Come Out Tonight (38 page)

“Wasn’t Sherry a smart feisty woman?”

“Still is.”

“Of course.
 
But don’t you suppose that during this terrible scene, she would have cried out to you, fought back, made some noise?”

“Yeah, I would….”

“How could you have slept through such a commotion?”

“I don’t know.
 
I feel terrible.”

Jerry interrupts here with, “It’s not your fault, Henry.
 
It’s not your job to catch the criminal. It’s the job of the NYPD.
 
The Detective’s just trying to shift the blame.
 
They haven’t come up with anyone so they’re trying to blame it on you.”

“Yeah,” I say.

“Well, Henry,” Sirken says.
 
“If there truly were an invader who attacked Sherry that night, why did you wait to call the police till the following night?”

“I...I forgot.”

“You forgot,” Sirken says, smiling.

“All I could think of was Sherry and getting her to the hospital.”
 

“Exactly,” Jerry says.

“Or was it that you didn’t want anyone to investigate the crime scene until you could clean everything up?
 
The officer on the scene said he caught you with a bottle of Lysol.”

Jerry turns to me.
 
“Henry, is that true?”

“No!
 
Yes!
 
I was cleaning up the rug I puked on.”

“Let’s put our cards on the table, Henry, now that Sherry has recovered so well,” Sirken says.
 
“Wasn’t it you who hit Sherry?”

Suddenly, Jerry stands up.
 
“My client isn’t answering any more questions.”

They let me go back to my cell, but they don’t let me sleep.
 
Every time I begin to doze off, someone comes in and wakes me up.
 
In the morning they start again.
 

This time I don’t say a thing till Jerry comes into the room, bleary-eyed himself.
 

“Okay, let’s talk about the drugs we found in your apartment.”

Jerry looks very upset.
 
He leans over and starts whispering to me, “What fucking drugs?”
 
I never heard him talk like that before.
 

“Fifteen cases of Somnolux,” the detective says.

Jerry sits down again.
 
“Oh, prescription drugs.”

“Yeah,” Sirken says.
  
“Fifteen cases with the same serial numbers that were stolen last month out of the Duane Reade you work for, Henry.”

“Really?” I ask.

“Yes, really.
 
How’d they get there?”

“Not a clue,” I say.
 
Jerry beams at me.

“Where’s the sixteenth?” Sirken asks.

“I used it up,” I answer.
 
Jerry claps his hand over my mouth a second too late.

“I see.
 
And where’s the Oxycontin?
 
Did you get a good price for it?”

I push Jerry’s hand away.
 
“I never took that stuff.
 
I never saw any Oxycontin. It wasn’t me.”

“But you took the Somnolux.”

“No, it just kind of materialized in my medicine cabinet.”

“Materialized?”
 
Sirken laughs.
 

“If my client says he didn’t take it, he didn’t take it,” Jerry says.

Sirken ignores him.
 
“Why did you use the Somnolux?”

“I can’t sleep.
 
It’s the only thing that helps me sleep,” I yawn.

Jerry gets up at this point.
 
“You’ve got to let my client sleep.
 
Keeping him up constitutes torture.”

“Fine,” Sirken says, standing up.
 
“We’ll continue this later.”

They let me go back to my cell, but again they don’t let me sleep.
 
Every time I begin to doze off, someone comes in and wakes me up.
 
Late afternoon, they start again.
 
Jerry’s late.

“This is the last time you know. You’ve got another twelve hours.
  
If you don’t charge him, my client walks,” Jerry announces as he comes in.
 

We all sit down again.
 
All of a sudden, the door opens; a young Hispanic cop comes in and whispers something into Sirken’s ear.
 
Sirken gives a loud hoot of laughter.
 
“Go back and ask him about the Somnolux,” she tells him, still chuckling, and the cop goes out.
 
We just sit there waiting to start the interrogation.

“You’ll both be interested in this,” Sirken says.
 
“I just got word that the Oxycontin finally hit the streets.”

“You hear that, Henry?
 
You’re off the hook,” Jerry says.

“Not quite.
 
But we caught this guy in the act of trying to sell two cases of Oxycontin to an undercover police officer.”

“Who was it?” I ask, on the edge of my seat.

Sirken’s smiling as she answers, “Oh, not your typical drug dealer.
 
White guy, about 6'2', heavy-set, mid-forties, hair like Michael Jackson.”

“Carl! OhmyGod, it wasn’t me after all...it was Carl!”
  
I start to laugh, too.

“Who’s Carl?” Jerry asks.

“My ex-boss,” I tell him, laughing.
 
Why I’m laughing, I don’t know.
 
Here I am in jail, still under suspicion of stealing sixteen cases of Somnolux and attempting to murder my girlfriend.
  
Just then the same young cop comes back in, and stands there at attention until Sirken acknowledges him.

“What’d he say?” Sirken finally asks.

“You should see this guy.
 
The poor schmuck’s falling all over himself, apologizing.
 
‘It’s my first time, Officer.
 
I’ve never committed a crime before.
 
I didn’t mean it.’
 
You know.
 
I asked him about the rest of the haul, and he told me everything.
 
He’s been sitting on it all, trying to find a contact.
 
The Oxycontin is the first he tried to move.
 
