Cover Story

by Gerry Boyle

  “You got lots of friends, huh, McMorrow?” Ramirez said.

  She didn’t look at Christina. She didn’t have to.

  Ramirez put the envelope under her arm and started across the loft toward the door. We got up and followed, to let her out, lock ourselves back in. In the elevator there was a cool silence against the backdrop of rattles and bangs. The door opened and Christina went to the overhead door. Unlocked it and rolled it up. Ramirez started across the garage bay and then stopped.

  “McMorrow.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You said what if I had warrants for five people. But you named four. Is there another one I’m supposed to know about?”

  I hesitated, pictured the papers in the bag. Ramirez talking to the Boxer.

  “Not that I know of,” I said.

  She looked at me closely, this woman who had made a career of ferreting out liars, and now did it with a vengeance.

  “I think you’re full of shit, McMorrow,” Ramirez said, and she dipped under the door and was gone.

  I went back to the phone. It kept on ringing.

  I told Stephanie Cooper that I had no comment. I told the CBS producer that I did not want to be interviewed at this time, not even by Dan Rather. I told the woman from LA that I didn’t need a “deal maker,” thank you very much. I told two SoHo gallery owners, a reporter from the Voice, and a writer from the magazine Elle that Christina Mansell couldn’t come to the phone.

  She was in the shower. And then she was in the bathroom for a long time. And when she came out she looked, as Ellen Jones had put it, “quite smashing.”

  Christina had changed to a short khaki skirt and a black scoop-necked sleeveless blouse. She was wearing earrings that dangled, and she was carefully made up, with lipstick that glistened and smoky shadow around her eyes. Her rouge was so pale as to be unnoticeable. Almost.

  “Do you like this shirt, Jack?” she said, doing a quick model’s whirl.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “It’s Fendi.”

  I looked at her blankly.

  “The designer?”

  I shrugged.

  “They have very nice things.”

  “I’m sure. Are you going out?”

  “No,” Christina said. “But we’re having lunch. If we’re going to be stuck in here, we can still have fun, right?”

  But she wasn’t dressed to cook. Christina was dressed for comparison’s sake, and I felt a twinge of sympathy for Roxanne. I pictured her, driving some potholed road, still working after being up half the previous night trying to find homes for beat-up kids. I felt a vicarious pang of jealousy. If Roxanne had nothing better to do than primp, if she could spend the morning taking calls from her admiring public—

  And then I regretted thinking that at all.

  Christina got on the phone and made her calls. She started with Elle, and I saw the excitement in her face, the attempt to sound blasé when she finally reached the writer. “Well, I suppose. Of course, we could talk. Let me check my calendar.”

  I took the cell phone and went into Philippe’s room. Dialed Roxanne’s car and got beeps, tones, and finally the digital voice. I hit the button and went to the window and looked across. The factory window was dark.

  Looking down, I saw the red car parked just beyond the corner, up the street to my left. I saw the black car roll by at the corner to my right. Had that guy said he’d kill Roxanne? Was he right there?

  With the cell phone in my pocket, I walked out to the big room. Christina was still talking. I picked up her keys and showed them to her, and she nodded and I left the loft and walked to the elevator.

  I punched the button. Nothing happened. I hit it again. Still nothing. I went to the stairwell, which was dark even at midday. How many steps had there been? Eighty-something?

  I started down, my shoes scraping on the concrete. I kept one hand on the wall and it was cold. At the third floor, something skittered away. On the second-floor landing, I thought I heard a door bang somewhere in the building. Another tenant? But they were away, Christina had said. The owner?

  I continued on, slowly. At the first floor I saw light under the door and I pushed it open and stepped through. I was standing in the garage bay, with the overhead door to my left. I waited a moment and listened, heard a bang, but then a truck motor outside. I stepped to the door, leaned down and felt around, ran my hand along the base of the door until I felt the lock, the cold metal, a jagged edge.

