What You Break

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  26

  (WEDNESDAY NIGHT)

  There were some nights that driving the van was a chore, but on nights like tonight, it was a relief. When I’d first moved into the Paragon, my life was a simple one, my room a vampire’s coffin. Locked away in it until dark, I emerged to perform very robotic tasks in a van that sometimes smelled like wet socks and a mildewed closet, the air outside the van stinking of hot metal and spent jet fuel. It was a safe world to operate in, one that kept the grief from completely choking the life out of me. But as I’d taken the small steps forward to gradually reclaim my place among the living, the simplicity of my monastic vampire existence faded away. It was gone now, completely. The last several days had stamped out any flicker of belief that I could uncomplicate things by taking two giant steps backward. There was nothing I wanted back there, not really.

  It was a pretty busy night, too, one that had me doing several runs to the train station, the airport, and back to the Paragon. Still, even at its busiest, driving a courtesy van isn’t all-consuming. It gave me time to think. Well, at least when there weren’t any chatty passengers making small talk or asking nervous questions about the big, bad city forty miles to the west. And I had a lot to think about: Linh Trang Spears’s self-torment, the new blood Slava had talked about, my pending interview with Detectives Narvaez and Dwyer, what Micah Spears had done to earn the label of monster, and what Maggie’s departure would mean. But I kept thinking back to my trip to the wooded lot on Browns Road and wondering what had drawn me there after all these months.

  Deep down I knew what it was. Why I hadn’t gone back there and then why I had, finally. My reasons were selfish and ugly. One of the aspects I liked about who I used to be was that I wasn’t jealous or resentful by nature. When you don’t want for much and have what you want, there really isn’t fuel to feed those toxic, gnawing feelings. That was me. Among my family, my friends, my house, my pension, and time to enjoy them all, I had everything I’d ever wanted. More. Then I didn’t. I’d never understood people like Pete McCann, people with a hunger who filled in their own emptiness with other people’s possessions. I understood them better now. I had gone to the lot on Browns Road because I resented Tommy D. Not the most rational feeling, resenting a murdered man whose only child had been murdered a few months before him. What was even more irrational was what I resented him for.

  Since the day Tommy D had walked into the Paragon to ask for my help, I’d been discussing my resentment with Doc Rosen. The crux of my resentment was simple enough. There were answers to be had about his boy’s death. There were people responsible for it. People to answer for it. Who could I see about my son’s death? Where were my answers? Who was going to pay? Although therapy had helped heal me, the resentment persisted. Worse. It had only grown more intense. There was a brief period there after I’d found out why TJ Delcamino had been killed and by whom, when the men responsible for it had met their fates, that I thought I’d beaten it back. I’d been fooling myself, and now, with this search for the cause of Linh Trang’s murder at the hands of Rondo Salazar, it was back with a vengeance.

  I was hanging out between runs, resting my eyes, lying back on one of the defeated lobby sofas, when I heard the phone ring at the front desk. The ringing stopped me from going any further down the resentment rabbit hole.

  “Gus, you have a guest to pick up at the station,” Martina called to me from behind the desk. “Name’s Gordon. Says he’ll be looking for the van.”

  “Thanks.”

  I went straight out to the van and started it up. It was only after I had turned right onto Ronkonkoma Avenue from Vets that I realized the timing was all wrong, that a train wasn’t due in for another forty minutes. It happened. Sometimes people took the train out from the city without first booking a hotel for the night. For all I knew, Mr. Gordon had spent the last half-hour calling around to the area hotels looking for a vacant room or, more likely, looking for a room at a rate he was willing to pay. One thing about the Paragon, our rooms were cheap compared to some of the other places near the airport.

  Pulling into the courtesy van spot, I saw the station was pretty deserted. The Dunkin’ Donuts shop was closed, as were all the other businesses that, like brick-and-mortar mosquitoes, fed off the commuters. Even the cab stand was empty but for a single old Crown Vic with a duct-taped front fender. Its driver was probably trying to catch some zees in between calls. I’d been known to do the same thing on occasion.

