The Caller jl-2

by Alex Barclay

  Mrs Aneto reached for a photo of William from the sideboard, framed in shiny black wood. She stared down at it. ‘I’m only talking to you today, detectives, because I have hope. I am still bitter, I am still angry, but I have hope. I’m not sorry I didn’t tell you this a year ago. I stand by that decision. Because I hate to think how bad your efforts would have been if you had known he had been into drugs.’

  Joe grabbed his suit jacket from the back of his chair. He looked around the office.

  ‘I haven’t eaten yet. I’m going to get breakfast. Anyone need anything?’

  He took three food and drink orders and as he was getting out of the elevator, his cell phone rang. It was a number he hadn’t seen in over two years and had never deleted from his contacts: Anna (W).

  He frowned. ‘Anna?’

  ‘Do you know where she is?’ It was Chloe. Her tone had none of its usual confidence.

  Joe could not speak. Anna cannot be anywhere other than the W Hotel in Union Square. The number he had programmed into his phone that morning. Just in case.

  ‘What?’ he said. His hunger had gone, the void in his stomach now filled with something else.

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s Chloe here. Anna didn’t show up at the shoot this morning. I’ve been trying her cell, the home phone – nothing. I dragged your number out of some next-of-kin thing we had for her. I’m sorry to bother you-’

  ‘Whoa,’ said Joe. ‘What’s going on? I left her this morning and she was taking the subway to Union Square and everything was fine-’

  ‘She never showed. It’s not like her. Have you been speaking with her?’

  ‘Obviously not.’ He had no time to deal with Chloe. He needed to go.

  ‘And she seemed fine to you this morning?’

  ‘Yes. Yes she did,’ said Joe, wondering what fine was and if he’d know it if it slapped him in the face.

  They both paused. ‘Well?’ said Chloe. ‘What will we do?’

  ‘Leave it with me,’ said Joe.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Chloe. ‘I’m… worried about her.’

  Sure you are, thought Joe. He stood in the street, his shaky fingers punching buttons on his phone, searching for a text message he’d missed, a phone call he hadn’t heard, anything. Then he dialled Anna’s cell, then the house. Voicemail both times. He looked across the street at his car. And ran for it.

  Anna lay on the bed, back in her pyjamas, asleep, curled into the tiniest ball she could, gripping a pillow tightly to her chest. Her body jerked from side to side, then she was on her back, rigid, the pillow thrown to one side. Images washed over her, pinning her down, taking a psychological grip on her that felt physical. Her mouth was clamped shut. She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t. Choppy and ghost-like, strange eyes and mouths hovered over her, sweeping up her chest, pausing before her face, threatening, then sweeping away again to be replaced by another and another, each one making her feel that the next one was going to be the one to take her away. Her hands were in fists, her eyes pressed shut, a scream desperate to explode from her closed mouth.

  She could hear her name being called. Over and over… but the voice was warm. She could associate it with someone kind. Someone who would look after her. Something inside her relaxed. And the scream came out, mixed with a dreadful, plangent moan.

  Tears streamed from her eyes. They shot open and Joe was beside her, pulling her onto his lap, stroking her hair, kissing the top of her head.

  ‘It’s OK, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘It’s OK. I’m here.’ He paused. ‘You’re safe. It was just a nightmare. Everything is good. Everyone’s OK.’

  The relief in her eyes nearly broke his heart. ‘It was sleep paralysis again,’ she said. ‘I hate it. I thought it was gone. All these terrible-’

  ‘Shhh,’ said Joe. His voice was gentle. ‘It’s over now. And you’re going to come with me to the kitchen. And I’m going to make you some herbal tea. And I’m going to make myself a liter of coffee, find myself an IV line…’

  ‘How come you’re home?’ she said. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘I am home,’ he said, ‘because I missed my wife.’

  SEVEN

  ‘Did you fly back to Ireland to milk some fucking cows?’ said Rencher.

  ‘Lattes,’ said Joe, ‘are for pussies.’

  ‘That’s it?’ said Rencher. ‘That’s all you got for me?’

  ‘That and your latte,’ said Joe. ‘With two extra muffins.’ He put them down on Rencher’s desk.

  ‘What?’ said Rencher. ‘I look like I need fattening up to you?’

