It was so heavy. How had she walked around with this? His curiosity fought with the knowledge that opening the purse would just bring him more misery, more memories of his dead wife. His curiosity won. He opened the purse.
He stared.
He was looking at what he found in his wife’s purse when he heard the TV reporter above the music from the radio and the whimper of the dog.
“…a tense scene here in Brooklyn’s McCarren Park. Inside that crowd you see behind me are three people. One is an unidentified male, the other is a young Hispanic woman, and she is apparently being held hostage by a man who may be another Williamsburg Slasher, similar to the one who has been terrorizing this trendy neighborhood for several weeks. We’ll have more details as…”
Steve looked at what he had found in his wife’s purse. Deeogee whimpered. It needed to go out for a walk.
Instead of taking the elevator, he took the stairs that led out to the exit onto the new riverside park, so the policeman sitting in the patrol car in front of the building would not see him, would not stop him.
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
Magaly stood where she was, not moving. She was frightened but also amazed that the whole thing was happening. What kind of life was she leading to have it threatened twice in one summer? She chanted under her breath and kept her eyes focused ahead on Tony. Sure, there was a giant machete at her throat, but altogether she thought she was handling herself pretty well. She didn’t tremble. She stood her ground. At the same time, she could feel the cylinder of her pepper spray right near the top of her purse.
If only she could get her bag open.
There were police cars around the edges of the park, but that didn’t seem to bother the big hippie who held her. But then helicopters suddenly appeared in the sky. She could smell sweat and marijuana—lots and lots of skunky marijuana—on the old hippie with the knife at her throat.
“You think there are snipers?” he said.
Tony said, “Probably the local news, Yogi. Nothing to worry about.”
She could tell Tony was lying. A man in a pinstriped suit stepped forward and, speaking into a megaphone, he said, “My name is Lieutenant Esteban Tuchman, and I am taking command of the scene.”
He looked more like a salesman than a hostage negotiator. What were they doing? They totally needed a real hostage negotiator, not some overly handsome slickster with a tie clip. The hippie yelled at this Lieutenant Esteban, telling him to shut up, telling him he was in the middle of a conversation. Okay, hippie, don’t get your whiteboy dreads in a bunch.
“Hey, you know that T-shirt you saw me wearing?” the hippie said to Tony.
“‘hipster death rattle?’” Tony said. “Yeah.”
“I actually silkscreened that myself. In my workshop in the basement.”
“Oh, really. They look great. I’d like to get one for myself.”
Good, Tony, good. Keep him talking. But try to sound a little more interested!
Magaly’s purse was hugged to her chest, and the clasp was just under her left elbow. If she could just move her right hand a couple of inches she could get it open.
“Don’t patronize me, Tony.”
“Yogi, all I wear are T-shirts. I’m always looking for new ones.”
“Yeah, well,” this Yogi guy said. “I’ll see if I have your size. Anyway, I went back to all the places and marked all the—well, the ones I was a part of anyway—with spray paint. I wanted people to know which one was which. I wanted history to know. I worked really hard on the design, and it came out so good I realized I could sell them on Bedford Avenue for ten dollars each.”
“Did you make a lot of money?”
“Three hundred dollars the first day.
“Wow,” Magaly said, breaking from her chant. “That’s actually impressive.”
And when Yogi said, “It paid my rent for June and July,” she slipped her right hand on top of the clasp and opened. That was the tough part.
Now all she had to do was dig in past her lip balm, lipstick, stain-removing stick, deodorant, house keys, and Metrocard, and latch on to the pepper spray. And then take it out, uncap it, and aim it at this skunky bastard’s face.
Easy, right?
“There sure are a lot of people watching,” the hippie said.
He was right. They were surrounded by a ring of people that the cops were barely holding back. All of them had their cell phones out, pointed at them. Hipsters and yuppies and Polish and Italian and Latino and African-American and white and Asian. Magaly felt they were staring, gawking, waiting to see if some crazy bastard would slash a woman’s throat, her throat, live. Talk about—what was the word?—schadenfreude. Schadenfreude was only fun when you weren’t the schaden being freuded.
“I bet there’s a lot of people watching this on the Internet.”
“You bet,” Tony said. “The is probably live-streaming all over social media.”
“Really? Spectacular.”
“You know what I thought was very clever of you,” Tony said. “I noticed that you selected people from a wide variety of backgrounds. Congratulations on being inclusive. I’m guessing you wanted to make everyone afraid, not just one group.”
The hippie chuckled. Who doesn’t love a compliment? His movement gave Magaly a chance to slip two fingers past the clasp and into the purse. She reached down. Ew, what was that? Was that gum? Lipstick was the first thing she touched. Which made sense since she just touched up before walking into the park, hoping to look her best for Tony. He did like to look at her lips a lot, and so. And then there was the stain stick, which made sense because she had just spilled iced coffee on her white blouse walking over here, and she had had to wipe it out.
