Under Water

by Casey Barrett

  I patted around the upper shelves of the closet, looking under stacks of sweaters and jeans. Felt around inside every jean, skirt, and jacket pocket. Went back out to her room and dug through her dresser. I felt like a pervert as I sifted through her lingerie drawer. Mostly unsexy cottons and utilitarian bras, but at the bottom, I found a few pieces from Kiki de Montparnasse. Black lace numbers made for pleasure viewing; and wrapped in black tissue paper in the back corner, a pair of gold handcuffs. Lucky Mr. Fealy.

  I checked under her bed. A few swim bags, a large empty suitcase, a box of art supplies. I went back out to the living room and had a seat on the sofa, flipped through the top issue of Interview in the basket. Lady Gaga talks to Madonna. I gazed out the window at the Empire State crowing in the center of the skyline. Then I crossed the room to the flat-screen standing on a long, low cabinet. The center doors hid the electronics and the remote controls; the side drawers were empty except for a Twilight Saga box set. It was the “Ultimate Collector’s Edition,” complete with movie stills and special features. On top of the box, the inscription read: And so the lion fell in love with the lamb . . .

  I opened the box and sifted through the stills. Beneath the last one I found what her mother had missed: Madeline’s stash. I counted eight small plastic bags, three mostly empty with white coke residue. Maybe enough to scrape together a line or two if the dealer wasn’t calling you back. There were a few nuggets of nice looking weed in another bag. Six mollies sealed in another. A colorful collection of pills: light blue Xanax, yellow Vicodin, pink Oxy, the usual rainbow. None of this really worried me, a pretty standard party girl collection, but the last bit did. It was a bundle of tiny unwrapped paper squares, some light brown remnants left behind. Heroin. Not exactly performance enhancers for a nationally ranked athlete. I helped myself to a sampling of the pills and returned the rest to the bottom of the box set.

  Then I went into the kitchen, poured myself a wineglass of water, and washed down a couple Vicodin. I took another pass around her apartment. A slow search around all the same soulless spaces, and any I might have missed. No passport to be found, no framed pictures of friends or family, nothing that might reveal the person who lived here. The drugs were the only personal remains left behind.

  Down in the lobby, the round super was waiting for me in his cargo shorts, along with a trio of yelping dachshunds pulling at a three-headed leash. “Find anything?” he asked over the noise.

  I ignored the question. “Has anyone else been by her apartment in the past week?”

  “Only the mother,” he said. “And the housekeeper. She come every Friday.”

  “No sign of the boyfriend lately?”

  He gave it a second’s thought. “No. Maybe two, three weeks?” he said. “He used to be here all the time. Many nights a week.”

  “Maybe they broke up,” I offered.

  “Maybe.” He shrugged. “After the mother leave, I check the security tapes. I not here to see everything all the time, you know? We have cameras in the lobby, in elevator, and in the halls on every floor. No one come here for her, only the mother. Last time I see girl on the security is Labor Day weekend, on Saturday night. She leave around midnight and not come back.”

  “Was she carrying anything? A bag, a suitcase?”

  “Don’t think so. Would have to check again.”

  “Could I see them?”

  “Not now,” he said. He motioned across the vacant lobby and down at his whining dogs. “Too busy, maybe if you come back later.”

  I thanked him and produced a business card. “Name’s Duck,” I told him, extending a hand. “Anyone else comes around, think you can give me a call?”

  “I’m Angel.” He shook my hand and examined my card. “I knew you were no friend.”

  “No,” I said. “But it looks like our girl could use one.”

  Chapter 3

  I found an empty bench in Christopher Park across from an aging drag queen. He wore a scarlet dress and ripped stockings and stilettos and had a day’s stubble coming through last night’s makeup. He gave me a tight smile and went back to his Post. It was just the two of us, along with four frozen ghosts: a gay rights sculpture of two couples painted white as death—the men were standing, the women seated on a bench next to them. They seemed to sense I was there. The small park was haunted by distant city spirits, their melancholy lingering for another age.

