by Glenn Cooper
No one in the van spoke for a long while. Sam and Jessie silently wiped away their tears while Steve clenched and unclenched his fist. He whispered he’d never see Leslie again. He was sure of that.
Alex finally said, “I’m not sad for Joe and Erica and you shouldn’t be either. We all know they’ve made it all the way over. Imagine how happy they are, how lucky they are to be done with all the bullshit. We’ll be with them soon enough, but we’ve still got work to do to. Leslie, Davis, and Vik will be okay. Don’t worry about her, Steve. Leslie’s strong. And you will see her again. If not here, then there.” He patted the big man on the back and sighed. “I think it’s time for Cyrus O’Malley to stop trying to stop us. It’s funny, I hate the man’s guts but I think I know a way to make his life better.”
It was late when they crossed the Bronx River and exited onto city streets. Sam found a parking space in front of a shuttered bodega, killed the engine and said, “Welcome to Walton Avenue.”
It was chilly and not many people were out. Sam had them stay in the van and hustled to the building entrance: scuffed black doors in a soot-white-brick apartment block. He pressed a buzzer and when he heard a crackling “Hola,” he said, “Hi Ma, it’s me.”
Asuncion Rodriguez was thin with severely pulled-back hair streaked with gray. She cried when she saw her son at the door of her sixth-floor apartment and shifted back and forth between relief and anger. Where had he been? Why hadn’t he called? Was he okay? Was he in trouble? Why had he dropped out of school? What would his father have said?
Everything was all right, he told her. He was with good people, doing important things. He was sure his father would approve. Then he said, “Ma, I’ve got friends with me. Can we stay a few days?”
When Alex, Jessie, and Steve marched through her door, Mrs. Rodriguez stared at Alex and kept firing angry looks at her son. Before Sam could make introductions, she muttered an apology, pulled Sam into her bedroom and scolded, “You think I don’t know who that is? You think I don’t know? What have you gotten yourself into?”
“He’s a good man, Ma. A great man. I want you to keep an open mind. Please do that for me. If you turn us away, we’ll have big problems.”
Her mind turned to practical matters. “Where will everyone sleep?”
He laughed and kissed her cheek. “The girl can have my bed. The guys can sleep on the sofa and the floor in the living room. We’ll be fine.”
She frowned. “You take the sofa,” she insisted, waggling her finger.
Marian ran down the hospital corridor as fast as her high heels permitted, with her husband fast-walking behind her.
Cyrus and Emily were outside Tara’s room, close together, quietly talking.
“How is she?” Marian called out.
“She’s weak but okay,” Cyrus said. “She’s asleep but you can wake her up.”
She drew within inches of his face. “I hate you for this,” she spat. “If it wasn’t for you, she wouldn’t have been involved.”
Cyrus stayed mute; Emily couldn’t. “I’m not sure that’s fair or helpful,” she said.
“Why are you here, Doctor Frost?” she hissed.
“Cyrus called me. I was concerned about Tara.”
Marian looked at her icily then brushed past to see her daughter.
“You all right, Cyrus?” Marty said.
“Thanks for asking, Marty, I’m fine. We got lucky today.”
When they were alone again Cyrus said, “I’m going to hang around here tonight, in case Tara wants to see me.”
“I’ll stay with you,” Emily said. She grasped his hand and held it for several seconds before a nurse appeared from a nearby room and she had to let go.
FBI interrogators questioned Davis, Leslie, and Vik intensively for two days until they were satisfied they had no idea where Alex Weller was. They all refused to reveal with whom Weller was traveling and nothing could change their steadfast resolve to protect their compadres.
Cyrus immediately went back to working leads. All the killed and captured in Bar Harbor were members of Weller’s Uroboros salon, so it stood to reason that those still with him too were members. If the FBI could discover their identities, they might get a lead on the whereabouts. Weller’s girlfriend, Jessie Regan, was missing and Cyrus was confident she was one of them. Another man had been positively ID’d: a delivery driver for the Beaver Brook Water Company. He was found dead in the cab of his truck, a carbon monoxide suicide.
