‘Back of her jeans we found some blood . . . tiny little spots of blood around the edge of the rivets—’
Hartmann knew what Cipliano was going to say before he uttered the words.
‘Except it wasn’t blood, Mr Hartmann . . . it was burgundy paint, the kind you’d find on a ’57 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser.’
Cipliano was smiling, as if everything the world had to offer had now fallen into place.
‘We estimated the carrier’s height at maybe five-foot ten or eleven. Catherine Ducane was five-foot seven, but along with her jeans you brought a pair of three-inch high-heeled shoes . . .’
Hartmann closed his eyes. He stepped past Cipliano and Emerson and walked out into the street. He stood there on the sidewalk, the noise behind him blurring into nothing.
He inhaled, exhaled, inhaled once more . . . and then he found it: the ripe malodorous blend of smells and sounds and human syncopations; the heat of rare ribs scorching in oiled flames; the bay leaf and oregano and court bouillon and carbonara from Tortorici’s; the collected perfumes of a thousand million intersecting lives, and then each life intersecting yet another like six degrees of separation; a thousand million beating hearts, all here, here beneath the roof of the same sky where the stars were like dark eyes that saw everything . . . saw and remembered . . .
He thought of Danny, of looking out over the trees, out over the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, a band of clear dark blue, a stripe through the earth, a vein . . . how they used to dream of sailing away, a paper boat big enough for two, its seams sealed with wax and butter, their pockets filled with nickels and dimes and Susan B. Anthony dollars saved from scrubbing wheel arches and hub caps, from soaping windscreens and windows and porch stoops for the Rousseaus, the Buies, the Jeromes. Running away, running away with themselves from Dumaine, from the intersection where bigger kids challenged them, tugged their hair, pointed sharpened fingers into their chests and called them weirdo kids, where they ran until the breath burst from their chests in great whooping asthmatic heaving gusts, turning down alleyways, hiding in shadows, the reality of the world crowding the edges of the safe and insular shell they had created for themselves. Danny and Ray, Ray and Danny, an echo of itself; an echo of childhood . . .
Ray Hartmann felt that vague and indefinable sensation . . . believed that each time he thought of these things he was younger for the duration.
And then he saw his mother’s face, his father’s too, and within a moment he had to wipe the soft salt-sting of tears from his eyes.
‘It was always here,’ he whispered to himself. ‘Everything I ever was. It was always here.’
And then he turned. Quietly, step by step, he turned and left. Walking slowly now, carefully, each chosen step a moment of thought in itself, and made his way down to the junction.
It was there that he found a callbox, and with his quarters in his hand he dialed the number, a number he could never have forgotten if his life had depended on it.
And he almost broke down in tears when he heard her voice.
‘Ray? Ray, is that you?’
‘Yes, Carol, it’s me.’
TWENTY-NINE
New York would never be the same. At least not through Ray Hartmann’s eyes. The eyes that looked out over the skyline as the plane banked and veered towards the airport were different eyes now. It was early afternoon, Tuesday 10 September. Eleven days had passed, during which Hartmann had lived two lifetimes, his own and that of Ernesto Cabrera Perez.
The world had fallen apart behind him as he’d left Louisiana. Ducane was dead, Feraud also; and though all efforts were being made by the federal and intelligence communities within the mainland United States, Hartmann truly believed that Perez, his son Victor, Catherine Ducane and Samuel ‘Ten Cent’ Pagliaro had already left the United States behind. Perhaps they were in Cuba, or South America – it didn’t matter. What mattered was that they were gone. And Ducane was a man who had died with his own reputation intact. He was acknowledged in the newspapers, on the TV; he was applauded as a man of vision, a man of the future. He went to his grave with his image unsullied by the ugly truth, for there were people above and behind him who knew that nothing would be gained by revealing that truth to the world. Charles Ducane had been murdered at the behest of Antoine Feraud, and now Feraud himself was dead. His son would be swiftly processed through the judicial system, and would irrevocably disappear. This was politics, the same politics that had given America Watergate and Vietnam, the deaths of two Kennedys and Martin Luther King. It was the public face of Charles Ducane that would be worn for the world: husband, father, governor, martyr.
