The Caller jl-2

by Alex Barclay

  ‘Sure,’ said Joe. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Maybe out in the hallway,’ said Bobby.

  ‘You can talk to me here.’

  Bobby jabbed a finger towards him, his eyes blazing. ‘The hallway,’ he said, turning around and walking out.

  Joe got up slowly and followed him.

  ‘Would you like to tell me,’ shouted Bobby, ‘what the hell is going on between you and my father?’

  ‘What?’ said Joe, closing the door behind him.

  ‘I know you’re up to something. He’s doing something for you, I know he is. And-’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ said Joe.

  ‘He’s acting all secretive…’ He trailed off. ‘I guess I was wrong about him cheating on my mom-’

  ‘Of course you were wrong,’ said Joe. ‘I could have told you that.’

  ‘Oh, sure you could, all-fucking-seeing-all-knowing-Joe-Lu-fucking-cchesi.’

  ‘Are you ever going to fucking grow up?’

  ‘Shut the fuck up.’

  Joe let out a breath. ‘Bobby, like it or not, I care a lot about Old Nic. Your father’s bored, he misses the job-’

  ‘I could care less about my father,’ said Bobby. ‘I’m looking out for my ma. She’s worried sick about him. She’s just glad she got him to retirement in one piece. She doesn’t want him involved in your bullshit.’

  ‘Whatever is between me and your father is between me and your father,’ said Joe.

  ‘Yeah, just the two of you,’ said Bobby. ‘Nice and tight. But he’s got a wife, all right?’

  ‘Jesus Christ, listen to yourself, you fucking freak. I’m helping your father with his book, OK? That’s it. Cover blown. Big deal.’

  ‘You’re full of shit, Lucchesi.’

  ‘That’s what I’m doing, Bobby. Ask your father.’

  ‘I’m not asking him shit.’

  ‘No shit.’

  ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘You said it yourself – you could care less about your father. He wants to do something with his time. I help-’

  ‘What do you know about what my father wants? Nothing-’

  ‘Bullshit, I’ve known him for years, we-’

  ‘Look,’ said Bobby, ‘we’re stuck working together on this case, that’s fine with me. I can walk right back into that office and everything will be on the level. But stay the fuck away from my family.’

  ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ said Joe. ‘Get the fuck out of my face.’ He walked back into the office.

  Rufo was standing at his desk holding an untouched Starbucks Grande Banana Coconut Frappuccino with whipped cream. Joe looked from the drink to his boss, but said nothing.

  ‘Everything all right?’ said Rufo.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Joe, fixing his jacket, sitting down at his desk.

  ‘So the plan is…’ said Rufo.

  ‘Well, we traced the last number called from Dean Valtry’s house to a Marjorie Ruehling, lives in the Bronx. Danny and I’ll go check it out this morning, then we got Valtry’s autopsy in the afternoon.’

  ‘Five hundred and fifty calories in this baby,’ said Rufo sadly.

  Danny walked over and took the drink out of his hand. ‘Want me to put this out of your misery? Or your eye line, even?’

  Rufo nodded sadly.

  ‘A moment on the lips…’ said Danny. He sucked up a mouthful. ‘Like drinking a vacation.’

  Joe shook his head. ‘Come on. Boss, we’ll see you later.’

  ‘Wave bye-bye to Daddy,’ said Danny to the cup. Rufo had already turned away.

  Marjorie Ruehling lived off Southern Boulevard in the Bronx in the only apartment block on the street that wasn’t newly renovated, for sale or about to be torn down. Joe rang the bell for 6E. An elderly voice crackled through the intercom.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Marjorie Ruehling?’ said Joe.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Who is this?’

  ‘My name is Detective Joe Lucchesi with my partner, Detective Danny Markey from the NYPD. We’d just like to come in and talk to you about something.’

  ‘What?’

  Joe shook his head at Danny. ‘Are you acquainted with a Mr Dean Valtry?’

  ‘I’m going to come down now,’ she said. ‘And you can show me your nice badges.’

  ‘OK, ma’am.’

