I had broken into a nighttime building. I had climbed up and down the back stairs, to and from a murder scene.
Exhaustion from the sleepless night before hit me like a revelation. I got to my feet, staggered across the room, and fell on my hard-cushioned Swedish sofa. I was asleep before my body came to rest.
NO FIRE OR FALLING in that dream. I was in a vast flower garden at the height of the blooming season. Every kind of rose and peony, orchid and dahlia filled the field with their brilliance and scents. Huge and deadly Japanese hornets buzzed among the blossoms. Broad-headed scaly-skinned serpents coiled through the soil at my feet. There were vultures overhead and thorns aplenty but I passed through without a bite, stab, or sting.
Around the perimeter of this twisted Eden was a barbed-wire fence. Every ten feet or so, on the other side of the fence, an armed uniformed guard stood at attention. I wondered if they were set there to keep the unsuspecting public out or to protect the obvious riches from plunderers.
The giant hornets’ humming was deep and sonorous. They hovered, oblivious to my presence. There seemed to be a message for me in all this profusion and threat. I couldn’t discern the meaning, but I knew that if I suddenly understood, the creatures would become aware of me and the soldiers would get me in their sights.
So I took long steady breaths and waited for some sign. I appreciated the beauty not only of the flora but also the loveliness of the deadly bees and fanged snakes, the cut of the soldiers’ uniforms and the effortless glide of vultures riding on thermals overhead.
WHEN I OPENED my eyes Aura was sitting in the blue chair six inches from me. Her smile said that she was happy to see me coming awake.
“I’m sorry I let that cop in but—”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said.
As I sat up a groan escaped my throat that spoke of all my fifty-three years.
“He could have gotten every building inspector in the city down here if I didn’t let him in,” Aura said, unable to stem the excuse.
“You’d think so, but Kitteridge doesn’t work like that. He might be the only truly honest cop in the whole city. Imagine that? One clean cop and his major goal in life is putting my ass behind bars.”
“He wanted the combination to the inner door but I told him I didn’t have it,” she said.
Aura and Twill were the only ones who knew the access code to my inner doors.
“Don’t worry, babe. Tryin’ to stop the law is like holding back the rain. It’s what they call an exercise in futility. If you’d made him wait in the hall he would have probably taken it out on me.”
“What does he want?” she asked, her bronze visage somber yet calm. It wasn’t what an aficionado would call beautiful, but still it was the kind of face that gave you hope.
I told her everything, about my search for the four young men and the three ensuing deaths. Talking to Aura was like opening a vein.
The first thing you learned in my line of business was that you never give up any information that you don’t absolutely have to. Katrina knew nothing about my business. But Aura represented a whole new movement in my life. The time I spent with her was painfully honest. I never lied, except about my recurring dream. Sometimes, when something was just too secret to share, I’d say, “I can’t talk about that, babe. So please don’t as£pler lk me.”
“WHAT ABOUT THE dream?” she asked after I’d told her about coming upon the corpse of Norman Fell.
Her question had a two-tiered design. First, she was telling me that she accepted my story and was on my side. Secondly, since I seemed to have let her deeper into my life, she wanted to know more.
“I’m in a building,” I said, relieved to finally put the nightmare into words. “It’s burning, burning, and I’m running from room to room. I think that maybe I’m the last man left alive but that doesn’t matter because soon I’ll be dead, too . . .” I told her about the window and the long fall. “It’s like my life is one long tumble off the side of a mountain. I’m falling through the air and certain to die. There’s no way that I can be saved. No cushion or twist or turn.”
Aura took one of my hands in hers and squeezed.
“I love you, Leonid McGill.”
“I don’t understand that.”
“You don’t know what love is?”
“Maybe I do, maybe not. But what I don’t understand is how you can listen to all this and still have any feelings for me whatsoever. I left you for another woman. I caused the deaths of at least two men. And you know I’ve done much worse in years gone by.”
