect. Nodding abruptly, he turned and disappeared back inside his apartment without a word. Jack inhaled sharply and hurried away, shaking. As he jogged back down the hill and through the dark and relatively quiet streets, his face underwent a change. His tight mask of anxiety and fear slowly transformed into a determined frown. The incident with Lincoln had shaken him. But as he jogged down into the civilized section of the city, he realized its importance. His victim believed he was a cop. Knocking on his door and gaining entrance late at night would now be easier. A perfect prelude to the execution he was about to carry out.

  CHAPTER 16

  When Jack arrived home on Long Island the following day, his spirits were higher than they’d been in some time. The luck he’d had while reconnoitering Lincoln’s apartment had spawned a new idea. Lincoln could be taken care of on his very next trip to Pittsburgh. With so many days left before the transaction was complete he could go and get a second name from the directory, something he should have considered before now. Who knew? If things went smoothly he could eliminate several predators in each city. By the time anyone linked them together, if they did at all, Jack would be on to his next transaction and his next place. Brilliant.

  When he touched down in New York, there was still enough of the workday left to prompt him to go into Manhattan and his office. On the way he directed his secretary to make his travel plans for the following week. After that he considered the things he would need: a set of disposable clothes, a large piece of plastic, a garbage bag, and, of course, his Glock. The gun he would ship to himself at the hotel. Then, as he did after the Oswego job, he’d ship the gun back home when he was finished. Jack combed through the details as he drove and found nothing lacking. Satisfied, he was able to focus on just legal work when he reached his office.

 
It was late in the afternoon, and he was reviewing a batch of SEC documents when Arthur Wells, the firm’s managing partner, summoned him to his corner office overlooking the Chrysler Building. Wells was a large man in his sixties. He was remarkably fit, with waves of white hair that made people overlook his homely features and crooked Irish teeth. Wells was on the phone when Jack entered, but the older man smiled and motioned for him to have a seat. Jack did and listened in silence as Wells debated with his personal broker whether or not to buy IBM at 61.

  As he hung up, Wells said, “That guy couldn’t find his ass with both hands and a flashlight but he’s luckier than a horseshoe.’’

  The two of them sat there for a moment with Wells smiling and Jack waiting.

  Wells leaned back into his chair and crossed his arms in front of him in a satisfied way. Then he said, “Sometimes, Jack, the best tribute to leadership is the progress of those in the ranks. Now, I’m not going to bullshit you. When I took over this firm four years ago, the word on you was that the best you could hope for was a window . . . if you outlived twenty percent of your peers.”

  Wells’s smile turned into a painful grin, and his blue eyes were nearly lost in a sea of mirthful wrinkles. Jack, on the other hand, wasn’t amused, and he was beyond bothering to pretend he was.

  “Well, you’re all business,” Wells said, “I know that Jack, all business, and that’s what I like. Have you seen the numbers from the first quarter? I’m sure you have.”

  “No,” Jack said candidly, “I haven’t.”

  Most lawyers worshiped the quarterly performance spreadsheet. Attorneys were listed and ranked by the hours they billed and the revenues they brought in. Partners were also given credit for leveraging associates by involving them in projects. When he first joined the firm, Jack had followed the performance numbers as assiduously as the rest. For the last two years, however, he hadn’t paid the slightest attention, and it didn’t matter much to him even under the circumstances.

  Wells chuckled and waved his hand in the air to disperse what was surely a jest.

  “You left us all in the dust, Jack,’’ he said, his gaze not wavering. “Those Deerfield Academy boys Kincaid and Westmoreland can’t even keep up. You jumped from one fifty-seven to six. Damn, boy. You’re number three in the firm. Jack?’’

  He looked into the younger man’s face.

  Jack returned his stare. He’d been watching pigeons on the concrete sill.

  “You’re going to get the M and A chair. Right?’’ he said, his voice trailing off. “What’s wrong? If I’d been your age and heard that, I’d have crapped my drawers.’’

  Carlton Obermeyer IV was old money. He was Yale. He was a workhorse. He was also a brilliant man, revered by the other five hundred members of the firm. To be given his office, his corner office overlooking the East River, was a plum worthy of champagne. But when Jack’s mouth twisted up into a small smile, it wasn’t from self-congratulation, but from irony.

  Funny how he’d taken the work that was in his path and gobbled it up, not so much to make money for the firm, but to provide a medium for his plan to kill and distract his mind from its ongoing self-torment. He now commandeered work without regard to previous client relationships and meted out assignments to associates and fellow partners with the dispassion of a Hun warlord.

  “I appreciate it, Arthur,” he said, not wanting to be outright rude. “Is that all?”

  “Is that all? Damn that’s good!” Wells said with a chortle and another slap at the desk. “I’d say that thing about all work making Jack dull. But my accountant wouldn’t let me. Dull is rich.’’

  The intercom on Wells’s desk came to life and his secretary announced that Rob Blumenthal from Deutsche Bank was on the line.

