Keeper

by Greg Rucka

  I got off the couch and looked over her shoulder at the monitor. She’d gotten all the important points of what I’d said, and I told her as much.

  “One other thing,” I said. “I need a list of all attendees, if you have one. Trent will, too.”

  “I’ve got it right here.” She opened a document, set it up to print. There was a whine as her laser printer charged and began spitting out paper, and Selby said, “I updated it today. We’re at twenty-two speakers, over two thousand registered attendees, but frankly I’m expecting more.”

  “How many more?”

  “Perhaps twice or even three times that number.”

  “Christ,” I said.

  She looked at me sharply.

  “I apologize,” I said. “No offense was intended.”

  Selby made a small smile. “Taking the Lord’s name in vain . . . I’m used to hearing it outside. Just not in my own home.”

  She gathered the paper from the printer and handed it to me. As I flipped through the sheets, Selby said, “I’ll let you know as more names are added.”

  I was about to thank her when I saw Crowell’s name. “Why’s Jonathan Crowell on the list?”

  “He’ll be speaking,” she said.

  “Are you kidding? That man doesn’t believe in common anything.”

  She wheeled back to where the dog now lay, saying, “Jordan, come here.” The dog immediately rose and returned his head to her lap, wagging his tail.

  Selby said, “Mr. Crowell’s point of view deserves to be heard.”

  “No.”

  She frowned. “Everyone who wishes to speak must be heard, Mr. Kodiak. We all have that right. I don’t agree with what he does, or what he says. But if Dr. Romero can speak, then he must be given the opportunity as well. That’s the whole purpose of this conference.”

  “That means that SOS will be there,” I said.

  She nodded. “And they will behave or be expelled. Those are the ground rules for the conference. There will be no screaming tantrums, no accusations.”

  I wondered how the hell she was going to manage that, but didn’t say anything. Barry threw a bottle, and now SOS would be attending Common Ground. Suddenly, my day seemed to be in a serious nosedive.

  “He’s not that bad,” she said. “Crowell, I mean. His rhetoric is that of an angry man, but ... he sincerely believes that abortion is murder, and I cannot fault him for that.”

  “You speak as if you know him,” I said.

  “We’ve had an acquaintance over the years. He’s strained it recently.” She looked at her hands, then at me again, the small smile back in place. “I’ve been lobbying against abortion for nearly twenty years now, Mr. Kodiak. I’ve lectured all over the country, I’ve published everywhere I could get accepted. I’ve even managed two or three books. Through all of this, I’ve met many people on both sides. I have enemies on my own side and friends, like Felice Romero, on the other.”

  It struck me that she had more to say about Crowell, but I didn’t want to press her. I folded the papers, put them in my jacket pocket. “When you see Trent, make certain you tell him that Crowell and his troops will be there.”

  “I will,” she said. “You’re leaving?”

  “I’ve got some other things to take care of tonight.”

  “Let me show you out, then,” Selby said.

  “That’s not necessary,” I said. “Have a good night.”

  “You as well. Thank you again for coming.”

  I started for the door and she said, “Mr. Kodiak? Do you think that SOS will really be a problem?”

  I stopped and looked back at her, gorgeous in her wheelchair, just as passionate, just as concerned as before. “Yes,” I said. “They really will.”

  I went straight home, opened a beer, and dialed Romero’s number. Natalie answered.

  “It’s Atticus. I need you to call your father. Tell him that Veronica Selby will be calling tomorrow, and she’ll want the works.”

  “How bad is it?” she asked.

  “Oh, it’s about as bad as it can be. We’re a good three weeks behind.”

  “No way we can do this, Atticus,” Natalie said.

  “I know.”

  She was quiet for a moment. I heard Romero ask her how my meeting with Selby had gone. Natalie said fine, then said, to me, “I’m going to change phones. Hold on.” I heard her set the receiver down, then ask Romero if she could use the phone in the bedroom. Felice said yes.

