I drank the Scotch and asked him for another, and then I told him everything I knew, except for a few details about Tolya Sverdloff. I said I was thinking that maybe Jack Santiago could work as a suspect for Sid’s murder. I floated it at Sonny. I floated it like a little Chinese trick paper flower and the more I sent it out, the more it made waves and blossomed; I waited to see if it would open up real nice.
They had been close, Sid and Jack, I said. Somehow Jack betrayed him. Maybe Jack knew something about Sid’s half brother, Earl. There were files, too, I said. Sid kept notes.
Sonny looked at me pityingly. “Art, man, everyone knew. Sid passed files around like boxes of fucking chocolate cherries. He was nuts, what can I say? He showed up on TV shows, he was like this liberal pundit they hauled in when they wanted one. Then his paper canned him and he went nuts. His stories never amounted to much,” Sonny said, “I been talking to a lot of people since you dropped by on me at home, man, and it woke me up. You got to give me more on Santiago than that Sid McKay didn’t think he was doing his job. I get called by people all the time, editors, whoever, see if there’s criminal activity on any of those cases of reporters faking stuff. You want to eat at Rao’s with me tomorrow night? I have my table. Or Peter Luger’s if you want?”
Listening to him talk about Sid and the news business, I replied by saying how much I really liked Jack for Sid’s killer. I drank with Sonny for an hour, and I sat opposite him at his desk and made a case.
I told Sonny things I wasn’t sure about. I threw stuff out at him like the fact that Jack lived in Red Hook, stuff that didn’t mean anything by itself. Told him about the way Jack had come to the wedding, the way he made a play for Valentina Sverdloff. I built a scenario. I made connections, I introduced characters, I erected a plot and pieced it together and embroidered it and gave it conviction.
Cops did it all the time. Sometimes it meant they figured out, looking at the neat arrangement of the parts, who the killer really was; sometimes they got it wrong; they did it because they needed a collar, or were sick to death of a case and yearned for a conclusion. Sometimes, by the end of the story, they convinced themselves. I was convinced.
“What’s the matter, man, you cold or something? You want Rhonda to turn down the air?” Sonny was glazed from the booze.
There was gooseflesh on my arms. I kept talking. Sonny drank some more. Inside I felt something shift. My arm still hurt from the cut.
Jack Santiago was on his way to Beslan in Russia to write about the kids who were killed by a bunch of terrorists, I told Sonny, I said, how come Jack got assigned over there so fast? Wasn’t it convenient? Stop him from leaving the country, Sonny, I said, and he said, stop him how? Just get in his way, I said; call someone in Immigration, or Homeland Security.
Stop him, I said. I leaned over the desk and cranked it up, how Jack killed Sid. Stop him, I said.
Sonny got more and more remote, but, as I made my story good and tight, I could see him buy it. He was a reader, he understood narrative in his gut. By the time I left, I knew I had made him believe in the Santiago scenario, that Jack killed Sid McKay, because that was what I wanted to believe.
23
When Sid McKay’s obituary finally appeared Sunday in the Times, it had been scrubbed clean. I picked up the early edition after I left Sonny’s office around midnight Saturday, and I read it on the street outside the newsstand.
The obituary did not give the precise cause of death. It suggested a medical condition, and an accident. The rest of it described his education, his family, his professional achievements, his awards. He was survived by his son Alexander Justice McKay, and two grandchildren, it said. Alex McKay had never mentioned his own children. The obituary referred to other family members. There was no real news in it, only the list of accomplishments and a picture taken maybe ten years earlier, Sid smiling slightly, in a suit and tie.
I knew the McKay family had moved in fast and taken control before any real news stories emerged. Lucky for them that Sid died during a week when barely any news south of Madison Square got reported.
*
“Artie? Let me in. It’s me, Rick.”
It was Sunday early, and I realized I had fallen asleep, the phone in my hand after I came home with the newspaper and tried to get through to Maxine. When I heard the banging on my door, I made out that it was Rick’s voice and I ran and opened it and found him, dressed only in some cut-off jeans, his face pale with tension. In one hand was a copy of the Times.