  Almost immediately after the van stopped, a big man stepped out of the shadows and waved to me. I hopped out of the driver’s seat, ran around to the passenger side, and opened the double cabin doors.

  “Mr. Gordon?”

  He nodded. I expected him to step back into the shadows to retrieve his luggage, but he climbed directly into the van instead. This, too, was unusual, though not unique. Sometimes people made last-minute plans or got great travel deals and decided they would shop at the airport or at their destination. If he asked, I would have advised Mr. Gordon to wait until he got to where he was going or at least to shop at the next airport. MacArthur Airport’s wardrobe choices ranged from Yankees hats and Mets T-shirts to I heart Long Island sweatshirts. No Brooks Brothers or Johnston & Murphy here. He didn’t ask. Instead he settled into the first row of seats, over my right shoulder.

  Making the U-turn out of my spot and heading back toward Ronkonkoma Avenue, I checked him out in my rearview. His eyes were focused on the mirror. Our eyes met. And though I’d never seen Mr. Gordon before, there was something familiar about him, especially his gray eyes. He turned his head and I turned mine. I was searching my memory for where I might have met him or for the person he reminded me of. It was no good, yet I couldn’t shake the feeling. So I did something I rarely did. I struck up a conversation.

  “So how long will you be staying with us, Mr. Gordon?” I peeked back at the mirror to see him smiling at me. It wasn’t the kind of smile to give you comfort. More like the feral smile of an imaginary cat. One sizing up its prey.

  “A single night, maybe. We shall see,” he said, his thick Russian accent making my guts seize up.

  I tried not to react, but I wasn’t completely successful. The Russian’s cat smile broadened.

  “Maybe I don’t stay at all. Maybe I just want to have talk, one old friend to another.”

  “You wanna talk?” I said, my voice steadying. “Talk.”

  “Where is the man you know as Slava Podalak?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but I don’t have time for this bullshit. He’s in Poland, Warsaw, I think, at the funeral of a relative.”

  My passenger laughed, shaking his head.

  “I have no time for bullshit, either, so now that you have fed me some, we can be past it, yes?”

  I shrugged. “It may be bullshit, but it’s all I got.”

  When I looked back in the mirror, Mr. Gordon was holding a Makarov in his hand for me to see. I hit the accelerator as hard as I could.

  “Go ahead and shoot me. At this speed, you’re gonna die, too. Too bad you didn’t put your seat belt on, huh?”

  He raised the weapon and slid it back where it came from. “No one is shooting anybody,” he said, laughing. “Besides, Mr. Murphy, if I had wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t have missed you in Coney Island the other night. I don’t miss unless I am trying. And how is your wrist feeling? That encounter in Mikel’s room was unfortunate, but necessary.”

  So now I knew where I recognized him from.

  “My ribs hurt worse than my wrist. You know my name, but—”

  “I could give you another name, but it wouldn’t be mine. Mr. Gordon will do as good as any other.”

  I backtracked. “Easy not to miss when your target is bleeding out on the sidewalk and you put two in his head.”

  He laughed again. “True, but don’t feel sorrow for that man. Very few people deserved to die more th
an Goran. I was merciful to him, much more merciful than he was to the many people he killed.”

  He wasn’t laughing by the time he finished talking. In fact, there was real anger and sorrow in the things he said. Things that matched what Slava had said previously. He was looking out the window now.

  “Was Goran a policeman, too?”

  “Yes, like the man you know as Slava also. I have worked with many such men, policemen in Grozny.”

  “Chechnya?”

  “Very good. I didn’t think Americans would know it.” Mr. Gordon didn’t wait for me to speak. “So, now you know something of the man calling himself Slava, but maybe already you knew this.”

  “We’re not close,” I lied, sort of.

