Under Water

by Casey Barrett

  “He’s had nothing but nice things to say about you.”

  “Interesting that he tells you about me.”

  I raised my glass. She brought hers close but did not drink. The clear, cold liquid hovered just below her sharp chin. “I asked Teddy about this girl you’re looking for. He says she is very talented, a big, strong girl. Beautiful strokes. But lazy, I hate lazy.” She tipped back the shot and waited for me to follow suit. I hadn’t been counting, but I estimated we had to be over a dozen by this point. Yet I did not feel drunk. As if reading my mind, she said, “It is the caviar. A Russian secret. If you eat plenty of caviar, it lines your stomach, and you do not feel the vodka.”

  Another carafe later we proved that theory wrong. The delicacy may have delayed the inevitable, but there comes a point where the booze always wins. I paid Rosie and slurred out thanks, and then we were standing, swaying, on the sidewalk, Anna’s arm in mine. It was a cool night, with fall coming fast, and she pressed her body close to mine for warmth. I stepped into the street, raised my arm for a passing cab. Before I could speak, she gave the driver her address and turned on me with predatory intent. I felt her mouth on my neck, her hand between my legs.

  Chapter 24

  I woke just before six in Anna’s bed with a dry mouth and an aching head. I slipped from bed in the lightening darkness and went in search of water and Advil. Behind me, Anna slumbered in deep sleep, a thick, smooth leg flung out on top of the sheets. I felt her scent clinging to my body as I walked, naked and chilled, down the hall to the kitchen. I poured myself tap water and went over and stood by the high loft windows looking down on Mercer Street. There was a hum of activity down the block, a few determined partiers coming out of an after-hours spot on this early Sunday morning. Above them, dawn was yawning with sobriety.

  I resolved to go for a swim. There was a masters’ group that would soon be gathering at a nearby pool. It was as if my body had opened my eyes and informed me of what it needed. A swim would flush away the booze haze and clear the mind for the long afternoon ahead. I gulped down the rest of my water and set the glass on the counter and swung my arms in butterfly circles, stretching out the hangover. Then I walked softly back toward Anna’s room in search of my things. She was already up, dressed in short black shorts and sports bra, tying her hair back into a tight ponytail.

  “You are welcome to stay and go back to sleep,” she said. “I am going for run.” She spoke with wide-awake clarity. The old swimmer’s switch: dead asleep one minute, eyes wide and off to work out the next.

  “No, I was just thinking I’d go for a swim,” I told her.

  She shrugged, unimpressed, bent down to tie a pair of new running shoes. Again, post-sex, the coldness had returned. We both wanted to be gone, out of each other’s presence, and couldn’t get out the door fast enough.

  We looked at each other with nothing to say. Then she moved past me, out of the bedroom, toward the elevator. We managed a kissless good-bye out front and headed off in our separate directions.

  The water did not let me down. It proved, as ever, to be an instant tonic as I entered with a shock and swam off the booze with slow, aching strokes. My masters’ group is a rather pathetic collection of has-beens and never-will-bes. There’s the obsessed crew of too-fit triathletes with terrible strokes, the now fat swim moms trying to swim off the pounds, and your random less-than-committed folks like me, who tend to use practices as a futile means of balancing the bodily damage. The triathlete clowns smelled the booze emanating off of me in the locker room and gave the requisite snarls of disapproval.

  I swam the practice without speaking, without taking off my goggles at the wall. I stroked and flipped and thought and waited for the dread to lift. I wondered if Madeline McKay felt the same respite from her own demons the few times she still returned to the pool. I wondered if she was still alive.

  No one was waiting for me this time as I climbed from the pool. I dressed without showering, relished the clinging stench of chlorine, and made my way to Joe’s diner. I grabbed a Post on the way. It was another crisp blue September morning, low sixties, no clouds, no planes overhead. Manuel set down my beer and black coffee and I opened the paper.

