Absent Friends

by S. J. Rozan

  It was Tom.

  Oh my God, it was Tom. How could this be, how could this have happened? The room spun, Marian's heart pounded wildly. What would she say to Jimmy, to Vicky? How could she have done this? What kind of a person was she?

  Tom stirred, and Marian jerked away, almost horrified, not wanting to touch him. Then, as he continued to sleep, she peered at him, looked more closely. It was Tom, no question about it. But why did he look so strange? Why did he look so old?

  Then memory, like a landslide. She had never not remembered.

  There was nothing she needed to tell Jimmy. Jimmy was dead. And what had she ever told Jimmy, what had he told her, since that windy spring morning so long ago (spring, when things were supposed to grow and flourish and begin) when he had told her goodbye?

  And Vicky? Tom and Vicky had split years ago. From childhood, Vicky had been the promised consort of the crown prince, and it was he whom she adored, he whom she married. When Tom abdicated, Vicky left him. What Tom did did not matter to Vicky anymore.

  In her mind, Marian saw last night. She and Tom had had coffee. Good coffee, hers sweet and light, chasing the chill from her bones. And then Tom was going to take her home. But Marian, who had lived alone so long—Marian, who was always the first to feel confined, to see the wide endless highway of a new romance narrowing into a rutted road, who had always believed freedom meant more to her than love, because freedom was sure and love could not be counted on—Marian had not wanted to be alone last night.

  Not after what she had heard from Tom. Not after the hissing formless fear that had followed them down the quiet streets.

  And Tom, who could read minds, knew that.

  Or maybe Tom had not wanted to be alone, either. Often that was true of the young men, the men who took Marian home, or came back home with her. They wanted no more than anyone wanted: a night or a week or a lifetime of shutting out the dark, pretending that love was truth. That love would last. That aloneness was not stretched around you like your own skin, and the cost of piercing it was not always, only, pain.

  The sheets rustled as Tom lifted his arm, rubbed his hand over his face. He dropped his arm again, and she thought he was still asleep, but though his eyes were closed, his hand searched for and found hers. And then his eyes opened.

  “Hey,” Tom said, smiling, his voice low and scratchy.

  “Hey,” said Marian.

  Tom pushed himself up on his elbows, kissed her, and fell back again. “It's okay,” he said.

  “What is?”

  “Whatever you were thinking wasn't okay.”

  Marian stared at him for a moment, then settled down close. He opened his arm to her, curled it around her, his movements seamless with hers. If she could stay like this forever, wrapped in the warmth of Tom's arm, then maybe things really would be okay.

  But she couldn't.

  And they already weren't.

  Tom brought Marian a glass of water and some aspirin, and then he went to take a shower. She drank all the water because a hangover was partly dehydration—oh, she had this down—and she stayed in bed, doing breathing exercises and meditating, trying not to think of last night, and the last weeks, and what had happened and what any of it meant. Tom emerged from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist so she could have his bathrobe. She took a very hot shower, and by the time she came out, she felt better.

  She could hear Tom downstairs moving around the kitchen as she dressed. She disliked getting back into yesterday's clothes; she always disliked that, which was one of the reasons she generally brought the young men home with her. Fresh clothes, and her own shampoo.

  Her purse was downstairs, so she borrowed Tom's comb. He had no hair dryer, so after she got her hair essentially organized, it was on its own. The young men, she reflected, taking one last look in the mirror and heading for the stairs, the Manhattan young men, they all had hair dryers.

  She smelled Tom's good coffee from the top of the stairs; by the time she reached the kitchen, he had poured her a cup, in the same black mug she had used last night. Or maybe this morning he was using that one, and she was using his.

  “Scrambled eggs?” he asked. In a pan on the stove, butter made little spitting sounds as it started to melt.

  “Let me make them.”

  “No way. I'm trying to impress you.”

  “You already have.”

  He grinned. “I mean, in the kitchen.”

  Marian felt herself flush from her breasts to her scalp. Tom politely turned away, still grinning.

