by James Hayman
McCabe loved watching Kyra cook. A foodie in her natural habitat, she moved around the kitchen with ease and an economy of motion. The simple act of chopping a bunch of scallions became performance art, Kyra’s fingers manipulating both the vegetables and the finely honed blade with astonishing speed. He poured a Macallan single malt for himself and a chilled Pouilly-Fumé for her. They clinked glasses and sipped.
‘Tell Casey we’ll be eating in twenty minutes.’ He slid off his stool and went to deliver the message. Then he came back and climbed onto the stool again.
‘Okay?’ Kyra asked.
‘Yeah, fine. She’s in a bit of a sulk right now. Worried about seeing Sandy again.’
‘I don’t blame her. I would be, too, after three years.’
McCabe got up, stood behind Kyra, and began kneading the muscles along her shoulders and nuzzling the back of her neck.
‘Alright, that feels great, but either I cook or you nuzzle. We can’t do both.’
‘Are you sure –’
‘Yes, I’ll cut my finger off.’
‘What I was going to say was, are you sure what you said about us not getting married being the right answer?’
She put the knife down and turned to face him. ‘Why are you bringing this up again?’
‘Because I love you?’
‘I love you, too – but it strikes me that your timing, bringing it up right now, just might be more about you and Casey and maybe you and Sandy than it is about you and me. That somewhere in your devious mind you think giving Casey a substitute mother will somehow take the pressure off.’
McCabe didn’t know if Kyra was right. She might be. He backed away and went to refill his Scotch. ‘Let’s wait until this visit with Sandy is over,’ said Kyra. ‘We can talk about it again.’
That night, after they made love, he dreamed of TwoTimes.
He dreamed he was climbing the stairs inside the house on Merced Street. Flight after flight of rotting boards wrapped around a central well. His two hands clutching a Glock 17. Pressed against the wall at the side of the stairs. No lights. No backup. Pitch black. Yet somehow he could see through the dark. A stink of decaying flesh growing stronger as he climbed each floor. His foot hit something soft.
‘Hey, kid, watch where you’re walking.’
He looked down. His brother Tommy splayed out on the stairs looking up. Smiling that patented smile no one could resist. Even though Tommy was dead, even though his smile was marred by two large exit wounds where the bullets that entered the back of his head came out the front, carrying with them a spray of brains and bits of Tommy the Narc’s oh-so-blue right eye.
Looking down he saw that the dead, but not dead, Tommy had a girl on each arm. Ellie Pearlman to his right. The Jewish girl who lived on the next block. His father’s voice rang out. ‘Tommy, are you still messing around with that Jew girl?’ On Tommy’s left was Mag O’Connell, her shirt off, her bra unhooked and hanging by one strap. Then Ellie Pearlman was gone and Tommy was standing behind Mag, his arms wrapped around her, one hand cupped under each of Mag’s large, soft white breasts with the big pink nipples. Tommy holding Mag’s breasts out for the ten-year-old McCabe to admire. ‘Hey, Mikey, bet you never saw anything like these before.’ He shook his head. No. No, he hadn’t. ‘Wanna have a feel?’ He hesitated before putting his hand out and stroking Mag’s soft, pliant flesh.
McCabe looked down. Tommy was dead again, Mag O’Connell gone. He climbed over the body and continued up the stairs. At the top, he saw TwoTimes, a black cigarette, the color of a cigar, dangling from his lips. ‘I’m tellin’ you like I told your brother, you may fuck with me once, but there’s none what fucks with me two times.’
By TwoTimes’s side stood a fat white man with a round pasty face, speaking in a white pasty voice. ‘Your Honor, we find the drug pusher, pimp, and cop-killer TwoTimes not guilty.’
‘Not guilty,’ repeated TwoTimes, still on the stairs. ‘I told you, hot shot, nobody fucks with TwoTimes two times.’
