by John Harvey
Cold shivered across Connie’s skin and wrapped itself tight.
‘What happened to her, you know that?’
‘She was hit by a car,’ Connie said. ‘A truck, whatever. Hit and run.’
Vargas smiled. ‘Who told you that, Connie? Delaney?’
Connie jumped at the sound of his name.
‘Is that what he told you, hit and run?’ Vargas reached towards her bag. ‘I’ve got more pictures here, Connie, you want to take a look?’
Connie angled her head away.
‘I was the first detective at the scene, you know that? It wasn’t pretty. Down among all the cement, all that junk. She was a mess, a real mess. He beat the shit out of her, then tossed her out of his car like the piece of crap he thought she was.’
‘No.’
‘No? Why don’t we go across the street, Connie? Get some coffee. Talk.’
Vargas watched as Connie lit her cigarette, inhaled. Eyes flickering this way and that. ‘All those women,’ she said. ‘I just don’t want you to be next.’
She reached for Connie’s hand and Connie snatched it away.
‘Connie,’ Vargas said, ‘if you wanted to leave him; if you were afraid and wanted to leave, I could help. Offer protection. Make sure you were safe, stop you from getting hurt.’
Connie looked back at her, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. Pale skin tight across her face, she looked like her own ghost.
‘Think about it, Connie. Before it’s too late.’ From her top pocket Vargas took a card on which her name and numbers were printed, nothing else. ‘Call me. Any time, day or night. And think about this – a little help from you and we could put Delaney away for a long time. Make sure he never hurts you or anyone else again.’ Rising, she gave Connie’s arm a gentle squeeze, then walked, without looking back, towards the door.
Connie sat perfectly still, watching her go. For several minutes she didn’t move, what Vargas had said replaying over and over inside her head. When, finally, she lifted her cup to her lips, some of the contents spilled down her front; as she tried to light a fresh cigarette her fingers fumbled so much that the waitress took pity and came to her aid. She willed her mind to stop racing, playing tricks.
She knew about the other women, of course, the ones Delaney had left her for, the younger ones, the smart ones, the ones he had to get out of his system before coming back. Affairs that had lasted their course. Lovers who had gone back to their husbands, left the country, moved to the other coast – women who were road kill, hit and run.
And there was Sloane and now this cop saying leave him, leave him, leave him … as if she had the guts, as if she had the will.
Too much that bound them together.
Too much fear.
39
Connie had all but finished changing when someone knocked, none too loud, on her door and her first thought was Sloane, but then when the visitor knocked again and called her name she knew it was Wayne. After a quick check around the tiny room, she told him to come ahead.
‘Hey.’
‘Hey, yourself.’
‘I thought we were pretty good tonight.’ Wayne, leaning against the open doorway, leather trousers, black shirt, smiling, looking cool.
Smiling a ragged smile, Connie shook her head. ‘You were good. I managed to keep up.’
‘Don’t,’ Wayne said.
‘What?’
‘Put yourself down. Plenty others do it for you, give ’em a chance. Know what I’m sayin’?’
‘I suppose.’
‘Damn it, girl.’
‘Okay, yeah. I know what you mean.’
It took only half a stride for Wayne to reach the centre of the room, close enough to take the lower part of Connie’s face in one hand and tilt it gently up towards his own. ‘After me,’ he said and then, pronouncing each syllable with exaggerated care, ‘I was good.’
‘I was good,’ Connie said quietly.
‘C’mon now, again,’ Wayne said, releasing her. ‘This time like you mean it.’
‘I was good,’ she almost shouted and laughed. ‘There, that better?’
Wayne grinned. ‘You gettin’ there.’
She could still feel the warmth of his fingers on her neck and cheek, their strength.
‘We’re going to go get somethin’ to eat,’ Wayne said. ‘Check out some music later. Figured you might like to tag along.’
Connie shook her head. ‘Wayne, this is later.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Sure you can.’
‘Wayne, Wayne. Just don’t pressure me, okay. Some other time, maybe.’
He shrugged and stepped back through the door.
