A Killing Gift (7 page)

Good old Bernardino. Everything on his desk was labeled and arranged just so, his notebooks, stacks of old files, the proposals Kathy had mentioned. Boxes of photos. It looked as if he'd trashed his home life, but had been carefully cataloging his work life. As if for some future reference. Amazing.

"He was a good guy, right?" Kathy said.

April sat down at the desk, cleared the screen, and typed,
The best!
Then she got to work.

J
ack Devereaux's right arm was bent at the elbow, frozen in a cast that pretty much immobilized him right down to the fingertips. Eighteen hours after he'd been treated, assured that he'd be fine, and sent home, pain started chewing him up again. Home was a one-bedroom apartment on the parlor floor of a falling-down town house in the heart of Greenwich Village. It wasn't even the whole floor, just half of it. Twenty-five feet long by sixteen feet wide, broken up into a tiny kitchen, a tiny bathroom, and a tiny bedroom, all without windows to the outside, and a living room that faced the street. Jack, Lisa, and Sheba had been living there for a year and a half. Until two weeks ago the couple had felt very lucky indeed to have found a place in such a great neighborhood that they could just about afford.

Now, with an unimaginable fortune heading his way, Jack's concept of the bare essentials was only starting to change. What does a person dream of acquiring when suddenly he can have anything at all in the world he wants? A week ago he'd been thinking of a bigger apartment and a new printer. Now all he wanted was for the pain to stop.

He was settled uncomfortably on the sofa. The sofa had been his mother's, and was a restful tan-and-white tweed number that was long enough to sleep on. It fit snugly in the handsome bay windows with an excellent view of the street, the only windows they had. And even after years of continuous service the sofa still didn't show its age. Jack's computer and desk chair were placed outside the curve of the windows where the room widened. The computer sat on what might have been the dining room table if they ever actually dined, which they didn't.

Until last night, Jack's task had been to accept the gift of sudden enormous wealth that would come when the estate lawyers got through with whatever it was they did. Tonight, as he fought the pain in his arm and shoulders, he tried to adjust to this new twist in his life. He didn't know which made him more uncomfortable, the unexpected riches or the unexpected role of hero. He sat awkwardly on the sofa, propped up by all the pillows off the bed, watching the TV version of his valor. Every word a lie.

Nobody in the hospital had told him that two cops had been attacked, that one was dead and he'd saved the life of the other. Lisa hadn't known it either. But now, despite that cop's promise last night to keep Jack's part in the incident out of the news, the whole world knew it anyway. His picture was on the screen, the same photo they'd used before. And his personal story was back on the front page. Lisa sat beside him, watching with pride and delight.

"Jack, this is so cool. My boss is all over me to sign you," she said excitedly. "You know, he's been talking TV movie. But now it's much bigger than that. You're a phenom."

Jack didn't feel like a phenom, but he cracked a feeble smile for her.

"What can I do for you?" She sat on his left side and squeezed his good hand. "I love you so much."

"Well, just don't leave me," he said. And actually meant it, as if his new persona might actually put her off.

God, my boyfriend turns out to be rich. What a bummer.
She smiled at the joke. "Why would I leave when I love the dog?" she said seriously.

Lisa was a petite, dark-haired girl with a pretty face and a knockout figure. They'd met in Washington Square two years ago when she stopped to play with Sheba, the puppy he'd gotten to keep him company and attract pretty girls. Lisa always said she'd fallen for the dog first and him much later. And it was true that he wouldn't have dared talk to her without a subject and certainly wouldn't have fallen in love with her if she hadn't been smitten by the subject, the dog in question.

In fact, Jack loved everything about Lisa but her job. Lisa worked for a top literary agent who screamed at her all the time and wouldn't let her take private phone calls or go to lunch in case an important call came in while she was out. Kingsley Bratte wasn't just a literary agent; he was a famous one, and his name suited him perfectly. Bratte had fired his last assistant just for habitually being five minutes late, so Lisa was always early and never dared to take a day off. Because Jack was in the hospital she'd taken today off, but Kingsley had kept constantly in touch. He'd called her on the cell he'd given her. He'd left messages on their home phone, too, tasks and reminders for things she had to do upon her return tomorrow. He called as if it hadn't sunk into his selfish brain that she didn't need his job anymore. And of course he called constantly, asking to speak to Jack: possible new client with a great story to tell.

