Steeplechase, page 8
“No!” Africa screamed. “Stop! He’s running for the water!”
As King Lee bounded toward the surf, Frankie took aim and fired. The lion reared up for an instant and then slumped heavily onto the sand. Africa cried out in grief and then ran toward his fallen beast.
“This is a nightmare,” Katie said, sobbing angrily. “Why can’t I wake myself?”
“Because it’s really happening, my girl,” Corrigan said. “You gotta pull yourself together.”
They looked out at the park, now ablaze in a number of spots, with great plumes of black smoke already filling the sky above the island.
“We can’t stop this,” Corrigan said. “But we can stop Caps. Let’s find that bastard.”
Chapter 25
Although there were many landmark attractions on fire, the sight of the towering Water Chutes engulfed in flames made even the most panicked in the crowd pause to look. The park’s newest attraction was now a searing inferno. And the leaping flames that consumed it were reflected in the pool at its base, somehow doubling the horror.
Katie and Corrigan stumbled into the central fairground and saw how far the fire had already proceeded. Nearly everything was ablaze—the loop-the-loop, the carousel, the Parachute Jump. People were running into one another, trying to either escape the park or help extinguish the fire. Desperate firefighters did what they could to hold the advancing flames back from the one section of the park still unaffected, which contained the Steeplechase ride.
Corrigan nudged Katie toward a side area, where Officer Murdoch was huddled with a team that was trying to strategize. Katie was astonished to see that standing in the middle of the group was none other than Nathan Caps, who wore a mask of earnest concern. And lurking nearby was Marinacci, chewing lightly on a toothpick and watching with barely concealed satisfaction as the brightly painted horses of the carousel fell down in flames, one after another.
Corrigan pulled Katie behind a truck.
“They’re still here,” she said. “Why hasn’t Caps taken off?”
“He’s gotta stay,” Corrigan said. “He’s the park manager. It’s his job. If he left now, he’d cause talk later—and that’s the last thing he wants for his fire sale plan.”
“What are we going to do?” Katie asked as she watched another attraction—the Moving Picture Palace—collapse in a heap of burning wood and metal.
Corrigan thought for a moment and then grinned. “We’re gonna try to get some proof. And while we’re at it, scare ole Caps sh…”
“Shitless.” Katie finished the phrase.
Corrigan took Katie’s hand and led her directly to the group huddle. All the men looked up and Caps blanched. He looked shocked to see the two of them.
“Reporting for duty, sir,” Corrigan said to Murdoch. “What can we do?”
“Hey, Jake,” Murdoch said. “We’re going to try to save the ballroom since that’s about all that’s left.”
Murdoch turned to his subordinates and began issuing directives. Caps squinted at Corrigan and Katie, his mind furiously turning over different scenarios. The smoke at the central area was becoming so thick that it was difficult to see; Murdoch and the other policemen were already lost in the haze.
“Mr. Caps, we want to help you in any way we can,” Corrigan said quietly but pointedly. “There must be some kind of…arrangement that we could make.”
Surprised, Caps narrowed his eyes and glanced over at Marinacci, who was standing alert nearby, hand in his jacket and clearly ready to pull out his gun at a second’s notice.
“Ah, y-yes,” Caps stuttered. “It’s kind of you to offer. Let’s move out of the officers’ way and discuss. I’m sure we can work something out.”
As Caps went to guide Katie’s arm, he made a “hold off” gesture at Marinacci—who didn’t see it through the intensifying smoke. Having lost sight of his boss, Marinacci immediately pulled out his gun. But Corrigan’s pistol was already out, and he got off a shot squarely in the other man’s shoulder, sending him reeling backward into the carousel. Marinacci landed against the post of one of the fallen horses, the burning beam impaling him in the center of his chest. The impact of his fall caused what was left of the ride to cave in. Smoke billowed forward, enveloping the entire area.
Murdoch raced over to Corrigan.
“What the hell was that?” he yelled.
“Marinacci, the man who started the fire,” Corrigan yelled back over the rising noise of the inferno. “Under the orders of Nathan Caps!”
“Are you crazy, Jake?” the cop exclaimed.
“It’s a big scheme to sell the nearby properties he owns. You gotta take him in.”
The two men peered into the enveloping smoke, but Caps was nowhere to be seen.
And neither was Katie.
Chapter 26
It was hard to say which was worse: the choking smoke or the searing heat. Katie’s eyes were burning as she pushed her way forward, moving on pure instinct since she could see nothing. Finally, she came out of the worst of the maelstrom to a place not yet fully consumed by fire: the Steeplechase ride. Flames were just beginning to lick at the far end of the attraction; for now, the rising and falling tracks were still intact.
And Caps was using them as an escape route.
Despite the chaos and danger around her, Katie was amused that Caps’s pride and joy—his beautiful head of shining white hair—was his giveaway. It stood out against the backdrop of gray and black smoke as though his head were a lantern. With a silk scarf over this mouth, Caps was awkwardly navigating one of the central rails up a steep incline. Katie recalled his fear of heights and saw that it was slowing his progress. She peered ahead and guessed that he was making toward the stairway down to the beach on the other side of the ride. Once there, he would have a clear getaway out of the park.
Katie hoisted herself up onto the track and began her pursuit. As she picked her way over to the same rail that Caps was climbing, a huge whoosh of fire suddenly skyrocketed underneath the ride; it had ridden a current of heat-driven wind to jump from the far end of the ride to the middle. Katie wavered for a moment, wondering if it was worth continuing after Caps, who might very well be caught up in the advancing flames. But she was so angry that she couldn’t let him go without trying to stop him.
In response to the upswing of fire, Caps almost lost his balance. Turning around in an effort to steady himself, he saw Katie some yards behind him.
“You’re not going to get away with this!” Katie shouted at him. “Jake has probably already told Murdoch that you did this. Your deal is dead, Caps.”
Caps stopped for a moment, seeming to still be fighting to regain his balance. At the last moment, Katie realized that he was actually pulling out a gun. Before she could duck, he fired directly at her. She took a bullet in her right side and spun, falling onto the track. Gasping from the shock, Katie held on to the track and looked up to see Caps taking aim once again. She had no choice but to fall, out of his line of fire.
Down she fell, between the tracks, slamming against a support beam that she grabbed on to with all her might. The pain in her side was unlike anything she had ever felt. Looking down, she saw that beneath her the rapidly advancing flames were eating the attraction’s latticework. The grass underneath the structure was already browning from the heat. She looked up through the tracks to see Caps picking his way over to the farthest rail, just a few feet away from freedom.
Suddenly, Katie heard a metallic rattling that seemed to be shooting down the track. She looked up in time to see Caps pause and react to the strange sound. Straining her neck—as well as her increasingly pained grip—Katie raised her head further and saw that, incredibly, one of the mechanical horses was hurtling down the track. It was moving directly toward Caps.
And it was manned by the enraged Africa.
For an instant, the businessman was too flabbergasted by the absurdity of the sight to react—and his hesitation cost him dearly. Africa’s horse struck Caps head-on—sending him flying off the track. Uttering a scream of both terror and incredulity, Caps sailed off the top of the Steeplechase ride. Katie watched in stunned relief as he arced grandly and then began a long drop into the raging inferno below.
Caps plunged into the fire, and the heat buffeted Katie’s body. She knew she couldn’t hang on any longer. With a sigh that felt strangely accepting and peaceful, Katie loosened her grip and let her body drop.
And as she moved through the air—twirling, spinning, accelerating by the instant—the kaleidoscope of sensations brought to mind a fleeting thought: Why, it’s just like riding the Cyclone.…
Chapter 27
From this viewpoint, it all still looked the same. The soaring, intricately designed Beacon Tower still beckoned visitors into Dreamland park. The red-and-white spires and domes of Luna Park—one thousand of them—still glinted in the sunlight. It was only by craning one’s neck toward the other side of Coney Island that the blackened, skeletal remains of Steeplechase Park came into view. Even now, wisps of smoke could still be seen rising from the devastation.
