“But assuming you weren’t involved with the murders,” he continued, “and you tell me right now, well, then it’s a whole different story, right? Maybe it’s your friend down the hall. What’s-her-name. Maybe she helped make the video. Maybe she pulled that trigger. And if you just tell me, then we figure things out from there. You and I.” He wavered a finger at the space separating them. “We do what we have to do. Maybe we go our own separate ways at the end of the day. Maybe you go home tonight. Who knows?” He bit down on the pen like it was a cheap cigar and shrugged.
“I want a lawyer,” she said, voice soft but resolute.
“Of course. You are certainly entitled to one. And I’ll be sure to let you place a phone call to your attorney, assuming you have one. But in the meantime, I’d encourage you to consider the fact that your friend, what’s-her-name, is sitting in a room much like the one we’re sitting in right now. She’s sitting across from someone much like myself. And, truth be told, he’s offering the same deal. Because, and make no mistake about this, it is a deal. It’s a good deal. And maybe you want to retain your allegiance to whoever or whatever. That’s fine. But—and I’m telling you this as someone who wants to see you have a life after all this—judging by some of the things your friend was telling us back at the apartment, I think she’s going to give us exactly what we want. Sooner than later. And once we have what we want, you won’t be of any value to us. So.”
She nearly laughed at his transparent bluff. Parker would sooner spit on a face, much like this man’s own, than ever cooperate with the feds.
His voice narrowed, stripped of its performative sheen. A whisper traversing the tabletop between them. “It comes down to who gives us what we need first. There is no second place. Transparency is the only thing that’s going to save you right now, Wren. But if you want to keep tight-lipped about all this, then so be it. But just know your friend may not do the same.”
He remained in his posture, settling into his shoulders, staring through her. Waiting for something that would not come. And when he realized this, he stood up, smoothed his tie. “We’ll make sure you call a lawyer. You are granted that much. But every second that passes…” His voice drifted off, purposefully so. “If I were in your position, I’d think for a minute or two about what you stand to lose and what you stand to gain. That should make things pretty clear.”
He opened the door out into the hallway, ushering in a chorus of voices, telephones ringing. It closed behind him. Silence, again. The walls seemed narrower than before, expanding to the center of the room, collecting into a single point without name.
She wished she could tell him that it wasn’t the Liber-teens who’d hacked the police servers, who’d stolen the ME report. It was her. It was only she. And though she regretted it, it was important that they knew. These Ivy League college graduates, postgraduates, working in tandem. She wanted to confess to this one crime, not for leniency, but so that they would know. So that they would know she was better than them. She had beaten them. She would always beat them.
But this wasn’t true, she knew. Because here she was, captured, revealed, reduced, nearly imprisoned. Here she was, without a clock to tell her the time of day. Here she was, ignoring the eye of a camera staring blankly back at her.
“Fuck you,” she said at a volume barely loud enough for even herself to hear, but she hoped they heard it in whatever claustrophobic room they were gathered.
Wren attempted to imagine Parker sitting in a room much like this room, having listened to the same impossible accusations, the ridiculous baiting. But she couldn’t even summon the image. Parker did not belong in this context. Concrete walls draped in yolk-yellow paint. Harsh lights. No windows. A camera waiting anxiously above her for a confession that would never come. Parker was a collection of many attributes, none of which could exist in a place like this. Parker was too much of herself—too much vibrancy, too much color. She exceeded beyond whatever walls believed they could hold her. But Wren knew, Parker was here, in a room much like this one, and it was Wren’s fault. It was her fault that another hostage had died, because she had given the gunman what he wanted and it had only fed his fury. It was her fault that she couldn’t rip her eyes away from the wall. It was her fault that she and Parker were being held as murder suspects. It was her fault that she was who she was. It was her fault that she wanted to lay her head on the table and find sleep in this nightmare. It was her fault that the world spun beneath her while she remained perfectly still.
