by Ben Sanders
He’d never been to Paterson, but he sensed it was big enough for his requirements. He headed directly south. The town center was off to his right, a few blocks away. Low rise and brick. The Passaic River was somewhere over there, too. Probably responsible for the whole place, the way rivers often were. He drove across a highway and then a rail overpass, into an area of tired-looking clapboard housing. Sixties vintage, maybe. Weeds, some vacant lots, the odd broken window. He turned off the main road and parked at the curb and sat listening to the radio for a while. Six am, lights started coming on behind windows. Marshall bleach-wiped the center console, the steering wheel, the dashboard, and then the inside of the door. He got out and wiped down the outside handle, and then went around to the other side of the vehicle and poured bleach in the footwell where he’d released his theatrical vomit. He wiped down the bleach containers, and left the car with its windows down and the bleach-wiped key in the center console. A nice acquisition for somebody, even if it did smell like a hospital ward.
Five blocks north was a commercial stretch that was just starting to come awake. He saw a gas station, and a hardware store, and a diner called Sam’s. It had a fried egg for a logo, and Marshall gathered they knew how to cook a breakfast. There were a few people in there already, but he thought he’d give it thirty minutes. Let the clientele build up, make him less memorable. He wandered along the street to kill time, found a pawnshop a couple of blocks away with a few jigsaw puzzles in the front window. Definitely worth coming back later for a more thorough review.
It was seven o’clock by the time he’d made it back to the diner, and there were half a dozen patrons now. Marshall took a window seat, sat there for a moment with his eyes closed. Something heavenly about being safe, headache notwithstanding.
‘Get you something to drink?’
He opened his eyes. A waitress standing there in the aisle.
‘Cup of coffee would make my day.’
‘Hard night?’
He looked at her, realized that by talking he was probably undermining any hope of being forgotten. But something about having just killed three people and seen a fourth catch the train as well, he thought an idle conversation would be nice.
He said, ‘How do you know I didn’t just roll out of bed?’
She smiled. ‘Did you?’
‘No.’
‘Well, there you go. I get you anything to eat? Or you still thinking?’
Marshall turned the menu over, perused it for a moment, and told her he’d have pancakes. He reached in his pocket for the recently procured money, laid out one of the twenties: loose on the table for now, but he’d position it somewhere meaningful, in terms of the available geometry. Maybe open under his cutlery, with the longitudinal axes in logical correspondence. Or folded in a square, a makeshift coaster for his mug with the side-length matched to the diameter of the mug-base. He’d think about it. The main thing was, even if this was as far as he got with the whole thing, at least Little Marco was paying for his meal.
THIRTY
He found a shoe store a couple blocks over. Even better, it transpired that they had a sale on. Marshall bought a new pair of Doc Martens, and six pairs of socks, donated the old shoes to a homeless man camping outside the front window. A good score for the guy, Marshall thought. Ample sole-depth remaining, and the lace-fray was barely discernable. Marshall threw in a pair of socks, too. He found a gas station and bought a bottle of water and a packet of Tylenol, and checked himself out in their bathroom. The inside of his left cheek was raw and copper-flavored, and his saliva was bright red. The cheek was about twice its normal thickness. He took two Tylenol with water to dull the headache, and then broke in the new shoes with a walk over to the Paterson bus station. It turned out to offer that rarest of public facilities: a payphone. Its copy of the White Pages had been through a lot – tears, water damage, burn marks – but the P section was more or less intact, and Marshall found the confidential tip line for the New Jersey State Police. He told the operator he’d been camping near the top of the fire road and heard gunfire, walked down for a look and saw a guy sitting dead beside a van.
He caught a bus from Paterson over to Manhattan, and was home by one o’clock. His burner phone was in the gutter, not far from where Chris had made him leave it on the sidewalk. It was dead now from rain exposure. Marshall guessed Chris probably was, too.
