CONCOURSE (Bill Smith/Lydia Chin) (10 page)

“Thanks. I’ll let you know.” I covered the gun with the Moran Security jacket. Dr. Reynolds opened the exam-room door, stood aside to let me pass.

“Good-bye,” He smiled, offered his hand again. Prepared this time, I met his grip, winked at Elena, and went out.

Upstairs, Dayton was standing behind his desk, speaking to four large men in Wells Fargo jackets. I watched from the stairwell door as he gestured to the time clock, ran his finger down the log sheet on the clipboard. When he pointed to the front door they all turned their heads, followed his gesture; then they turned back, listened to his measured words.

A door opened and Mrs. Wyckoff came into the hall, followed by Bobby, who had held the door for her. Mrs. Wyckoff’s eyes landed on me; then, nose in the air, she stalked past. I joined Bobby, who was leaning on the cane again.

“You okay?”

“Will you stop asking me that?” Bobby growled.

“Glad to hear it.”

Mrs. Wyckoff spoke to the largest of the Wells Fargo guys, the
one with “Supervisor” above the stripes on his sleeves. “Mr. Bruno, may I see you in my office, please?”

Bruno had the large jowls and mournful expression of a basset hound. “Sure,” he said. “Hey, Bobby. Long time.” Bobby slipped his hand through the crook of the cane, shook with Bruno, then planted the cane again.

Mrs. Wyckoff looked suspiciously from one to the other. “Do you two know each other?”

“Ours is a small world,” Bruno said soothingly. Mrs. Wyckoff didn’t look soothed.

Bobby introduced me to Bruno, Bruno introduced his men around, and then it was over. Bobby, Dayton and I headed downstairs with the Wells Fargo man who was replacing Fuentes. We cleaned out our lockers, then went out to the parking lot, where Bobby told Fuentes and Dayton he’d call them each in a day or two with a new assignment.

“Hey, man, you watch yourself, okay?” Fuentes said to me.

I said something similar back, shook hands with Dayton. They walked together up the hill toward the subway.

Bobby and I both had cars in the lot. Bobby, still looking after Dayton and Fuentes, said to me, “You can come in and out whenever you want. I fixed it with Bruno.”

“Already?” I was impressed. “When?”

“This morning. When Wyckoff told me it was going to be Wells Fargo, I called. I know a lot of guys over there.” He turned, started for his car. I walked with him. “Of course, if Wyckoff tells them to keep you out, they’ll have to.”

“Why would she do that? A nice guy like me?”

“Tell it to the judge,” Bobby grunted. He climbed into his car, pulled his left leg after him. The car was a Buick Skylark, modified some to make it easier for Bobby to use.

“I’m going to see Sheila,” I said. “Changed your mind? Want to come?”

“I’m going home to bed. One of the advantages to being an old man is you can go home to bed and let the young guys do the work.”

“Or guys like me, if you can’t find any young guys. I’ll call you later.”

“You ought to get some sleep, too. Why don’t you go call your girlfriend? Maybe she’ll sing you a Chinese lullabye.”

“She doesn’t know any lullabyes. Only rock ’n’ roll.”

Bobby drove off. I took my car and headed north again and west, wondering whether Lydia did, in fact, know any lullabyes.

E
IGHTEEN

M
ike and Sheila Downey had lived on the first floor of a wood-framed three-family near the Yonkers line. Gold and russet leaves carpeted the uneven slate sidewalk, and the asphalt-shingled houses crowded each other close. Short concrete paths flanked by small rectangular patches of grass led to each front door.

The air was sharp, but the sun was warm. Sheila was waiting for me on the porch. I picked up a child’s alphabet block with a “C” and a picture of a cat on it from the path, put it on the table next to Sheila after I kissed her.

She smiled a tired smile. “We’ll have to talk low. Peggy’s asleep.” She wore a forest-green sweater that ordinarily would have set off her auburn hair; today it only emphasized the pallor of her plump cheeks.

In a playpen, Peg lay facedown, little diapered rear in the air, one baby hand resting on a tawny stuffed tiger. Her brown curls clung damply around her face.

Brushing back her own curls, Sheila asked me, “What happened to your eye? Did you get hurt?” I could hear, even in her low tones, the rolling rhythms of Ireland.

“I had an accident. I’m okay. How are you doing?”

She settled into a steel porch chair that bounced a little on its frame. I sat in one like it, waited for an answer.

