Gotta go to work, she thinks. Gotta finish the story. Can’t sleep now. Gotta be awake until nine, when the guy comes for the pickup. Sleep now, I’ll be like granite when he shows up. Gotta work until eight. Breakfast. Watch some Morning Joe. Make the handover. Then sleep until four.
The thing tonight is cocktails, with snacks.
Like eating Crayolas.
One thing I learned in this life: If you’re going to a benefit, better eat before you go. Like going to Momma’s house for dinner. Before she did the world a favor, and died.
2:20 a.m. Ali Watson. Manhattan Bridge.
He pulls onto the bridge with the lights of the skyline visible on the far side. Left hand on the wheel, his right hand is flicking the handheld radio, trying to get the special operations division channel, then the Sixth Precinct, in Greenwich Village. A garble of voices, male, female, abrupt bulletins about small emergencies. Can’t find it. Must be ’cause I’m between Brooklyn and Manhattan… Left message. Cell was on Cynthia Harding’s answering machine too… Nothing.
The bridge is almost empty in the driving rain. An N train goes by, heading back into Brooklyn, next stop Atlantic-Pacific. Where all the Mexicans change to the R, to get off in Sunset Park. He remembers when they just called it the Sea Beach Express. Three beautiful words, full of summer. Sea Beach Express. Almost empty at this hour. Cleaning ladies and dozing drunks. Down below, the East River’s empty too. A lot fewer yachts since the collapse on Wall Street, and none at all past the midnight hour. In the late morning, there’s an occasional Circle Line boat jammed with tourists. He took the tour once with Mary Lou. Just for the hell of it. Two New Yorkers playing at being tourists. They sailed around the island. Under the bridges. God, she was beautiful then. With a smile that could crack open a safe. In her second year at Hunter, talking about being a lawyer, maybe running for office. Sure didn’t want to get married. Not to me, anyway. Not to a cop that was a Muslim. Fuck no. And then she got pregnant…
The cell rings.
— Watson.
— Reilly, from the Sixth. You called about Patchin Place? There’s a fire there. One alarm.
— A fire? Jesus Christ… I’m on the Manhattan Bridge. Be there in ten, twelve minutes.
He clicks off. Tries the operations channel again. A fire. On Patchin Place. Oh, my Mary Lou, he thinks. Please be gone. Oh, please be safe. Please be waiting for me outside, so I can drive you back home, so we can climb into bed, so we can be warm on this cold night. Please, Mary Lou. Please.
Then in the rearview Ali sees lights coming closer, real fast. Hey, paclass="underline" I’m in the left lane. You got lots of room. No: he’s playing games. Tailgating. On the Manhattan Bridge! In the fucking rain!
Now his brights are on, blinding Ali, flooding his car with light.
Ali slows down.
Pass me, muthafucka.
And then a yard behind him the tailgater rips to the right on the slick bridge, and Ali glances at him. A BMW. A black-haired white kid. Maybe twenty. Maybe younger. Someone beyond him in the passenger seat. A girl, for sure. The kid’s laughing, eyes cocaine-wide, and then he races past. Foot harder on the pedal, and there’s a taxi up ahead. The kid wants to pass the cab, racing for Manhattan, for Canal Street. Speeding to SoHo or Tribeca. Or the Meatpacking District. But he clips the cab, spinning it off to the right, and then the BMW swerves, and hits a steel restraining wall, and flips and turns, once, twice, then comes to a tumbling thumping halt on its roof. Filling two lanes. Ali stops three feet from the wrecked car.
Fuck.
He puts the Mazda in park, red lights blinking, turns off the ignition, grabs a heavy-beam flashlight, gets out. Waving the flashlight at oncoming traffic. The taxi is backing up, righting itself, leaving a path.
Ali glances into the crumpled BMW, still waving the flashlight. He sees the driver and a young girl splayed on the inside of the roof, which is now the bottom. Blood moves in a lumpy way from the driver’s mouth. The girl’s neck looks broken, her shirt near her waist. She’s not wearing panties. Neither of them wearing seat belts. The motor is running, as steady as the rain. They look very dead. He touches the driver’s wrist. Warm. Then stops himself. No, wait for whoever gets the squeal. For a moment, he wonders how many dead people he has touched in his life.
Then he taps 911 on the cell.
Wait for me, Mary Lou. Wait, my darling. I’ll be a bit late. Wait.
He reports the accident, clicks off. Then glances at the ruined car. And imagines the parents getting the news from a tired cop. Two hours from now, the phone call at the wrong hour, the hearts thumping in alarm, hands lifting receivers. Seeing the boy at four, the girl at three, running barefoot in a backyard on a summer afternoon, splashing in surf. Seeing New York from the Circle Line. Full of amazement. Staring at the phone. Then sobbing, collapsing, falling, screaming.
At least it’s not Malik.
The rain falls hard.
2:22 a.m. Consuelo Mendoza. The N train to Brooklyn.
She is wearing a thick brown polyester jacket, cloth gloves, a watch cap. She speaks good English, but usually thinks in Spanish, and knows that at this hour of the night, on this night of all nights, she must be extra careful. Por seguro. She carries no purse, nothing to tempt some pendejo. In her hidden belt, she has 207 dollars in cash. In her jacket pocket, some change and a Metro-Card. The last payday. The last night of a job she has held for seven years. The thick down jacket hides an immense gouge in her stomach, an emptiness put there by her boss. There were many consoling words from the woman who was her boss. But the hole is still there. Getting larger.
The windows of the train are streaked with rain, racing left to right instead of top to bottom, as they cross the Manhattan Bridge, high over the river. The train turns and an empty plastic Diet Pepsi bottle rolls from one side of the car to the other. Just another passenger, lost and empty. Two men move to a window, looking down at something. Bright whirling lights. An accident. The train keeps moving. The men can see nothing now and one returns to a seat. A sleeping Chinese man lurches and almost falls from his seat. His eyes widen, and then he gazes around the car, relaxes, and returns to sleep. An unshaven white man in a Giants jacket stares at something in the back of his eyes. There are three other women on the train as it comes down off the bridge into the tunnel. The rain now makes paths from top to bottom. Usually, her friend Norma is with her, and they can talk and make jokes in Spanish. But Norma was laid off two weeks ago and still doesn’t have a new job. She helps out at a taco van in Red Hook on weekends, but that’s not a real job. The last year, lots of people lost jobs. Maybe tonight was just her turn. Just like that. Paid in cash by Sara, the Colombiana, as always, so they’d have no records at the cleaning company. I’m carrying the money alone. And alone, Consuelo tries to look small, insignificant, worthless, homely, avoiding all eye contact, especially with the men.
The train pulls into Atlantic Avenue — Pacific Street, and several people get up. Down the car, near the middle door, she sees a sign: