by Konstantin
I sighed. “Tell me what?”
“David is taking a leave of absence. Six months.”
“Whose decision was that?”
“I thought it would be a good idea, and Stephanie agreed.”
“And David?”
“He came around eventually,” Ned said, and I laughed again. “Speaking of which, I’m hoping you’ll come around too— literally, I mean. Your nephews miss you, and so do Janine and I.”
“Sure, Ned, once things settle down, we’ll see.”
“I want to do more than see, John. I want you to come over.”
I took a deep breath. “Sure,” I said, and hung up.
Chaz Monroe called me not long after. He, too, had been following the stories in the papers, and there were sly undertones in his raspy voice. “I didn’t think you were really a buyer,” he said. “But not to worry, I forgive the lies. And at least yours were in the line of duty or something.”
“I’m relieved.”
“Indeed.” He chuckled. “So, it turns out she was an actress. Well, that’s no surprise, and neither is the fact that she was a playwright. I’m just amazed she never had more conventional success— she was fucking remarkable.”
“She had other things on her mind, I guess.”
“Apparently. And so do I, of course. These stories have brought buyers out of the woodwork, and I guess it’s more than Don Orlando can handle— or wants to handle— because my phone’s been ringing off the hook. So, if you know of anyone looking to sell—”
“I thought you knew all the owners of Cassandra’s works, or knew of them.”
Monroe hesitated. “I was thinking more of undocumented work— anything you might have stumbled across…. Prices are only going up.”
I almost laughed. “I’ll keep an eye out,” I said. I hung up and snapped another DVD in two.
I was erasing the last of Holly’s backup disks when Orlando Krug called. He sounded old and tired, and his accent was more pronounced. “It was really her brother-in-law?” he asked.
“It was,” I said.
“The police are sure? It wasn’t Werner?”
“It was Herbert Deering, Mr. Krug.”
“But why? The papers hinted at some sort of affair…” I didn’t say anything, and Krug got the hint.
“I understand, you can’t speak of it. It’s just that I read the newspapers, and the person they describe…it’s not the Holly I knew.”
“They don’t know her. They have column inches to fill, so they write things.”
I heard Krug sip at something. “I’ve wondered lately just how well I knew her myself.”
“You’re the one who told me that she wasn’t easy to know. She was complicated— not just one thing.”
“She was very unhappy,” he said.
“And angry, and lost.”
“And cruel, Mr. March. Not to me— never— but what she did to those men…”
“She was talented, too— maybe brilliant. And driven.”
Krug’s laugh was bitter. “ ‘Obsessed’ is a better word, or perhaps ‘mad.’ She just couldn’t let go.”
“She told Jamie Coyle there was a story she wanted to tell, and questions she wanted to answer.”
“Do you think she found her answers?”
“I’m the wrong guy to ask about closure, Mr. Krug. But I think, sometimes, for some people, the questions come to loom less large. The answers don’t matter so much.”
He sipped his drink again. “I wonder if Holly would have reached that point,” he said.
“She was happy with Jamie, I think. Maybe she was getting there.” It was the only comfort I could offer. We rang off.
I didn’t know if it was the fallout of Krug’s sadness and fatigue, or my own string of sleepless nights, or simply the dull light in the low, beaten sky, but a tidal weariness swept over me and filled my limbs with lead. I listened to the whirr of the disk drive— Holly’s work being whisked away— and looked at the shiny plastic shards in my garbage pail. Holly, Wren, Cassandra— all that anger and sadness, all that cruelty and control, all the searching, and for what? I lay down on the sofa, and as my eyes fell shut, I thought of something else Jamie Coyle had said: “Everybody does their own time, and they do it their own way.”
As I had every day since Sunday, I dreamed of Deering’s body. He was lumpy and twisted on the bricks, like a gutted scarecrow, and there was a terrible intimacy to the sound he made as he hit the floor. His face was deserted; the fear and surprise and everything else packed up and gone. Nicole’s words were the only lyrics—“It’s taking too damn long”— but the voice in my head was Holly’s.
* * *
Clare’s voice woke me. She was in the kitchen, talking on her cell phone and putting takeout in the oven. She spoke softly, but firmly.
“I said I’d think about it, Amy, and that’s what I’m doing.”
I went into the bathroom and splashed water on my face, and when I came out she was off the phone. “Your sister?” I asked, and she nodded. “How was Brooklyn?”