“Okay, I guess. I don’t know.” She spoke softly, staring at the floor. Suddenly she lifted her head. “Oh, look at me, forgetting my manners. Is there something I can get you? Coffee? A beer? There’s plenty to eat—people have been bringing things over, the way they do …”

“No, thanks. Sheila, is there anything you need? Money? Someone to help with Peg?”

She shook her head. “The neighbors have been wonderful, just rallying round. They’ve had us over to supper in turns, and the women come help me mind the baby. The first two nights we stopped with the Abrams, next door. Now we’ve come home, and it’s all right, I suppose …” She paused. “It’s only, it’s so empty here.” She gestured toward the apartment, as though toward huge echoing corridors and vast desolate rooms.

“I know,” I said softly.

After a moment, Sheila looked up. “You wanted to ask me questions. We’d better talk or I’ll start to cry.” She smiled raggedly.

“Okay. But you can cry anyhow, if you want.”

“I don’t, specially. But I seem to, no matter what.”

I lit a cigarette. Afternoon sunlight glowed on the white-painted porch rails.

“Bobby says Mike was acting strangely, the last few weeks,” I said.

Sheila picked up the alphabet block, turned it in her hands. “You’re working for Bobby.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Does that mean you’ll tell him anything I tell you?”

Peg, still asleep, whimpered, slid her hand around the playpen until her thumb found her mouth. I said to Sheila, “No.”

“Because Bobby asked me the same, and I said I didn’t know. I don’t; but whatever it was, it was to do with him. With Bobby.”

“What do you mean?”

Her eyes were large, pale, troubled. “I truly don’t know, Bill. But something was bothering Mike, something at work.”

“How do you know that?”

She looked away from me. “You know how close they were. When Mike wouldn’t talk to me about it, I said he should talk to Bobby. That’s what he always would have done. But he said no, Bobby had too many troubles now. He said it was for him to take care of.” Still without looking at me, she whispered, “He said I mustn’t worry.”

I watched the fallen leaves, a soft wind behind them, wander over asphalt and slate. After a time I asked, “Was Mike happy at work?”

“Oh, very happy. Though what he truly wanted was to be an investigator. He loved to know things, Mike did. But Bobby said he had to start off slow, to learn from the ground up, so to say. He would have done anything Bobby wanted. Bobby was his hero.” She raised her eyes to me. “He used to say that was what he liked about you, how good you were to Bobby. Because of that he liked you, even when you …” She blushed, trailed off.

“Even when I gave him a hard time. Even when I lost my temper with him. I’m sorry about those times, Sheila.”

She shook her head. “He thought you were—well, difficult. But he liked you.”

“I liked him. I really did.”

Though she smiled, her eyes gleamed with new tears.

“And you have no idea what it was that was troubling him?”

“No. But one night he asked me something … strange. Maybe it’s to do with … with whatever it was.”

“Strange?”

“Out of nowhere, one night—we were looking at TV—he asked which I thought was worse, a snitch or a liar. He made it sound as if he didn’t care, he was just wondering, like; but I knew him better than that.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I said I guessed it would depend.”

“On what?”

“Who got snitched on, and what for, and who got lied to, and what about.”

“What did Mike say?”

“Nothing right away. Then he asked if you saw someone steal something and didn’t stop him, if that made you a thief too.”

“What did you say?”

Her eyes glistened again, and she looked away. “I said I thought he knew the answer to that.”

A breeze ruffled the trees, and a yellow leaf drifted into the playpen, settled on the hem of Peg’s blanket. Peg fretted. Sheila leaned over, straightened the blanket, rubbed Peg’s back. She grew still, and Sheila sat back again.

“Sheila, did Mike ever mention his supervisor on the night shift? A man named Henry Howe?”

“Not really. I know the name, but Mike didn’t talk about him specially. Why?”

I ground out my cigarette. “You’ll hear about it anyway. You might as well hear it from me. There was another killing at the Bronx Home last night. Henry Howe was killed the same way Mike was.”

Sheila Downey stared at me, unmoving. Then, dropping the alphabet block, her curls blowing unnoticed around her face in the October wind, she started to cry. Tears brimmed in her eyes, slid down her cheeks; otherwise she was completely still and silent.

I rose, went and sat on the arm of her chair, hugged her to me. At first she was wooden, unresponding. Then she melted against me and began to sob, her shoulders shaking. I held her, smoothed her hair. I said nothing, because there were no words.