He’s got all the rest except the Somnolux, which he admits to planting in Henry Jackman’s bathroom cabinet.”

“But why?” I shout.
 
“He told me to stop using it!”

The cop turns to me, apparently confused over whether he should tell one suspect about another one’s crimes.
 
“Go ahead,” Sirken says.
 
“This is Henry Jackman.”

“Ah,” he says.
 
“Mullins says he knew you’d think you had taken it yourself.
 
He was hoping you might confess to the whole thing, and he’d be off the hook.”

“And you were working for this
gonif
?” Jerry says to me.

“I can’t believe it,” I said.
 
“Carl was my buddy.”

“With buddies like that, no wonder you can’t sleep,” Jerry says.

“Good job, Phil,” Sirken says.
 
The cop goes out.

“So,” Sirken says, without missing a beat.
 
“How long have you been taking Somnolux, anyway, Henry?”

I look over at Jerry, but he doesn’t seem to have any objection to my answering this question.
 
“Better part of a year,” I say.
 
“On and off.”

“You have memory lapses of what happens after you take it?”

“Um,” I say.
 
“I’m sleeping.
 
What am I supposed to remember?”

“Well, I’ve been reading about parasomnias...Sleepwalking, sleep-eating, sleep-driving.
 
You experience any of these?”

“No,” I say, yawning.

“Did you sleepwalk as a child?”

“Um.”
 
I look at Jerry who’s just looking confused.
 
“Yeah, sometimes.”

“Do you still?”

“No.”

Sirken looks down at the table.
 
“You ever take Somnolux with alcohol?” she asks, examining her fingers.

“Um.
 
Yeah,” I yawn again.
 
“Couple of times.”
 

Jerry leans over to me.
 
“Did they let you sleep?”

“Not really,” I whisper back, my head on the table.

“Okay,” Jerry says, standing up.
 
“I’m not letting my client answer any more questions until he gets some shuteye.”

I stand up too, swaying.
 
Sirken sits there.
 
“Just one moment,” she says, looking at me.
 
“I agree to let you sleep.
 
On one condition.
 
That you take some Somnolux first.”

Jerry looks undecided.
 
“You don’t sleepwalk anymore?”

“Nah,” I say.

“You okay with this?”

“Somnolux?
 
Sure.
 
Though I don’t need it.”
 
I yawn, “I could fall asleep on a dime.”

“Fine,” Sirken, says to the guards outside.
 
“Escort him back to his cell.
 
Give him twenty mg of Somnolux.”

“I only need ten,” I say, stumbling out the door, the same burly guy at my back.

“See you in the morning, Henry,” Jerry calls to me.
 
“I’ll be here to take you home.”

“Thanks, Jerr,” I call.

Burly guy escorts me to my cell, where I drop down on the bed.
 
He’s got two 10 mg tablets which he drops into my palm.
 
I throw them both in my mouth and swallow some water from a glass he hands me.
 
Hello, oblivion.

*
   
*
   
*

The next thing I know, the burly guard is back, shaking me.

“Hey,” I tell him, yawning.
 
“I just lay down.
 
You’re supposed to let me sleep.”

Burly points to the little barred window.
 
The sun’s coming up: I must have slept eight hours at least.
 
I catch a glimpse of Jerry hanging around the open cell door.

“Hey, Jerr,” I say.
 
“You come to spring me?”

“They say they have new evidence,” Jerry tells me, looking worried.
 
“Don’t say anything.
 
Let me handle this.”
 
The three of us walk down the corridor, Burly at my back, all heading toward the same interrogation room

“Okay by me,” I say.
 
What could they have come up with in eight hours?
 

Burly opens the door, pushes me in.
 
Jerry sits down.
 
I go over to the mirror and make faces.
 
Sirken comes in, smiling.
 
This time it looks real.

Jerry points over to a DVD player and TV I hadn’t noticed.
 
“What’s that for?”

“Evidence,” Sirken says.
 
She shuts off the lights, turns on the TV and presses play.
 
The screen shows a timestamp: last night, 2:00 a.m.

The video shows the door to this very room opening, and there I am, coming in.
 
This is all very bizarre.
 
I have absolutely no memory of this.
 
Absolute black-out.

“Inadmissable evidence, since I wasn’t here,” Jerry declares to the detective.
 
Then, to me, “Why didn’t you call me?
 
Don’t tell me you waived your right to have a lawyer present.”

I have this irresistible urge to say I wasn’t there, but it seems I was.
 
I stare hard at the screen, trying to figure out what’s wrong with this picture.
 
Something about my body language, the expression on my face.
 
Can’t a thing like this be faked?
  

Henry-onscreen walks with a swagger.
 
On my face is this smug smile.
 
I pull the chair out for myself, stepping over the seat with one leg as if it were a horse, John Wayne style.
 
Sirken’s already seated on the other side of the table.
  
Her face is a study in shock.
 

Sirken stops the video for a minute.
 
“As you see, you’re fully conscious.”

Jerry is sitting straight up in his chair now, looking at me.
 
“Shit, Henry.
 
What is going on?”

“I promise you, Jerr...” I say, but he waves me off.

“You let them take you into this room and videotape you without me?
 
What did you do, confess?”