It rained through the afternoon. He slept until four o’clock, woke to find the headache was improving, and the bruising to his cheek was now vividly described in blues and purples. He had a couple more Tylenol and worked on his Pollock jigsaw, battling the lower right quadrant. No joy today. He couldn’t see the lineups. He gave up and sorted out the new socks he’d bought, cutting them out of the packaging, removing the plastic tags, re-bundling them. Then he just sat there thinking about his Vialoux case. D’Anton and Renee Lewis, the mob man Mikey Langello. All the little overlaps he’d heard …
Five o’clock, he broke a new burner phone out of its box, and called Jordan Mora. No answer. He called Harry Rush.
Harry said, ‘You’re still alive, then.’
‘Yeah.’
‘You still angry I want nothing to do with pissing off mob guys?’
Marshall said, ‘You heard of a guy called Mikey Langello?’
‘Langello? Yeah. He was running the Brighton Beach outfit for a while.’
‘Not anymore. He’s AWOL.’
Quiet for a while. Harry said, ‘I already told you I want nothing to do with it. You’d be well advised to keep your distance, too. And you still need to come and collect your fucking jigsaw.’
He tried Hannah Vialoux.
‘Hello?’
‘Hey. Just me.’
Silence.
He said, ‘Marshall.’
‘Yeah, I know. I was starting to …’ She sighed. He heard it catch in her throat.
‘What is it?’
‘Nothing. I’m just glad you’re all right. I had a call … it was stupid, but I had a call last night, one of the cops who was here Friday. He said you hadn’t left any details and they still needed a statement from you. I told them your address.’
So that’s how they’d found him.
Marshall said, ‘Don’t worry. I spoke to them this morning.’
‘Oh, good. Yeah. It was still … they shouldn’t have even asked. It could’ve been anyone. Honestly, it’s like … people put you at ease with a bit of authority, you tell them anything. I didn’t even click until this morning, couldn’t believe how stupid I was—’
‘Hannah, it’s fine—’
‘And then you weren’t picking up your phone. I kept thinking … I was worried something might have happened—’
‘Hannah. It. Is. Fine. I’m fine.’
Now in hindsight and in the silence, he could hear how hard his tone had been. He laughed, trying to kill the moment, but it sounded brittle and awkward. The side of his head throbbed with renewed vigor.
He said, ‘Don’t go around and around thinking about that kind of thing. Just forget about it.’
Nothing.
Then she said, ‘So which cop was it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Who wanted to talk to you?’
‘I don’t know. I spoke to Nevins.’
‘When?’
‘This morning.’
He hated how he could do that to her. Lies flowing out like mercury.
She said, ‘I called him just now, he said he hadn’t spoken to you.’
‘Hannah, please relax. I left him a message. Everything is fine.’
Silence again. Then she said, ‘What is going on?’
‘Nothing is going on. But you can do us both a favor by forgetting about this. Just don’t worry about it. Please.’
She didn’t answer.
Marshall said, ‘I was just calling to check that you’re OK.’
‘Yeah. I’m still alive.’
He thought he heard a smile.
She sai
d, ‘Look, I just …’
‘You don’t have to – everything’s fine. Honestly.’
‘You don’t know what I’m going to say yet.’
‘All right.’ He thought he probably did, though.
She said, ‘I was going to say: I’m sorry how I acted the other night. It’s just been … it’s been a pretty strange time.’
‘Yeah. I know. It’s fine.’
‘The funeral’s Tuesday morning. Tuesday at nine.’ She told him the address.
‘I’ll be there.’
‘All right. Great.’
He hit a block for a second, nothing to say. He watched a raindrop crawling down the outside of the glass. Inching, inching. Stop-start. Diverting one way and then back the other. He knew how it felt.
He said, ‘Look, I have to …’
‘Yeah?’
