The Jake Helman Files Personal Demons (4 page)

Jake stepped closer to the body, a knot twisting in his stomach. “Yeah? Then she made an exception last night. She didn’t dress up like a cat just to curl up at the foot of her roommate’s bed. She went out and partied, and she brought home the wrong guy. Trick or treat.”

Edgar gestured at the corpse. “We’ve got rigor mortis and lividity, and the body’s cold. Given the room temperature and her size, I’d say she’s been dead for six hours.”

Jake nodded. “That would put her murder shortly after the bars closed.” He narrowed his eyes. “If she and our boy hooked up at a bar or club—”

“We might actually get our first description of this guy.” Edgar looked at his watch. “The bars open at noon, which gives us three hours. Give me the car keys so I can go back to the squad room and brief L.T. You interview Meg and work up a list of Shannon’s hangouts, then canvass the building.”

Fishing for the keys in his pockets, Jake pictured himself going from door to door in the building, interviewing tenants while Edgar sat in Lieutenant Mauceri’s office. “You want me to pick up your laundry while I’m at it?”

“After I interview Shannon’s employers, I have to call the next of kin. You want to trade?”

Jake tossed the keys to Edgar. “Nah, you’re better at that than I am.” He felt mucus trickle out of his nostrils and snorted it back into his head. Shoving one hand into a pants pocket, he pulled out a tissue and blew his nose.

Edgar gave him a suspicious and disapproving look.

“Allergies,” Jake said, sniffing.

M
arc Gorman awoke from a deep sleep with sunlight shining in his eyes. He had stayed out late the night before and his body did not process alcohol well. Rising from bed, he pulled on a terry-cloth robe and tied its belt. He had not yet grown accustomed to the blank white walls of the room, which reminded him of a hospital’s stark interior. Sitting at the hutch in the corner, he awakened his computer from its slumber and opened five of his e-mail accounts, each with a different user name.

It’s Monday
, he thought as he selected the account for “Robby” and one dozen fresh messages appeared. Thank God his digital hookup prevented spam from cluttering his system. He sifted through the messages from various chat group friends. Gary on AOL wanted to know if Robby had read his college thesis on therapeutic cloning yet. Wanda on Yahoo wondered if Robby wanted to meet her in person sometime, since they both lived in New York City. And Chet on Earthlink asked Robby for his views on the recent political turmoil in the Philippines.

After replying to each of them, Marc entered the bathroom, dropped his robe on the cold tiled floor, and showered. The prickly hot water soothed his muscles, and the steam unclogged his pores. He stepped out of the tub feeling purified. Using a hand towel, he wiped the mirror over the sink, but his features remained obscured in the steamed glass. Drying himself off, he returned to the bedroom, leaving a trail of wet footprints on the gleaming, hardwood floor. He opened the closet door and stood naked before his wardrobe, the garments inside arranged by color, fashion, and personality. He debated what Robby would wear on a day like this, and chose casual slacks and a sweater.

In the all-white kitchen, he fixed a power shake for breakfast. Then he sat on the living room sofa and used a remote control to activate his brand-new LCD television. He zipped through the channels to his favorite morning talk show. The hosts, a perky young woman with blond hair and a boob job, and an older man with gray curls, wore identical grins. Marc enjoyed their mindless banter and looked forward to breakfast with them each weekday. Studying their outfits, he shook his head. He saw the same styles on their show day after day.

How boring
, he thought. If he had his own TV series, he would alter his wardrobe style every episode. Finished with his shake, he set the empty glass on a coaster. His stomach felt better with something in it. He went into the bathroom again, listening to the show while he flossed his teeth. The hosts discussed an experimental drug that supposedly prolonged the human lifespan. Aging did not concern Marc, who had just celebrated his twenty-fifth birthday. The woman told the man that he needed to use the drug, and he asked if he could borrow some of hers. The studio audience—housewives, mostly—laughed, and Marc had to join them. He pictured the woman’s reaction, which he had seen many times before: her face red, her open mouth forming a perfect, indignant O as she slapped her cohost’s arm.

Marc traded his floss for a toothbrush, and he laughed again when a commercial came on for the same brand of whitening paste that he had just applied to the bristles. Ah, the power of advertising! He brushed up and down, as he had been taught at the Payne Institute. When he finished, he glanced at his watch, then went to the front closet and took his cell phone out of his coat pocket. He did not have a landline. Stepping before the bedroom window, he peered through the slats of its blinds at the concrete buildings separating his apartment from the West Side Highway. His chest swelled with love for New York City.

Tearing his eyes away from the skyline, he activated his cell phone. He had only programmed one contact number into its memory, and he pressed the auto-dial button now. After a series of electronic beeps, a phone rang on the other end and his palms turned moist.

A woman’s prerecorded voice answered after the second ring. Marc’s nostrils flared, as if he could smell her fragrance through the phone.

“I need to make a delivery,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at the briefcase on his computer stand.

Robby boarded the downtown Number 2 train, standing room only, and gripped the metal pole near the doors with one hand and the handle of his briefcase with the other. He avoided making eye contact with his fellow commuters, so they ignored him. He disembarked at Fourteenth Street, where a female National Guard clutching an M16 stood near the token booth, scrutinizing the departing passengers with girlish eyes. She did not even look at Robby, who followed the flow of bodies up the concrete steps leading to the street level. A tall man in a suit smiled and shook hands with the exiting commuters, pressing campaign buttons into their palms. Robby passed the politician undisturbed and crossed the street.

