Saints Of New York (56 page)

Eleven
minutes, that was all, and the car pool supervisor stepped out of his office
and crossed the garage to the rest- room on the other side of the building.
Parrish hurried across, entered the office, snatched the first set of keys he
could reach, and then walked along the bank of unmarked cars until he found the
plate that matched. A beat-to-shit dark blue saloon, unremarkable and
innocuous. Parrish got in, started the engine and pulled out of the garage. The
supervisor would assume that someone had borrowed the car for the weekend. He
would express his annoyance at the offender on Monday morning,
if
he was the guy on shift when the car
was returned. Such 'loans' were a common occurrence, and there was little that
could be done to stop them.

Parrish
took a left on Hoyt and made his way south-east. He forced himself not to think
about Briley, about his father. He willed himself to shut all of it out of his
mind until he was through with this. He needed to see Caitlin, and prayed that
she would be home. He
had
to make things good with her. Clare could think what the fuck she liked, and
Robert would think whatever he wanted regardless of what any of them said or
did. It had been a month now since he'd seen his son, and they could go another
six months without speaking, and yet when they collided once again it would be
as though they had spoken only the day before. Robert's nonchalant and
unconcerned attitude had always seemed an issue, certainly for Clare, but now,
after all this talk with Marie Griffin, it seemed to Parrish that his son's
attitude might actually serve him better than the over-serious,
responsible
viewpoint that parents so often tried to
foist off on their kids. Robert was Robert. It would be good for him or it wouldn't,
and no end of fatherly discussions and advice would change Robert's
mind.
If he went ahead and spent the rest of his life accomplishing not very much of
anything at all, and yet he was happy accomplishing nothing, then so be it.
Most times it was the over- achievers who experienced disappointment and
stress.
Cynical bastard,
Parrish thought as he pulled over a block and a half from Caitlin's apartment
block.

Parrish
couldn't remember her name, the girl who opened the apartment door.

'Mr
Parrish,' she said cheerfully, evidently remembering his.

'Hi
there,' Parrish replied. 'I was after Caitlin.'

'She's
not here.'

'She's
studying?'

'No,
I think she's working tonight. She's doing a long- weekender at the University
Hospital. You know where that is, right? Up where Atlantic meets the
expressway?'

Parrish
knew exactly where it was: a block from Hicks Street, a block from Danny
Lange's apartment and a dead girl that seemed so long ago.

'Yes,'
Parrish said. 'I know where it is.' He hesitated, almost as if he had something
else to say.

The
girl looked awkward. 'Was there anything else you needed?'

'No,'
he said, and smiled as best he could. I’ll go on up there and see her.'

He
drove back up Smith and took Atlantic. He pulled over on Clinton and walked the
rest of the way. The hospital receptionist was helpful but relatively clueless.
The student nurses could be anywhere in the building, she told Parrish. She
could put an announcement on the system perhaps? Was it important?

'Sir?'
she prompted as Parrish stared off into the middle- distance without answering
her question.

He
turned back and shook his head. 'Not so important as to disturb her while she's
working.'

'You
want to leave a message?'

'Yes,
a message. Sure. Tell her that her dad stopped by. That he said he was sorry
for everything and that he loves her.'

The
receptionist smiled. I’ll make sure she gets it, sir.'

Parrish
left the hospital. He drove home, parked a block away, spent an hour making
sandwiches, a flask of coffee, collected some tape cassettes of Tom Waits, Gil
Scott-Heron, Kenny Burrell, and dumped the lot in a holdall. He changed out of
his shirt and tie into a plain dark sweatshirt, a loose-fitting jacket, a pair
of jeans. He took a torch, his keys, an unmarked and untraceable .32 caliber
revolver he had picked up on a bust several years before, and then he stopped
at the door as he was leaving and looked back at the nondescript room. Had he
not lived there he would have believed the place empty, waiting for tenants. He
had become his job. He was defined by dead strangers. Depressing, but true.

Frank
Parrish locked the door behind him and made his way out to the street
.

'He
needs to know, Caitlin. Seriously.'

Caitlin
Parrish, seated there in the University Hospital canteen, shook her head
slowly. 'Not yet,' she said. 'He needs to suffer a little longer. He needs to
really, really miss me and then he'll forgive me anything.' She smiled coyly.

Jimmy
Radick leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. 'You are a wicked
daughter,' he said.

'I
know him, Jimmy, believe me. He can be very possessive, jealous almost. It was
something that Mom used to run into frequently. He even resented the way that
my grandfather used to talk to her.'

'How
old were you when he died?'

'Grandpa
John? When was it, now . . .
1992 ...
I would have been, let me see, four, four and a half.'

'And
how the hell would you have known what your father thought of your grandfather
when you were four and a half years old?'

'Because
we girls have extra-sensory perception when it comes to such things.' She
smiled. 'Because my mom told me, that's why.'

'But
that's just your mom's take on things, Caitlin. There are two sides to
everything.'

'Look,
Jimmy, you have to understand something here. As far as my father is concerned,
my mother is numero uno bitch of all time. He wants you to think of her that
way so you forgive him for being such an asshole to her. He was never there,
always working—'

'You
know what it's like. It'll be the same for you when you're full-time nursing—'

'It
wasn't the shifts, Jimmy, it was the broken promises.

R
ichard
McKee was in his house. He was there for the night.

Frank Parrish
was going to sit in an unofficially loaned car half a block down the street and
watch that house. As and when McKee went out he was going inside. If he was
caught it would all be over. If he found something incriminating, well, he
would be impotent as far as offering probative evidence was concerned. He had
no real justification for the search, but in his own mind he did, and such
justification was as good a warrant as he needed. His probable cause was a
suspicion that he could not ignore, a sense of duty, a
need
to know for sure and for certain that
McKee was the guy.

There
was a single light on in the lower half of the house; then, a little after
nine, a light went on upstairs as well. Parrish had kicked the seat back to
stretch his legs. He knew he was here for the duration. He knew that what he
was doing was beyond all bounds of protocol and procedure. At eleven the lower
light went out. A second light went on upstairs, and was switched off fifteen
minutes later. McKee had showered perhaps. The drapes moved in the one
remaining lit window, and then the light went out and there was the flicker of
a TV. What was he doing? Watching Drew Carey reruns? Parrish smiled to himself.
He was watching himself choke Jennifer and Karen to death while he fucked them.
That's what he was doing.

The
house was in darkness by a quarter of midnight, and Parrish moved to the back
seat of the car. He loosened his belt and untied his shoes. He would stay
awake, no question. Plenty of experience, no shortage of practice. He could sit
still for hours. He had a plastic bottle to piss into, his flask of coffee, his
food. He could put on the music later, just quiet, just there in the background
to help him focus, and he was set. No different from any other stakeout, except
this time he was alone.