“Any chance I can get a Bloody Bull?” Cole asked.
“If you can drink it and you can pay for it, you can get it. We ain’t got any celery, though,” the bartender said.
“Do I look like a guy who cares about celery?” Cole asked her. The bartender laughed and turned away from him to start mixing his drink.
As Cole waited silently, Bon came out through the swinging doors leading from the bar into the kitchen, carrying a tray of newly clean pint glasses. Cole recognized him immediately. He looked exactly how Cole and Meg remembered him: big, ruddy, and hunched over, as if to hide his size. His face was round and red. He lugged the tray of glasses to one end of the bar and started unpacking it, placing the clean classes beneath the bar. When he saw that the glass of one of the men at the bar was nearly empty, he walked over and refilled it. “On the house, Tommy,” Bon said to the man. The man thanked him by tapping his finger on the bar without looking up.
When Bon returned to his tray, Cole motioned to him. “I think I’ve met you before,” Cole said, loud enough for Bon to hear him. Everybody looked at Cole. “Not you two,” Cole said, waving his hands at the other two men sitting at the bar. “You,” Cole said, pointing at Bon. “I think I’ve met you before.”
Bon gave Cole the quick, sheepish once-over of a man who wasn’t always happy to be reacquainted with people from his past. Then he shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said, picking up the empty tray and walking back toward the kitchen.
Cole tilted the rest of his drink into his mouth and swallowed it. “I wouldn’t mind another drink,” Cole called out to Bon, lifting up his now-empty glass.
Bon put the tray down and walked over to Cole. He put his hands on the bar. “What’re you drinking?” Bon asked. Even after all this time, Cole still found it disquieting when he had memories of someone who had no memories of him. He understood it, but it still felt strange.
“A Bloody Bull,” Cole said, and pushed his empty glass toward Bon.
“What the fuck is that?” Bon said.
“Bon!” the bartender scolded. She didn’t say anything else. She used his name like a rolled-up newspaper.
“A beer is fine,” Cole said to Bon. “Give me something from the tap.”
Bon grabbed one of the newly clean pint glasses from behind the bar and began to fill it. “So, is a Bloody Bull some sort of fancy drink?” Bon asked Cole as his glass slowly filled up with a dark amber liquid.
“No,” Cole said. “It’s just a Bloody Mary with beef bouillon in it.”
“That sounds pretty disgusting,” Bon said, walking Cole’s beer over to him.
“Your name is Bon,” Cole said when Bon got close to him. “We have met before. Somebody brought me to one of the parties at Tony’s house once. You were there.”
Bon shrugged to let Cole know that he still didn’t recognize him. “Sorry,” Bon said, “I’ve been to a lot of parties at Tony’s place. I don’t remember everyone. I kind of feel like I would remember you, though.” Cole knew what Bon meant. Cole wouldn’t exactly have fit in at one of Tony’s parties.
“That’s okay,” Cole said. “You don’t have to remember me. I remember you. I think you were talking to Jerry. He kept going on and on about some way to get rich, and everybody else kept making fun of him for it, everybody but you.”
Bon shook his head. “I don’t remember and I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He started to walk away again, more quickly this time.
“You sure?” Cole asked, stopping Bon’s retreat. “Because you seemed pretty interested at the time.” He was riffing, just looking to see how Bon would react. “I was interested too, but I didn’t have the balls to speak up because I didn’t know too many people there, you know?”
Bon looked Cole up and down for a second time and shook his head again. “Listen, I got to get back into the kitchen.” Bon tried to walk away one last time.
“Wait. Wait,” Cole yelled. “Come on. I’m just trying to talk to you here. Give me one minute.”
Bon stopped and turned back around. Cole could see the discomfort in his face. He wasn’t a natural liar. Whatever secret he was keeping, it had been a lot of work for him to keep it. He must have had a pretty good reason to do so. “Let me show you something,” Cole said to Bon, waving him back to the bar. Bon looked scared now, but he followed Cole’s wave. Then Cole reached into his pocket. Cole could tell Bon didn’t know what to do or how to react, that he was tempted to run. Instead, Bon stood there and watched Cole as he pulled his badge from his pocket and laid it on the bar next to his drink. He did it casually, so that no one else in the bar would notice. “I don’t want to scare you,” Cole said in a whisper. “There’s no reason for you to be scared. I’ve just got a few questions.”