Aura’s smile was in another place than the one I was addressing. She nodded at something, not what I’d said, and then waited as this unspoken knowledge settled around us.
She took my other hand, leaned forward, and kissed my lips lightly.
“You are a man on the road,” she told me.
“What does that mean?”
“My father murdered many men back in his country. But I would have still loved him if only he could face what he had done. Instead he lied and blamed others for his crimes. He ran off the road, out of the sun. But you are right out there in the light of day. That’s all I want from my man.”
Her man.
I took in a breath but it didn’t work. I took in another.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Twenty after one.”
“In the afternoon?”
Aura nodded and gave me that enigmatic smile.
“I’ve been sleepin’ since nine?”
She nodde£e=">
“How long have you been here?”
“I came up a little while after the policeman left,” she said. “At first I just wanted to make sure that you were okay. Then I stayed to watch over you while you got some rest.”
Ê€„
20
Aura kissed me again. It would have been the perfect moment for us to come together once more if it wasn’t for the madwoman running around the couch, shrieking at the top of her voice. That madwoman was my life.
Aura stood up, pulling my hands and bringing me to my feet.
“I’ll be in my office if you need me,” she said.
Watching Aura leave was never an easy thing. But I didn’t have the time to brood.
THE ILLITERATE NORMAN FELL kept pretty good bookkeeping records. Most of the entries were expenses. He knew a few awkwardly spelled words, like “offiss supplys” and “offiss expens.” Now and then he took in some cash. There was a four-hundred-dollar payment from someone designated as TR. Another, two hundred dollars, was attributed to Jo M. The fees were all paltry except for those received from one set of initials.
Norman had received four payments of twenty-five thousand dollars, the last of which was paid on the day, or maybe the day before, he died. The initials next to these entries were simply VM—except for the first entry, where, next to the VM, there was a BH in parentheses.
I imagined the joy the untutored Fell must have felt when he could use a symbol like the parentheses. I would have felt sorry for him if it hadn’t been for Gordo’s hammer.
It was a story the boxing trainer had told thirty-some years before.
I’d just had a club fight with a sturdy journeyman light heavy from Philadelphia named Mike “Big” Pink. It was just an unsanctioned exhibition bout, neither amateur nor professional. Pink was almost twice my age and had slowed down quite a bit. But in the fourth round he hit me so hard that I was lifted up off my feet. I fell on the ropes and then bent down as if I were inspecting my feet for stink. He chased me for that round and the next two, looking for the knockout. That was the day I decided not to be a professional boxer. I managed to stay on my feet. And even though Big Pink beat me, it was a split decision on the cards. But I felt that blow for weeks afterwards. It was in my fingers and knees, my chest and back. I never wanted to get hit like that again.
When I informed Gordo of my decision was when he told me about the hammer, in an attempt to talk me out of quitting.
“There’s a big fat hammer up above, beyond the blue in the sky,” he told me. “It’s just up there waitin’. One day, when you least expect it, that hammer comes streakin’ do¦ig wn on you like Big Pink’s fist. That’s the ultimate test for a boxer, for any man. It’s the punch you don’t see comin’. There’s nothing you can do about it but try your best and recover. That’s what you did against Mikey. You did good.”
That was my final exam as a boxer. I passed the test and quit the same day. But what I hadn’t understood at the time was that Gordo wasn’t just talking about the ring. That hammer was waiting for everybody. It came at you in the form of cancer, infidelity, the tax man, or a comet out of the western sky here to annihilate any creature over fifty kilos in weight. The hammer had come down on Norman Fell; it was watching me with two steely eyes.
I SAT BACK from the ledger pages and looked at the palms of my hands. I have big hands with thick, blunt fingers. When Twill was a little kid he’d always be asking to arm wrestle with me. He’d sit down, thump his sharp elbow on the dining table, and try his very best to pin my arm. I’d let him strain for a minute or so and then I’d press down, taking his arm off the table and pushing him all the way to the floor. He’d squeal and laugh and shout No fair! He’d always win by default.