“Come on in. I didn’t know you were back.”
He stumbled into my place. I hadn’t seen him since my wedding almost a week earlier. I knew he’d been away, probably Singapore, where he did business. He was white and under his eyes were hollows big and stained like teabags.
“I’ll get some coffee,” I said. “What is it, Rick?”
“It’s Sid.” He held up the newspaper, then went into the kitchen, picked up the espresso pot and shook it to see if it was full, then poured himself a cup, stood by the stove and drank it in two gulps.
“I’m really sorry,” I said. “I’ve been working this case unofficially as best I can.”
“You’ve been working it and you didn’t tell me?”
“You weren’t here. I didn’t know you and Sid were that close.”
“We were close.”
“You want to talk?”
He looked at the folders I had laid out across the kitchen counter and on the floor. I gathered them up and took them to my desk.
“What’s all that?”
“Just work stuff.”
“I didn’t help him, Artie. Sid called me, and I didn’t help him,” he said.
“Go on.” I poured myself what was left of the coffee, and put on some more.
“Nothing, he called me and said he was worried, and I didn’t go. I couldn’t get in it again. I knew him a long time ago.”
“You and him?”
Rick nodded.
“Yeah, but he didn’t want anyone to know. He wasn’t really out back then. He said he was too old for me. I took him to see my parents once, my father looked at him like he was a baby killer, it was bad enough he had a fag for a kid, but bringing an old man over, and an old black man. And his family. My God, you never saw anything like it, it was like they were living out some fantasy life, I met an aunt once, I think she imagined I was Sid’s houseboy, you know, did the cooking. It was bizarre, you know, like an alternate universe?” Rick stared into the coffee cup. “After that Sid retreated. We split up. Around 9/11, we met up, you know how everyone was getting together, and we had a fling, but it was a 9/11 thing, you know. We stayed in touch, I don’t know, we’d talk once a month and have dinner.”
“I’m really sorry.”
“Just make sure you find the bastard who did it, make sure for me,” Rick said. “I have to go.”
I said, “Call me if you want.”
“Sure,” he said, and again I thought how sad I was that we had drifted apart.
He went to the door, opened it, then turned around.
Ricky said, “I really loved him a lot, you know.”
I moved fast now. I needed a real fix on Jack. I needed it soon. He could disappear into Russia for months if he wanted. Had he left the night before, after he and Val took off in the cab? When did the last flight go?
I started calling the airlines. I hit a dead end with Lot, the Polish airlines, and then it occurred to me that Jack could have hitched a lift with a friend who had a plane. He was that kind of guy. I called around facilities for private planes. The only person I knew who flew private was Tolya. I once asked him about it, and he had looked at me pityingly and said, “You don’t think I fly commercial, do you?” But Tolya wasn’t giving any rides to Jack.
I threw a few things in a bag, and packed up all the files. I didn’t want anyone seeing them, not Tolya or Rick or anyone else coming into my place, especially not some Fed who knew Al Qaeda had my license on a satellite intercept.
<
br /> Sonny said that Sid’s files were bullshit, but what else did I have left? I wanted one last shot at them. Maybe I’d been lazy or stupid. Anyhow, to move on Jack, I needed a reason and I knew I had to get through the files, one piece of paper at a time, get it figured out. I took the bag and got my car to drive out to Maxine’s place in Brooklyn where no one would think of looking for me. Also, I missed her. On the way, I stopped in Red Hook.
*
Jack’s apartment was in a white building that had once been a cement factory. It looked like a crumbling pile of stale white bread. It was a few blocks away from Sid’s, an easy drive, an easy walk. Jack was on his way to Russia by now. I still didn’t know what route he took. I was sure he was gone, but I took a chance.
I buzzed his apartment. No one answered. I hung around the building downstairs until a good-looking woman showed up, carrying a carton of coffee. She wore sweat pants and a red halter top, she was around fifty, I figured. Great figure. There was something that looked like glue in her dark long hair.
“Yeah, yeah, sure I know Jack,” she said and leaned against the front door and said she’d talked to him the night before.