  Slava and I were close, but not in any conventional sense. I didn’t know where he lived. We went out for meals every now and then besides our regular Saturday breakfast. When we talked, we talked about my past, never his. We discussed Maggie and how Krissy was doing at school. Sometimes Bill came along and we would let him carry the conversation. Yet we had an unshakable bond that was only partially based on his saving my life. I couldn’t have explained it to Mr. Gordon or anyone else. I wasn’t sure I understood it myself.

  My passenger didn’t challenge me, but re-asked an earlier question.

  “Where is Slava?”

  “Same answer as before.”

  “Maybe you would not be so stubborn or so loyal if you knew the things your friend has done in his life.”

  “Maybe. Try me.”

  “I don’t think so,” he said as we pulled into the Paragon’s lot. “Your friend Slava is not what he seems.”

  “Who is?”

  “You make a good point, Gus Murphy. Be warned, he cannot hide forever. Do not risk your life and those closest to you to protect this man. He is not worth it, I can assure you.”

  I wasn’t happy about that line involving “those closest to me.” Not happy at all. So I slid my Glock out of my ankle holster and turned to show him the muzzle when we came to a stop in front of the hotel.

  “Did you just threaten me? Because I can do some assuring myself. Let me assure you that I will eagerly empty my clip into you if you come near anyone close to me. Don’t think because you choked me out so easily that you’ll be able to do it again. Next time, I’ll see you coming. You have an issue with Slava, deal with him. Leave me out of it.”

  “No, Gus Murphy, you won’t,” he said, opening the van door closest to him.

  “No, I won’t what?”

  “See me coming. Good night. Thank you for the ride and the conversation, but I have decided not to stay here. I think maybe it would not be good for my long-term health or yours. What do you think?”

  I didn’t answer.

  He climbed out of the van, and when he did, a familiar white van with darkly tinted windows, the same one he’d used to escape in at Coney Island, pulled up next to the courtesy van. He opened the passenger door to get in, but stopped and turned. He motioned for me to roll down my window.

  I did, making sure to place the bottom of the Glock’s barrel on the windowsill.

  “What?”

  “I am a big fan of Marilyn Monroe,” he said, his voice cold as midwinter. “Too bad she had to die the way she did, alone in bed. Such a tragedy.” Then he smiled that smile at me. “Remember, don’t risk what isn’t yours for a man such as Slava.”

  Before I could get out of my van, his was gone. But his words rang loudly in my ears, louder than any jet that had ever passed over the Paragon.

  27

  (THURSDAY MORNING)

  I didn’t sleep well. And there was no soul searching needed to hit on the reasons why. A man who I’d watched assassinate someone as if he was stepping on a cockroach had just made a not-so-veiled threat against Maggie. This was a dangerous man, a man who had overpowered me and could just as easily have choked me to death as into unconsciousness. It also gave me no comfort that when I called the number Slava had given me, there was no answer. It rang and rang and rang.

  What I didn’t do was make a panicked call to Maggie. I felt sure she was safe from Mr. Gordon for the moment. He was only letting me know that he knew where I was vulnerable and that if he came back to ask me more questions, I’d better answer truthfully. And what would my calling Maggie have accomplished other than frighten her? Frightened people do stupid things, so for the moment it was better for only me to worry.

  All of a sudden, my pending interview with the NYPD didn’t seem all that worrisome. It did present me with a dilemma, though. I was no longer just passively stalling the cops to keep them away from Slava until this thing he was involved in worked itself out. If it wasn’t personal with me before, it sure as shit was now. Until I picked Mr. Gordon up at the station, I’d been perfectly willing to play dumb, to take all the crap from the cops I had to. Things had changed. I could still try to keep Slava out of it while throwing the cops a bone. It would be simple enough. When I was with Narvaez and Dwyer, I could pretend to have remembered something from the night Goran was killed. I practiced the exchange in my head.

  After they busted my chops for being uncooperative, I’d say, “If you two would give me a break, I think I might have something for you.”

  “What?” they would ask.

  “There was a white Dodge van that I remember driving slowly down the block before . . . well, before whatever happened happened.”

