by Gerry Boyle
“Yeah. Fine, I just got a stomach that sometimes gets even with me for all the bad things I put in it.”
“Yeah, well, where are you going to go?”
“I don’t know. I’ll figure it out. I’m a big boy.
“You want taxi?” the driver called.
“Yeah,” I said. “Butch, you’re sure you’re okay?”
“Great seeing you, Jackie. You call me after you read the stuff.”
“I will.”
“Promise?”
“Yeah, sure,” I said, and opened the taxi door. Butch stepped off the curb and came toward me.
“Thanks, Jack,” he said, and he gave my shoulders a squeeze. “You’re a good friend, you know that? You’ve been a good friend for a long time. Since we were kids.”
I looked at him, wondered at the ring of finality in his farewell.
“Buds, right?”
“Right,” I said. “I’ll be in touch.”
“You bet,” Butch said as I got in the cab. He stepped back to the curb, and gave a little wave.
“Where you wanna go?” the driver said.
I told him. He punched the meter and the cab pulled away. I turned in the seat and looked back, and saw Butch hurrying away, not back into the pub but down the street. I almost told the driver to stop, but he’d run the light, squealed onto Sixth Avenue, and was weaving through traffic, heading Uptown, the taxi bucking like a porpoise.
It was too late, I told myself. And by that time, it was.
6
In ten minutes I was in the room, where the message light was glowing red.
Roxanne had called, saying she loved me, she’d call in the morning, see me in the afternoon, make love with me that night. Message two: Christina. She said she had to talk to me before I left New York.
“You just have to make it happen, McMorrow. I know you can if you want to. Call me, Jack. Any hour, day or night. I sleep lightly, but you know that. Just kidding. Hey, McMorrow, things are in a bit of a shambles. I could use a friend from the old days.”
She reeled off the number. Hung up.
I didn’t call. Wresting myself away from the phone like a sailor from the Sirens, I went to the window and looked out at the lights. Why the hell did they think I’d left? I wasn’t a New Yorker, I was a Mainer. This was over, wasn’t it?
I walked back to the bed and sat down, took off my shoes and my smoky shirt. Butch, Ellen, and now Christina, with her ice-blue eyes, tousled blonde hair. What color was it now?
Tossing my shirt away from my bed, I picked up the remote. Flicked the TV on. It welcomed me to New York, then offered movies, first-run and adult. There was a sitcom in Spanish; a Manhattan tour in Japanese. I flipped through the channels, but in my mind I scanned images of the past.
I remembered that Christina had slept like a nervous bird, taking flight at all hours, moving through the loft like a wraith. I’d hear her sketching. Talking to herself. And then back into the bed she’d climb, lithe and voracious. How many times had we made love through the sunrise?
“Oh, jeez,” I said, and shook her off.
And Butch. I shook my head. He’d always been so savvy, knowing a story, predicting how and where it would be played. What was this story? Was he just raving? Fiore was spin-doctored. They were all in on it. The mayor—
And there he was.
It was WNYC, all New York news. Fiore was on the scene of a cop-shooting in the Bronx. The cop, an undercover detective making a drug buy, was in critical condition, the bush-jacketed reporter told the camera. There was a shot of a Mac-11 machine pistol, the gun the shooter had used. Then there was Fiore again. He looked past the bouquet of microphones and said the criminals would be brought to justice—that the detective’s heroism would not be in vain.
His eyes were unblinking, his stare unwavering. His finger pointed at the lens.
“We have taken this city back. And now we will defend it at all costs,” Fiore said.
New Yorkers believed him. They believed in him. Watching the mayor on the screen, I believed him, too.
Butch was wrong. Fiore had become larger than life, dwarfing the man I’d met years before. His accomplishments had accumulated month by month, year by year. Cleaning up Times Square. Running the panhandlers out of the subways. Sweeping the homeless away like so many bags of trash. Making the schools safer, chasing drug dealers out of their safe houses. And when the few critics dared speak, they were drowned out. By the working poor. The idle rich. The middle class, who saw Fiore as their friend at City Hall.