‘Hey,’ Connie said.
‘Yeah?’
‘I’m glad you asked.’
Wayne nodded and was gone.
After a minute Connie turned back towards the mirror, lit a cigarette and looked at herself through the blue-grey skein of smoke. She thought about what Wayne had said and knew that he was right, they had been good tonight, the two of them. Bass and drums as well, sure, no question, but really it was Wayne, pushing her along, throwing in a few unexpected chords, making sure she was on her toes, on her game.
Maybe once this gig was finished they’d work together again.
Get better still.
She smiled at herself, quickly, in the glass. Maybe things were going to be okay, pretty much the way they were. No need to make a change. Slipping on her coat, she stubbed out her cigarette, picked up her purse, put out the light.
Crossing the lobby, she wondered what kind of mood Vincent would be in. Distracted? Morose? Something was winding him up real bad and for once, thank God, it wasn’t her. When the elevator came to a halt with a small judder and the door slid back, she stepped out into the corridor and began fumbling for her key.
It was silent inside the apartment, almost dark, just a small light shining from the galley kitchen and the muted glow of the city slanting through the blinds. No Vincent settled in front of the TV, watching some old movie, the way he’d usually be this time of the night.
Pushing the door closed behind her, she dropped her key back into her purse and stepped into the apartment. ‘Vincent, you here?’
Dropping her purse down on the settee, Connie slipped off her coat and carried it towards the bedroom. At first her eyes didn’t make out the shape on the bed and then they did. ‘Jesus, Vincent! You startled me!’ Her coat had fallen from her grasp.
Delaney was stretched out on top of the covers, pillows pushed up against the headboard supporting his head and shoulders.
Connie turned and reached for the light switch on the wall.
‘No,’ Delaney said. ‘Leave it.’
Connie did as she was told. She could see more clearly now, her eyes adjusting to the levels of light, Delaney wearing a pair of boxers and a T-shirt, nothing else.
‘Come on over here,’ he said.
She went and stood beside him and he ran his hand upwards along her leg. So that’s what it was, she thought, Vincent feeling horny and, reaching down, she dragged her nails lightly through the dark hairs of his forearm. Fingers of the one hand spread across her buttocks, he used the other to pull her down on to the bed, finding her mouth with his. Connie wriggled a little, adjusting her position, kissing him back as he half turned and his thigh pushed up between her legs. ‘Vincent,’ Connie said. ‘I should go to the bathroom.’
He grunted something that might have been no and kissed her all the harder.
‘Vincent …’
He rolled over on top of her, tugging at the fastenings of her clothes, tearing impatiently. She knew how hard he was, how hard he would be. She was still a little dry when he pushed inside her and she cried out, but not loud, and then he was driving into her, abrasive at first, not really hurting, not too much, then finally sliding, sliding, his chest and shoulders above her rising, one hand reaching underneath her and pulling her even closer towards him, C
onnie’s head going back, mouth open, her back arching, starting to scream his name as Delaney’s whole body suddenly shuddered and he came, shouting, inside her, Connie caught there on the very edge and pushing herself impossibly against him, already knowing it had gone, her moment, tears welling in her eyes as she wrapped herself around the sweated bulk of his body, spent inside her.
She slept and when she woke he was sitting on the side of the bed, showered, fully dressed, grey slacks and a pale green shirt, a small, square envelope in his hand.
‘Vincent …’
‘Shh. Stay there.’ A hand on her shoulder, keeping her down. There was sorrow in his eyes.
‘I love you, Connie. You know that.’
‘I know. You don’t have to …’
‘Why I keep comin’ back to you, no matter what.’
‘Vincent, I know.’
‘All this shit been goin’ down. I’ve been wanting to talk to you about it. ’Stead of it all hammerin’ round inside my head. Get, maybe, some sense of perspective, you know? Some bastard’s goin’ round, spreading stories that ain’t true, putting me in bad with Marchetti. Fuckin’ lies!’
Connie shifted a little on the bed. ‘He’s your friend, Vincent. He’ll believe you.’
