Mr Peanut - Adam Ross [40]
“That’s right,” Hastroll told him.
“Then we wait to see if he calls us back from that phone booth.”
Hastroll dialed. “And then we arrest him.”
“Things like that don’t even happen in movies,” Sheppard said.
Hastroll punched in his number, then put down his cell.
They sat for hours on end, taking breaks only to go to the bathroom or grab a bite.
“How’s Hannah?” Sheppard finally asked.
“Good, thanks.”
Hastroll and Sheppard spent the time reading Pepin’s manuscript, the former passing each page he finished to the latter, though occasionally he considered sharing the news that Hannah was pregnant. But he’d no more tell a stranger on the street this than he would Sheppard—especially not him. Sooner or later, he’d find out by himself. And it was Hastroll’s feeling that if you were lucky enough to keep love, to talk about it would always seem like bragging, no matter how generous the listener’s spirit.
He and Sheppard ate smoked salmon and crème fraîche sandwiches and Diet Coke for lunch and waited hours without a single call. In his gut, he believed they would catch the suspect, and in his mind he pictured what he’d look like when they finally set eyes on him. Someone thin and bald, cobra-headed, like James Carville; fey, lispy, conceited, perhaps a bit of a puss, like John Malkovich. Early that evening, when a man finally did stop to make a call at the booth, Hastroll stood up, his cell phone buzzing in his pocket; and when he got a look at him finally, he was reminded of how the suspect in a composite or the person in your mind never looks like the real killer, is almost never the person in the actual world, his own surprise at this man’s appearance reconfirming the enduring truth that we have our backs to the future.
He was extremely short, five feet in heels, wearing a khaki sport coat and blue jeans. His brown hair, with long straight bangs, hung very long in the back—a mullet, really. His black eyes were gerbil-like, as beady and opaque as marbles, and although he was diminutive he was stocky, built like a wrestler or a dwarf strongman. He was so low to the ground he’d be hard to knock off his base.
“Excuse me,” Hastroll said, Sheppard standing behind him.
The man replaced the receiver, then looked up. “What do you want?”
Hastroll showed him his badge. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“About what?”
“Alice Pepin.”
“Never heard of her.”
“Not according to her husband,” Hastroll said.
“Interesting,” the man said.
When Hastroll grabbed his shoulder, the suspect spun him into the wall with an aikido move, caught Sheppard with a vicious blow to the throat, then ran out of the store, sliding down the escalator’s rail and tearing through the lobby, sprinting across Columbus Circle and into Central Park. Hastroll possessed surprising pursuit speed for a large man but was confident while he huffed that Sheppard had already called in backup; he could hear sirens approaching even now. The man ran toward the ball fields but jumped a fence and ducked into a tunnel, Hastroll close behind. Here the suspect suddenly stopped, turned, and spread his legs wide in battle stance, producing from his sleeve a butterfly knife that he flipped open with so much rehearsed fanfare it gave Hastroll a chance to bend over and catch his breath. Blade locked, the man proceeded to shred the air between them, slicing and dicing with incredible whirling-dervish karate moves, chops, and roundhouse kicks so fast that the spill of air trailing his limbs sounded like a Wiffle bat swung wildly. He ended his death dance with a short bark, the knife held above his head, his other hand flipped palm up to Hastroll like a crossing guard’s command to halt.
“I’ll flense you like a pig!” he said.
Hastroll pulled his switchblade, then changed his mind and drew his gun, shooting the knife from the man’s hand and emptying a round for good measure into each of his knees. “Stop,” he said, “or I’ll shoot.”
Later, through the one-way glass, Hastroll watched