Heading toward Broadway, he spotted a woman in a nun’s habit sitting on a milk crate. She played “Amazing Grace” on a portable electric keyboard and scabs covered her bare feet, which rested on a ragged piece of cardboard. Robby narrowed his eyes as a portly man deposited a coin into her paper cup. As the man moved on, Robby made eye contact with the woman, something he rarely did with strangers. Reading the glassy haze in her eyes, he saw through her habit. She stared past him with a blank expression, and he knew that she had not even noticed him.

Smiling to himself, he turned right at the southeast corner of University Place. On Broadway, his body turned rigid as he approached a bulky Chinese man in a police uniform. His muscles relaxed as soon as he passed the officer without incident. He studied the tall, dirty windows of a used bookstore across the street. Glancing at his watch, he saw that he had arrived five minutes early, and punctuality mattered to him. He idled near a hot dog vendor, his face registering disgust. With so many fine restaurants in Manhattan, why would anyone spend money on processed animal waste? He looked from side to side, observing people as usual, studying their mannerisms and ticks.

At 11:59, he crossed the street and entered the bookstore, which reeked of old newsprint and musty cardboard.

A paunchy black man wearing a red T-shirt sat on a raised stool like a lifeguard, looking down on the customers who prowled the disorganized stacks of books. Robby frowned. He disapproved of security guards who did not wear uniforms. Where was their pride? The man did not ask him to check his briefcase in at the counter. Good thing; if he had, Robby would have left the store, which would have caused complications.

Navigating the cluttered space, he noted the intense expressions on the faces of the people hunting for rare books. He did not care for the smell that the books gave off; he preferred new things. He wandered the aisles until he located the tome he sought:
The Devil and Daniel Webster
, by Stephen Vincent Benét. He did not remove the volume from its space on the crowded shelf, but looked several shelves below it. In the shadowy recess on the bottom shelf rested a black briefcase identical to the one in his hand. He looked around, making sure that no one was observing him, then switched the briefcases.

As he hurried to the exit, a deep voice made him recoil: “Check your bag?”

Robby turned to the security guard and blinked. “Excuse me?”

The guard leaned forward on his stool, and Robby saw that he had a lazy right eye. “I need to check your bag.”

Robby swallowed. “There’s nothing in it.” He held the briefcase out to the guard and shook it. “See? It’s empty.”

The guard hopped off his stool. Standing a foot shorter than Robby, he puffed out his chest. “Just open the bag, okay, Chief?”

Robby’s mouth turned to cotton and he felt the eyes of the browsers in the store on him. For an instant, he became Marc Gorman again, surrounded by bullies at the playground of his grade school, and he felt himself turning red.

My name is Robby
.

“You want me to call the cops?”

Staring into the guard’s eyes, Robby hesitated. The Chinese cop he had seen across the street could respond to a 911 call in seconds. Bowing his head, he rotated the briefcase in his arms and thumbed its combination dials. He prayed that the Widow had set the right combination. If she hadn’t, this situation would become even more embarrassing. The tabs snapped open and he raised the lid.

The guard peered down into the case, and Robby held his breath. “I thought you said it was empty?” The guard reached in and removed an oxygen mask with a deflated vinyl bag attached to it.

Robby heard someone snicker behind him, and he felt as he had in the corridors of Red Hill High School when girls had whispered behind his back.

Those are Marc Gorman’s memories. Concentrate!

The guard turned the mask over in his hands. “What’s this?”

“An oxygen mask,” Robby said. “My job issued one to every person in the company in case of an attack on our building.”

Shaking his head, the guard returned the mask to its compartment. “Don’t see what good a mouthful of air is gonna do if a building falls on your ass.”

“I hear you.” Robby closed the briefcase.

The guard resumed his post and Robby exited the store. Outside, he imagined what the guard’s reaction would be if he also stopped whoever left the bookstore with Robby’s original briefcase.

Marc hurried into the cool lobby of his building, his fingers twitching. Sweat soaked his armpits and trickled down his back, and he just wanted to get into his apartment and change his clothes. Why had that guard singled him out? He disliked being noticed. Wiping his brow on the back of one hand, he unlocked his mailbox and took out his mail. Other than the bills, the envelopes had been addressed to “Dear Friend,”
“NAME
or Resident,” or simply “Occupant.”

Moving up the wide stairway, he came to an abrupt stop. An old woman gripping the railing in one arthritic claw and a cane in the other descended the stairs: Mrs. Callister, who lived on the third floor. He had seen her several times before and she had always failed to acknowledge his presence. For a moment, he feared she might speak to him, but she passed without comment, her breathing dry and labored.

That’s better
, he thought.

Inside his apartment, he slid the briefcase onto the top shelf of his closet. Then he went into his bedroom

and stripped off his outfit, allowing his clothes to accumulate at his feet. Posing nude before the tall mirror on the closet door, he flexed his muscles. He liked the way his rail-thin body bulged and rippled on command. Still shaking, he pulled on a long, baggy sweatshirt, knee-length shorts, and dirty sneakers.

Hurry
, he thought, shaping his hair into bangs. He pulled a knit cap over his head, then shouldered a knapsack that he had purchased at an Army surplus store. Knapsack Johnny always blended in with the young people in the East Village. He would have looked perfect if he had allowed stubble to grow on his chin; unfortunately, Byron never left the apartment without shaving.