The Night Falconer (13 page)

“Have you seen him lately?”

“I saw him just last night.”

“Where?”

“Down by the boathouse.”

“Between 74
^th
and 75
^th
?”

“That’d be the one.”

“How many times have you seen him before?”

He shrugged. “A few, maybe.”

“You know where else he likes to hang out?”

The man smiled. “Wherever he can find a crowd. You see? He’ll clean himself up and blend in so he can do his bidness.”

“What’s he doing on the streets?”

The man made a circular motion with his index finger around his ear.

“Crazy?”

He coughed. In a hoarse whisper he said, “Ain’t we all? But Pock, he’s … he seems like he may have a few more screws loose than the usual.”

“If you wanted to find him right now, where would you look?”

“Right now, this minute?” He thought about it for a few moments. “Today’s Sunday, the Fourth of July, isn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

“What time is it?” he asked.

“Almost three-thirty.”

“You got Cynthia Scott singing over by the Meer at four. That’s where Pock’ll probably be working. That woman sure got a voice on her. She’ll draw herself a crowd.”

“What does Pock wear when he gets himself cleaned up?”

“Blue shirt. Red tie. Red suspenders. You keep an eye out. Betcha he’ll be there.”

* * * * *

A little while later, Nicole and I were working the crowd on the edge of the park at the Harlem Meer Performance Festival. The place was indeed packed. The crowd consisted of a varied selection of New Yorkers, white, black, and brown; male and female, young and old; uptown, urbane, and sophisticate.

My cell hummed. Nicole said she’d spotted him. She directed me to meet her at the corner of the Dana Discovery Center where she was leaning on the side of a booth chatting up a snow cone vendor, using the concession as cover while she kept an eye on our wary pickpocket.

We didn’t catch Raines in the act of practicing his trade, however. At least, not at the moment. Like almost everyone else in the crowd, he was focused on the music, his eyes fixed on the stage a few hundred feet away, his smallish body swaying with the beat. Even from the back, though, there was no mistaking who he was.

We edged over to a spot directly flanking him, Nicole on one side and I on the other, just in case he decided to bolt.

I stepped up beside him and said quietly, “Cato Raines?”

He winced and offered me a sidelong glance.

“Been a while since someone called me that.”

“You prefer I call you Pock?”

“Yeah. That’s my name now.”

“All right, Pock. I was wondering if we might have a word.”

I pushed a business card in front of his face and watched his expression while he read it. He seemed more annoyed than anything else.

“What for? I ain’t doing anything here but listening to the music like everybody else.”

Just in front of him, one of a group of three middle-aged women carrying shopping bags looked back at us as he spoke. This was not what he had in mind.

He swore under his breath, turning away from the stage and toward the street behind us. “C’mon,” he said. “Let’s go.”

We began to weave our way through the throng. Nicole stayed close behind us.

“Who’s the girl?” Raines asked, without looking at her.

“My partner,” I said.

“She looks too much like you to be just that.”

“She’s also my daughter.”

“Cute. You two family types got any ID?”

Whatever else you might say about Cato Raines, he didn’t appear to be delusional. I showed him my license and that seemed to satisfy him.

“So what do you want?”

“We’ve been looking for you. Nixon Deebee gave me your name and said I might find you somewhere here in the city. He says you used to be a licensed falconer.”

“Deebeee? That old bear. Yeah, man, that’s right. I used to fly lots of birds.”

“Why’d you give it up?”

He didn’t answer right away. He rubbed at his nose, tilted his head almost imperceptibly, and fixed his gaze somewhere in the middle distance. When he spoke, his voice became more measured.

“First,” he said. “I lost my job. Then I couldn’t find another one. Then my lover died.”

“I’m sorry. Had she been ill a long time? Deebee said you were divorced.”

“You’re talking about my ex-wife. I’m talking about him.” He stared at me for a moment. “And yes, we found out later when he tested positive for AIDS.”

“I’m doubly sorry then. A crappy way to go.”