  I drank some beer. I knew what was coming, and couldn’t fault her. Of all my colleagues, frankly, Natalie’s the best. At least as good as I am, and certainly better looking.

  She picked up the extension and someone hung up the other phone, and as soon as she felt the line was secure, she said, “You absolutely cannot let her attend. There’s no way that Sentinel can catch up, no way they can clear everybody by the day after tomorrow.”

  “I know.”

  “Goddamn you, Atticus. I know you and I know what you’re thinking. You can’t let her do it.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “She’s got a daughter, for God’s sake.”

  “I know.”

  She was quiet again. “Is it worth her life?” Natalie asked, finally.

  “It’s her life, Natalie. I’ll give her the options and let her make the decision.”

  “You know what she’ll say.”

  “Yes, I do,” I said. I finished my beer. I was paying for a lot of NYNEX silence. I took the beer to the sink and washed out the bottle. After I put it in the recycling, I asked, “Do you want out?”

  “Of course not,” Natalie said immediately. “Don’t be an ass. I’m in for the whole op. But it’s a mistake, and I would be remiss in my job if I didn’t tell you that.”

  “Will you be able to sell your father on it?”

  She sighed. “He won’t like it at all. It’ll put the firm’s reputation at risk. He’ll give me the ‘She’s our responsibility, too’ lecture, and he won’t be wrong.”

  “Tell him it’s my reputation, not his.”

  “I will.”

  “If we can’t get Sentinel, we’re fucked,” I said.

  “We’re fucked anyway, Atticus. All right, I’ll call him, do my best Daddy’s-little-girl act. But don’t expect him to give Selby a discount. I’ll call you back.”

  “Okay. Don’t tell Romero anything yet.”

  “Talk to you in a bit.”

  I hung up and stared out the kitchen window for a few minutes, looking across the alley. Then I took off my gun and pager and sat at the table. My gun is an HK P7, hammerless, and its cocking mechanism is in the grip, making it ideal for one-handed use. It’s a good bodyguard’s weapon, and looking at it, I wondered if I wasn’t creating a situation where I’d be forced to use it. I didn’t much care for that thought, and looked out the window instead.

  There wasn’t much happening in the apartments across the alley, just occasional silhouettes against drawn blinds.

  Twenty minutes passed before the phone rang. I answered it immediately.

  “He said he’ll do it,” Natalie told me. “He’ll cancel his morning appointments and meet with her right after she contacts him. But he told me to tell you that you’re an idiot, and you’ll be washed up if this goes wrong.”

  “Have I mentioned how much I like your father?”

  “No, and I wouldn’t start now. See you in the morning.”

  “Night.”

  “Good night.”

  After making dinner for myself, I called Alison, hoping that I could see her, or at least get her on the phone long enough to talk. She wasn’t in; probably rehearsing. I left a short message, told her it was nothing urgent, and that I’d try to reach her tomorrow.

  Then I went to bed.

  Sleep came fast, and I dropped into my dream cycle like a sinker through the surface of a lake. Veronica Selby was explaining to me that plastic coat hangers were invented by her, actually, to keep women from using them to mutilate t
hemselves. Dr. Romero told her she was way out of line, but she said it in a friendly enough way, and Selby took it well, asking the doctor in return why she hadn’t aborted Katie.

  “I couldn’t,” Dr. Romero told her. “I wouldn’t have even if I had known.”

  They talked, and I sat on a black leather couch next to Katie, watching television. Bill Bixby turned into Lou Fer-rigno, and together the two of them trashed a clinic held by fat men wearing ski masks. On the screen I saw a child’s doll, naked and anatomically incorrect, with its crotch split open. Its crotch had been detailed to look like a vagina, but someone had bored a hole through it, and from within spilled festering, bloody matter, burned and broken chunks of skin that could have been anything from fetal remains to chicken entrails. “She’s dead,” Katie told me.

