Carl looked over my shoulder. “Looks like your handwriting.”
I took another look. “Nah.”
“For sure. You wrote it.”
“But I never saw it before. How could I have written it?”
“Makes sense,” he said. “Your handwriting. You wrote it. Now, please mop up the rest of this stuff, Henry, so we can get to work. ”
I wiped up the rest, using the stuff left on my hand to dab at my eye. “Queens,” I mused.
“Who do you know in Queens?” Carl asked.
“My parents.”
“It’s your parent’s address?”
“No. But it’s close. I know the area.”
Then someone started banging the bell at the counter, and I had to go take their order. Business was brisk all day. It’s a known fact that New Yorkers take too many drugs. Anyway, I came in late, so I didn’t take lunch. Then we worked through four in the afternoon.
“Your eye looks like shit,” Carl said when the place cleared out. Why don’t you go home and put a steak on it?”
“Thanks, I will,” I said and took off my lab coat before he could change his mind. I walked out the door but didn’t head for home. For some reason I was still obsessing about that stupid address. So, I walked the block to the subway, took the Seventh Avenue subway to 50th Street and then caught the V train all the way to Parson’s Boulevard. By the time I got there it looked like it was going to thunder, but I just kept on going till 78-22 160th Street. It was a little white house with green shutters wedged in between other little white houses with shutters, all marching up a little hill. Cute, I thought. Nice neighborhood. Where was I? Who lived here? Why did I have this address in my pocket?
There was nothing to do but to take a look in the bay window. I had to step into the flower bed to do it, but no way was I going to ring the bell. The overcast sky outside made it simple to see through the glass, and for a minute or so I watched this big beefy guy with curly dark hair and a sling on his left arm watch Oprah. Until, that is, the big beefy guy caught me staring at him through the glass, and changed expression from laughter ...to murder. I didn’t know him from Adam, but I could guess who he was; I definitely had to get out of there. My right foot was resting on the brick of the steps; my left was deep in the flower bed, the rest of me stretched between them, a position inclined more toward falling down than running away. I tried anyway, and fell into the dirt. Suddenly, the front door opened, and this guy came racing out, growling.
“You!” he roared, looking down at me.
By now I had disentangled my foot from his geraniums, picked myself up, and backtracked two steps through the begonias to the sidewalk. “Me?” I said.
He was coming at me now, swinging his good fist. “I thought you had enough. But I see you didn’t.”
Suddenly there was a commotion in the back of the house, and he turned away from me, shouting something in rapid Spanish, something that ended with “Alicia.” It took only a few seconds, and then he was back, but those extra few seconds were just enough for me to unbuckle my legs and get the hell out of there. I just ran. I didn’t turn around to see him bearing down on me, not even when I heard a woman’s voice crying, “Eduardo!” I just ran till my poor knees gave out, ten blocks away from that damn little house with the green shutters, and four more till the little grey Cape Cod that was my parent’s.
When I decided to turn around, no one was there. I stood on the sidewalk for four or five minutes, catching my breath. Visiting my parent’s house with a black eye covered with Calamine was bad enough. Coming in breathless from a fourteen block run away from a bully was another. A fat raindrop, then another, splashed onto the top of my head. I took one last, long breath, dragged myself up the path to the front door and rang the bell.
My mother came to the door in an apron. “Harry!” she said, throwing her arms around me. “I can’t believe it! Jack! I betcha dunno who’s at the daw!”
My father’s voice filtered through from the back. “You think I can’t heahya? Ya yelled loud enough to tell the whole neighborhood.”
“Good! I want they should know. It’s not every day my youngest son comes to visit,” she shouted back, the door still open, her arm around my neck, giving the neighborhood a chance to see as well as hear.
“So, lettim in and close the daw already! I can feel the hot ayuh alluh way back heah,” my father yelled from the kitchen.
My mother let go of my arm and stepped back so I could come in. “So what’s with the eye?”
“It’s a long story, Mom.”
“Tell me.”
“Wait till I sit down.”