  Where the hasp had been cut.

  34

  I froze, crouched low. Listened. Looked behind me in the darkness.

  Saw nothing.

  Heard nothing.

  Raised myself up, very slowly.

  The lock had been cut on the inside. Someone had entered the building some other way and then cut the lock. But they’d left it in the hasp. That meant they still were inside. That they probably intended to come back to this door.

  I looked around. Listened hard, straining to glean every creak and tick. The bay was silent at first, and then there were noises.

  A rustling in the Dumpster. The brief buzz of a fly. I took a step and the rustling stopped. I waited. Listened. Watched. Heard a clank. Muffled, somewhere to my left.

  It was the factory floor, sprawling and dark and filled with metal and machines, barrels and boxes. Was it a thief looking for copper? A homeless person? They usually didn’t lug bolt cutters. Someone who had been watching from outside, deciding it was time to get in?

  To do what?

  In the dim light, I walked very slowly to the swinging factory doors. They had been chained shut, but when I felt for the chain, it was gone. And then I stepped and there was a clink and I felt the chain, coiled on the floor.

  I stood at the door and listened. The Dumpster rustled again. I counted to ten but heard nothing from the other side of the door. I touched it with my fingertips and pushed gently.

  It swung open, silently at first. Then a creak. I stopped. Waited. Listened. Squeezed through.

  The room was lighter than the garage bay, with grime-blackened windows at the far end. I stood and watched, saw the vague shapes of machines, smelled oil and dust. I listened. Heard a motor but it was outside. Something buzzed by my head, something big like a bee. I looked and saw it briefly, flying away from me toward the windows.

  Where a figure stood.

  It was silhouetted against the gray of the glass. For a moment, it didn’t move, and then it did. The head turned. I saw a profile. A man?

  He was looking out the windows. I watched and then started to edge closer.

  I slid my feet along, inches at a time, placing them carefully, like a hunter walking a leafy forest floor. After ten feet, I stopped. He half-turned and froze. I did, too. He listened. I breathed slowly and silently. He turned back toward the windows. I moved again.

  After twenty feet, I could see his hands, black hands on the glass. But then the face turned and it was pale. He was white, looking down, taking off a pair of latex gloves. After each step, I froze. As I got closer, my footsteps seemed louder, a gritty sandpaper sound with each footfall. I was a hundred feet away. Eighty feet. Seventy-five. I stopped. Felt the top of a machine very gently. Ran my fingers over some sort of metal bar.

  I picked it up. I heard him sniff. He cleared his throat.

  Not like the man from the window across the street.

  “Oh, come on,” he said softly, his voice strangely high and girlish. “What are you waiting for?”

  He wasn’t talking to me. He was turned away, peering through a crack in one of the windows. I held the bar in both hands and started toward him.

  A step. Stop. Another step. Stop.

  He checked his watch and then reached down to the floor. He came up with a pair of bolt cutters, pliers with three-foot arms. I stopped. I still could rush him from here, hit him before he could get the bolt cutters around. Hit him in the shoulder, in the arm.

  “Come on, will ya?” he said.

  I gripped
the bar. Took another step. And another. I was forty feet away. Closer. Closer.

  And then my phone rang.

  He started and turned. I ran toward him, the phone still ringing in my pocket, and he dropped the bolt cutters and jumped up on the casing, pushed the window open. I saw his face as the light spilled in. It was one of them from the roof, the one with the flowered shirt. He jumped through the window, and as I reached it, slammed it shut. I started to shove it open, saw a flash of shadow and, dropping the bar, covered my face.

  The glass shattered, showered me with shards. I staggered backward, felt a stinging on my arms, on the backs of my hands.

  I held them out in front of me, saw the glint of glass splinters in my skin. I went to the window, looked out. There was no one in sight. The phone in my pocket still was ringing.

  I brushed at my hand. Eased it into my pocket and took out the phone. Hit the button.

  “Yeah,” I said, breathless.

