by Louis Begley
Hey you, I called out. Come over here and explain why you’re following me. If you’ve got some kind of problem, let’s deal with it.
No way, the guy answered, no way. No talk.
I couldn’t tell whether the voice was the one I’d heard on the telephone, but I had no doubt about the accent. What I should do next was a puzzle, from which I was distracted by the ringing of my phone. I pressed the answer button and this time heard the voice that I knew, the voice that had spoken to me about Jeanette.
You get it, shithead? We know where you are. Twenty-four/seven. Now we only fuck with you. We kill when we want.
He hung up. The guy who’d followed me stopped dancing around and took off full speed toward the West Side. Without hesitation I followed. Out of the Ravine, past the Loch, through the loveliest part of the park, across the West Drive. We left the park at One Hundred Third Street and headed west. He was a good runner, but I was better, staying right on his ass, the switchblade ready in my pocket, waiting for him to turn and fight. He did no such thing. We zoomed past Manhattan Avenue, Amsterdam, and Columbus and were reaching Broadway when suddenly I understood. He wouldn’t duck into some tenement building or ethnic luncheonette; he wasn’t going to introduce me to his friends. He was taking the subway—uptown! I looked back. There was no one behind me and no one ahead on my side of the street except him, and when he started down the subway stairs I was right there behind him. I grabbed the handrails on both sides, raised myself, and kicked him with both feet in the small of the back. I put all my strength into it. He flew forward, facedown, landing with a thud and a long yell of pain. I climbed the stairs. Still no one there except me. As I could see, the shops on Broadway were closed. Only a Starbucks was open. A guy was standing in the door. Hanging out? Leaving? I resisted the desire to run downstairs and stomp on my buddy. Instead, I took a taxi to the corner of Madison and Seventy-Ninth Street. At a diner down the block I had fresh-squeezed orange juice, scrambled eggs, and coffee. I knew that Jeanette had left everything I needed for my breakfast in the fridge, but I didn’t have the heart to deal with it.
There was a good chance I had hurt the guy real good, I reflected as I ate, and caused lasting damage. The big question was whether I’d tell Martin Sweeney or Scott about it. That my Nanny Sweeney and my Nanny Prentice would disapprove—for openers because of what might have happened if I’d been caught by the cops—was a certainty. But the point was that I hadn’t been caught. Nobody was going to trace this job to me. They beat Jeanette’s face into a pulp and broke her nose and ribs. I hoped I’d at least cracked this guy’s skull.
VII
By the time I got to the hospital later that morning, Jeanette had been moved to a private room and opened her eyes when I spoke to her. I felt sure she recognized me. I even thought I saw the beginnings of a smile. The Pakistani doctor who’d asked me to call him Sonny told me that was possible.
A dim sort of recognition, he said. She’s had a heavy dose of painkillers, and now that the first neurological tests have been done we’ve sedated her a little. By the way, there is intracranial bleeding. Fortunately it’s not extensive and not in the really crucial areas of the brain. We may hope that there won’t be permanent neurological damage, but we won’t know that for several days. It depends in part on whether the bleeding continues and how much additional bleeding there will be. I’m glad to tell you that there don’t seem to be any other internal injuries. When you come to see her tomorrow morning, she should be more responsive.
I thanked him again and told him how happy I was to know she was under his care.
He shook his head and said, Since she’s no longer an emergency-room patient, a hospitalist will be looking after her. I’ll find out his name and if possible introduce you.
I confessed that hospitalists were a specialty I’d never heard of before.
He smiled and said, Most people haven’t. They’re full-time hospital employees who in the new system take responsibility for patients. It’s different from the old days when a patient’s regular doctor would be in charge.
There’s one other thing, he added, you should have Mrs. Truman’s regular doctor get in touch with the hospitalist. Do you know her doctor?
I told him I didn’t. Probably he’s someone in White Plains, where her sister lives.
