Come Out Tonight (33 page)

“Never heard of him,” I replied.

“Not your brother?”

“My brother’s name is Mark.”

“Cousin?”

“No.
 
Hey, I’m not related to all the Jackmans in the world, you know.”

“Diego’s dead,” Sirken said.
 
Through the corner of my left eye, I could see her watching for my reaction.
 
I didn’t give her one.
 
“You know of anyone who might have wanted him dead?”

“Not a clue.”

“I know you saw him last month.”

I turned to face her.
 
“Yeah, and so did a thousand other people.
 
Look.
 
You’re wasting your time.
 
I didn’t kill him.
 
I didn’t know him.
 
I went to visit my parents last month and passed by his house.”

“How’d you know where his house was?”

“Well this is gonna sound silly, but I found his address on a strip of paper in my pocket.”

“It does sound silly.”

“Well, too bad,” I shot back.
 
“What the hell motive do I have?
 
This Alicia probably killed him.
 
Diego must have been making her life miserable, threatening every man she looked at.
 
He told me he’d kill me if he ever saw me around her.”

“Why?”

“How the hell do I know?
 
I never saw her before.”

The train shuddered to a stop.
 
Half a dozen people got off, and the doors closed.
 
The train just sat there.
 
Then the doors opened again.
 
A minute went by.
 
The doors closed again, and the train started up.

“Maybe if the NYPD didn’t pay tons of money following around innocent people like me, the taxpayers could get a new subway system,” I told her.

“Apples and oranges,” Sirken said.

The train went round a bend, all of us strap-hangers grabbing on for dear life.

“Listen,” I said, both hands on the strap.
 
“You know what I think?
 
I think that Diego was the one who attacked Sherry.
 
The guy was paranoid.
 
You should have heard him.
  
Maybe he thought it was Alicia in my apartment that night, and he snuck in the window and hit her over the head.
 
But it wasn’t Alicia.
 
It was Sherry, poor Sherry.
 
So then, when Diego went home, he found Alicia wasn’t dead after all.
 
And maybe she found out that he’d tried to kill her, and killed him before he could do it again.”

“A lot of maybes.”

“Yeah, but a lot better than a guy without a motive.”

The train was braking hard.
 
I peered out the dirt on the window: it was my station.
 
“I’m getting out now,” I said.
 
“You gonna follow me?”

“Nah,” Sirken said.
 
“I know where you’re going.”

I got off.
 
The doors closed behind me, Sirken still hanging onto her strap.

It was past two by the time I walked in the door at Duane Reade.
 
Nadia was working the prescription-in line, and there was a load of people milling around, waiting.
 

I could tell that Carl was royally pissed.
 
“I thought this wasn’t going to happen again, Henry,” he growled, hardly looking up.
 
“You were due here at twelve thirty.
 
Where were you?”

“Sorry,” I said, putting on my lab coat.
 
“I went to see Sherry and then, I guess, I lost track of time.”
  
I
did
lose track of time: literally.
 
Yeah, sure it had happened before, but never during the day.
 
And this time I hadn’t even taken Somnolux.
 
Nothing accounted for it.
 
I was scared.
 

Carl shoved a prescription in my hands. “Get going,” was all he said.
 
Boy, was he pissed.
 
I got to work.

Four hours later we were still working.
 
The prescription-in line had disappeared, and so did most of the milling people.
 
Nadia said goodnight and went home.
 
I was supposed to be on night duty, so I just sat there.
 
Carl took off his white coat and hung it on the wall, but he didn’t leave.

“Henry,” he said, standing there.
 
“I don’t have to tell you that you seem to be falling apart.”

“I’ve been trying,” I said.

“Yeah,” Carl replied.
 
“You have. But you’re screwing up.
 
If you can’t get here on time, I’m going to have to fire you.”

That scared me, and I must have shown it.

“But I’m going to give you one more chance, Henry.
 
You know I like you. We’ve been best buddies, and I really want you to stay.
 
But I can’t handle all the prescriptions myself, and if you can’t hack it, I’m going to have to let you go.”

“I won’t let you down,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

Carl stood there, leaning against the wall, thinking.
 
It took so long I went back to my work.
  
“But I have this feeling you’re not telling me something,” he said out of the blue.

What was I going to tell him? That I was watching TV in my girlfriend’s room, and suddenly I was on the F train to
Queens
?
 
That young sexy women popped up unannounced in my bed?
  
That there was this guy in
Queens
shot dead in his house - I knew that guy and I saw that house?
 
What could I possibly tell him?

“I don’t know where you got that idea,” I said.
 
“All I’ve been doing is coming here and going to see Sherry.
 
Maybe I’m a little tired, that’s all.”

Carl looked at me funny.
 
“You’ve given up the Somnolux, haven’t you, Henry?”

That was a good question, but I didn’t see how I was going to give him a good answer.
 
“Absolutely,” I said.

“How have you been sleeping?”

I shrugged, as if to say not good.
 
But, then again, I didn’t actually say that.

