Nightmare in New York

by Anthony Masters

  Later we sat over a meal in the hotel coffee shop.

  ‘You want to take a walk?’ she asked brightly.

  ‘Sure.’

  We ambled through the neon streets. There was the same hard brightness in her conversation, but underneath it was the mystery of the lives of the passers-by. Most people strode briskly. A few lounged against the walls, waiting for a fast buck. Steam came from the pavements, pushed up through the subway shafts. Swirling above them, making them insubstantial shapes.

  We had a coffee and walked back to the hotel. Jennifer told me Alex would be calling next morning to fix a time to take us out, to show us round. She sounded relieved, as if she could be off the hook. We bought some hot chestnuts and the vendor asked us where we came from. ‘Don’t say London,’ he said. ‘They all say London.’ I told him Wimbledon and he looked really mystified.

  That night I couldn’t sleep. The room was stuffy and over-heated. Several times I paced around, switching the television on and off, changing channels desperately, trying to avoid a succession of mini-sagas, all of which seemed to be saying the same thing. Finally I managed to sleep in an uneasy, fitful kind of way, punctuated with dreams of Tim. We were running over the black rocks of Central Park. We ran easily, nimbly, without fear. Behind us ran a gazelle. I could feel its warm breath on the back of my neck and I ran more easily, faster. I was so exhilarated that I felt I was almost flying. I looked to right and left and saw we were flanked by Indians, all of them on foot. Their dark skins glowed with heat and dust. Then I glanced at Tim and saw that his body, too, had taken on the same swarthy, glistening hue. His eyes looked very ancient. We ran into night and out again into early morning. Then I woke, tossing and sweating, to find myself in a gloomy hotel dawn.

  I looked at my watch. Five a.m. My door handle suddenly rattled and twisted. Was this what had woken me? I sat up in bed, startled, staring at the handle. But it didn’t move again. Hurriedly I got up and ran to the door, opening it slowly and carefully. In the distance someone was walking down the pale corridor. The back seemed vaguely familiar but I couldn’t place it. I felt like calling out but something stopped me.

  I closed the door, went to the window and pulled the curtains aside. I looked down on the streets and thought again of the grubby hopelessness of Times Square. Tim and I had stayed near there on our last visit.

  I yawned. The familiarity of that back. Who the hell could it have been? Perhaps it was an illusion born of fatigue and central heating. I turned on the TV and threw myself down on the bed.

  ‘You can’t keep doing this to me,’ said a grey-faced actress dressed as a waitress. But she could have been dressed as Elizabeth I. The dialogue would have been the same.

  I must have dozed off again for I dimly heard the door knob rattle and then there was a tentative knock. I looked at my watch. Six o’clock. The interruptions were every hour on the hour. Every hour? Weakly, suffering from jet lag and a dry throat, I staggered out of bed.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Open the door.’

  Inside me, a great welling nausea came up from my stomach and into my mouth. I began to shiver and to feel boiling hot almost at the same time. It was a lousy dream. I struggled with the lock and banged my head against the door. It hurt. I stubbed my toe. It hurt again. But it must be a dream. It must. Somehow I got the door open. Standing on the threashold in jeans and a T-shirt, with just a hint of holiday tan, was Tim. I was sick at his feet.

  I must have passed out as well. I woke up in bed, smelling lemon clean-up pads and fresh towels. He was sitting on the bed in front of me. I started to cry, weeping silently. The dream was so cruel.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m real.’

  I shook my head and he reached out and took my hand. Then he leant over and kissed me very tenderly, very softly on the cheek. Several times. He smelt of the cologne he had always used – the smell I remembered him by always.

  ‘I’m real,’ he repeated but I still shook my head and the tears kept coming. ‘I’m real,’ he said over and over again. ‘I’m real.’

  Half an hour later he was still saying it and I was still crying as if the tears would never stop. I had grieved for him. He couldn’t be here. He was dead, mutilated, his head a wizened balloon, churned up by a propellor. But he was explaining, over and over again. After a while, I found that I was just able to hear him.