  ‘You look like you need to smile,’ said Joe. ‘Where are the other guys? I’ve got more coffees to hand out.’

  ‘Well, in the two hours since you’ve been gone, they did the weirdest thing – they went out on police business.’

  ‘And I did not?’ said Joe.

  Rencher tilted his head.

  ‘Back to your work,’ said Joe, smiling. He sat down at his desk and sighed. He pulled up the address book on his computer and searched through his contacts for Reuben Maller’s phone number.

  He picked up before Joe even heard a ring tone.

  ‘Reuben, it’s Joe Lucchesi.’

  ‘Hello, Joe.’ His voice was cautious.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Joe. ‘It’s about a case I caught.’

  ‘Oh, OK. Good. I don’t have any update for-’

  ‘I know,’ said Joe. ‘I know. Look – do you remember William Aneto?’

  ‘Yes, that got a lot of coverage.’

  ‘Yeah. Well, we think we’ve linked him to two other recent homicides – another on the Upper West Side and one in SoHo a while back. Would you maybe take a look at the file, see if there’s a profile you could come up with? It’s always good to have an extra pair of eyes.’

  ‘Sure, not a problem. Let me swing by the office later.’

  ‘No, I’ll drop it in to you.’

  ‘Great. Joe? Do you really need my help or…’

  Joe laughed. ‘I’d like your help, OK?’

  Maller laughed. ‘All right. I had to ask.’

  Joe put down the phone. He turned to his PowerBook and clicked his favourite icon, the pen and inkpot that opened up Pages, a programme for creating newsletters, journals, flyers, brochures. It was filled with templates in bright, shiny colours with photos of happy, smiling people. He opened his own template, VICS, and created a new file. He wondered what the software designers would think. He opened iPhoto and dragged photos onto the document, one of each of the victims taken while they were alive, their faces smiling, bored, relaxed – not battered beyond recognition. Joe wanted to look them in the eye. He wanted to do something for these three guys he could have walked past on the street or had a drink with at a bar or stood behind in line at the grocery store. Not three guys who he knew only by standing over their dead bodies.

  His phone rang. He picked up. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Joe, hi. It’s Mark Branham, Gay Alliance.’

  ‘Hey, thanks for getting back to me, Mark. How you been?’

  ‘Great. Busy. It’s the first anniversary of William Aneto’s death, as you know, so we’re trying to help the family rustle up some publicity. Is that why you’re calling?’

  ‘Kind of. We’re just talking here, OK?’

  ‘Sure, Joe.’

  ‘We think the case may be connected to a couple of other murders over the last few months.’

  Mark sucked in a breath. ‘Really?’

  ‘It’s early days.’

  ‘Were all the victims gay?’

  ‘No. But we’re wondering if any of them hadn’t come out or maybe if they, you know…’

  ‘What? Gave off gay vibes? Tried it for a night? Bi now, gay later?’

  Joe laughed. ‘Whatever. Maybe had two things on the go, you know?’

  ‘OK. So what do you think the killer was after?’

  ‘We’ve got a few options: maybe he likes to play rough, took it too far, got to liking it; guy is a homophobe and w
ants to teach the victims a lesson; or he’s just a guy whose pool of victims may be gay because that’s his circle.’

  ‘He could be your classic homophobe with repression issues who gets drunk and tries it out some night and blames the guy he picked up, takes out decades of anger on him. I’ve seen assaults – never murders – for that reason. Very badly beaten men. Is that what you have?’

  ‘Yes. Their faces were really messed up. The ME has seen it before in these kinds of cases.’

  ‘Not good. What can I do?’

  ‘Keep this quiet for now, first of all. But also, are you familiar with 3B?’

  ‘The club? Bed, Bad and Beyond? Yeah. William Aneto was there his last night.’

  ‘Yeah. I’d like to talk to whoever runs it, but don’t want a big deal made of it.’

  ‘OK. Well you need Buck Torrance. Promoter by night, pet accessory guy by day. Dawg On It in Chelsea. Eighth Avenue between 21st and 22nd. He’s a good guy. No drama. You can tell him you’re a friend of mine and that it’s about the first anniversary thing. If you’re asking about those other guys, you can say they were friends of the victim’s, whatever. Anyway, he’s discreet.’

