CHAPTER 10
11:15 P.M.
Conte sits in the kitchen, pressing ice cubes wrapped in a cloth napkin to his wounded face, staring at a bowl of Frosted Flakes. Five minutes later, he gives up on the untouched cereal, the improvised icepack, and returns to the bathroom mirror. The bruises now deep purple—the swellings, like eggs—the cuts, still oozing. The face of a man who walks on ice in his socks because he doesn’t care if he hurts himself. Maybe wants to. The face of a man for whom the nuthouse looms. Who scorns the God God God rhetoric of the AA twelve-step method. Who has never reached out to his sponsor, until now:
“Kyle?”
“Eliot?”
“Sorry. I meant to call Mark’s cell.”
“Mark just got summoned to the Center on an emergency. Not even a hug goodbye and pale as a ghost.”
“Was that a car I just heard? Are you on the street, Kyle?”
“Yeah. Walking Handsome.”
“Walk him in the backyard.”
“Huh?”
“Why not walk him in the backyard?”
“Because he won’t do anything in the backyard. What kind of question is that? Because he regards the backyard as an extension of his domestic space, which he never violates—unlike some people who pee in their backyards. Even crap. This is not Handsome. This has never been Handsome.”
“I advise you to walk him in the back.”
“You’re advising?”
“Out of range, in the backyard.”
“You on some wild drug?”
“Go to the back immediately.”
“Mind telling me why you’re talking like a lunatic?”
“They’re shooting dogs, Kyle.”
“You need to work out more.”
“They’re shooting dogs.”
“A lot more.”
“Dogs of my friends are getting gunned down in the street.”
“Eliot.”
“If I knew why, I’d know who, maybe.”
“Come over and we’ll talk.”
“I know what you’re thinking. I’m not crazy.”
“We can talk.”
“Tell Mark I need to see him in the morning. Was that another car?”
“I’ll come over to Mary Street and bring Handsome. He’ll calm you down.”
“Tell Mark.”
“I certainly will.”
“Don’t forget.”
“I certainly won’t.”
“I’m depending on you, Kyle.”
“Because he’s your sponsor, and you’re in some kind of deep shit. Is that it?”
“You’re not supposed to know I’m in The Program.”
“I understand, but I do.”
“It was wrong of Mark to tell you.”
“He didn’t. Something he let slip.”
“I need to talk to Mark first thing.”
“In the meanwhile, consider having someone like Handsome in your life.”
“Listen to me, goddamn it! Get off the street!”
“I’m going to step out on a limb, Eliot. Because I sense it sometimes at our workouts. The thing I saw in Mark, ten years ago, before he went into The Program, I see it in you. It nearly destroyed us. The rage, the resentment, the paranoid tendency. You and Catherine, are you in trouble?”
(Silence.)
“Eliot, you still there?”
He’s not. Conte shuts down his cell. Turns off the ringer on his landline. Unplugs the clock radio in the bedroom. Takes three ibuprofen and a double dose of a sleeping medication. At 5:45 A.M., he stumbles, hungover, legs like lead, to the kitchen for a mug of coffee, black, much sugar, and three glazed doughnuts. Checks the bathroom mirror. Could it be worse? Takes a second mug, black, much sugar, to his desk, where the message light on the phone blinks 5: The first is from the kind and pretty bartender at The Gay Martini, his guardian angel!, who identifies herself as Nikki Ryan and says she needs “to redeem the rain check you gave me right away” because her boyfriend has threatened in an e-mail, which she’s forwarding, to “break every bone in my body.” The second from Catherine Cruz, who says, “Pick up, Eliot, please pick up if you can hear me.” The third from Detective Don Belmonte, who says he’ll need to talk with him in the morning “around 9:30.” Expects full cooperation and promises “very serious consequences” should Conte not be forthcoming. The fourth from Anthony Senzalma, who tells him that he will admit himself in the morning to Saint Elizabeth’s for “extreme exhaustion on the verge of a nervous breakdown,” and “by now, you know why.” The fifth, from Mark Martello, 5:04 A.M., who only says that he’ll appear at Conte’s front door at 7:00 A.M. on matters of grave importance to the both of them.
