Cover Story

by Gerry Boyle

  In this blackened canopy, the sounds were distant. Horns. The rattle of traffic on the bridge.

  The creak of a chair.

  A barely audible yawn.

  It was the sound of someone leaning back. Stretching after hours in the same position.

  I pressed myself against the wall. Was it a spotting scope this time? Or was it a scope on a rifle?

  Wait for McMorrow to go to bed, put a bullet in his pale, glowing image. If he gets in the sack with the artist babe, shoot ’em both.

  I waited. Heard another yawn, then the creak of a chair again, as though whoever it was had settled back in to watch and wait.

  But they wanted me to leave, didn’t they? It was the police who wanted me to stay. Did they want to know what I was doing, as long as I still was here? Which of them was it, watching my window in the dark?

  From the other room I could hear the television. Christina’s voice, then a pause, and the phone ringing again. For me? And then, “I know. I can’t believe it. I was just saying to Jack . . .”

  I stood there against the wall and felt myself start to sag. Forced myself straight. Listened. Looked out and saw the black car, still there. I watched it but nothing moved. I waited, felt myself start to waver again, eased my way back to shelves that ran along the wall. On the top was Philippe’s stuff; on the bottom, in this closetless space, were blankets and towels.

  I felt for a blanket, pulled it from the stack. Staying against the wall, I unfolded it and went to the window. Climbed up on the steam radiator and reached as high as I could, feeling for a nail or a hook. I found one and poked it through the corner of the blanket. Grabbed the other corner and, sliding along the floor, crossed to the other side of the window, and stood up again. Hung that corner up, too. The room went even darker. The sounds of the New York night were muffled.

  Still crouching, I went to the side of the bed and undressed. In my shorts, I stretched out on top of the sheets. Heard Christina’s voice in the other room. A murmur from the TV. As I felt myself drifting off, I hoped Roxanne was safe. I wished I had brought my rifle.

  And then my eyes opened, like a switch clicking on. I was awake. The room was black and I started to panic. Remembered the blanket. Remembered the news. Remembered all of it.

  Heard a step behind me. Heard the door creak faintly.

  28

  I stayed still. Listened. Another step. I pictured the fire escape. The bars pushed open. There was another step, then weight on the bed, and I was ready to lash backward. An elbow and a fist, and then—

  I smelled her perfume.

  I felt Christina settle in behind me. Her breath warmed my back. Her hand touched my hip. Her lips grazed the back of my neck. Her bare breasts pressed against me. She sighed very softly and said, “Oh, I missed you.”

  She kissed me, very gently. My neck. My shoulder. My neck again. She sighed and I felt her lips, her cheek. I didn’t move, not sure what the first move should be.

  Turn over and tell her to go away? Turn over and take her in my arms, melt into her, feel her against me?

  She stroked my hip. Ran her hand down my leg and back up. I closed my eyes.

  “You don’t have to decide, Jack,” Christina whispered. “Just lie there. Don’t decide anything.”

  She pressed against me, all of her, and she felt bigger than Roxanne, longer and stronger. I could feel her hips, her hair, the hardness of her, and then one leg rode up on mine, and I felt her begin to slowly grind against me.

  Her hand reached over me, ran down my chest. Her tongue flicked across my ear, and she said, “Oh, Jack.” Her hand was on my belly, her fingers sliding under the waistband of my shorts. I could feel myself start to harden, felt her fingers slide under the shorts and touch me. Take hold of me. I reached down, felt her hand, took it in mine—

  And gently pulled it away.

  “I can’t do this, Christina,” I said.

  She stopped. Hovered there for a moment, against me, all around me. And then she gave my cheek a kiss, but a very different one, like a kiss good-bye, and settled back down beside me.

  “Hey, it was worth a try,” she said, and I heard the wine in her voice.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I just can’t. It wouldn’t be—”

  “It wouldn’t be right?”

  “No, it wouldn’t.”