28 THE WASTELAND
MARCUS FOUND MISS MAY’S APARTMENT to be deeply unsettling in its familiarity. The traces of a life lived alone, the patterns of a solitary existence. A half-eaten bagel on the counter in a scatter of crumbs. Coffee mugs piled in the sink, ceramic rims stained with the palimpsests of rouge lipstick. A checkered sofa and velvet love seat pressed against dull yellow walls that were too close together. Magazines dating back from the early eighties, scattered across the countertops.
Peter stood with his hands in his pockets, half stepping and half rocking, an awkward and static fox-trot. Marcus sensed Peter’s buoyancy, his barely bridled anticipation to begin asking questions. Marcus laid a hand on his shoulder, gripped through the thin veneer of flesh to the bone, and whispered, “Calm down.”
“Take a seat,” May said, falling into the love seat. “And let’s get this over with.”
They both sat down across from her on the sofa. There was a half-finished puzzle on a coffee table that separated them. Van Gogh’s bedroom. May caught Marcus staring at it, twisting his head, as though this motion would bring it into sharper focus.
“I got that from the art museum,” she said. “You wouldn’t believe how much they charged for that fucking thing. Just a cut-up piece of cardboard.”
She plucked and pulled at her skirt. She cracked the window next to her, lit a cigarette, and turned on a small fan over her shoulder. Marcus saw Wrigley Field over the rooftops, several blocks away. The jut-and-rise of stadium scaffolding.
May leaned back into her seat, her cigarette burning in her fingers. She appeared to be about Marcus’s age, maybe a bit younger. Her hair was dyed a deep red, the color of blood feeding the body.
Even as she blew smoke through an open window, she carried herself with refinement, meticulous yet unrehearsed poise, projected for no one in particular. Marcus suspected that she would be sitting here, just so, cloaked in her self-assumed regal aura, with or without any watching eyes.
She turned from the window and studied the both of them as if she were the subject of a painting from centuries past, hung in the art museum next to Van Gogh’s masterpieces, her acrylic stare radiating directly into future galleries and future faces.
“Now, I know who you are, Marcus. Or at least I know the name. But who exactly is this?” She pointed the end of her cigarette at Peter, who had hopelessly shrunken inside his skin, hands bloodless in their chokehold over each other.
“I’m Peter,” he said softly.
“Peter.” Miss May tested the name on her tongue. “Are you a journalist like Marcus was?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think it.” She studied Peter. “So what are you, then?”
“I’m just Marcus’s friend.”
She laughed at this and pulled on her cigarette.
Marcus withdrew his notepad from his shoulder bag and placed it next to the puzzle. “You go to the art museum often, then?” Marcus asked, pointing at the puzzle, looking for any way to take control of the conversation’s momentum.
Miss May remained staring at Peter for an uncomfortable second, her eyes narrowing on him, dragging slowly on her cigarette. She broke away suddenly and turned toward Marcus. “No. I don’t. Not at all. Not ever, hardly. I got that puzzle a couple years ago. Not sure why I decided to go to the art museum. I’ve lived in this city my whole life, never went to the art museum. Maybe I thought I ought to go. Maybe I thought I needed to get cultured. So I went, and I walked around. It was stuf
fy and dull. I decided to leave after about fifteen minutes or thereabouts. It felt like a waste of time, the whole ordeal, so I thought I’d buy something from the gift shop. A memento. Came away with that puzzle, which cost about as much as a week of groceries. But I like it. Obviously I haven’t finished it, though. I don’t want to finish it. As soon as I do, it’ll just be a cardboard picture that cost me too goddamn much.” She drank from her glass, and wiped away the water that remained above her lip with a slender finger. “I’m tired with the bullshit chitchat. What exactly do you want from me, Mr. Waters?”
“Well, most importantly, I wanted to come here and make sure you were OK.”
She gestured at herself. “Are you satisfied?”
“I’m assuming you’ve seen the videos.”
She shrugged. “Who hasn’t?”
“Do you know who the men are in those videos?”
She shook her head.
“They are men that he saved. The Kingfisher.”
