“Friday morning,” Carver said. “Now it’s what?”
“Sunday night.”
He brought his hand to his face and touched his cheek with the backs of his fingers. Normally he shaved every morning, but he felt days of rough stubble.
“You’ve been watching me for three days?”
“Friday, Saturday, and today.”
“You could’ve called 911, gotten me off your hands.”
“I thought about it. But you told me not to.”
“I told you?”
She nodded.
“Mostly you were sleeping. I read books. I’d go across the hall to my apartment for tea. Dinner and a glass of wine. I didn’t mind.”
She reached over to the nightstand and pushed the reading lamp back. Now he could see her better. She was sitting cross-legged in his chair. Jeans and a white button-up blouse. No shoes. Her dark hair fell across her scarf, which she wore in the Parisian style, wrapped and loosely tied at her throat. Before today, the half-dozen times she’d seen him on the far side of the lobby, she’d glanced away, and then looked back with a hint of a smile.
In return, he’d ignored her.
He’d worried if he didn’t, sooner or later, she’d invite him in. There might be a bottle of wine, and that would just be the opening. He was good at starting things, but not so great at seeing them through.
And look at her: she didn’t need to be broken. It would be a disgrace to do that to anyone. But with her it would be a travesty, like spraying acid on a painting. He studied her, weighing his next question. With the light beside her, she seemed to be glowing. Unbidden, he pictured her stretched nude beneath a black sheet. He looked away, ashamed of himself.
“You say I was sleeping, mostly—but I was talking, too?”
“Yesterday you were up a little,” she said. “You drank some tea and asked me to help you stand. You walked to the bathroom on your own. I went across to my place, gave you half an hour, and then came back. You were in bed again, but awake. We talked a bit.”
She opened her book long enough to see the page number, and then shut it again and set it on the nightstand.
“You don’t remember any of it, do you?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think you would.”
“When I said not to call 911, what did I say?”
She looked at her lap and Carver saw a touch of color on her face and her throat.
“I’m sorry,” Carver said. “I gave you a lot of trouble.”
“You were really out of it,” she answered. She didn’t look up. “You said I was beautiful. That I shouldn’t call 911, because you wouldn’t get better if you weren’t with me.”
She looked up at him.
“And you didn’t call 911 right that second?”
“You weren’t yourself,” she said. Her face turned serious again, and she leaned forward. “You also said if you went to a hospital, they’d know. That it was safer for you here.”
“I said that?”
She nodded.
“Did I say who I was afraid of?”
“No.”
“The people who dropped me off, can you describe them?”
“Three men and a woman,” she said. She looked at the ceiling and closed her eyes. “Late thirties or early forties, all of them. Two of the men and the woman were white. The third man was Asian. Japanese, maybe.”
“Anything special you remember about them?”
“They were all business. I guess that’s why I thought they were police.”
“What were they wearing?”
“The men were in suits. Black, charcoal gray. The woman had a navy blue jacket, a matching skirt.”
“If I found some pictures to show you, you’d recognize them?”
“Of course—you have pictures?”
“Not yet.”
Mia’s description would fit half the people at the Bryant Street headquarters, but it didn’t match anyone on Homicide Detail. Jenner was black, in his fifties, and built like a pile of bricks. Ray Bodecker was sixty-four, and looked like he belonged in a back room playing poker. He’d spent half his life undercover because no one ever took him for a cop. And Lieutenant Hernandez wore navy blue blazers, but she was a long way from her late thirties.
If he could find pictures, maybe he’d have a start.
“What about you?” Mia asked. “What’s the last thing you remember, before it goes blank?”
He had to think about that. He watched the space heater. The chimney in his apartment had been blocked up, but the old fireplace was still there. He’d put the space heater where the andirons had been. It cast an orange glow onto the firebrick behind it. It took him a moment to find the memory, and then another moment to place it. Once he had his hands around it, though, it didn’t get away.
“Wednesday night,” he said. “My partner and I were in Hunter’s Point. A couple kids got in a fight over bricks—kids out there, they steal bricks, to sell them. They trade them for food, sometimes. That’s how bad it is, out on the edges of the city. They’re squabbling over a plastic bucket of bricks, and this kid shoots his friend. When we get there, he’s standing over the dead boy, and he’s holding the gun to his own head.”
“I know.”
He looked away from the heater and met her eyes.
“I must’ve told you yesterday.”
She nodded.
“You said Jenner tried to talk the kid down,” Mia said. “Told him to drop the gun. But the kid didn’t listen. He took three shots at you, and then he shot himself.”
“That’s right,” he said.
He wondered what else he’d told her.
“And after that, what do you remember?”
He looked at the space heater, its orange pulse a lousy stand-in for a gas fire, which he couldn’t afford.
“Nothing,” he said. He remembered the kid’s eyes, the flash of calm as he turned the pistol to take the barrel in his mouth. “That’s the last thing. After we cleared the paperwork, I came home.”
“You came here,” Mia said. “I was still awake, reading. I heard you come in.”
