by James Siegel
“Yama-what? Whatever.”
“Were you a friend of Miles?”
“Friend? Nuh-uh. We crossed paths, like.”
“Professionally?”
“Huh?”
“Are you a lawyer too?”
Julius seemed to think that was funny. “Nuh-uh. I was on the other side, you might say.”
“What other side?”
“He was representin’ me.” Julius had a long scar that trailed down his right hand and onto his wrist.
“Oh. Miles was your lawyer.”
“Thas right. Juvenile court. Going back some now. I was one badass then, okay? I was into shit.”
“He helped you.”
“Sure. He helped keep my ass out of juvenile jail.”
“He got you off?”
“Kinda. Why you so curious?”
“I’m just making conversation.”
“That’s what you’re doing, huh?”
“I don’t really know anybody here.”
“Really? I’m real tight with them.” Julius smiled.
“Why’d you come?” Paul asked.
“Told you, Miles worked his juju, kept me out of juvenile prison.”
“So he did get you off.”
“You want the whole 411, huh? Hey, I was into shit. I shot somebody. He got me classified. Antisocial gangsta. They stuck me in the loony bin till I turned eighteen and walked.”
“That was okay?”
“Okay enough. Not bad. You zoned on lith and drew pictures. No one bothered you too much. I read a lot. Hung out in the library. I got my degree. When I walked, I had somewhere to go. Saved me from the fucking wolves.”
“How long were you there? In the hospital?”
“Long enough. Walked into the zoo at fifteen.”
“Zoo? You said it wasn’t that bad.”
“Nuh-uh. We called it the zoo ’cause it was across the street from the Bronx Zoo. You could hear the elephants at night, man. Sometimes the lions. In the spring they took us there on retard patrol. Got us llama food—half the kids ate it. That was fucking hysterical.”
One of the mourners, an old Jewish man with a thick gray beard, was staring at them disapprovingly.
“Back in the ’hood that’s known as disrespectin’,” Julius said.
Paul gently steered Julius to another part of the room, ostensibly in search of edible food.
“You kept in touch with Miles?” Paul asked after a suitable platter had been scoped, located, and raided.
“Kinda. Now and then. After I made good, I called—just so he’d know we all didn’t end up dead. He was cool.”
“Yes,” Paul said.
IT WAS TIME TO GO.
Julius had left a few minutes after talking to Paul, announcing his departure at the front door.
Julius is leaving the building, he said. No one seemed particularly unhappy about that.
Paul was wondering what he was going to tell the bird-watcher. A vague progress report hinting at promising leads and imminent results.
He said good-bye to Rachel and the boys. She seemed relieved to see him go.
On the way down the brownstone steps he bumped into someone going up.
He glanced up to say excuse me, then stopped himself.
“If you can tell me where the car is parked?”
Moshe was dressed in impressive funereal attire, black silk suit with charcoal tie and a knit wool yarmulke attached to his hair with a bobby pin. He wasn’t alone.
The man that Paul clobbered over the head was standing in Paul’s face. He had a freshly stained bandage wrapped around his forehead.
Paul could feel his physical menace like a disturbance in the air.
“The car, Paul? Where is it parked, please?”
“Queens,” Paul said.
Paul had abandoned the car in Long Island City before taking the train back into the city.
“Queens,” Moshe repeated. “Any particular part? Near Corona Ice King, maybe? Best ices in the city, you would not believe it. Which part of Queens are we speaking about here?”
“Long Island City. Twenty-fourth Street off Northern Boulevard.” Paul was keeping the man with the CCCP tattoo firmly in view. It was hard not to—he was still in his face.
“Good of you to tell me. Appreciate it.”
A moment of silence. Not that it was quiet. The air was humming with possibilities, most of them unpleasant.
“You seem nervous, my friend,” Moshe said. “Spider land on you again?”
Paul stood still as Moshe moved past him up the steps. Paul managed to stand his ground as the Incredible Hulk followed. When Moshe reached the door, he turned around.
“You should relax a little. I’m in cash business, my friend. No cash, no business. Understand?” He nodded at the door. “The man I was doing business with is deceased. A shame.” He smiled, turned, then looked back as if he’d forgotten something. “Maybe you should not relax too much. My comrade here is righteous pissed at you.” He laughed out loud and went into the house.
FORTY
Paul found himself walking around in a constant cold sweat.
He could hear his wristwatch ticking.
He dreamed Joanna was dead. He was at her wake, talking to Miles.
One morning he thought he heard her voice behind him on the street. When he turned around, it was a young mother pushing a carriage and talking on her cell phone.
Interrogations were called debriefings now. They felt the same. Paul’s progress report was derided for what it was—the essay portion in a test he hadn’t studied for.
“In other words, Paul, you got ugatz,” the bird-watcher said. “It’s back to rat school for you.”
“I need a little time,” Paul said.
There was a problem with needing a little time. There wasn’t any.
He needed to come up with something if the bird-watcher was going to save his wife. If she was still savable.