  Breakfast was orange juice, eggs, toast, and more coffee. She sipped her coffee and watched him bring the plates to the table, and as he sat, she finally faced the thought she had been turning from all morning.

  Jimmy's papers, what he had left behind.

  His legacy. Oh, if any of this were funny, that would be a laugh.

  If the papers Jimmy had left told the true story of Jack's death—and what else, what subject was there?—then the legendary James McCaffery, the hero people needed so desperately to believe in in these terrible times, the legend that should have been Jimmy's legacy, would be destroyed. All the brave and selfless acts over the years, the risks, the rescues, would mean nothing. The man responsible for them would be revealed to be not who people thought he was, and it would change things, and one more thing people believed was solid and beautiful and good would turn into choking, crumbling rubble.

  And drinking Tom's coffee, watching Tom, Marian thought: Not only Jimmy.

  Tom Molloy had gone from bad to good, from dangerous taker to generous giver. He had left the path he was born to follow and gone another way. He had put his heart into it. Now, perhaps, Marian understood why. But the perilous truths Jimmy left behind could destroy Tom, too.

  And the Fund. All the good the Fund could do, she could do, could be gone also.

  It couldn't happen. It mustn't happen. Jimmy was already gone, and Markie, and Jack. And now, the good that was left, to be scorched into lifelessness and scattered like ash in a city choking on ashes?

  No.

  “Tom?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Jimmy—I think he told the story, Tom. He left some record of it. That reporter said so.”

  Tom didn't seem surprised or upset. That heartened her; that was the old Tom. It was comforting, in the same way as her small fantasies—the cabin in the woods—comforted her.

  “She said that to me, too,” Tom said. “Papers. Do you believe it?”

  “What if he did? If he wrote it all down? If he wrote down the truth?”

  Tom's blue eyes regarded her. “I'll deny it.”

  Marian was confused. “You'll—?”

  “I'm the only one left, Marian. I'll say he was writing a novel, these papers are just notes for it. Lots of firefighters write novels. I could even say I knew he was, that he told me about it.”

  Doubtfully, Marian said, “Do you think that would work?”

  Tom pushed back his chair, came and stood behind her, kneading her shoulders with powerful, sure hands.

  “It was an accident,” he said softly. “That night, what happened to my brother, my God, Marian, it was a lifetime ago, and it was an accident.”

  His fingers found the fear in her shoulders, the foreboding at the base of her skull, found them and broke them down and commanded them away.

  “Jimmy was a hero,” he said. “Why can't people keep their heroes, when they need them?”

  Heroes, Marian thought, surrendering to Tom's hands. Everyone had to have heroes.

  From the New York Tribune, November 1, 2001

  1979 SLAYING REEXAMINED

  NEW EVIDENCE CASTS DOUBT

  ON ORIGINAL STORY

  Old Crime May Be Tied to Reporter's Death

  Nature of Hero Firefighter's Involvement Still Uncertain

  by Laura Stone

  Captain James McCaffery of Ladder Co. 62 died a hero on September 11, like hundreds of other New York City firefighters. U
nlike many of his fallen brothers, however, it appears that McCaffery may have gone to his death hiding decades-old secrets that are only now coming to light.

  A recent article in the New York Tribune by Harry Randall, a three-time Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter, began to probe some of these secrets. Randall died on October 29 under circumstances now considered suspicious and possibly related to his investigation of incidents in McCaffery's past.

  The questions surrounding McCaffery stem from the death of Jack Molloy, stepson of alleged crime figure Michael “Mike the Bear” Molloy. Jack Molloy died from a single gunshot in September 1979. Mark Keegan, a close friend of Capt. McCaffery's, was convicted of weapons possession but never charged with homicide. Keegan claimed he and Molloy were alone at the time of the shooting. He said Molloy was drunk and attacked him, and that he fired in self-defense. At the time no one who knew Keegan could explain why he was carrying a gun or where he had obtained it, nor did Keegan offer an explanation. The precise nature of the dispute between Molloy and Keegan that led Molloy to fire two shots was never clear to police or prosecutors. Keegan was himself slain in prison five months later.