  I sat still for a few minutes enjoying the cloudless blue morning. A light bite of wind carried the coming colors of fall. A warm sun offered its last best kiss of summer. It was too beautiful to trust. The city in September . . . So easy to be fooled.

  I reached in my back pocket for the contact list. I considered calling Mrs. McKay, telling her about the drugs, but figured it was too soon for a check-in. Charlie McKay’s number was the first one she’d listed. May as well start at the top.

  Broken memories from another lifetime . . . Charlie fucking McKay. I was better than him, once. Back when we were ten years old, I was a top-ranked, record-breaking little stud. I used to smoke him in every stroke. Coach Marks had pulled my father aside and whispered about my Olympic potential when Charlie was still a slow-lane chump who could barely swim a lap of butterfly. And so much for that. Top young athletes are like child stars—poor bets for long-term gains. The day Charlie won his first Olympic gold, I was dealing with a coke hangover on Avenue D.

  I called his office line at Soto Capital. He picked up on the first note of the first ring.

  “McKay here,” he said.

  “Charlie, it’s Duck Darley. Long damn time.”

  “Who?” There were urgent voices in the background. I had that instant guilt you feel anytime you call a trading floor. What could you possibly want that could be more important?

  “It’s Duck Darley,” I said, louder. “From Marks Aquatics. Your old—”

  “Oh shit! Duck. Yeah, man, I was expecting—wait, hold on a second.” I heard hard typing, and then he snapped, “Yes, I already fucking told you.

  “Sorry, man, I can’t really talk,” he said. “But I’m psyched you’re helping us out with Madeline.”

  “Is there a time we can meet up? Maybe grab a drink after—”

  “Goddamn it, I already told you! Wait, hang on, Duck.” In the background, muttered apologies from some sad-sack junior associate. Then he was back. “Look, I’m really sorry, Duck, but I gotta go. I’ll be honest—I think mom’s overreacting. Maddie’ll turn up, I know it. But we should catch up soon, okay?”

  The line was dead before I could ask when. Nice to hear big brother’s concern. Then I remembered the all-consuming urgency of the markets, the way my father would scream and hang up if you dared call him at work without an emergency. It was the nature of certain beasts.

  The White Horse Tavern was a few blocks up. It’s a tourist trap thanks to dead poet’s lore, but not before noon on Tuesdays. Then it will always be a professional place for professional drinkers. A fine refuge.

  There were two old sentries seated at the end of the bar with a stool between them. I remembered them from past daytime trips; they’d shared their sad story with me a while back. They were both retired New York City firemen. As fate would have it, they retired from the FDNY in the summer of 2001. That September they lost damn near every friend they ever had in the Trade Center. Now they drank away their survivor’s guilt and wished they’d died a fast, heroic death rather than this slow, wet march. They sipped at their whiskeys and didn’t recognize me.

  I didn’t recognize the bartender. She was a big-chested redhead with watery eyes and lipstick smeared on her teeth. She poured me a Stella, and I took a seat at a small table in the corner.

  I knew where I had to go next, but I didn’t know how I would face him. I would need some fortifying. He would smell it on me, but I didn’t care. The roots of disappointment were planted plenty of years ago. How long had it been? More than two decades since I was one of them. There had been some calls through the early years, alway
s answered. Just calling to catch up, see how the team’s doing, I’d say. You can always come back, he’d say. You laid the base. We’ll get you back in shape in no time . . . I’d tell him maybe, that I was thinking about it, but I’d never show. He stopped saying it after a while and then I stopped calling. It had been at least a decade since we’d had any contact at all.

  For a moment I thought about calling Margaret McKay and telling her that I was the wrong man for the job. Once a quitter . . . Too many painful memories.

  Beneath the contact numbers and the email for Coach Marks, Mrs. McKay had included the team’s practice schedule. Same as it ever was. Still at Cooper College, every morning from five a.m. to seven; every afternoon from three thirty p.m. to six; every Saturday morning from eight a.m. to noon. Hell of a way to spend your teenage years. And for what, the long-shot Olympic dream? A college scholarship, where you’d pass your college years with more of the same? Just looking at that schedule made me tired. With the stash I’d found in her apartment, it was unlikely that Madeline had seen a morning workout in some time.

