Flawless (New York Confidential #1)(98)

“There! Up ahead. The Celtic American line,” Crow said. “I see the car.”

The Chevy was in front of the entry to the Celtic American line. More chaos was breaking out as last-minute cruisers competed for positions to park or drop off passengers.

Jude jerked the sedan off to the side of the road. Crow was out of the sedan before it was in park. Seconds later, he had the driver standing on the sidewalk beside the old Chevy.

He looked like a man in a trance. He was fifty-five or sixty, a slightly pudgy and balding businessman who seemed completely bewildered—as if he didn’t know who he was or why he was there.

“Who were you driving? Why didn’t you stop?” Crow demanded.

“I’m Walter Bean, I was supposed to pick up my daughter after her shift at the Red Garter... She’s a hostess there.”

“We need you to tell us about your passenger.”

“I’m not even sure he was real, he showed up so fast! I don’t know... I don’t understand... Suddenly he was in the car, making me drive, telling me there was a killer after me.”

“Where did he go just now?” Jackson asked. “Think. Where did he go?”

Walter Bean was very red and sweating profusely. He shook his head. “I don’t know. He said to stop here. I stopped. He got out of the car. I don’t know if he...if he was a killer. I believed he would kill me. He was frantic. He said a killer was after me, and then he said he’d kill me if I didn’t drive, didn’t get him to the port. Oh, God, oh, God...”

The man clutched his chest.

“Heart attack!” Jude warned.

They patted his coat for digitalis; Jude found the vial and Jackson got a pill in the man’s mouth. Other agents ran up.

“Get him an ambulance!” Crow yelled, gesturing to a cop in uniform who rushed forward to help.

“Let’s move,” Jude said. He could hear sirens already. Walter Bean would now receive the medical care he needed.

Once again, he and Crow were running.

Jackson flashed his badge as they moved through the passenger terminal. They were asking questions at a check point when Jude found himself studying a man who had boarded the ship. He’d just crossed the air bridge and Jude could see him through the window.

No one there had seen a man who fit the description of the man they were chasing.

But Jude did.

He couldn’t see him clearly; there were too many people boarding at the same time.

He turned to Jackson Crow. “He’s on the ship. It makes perfect sense. Every city where the Archangel has killed has been a port city—a port where cruise ships depart and return. Some crew members are on for nine months or more at a stint. Some hire on for two, four or six months, especially if they’re entertainers or celebrity hosts, that sort of thing. Crow, it’s what we’ve been trying to figure out! How and why the murders happen and then stop. He’s either an employee or a passenger on a ship, and I have strong feeling it’s that ship.”

“Why do you think it’s that ship?” Jackson asked.

“I think I just saw him. Or, at least, I saw the man we were chasing.”

“You’re not certain?”

“No. Not a hundred percent certain.”

“McCoy, we don’t even know if he’s the killer! He could be some gawker jerk who’s guilty of some minor crime—and afraid of all the law enforcement. He could also be late for a sailing.”

“If he was just late for a sailing, he would’ve had to go through the line. But he’s here on the ship. And no one runs like that because of a parking ticket. He’s guilty of something major—probably these murders—and I believe he’s on that ship.”

Jackson Crow stared at him a moment longer; Jude didn’t blame him. They’d met less than three hours ago. Crow had Native American in his heritage, and although Jude wasn’t in any way enamored of stereotyping, Crow had the “stoic” attributed to Native Americans down pat. Jude couldn’t begin to tell what he was thinking.

“Gut feeling,” Jude told him, determined to be honest and equally determined to be convincing. “I have one hell of a gut feeling.”

Jackson Crow brought out his credentials and started a rapid-fire discussion with a Celtic American security guard. Within seconds, another man came down, some senior person with the cruise line.

When they’d finished speaking, Jude and Jackson were each handed a boarding pass.

“Ever been to Cozumel?” Jackson asked dryly.

“Spring break, a thousand years ago.”

Jackson shrugged. “Then you should remember it, well enough. Anyway, let’s hope the hell we’re off by then—with him in cuffs. Because if we’re not....”

“He’ll kill again,” Jude said quietly. He looked up at the behemoth they were about to board.

The Destiny.

She wasn’t one of the largest ships sailing the seas by far. She was, Jude knew—thanks to the publicity at her most recent relaunch—the pride of the Celtic American line, owned by an Irish American who had come to the States as a college student and gone on to become a billionaire. The ship was old, commissioned in the late 1930s by an English lord who was hoping to give the Queen Mary a run for her money. The timing, for obvious reasons, had been bad. She wound up serving as a hospital ship during World War II, her cruising days curtailed by the devastation facing the world. Following the war, she’d gone through numerous hands until she’d been purchased and completely refurbished by Celtic American. The company specialized in historic ships, making that history part of their charm.