A friend of the department had agreed to loan us his upper Fifth Avenue apartment while he was in California for the winter. It made a convincing address for a rich guy like I was supposed to be. I hadn’t been spending my nights there—I’d been staying at my place in Jackson Heights—but I decided to stop there in the morning to drop off some clothes and equipment before heading in to the cop shop for the daily tactical meeting.
I spotted the thug as I approached the front awning. I managed to turn back before he saw me. I went around the corner and assessed the situation. I hadn’t been expecting to meet with Emory today and wasn’t dressed for the part. Just wearing a leather bomber jacket and jeans, carrying my DARed clothes in a suitcase. I’d parked my Harley in a nearby garage. I could go back and get it and blow before the thug saw me. But then I’d lose him. Better to get inside and watch him from there.
Quickly, I thought up a cover story to explain the suitcase. I’d stayed with a girlfriend last night. We were in the process of breaking up. I was bringing my clothes back from her place. Something like that. It would pass, if I needed it. I came back around the corner, nonchalant-like, and headed for the building. The doorman had been prepped and gave me the nod as I passed the front desk.
Once I was upstairs in the apartment, I took a better look at the guy from the window, curling around the frame, snapping shots of him through a Canon zoom. I was on the eighth floor, with a view of Central Park across the street. The thug was hanging out by the wall, by a bus stop, ducking his head and moving his body like he was bopping to the music on his headset. Just a dude waiting for a ride downtown. He was strapped but you couldn’t read it. Not like he was some punk, with the gun bulging or throwing off the line of his clothes. This guy was smooth.
I lay the camera aside on a small end table. Sat down in a flowery upholstered chair. This was a nice place, furnished like something in a museum. The chairs and sofa had carvings on the wood. In the bedroom there were cherubs painted right onto the ceiling, cherubs flying in dawn-colored clouds.
I pinched the bridge of my nose, closed my eyes. I hadn’t slept all night. I hadn’t slept for weeks of nights. My head was foggy. I looked at my hands and saw they were shaking. My heart was fluttering too.
I blinked hard. I tried to clear my head, tried to work things out. I didn’t think Emory had sent a thug like this. I didn’t think he had the connections, not directly. I tried to imagine another scenario. What if, after our meet in his club, Emory called his supplier, say? The Fat Woman, say—or whoever was getting him whatever he got. What if she was the one who’d sent this punk to check me out?
The idea made sense and amped my excitement. I called Monahan. “I got a watcher on me now.”
“You’re kidding. Where are you?”
“The Fifth Avenue place.”
“Don’t you have a life?”
“No. What would I do with one of those?”
“Where’s your watcher?”
“Across the street. I’m looking at him. Caucasian male, five-eleven, one-eighty, brown hair, narrow face. Wearing jeans and a rapper sweatshirt. Yankees cap and headset.”
“Professional?”
“Oh yeah. An ex-con too, definitely.”
“I know what you’re thinking,” Monahan said.
“Then we both know.”
“I’m gonna come up.”
“Good. Just don’t let him see you. You look like a fat Irish detective.”
“It’s a clever disguise. I’m really a skinny wop.”
I sat in the chair, watched the watcher from the window. Twenty minutes later, I saw Monahan cruising downtown on Fifth. A sea-green Lexus at the center of a moving swarm of yellow cabs.
I phoned him.
“Nice wheels.”
“Borrowed ’em from Narcotics,” he said. “Thought’d be less conspicuous than a Crown Vic. How’d I look.”
“Like a fat Irish detective in a Lexus.”
“I’m gonna go around the corner, drop it at the museum, come back down through the park on foot. Even you won’t see me.”
The Lexus moved to the edge of the cab swarm, turned the corner, and was out of sight. I sat by the window. Watched the bebopping thug across the street. Watched the park too. But Monahan was right. I didn’t see him. Another ninety minutes went by. Finally, the thug made a gesture. He unconsciously lifted his hand to his headset before catching himself, dropping it to his side. He was getting a call.
After a few seconds, he started bebopping away.
I called Monahan. “He’s on the move.”
“I’m right behind him.”