He looked at her book on the nightstand. It was about three inches thick and bound in leather. No one had books like that anymore. Even a paperback was a rare thing. The title, embossed in gold, was in French. He wondered if she’d been translating it as she read it aloud to him.
“When you got home,” she asked, “you went to sleep?”
“Eventually.”
“Do you remember what you did when you woke up?”
“No.”
“Close your eyes,” Mia said.
“Why?”
“Just close them.”
He closed them. The floorboards creaked. She was moving the chair toward the bedside, coming right up to him. He felt her palm on his forehead. Her skin was cool. He was running a fever, probably. She was checking that, watching over him still, as she had been for three days. She kept her hand on his brow. He could have fallen asleep again, could have let another day or two slide away beneath him.
“What do you see?”
“Nothing.”
“You can relax,” she said. She smoothed his hair back from his forehead, then increased her palm’s pressure. It was like being gently pushed underwater. “Please? Just relax.”
He was too tired to fight her off. Moving away from wakefulness was like climbing down a ladder, rung by rung, toward the darkness. He stopped before he went all the way, holding himself in the between-space where he could always find the flickering film of images that played just before sleep.
“Ross?” she said. “What do you see?”
“The Fairmont Hotel. It’s wrapped in black silk, the whole building. Tied up with ribbons, like a present. Chinese lanterns in the gardens. Red and white.”
“What else?”
“Nothing,” he said.
“Take your time,” Mia said.
She hadn’t moved her hand yet. It was still cool. The heat boiling out
of him had no effect on her.
“A fire. There’s a house on fire.”
“Were you in the fire?”
“No.”
“Do you want to sleep some more?”
“I think so.”
“Do you want me to come back?”
“Please.”
When he woke, it was still dark outside, but the reading lamp was on. He looked to his right. The chair was empty. He lifted the covers off and then sat up. He was wearing blue pajama bottoms that he’d never seen before. He looked at his wrists, expecting a hospital admission band. But there was nothing. When he stood, he used the chair for support. His bare feet felt tender on the floor, as if they’d never felt his body’s weight.
In his bathroom, he found his phone on its charger. Someone else must have put it there. He normally kept it in the kitchen. He switched on the screen with a flick of his thumb and was surprised there were no missed calls. There was a text from Jenner, though.
Call when you’re feeling better.
It was two thirty in the morning, but that didn’t matter. Jenner would be up. Carver went back into the bedroom. He needed to eat something, needed to drink about a gallon of water. But those needs weren’t priorities. Jenner was the priority. They’d always worked that way.
He sat on the chair and dialed his partner’s cell. Jenner answered on the first ring.
“Ross—how are you?”
“Been better.”
“I got the memo. Must’ve been some flu.”
“What memo?”
“Hernandez sent it, after she got your note. Your email.”
Carver swiveled the chair and looked through the gaps in the blinds. The neon hotel sign was blinking, descending one letter at a time in a flashing chain of red and blue light that led down the corner of the building.
Red and blue. Like the lights on a squad car.
He closed his eyes and put his hand on his forehead the way Mia had. He thought of red and blue pulses, racing against the dark. He thought of the city, fogbound in the night, each street curving away to a mystery. He remembered standing on a porch, seeing the siren light reflected in a young woman’s hair. Beads of rain clinging to her, the colored light shining back like so many jewels.
“You there? Ross?”
“You were saying about the memo?”
“Bodecker and I, we were gonna come see you,” Jenner said. “Bring you a casserole or something. But then we got the memo. Hernandez said you were strictly off-limits. Contagious, you know? We’re running lean, we can’t afford —”
“The email I sent her, you read it? Did I c.c. you?”
“Never saw it.”
“Somebody told you about it.”
“The memo,” Jenner said. “It sounded like you and Hernandez were emailing back and forth. You okay, Ross?”
“I’ve been running a fever,” he said. “I haven’t been all here.”
“You coming out of it?”
“Just about,” Carver said. “Listen—when was the last time I came in?”
“Wednesday,” Jenner answered. He lowered his voice and added, “The night with the kid.”
“I’ve been sick since Thursday?”
“Unless you’ve been faking it,” Jenner said. “How bad was it? Are we talking last-January bad, coma-in-a-hospital kind of thing?”
“Forget it—I’m getting better. You came in Thursday night?”
“I was in Chinatown. Thursday night, into Friday morning. Got a sit-down with Patrick Wong, finally. Talked about his uncle.”
“I didn’t call you?”
“First I heard about it was the memo.”
Carver squeezed his temples between his thumb and his forefinger. This wasn’t anything like last January. He couldn’t see a way to reconcile what Jenner was telling him with the story he’d heard from Mia. He’d trust Jenner with anything, but Mia hadn’t struck him as a liar. If she’d been telling the truth, he couldn’t have been emailing Hernandez all weekend.
There were too many gaps here. And his memory was no help.
“Sorry I left you hanging with Patrick.”
“Hey, I got it. Patrick, he was easy. But look, I can’t talk. I’m stuck with Bodecker till you get back. You know how he is. So rest up.”
Jenner cut the connection.
