“I want to apologize to him,” she said. “I want to look him in the eye and say I’m sorry.”
If she was just some prospective client that walked in my office, I would have turned her away. Mothers and guilty lovers, they use private detectives like paper towels in a public toilet.
But Zella wasn’t a stranger. If she was a runaway train, I was guilty of switching the tracks.
“I can probably find out who your child was adopted by,” I said, “but I can’t promise that they will agree to meet you. I can also locate Harry Tangelo, but the same holds true for him.”
Zella brought out the envelope of cash that I’d given her that morning. This she placed on the crescent table.
“I spent a little more than sixty-seven dollars of it but you can have the rest.”
“You get what you pay for,” I said, leaving the white envelope on the pale yellow tabletop.
“What does that mean?”
“You’re hiring me to see your child and old boyfriend. I’ll probably be able to find them, but the meetings, as I said, might prove to be a little more tricky. You hold on to the money until I come back with some answers.”
“You don’t want the money?”
“Not until I know that I can earn it. I wouldn’t want a hot-blooded mama like you to think I had cheated.”
That was the first time I’d seen her smile.
It was a nice smile. Very nice.
“So what now?” she asked.
“I buy you another drink, put you in a cab, and tomorrow I start the job you gave me.”
“That’s all?”
“Unless you need me to find somebody else.”
“No.”
“And you don’t plan to shoot Tangelo anymore, right?”
She smiled again. “No, Mr. McGill, and...” She paused, looking at me directly.
“What?”
“I wanted to apologize for what I said to you at the bus station this morning. I was raised better than that.”
“Hey. If you can’t lose your temper after eight years being locked up for a crime you didn’t commit and another one you weren’t responsible for, then this would be a harder world than anyone could bear.”
“That’s very kind of you, Mr. McGill. It has been hard. Maybe I’ll take you up on that drink.”
Near two in the morning I put a slightly tipsy Zella Grisham into a yellow cab, paid her fare up front, and even kissed her on the cheek. The way she leaned into that kiss I could probably have climbed in with her. But I try my best to maintain a certain decorum with my clients.
On the street I considered taking the subway uptown. I think pretty well surrounded by the rumble of the underground rails.
“Leonid,” a man called.
I was unarmed and on an empty street. That could have been the moment of my death. Could have been. Probably would be one day. But not that night. It wasn’t my assassin but Carson Kitteridge, recently promoted to captain on the NYPD. His was an at-large position that allowed him to work wherever he was needed.
Carson was even shorter than I, five-five — no more. Pale white, he had less hair than I did. His suit was light-colored and well worn.
“Kit,” I said. “I thought they reassigned you after the promotion.”
He strolled up next to me with no expression that I could read.
I’m a burly guy, in excess of one-eighty in my boxers. Kit isn’t even a lightweight, but there’s a gravity to him that makes bad guys think twice. For many years his main goal was putting me in prison. Possibly my greatest single achievement was denying this brilliant cop that aspiration.
“What you up to, LT?”
“Headed home. That is, unless you wanted to grab a drink. You on duty?”
“What you up to, LT?” he said again.
“Why don’t you tell me?”
“What do you have to do with Zella Grisham?”
“I was hired to meet her at the bus station. She liked the color of my skin and the cut of my suit and asked me out for a drink.”
“What was she talking about?”
“This and that. Nothing special.”
“The heist?”
“Claims she didn’t do it. I believe her.”
“You armed?” he asked.
That was an unexpected question, enough so to make me look around the dark street. I had a license to carry a concealed pistol. I’d been granted that when I used to have friends in high places.
“No,” I said. “Why?”
“Just wondering if you knew what you were getting into,” Carson said. “I see you don’t.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
A wan smile passed across the policeman’s lips and vanished — like a shark’s fin.
“See you later, Leonid,” he said.
With that he turned and walked away, making the most of his ominous innuendos.
I stood there a few moments more. Again I thought about taking the subway, but when a yellow cab slowed down to see if I needed a ride I jumped in, knowing that Carson Kitteridge never made idle threats.
12
Katrina was still snoring so I settled in on the cot in my office. Between the buffers of the traffic from the street and a solid oak door I was able to drift off; not that sleep was any succor.
Freud says that dreams use the content of the past day or so to chum the depths of a timeless unconscious. That’s what my father taught me when I was eleven years old, wishing that I could go to a normal school. I wanted to learn about cowboys and steam engine trains, spacemen and naked women — all the things that I was sure other little kids were learning.
In the dream that night my father was lecturing about guilt.
He was wearing a white suit and a brown T-shirt. He was old, but because he was sitting behind an ivory-colored desk I couldn’t tell if he was infirm or not.
“A truly guilty man is like a maniac,” he was saying (maybe to me). “He doesn’t know his disposition because he believes in a set of rules that defy the beliefs of the worker.
“The worker deals in reality and rules. She cannot afford insanity or feel guilt because she is the law and the foundation upon which the law is based.
“You, Leonid,” he said, shifting his gaze in such a way that I was the only subject in the world. “You are both insane and guilty of terrible acts performed in the haze of your madness. You don’t know it. You don’t realize or even remember the crimes you have committed. You believe in the lies of the despot and have therefore sentenced yourself to the ultimate punishment.”
This pronouncement tore at my heart. I wanted to speak up, to deny the accusations leveled by my judge, my father. I tried to speak but my voice was gone. I tried to stand but found that I had no legs. My arms ended in stumps. And though I racked my brain I couldn’t recall the good things that I’d done.
“You are the living dead,” someone said.
I wanted to cry but I had neither breath nor eyes.
I wanted to wake up but instead I fell into a dark cavern of pitiless sleep.
If a dead man could shake off that ultimate repose, he would have felt like I did with the sun lancing painfully into my eyes that morning. My body was too heavy to lift, the air so thick that breathing felt liquid, viscous. The thought that I was experiencing a heart attack went through my mind and I sat bolt upright, then laughed.
“A dead man scared to life,” I muttered, and smiled again.
Katrina was on her back in the bed, fully clothed. Her eyes might have been open.
“You up?” I asked.
“What happened?” She tried to rise on her left arm, but the elbow slipped out from under her and she fell back on the pillow.
I turned to her and held out my hands.
Pulling her to an upright position, I smiled at the similarities between us that morning.