  There was no mention of the Fealy murder or the search for Madeline in the first few pages. Unsolved or not, it was yesterday’s news. On the third and fourth pages of the paper there was a splashy report about the city’s latest crime statistics. So far that year, all classified felonies were at record lows in Manhattan. Less murder, fewer muggings, fewer burglaries, fewer assaults . . . These city streets had never been safer. The island was now a playground for the rich, and it had the ubiquitous police presence to guard its loaded denizens. Every last crime was dropping, except for one: a certain specialized subset of rape. The classic stranger-in-an-alley horror, that kind of rape was becoming all but extinct in these parts. But it was the other kind of rape that they couldn’t do anything about. It was termed “Non-Stranger Rape.” When the evil comes from someone you know . . . what could the cops do about that? Their presence would forever be after the fact. Usually they wouldn’t hear about it until much later, if at all. That particular felony was spiking. According to the report, it had never been higher.

  I wondered where Marks belonged in that particular category. Where did they place decades-old statutory rape, where the victims might only now recognize the compliant scars inflicted upon them? Is it ever too late to punish? I didn’t feel like helping the man with his claims of blackmail, but I knew I had to seek out his old assistant, John Kosta. They had parted ways unpleasantly, and it was about more than a power struggle on deck. Blackmailer or not, Kosta would have insight into the past lives of his old boss. He’d also remember a few things about the McKay family.

  But first case first. Find the girl. So easy to become lost in the whys, when all anyone really wants to know is the what. Where was she? Who did it? Surface solutions for deeper sins . . .

  I tried to imagine her movements since the moment she fled the house in Rhinebeck. She was rattled by something and headed back to the city but did not go back to her apartment. The following day she was seen on camera leaving her ex-boyfriend’s place—which must have been empty, with Fealy and his roommate both remaining out east on Labor Day. She tried to reach Coach Marks but did not leave a message. She sent her mother that cryptic apology text. And then . . . where did she go? Not home. Her partner in porn, Juli, had confirmed that she’d done a bit of escorting. Was she with a john? Did she end up like Cass’s doomed friend Veronica, lifeless on some hotel bed? No, she would have been found by now. Was she off somewhere on a bender, partying through sleepless days and nights with faceless disreputables? Did she finally OD, with her fellow addicts dumping her in some remote location to distance themselves from complicity? Or perhaps most likely of all, it was a simple, quiet suicide. Nothing dramatic, no note, no desire to be found, just a final decision to turn out the lights . . .

  I envisioned this awful and plausible end as my eyes stared out of focus at the gossip on Page Six. Something about a troubled starlet and a threesome . . . Manuel came over and set down my western omelet next to the paper, along with a fresh Beck’s. He refilled my coffee, told me I “no look so good, señor.” I turned the page. The story wasn’t dead yet.

  It appeared our girl, dead or alive, was being cleared as a suspect in the Fealy murder. The cops now liked a drug dealer by the name of Peter DiCicco. They’d published his mug shot; he was already in custody. Dealer Pete, hot damn. The Post presented a scenario that put the rich and tragic filmmaker James Fealy in a less than flattering light. This would explain the quick demotion from the front page to a buried item after the gossip section. The shower slaying of a promising young filmmaker, the scion of a billionaire hedge fund father, killed by his nutso ex-girlfriend—now that was Post-style scandal. But when they couldn’t find the girl or place her at the scene, and the dead turned out to be in business with a drug dealer whose principle clientele was hig
h school and college kids, well, that’s when the press and the public lost sympathy in a hurry. Good riddance would be the general sentiment. The only ones who’d care now were Fealy’s parents and little brother, and even they’d feel a little less heartbroken, a little angrier, when they discovered what young James was mixed up in. That is, if the cops had the right man and motive.

  Reports now claimed that James Fealy had become a sort of investor and connector for the ambitious Dealer Pete. Fealy was allegedly fronting significant sums of cash (over six figures, said the Post) for Dealer Pete to purchase the highest quality coke from Harlem wholesalers, plus hundreds of doses of molly. Then Fealy would help open new markets for Pete’s new supply—primarily prep school kids and NYU students; kids still on their parents’ dime, who could afford unhealthy amounts of good drugs.