These things did not concern Ray Hartmann. The sole and prevalent thought in his mind was his meeting at four p.m. in Tompkins Square Park. A little more than eight months he had been separated from his family. Jess would be different. It never ceased to amaze him how fast children ceased to be children and became young men and women. Carol would have changed too. You cannot spend two-thirds of a year away from your husband, away from the familiarity of the family you have created, and not be somehow changed. But he had changed too; Ray Hartmann knew that, and he hoped – against everything that previous experience had taught him – that he had changed enough.
He had called Carol earlier, from New Orleans. She had said nothing for a good three or four minutes while he poured out every thought and feeling, every reason he believed they should meet again. He had apologized for Saturday ten, twelve, perhaps twenty times, and finally, exhausted perhaps, she had said, ‘Okay Ray . . . for Jess. Same place, Tompkins Square Park at four. And don’t fuck this up, Ray . . . please don’t fuck this up again. Right now I don’t give a damn about how I feel, but I can’t have Jess upset any more, okay?’
Earlier, still aloft, Hartmann had glanced at his watch: it was gone twenty after two. Fifteen minutes, and the New Orleans-New York internal would land; he would be processed through the check-out desks and by three he would be on his way. He’d taken the earliest flight he could. There were questions to answer, even more to ask, and by the time John Verlaine had been given leave to drive Hartmann to the airport his nerves had been shredded.
‘You gonna fix this for keeps, right?’ Verlaine had asked him.
Hartmann had nodded but said nothing.
Verlaine had not pushed the issue. Everything that needed to be said would be said in New York. And so Verlaine had spoken of Perez, of the girl, of how everything they had imagined to be the truth had been nothing but a masquerade. They had been clever, they had planned everything down to the last detail, it seemed, and where the FBI had failed Perez had been quick to take advantage.
‘You think they bombed the FBI office themselves?’ Verlaine had asked. ‘You think the older guy and the son waited until Perez wasn’t there and then bombed it just to throw as much confusion into the situation as they could?’
Hartmann had shrugged, his eyes on the signposts along the highway that told him the airport was fast approaching.
‘It doesn’t make sense that it was Feraud,’ Verlaine had continued. ‘Feraud’s intelligence would have told him that Perez would leave the office during the day and would go back to the Sonesta.’
Again Hartmann had been noncommittal in his response.
‘I figure it was the son who bombed the office,’ Verlaine had concluded. ‘The son and the other guy . . . what was his name?’
‘Ten Cent,’ Hartmann had replied, and when he’d said the man’s name he’d felt as if he had known him, as if this character from Perez’s past was now as much a part of his own. Perhaps all of them would reside somewhere three inches back of his forehead forever. It had been a journey, that much at least; he had done what he’d been asked to do and he could not have been faulted for his co-operation and willingness. But the thing was over. It was done. And if they found Ernesto Perez they would take whatever action was required and Hartmann would not have to be involved.
In some small and strange way he hoped that
the man would never be seen again.
And then Verlaine had taken a turn into the airport sliproad, and before they knew it they were at the Moisant International Terminal and Verlaine was saying something about coming back down to New Orleans some time, that it had been good meeting Hartmann, that he should stay in touch, give him a call . . .
And Ray Hartmann, feeling some sense of kinship and fraternity for this man, had looked at John Verlaine and smiled.
‘I won’t be coming back,’ he’d said quietly.
Verlaine had nodded. ‘I know,’ he’d said. ‘But you gotta say these things, right?’
‘Right,’ Hartmann had replied, and then he’d taken Verlaine’s hand and shaken it firmly, and then he’d gripped his shoulder and said, ‘It was good to have you in on this, and hell . . . you’ll have something to tell your grandchildren.’
