The Betrayer (28 page)

“I heard a knock on the apartment door. Like I said, I was thinking at the time this was only a few hours after I’d been brought there, not the twenty-four-plus hours it had actually been. I was still pretty high — whatever Penny had given me was that strong. I heard the apartment door open. The Russian and Dad talked briefly. I remember thinking, ‘Here he is, and he’s going to be pissed.’ They walked across the room, and then the door opened. I just lay there and looked up at them. Dad and the Russian were backlit, so I couldn’t see their faces, couldn’t even tell who was who at first. They were almost identically built. Then Dad spoke. He asked me if I was okay, but I didn’t answer. I was afraid to, probably. And I was still so out of it. He came into the room then and knelt beside the mattress I was on and said, ‘It’s okay, son. I’m going to bring you home. Everything’s going to be okay. I’m going to take care of you.’

“Something about that — my father there to take me home, saying he was going to take care of me — made me, I don’t know, break inside. I just started to cry like a baby, I couldn’t help it. Suddenly the idea of being back in Ossining didn’t fill me with revulsion, the way it usually did. I used to hate it there, after Mom was gone, couldn’t get away from it fast enough. It was such a lonely old house, you know. But now, all of the sudden, I wanted to go there. I saw myself getting to know the father I’d never had the chance to know. The father you and Cat knew. And maybe that was what I’d always wanted. Someone to care enough about me. Someone to come and get me. Someone to risk everything. That’s how fucked up I was, Johnny. That’s how desperate I was. That’s why I ended up putting Beth’s life at risk. That’s why I pushed her to do the things I pushed her to do. The things I pushed all women to do. If a married woman was willing to cheat on her husband with me — physically, emotionally, whatever — then I thought it meant she really must care about me, I really must mean something. I must be
worth
something.”

Jeremy suddenly fell silent.

Johnny watched as his brother fought back a surge of tears.

The kid was close to breaking, that much was clear, Johnny thought. That much about him had not changed.

Volatile, bipolar, erratic. Johnny understood better now that Jeremy did not have a flawed character, but rather a burden. Bad neurochemistry combined with a mother who coddled him and whose early death had been nothing short of a trauma.

Still, Johnny didn’t have much time. It was taking all he had to simply stand there.

“Maybe it would be easier if you just stuck to the facts,” he suggested.

Jeremy wiped his eyes with the heels of his palms. “I’m thinking, actually, that it might better if you listened to the recording for the rest. The CD isn’t far from here. We could get it, the three of us.”

“I think I should hear it from you,” Johnny said.

Jeremy hesitated, then shrugged and said simply, “Not my finest hour.”

“Don’t worry about that.”

Jeremy was still reluctant, so Johnny prompted him.

“You and Dad left the apartment together.”

“Yeah. Dad asked me if I could stand, and I told him I’d try. I couldn’t, so he quickly helped me up. Just hoisted me. The Russian was watching us. Dad stood beside me, took my arm and wound it around his neck, then led me out of that room and toward the door…”

“Dad was, what, close to sixty years old? He was still so strong, though, still as fit as he had been back when he was an LRRP. Or close enough to it. He had no problem at all leading me from the apartment and down the hall to the elevator. I felt like I was in some war movie. He was getting me out of harm’s way. As we rode down, he said to me, ‘Hang on, all right? That’s all you need to do.’ He wasn’t even winded. Everything was under control.
He
was in control. I remember looking at him and thinking that. I remember wondering why I wasn’t more like that. Like him, like you and Cat.

“We got out of the elevator, moved through the lobby and out the street door, and then there we were, out in the middle of the night. I had no idea until that moment where in the world I was. Twelfth Avenue was right in front of us. The Chelsea pier was across it. I had no idea what time it was, either, but I knew it had to be late because there was barely any traffic anywhere. And it was one of those windy nights — windy in the way it only gets in the city. Whenever a gust blew past me, all I could hear was that long, deep rumbling sound in my ears, like a train was bearing down on us.

“We stood there for a few seconds at the most. I was already exhausted, and all I’d really done was half-walk while he carried me along. My mind was reeling, too, and I remember looking across Twelfth at the Hudson River and having this memory-flash of me sitting at my bedroom window with Mom when I was a kid, the two of us watching the river go by and waiting for you and Cat to come home from school.

“I remembered that we used to do that for hours, and that we’d make up this story about a boy who makes a canoe out of a tree trunk and rides it down the river to the city and has all kinds of secret adventures. I don’t know why I thought of that then. Maybe because I was going home and that was my best memory of home. Watching the river with Mom, listening to her tell her stories, just she and I waiting for you guys.

“I must have been passing out again, because Dad was shaking me, telling me that he needed me to stay with him. The next thing I knew he was leading me down the sidewalk, toward the corner. We turned the corner and were heading east, into the wind. The gusts kept coming one right after another like ocean waves; some were almost strong enough to knock me down. There were moments when I couldn’t hear anything but that deep rumbling sound. With the wind in my face like that, you’d think I’d wake up fully, but I didn’t. If anything, I was getting more disoriented. My head felt full of water again, and everything started spinning. Dad was pretty much dragging me along at this point.”