He forwards Nikki Ryan’s e-mail to Angel Moreno and asks him to hack into her account and the ex-boyfriend’s and to let him know what he finds of interest by no later than noon. E-mails Nikki, requests the ex-boyfriend’s physical address, place of work, where he might be located this evening. Urges her to go to a relative’s or a friend’s for the rest of the day and guarantees that her problem will disappear by day’s end. He’s about to shower and change for Martello’s arrival at 7:00, who instead knocks at 6:35.
The sight of Conte makes it nearly impossible for Martello to know how to begin. With the tragic news from the Center? Which has been, and will be, withheld from the public for as long as possible, but which he feels compelled to relate to Conte? Or with Kyle’s disturbing report of Conte’s phone call, now dramatically enhanced by the battered face, the bloodshot eyes, the bedhead hair spiked out in several directions, and the pajamas that look as if they’d been worn for too many nights. The sight of Conte gives him an excuse for keeping the news to himself, at least for a while, of what had happened at the Center—the event that had devastated Martello and will do the same to this wreck standing before him. Conte, looking across the threshold at Martello, senses something much more painful than a battered face. The elegant, ironic Mark Martello, always with a twinkle in his eye, where has he gone?
After three seconds of mutual shock and silence, Conte motions him in. Offers coffee. Martello refuses. At the kitchen table, Conte, “I called last night because I’m in an extreme place.”
“Eliot. Your face.”
Conte explains, Martello replies, “You wish to hurt yourself?”
Conte digs into his cuticles, drawing blood, a compulsion since his teenage years, “The end of my rope, Mark.”
“Yes. You are. Reason I came so early, I’m due at the Center at 8:00 for a press conference. Network feed, Eliot. I’m asleep on my feet and afraid.”
“You don’t look good yourself, Mark.”
“Never mind me. I don’t know if I can help you. I don’t know if you can help yourself. The prayer of Saint Francis that’s always quoted at meetings? Read it, memorize it. Better to comfort than to be comforted. Think about it. It works in hopeless situations. Like yours—and mine.”
“Can I make you some breakfast, Mark?”
“Good. That’s the idea. Very good. Thanks, but no. Have you tried comforting others lately? I mean, aside from offering me breakfast?”
Conte thinks he’s comforted Catherine, though usually it’s the other way around. For some reason, he doesn’t think of his long nurturing relationship with Angel Moreno and Angel’s parents. He replies, “Yes, I’m giving comfort to Nikki Ryan,” and when Martello says, “Who?” Conte explains.
“Are you serious? Saint Francis is appalled. Do you really intend to do violence? Or you’re just going to scare him verbally? Right? Tell me the latter.”
“The verbal method doesn’t work with men who physically abuse women.”
“Therefore?”
“Therefore.”
“And you called last night because—”
“Nikki Ryan is in trouble and I’m going to help her. Why do you speak of Saint Francis in the present tense as if he—”
“You called last night because you are in trouble. Kyle says you were talking crazy. Have y
ou done violence in the past?”
“Yes.”
(Pause.)
“This must end. You can’t do it tonight for this girl’s sake, or for anyone’s sake. Ever. Advise her to see your friends in the police who—”
“When they get around to it, next year, they talk to the guy, who if he hasn’t already damaged her will take it out on her. That’s how law enforcement works.”
“Vigilante justice? You’ve done that before?”
“Yes. But never to nice people.”
“I can’t help you—you need a priest, a shrink. Both. You pervert Saint Francis. Okay. Okay.” (Pause.) “You once told me that the only one of the twelve steps that made any sense was step 9, which doesn’t require you to say God, but requires you to make amends. But we have to take the steps in order. You can’t just jump to step 9. You need full preparation, but maybe in your case—maybe we have to be unorthodox in order to save the drunk and those he does violence to. You’re not afraid to take the full consequences of your past acts of violence? Responsibility for the well-being of those you’ve hurt? And make amends to these victims? Is that right?”