  “Hey, Jack,” the youngish voice said. “You been out?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “How safe you feeling now, buddy?”

  I hesitated, caught my breath.

  “I’m feeling just fine,” I said. “How ’bout you?”

  He didn’t answer for a moment. A shard of glass fell from the window frame and shattered on the cement floor.

  “What’s that?” he said.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “So when you leaving? Or do I gotta start packing for my trip to Maine? Be kinda nice, you know? Haven’t had any in a while.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Watch your mouth.”

  “And you be careful up in Maine,” I said. “Up where I’m from, they eat skinny little gold-chained wimps like you for breakfast.”

  “What?”

  “There’s a lot of woods up there. They’d never even find you.”

  “Who the hell—”

  “And the cops know. I didn’t even have to tell ’em. They’ve got a whole envelope full of Butch’s stuff. The stuff he was working on. And the cops have been following me. And if they’re following me, they’re probably following you.”

  “You’re blowing smoke, McMorrow. You can blow it up your—”

  “And I got a nice long look at your man there with the tweezers. Tell him he was about two seconds away from getting his head caved in. And I’ve got the bolt cutters. And I’ll bet there’s a good print on them somewhere. And I’ll bet that print is in the system. I’ll bet you’re on there, just like a mug shot.”

  “Kiss my ass, McMorrow.”

  “And the homicide guys will be here any minute. And maybe they’ll yank all of you out of your cars.”

  “You’re fulla—”

  “Unless you back off right now and I don’t give ’em these things. Unless you leave me alone and don’t go anywhere near me or Roxanne or Christina or anyone else I know. And I’ll do what I have to do with the police here and then I’ll go home. And you won’t see me again and we’ll all live happily ever after.”

  “What envelope?” the youngish voice said. “You’re fulla shit.”

  “Nope. They have it. But I don’t think they can make much of it. And they’re sort of busy right now. But the more you push, the more they’re gonna think there’s something in there. The more you push, the more inclined I’m gonna be to talk. And I’ll get a name off the prints and I’ll give it to the Times and the other newspapers and TV, and I’ll put all of those hounds on your trail. Like the cops times a hundred. The more you push, the more they’ll all know I’m not just blowing smoke. Don’t you get it? You’re the only real thing they’ve got. So just fade away.”

  He didn’t answer. I stood in the light of the broken window, felt the heat streaming in from the street, felt the balance tipping with each moment of silence.

  “When you leaving?”

  “I think I have one more session with the cops and DA’s people. Then I think I can go.”

  “Cops coming there now?”

  “Yeah. They were here earlier but they had to leave. Said they’d be right back.”

  “You gonna give ’em those snips?”

  “That’s up to you. You gonna clear out of here?”

  I could feel him thinking.

  “How do I know you won’t just spill your guts?”

  “You don’t, for now,” I said. “So you’d better back off and wait and see. Nobody comes looking for you in the next couple of days, you’ll know I didn’t.”

  “Who’s squeezing who here, McMorrow? I think you’re forgetting.”

  “No, I know. And if I think you’re still on me, if I think even for a minute you’re near anyone I know, I’ll squeeze harder than you’ve ever known.”

  “Who the fuck do you think you are? You’re running with the big dogs now, you fucking newspaper wimp asshole.”

  “I’m going to hang up now.”

  “Dangerous game you’re playing, McMorrow.”

  “Dangerous for you, too,” I said. “And you and your boss have a lot to lose, don’t you?”

  He didn’t answer, and I pressed the button. A single bead of sweat rolled down the side of my face.

  “It could have been the landlord,” Christina said. “He’s always pulling stuff like this. That’s why I bought a whole box of locks. Cutting them off. Turning off the heat. Putting barrels of rotten smelly stuff in the stairwell. One time—”

  “It’s not the landlord, Christina.”

  “Who is it?”

  “The black car. Same people who followed me to Washington Heights. I caught one on the first floor, but he got out the window.”