“Have you gone back to a doctor?” Carl asked.

I told him I’d gone to my mother’s doctor, and had tried all the stuff he prescribed, but nothing else really worked for me.

“So you’re just toughing it out, then?”

I nodded.
  
Whatever he made of my nod was okay with me.

Carl sighed.
 
“Maybe I’ve been too hard on you, Henry.
 
After all, you’ve been managing to come to work on time for most of the past month and to visit Sherry in your free time, the whole thing on too little sleep.”
 
He launched himself off the wall and over to me, giving me a pat on the shoulder.
 
“Don’t sweat it.
 
We’ll work it out.”
 
He walked out, leaving me alone in the store.

The moment he walked out, I picked up my cell and tried to call Sherry again.
 
“Hello Sherry?” I said after she picked up.
 

“Don’t call me, Henry,” she said and hung up.

I worked another two hours, customers coming in here and there.
 
It wasn’t an especially busy night.
 
We were supposed to stay open Thursdays till 10:00, but I closed up at 8:00, turning the sign on the front door from Open to Closed.

I walked down to
157
^th
Street
and caught the local train up to the
Bronx
.
 
Old Brown Suit was nowhere to be seen, until we stopped at
168
^th
Street
, when he entered at the back of my car, just as if he had known where I’d be before I’d known it myself.
 
I could feel his eyes on the back of my neck, but when I turned around, wouldn’t you know it, he was looking away.
 
Still, I couldn’t seem to rid myself of the feeling I was being watched.
 
I turned round one more time only to find him miraculously sitting across the aisle from me, staring out the window beside him.

This was too close for comfort.
 
I stood up and walked to the front of the car, tugging at the latch to drag the heavy door open.
 
Big signs tell you not to open the door while the train is moving, but you see people doing it all the time, and almost nobody slips to his death onto the tracks below.
 
I stepped out onto the landing between the cars; the wind was whistling in my hair, the track was rushing past me underneath.
  
I lurched from one landing to another, pulled open the door latch to the next car and stepped inside.
 
Then I casually took my pick of seats from a mostly empty car and sat down near a window on the right.

A minute or two later, the noise of the tunnel suddenly exploded into the back of the car.
 
I turned round to hear the outer door cachunking into place and to catch sight of Brown Suit threading his way down the aisle.
 
The train lurched, throwing him into the seat to my left.
 
He gave me a quick glance before turning to the window.

I waited until 181
^st
before I got up again, crossed to the front of the car, unlatched the door and crossed to the next compartment.
 
The train was just starting up as I threw open the door to the next car.
 
I took a few steps and fell into the closest seat facing backwards.
 
Not a minute later, I could see him making his way into the space between the cars, crossing the landing and unlatching the door to my car.
 
I got up and hurried to the front of the car.

It didn’t look like he was even interested in sitting down this time, even though the train was going full tilt.
 
He just kept going from one end of the compartment to the other, through the junction between the cars and into the next. In the door, down the aisle, out the compartment, across the landing:
 
I kept moving on, faster and faster, as the train sped past 191
^st
, on past Dyckman,
 
207
^th
, 215
^th
, on past 231
^st
, running full out as if that could keep him from closing the distance on a finite train.
  
I don’t know what I hoped to accomplish.
 
Brown Suit wasn’t just taking a stroll.
 
He knew I had to stop somewhere.
 
Finally, he caught up with me plastered against the last door of the last car at the last stop: Van Courtland Park.
 

“What do you want from me?” I shouted, the sound echoing in the empty car.

“What the hell’re you running for?” Brown Suit gasped.
 
His glasses were fogged up; I figured he was more winded than I was.
  
He must have been about ten years older than me.
 
Maybe if I had had another half-hour of train to run on, I might have gained on him.
 
But I didn’t.
 
The train was stopping: the end of the run.
 
It would stand here for some ten minutes before it turned around and went back the way it came.
 
The doors opened and, for the moment, stayed open.

“What do you want from me?” I asked again, lower, edging toward the door.

“You are out of control, Jackman,” he said, panting.

I turned to walk out.
 
“I gotta get out here.”

“Wait,” he said, grabbing at my arm.
 
“I have something I want to tell you.
 
A message.”

“From who?” I asked, turning back.

“From Mr. Yielding.”
 
He stood there, breathing heavily, two fluorescent bulbs reflecting darkly in his glasses.
 
“Do not talk to the NYPD.
 
Do not - repeat - talk to the NYPD.”

“What would I want to talk to the NYPD about?” I asked, grinning.

“You know full well.
 
I’ve been tailing you for three weeks now.
 
I know everything you’ve been up to, Jackman, even that escapade in
Queens
.”

I swallowed.
 
“What escapade?”

“Don’t be a wise-ass.
 
You know exactly what I mean.
 
Mr. Yielding wants me to tell you we won’t tell on you if you don’t tell on us.”

“What the...?”

“It’s not in either of our best interests for this to get out.
 
Not you.
 
Not us.”

“This?”
 
What was this guy talking about?