“Did he have a girl with him?”
“No,” she said. “No girl.”
He left with a suitcase the night before, she said. Late. She couldn’t remember what time. He rang her bell, like he always did when he was leaving town because he knew she was up all hours, and anyhow he didn’t care who he woke up. He told her he was going to Russia. He asked her to take up his mail. He told her he was going to do the real story about Beslan, about the school and the dead kids over there, on and on, she said, the way Jack always did, blah blah blah, making sure you knew what a big deal he was.
“Like always?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Like always.”
“You’re sure?”
“Jack doesn’t do not sure,” she said. “He was fucking always sure. He was sure about everything,” she added. “Sexy, though. Great fuck, you know? Fucked everything that moved, but he was nice about it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, what’s the saying? He’d even fuck a Venetian blind, someone wrote that. That was how Jack was. I’d know.”
“You see a lot of him.”
“Whatever,” she said. “He comes and goes.”
I thanked her, and started for my car. I turned back and said, “You go out for coffee early a lot?”
“Yeah, all the time. You get crazy working by yourself, you know what I mean?”
“Where do you go around here?”
“There’s a couple stores open early, convenience store over on Van Brunt makes the best brew. Everyone gets coffee there,” she said.
“Jack, too?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“Last week, you saw him there last week?”
“Last week when? It was a long week,” she said. “A lot of days. I saw him Tuesday for sure. I know I saw him then because I was out all night Monday, and I stopped for cigarettes on my way home real early. He was with another guy. Black guy. Elegant.”
“You knew the other guy.”
“I saw him around a few times, I saw him having dinner at 360, like that. He was some kind of writer. Sixty, sixty-five, I’m guessing. Why?”
I thought: the morning Sid went out and left his door unlocked he was with Jack. He met Jack and never came back.
I said, “You like it here, you like living here?”
“It’s OK,” she said. “Some homeless bastard got shoved off the pier last week, I could have done without that, but I mean we’re just a couple of condos away from turning into SoHo, you got a lot of nice little businesses, artists, and now we got two good restaurants, and they’re fixing the waterfront over by Beard Warehouses, parks and stuff for kids, and hey, we’ll have a marina any minute and architects and design stores, and then Bloomingdales will come to Brooklyn, and what the fuck, we’ll be made. Right?” She grinned. “I actually love it here,” she added. “It’s still pretty wild.”
She asked if I wanted a cup of coffee, and I said I was in a hurry, so we talked a little more, standing in her doorway, and to be polite I asked what her business was because I could see a large loft space behind her. Kites, she said. I make silk kites. She reached up to her dark long hair and pulled at the glue that was stuck in it.
“Three, four, five hundred bucks a pop,” she said, giggling. “I once got a grand. For a kite,” she added.
I said what were you before? Before what, she said. I said before you made the kites.
“Married,” she said.
“What?”
“I was married. I lived in Westchester, in the suburbs. Now I make kites in Red Hook.”
Part Three
24
SUITCASE NUKE WASHES UP OFF RED HOOK read the headline. Suitcase nukes. Dirty bombs. Jack Santiago’s big subject. Did you read my series? he had asked in the bar the night before.
Jack was gone. I didn’t know how he traveled, the night before, this morning, but he was in Moscow and maybe already traveling south in Russia and the only way I could convince anyone to get him back was if I found out how he killed Sid, and why. Why, they’d say. What for? What made him kill Sid?
I was at Maxine’s place in Brooklyn, out by Bay Ridge, reading through Sid’s files, looking for evidence that Jack killed him. One at a time, I laid the folders out across the kitchen table and on some chairs. I picked over each piece of paper. Some pieces were stuck together from damp or age; I separated them and left them out to dry.
By the time I’d been at it for an hour, the kitchen table, dining-room table and living room floor were covered with paper. My instinct was to keep moving, head for the airport, find out which plane Jack took, get someone to call someone, drive around. I had looked at the files before, but I knew I hadn’t been careful enough. I had to know. So I kept going, stomach churning.