I watched as the news moved on, to a water-main break in the West Village. Johnny Fiore was there, too. And then he was at a press conference at City Hall, unveiling his administration’s new antidrug policy. In another segment, his appointment of a Latina to head the city’s welfare system was applauded. The entertainment report included a review of a Mel Gibson movie set in New York; it had the mayor’s endorsement.
Of course.
I shook my head and turned off the television, then went to the phone. I set the answering machine. Turned off the lamp. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I pulled off my khakis, pulled down the covers, and stretched out on my back on the cool sheets. I looked at the ceiling. In Prosperity, the house often was washed in blue-gray, lighted by the moon. Here the room was lighted by the city’s hazy golden glow. For a long time, I’d told myself that the moon was the more beautiful of the two. Now I wasn’t so sure.
I was sure I wanted the Times job. And yet I felt like a day in New York had rattled the foundation of the life I’d built in the woods. In a way, I felt like I’d betrayed Roxanne by just being here, by being an accomplice to my own past. Butch wanted my help. Christina wanted my time. Ellen wanted me to help with a story on my own demise.
I sighed and closed my eyes, and I must have slept, because when the phone rang, it was morning.
I groped for it. Tried to speak, but my throat and mouth were dry. Tried again.
“Yes,” I said.
“Is this Mr. McMorrow?” a woman’s voice said.
The desk, I thought. I’d slept through checkout.
“Yes,” I said again.
“Mr. McMorrow, this is Stephanie Cooper. I’m a reporter with WNYC television.”
“Oh.”
Still muddled, I began to say that I’d never done TV.
“No, Mr. McMorrow. It’s Jack, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“And you are a former reporter with the Times?”
“Yeah. But it was a few years ago.”
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and sat up.
“Mr. McMorrow,” the woman said, hesitating just slightly, “do you know a former police officer named Patrick ‘Butch’ Casey?”
Oh, God, I thought. He’s taken his crazy theory to TV and given them my name.
“Listen, I don’t mean to be rude, but I really don’t think I can help you with—”
“Just a couple of questions. Just one minute.”
“How’d you get my name?”
“We got a tip. You know how that works.”
“Yeah, but I don’t see—”
“Mr. McMorrow, I understand you were with Mr. Casey last night. Is that correct, Jack? May I call you Jack?”
I paused. Stood.
“Yeah.”
“You both were at a bar in Midtown, Jack? The Bull and Thistle?”
“Yeah. What, did something happen to Butch?”
“Jack, are you aware that—”
“What?”
“That the mayor’s been killed.”
“Oh, God,” I said.
“And Casey has been arrested.”
“Oh, my God.”
I sat.
“Now, are you saying you didn’t know that, Jack?”
7
Still reeling, I started to say no. But something in her voice stopped me.
“I’ve got no comment at this time,” I said.
“Well, could I call you later, w
hen you’ve gotten your thoughts—”
I hung up. Grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. It asked me if I wanted to watch a movie. I hit no. It told me about the video checkout. I pressed the buttons furiously.
And there it was.
The Algonquin, roped off with police tape. The reporter saying, “We’ll continue to update you on the murder of John Fiore, mayor of New York, here late last night. As we’ve reported, a former New York police officer, Patrick ‘Butch’ Casey, has been arrested for the crime and is in custody. Casey was arrested at his West Village apartment at a little after nine a.m. As the investigation continues, Public Advocate Judith Golden, now running the city, has pledged to continue Fiore’s initiatives for making New York a better place, a goal which Mayor Fiore strived for until he was so brutally struck down.”
The tag at the top of the screen said “Breaking News.” The reporter, a striking black woman, looked like she’d been crying.
I stood and whirled through the channels, my stomach sick, my breath coming in shallow gulps. A reporter on Fifth Avenue said the city was numb. The camera showed people walking, dabbing their eyes. The governor said he would call for the death penalty for this heinous, brutal murder.
