The Green And The Gray Read online

  Broadway's vehicular traffic, as he'd already noted, was running sparse tonight. What he hadn't anticipated was that pedestrian traffic would be similarly low-key. Once they'd made it out of the immediate Columbia area, they found themselves with the sidewalk virtually to themselves.

  Construction blockages wouldn't explain that; there must be a football game or something on. Or maybe it was still baseball season. He was a little vague on such things.

  Though it could also be the weather that was keeping everyone inside. The wind had picked up since their arrival at the theater, and had become a steady blast of Canadian air pressing against their backs and carrying the promise of an extra-cold winter ahead.

  Caroline was evidently thinking along the same lines. "We're going to need to bring the trees in soon, before it gets too cold," she commented as they hurried across 104th Street in anticipation of an imminent red light. "We let it go too long last year, and they did poorly when spring came."

  "What constitutes too cold?" Roger asked, glad to have something to talk about that didn't involve either exercise or the play.

  "Certainly before we get a hard freeze," she said.

  "Okay," Roger said, though he had only a vague memory of tree problems last spring. The two semidwarf orange trees, like the rest of their indoor jungle, were Caroline's responsibility. "You want to put them in the bedroom again?"

  "I'd like to," Caroline said. "I know you don't like them blocking the balcony door there; but the alternative is to block the living room door, and we certainly look out that one more often—"

  "Shh," Roger cut her off, looking around. "Did you hear that?"

  "Hear what?" Caroline asked.

  "It was like a cough," Roger told her, frowning. Aside from two more couples a block up the street, there wasn't a single human being in sight. "A very wet cough, like you get when you've got fluid in your lungs."

  "I hate that sound," Caroline said, shivering.

  "Yeah, but where did it come from?" Roger persisted, still looking around. All the shops in the immediate area were closed, there were no alleys, and the nearby doorways were too well illuminated by the streetlights for anyone to be hiding there. He couldn't see any open windows above them, either.

  "I don't see anyone," Caroline said. "Maybe you imagined it."

  I didn't imagine anything, Roger groused silently to himself. But he couldn't argue against the fact that there was no one in sight. "Maybe," he said, taking her arm and starting forward again, the back of his neck starting to creep in a way that had nothing to do with the wind. "Come on, let's go."

  They continued south, past the torn-up pavement and flashing yellow lights at 103rd, heading for

  102nd. Ahead on their left, he could see the theater he and Caroline sometimes went to, its marquee and windows dark. Had they started closing early on Wednesday nights?

  "Roger, what's wrong with the lights?" Caroline asked quietly.

  He frowned. Focusing on the theater, he hadn't even noticed that the light around them had gone curiously dim. The street lamps had turned into children's nightlights, putting out hardly any glow at all and looking like they were having to strain to manage even that much. The headlights of the passing cars seemed unnaturally bright, the doorways now resting in deep puddles of shadow.

  Ahead, as far down Broadway as he could see, all the streetlights had gone equally dim.

  He looked back over his shoulder. The lights had dimmed just behind them, too, but only for a single block. North of 103rd, they were blazing away normally.

  It was probably something to do with the road construction, of course. Something to do with torn-up streets and damaged power lines.

  But then why hadn't he noticed it as they approached? Why had the lights only now gone so oddly dim?

  And why had they dimmed just as he and Caroline had entered this particular stretch of sidewalk?

  Caroline had gone silent, gripping his arm a little tighter. Setting his teeth, Roger kept them moving, staying as far away from the shadowy doorways as he could. Just six blocks to go, he reminded himself firmly. It would be no worse than a nighttime walk in the woods, with the added bonus that there were no tree branches to trip over. "So what did you think of the play?" he asked.

  It took Caroline a second to shift mental gears. "I liked it a lot," she replied, her mind clearly miles away from the safe and artificial world of university experimental theater. "How about you?"

  "The acting was pretty decent," he said. "Though the Latin lover's accent was a little thick for my taste."