Delaney went on as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘An’ all the while I’m wondering how it’s happenin’, who it is knows enough to make this crap sound kosher? And finally I figure it’s Howard, Howard Pearl, got to be. He’s envious, mercenary, far enough inside, just, to know some, guess the rest. Maybe he figures, I don’t know, with me out of the way, the spot is his. Poor shit! I had him down on his knees, sucking on the barrel of a little Smith and Wesson .38 while I spun the chamber like somethin’ outta the fuckin’ Deerhunter. Bastard pissed hisself an’ worse, stank like a toilet in there. And you know what, Connie, it wasn’t him. Cryin’ an’ screamin’ and wishin’ it was, just so’s he could tell me somethin’, make me pull that gun outta his mouth before I squeezed down on the trigger one more time. It wasn’t him.’
Connie shivered and wrapped her arms across her chest, cold.
‘Here,’ Delaney said and flicking open the envelope he shook out a small batch of Polaroids, four or five, and let them fall across the bed.
Connie and Catherine Vargas, photographed through the glass door leading to the jazz and blues section of HMV.
Connie and Vargas, emerging out on to the street.
Connie in the diner, her head turned towards Vargas as the detective speaks.
Vargas standing, her hand stretched out towards Connie, fingers brushing her sleeve.
In the bedroom the only sounds, breathing aside, are those of Connie’s choked crying as she covers her face with her arms the way she did when she was a little girl, pretending she wasn’t really there at all.
40
Sloane woke, floundering, out of sleep, and grappled with the telephone. The clock beside the hotel bed told him it was 4:24.
Sloane identified himself, then listened, face tightening.
‘Yes,’ he said. Then, ‘Yes, I understand.’
He let the phone fall from his hands.
A moment, then he was pulling on his clothes.
At the corner of 11th and Sixth Avenue he hailed a cab. ‘New York Presbyterian Hospital,’ Sloane said, slamming the door closed. ‘68th and York.’
The reception area of the ER was a maze of bodies: anxious relatives and friends, strident, nervous, angry, close to tears; uniformed nurses weaving in and out; doctors who, to Sloane, looked impossibly young. He heard three, possibly four languages other than his own. Anxious, he pushed his way through the crowd and grabbed the attention of a tall Asian at the desk.
‘Connie Graham,’ Sloane said. ‘She was brought in – I don’t know – forty-five minutes to an hour ago.’
The receptionist glanced round at the white board behind him, checked a sheaf of pages by his hand. ‘And you are?’ he said.
‘I’m her father.’ The words there without thought or hesitation.
‘This corridor,’ the receptionist said, pointing left. ‘Next to the last room on your right.’
Vargas was sitting in the corridor outside, head bowed, arms resting on her thighs. Like a boxer who’d just gone five rounds and didn’t want to get up for the sixth. As Sloane approached, however, that was what she did.
‘Connie,’ Sloane said. ‘How is she?’
‘Alive.’
As Sloane moved towards the curtain, Vargas intercepted him. ‘Wait. Let me get the doctor,’ she said.
Sloane glimpsed overhead lights, monitors, people crowded round a bed, a body swathed in white.
A few moments later Vargas re-emerged with a tall, willowy blonde, tennis shoes on her feet, wisps of hair straggling loose from where it had been pinned, blood speckled faintly down one side of her white coat. ‘Doctor Sullivan,’ she said, holding out her hand.
‘No jargon,’ Sloane said. ‘No lies.’
Sullivan breathed in and held it for a count of three. Her eyes were the palest blue, the shadows around them purple shading into indigo. ‘The right cheekbone is fractured and so is her jaw. The retina has become partly detached from the right eye.’
‘Christ!’ Sloane said softly, an exhalation of breath.
‘There’s other damage to the head – it’s too early to say how much is serious, how much is superficial. Bruising to the body. Lacerations. Internal bleeding. She’s lucky we got to her when we did.’
‘But she’ll be all right?’
‘We need a surgeon to work on her eye. Then we’ll look at the results of the X-rays, tests.’
