Hard Feelings: A Novel

by Jason Starr

  Paula had let Otis out of the bedroom and now he came up to me and started sniffing the plastic bag.

  “Easy, boy,” I said, afraid he’d start to bark.

  I took the bag with me into the bathroom, where I washed my face, hands, and arms thoroughly. Then I changed into sweatpants and a T-shirt that I’d pulled out from the top of the laundry.

  I came out of the bathroom, put on a pair of sneakers, and leashed Otis. In the hallway, waiting for the elevator, Otis was still trying to sniff the bag.

  Passing Raymond, I said, “Great weather, huh?” and he said, “Yeah.”

  This was part of my plan too—engage Raymond in small talk, to distract him from noticing that I was holding the bag. I was still counting on the police not questioning me, but if they did I wanted to make sure that I had taken care of every loose end.

  Usually, I walked Otis down the block, to Second Avenue and back, but this time I crossed Second and walked farther east. Otis seemed to sense that something unusual was going on. Normally, he was playful and excited during his walks, sniffing every object we passed, running ahead of me, tugging on the leash. But tonight he walked calmly by my side, as if he knew that this was no time to joke around.

  After First Avenue, East Sixty-fourth Street became darker and more deserted. My idea was to dump the bag in a garbage can somewhere. Even though this was very risky—a homeless person could find it, open it, and perhaps dump the contents onto the street—it seemed less dangerous than getting rid of it in the trash compactor in my building, where the evidence could easily be linked to me. Then I spotted a Dumpster at the curb in front of a building. It was half-filled with wood and other debris, but no one would pay any attention to one harmless plastic bag. I flung the bag over the side, watching it drop safely out of view.

  I returned to my apartment and immediately went to work, cleaning out the rest of my briefcase. I took a big pot from the stove in the kitchen and, along with the bloody papers and folders from the briefcase and a book of matches, I went out to the terrace. I ripped the papers and folders into small pieces and ignited them in the pot. The blaze created a greater rush of gray smoke then I’d expected, but it was a breezy night and the cloud dispersed quickly. I waited for the ashes to cool down, then I took the pot into the bathroom and dumped the ashes into the toilet and flushed them.

  Back in the kitchen, I wiped down the inside and outside of the briefcase. I was starting to get excited, knowing that I was almost done. I ran through a mental checklist three or four times, making sure I hadn’t forgotten anything, then I went into the bathroom and took a shower. Looking up at the shower head, with the hot water spraying against my face, I finally felt free.

  Later, I relaxed on the couch in the living room and closed my eyes. It was a relief to see pure darkness, not to be terrorized by the past.

  I made a chirping noise with my tongue against the roof of my mouth, beckoning Otis, and then I said, “Here, puppy,” but he didn’t respond. He was probably still under the kitchen table, where he had been hiding since we’d come home from our walk.

  11

  “YOU HAVE TO give me another chance. I know I’ve been a big jerk lately, there’s no question about that, but I can change— I have changed. I promise—from now on, things’ll be different. I’ll go to marriage counseling, I’ll go to A.A.—I’ll do anything I have to do to keep you from leaving me. Please. I’m begging you.”

  It was morning and I was in the foyer, standing between Paula and the door. She was wearing jeans and a suit jacket, holding a small suitcase.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I gave you another chance and you blew it.”

  “Look,” I said, blocking her as she tried to sidestep past me. “I know I have a problem, but I’m going to deal with it now—I swear I will. I know you don’t have any reason to trust me, and if I were you I’d probably feel the same way, but give me a second chance and I promise I won’t fuck up again. You screwed up one time and I forgave you, didn’t I? The least you can do is do the same thing for me now.”

  Paula was staring at me without blinking. She was still upset, but my last words had definitely hit home.

  Finally, she said, “How can I trust you? I mean we’ve been through all this before.”

  “I was an asshole, what can I say? But I’m begging you—I won’t screw up again. Just give me one more chance. That’s all I ask. Please, honey. Please.”

