by R.J. Ellory
‘You don’t?’ she said. ‘Well, is that so? Well, if I’m not crazy then you can hear me on one thing. Agreed?’
Harper waited for it.
‘Agreed?’ she repeated.
‘Agree what? What are you asking me to agree to?’
‘Just that you’ll hear what I have to say now and don’t immediately put it down to the ramblings of some crazy lonely evil stepmother with a stone for a heart and a head full of black thoughts.’
‘I never said you were anything like that Ev, and if you read it that way—’
‘Whatever,’ she interjected. ‘Whatever you think and whatever you say is your own business. Right now, all I’m asking is you listen to me one time, even if you never step foot inside this house again. At least I’ll know I said this one thing and you listened to me.’
Harper smiled as best he could. ‘I’m listening.’
‘Go home,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘You’ve seen him. He’s an old man. He’s not going to make it I understand. Too old. Too much damage. He wasn’t part of your life before yesterday and he doesn’t have to be part of your life now.’
‘So what the hell did you call me for, Ev? Why did you call the newspaper? Why did you call Nancy Young?’
‘Because of your mother,’ she said.
‘You what?’
‘Because of your mother, John. She told me a while before she died that if anything ever happened to her I should wait until your father was dead and then I should tell you who he was.’
‘She told you that?’
‘She did.’
‘So why didn’t you wait until he was dead?’
Evelyn didn’t reply.
‘Why, Ev? Why didn’t you wait until he was dead?’
‘Because of Walt Freiberg.’
‘Eh?’
‘He heard about your father. He called me. He came over here. He told me that if I didn’t call you and bring you up to New York he was going to call you himself. I didn’t want him to call you . . . I didn’t want you to have anything to do with these people—’
‘These people? What d’you mean, these people?’
Evelyn lowered her head. She rested her elbows on the edge of the table and buried her face in her hands.
‘Evelyn? What do you mean?’
‘I want you to go,’ she said quietly. ‘I want you to turn around and go right back to Miami.’
‘I’m not going to do that, Ev . . . I only just got here.’ Harper realized, even as he spoke, that he was saying such a thing only to be contrary. ‘You’re saying things that don’t make sense. I want to know what you’re talking about.’
She laughed drily. ‘Always the stubborn one. I can say what I think, I can tell you what’s right, but it doesn’t mean you’re going to listen to me does it? Do whatever you’re going to do John. You’re here and you might as well find out for yourself. You’re a grown man . . . more than likely you can take care of yourself. I’m telling you to go. Telling you for your own goddamned good. Whatever the hell happens here don’t come back and tell me I didn’t warn you.’
Harper put his bag down and walked towards her. He stood over her for a second. She didn’t move, didn’t look up. He stepped to the side and put his hand on her shoulder. He felt the tension as the muscles twitched beneath his fingers. Evelyn moved her left hand and closed it over Harper’s.
‘Just go,’ she said. ‘I can’t speak any more . . . go find out about your father, John. I won’t be able to stop you, I know that, and it’s probably best that you find out for yourself. You always were a single-minded child, always the one to put his hand on the stove just to prove to yourself that it was hot, eh?’ She tried to laugh. It came out strained and uncomfortable. ‘You remember I’m here, you remember who looked after you when they all disappeared.’ Evelyn’s hand tightened over his. ‘And when you’ve seen him, then take a good look at whether there’s any reason to stay here. Seems to me you won’t find one, and if you don’t, then get on the first flight you can and go home.’
Harper closed his eyes. Felt like he’d walked through a wall of emotion, an entire life’s-worth collapsed into forty-eight hours.
‘I didn’t mean to hurt you, Ev,’ he said. ‘But you brought me here and I need to understand what’s happening. I want to know about my mother—’
‘I know, John, I know.’ She was silent for a few moments. ‘I will tell you, but not now. Go see your father, eh? Go see how he’s doing.’
Harper withdrew his hand. He leaned down and kissed the top of Evelyn’s head. He walked to the door, picked up his bag, and made his way quietly down the front hallway.