  New evidence uncovered by the Tribune, however, suggests that a third man may have been present. “It had to be him,” said a retired police officer with close ties to the case, referring to McCaffery and speaking on condition of anonymity. In addition to evidence the NYPD is unwilling to reveal, the anonymous source pointed to the money trail uncovered by the late Mr. Randall. Payments purportedly from the State of New York were made through Keegan's defense attorney, Phillip Constantine, to the Keegan family for eighteen years. The money did not, however, come from the State. Constantine refused to discuss the origin of the funds, but admits to meeting with McCaffery many times over the years. The NYPD source suggests that though the money may have come through McCaffery, it is unlikely to have been his.

  The Tribune has also discovered the subject of the argument between Molloy and Keegan on the fatal night. According to Constantine, Keegan had previously informed Molloy that the police were on the verge of shutting down Molloy's criminal activities. Molloy, however, had his own informants in the NYPD and discovered that this story was untrue.

  This was confirmed by NYPD Assistant Commissioner Charles Rosoff, a sergeant at the 124th Precinct at that time. Both Commissioner Rosoff and the anonymous police source speculate that the rumor of a crackdown may have originated with Edward Spano, an alleged organized crime figure on Staten Island with reputed ties to the Bonnano crime family.

  Commissioner Rosoff, in an interview at One Police Plaza, said Keegan had been well liked and had a reputation for picking up information. “If you wanted to plant a story, he's the guy you'd plant it on,” the Commissioner said. Asked whether the story was planted by the NYPD, he denied it. He alleged that both the Molloy and Spano organizations had police officers on their payrolls. When asked to speculate on the source of the false story, both Commissioner Rosoff and the anonymous police source pointed to the dismantling of the Molloy organization soon after Jack Molloy's death and the subsequent growth of the alleged Spano criminal network.

  “Maybe Spano invented the story to scare Molloy out of town, got it to Keegan through a cop so Keegan would think it was the real deal,” Commissioner Rosoff said. Then Spano might have offered Jack Molloy a deal to take over Molloy's operations. This offer might have been made through an intermediary, possibly McCaffery.

  Commissioner Rosoff went on to suggest this further scenario: after Keegan's death, McCaffery may have pressed Spano into making payments to Keegan's young family—the mysterious payments “from the State”—as the price of his own silence regarding Spano's involvement. When asked whether the information McCaffery could have revealed was enough to prompt Spano to agree to blackmail, the Commissioner said, “Think about this: what if Keegan wasn't the shooter? What if it was McCaffery? If he was there that night to negotiate for Spano, that could get Spano sent up. Keegan takes the fall because he's promised a fix and a payoff. When Keegan dies, McCaffery tells Spano the money better keep coming. If I was Spano, I'd pay.”

  The Tribune has also discovered that McCaffery left behind a set of papers, which the late Mr. Randall is believed to have seen shortly before his death, and that are believed to concern the Molloy shooting. Marian Gallagher, McCaffery's ex-fiancée and currently the director of the More Art, New York! Foundation and the newly established McCaffery Memorial Fund, claims to be skeptical about the papers' existence. Constantine, Mark Keegan's attorney and a close friend of Keegan's widow, admits they may exist but claims he has not seen them. There is reason to believe Randall would have exposed the contents of McCaffery's papers, had he lived.

  The investigation is continuing.

  MARIAN'S STORY

  Chapter 14

  Leaving the Cat

  November 1, 2001

  Marian took the long way past the park because she liked to look at it. The sunlight glowed and the breeze was fresh, whisking tan and yellow leaves along the sidewalk. Someone—whoever lived now in the Faherty house—had planted a Japanese maple, and it blazed red as a fire.

  She'd called the office and told Elena she'd be in by lunchtime. When she'd left his house, Tom had offered to drive her. But the day was so beautiful, why not walk? And there was more to it, and Tom knew that and did not insist. Marian was on her way to see Sally and Kevin, and the more was this: she did not want to have to explain to Sally why she was with Tom so early in the morning. Not, she reminded herself firmly, that there was anything wrong with what she and Tom had done. They were adults, neither of them promised to anyone else, neither of them being unfaithful by accepting the comforts of the other's arms.