Hurry, I thought. Hurry up. Maybe he was still in Moscow. Sonny promised he’d get the word out. In Moscow, you could get your hands on him. Stop him at the airport. If he went south, it would be much harder.
Someone knocked on the door, and I reached for my gun. It was only Maxine’s neighbor who thought we were all away. I said I was working, leaving later, I said, and smiled, grinning, pretending I was picking up stuff for the beach, I said. The woman probably thought I was crazy.
The living room of Maxine’s apartment was small and neat, with two windows that looked out over the river. I’d spent hundreds of nights here, sitting on the couch that was covered with a red bedspread, eating pizza, kidding around. She had given me the keys and said, “This is ours, OK? Our place. Both of us.”
I felt like an interloper now. I had screwed up. Maxine didn’t want me out at the beach. I didn’t know if she even wanted me at all, and all I could do was focus on the piles of paper that Sid had left.
I picked out the file labeled “Suitcase Nukes”, the words written by hand on a green tab.
The piece with the headline was from a Russian rag I recognized, one of the papers that picked up stuff from the New York Post, some of the British tabs, and Russian news services. It was printed in Brooklyn. People pored over it for gossip, news, and astrological forecasts. I’d seen it on the stands out in Brighton Beach.
I looked at the date. It was a couple of months old. I turned it over, saw it was attached by a paper clip to a more recent piece printed off the Internet with Jack’s byline. He had his own website.
In the girls’ bedroom, I switched on their computer. I was lousy at this stuff, but I could at least get as far as Jack’s web page where I read up some more. Same stuff as on paper. A suitcase nuke at one of the derelict docks in Red Hook. Nobody hurt. I knew it had happened more than once in the city. Mostly city officials kept this stuff quiet, if they could.
I kept reading, smoking, scanning the stuff about radiologicals, most of it gossip from Internet sites that recycled what passed for news, and some blogs that didn’t tell me any
thing I didn’t know. Denials, assertions, fear mongering, the kind of stuff TV sometimes picked up to fill the space between news cycles.
I switched off the computer, went back into the living room and put on People Time, the somber album Stan Getz made when he was only months from dying and could barely play. But he did play, exquisite music. It was one of the albums I’d given Maxine that she didn’t really like but that she listened to attentively, trying to get it. If she worked hard enough, listened carefully enough, she felt she would understand. I could see her, on the couch, her legs under her, nibbling a piece of pizza, like a schoolkid, listening as if for an exam, trying to work out what it meant. I had wanted to say, just let it happen. But that wasn’t the point. It was enough that she tried.
Restless, I read more newspaper pieces, more about nuclear smuggling, some pseudo-science, government reports, statistics, conjecture and endless articles by Jack. He was bluffing half the time.
I wandered into Maxine’s bedroom, opening drawers I shouldn’t have opened. In the top drawer of her bureau was a tape for learning Russian and a notebook covered with her attempts at making Cyrillic letters. I felt like getting the hell out, getting to her. She was trying to learn Russian; she never told me. Her big loopy handwriting, the effort to make the Russian letters, touched me more than anything she had ever done.
What else didn’t I know? We had been living together for a year and a half, more or less, and I had known her for much longer. I found a photograph of her father, an unsmiling man in a fireman’s uniform, then put it away. There were no pictures of her mother.
I went back to the files and looked at a diagram for a suitcase nuke. Crap, most of it.
I knew what people thought, though. Max and me, we’d discussed it because they talked about it at her job. We had laughed about the suitcase nukes. People imagined a miniature silver nuclear missile like a toy with a little warhead at the top, secreted in an old-fashioned brown leather suitcase that had latches and locks and leather handles, a suitcase out of a Hitchcock movie with brightly-colored stickers that read: Ritz Hotel, Paris, or the Orient Express, Istanbul, or National Hotel, Moscow. They imagined that you opened the suitcase, and presto, the little missile popped out of the suitcase and a miniature fire ball rose over 34th Street or Times Square or Wall Street; a baby mushroom cloud fell over Manhattan like something in a Terminator movie, and there was a terrible wind that swept everything with it. I knew it was what people thought; it’s pretty much what I thought until I did a couple of cases.
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