You should find out, he said. She’ll need to be under his care after she’s been released from here or from rehab.
He saw me raise my eyebrows, and added, Yes, I’m afraid that a stay at a rehabilitation facility will be desirable. By the way, you should understand that I’ve taken particular interest in her not only because of her connection with you but also because in my country I’ve treated people who’d been beaten by the police. I know what those injuries mean, that kind of a beating. Stay right here; I’ll be back.
The hospitalist wasn’t available, but Sonny gave me his name and telephone number. He also gave me his own cell-phone number. If you need help with the system, he said, get in touch. I’ll do what I can.
—
The private nurse I had hired arrived just then. She worked an eight-hour shift, she said; if I stopped by after five, I’d be able to meet the evening nurse, and if I couldn’t, she’d fill the evening nurse in and make sure she wrote down my telephone numbers. I found I liked this sturdy lady who, for all her matter-of-fact air, caressed Jeanette’s cheek and spoke to her, calling her sweetheart, as indeed I had gotten to like Sonny, and paradoxically felt uplifted by my contacts with them, as though something good had happened to me. There were good people in this world as well as monsters, gentle, unassuming people who were ready to help. Perhaps they outnumbered evil shits like Abner and his acolytes. Of course, Sonny and the nurses were paid to care for their patients, but somehow it didn’t matter that money changed hands. Their merit was just as intact as Martin’s or his partner Lee’s. Martin especially, whom I’d gotten to know well enough to be sure of my judgment, was a genuinely good guy. The sort of brother I would have wanted for my team of marines.
—
It was hard to go back to the apartment. I’d spent the night there and stopped by to take a shower and get out of my running clothes and knew that nothing would have changed since then. That was the problem. I had never known the apartment without Jeanette. She had been inseparable from my uncle Harry. I’d never thought about it, but presumably she went on vacation at the same time he did and came back when he returned. However that worked, she was always there, and I couldn’t think of the place without her, without her voice greeting me. Yes, everything was exactly as I had left it. The radio was still on, and WQXR’s usual programming—something by Dvořák—rolled on while I made my bed and neatened the bathroom. Then I carried my laptop to the kitchen, made a pot of tea, and sat down to check my email. Scott, Heidi, Martin, and Moses Cohen. Scott asked me to call his private cell phone, which I did at once.
His first question was naturally about Jeanette. When I explained that she was likely to be unable to speak until tomorrow—if then—and probably no decisions could be made about her treatment and convalescence before a couple of days had passed, he said in that case it was unrealistic to think I could get to Alexandria before the weekend. It made more sense for him to come to New York on Friday afternoon and combine a visit to his mother with seeing me. His mother now tired quickly in the evening. He’d have tea with her and dinner with me, if I was free, and go back to Alexandria Saturday morning, after breakfast with his mother.
That’s perfect, I said. Depending on just about everything, I might go to Sag Harbor on Saturday.
I’ve got some special news for you. It’s a secret from everyone else, but both Susie and I wanted you to know right away. She’s pregnant. If it’s a boy, his name will be Jack.
I choked back tears. Good things could happen.
I wish you were here, you old mother, I told him, so I could give you a big hug. Your life is turning out so well, exactly as it should. What a relief! This is something w
e’ll celebrate on Friday. But look, on another front, there are some developments. Perhaps I should hold them until we’re together. What do you think?
Really interesting?
Yes.
Let’s hold them. Call me or send me an email about Jeanette.
Understood. Do you recommend holding off calling others?
Not a bad idea.
We hung up.
He’d asked me to call his private cell phone….Clearly he thought it, as well as his office cell phone and landline, was being tapped and perhaps actually monitored instead of just being recorded for future reference. Telling me that it wasn’t a bad idea to stay off the phone with others could only mean that I too might be under surveillance. In my case, there was a way out—one that I would assume worked until Scott told me it didn’t. I’d buy a burner, carry two phones, and use the burner when I had to say over the phone something I’d rather keep private. Then I realized that he was in fact repeating a warning he’d given to me once before, a year and a half ago, when my hunt for Slobo intensified.