  “You always do the right thing now, Jack?”

  “No, but I have to this time.”

  She rolled onto her back.

  “When you left me, I didn’t think that was right.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “But you know what I told myself? I said, ‘Christina, it isn’t you he’s running away from. He’s running away from himself.’”

  I thought about that.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Maybe.”

  “So that way I could say it wasn’t anything personal. You didn’t leave me, Jack. You just left.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  She sighed.

  “So you must really love your little social worker.”

  “Yeah. I do.”

  “That’s fine. Hey, I don’t really need anybody. I can stand on my own. Hell, I’ve been doing it since I was a little kid. You know when I started? Standing on my own, I mean?”

  I did, but I said no.

  “When I was nine, my mother put me on a plane all by myself and sent me off to school in goddamn Switzerland. You know what? I thought I’d come home for the weekend. Nobody told me you just stayed there. Oh, God, I was pathetic. Did I tell you I’m the kid in my brick-wall show? The kid in the painting?”

  “No,” I said. “But I guessed.”

  Christina put her arm around me and took my hand in hers.

  “Oh, McMorrow. You know what I get tired of?”

  “No. What?”

  “Starting over. Convincing myself that this is the guy, this is the one. ’Cause I can’t admit it isn’t. You know what Christophe told me? He told me when he got back from the Caribbean, we’d have a baby. Instead, he ran off with one. Ha, ha. That’s a joke, Jack. You’re supposed to laugh.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She got up on one elbow, her breasts against my back. She leaned close to my ear.

  “You want to have a baby, Jack? Just screw me right now. Inseminate me. It’ll be our little secret.”

  I didn’t answer. She dropped back down.

  “Just kidding,” Christina said. “Or maybe not. I really do. Want a kid, I mean. Maybe it was having Philippe, even though he was somebody else’s. But my own baby. You know, I’m thirty-eight. How old is Roxanne?”

  “Thirty-one.”

  “Oh, so she’s got time. I don’t have a lot of time. Tick, tick, tick, you know? I mean, starting from scratch with some new guy? In New York? Christ, I’ll be fifty before he decides whether he’s ready to consider ‘commitment to a relationship.’ Whatever happened to love at first sight?”

  She gave a sad little laugh.

  “So when you showed up, it was like it was meant to be. I mean, I always loved you, Jack. I didn’t know that then, but I do now. Funny how you get things too late. So with you, it wouldn’t be starting from scratch. I could just start up where I left off, and you could—well, I thought maybe you would, too. We had a very good thing there, didn’t we?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Remember?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “And we had a lot of fun, didn’t we?”

  “Yeah, we did.”

  “But now you found somebody better.”

  “Not better. Different.”

  “And a social worker. I should have known. Mr. Harsh Reality couldn’t settle down with somebody who just paints silly little pictures.”

  “I don’t know about that, Christina. Things just happen in funny ways.”

  “But now you’re really in love with this woman, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah, I am,” I said. It seemed an odd thing to say wi
th another woman naked in my bed.

  “That’s nice, Jack. Nice for you.” She squeezed my hand. Her fingers were very long. “I mean that.”

  “Thanks.”

  “But you know what, Jack? Sometimes I feel like everything I’ve been given in life—you know, I’m attractive.”

  “Very.”

  “I’ve got more money than most people.”

  I thought of Prosperity, where there was very little.

  “More than you know,” I said.

  “I’m talented, I guess. I mean, the Voice called last week. They want to do a piece. They don’t do that for just anybody.”

  “You’re very talented, Christina,” I assured her.

  “And I can’t have what everybody else has. Which is somebody else, somebody I love who loves me back.”

  “Christophe didn’t?”

  “He loved the package. He loved the idea of me. He didn’t love me.”

  “He didn’t deserve you.”

  “Right. So here I am. Naked, in all my glory. What are you waiting for, McMorrow? Don’t you deserve me either?”