  "You mean Cesar?" Caroline said, frowning. "He wasn't Latin, he was French."

  "I know," Roger said. "I was using Latin lover in the generic sense."

  "I didn't know there was a generic sense for Latin lover," Caroline said. "Are you meaning a 'when in Rome' sort of thing?"

  "No, it's more a general melodramatic expression," he said. They were halfway down the block now, well into the darkened area. Five and a half blocks to go. "The smooth-talking romantic guy women swoon over. Usually he either seduces them or else entices them unknowingly to their doom."

  "Ah," Caroline said. "Though in this case it was hardly unknowing. LuAnn knew exactly what was going on."

  "Then why did she let Cesar manipulate her that way?" Roger countered, knowing full well that getting started on the play's logic would only get him into trouble. "Especially when good old solid Albert was standing there waiting for her to come to her senses?"

  "I don't know," Caroline murmured. "I still don't think it was Cesar's fault."

  "Maybe not," Roger said, forcing himself to let it drop. "I liked the set design, too," he added, hoping the production's technical aspects would be safer ground. "And the music was pretty good. Chopin, I think."

  They had reached 101st street, and he was searching for something else positive he could say, when the dim streetlights went completely dark.

  Caroline jerked to a halt with a short, involuntary gasp. "Easy," Roger said, looking around as his stomach tightened into a hard knot. The streetlights were gone, but at the same time the various apartment windows above them were still lit, giving off a cheerful glow.

  Which was, to Roger's mind, the eeriest part of all. He'd never seen a power outage yet that didn't take out everything in a six-block area, streetlights and buildings alike. What the hell was going on?

  "Just keep walking," he murmured.

  "No," a deep voice said from their left.

  Roger jumped, spinning around to face the vague shape standing on the sidewalk just around the corner from them. "What do you want?" he demanded, cursing the quaver in his voice.

  "You have trees?" the man asked.

  Roger blinked, the sheer unexpectedness of the question freezing his brain. "Trees?" he repeated stupidly.

  "Trees!" the man snarled. "You said—" He broke off, coughing hard. It was the same cough, Roger realized with a shiver, that he'd heard back at the corner.

  Except that this man hadn't been there. No one had been there.

  Beside him, he felt Caroline loosen her grip on his arm. "Yes," she said, raising her voice to be heard over the man's hacking. "We have two semi-dwarf orange trees."

  With an effort, the man brought his lungs under control. "How big?" he rasped.

  Now, too late, it occurred to Roger that they might have escaped while the other was incapacitated.

  But maybe they would have another chance. Bracing himself, he got ready to grab Caroline's hand and run the instant another fit took him.

  "About six feet tall and four across," Caroline said. "They're in pots on our balcony."

  The man took another step forward. The light from the apartment windows wasn't good enough for Roger to make out his features, but there was enough to show that he was short and broad, with the build of a compact boxer.

  It was also quite adequate to illuminate the shiny pistol clutched in his left hand.

  "Small," the man muttered. "But they'll do." He gest
ured back along 101st Street behind him. The streetlights there were also dark. "Come."

  Roger could feel Caroline trembling against his side as he silently steered them past the mugger and down the sidewalk, trying desperately to come up with a plan. The man was obviously weak and sick. If he jumped him and wrestled away the gun...

  No. If he jumped him, he would get himself shot. The mugger was a head shorter than he was, but judging by the width of his shoulders he probably outweighed Roger by a good twenty pounds.

  Probably outmuscled him by a hell of a lot more, too.

  "Here," the mugger said suddenly from behind him. "In here."

  Roger swallowed hard, focusing on the iron fence set across an alley between two buildings to their left, its gate standing wide open. The dark concrete beyond the fence sloped downward to a flat area, beyond which he could see a set of concrete steps leading to a higher platform, beyond which was a flat, featureless wall. On the right, between the entrance and the back steps, was a shorter wall leading into a little courtyard-like area; just past that was a fire escape attached to one of the buildings. Inside the fence to the left was a stack of garbage bags.