I called Martin next, figuring this was a call that would take no time. I was right. He said he could be over in half an hour, forty-five minutes.
On the same theory, I called Moses before calling Heidi. What an amazing lawyer! He was in a meeting, but if I stayed on the line he would duck out so we could speak.
I’ll be very brief, he said. Kerry’s Facebook page is no problem. I was her Facebook friend, so I have access. There’s absolutely nothing of interest there; I’ve been through it carefully. You may want to ask Heidi to look carefully too. She might pick up something I wasn’t sensitive to. She should also let you log on as her and review it yourself. As for getting Kerry’s password from Facebook, so one could log on as Kerry, forget it. At present, the best we could do is to get Facebook to close her account once I’m appointed executor. Email accounts are different. There’s a bill languishing in Albany that, if and when it’s passed, will give the executor access to them. As for applying to Google itself—the only email accounts I’ve known Kerry to have in, I’d say, the last ten years have been Google accounts—the situation isn’t desperate long term, because Google will give access to the personal representative, which is me once I’m appointed, but it’s a drawn-out process. It can take months. Months you have to add to the time it will take me to go through the Surrogate’s Court stuff. I’m pretty sure you can get to the email account with a search warrant, but that’s a whole other story. The practical result is that you and Heidi might try self-help. Try to think up what passwords Kerry might have used and see if you can get in. But if you bomb out too often, Google will decide that the password has to be reset. It’ll send the reset link to some backup account, probably Kerry’s now-nonexistent office email, and if that happens, it’s like—forget it!
This isn’t great news, I said. I’ll talk to Heidi, and we’ll try to cope. By the way, you were right. She’s first-rate.
Isn’t she? replied Moses. Too bad she plays on the wrong team.
What sexual team she played on was mattering to me less and less, I realized, so long as she was my teammate in the grim tasks that lay ahead. I said goodbye to Moses and called her.
That was a great dinner, she said. I’m already suffering from chicken sauté withdrawal.
Look, I said, various things have happened, one of them serious, that we should discuss. Face-to-face would be best. I really don’t want to impose on you, or take too much of your time, but could we do that over a meal at a restaurant? Probably dinner, so you’ll be less rushed. When might you be free?
You’re going to think I sit by the phone waiting for you to call. How about tonight?
Perfect, I said. Would you like to meet at the same place as the last time? Any hour that’s good for you.
I’d like that a lot, she answered. Nine o’clock because I have a brief to finish. But I promise to be on time.
—
One person you could count on not to be late was Martin Sweeney. I went to the bathroom after talking to Heidi and was drying my hands when the doorbell rang. Force of old habit: I expected Jeanette to open it and rushed to the door only at the second impatient ring.
Sorry, Martin, I said, I was at the other end of the apartment. Would you like coffee or tea? I’ll have tea, but I can easily make coffee for you.
Tea was all right with him. We drank it in the kitchen. As I was telling Martin about Jeanette and my conversation with Sonny I remembered that I should get in touch with the hospitalist.
Go ahead and call him, Martin said.
Miracle of miracles, Dr. Stein not only answered but actually knew Jeanette’s name and was aware of her condition. He couldn’t exclude the possibility of permanent neurological impairment, time would tell, but he echoed Sonny’s opinion that I should be able to see some improvement the next morning.
All things weighed, that was less upbeat than Sonny’s assessment. I pushed aside my growing anxiety and faced the question of whether to tell Martin about my run in the park, the telephone call that came at the Ravine as I challenged Jovan’s little brother, and in particular—the part of the story I would have liked to hold back—kicking him down the subway stairs. My hesitation, which I hoped to disguise by turning on the electric kettle, waiting for the water to boil, and adding some water to the teapot, didn’t last long. If Martin and I were going to continue to work together, this was something he had to know. So would Scott, however much I hated the thought.