Verlaine had laughed. ‘As if,’ he’d said, and then he’d let go of Hartmann’s hand and turned to walk back to his car.
‘Remember the trick,’ Hartmann had called after him.
Verlaine had paused and turned. ‘The trick?’
Hartmann had smiled. ‘The trick, John Verlaine, is to keep breathing.’
*
The flight had been brief. New Orleans to New York. A handful of hours over Alabama, Georgia, South and North Carolina, and then the east coast across Virginia to Maryland, and then Hartmann could see the Atlantic to his right, and the flight attendants were giving them an ETA on their landing.
Ray Hartmann tried to remember how he had felt when he’d returned to New Orleans. He tried to convince himself that now he was really going home, but he knew he was not. Louisiana was there, there rooted in everything he was, and though he truly believed that he would never return out of choice, he also knew that he had those roots. Uproot, and the channels those roots left behind were still there, like fingerprints in the earth. The earth remembered, reminded you of your heritage no matter how far you traveled. He tried to persuade himself that home was not a location, but a state of mind. He tried to think of this a hundred different ways, but it would always stay the same. Perez had been right. New Orleans would always be a part of him, no matter where he went.
By the time he collected his bags from the carousel and made his way to the exit gates it was gone quarter after three. He hurried out and hailed a cab, told the driver he needed to be across the Williamsburg Bridge and to Tompkins Square Park in East Village no later than ten minutes of four. The driver, whose name was Max, sighed and shook his head.
‘You’ll be wantin’ a helicopter then,’ he said. ‘Williamsburg is jammed end to end. Truck took a spill about a third of the way down, took me the better part of an hour to make it across last time I tried. Might be better if we went up to the Queensboro and down Second Avenue through Stuyvesant.’ Max shook his head. ‘No, that way for sure will take us more than an hour. We’ll take a risk, eh? Let’s hope the Virgin Mary has a blessing for you today.’
‘Get me there however,’ Hartmann said. ‘Get me there before four and there’s a hundred bucks in it for you.’
Max grinned from ear to ear. ‘Hundred bucks and I’ll get you there last freakin’ Tuesday.’
The run was clear all the way to the Bridge, and Hartmann looked at his watch every three or four minutes. By the time they hit the first slow it was twenty-five after three. He was nervous already, and the mere fact that time was against him made it all the worse.
Max was no help. He insisted on detailing the idiosyncrasies and eccentricities of pretty much every passenger he’d carried in the previous week.
Ray Hartmann heard the words as they battered each other out of the way to escape from Max’s mouth, but what he was saying and whether it was of any interest was lost on him. It was just a noise, like the noise of car horns blaring at one another as the traffic ground to a halt at the entrance to the Williamsburg Bridge.
Hartmann looked at his watch for the hundredth time: three thirty-nine p.m. He swore under his breath.
‘What was that?’ Max asked. ‘You say somethin’, mister?’
‘The goddamned traffic!’ Hartmann snapped.
‘Told you so,’ Max said. ‘Took me near on an hour to make it across here last time.’
Hartmann wanted to grab Max by the throat and shake him until he collapsed. He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. He willed himself to believe that the traffic would suddenly ease up and start moving, that they would make it across the Bridge, that it would be nothing more than a right onto Baruch, left onto East Houston, right onto Avenue B and they would be there, pulling up alongside Tompkins Square Park, and he would be cramming Max’s hands with grubby ten-dollar bills, and he would be running, and there would be minutes to spare, and Carol would know that he had changed because this time . . . this time he had not broken his word . . .
The cars ahead seemed to have parked up for the afternoon.
Hartmann wound down the window and took several deep breaths. He clenched and unclenched his hands. A fine gloss of sweat had varnished his face, and beneath his jacket he felt hot and cold flushes running alternately. He thought he might puke. He could think of nothing but this tight sense of nervous impatience, desperation almost, that seemed to have assumed complete control of his mind and body. He wanted to get out of the cab and start running. He wanted to hurtle full-tilt between the lanes of cars and make it all the way on foot . . .