I scanned the park. It was January. The trees were bare. I had a good view of the walkways leading down from the museum. I saw women walking their dogs. Nannies with their kids all bundled up and stiff in winter clothes. I could see yellow cabs on the East Drive. But no Monahan. The guy was the size of a small truck and I couldn’t spot him. You had to admire that.
My cell rang. There he was. “Guess what?” Monahan said. “A yellow cab picked him up on the corner of Park.”
“Picked him up? He didn’t hail it?”
“Cab just stops. Door swings open. Guess who’s inside?”
I licked my lips. My mouth was dry. “You saw her?” I wished I could clear my head. I wished I could get some sleep.
“Just a flash,” said Monahan. “Mostly her big, fat body.”
“Not her face?”
Monahan hesitated. “Just a flash, it . . . I couldn’t see, it . . .”
“Where the hell’s her face at? Who is this woman?”
Another pause. “It was dark in the cab. Hard to make out,” Monahan said.
That night I stayed in the cover apartment, just in case the thug came back. The bed there was big, the mattress thick and soft. The painted cherubs looked down from the ceiling above me.
I turned from side to side. I lay on my back and stared back at the cherubs. I’ve got her. I’ve got her. Sleep was impossible. I didn’t get a minute of it, not a wink. I got up, sitting on the edge of the mattress, holding my head in my hands. I was so tired. I found a decanter of brandy. Drank some. It didn’t work. I had a few sleeping pills—pretty standard-issue equipment in Vice. I took them too. They made my thoughts fuzzy and vague but didn’t stop them. I’ve got her. I kept seeing the featureless, piebald front of her head. Where the hell’s her face at? I kept seeing Emory with his cute, wrinkled nose, like an old woman cooing to her poodle. Are we being naughty now? What were these people up to? Evil. Something evil. The big word kept coming back to me.
Finally, I threw the comforter off me, cursing. Jumped out of my bed, bare feet to the carpet. I needed something. I’d never been like this, never. I had to get some sleep or I wasn’t going to make this case. Brandy and Ambien weren’t going to cut it. I had to stop thinking. The thinking was driving me crazy.
I got up and got dressed. Christ, it was almost two in the morning. I had my Harley parked in the building’s garage. It roared to life, the noise echoing off the concrete walls.
There was a guy I knew. Janks. A CI—a confidential informant—who’d helped me bring down a kiddie porn ring. Janks dealt in anything you could smoke or swallow. He had extensive contacts in the medical profession.
I found him in the Harlem Lounge, like any buyer would. No one blinked to see a white man walk down the bar past the line of all-night drinkers to the stool at the end that was Janks’s headquarters. Even Janks didn’t look up when I sat down next to him.
“I need something,” I told him.
Janks was scrawny and solemn. A dark brown undertaker type with a self-important air. He fancied himself a proper pharmacist or doctor, dispensing his medicine to the sick or sick-at-heart.
“What you think you need?” he said, from on high, his chin lifted.
“I can’t sleep.”
“You can’t sleep or you crazy?”
“I’m crazy and I can’t sleep,” I said.
“Take som
e Ambien, man.”
“I did. I’m in Vice, dude. You see the stuff I see, Ambien’s like an after-dinner mint.”
“All right. Wait here.”
I waited while he went into the men’s room. I tried to flag the one-eyed bartender, to order a drink. The one-eyed bartender showed me his empty socket and wouldn’t look at me. The Harlem Lounge reserves the right to refuse service to white junkies.
Janks came back. He slipped me a Baggie full of white pills.
“This be Z. You know Z?” he said.
I shook my head.
“This be powerful shit, nome saying? You take this, you won’t be crazy. You’ll sleep like you’re waiting for Jesus.”
“It’s not Jesus I’m waiting for, believe me.”
“Don’t be drinking with it.”
“All right.”
“It’s powerful shit. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“All right.”
“You get an erection lasting more than four hours? Don’t be bringing it to me.”
I slipped the Baggie into my bomber jacket. Slipped Janks some money. Down-low. In case there were any cops in the place, ha ha.
I popped the first pill the moment I got back to the apartment, before I even took my coat off, before the door even shut behind me. Then I got undressed and lay down on the bed. I looked up at the cherubs on the wall.
Janks was right. It was powerful shit. It didn’t make you woozy or knock you out or anything like that. It just sort of melted inside you into a fresh, white puddle of new attitude. Then the puddle of attitude spread out all through your body. Within about twenty minutes, I had developed a philosophical approach to the presence of evil in the world. What can you do? I thought. That’s just the way it is. After that, I fell asleep.
It was a good, sound, peaceful sleep. I only woke up once, near dawn. I had a dream that the apartment was on fire. My eyes flashed open. I smelled smoke. I lifted my head and looked around me to make sure the place wasn’t really burning. I had a sense that someone was standing in the shadows of the bedroom, looking back at me. But I peered and squinted and didn’t see anyone. I was too tired to get up and check it out. I lay down again and closed my eyes. I was philosophical. Such is life, I thought. The next thing I knew it was late morning.
The thug was outside again, bopping by the bus stop by the wall of the park. I got dressed and went out. He followed me at a discreet distance. I led him downtown to the Sony Building, the big rosy one with the hole in the top and the vast arches and pillars on the ground floor that make it look like a science fiction cathedral. I slipped lobby security a glimpse of my shield and they let me go up to the office floors. I spent forty-five minutes wandering around the halls, then went back down. When I came out of the building, the thug was smoking a cigarette by the revolving doors of the tower across the street. He followed me to the French café where I had lunch on the city. He stuck with me all the way back to the apartment on Fifth. After another hour, he bopped off to the make-believe rhythms in his headset.
I took another Z pill that night. I grew philosophical and fell asleep around ten. I didn’t remember dreaming, but when I woke up I smelled smoke again. I don’t know what time it was. It felt late. I lay for a few minutes staring up at the ceiling. I could see the cherubs up there, naked except for their white feathery wings, floating in the white feathery clouds.
Suddenly something moved—something in the doorway. I threw the comforter off me and was up, my heart beating hard as I stared into the shadows. I listened for a sound, a footstep, anything. Nothing.
My 19 was in its holster on the bedside table. I drew it out: a boxy semiautomatic with a nice solid feel. The weight of it in my hand calmed me.
I got up. I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. I padded barefoot to the doorway, the gun down by my thigh. I peeked around the jamb, looked down the hall. It was shadowy, but not pitch black because so much city light was coming in through the living room windows and the glow bled into the corridor.
That’s when I saw him, the first time I saw him. He was down at the hallway’s end, down by the front door. I could just make out the shape of his body, small and thin: the body of a hungry child. His big eyes glinted in the half-light as he stood staring at me.
Somehow I knew his name was Alexander. Somehow I knew he was dead. The knowledge made the center of me clutch in helpless, childlike fear. For a long moment, I was paralyzed, my gun hand quivering, the cold barrel tapping against my bare skin.
The boy just stood there. Silent. Staring. Finally, by pure force of will, I came out of the bedroom. I made myself take a step toward him. Then another step. I could see the end of the hall more clearly now. There was no one there—no dead boy, no one. Of course not. I walked to the end of the hall. I walked through the whole apartment. There was no one anywhere. Of course not.
I went back to bed. I lay looking up at the ceiling, at the painted cherubs. They seemed sinister now in their cloudy surroundings, more like demon imps than cherubs. Grinning, feral, ravenous, their eyes gleaming. Mocking me, like Emory’s eyes.
It’s the pills, I thought. I should stop taking the pills. But I knew I wouldn’t stop. Because I couldn’t stand the thoughts that came to me as I lay awake. The Fat Woman’s missing face. Emory’s delicate evil.
Soon, my breathing slowed. The chemical calm descended on me. What the hell? I thought. I slept.
The next morning, early, I went to Emory’s apartment. I slipped past the doorman and made my way to his apartment, unannounced. I pounded on the door with my fist until I heard his footsteps inside. I saw a flicker of shadow at the peephole.
It was just past 7 A.M. Too early for business. Too early even for the maid. I figured he’d be alone.
He was. He opened the door. He was wearing a plaid bathrobe.
“What on earth are you . . . ?” he said.
I stormed in past him.
“Shut the door,” I told him.
