“I appreciate the update, but I’m thinking it could have waited until the morning.”
“Normally, I’d agree,” Glass said, “except for one weird thing.”
“What’s that?”
“The homeless guy.”
“What about him?” Kat asked.
“He’s asking for you.”
• • •
Kat threw on workout clothes, wrote Brandon a note in case he woke up, and jogged north the twenty blocks to the Central Park Precinct. John Glass met her at the front door, still in uniform.
“You want to explain?” he said to her.
“Explain what?”
“Why he asked for you.”
“Maybe I should see who he is first?”
He spread his hand. “This way.”
Their footsteps echoed through the near-empty bulletproof glass atrium. From Glass’s brief description on the phone, Kat had some idea of who would be waiting for her in the holding cell. When they arrived, Aqua was doing his tight-formation pace. His fingers plucked at his lower lip. It was an odd thing. Kat tried to remember the last time she had seen him in something other than yoga pants or at least women’s clothes. She couldn’t. But right now, Aqua wore beltless jeans that sagged like an insecure teenager’s. His shirt was torn flannel. His once-white sneakers were a shade of brown you might achieve if you’d buried them in mud for a month.
“Do you know him?” Glass asked.
Kat nodded. “His real name is Dean Vanech, but everyone calls him Aqua.”
Aqua kept pacing, arguing under his breath with some unseen foe. There was no sign that he had heard them enter.
“Any clue why he’d attack your boy?”
“None.”
“Who’s Jeff?” Glass asked.
Kat’s head spun toward him. “What?”
“He keeps muttering about some guy named Jeff.”
Kat shook her head, swallowed. “Can I have a few minutes alone with him?”
“Like for an interrogation?”
“He’s an old friend.”
“So, like his attorney?”
“I’m asking a favor, Glass. We’ll do the right thing here, don’t worry.”
Glass shrugged a “suit-yourself” and left the room. The holding cells were made of Plexiglas rather than bars. The whole precinct was simply too sleek for her—more like a movie set than a real precinct. Kat took a step forward and knocked to get his attention. “Aqua?”
His pace picked up speed, as though he could outrun her.
She spoke a little louder. “Aqua?”
He stopped all at once and turned toward her. “I’m sorry, Kat.”
“What’s going on, Aqua?”
“You’re mad at me.”
He started to cry. She would have to take this slow or lose him completely.
“It’s okay. I’m not mad. I just want to understand.”
Aqua closed his eyes and sucked in a long deep breath. He released it and did it again. Breathing was, of course, a huge part of yoga. He seemed to be trying to center himself. Finally, he said, “I followed you.”
“When?”
“After we talked. Remember? You went to O’Malley’s. You wanted me to go too.”
“But you didn’t want to go in,” she said.
“Right.”
“Why?”
He shook his head. “Too many old ghosts in there, Kat.”
“They were good times too, Aqua.”
“And now they’re dead and gone,” he said. “Now they haunt us.”
Kat needed him to stay on track here. “So you followed me.”
“Right. You left with Stacy.” He smiled for a moment. “I like Stacy. She’s a gifted student.”
Terrific, Kat thought. Even cross-dressing schizophrenic gay men found Stacy intoxicating. “You were following me?” she asked.
“Right. I changed and waited down the street. I wanted to talk to you some more or just, I don’t know, I just wanted to make sure you got out of that place okay.”
“Out of O’Malley’s?”
“Of course.”
“Aqua, I go to O’Malley’s five days a week.” She stopped herself. Track. Stay on track. “So you followed us.”
He smiled and sang in his beautiful falsetto, “I am the walrus, koo kook kachoo.”
Kat started putting some of it together. “You followed us into the park. To Strawberry Fields. You saw me talking to Brandon.”
“Did more than see,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“I dress like this, I’m just another black guy to avoid. All eyes divert. Even yours, Kat.”
She wanted to argue the point—defend her lack of prejudice and general goodwill toward all—but again, it was more important to keep him on track. “So what did you do, Aqua?”
“You were sitting on Elizabeth’s bench.”
“Who?”
He recited it from memory. “‘The best days of my life—this bench, chocolate chip ice cream, and Daddy—Miss you always, Elizabeth.’”
“Oh.”
She got it now, and despite herself, she welled up. Central Park has an Adopt-A-Bench program to raise funds. For seventy-five hundred dollars, a personalized plaque is installed on the bench. Kat spent many hours reading them, imagining the story behind them. One read ON THIS BENCH, WAYNE WILL ONE DAY PROPOSE MARRIAGE TO KIM (did he? Kat always wondered. Did she say yes?). Another favorite, near a dog park, read IN MEMORY OF LEO AND LASZLO, A GREAT MAN, HIS NOBLE HOUND, while yet another simply read REST YOUR TUSH HERE—IT’S ALL GOING TO BE OKAY.
Poignancy is found in the ordinary.
“I heard you,” Aqua said, his voice rising. “I heard you all talking.” Something crossed his face. “Who is that boy?”
“His name is Brandon.”
“I know that!” he shouted. “You think I don’t know that? Who is he, Kat?”
“He’s just a college student.”
“So what are you doing with him?” He slammed his hands against the Plexiglas. “Huh? Why are you trying to help him?”
“Whoa.” Kat stepped back, startled by his sudden aggression. “Don’t turn this around, Aqua. This is about you. You attacked him.”
“Of course, I attacked him. You think I’m going to let someone hurt him again?”
“Hurt who?” she asked, while a small voice in her head—because this is how crazy life could be—heard Stacy correcting her grammar with a gentle hurt whom.
Aqua said nothing.
“Who is Brandon trying to hurt?”
“You know,” he said.
“No, I don’t.” But now she thought that maybe she did.
“I was hiding right there. You were sitting on Elizabeth’s bench. I heard every word. I told you to leave him alone. Why didn’t you listen?”
“Aqua?”
He closed his eyes.
“Look at me, Aqua.”
He didn’t.
She had to make him say it. She couldn’t put the idea in his head first. “Who do you want us to leave alone? Who are you trying to protect?”
With his eyes still closed, Aqua said, “He protected me. He protected you.”
“Who, Aqua?”
“Jeff.”
There. Aqua had finally said it. Kat had expected that answer—had braced for it—but the blow still landed with enough force to knock her back a step.
“Kat?” Aqua pushed his face against the glass, his eyes shifting left and right to make sure no one could hear him. “We have to stop him. He’s looking for Jeff.”
“And that’s why you attacked him?”
“I didn’t want to hurt him. I just need him to stop. Don’t you see?”
“I don’t,” Kat said. “What are you so afraid he’ll find?”
“He never stopped loving you, Kat.”
She let that one go. “Did you know that Jeff changed his name?”
Aqua turned away.
“He’s Ron Kochman now. Did you know that?”
“So much death,” Aqua said. “It should have been me.”
“What should have been you?”
“I should have died.” Tears ran down his face in free fall. “Then it would all be okay. You’d be with Jeff.”
“What are you talking about, Aqua?”
“I’m talking about what I did.”
“What did you do, Aqua?”
He kept crying. “It’s all my fault.”