Marcus was taken aback when Miss May laughed at this.
“What’s funny about that?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said, taking a long drag of her cigarette. “It’s not actually funny at all. I sometimes laugh when I shouldn’t. It’s a habit.” She exhaled slowly through her nose. “It’s just, well, I don’t remember hearing about him saving much of anyone. That wasn’t exactly his style, you know? You sure you got your facts straight there, Marcus Waters?”
He nodded. “I interviewed one of those men for the book I wrote about the Kingfisher. The other man was with him that night. The Kingfisher saved the both of them.”
She seemed suddenly fixated on the open window. The not-so-distant sounds of voices clamoring in a non-rhythm. The protest against whatever there was to protest. All three of them paused to listen. Straining to make out the words of the crowd.
“I don’t see what any of what you’re saying has to do with me personally,” May said.
Marcus sensed Peter next to him, withdrawing uncomfortably into the couch.
“I—or we, rather”—Marcus gestured at Peter—“have reason to believe you might have known the Kingfisher in some way?”
“Is that right?” She was amused, fixing her attention on Peter. “Because you followed him back to my apartment?” She laughed. “I recognized you, by the way. Moment I saw you. Couldn’t place your face, but I recognized you just the same. Pretty rude thing to do, knock on my apartment door and keep coming back day after day when I clearly didn’t want anything to do with you. What did you expect?”
Peter gaped, his tongue searching for a reply. He turned to Marcus for help.
Marcus graciously intervened. “Like I mentioned previously, I actually heard from another source that you encountered the Kingfisher in 1983—”
“No, Marcus,” she interrupted. “I want to hear him”—she nodded at Peter—“apologize for bothering me at my apartment all those years ago. I want to hear him say it. I’m not saying another word until he apologizes.”
Marcus turned to Peter, who was holding his hands together, fingers knotted.
“Sorry,” Peter mumbled.
“Good. That wasn’t so hard, was it? Now, Marcus, you were saying something?”
“Right, well…” He retraced his thoughts. “I heard from someone else who came across the Kingfisher in December of 1983. You were with two men on that night. You said before their names were Richie and Olander. One of them was your—well, your employer.”
“Pimp is the word you’re looking for.” She smiled, threw the cigarette butt out the window, and withdrew another. “I take it you think the Kingfisher was saving me that night? Saving poor Miss May from her scary pimp? Is that what you think?”
“I don’t know,” Marcus said. “That’s what I’m asking you.”
“He didn’t save me. Don’t for a second think he was saving me that night.” She pointed at Peter. “What did you expect to happen those nights when you were knocking on my apartment door? The nights after? What were you hoping would happen, exactly?”
Peter didn’t answer. He didn’t seem to hear her. He unhooked his hands from each other and rubbed them together faster, tighter, as though trying to summon a fire he might hold, something to distract him from her sustained attention.
“If it’s true that you knew him in some way,” Marcus jumped in, “then both Peter and I are concerned that you may be a target for whoever it is making these videos. And you should be concerned, too. We don’t know what that man from the videos knows or what he doesn’t know. But you should play this safe. Get out of town for a while, maybe. Just until it’s over.”
“Well, whoever said chivalry is dead?” She smiled, but her eyes were empty. Two green galaxies. “A couple of do-gooder men show up unannounced outside my place of residence, follow me to my apartment, and then condescend to me after I invited them inside against my better instincts. Warms my cold and worn heart.” She ashed her cigarette on the windowsill. “I think maybe it’s time you two leave. Go find someone else you want to save tonight, because I’m done with whatever this is. Show yourselves out.”
Her words possessed a momentum of their own that sent Marcus to his shoulder bag. He put his notebook back inside and stood from the couch. But Peter remained seated, face twisted.
“What do you know about him?” Peter stuttered. “You knew him. I know you knew him.”
“Excuse me?” she asked, her words sharp.
“Tell us what you know about him,” Peter said with uncharacteristic confidence. “We want to know. We need to know.”
“Peter,” Marcus said calmly, reaching for his shoulder. “Let’s just go.”