“The doorman didn’t ring. How’d you . . . ?”
I went back to him and took the door out of his hand and shut it forcefully. I put my face close to his. I made myself look afraid. Maybe I really was afraid.
“That thing I said to you. At the club the other day.” When he hesitated, I said harshly, “You remember.”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes. Of course.” He was being cautious, watchful.
“Well, forget it. I didn’t mean it. It was a joke.”
“What’s wrong? What’s the matter?”
I wiped my mouth with my hand, really playing it, really looking panicked, tapping into that tension, that buzz that was all through me whenever the Z wore off. I dropped my voice low. “Someone’s been watching me. Staking out my apartment. Must be the cops. Has to be. Who else could it be?”
It took a moment before Emory understood what had happened. Then his pale, flaccid face relaxed. He smiled a superior smile.
“Oh, no, no, no. Relax, relax.” He said it singsong, as if he were talking to an old woman or a child. “Don’t be so paranoid.”
I pretended his attitude was a revelation. “You already knew! Did you send him?”
“No, no, not me. But the people I deal with . . . They’re cautious. They have protocols. You have to expect that. It’s only reasonable.”
I paced, pretending to think it over. Paused. Stared at him. “These are, like, your suppliers?”
“Don’t look so worried. It’s all right. You check out just fine.”
I stared at him another moment, then let a breath out as if I were relaxing. “You should’ve told me.”
“Now that would have spoiled the whole idea, wouldn’t it,” he said—and once again, he wrinkled his nose, cute, an old woman talking to a poodle. My stomach turned over. “I’m surprised you spotted him. They tell me he’s very good.”
“Look, this isn’t . . . ? I mean, you’re not some sort of . . . ?”
“What?” he said. “Policeman? Please! Of course not. You came to me. R
emember?”
I hesitated—then I nodded.
“All we’ll require now is a money transfer,” he went on. “One computer to another, easy as that.”
I nodded again, looking antsy—feeling antsy.
Emory took a step toward me. He put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. I wanted to rip his arm off and beat him to death with it. Him and his sick desires. “It’s all right,” he said again. “You’re nearly there. You’ve almost arrived. You’ve come to the right place, found what you’re looking for.” The green eyes buried in the soft folds of his pale skin gleamed out at me and I remembered the imps on the ceiling of the bedroom. He went on in a soothing, hypnotic voice: “No more half-starved, half-drugged yellow trash. What we’re talking about is white. Fresh. Safe. Completely safe. No history. No future. She’ll exist only in your moment of . . . absolute delight.”
It was an effort to keep the expression of horror off my face but I managed it. I managed somehow to manufacture an expression of rapt expectation instead.
“You’ll be receiving a call,” Emory said majestically.
And with a friendly pat on the arm, he sent me on my way.
The street outside Emory’s building—the little branch of 52nd dead-ending at the river—was quiet. A cab was making a U-turn. A doorman was pacing. The day was cold, gray, windy, heavy with the threat of rain. I stuck my hands into the pockets of my overcoat and ducked my chin into the collar as I walked to First Avenue.
When I reached the corner of the avenue, I paused and scanned the scene. An instinct. To see if the thug was still tailing me. The avenue was where all the action was. The morning rush hour: yellow cabs packed tight curb to curb, delivery trucks double-parked and blocking traffic. On the sidewalks, pedestrians were passing in a steady flow. Men and women carrying briefcases and coffee cups. Working guys with crates in their arms. Older ladies walking little dogs.
My eyes went over all of them—then stopped. I lifted my chin. My mouth opened and I felt a catch in my throat.
The dead boy was standing by a lamppost across the street. The boy I’d seen in the apartment: Alexander. He was just standing there, gazing at me. I could see him clearly in the gray daylight. He was small—maybe eight years old, but small even for his age. And frail—underfed. He wasn’t wearing a coat or anything, just a thin button-down white shirt and grimy corduroy pants, a pitiful pair of worn-out sneakers that had once been red. He had thick black hair and a narrow, emaciated face. Big eyes—giant eyes above those gaunt, sunken cheeks. And he just stood there. Watching me. Without expression. Without movement. Just watching.