“Exactly! Yes! I’m glad someone caught that. I’m very proud of that. I thought a lot about who should be…you know. I didn’t want any group to think they were being targeted more than any other group. I wanted everyone to be afraid. The Indian guy I got might have been gay, too. Do you happen to know if he was?”
She had to reach deeper. She had to take a risk.
“No,” Tony said. “I didn’t read that.”
“Honestly, it’s hard to include everyone. I did try a woman once, but then I stayed away from them. It didn’t seem fair. I thought young white men getting killed would be more attention, right? But I didn’t want anybody else to feel left—”
Magaly faked a cough and reached deep into her purse.
“Stay still, lady,” the hippie said, tightening his grip. “Please. I really don’t want to hurt you.
Her fingers found the little nozzle of the pepper spray. She grabbed the fat bottle and pulled it out. Now was her chance. But she could feel the hippie tensing up, the knife cutting into her skin.
And then there was a sound like a firecracker but that, as she felt herself fall back, she knew was not a firecracker.
CHAPTER SEVENTY
As soon as he got to the park with Deeogee, Steven Pak spotted the crowd, a mass of them by the southern exit. He squeezed past the outliers and saw that the police were keeping them all back. But there were too many people and not enough cops. With the happy dog leading the way, Pak walked easily through the crowd and right past two cops. No one saw him. No one had ever seen him besides Erin.
He stood near some people holding up their phones, on the inner edge of the circle.
And there in front of him was the man who had killed his wife, the mother of his child.
No one saw him slide the 9mm out of his jacket. He knew how to use it. Erin had shown him a couple times, taken him target shooting on one of their vacations. But he was no marksman. And there was a woman in the way, which would make it harder. The woman looked scared. But that didn’t matter.
Pak couldn’t let the killer get away. “Too many people get away with things in this country.” That’s what Erin used to say all the time.
He had to do it and he had to do it right. He wouldn’t get another shot, maybe not even a second shot. He aime
d for the woman’s chest. If he did it right, the bullet would go through her and kill the man who killed his wife.
When he raised the gun up, someone screamed. He knew they would try to take the gun away, so he aimed quickly, a shot that could not miss, a shot that would stop the man. Aiming straight at the woman’s chest—he fired.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
A fresh piece of chewing gum in his mouth, Petrosino knocked on Tuchman’s door. The lieutenant sat at his desk, talking loudly on his cell phone.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Jimmy,” Tuchman said. “No…This guy came out of nowhere…There’s nothing more I can tell you…You’ll know as soon as I know.”
It sounded like Tuchman was talking to some lugnut up the ladder. Petrosino sat down and waited for him to finish.
“Come on in. Sit down. Well, you’re already sitting.” Tuchman stood up, took his expensive-looking plaid jacket off the back of his chair and put it on.
“Some good news. Your partner’s been cleared of any wrongdoing,” Tuchman said.
“Lucky guy.”
“Yeah, you bet. The slasher thing came along and wiped him out of the headlines. He still could face a criminal negligence suit, but personally I think it’s unlikely to get far.”
Petrosino picked up the Batman figure on the desk. “Our Mr. Pak turned out to be quite a marksman. Or a lucky shot.”
“Right into our perp’s mouth, I know. It was beautiful and absurd at the same time.”
“It is a goddamn shame,” Petrosino said. “It is, in fact, what they might call ‘irony.’”
“I hate irony, detective.”
“You said it.”
Tuchman slumped back into his chair, rumpling his pinstriped suit. It was the first time Petrosino had ever seen Tuchman close to unkempt.
“That was the PR people from Police Plaza on the phone,” Tuchman said. “They’re shitting paperweights over there. We tell the press we know who the slasher is, we send out an All Points on this Gunnar Neumann and people are happy. They have someone to blame. And now suddenly there’s a slasher number two, this yogi guy.”
“Brian Henry Johnson, who went by the name of ‘Yogi,’ for some reason.”
“Yeah, who turns around and gets popped by a grieving husband in a public park.”
“All this after we blamed it on the gangs,” Petrosino said. He put the Batman down and Tuchman picked it up immediately.
Tuchman shrugged. “Caca pasa. But that’s the way I thought the wind was blowing at the time. It’s on me. I’ll handle PR.”
Petrosino made to leave, then remembered something. “Oh, jeez, listen, they found what might be another victim at the residence of Slasher Number Two. Or Number One. Whichever. I can’t keep track. I guess he expanded his demographic to the elderly. A Michael J. McShane, eighty-four, lived on the first floor. Throat slashed in bed.”
“This gets better and better.”
“I’m going over, but right now that grieving husband is waiting downstairs. You want me to talk to him?”
“Let’s both do it. Like in the old days, partner.”
Steven Pak sat in the interrogation room. He looked small and thin but also very calm.
“Can we get you anything?” Tuchman said.
“No, they gave me some water. I’m okay.”
“Right-o,” Petrosino said. “Mr. Pak. You understand why you’re here, don’t you?”
“I killed the man who killed my wife.”
“Murder is against the law,” said Tuchman. He looked at Pak intently, with not a little sympathy. “Revenge is no justification.”
“I got justice. I got justice for my Erin.”