“Yeah, well, then I had to go into the hospital myself for a while.”

“You sick too?”

He smiled. “I’m clean as far as AIDS. But my mind got a little sick,” he said, pointing to his head. “You know what I mean?”

“Sounds like you’ve been through a lot,” Nicole said from behind us.

“You might say that,” he said, turning to look at her.

“Ever think about working with a bird again?” I asked.

“You mean a hawk or a falcon?” He looked back at me. “Shoot. I see them all the time out here in the park. But no, I don’t want to have to mess around with another one.”

“Why’s that?”

“No place to keep the thing. Can’t feed it if it doesn’t catch game. Can’t even feed myself half the time.”

A kernel of an idea formed in my brain. But it was so outrageous I just about dismissed it as my own bit of mental imbalance.

What if Raines, or possibly someone else, was so desperate for food that he’d resorted to illegally hunting small game within the confines of the park? It seemed an absurd notion in today’s prepackaged, preprocessed world of convenient food sources. Absurd unless you were starving.

But even the homeless like Raines didn’t appear to be that desperate. The city helped. The state and the federal government helped. Churches, synagogues, and mosques helped. I read in an article once that more than six-hundred food banks were open in the city. Why would someone resort to a primitive form of hunting in the middle of such a great metropolis in order to survive? It made me think about the park again, its sham wilderness, and all that it represented.

“What difference does all this make to you?” Raines interrupted my train of thought. “You a falconer yourself?”

“That’s right.”

“Not in New York, though. I never saw you at any of the meets.”

“No. In Virginia. You know there are some people around here who say they’ve been seeing a falconer flying a bird in the park,” I told him.

“Yeah? No big deal. Probably just someone doing a demonstration or a show with the Park Conservancy.”

“No, this is a little different. The witnesses say they’ve seen someone carrying an owl at night.”

I watched him carefully for his reaction. He thought about it for a few moments before responding. “At night? A Great Horned?”

“Yeah. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about it, would you?”

“Nope.” He shook his head. “Don’t know anything about it at all.”

If what the old man had said was true, Raines was a much better pickpocket than a liar. We’d printed out a copy of the story of The Book Of The Mews. “This ring any bells for you?” I pulled it out of my pocket, unfolded it, and handed it to him.

He scratched his head, reading. “Some story,” he said and shrugged.

“You never heard of this before?”

“Of course. I always been into learning about the civil war. Sometimes I can even see the cannons and the horsemen, the big plumes of smoke, men dying everywhere, swords flashing. Brothers even fighting one another. Slaves and Southern Belles. Those were some times.” He shook his head and grinned.

“But you wouldn’t be tempted to try to reenact this story on your own, like say, with an owl here in the park.”

“Not me, no sir.”

I decided to try a different tack. “Where do you sleep at night this time of year, Pock?”

“Me? Oh, I don’t know. Here and there.”

“If someone were hunting with an owl in the park when it closes after dark, where do you suppose they’d go?”

He thought about it for a moment, eyeing me.

“Could be anywhere.” He shrugged. “Lots of game, critters running around in here.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed.”

“But hunting’s illegal in this park.”

“Sure it is. So is picking people’s pockets.”

“So?”

“I think you’re lying when you say you don’t know anything about this man with an owl in the park. Am I right?”

He gave a cheeky grin. Then his mood seemed to sour as he pointed a finger in my face. “Look, pal. I’ve been trying to be nice here, to answer your questions and help you out and all.”

“Sure.”

“I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m just getting by, like everybody else in the world.”

“Okay.”

“I’d like to move along now. I don’t have anything more to say to you people.”

He started to turn away, but Nicole stepped in front of him. “But you wouldn’t want anything to happen to the owl, would you? Or whoever’s flying it? We need to find out what’s going on so we can help with the situation.”

He hesitated.

“Just tell us one thing. Is the person with the owl kidnapping and killing people’s pets?”

“What? No. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“They’re just hunting for food, then.”

He scratched his chin. “Possibly.”

