Brood (24 page)

“Thanks to the efforts of the entire NYPD,” the mayor is saying, “and in particular the tireless work done by our stalwart Central Park Precinct, the story of this one New York City family has an extraordinarily happy ending.” He looks down at Dylan—who is pulling faces at the phalanx of cameras—and pats his head.

Did I imagine that? Cynthia wonders, because to her exhausted eyes, it looked as if the mayor's hand was trembling as he performed the paternal pat for the media.

Now one of the newscasters is on-screen, a lovely woman with a strident tone to her voice. She looks to be about twenty-five, but her manner is that of a woman who has been cheated and deceived and has made a personal promise to be ever vigilant from that day forward.

“On the heels of Dylan Morris's rescue and return to Gracie Mansion, the questions surrounding his disappearance continue to circle Mayor Morris and his closest advisers. There is no doubt that the very real human drama accompanying Dylan's disappearance—indeed, the disappearance of any child in this great city—is a riveting event that plays on the emotions of anyone who has been a parent or a child; in other words, every single human being not terminally hard of heart. Nevertheless, speculations as to what really happened the night of Dylan Morris's disappearance continue to surround the event, and the sudden, somewhat puzzling nature of his return will do little to quiet those who say, for instance, that the boy was in a rehab of some sort, or that the entire incident was staged as a way of bolstering Morris's flat polling numbers as he approaches reelection, or that Dylan was not abducted or held against his will but was a runaway. And those who hold with the runaway theory are quick to ask the question: From what was Dylan fleeing?

“Meanwhile, the fabled Central Park Precinct, which was, by all reports, spearheading the search for little Dylan, has been remarkably quiet about the search and his so-called rescue. All we could get from a precinct spokeswoman was the following statement: ‘The New York Police Department continues in its commitment to make our Central Park safe and fun for all the people of New York, as well as the millions of visitors to our city. To best further that aim, we are closing the park in order to deal with security risks and make the park a place where all New Yorkers can go without worry. I won't be taking questions at this time. If you see something, say something. And be safe. Thank you.' ”

With Dylan no longer on the streets with them, there is nothing to prevent or forestall open season on the brood.

Rodolfo knows it's time to move—not just for him, and not just for the few select friends he has with him on Riverside Drive, but for each and every one of the wild boys and girls. Over the past few years, they have been managing to live safely and even thrive on the outskirts of the city's life. They have even managed to make money. But now it's over. This much he knows. And he has a responsibility, not only to his own genes, but to all of them. Even the ones who he knows grouse about him and shoot him the bird when his back is turned, even the ones who have openly challenged his authority—they need him, and their safety is his sacred duty.

He has sent out the word. The place where all the packs have been gathering—the Diana Ross Playground—is no longer safe. It is out of the question. And as for the wild ones living around Tompkins Square Park, the message is the same—get out. City Hall Park, Washington Square Park, Inwood Hill, and Van Cortlandt—begone, begone, begone, begone. Of late there has been a migration to Brooklyn's Prospect Park—easier hunting, fewer hassles—but Prospect Park is no longer safe, nor is Fort Greene.

“We's scatter now,” Rodolfo says. He is getting everything valuable out of the apartment, starting with thousands upon thousands of dollars in cash and then going on to enough vials of Zoom to plunge a hospice into an orgiastic frenzy.

Alice is following him as he winds through the apartment. She holds a striped-green-and-yellow laundry sack wide open and he drops the money into it. There is money under cushions, behind books, in the back of the closet, in the inside pockets of old overcoats. After the cash is collected, the fridge is emptied of product—for this part of the operation, Rodolfo has Adam's assistance; he holds a duffel bag lined with towels, to keep the vials safe in transport.

“What are you going to do with all this?” Adam says, peering into the bag. A strange coppery smell rises from it. A part of him is repelled by it, but he is also intrigued.

Rodolfo shrugs. “We's never know,” he says. “It's money. Us's making a whole new life, far away, brother. We's got a hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars. Maybe it's enough, maybe not. Maybe us's needing a little top-off. What do we do? Zoom. Oldies who want to be young, they going to be there too.”