  He sounded like a dealer’s dream customer turned partner. But at a certain point, the rich kid drug tourist gets spooked straight. I remembered Pete telling us that Madeline said he quit. Fealy decides he wants out, tells Dealer Pete he’s done, and the dealer says no way. He’s not letting his golden goose out of the noose that easily. Maybe there’s even a transaction in progress, and Fealy tries to yank his investment. Dealer decides to pay him a violent visit at home. I wondered about the building’s security cameras. How long were they out? Did they have any witnesses or visual evidence of Pete coming or going?

  I closed the paper and finished my breakfast and fired a text to my moral-free friend Roy Perry. It wasn’t his byline on the latest Fealy story, but he might have more that didn’t make it to print. Then I found the number for Detective Miller and gave her a call on my way out of the diner.

  “Looks like we owe you a bit of thanks,” she said.

  “You’re welcome. What did I do?”

  “Led us to Peter DiCicco. Or should I say your partner, Ms. Kimball, did. It appears she does most of your investigating.”

  “You were following us?”

  “Of course. By the way, you didn’t make a friend of Detective Sullivan last time you were here.”

  “Your partner’s a dim prick,” I said.

  “Why do I suspect Ms. Kimball has heard the same thing?”

  I had nothing for that. I stopped at a crosswalk, patted an empty coat pocket for sunglasses that must have been left at Anna’s. The swim had cleared away the hangover and most of the dread, but now I was in dire need of a nap. I’d wake feeling refreshed and ready to start back on the search with a lucid mind, or at least as close to clear-headed as I could manage. A bus coasted to a stop in front of me, its gray diesel fumes billowing out toward a pair of young mothers pushing strollers on the sidewalk. The side of the bus ran an ad for a new David Blaine reality show called The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Something occurred to me, but then it was lost.

  “Ah, did I hurt your feelings?” I heard her say. “Don’t worry, Duck, I don’t think you’re dim.”

  “Huh?”

  “Or maybe you are. But I know you’re not a prick.”

  “Oh, right, like Sullivan. Sorry, I lost you for a second.”

  “You okay, Duck?”

  “I’d be a lot better if people would stop asking me that,” I said.

  “Touchy, touchy. Haven’t had your morning cocktails yet?”

  “Not yet.” The beers with breakfast didn’t count. “So, now that we’ve done your work for you, does that mean you’ll leave us alone?”

  “Hey, you called me, cowboy. We were already leaving you alone. What did you want to talk about anyway?”

  “Just read the Post, wanted to hear how you got to the dealer.”

  “All thanks to Ms. Kimball. She got that Schwartz kid talking at the club. More than we were able to do . . . So, after DiCicco left your place that night, we waited till he got a few blocks away, then stopped him for suspicious behavior. Found quite a collection in that backpack. Dozens of bags of blow, hundreds of pills, a bit of heroin. You didn’t buy any of that stuff from him, did you, Duck?”

  “Not me. He was only there for questioning. Ask Cass.”

  “Because partners never cover for each other.”

  “So you brought him in, started questioning, and he confessed to slashing up Fealy in the shower?”

  “He’s not talking, but his prints were all over the apartment, including the bathroom. And when we searched his place, we found logs of his business transactions with James Fealy. I gotta hand it to this DiCicco character, he was one ambitious dealer. He looks like he’s half retarded with that giant head, but the guy knew how to run a business. He had a deep-pocketed investor and a growing young market. That is, until his benefactor tried to get out and DiCicco reacted the way dealers do.”

  “You sure he’s your guy?” I asked. “You see him on those faulty security cameras?”

  “Sure enough to get an indictment,” she said, ignoring the latter question. “Why, you got any other theories you care to share?”

  “I told you, I was never concerned with solving a murder. My job is to find the girl. Madeline McKay? Remember, the one who was falsely accused and splashed on the cover of every paper in town? Good luck with that lawsuit.”

  “The NYPD can’t control what the tabloids publish. That’s something the McKay family can take up with them.”

  “I’m sure the mother will.”

  “How’s that coming, by the way? You any closer to finding her?”