  Who could blame her for the rebellion? Forced to spend most of your waking life under water, a champion older brother you could never live up to, a father who died when you were barely old enough to remember . . . A toast to self-destruction, my dear. When I find you at the rocky bottom, I just may join you. I drained the rest of the pint and returned to the redhead for a refill.

  On my way back, I felt the Vicodin veil descending. A killer of pain indeed. Like a bride or a widow, the veil protects you in its comforting cover. I clicked my jaw and rubbed my nose and settled back into that warm, gauzy state. The second beer went down easy, and the bourbon that followed did not need ice.

  * * *

  I arrived a little before three thirty p.m. You could smell the pool a block away. The sense memory sobered me up like the scent of violent death does for a veteran. The nostrils burn with recognition, and your body adjusts. I became aware of my footsteps, straighter than before. I popped a piece of gum and congratulated myself on the quick cleanup.

  Marks Aquatics had been operating out of the Cooper College pool for at least thirty years. After an All-American career at USC, Teddy Marks joined the SEALs and saw action in some serious hot spots. He witnessed a friend, a fellow swimmer-turned-SEAL, die in front of him. Then he settled in the city and started his swim team at twenty-eight. By thirty he’d produced his first Olympian; he’d placed at least one swimmer on the U.S. Team at every Games since. He’d been profiled during Olympic broadcasts as an authentic American hero. Marks ran his program with the values he’d learned in the service: honor, accountability, and complete devotion to the mission. Other teams called us the Marks Navy.

  The man had spent most of his life on deck inside the same windowless basement pool, arriving before dawn every morning and not leaving until after dark. He’d surface sometimes for lunch. Like the mole people of the subways, his New York was one beneath the sidewalks, surrounded by chemical water and clanging pipes and tired faces.

  I signed in at the security desk and pointed in the direction of the pool. The guard shrugged and waved me past without checking ID. The pool stench was heavy now, thicker with every step down the stairs. At the bottom, there was a small lobby with two red doors to the locker rooms. Between the doors, a narrow window looked out at the pool. There was a big man with a crew cut slumped forward on a bench beneath it. Seeing me, he stood and put his hand in his jacket. Upright, he looked like a ruined offensive lineman, six-five at least, and well past three hundred pounds. He stepped toward me and blocked the entrance to the men’s room.

  “Help you?” he asked.

  “Going to see Coach Marks,” I told him.

  “And you are?”

  “Brad Pitt. And you?” I moved to go around him, and he shifted his bulk with an eager aggression. He moved like a man who missed violent physical contact with other men.

  We regarded each other from close range. His hand stayed in his jacket. I went through my aikido progressions, felt the rush of confrontation. I was sober enough to be presentable, but still drunk enough to look for trouble.

  “Tell Coach Marks that it’s Duck Darley,” I said. “He knows who I am.”

  He gave me a hard look and a good long ten count before responding. I could tell he was disappointed; so few chances for action anymore. “Stay here,” he said.

  I stepped up to the glass and looked out at the old pool. Abandon all hope, ye who enter, we used to say. It was a place of sanctioned torture, a dungeon full of paddles and surgical tubing and boards and buckets. The tools of the trade. The ceiling was low, with flickering fluorescent lights hanging above each lane. The cinder block walls were painted red; the chipped deck tiles were black. At the far end of the still pool around twenty mostly naked bodies stretched and yawned behind their lanes. Their faded nylon suits concealed little.

  Marks was in the center of the group behind lane four. He was dressed in standard coach’s wear: wet New Balance tennis shoes, khaki shorts, navy USA Swimming polo, and mustache. He twirled his stopwatch like a weapon in his right hand; in his left he held a folded notebook. His body was straight and slim and still fit, but it was startling to see how much he’d aged. The mustache had gone gray, and there wasn’t much hair left on top. It had receded halfway up his scalp, a thin, fading afterthought. But he had that same presence about him: the posture of a president, the compassionate eyes of a priest.

