Skyscape by Michael Cadnum Page A

cops, photographers, figures helping each other out of the way, a Laocoön of traffic police, uniformed figures yelling into transmitters, stocky women holding back tourist’s aiming what could have been pistols but which were, from the lack of effect, mere cameras, the latest in miniaturization, magnetic tape or Kodachrome capturing what would turn out to be an enigmatic shot, one that would require a voice-over in a living room down the years: “There’s Dr. Patterson, you can sort of see him. Look at all the security; someone was going to shoot him.”
    â€œWe’re out of here,” said the driver cheerfully, another stranger, a large, dark man. But he wasn’t a stranger. He was a driver Patterson knew, someone provided by the city or the station or the network. But even he could be the assassin, driving off with his victim.
    They weren’t out of there. They were going nowhere. Patterson closed his eyes. He wanted to practice medicine. That was all. He wanted to help someone, just one person, in the way he had been trained. He was a healer. In his intellect, his heart, his scheme of the future, he was still just that—a physician.
    They were moving at last. This was where the sniper would have a clear shot.
    He couldn’t go on like this, eyeing the rooftops as they glided past. He wondered which billboard, which gable, which parked car, hid the rifleman. Or the pedestrians at the curb—the windows, although high-impact, were not bulletproof, not at this angle, so close.
    You won’t even hear it, thought Patterson. The burst that blows all this away will be the single most important thing that ever happens to you.
    And you’ll never know it.
    They whisked through an intersection. Another clear shot, if someone wanted to take it. Any of those blurred figures could be cradling a gun.
    The only man who had understood Patterson was Paul Angevin, and Paul was dead, lost four or five years ago. They had found his fishing boat floating empty in the Pacific. Paul had been a TV producer mildly famous for his shows on the heart, the brain.
    Patterson got Loretta Lee on the limo phone. “I take it you’re not dead yet,” said Loretta Lee.
    â€œWhat I want to know is, why would a prospective killer call up and tell a radio station what they were going to do?” said Patterson.
    â€œAn extrovert,” said Loretta Lee.
    Patterson wanted to argue the point, but he couldn’t. There were people who liked to operate in secret, and people who didn’t. They were living in an age of people who couldn’t stop talking. “Maybe he’ll blow me up on the show.”
    â€œWe’ll schedule it if you want.”
    â€œWho is this little jerk? Poole.”
    â€œThe network loves him. He’s an expert.”
    â€œLet me guess. He teaches the FBI how to keep people from copying videotapes.”
    â€œHe’s been complaining. He says you want to get killed.”
    There was nothing like changing subjects. “Do you think Angie is trying to seduce me?” asked Patterson.
    â€œI thought you didn’t take much seducing,” said Loretta Lee.
    If I were a killer, smiled Patterson to himself, enjoying the sound of Loretta Lee’s voice, I would be there, behind that approaching chimney, up on that roof. I would be chambering a shell and taking a deep breath.
    Ready to squeeze.

7
    Margaret’s mother called. “We’re both absolutely sick,” she said. “When this kind of thing happens it just makes you wonder.”
    Margaret considered this. Then she had to ask. She kept her voice calm, even indifferent. “What does it make you wonder?” asked Margaret.
    Andrea did not answer, except, perhaps, in an oblique way. “How is Curtis taking it?”
    â€œYou can imagine,” said Margaret. But this didn’t sound quite right. So she added, “He’ll be okay.”
    Andrea let a pause enter the