“Are we going to meet here?” Alice asks. She is on one side of Rodolfo, Adam is on the other. They walk the apartment's long central corridor to the front room, where Boy-Boy, Bump, Suzie, Captain Blood, Lola, and Little Man have been making calls, letting everybody know that today's meeting is important—the most important they have ever had.

“We's going to Pelham Bay Park,” Rodolfo says. “Separate ways.
Cho-cho número seis.
” He snaps his fingers, grins. He is trying to make the best of it. Optimism has always been his style, personally and administratively. Positive reinforcement is how he and his kind best learn. Dark looks, worried body language—it all does more harm than good.

“What about Polly?” Alice asks.

She and Rodolfo lock eyes for a long moment until, finally, he shakes his head sadly.

A couple of the crew make the run to Broadway and come back with pizzas and bottles of Mountain Dew. Before setting out for Pelham Bay, they all gather in the front room for a final meal together. It does not look particularly ceremonial—some sit, some stand; they are eating right out of the boxes and drinking straight from the bottles. But the mood is somber, final, and apprehensive. Boy-Boy has his arm around Lola, and Bump gazes at Rodolfo with adoration, as if the wiry sixteen-year-old were a vision. The infants have been propped up on the sofa, and they play languidly with one another, a barely coordinated tangle of arms, legs, and wings.

“Tell us's what me's said, okay?” Rodolfo whispers to Alice. He purses his lips, shakes his head, letting her know that he doesn't trust himself to keep his emotions in check were he to speak to them all.

“Okay,” Alice says. She notices Adam looking questioningly at her, but she turns her eyes away from his.

“Rodolfo wants us to take the number six train uptown. The stop says Pelham Bay Park. Go up the stairs where it says Bruckner Street.”

“Bruckner Boulevard,” Rodolfo says.

“Right. Bruckner Boulevard.” Alice takes a deep breath. A kind of happiness goes through her. It feels as if she has just quickly drunk a cup of warm tea. She feels the rush of it in her throat, her stomach, her arms, hands, legs, feet. She wonders:
Is this the thing you hear about? Is this love?

“We can't all go at once. Okay? So three at a time. Starting at…” She glances at the American Girl wristwatch Cynthia gave them. Way back when, in the car. After court. When was that? It feels like years ago…

She furrows her brow. It's 9:17. But that's not the source of her consternation. The wispy silver down that used to lie flat against her skin near the face of the watch has darkened, and even slightly coarsened.
That's
the source of her consternation.
That
is what freaks her out.

Cynthia has decided: When—if?—the twins return, they cannot live in this house one day longer than absolutely necessary. Whatever legal hoops need to be leaped through, she will deal with them—even if the hoops are on fire! When she thinks of how she had once (let's face it!)
lusted
after these rooms, how weak in the knees she had been at the pedigree in every sconce and every floorboard, how lovely the world had looked through the slightly purple waviness of the old windows, how ridiculously impressed she had been by the sheer craftsmanship of the house, she wants to somehow reach back in time and take that deluded self by the shoulders and shake and shake and shake until it comes to its senses. The fact is now painfully apparent: For years, this house has been bad news. No. Worse. Hideous news. No, worse than that too. What comes after hideous? Oh, it doesn't matter. What matters is this: She has to dump this place and take whatever money she can pull out of it and buy another house. Or an apartment. Out of the city. A suburb, perhaps. A lovely little town by the sea. Cape Cod! She has never been to Cape Cod, but she knows it's lovely. Who doesn't like foggy beaches? Who doesn't like cod? Who doesn't like pumpkin-scented candles and clothes bought from Talbots? Anyhow, anything would be better than this.

She needs to take them from whatever is luring them away. That boy—Rodolfo! Surely, he is part of it.

Away. A condo maybe. A place where, if you stand in the middle of it, you can see every room.

A doorman.

A superintendent.

A neighbor whose music you can hear through the walls. And who can hear you should you scream…

She realizes that selling a town house is not an easy proposition. It will take time. What is it worth now? Thirty million? Screw it. She'll take twenty-five.