  "In here," the mugger said again.

  "Do as he says, Roger," Caroline murmured.

  With his heart thudding in his ears, Roger stepped through the gate and started down the slope, Caroline still clutching his arm. They had gone perhaps three steps into the alley when, behind them, the dead streetlights abruptly came back on.

  "Stop," the mugger ordered. "There."

  Roger frowned. The man, now in silhouette against the light, was pointing at a long bundle of rags lying at the far end of the line of trash bags. "There what?" he asked.

  "Oh, my God," Caroline breathed, letting go of Roger's arm and stepping over to kneel beside the bundle.

  And then Roger got it. The bundle wasn't rags, but a young girl, fourteen or fifteen years old, dressed in some odd patchwork outfit made of green and gray material. She was curled into a fetal position against the cold night air, her eyes closed.

  "Take her," the mugger's voice said in Roger's ear.

  Something swung toward Roger's face; reflexively, he flinched back. But the something didn't connect, merely stopping in midair in front of him.

  It was the mugger's hand. In it was the mugger's gun.

  Its grip pointed toward Roger. "What?" Roger asked cautiously.

  "Take her," the other repeated, thrusting the gun insistently toward him. "Protect her."

  Carefully, Roger reached up and touched the weapon. Was this some sort of trick? Was the other going to suddenly reverse the gun and shoot him? His fingers closed on the gun, and the weapon's gentle weight came into his hand as the mugger let go. "Protect her," the other said again softly.

  Brushing past Roger, he headed silently down the slope farther into the alley.

  "Roger, give me your coat," Caroline ordered. "She's freezing."

  "Sure," Roger said mechanically, watching the man's broad back retreating. Was he staggering a little? Roger couldn't be sure, but it looked like it. A mugger who'd lingered too long after happy hour might explain why Roger was now the one holding the gun.

  But the man hadn't sounded drunk. And there certainly hadn't been any alcohol on his breath when he'd handed over the weapon.

  And that cough...

  "Roger!"

  "Right." Still watching the man's unsteady progress, he stripped off his coat and handed it over. He glanced down long enough to see Caroline sit the girl up and get the coat around her shoulders, then looked back down the alley.

  The mugger was gone.

  He frowned, peering into the semidarkness. The man was gone, all right. But gone where?

  Cautiously, he crossed to the low wall and peered over it.

  The man wasn't there. He wasn't on the fire escape, either, or on the stone steps, or the platform across the end, or huddled around the corner against the cul-de-sac around the back. There were no doorways Roger could see, nothing a person could hide behind, and all the first-floor windows were barred. And he certainly hadn't gotten past Roger and escaped out the alley mouth.

  He'd simply vanished.

  Roger looked down at the pistol in his hand. He'd never held a real handgun before, but he'd always had the impression the things were heavy. This one didn't seem to weigh much more than the toys he'd played with as a boy. Could it be one of those fancy plastic guns the newspapers were always going on about?

  But it didn't look plastic. It was definitely metal, and it sure as hell looked like one of those army pistols from World War II movies. He turned it over in his hand, angling it toward the streetlight for a better look.

  And for the first time noticed that there was something marring the shiny metal on the right side of the barrel. A streak of something dark that came off as he rubbed his finger across it.

  Blood?

  "Roger, stop daydreaming and give me a hand," Caroline called.

  Taking one last look around, he walked back up the sloping concrete. Caroline had the girl wrapped in his coat and on her feet, propping her up like a rag doll. The girl's eyes were open, but she looked dazed and only half awake.

  And there were a set of ugly bruises on her neck.

  "Roger, snap out of it," Caroline ordered into his thoughts. "We have to get her home."

  "No, we have to call the police," Roger countered as he dug into his pocket for his phone, feeling his face flush with annoyance. Did she really think he'd just been standing there with his brain in idle?

  "We can call them from the apartment," Caroline said. "We have to get her out of this air before she catches pneumonia."