  But it did seem . . . upside down, somehow. No more so than the rest of the world now, and no one was hurt, and no one would mind. And Sally would never ask. With a quiet smile she would wait for Marian to tell her what the sight of Marian getting out of Tom's car already had. She would wait, but she would expect to be told, and she would deserve that, because that was who Sally and Marian were to each other.

  Marian had only ever had one secret she had not told Sally; she doubted if Sally had any she had not shared. And Marian's secret had always been less a secret than a trembling fear, less a monster than a grasping shadow. Until last night. Until Tom's words had released the hissing serpent truth. Marian dreaded being alone with that serpent, that secret, that truth; she always had. Her horror of its hot breath on her neck had driven her into Tom's arms, as into the arms of all the young men over all the years. This was what Marian knew. This was the one thing she had always kept from Sally.

  And on this bright morning, on her way to Sally's, Marian walked.

  It was Kevin who answered the door, leaning on his crutches. His unshaven face was sprinkled with the beginnings of a beard that would grow in as red as his hair, if he let it. His T-shirt and boxer shorts were sleep-rumpled. From knee to ankle his right leg was bandaged, and still that was an improvement: the bandage in the beginning had enclosed his thigh also, but skin had not been grafted there, and that burn had soon healed. The shiny scar there matched the one on his right wrist, also unbandaged now.

  Kevin's surprised smile appeared half a beat late, but it was the same sunshine beam he'd been giving her since, she swore, the day he was born.

  Kevin was eight hours old when Marian first saw him, his hair already red and his arms and legs already in motion. She'd planned just to go to the hospital nursery and take a look, not to bother Sally (though when Markie called Jimmy and Marian to tell them about it, to tell them it was a boy, he and Sally had a son, he said Sally felt great, he said it was an easy delivery, maybe an hour, the baby just popped out; he told them Sally's mom said that meant the boy would never give them any trouble). But when Marian got off the elevator, Markie was in the corridor, looking through the glass, grinning at the babies. His grin was so big it included them all, but when a nurse came and picked one up, Marian thought th
e way he smiled then would split his face in half.

  “I guess that's him?” she said.

  “It sure is. Isn't he great?”

  “Yes. He's great.”

  “It's time for Sally to feed him. Come on, say hello.”

  So Marian visited with Sally and Markie while Sally nursed Kevin. “It usually takes a while,” Markie told her. “Like a day, the nurse said, before they really figure out how to do it. But this kid, he figured it out already.”

  Sally looked tired but radiant. Because, Marian thought, being this happy makes you radiant. When Kevin was finished nursing, Markie took him from Sally, wrapped his blankets a little better—his blankets, as far as Marian could see, were just fine—and asked Marian if she wanted to hold him.

  “Really?”

  Markie grinned and handed Kevin to her. Marian had held babies before, many babies, many times. She took him with practiced hands, cradled him in experienced arms, and found he was the smallest, softest, warmest thing she'd ever known. Holding him, wondering at his tiny eyelashes and his miniature fingers, Marian found herself suddenly overwhelmed with two sensations she had always thought of as separate, even contradictory: an enormous energy and a deep, boundless peace.

  Kevin stirred in her arms. He opened his eyes, and then he smiled right at her, a wide smile like his father's, of recognition and joy. They can't even see yet, Marian tried to tell herself as her heart leaped, they can't make expressions, he doesn't have any idea who you are or who anybody is or anything. None of that, true though it all was, had any effect on her whatsoever. Marian had never been happier than she was at that moment, holding her best friend's baby, and she knew she never would be until she was out of school and Jimmy was out of the Academy and on the Job and they had babies of their own.

  Now, a lifetime later, Kevin stood at the door, smiling that same smile. “Aunt Marian, I didn't know you were coming over today.”