They always seemed to be eating, no matter when I came. I followed her through to the kitchen. The house was about twenty feet wide, one room following another, railway style, from the front door: living room, dining room, kitchen. Pop waved at me from the kitchen table, a piece of rye bread in his mouth. I could smell corned beef.
“What’s with the eye?” Pop asked, chewing.
Mom was already reaching into cabinets, getting another plate. “Wait. Let’s all sit down and Harry will tell us the whole thing.” She sat down. “Okay, so tell us.”
“Corned beef?” she asked, just as I began to speak.
“Sure.”
She put three big pieces on my plate. “Potatoes?”
“Just one.”
She gave me two.
“String beans?”
“No.”
She ladled out a big spoonful. “So, tell us,” she said, putting down the bowl.
I had misgivings about telling them anything. After living with them for thirty years, I knew for certain that whatever I would say would somehow get turned around and blamed on me. But I was sitting there, and my parents were staring at my eye, rapt with whatever I was going to tell them. I could tell them that I bumped into a door, but I knew that wasn’t going to fly. I started eating corned beef, hoping to delay the inevitable.
‘What? What?” Pop was saying.
“Lettim eat, Jack. It’s not everyday he gets to eat home-cooked food.” She looked over at me. “You’re looking thin. Havenchu been eating?”
That did it. “Okay, Mom,” I said. “Here it is. I got into a fight last night.”
“A fight?” Pop said. “You don’t fight. The last time you got into a fight, it was with Nathan Goldstein in the fawth grade. You lost.”
“What happened? Someone pushchoo?” Mom asked.
“I don’t really remember what happened.”
“You don’t remembuh?” Pop asked.
“Was it ovuh a goil?”
“I don’t remember, I said.”
“He’s not telling us something, Jack. Whacha not telling us, Harry?”
I tried chewing thoughtfully for several minutes, but they waited me out. “I’ve been having a few blackouts lately. That’s all.”
“That’s all?”
“Whacha mean blackouts?” Pop asked.
“I wake up sometimes in the morning and don’t remember what I did the night before.”
Mom looked upset. “Harry, ya gotta go to a doctuh. We’ve got a good doctuh just down the street from us. A Dr. Stevenson. He’s very good. He fixed Dad’s hip without surgery.”
“What kind of doctor?” I asked.
“A doctuh doctuh, whachamean kinda doctuh?”
“An osteopath,” Pop answered.
“I don’t think so,” I said, proceeding to devour the rest of the corned beef.
“Heah, have somemaw,” Mom said, doling out two more pieces. “Listen, if you come back heah to live, you could go ta him alluh time. It would be very convenient.”
I stopped eating long enough to say, “No, Mom.”
“See? This is what happens when ya live by yourself. There isn’t anybody to take care a you. Come back home, Harry. You’ll go to Dr. Stevenson, and I’ll make you dinnuh.”
“No, Mom,” I said again. “We’ve talked about this forever. How’re Mark and Lisa?”<
br />
“They nevuh call, so how would I know? How’s that goilfriend of yaws, whatsername, she’s in a comer?”
“Sherry. She’s not in a coma. She’s in a persistent vegetative state.”
“So, whatevuh, how is she?”
The corned beef was beginning to form this big hard ball in my stomach. Swallowing had no effect. I had this vision of it sitting there for the rest of my life. This was not a comforting thought. “Did you hear me?” I shouted. “I said she was in a persistent vegetative state! That means she doesn’t say anything, doesn’t do anything. She can’t go to the bathroom by herself! Lousy, she’s lousy!”
“You don’t hafta shout. I just asked.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t help it. I get here and I just want to shout. I gotta go,” I said, standing up. Both of them stared up at me, not moving. “I’ll call you.” Then I walked back through the rooms. By now Mom was scurrying toward me.
“Don’t leave so fast. We haven’t had dessert. I got applesauce.”
The corned beef was still sitting there. I was beginning to wonder whether I should give it a name. “I don’t want any applesauce, Mom. I had enough.”
