Revenant Rising (36 page)
She finishes with her lips moving and an accusatory expression on her face when she looks him in the eye.
“I know, I know, it’s not what I was supposed to be doing, and even if it was, it’s only a sketch. The cadence is all off—too many syllables or not enough—and the references could be too—”
“This is the book you
have
to do, Colin. A collection of Jeremiah stories for kids of all ages. I absolutely
love
this . . . this work in progress.” She reclaims the legal pad and her pen and returns to her desk. “Who
wouldn’t
love an instrument of desire known as Mellow Cello, even if the full meaning might not be apparent to everyone.”
“That your way of sayin’ the
Intermezzo
project’s in the toilet?”
“It’s my way of saying you should consider sharing this other talent you have and perhaps put the
Intermezzo
project aside for today.
“You’re callin’ today off just because I wrote some nonsense shit for my boy instead of what you asked for?” He half rises from the sofa.
“No, I’m calling today off because I really need to get out of here.”
“And away from me.” He gets to his feet, scowling.
“No! Let me finish.” She gets to her feet. “I’m declaring this a free day, that’s all.”
“I don’t want to be free. I’ll cooperate, I promise.”
“Not today. Today I want to ride the Staten Island Ferry. Or go to Coney Island. The Statue of Liberty’s a possibility, so is the Circle Line cruise around Manhattan.”
“Am I coming with you?’
“I hope so.”
Two hours later, it no longer matters if Laurel’s impulse was only madcap or borderline insane. Spontaneity was lost the minute Bemus and his apparent clone, Tom Jensen, were called upon to manage the logistics of a so-called getaway. Now, seated within their protective custody on the upper deck of a tourist boat embarked on a circumnavigation of Manhattan, she tries not to feel chastened, even though no one has suggested her wishes were unreasonable.
The three-hour cruise is uncrowded for good reason. Heavy overcast advertises worse to come, and a slight breeze is building to a bullying bluster as they parallel the West Side Highway and slip past a long series of piers. From water level, building density at midtown appears fortress-like for being cast in unrelieved gray without the distraction of glare or reflection. This effect is even more pronounced as the Circle Liner moves past the World Trade Center towers and those shelf-like extensions into the Hudson that support what she likes to think of as supplicants to the towers. But today the supplicants more closely resemble bulwarks.
An amplified tour guide—part historian, part stand-up comic—pays homage to these citadels of commerce and leaves nothing unsaid about Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. She deafens herself to this narrative and has to be nudged twice when Colin asks where she worked when she was an ADA. She tells him to use the Brooklyn Bridge as a line of demarcation when they come to it and to look inland from there for a general idea of where she used to work. “Where I simultaneously fulfilled my promise and wasted my youth,” she concludes.
“I hope you don’t actually mean that.”
“Well, maybe not that strongly,” she says, but when they pass under the bridge she focuses on the Brooklyn shore.
Soon after, somewhere between the Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges, Bemus volunteers to hit the concession stand for something to drink. She asks for a beer, so does Colin. Then they dig into corned beef sandwiches brought from the Stage Deli at her request. The sandwiches would each feed two people; they each eat enough for two people, including whole kosher dill pickles.
“Damn good thing I’m sleeping alone tonight,” Colin says, suppressing a belch and releasing a whiff of garlic-breath no less pungent than hers.
Piped-in narrative by the tour guide keeps conversation to a minimum. This suits Laurel’s mood and evidently works for Colin as well because he’s made no attempt to develop any particular comment into a prolonged exchange.
The boat draws even with the Belleview Hospital complex before she focuses on Manhattan again, this time viewing it as a labyrinth in which it’s all too easy to disappear—to become unrecognizable to oneself, as went Colin’s earlier observation.
She glances at him out of the corner of her eye, thinking to expand on that observation and is amused to see that he’s nodded off. Chin on chest, hands loosely folded on lap, he’s deeply submerged in the long duster-like coat Bemus brought along when summoned for the outing.
With at least half of Manhattan Island yet to be circled, Laurel scrunches down inside her own coat to contemplate what brought her here today. She can’t blame a nostalgic urge like the one taking her to Jockey Hollow yesterday because she’s never before been on a Circle Line cruise. Although she’s seen these vistas before, she’s never seen them from this angle and from this perspective—as an outsider.
No single word or phrase describes her feelings until they’re passing Roosevelt Island and snatches of a song fill her consciousness. The song is synonymous with Frank Sinatra and synonymous with having survived the crucible that is New York.
She hums a few notes under her breath and adjusts her outlook.
Upon rejoining the Hudson River, passage beneath the George Washington Bridge invites an estimate of how many times she’s crossed it and that would be the same as estimating how many times she was hiding fear, exhaustion, and worry when she crossed it. She does not look up. She stops surveying the heights adjacent the bridge well before she might see Grant’s Tomb up there and envision the nearby Columbia University campus. The New Jersey shore doesn’t hold any appeal either, but she patiently watches it go by until she guesses them to be nearing the West Side piers and the end of the voyage.