Staring out the window, Corrigan was lost contemplating the scope of the disaster when he heard the brisk click of heels coming across the high-polished floors of the hospital. He turned to see Sister Mary Teresa, an imposingly tall but unmistakably warm and friendly woman, striding purposefully toward him.
“Any change?” Corrigan asked hesitantly.
Mary Teresa paused for a moment and then broke into a sunny smile.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Rather a big change.”
Corrigan couldn’t help himself. He flew off down the corridor as recklessly as if he were chasing a suspect through the park. Only after he nearly toppled an indignant nurse pushing an old man on a gurney did he slow down. He stopped outside the open door of a patient room, and, gathering himself—and his expectations—he slowly entered.
There was one bed at the center of the sunlit, spotlessly clean room. And in the middle of it, swaddled in starched white sheets, sat Katie Silver, pale and thin, with an arm in a heavy cast. But otherwise she was wide-awake and, to Corrigan’s astonishment, about to take a bite out of a heavily garnished hot dog.
Clutching his hat, Corrigan walked forward as though underwater, unable to say a word. Sister Mary Teresa walked in quietly behind him.
“She woke up a few hours ago and asked for a hot dog,” said the nun. “Three weeks in a coma and the first thing she says? ‘Can I get a hot dog?’ Who’d believe it?”
“I was hungry.” Katie shrugged. “And it was the first thing I thought of.”
“Well, you can work up an awfully big appetite in twenty-two days,” Corrigan said. “And seven and a half hours.”
Katie gave him a radiant smile and held out her hand. As Corrigan gently took a seat on the edge of the bed, Sister Mary Teresa tiptoed backward out the door.
“I really missed that heartbreaking smile, partner,” he said. “God, it’s good to see you.”
“It’s good to be seen,” Katie sighed. He leaned forward and tenderly kissed her. Then they just stared at each other for a moment.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” he asked.
“I was on the most incredible ride,” she said thoughtfully. “It was thrilling and terrifying and exciting. And then I was in this lovely room. How’d I get here?”
“Your buddy Africa saved the day.” Corrigan beamed. “He hit ole Caps with one of the mechanical horses—God, I wish I’d seen it!—and as he rode down the incline, he saw you falling between the tracks to the ground. I got there a second later. I don’t know how I would have found you if he hadn’t been able to point out where you fell.”
“Is he all right?” Katie asked with concern.
“A badly burned leg, but he’s hanging in there. Been here to see you every day. We’ve actually become great pals!”
Katie smiled with relief, but then a shadow passed over her face.
“And the park is gone,” she stated with certainty. “All of it.”
“Yeah, but they’ll rebuild Steeplechase,” Corrigan said. “Why, I hear—”
Katie put her hand softly to his mouth. “They’ll rebuild it but it won’t be the same. I saw it in my dreams. It’ll never be the same. No one will believe how grand it all was.…”
“Your dreams?” he asked, puzzled.
Lying back against her pillow, Katie shut her eyes and spoke slowly. “I dreamed it, all of it. I saw what happened to me in 1907—like the accident at the Parachute Jump and meeting up with the likes of you. But I also dreamed about the future. What it would be like. And the future got all mixed up with now. Everything was intertwined, crazy but somehow logical—just the way dreams are.”
Corrigan gave her a mock cockeyed look.
“My girl,” he said, “someday that imagination of yours is going to get you into trouble—big trouble.”
“Oh, it already has. And will continue to do so.” Katie nodded as she held him tighter. “In fact, I’ve got a future full of trouble.”
“Am I a part of that future?” Corrigan murmured.
“I think you are,” she said, smiling. “Maybe you’re just the trouble I’m referring to.”
About the Authors
James Patterson has written more bestsellers and created more enduring fictional characters than any other novelist writing today. He lives in Florida with his family.
Scott Slaven is both a writer and an accomplished portrait painter, and a graduate of UCLA.
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James Patterson, Steeplechase