  ‘Thanks, Mark. We’ll get to him tomorrow. How’s Kevin?’

  ‘He’s great. How’s Anna?’

  ‘Not doing too bad. You take care.’

  ‘You too.’

  Joe left the office at seven to drop the file in to Reuben Maller. He decided to visit Old Nic on his way home; the only reason he had left for going back to Bensonhurst. He was unlikely to see a familiar face there now – almost everyone he knew had made the move to Staten Island in the Nineties. It was like all trace of his childhood had been swept away with the old storefronts. To Joe, Bensonhurst was the opening sequence to Welcome Back, Kotter; if they shot it now, nothing would be the same.

  Joe took a left off 86th Street and drove a special route, past the house he grew up in, past Danny’s old house, Gina’s parents’ house. He avoided the apartment he spent three years living in with his mother and sister after his parents’ divorce. To him, that was three years of knowing his mother had cancer and a year of knowing she wasn’t going to make it. Bringing her to hospital appointments weak and unsteady, taking her home weaker.

  He remembered their first visit to Kings County Hospital when he was fourteen. She told him it was a routine health check. He was embarrassed to hold her hand, but she was gripping him so tight, it would have been wrong to let her go. He waited outside the room, not knowing that inside, his thirty-six-year-old mother was being diagnosed with breast cancer. Joe was too busy worrying about being recognized; Kings County was the same place he would go to when he got into a bad fight. He used to hang outside waiting for a young intern to come on break. The same guy would always show up and shake his head when he saw Joe with a split lip or a slash through his eyebrow. Then he’d sneak him into an empty room to patch him up with his big, careful hands.

  Joe knew that even to drive by the old apartment building would break his heart. He did it once and he thought he saw her walking down the front steps. Maria Lucchesi was a small, round woman. She always wore a red coat. The woman he saw was so similar, Joe had slowed the car. Then he pulled over. He remembered sitting with his head against the steering wheel, older than his mother was when she died, weeping like a child for the woman that always kept it together. One hug from his ma was bigger than anything else that was happening in his life.

  Joe pulled up outside the Nicoteros’ small framehouse and walked to the front door. He rang the doorbell and heard the familiar shuffle of Old Nic’s slippers.

  ‘Hey, buddy,’ he said, hugging Joe. ‘What a nice surprise.’

  ‘I came over all nostalgic,’ said Joe.

  ‘Good – you’re not coming to tell me Bobby’s been misbehaving in class.’

  Joe laughed.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ said Nic. ‘Patti’s not here. I’m out on the deck.’

  Joe took a seat beside Old Nic at a small ornate metal table.

  ‘So how’s things working out with Bobby?’ said Nic, smiling. He opened a bottle of beer and handed it to Joe.

  Joe took a mouthful. ‘Good. We’re good.’

  ‘Yeah?’ said Nic. ‘Well I think you’re different.’

  Joe looked at him and smiled. ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t bullshit a bullshitter,’ said Nic. ‘You guys are too different to ever get along.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Joe.

  ‘And you’ve been tainted by your association with me,’ said Nic. His eyes were down. ‘Isn’t that sad?’

  ‘His loss,’ said Joe. He shrugged.

  ‘What’s on your mind?’ said Nic. ‘Business or pleasure?’

  ‘Well something that should be pleasure,’ said Joe. ‘But I’m sorry to say, I’ve screwed that all up.’ He stared out over the tidy garden. ‘Anna’s on my mind.’

  Nic nodded. ‘How’s she doing?’

  Joe let out a breath. ‘She… kind of lost it yesterday. You know she’s been hanging around the house a lot. Well she got herself together yesterday and went out on a shoot for work. She got as far as the hotel where it was being done and she just freaked out.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I don’t think she’s even telling me the full story. All I know is she felt everything close in on her and she ran. She got in a cab and came home. She even turned off her phone and didn’t tell her boss. She hasn’t even turned her phone on today she’s so scared. I mean, she could lose her job. I’m worried she was that scared that that didn’t matter to her.’

  ‘OK,’ said Nic. ‘What I want to hear about is you.’

  ‘Pardon me?’

  ‘You’ve told me about Anna. You always tell me about Anna. That’s easy. She’s got all the problems, right? You don’t have any?’