  Five minutes later, a skinny woman in her sixties with a huge caramel-coloured bouffant and a peach velour tracksuit opened the door and studied the two badges. She opened the door wider and led Joe and Danny into a small, square, grey lobby lined with mailboxes, most of them overflowing.

  ‘That man you mentioned – Valtry,’ she said. ‘He called here last night.’

  ‘So you know him?’

  ‘Not really. He was a friend of my daughter, Sonja, from way back. You’ll need to talk to her. She’ll know more. He was calling to speak with her.’

  ‘Did you pass on the message to her?’

  ‘There was no point,’ said Mrs Ruehling. ‘I knew she was out with her husband. And Valtry didn’t want to leave a number.’

  ‘Could we get a cell phone and address for Sonja?’

  ‘Better than that. You can come in for coffee. She’s on her way over.’

  Marjorie Ruehling’s apartment was a bland colour chart of creams, beiges and browns flowing between carpets and sofas and cushions.

  ‘How did Mr Valtry seem to you on the phone last night?’ said Joe.

  Mrs Ruehling shrugged. ‘Like I said, I don’t know the man, but… I guess he seemed… he was talking quickly. That was the main thing I noticed. The phone call was over quickly after he told me to get her to call.’

  ‘Was he speaking clearly?’ said Joe.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He seemed impatient, that’s all.’

  ‘OK,’ said Joe.

  They all stopped when they heard keys in the front door.

  ‘Oma?’ Sonja called from the hallway.

  ‘German for grandmother,’ said Marjorie. ‘We’re in the living room,’ she shouted to her daughter.

  Sonja Ruehling walked in. ‘Hello… what’s going on?’

  Her mother smiled. ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘These are detectives. No big deal. Just about last night.’ Sonja frowned.

  ‘Someone called your mother’s home looking for you last night,’ said Joe. ‘Dean Valtry?’

  ‘Dean Valtry?’ She turned to her mother. ‘What did he want?’

  ‘He didn’t say,’ said Mrs Ruehling. ‘Just you were to call him.’

  ‘Did he leave a number?’ said Sonja.

  ‘No,’ said Mrs Ruehling. ‘It’s all very funny. Why don’t you ask him?’ she said to Joe.

  ‘How do you know him?’ said Joe to Sonja.

  ‘We… look, why don’t we go into the kitchen?’ said Sonja. ‘Oma, you don’t mind, do you? There’s no point in you getting into all this.’

  ‘As long as you fill me in later, I’m fine right here.’ She took an apple from the table beside her and started peeling it with a knife.

  Joe, Danny and Sonja moved into the kitchen.

  ‘OK,’ said Sonja. ‘This is all strange. I know Dean Valtry because I dated his friend. But years ago, when I was twenty-one, twenty-two.’

  ‘I’m sorry to have to inform you that Mr Valtry was the victim of a homicide last night,’ said Joe.

  ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘Yes. And he tried calling your mother’s house several times yesterday. He was looking for you. She didn’t want to give out your number. We just want to know why he would be calling you.’

  ‘I have no idea.’ She lowered her voice again. ‘We weren’t even particularly close. I mean, to be honest, we didn’t really get on, God rest him.’

  ‘Tell us some more about how you met,’ said Joe.

  ‘I worked at Feelers, this bar in the East Village. One of the guys I worked with, his name was Alan Moder and we got together and Dean Valtry was his friend. That’s
how I knew him.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw Dean?’

  ‘Years ago. What has he been doing?’

  ‘He was boss of one of the top dental laboratories in New York.’

  Sonja leaned back in her seat and smiled.

  ‘You look surprised,’ said Joe.

  ‘I am. He was ambitious, so from that point of view, I get it. But from what I gathered, he wasn’t that good.’

  ‘Where did you get that idea?’

  ‘Alan. They were in college together. It was funny, Alan dropped out and he was the one with the talent.’

  ‘But Valtry opened the lab.’

  ‘Yes, but Alan did a lot of what got Dean’s company noticed. Alan worked for Dean.’

  ‘Does Alan have his own lab?’

  ‘I have no idea where Alan Moder is or what he does.’

  ‘It ended badly,’ said Danny.