Then TwoTimes reached into his waistband and pulled out a small silver metal pistol, a little .22, shiny like a kid’s cowboy cap gun. TwoTimes fired from the hip; the slug whizzed by McCabe’s left ear and embedded itself in the plaster wall. McCabe aimed and fired before TwoTimes could fire again. The shot from the Glock, so much louder than the .22, echoed up and down the endless stairwell. McCabe watched the 9 mm slug, visible like a cartoon bullet, traverse the twenty feet between the end of the barrel and TwoTimes’s head. It entered TwoTimes precisely at the tip of his wide flat nose.
McCabe continued up the stairs. TwoTimes was gone. Now Sandy stood at the top, wearing a sheer silk nightgown, her naked body gleaming under it, white in the moonlight, her hand out, beckoning him. ‘Come on up, McCabe.’ Once again, Sandy as the young Lauren Bacall.
McCabe reached for her, but his hand still held the Glock. The gun brushed against her body. He squeezed the trigger and the image of Sandy shattered into a thousand fragments, images in a broken mirror he could never put together again.
He woke with a start, his body soaked with sweat. He looked across the bed at Kyra, still sleeping. He thought about waking her, but whatever this feeling was, he knew it was not about Kyra, and not about making love. So instead he just lay there, staring into the dark shadows, breathing slowly and deeply until his bad dreams went away.
25
Tuesday. 6:30 A.M.
Kyra and McCabe lay, side by side, holding hands, legs touching, in the queen-sized bed.
‘Tell me about TwoTimes,’ she said.
He glanced over, a frown appearing at the bridge of his nose. ‘I already told you about that.’
‘Not everything, I think.’
‘What do you want to know?’
‘I want to know why you’re having nightmares and muttering his name in your sleep. His name and your brother’s name. And Sandy’s.’
McCabe stared silently up at the plaster ceiling in the old room, his eyes tracing the route of a crack that had been patched over and had now reappeared for about the tenth time. ‘Got to fix that crack,’ he said.
‘Look, McCabe, you say you love me. You say you may even want to marry me. If that’s true and you want me to be your wife and not just a warm body to get cozy with, I have to know it all.’
‘You already know most of it,’ he said. ‘TwoTimes was a small-potatoes crack dealer in the South Bronx. Just a kid, really. Nineteen when I planted the bullet in his skull. He ran a network of street sellers, other kids, all of them underage, some of them as young as ten or twelve. The idea was if the kids got picked up they’d only do juvie time.’
‘And Tommy was a narcotics cop?’
‘Yeah. Tommy the Narc. Real hotshot. I dropped out of NYU and transferred to John Jay to follow in his footsteps. Tommy knew his way around the trade. Made some big busts. What I didn’t know, what I should’ve known, was that by the time TwoTimes came along, Tommy had turned.’
‘Turned?’
‘Turned bad. Gone on the take. He was pocketing money and drugs from half a dozen dealers in the Bronx. Most of them more powerful than TwoTimes.’
‘You never told me that.’
‘It’s not anything I like talking about. Anyway, TwoTimes was getting too big for his baggy britches. He was trying to expand his territory and pushing up against some guys who didn’t take kindly to being pushed. So they called in their fixer to get TwoTimes out of the way.’
‘Tommy?’
‘Yeah, Tommy. You want coffee? I can make us some coffee.’
‘No. Thanks. Not until I’ve heard it all.’
McCabe sighed. ‘Problem was Tommy had gotten greedy. He doesn’t want to take TwoTimes out ’cause he figures he’ll lose a nice source of income. So instead he decides to talk him out of it. Tommy always figured he could talk anybody out of anything. Anyway, he goes over to TwoTimes’s place, a sleazebag apartment o
n Merced Street, and tells him he’s gotta stop crowding the big guys. TwoTimes says, “What the fuck you talking about? You work for me.” So Tommy tells TwoTimes he also works for a number of other clients, and if TwoTimes doesn’t stop horning in on their business, he’s gonna have to arrest him.’
‘Tommy is?’
‘Yeah, but TwoTimes is too smart for that. He knows no way in hell is Tommy gonna arrest anybody who can testify in court how he’s been paying him off for more than two years. Instead he figures Tommy’s gonna kill him. So while Tommy’s still talking, TwoTimes takes out this bullshit little twenty-two and puts two slugs into his head. Kills him on the spot.’
‘How did you find out about all this?’