Now that he was an unofficial DEA rat, he was allowed to sleep in his own bed. Not sleep. Toss, turn, stare wide-eyed at the ceiling.
Two seconds after he’d entered his apartment, someone was knocking on his door.
Lisa again.
This time he couldn’t pretend no one was home.
When he opened the door, she practically fell into his arms.
“Where is she?”
Paul was momentarily confused as to which she Lisa was referring to. Neither one, of course, was currently available.
“Where’s the baby?” Lisa said, scanning the four corners of the room like an eagle-eyed real estate agent, which, in fact, she was.
“There was a problem,” Paul said, ready to trot out the story he and Miles had concocted for general use.
“Problem? What problem? Where’s Joanna?”
“Bogotá.”
Lisa pushed her blond hair back with one hand. She was one of those East Side women who’d crossed the park—born to money that had inexplicably dried up, but still looking very trust-fund.
“Joelle’s visa wasn’t in order.”
“In order? What does that mean?”
“It means it wasn’t functional. We couldn’t get her out of the country.”
“Oh, Paul. That’s terrible. So what’s going on? What are you doing about it?”
“I’m working it out from this end.” Now that Paul was actually trying out the story, he thought it held up pretty well. He himself was a different matter. He wasn’t holding up pretty well. Fatigue seemed to have settled into his bones.
Lisa must’ve sensed this, because she went to embrace him again, bestowing a comforting hug and lingering there long enough for Paul to lean against her.
She smelled like home.
LATER, WHEN JOHN RETURNED FROM WORK, LISA CALLED A babysitter and they both came in, toting a bottle of cabernet.
It was wonderful to see John.
It was terrible to see John.
He was Paul’s best friend, the guy with whom he’
d spent more time than he cared to remember, sitting in various West Side bars, relating the ups and downs of baby-making. The guy who’d bucked him up and, on more than one occasion, dried him out.
So while it was enormously comforting to see John’s face, it was discomforting having to lie to it.
Paul was forced to create details on the spot, to make all of it seem convincing, coherent, and perfectly logical. The trick was to mix in enough truthful stuff—everything he remembered about his daughter—to give it the ring of authenticity. Downing two glasses of wine proved only mildly helpful.
It didn’t do anything to alleviate his guilt. Or his fear.
Chatting about Joanna as if she were simply waiting for him back in a Bogotá hotel room felt horrifyingly callous. Joanna might be waiting in a room, but it lacked maid service and you couldn’t pick up a phone and order a burger and fries at 2 a.m. She might not be waiting for him at all.
There were hidden pitfalls in the thicket of lies.
“Give me her number, for Christ’s sake,” Lisa said. “I haven’t spoken to her for ages. Why hasn’t she called me?”
“You know what long distance costs from Colombia?” Paul said. A ten-minute call to New York from L’Esplanade had cost him $62.48.
“Okay, I’ll call her,” Lisa said. “Got the number?”
“I have to look it up,” Paul said.
The room went silent as Lisa and John waited for him to do just that.
And waited.
“Frankly, I’m exhausted,“ Paul said. “I need to turn in. Promise I’ll find it for you later.”
Lisa and John reluctantly stood up. They hugged him, told him that if there was anything they could do for him, he shouldn’t hesitate to ask.
HE COULDN’T SLEEP.
He called Rachel Goldstein.
He was still hoping she might lead him out of the rabbit hole.
“Yes?” Rachel said after he’d identified himself.
“I wanted to check and make sure you’re okay.”
“Why?”
“Why?”
“I hardly know you. I appreciate your concern, but I’m kind of baffled at it. You’re not a relative. You’re not a friend.”
“I felt like a friend,” he said. It’s true. For a while Miles had felt like his only friend on earth.
Rachel didn’t bother disputing him.
“How are you holding up?” Paul asked.
“I’m holding on. Eighteen years of marriage and I’m finding out there was a husband I didn’t know. How would you feel?”
One of her sons must’ve come into the room. It’s all right, Paul heard Rachel murmur. I’m fine. Then the sound of a door gently closing.
“Who was he? That’s what I keep asking myself,” Rachel said, her voice sounding unbearably weary. “How do I even remember him?”
“The way you want to, I guess. What’s wrong with that?”
“The way I want to,” Rachel repeated, then said it again. Either because she thought it made sense or because she was ridiculing its stupid sentimentality. “Okay. I’ll give it a try.”
Silence.
“I met one,” she said.
“One what?”
“One child. You asked me today if I had met any of the adopted babies, remember?”
“Yes.”
“I did. Once. Not a baby, though.”
“No?”
“A little girl.”
A little girl.
“I think I’ll remember Miles like that. Why not? Walking through the front door with a little Colombian girl in his arms.”
Okay, Paul thought, slowly.
“Do you remember her name?”
“Her name? It was over ten years ago.”
“You sure? If you thought about it a little.”
“Why do you care what her name was?”
Good question.
“Before we adopted, we talked to a couple who used your husband. They adopted a daughter. She looked, I don’t know, around thirteen. I was wondering if it might’ve been her.”
Rachel went silent again.
Think, Paul urged her, think.