“No.” Peter hushed Marcus with an open palm. He faced May directly. “There are other hostages out there whose lives are in danger. Tell us what you know so that we can help them. You’re the only one we know who knew him.”
Miss May looked back at Peter, matching his defiance. “Say his name, then. Why don’t you?” She inhaled her cigarette, enjoying the silence that awaited her voice. “Are you scared to say it? You scared to say his name? You worried he’ll hear you? Say it.”
“The Kingfisher,” Peter said, lips curled into a snarl. “The Kingfisher. The Kingfisher. The Kingfisher. Is that good enough for you?”
Marcus stood awkwardly between them, his hands wrapped tightly around the strap of his bag. There was a clock somewhere in the room, hidden from view, and Marcus practically felt its hollow ticks spreading across his skin.
“Well OK, then,” Miss May said, amused by Peter’s stiff posture, his flustering words. “No need to have a conniption. What do you want to know?”
Peter didn’t flinch. “Did he ever come to your Englewood apartment?”
“Yes,” she said. “But you knew that already, didn’t you?”
“Then I want to know what happened to him. I want to know everything you know about him. I want to know everything.”
For a while, she did not move. Not even a blink. Only after a few seconds did she reanimate. She looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time. “Take a seat, Marcus. Your friend here wants to hear about the Kingfisher. Because that was his name, wasn’t it? The Kingfisher? I’m asking you, Marcus. That was the name you gave him, right? I never liked it myself. I thought it was too soft for the man. It’s the name of a little bird, isn’t it? No, that man was hardly a little bird. Christ, that man was hardly a man.” Miss May took in a deep pull on her cigarette and released it slowly, slowly. And then she asked them, “Have either of you ever heard of the Wasteland?”
Peter shook his head.
“The Wasteland?” Marcus repeated, the name possessing some significance to him. And then it came back to him in a rush. “That old train depot south of the stockyards?”
She waited for him to continue.
“I’ve been there,” Marcus said, surprised at the memory. “Used to sneak in there as a kid sometimes. It’d been abandoned for a couple years even way back
then. I was six or so. I lived in Englewood at the time. A few of us boys would get over there and try to stir up trouble, but I don’t think we ever did. We just sort of strolled around, thinking we were cool.”
“I used to go there when I was a girl,” she said. “All the time. Snuck in through the fence. I even lived there for a while, a few months. I’d just run off from my grandmother’s home after she passed. Sleeping in an old train car with a bunch of tramps. Some of them were kids from New York or San Francisco, slicking their hair back like Jack Kerouac. But most of them were just older folks who’d been cast out of wherever it was they came from for reasons they didn’t care to share.”
She paused to take a deep drag on her cigarette, and then another. The silence was so full that to speak would be to interrupt something in progress.
“What does the Wasteland have to do with the Kingfisher?” Peter asked.
“Everything,” Miss May said. She seemed content with this answer. But when she saw that neither Marcus nor Peter understood, she continued. “It’s where I met him. It’s where I learned what he was.” She took a drag, held it, and spoke between the smoke, “Or at least that’s where I learned what he wasn’t. Because, see, he wasn’t like us. No, not like us at all.”
29 NO KNOCK
WREN LIKED TO KEEP HERSELF occupied—hands, mind, eyes. She needed input, she needed output. She considered those in-between moments of a day—the idle stagnation of a television, the aimless and mindless drifting through apps on her phone—as moments entirely lost to a life. It was her Protestant upbringing, she knew, that had implied to her that God sooner forgives the industrious than he does the lazy. Even though she considered herself an intellectually curious agnostic, you could sooner lose your fingerprints than you could your upbringing.
And so Wren sat in this empty room, feeling absolutely doomed and damned. Nothing to do but to sit and stare while a thousand concurrent fears fed on one another. She imagined them, synapses cannibalizing synapses, metabolizing into some frightful creature that would eventually consume her altogether from the inside out.
The Reign of the Kingfisher Page 27