He glanced back once again, up the stairs. He was struck with the sudden and inexplicable feeling that they were not alone in the house; the feeling that someone was up there. He shuddered. The hairs rose at the nape of his neck. He tried to see around the corner at the top, up towards Garrett’s room, the room where he’d consigned himself to the hereafter in the belief that whatever waited there for him was better than what he had. The house was full of ghosts. The house on Carmine was a repository for the dead.
Crazy family, all of them, and in such a light Harper believed he was perhaps a little crazy himself. He reached for the door, opened it, stepped out into the street.
‘Hard,’ he said. ‘She’s taken it real hard.’
Cathy Hollander whistled through her teeth. ‘Don’t know what the fuck to say about that.’
‘Not a great deal you can say.’
‘You knew about it?’
Harper nodded. ‘I found him.’
‘You what?’
Harper turned and looked at her. He could see over her shoulder and through the driver’s-side window of the car. There wasn’t a single person on the street. ‘I found him. Went upstairs and found him in his room. Shot himself in the head.’
‘Christ, John . . . I can’t even begin to understand how that must feel.’
‘Don’t worry, Miss Hollander, you don’t have to.’ Harper looked around and up at the Carmine Street house. It felt as if the life he’d once lived had been someone else’s all along. He could not connect the child he’d been, the child who’d walked along this very street, with the man he’d become. Truth be known, they were not the same person.
‘We can go?’ he asked.
Cathy snapped to. ‘Sorry,’ she blurted. ‘Sorry, I was miles away. Yes – yes, of course we can go.’ She leaned forward and turned the key in the ignition.
As they pulled away Harper closed his eyes and exhaled. Rock and a hard place. Stay or leave. Miami or New York.
Inside he shuddered. Didn’t let it show, didn’t want Cathy Hollander to think he was anything but strong.
NINE
The same doctor – the one from the day before – came running towards him as he turned at the end of the corridor. Harper expected him to go flying by towards some emergency, but in a moment it became obvious that the doctor was gesticulating at him, waving his arm and beckoning him. Harper was both surprised and puzzled.
‘Come!’ the doctor urged as Harper came with earshot. ‘Come quickly. He’s awake!’
Harper started walking rapidly, and then he was running, catching up with the doctor as the two of them reached the door at the end of the corridor and went through it into the ICU ante-room.
‘A few minutes ago,’ the doctor said breathlessly. ‘Just a few minutes ago he started to move, and then he opened his eyes . . . he didn’t say anything.’
Harper reached the window, and there – right there behind the glass – the old man who was his father looked back at him through narrow, pained eyes. There was a split-second of recognition, recognition that came from how unmistakably similar they were, and then something close to fear seemed to permeate the old man’s expression. It was as if he was both shocked and frightened to see Harper standing there.
Harper couldn’t breathe. For a moment he was completely disoriented and too
k a step backwards. The doctor was behind him, held his arm to prevent him losing his balance, and then he stepped forward again and reached out to steady himself against the glass.
The second defining moment: then, with his hand against the window. The old man, weak and frail, tubes running from his nose, one at the side of his mouth, his eyes screwed up into tight knots of pain, lifted his hand, inch-by-inch, excruciatingly slowly, until it was level with Harper’s. They connected, like convict and visitor through the armored glass of a booth, their hands matching one another, their fingertips connecting.
‘Huuuh,’ Harper exhaled, and instinctively jerked his hand away. Once again he stepped backwards, a sensation of reeling confusion rushing up into his chest, his head, and that sound from his throat – Huuuuh – like he was ready to burst at the seams, ready to collapse to his knees and release every pent-up emotion in one almighty strangled sob.
The doctor held him up, taking his weight as his knees buckled, and then Harper was looking again, watching as his father – his father – lowered his hand, closed his eyes, and turned his head away. It was like watching someone disappear, watching someone become a ghost.
The doctor, still holding Harper, edged around and opened the door that separated the rooms. ‘It’s okay,’ he whispered. ‘It’s okay.’