  She laughed again. I didn’t say anything. She still was holding my hand.

  “And I can’t even get laid, McMorrow. I can’t even get laid.”

  She chuckled and then was quiet. And then she spoke again.

  “You know, Jack, I have a bad feeling about all this.”

  “About this?”

  “About all of it. I feel like doing this, coming in here to be with you, it went all wrong. It just went all wrong, and when things go wrong with me, they usually go wrong in bunches.”

  “Maybe you’re wrong about that.”

  “I don’t think so. I have a bad feeling about Fiore and your friend and all of this mess. A funny feeling. You know today, I was here working. Usually, I feel really safe and secure in here. Hidden in my aerie, you know?”

  “But not today?”

  “No, today for the first time I can remember, I really felt kind of nervous.”

  “But you’re locked in, Christina,” I said.

  “That’s just it, Jack,” she said. “It was weird. After a while it went away, but for a moment I felt really trapped.”

  She held my hand tighter.

  “I know the feeling,” I said.

  And then Christina was quiet. And after a moment, her breath slowed and lapsed into an easy rhythm and she was asleep. When I turned, her eyes were closed, the lids shadowed and translucent like a baby bird’s.

  I remembered that about her. She would be talking in bed, usually after wine, and she’d be telling me some long, involved story and the story would end. Ten seconds later, Christina would be sound asleep and I would still be wide awake, alone with my own thoughts.

  Well, here we were again.

  So with Christina sprawled next to me, I thought about Roxanne, told her I was sorry. I listened to the sound of the night, muffled behind the blanket, to the sounds of the loft. The whir of appliances, the buzz of a fly, the creak of old wood. And then I fell asleep, until I dreamed of Roxanne and she was there, in that room, and I was trying to say that it wasn’t anything, Christina was just lonely. And Roxanne said over and over, “But Jack, you love her,” and I tried to say that wasn’t true but no words would come out.

  And I awoke.

  It was black in the room, with faint lines framing the window. I remembered the blanket. Felt someone and tensed. Christina. I remembered her, too, and she gave a woozy sigh as I slipped down and around her and got to my feet.

  In the paling darkness, I went to the window. I listened to Christina’s even breathing, then took the blanket and eased it open a crack. The window was dark and silent. The black car wasn’t in sight. The neighborhood was still and the city sounds were distant and faint. The sky to the west was still blue-black.

  I turned back to the shelves, felt my way along the blankets, the shoes, the sweaters, the stuff Philippe didn’t need in the Caribbean. I pulled the sweaters out one by one until I found a sweatshirt. It was dark with a hood. I yanked it on, then patted the floor with my hands to locate my pants. Found them, then my shoes. I tucked the envelope under my belt, leaned down to the bed, and touched Christina on her bare shoulder.

  She awoke slowly.

  “Hmmm.”

  “Christina, I need the car,” I said.

  “Hmmm.”

  “I need to go for a ride.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Could you call the guy?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I got the phone and she said it was speed dial 5, and I pressed it and she sat up, bare-chested, and opened her eyes and slurred, “Zwee, it’s Christina. Did I wake you? Oh, I know. My friend Jack is going for a ride. Jack McMorrow.”

  “I’ll come get it.”

  “No, he’ll walk over, hon.”

  And I did, in the silent early morning. Dew dripped from the rails of the fire escape and the rungs of the ladder were slick. I dropped to the ground, made my way to the steel door. Putting the hood up, I tucked the envelope deeper under my belt and eased the door open. Stepped out and started up the street.

  The lot attendant asked my name. I told him and he held out the key. He held the gate open, and when I drove through, the black car from the corner was waiting.

  29

  The black car was small and nondescript and it followed as I wound my way through the factory streets, the darkened projects where only occasional lights showed. When I jumped on the BQE, the car was fifty yards back. When I eased into the left lane and pressed the throttle, it stayed with me. When I wove between tractor-trailer rigs, it wove, too.