Jesus, Martin exclaimed. Holy Jesus! You’re out of your mind. Did anybody see you?
I told him that I’d looked behind me and ahead of me, and there was no one. The shops were closed. All except the Starbucks on the southwest corner of Broadway. The guy and I were at the subway station on the northeast corner. There was no way anyone at Starbucks could see into the stairs going down to the platform.
Martin nodded. I’ll grant you that, but someone there could see the guy disappearing down those stairs and you following, and a minute or so later see you reappear and hail a cab on Broadway. Right?
I guess so.
And then, assuming whoever that someone was, if he or she happened to be there when the police cruisers and the ambulance got there—I think soon after the uptown local arrived at the station and discharged passengers who found this guy—as I say, if he or she was still there, they might put two and two together and say, Hey there was that man in a sweatsuit or whatever you wear when you run…
A spandex running suit, I interrupted mechanically.
Even better, it makes for a better description, a tall strong-looking blond man—you can add whatever you like, depending on the witness’s power of observation and memory.
It’s all perfectly possible, I said, if whoever it was who saw the scene remained until the police and the ambulance arrived. That would seem very odd, though. At that hour, six-thirty or so, people don’t hang out at Starbucks doing their email or surfing the web. They get their coffee and muffin and head for work.
How do you know? The story gets even better if whoever it was whipped out his smartphone and snapped your picture!
All right, Martin, I said, feeling that my face was flushed, what am I to make of all this, and what do you suggest I do about it?
What you should make of it is that potentially you’re in deep trouble. We don’t know if this guy is alive or how badly injured. If he’s alive, he may choose to talk just enough to help identify you. Would he talk? Depends on what he opens himself up to. Let’s say he’s alive, and you’re identified. Anything from various types of assault to attempted homicide. If he’s dead…or if he dies in the hospital, you fill in the blanks. What should you do? Keep your mouth shut. Don’t tell Scott. Don’t tell Heidi. You’ll put them in a very difficult position. You’ve told me. OK, I work for you and I’ll keep my mouth shut. But, Jack, please don’t forget that you’re up against experienced and vicious criminals. Don’t underestimate them or what they’re capable of.
&nb
sp; I’d recovered my composure—or so it seemed to me—and said, All that has been duly noted. But we have to move on, and we have several subjects to discuss. First, telephone conversations. I’ve gotten the impression talking to Scott that he thinks my line may be tapped. By his people? By the Bureau? By Abner? He gave no indication. I assume if the landline is tapped they—whoever they are—will be listening to my cell phone as well.
Martin nodded.
I hope you’ll join me for lunch. I’ll buy a burner on the way back and use it exclusively for conversations I’d like to keep private. It means I’ll have to carry two cell phones, but that’s not the end of the world.
Good idea, said Martin. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, but you will want to consider replacing the burner when it’s out of minutes instead of buying more time online.
Noted, I answered. Now about Heidi. Look, I’ve told you she’s got this file of documents in her office safe—she says only she can have access to them, and I trust her, she’s a very smart lady—that would seem to have enough in them not only to get Abner indicted but probably to send him to the big house. Why hasn’t she taken it to Ed Flanagan yet? Quite frankly, I don’t know, in the onrush of information she’s given me and everything that’s been going on I haven’t asked her. But I will tonight. It might be that she wants us to find first another file she thinks Kerry squirreled away somewhere. The immediate problem is that, as you have observed, these bastards are very dangerous. First, I’m worried about her safety. Second, I’d like your advice on how she and I should go about meeting. So far, there doesn’t seem to be a regular tail on me. But can we be sure? Besides, if there isn’t one today, I can grow one tomorrow. In any case, I think it’s clear that for the time being she shouldn’t come again to this apartment. Do you agree?
That’s easy. She shouldn’t.