  Paula looked at me wide-eyed for at least ten seconds, then she said, “Fine, I won’t move out today, but this is it—your last chance. Fuck up one more time, I’m out the door.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I love you so much. Thank you.”

  She went to the bedroom and returned without her suitcase.

  “I’ll see you later,” she said.

  I was in the living room, folding the sheet and blanket.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “To my office,” she said.

  “On Saturday?”

  “I need to prepare for a meeting next week.”

  “When will you be home?”

  “I have no idea.”

  When she was gone, I went right into my office in the spare bedroom, turned on my PC, and logged on to the Internet. First, I checked the Times on-line edition, but I couldn’t find any mention of a murder in New Jersey. Technically, it would be an out-of-town news story, but it seemed likely that the New York papers would run a story about the murder of a lawyer from a prominent Madison Avenue firm.

  I went to Netscape News and did a search for “murder,” “Princeton,” and “New Jersey.” Two results appeared:

  MAN STABBED AT PRINCETON TRAIN STATION

  NEW JERSEY STAB VICTIM FIGHTS FOR LIFE

  I caught my breath and opened the first news item. When I read how the stab victim, thirty-nine-year-old real estate attorney Michael Rudnick of Cranbury, New Jersey, was in critical-but-stable condition at St. Francis Medical Center in Trenton, my entire body went numb. It seemed impossible— there had to be some mistake. I had stabbed him so many times, and he had lost so much blood—there was no way he could have possibly survived. Yet, according to the article, that was exactly what had happened.

  I skimmed the rest of the story, but I was such a mess I didn’t understand what I was reading and I had to reread it. Finally, after several tries, the words started to make sense. Rudnick had been discovered late yesterday evening at around 10:15 P.M., about the same time I had arrived in Penn Station. Apparently, he was “near death” when paramedics arrived on the scene. Police offered no details about the case except that they were conducting “a thorough investigation.”

  The second article contained pretty much the same information as the first, except for a quote from a police spokesperson, stating that “detectives have several leads.” There was no mention in either story about whether Rudnick had been conscious or not at the time he was taken to the hospital. I hoped that “near death” meant he was unconscious, because if he was awake the first words out of his mouth would have been my name. For all I knew he had already told the police about me, which would explain why they suddenly had “several leads.”

  I knew I was going to get caught—it was only a matter of time. I imagined the police coming to take me away, and the embarrassment and humiliation I would feel, being led out of the building in handcuffs.

  I read the first article again, focusing on the mention of how Rudnick’s body had been discovered yesterday evening at ten-fifteen. I decided that since that was almost twelve hours ago it was unlikely that Rudnick had been conscious when he arrived at the hospital. If he had regained consciousness, the police probably would have tracked me down by now. This gave me some hope, but not much.

  As I scrolled through the second article again I suddenly realized what an idiot I was—using the Internet, with my own account, to search for information about the man I’d killed last night. Why didn’t I just leave my fingerprints or a piece of paper with my name and addre
ss on it on Rudnick’s body? Then I convinced myself that it probably didn’t matter, that the police wouldn’t go to the trouble of investigating my searches. First, they would have to somehow figure out that I’d used Netscape, and then they would have to request all kinds of information from my Internet service provider. Still, I wished I’d gone to a Net cafe, or hadn’t gone on-line at all.

  After I erased all the history files and temporary Internet files from my PC, I went into the living room and turned on the TV to New York 1, the twenty-four-hour-a-day cable news station. After about ten minutes, a report about the stabbing came on. A recent picture of Rudnick was shown as the anchorman rehashed the information that I had read on the Internet.