  “Not much of a help, Murphy,” they would say. “There’s probably a thousand of those in Brooklyn alone,” they would say.

  “But I think I remember part of its tag number. It was a New York plate, I think,” I would say. Then I would give it to them piecemeal, hemming and hawing, blurting out a number here and a letter there, leaving out the last digit. I could put them onto Mr. Gordon, whoever he really was, without putting them onto Slava.

  My eyes squeezed shut; that’s what I was thinking about when my cell buzzed on the nightstand.

  “Yeah, who is it?” I said, sounding groggier than I expected.

  “Did you have a rough one last evening, boyo?” It was Bill.

  “You could say that. What’s up?”

  “Brother Vassily.”

  “Who?”

  “Brother Vassily, my friend from the Holy Cross Monastery in East Setauket. He’s translated that newspaper article for you. He is very anxious to speak with you. He’s willing to free up time for you today.”

  “Today won’t work, Bill. Can’t I just call him?”

  “Face-to-face, Gus, is the only way he’ll discuss it with you.”

  “Tomorrow, then, after one.”

  “I’ll set it up and call you back. Does that suit you?”

  “Sure, that would be great,” I said with all the enthusiasm I could muster, which wasn’t very much. “See you, Bill.”

  I spent a long time in the shower, rehearsing my lines for the detectives, but they didn’t sound any less artificial than they did when I was horizontal.

  28

  (THURSDAY NOON)

  They were waiting for me out in front of the building, and when I pulled up to the curb, Narvaez motioned for me to unlock the doors. When I did, he pushed the passenger bucket seat forward and climbed in the back. Dwyer waited until her partner settled in before pushing the bucket back and getting in next to me.

  “Get a warrant or get the hell out.”

  “But it’s such a nice car,” Dwyer said, a surprising coo in her voice.

  “You guys ever hear of this thing called the Fourth Amendment? You know, the one about illegal search and seizure?”

  “Four? I can’t count that high,” Narvaez said.

  “I didn’t figure you could, but I had hopes for Dwyer.”

  “Me,” she said, “I can count all the way up to a hundred on a good day.”

  “Is this a good
day?”

  “Depends, Murphy.”

  “On what?”

  Narvaez wasn’t in the mood for banter. “Shut your piehole and drive to West Twenty-first and park where you parked that night.”

  That made up my mind for me. Whether Narvaez was playing a part or whether he really was an asshole was beside the point. I hated bullies and I detested being bullied, especially after my talk with Mr. Gordon. I wasn’t going to share a fucking thing with these detectives, not a description of the van, not a single digit of its tag number. But I did drive over to West Twenty-first and parked where I had the night Goran was murdered.

  “Okay, here we are,” I said.

  They asked me the same questions they’d asked me at the Paragon coffee shop and got about the same answers. They were just trying to soften me up in order to start in on my relationship with Slava. They decided the interior of my Mustang wasn’t the proper venue for that.

  “Getting stuffy in here,” said Dwyer. “Don’t you think, Richie?”

  Her partner seconded that. “Yeah, c’mon, let’s go for a little walk.”

  I didn’t protest. I could be cooperative and uncooperative all at once. They walked me over to where Goran Ivanovich had been shot.

  “Recognize this stoop?” Dwyer asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “Christ, he’s back to ‘maybe,’” Narvaez said. “You know what’s funny, Murphy?”

  “No, but I get the sense you’re going to tell me.”

  “What’s funny is that just before the vic got plugged, he was having a conversation up there with two other men.” Narvaez pointed at the landing at the top of the short stairs.

  “So?”

  “So why didn’t you mention that when we came out to that shithole you work at?” Narvaez wanted to know. “You think maybe that might’ve been a helpful detail, a description of those men, maybe. What do you think, huh, Murphy?”

  “If I had seen them, yeah, maybe,” I agreed. “Or if you had mentioned them when we first spoke, my memory might’ve been jarred.”