“Mr. Pak, it’s not easy to tell you this,” Tuchman said. “But we’re fairly sure the man you shot today—who was dead immediately at the scene—that man was not the man who killed your wife.”
Pak looked up, the placid face fading. “I don’t understand.”
“The man who slash—the man who murdered your wife, the man you shot today, he was a different slasher. He did slash people, but not your wife.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Mr. Pak, I’m not exactly sure I understand it all myself.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
“Thirty dollars? For this?”
“Thirty dollars. Yes,” said the very tired-looking cashier in the gift center.
Tony thought it would be hilarious to get Magaly some flowers because she’d never expect it from him. Also, he just wanted to get her flowers, what the hell.
“How much is this one?”
“Twenty dollars.”
“Sold,” said Tony, hoping the tiny bunch looked impressive enough.
When Tony walked into the room with the tiny bouquet of flowers, Magaly tried to think of something to say before he noticed the giant bouquet of roses sent from Luis. They were signed “El Flamboyan,” but she knew they were from Luis, who had somehow learned discretion. Mr. Politician probably had a campaign manager giving him advice now. And he’d probably charged the roses to El Flamboyan. But she knew what Tony would think, seeing them there.
“Those are beautiful,” she said. “The best flowers I’ve ever gotten.”
“Sure,” Tony said. “That’s all they had left, so. I hope you like them.”
She was sitting up in bed when he walked in. He noticed she looked tired. A headband struggled in vain to keep her hair back. A large bandage covered part of her chest. On the way over, he had thought about kissing her, smelling her hair, holding her. He had thought about what happened in Puerto Rico, not their making love in that hotel—well, that, but not just that—but their working together like a team. He had liked the idea of that very much. But then he saw the bushel of roses and he knew exactly who they were from. No pain, no pain, he thought.
“The roses are from my co-workers are El Flamboyan,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“So, how are you feeling?”
“High as a kite on painkillers,” she said. “It’s the best thing about being in a hospital. Oh hey, I heard we were in the paper.”
“Yeah. All of them. But I’d always hoped I’d be writing about the news, not be a part of it. At least most of them quoted me right.”
“Sorry, Chino.”
“I hadn’t started planning my Pulitzer acceptance speech or anything. Well, maybe just a few lines. There’s been nothing in the paper about Kirsten. Maybe it’ll come out tomorrow. Petrosino told me that she’s under observation. I think she’ll probably end up getting her own special episode of Dateline.”
Magaly could see he was nervous, could see he wanted to come closer. She wanted to reach and touch his hand and bring him closer.
Instead, she said, “What about Litvinchouk and the Tomasellos? Did he tell you what would be happening with them?”
“Whereabouts unknown.”
“Ai, at least now that they’ve caught that crazy psycho Kirsten—I hate even saying her name. Iris and Danny will have some peace now. You helped that happen, Chino.”
“I guess,” Tony said.
He worried he was overstaying his welcome. But at the same time, he didn’t want to leave. Tony realized he was still holding the cheap but no-longer-impressive bouquet he had bought in the gift shop. He handed it to her, and she cradled it to the side of her chest that wasn’t bandaged.
“I see your, uh, that De Moscoso is running for Congress,” he said.
“Yeah, he thinks it’s the best way for him to save the neighborhood.”
“He just wants to turn back time. That was Yogi Johnson’s plan. See how that worked out.”
“That’s not fair, Chino. He’s not going to be going around slashing people.”
He was going to say something cruel, something mean. Instead he said, “Well, good luck to him. He’ll need it. What about Flamboyan?”
“I’m interim director starting next week, and my first job will be to hire Gabby.”
“Yes, I called her this morning. She’s into it.”
“That’s great, good for her. Just don’t ask her to proofread anything for you.”
“She’ll learn. Hey, how is your mom?”
“Oh, she’s all moved into my brother’s house. She says her room is very nice and they gave her a poodle.”
“That’s nice. I love your mom,” she said. “Hey, are you going to the anniversary ceremony for Rosa next week?”
“I’ll be there.”
“Will you be covering it for any paper? There are other papers.”
“No, I don’t think so. I really am just a hack right now, with the Sentinel closed. I’ll have to find more of a lot more freelance work. A lot more. Pay the rent somehow.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“And I was thinking about moving out. It’s getting way too pricey around here, and it just seems to put me a bad mood.”
“Oh, is that what causes it?” She laughed, then she said, “I would miss you.”
“I’d miss you, too. I think it’s my turn to change the real estate values in someone else’s neighborhood.”
Magaly laughed at again, and he smiled. He looked good when he smiled, which wasn’t often enough. She looked at him closely. She thought about how much fun the last few weeks had been, and how crazy. She thought about having just finally, finally cutting ties from Luis. Despite the flowers, she knew he was going to keep his distance from her. She made a decision.
“Chino. Listen. What happened between us in PR, I don’t regret that.”
“Me either, no, I—”
“Chino, it’s just that you and me, we’ve been there already.”
“Yeah. Been there, done that.”
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