Carver stayed in his chair and looked at his phone. He turned it around and studied its polished chrome back. It was surely his phone, but it was cleaner than he’d last seen it. No fingerprints on the screen or the case, no pocket lint in the charging port. He brought it to his nose. It smelled like bleach and melting iron. Like some kind of disinfectant.
Ozone, he thought. Out in the country, when a storm’s coming.
The thought came like a spider, scurrying from nowhere. He ran his hands along his chest, then down each of his arms. He wasn’t sure what he was afraid of finding on his skin. It was pallid from three days in bed, but otherwise it was fine. He rested a moment longer, then braced himself on the windowsill and got up.
4
CARVER STEPPED INTO the hallway outside his apartment and looked both ways down the hall before shutting the door behind him. He’d found his keys on his kitchen table, in a pile with his badge and gun. His wallet and watch had been in the bathroom. He locked his door, then leaned against it to gather himself before crossing the hall.
There was a light on in Mia’s apartment.
He could see it under her door, a thin glowing bar, and then he saw the shadow of her feet as she came down the entry hall. She must have heard him turn his deadbolt, which meant that either her hearing was exceptional or she’d been waiting for it. It was four in the morning, but when she opened the door, he saw she was still dressed.
“You’re looking better.”
“Showers help.”
“You’re okay to go out?”
“For a bit,” he said. “I was going to look for my car.”
“I’ll come with you,” she said. “If you want.”
He nodded. There were things he wanted to ask her, and he was glad he hadn’t had to knock on her door and wake her up.
“One second—I’ll get my boots and a coat.”
She went back into her apartment but didn’t shut the door completely. From the hall, he saw polished cherry floorboards. There was a Chinese vase balanced on a lacquered stand. He wondered if she rented the place or owned it. This was an expensive building. He could only afford his apartment because his parents had left it to him. If Mia had a job, he couldn’t guess what it might be. This was her fourth morning looking after him, and she didn’t seem in a hurry to do anything else. In a moment she was coming back, her boot heels clipping the hardwood floor. She stepped out, locked the front door, and then put her other arm through the sleeve of her leather trench coat.
They went down the hall to the elevator, and she kept pace with him. She didn’t take his arm, but he was worried she might if he went any slower.
Once they were in the elevator, he leaned against the rail to catch his breath.
“Do you ever sleep?” he asked her.
“Some,” she answered. She buttoned her coat, then fixed her scarf, using the polished brass elevator door as a mirror. “I got a lot on Saturday. Sleep, I mean. On your couch.”
“You strike me as someone who wouldn’t mind some company,” Carver said, though he wasn’t sure loneliness quite explained the story she’d told him. She had to have some other reason for helping him.
The elevator doors opened and they stepped into the lobby. In the light, he saw that the color had come up again from beneath Mia’s scarf, touching her cheeks and her ears.
“It’s that obvious?” she asked.
“It was just a guess.”
He took her elbow, turning her to him. They’d come to a stop under the chandelier, across from the security desk. If she wanted to keep him close, then he wanted her closer. It would have to be that way until he figured out who she really was.
&nb
sp; “I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you sooner. I should’ve. It’s my loss I didn’t.”
“It’s okay?” she asked. “What I did?”
“Of course it is.”
“Then let’s go find your car.”
The guard was watching them, his glasses lit blue by the video monitors built flush beneath the desk’s glass surface. He’d come back later, to talk to him. But he’d do that without Mia.
They crossed Grant Avenue, and Carver led them into a narrow alley between the Neptune Hotel and a bank. A hundred feet down, it ended in a brick wall.
“You’re looking for your car down here?”
“There’s a parking garage on the other side of that building,” he said. He took his key ring from the pocket of his coat. “One of these opens that door.”
At the end of the alley, Carver found the key that fit the lock in the steel door. He tried to open it for Mia, but could only pry it back ten inches. She took the edge of the door and swung it back effortlessly, then held it for him.
“You need to take it easy, Ross.”
They stepped through the door into a concrete stairwell. The light fixture on the wall buzzed and flickered. Carver went to the first step and then leaned against the handrail before starting up. His whole body was sore, but in the shower he’d found no visible wounds. His skin was softer than usual. He seemed to be missing some of the hair from his arms, even more from his chest. There was no way to prove it; it was just a feeling. Mostly, he was exhausted, and had to stop to rest at every landing.
When they reached the third floor, Mia opened the door and he led them into the rows of parked cars.
“It’s here?”
“Down at the end,” he said. “The black Ford.”
He started down the length of the garage, keys in hand.
“We’re going somewhere?”
“I’ll need to rest first. Unless you want to drive.”
“I don’t know how.”
He stopped and turned to her.
“What— Seriously?”
“I’m from New York,” she said. “No one in New York knows how to drive.”
“That doesn’t stop most of them.”
They finished the distance, and then Carver stood behind the car. It was in his stall, over the charging plate embedded in the concrete floor. He knew he hadn’t parked it himself. Its rear faced out. But Carver didn’t do that. He was never in a hurry coming home, but he was often in a hurry when he left, so he always backed into his space.
The Night Market Page 4