The Eighth Day

by Joseph John

  “Maybe. But he knew you.”

  Shawn sighed. Screw it. He threw back his head and downed the rest of his coffee, toilet water be damned. Grimacing, he said, “This whole thing is crazy.”

  “Welcome to New York City,” Harrington said. The frown was gone, replaced by a humorless grin. Shawn liked the frown better. The detective flipped his notepad shut. “I’d like you to describe the shooter and the other man to our sketch artist. We could do it later at the station, but I think it’d be better to do it here, where you have context and it’s more recent in your mind.”

  Shawn checked his watch. “I need to call work first. Let them know where I’m at.”

  “Of course.” Harrington pushed his chair back and stood and scanned the restaurant. “O’Brian,” he called out, and a pencil-thin redhead standing with a group of uniforms on the opposite side of the room turned to look at him. He began walking toward her, and she pressed her lips into a narrow line, one hand moving to her hip while the other held a black leather satchel. Harrington scowled and said something to the uniforms, and they dispersed like a flock of vultures.

  Shawn pulled out his smartphone and called his executive assistant. It rang six times, then went to voicemail. “It’s Shawn. I’m going to be a couple hours late getting to the office. There was a…something came up. Um, I’ll explain when I get in. Call me if you need me or anything.” He pressed the end button as Detective Harrington returned, the redhead trailing in his wake.

  “Everything okay?”

  Shawn slid the smartphone back into his pocket and shrugged. “No answer. I left a message.”

  “We good?”

  “I’m sure they’ll understand.”

  Harrington nodded. “This is Miss O’Brian,” he said, “our resident sketch artist.”

  “Hi. Call me Amy.” The redhead’s smile flashed on and off like a strobe light as she stepped around the detective and sat down across from Shawn.

  “Shawn Jaffe.”

  “Thanks for your time, Mr. Jaffe,” the detective said. “Call me if anything else comes up. I’ll be in touch.”

  They shook hands, and Harrington palmed him a business card and left. Shawn peered at it as if it were an artifact of some bygone era—which, in fact, it was—while Amy rummaged around in her satchel and came out with a computer tablet and a mini-holographic display projector, which she placed on the table in front of her. As Harrington sauntered off, she shook her head.

  “Just like an overprotective father,” she said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he pulled out his gun and started cleaning it in front of them.”

  “You mean the cops?”

  “Yeah. A girl can take care of herself, you know.”

  “I’m sure she can.”

  Amy flashed her strobe smile. “He means well.” She glanced over her right shoulder, then her left, and leaned forward and whispered, “Don’t tell, but she appreciates him looking out for her.”

  The corner of Shawn’s mouth twitched into an involuntary smile. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

  “So.” She turned on her tablet and began tapping and flicking her way through the OS, her fingers a blur of motion reminiscent of Jerry Lee Lewis behind the keys of a Steinway. “Sam tells me you saw the shooter and another man who might’ve been an accessory.”

  “Not so much the shooter. More the other guy.”

  “All right. Let’s start there. Tell me about the shape of his face. Was it round, oval? Did he have a pointy chin or a strong jaw?”

  Shawn studied the ceiling, hardwood planks running in parallel from which ornate light fixtures hung. He closed his eyes and pictured the man standing at the entrance to the restaurant, his gaze settling on Shawn like a burial shroud.

  “It was more squarish. Strong cheekbones, strong jaw, brow. All planes and angles.”

  Amy made a series of gestures on her tablet, and the holographic display projector whirred to life. A full-color screen flickered into existence between them. It showed a series of outlines of a head, each slightly different but all with angular features.

  “There we go,” she said. “Okay. Point at the one that looks most like the man you saw.”

  Shawn studied the images before jabbing an accusatory finger at one on the left. The others faded out of existence like reflections in a steam-covered mirror, and the remaining image centered itself on the screen.

  “That one?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. Now, can you describe his hair?”

  “Um, it was dark. Dark brown or black, maybe. He wore it slicked back. Reminded me of one of those old movie stars, like Humphrey Bogart or Clark Gable or something.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “We’ll always have Paris,” she said in a low, throaty voice.

