Alongside Night(11)

She punched data into a computer console, then turned back to the video camera. “Yes, the reservation is still intact. Do you wish to change it?”

“No, thank you,” Elliot answered, delighted. “Thank you very much.”

The reservation was intact; it had not been changed or canceled. Whatever had necessitated leaving the apartment so early, his family had to be expecting him to rendezvous with them on Park Avenue as scheduled at seven o’clock. He checked his watch. It was only half past six. He had wasted thirty minutes but still had time to pack and meet them on time—if he hurried.

Elliot was just about to start back to his own room when he heard the apartment’s front door open.

It could only have been his mother or Denise. He was about to call out but stopped himself. He heard voices. Unfamiliar, male voices. His reactions now raised to Alongside Night

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full alert, Elliot backed again into his parents’ bedroom in time to hear one voice say, “Better check the master bedroom.”

Quickly, Elliot slipped into the bedroom’s storage closet and shut the door. He waited in pitch blackness, listening to his heart race, as footsteps passed by the closet, checked in the bathroom, then left the bedroom again. When he was certain whoever it was had left the room again, Elliot slipped back out of the closet, shut the bedroom door until just two inches remained, then pressed his ear close enough to pick up conversation. After a half-minute pause, another voice—a lighter voice belonging to a young-sounding man—asked, “How long d’ja think we have to wait?”

“Don’t know,” said the first—heavier, gruffer—voice. “He could come any time.”

That narrowed it down somewhat. They were—most probably, at least—waiting either for himself or his father. The younger voice spoke again, “Jesus, I’ve never seen the chief so pissed before.”

“We’ll be seeing a damn sight more if you let the kid slip through your fingers again.”

“My fingers? How the hell was I supposed to know you hadn’t—”

“Shut up.”

Elliot sensed how the cards had been dealt. But what did

“the chief” want with him?

The logical answers were discouraging. His father’s cover story might have been broken, the authorities—most probably the FBI—wanting Elliot as bait to catch him. They might have wanted Elliot to answer questions about his father’s political activities—especially if they did still think him dead. They even might have found out Elliot was carrying a fortune in gold. This last preyed upon his mind. How might the authorities know? So far as he had been told, the only person outside his 46

Alongside Night

family with knowledge of the gold was Al. But if Al had been so inclined, he could have informed any previous time, or simply have invented some reason not to have turned over the belt. Besides, Elliot had been careful not to let slip to Al that he was heading home …although if he were important enough to go after in the first place, they might have sent men to his apartment as a matter of course.

Nonetheless, the important question had been answered. The men outside were enemies, and he had to escape. Armed confrontation was just too risky. What other way out of the apartment was there? The only door out to the apartment-house hallway was in the living room. Wait a second. There was also that window right over there. He could easily fit through, but he was still on the fiftieth floor, and even jumping terrace to terrace, there was no way he could rappel himself down that far. But if he could find a rope, perhaps he could lower himself down to the terrace below, break in, escape through that living room. If the neighbors were away …50L, 49L …That would be the Herberts. Only the Herberts had moved out last month when Mr. Herbert’s realty company went under. The apartment was still vacant.

Elliot returned to the bedroom’s storage closet, flipped on the light, and began scratching around. First he needed a strong rope—at least twenty feet—and he began searching for the nylon rope used to tie up the family’s speedboat on Lake Winnipesaukee. They always took it home for the winter after having had two such ropes disappear from the boathouse. He did not find it. Damn! His father must have forgotten, and by now somebody else would have stolen it, too. Elliot smiled to himself as he realized that it did not matter anymore. A few additional minutes provided nothing more promising than twenty-five feet of plastic clothesline that he found on top of a carton filled with copies of Not Worth a Continental. Elliot measured out the line to a bit over four arm spans, then Alongside Night

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tested it. The line would stretch like all hell, but perhaps if he were to double it over, it might support his weight. If he swore off sex and hard liquor for the rest of his life …and there were a full moon for good measure.