That left two other men, seen on CCTV footage making water deliveries in New York: one small, one large with a beard, both in bulky jackets and pulled-up hoodies, neither seen full face. From their physiques, neither could be identified as Alex Weller and their identities remained unknown.
Cyrus and Avakian took a break and got lunch at the Kinsale Pub near their office. They sat at one of the barrel-topped tables eating sandwiches. Avakian looked wistfully at the bar while sipping soda through a straw.
“We’ll come back after work to get you a real drink,” Cyrus promised.
“When’s that going to be?” Avakian wondered. “We’ve been going nonstop.”
Cyrus produced the list of known Uroboros members. Emily had been helpful. She recalled the names of a couple of them from her single meeting. Interviews led to more names, two of whom were now deceased, Virginia Tinley and Arthur Spangler, apparent Bliss suicides.
Cyrus unfolded the paper and took out his pen. “We know the list isn’t complete, but let’s do what we’ve always done, divide and conquer. You take half and I’ll take half and let’s meet back here around seven.”
“Yeah, okay,” Avakian grunted. He sniffed the beer fumes in the air and tossed his striped tie over his shoulder to avoid staining it with fallout from his pastrami sandwich.
A chubby middle-aged man entered the pub with a young Asian woman and the two were seated at a table near the bar. Larry Gelb kept his beret and coat on and nervously fingered a menu while his girlfriend, Lilly, walked quickly past Cyrus’s table on her way to the bathroom.
At once, Gelb rose from the stool looking ashen, grabbed his chest and sank to his knees, groaning. One of the waitresses saw him fall and screamed for someone to call an ambulance.
Cyrus sprang up and hustled to the man’s side. Avakian sighed and reluctantly left his pastrami to help his partner.
“You okay?” Cyrus asked Gelb, feeling for his neck pulse.
“My heart,” Gelb managed through clenched teeth.
“Do you have any medicine with you?”
“Maybe my pocket.”
Avakian started rifling through the man’s pockets, coming up empty. The manager came over and told them the paramedics were on the way.
Lilly came out of the ladies’ room and went straight for Cyrus’s table. When she was certain all eyes were on the commotion, she emptied a stick of Bliss into Cyrus’s Diet Coke and one into Avakian’s Dr Pepper and stirred with their straws. Then she ran to Gelb and sank to the floor in hysterics. “What happened? What happened?!” she screamed.
Cyrus was relieved to hear the siren approaching from the direction of Mass General close by. “The ambulance is on the way,” he told the young woman.
“Do CPR!”
Avakian got up off his knees. “Lady, he’s conscious. He doesn’t need CPR.”
Within half a minute the ambulance arrived and Gelb was stretchered out with Lilly in tow. Cyrus and Avakian returned to their table and Avakian poked his sandwich, which had cooled.
The manager came right over. “Thanks, guys. Really appreciate it. Lunch is on us.”
“Jimmy, I’d love to take a freebie but you know our rules,” Avakian told him. “You can, though, put my sandwich back under the heat.” He sucked thirstily through his straw.
Cyrus was about to do the same when his mobile rang. “Marian,” he explained. He answered, listening; then he snapped the phone shut. “It’s Tara. I’ve got to go.”
O’Malley’s eyes told the story. “I’m sorry
, Cy,” Pete said. “Give me the list; I’ll take care of everything. Call me later and let me know how she is.”
Cyrus picked his coat off the hook and ran out to Cambridge Street to hail a cab, leaving Avakian to finish his meal alone.
After he was done eating, Pete groggily asked for the check. When the waitress returned she found him slumped forward, his bald head balanced precariously on the table. “Jimmy!” she yelled. “Call the ambulance again!”
The manager ran over, took one look and cried out, “What the hell is going on today?”
Forty-six
13 DAYS
The ICU sounded like a mechanical rain forest with its chirping monitors and windlike whooshing of ventilators. Tara was in and out of consciousness but breathing on her own. The neurosurgeons told Cyrus she’d bled into her brain from scar tissue near the tumor. She’d had a sustained seizure in the ward before being transferred to the unit but she was relatively stable—for now. Surgery was not an option. It would kill her.