  Shawn surprised himself with a laugh. “Here’s looking at you, kid. Man, I love that movie.”

  Another strobe smile. “Short hair or long?”

  “Short.”

  “Off-the-collar short or off-the-neck short?”

  “It wasn’t long enough to touch his collar. I don’t think it was off his neck, though.”

  “Somewhere in between, maybe?”

  “Yeah.” Shawn nodded. “I think so.”

  “How about his hairline? Did he have a widow’s peak or was it straight across?”

  “Pretty much straight across.”

  “On the sides, did it fall over his ears, or was it cropped short, like a low fade?”

  “It was short on the sides. Definitely didn’t fall over his ears.”

  Amy bent toward her tablet again, and Shawn watched her through the holographic display, its particles superimposing her features like double-exposed film. She typed and tapped and swiped, and the solitary outline multiplied and became ten, each a perfect copy of the previous save for their hairstyles, which incorporated variations of the description he’d given her.

  “Same deal,” she said. “Point at the one that’s the best match. You can use both hands to zoom in and out and one hand to scroll.”

  Shawn agonized over the hairstyles for several minutes, scrolling through them and back again with a wave of his hand before at last raising his finger and pointing at the one that looked most like his memory. Once again, the image re-centered itself as the others disappeared.

  Amy asked him a similar series of questions about the man’s other features—his brow, eyes, nose, ears, mouth, skin color, and complexion—and Shawn repeated the process, swiping through a series of images before settling on the most accurate likeness. When he finished, what had begun as a blank silhouette had evolved into the face of the man whom he’d seen at the entrance of the restaurant.

  “What do you think?” Amy asked, leaning forward. She reached up and rotated the head to the left and right, tilting her own head to one side as she studied it. “We got a match?”

  “I think that’s pretty close,” Shawn said.

  “Okay. One sec.” Amy bent over her tablet, and Shawn stared into the face that hung suspended in the air between them, its unblinking gaze staring back like a challenge. Watching him. Threatening him.

  Shawn lowered his own gaze to the apps on the digital tabletop until the image winked out, and Amy said, “I want to try the shooter next.”

  “All right, but I’m not sure it’ll do any good. Like I told the detective, I didn’t get a good look at him. He was way down at the end of the alley.”

  “Still. It’s worth a try. Please.”

  Shawn did, but he’d been unable to refine the features beyond a generic everyman that could’ve been any of a hundred thousand faces. In the end, Amy turned off the holographic display and tapped out Shawn’s brief description on her tablet. Still, she’d thanked him, and they’d stood, exchanging contact information through their smartphones.

  “If you think of anything else that might help, call me,” she said, and flashing a final strobe smile, she whirled away and strode off, her hair cascading down her back like waves of crimson fl
ame.

  Shawn grabbed his briefcase and made his way out of the Café del Mar. The crowd watching the restaurant had thinned, discouraged by the lack of further violence. It parted before him, his Red Sea, and Shawn Jaffe pushed his way into the current of pedestrians beyond.

  A forty-two-story granite building in the financial district of lower Manhattan harbored the offices of Lark Morton. Any other day, Shawn would have taken a taxi to work. This day, however, he chose to cover the four miles on foot to clear his head before he got to the office.

  The surrealism of the morning clung to him with the persistence of a shadow as he strode along the sidewalk beneath an array of multicolored holo-signs, head down and briefcase clutched in his grip. His thoughts drifted to the man with the rumpled shirt and unwashed hands and his cryptic warning.

  They’re watching you.

  But who? Shawn scanned the crowd. It seemed as if every passing stranger shot a furtive glance in his direction, averting their gaze when he caught them looking. He was probably imagining it. Probably.

  A man in a suit strode by and, as he passed, locked eyes with him. Shawn’s breath caught in his throat, and he was unable to look away.

  Someone collided with Shawn. “Yo, watch it, asshole!” they yelled.

  Shawn stumbled and turned to find a young man with orange hair and a nose ring glaring at him.