‘She’s going to be okay?’ Sloane persisted.
‘We’ll do everything we can.’
‘Fucking answer me!’
Sullivan sighed. ‘I am answering you, Mister Sloane, as best I can. But it’s not an answer you really want: it’s a promise I’m not in a position to give.’
Sloane opened his mouth and let it close, thought unspoken.
‘If you want to see her before she’s moved, there’s just time.’
He stood beside the bed while staff busied around him, Connie’s face a welter of bruised flesh and bandages, one side protected by a wire cage from which a damson stain spread around the closed and swollen eye. Tubes and electrodes. Fluids feeding into her broken body, keeping her alive.
Sloane searched for words but again they refused to come.
Lightly, the doctor touched his arm. ‘It’s time.’
He stood aside as the bed was wheeled towards the elevator. He needed to talk to Vargas, but Vargas was nowhere to be seen. Back at the reception area he phoned Rachel. He needed to talk to someone.
When they were through, Sloane looked at his watch; it was still not six o’clock. He pushed back out through the doors of the ER, seeking air, and there was Vargas coming towards him, John Cherry by her side.
‘What happened?’ Sloane said. ‘I need to know.’
‘Absolutely,’ Vargas said. Cherry’s words had been haunting her since the first call had come through: You don’t think that might be pushing her too hard? And her own reply: It’s a risk you take.
They found a table in the cafeteria one floor down. The coffee was bitter and stewed, Cherry’s Danish stale.
‘It was Delaney?’ Sloane said. ‘You know that for a fact?’
Vargas nodded. ‘For once in this city, someone called 911 instead of simply turning up their TV. By the time the first squad car arrived he’d gone. But, yes, there doesn’t seem to be any doubt.’
‘The bastard,’ Sloane said. ‘I should’ve killed him when I had the chance.’
Cherry shook his head. ‘If you mean the other night, I don’t think that’s what you had.’
‘I should have tried.’
‘Don’t blame yourself,’ Vargas said.
After that, no one spoke for some little time.
‘There’s something I should have told you,’ Sloane eventually said.
The
y looked at him. ‘What?’
Sloane repeated Connie’s story of the Portland murder unembellished.
‘And this was when?’ Vargas asked.
‘Seven or eight years ago.’
‘And they drove round with the body in the car, looking for a place to pitch it out?’
‘That’s what Connie said.’
Another image rose clear in Vargas’s mind: Delaney driving round the city in the Lexus with Diane Stewart’s body in the trunk, finally pushing her out off the West Side Highway. ‘Why didn’t you tell us before?’ she asked.
‘Would it have made a difference if I had?’
‘Possibly.’
‘I wanted her to tell you herself.’
‘And you didn’t want to be responsible for maybe sending her to jail,’ Cherry offered.
‘That’s right.’
‘Depending on the way it fell,’ Vargas said, ‘her willingness to speak out in court, it’s unlikely that would happen.’
‘And now?’ Sloane asked.
‘After what’s happened,’ Vargas said, ‘Delaney can’t assume Connie won’t give evidence against him. Not any longer. Which means as long as he remains at large we have to assume Connie’s life’s in danger. So until he’s in custody, or we know for certain where he is, there’ll be a guard on Connie, either police or hospital security, twenty-four hours a day. Meantime we’ll check out all his known associates, places he might go. We’ll find him, don’t worry.’
They left Sloane at the table with his cold coffee and headed for the stairs.
‘You really believe that?’ Cherry asked, pushing through the door and holding it open behind him. Stairs and then a corridor.
‘That we’ll find him?’
‘Yes.’
‘We better.’
‘He had – what? – ten, fifteen minutes’ start. The Lexus has gone from the garage. By now he could be a few hundred miles along some interstate. Aboard a plane. Anywhere.’
‘His description’s gone out, details of the car …’
‘So he switches cars, dyes his hair …’
‘No,’ Vargas said, ‘I think he’s still here, in the city.’ A set of double doors and they were at the front of the building.