  On the highway, I got the Rover up over ninety and gained some distance, then swung between trucks into the right lane. Screened by trailers, I floored it again and the Rover’s V-8 surged. When I hit the toll plaza for the Verrazano Bridge, the black car was three trucks back. When I swerved through a line of orange cones and made a U-turn back into Brooklyn, the driver of the black car was paying at the booth.

  I saw a bare arm. A man with dark hair. And then I was gone.

  Fifteen minutes later, I was parked in front of a fruit stand in Brighton Beach, just over from Coney Island. It was 4:40 and the dawn was coming slowly, a slate-gray sky pressing upward against the darkness. In the Russian enclave, a few people were out and about. They came from a place where you queued up for butter at three in the morning, for bread at five. The least they could do, in this country where stuff was so routinely and obscenely plentiful, was to get up early and walk the dog.

  So I sat in the car and watched them, stolid men and women in nylon windbreakers. But I watched the street ahead, the mirrors, too. After twenty minutes, the black car hadn’t appeared. I stuffed the envelope under the seat, pulled my hood up, got out and started walking.

  The clip said Vladimir Mihailov lived on Brighton 4th Street. The cross streets were all numbered off Brighton Beach Avenue, the main commercial drag. I crossed the avenue at Brighton 1st Street and walked up. It was me and the old people and the dogs sniffing the light poles in front of shops where the signs were in Cyrillic. A gray-haired guy wearing a white apron threw up the screen in front of a deli. A refrigerator truck idled in front of a produce stand. It was almost quaint, but this was New York. There had to be a stained underbelly.

  In Brighton Beach, it was the Russian mob, rapacious killers and thieves. I wondered if Mihailov had been connected, if he had been stealing BMWs as more than a solo act.

  At Brighton 4th Street, I turned off, pulled my hood lower, and started up the sidewalk to try to find out.

  The houses were small, shabby bungalows with fenced front yards the size of a parking space. They were drab except for brightly painted front doors, which might have been a Russian thing. But one house was even more distinctive. From a distance I could see the yellow tape wound like ribbon across the front steps. As I approached, I counted the numbers. Sure enough, it was 1283 that the New York Police Department had decorated. A
n NYPD radio car was posted out front.

  One of the cops was a black man and the other was white. They were drinking from paper cups, talking and smiling, and they turned to one another as I approached. I looked at the house.

  The tape said do not cross. It barred the way to the front door, which was robin’s egg blue. The glass in the storm door was broken, with jagged shards still in the frame. There was a TV satellite dish screwed to the roof of the front porch, its antenna pointed toward the street like a weapon. The car parked out front was a new Cadillac Seville.

  I passed on the other side of the street, glancing over and continuing on. At the end of the block I crossed the street and stood for a moment and looked back. I looked at my watch, as though I were expecting to meet someone. Stood at the curb. After counting to fifty, I checked my watch again, then slowly started back.

  Halfway up the block, a man came out of the front door of a house and trotted down the stairs, carrying a shopping bag. When he turned, I sped up and fell in beside him.

  In small-town Maine, this would have been expected. In New York City, it was like grabbing a stranger’s crotch.

  The man with the bag was fiftyish, balding and big, with long arms, a barrel chest, and a black mustache. He was wearing Nike sneakers. He looked at me and scowled. I smiled out from under the hood.

  “Feels like rain,” I said.

  He looked away.

  “So what happened up the street here? The place with the police tape?”

  He walked a little faster and didn’t answer.

  “I’m looking for a guy named Vladimir Mihailov. You wouldn’t happen to know him, would you?”

  Still walking, the guy turned and stared, suddenly frightened. He glanced at my hands, which were in the sweatshirt pockets. He looked like he might start to run.

  “I don’t know those people,” he blurted.

  “What people?” I said, but he whirled around, and with a half-skip, hurried away in the other direction.