  “Bitch,” orange hair said and shouldered past him.

  Shawn scanned the crowd, but the suit was gone.

  He started walking again, the return of his thoughts to the morning’s madness as inevitable as gravity. Wanting to believe it had been a dream, he let his hand wander into the pocket of his jacket and closed around the business card Detective Sam Harrington had given him. He held it up. No smoke and mirrors there. It was real.

  He shifted his focus to the vehicles that crept along the street, their windshields reflecting a contorted cityscape. He imagined faces behind the glare, peering back at him and tracking his progress. A black SUV rolled by, and Shawn thought he recognized it. Maybe it was circling the block, keeping tabs on him. He noted its license plate as it sped down the street, but he didn’t see it again.

  He glanced over his shoulder and saw a man in a dark suit trailing behind him. Another stranger in the crowd, or was he being followed? Shawn slowed his pace, and the suit ebbed past him, head bent and absorbed in his smartphone. Or pretending to be.

  Eventually, he found himself staring up at the massive glass facade of the building at 35 Nassau Street. He looked down at his shoes, up and down the street, back at the behemoth towering over him. Trepidation wrapped its hands around his throat.

  Your name isn’t Shawn Jaffe. You aren’t from Ohio, and you’re not an investment broker. Come with me, and I’ll explain everything.

  Who could he trust? He didn’t know.

  At last, he let out an explosive exhalation and marched through the revolving doors and into the lobby.

  A massive digital display stretched across one wall and listed the building’s numerous businesses and corporations and their corresponding floors and office numbers. Lark Morton was on the thirty-fifth floor. In the rear of the lobby, Shawn took a short flight of stairs to a balcony, where the golden doors of the elevators reflected the light of the sun. He pressed the call button, and as he waited, he imagined someone lurking inside the elevator. He pictured the stranger who’d warned him earlier that morning. He’d have the same small dark hole in the breast pocket of his shirt, and he’d stare accusingly at Shawn with dead, unseeing eyes. He’d be holding a gun, the same one that had killed him, and he’d extend his arm and pull the trigger in Shawn’s face.

  But the elevator was empty. Shawn took a deep breath to calm his racing heart and stepped inside. He pressed the button for the thirty-fifth floor, and the maglev elevator floated upward soundlessly, buoyed along its guideway by magnets; the illuminated numbers above the doors informed him of his progress.

  You’re not an investment broker.

  If that was true, what awaited him? He half-expected the floor to be deserted, but when the doors slid open, the receptionist beamed at him from behind her sprawling desk, the Lark Morton logo affixed to its side.

  “Good morning, Mr. Jaffe,” she said. “How are you?”

  He scanned the room. A security camera hung from the ceiling in one corner, peering back at him. He wondered if someone was monitoring the video feed, watching him.

  “Mr. Jaffe, are you okay?”

  He turned his attention to the receptionist. Her brow knit in worry, and she flashed a tentative smile and batted her eyelashes.

  He shook his head. “Sorry,” he said. “Just had a rough morning is all.”

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  “No, thank you,” he said, and hurried past her. As he rounded the corner, he glanced back. The receptionist was watching him through narrowed eyes, her smile gone.

  He plunged down the hall, imagining men in dark suits behind the closed doors, monitoring his vitals—temperature, pulse, respiration, blood pressure—tracking him, watching his every move.

  But maybe the stranger had been full of it, crazy, and the only thing he had to worry about was a senior partner coming out to remark that if Shawn felt content to let his colleagues lead the assault on the workday, perhaps he wasn’t such a good fit for Lark Morton after all.

  But if so, how had the stranger known Shawn’s name, where he was from, his job?

  Nothing you know is real.

  Shawn made it to the end of the hall unscathed, turned the corner, and slipped into his office. The door clicked shut behind him like the click of a pistol’s hammer being cocked.