At three forty-nine the traffic started moving. They reached the end of the Bridge and turned right onto Baruch at four minutes past four.
Hartmann had lit three cigarettes against Max’s insistence that he not smoke in the cab, and each one had been left to burn almost to its filter before he threw it out of the window.
How much money he gave Max when the cab finally drew to a stop near the gates of the park Hartmann didn’t know. It could have been his life’s savings and he wouldn’t have cared. He even left his bag behind, and Max came after him, thrust the thing into his hands, and then stopped to watch as he charged across the grass towards the bandstand.
By the time Ray Hartmann reached his agreed rendezvous point with his wife and daughter it was thirteen minutes past four.
The bandstand was deserted.
Hartmann stood there, pale and drawn, covered in sweat, his bag dropped at his feet, everything inside him tightened up like a fist, ready to explode at the slightest provocation.
He swore three or four times. He scanned the people nearby. He started walking one way, and then he turned and walked the other. He saw a child with a woman, he opened his mouth to speak, and then he realized the child was a boy and the woman was old and gray-haired and walking with a cane.
He backed up against the cold concrete base of the bandstand. He felt his knees giving beneath him. He felt the sting of tears in his eyes. He couldn’t breathe. His heart was trip-hammering like it intended to overload and stop and send him crashing to the ground . . . and sometime later someone would find him and call the police, and the police would call the emergency services, and they would come down and find him dead and cold and stiff and . . .
Ray Hartmann started to cry. He went down on his knees, his face in his hands.
This is what you get for everything you didn’t do, his inner voice told him. This is what you get for being a lousy father and never paying attention, and never helping Jess with her schoolwork, and drinking when you said you wouldn’t. This is what you get for being a loser, born and bred, and no matter what you do now you will always look back at this moment and beat yourself to death about it, because this is everything that your life will ever be, and there’s nothing, absolutely nothing you can do about it . . .
And then there were footsteps, the sound of someone running, and for a moment he paused, instinct like radar tuned to every sound around him, and Ray Hartmann looked up, and through his tear-filled eyes he saw her . . .
‘Dadddeeeeee!’
EPILOGUE
He stood up slowly.
It’s not here for notes, he thought. No-one brings notes to say what they have to say here. They put this here so there’s something between you and them . . . something for you to hold onto if you feel you’re going to lose it. If you feel just like I feel now . . .
‘Hi,’ he said.
There was a murmur from the gathered ensemble of people. Men, women, young and old, dressed every which way, nothing similar between them, except one thing, and that was something you could never see, and in most cases would never have guessed, but they were all here for the very same reason.
‘Hi,’ he said again. ‘My name is Ray.’
And there are times when he finds it hard to believe that he ever jeopardized what he possessed, as if only a crazy man could have failed to recognize what was here.
They came back at him then, a chorus of acknowledgements and nods of approval.
‘My name is Ray. I am a father. I am a husband. I am an alcoholic, and until a few months ago I was drinking.’
And there are times when he looks at his own reflection in the mirror and asks himself if he ever really knew himself, or anyone else for the matter.
There was a murmur of sympathy, and then beneath that a ripple of applause, and Ray Hartmann stood there, his heart beating, and he waited until the crowd had settled down before he spoke again.
‘I blamed my wife, I blamed my job. I blamed my own dad because he was a drunk too. I blamed it all on the fact that I lost my younger brother when I was fourteen years old . . . but the truth of the matter, and this was the hardest thing of all, was that I was the only one to blame.’
Time, he knows now, does not heal. Time is merely a window through which we can see our own mistakes, for those seem to be the only things we remember with clarity.
Again there were murmurs of consent and agreement, and once again a ripple of applause that spread through the crowd.
R. J. Ellory Page 59