Blood on the Street (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery, #4)

street lamps, came single file toward her.
    Hugging herself against the cold, she took a ragged breath. She had to get home. Get to a phone. Get away from here. What had happened to Alton? Would he be waiting for her at the apartment? She crossed over where Christopher Street continued after being cut by Hudson. What was that drab, grim archway? Like a black hole. The PATH train entrance. The route to New Jersey. It looked abandoned. Darkness, steep steps going downward. She had no idea it was here.
    A sound, a faint sound behind her, heels crunching stones, then a hand tight across her mouth, so tight she couldn’t bite. Cold metal against her forehead. She was being dragged back into the menacing arch, the entrance to the PATH trains.
    It couldn’t end this way. Not like this. She wouldn’t go like a wimp. For her it would be kicking and snarling all the way. With every ounce of strength she could muster, she bucked, kicking backward, her heels meeting his shins with the full force of her hundred pounds of weight.
    “Bitch!” Howling, he threw her against the archway. A deafening explosion, then the not unpleasant smell of gunpowder, replaced quickly by that of singed hair. Chunks of cement crumbs stung her. Her head burned. Something warm and wet dripped into her eyes. Her hair oozed from its knot and slipped down her face. She pulled it back, and it came away in her hands. Dazed, she tried to stand. She heard someone say, “Why? Why?” The voice sounded like hers, from a great distance.
    He was standing over her, ludicrous in his blond Marilyn wig and sequined dress. Big feet in platform ankle straps. Did he paint his toenails? she wondered, slipping into hysteria. But he was talking. What was he saying? “Because Brian was going to take everything away from me. He told Tabitha and he told you. I didn’t believe him, Brian was such a liar, but I had to make sure. We had a deal. I sent him clients and he gave me a cut. Then he decided I should pay him to keep quiet. I was going to be rich and famous. He would have ruined everything.”
    “What about Tabitha?”
    “I didn’t want to do that, but when I read the diary, I knew I had to. It was only a matter of time before she told.”
    “You stole the diary and tore out those pages. Why did you send it back to me? You had what you wanted.”
    “I wanted to scare you off.”
    She raised herself on one elbow, felt the cold cement scrape her skin. Could she make it to the stairs? Had to keep him talking. “You mean Brian was going to tell that you’re really Gordon Jerome, ex-accountant, convicted felon, phony psychologist, cross dresser—”
    His face distorted. He ran his hands over his hips, balancing the gun precariously. “You were spying on me. I like dressing up. In some societies it isn’t considered strange. Women wear men’s clothes all the time.”
    He was right, of course, but forget about that. He’d killed two people and was trying to kill her. A bleeding heart would lead right to her own heart bleeding. She inched to the steps.
    “There’s nothing wrong with me. Barbie likes it when I dress up.” He pointed the gun at her again, and she flipped herself over the edge of the first step. The gun clicked but didn’t shoot. He became frantic, clicking, clicking. She rolled down two more steps. He threw the gun and it clattered, bumptebump , on the stone steps, then he grabbed her arm and pulled her kicking and screaming back up the stairs.
    Pieces of hair hung in her face, matted with blood. He was choking her. Arms flailing, she fought back. She’d be a dead body on a slab in the M.E.’s office, just like Brian and Tabitha. “Silvestri,” she gasped. A gray-blue film covered her eyes. Gorillas floated around her in the semidarkness. Jerry wasn’t there anymore. She gulped rough, gasping breaths. Women’s legs, some in lace tights, slim ankles, muffled voices. There was Jerry. He was backing away from the gorillas. Watch it! He stepped back over the edge and hung there for a microsecond, then pitched over backward. A hideous scream echoed up, then the sound of a horrid thud. And silence.
    Gorillas bent over her. She could barely keep her eyes open. What a strange time to be sleepy. Blood stuck to her eyelids. I’m a leaky hose , she thought. She reached a hand upward and one of the gorillas reached out and clasped it, as if they knew each other. There were five of them. Women in hairy gorilla heads. They were comforting her now,