  He called out a series of commands that his swimmers absorbed without reaction. Then they shuffled behind their lanes and peeled on their caps and goggles. When the lap clock reached sixty, one by one, they fell into the pool and swam off.

  The big man had waited from a respectful distance until the last swimmer was in the pool. When Marks was alone behind lane four, he approached like a scolded solider. He leaned into his ear as Marks listened and nodded and then smirked. He looked up toward the window and shook his head in amusement. The big man shuffled back my way.

  “Told you,” I said when he emerged from the men’s room.

  “He said to go on in,” he grunted. Then he slumped back onto the bench and stared at his phone.

  It was like walking back in time, to a place where the pain was prouder, or at least more pure. There were ghosts in the cramped locker room, by the showers, in the stalls, and they all recognized me. Out on deck, the ceiling was lower and the pool was darker than I remembered. It felt smaller, as places from your youth often do. We made eye contact across the pool as I walked toward him.

  “I’ll be damned,” he said. “The prodigal swimmer returns.”

  “Hey Coach, long time.”

  He gave me a fierce hug and then forced me back and held me by the shoulders. His eyes burned right through to the back of my skull, and I looked away.

  “You’ve stayed fit, Duck. What you been doing?”

  “Still swim a few days a week over at the Palladium,” I told him. “Just a few grand with a masters’ group, nothing much.”

  “Gotta do something to flush out the booze, huh?” He winked. “Smells like you had a nice liquid lunch.”

  “Nah, just a beer with a burger,” I said.

  “Right.”

  “What was that about?” I asked, motioning toward the entrance. “Team needs a bouncer these days?”

  “Don’t ask,” he said.

  “I’m asking.”

  “It’s nothing. We just need to be careful. That’s Fred Wright, an ex-SEAL. We served in Yugoslavia together, in another lifetime. A good man.” He paused, looked out toward his old friend. “There’s been a few . . . incidents. Some stuff getting stolen from the lockers, that sort of thing.”

  A former SEAL turned pool security guard; I decided not to mention his over-qualifications. We looked out to the pool and watched the kids warm up. Neither of us spoke for a hundred yards or so. This was the Elite group, the kids with national cuts and Olympic goals, not dreams. They ranged in age from thirteen to twenty,
mostly high schoolers, a few college kids who’d decided to attend school in the city so they could continue training with Marks.

  “Got some good ones in there,” he said. He pointed to a boy with a long, loping stroke over in the end lane. “That’s Ian King, tough bastard. I think we can get him under fifteen minutes in the mile this year.”

  “Not bad,” I said. “Where’s Coach Kosta? You still got him leading the D group?”

  Marks shook his head, gave a pained frown. “Parted ways, I’m afraid.”

  “Sorry to hear. I always liked the little Greek.”

  “Me too,” he said. “John was one hell of a distance coach.”

  “Where’s he coaching now?” I asked.

  “He’s not. Decided to become a civilian, it seems.” Marks put his hand on my shoulder. “Goddamn, Duck, it’s good to see you. You haven’t changed a bit.” I appreciated the lie.

  A girl flipped hard at our feet over lane three and drenched our shoes. “That one’s Trina Harp” he said. “Nasty piece of work. Two hundred flyer, four hundred IM. Won Pan Pacs last summer. Mean as can be.” We watched her streamline and swim off. Her stroke lacked any fluid grace, but she pulled at the water with bad intentions, like a boxer hitting the heavy bag.

  “So, Coach, I’m here . . .”

  “I know, been expecting you. Margaret told me you’d be coming ’round.”

  “When’s the last time Madeline was at practice?”

  He thought about it for a lap, looked off at the clock. “Little over a month,” he said. “August third. She showed up at a Wednesday afternoon workout. Stayed for warm-up and half a pull set. Then got out and said her shoulder hurt.” His mouth got tight as if hurt by the memory.