  Desperate for more news, I turned on the stereo to an all-news radio station. At the top of the hour, the anchorman announced the headlines, which included “New York lawyer stabbed in New Jersey.” I paced the living room, waiting for the full report. Finally, after several other stories, the anchorman gave some basic information about the stabbing and then a reporter came on the air, live from the Princeton Junction train station. The reporter, in a grim tone, said that Michael Rudnick had been discovered, bleeding profusely from multiple stab wounds, at about ten-fifteen last evening by Mark Stevens and Connie Cordoza, a young couple who were returning from Manhattan. Then the feed switched to Stevens’s recorded comments: “I saw something and I said to my girlfriend, ‘I think there’s a dead guy there,’ and she was like, ‘No way.’ So then I went up to it and I saw all the blood and we just, like, ran for help. We just ran.”

  I remained kneeling in front of the speakers, waiting for the next update, praying for Rudnick to die. Every half-hour or so the news stories about the stabbing in Princeton were repeated, and it was like a recurring nightmare, listening to the same reporter on the scene give the same details about the attack, and listening to the same account of the couple who had discovered Rudnick alive. I heard the report five times, meaning I had been in virtually the same position on the floor for over two hours.

  Finally, I got up to go to the bathroom. Standing over the bowl, I heard a buzzer sound. I was convinced it was the police coming to arrest me, but then I realized that the buzzer of another apartment had sounded and the noise had come through the vent above the toilet.

  When I returned to the living room, the reporter at Princeton Junction was saying, “ . . . at this time the police are releasing no other details, other than that their investigation is ongoing and that they are exploring several leads. Once again, Michael Rudnick, the lawyer who was stabbed yesterday evening in the parking lot of the Princeton Junction New Jersey Transit station, has regained consciousness and police plan to question him shortly.”

  I knew that my only chance now was to make a run for it. Maybe I could hide out somewhere, change my identity, contact Paula when it was safe.

  I started packing a suitcase in the bedroom—stuffing in some shirts, underwear, pants, socks, and whatever else my hands could grab—when I stopped, suddenly exhausted, realizing that running away was pointless. If the police knew who I was and had a description of me I’d never make it out of the city.

  I returned to the living room and collapsed on the couch. I remained that way for hours, barely moving. Finally, I fell asleep. When I opened my eyes, the apartment was dark. I heard dishes clanging in the kitchen—Paula was home. Poor Paula. When the news broke that her husband had tried to kill a man in cold blood, her life would be ruined. If she thought she was screwed up now and needed therapy, wait until tomorrow.

  I still didn’t have the energy to move. I figured it must be eight or nine o’clock, but I didn’t feel like lifting my arm to check my watch. I didn’t know what was taking the police so long. Maybe Rudnick was still with his doctors, and the police had to wait to question him.

  “Are you going to lie there on the couch all day?” Paula asked.

  I hadn’t even noticed her enter the room.

  I didn’t answer her.

  “Whatever,” she finally said. She walked away only to return a few seconds later. She said, “What’s going on here anyway? Are you drunk?”

  Again I didn’t say anything.

  “If you’re drunk again,” she said, “after everything you told me—”

  “I’m not drunk,” I said. My voice was deep and hoarse because I hadn’t spoken in hours.

  “Then what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Then why is there a suitcase on the bed?”

  I waited several seconds, then I said, “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know? There’s a suitcase on the bed with clothes in it. Were you planning to go somewhere?”

  I closed my eyes.

  “Fine, you don’t want to talk to me, don’t talk to me. I’m sick of this shit.”

  She started to walk away, then I said, “Maybe I’m just depressed.”

  “Then take some Prozac or see a shrink,” she said. “Stop acting like such a goddamn baby.”

  I remained on the couch, staring at the dark ceiling. Paula went into the bedroom and I heard the occasional faint canned laughter of the sitcom she was watching.

  I turned on the TV with the remote and watched the New York 1 news. It was nine o’clock. A female reporter, live on the scene outside the hospital in Trenton, said that the police had spoken with Rudnick and had received an account of what had happened last night at the Princeton Junction parking lot. I was expecting to hear my name, but the reporter said that a white teenaged boy with a ponytail and a goatee had attacked Rudnick in an attempted mugging, and that a statewide manhunt for the teenager was already under way.