“I love the beautiful spirit of step 9, but I can’t do it. Because I’m not willing to bring serious harm to myself. One of those I’ve hurt is anyway permanently beyond my amends.”
“This person has passed away?”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“Are you implying?”
“Yes.”
“You killed somebody?”
“Not exactly.”
“Not exactly?! Ask God to intervene even though you don’t believe. Pray to God in the face of your atheism.”
“I don’t know how to pray.”
“Nobody does. Trying is good enough.”
“Trying is good enough, Mark? That true? Our Father who art not in heaven, hollow be thy name.”
“Stop with the fucking wordplay, Eliot. Prayer is the failed, but sincere, attempt to pray.”
“I’ll fail sincerely to pray for you, Mark.”
“You’re good at wordplay, Eliot. It helps you get through. Sophisticated escape, that’s all it is, but it won’t help you or me when you hear what I must tell you now. Last night … last night at the Center. Last night in the detention cell, Novak and Nadija Ivanovic—they were found dead. They’d neglected to take his belt. He hanged her from the bar across the window. Laid her body aside, then did himself. They were found when a cleaning lady—NO!”
Martello (5’10”, 165) is sitting in his chair. But chair and Martello are suddenly, violently high up against the kitchen wall at 6’3”, 220 Conte’s eye level. Eye to eye. A few inches apart. Hold. Five seconds. Hold. Ten seconds. Conte takes a quick, giant step back. The chair crashes to the floor, snapping off its legs. Martello is still sitting in it. Martello does not attempt to rise. Conte goes down on all fours. Again eye to eye, speaking now in a tone that Mark has never before heard.
“Are you proud of yourself? Do not avert your eyes.”
“No.”
“Those people are not terrorists.”
Martello drops his head.
“Do not drop your head.”
Martello raises his head, “They were innocent. I know that now. They were pawns.”
“Mark, do not use the past tense.”
“I’m sorry. They are innocent. Forever innocent.”
“Forever dead. Their son, Mirko, my best student, eloped with a Catholic girl because he thought his parents wouldn’t approve. That’s why he disappeared.”
“Not a terrorist either.”
“This new Imam. You have him too. Has he hanged himself yet?”
“I released him.”
“So that he can hang himself at home?”
Martello does not respond.
“The shoe is on the other foot now.”
Conte rises. Says, “I’m making you a cup of coffee.”
“No, thank you.”
“The shoe is on the other foot now. Did you kill Novak and Nadija Ivanovic?”
Martello cannot respond.
“Your turn to say ‘not exactly.’ ”
“I am responsible for their deaths.”
“How would you like your coffee?”
Mark does not respond.
“I’m talking to you.”
“I don’t really—black.”
“Sugar?”
“No, thank you.”
“One or two spoonsful?”
“Do you mind if I get up and sit at the table?”
“Who recommended that you sit on the floor?”
He sits at the table. Conte prowls the room during what follows:
“Eliot. If it is your intention—”
“I don’t have intentions. I’m just talking. I’m suggesting that you haven’t earned your coffee.”
“Are you going to hurt me?”
“Life is hard, Mark.”
“I want to tell you what I’m going to reveal at the news conference. Please let me tell you.”
“I like good stories. Yours good?”
“I’ll tell you facts. During the Bush administration, seven years ago, Kyle and I were living in a D.C. suburb. I was a promising young Republican at the Pentagon in a midlevel post. Kyle was a freelance personal trainer.”
“I already know this. This is not a good story.”
“But you don’t know this. One of his trainees was this district’s congressman and your Hamilton College classmate, Rick Kingwood, married, three children, family-values champion.”
“With the hots for Kyle.”
“How did you know?”
“Married, three kids, family-values champion. Did Kyle return his affection?”
“No.”
“I can’t imagine Kyle sleeping with that prick.”