She shrugged. “Far. I’m looking at some places in TriBeCa tomorrow.”
“No rush,” I said, and Clare nodded again.
Jamie Coyle called after dinner. I recognized the soft voice immediately, though his reason for calling took me by surprise.
“I wanted to say thanks,” he said.
“For what?”
“I been reading the papers, and reading between the lines, and it seems like that asshole would never have got his if not for you.”
“I got lucky,” I said. “The cops would’ve found him eventually— they just wasted time looking in the wrong place. I did too, for that matter.”
Coyle snorted. “You were the guy working at it, though. So, thanks.”
“And to you too, for the information. Without it—”
“Yeah, whatever,” Coyle grunted.
“What are you doing now?” I asked.
“Nobody’s looking for me for anything, so I’m back working for Kenny— but I’m not sure how long. A guy I know out in Vegas tells me there’s work there, and I can crash on his couch. I’m just waiting for the service…for Holly. She had a cousin down in Virginia that’s arranging it. I spoke to her yesterday.”
I glanced at the table, at the disk I’d made before I’d erased Holly’s backups: her hidden-camera interviews with Coyle. “I have something you might want— a keepsake.” He asked what it was and I told him. He was quiet for a while.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. “All I do is think about her. I get angry sometimes, and I get this pain…in my chest. It feels like someone carved me out with a spoon. I don’t know if I can listen to her voice.”
I thought of the hollow in my own chest, still there after five years, and of the gasping, suffocating feeling that still took me by surprise. I wasn’t going to tell him it would pass. “You might want it later,” I said.
“Send it, then,” Coyle said quietly. I mailed the disk that night.
* * *
On Friday, there were two more Mermaid stories in the tabloids, both featuring a come-hither headshot of Holly that someone had dug up from somewhere. One piece, relying on a leak from the coroner’s office, revealed that Holly had been beaten before she died, and that she had been pregnant. The other aired rumors that her sex tape costars had included some of the city’s more prominent real estate and financial types. No names were named, but it no doubt made a lot of people nervous.
I’d just finished reading the articles, and Clare had just left for TriBeCa, when my intercom sounded. Stephanie’s face appeared on the screen, with David fidgeting behind her. I buzzed them up.
Stephanie wore a sweater and yoga pants, and she carried a shear-ling coat on her arm. She was expertly made up, and her dark hair was tied loosely with a velvet ribbon. David was pale and freshly barbered, and he paced by the door with the naked, skittish look of a newly shorn sheep. A newly shorn sheep looking for a drink.
&n
bsp; “We’re on our way to the airport,” Stephanie said. Her voice was tight. “We’re going away for a while.”
“Ned told me.”
David scowled and stared at me. “Ned told you what?”
“Only that you were taking a leave. It sounded like a good idea.”
“Swell,” David said, and tugged on a patch of skin over his Adam’s apple.
Stephanie colored and shook her head. She extended a nervous hand and squeezed my arm. “We wanted to say goodbye, and we wanted to thank you.” I nodded at her, and we managed a clumsy exchange of smiles.
Stephanie looked at David. He frowned and jammed his hands in his pockets. His eyes were on the floor. “Yeah, thanks,” he said, and a muscle twitched on his jaw. Stephanie pursed her lips.
“Where are you headed?” I asked.
“Vail for a few weeks, and then the islands.”
“Sounds nice.”
David snorted. “We wouldn’t be going anywhere if—”
Stephanie’s hand shot out and wrapped around David’s wrist. Her fingers were white and her nails were sharp, and David jerked his hand away as if from a flame. He glared at her, but when he spoke his voice was low and tired. “I’ll be in the car,” he said, and walked out.
Stephanie shook her head and sighed. “He doesn’t mean anything. He’s still upset over all this— in some sort of shock.”
“He should talk to someone, Stephanie. He needs help.”
She colored again, and her face stiffened. She nodded, too fast. “And he’ll get it. Some time off, a change of scene, a little fresh air and exercise— this trip will really help him.”
I shook my head. “He needs more than a trip.”
“And he’ll get it, John, don’t worry. David will be fine.”
“And what about you?”
Stephanie frowned and looked at her hands. They were perfectly manicured, the nails like pink pearls. “Me? I’m a little on edge still, but some skiing and a seaweed wrap and I’ll be A-okay.” She looked up at me, and her eyes were huge and shining. She squeezed my arm again. “Don’t worry about us, John, we’ll be fine. Even keel again in no time.”