“What about the shooting that happened last night?” I asked.

“What about it?”

“You heard about it?”

“Of course, it’s all over the street.”

“Cops found somebody’s homemade falconry lure near the bodies.”

“Christ,” he said under his breath.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing.”

“You doing business with Los Miembros, Pock?”

“Me? No way. Not me.”

“There’re liable to be more people killed if we don’t hurry up and figure out what’s going on here.”

“You don’t think I know that?” He was clearly agitated now. His eyes darted back and forth, searching among the trees and rocks and bushes, as if they were seeing ghosts.

I tucked my business card in his jacket pocket. “Keep that. All right?”

“Whatever, man. I gotta go.”

“Why don’t you meet us here again tonight, after the fireworks when they’re aren’t so many people around. We can talk about this further. Midnight work for you?”

He looked around again. “Maybe. I don’t know. I gotta go.” He set his chin, spun on his heels, and began walking away down the brick path.

“Midnight. We’ll be here,” I called after him.

He looked back but didn’t answer. Nicole started to march after him, but I held up my hand. “That’s okay. Let him go,” I said.

In the distance, the sound of jazz floated through the trees, mixed with the even more distant rumble of the diesel exhaust from a city bus.

14

Nicole returned to Grayland Tower to see if she could gather any more information from other apartment owners. Before joining her, I went to track down our client.

Columbia Presbyterian Hospital rises above the Hudson on Washington Heights within sight of the GW Bridge. I found Dr. Lonigan’s modest office among a row of faculty spaces on the fifth floor of one of the outlying buildings.

Lonigan was speaking into her dictating machine. The door was open. I knocked on the frame.

“Working overtime. And on a major holiday, no less.”

“Someone had to take call for today,” she said, switching off her mike and setting it down on her desk. “I happened to come up in the rotation. Thought I’d catch up on one of my research papers while things are slow.”

“We may have found our mysterious falconer,” I said.

“Really?”

“It’s not definite. He may not be the one. But we’ve spoken with him and he knows we’re out here.” I explained about our encounter with Raines.

“How’s he linked to Watisi though?” she asked when I was through.

“Remains to be seen. If he really is our guy, and if there is a link.”

“A lot of ‘ifs’.”

“Yes. Darla told you about the shootings last night and what they found, right?”

“She did. And it concerns me. What do you think is going on?”

“Still not sure, exactly.” I told her what we’d learned about Los Miembros and about The Book Of the Mews and the theory that someone might be playing copycat.

“Interesting,” she said.

“Something else our investigation has turned up.”

“What is that?”

“You were arrested twice in Oregon almost twenty years ago.”

The doctor glared at me for a moment. “I don’t see what relevance any of that has to the current situation.”

“Maybe none,” I said. “I hope that’s the case. But since, as an activist, you have been known to resort to extreme measures before, I’m worried that they may be also be the case now.”

“That was a long time ago,” she said. “We were fighting for what we believed in.”

“You’re still involved though, aren’t you? Darla told us there had been a protest.”

“I support certain groups, yes. It has nothing to do with my accusations against Dominic Watisi.”

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely.”

I said nothing.

Lonigan, who still hadn’t risen from her chair, tilted her head as she caught my eye. “Do you enjoy finding sport in watching one creature dismember another?”

I was taken aback by the abruptness of the question. “What are you talking about?”

“Hunting.”

“That’s not what it’s about.”

“What is it about then?”

I don’t know why, but my first reaction was to smile. “That all depends,” I said.

“On what?”

“On the grace of the attack. On the swiftness and cunning of the quarry. On it being a fair fight.”

“You make it sound almost poetic.”

I shrugged. “For the animal it’s more than poetic. It’s survival. There is a lot of killing and a lot of death in the wild, whether we like or not. Predators are often more at risk than the prey.”

“Like our famous red-tailed hawk, Pale Male, down in the park.”

“Not exactly. That bird’s got a million eyes looking out for him. Most hawks and falcons, if and when their time comes, die an anonymous death.”