Bon looked back down at the badge. Cole didn’t peg Bon for someone who’d had a history of run-ins with cops. He was a big Irish kid. He probably had relatives who were cops. That should help. Bon leaned in toward Cole. Nobody else at the bar seemed to be paying attention. “Fine,” Bon said, glancing around him as if to check to make sure, “but not here and not now.”
“Okay. When’s your shift over? I’ll come back here and get you. I know a place we can go.” Somewhere deep in his memories, he remembered a twenty-four-hour diner only about ten blocks away. It would be perfect. Even as he made the offer, however, Cole knew that they’d never make it to the diner. Bon seemed too scared to stick around and wait for Cole to return. Bon knew something, something dangerous. Cole wanted to know it too.
“Come back at one A.M.” Bon said. “I can leave then.”
“Okay,” Cole agreed. Then he settled up and went outside. He didn’t go away, though. Instead, he walked around the corner from the Brown Penny and found a place where he could stand in the shadows and watch the door to the bar. That way if Bon tried to slip out of the bar a half hour before Cole was supposed to come back for him, Cole would be able to follow him. It was merely a matter of waiting.
A few hours went past. At twelve-thirty, Cole saw Bon walk out the front door of the Brown Penny. Bon walked quickly, his head lowered and his hands jammed into his coat pockets, but he was such a big target that he was easy to follow. He walked back toward the subway. Cole walked behind him, pulling out all the usual tricks to keep from being noticed. Bon made it easy by never looking back. After waiting on the subway platform for about five minutes, a train came and Bon got on. Cole did too, only one car behind Bon’s. Each time the train stopped, Cole watched to see if Bon was getting out. Cole had no idea where they were headed. They crossed over from Queens into Brooklyn and took the train another four stops. Then Bon got off the train. Cole got off too, but he gave Bon a minute to build up some distance between them before following him. A few blocks later, Bon reached a run-down brick building. He took out a set of keys and went to open the front door.
Cole guessed the building held about twenty units. He closed the distance between him and Bon and then waited until Bon got the keys into the door. When Bon pulled the door open, Cole stepped quickly out of the shadows and grabbed the door before Bon could pull it closed again.
It was well after one in the morning, but Bon didn’t seem surprised that Cole had been following him. It was almost as if he’d been expecting someone. “I had a different place in mind,” Cole said to Bon as he held the door open. “There’s a diner I like near your bar. I was going to buy you some pancakes and sausage, but your place will have to do. Maybe it’s even better. At least, it should be more private.”
“This isn’t fair.” Bon’s eyes darted down to Cole’s hands as Cole followed Bon into the lobby of his apartment building. Bon didn’t put up any fight, though. He was big, but he wasn’t a fighter. Trying to sneak away was his only card, and he’d already played it. He was resigned to his fate now, whatever that might be. Cole followed closely behind as they walked wordlessly up to Bon’s apartment. They were both waiting until they got inside to talk. Each understood, for his own reasons, how im
portant silence and secrecy were.
Bon lived on the second floor, in a small one-bedroom apartment with a window opening onto the empty space between buildings in the back. The only view from Bon’s apartment was of other people’s windows. The apartment was sparsely furnished, and what furniture there was seemed old and worn, likely secondhand. The walls were empty, nothing on them but cracked paint. “Be it ever so humble,” Cole said to Bon. Bon shot Cole an unhappy look and then closed the door behind them, hooking the chain lock across the door.
“This really isn’t fair,” Bon said again after he’d double-checked to make sure that the door was closed.
“ ‘Fair’ is an urban legend,” Cole said. “ ‘Fair’ is as fake as the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy. But you’re not the type to give up on urban legends too quickly, are you, Bon? You’re a believer. That’s why you listened to Jerry.”