  “Not the red car?”

  “I don’t think so. That’s the cops. The regular homicide cops. This is somebody else who’s afraid of what’s in that envelope.”

  “How do they know what’s in it?”

  “They don’t, exactly. That’s what has them so rattled, I think.”

  “What are they trying to hide? Why are they so interested in watching you?”

  “I’m still working on that.”

  “Even after what they said about Roxanne?”

  I hesitated.

  “We’ll see,” I said, but even at that moment, Butch’s voice echoed inside my head.

  I don’t know who else to ask. Jackie, I got nobody.

  I put the bolt cutters under a shelf in Philippe’s room, then stepped near the window, saw the red car on the corner. The black car was gone.

  I went to take a shower. Afterward, I shaved and stared at myself in the mirror. And then I caught myself. Who was I primping for? Did Roxanne have reason to be worried?

  I shook it off. Of course not, I told myself. I was still the same old Jack.

  Wasn’t I?

  Dressed again, in shorts and a polo shirt Christina had washed and dried and folded, I sat back down at the phone. I dialed Roxanne’s car number over and over, pausing while Christina ordered lunch. Lobster salad and crab cakes, split pea soup, and a salad of arugula, pear, and blue cheese. The restaurant in Brooklyn Heights delivered.

  “How’s that sound?” Christina said cheerily.

  “Fine,” I said. “You know, you don’t have to just wait on me. You can work or make your calls or do whatever you need to do.”

  “No, that’s okay,” she said. “We’ll have a nice lunch.”

  She paused.

  “But at some point I do have to call the Voice,” she said, and then she hurried off.

  I watched her from across the big room as she went to the bathroom and freshened her makeup, then took lotion and rubbed it onto her long, bare legs. It was strange. Christina seemed almost oblivious to everything else that was going on. Oddly exhilarated. I wasn’t any of those things. I was worried. Wary. Weary.

  I got up and went to Philippe’s window and looked down. The black car wasn’t in sight. The red car had changed corners. I watched for a moment, and when I came back into the living room, I heard the door close. Christina’s footsteps
in the hall.

  Back at the window, I heard the street door roll up. Christina stepped out, like a model posing against a redbrick backdrop.

  As I watched, the red car turned the corner to my right. A white minivan rounded the corner to my left and sped down the street toward Christina.

  “Look out,” I called.

  The van approached. There were two men in the front; I could see the guy in the passenger seat reach down and then the driver braked hard.

  “Look out,” I shouted.

  The passenger door flew open and the guy was out, the driver, too. The driver was trotting, coming around the back of the van. The other guy was moving toward Christina, carrying a paper sack. He was opening it.

  “No!” I yelled.

  The guy looked up. The other man rounded the back of the van. He looked up, too.

  “Christina!” I yelled, and she looked up at me. “Get back!”

  “Jack,” she called out. “It’s lunch.”

  35

  At the table, Christina picked at her crab cakes and chattered on about the neighborhood, how SoHo and Williamsburg had been gentrified, and SoHo had H. Stern and Yves St. Laurent, and how sad that had been to watch, and I remembered it in the old days, didn’t I?

  I nodded. Sipped the soup and drank a Corona. Christina talked as though we were on a first date, and it occurred to me that she had started all over with me, started from scratch. She’d backed off but she hadn’t surrendered.

  “So tell me,” Christina said, having let the subject of SoHo coast to a halt. “What is it that Roxanne does with these children she finds?”

  I didn’t answer and Christina waited.

  “Foster homes,” I said finally.

  Still she waited.

  “You know, you don’t have to do all this,” I said.

  “What?”

  “The fancy food. It’s really not—”

  “Just because we’re stuck here doesn’t mean we have to live like refugees, Jack.”

  “I know,” I conceded. “But this New York food thing. I don’t know. Maybe I’ve just had it.”

  “Maybe the problem is that you haven’t had it.”