  ‘Very. Let’s put it this way – last time I saw Alan Moder, he was screaming obscenities at me in front of my work colleagues in a beautiful French bistro on 29th Street, seven years after I dumped him in the most shitty way possible, so he would never come near me again.’ Her laugh was bitter.

  ‘Yikes,’ said Danny.

  ‘I should be over it, I mean, I am over it, obviously,’ she said, ‘but you know when you just think – what a shit. I was twenty-two years old, madly in love. I thought he was too until I caught him with a woman over twice his age, some fat, wealthy woman who even I knew he didn’t give a damn about. So that’s my Alan Moder story. I’m going into way too much detail. It’s just I’ve never got it off my chest. I’m married now. Alan showed up that time in the restaurant, trying to get me back after that witch he went off with died. So there you have it.’

  ‘Back to Valtry,’ said Danny. ‘Can you think of any reason he would have wanted to get in contact with you?’

  She shrugged. ‘No. The three of us hung out together all the time, but it was more that he was Alan’s, like, only friend and so I was lumbered with him. He was – we just weren’t close. I’m still shocked he’s dead.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s so weird he tried to call me. That’s going to bug me. Let me know when you find out.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Joe. ‘What was Valtry like?’

  ‘He was fine,’ said Sonja. ‘Boring, if anything. Bookish, but dumb. Terrible combination,’ she laughed. ‘The type who tries to seem more intelligent, better than everyone at everything…’

  ‘Was he ever violent?’

  ‘Dean?’ She laughed. ‘No. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Just covering as much ground as we can, now that we have you here,’ said Danny.

  ‘Seeing that Alan Moder is the only link you can think of to Valtry,’ said Joe, ‘do you know how we could get a hold of him if we needed to?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he still worked for Dean.’

  ‘No,’ said Danny. ‘We’ve been through employee records. He’s not there.’

  ‘I don’t know then. Let me think. He was from Maplewood, New Jersey, but I’d say he’s never been back there. He had a major falling out with his family. It was all very dysfunctional. But you could try them. His father’s name was Tony.’ She shrugged.

  ‘OK,’ said Joe. ‘Thanks a lot for your help.’

  Shaun Lucchesi walked into the kitchen past his mother and grabbed a carton of juice from the fridge. He drank from it, then put it back in.

  ‘You will be pleased to hear it’s over between me and Tara.’

  ‘What?’ said Anna. ‘Why would I be pleased to hear that?’

  Shaun stared at her. ‘Are you for real?’

  ‘What? I… she was cute,’ said Anna.

  ‘Sure,’ said Shaun. ‘You now think cute is, like, emaciated.’

  ‘She had a pretty face.’

  ‘Under all that makeup.’

  Anna turned to him. He smiled and shrugged.

  ‘Want to hear something funny?’ he said.

  She nodded.

  ‘I bought her a special edition of Romeo and Juliet because she told me how much she loved it and when I gave it to her she said, “Oh my God. It was the movie I liked. Leonardo di Caprio is so hot.”’

  Anna laughed. ‘Oh la la.’

  ‘I know.’

  Bobby Nicotero sat at his desk in the twentieth precinct. He worked well there. His shift had finished three hours earlier, but he didn’t want to go home. He read through copied pages of statements, making notes, highlighting, cross-checking. Nothing new was showing up. He sat back in his chair and started thinking about his two boys. He had a day off the next day – his first for weeks. They were going to the Sea, Air and Space Museum. He smiled. Then he turned back to his notes, drawn to a section of text, highlighted roughly in blue. Something finally clicked into place. He just needed to check one more thing.

  Anna was lying on the sofa watching television and flicking through an oversized book of fabric samples. Joe arrived home and went straight upstairs to the bedroom. She followed him up.

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine. How are you?’

  ‘Fine.’

  He pulled off his suit jacket, then his shirt and tie.

  ‘Shaun broke up with Tara,’ said Anna.

  ‘Really?’

  Anna nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yeah, I never ended up with the girls my ma didn’t like.’

  ‘You didn’t like her either.’

  ‘That’s not the point. It’s all about Mom. I think maybe it’s like a dog whistle. You send out some repel signal that’s only picked up by girls who look like tramps. Which is exactly what teenage boys are looking for.’