He was going to tell her he kept a gun on the edge of the sink while he showered, use it as subliminal evidence that maybe they weren’t going to be compatible. That really, it wasn’t even worth trying. But he wasn’t quite sure how to confess that without it sounding a little off. He didn’t want her thinking he was Timothy McVeigh. Then again, he hadn’t felt a need to confess all of that to Jordan …
He said, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll see you Tuesday.’
‘OK. See you Tuesday.’
He disconnected, and tried Floyd Nevins’ number.
‘Detective Nevins.’
Marshall said, ‘I wasn’t sure if you’d pick up on a Sunday.’
‘Is that why you called?’
‘No. It was just something that occurred to me as it was ringing. That maybe you wouldn’t pick up.’
Nevins didn’t answer. Faint clangs and clashes from his end, maybe kitchen noise. Then he said, ‘Hannah Vialoux is worried about you.’
‘She mentioned that. Far as I can tell, I’m OK.’
‘I’m relieved.’
Marshall said, ‘Have you solved it yet?’
‘I can’t go into details with you.’
‘That sounds like a long way of saying no. Did you ask if anyone knows where this Langello guy is, exactly?’
‘I asked.’
‘And what did they tell you?’
Nevins dodged the question: ‘Have you solved it yet?’
Marshall said, ‘Yeah. I think maybe I have. I’ll call you tomorrow.’
The first train to Boston on Monday morning was at seven a.m. out of Penn Station. Marshall got there an hour early and bought his ticket at the Amtrak window. He went over to Dunkin Donuts and bought a coffee, and then wandered the concourse. He liked these moments, the feeling of being a normal member of society. Blessedly mundane, unremarkable. That said, he was probably the only person wearing concealer to disguise facial bruising. He went over to the payphones on the Amtrak concourse, and called the NYPD’s seventeenth precinct. He had a burner phone with him, but the coffee transaction had left him with change that he needed to jettison: there was no way to carry coins of varying denominations in a manner that wasn’t irritating. Plus he liked the novelty factor of using a payphone. Penn Station was one of the very few places in New York that still had them.
A desk sergeant picked up, and Marshall asked for Loretta Flynn.
‘She’s not in yet.’
‘It’s urgent. Can you put me through to her cell phone?’
‘What’s the nature of the call?’
‘I can’t discuss it.’
‘Right.’ The word drawn out so thinly, the t was almost lost. Marshall wondered if it was intended to convey skepticism, or just tiredness.
The sergeant said, ‘I’ll need a name.’
Marshall said, ‘D’Anton Lewis.’
Silence on the line for thirty seconds while he was transferred. Marshall stood with his back to the console, watching the crowd. Then the line clicked, and Loretta Flynn said carefully, ‘How can I help you?’
Marshall said, ‘It’s not actually D’Anton, and it’s not actually urgent, but I figure we should talk anyway. I was going to suggest another meeting in the back of your car. But this is probably a little easier.’
It took her a moment to recognize his voice. ‘Don’t waste my time.’
‘You need to improve your surveillance of Mr Lewis. The current system isn’t working.’
The rustle of an exhalation. ‘I’m hanging up the phone now.’
‘OK. It’s one of the few things that’s easier to do than to say. But if you hold on, I have more to tell you.’
Silence, but he hadn’t heard the beep yet. She was still there.
Marshall said, ‘Funnily enough, I think he’s being less than honest with you. Or has he told you about his missing wife?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I asked him yesterday about what happened to Vialoux. D’Anton told me his wife’s been missing for a couple months, and he asked Vialoux to find her. He thinks whoever has her also killed Vialoux. Possibly an ex-mob guy called Langello. I thought it’s the kind of information you might find useful.’
He hung up before she could respond, went over to the Hudson News and used his remaining change to buy a copy of the Times. The crowd was coalescing now, waiting for the track announcement. It was quite a spectacle. People all packed together, faces upturned, as if the departure boards described a future beyond that of a simple train ride. Then at five minutes to the hour the track number appeared, and he joined in with the swarm.
