Frank searched for the exact word.
"Like I was supposed to be there. Like it was my destiny or something. Like I couldn't have been—like I'd never been anywhere else. I didn't want to be there—I was sick and tired of the whole thing—but it was where I belonged. It didn't feel like I had a choice. And it felt like it was just one more battle in a long campaign."
"Sounds creepy," Gail mumbled into Frank's neck.
"Yeah," Frank agreed, but it hadn't been creepy. Just . . . inevitable.
Frank kissed Gail and said, "Go on back to bed."
"When do I get to see you again?"
"Tonight? Dinner?"
"Med-line meeting," Gail said, crinkling her nose.
"Tomorrow then."
Swinging in a locked embrace against Frank, she pouted. "You going out with your children first?"
"Of course," Frank smiled.
"Will you be too drunk to make love to me?"
"Have I ever been?"
Gail considered.
"No-o. But let's not have a first, okay?"
"Deal. I gotta go," Frank said, disentangling herself. "I'm gonna be late."
"Ohh!" Gail gasped in mock horror. "The trains will stop running and the wind will stop blowing!"
"You," Frank said, leaving her with a quick kiss, "who can't even conceive of being anywhere on time, have a lot of nerve. You're gonna be leaving Saint Peter or the Devil waiting twenty minutes for you someday."
"Hey!" Gail cried as Frank grabbed her briefcase and crossed the living room, "I thought you didn't believe in those guys."
"I don't," Frank called back, "but you do."
17
Frank was just about to grab a torta for lunch when a call came in from one of the HUD scattered housing sites. Folks in the Projects didn't much care for the police, so Frank headed out with Darcy, Diego, and two backup units.
Flanked by the uniforms, the nine-three detectives walked behind the apartment manager up bullet splintered, piss-stained stairs. Neighbors huddled outside a door. The one who'd called the station repeated what he'd told Darcy over the phone—the girl across the way had knocked on his door to tell him she'd suffocated her kids. She'd said it as calmly as if she were saying it was going to be a sunny day.
The cops knocked on her door and a small voice said, "Venga."
She was sitting on a stained mattress, two boys and a girl neatly arranged behind her. They looked like they were sleeping. The detectives touched the little bodies. Each was cool and starting to rigor. Darcy knelt in front of the mother while she pulled at a hangnail.
"What happened?" he asked, his voice soothing.
"I kilt 'em all," she confessed, matching his solemnity.
Darcy nodded as if he understood.
"How come?"
"I didn't want 'em to suffer no more. They's always hungry. The little one"—she indicated a baby that couldn't have been more than six months old—"she's crying all the time 'cause I didn't have no more milk."
She assured Darcy, "It's better this way. This way they can't know no more pain. They're happy now."
Darcy studied the girl a long time. Frank wondered if he was going to pull a Sandman on her. The girl tugged at the hangnail while he stared. Ripping the offending flesh from her finger, she watched the long tear start to bleed. So low Frank could barely hear him, Darcy asked, "There's another baby, isn't there?"
The girl looked at him with big, trusting eyes. She nodded.
"Where?"
"The garbage. I wrapped him in a towel. It was too bloody. I couldn't do it that way. I couldn't see him like that no more."
Diego and Darcy went downstairs to look for the boy. While they were gone, the woman confided, "He was my oldest. I kilt him first so he wouldn't see what was happenin' and be scared."
"Very thoughtful," Frank murmured. Behind the greasy, stringy hair, the teenager smiled at Frank's praise. Jack Handley showed up from the coroner's office. He shook his head and went to work on the tiny corpses. Frank went after her detectives. They were coming back into the tenement as she was going out.
"Find him?"
"Right where she said he'd be," Darcy said, dusting his slacks off. Two uniforms were taping off a row of dumpsters. Not to protect evidence, but to keep the curious crowd back.
"Handley's upstairs," she said to Diego. Darcy started to follow, but Frank touched his sleeve. A scraping sound distracted her. She glanced around at the onlookers, sourcing the sound to a bent metal cane sweeping the ground in front of crusted, swollen feet.
"How'd you know there was another kid?" she asked.
The scraping grew louder and Frank jerked her chin, indicating they should back up toward the stairs. Before Darcy could answer, Frank was stunned to feel a hand clamp onto her wrist. She turned to stare into filmy, sightless eyes.
What in the fuck?
The leering pile of rags held her in a death grip. Frank tried to pull away as its mouth gaped wide. Frank almost gagged. She'd smelled the vilest putrefaction, but nothing compared to the stench reeking from this . . . thing. The mouth stretched wider, thick strands of spit connecting the top and bottom lips like jail bars. The cracked lips split. Blood welled from the rents. Behind, in the dark maw, crumbling stumps jutted from puffy gums.
Frank was sickeningly fascinated, but still thought to yank her arm free. The hand only tightened on her wrist. She wanted to punch the reeking mass but it wouldn't do to hit a homeless person in a crowd of witnesses.
The thing cackled softly, staring straight into her eyes even though its own were cauled with cataracts.
"You don't recognize me," it accused in a rough whisper. Frank immediately noticed that the words had no accent, no inflection. It had to be someone she'd sent up, maybe when she was in uniform, coming back now to blame her for how miserable his life turned out. Or hers. Frank scanned the face for a clue to the thing's gender, but it was like studying a strip of rawhide.
The thing laughed again, louder.
"Too long for you to remember. But I remember. I never forget. No," it crooned. "I never forget."
Spit flew into Frank's face. She tumbled back, finally jerking her arm loose. The relic stumbled too. It almost fell against Frank, but she sidestepped the fetid breath and curving, yellow nails. Frank's nemesis recovered itself, rapping its twisted cane on the concrete. The obscene head swiveled toward Frank, the eyes impossibly seeing her. It nodded, acknowledging the ludicrous. Then it turned, leaving as it came, metal rasping against the sidewalk.
"Friend of yours?"
Frank jumped. Darcy's eyes were steady on her. She followed the shuffling bundle until it was well away. Frank wanted a long hot bath to wash the stink off. She shuddered, completely flustered.
"What?" she barked at Darcy, probing her with quiet eyes.
"Nothing."
He retreated into the building and Frank pulled herself together. The usual onlookers, curious and unconcerned. Another kid in a dumpster. No big. Yellow tape. Coroner's van. Black and whites. The peeling Mercury. Beretta snuggled into her ribs. Sun shining. Everything okay. All as it should be.