Harper went with it, one foot ahead of the other. Without thought, without understanding what was happening to him, and then he was there at the foot of the bed. He could see his father’s face. The age, the lines, the imprint of pain and loss that clung to him. He lifted his hand once more, a hand that seemed to possess no strength at all, and the fingers moved slightly, almost unnoticeably.
‘He wants you to come closer,’ the doctor said. ‘Closer.’
Harper moved with assistance, and before he could resist he was right there, right there beside his father, and his father was trying to speak.
Harper leaned down, his ear merely inches away from the old man’s face, and the word that came from his parched mouth – awkward and stuttering – was nevertheless unmistakable.
Leee-ave.
Albert Reiff – graduate of Edgecombe and Attica; two strikes, third one will take him for life – sat facing Ben Marcus and Sol Neumann at a plain deal table, kind with a baize surface to play cards. It was a little after ten in the morning. Marcus had a thing for punctuality; Reiff was fifteen minutes early, had sat outside in a car smoking and listening to big band music on the radio, feeling inside like he’d drunk a pint of Pepto-Bismol and done three circuits of the park. Low building on the corner of West and Bloomfield near Pier 53 and the Fire Boat Station – two-storey, ground level catering to a launderette, a 7–11, some kind of key cutting shop; upper floor belonged to Ben Marcus. Like an open-plan storage facility, it was a meeting place; boxes of cigarettes and bottles of liquor, a pool table, a secure room at the end where things needing a safehouse could be placed short-term. It was into this building that Reiff had gone when his watch said three minutes to ten. Punctuality meant not only never late, it also meant not being too early.
‘Things have gone and upset themselves,’ Sol Neumann said after they’d shook hands, greeted Reiff, indicated where he should sit. ‘This thing with Lenny, the fact that he’s in Vincent’s and he isn’t dead . . . I don’t even know what to think about that. We made an agreement with Lenny Bernstein, and now this.’ Neumann shook his head and sighed. ‘It isn’t right, this isn’t fucking justice, you know what I mean?’
Reiff nodded. ‘Justice?’ he said. ‘That and hope have to be the most overrated commodities on the face of the fucking earth.’
‘So what are we going to do now?’ Neumann asked: a rhetorical question. ‘Smartest thing we can, that’s what. What we do is go ahead and work out these things we agreed with Lenny.’ He glanced to his left at Ben Marcus. Marcus was implacable. ‘We work these things out, just like Lenny was still here with us. That’s what I believe we should do.’
Reiff didn’t respond; he was waiting for instructions.
‘We’ve had Victor Klein working on some sites,’ Neumann said. He spoke quietly, almost a whisper. Reiff leaned forward to better hear him. ‘We’ve had him working on a few things which seem good. These things take time, and that’s another commodity that is scarce right now. We have to work fast; where we usually have weeks, this time we have days.’
‘And there’s the other thing,’ Marcus said.
‘Right. The other thing,’ Neumann said. He looked down at the floor, and then up at Reiff. ‘I want you to speak to Ray Dietz. I want you and him to go check on the runaway’s family, this guy McCaffrey. Word came this morning that the guy has a sister and a brother. Make some calls, share a few words, go see some people, find out where this kid has gotten to. You can do that for me?’
Reiff nodded, started up out of his chair.
‘This is going to be a mess whichever way it goes down,’ Neumann added.
Reiff smiled; shrugged his shoulders. ‘’S why we have cleaners, right?’
Neumann smiled. ‘Sure it is,’ he said. He turned towards Marcus and laughed. ‘That’s why we have cleaners.’
Once Reiff had left, Marcus rose to his feet and walked to the window. He stayed motionless for some time, his hands behind his back. ‘Any news of this phantom who looks like Lenny Bernstein?’
‘No, nothing yet,’ Neumann replied. ‘It’s Merrett,’ he added. ‘Kid’s a fucking whacko. Like I said before, I did time with him at Five Points. He gets an idea in his head he won’t let it go. He was mistaken. It was nothing. Don’t sweat it.’
