“I guess I just like riding the subway,” I said, turning away to look out the dirty window at the tunnel flying past. Maybe she’d go away.
No such luck. “How did you know Diego Jimenez?” I heard from my left.
“Never heard of him,” I said, trying to keep my cool.
“C’mon, Henry,” Sirken said. “You think we’re stupid? All we had to do is check out your cell phone statement from last month. There’s one call from Diego to your cell. Then a minute later, a call from your cell to his.”
“It was a wrong number,” I say.
“Then why’d you call him back?”
“I didn’t even know who it was. The guy started threatening me on the phone. Then he hung up. So I called him back to tell him to never threaten me again.”
“Why was he threatening you?” Sirken asked.
I could have refused to answer, but really, I didn’t have anything to hide. “Something about Alicia.”
“Alicia is...was Diego’s girlfriend,” Sirken offered.
I didn’t say anything.
“Well,” Sirken said. “I’ll just tell you that we asked Alicia whether she knew a Henry Jackman. She said ‘no.’” She waited a beat. “But she said she knew an Eduardo Jackman. Who is Eduardo Jackman?” Sirken asked.
“Never heard of him,” I replied.
“Not your brother?”
“My brother’s name is Mark.”
“Cousin?”
“No. Hey, I’m not related to all the Jackmans in the world, you know.”
“Diego’s dead,” Sirken said. Through the corner of my left eye, I could see her watching for my reaction. I didn’t give her one. “You know of anyone who might have wanted him dead?”
“Not a clue.”
“I know you saw him last month.”
I turned to face her. “Yeah, and so did a thousand other people. Look. You’re wasting your time. I didn’t kill him. I didn’t know him. I went to visit my parents last month and passed by his house.”
“How’d you know where his house was?”
“Well this is gonna sound silly, but I found his address on a strip of paper in my pocket.”
“It does sound silly.”
“Well, too bad,” I shot back. “What the hell motive do I have? This Alicia probably killed him. Diego must have been making her life miserable, threatening every man she looked at. He told me he’d kill me if he ever saw me around her.”
“Why?”
“How the hell do I know? I never saw her before.”
The train shuddered to a stop. Half a dozen people got off, and the doors closed. The train just sat there. Then the doors opened again. A minute went by. The doors closed again, and the train started up.
“Maybe if the NYPD didn’t pay tons of money following around innocent people like me, the taxpayers could get a new subway system,” I told her.
“Apples and oranges,” Sirken said.
The train went round a bend, all of us strap-hangers grabbing on for dear life.
“Listen,” I said, both hands on the strap. “You know what I think? I think that Diego was the one who attacked Sherry. The guy was paranoid. You should have heard him. Maybe he thought it was Alicia in my apartment that night, and he snuck in the window and hit her over the head. But it wasn’t Alicia. It was Sherry, poor Sherry. So then, when Diego went home, he found Alicia wasn’t dead after all. And maybe she found out that he’d tried to kill her, and killed him before he could do it again.”
“A lot of maybes.”
“Yeah, but a lot better than a guy without a motive.”
The train was braking hard. I peered out the dirt on the window: it was my station. “I’m getting out now,” I said. “You gonna follow me?”
“Nah,” Sirken said. “I know where you’re going.”
I got off. The doors closed behind me, Sirken still hanging onto her strap.
It was past two by the time I walked in the door at Duane Reade. Nadia was working the prescription-in line, and there was a load of people milling around, waiting.
I could tell that Carl was royally pissed. “I thought this wasn’t going to happen again, Henry,” he growled, hardly looking up. “You were due here at twelve thirty. Where were you?”
“Sorry,” I said, putting on my lab coat. “I went to see Sherry and then, I guess, I lost track of time.” I did lose track of time: literally. Yeah, sure it had happened before, but never during the day. And this time I hadn’t even taken Somnolux. Nothing accounted for it. I was scared.