“Something with an R maybe? Sorry, I don’t remember.”
R, Paul thought, like her father.
“What about her parents? You remember them? Why weren’t they there?”
“I have no idea. Maybe they couldn’t pick her up till the next day.”
“That’s odd. You’re required to go to Colombia and bring your baby back with you. That’s the way it works.”
“Maybe they ran into problems. The girl, as I recall, had some problems of her own.”
“What kind of problems?”
“Emotional stuff. Something was just a little bit wrong with her.”
“What?”
“I’m not sure. She cried and screamed a lot.”
“She was probably scared. Don’t you think that’s normal?”
“I have two children who’ve been scared occasionally. Even terrified. They’re terrified now. Finding out your father killed himself will do that to you. This was different. The girl was afraid of the dark, afraid of the light—afraid of everything. Something was, I don’t know, off. I remember Miles going into her room in the middle of the night trying to calm her down.”
“Did he?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. In the morning he took her to meet her parents. That was that. She had beautiful eyes—I can still remember them.”
“Well,” Paul said, suddenly anxious, even desperate, to get off the phone. Something had been buzzing around his brain, something someone said. “You should get some sleep. If there’s anything I can do.”
She didn’t bother saying good-bye.
FORTY-ONE
He couldn’t hear the elephants.
Or the lions.
Certainly not the llamas.
He could hear the industrial-strength air-conditioning. The clink of metal trays being loaded onto a wheeled lunch cart. The intercom system marred by sudden bursts of static. The insistent banging against the meds window—a bathrobe-clad teenager demanding his caps now.
He could hear the voice in his head too—the many voices banging around in there.
For instance, there was Julius’ voice, the kid from Miles’ days in legal aid.
Walked into the zoo at fifteen. We called it the zoo ’cause it was across the street from the Bronx Zoo.
And there was Galina’s voice. Hello, Galina.
She’s seen things no child should ever have to see. No one should have to see. She has nightmares.
And while we’re at it, add Rachel’s voice to the mix.
The girl was afraid of the dark, afraid of the light—afraid of everything. Something was, I don’t know, off.
And then, finally, the last voice, the one shouting to be heard over all the others. The one in the letter that Paul had first attributed to Miles’ son, but now knew better.
Dear Dad, Daddy, Pop, Father: Remember when you took me to the zoo and you left me there?
And suddenly, he was listening to his own voice.
“Yes, from the insurance company,” Paul was saying to the matronly woman behind the admissions desk. The woman who admitted you to Mount Ararat Psychiatric Hospital, the redbrick, barred-window, linoleum-floored institution that stood directly across the street from the Bronx Zoo. Two zoos, side by side, human and otherwise.
The woman was staring at Paul’s business card as if it were a lotto ticket that had miserably failed her. Paul wondered if Julius had looked into the same face at fifteen.
If she had?
“What’s her name?” the woman said.
“Name?”
“The name of your client’s daughter?”
Paul hesitated just a second.
“Ruth,” Paul said. “Ruth Goldstein.”
Okay, it was a shot in the dark. Or maybe it was more like twilight, just light enough to make out the title of that book crammed full of letters.
Something with an R, Rachel had said.
“Uh-huh,” the woman said, staring into a computer screen that seemed to be having trouble waking up. She slammed the mouse with a beefy hand.
“Damn system,” she said to no one in particular.
It might’ve been an indictment directed at everything, not just the computers. The system, for instance, that made a mental institution smelling faintly of urine a safer alternative to juvenile prison. That warehoused children in trouble, kept them ignorant and medicated, until they could be loosed on the world at eighteen.
Damn system. Yes.
The computer finally responded, either to the vicious assault on the poor mouse or to the woman’s tongue-lashing. It sprang to life with an ear-grating hum. A few, this time gentler taps on the mouse elicited the asked-for information.
“Uh-huh, okay,” the woman said. “Ruth Goldstein. What about her?”
For a moment Paul didn’t answer. A part of him had expected to be told there was no such person here by that name. That he’d been misinformed. That the door was that way.
“I told you,” Paul said, equilibrium regained. “My client recently passed away. It was sudden and unexpected. There’s a certain amount of paperwork that needs to be processed. A reevaluation of who’s paying what. Obviously, we need to ensure that Ruth continues to receive the same good care.”
Paul doubted the word good was warranted. But he wasn’t here to offend anyone. He was here on a rescue mission—though oddly enough, the about-to-be-rescued weren’t in Mount Ararat Psychiatric Hospital, but three thousand miles away. He could only cross his fingers and pray they were still breathing.
“So you want the Financial Department. Why didn’t you say so?” the woman asked.
“I’d like to see the girl first.”
“The girl? Well, I’d have to ask a doctor about that. You haven’t been properly vetted, have you?”
Paul thought vetted was an appropriate term, given that he was standing in the zoo.
“Well, could you ask, then?” Paul said. “I assume her father was pretty much the only one who visited her, but he’s gone. Someone’s got to tell the poor girl what’s happened.”
When the woman didn’t immediately answer, he said, “He did, right?”