  ‘The body wasn’t mine. Alex identified the wrong body. It must have been unrecognisable – unidentifiable. Alex got it wrong.’ He went on explaining patiently.

  ‘So who’s in that grave in Wimbledon?’ I stared at him incredulously.

  ‘Someone else,’ he said. ‘I don’t know who. Alex identified the body … It was just chance that there was one.’

  ‘It’s criminal – it’s – I looked at that horrible mess and thought it was you.’ I began to stutter hopelessly. ‘You bastard. You bastard. You – ’

  He cut across me ruthlessly. ‘I had to do it, Colin. I was on to something so important that thousands of people’s lives could be affected. When you find out what that something is you’ll understand. I promise.’

  I stared at him. He sounded like a B movie. ‘Is this something to do with Kelly and that shooting?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s got bigger ramifications than that. Much bigger.’

  ‘Why couldn’t you trust me?’

  ‘I couldn’t involve you. I still can’t. You’ve got to trust me.’ He sounded remote, apart. But he was here. Dear God, he was here. Not lying under a rock, bloated or skeletal. Not in the grave in Wimbledon. He was here.

  ‘We’ve got to ring Kate,’ I mumbled. ‘We’ve got to tell her.’

  ‘Later.’ He looked deeply sad. ‘I know how much she’s suffered – how much you both have.’

  ‘Jennifer knew?’

  ‘Not at the time. I contacted her last week.’ He looked away.

  I was thinking so fast it hurt. ‘You phoned her?’

  ‘I wrote. It was the only way. I sent her the letter in a magazine mailing. It was a risk.’

  ‘That we’d find out?’

  ‘I didn’t mean it to go on this long.’

  ‘Why did you do it? Why didn’t you tell us?’ I began shouting, gabbling, crying. I wanted to hit him, hurt him as much as he had hurt me. Then I thought: it can’t be happening. He isn’t here. He can’t be here.

  ‘I did it because of Alex,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Alex? Why Alex?’

  ‘Because he’s trying to kill Kelly – amongst other people.’

  I stared at him unbelievingly. Had he gone crazy? Maybe that was the explanation. My father was having some kind of breakdown. Alex kill someone? Alex kill Kelly? It was absurd. I said nothing. I couldn’t bring out any words at all and he stumbled on.

  ‘The only way I could prove anything against him – and try to protect Kelly – was to make him think I was dead. Colin, I swear to you it’s the truth. Alex is heading up more corruption in this city than anyone ever has. I knew Laurence Bradley had information on him and I was sure I could get more. You don’t know Alex as I do, Colin. He’s obsessed with power. And he’s powerful enough already to kill and go on killing until he’s safe. He’d kill his own niece – his own brother – ’ Tim broke off, seeing that I wasn’t taking anything in. My thoughts were still on that beach on Formentera, with that traitorous note: SORRY. CAN’T HOLD OUT ANY LONGER. He was trying to claim Alex as some kind of monster. But what about him?

  ‘How did you get off the island?’ I asked incredulously, snatching at a detail.

  ‘A fisherman took me to the mainland.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Here. A roundabout route. I had to find her. Soon after I arrived Laurence Bradley was shot dead and Kelly was – ’

  ‘Where is she now?’ I broke in.

  ‘In a hotel.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us? Why didn’t you trust me? I wouldn’t have given you away
. I – ’

  He grabbed my shoulders and almost shook me in his desperation to communicate. ‘I had to convince Alex I was dead. And that meant convincing everyone.’

  I pushed him away and began to sob. ‘You love her more than me. How could you do it to us?’

  The door opened again abruptly and Jennifer stood there. She did not look her usual composed self. Her eyes were bleary and her face had a pale, almost translucent look.

  ‘You cow,’ I said.

  Tim stared at me hopelessly. ‘Jennifer cares about you and Kate. We’ve already talked about it tonight,’ he said.

  ‘I bet you have,’ I replied churlishly. So he hadn’t even bothered to come and see me first. Then I remembered the door handle rattling – and that familiar back.

  Jennifer went to sit on a chair. There was a new shiny hardness to her that I didn’t like. Had she persuaded Tim into deceiving us?