Jeremy fell silent again. His tears had ceased, but he was clearly still agitated.

Johnny gave his brother the moment he needed, then once again prompted him.

“That’s when they ambushed you.”

Jeremy nodded. “Yeah.”

“How did it happen?”

“A box truck turned the corner and started tailing us,” Jeremy said. “Dad started moving more quickly. He knew right away that something was up. He said to me, ‘I think we’re in trouble.’ He told me that you were parked three blocks to the east. No matter what happened to him, I was supposed to get to where you were, and you and I were supposed to take off and call Cat, meet her wherever she said to meet her. We weren’t supposed to stop for anything, not even a cop.”

“You’re sure he said that? ‘Not even a cop’?”

“Yeah. I guess I didn’t respond, because he started slapping my face to snap me out of my stupor. I came to enough to look at him, to focus on him, eye to eye. I can still see his face. I can still smell his cologne. I knew we were in trouble. I knew
he
was in trouble because of me. He told me that he really needed me to walk now, that he knew I could do it, that I had what it took in me. I don’t know how, maybe it was the adrenaline, maybe it was what he was saying, but suddenly I had this…clarity. Boom, just like that, I could see and hear and think. Everything was heightened. My skin started to tingle, I felt this rush from my scalp down to my legs, and before I even knew I was doing it, I was walking. He said that I was going to need to run in a minute, that I was the fastest, the born runner in the family, better than Cat, better than you. All I needed to do was run to where you were. He doubted anyone would come after me; it was him they were after. But he would make sure they’d be too busy with him to bother with me.”

Jeremy paused, then said, “He looked at me, made sure I was looking at him and listening, then told me I could do this. He knew I could. We were near the end of the block now, almost at Eleventh Avenue. Two men were getting out of a car parked near the southeast corner. They had ski masks on. Dad told me that when he let go of me, that was my signal to run.

“I looked back, and there were two more men on the sidewalk behind us now. Counting the two men in the truck, that made six. They all had ski masks on, but I knew by the clothes of one of the two men behind us that he was the man from the apartment. The Russian. They were going to box us in at the corner, and Dad told me to get ready. I wanted to tell him that I wasn’t going anywhere. I remember it being on the tip of my tongue, but before I could say anything, he let me go. I didn’t run like I was supposed to, though. I don’t know, maybe I didn’t want to leave him, or maybe I just froze. When I didn’t move, he got pissed. I mean, really pissed. Everything he’d said up to me at that point had been in a controlled whisper. Urgent but steady and calm. At that moment, though, he put his face close to mine and said in this firm voice, ‘Go! Now!’ It startled me, and it wasn’t until he said it again that I finally bolted.

“I went straight like he told me to, and as I did, he veered off, heading for the only gap available to him — at the northern edge of the corner. He turned it, I could see that out of the corner of my eye, but as I ran past the two men closing in on the corner from the south, one of them lunged out for me. His partner yelled, ‘
Nyet, nyet
,’ but the guy couldn’t help himself, it was like an animal fixated on prey. He grabbed me — he was strong — but before he could do anything, someone came rushing up behind me. It was Dad. I don’t know what he did exactly, but the next thing I knew, the guy who had grabbed me was on the pavement. He was still holding on to me, though, and I went down with him. His partner was rushing Dad, and Dad took him out, too. I’d never seen Dad like that — I’d never seen the combat veteran that he was. The guy who had survived jungle warfare. Who had thrived on it. He wasn’t going to let anyone touch me. As that second guy was hitting the pavement, Dad was pulling me up to my feet. He took several steps, pulling me along. We stepped off the sidewalk and onto the street, and he looked at me and said, ‘Run, son. Run.’

“But it was too late. The men behind Dad — the Russian and whoever was with him — had caught up with us. The Russian had something in his hand. I couldn’t see what at first, but he was holding it low, close to his waist, and I’d seen enough knife fights to know what that meant. I looked down and there it was, this huge knife. The blade was a foot long. The Russian was moving straight for me. I’d seen his face, and he wanted me dead. He was lining himself up so he could put the thing into my chest. He was so efficient, so fast. Dad got to the Russian before he could get to me.”

Jeremy stopped there, needed a moment.

Johnny waited.

Jeremy said finally, “It was chaos, Johnny. Just…chaos. I heard the engine of the box truck gun then. It was a diesel, so it was really loud. Between that clattering sound and the wind in my ears, I couldn’t hear anything at all. The truck was pulling to the curb at the corner. Someone got out and ran toward us. Dad had grabbed hold of the Russian — they were struggling over control of the knife — and the Russian’s partner and the second man started grabbing at Dad. Dad must have disarmed the Russian, because the knife landed on the pavement. I just stood there and looked at it. Dad and the three men were all caught up in this insane scuffle. Everyone was yelling in Russian. It was just this mass of men struggling, with Dad in the middle of it — Dad and the Russian, actually. They were the center of the storm.