After a time, her sobs became gentle, then finally stopped. She straightened up, wiped her eyes. “Oh, God,” she said, with a small hiccup. “Did I wake Peggy?”

“No.”

She wiped her eyes again, tried to smile. “Look at me.” Her voice was hoarse. “I didn’t even know the man.”

I leaned against the porch rail, facing her.

“Bill?” she whispered, then nothing more.

“I don’t know,” I said.

Sheila bit her lower lip, reached down to pick up the alphabet block. “What about Bobby?” she asked. “Poor Bobby.”

“I don’t know,” I said to that, too. “He bites my head off every time I ask how he’s doing. But he looks tired, Sheila.”

A gust of wind showered leaves from the trees, tinkled a wind chime in a neighboring yard. “We wanted him to move in with us, Mike and I. Did you know that?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Well, he wouldn’t. He said we didn’t need two babies to look after.”

I smiled. “That sounds like Bobby.”

She turned her eyes to me. “Do you suppose he would now? Come live with me and Peg? It’s only, it’s so empty …”

“Have you asked him?”

“Not since …” She looked down, didn’t finish.

“Ask him, Sheila. He’ll say no. Then ask him again.”

The wind swept the trees again, and the wind chime rang. “I used to hate that thing.” Sheila smiled softly. “That chime. But Mike liked it. He said it made him know other people were close. He liked
to know that.” She pushed the curls from her forehead. “Now,” she said, “now I like to hear it. It makes me think … well, it makes me think Mike’s close. Do you know?”

“Yes. I know.”

“Do you think that could be? That people we lose … they could still be close?”

“I think,” I said, “that you’ll always have Mike close.”

She nodded, wrapped her arms around herself as the wind grew colder. “I hope so,” she whispered. “I hope that’s so.”

N
INETEEN

B
efore I left Sheila’s I called my service. While Sheila moved around the kitchen, setting cups on saucers, slicing an apple cake, I held Peg on one hip. Peg seemed unsure of me, groggy from sleep.

“You know Bill.” Sheila touched the tip of Peg’s nose. “He gave you that tiger, when you were just a wee thing.”

Peg regarded me gravely, her right arm wrapped around the tiger as mine was wrapped around her.

“That’s right,” I told her, dialing the phone with my free hand. “Tony the Tiger. He’s grrrreat!”

Peg stared, then suddenly flapped the tiger in the air. “Gyyyyate!” She clutched the tiger to herself again, looked at me.

“Uh-huh,” I said. “Just like you.”

Sheila took Peg from me, set her in her high chair. I turned away from the sudden empty feeling, switched the receiver to my other hand as though I’d needed that arm free anyway.

There was an eager puppy friendliness in the voice of the young man at the answering service. “Didn’t you just call? No? Well, that would be me, confused as usual. Maybe it was that someone called
you
. Oh, my. Don’t you think it’s a good thing this is just my day job? I’m really a waiter. Yes, here. A Martin Carter. I quote:
‘It’s set up. The parking-lot gate, five-thirty.’ Ooh, how mysterious! Are you sure I didn’t just give this to you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I don’t know. I could swear I just gave it to
somebody
,” he said dubiously. “Anyhow, I hope it’s as thrilling as it sounds.”

“I don’t see how it could be. But thanks.” I hung up thinking, three’s a crowd.

“Everything okay?” Sheila poured milk into my cup, and then tea.

“I think so. Sheila, let me ask you something else, and then I’ll go, I promise.”

“You don’t have to go. If I can help you do … do what Bobby hired you for, I want to. I want to very much.”

The tea was thick, smoky-tasting. “Is there anyone,” I watched Sheila’s face, “anyone at all, no matter how far-fetched, who might have wanted Mike out of the way?”

She settled her teacup in her saucer, looked into its depths. “I’ve been thinking about that every minute since it happened. Who, and why. No. I don’t think so. No one hated Mike. He was always everywhere, popping up all over the neighborhood, offering a hand. No one hated Mike. Why would they?”

Soon after, a neighbor came over, a smiling woman with two small children who made a fuss over Peg the way children will over a baby who’s not theirs. I left then, promising Sheila I’d come see her soon.

It was a quarter to four. I had almost two hours before I had to meet Carter, and I had an idea how to spend that time.