  Joe frowned. And said nothing.

  ‘Me and Patti went through some pretty hard times,’ said Nic. ‘Do you want to know the biggest mistake I made? Thinking she was the only one who had to change.’

  Joe stared down at the cracks running across the deck.

  ‘And Anna…’ said Nic, ‘well, she had a hard time.’

  Joe nodded. He squeezed the bridge of his nose.

  Nic took a deep breath. ‘You don’t think you’re her hero any more.’

  ‘What?’ said Joe, staring at him.

  ‘I’ll let you in on a little secret,’ said Old Nic. ‘What you think is a knight in shining armour to a woman and what they think are two entirely different things. I spent too long trying to be this hard-ass protector guy who solved all the problems of the universe. But I’m not that. No-one is, Joe. You’re going to have to get past what happened because it wasn’t your fault. Shit happens. Very, very bad shit sometimes. So – you can let this Rawlins guy sink your relationship, put the final nail in the coffin or you can say “Screw you, you motherfucker, you came close to my family once, you had your chance, you blew it, you don’t get a second chance and I’m not spending my whole fucking life acting like you will.” Give that psycho the power to alter the course of your life? Fuck that, Joe. You owe it to Anna and Shaun not to let that happen.’

  ‘It’s not as simple as that,’ said Joe.

  ‘It is. Let me tell you something. Patti thought the sun shone out of me when we got married. I was the big, tough cop. No-one around here messed with Victor Nicotero. We walked down the street together and I knew she felt proud and she felt protected. And I fucking loved it. It made me feel great. Then one day I was at work and she wasn’t feeling great and I didn’t get home in time. She was two months’ pregnant – it was before Bobby – and she lost the baby. And there was nothing I could do, Joe. And something changed. For a year after that, I thought she saw me as a weaker man, that I’d let her down in some way.’ He shrugged. ‘And do you know what she said to me? “Thank God,” she said. “Thank God you know you are not invincible. And I’m sorry if I ever gave you that impression.” And she was right. I belie
ved what she told me. Then she said to me, I’ll never forget it: “A hero means a lot of things. It’s about strength of character, it’s sacrifices, it’s sometimes just laughter or quietness. It’s not wasting energy thinking you can control all the bad things in the world and then getting angry and frustrated when you can’t. I don’t want that angry, frustrated man. And I’m glad he’s gone.” That’s what she said to me. And then she just walked out of the room and finished whatever she was in the middle of doing.’

  ‘Patti’s something else,’ said Joe.

  ‘No woman wants to be with a weak man,’ said Nic. ‘And that you are not.’ He paused. ‘Talk to Anna. Really talk to her, not in an angry way. Just tell her how you feel.’

  Joe laughed. ‘You’re getting soft in your old age.’

  ‘Don’t give me that bullshit,’ said Nic. ‘Everyone looks for advice from the person they know is going to tell them what they want to hear. You come to me because you know I’m going to say how good you and Anna are together and you have to stick at it. You don’t want to go to the guy who’s going to tell you it’s gone too far to ever go back to the way it was.’

  ‘But what if it has?’ said Joe.

  ‘It hasn’t,’ said Nic. ‘All right? It hasn’t. Drink your beer. I’m worn out with all that wisdom.’

  Hours later, Joe pulled into the driveway and turned off the engine. Even after six months in the house, he couldn’t shake the disappointment he felt when he arrived home. He had been forced to make a decision on it while Anna was in Paris. It came down to money – the rent was low because the owner was another cop who wanted to help a colleague out and trusted Joe enough not to bother him while he travelled around the world.

  When Joe went to look at the place, it was on two hours’ sleep and lots of painkillers. Sonny, the owner, had managed to get a lady friend to clean it up and put some vases and air freshener around. The kitchen appliances were just six months old and the bathroom had been renovated, but Joe’s usual attention to the tiny details left him as soon as he walked through the door. A strange sense of relief took over. He could imagine the three of them leading a wonderful life there and he floated through the rest of the viewing on a positivity warped by desperation. Three things tricked his eyes – the sections of stainless steel countertops in the kitchen, the cream L-shaped sofa in the living room and the old-fashioned wrought-iron bed in the master bedroom. It was Anna’s style.