  "The police have to be called," Roger insisted. "This is a crime scene. They'll want to look for clues."

  "We can tell them where we found her," Caroline shot back. "They can look for clues with us back home just as easily as they can with us standing here."

  Roger ground his teeth. But she was probably right. And given the unlikelihood of a quick police response to a non-emergency situation, the girl could well freeze to death before they even got a car here.

  Or rather he could freeze to death. It was his coat she was wearing, after all.

  "Fine," he growled. "Come on—uh—Caroline, what's her name?"

  "She doesn't seem to be able to talk," Caroline said, her voice low and dark. "It looks like someone tried to strangle her."

  "Yeah, I noticed." Roger turned around, his skin tingling with the odd impression that someone was watching them. But there was no one in sight.

  But then, there hadn't been anyone in sight when he'd heard that first cough, either.

  Shoving the gun into his pocket, he stepped to the girl's side and put his arm around her slim waist.

  A fair percentage of her weight came onto his arm; she really was in bad shape. He just hoped he wouldn't end up carrying her the rest of the way to the apartment.

  He hoped even more that whoever had tried to do this to her wouldn't get to them first.

  2

  He did not, in fact, end up carrying the girl, but it was a near thing. By the time they reached their building, she was staggering like a drunken tourist, with the two of them supporting nearly her entire weight. The night doorman was nowhere to be seen, and it was all Roger could do to keep her from collapsing as Caroline fished out her keys and let them in.

  The elevator was deserted, as was the hallway leading to their sixth-floor apartment. With Caroline again handling the door, Roger maneuvered the girl inside.

  "No—the bedroom," Caroline panted as Roger started toward the living room. "She'll be more comfortable there."

  "Okay," Roger grunted, changing direction.

  They made it to the bedroom and got the girl up onto the bed. She was already asleep as Caroline folded the end of the comforter up to cover her legs. Roger straightened the lapels of his coat across her shoulders, and as he did so his fingers brushed across her shoulder. The material of her tunic felt
odd, like some cross between silk and satin.

  "She looks so young," Caroline murmured.

  "How old do you think she is?" Roger asked. "I was guessing about fifteen."

  "Oh, no—no more than twelve," Caroline said. "Maybe even eleven."

  "Oh," Roger said, focusing on the girl's face. He could never tell about these things.

  But however old she was, she certainly had an exotic look about her. Her hair was pure black, her skin olive-dark in a Mediterranean sort of way, and there was an odd slant about her eyes and mouth he couldn't place. He hadn't had a chance to see her eyes before she fell asleep, but he would bet money they were as dark as her hair.

  "Better leave the closet light on," Caroline said. "She might be frightened if she wakes up in the dark and doesn't know where she is."

  Roger nodded and flipped the switch, and together they tiptoed out, closing the door behind them.

  "What do you think?" Caroline asked as she pulled off her coat and hung it on the coat tree by the door.

  "I think we should call the cops and let them sort it out," Roger said, plucking his shirt distastefully away from his chest as he headed for the kitchen phone. Coming suddenly from the cold night air into the warmth of the building had popped sweat all over his body, and his shirt was sticking unpleasantly to his skin. "Deadbolt the door, will you, and put the chain on? And then check the balcony doors."

  The 911 operator came on with gratifying speed. He explained the situation, gave her the address, and was assured that a patrol car would be there as soon as possible.

  Caroline was pacing around the living room when he returned. "Everything locked up?" he asked.

  "I didn't check the door off the bedroom," she said. "I didn't want to wake her up. But I remember seeing the broomstick in the rail this morning."

  "So did I," Roger confirmed. Crossing to the couch, he moved one of the throw pillows aside and sat down. "You might as well get comfortable. This might take awhile."

  "I suppose," she said, crossing to one of the two chairs in front of him. She sat down, but immediately bounced up again. "No, I can't."

  "Sit," Roger ordered, searching for some way to get her mind off her nervousness. "I want you to look at something."