  Then Felice was being chased by men who all looked like Barry. The many Barrys held paper knives, which they had managed to smuggle past the metal detectors without a problem. Felice stopped running, turning to face them down. She said, “You’re all such little men, why are you here?”

  Before I could reach her, they descended, the knives rising and falling, until they cut out her womb. The chief Barry held it aloft, presenting it to Crowell as he floated down from heaven on wires. Crowell took it, and said to Felice, “No more children for you.”

  The phone was ringing. I heard it in the dream and made for it,, climbing desperately, until finally my eyes opened and I jerked up. It was still dark, and I stumbled out of my room and into the kitchen, stubbing my toe on the utility cart while trying to reach the table.

  “Atticus, it’s Rubin. Dr. Romero and Natalie just left here. The burglar alarm at the clinic went off.”

  “Damn,” I said. “All right, I’ll get right over there.”

  “Okay,” Rubin said softly.

  It took half a second, and then I recognized the tone in his voice. Doubt.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “The phone rang right after they left, and I thought it was the police again, or the alarm company. But nobody was there, they just hung up after I answered. It feels like somebody’s probing.”

  “You want me to come over there?”

  “Yes,” Rubin said.

  “All right, I’ll send Dale to the clinic. Give me twenty minutes. Katie’s all right?”

  “She’s in her room, sleeping.”

  “You checked?”

  “Yes. Called the doorman, too. He says nobody he hasn’t recognized has come in.”

  “Twenty minutes,” I said and hung up.

  I turned on the kitchen light and winced, then called Dale. He got it on the second ring, and was remarkably lucid. I briefed him and he said he’d get there ASAP.

  I dressed fast, grabbed my gun and pager, and ran down all six flights of stairs onto Thompson, pulling my jacket on as I went. I flagged a passing cab on Houston and told the driver to get to Gold Street as fast as he could. It was four in the morning and the sky was still dark, the streets still bare, and everything shining in the false moisture of night. The dream still had its claws in me, and I tried to shake them out as the cab popped and swerved its way south.

  The driver stopped in front of Romero’s building, and I scanned the street before getting out; looking for anything out of the ordinary. There was nothing to see. The driver took his money and the doorman let me through. Rubin was waiting at Romero’s door and stepped out of my way to let me inside. I heard him lock the door after me.

  The main floor looked fine, and I took the steps up to the third level quickly, found Katie’s door, and looked inside. She was asleep in the bed, snoring. The room smelled of perfume and soap.

  Rubin handed me a mug of coffee when I got back downstairs. His eyes were puffy, with heavy bags underneath. I took the mug and checked the other rooms, not expecting to find anything and not being disappointed. Then I moved the curtain back from the window and unlocked the sliding door, stepping out onto the concrete patio. Rubin followed me.

  The air was cool outside, and helped push the last of my cobwebs away. The coffee was hot and too sweet.

  “False alarm?” Rubin asked.

  “Maybe.” There was movement across the street, a man in a dark windbreaker walking down toward the Seaport. Several lights shone in the opposite building, and movement fluttered the curtains in a couple of windows, people rising for the day or maybe preparing for bed. A homeless person slept on a grate at the comer of the building, un-moving. But mostly the city was still wrapped in night, and mostly there was nothing to see.

  “God, I’m tired,” he said, rubbing his eyes.

  “What exactly happened?”

  “Felice got the call about a half hour ago, and she tore out of here. Natalie wanted to call you first, but Felice wouldn’t wait.

  “I hung up the phone and it rang and I picked it up, and then nothing. Just the click, like I said. Disconnect.”

  “Anything else?”

  Rubin rubbed his eyes again. “I don’t know. I got twigged, you know, so I decided I’d take a peek out here . . . and I swear to God I saw someone in one of the windows.” He looked at me, and his expression was almost apologetic. “Just standing there, not doing a goddamn thing but staring out, right at me.”

  “Could you see who it was?”