I started to say something and stopped, and Stephanie looked relieved. And then she was gone— a nervous laugh, a brittle smile, and quick steps out the door. I went to the windows and looked down and saw David, standing near a black Town Car. In a moment, Stephanie appeared. She came up beside him, and put a hand on his back. His head inclined toward hers and his arm circled her waist, and they stood together for a moment. Then they got into the car, and the car pulled away. I watched it round the corner and I heard Jamie Coyle’s voice again. “Everybody does their own time.”
Epilogue
In March, Clare found a place to live. It wasn’t in Manhattan, and it wasn’t in Brooklyn. It was a Craftsman bungalow on Rose Street, in North Berkeley. She sat cross-legged on the sofa when she told me, and she put her hand on my cheek.
“If I stayed in New York, I’d end up staying with you,” she said.
“And that would be a bad thing?”
She shook her head. “Not a bad thing, honey, but an easy one. It’s comfortable, and companionable, and we have a lot of fun— and, Christ, you give me all the space in the known universe. Hanging out with you is the simplest thing in the world. It’s like being back in college, the path of least resistance. But I’ve gone down that path already, and it’s not what I’m looking for anymore.”
“What are you looking for? And how do you know—”
“I want kids, John,” she said, and there was humming silence afterward. She let it hum for a while, and then she smiled. “I’m thirty-five years old, and I want to have a baby. And I want it to be with someone who wants to raise children, who’s ready for that.” I started to speak and she put a hand to my mouth. “That’s not you, John— not now.”
I held her hands and sat there until the room was dark around us, but I couldn’t tell her otherwise.
* * *
I saw Leo McCue again in April, two weeks after Clare moved, and two days after Gene Werner’s body was found under the Williamsburg Bridge. McCue was fatter than ever, and his mustache was badly overgrown. He pushed a paper coffee cup across the interrogation table to me.
“Hell of a coincidence, don’t you think?” he said. “Him under the bridge, not a hundred yards from where we found her. I remembered what a hard-on you had for this guy at the end, so naturally I wondered if you’d aced him.”
“Naturally. What happened to him?”
McCue drank some coffee and grimaced. “Somebody beat the crap out of him, and capped it off by snapping his neck. Let me see your hands.” I held them out and McCue inspected them. “Soft as a baby’s ass,” he said.
“And no cuts or bruises. Sorry to disappoint.”
McCue shrugged. “A shot in the dark,” he said. “And I’m guessing you can account for your time.”
I sighed. “Only if you tell me what time I’m supposed to account for.” He told me, and took it well when he heard I’d been in a roomful of bankers on the evening in question.
“Like I said, a shot in the dark. You come across anybody in your travels who’d want to punch his ticket?”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“But if you think of somebody, I’m your first call, right?”
“Sure,” I said, and I headed for the door. I was halfway out when McCue spoke again.
“How’s that brother of yours doing, by the way?” he asked. “His wife give him back his balls yet?”
“Fuck you,” I said, and left. His laughter followed me down the hall.
The next day I drove up to Tarrytown. The Van Winkle Court condominiums were still there, and so was Uncle Kenny, but Jamie Coyle was long gone.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Peter Spiegelman is a veteran of more than twenty years in the financial services and software industries, and has worked with leading financial institutions in major markets around the globe. Mr. Spiegelman is the author of Black Maps, which won the 2004 Shamus Award for Best First Novel, and Death’s Little Helpers. He lives in Connecticut.
ALSO BY PETER SPIEGELMAN
Death’s Little Helpers
Black Maps
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Copyright Е 2007 by Peter Spiegelman
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
www.aaknopf.com
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., for permission to reprint an excerpt from “Siblings” from The Night Parade by Edward Hirsch. Copyright Е 1989 by Edward Hirsch. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Spiegelman, Peter
Red cat / Peter Spiegelman.—1st ed.
p. cm
eISBN: 978-0-307-26733-7
1. March, John (Fictitious character)— Fiction. 2. Private investigators— New York (State)— New York— Fiction. 3. Brothers— Fiction. 4. Adultery— Fiction. 5. Extortion— Fiction. 6. New York (N.Y.)— Fiction. I. Title.
PS3619.P543R43 2007
813'.6— dc22 2006049529
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
v1.0
-webkit-filter: grayscale(100%); -moz-filter: grayscale(100%); -o-filter: grayscale(100%); -ms-filter: grayscale(100%); filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share