“This is the man . . .” Dan Rather said, and there was Butch, younger, slimmer, with more hair.
A file shot.
“. . . police have charged with this unprecedented crime. Casey is a former New York homicide detective. CBS News has learned that his wife, Leslie Moore, was killed in a carjacking in 1988. Casey at the time was critical of the Manhattan district attorney’s handling of the case, in which a suspect was released after charges that the police—and Casey himself—manipulated witnesses in order to get a conviction.”
Rather paused for dramatic effect.
“The district attorney at that time was John Fiore. And now we go to the Algonquin, where police . . .”
I went to the phone, where the message light was on. How had that TV reporter gotten through? Probably called the desk, said it was urgent. I didn’t bother with the messages. Just dialed the operator and said, “Give me the police.” A police dispatcher answered, and when I said the name Butch Casey, patched me through to a sergeant. The sergeant patched me through to a woman who answered the phone, “Ramirez.”
I told her my name, that I’d been with Butch Casey.
“When?” she said.
“Last night. Until eleven-thirty or so. I just heard about it.”
She covered the phone, then came back on.
“Where are you now?” she asked.
“The Parker-Meridien. Room 821.”
“Can you stay there until an officer can get there?”
“I can,” I said. “And I will.”
I hung up and, still in my shorts, dialed again. Asked for Ellen Jones in the newsroom. A man answered “Copy desk,” and I asked for Jones again.
“She’s in a meeting,” he said brusquely.
“This is important,” I said.
“Yeah, well, we’ve got a lot going on right now, and I think she’s going to be tied up. Could you call back another time?”
“I could, but I’m sure she’s been trying to reach me.”
“Is that right?” he said, like he’d heard that before.
“Yeah. I think you’d better get her right now.”
I heard him sigh. I was his cross to bear.
“Who is this?”
“Jack McMorrow.”
“Hey,” he said over the newsroom hubbub. “Could you tell Ellen that some guy named McMorrow is on the phone.”
There was a pause, and then I heard a man say, “McMorrow? Holy shit. No, don’t transfer it. She’ll take it right there.”
The phone clattered. I waited. Ellen came on.
“Jack,” she said breathlessly.
“What, you run up the stairs?”
“Across the room. I’ve been trying to reach you. I was about to send Sanders over to pound on your door.”
“TV reporter woke me.”
“We got a machine.”
“She must have said it was urgent.”
“I said that. I got this line about hotel policy.”
“She must have sounded urgenter.”
“I don’t know how she could have. God, we’ve got to talk. Were you there?”
“At the bar? No. I was with him just before. At another place.”
“Late? I mean, how close to the time that—”
“That he was killed? I don’t know. When was it?”
“Around midnight.”
“How?”
“We’re still working on that. All we’ve got now is that he was stabbed in the men’s room.”
“Oh, God.”
“So you think it really was—”
“Butch? I don’t know. I can’t imagine it. When I left him, he was in good spirits. We were going to talk some more.”
“What time was that?”
I paused.
“Are you taking notes?”
“Well, yes,” Ellen said. “For the meeting. For planning. I’ve got to know what we’re dealing with. How we’re going to handle it. I want you to talk to Sanders, for starters. We want to get something online. I also have this idea of a first-person. An account of your night. You know. A chronology. Background on Casey and your long relationship with him. Friendship. Whatever you want to call it. I mean—”
“Ellen, slow down.”
“Jack, this is the biggest story in New York City history.”
I thought for a moment. She was right. It was.
“Ellen, I just need to think for a minute. The TV reporter woke me up. I’m still in my shorts. I had no idea—”
“Did you talk to them? Who was it?”
“WNYC. I just said a couple of things before I realized what was going on. She had to tell me. I didn’t even know Fiore had been killed. And I haven’t talked to the cops yet. They’re on their way and I’ve got to get ready—”
“Oh, damn,” Ellen said. “They’re going with it right now.”