  ‘I want to ring Kate,’ I said.

  ‘Later.’ Tim looked across at Jennifer and with rising jealousy I saw their complicity.

  ‘The phone’s probably tapped,’ she said, sounding absurdly loud. ‘And what if Alex phones her in England? It could be very difficult for her. We’ve got to keep the secret, just for a few more days.’

  But all I could do was to bawl abuse at her.

  Somehow Jennifer penetrated my accusations. ‘Listen, I brought you here to see him. Colin, for God’s sake accept that. I know how much you hate my guts but at least give your father a chance.’ Her voice faltered. ‘I risked a lot to bring you here, and your father was very angry with me for exposing you to all this. But I had to bring you together, whatever the danger. I couldn’t let you go on suffering.’

  I was hardly listening to her. ‘Couldn’t he have protected her some other way?’

  ‘You don’t understand how powerful Alex is,’ said Tim quietly. ‘I found out he used mob money to get into Congress. That was what Laurence Bradley knew – Kelly’s boyfriend.’ The whole thing was ridiculous.

  ‘Alex is afraid that Kelly knows what Laurence knew.’

  I felt Alex’s arm around me as we walked away from the mortuary. I saw his grief. My father – Tim – he was crazy.

  ‘Alex loves you. He’s your brother.’

  ‘I had first-hand experience of his ambition even as a kid, Colin. He’s completely ruthless. Alex had Laurence Bradley killed, and he’d have me killed too if he knew I could expose him.’

  ‘But how did you know Kelly needed protecting?’ I asked, looking for any loophole. ‘Bradley was killed after you disappeared.’

  ‘She called me. Time after time.’

  ‘And you believed her?’ I spat at him.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I never realised you had so much contact with her,’ I sneered.

  ‘She’s my own flesh and blood.’

  I felt there was nothing else I could say.

  He rose to his feet.

  ‘Tim – ’ Panic filled me.

  ‘Yes, son?’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Do? I’m going to do what I set out to do. I’m taking Kelly back to England, after I’ve finished what Laurence started. We must put a stop to Alex. You know what the street buzz is on him? They call him the Reaper.’

  I laughed when he said this, and then laughed again as I saw how frustrated they both looked. They exchanged glances, and I realised how destructive I was being. They’d never confide in me now.

  Then to my surprise Jennifer blurted out: ‘I have enough evidence to convict Alex as well. I’m keeping a copy of your – of Tim’s notes. So I’m a target too, Colin. Why don’t you try and believe what we’re saying.’

  ‘You didn’t suffer like Kate and I did,’ I yelled at her, behaving like a petulant child. But I couldn’t help it; the shock was too great.

  ‘The main thing is I’ve come to you,’ said Tim sadly. ‘To ask for your forgiveness.’ He started to move towards the door.

  ‘Don’t you trust me?’ I couldn’t let him go now. Not after all this.

  ‘Yes. But there are important – dangerous – things to be done,’ he said evasively.

  He didn’t trust me.

  ‘What am I meant to do?’

  ‘Keep going. And for God’s sake don’t show any difference in your attitude to Alex. It could put Jennifer – and you – in terrible danger.’

  ‘When will I see you again?’

  ‘In England. When I’ve filed the information on him with someone in Congress.’

  ‘You’ve got to tell me more – ’

  He looked at his watch. ‘I haven’t got time. You have to trust me. For now.’

  ‘I must call Kate. I can’t let her go on suffering.’

  Jennifer intervened. ‘Alex had people working for him all over this city. Tim has taken an enormous risk in contacting you. We can’t take any more risks.’ She sounded desperate.

  ‘I’ve got to go now, Colin.’

  ‘No – ’ The panic seized me again.

  ‘You will forgive me?’

  ‘I don’t believe you’re even here,’ I muttered.

  He came over and kissed me on the forehead. ‘I’m alive, Colin, and I intend to stay that way.’