She paces the house, holding her cordless phone in one hand, her cell phone in the other, every few steps shaking them both as if they can be rattled into ringing.

Back in San Francisco—just the merest beckoning of memory, the slightest recollection of her past makes her dizzy with wonder and grief—back then, in California, in the chill and the fog and the scent of eucalyptus as ubiquitous as the smell of gasoline is in New York—back then… She has lost her train of thought. Oh, yes—now she recalls. In San Francisco, when she had her shop (oh! her shop, her shop, how she misses Gilty Pleasures), sometimes a very special piece, expensive, unusual, might sit around for months, even a couple of years, before the exact right person appeared, the person who was meant to buy it. Conceivably, selling this house will take a year—though you never knew; it could go in a heartbeat.

She does a bit of research on the Internet and decides that the most high-end real estate company right now in New York is an outfit calling itself Oberman and Lewis. Of the past twenty-five big sales Cynthia could track, Oberman and Lewis agents were involved in nine of them. She calls them on the cordless, with the cell on her lap lest the kids call in. She is put through the tumbler of their phone system, pressing numbers to answer the various inane recorded questions until, at last, she is connected to a real estate agent.

Cynthia gets it: She's probably been connected to someone not so very high on the Oberman and Lewis food chain, someone who is available to take random calls. But the voice on the other end of the phone is elegant, melodious, and confident. Her name is Katie Henderson. She sounds young—she has that pajama-party voice, what linguists have called a vocal fry, a languid way of talking meant to impress upon the person to whom you are speaking that you are extremely relaxed and will not put out an extra ounce of effort.

But Katie Henderson
is
willing to put out effort. In fact, upon hearing what property Cynthia wants to place on the market, she sounds like she wants to fax herself to East Sixty-Ninth Street. She doesn't even bother to be coy. “Well, this is very, very exciting, I must tell you,” she says, several times over, in fact.

“It's not without its complexities,” Cynthia feels obliged to say.

“Properties this important never are,” Katie Henderson says, her voice a reassuring croon, as if she were settling an agitated child down for the night with a bedtime song.

And her enthusiasm is not just a phone manner. Less than thirty minutes later, Katie Henderson is seated in the front parlor, looking eagerly and appraisingly at everything in sight. She is not as young as her voice; she is probably forty, maybe even a little older—there are streaks of gray in her abundant black hair, lines around her piercing blue eyes, and her skin looks a bit raw, as if she has recently undergone some fierce dermabrasion.

She is dressed as if for a brisk autumn evening. The heat is already pressing against the windows, and Katie sits there, visibly warm in her black pantsuit and copper-colored ruffled blouse, buttoned to the neck and accessorized by a black silk scarf. Cynthia watches, fascinated, mesmerized, really, as beads of perspiration emerge from Katie's hairline and roll down her forehead, where Katie blots them with the back of her hand, right before they can trickle saltily into her eyes.

“Feel free to take off your jacket,” Cynthia says.

“Oh, that's all right, thank you,” Katie says. Sensing that that is not quite enough, she adds, “I guess I'm just a slave to fashion.” She sits up straighter, brushes her hand against her jacket's fabric.

“I could turn the air-conditioning up, if you'd like,” Cynthia offers.

“Oh. Would you mind?” Katie smiles enormously.

“Of course not,” Cynthia says. The thermostat is on the other side of the room. It's complicatedly digital, and she has yet to fully get the hang of it. As she fusses with the controls, she glances in the mirror hanging over the black marble fireplace. She sees that Katie has opened her briefcase and taken out a notebook and a sleek little digital camera.

“It'll take a few minutes for the place to cool down,” Cynthia says, sitting again. She looks closely at her visitor. Cynthia can't say exactly what it is, but something seems odd about this woman. And though there is no particular physical similarity, something about her puts Cynthia in mind of Leslie. Starting with her refusal to take off her jacket.

“So…how many bedrooms are there altogether?” Katie asks.

“I've got it all right here,” says Cynthia. She hands the real estate woman a sheet with all the basic information about the house: year built, square footage, number of bedrooms, number of baths, fireplaces.