"What can I do for you? There must be something," Lisa teased. "Anything, really."

Quit your job and get away from Bratte,
Jack felt like saying. He didn't say it, though, but only because he wasn't up to a fight. She read his mind.

"Are you at least
thinking
about doing a book? We have a great ghost for you to work with." Lisa kissed the back of his hand. She couldn't help being loyal to Bratte. That was the kind of girl she was.

Jack shook his head. He didn't want to work with a ghost. He hated Bratte. Six months ago he'd allowed Jack to come to the agency Christmas party but hadn't condescended to speak to him once. Now the tables were turned. Bratte was all over him, trying to be his best friend. Funny how fame and fortune changed everything. If he weren't so groggy and miserable, Jack would crack up laughing.

"I made you soup. Would you like some?" Lisa changed the subject, and for a minute the sun came out.

Lisa's soup, which she called Jewish penicillin, appeared like magic with every little ailment. Have a headache, chicken soup. Have a cold, chicken soup. Feel lonely, chicken soup. They'd eaten it every day during the anthrax scare. And they hadn't gotten the disease, proof enough for Lisa that chicken soup cured everything. That and potato pancakes were the only items on her menu. But she did them both well, and since his mother hadn't cooked anything well, two dishes seemed like a lot. Tonight, however, chicken soup wouldn't cure him. He wanted peace and quiet. If he were a drinker, he'd be dead drunk by now. But he wasn't a big drinker.

"What's the matter?" she said. "Was it something I said?"

Didn't she get it yet? A blond TV announcer was mouthing the familiar words about his father's legacy to him and now the unfamiliar words of his new status as a cop saver. Jack was lost. He felt his life was being stolen from him. Even Lisa had been writing about it. Before all this happened, she'd been working on a novel about a man who didn't know who his father was. Her version of his life. Jack's mother also had her version.

Ever since he was old enough to know he was missing a father, he'd blamed only his mother, because she was the one who'd kept him from the knowledge of what had happened between them. Only she knew why his father never called him, never wrote letters, never gave him a birthday present. Many years ago Jack made up a reason for this: His father was a lifer in prison, or maybe even on death row, a man who had committed some huge and heinous crime worse even than abandoning him and his mother. His mother was only protecting him from the immense and irreconcilable shame of being sired by a criminal. It was the only answer that made any sense to him. Certainly his mother had thought of his father as a criminal.

But even with such a big secret at the core of Jack's life-a secret he had to admit he'd never tried very hard to penetrate-he thought he knew who he was. Just a simple, regular guy, raised by a single mom who'd been abandoned long ago, loved him a lot, and hadn't had much to give him in the way of material goods. Not an uncommon story. But it turned out to be not the right story. Jack's father had a plan of his own.

Creighton Blackstone's philosophy was plainly spelled out in his books. He believed that wealth corrupted, that the children of the rich were selfish and spoiled. He'd declared that he didn't want children because he didn't want to raise them with the burden of wealth and a famous name. He'd been so committed to this view that even when he did have a child, he'd covered his tracks so no one knew it. Jack's mother had died with the secret because telling it would have cost Jack his legacy. His father didn't want him to know. A social experiment, as it were. And even after she died he'd kept his silence, letting his son think he was an orphan three years before the fact. He kept the secret to the end. He'd been a hard man, giving his only child a sad lesson in cold calculation. Money had corrupted. It had corrupted
him.
Jack shivered.

"Honey, I can tell you're uncomfortable. Why don't you take a pill for the pain." Lisa felt his forehead. "You're hot. Come on, it would take the edge off," she urged.

When his segment of the news ended, he shook his head and surfed to another news program to see how far the story was traveling. Would he make national news? The phone rang, and Lisa checked the caller ID.

"Private," she told him.

"Don't answer it."

"What if it's the police again?"

"I've already told them everything."

"It might be my mom."

"If you want to answer it, answer it." He often wondered why her mother had to be a private caller.

He watched her pick up and an uneasy look cross her face.

"What is it?" he asked.

She hung up. "It was that guy again."