Samaritan Hospital was an ugly pile of tan brick buildings on the Concourse south of the courthouse. Each of the three main buildings had been built in a different decade. No effort had been made, it seemed, to match or even harmonize their heights, windows, detailing; but the tan brick was the same, and it was used again in the covered connections and links and annexes that tied the complex together. All the ground-level brick was graffiti-layered, names covering names, cartoon pictures obliterating other cartoons.

Inside Samaritan’s main doors was an information desk, and next to it, as a portal, a walk-through metal detector. On the wall hung a sign: “Notice: No Weapons of Any Kind Permitted in Any Samaritan Hospital Facility.”

“The Diagnostic Clinic?” I asked at the desk.

“Left. Follow the green line. Walk through there.” The woman at the desk pointed her chin at the metal detector.

“I’m carrying a gun.” I opened my jacket just enough for her and the guard who sat on a stool by the detector to look inside. The guard, his uniform shirt rolled up on his massive forearms, started to come forward.

“I have a license for it. I’m a private investigator.” I took out my wallet, showed him my P.I. license and my carry permit.

He scowled as he fingered them. “Leave it here.”

“I think it’s safer with me.”

“Suit yourself. But you can’t take it in.”

“Permit doesn’t do me any good?”

“Not inside.”

“You have a place to lock it up?”

“No, I’m gonna take it outside and pot junkies.” He settled back on his stool.

“Give it here,” the woman said from behind the desk. “You got a permit, you get it back.” She was holding a steel strongbox with a number painted on the side.

“What if I didn’t have a permit?” I placed my revolver in the box. She locked it, gave me a numbered key, put the box in a drawer, locked the drawer.

“The police come for it.” She wrote me out a receipt, without my asking.

“When did you start doing this?” I asked, curious. “Checking for weapons at the door?”

Her look was impassive. “Same time the high schools did.”

I went through the detector, turned left, followed the green line. It ran with the red and blue ones until they dropped away, then twisted alone down the scuffed corridor. I passed an orderly pushing a cart piled with dirty linens; two tired-looking nurses passed me. The place smelled sharply of rubbing alcohol and disinfectant, and I wanted a cigarette.

Finally the green line ran under a door labeled “Diagnostic Clinic.” I pushed the door open, went in. The green line stopped; maybe it knew better than I did.

An elderly man sat next to an elderly woman on plastic chairs by the wall. The only other person in the room was the nurse behind the reception counter.

I gave her the prescription Dr. Reynolds had written me. “I need to be out of here by five. What are my chances?”

“Fair.” She read the prescription, handed me a clipboard with two forms. One was questions about my medical history, the other about my insurance. I filled them out, gave them back. “I’m not sure my insurance will pay for this—”

“It will,” she interrupted, sounding bored.

“Isn’t this a private hospital?”

“Don’t matter.”

“On my Blue Cross,” I persisted, “I’m supposed to call them and get it approved before—”

“‘Managed Care’.” She glanced through my forms, only half listening. “That’s procedures, not diagnostics.”

“But how do I know they’ll pay the full amount? What if they don’t approve your charges?”

She looked up at me over half-glasses. “Honey, what you trying to do, talk your way outta this? It’s only X ray, it ain’t gonna hurt. Big fella like you. You oughta be shamed.”

“It’s not that, it’s the cost,” I said stubbornly. “I’m just worried they’ll only pay part. You know, what they think it’s worth, not what you charge.”

She smiled. “Well, don’t you worry, honey. We gonna charge you exactly what Blue Cross like to pay.”

After that, it was half an hour of nothing, just staring at the old man and woman staring at the wall. Sometimes I stared at the wall myself. A tattered poster suggested I learn about the four basic food groups. A newer one exhorted me to Just Say No.

Eventually a door opened, a technician called my name, and then it was shirt off, sit, lie, sit again, while the technician stepped in and out from his lead shield and the X-ray machine buzzed briefly. Then back through the waiting room, where the elderly couple still sat, still stared; and back along the green line to retrieve my gun at the desk. I broke it open, checked the bullets. The guard scowled at me when I did that.

“The silver ones are hard to come by,” I explained. Then out the double doors and onto the sidewalk, where I lit up a cigarette
immediately. The late-afternoon sunlight made the tan brick glow warmly, but it didn’t make the buildings any more inviting. I didn’t realize how much I disliked the smell of disinfectant until it was gone.