“Wheryagoin? You just got heah.”
“Mom,” I said, opening the door to thunderous rain. “I love ya, but I gotta leave.” I leaned down to kiss her.
“Wait. Lemmegetcha an umbrella,” Mom said, turning away.
“Bye, Pop,” I shouted.
“Bye, Henry,” he called from the kitchen.
“So, when can I make an apperntment for you at Dr. Stevenson’s?” Mom asked, running back, a Channel 13 umbrella in her hand.
“Never!” I said, shutting the door.
And that’s why I don’t go to Queens.
DONNA
As usual, Jackman had been bugging the precinct to get a hold of me, arguing with them, demanding my cell number. Finally he said it was an emergency, and the front desk caved and agreed to page me. That guy is such a nuisance.
I was just coming up to street level at the 63rd and Lex subway station when I got the page. I called Jackman back, and he talked my ear off ten minutes about how he had gone to 119 West 96th Street and found that who should live there but Ryan O’Donnell.
I was walking along Lexington all this time, listening to Jackman jabber against the clamor of New York traffic, admittedly not paying a lot of attention, until he mentioned Ryan O’Donnell. That got me listening.
O’Donnell was the connection between the two cases, Jackman was saying, and, of course, he was right! I couldn’t believe I had missed that. I had even talked to the guy and still I hadn’t made the connection. Well, the name Ryan O’Donnell isn’t exactly an unusual name in New York, I told myself. And of course I had the usual distractions of too many cases and too little sleep. And then there was Julian in my apartment and all that insanity. All contributing factors to be sure, but there was no excuse for this.
Meanwhile, on the phone, Jackman was insisting that O’Donnell had motive. Sherry had confessed to Ryan that she was in love with HENRY, and in retaliation, he lashed out at the woman he loved. Like I believe that. How could a woman like Sherry possibly be in love with a nobody like Henry Jackman in the first place: a guy who had just admitted, by the way, that he’d told his very own suspect that Sherry was now awake?
So I had better get someone over there ASAP, Jackman was telling me, prior to O’Donnell snuffing her out before she could put the finger on him. That guy has definitely watched too much TV. Jackman may have caught something I hadn’t, but that didn’t mean I should listen to his crackpot conspiracy theories. I thanked him for his information but told him we’d take it from here.
“You gonna station someone at the nursing home to protect her?” he pressed.
“Yes,” I said.
“You don’t want me to meet you up there?”
“No. I think we can handle it now.”
Then he asked me for my cell number, which of course I wouldn’t tell him in a thousand years, and hung up.
I was practically in front of the steps to my apartment, but this whole episode gave me the excuse I wanted not to go upstairs. Instead, leaning up against the brick of my building, I called Ricardo back, asking him to send some late night protection up for Sherry at Parkhill Nursing Home in the Bronx. Not that I believed Ryan was capable of attacking two young women, but it always paid to take precautions. And, by the way, I asked Ricardo, could you find out Ryan O’Donnell’s cell phone? It should be in the Jessica Finklemeyer file. He called me right back with the number.
My back braced against a brick wall still warm from the summer sun, I typed in the sequence. It rang and rang and finally went to message. I left word who I was, that I had one question I had forgotten to ask, and to call me back at this number.
I stepped back from the building and peered up at the second floor windows, the glass mirroring the last rays of summer sun. I moved off to the side, surveying it from an angle, and was rewarded with a glimpse of a lithe shadow traversing the living room, back and forth, back and forth. Julian was waiting for me. Too bad, I wasn’t going up there tonight, not if I could help it. I’d rather interrogate a possible murderer than confront Julian.
What can I tell you? When I’m away from Julian, all I see are negatives: he’s a lying, irresponsible, undependable, good-time Charlie who is there for the fun and out the door when there’s work to be done. But when I’m with him, Julian’s something else entirely: this handsome devil with crinkly eyes, gourmet tastes, good cheer, high style, magnetic charm, and SEX. He’s my drug, my addiction. The competent adult in me evaporates, along with crime, good, evil, and the state of the nation. Nothing else matters. That’s why I can’t be near him. And that’s why I’m not going up there tonight, not if I can help it.