‘Some of it at the trial. Some from Tommy’s partner. The rest I got from TwoTimes just before I took him down.’
‘So what happened after he killed Tommy?’
‘Biggest bullshit trial I ever saw in my life. I mean, the DA had TwoTimes dead to rights. They had Tommy’s blood all over the apartment. They had the gun –’
‘Fingerprints?’
‘Not on the gun. He wiped it clean.’ McCabe paused. ‘Get dressed,’ he said. ‘Let’s take a walk. I need some air.’
‘You’ll tell me the rest of it?’
‘Yeah, I’ll tell you the rest of it.’
It took McCabe less than a minute to throw on a pair of jeans and an oversized sweatshirt loose enough to cover his .45. While Kyra dressed, he interrupted Casey’s ongoing snooze to let her know it was time to get out of bed and ready for school. Breakfast was Cheerios. They were going out. They’d be back, but not before she left.
Kyra and McCabe walked across the Eastern Prom and down the hill toward the morning light and the water. They crossed the narrow-gauge tracks and then turned north along the joggers’ trail toward Back Bay. A few runners passed. Other than that they were alone. ‘I didn’t want to talk about this stuff in the apartment. Casey can hear through walls. She’s got ears like a hawk. None of this is for her consumption.’
‘It’s eyes like a hawk. To my knowledge hawks aren’t particularly well regarded for their hearing.’
‘Yeah, I know. I just couldn’t come up with an appropriate animal metaphor. How about ears like a rabbit?’ He smiled.
Kyra didn’t return his smile. She wasn’t falling for banter. ‘Let’s stay on subject,’ she said.
‘You’re right. Where was I?’
‘The biggest bullshit trial you ever saw in your life.’
‘Yeah, right. TwoTimes’s lawyer puts him on the stand, and he comes in with this bullshit alibi that he was having sex with his girlfriend while Tommy was getting shot, and both the girlfriend and the girlfriend’s mother swear up and down that it’s true.’
‘He gets off on that?’
‘He gets off on reasonable doubt. Nobody denied Tommy was killed in TwoTimes’s apartment or that he was killed with TwoTimes’s gun, but there were no witnesses. Even though this twelve-year-old girl who lived down the hall told detectives she heard the four shots and then saw TwoTimes exiting the apartment via the fire escape. Unfortunately, she wasn’t willing to repeat the story in court. One of TwoTimes’s crack crew probably got to her.’
‘So he gets off, and you, to your everlasting regret, go to his apartment and kill him, what, out of revenge for your dead brother?’
‘That’s what the Internal Affairs people were trying to prove, but that wasn’t how it happened. By the way, I don’t really regret it.’
‘So how did it happen?’
‘The problem, as IA saw it, was that I was Midtown North homicide and not South Bronx narcotics. I had no business nosing around in the case, especially after TwoTimes walked.’
‘But you did?’
‘But I did.’
‘May I ask why, and what you were hoping to accomplish? Assuming, of course, you’re telling the truth about not going there to kill the guy.’
‘I could have done that. I was certainly tempted, but I didn’t. I knew he couldn’t be tried for the murder again, but I wanted him to admit not only that he killed Tommy but that he was a dealer. That he sold crack to kids for a living. I went wearing a wire. I wanted the truth. I wanted him to do at least a little time.’ McCabe paused. ‘Maybe I wanted to rough him up a little.’
‘So what happened?’
‘I go upstairs in this shithole where he hangs out, and I find him in the apartment. He takes me for a cop right off, which is not too hard, but he doesn’t know I’m Tommy’s brother. I ask him about it, and he tells me what happened. How he’d wasted this narc and walked. He knew he couldn’t be tried again. He’s laughing his ass off. So I figure fuck it and I tell him who I am. That gets to him right away. I mean, if a dude as black as TwoTimes can turn white, he did. Right away he goes for his piece. He clears his waistband and fires, but the shot goes wide, into the wall. I’m more accurate. My bullet puts a hole in his head. That was the end of it. The whole story.’
‘There was an investigation?’
‘Of course. There always is.’
‘And you were exonerated?’