Mindful of who might be looking or listening, she’s cautious in her attempt to wake Colin. At first she repeats his name, just loud enough for him to hear, and gives him a discreet nudge with her elbow. When that doesn’t work, she squeezes his hand and that results in him latching on to her hand like he’s never going to let go. She wrenches loose from his grip and gives his shoulder a rough shake that does the job. His eyes blink open in a long moment of surprised confusion.
“Oh shit . . . oh, don’t tell me I’ve been asleep,” he groans.
“No big thing. You didn’t miss anything and you must have needed the sleep.”
“Yeh, but are you ever gonna forgive me? First chance I get and . . .
shit
. . . I can hear this being thrown up to me for the next twenty years.”
“Twenty years? What are you talking about? Don’t be silly! Besides, there’s nothing to forgive. This was a free day, remember?”
“Yeh, I remember but—”
“Not another word, okay?”
He’s still berating himself when Bemus interrupts to give instructions for leaving the boat. “We’re going off first, so I want us at the gate before the boat docks,” the bodyguard says.
Laurel could argue this logic until the other bodyguard explains that a sizable number of passengers appear to have ID’d Colin and will mob him given the chance—a delayed departure being that chance. As it is, their little party creates quite a stir while moving from the upper deck to the disembarkation point on the main deck. Once there, Laurel adds to the ripple of excitement by stripping off her coat and tossing it over the side, where it balloons and takes brief flight before settling onto the murky waters of the Hudson River.
“What the
hell
?” Colin falters in surprise. “Did I just see you throw your coat away? Did you mean to do that?”
“Yes.”
“Dare I ask why?”
“I don’t need it anymore.”
“Of course not, not on a perfect spring day like this.” He glances upward at a lowering sky that will release rain any minute.
She anticipates his next move and takes two steps backward as he opens his voluminous coat to her. From almost any angle his gesture resembles that of a flasher, and there’s no way she can keep from laughing. Nor can the staring bystanders Bemus and his cohort are keeping at bay. Colin is last to see what’s funny and is a good sport about it—such a good sport that he could be playing to the crowd when he removes the coat and ceremoniously capes it around her to scattered applause. Before she can object to this, the boat docks, the gate is thrown open, and Tom Jensen sprints ahead to bring the car around.
She and Colin are instructed to precede Bemus in a variation on the escape from the Temple of Dendur. They hurry along the pier toward the closest pickup point, and this begins to look like another clean getaway.
Shut safely inside the car, an argument begins the moment Bemus asks her destination and her answer is not the one the client wants to hear. This could be a replay of last night’s heated exchange about the garage door opener, with each of them pressed into opposite corners of a backseat not wide enough to accommodate much in the way of adversarial maneuvering.
“I
hate
that you’re going home alone!” Colin says for the third or fourth time.
“And I hate that you hate it!” She especially hates that the controversy is being conducted in the presence of Bemus and the other bodyguard.
“But you have to admit my suggestion’s workable. We’ll take you home now and come back for you tomorrow when—”
“Not tomorrow. Our agreement stipulates no Sundays.”
“But . . . not even to make up for me sleepin’ through today’s—”
“There’s nothing to make up.
I’m
the one who blew off today’s session.”
“Yeh, maybe you are, but I’m dead certain that was because I didn’t get on with the job when you asked me to this morning. Please let me—”
“Please stop it. Tomorrow I have to go see my father. It’s been too long since my last visit, I can’t put it off any longer.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“No, I don’t think so. After I see him I’m going to New Haven, where I have other family business to take care of.”
“I’ve no problem going to Connecticut. I know, let me take you there—spare you the driving—and on the way we can talk about whatever it is you want to talk about.”
“Even if you did, there’d be nothing for you to do while I’m busy with my brothers and sister. And no one should have to see the inside of a nursing home without good reason.”
“I know New Haven quite well, actually. Had my very first American gig there at Newt’s Place. Whilst you’re busy, I could pop in and see if anyone there still remembers me. As for nursing homes, I’ve been inside a few, they hold no special terror.”
“You may not want to go anywhere with me after you hear what I did. Earlier, while you were alone in my office and I was sifting through all those phone messages, I returned a call from your manager. He wanted to speak to you and I said you couldn’t be disturbed. Once he was convinced I meant it, he left several messages for you. I took them—I memorized them—and waited until now to give them to you because he said none required your
immediate
attention.”
“Go ahead, let’s have ’em, then,” Colin says.
“Very well . . . Anthony’s fax escapade was leaked to the press . . . Saul Kingsolver is not going down easy, but David’s on it . . . Sarjit Singh of the Rajah label is said to be interested . . . then there was something about a couple of purchases you need to verify. Oh, and he said to let you know someone called Gibby Lester was found dead, a probable homicide.”
His grimaced reaction suits news of a sudden death, news of unwanted publicity, annoyance with her delay in bringing any of these issues to his attention. But it’s the request for verification of purchases that has him going.
“Nate didn’t say where these purchases were made, did he? Or when? Did he say when?”
“No. This was mentioned almost as an afterthought with no specifics other than recent.
Recent
purchases, he said.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m
very
sure.”
“And Gibby Lester, you say . . . Jesus, that’s two in a week.”