Marian had gone downstairs for a coffee and he was grateful to be alone with Tara, free from his ex-wife’s venomous stares. He whispered to her that he was there and lightly stroked her cool cheek. It was late afternoon. His cell phone was off per ICU protocol and he hadn’t given work a thought until one of the nurses came in and told him they were holding a call for him from a Stanley Minot.
At the nurse’s station, Cyrus picked up one of the flashing lines.
“Cy, Stanley.”
“Thanks for calling. Tara’s had a setback; I should’ve let you know I wasn’t coming—”
“It’s Pete,” Minot interrupted. “Someone probably slipped him Bliss while you were at lunch. They took him over to Mass General. When he woke up, by all accounts he was calm. He was smiling, talking about seeing his dad, couldn’t have been happier. Then he got a hold of his service weapon and shot himself. I’m sorry, Cy …”
Cyrus’s cop brain overrode his emotions for a few moments and he said mechanically, “There was a fat guy at the restaurant. He must’ve faked a heart attack while a girl, Asian, spiked our drinks. The ambulance took him to MGH.”
“Cy,” Minot said gently, “we’re all over it. He checked out of the hospital against medical advice. We know who he is and we’ve gone looking for him. Tell me what I can do for you.”
Cyrus began to sob. “Has someone called Jeanne?”
“I talked to her. She’s on the way to Boston.”
“I … I want to see her,” Cyrus said, trying to speak, “… b-but I can’t leave Tara.”
“I’ll tell Jeanne. You stay with your daughter.”
Tara died that night.
An hour before she passed she gave her parents one last gift, a couple of minutes of lucidity. Her eyes opened and she felt for her stuffed bear and smiled when her hand clenched its ragged plush. She looked to her left and saw her mother, who was fighting back tears. Then she looked to her right at Cyrus. “Hi Daddy.”
“Hey, baby.”
“Can I have some juice?”
Marian rushed out to get some and Cyrus said with a catch in his throat, “You know I love you, sweetheart.”
“I love you too, Daddy.”
“Do you hurt anywhere, are you comfy?”
“I’m okay.”
Marian brought in a cold juice box and put the straw in her mouth.
“How’s my baby?” Marian asked.
“I’m okay.” She drank some more and said, “Can Freddy come with me?”
Marian didn’t understand but Cyrus did.
“Yeah, he can come with you.”
“I’m not scared.”
“I know you’re not. You’re the bravest girl in the world,” Cyrus said, close.
“I’m sleepy.”
“Then shut your eyes, sweetheart. Mommy and I will be right here when you wake up.”
The chief resident in neurosurgery was called when Tara’s breathing took on a crescendo-decrescendo pattern. The doctor knew her patient well and was visibly sad when she told Cyrus and Marian that she thought Tara was having a second bleed, a bad one.
Marian held one of her hands. Cyrus tucked the bear under her arm and held the other one and the doctor stood at the foot of the bed watching the monitor instead of the girl. An ICU nurse closed the door to her room, pulled the curtain and joined the vigil.
When she took her last, long breath and her monitor showed zeros, Marian began to wail and ran out of the room, the nurse following her to help.
Cyrus stayed with Tara for the next hour while the nurses disconnected her lines and prepared her to be taken away. He didn’t want her to be alone.
It was too much to bear.
Two funerals in two days.
Cyrus was like a sleepwalker at Pete Avakian’s requiem service. He sat with Stanley Minot in a pew crammed with colleagues from the Boston bureau. The Armenian priest was a young man with a heavy black beard, resplendent in a blue and gold silk robe. Cyrus was somewhere else, his mind in a thick fog until the beauty of the priest’s words penetrated and briefly brought him back to the moment.
“In the Heavenly Jerusalem, in the abode of angels, where Enoch and Elijah live dovelike in old age, being worthily resplendent in the Garden of Eden; O merciful Lord, have mercy upon the soul of our departed Peter.”