Carl shoved a prescription in my hands. “Get going,” was all he said. Boy, was he pissed. I got to work.
Four hours later we were still working. The prescription-in line had disappeared, and so did most of the milling people. Nadia said goodnight and went home. I was supposed to be on night duty, so I just sat there. Carl took off his white coat and hung it on the wall, but he didn’t leave.
“Henry,” he said, standing there. “I don’t have to tell you that you seem to be falling apart.”
“I’ve been trying,” I said.
“Yeah,” Carl replied. “You have. But you’re screwing up. If you can’t get here on time, I’m going to have to fire you.”
That scared me, and I must have shown it.
“But I’m going to give you one more chance, Henry. You know I like you. We’ve been best buddies, and I really want you to stay. But I can’t handle all the prescriptions myself, and if you can’t hack it, I’m going to have to let you go.”
“I won’t let you down,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
Carl stood there, leaning against the wall, thinking. It took so long I went back to my work. “But I have this feeling you’re not telling me something,” he said out of the blue.
What was I going to tell him? That I was watching TV in my girlfriend’s room, and suddenly I was on the F train to Queens? That young sexy women popped up unannounced in my bed? That there was this guy in Queens shot dead in his house - I knew that guy and I saw that house? What could I possibly tell him?
“I don’t know where you got that idea,” I said. “All I’ve been doing is coming here and going to see Sherry. Maybe I’m a little tired, that’s all.”
Carl looked at me funny. “You’ve given up the Somnolux, haven’t you, Henry?”
That was a good question, but I didn’t see how I was going to give him a good answer. “Absolutely,” I said.
“How have you been sleeping?”
I shrugged, as if to say not good. But, then again, I didn’t actually say that.
“Have you gone back to a doctor?” Carl asked.
I told him I’d gone to my mother’s doctor, and had tried all the stuff he prescribed, but nothing else really worked for me.
“So you’re just toughing it out, then?”
I nodded. Whatever he made of my nod was okay with me.
Carl sighed. “Maybe I’ve been too hard on you, Henry. After all, you’ve been managing to come to work on time for most of the past month and to visit Sherry in your free time, the whole thing on too little sleep.” He launched himself off the wall and over to me, giving me a pat on the shoulder. “Don’t sweat it. We’ll work it out.” He walked out, leaving me alone in the store.
The moment he walked out, I picked up my cell and tried to call Sherry again. “Hello Sherry?” I said after she picked up.
“Don’t call me, Henry,” she said and hung up.
I worked another two hours, customers coming in here and there. It wasn’t an especially busy night. We were supposed to stay open Thursdays till 10:00, but I closed up at 8:00, turning the sign on the front door from Open to Closed.
I walked down to 157th Street and caught the local train up to the Bronx. Old Brown Suit was nowhere to be seen, until we stopped at 168th Street, when he entered at the back of my car, just as if he had known where I’d be before I’d known it myself. I could feel his eyes on the back of my neck, but when I turned around, wouldn’t yo
u know it, he was looking away. Still, I couldn’t seem to rid myself of the feeling I was being watched. I turned round one more time only to find him miraculously sitting across the aisle from me, staring out the window beside him.
This was too close for comfort. I stood up and walked to the front of the car, tugging at the latch to drag the heavy door open. Big signs tell you not to open the door while the train is moving, but you see people doing it all the time, and almost nobody slips to his death onto the tracks below. I stepped out onto the landing between the cars; the wind was whistling in my hair, the track was rushing past me underneath. I lurched from one landing to another, pulled open the door latch to the next car and stepped inside. Then I casually took my pick of seats from a mostly empty car and sat down near a window on the right.
A minute or two later, the noise of the tunnel suddenly exploded into the back of the car. I turned round to hear the outer door cachunking into place and to catch sight of Brown Suit threading his way down the aisle. The train lurched, throwing him into the seat to my left. He gave me a quick glance before turning to the window.