I had more strength in one hand than Twill did, even as a teenager, in his entire body.
There was nothing else for me to do about the ledger entries so I called Tiny to see what progress he had made.
“Hey, LT,” the young man answered. He didn’t even give me a chance to ask the question, just launched into the report. “The girl’s name is Mardi Bitterman. She paid for the IP with her father’s credit card. His name is Leslie. He’s an office manager for Parley and Lowe, a company that buys up debt and liquidates properties.”
“Anything on ’em?” were my first words.
“Not even a parking ticket. The girl is a fair student. She has a younger sister, Marlene, but the mother’s not on the scene.”
“Died?”
“I can’t find anything on that. She’s just not there.”
“Thanks, Bug. Can you dig a little deeper?”
“Are you paying?”
“The going rate.”
I CALLED TWILL and he answered on the first ring.
“Hey, Pops. What’s happenin’?”
“I wanted to ask—” I began.
“Hold on a minute,” he interrupted. And then, to someone else, “It’s my father, Teach. Mom’s in the hospital and I might have to go help.” Another moment passed and he said, “What can I do for you, Dad?”
“Y«ontomeou could start by not lying to your teachers.”
“It’s almost the end of the period,” he said. “And you know I wouldn’t even be in summer school if it wasn’t for my sentence.”
“No lying.”
“Okay. Done.”
“I want to get together with you soon. Make sure you’re home tonight. All night.”
“Uh . . . I did have some plans.”
“For me, junior.”
After a momentary pause he said, “You got it, Pops.”
GETTING OFF THE PHONE, I took a deep breath, and then another. I had liked the slow breathing in the dream. I tried not to worry about the problems that surrounded me. My mantra, behind the breathing was, I’m alive and safe, ambulatory and able to think.
It worked until the landline rang.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Mr. M,” Zephyra Ximenez said. “You have a couple of minutes?”
“Sure. What’s up?”
“A Mr. Towers called your office and cell seven times yesterday afternoon. I only answered because you said you wanted me to. He was very rude. I hope you tell him that I really don’t know how to get in touch with you sometimes.”
“Sorry. I’ll talk to him.”
“He never left a message but there’s still the one from the day before that you haven’t listened to.”
“Thanks, Z,” I said. “You’re a pal.”
“I love it when you talk like the old movies.”
“That mean you’ll go out with me?”
“Fifty years ago? No problem.”
I DIALED THE NUMBER to the answering machine that Zephyra kept at her house. I use a machine because I can be sure when I erase the tape that no one else will be able to retrieve it. The automated voice told me that I had one message.
“Hello, Mr. McGill, this is Ambrose Thurman. I’m afraid that I haven’t been completely honest about the investigation you conducted for me. I was trying to protect my client.
“To begin with, my name is not Thurman but Fell, Norman Fell. I do live in Albany. I am a detective. I used a fake name because my client di«se >
“But that’s all water over the dam now. It has come to my attention that Mr. Frank Tork has been murdered—”
I heard a slight sound in the background of the recording.
“—who are you?” Fell said with a gasp.
There was a stifled yell and a thud, a clattery jumble of hard items, maybe even the smack of a skull against the desktop. There came a sickening gurgle and choking sound and then the hiss and shuffle of something heavy being moved. I pressed the phone so hard against my ear that it hurt.
After a moment the phone was placed gently in its cradle.
Ê€„
21
I listened to Norman Fell’s last words eleven times, moving the receiver from left ear to right. I listened from behind closed eyes, and with my head bowed. Once I even pinched myself. But try as I might I couldn’t get any more out of the recording than I did on the first hearing.
Of all the things I’d done wrong I had never been a party to murder, at least not directly. I had killed, but that was in self-defense. So hearing the panic in Fell’s voice in those last moments struck a deep chord in me. The killer was brutal and remorseless, he hadn’t spoken one word or uttered a sound.