  “Tell him I’m with Jack Ruskin, but I’ll be right with him,” Wells said. His face then turned serious and he said to Jack, “Everything all right at home?”

  “Fine,” Jack said, wondering if Wells had even the slightest clue as to what he’d been through. People seemed to think that what had happened to him had somehow gotten better over the last two years, but in fact it was worse.

  “Good,” Wells said with a slap. “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you,” Jack said.

  Jack returned to his own claw-footed mahogany desk and got to work immediately without another thought about his elevation in status at the firm.

  Leather-bound books stared down at him from their shelves. Outside his tenth-floor window the city revved up for rush hour, but Jack never noticed. The slow grind of words and terms had the narcotic ability to deaden his other thoughts and feelings. After a time, the noise outside began to wind down and it grew dark. Jack worked until his stomach rumbled audibly. He knew he should eat something even if he had no appetite.

  CHAPTER 17

  It was after ten P.M. when he pulled into the driveway. He took his briefcase from the front seat and removed his overnight bag from the trunk. A gentle breeze whispered through the new leaves of the trees overhead. The sky was dark, but his eyes soon adjusted and he could clearly see the large unfriendly house that used to be a home. Now it was just a place for him to sleep.

  Jack walked down to the end of the driveway and emptied his mailbox. A neighbor strolled down the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street, walking her dog in the darkness and talking into a cell phone. Jack silently watched her pass, then retraced his steps up the driveway. As he opened the front door into the dark maw of the empty house, he felt the urge to go find a warmly lit bar, drink himself into oblivion, then return only when he was in a respectable stupor. But he had already abandoned himself several times to that yearning and he knew it would bring him no real satisfaction. Even the dull throb of loneliness was better than the piercing agony of a massive hangover the next day.

  With a sigh, he flipped on the lights and walked into the kitchen. The sink stared back at him, a smooth flow of white porcelain set in a pink sea of granite. It wasn’t a particularly special sink, but next to the faucet was the spray nozzle that he used to wash Janet’s hair when she was a baby. He remembered the first time he had done that. She was only about ten days old. It was during the night when he let Angela get some sleep. Janet had gotten sick all over everything and Jack had taken that bold move: her first bath.

  Like every baby, Janet had cried. The unusual thing was that Jack had cried along with her. It was a moment burned into his memory, and not just because his little helpless infant daughter was crying. Rather, it was in that moment that he realized there were things in the world that he could not protect her from, and that notion had torn into him. All he ever wanted, from the moment Janet had been born, was to protect her as much as possible from the hurts of the world. And yet . . .

  Jack tossed the mail down on the table and went to the refrigerator for his usual can of Foster’s. He owed himself that much at least. As he poured the beer into a glass he noticed from the corner of his eye the flashing red light of the answering machine. Since his wife’s departure many months ago, the machine had fallen into disuse.

  The last time he’d checked, more than a week ago, the message on it was someone with the wrong number asking for a person named Kate. Jack’s parents were both dead and his sister had married the full-bearded priest of a strange religious cult out in Oregon. He hadn’t heard from her in three years. Now that Angela was gone, Jack had no social life. He sat his beer down on the table and dropped into a chair, musing.

  Out of habit, he played the message. This time it was for him. The inflection of the voice, not just the words, filled him with a surge of adrenaline. It was Beth. She wanted to know how he was doing. All the feelings he’d experienced in the garden at Crestwood came rushing back.

  Jack played it again, and then again.

  She had actually called him, at home. And left him her number. He went to the cupboard above his sink. Looking down on him was a regiment of blue bottles: Maalox. He took one down and cracked the cap, gulping it hungri
ly. It seemed to be the only thing that would quell the feeling that beleaguered his stomach. He tossed the bottle into the garbage and picked up the phone, trembling as he dialed.

  “Beth?” he said, in a strangled voice.

  “Yes?”

  “This is Jack Ruskin.”

  Silence ensued, and Jack wondered in an irrational instant of panic if he’d made some mistake.

  “I . . . I didn’t know if I should call you at home,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  In his mind, he could see her face, the small nose and the deep caring eyes slowly revealed from behind a dark luxuriant curtain of hair. He could feel the warm touch of her hand against his bare neck.

  “No, please,” he said, pinning the phone against his shoulder with the side of his head and taking up his glass to steal a quick mouthful of beer. “I’m glad you called. I appreciate it.”

  “Because, I guess, technically,” she said, “I shouldn’t . . . I guess . . .”

  “Well . . .”

  “Well, you’re the lawyer,” she said, “I thought you might know . . .”

  “There’s no law against calling someone. I know that,” he said. “Even if there was, the rules of ethics in mental health are for the counselors and doctors. And even if Crestwood has any policies about the staff, that’s for your privacy. You know, to keep people from bothering you or something. I mean, not the other way around. I’m sorry, I’m babbling.”

  “Well, I didn’t want to do anything wrong, but I was worried about you,” she said. “Even though I don’t work with the older girls, I know you’re in a . . . that you’re going through a difficult time. I don’t know, though. I still feel funny calling.”