I waited until 181st before I got up again, crossed to the front of the car, unlatched the door and crossed to the next compartment. The train was just starting up as I threw open the door to the next car. I took a few steps and fell into the closest seat facing backwards. Not a minute later, I could see him making his way into the space between the cars, crossing the landing and unlatching the door to my car. I got up and hurried to the front of the car.
It didn’t look like he was even interested in sitting down this time, even though the train was going full tilt. He just kept going from one end of the compartment to the other, through the junction between the cars and into the next. In the door, down the aisle, out the compartment, across the landing: I kept moving on, faster and faster, as the train sped past 191st, on past Dyckman, 207th, 215th, on past 231st, running full out as if that could keep him from closing the distance on a finite train. I don’t know what I hoped to accomplish. Brown Suit wasn’t just taking a stroll. He knew I had to stop somewhere. Finally, he caught up with me plastered against the last door of the last car at the last stop: Van Courtland Park.
“What do you want from me?” I shouted, the sound echoing in the empty car.
“What the hell’re you running for?” Brown Suit gasped. His glasses were fogged up; I figured he was more winded than I was. He must have been about ten years older than me. Maybe if I had had another half-hour of train to run on, I might have gained on him. But I didn’t. The train was stopping: the end of the run. It would stand here for some ten minutes before it turned around and went back the way it came. The doors opened and, for the moment, stayed open.
“What do you want from me?” I asked again, lower, edging toward the door.
“You are out of control, Jackman,” he said, panting.
I turned to walk out. “I gotta get out here.”
“Wait,” he said, grabbing at my arm. “I have something I want to tell you. A message.”
“From who?” I asked, turning back.
“From Mr. Yielding.” He stood there, breathing heavily, two fluorescent bulbs reflecting darkly in his glasses. “Do not talk to the NYPD. Do not - repeat - talk to the NYPD.”
“What would I want to talk to the NYPD about?” I asked, grinning.
“You know full well. I’ve been tailing you for three weeks now. I know everything you’ve been up to, Jackman, even that escapade in Queens.”
I swallowed. “What escapade?”
“Don’t be a wise-ass. You know exactly what I mean. Mr. Yielding wants me to tell you we won’t tell on you if you don’t tell on us.”
“What the...?”
“It’s not in either of our best interests for this to get out. Not you. Not us.”
“This?” What was this guy talking about?
“You were seen talking to the police earlier today. Now, that’s very unwise. If I hear that you told them anything about your little friend, Mr. Yielding will be very displeased....,” he said.
“My little friend...?” I said.
“Don’t force me to kill you, Jackman,” Brown Suit said, walking out.
I waited, trembling, till his brown back disappeared up the stairs before I left the car myself. Then I tottered across the platform till I reached the stairs, tiptoed up and peeked out. The streetlamp lit up a big empty circle extending halfway across the street. No one was there, but who, I wondered, could be hiding in the shadows? For once I was hoping to see a cluster of guys huddled on a street corner - anyone - pimps and prostitutes, hoods with track marks on their arms, whoever, but there was N...O...B...O...D...Y.... I set off at a clip, running fifteen blocks in four minutes, sailing into the nursing home just before it closed its doors. I leaned up against the lobby wall for the longest time, peeping out at the night, willing my pulse to calm down, wondering why I was here, until I finally felt ready to make my way to Sherry’s room.
No one was in the hallways or at the nurses’ station, so I just walked on down the hall, unnoticed and unstopped, till I got to her room. It was dark, but I didn’t bother putting on the light. I opened the shade as high as it would go, and the moonlight lit up her bed. There she was, aglow in her nightgown, lying flat on her back, with her eyes to the ceiling. I padded quietly up to the bed to see if she was PVS again. She was.
I pulled a Somnolux tablet out of my pocket, dissolved it in a spoon in a little water from the pitcher on her bed table. I let down the side of her bed and wrestled Sherry into a sitting position, opening her mouth and forcing the contents down. Then I quietly pulled the chair up to her bedside and sat down to wait. Ten minutes later, I could hear the sheets rustling. A couple of minutes after that, she was sitting up in the moonlight, staring around her.