Bon’s already pale skin looked almost gray now, as if his blood were retreating deeper into his body. “This isn’t a joke,” Bon said to Cole. He walked over to the apartment’s one window and looked out to make sure nobody else was looking in.
“I know it’s not a joke, Bon. If I thought it were a joke, I wouldn’t be here at almost two in the morning,” Cole said.
Convinced nobody was watching them, Bon closed the blinds. “Yeah, but do you know how dangerous what you’re doing is?”
“It’s the middle of the night, Bon. Nobody’s out there.”
“You don’t know that,” Bon said. “You don’t know anything. Do you?” His voice was slow but Cole could hear the panic in it. Cole began to question how much he actually knew. The way Bon was acting, he began to worry that his wildest theories may have only scratched the surface of what was truly going on.
“I know a few things,” Cole said, “but I’m here to learn more. If you start talking, I’ll start listening.”
Bon glared at him. “How did you even find me? For real. None of this bullshit about Tony’s parties. You were never at one of Tony’s parties. Look at you. I’d remember you.”
Cole shrugged his shoulders. “Does it really matter?”
“Yeah. It matters a lot. Because before I talk to you, I want to know how dangerous talking to you is. I can’t know that unless I know how you found me. If certain people find out that I’m talking to you, I’m in deep shit.”
“I’m a cop,” Cole said. “You don’t really have any choice but to talk to me.”
Bon shook his head. “There are always choices. There are scarier things out there than jail.”
“Okay,” Cole said, dropping the sarcasm. “Do you remember Meg?”
“The girl from Kansas who was killed by that handyman? Matt’s friend?” Bon asked.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, I remember her. What does Jerry have to do with her?”
“Jerry used to tell her that he could make her rich. He used to tell her that they pay more for lesbians.”
Bon looked confused. “Okay, but Jerry used to say that to everyone. That still doesn’t tell me how you ended up following me home.”
“Jerry told Meg other things too.”
“Like what?”
“Like how you actually took him up on his offer.”
“But how do you know this?” Bon asked.
“I have her memories,” Cole told Bon, tapping the side of his head with his finger. Cole was riffing again. He didn’t want to rat out Tony, but he also wanted Bon to feel safe. Who better to blame than somebody who was already dead? “When she died, nobody stepped forward to take her memories, so I did. I used them to find her killer, but I found a lot more in there too. There was Jerry and you and all that stuff that Jerry was always going on and on about. It’s in there. I just want to find out a little more about it.”
“I know you,” Bon said, a look of recognition on his broad face. “What do they call you? The Memory Detective?”
“That’s me,” Cole confirmed. “I can’t stand that nickname, though.”
Bon nodded. He seemed pleased that none of his friends had ratted him out. “Does anybody else know you were looking for me?” Bon asked Cole.
“No,” Cole lied. “Why?”
“Because if I get caught talking to anybody about this stuff, there could be serious consequences.”
“What type of consequences?”
“I don’t know. Something bad. All I know is that I got paid five thousand dollars cash after a four-hour interview just to keep quiet. And now here I am, talking to a cop. People who pay you five thousand dollars to keep your mouth shut don’t fuck around when you open it. They kick your teeth in.”
“Who paid you five thousand dollars?” Cole said. He was getting closer. He could feel it. Bon shook his head. He refused to answer. “Look,” Cole assured him, “nobody knows I’m here. Now, don’t you think it’s about time you answered some questions? Because the only reason no one knows I’m here is because I didn’t tell anybody. I can sing it from the rooftops if I want to. If you don’t want that to happen, then you’d better talk.” Cole felt bad about threatening Bon, who had always been very nice to Meg. But Cole didn’t think he had any other options.
“If I talk, nobody finds out that we spoke, right?”
“The more you talk, the surer I am that this conversation never happened,” Cole assured him.
Bon pulled a chair out from under his small kitchen table and sat down. He slouched into the chair, his arms dangling loosely at his sides. He looked like he’d physically given up. “Okay, what do you want to know?”
