BROOKLYN KNIGHT
CHAPTER ONE
“All right, my dear, finally, to begin our little introduction,” the man standing ever-so-proudly on the observation deck of the Empire State Building instructed, “look in that direction. Take it all in.”
As he pointed, the young woman with him stared off over the side of the building. Before and below her stood quite a few skyscrapers along with numerous smaller buildings, all leading to the water’s edge nearly a mile away. Pressing as closely to the restraining fencing as she could to enhance her view, her simply cut shoulder-length red hair rippled in the crisp breeze. The color of her wavy tresses screamed out that they were dyed, but none of the men present on the observation platform seemed to mind the fact. For that matter, none of them seemed to be spending all that much time staring at her hair, either.
“Now, of course, understand that all that you can see before you, every building and warehouse, every street and lane and alley, indeed, every inch from here to the water’s edge, all of that is New York City, or as we here humbly, but correctly, like to call it, the greatest city in the world.”
“And what’s the land on the other side of the water?”
“Oh, that’s Jersey. That’s unimportant.”
The young woman smiled. Even though originally from Montana, she got the joke. Also, coming from such a mountainous, underdeveloped state, she was quite accustomed to both heights and the wide-open spaces they could reveal. Nor, despite her rural upbringing, was she completely what one might label a “small-town girl.” She had begun her studies in the west coast’s Portland, completed them in Chicago, and in her junior year had even taken a road trip with two girlfriends to Las Vegas, with a stopover in Denver. Thus she possessed more than a touch of familiarity with what her relatives back home would call big cities.
“That’s a lot of city, all right,” she admitted in a tone that implied she believed her tour was over. Grabbing her wrist, her companion gave her a gentle tug, shouting;
“Come on now; as I said, this is just the beginning.”
The man was tall enough, over six feet, but by no more than an inch, possibly two. His hair was longer than his companion’s, but cut so that when pulled back it appeared quite conservative. It was for the most part extremely dark, but run through in several spots with streaks so blond they looked to be as unnatural as his companion’s shade of red. Closer examination revealed numerous ebony strands mixed in with the straw-colored ones, however, leaving most women envying his distinctive mane. Throwing in the seductive shade of blue Nature had granted his eyes did not help very much in negating such jealousies.
“Now, this side, again, as far as the eye can see,” the man pointed toward the south of Manhattan Island this time, “here as well, everything stretched out before you, this is also our beloved New York City.”
“All the way to the water?” she asked with surprise. After a moment’s consideration, she added, “Why, that must be miles away.”
“Oh, it is,” the man responded, grinning. Delighting in showing off his city to a newcomer, he added in a playfully casual tone, “Oh, and that rather formidably large landmass out there beyond the water?”
“Yes . . . ?”
“That’s Staten Island. That’s part of the city as well.”
“I have heard of it.”
“As well you should,” admonished the professor. “Onetime home to famed photographer Alice Austen, as well as Antonio Meucci, the actual inventor of the telephone, and, of course, still home to Fresh Kills, although now closed, still the largest landfill in the world.”
As the young woman’s eyes went round as the proverbial saucers, Knight asked quietly;
“Do you know how Staten Island got its name?” When she answered that she did not, he told her;
“It was the early sixteen forties when the Dutch first settled in this area. As their first ship came into sight of the continent, all the crew marveled at the great size of the land they’d found. Then, just as I have here, one sailor pointed, asking the captain if he had noticed the island. To which, we’re told, he replied, ‘Zat’s an island?’ ”
Bridget grimaced at the professor’s horrible pun, but her amazement was hardly dented. What he was showing her, despite the movies she had seen, some of the camera angles having been shot exactly from where she was standing, it was still so much—too much.
After all, it was one thing to view something so massive, so all-encompassing, from the safety of a movie house, a place designed for fantasy—one where routinely she also watched talking mice, werewolves, alien creatures, dinosaurs, and song-filled pirates. It was, however, quite another to see it in person, to watch the concrete canyons roll on mile after mile. After mile.
It’s unbelievable, she thought, the voice in her mind small and awed, practically frightened. It’s so, so . . .
The redhead had been maintaining the cool demeanor for which she felt the situation called, but that was quickly being eroded by her companion’s utter exuberance, as well as her own desire to give in to it. Yes, she thought, she had known heights in Montana, but they looked down on endless forests and serene lakes. They were nothing like what she was being shown.
Before her, in every direction, was human life unbound—unrestrained. How many buildings twenty, thirty, forty stories tall and more had she seen? All of them filled to overflowing with people. And the streets, miles of them—scores of miles of them—all filled with traffic, with thousands of people. Hundreds of thousands.
The turmoil of it, the intoxication, the unrestrained energy of every inch before the young woman, was overwhelming, making her giddy, smashing aside her thin veneer of sophistication as easily as an excited dog’s tail might scatter unbound straw.
Not giving her mind a chance to question him or even to begin to recover, the tall-enough man took her wrist once more, gently leading his companion back the way they had come. He walked them slowly, pointing out the cruise ships and the aircraft carrier docked in the Hudson. Then, rounding the far corner, he pointed to the north, telling her;
“And that, once more, as far as the eye can see, all you survey, my dear, is also New York City.”
This time, the view extended far beyond what she had found to the west or the south. As she tried to take it all in, the never-ending buildings extending all the way to the distant horizon, she found herself utterly lost—unable to grasp all she was being shown. It was staggering; it was colossal. Indeed, it took the young woman several moments before she even realized that there was a quite massive stretch of greenery in the middle of it all.
“That’s Central Park,” she said in an amazement-filled whisper. “My God, Professor Knight, look at it. It’s got to be like . . . what? A mile long? Two miles long?”
“At least.”
“That’s, that’s . . . ,” she stammered, pausing to gulp, “dear Lord, that’s longer than my hometown. You could—you could fit my hometown, all of it, everything, you could just sink it and lose it, in that park.”
“And what a park. It commands such attention, one can almost miss some of its neighbors.” Pointing toward one imposing, multiple-blocks-long structure, he added, “Such as the magnificent Museum of Natural History there. No real rival to where you shall be working, of course,” he teased, “but a competent place to take schoolchildren on a rainy Saturday, to be certain.”
As the redhead simply stared, the professor caught her attention with the selfsame finger, shifting it slightly to point out another landmark.
“And there you have the both notorious and somewhat creepy Dakota Apartments, where boy director Roman Polanski shot his breakout thriller Rosemary’s Baby, and where self-absorbed musician John Lennon was murdered for reasons which even today are barely fathomable.”
“Stop,” insisted Bridget, laughing as she did so. “If you keep it up we’ll be here all day. I mean, it’s like every brick in this town has a history.”
“Well, Ms. Elkins,” answered the man, one side of his mouth curling into half a smile, one just a shade short of patronizing, “you did ask, you know.”
The young woman’s mind jumped back an hour. She had been surprised when Professor Knight himself had met her flight at New Jersey’s Newark Airport. Yes, she had been told someone would pick her up at the airport. But when she had been lucky enough to capture the paid internship allowing her to spend the summer as the assistant to one of the directors of the Brooklyn Museum, it had never occurred to her that said director would end up doubling as her personal chauffeur. Instantly the fact set off a familiar debate within her mind.
In Montana she would not have thought twice about such a thing. But as most everyone she knew there had warned her, New York City was nothing like home. People were shot down in the streets, raped in their churches, robbed and stabbed and beaten to death in their own homes—victimized and terrorized in ways the good folks of tiny, fit-inside-a-park Wolfbend, Montana, could scarcely comprehend.
Had Knight seen a picture of her beforehand, she wondered. Was the director putting “the moves” on her? W...