He was down the back in coach class, but he found a window seat. The train headed east into Long Island City and then turned north, following the river, the day just breaking. Weak light and a threat of rain. The old guy next to him was heading up to Cambridge, visiting grandchildren. He had four of them apparently, and he gave Marshall a biography on each as they headed up through the edge of Brooklyn. Marshall smiled and nodded, but he knew he wouldn’t have the stamina to make it through the entire family history. He looked out his window. Rust and dereliction out at the margins of the city. Still interesting though. He liked seeing everything, the outputs of bygone efforts, bygone lives.
His neighbor went off to the snack car, and when he came back he took a seat across the aisle, and the woman by the window on that side got to hear all about the grandchildren, too. Marshall read his Times. He watched the trackside landscape slowly changing, looking more like New England now, by turns suburban and then rural. Trees kinked and brittle in the cold. Like a blood-vessel diagram, a picture of the back of your eye. He had his printout on Renee Lewis with him, and he went over it again. The passport image, and the address for the therapist’s clinic she’d been visiting. Dr Ruth Davin. Beacon Street, over in Back Bay. Nice part of town.
It was almost eleven thirty by the time the train pulled in at South Station. The old guy followed him down the aisle to the door and gave him some more details on the grandchildren. He’d told the lady in the other window seat he had one granddaughter at college and another on a waiting list, but now they were both in a Master’s program at MIT. Marshall shook the guy’s hand and told him to enjoy his stay, and headed off west on Essex Street, through the bottom of the financial district. It felt five degrees cooler than in New York, and people up here always seemed to be doing it tougher. Homeless guys sleeping on the sidewalk, hanging out in storefront doorways. Little knots of them on street corners, blowing into cupped hands for warmth and then proffering them in the hope of coins. Marshall dealt out cash from Little Marco’s roll. He walked along the south edge of the Common and then up Arlington Street past the public garden, headed west again along Commonwealth Ave. He liked this part of town. Brownstone apartments overlooking the street with its tree-lined median and the statues of the venerated. Alexander Hamilton, and then some other guys whose plaques he’d have to read in order to remember.
He turned north and went all the way up to the Charles. Stiff cold wind coming in off the water. Plenty of traffic on Storrow Drive, following the riverfront, but not many people out walking. A few courageous
souls in coats and woolen hats. Cambridge looking bleak and subdued under the heavy cloud. The MIT buildings were directly opposite, the far side of the river, and he thought of his friend from the train. Maybe right now, one or even two granddaughters were over there, grinding through a Master’s program. Couldn’t exactly fault the man for saying so, truth or otherwise. Marshall knew better than most people there were worse crimes than embellishment, padding out the CV of a loved one. A nice kind of deceit, really. Something good for someone you loved. Rather than something bad for someone you hated.
He walked over to Beacon Street and found Ruth Davin’s office. It was in a four-story redbrick building that also had a cardiologist and a fund manager. They all had their names and post-nominals in authoritative gold lettering on the street-front door.
The remaining units seemed to be private dwellings. Marshall went in and took the stairs up to Dr Davin’s office on the third floor. He wondered if the fund manager ever came in, have a session on the couch when the markets dipped. Maybe book in to see the heart doctor when things got really dire.
The reception area looked like an appropriately low-stress environment. Lots of low leather furniture, fat and shiny. A couple of side tables with vases of flowers. Flower paintings on the walls. Everything very conducive to positivity, Marshall thought. Or conducive to thinking about flowers, anyway. The reception counter was on his right, a door behind it open to what looked like an administration area. A desk back there and another flower painting on the wall. To his left was a closed door. The consultation room, presumably. Straight ahead was a window that faced the public alley that ran behind Beacon Street. Double-hung glazing with brass fitch catches on the rail. He went over for a closer look. The catches would pop open with a knife blade. If he had to, he could come up the fire escape and let himself in that way.
‘Good morning. May I help you?’