Cole stayed standing for now, staring down at Bon. “Who paid you the five thousand dollars to stay quiet? Was it Jerry?”
Bon shook his head. “It wasn’t Jerry. It was an older guy. A muscular guy with a shaved head and a nice suit. I don’t know his name.”
“You never asked?”
Bon shook his head again. “It never came up. I figured if he wanted me to know his name, he’d tell me.”
“Why did he give you five thousand dollars? How did you meet him? You said you had a four-hour interview with him—what did you talk about?” Bon stared dumbly at Cole. He was having trouble processing all of Cole’s questions at once. “Just start at the beginning,” Cole said.
“Okay.” Bon nodded. “The beginning. Well, I went to Jerry, kind of quiet, you know, so nobody would make fun of me.”
“You wanted to talk to him about his get-rich-quick scheme?” Cole asked.
“Yeah,” Bon confirmed. “I didn’t believe him at first, but he just kept talking. He wouldn’t give up, so eventually, I figured that there had to be something to it.”
“How did you approach him?”
Bon gave Cole a self-conscious shrug. “At one of the parties, I just pulled him aside and asked him if he was telling the truth.”
“What did he say?”
Bon looked up nervously at Cole. “He said to me, ‘If you’re lucky, I can give you the life of your dreams.’ Well, it sounded a shit ton better than bar-backing.”
“And what if you weren’t lucky?” Cole asked, picturing Bon with his head shaved, floating in a river.
“I asked the same thing,” Bon told Cole. “Jerry said that if I wasn’t one of the lucky ones, they’d just send me home. No harm, no foul. I still didn’t really believe him, but I didn’t think I had anything to lose. He got real excited. He kept telling me that they’d like me because I was big.”
“Did he tell you anything else?” Cole asked.
Bon shook his head. “Not yet. He asked me for a picture of myself and told me to write up a short bio. Jerry tweaked the bio a bit and had somebody doctor up the picture to make me look really good. A couple of days later, Jerry told me that they wanted to meet me.”
“But you still didn’t know who they were?”
Bon shrugged. “I figured I’d learn eventually.”
“Okay. So Jerry set up this interview. Where did you go for it?” Cole kept firing away with the questions, trying not t
o give Bon a single moment to reconsider answering them.
“A loft down in Tribeca. When I got there, I had to ring the bell and give the guy a password that Jerry’d given me before they let me in.”
“What was the password?” Cole asked, hoping it would be some sort of clue.
“Hell if I remember. It was like a city or something. Anyway, the guy buzzes me in, and I go upstairs to the loft. It was mostly empty, but he had a couple of chairs set up in a corner with a computer and a video camera. To be honest, it kind of creeped me out.”
“Do you still have the address?”
“Yeah,” Bon said, his voice a bit shaky, “but it’s not going to help you any. I’ve gone back there. There’s nothing there anymore. The guy packed up and left. It’s empty.”
Of course, Cole thought, he wouldn’t stay put. He’d have to keep moving. Space to space, city to city. “When you showed up, it was just one guy?”
“Yeah,” Bon confirmed. “He was alone.”
“What did he look like? Tell me again,” Cole asked. This was it: Bon was about to describe the killer.
Bon paused. “I really shouldn’t be telling you this,” he said nervously. “They told me I had to keep quiet.”
“You can’t stop now, Bon. What if I told you that there are more people’s lives at stake than just your own? You’re doing the right thing. Tell me what the guy looked like.”
Bon swallowed hard. He didn’t even know what was going on but, somehow, he knew how serious it was. He’d known it ever since he went in for his interview. “Like I said, he was shaved bald. He was well dressed in a gray suit, but you could see the muscles under his clothes. He was probably in his late thirties, maybe forty. He wore these designer glasses, you know, the ones with thick expensive-looking frames, and he had dark green eyes.”
“That’s a lot of detail. You remember him that well?”
“Yeah,” Bon said. “I can’t forget him. The whole thing was so strange, and in the back of my head, I just kept thinking that this guy could be my ticket out of here.”
“So, if you saw him again, you’d recognize him?”
The Memory Detective Page 19