  12

  I NEEDED TO get out of the apartment. I walked a few blocks to the East River, and then headed up the promenade alongside the FDR Drive. Besides a few joggers, drunks, homeless people, and an occasional couple taking an evening stroll, the promenade was empty. It was a cool night and a refreshing breeze was coming in off the river. After about twenty minutes of walking, I reached Gracie Mansion. I turned around and headed back, still replaying the events of the past twenty-four hours in a frantic blur.

  Last night, the parking lot had been poorly lit, but there was enough light for Rudnick to see my face and by the way he’d asked “What the hell are you doing here?” there was no doubt he’d recognized me. Maybe he had amnesia, although this wouldn’t explain why he’d told the police that a teenager had attacked him.

  When I exited the promenade, my feet were tired and the blister on my foot was starting to bother me again, but I was full of energy. After all the rest I had gotten and with so much on my mind, I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight.

  I stopped at the Greek diner at Sixty-fifth and Second and sat at a table in the back. I hadn’t eaten all day, but I wasn’t hungry. I sipped a cup of coffee and picked at a tuna melt, continuing to contemplate why Rudnick had lied. I must have stayed at the diner for a couple of hours and drunk two refills of coffee, and I could only come up with one likely explanation—he was afraid. He realized that if I was capable of attacking him in a parking lot, then I was capable of anything—including going public with the story of what had happened in his basement. He also knew that if he told the truth and I was arrested, his law career would be finished. It figured that an arrogant fuck like Michael Rudnick would put his job ahead of everything else.

  Thanks to the caffeine in my blood, I was even more awake when I left the diner. It was eleven-thirty when I arrived back at the apartment. The lights in the bedroom were off, so I assumed Paula was in bed asleep. I walked Otis, passing the Dumpster where I had thrown out the shopping bag. The Dumpster didn’t look like it had been emptied yet, but now I didn’t really care. Since there was no investigation going on— at least no investigation involving me—the police wouldn’t be searching for any evidence in my neighborhood.

  I returned to my apartment and immediately turned on the TV in the living room. On New York 1, ther
e was another report about the stabbing, with some new details. A reporter said that Michael Rudnick had been heading back to his car at approximately eight forty-five yesterday evening, when a white teenaged boy with a ponytail and a goatee approached him, demanding money. Rudnick claimed that he was trying to reason with the teenager when the guy suddenly “went berserk” and attacked him with a knife. Then the reporter gave an update on Rudnick’s physical condition. Besides suffering from blood loss, his left lung had collapsed and might have to be removed, and he had suffered severe injuries to his groin area.

  I was glad to hear that Rudnick was suffering. I hoped that “severe injuries to his groin area” meant that I had cut off his balls.

  I was sitting on the couch, enjoying my new lease on life, when I heard the front door opening. Convinced someone was breaking in, I was on my way to the kitchen, to get the butcher knife, when Paula appeared in the vestibule.

  “You scared the shit out of me,” I said. “I thought you were asleep.”

  “Sorry,” she said coldly.

  “Don’t do that again.”

  “I said I was sorry—Jesus.”

  “So where were you?”

  “Where were you?”

  “Out,” I said. “Walking . . . and thinking.”

  “That’s where I was—out walking and thinking.”

  “Look, I’m sorry, all right?” I said. “I’ve just been going through something—maybe it’s alcohol withdrawal. But I’m a new man now—you’ll see.”

  Paula looked at me like I was a stranger.

  Finally, she said, “I’ll see you in the morning,” and headed toward the bedroom.

  Although I had spent most of the night awake on the couch, I was up and alert by six-thirty. I tiptoed into the bedroom, careful not to wake Paula, and changed into shorts and a T-shirt and dug out my Nike running sneakers from the back of my closet.