  The outer office was small but not cramped, a desk on one side opposite a row of plush chairs and a tabletop littered with digital magazines. His executive assistant, Miss Shirley Elliot, always made sure she had the latest magazines. In a world filled with waiting rooms containing digital copies of Sports Illustrated and Better Homes and Gardens dating back to 2020, Shawn found her efficacy as comforting as a casserole.

  And behind the desk sat Miss Elliot herself, scowling at him over a pair of bifocals, fingers poised over the keyboard projected onto the tabletop screen of her desk. She wore her silvery hair in a bun, and her liver-spotted skin hung from her tiny body in wrinkled folds.

  Shawn cleared his throat. “Sorry I’m late.”

  “I rescheduled your ten o’clock with Mr. Denning.”

  Shawn fidgeted with his tie. “I gotta tell you, I had the most bizarre morning,” he said. “It was horrible.”

  She returned her attention to her desk. “This is New York City. Horrible things happen all the time. I’m sure it’s nothing to fuss about.” She dragged his calendar across the digital tabletop surface and zoomed in on the daily schedule. “It’s at two p.m.”

  “It was horrible, though.” His tie had become the most fascinating thing in the world. He loosened the knot, then tightened it. “I mean, really horrible.”

  Again, Miss Elliot scowled up at him over the top of her bifocals. “I’ve lived here my whole life, and believe me, I’ve seen some horrible things.” She paused and pursed her lips. At first, Shawn thought she would explain everything—the fallible human psyche, the meaning of life, even his own Kafkaesque morning. Instead, she repeated, “This is New York City. Horrible things happen all the time.”

  Her lack of curiosity about his morning baffled Shawn. Was it the typical New Yorker’s disinterest in anything irrelevant to their immediate concern, or was she hiding something, hoping he didn’t dig deeper?

  “Now,” Miss Elliot said, as if that single syllable settled the matter. “I’m sure you’ve some catching up to do. I’ll be in once the coffee’s done brewing. I had to pour the last pot down the drain, you know. It was dreadfully stale.”

  Shawn gave up. He entered his inner office, set his briefcase on the desk, and opened the blinds on the far side of the room. Three large windows gave him a panoramic view to the
east, a landscape of concrete rising toward the heavens, stitched together by seams of intersecting thoroughfares. With a sigh, he fell into the leather chair behind his desk, running his hands through his hair.

  They’re watching you.

  He stood and peered outside, scanning the windows and rooftops of the buildings adjacent to his. He looked at the street below. No one stared back at him. He closed the blinds anyway.

  He sat again and tapped the surface of his desk twice to bring the digital tabletop to life. He scrolled through e-mail messages from his clients, read the morning’s headlines, and checked the Dow, the Nasdaq, and the S&P 500. Stocks were down. Par for the course.

  He was swiping through the financial statements for a small cap stock in which one of his clients was interested when the earthy aroma of coffee wafted into his office. Miss Elliot appeared soon thereafter, a steaming mug balanced in one hand. Shawn thanked her, and she gave him a curt nod and a tight-lipped smile and left. He sipped the coffee once, then placed it on a coaster before returning to the numbers on his tabletop screen.

  They’re watching you.

  But there was nothing to watch. He’d never been involved with anything illegal. He came from Moore City, a small town in Ohio where a flat tire would land a guy on the front page of the newspaper—unless it happened during football season, in which case he practically had to commit a felony if he wanted front-page coverage. Even then, he wouldn’t get much more than a byline. In Moore City, football was God. But he’d neither committed a felony nor played football.

  After high school, he’d attended Ohio State, and during his sophomore year, his parents were killed by a drunk driver on their way back from Key West, where they’d gone to celebrate their twenty-fifth anniversary. After the funeral, he vowed never to return home again. Like his mother and father, Shawn was an only child, and all his grandparents had passed away years ago. Hell, he didn’t even have a dog. There was nothing left for him in Moore City except for ghosts of a time forever lost. Instead, he’d poured himself into his studies until they consumed him. Time passed and the pain faded, and Shawn graduated near the top of his class with a bachelor’s in finance. After passing his brokerage exams and getting licensed, Lark Morton picked him up and he moved to New York. That had been less than three weeks ago.