Tara’s funeral mass was harder, nightmarish. Cyrus was in the front pew with Marty, sandwiched between him and Marian. Nothing seemed real. It was as if he didn’t recognize the familiar confines of St. Anselm’s Church or the melodious voice of Father Bonner. Family and friends seemed strangers. The crying sounded like discordant music. Tara’s little coffin looked incongruous. What was it doing there? Where was she? Then he had an overwhelming urge to check that Freddy the Teddy indeed was inside with her. Perhaps Marty sensed Cyrus was about to stand because he put an arm around his shoulders until the impulse passed.
Outside the church, Emily was waiting for him. He hadn’t seen her since Tara passed. She was wearing a black dress under her blue overcoat. Cyrus thought it looked new. There was a hint of warmth in the air and he noticed the first birdsong since the start of long winter. “Will you come to the cemetery with me?” he asked her. She nodded and an usher guided them to one of the limos.
Cyrus steered clear of the gathering at the home of one of Marian’s friends. In fact, when he walked past Marian at the end of the Rite of Committal at the graveside at St. Patrick’s Cemetery and suffered one more hateful glare he wondered if he’d ever have to see her again.
Instead, numb and tired, he allowed Emily to take charge and bring him to a diner not far from his apartment. He hadn’t eaten in two days and though still not hungry, he ate to eradicate the dull pounding in his head. She didn’t require conversation and he was grateful for that. They dined largely in silence and when they were done she said, “Let me take you home.”
Ordinarily, he might have had more pride about letting her come into his untidy place but he didn’t care just now. She followed him in. Though bright outside, the apartment was dark and when he opened the blinds in the living room his prosaic view of the parking lot was revealed in all its glory. What she focused on instead were stacks of books, growing out of the floor like stalagmites. She touched one of the piles, waist-high.
“Oh my … so many books.”
“I need bookcases,” he said, taking her coat.
“I like them this way.”
“It’s hard getting at the bottom ones.”
He had a bottle of vodka in the freezer and he went to fetch it while she wandered through his vertical library. Shakespeare. Marlowe. Keats. Burns. Hawthorne. Eliot. Proust. Fitzgerald. Steinbeck. Faulkner.
He uncapped the bottle, sat down hard on his reading chair and poured two measures. She took one.
“You’re an unusual man,” she said.
“Just because I like to read?”
“You don’t fit into a neat category, as do most people.”
They drank without toast
ing.
“What’s your category?” he asked.
She took the drink over to the sofa, swallowed the icy, viscous fluid and scrunched her face in its aftermath. “I’m going to let you come to your own conclusion about that.”
He noticed her looking at one small colorful stack by the window, children’s books. “Those are Tara’s. When she came over she liked to read with me.”
“She was such a lovely girl.”
He poured a second drink for himself and downed it. He didn’t want to cry anymore if he could help it.
Her iPhone chimed in her handbag. She glanced at it.
“Do you need to get that?” he asked.
“I’m not on duty. It’s just a news alert.”
“What?”
She looked closer. “President Redland’s just stepped down. The vice president’s going to be sworn in.”
“I suppose we ought to watch this,” he mumbled, then searched for the remote until he found it under the sofa.
The TV screen had the ubiquitous crawl of the Inner Peace Crusade’s countdown clock, which now stood at 11 days. A reporter was standing on the White House lawn in front of the curved driveway and portico.
“Beyond the terse announcement from the White House that President Redland is voluntarily resigning from office for health reasons effective five P.M. today, there have been no official statements. We have learned from high-level sources, however, that the president has never fully recovered from his Bliss poisoning at the G Eight summit in Japan and that administration officials and the vice president have been anticipating this development as increasingly inevitable.”
Cyrus changed the channel.
Beneath the anchor desk was yet another countdown clock. The male and female anchors stared into the camera, grim-faced.
“While we await the swearing-in ceremony and Vice President—or should I say soon to be President—Killen’s first press conference, we’re going to take you out around the country to examine the current crisis. It’s an economic crisis, a social crisis, and now, increasingly, a political crisis. The cause, as everyone knows, is the worldwide Bliss epidemic and the evangelical and some would say sinister Inner Peace Crusade, which has resorted to worldwide acts of sabotage to promote its ends, whatever those may be.”