I turned to the TV. A young woman was standing in front of the Meridien. Pointing up. She must have called from a cell phone outside.
“In an exclusive report, WNYC has learned that Casey spent part of the evening with Jack McMorrow, a one-time reporter for the New York Times. McMorrow is staying at this Midtown hotel, where I spoke to him just minutes ago. McMorrow confirmed that he was with Casey at a Midtown pub. In a telephone interview from his eighth-floor room, McMorrow professed to have no knowledge of the mayor’s murder. Told that his friend had been charged with the crime, McMorrow’s only comment was, ‘Oh, my God.’ This is Stephanie Cooper, reporting for WNYC.”
“Thanks, Stephanie. We’ll have more on the McMorrow connection later.”
“They’ll be swarming,” Ellen said. “Can you get over here now?”
“What about the police?”
“Oh, yeah. Well, can I put Sanders on the phone now?”
“I’m in my underwear and I’ve got cops on the way. I’ll talk to them, and then I’ll talk to you. I’ll call you as soon as I’m done.”
“When?”
“I don’t know, Ellen. How long could it take? An hour? Two?”
“Where are you going to be?”
“I don’t know. Here?”
“You won’t be able to stay there, Jack,” she said. “They’ll be all over that hotel.”
I considered it.
“How bad do you think it’ll get?”
“For now, you’re all anybody’s got. You’re the best source on Casey. I mean, there’s his cop buddies, but they’ll clam up, and he’s been out for a while. There’s no parents, no siblings, from what we can find out.”
“Only child. Parents dead. No kids.”
“And the guy lived alone, right? Jack, you were with him until right before he did it.”
“Allegedly.”
“Right.”
“So we’re talking the tabs,
TV?” I said.
“Will you please talk to us only?” Ellen said. “At least for today?”
“Sure,” I said.
“You know you’ll be offered money. Dinner. Drinks.”
“I remember how it’s played.”
“It’s worse now. No limits. But the Times’ll do the story thoroughly, fairly, and accurately. That’s worth its weight in gold.”
“You don’t have to sell me on the Times, Ellen.”
She covered the phone, came back on.
“We’re getting calls here right now. They want to know about you.”
“My fifteen minutes?”
“Oh, Christ, McMorrow,” Ellen said. “If only it were to be that brief.”
8
My hair still wet, feet scuffed into loafers, I opened the door and let the cops in. The detective from the phone, Ramirez, was a woman in her forties. Nordic-looking and stocky with white-blonde hair. Behind her was a chunky guy named Donatelli.
“Like the sculptor, but with an i,” he said, shaking my hand.
They looked me over, sized me up. I did the same with them. Ramirez had piercing blue eyes that stared at me and didn’t blink. Her makeup was streaked and her pink button-down shirt was rumpled. There was a damp spot on the front of her blue blazer, like she’d spilled something and tried to wipe it off.
Probably coffee. Probably up all night.
Donatelli had a bouncer’s biceps that stretched the sleeves of his Lacoste shirt. A gun on his hip. He was restless, eyes darting around the room. At first I thought he was smiling, but then I realized he really wasn’t. He just had one of those mouths that lapse into a smile when at rest.
Ramirez looked around the hotel room. Donatelli glanced toward the bathroom.
“You here alone, Mr. McMorrow?”
“Yes,” I said.
He glanced at the bathroom again.
“Go ahead,” I said.
He did, walking into the bathroom with a bouncy, muscular stride.
I smiled ruefully at Ramirez. She looked at me wearily and didn’t smile at all. I heard the shower door slide and then Donatelli was back.
“Well, we have to talk, and it may take a little while. And also—now don’t take this wrong—but we’d like to take your prints, sir. For differentiation purposes. Let me explain what that means. You got all these prints at a crime scene and you have to sort them out, put names on them, rule people out. To do that—”