"What guy?"

"The one who says, 'Tell Jack not to forget his promise.' "

"Oh, jeez."

"What promise, honey?"

"I have no idea." But the unknown caller was making him uneasy, too. It was about the tenth time now. He shifted painfully so he could see out the window. The detectives this morning had told him a plain-clothes cop was out there watching them. Jack wondered if it was the guy dressed in blue jeans and a sweatshirt who'd been pretending to read the newspaper for the last two hours at a front table in the espresso bar across the street. He hoped so.

A
pril's cell phone rang while she was in the car on her way to her parents' house in Astoria. Glad to have an excuse to ignore it, she didn't even bother to search for it in her purse. For a second or two she did worry that maybe by now Mike had guessed she wasn't at their place in Forest Hills. But it didn't have to be him; could be a lot of people calling. Woody Baum, the detective who drove for her and served as her gofer at Midtown North, would definitely be trying to reach her to report on the day she'd missed. But there was nothing she could do about it. Being mute had its advantages.

Driving back from Hastings on Hudson, April had time to think. She took the Cross Bronx Expressway, then the Whitestone Bridge to avoid getting caught in Manhattan traffic. She didn't feel guilty about visiting Kathy Bernardino without telling Mike. There were a lot of things Mike could do to influence her, but he couldn't tie her up and keep her at home. He wasn't her boss, she told herself. She still had her own mind and wouldn't give that up for anybody.

Still, she was already justifying herself, working on ways around whatever restrictions were in store for her. Back in the day when Bernardino used to hold forth, he liked to describe the difference between Asian and Western thinking this way: An American told not to cross a line in the sand would cross it anyway. But an Asian told not to cross the line would rub it out to avoid disobeying an order. April was like that. Since she would not willfully disobey an order, she'd been forming a plan ever since Mike sent her home.

Conscientious to a fault, she almost never took sick leave, and never just took a day off for fun. Fun was a foreign concept to her, an idea that flickered from time to time like a faltering lightbulb. It couldn't beam out steadily in a world where disaster too often intruded on good times. Even fun like last night's had a way of turning to tragedy without warning. Life threw its little curves, and April was schooled in an ancient culture in which bad luck was always an expected guest.

Across the Whitestone the traffic on Northern Boulevard was heavy heading west through Queens. She had plenty of time to catalog a collection of aches and pains worthy of a week off. Her head and neck hurt. Her shoulders. Both knees had been skinned on cement and were now weeping through their bandages. She could embroider.

As the temperature dropped steadily, chilly evening air pelted her from the cracked car window. The sky was quickly darkening to the NYPD blue she loved, and she felt the rush of freedom in her wheels. She'd always liked traveling on her own. Her plan was to take some sick leave, to stay out of sight long enough to figure out if Bernardino's killer was someone close to him, someone who might know her, too. A cop. An ex-cop. Not that she believed for a second that Bernardino's killer was a cop, but cops did funny things when their heads got screwed up. Just this year two police officers in separate shooting rampages within a six-month period killed ten people in a small New Jersey town. And cops had weapons. All Bernardino's killer needed, however, was his forearm. For all April knew he was back at work somewhere today. The last thing she wanted to do was scare him.

She figured as long as she couldn't speak, no one would bother her. She could sleep at home with her mother for a few days. With her mother she was impossible to reach. Skinny was the world's best gatekeeper when her daughter wanted to hide. April smiled to herself as she pulled up in front of the brick house that was her official residence, the place she used to call home.

As soon as the engine was off, however, Skinny Dragon Mother wiped the smile right off her face. She must have been sitting by the window turning the red envelope over and over in her hands, watching and waiting for April, because she started screaming in Chinese before April even had her key out of the ignition.

"What took so long? I wait all day." Skinny was out the front door running down the cement walk in her red-for-luck padded jacket, her red-for-heart look-like-silk blouse, her loose black pants, and soft black canvas peasant shoes. Tightly curled into a fried seaweed frizz, her thinning hair was jet-black and looked freshly dyed today. Oh, and there it was, the ultimate message. The red envelope ready for delivery in her hand was not the kind used for special occasions, an exciting
Hong Bao
printed with gold designs and stuffed with money. This was something else. For once April could not ignore it and say, "Hi, Ma. How ya doin'?"