‘I was exonerated. The bad guy had a weapon, and he fired first. You could hear the two shots clearly on the recorder. First the little plink of his .22 and right after it the louder boom of the 9 mm. Under the circumstances, I used appropriate force. Unfortunately, there was enough lingering doubt about why I was there in the first place to kill my prospects as a detective in New York. It’s part of the reason I took the job up here. Part of the reason I met you.’
‘Casey being the other part?’
‘Yeah.’
They walked for a while, neither saying anything. Eventually Kyra asked, ‘Would you have killed him anyway? Even if he hadn’t pulled a gun?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe. I certainly wanted to, but he wasn’t too long for this world anyway. He was an arrogant little prick, and there were at least a half dozen bigger sharks out for his ass. They would have gotten him sooner or later.’
‘You said you have no regrets about killing him?’
‘No regrets. He was vermin and he deserved to die.’
‘So why are you having nightmares about it?’
‘I guess because he’s the only man I ever killed. Because it was up close and personal. Because it was so fast. He was alive. Then he was dead. Just like that. In spite of what you see on TV, killing people isn’t all that easy.’
Kyra stopped and looked up. ‘That helps.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Helps me be sure that if I do marry you, my husband won’t be somebody who can do something like that easily.’
‘That’s important, huh?’
‘I won’t dignify that with a response.’
‘No, if you marry me you won’t be marrying a murderer. You’ll be marrying a cop. A cop who’s a refugee from a failed marriage. Each of those, as you know by now, comes with its own set of problems.’
Kyra slipped her arm into McCabe’s and moved her body closer to his. He leaned down, pulled her in, and kissed her. She kissed him back. Then, arm in arm, they walked back toward the apartment, marveling, as they always did, at the beauty of the bay and the glory of the sunrise that turned all the clouds pink.
26
Boca Raton, Florida
Tuesday. 2:00 P.M.
Vanessa Redmond sat with her back to the wall at a corner table in the lobby bar at the Boca Raton Club and Resorts, which, at two o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon, was nearly empty. She was dressed casually in a lime green silk shirt and white linen pants. An attractive woman, she’d never bothered to color her naturally gray hair. Her right hand fidgeted with the clasp of a gold Baume and Mercier wristwatch. The only other jewelry she wore was a thin chain around her neck, supporting a gold Elsa Peretti heart, and two small diamond stud earrings. Her makeup was simple and understated. Though she seldom drank m
uch at any time, and never in the afternoon, she ordered a cosmopolitan, hoping the alcohol might calm her anxiety. The man was late. She wasn’t accustomed to being kept waiting, and she didn’t like sitting by herself in a bar. She picked up her cell phone, thinking she’d check the messages at the house to see if he’d called. Then she closed it, deciding to give him another ten minutes. She sipped the drink.
A man, tall, with broad shoulders and deep-set eyes, entered the room. He wore a well-cut blue blazer over a yellow Izod polo shirt and tan trousers. Glancing in her direction, he walked to her table.
‘Mrs. Redmond?’
‘Ms. Redmond,’ she said. ‘John Redmond is my father. My first name is Vanessa.’
‘You never married?’ he asked, taking the seat opposite hers.
‘No. What is your name?’
‘Harry. Harry Lime.’
‘I don’t suppose that’s your real name?’
‘No. My real name is irrelevant.’
‘You’re late, by the way, Harry Lime.’
‘That, too, is irrelevant.’
‘Why did you want to meet?’
‘I don’t want to talk in here. There’s a jogging path that winds around the property. We can walk there and talk. Did you only have the one drink?’
‘Yes,’ she said. He took out a twenty-dollar bill and placed it on the table. He pulled out the table to ease her exit. She rose and walked out of the bar first. He followed her to the front door of the hotel, and they went together out into the heat of a late summer afternoon.
They walked down the path, away from the central part of the hotel.
‘You’re not wearing any recording devices, are you?’ he asked.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, don’t be ridiculous,’ she said, irritation rising in her voice.
‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to check. May I have your bag?’ Sighing deeply, she handed him her small Hermès shoulder bag. He opened the snaps and rummaged through it. Finding no wire, he handed it back.