I had to get to the hospital.
Suddenly I was hammering on door after door until my friend Kyle answered. In tears, I convinced him to lend me his car. I drove down to New York at 90 miles an hour, double-parking in front of Mount Sinai hospital. Kyle’s car was towed as soon as I ran inside.
“Mya Loverne,” I told the receptionist. She punched a few keys on an old computer, anger and frustration building in me with every wasted second. I sprinted to the elevator and rode to the sixth floor, my body shaking, tears pouring down my face. When I found room 612 I bowed my head and entered. I steeled myself for the worst, but the vision inside will remain carved in my brain until the day I die.
Mya’s face was covered with sterile white bandages, her skin pale and dry. Her mother and father were kneeling beside her, holding her hands, stroking her arm. I could tell they’d been crying all night.
An IV was punched into Mya’s forearm, drinking from a clear plastic tube. I could barely utter the words I’m sorry before I completely broke down.
Mya had been attacked. She’d called me for help at 2:36 a.m.
And I had hung up on her.
She’d gone to meet friends for a drink, her mother said, and was looking for a cab when a man grabbed her and shoved her into an alley. He stole her purse, slapped her across the face, then decided he wanted more. He ripped her skirt and punched her in the stomach. All the while her lover- I love you, Mya -was ignoring her. The man took his time, unzipped his pants. Mya managed to press the send button on her phone. It automatically redialed my number. That’s when I hung up. A man was gripping his hard penis while my girlfriend lay bleeding. And I was trying to go back to sleep.
Thankfully Mya carried a can of pepper spray on her key-chain. She managed to get a shot off before he could…
I love you, baby.
Oh, God.
Reeling from the spray, he punched her in the face and broke her cheekbone. Then he ran. And she lay there. Bruised. Broken. Crying in the street. And I slept peacefully.
The doctors reset the bone in surgery. The scarring would be faint. At least there was something to be thankful for.
Mrs. Loverne took my hand as I knelt down, my tears spilling onto the cold linoleum where they vanished into the tiles. She smiled weakly, told me it wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Mya’s father, and from his silence I knew he didn’t want me to.
Then Mya was awake. She was medicated, barely coherent.
“Baby,” I said, my lower lip trembling against my teeth as my entire body shook and shook and goddamn you fucking bastard, look what you’ve done.
“I’m here, baby,” I said.
“I called you, Henry,” she whispered. “You weren’t there.”
I nodded, my eyes stinging. I took her hand, squeezed it, felt nothing in return.
Because I was there. She cried for help, cried for me, hoping I could do something.
Anything.
And I had hung up on her.
Mya had to wait for an ambulance, alone and beaten in an alley. I was asleep when her parents called me, when my own miserable father left a fuming message asking why Cindy Loverne woke him at four in the morning. I could have saved her. I could have helped her. But I didn’t. I chose not to.
The next night I found myself on the very same street corner where Mya’s blood had stained the concrete. A fifth of vodka was my only company as I waited in the dark, searching the face of every stranger for a hint of menace, an awkward glance, some sign that said I did it, come get me, asshole, make me pay.
Two days later I sat with Mya while, in a deadened, monotone voice, she helped a police sketch artist create a composite. She didn’t remember much. The resulting picture could have been any man who ever lived. I called every hospital within fifty miles looking for a white man, between twenty-five and forty, five foot ten and six foot two, who might have checked in with a broken hand, with singed eyes from the pepper spray, even a dick caught in a zipper. All roads turned up empty, all channels parched dry.
Deep down I know if I’d been there, he wouldn’t have lived. Mya would have been safe. But I hadn’t been there. And that was something I had to live with.
That night made me question everything. I had turned my back on the girl I loved- said I loved -without a second thought. From that point on I knew I would always be there for her, for anyone, because I could never turn my back again. That, I told myself, was the only way I could live with it.
5
I grimaced at my latest statement, and wondered if the bank laughed every time they saw my meager deposits. I could pay half my current rent and find a studio twice as big in Brooklyn or Queens, but as long as I didn’t mind crackers and an apple for lunch, the aura of living in the city made it all worthwhile.
Getting used to the random, spooky noises in my apartment was a different matter. Every night I heard the scratching of tiny claws, water dripping from invisible pipes. Work allowed me to focus. Thank God, because everything else would drive me insane.
I was living the life I’d wanted ever since the first time my father told me I wouldn’t amount to shit. My mother standing in the kitchen, smiling like we’d just returned from a fishing trip with nothing but tall tales. Always smiling, like a wax sculpture with a pulse. Distant. Not uncaring, just removed from reality. Some people get lost in their demons. Me, I preferred to turn the tables, let anger fuel my fire. Every word my father said was gasoline. My own resolve was the match.
And now I had the chance to work with a legend. O’Donnell was well into his sixties, but his face was full and bright, cheeks lined and reddened by age. At the keyboard his fingers flew and his eyes were like gateways into another world. By trusting me with an assignment, Jack had given me a taste. And once I got a mouthful, it would bring out the best in me.
When I arrived at the Gazette I grabbed a tape recorder from the A/V room, went to my desk and dialed Luis Guzman.
A man with a thick Hispanic accent answered, “Hello?”
“Hi, Mr. Guzman, this is Henry Parker from the New York Gazette. Did Jack O’Donnell tell you I’d be calling?”
“ Si. He said a young associate would be getting in touch about an interview. Would that be you?”
“That’s me. Do you mind if I stop by today for a few minutes? It won’t take long.” There was a pause, hesitation.
“I don’t know, Mr. Henry. Today’s not so good. I have an appointment later.”
He was evading the conversation, just like Jack said.
“What time is your appointment?”
“My appointment? It’s, ah, seven o’clock.”
“So you won’t mind if I come at six then.”
I heard mumbling in the background. A woman’s voice said something that sounded like No. Then Luis came back.
“Mr. Henry, I can talk for just a few minutes if you come over at six, but you can’t stay for long. I cannot miss my appointment. Is for the doctor.”
What kind of doctor had appointments at 7:00 p.m.?
“It shouldn’t take long, Mr. Guzman. You’ll have plenty of time.” More mumbling. A door slammed.
“If that’s so, then come on over. My wife and I will be here.”
“Great, see you tonight.”
At a quarter to six I left the office and flagged a cab. As the cabbie zigzagged through traffic, I read the quickie bio Jack had given me.
In 1997, Luis Guzman was arrested for armed robbery after he and an associate named Jose Ramirez Sanchez walked into a Chase branch and pulled two semi-automatics. Sanchez got nervous and shot a clerk. Both men were sent to Sing Sing. Guzman did three years. Ramirez Sanchez was stabbed to death in his cell.
When I arrived at 105th and Broadway, I rang the buzzer, wondering why Luis had seemed so agitated on the phone.
The building didn’t look as if it met the hand of a janitor too often. The floors were dusty and smudged, and the lobby decor consisted of three flower pots whose flowers had come from needlepoint rather than seed. I checked the directory encased behind a dirty pane of glass. The superintendent, Grady Larkin, lived in apartment B1. I jotted this down, just in case.