  “Getting there,” I said.

  “Think she’s still alive?” she asked.

  “What do you care?”

  “Duck, Ms. McKay is no longer a suspect in a murder, as much as we would still like to speak with her. If her mother would like to file a missing persons report and ask the department for help, we will be more than happy to join your search, but she’s made it quite clear she wants nothing to do with the NYPD.”

  “I can’t imagine why.”

  “Don’t push it. Your partner helped us with this one, and we appreciate it, but we would have tracked him down ourselves without much more effort.”

  “Of course you would have. By the way, I’ve been assaulted twice in the last week. Can you launch an investigation?”

  She was silent for a moment. I could almost see her small cheeks flushing with irritation. “As soon as you come in to file a complaint,” she said, “we’ll get right on it.”

  “That’s okay. I think I took care of it myself.”

  “I gotta go, Duck. If you find the McKay girl, we expect you to bring her in. We’ll need her to make a statement in the DiCicco case, considering her likely involvement in the operation with her ex.”

  “I’ll have to get her mother’s permission first,” I said. “You know how she feels about you people.”

  Detective Miller ended the call with an unfriendly “fuck off” that buoyed my spirits. Maybe Fealy was financing the distribution of the finest dope for every rich kid in the city. Maybe he got what was coming to him, and this town was better off without him and his knife-wielding dealer. And maybe he was dealing to poor Lucy Townes too. Maybe she tried to end it in a fit of cocaine comedown depression.

  I turned the corner on 17th Street already feeling my head hitting the pillow. A nap after a good hard morning swim—more of the world’s problems would be solved if we could all start our days that way. But it wasn’t to be. As I approached my place, I saw Cass sitting with Elvis on the front step. She was joined by a beautiful blond girl, who was standing off to the side. The girl hugged her slim body with her chin pressed to her chest. She was wearing sweatpants and a look of vacant sedation. Elvis lunged on his leash when he saw me coming. Cass looked up; the girl hugged herself a little tighter.

  “Party was busted,” said Cass. “Cops raided it around seven this morning. No sign of our girl.” Then she looked over at her new friend. “Duck, this is Lucy Townes.”

  Lucy tilted her pretty head up toward me. With her height and natural beauty, I was sure the girl could pass for an adult inside plenty of clubs and parties.
But standing there in the morning light, in sweats and frowning dimples and a quivering lower lip, Lucy looked like an overgrown child. I patted her shoulder.

  “How you feeling, kid?” I asked.

  She shrugged, shifted a step closer toward Cass.

  Cass handed me Elvis’s leash and pushed herself up from the stoop. “Let’s take a walk,” she said.

  Chapter 25

  The three of us walked across to Stuyvesant Park, letting Elvis lead the way as he pissed and sniffed like a magnet drawn by unseen forces. It was a gorgeous day, the sky that special shade of New York blue that kept us voluntary captives in this mad city. A few junkies nodded on benches in the shade. Elvis howled at a passing squirrel. I noticed a blond guy with a beagle checking out Cass. He was angling to get the dogs in for a sniff. Cass pretended not to notice, looked through him with haughty indifference. She dressed to taunt, not to please. Today it was fishnets and black leather shorts over black heels; leather jacket unzipped over a faded T-Rex t-shirt.

  We walked awhile in silence. Lucy and Cass hung back a few paces and spoke quietly. I waited for them to initiate. Finally, they found a bench as far from anyone as possible and sat and called me over.

  “Party was quite a scene,” said Cass. “Three floors of all-out decadence in a deserted factory, DJs on every level, and hundreds of party people blasted out of their minds.”

  Lucy nodded, smiled slightly like she’d been there before.

  “Spoke to a bunch of folks: bouncers, the DJs, the roaming dealers, and plenty of wasted young kids. Madeline is definitely a part of the scene: everyone seemed to know her, or at least recognized her when I showed her picture. They all wanted to know where she was. But of course, no one has seen her, or knows her beyond the parties. Cops burst in early this morning. Then Lucy here texted me on my way home.” She knocked her knee and smiled down at the teenager slouched beside her.