Beneath my apartment is a little Turkish restaurant. Over the years, it’s been Armenian and Greek, Italian and French. They come; they go. If only someone would take the divine hint and turn it into an electronics shop, a dress shop, even a Gristedes. But no, failed or not, its karma is to be a restaurant. So be it.
I sat down at the long, polished bar. They had a row of bottles of red wine from Turkey which weren’t half bad. In its Turkish reincarnation, I’d been in there with Julian half a dozen times, though never alone. I signalled Demir the bartender, a dark young man who’d come here three years ago and already spoke English with all the slang and verve of a native.
“What’s your pleasure?” Demir asked.
I pointed to the row of Turkish reds. “Whichever you think,” I said.
He selected one and poured me a half an inch for tasting. “Saw your ex- the other day. Are you two back together?”
I hadn’t remembered ever telling him that we’d split. “No,” I said. “He just needs a place to stay for a few days.” I tasted the sample. “This is good.”
Demir filled the glass half-way. “He came in to get the name of the wine you two drank the last time you were here.”
That was two years ago. The guy’d have to have a photographic memory to summon up what we drank. ”Did you actually remember which one?” I asked, incredulous.
He grinned and lifted up the bottle he’d just been pouring. “Doluca Kav 2004,” he said. “I sold him a bottle. Julian said it was for tonight to go with the osso bucco.”
“Cheers,” I said lifting the glass.
“But you haven’t gone upstairs yet,” Demir scolded.
“No.”
“Too bad,” he said, turning away to put the bottle back on the counter. I didn’t want to talk tonight, and he could tell. Bartenders could always tell.
I drank in silence for about twenty minutes, when my cell phone rang. “Sirken.”
“Hi. This is Ryan O’Donnell. You said you have another question?”
“Do you mind if I come over again tonight?” I asked.
It took a beat or two before he answered. “Come on over.”
“I’ll be right there,” I said.
>
I could see a cab barreling down the block with its light on. I stepped off the curb with my arm out. The cab swerved around me, screeching to a stop at the curb, where I got in. We sped up Lexington till 97th, then on till Fifth where 97th turns into the park. We followed the narrow divided Transverse road, bordered on both sides by crumbling stone walls, the trees dark and spidery behind them, old-style lamp posts materializing at rhythmic intervals to puncture the darkness with gauzy halos of light.
I tried to remember the details of what had sparked the argument between Sherry and her parents. Rhonda had said something about….What had she said? Something about people running amok after taking Somnolux, doing crazy things in their sleep. And Vandenberg was trying to hush it up, to stop Sherry from telling the public about the side effects. That her father had told her to take responsibility and tell the public before it went any further. At least I thought that was what she said. That they had argued and Sherry ran off into the dark. I didn’t remember any more, and my notes were back at the office.
Even assuming that Sherry was not in love with that dope Jackman as Ryan had allegedly told Henry, there was an outside chance that O’Donnell might have been strong-arming Sherry on behalf of Vandenberg. Could it have been Ryan who followed Sherry out of the restaurant and pursued her to Henry’s place, engendering an argument that Henry did not hear because he was deeply sedated? But then what motive would he have had in killing Jessica? Besides, Ryan’s alibi had checked out – he was indeed out of town the night that Jessica was strangled.
We were just coming out of the park onto the bright lights of Central Park West. The cab made the first right onto 96th, went another two blocks and pulled up in front of 119, this time lit up on the top floor only. I got out and walked up the stoop, opened the door and pressed the button to 3A. Ryan buzzed me in.
As I trudged up to the third floor, I could detect the smell of food. I rang the bell, and Ryan opened the door. Behind him his dining table held one dirty plate and a half-read newspaper.
“Sorry,” said. “I interrupted your dinner.”
He shrugged, leading me to the couch. “Can’t be helped. So what was that question you said you needed answered?”
Come Out Tonight Page 11