  Chapter Five

  When Tim had gone I felt a terrible sense of anticlimax. Jennifer and I sat drinking coffee in my room, not knowing what to say to one another, each preoccupied with our own thoughts. The fact that he was alive gave me a soaring joyous feeling, despite all my anger and frustration and hurt. So he’d done it for someone I didn’t know. And what was I to believe about Alex? That my own uncle was some kind of gun-toting super-crook? All I kept seeing in my mind’s eye was that bloated blackened thing in the fridge. And Alex’s grief. His terrible grief.

  But Tim was alive. And because of that my mood swung completely and I wanted to run and jump and yell. Suddenly I couldn’t bear to be cooped up in the hotel room any longer.

  ‘I’m going out for a run,’ I said.

  She looked up. ‘So am I.’

  ‘I’d rather go alone.’

  For a moment she looked deeply hurt and then she burst out: ‘I guess you don’t reckon I can run. You’ve always seen me as you wanted to see me: an annoying appendage of Tim’s. A little dressed-up doll. And right in the way, too.’

  I didn’t have anything to say. Jennifer went away and came back in a rather stylish tracksuit. She looked about nineteen. In total silence we went down to the lobby and out into the street. It was eight a.m.

  ‘Where shall we go?’

  ‘Can you make Central Park?’ she asked.

  ‘Sure.’ I thought of what had happened to Kelly and her boyfriend.

  After we had been running a while I said to Jennifer, ‘So what was the real reason for us being in New York?’

  ‘Directly I got your father’s letter I wanted to go to him – however dangerous it might be. I just couldn’t bear to sit around in England any longer. Just waiting. I know I shouldn’t have taken you; it was completely irresponsible. I was just selfish, I guess. But all I could think of was trying to reach you. Trying to improve our lousy relationship. I mean, it couldn’t have been worse, could it?’

  I nodded. ‘But how did he know we were here?’

  ‘That was easy. I know he reads my magazine, so I got the editor to carry a piece saying I was covering a story here and could be contacted at the hotel.’

  We had slowed down.

  ‘You’re pretty resourceful, aren’t you?’ I said.

  ‘I’ve had to be. In the circumstances. Now I have enough information on Alex to get me shot. What do you think about that?’ She gasped out the words.

  We jogged amongst the skyscrapers which were lit by the early autumn morning sun, dazzling us with mellow colour. It was like running under glass castles. Steam rose from the subway vents and I could smell coffee and pancakes and fried bacon.

  We jogged on until we had to stop to cross the road to Central Park. Everything wa
s fresh and aromatic in there and the urban smell changed to the earthy scent of fallen leaves, fern and water. We ran round the park, each easily matching the other’s stride. I felt as if I was running with Kate. I glanced at Jennifer as she ran. Her tanned face was tense and there was a wariness in her eyes.

  Eventually we stopped for a rest and sat on a seat, watching the unrippled lake water reflect the gentle sunlight.

  ‘Surprised that I made it this far?’ She smiled bitterly.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ve been such a bastard to you. I can’t think when I wasn’t.’ Did I trust her now? And if I didn’t, why was I saying all this?

  ‘Don’t be sorry. I know how lousy it was for you when Kate turned to me. I should have done something about it. Made us all sit down and talk it through. Let me tell you something. When I married Tim I knew what I was taking on. Two children who didn’t want a mother. But you’ve no idea what an outsider I felt, especially in Formentera when the family came together. Then Tim died – and was resurrected. I don’t know how I kept it to myself. But I knew I had to.’

  The pain stabbed at me again.

  ‘Somehow I managed. Then I couldn’t manage any longer – and I brought you here and dropped us both in the shit. But I knew we had to be with him. That we couldn’t wait.’ She was silent and it was a silence I didn’t want to break. Eventually she said: ‘Colin, now we’re here, let’s work together. It’s not easy, I know. But we have to try.’

  She looked down and I could see her eyes were full of tears and that her hands were trembling. I had never seen her cry before.

  ‘I’ll try,’ I said as reassuringly as I could.

  ‘Do you like me a little?’ she asked rather sadly.

  ‘Sure,’ I said. I didn’t want to give too much away.

  We jogged back to the hotel, and I suddenly realised I was ravenously hungry.

  ‘I could eat one of those special New York breakfasts,’ I told her as we went through the revolving door of the hotel.