  “Shit, Atticus, I could only see a silhouette. The person could’ve had their goddamn back to me, I wouldn’t have been able to tell. Looked like a guy, looked about your size, but I don’t know. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Which window?”

  He extended an ink-stained index finger. “Seventh in from the left on the third floor.”

  The window was lit, but barely, as if there was only one source of light inside, and I could dimly make out the railing on the fire escape. Curtains or some kind of blind obscured the view, and if anyone was moving inside, they weren’t visible. On either side of the window there were no lights, and no way to tell if it was one apartment or several. From where we stood, it looked like someone could establish line of sight into the Romero living room, but their field of fire would have been tight, maybe only five degrees at the most. Move to the right a couple of windows and that field would open up to almost twenty degrees, maybe more.

  “This is probably nothing, right?” Rubin asked. “Somebody just got the number and was making a run-of-the-mill terror call? Coincidence?”

  The light in the window went out, and I stared hard for a few moments at the darkened square, thinking, then let my eyes lock on the building entrance. After a minute or so a woman left, walking a dog past the dozing doorman under the awning. The woman was using a walking stick, and the dog was on a retractable leash. Both looked old. Nobody else entered or left. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe what?”

  “Maybe it’s nothing. We should find out who’s in that apartment, though.”

  “I don’t want to start jumping at “ghosts.”

  “We’ll verify that it’s occupied, that’s all. Find out if the name on the rental agreement matches any name that Fowler or Lozano have.”

  We surveyed the street for a while without speaking. Early office suits were beginning to appear, heading toward Wall Street with briefcases laden with trade secrets and stock reports. The thought, unbidden and unexpected, came into my mind that each person moving now, every light across the way, represented a life or multiple lives.

  “It’s been going on for so long now,” Rubin said. “It seems like we’ve been doing this job forever.”

  “Eleven days isn’t long,” I said.

  “For you, maybe. I feel like every day is the same. Not that they are, of course, I know that, and if I try really hard, I can remember that, too. But the fact that I have to try really hard to begin with is what bothers me.”

  “Have you gotten any sleep?”

  “What, tonight? About two hours.”

  “Go to bed. I’ll cover until Natalie gets back with the doctor.” I put a hand on his
shoulder. “You can only do so much. Get some rest.”

  “You don’t think I’m paranoid, do you?”

  “Paranoia is our game, Rubin.”

  He smiled and said, “See you in a few hours.” He started back into the apartment, then stopped. “Katie shouldn’t be a problem when she gets up. She’s having her period, now, though, so make sure she changes her pads. She forgets sometimes.”

  I gave Rubin five minutes to settle in before I turned back inside myself, going straight to the house phone and ringing the lobby. Philippe the doorman answered immediately, and I told him what I wanted him to do.

  “I shouldn’t leave my post,” he told me.

  “This is a favor for Dr. Romero.”

  He listened again, then agreed, and I went back out on the patio to watch.

  It took him four minutes to lock up, get the coffees, and cross the street. Philippe offered one cup to the other doorman, and they stood side by side for a moment, drinking and talking. Philippe told a joke, with broad hand gestures, and the other doorman laughed. They talked some more, and then the other doorman nodded and went inside, leaving Philippe alone on the sidewalk. His uniform looked pink in the light under the awning.

  The other doorman came back, told Philippe what he wanted to know. They shook hands, and though I couldn’t see it, I was sure Philippe slipped the other man some money.

  I went back to the house phone, and picked it up as it rang.

  “The apartment is owned by Mrs. Batina Friendly,” Philippe told me. “She shares it with her dog. She’s out taking a walk right now.”

  Which was what I had thought, but it pays to be certain. “How much do I owe you?” I asked him.

  “Twenty bucks,” Philippe said.

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  Dr. Romero had set out two deck chairs on the patio, white enamel paint with orange rubber slats, and after Rubin left I sat in one of them, waiting for the sunrise.