So Skinny kept right on screaming until she was close enough to scream right into April's ear.
"Ni,
you sick. You supposed to come home."

As usual, she reached over as if to give her daughter a hug but instead tugged angrily on April's arm, shoving the red envelope into her hand. April didn't protest. Protesting never helped.

"Still can't talk?" her mother yelled, as if she couldn't hear, either. A common misconception.

April shook her head.

"I fix," Skinny screamed, thrilled to have something useful to do.

She started right in, quickly making the mind-calming mudra with her thumbs touching and her hands cupped one over the other. She kept her posture with the slight bow for all of two and a half seconds because she was incapable of calming her mind, or anybody else's. Then she moved right along to the ousting motion. She stuck out the index finger and pinkie of her right hand and started flicking her middle two fingers with her thumb.

Flick, flick, flick around April's head that was now lowered in deep humiliation for what her mother was doing. Flick, flick, flick, they walked the sidewalk leading to the front door. For April it was like walking the plank on a pirate ship. Flick, flick, flick. She knew what was in store.

Flick, flick, flick around the door of the house. Skinny was ousting in the unspoken message of the Speech Secret Mantra. After that she began the Three Secrets Reinforcement Blessing. This would go on for a long time.

"Gete Gete Para Gete Para Sum Gete Bodhi Saha!"
Skinny chanted the heart sutra. It meant something like: Get smart, hurry up and run to the other shore a whole bunch of times.

Impatient for results, Skinny started the Six True Words Mantra.
" Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum."
She yammered just like the bald guys in the orange robes who turned up to dance through Washington Square and Chinatown sometimes, but Skinny did it without the finger cymbals.

I
bow to the jewel in the lotus blossom. I bow to the jewel in the lotus blossom. I bow to the jewel in the
lotus blossom.
In other words, I bow to the god I see in you. Something like that.

Shit.
April clutched the red envelope that was guaranteed to keep her spiritually and energetically protected during Skinny's ousting of bad
qi
and request for positive results in her attempt at the Black Hat feng shui cure. April wanted to sink through the sidewalk and disappear under the Earth's crust.

Actually Skinny's personal meaning of the mantra was a little different:
Almost dead daughter, again returned to life by constantly vigilant, all-powerful mother.
That was Skinny's mantra.

She pushed April through the front door and took a bow at the changes that had been made to the entry and living room. The left wall just inside the door was covered with a huge mirror where there used to be just a little one. Must be borrowed. Wind chimes hung on the light over the door. And wow! Surprise, all the corners of the foyer and living room were hung with colored strings tied in knots at intervals. The strings were stuck on the ceiling with tape and puddled on the floor. April knew that the blue strings at the top represented the part of her body that was injured, the throat. They hung up there closest to ceiling where the higher power resided. Next the red string at eye level represented April, the human in need. When April had been a child, eye level had been much lower. And last was the yellow string puddled on the ground representing Earth. Thus April was bound to heaven and Earth, yin and yang, as her mother tried to transform and release her newest health problem.

Bowls of oranges and other symbolic gifts were evidence of the day's visitors. So much trouble to get the energy right, to balance yin and yang in the body and in the room. April could not help but be touched by the effort Skinny and her friends had made. And April could tell by the strong aroma of simmering ginger that Skinny had been brewing her cures, too.

Sniff, sniff, sniff. Skinny stopped chanting and was smelling her now. "Let me see tongue," she demanded. She was ready to play doctor.

April knew what was coming up and backed away. She didn't want nasty Chinese fake medicine. Boiled-for-five-hours mung sprouts and green food for sore throat wasn't so bad, but disgusting snake broth and some of the other crazy shit made her gag. April was not going to stand there and let her mother pinch her nose tight with iron fingers to get it down. She was too old for that.

"You want to talk?" Skinny screamed. The woman didn't know how to keep her voice down.

April nodded, bowing almost as a joke with as much respect as she could muster to the jewel in the lotus blossom, the god in her mother.

"Then open up mouth. Can speak by morning.
Hao bu hao?"
Okay or no okay.

"Hao."
April opened her mouth. It was worth a try.