“You don’t have to. We had dinner at his home fairly regularly. Kingwood in the final months of Bush uses his friendship with Vice President Cheney to get a center located here, a ridiculous idea, lampooned in the Times, but embraced by his party, which was still at the height of its fearmongering powers. The unprotected heartland of small-town America et cetera. He gets me appointed director and we move to Utica.”
“He comes home weekends, as usual, to press the flesh of his constituents, and Kyle’s in particular.”
“When the Republicans took back the House, Kingwood becomes chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security. He makes it his agenda to investigate American Muslims as potential safe-house providers for terrorist sleeper cells. He believes in himself as the next junior senator from New York. Small-town America’s savior. He will run for the Senate. Has ambitions beyond the Senate.”
“I know all that, Mark. Better tell me something new. Quick.”
“This: A few months ago he tells me he has a high-level mole inside Janet Napolitano’s staff, a holdover from the Bush years who’s feeding him information that would embarrass the President, but never gives me details. The President is soft on Muslims. It’s in his Kenyan blood et cetera. Then a month ago he tells me he may have something very big, which might make America take notice of me. Open up all kinds of opportunities in and out of government, if only I’m the guy who can connect the dots. Six days ago, he hits me with the new Imam and his connections with radical Imams in Yemen and London, and a date. The Ivanovic family is implicated.”
“Sunday.”
“Yes.”
“Help me to understand, Mark. The President of the United States, who put Osama bin Laden a thousand feet under the Indian Ocean, who decimates Al Qaeda leadership daily with these drone strikes, along with a few pain-in-the-ass innocent bystanders, this President has placed at the top of the Department of Homeland Security someone who looks the other way on a domestic disaster in the making? You bought that?”
“No. Napolitano didn’t know. Nobody knew. King-wood gives me the name of the mole. I check. She’s in fact a member of Napolitano’s inner circle. He gives me her cell. She asks me to giv
e her the middle names and birth dates of Kingwood’s children, as well as his mother’s maiden name, all of which I knew because Kingwood told her she’d be getting a call from someone who claimed to be me and unless the caller could give her such information she mustn’t divulge anything. After I’d satisfied her, she said, ‘It’s in your hands now. Do not fail our citizens. This cell is disabled after I hang up.’ Why would I think she might deliberately be feeding me false information?”
“Or that your Republican benefactor—the darling of the Right who got you appointed director—was an Islamophobic criminal?”
“Yes, Eliot.”
“You wanted to be a great American hero, Mark.”
“Doesn’t everybody, Eliot?”
“Small-town America saved by an openly gay patriot. A book deal, personal appearances, speeches in the high five figures. What a great fuckin’ country this is!”
“Last night I did the digging I should have done long ago. This new Imam was not conspiring with radical Yemeni clerics. He was not in touch with hotbeds of radical Islam anywhere else. This is what I know. He is no jihadi. This also I’m sure of: Mirko Ivanovic, like his parents, is innocent. At 4:30 this morning I was finally put through on a conference call to Napolitano and the President’s national security advisor.”
“You want me to believe that?”
“From 3 until 4:15 this morning I was threatening to go public with this embarrassment.”
Conte standing behind him. Hands on Martello’s shoulders, close to his throat: “Novak and Nadija Ivanovic are embarrassments? Is that how you think of them? You bastard.”
“Please, Eliot. Don’t hurt me. I mean politically, to the administration. You understand Napolitano knew nothing. The President is therefore in the dark. Only Kingwood knows. On Saturday before it’s supposed to go down, he will reveal to the major networks what’s to happen on Sunday, but thanks to him—he’ll not name his sources of intelligence—the plot is foiled and Obama is exposed as incompetent to protect the homeland, as Cheney has been saying all along. Everything Kingwood has been selling about terrorist sleeper cells will now be endorsed by the so-called liberal media.”
“But the good Mark got to the truth and destroyed Kingwood’s ambitions, but only after pressuring two innocent people to their death.”
The Dog Killer of Utica Page 11