“Who?” she said to the darkness.
“It’s me,” I said.
“Henry?”
“Yes.”
“Why is it dark?”
“Because it’s night. I came to see you at night.”
She was quiet a minute. “Can I have a drink of water?” Sherry asked.
I poured a glass from the pitcher on the bed table and handed it to her, not letting go as she raised it to her lips.
“Were we fighting, Henry?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
“Why do I feel like we were arguing?”
“Why would I argue with you, darling? I love you.”
“I don’t know.” She took another sip, then handed back the glass. “Why are you here?”
“I was the one who closed up the store. It was late, but I wanted to see you.”
“That’s nice,” Sherry said. “I can’t remember being up at night for a long, long time. Did you give me another Somnohip?”
“Yes,” I said. “It was the only way.”
She giggled. “This is fun. It’s like a slumber party.” A Cheshire cat smile seemed to materialize out of the dark. “Remember - we had a picnic on your bed one night? With cold chicken and potato salad and cookies for dessert? You were so worried about crumbs in the sheets. You said the cockroaches would enjoy it more than us.”
“Yeah, I remember. We had fun that night.”
“And New Year’s Eve when we shut off the lights, and drank champagne and watched the party in the next building? Drunk people jumping up and down in funny hats.” She laughed. “And then we made love like maniacs all over your apartment. I miss being up at night.”
“I remember shutting off the lights. Not the rest,” I said.
“You don’t remember watching the party?”
“No.”
“Don’t remember making love in all the rooms?”
“No.”
“You were a crazy man!”
“Was I?”
“Really, Henry, you can’t remember?”
“No. Do you remember the detective coming to question you?”
She thought for a minute. “No, I can’t.”
“It’s the same thing.”
“Maybe.”
I helped Sherry out of bed and into the chair by the window. We sat and looked out at the trees in the moonlight. “You remembered anything else about the night you got hurt?” I asked.
I could just make out Sherry shaking her head. “Nothing,” she said. “The first thing I remember...is waking up here.” Her eyes twinkled in the night. “Looking at the back of your newspaper.”
I laughed, thinking back. “Anything else?”
She was silent for a long time. Then, I heard, “The time you half-choked me as we made love.”
“I didn’t,” I said, truly shocked that she would say such a thing.
“I can’t forget something like that. You said it would improve my orgasm.”
“No way do I believe...”
“And it did,” she said with wonder. “It really did.”
We talked into the night for hours until I saw a telltale yawn and helped Sherry into bed. Before I could pull up the side, she was still as a statue. I let myself out, opening the back door quietly, holding the tab down until the last minute when the door clicked closed. I looked back once and realized I had forgotten to lower the shade. I could still see Sherry, lying on her back in the moonlit bed, staring up with sightless eyes.
DONNA
The phone rang early on Thursday morning. Julian rolled over and scrunched the pillow around his ears. The phone was on my side of the bed, anyway. I picked it up: it was Ralph at the precinct telling me that Alicia’s boyfriend, Diego Jimenez, had been shot dead in his home with his own gun last night. Of course, Queens isn’t my jurisdiction, but I could have kicked myself for not trying to get surveillance on the house ever since I tracked Henry there. Could it have been Alicia who shot Diego, or was it Henry himself? If I’d done my job right, this wouldn’t have happened. I’d have tracked him there and gotten surveillance, maybe even someone there to catch him in the act.
I resolved then and there to keep a close eye on Henry. I clicked on the GPS icon on my home computer and tracked his location to the subway on his way up to the Bronx. I glanced over at Julian, who had let go of the pillow and was now snoring gently. I slipped on my slippers and quietly shuffled off to the closet to get dressed. I figured I could take the Lexington line most of the way, maybe change over at Yankee Stadium. Anyway, I’d figure it out.
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