Marcus shook his head. ‘Way things are right now I have to sweat it Sol. Merrett says there was someone at St Vincent’s with Freiberg and the girl. Doesn’t make a difference who he looked like. Fact that they had someone there means something. I want to know who he is and what he’s doing.’ Marcus turned slowly and pinned Neumann with his gaze. ‘Good to know how many people I gotta kill.’
‘Sure, Ben, sure.’
‘I mean it, Sol. I don’t want to hear some bad news the day before we go to work. We already have additional factors to handle—’
‘I’ll handle it, Ben. I’ll find out who he is.’
‘Okay. We’re done then. Go see Victor Klein, make sure he’s organizing the people we need. And speak to Henry Kossoff . . . tell him we need hardware and cars. You know the routine.’
They left the upper floor together, made their way down a narrow iron fire escape to the car lot at the rear of the building.
‘Call me later,’ Ben Marcus said. He glanced at his watch. ‘Call me before one and let me know what’s happening.’
Later, much later, seated on a bench along the third floor corridor, Harper questioned what he’d heard.
Leave?
The doctor was by the door. He merely saw the old man’s lips move. He did not hear anything.
‘You must have,’ Harper insisted, but he knew he was merely wishing for the doctor to agree with him so he could try and make some sense of it, so he could attempt to find its relevance and meaning.
‘I’m sorry,’ the doctor said. ‘I really am sorry, Mr Harper, I was too far away.’
The single word was uttered, if it had been a word at all, and then Edward Bernstein – absentee father, gunshot victim, dying man – had slipped into unconsciousness once more.
John Harper had knelt by the side of the bed, his hand closed over his father’s, and he’d tried to feel something personal for the man.
Finally – ten, perhaps fifteen minutes – and the doctor called for an orderly to help him take Harper out. Bernstein’s vitals were growing even weaker and he needed attention. The doctor told Harper to come back the following day. Harper did not protest or argue. He tried to leave. He made it as far as the bench situated ten yards down the hallway, and there he sat until Frank Duchaunak found him.
‘Mr Harper?’
Harper looked up.
‘I thought it was you,’ Duchaunak said. ‘I asked
for your name downstairs. I am a police officer. My name is Frank Duchaunak, Detective Frank Duchaunak.’ He waited for Harper to speak, and when he said nothing Duchaunak nodded at the seat beside him. ‘May I?’
Harper shrugged.
Duchaunak sat down. He leaned back and sighed. ‘I understand Edward Bernstein regained consciousness.’
Harper neither spoke nor made any indication of having heard the question.
‘Mr Harper?’
Harper looked down at the grey-green tiles beneath his feet. The hexagonal tessellation ran both ways, as far as he could see. Tiny scuffs of black were scattered along them, marking the hurrying feet of attendant nurses and doctors; the fingerprints of an emergency, of a life surfacing, a life slipping away.
‘I don’t want to intrude at a time like this, Mr Harper, but I came as soon as I heard.’
Harper frowned. ‘Heard what?’
‘That Mr Bernstein had regained consciousness.’
‘Who told you?’
‘The duty nurse called me.’
‘Why would she do that?’ Harper asked.
‘Because I am the investigating officer, Mr Harper. I am in charge of the investigation into Mr Bernstein’s – into your father’s – shooting.’
‘Right,’ Harper said. ‘Of course.’
‘Did you see him?’
‘Yes, I saw him.’
‘And did he speak?’
Harper shook his head. He turned and looked at Duchaunak. He realized it was same cop, the one from the previous day, the one Uncle Walt had called an asshole. He was older than Harper, perhaps by half a dozen years or so, but he carried the world-weary beaten look of someone who’d crammed the contents of two lives into half as many years.
‘Are you an asshole?’ Harper asked.
Duchaunak frowned, then started laughing. ‘Am I an asshole?’ he asked. ‘Sure I’m an asshole, a real professional asshole. I’m one of those assholes who isn’t only born an asshole, I get up early in the morning to practise.’
Harper smiled.
‘Who said that?’ Duchaunak asked. ‘Walt?’