"You know you can tell us anything, Rick," Jason said.
"Then don't think I'm proud of myself. Everybody used to tell me I should be so proud of what I've accomplished. That's bullshit—" Rick held his head with the hand not restrained by Emma's.
"No one should be proud of begging to be anaesthetized so they can hurt themselves some more. You know, I used to tell them to give me the max. 'Gimme the damn max,' I used to say." He snorted derisively. "I had a knee injury once they didn't pick up for a year. They stuck me so full of shit sometimes I didn't feel my legs at all. Everybody says I was so fucking fast in that game against the Cowboys. So fast, I ran with the ball farther than anyone in history. Well, I still don't know how I even stood up that day. I wasn't there. Part of me just wasn't there. The other part was doing what it always did—looking down the field, looking to get through that wall of defense to the other side. Just looking for a hole.
"Hell, it didn't matter to me. I just kept going even when there was no hole. I didn't care if I died, and that's the truth. If I'd died then it would have been over. I used to hope for it. I used to hope every three-hundred-pound linebacker would pile up on me at the same time and crush me to death. But I was a valuable player. They wouldn't let it happen." Rick's face showed pure rage. "Shit, man, I'm not taking any more pills to hide from anything."
"How's that head?" Jason asked.
Rick ignored him. "And don't tell me about the good part, the adrenaline rushes, the thrills, the cheers, the money. Truth was I just didn't give a shit. I wanted to die and end it."
"How's the head?"
"I don't know. It doesn't matter."
Jason raised his hand to scratch the three-month-old beard he couldn't seem to get used to. He was worried that Rick would collapse soon. And Emma was not in any better shape. When she'd come into the apartment several hours ago she'd been trembling so badly that Rick offered her one of Merrill's sweaters to put on.
No! Jason almost grabbed Rick to stop him. Possessions of the dead are powerful things. Each object resonated with meaning. Jason knew many families that had been torn apart over a few dollars no one needed but someone didn't want to give up. Or a vintage car, a table, an antique chair, a crystal necklace, a china plate. Some of the most precious memories people have live on in objects. Survivors often have no idea how much feeling they have invested in a certain something until the person who owned it is gone.
Rick went into the bedroom and returned with a tan chenille sweater with black trim. He was holding it to his face as he offered it to Emma. "Here, she loved this one. It smells like her."
Emma took it with a sob and buried her face in the sweater, holding it in her arms for a long time, her cheek pressed against its softness. Jason, the shrink who couldn't stop analyzing everything, knew he had no control over what would happen next. He was surprised that the scent and the feel of the dead woman's sweater eventually calmed Emma, and she put it on.
"You know, Rick, you were an inspiration to watch," Jason said softly, knowing they were discussing Rick's career to avoid dealing with his wife's murder.
"Well, the truth was I was depressed, Jason. I was so depressed I didn't know life existed. I'm telling you I kept hoping one day they'd all pile up on me and break my neck so it would be over. I didn't know any better."
Jason gave him a crooked smile. "You were a great football player. You accomplished more in those years than ninety-nine percent of the population. And look what you've accomplished since. You're quite a guy and a lot of people love you."
"Uh-huh. Well, he let me stop."
"What?" Jason asked.
"Tor. It was Tor who showed me life outside. Tor and Merrill. They showed me I could have a life. I could do something without hurting myself. They made me even—equal. Do you know what that means? I stopped being a black boy who could play ball. They gave me my life, man. They were the only ones who loved me. And now they're dead. I swear to God. Jefferson is going to pay for this."
The phone rang. "You stay here. I'll get it," Jason told him. He went into the gallery to pick up. It was a woman from a tabloid-sounding TV show, wanting to set up an interview. Jason told her none would be forthcoming. When he hung up, the phone rang again. Jason repeated the same thing, then checked his watch. It was 9:07. The switchboards of the world were open.
7
Well, querida, ready to do battle?" Mike pushed his chair back from their window table at the Anytime Diner on Eighth Avenue and tried a smile.
"Not yet." April glanced at her watch, then resumed turning the pages of her Rosario. "We have a few minutes," she murmured.
"Mad at me?"
His question made her look up. Her eyes felt puffy and dry, as if the part of her that was supposed to make tears had been claimed by the night's victims. She could hardly see a thing, and now she'd be on duty until 4 P.M. These all-nighters on turnaround days really stank, especially when one was a boss and had to follow up on everybody's ongoing cases, as well as organizing new ones. Now she had some sympathy for her former supervisor, the once-despised Margaret Mary Joyce, who had two children, nine detectives, hundreds of cases to oversee, and a former husband who divorced her for getting ahead.
She yawned behind her hand and tried to focus. "How could I be mad at you? I can't even see you." She squinted at him. "What's your name again, Sergeant?"
"That's good. I didn't know you could tell jokes, querida."
"I can't." She soured her face so he wouldn't laugh too hard.
"Yeah, you're mad. I can tell. Look, I got the call. I didn't know it was your case, okay?"
"I'm not mad. I'm tired. I accept the lie that your presence here is a big accident. So forget it."
Mike eyed the potential leftovers on her plate. "You going to eat those potatoes?"
She pushed the crisp hash browns in his direction, shaking her head.
"You should eat more, querida. You're always sorry when you don't. I'm glad you're not mad." He reached across the turquoise linoleum tabletop for the ketchup bottle, then dumped a lake of crimson in the middle of her plate.
"God, if I were a lady, I'd swoon," she muttered.
"My table manners a problem, or does this trigger something important?"
April blew air out of her nose, thinking of some of the delicate habits of her people. Before she'd left Chinatown, she'd assumed that rotting garbage on the street and a dozen people speed-eating from the same plate were normal. Her family and friends dug into the communal serving platters with their chopsticks. They hoisted succulent morsels across great expanses of table to their own rice bowls, then lifted the bowls to their faces and shoveled food into their mouths, making great slurp, slurp, slurping noises with an urgency that might lead an outsider to think this was the last meal anyone would ever get.
This, however, was not the case at Mike's mother's table. At Sunday lunch six weeks ago, the one time April had eaten there, Mike's mother, who was as well fleshed and smiling as Sai Yuan Woo was skinny and scowling, had worn a purple dress that looked like taffeta and was cut low enough to show off her ample bosom. Maria Sanchez served fastidiously. She filled al the plates with the different foods from the platters in the center of the table, using a separate serving spoon for each platter. When everybody's plate was piled high with food, the four people at the table ate slowly. They put their forks and knives down frequently to savor the tastes and talk in the manner of people who had eaten not long ago and would soon eat again.