  Anna slapped Joe’s shoulder.

  ‘What?’ he said, smiling. ‘It’s OK. I’m past that phase.’

  ‘We could have another boy and have to go through it all over again. Or worse – a girl to keep control of.’

  Joe said nothing.

  ‘What?’ said Anna. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Joe.

  ‘There is something. We have barely had a conversation this week-’

  ‘I’m pretty busy, Anna.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, yanking his belt from his trousers, ‘if I sometimes can’t connect your level of busy with mine, OK?’

  ‘That’s not fair.’

  ‘Life’s not fair. Who says life’s fair? The shit I see… I could care less if stripy wallpaper is making a fucking comeback. Can you see how that might not matter to me?’

  Anna stared at him. ‘No-one can ever win with you, can they? You arrogant-’

  ‘Whoa, I’m not arrogant,’ said Joe. ‘I’m just not living up in the clouds…’

  ‘Up in the clouds?’ she shouted.

  It spurred him on.

  ‘Yeah, making up these fake little worlds where everything is perfect and everyone is happy and the sun is shining and all the people are sitting on the sofas or dancing around their fucking kitchens and bedrooms in their cute underwear with their perfect bodies, with big smiles on their faces and-’

  ‘Are you OK?’ Anna said, her voice softer.

  ‘No! No I’m not.’

  ‘You’ve changed so much.’

  Joe rolled his eyes. ‘Why do women say that shit?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look – it’s not a bad thing if I have changed, Anna. People change. At forty, you want to be married to some immature asshole with no clue about responsibility or no major ambition who likes to get drunk every weekend with the guys? You can’t start idealizing this guy you married.’

  ‘That’s the thing, it’s not idealizing you. I didn’t need to. You were-’

  ‘Don’t give me that crap. I used to drive you nuts, same as always.’

  ‘We never fought like this.’

  Joe looked down. ‘No. We didn’t.’

  ‘What is wrong with you?’ said Anna.

&
nbsp; ‘OK. You want to know? You really want to know? I’m furious! You know, I’ve tried to be cool, but I’m not. We have one more year before Shaun goes to college and I thought great, just the two of us, you know? I cannot believe that right when I think my life is going to go one way, someone hits rewind and I’m right back where I was eighteen years ago. I feel like I’ve worked my ass off for nothing, Anna.’

  ‘That’s not how it is.’

  ‘Yes, it is! I feel paralysed here! This baby feels like an excuse for something.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Like an excuse for you not to have to face what has happened to us. An excuse for you not to have to go out there-’ He pointed to the window.

  ‘Out where?’ said Anna.

  ‘Anywhere,’ Joe shouted. ‘Anywhere! Look at how you’ve been living. You’ve hardly gone outside the door, you fall apart when you do, you’re here all day, in the evenings-’

  ‘I’m depressed!’ she shouted.

  ‘Exactly,’ shouted Joe. ‘Which is why we should not be having this baby. Who wants to bring a kid into this home?’ It hung there in the silence.

  ‘We have a wonderful home,’ said Anna. She started to cry.

  Joe sat down on the bed. ‘Doesn’t feel that way,’ he said. ‘Or maybe I’ve forgotten. I don’t know any more. I don’t think about it. I never think about us any more.’

  ‘I know,’ said Anna, pressing her sleeve against her eyes.

  He looked up at her. ‘I… love you so much, you and Shaun. You’re everything to me. But we’re not the same. I mean, things have changed.’

  ‘Maybe the baby will…’

  Joe shook his head sadly. ‘That’s one hell of a scary job for a newborn.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  The sun beamed down through a slice in the grey sky over Denison, Texas. Wanda Rawlins held her hand up to the television set, the bones in her fingers rigid and spread.

  ‘I have been clean and sober for-’ The telegenic preacher, his grey hair smooth and waxy, paused for his audience to fill in their ‘time spent walking with Jesus’.

  ‘Sixteen years, three days and seven hours,’ said Wanda.

  ‘Before I walked with Jesus I-’

  ‘Danced with the devil.’ Wanda’s voice was as fiery as the man with the headset microphone striding the stage in the crowded white marquee.