Red on Red (58 page)

At the car, Nick wasn’t sure how to open the trunk. Was it the same key as the door, or the engine, or a different one? He put the suitcase in the backseat, and Mr. Barry got in beside, as if it were a cab. When Nick took the driver’s seat, Mr. Barry leaned forward, put a hand on his shoulder.

“I knew it wouldn’t last, Nick. God forgive me, but I knew it wouldn’t. Did he slip up again? Is he in the hospital, in jail?”

Nick waited to answer. He knew that Mr. Barry was lying to himself, wishing things away. He must have gotten dozens of jail calls, hospital calls from Jamie, and Nick had never offered to intervene, had never been asked. He’d never have gone to the airport to get Mr. Barry, even if Jamie were dead, unless it were his fault. But Mr. Barry couldn’t know that. He must have presumed there was more kindness, less culpability, in the gesture. Nick started the car, then leaned around, looking back.

“Mr. Barry, I’m sorry, it’s worse than that. This morning, Jamie was shot outside of the building. He’s dead. I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Mr. Barry. He was doing so good. We’d talked a bit, lately, more than in the past. I thought he was doing great….”

Mr. Barry put his hand on Nick’s shoulder again and squeezed tight. A workingman’s hand, and Nick tried not to squirm.

“Had he fucked up again, Nick? Was he back on the drugs?”

“No, Mr. Barry, he wasn’t. He was innocent, he was good. He did nothing wrong.”

“Was it the black people?”

Nick didn’t know how to answer. His father might have asked the same question, the same way. The tone was more fearful than hostile, as if the matter were almost beyond comprehension, the difference not between darker and lighter neighbors but between transparent beings and opaque ones. Who did Mr. Barry think he could see through—white people, Irishmen? Not Nick, thank God. It wasn’t black people who had done this. It was Michael, a singular man with a singular grievance. And Nick couldn’t begin to explain, hadn’t begun to evaluate how many recent murders—from Milton Cole’s through Jamie’s this morning—had arisen from a failure to discriminate.

Still, Nick hated to think what had shown in his own face, skeptical but incurious, when he’d first met Michael that night in the projects, bearing bad news. Assumptions that went not just with Michael’s complexion but his address, the cheap furniture and the expensive TV. A disconnect between them before the awful connection, fighting in the hallway, and cursing each other’s dead mothers. Not much hope that Michael and Nick could bridge the divide after that, like Malcolm and Esposito had. Wasn’t that a fine model of cooperation? Nick wanted to tell Mr. Barry that racism was spiteful and wasteful, a shame and a plague, but that if he wanted true havoc, white and black men had to work together. Look at what had been accomplished today, with the plan to contain Michael, to spare Nick. Who knew what boundaries remained to be broken? Nick put the car in drive and headed to the exit.

“We haven’t worked it all out yet, Mr. Barry. But I promise you, whoever did it will pay. Excuse me.”

Nick’s phone had rung again. He didn’t know who was calling, but he’d talk to anyone.

“Yeah?”

“Meehan?”

It was a man, the one from IAB.

“Yeah?”

“So, you do answer the phone.”

Nick didn’t answer.

“You there?”

“I am. What do you want?”

“Slow down, guy. What do I want? That’s not the question. The question is what do you want? I hear a lot of things are going on in your neck of the woods. We talked before, and maybe we can talk again. Pretty soon, nobody’s gonna be interested in anything you got to say, unless it’s a guilty plea. You wanna meet, you wanna talk?”

“Sure.”

“Really?”

Nick was surprised by his answer as well, its suddenness and ease. He knew it was futile to hide, like a kid pulling the blankets over his head, so the boogeyman can’t find him. And he told himself that he might learn more than he would confide, meeting the other side, face-to-face. If the mystery prick had been sitting next to him, right then, Nick doubted he would have told him anything. But he also knew that his life was hurtling toward catastrophe—he’d hit it, already—in ways that seemed not only unjust but unnatural, a train that had jumped the rails but was still picking up speed. And the prospect of moving—to a new apartment, a new precinct, a new partner—had become less devastating to contemplate. “You can put up with more than you think you can.” That’s what his father had said. It was true, but not true enough. To promise himself anything was to lie. By next week, he might not recognize the words, or the man who’d said them.

“Tomorrow?” the man asked.

“No. Next week.”

“Listen, unless there’s a death in the family—”

“There is,” Nick said.

“Sorry. Um … I guess I’ll call next week.”

My God, Nick thought as he hung up the phone, this man had a knack for people. If he were a traveling preacher, he’d turn the pagans into atheists. Drifting from his lane, Nick nearly hit a car. Easy, easy, go down one road at a time. Mr. Barry took his shoulder again.

“Nick?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you take me there? Can I see him? I know it’s late, but you’re a cop, you can do it.”

“Mr. Barry, I don’t know if you want to see him now. Wait for the wake. It’s better—”

“Is he bad? Was it the face? We can’t have it open casket, the wake?”

“No. I mean, you can. And I guess I can take you there, if you want.”

“Thank you.”

Nick put on the lights and sirens, cut in and out of traffic. The phone rang and rang—he could feel it—but Nick didn’t answer. The cars moved aside, mostly, and he and Mr. Barry got to the midtown tunnel in half an hour. Mr. Barry didn’t ask any more questions. Nick looked back at him a few times during the ride. He was turning from side to side, nervous at the speed. Nick kept his window open. They sped through the tunnel, with its weird green-white fish-belly gleam, its muffled echo, and Nick went down the FDR Drive, then hooked back up First Avenue. He’d never tried to bring someone to the morgue after hours; still, he knew he’d manage something. Tonight, he’d manage whatever he needed. Tomorrow, he didn’t know how he’d face Mr. Barry, how he’d take the sight of him, day in, day out, the dumb gratitude. He closed his window, and smelled something bad. Had Mr. Barry farted? It smelled awful, and Nick was almost offended. He pulled over at the morgue entrance on the side street and parked.

“Here we are, Mr. Barry.”

There was no answer. Nick got out and opened the door for him, and Mr. Barry spilled out, almost falling onto the street. Nick caught him and pushed him back.

“Shit.”

Nick held him up and looked at him. Was he dead? The face was as pale as the tunnel tile, green-white and still. The car stank of shit. Nick laid him down and closed the door. He turned the lights and sirens back on, put the car into reverse, backed down the street to the hospital. As he drove up to the emergency room, he hailed two EMTs who were walking out—strangers, thank God—and had them get a stretcher. They got Mr. Barry out of the car and wheeled him in. Nick found some paper towels, bleach, and latex gloves, and wiped out the backseat. Inside the ER, he took Mr. Barry’s keys, so he could get into the apartment later. He needed to find phone bills and address books to locate relatives who could take care of arrangements for both father and son. In the meantime, he allowed the ER admitting staff to put him down as next of kin, as a nephew, so there would be no blanks on the necessary forms. As he drove home, it occurred to Nick that he might be called upon to make critical medical decisions for Mr. Barry. When the day had begun, he and Jamie hadn’t even been friends; at the end, they were family, as much family as either had left, for whatever it was worth.

G
race called the next day, in the afternoon. Nick asked how she’d gotten the number, and she said she had taken his card out of her father’s jacket, a while ago, and kept it for herself. Nick didn’t ask why; he didn’t want to know. He had thought of her earlier, when he’d seen her picture on his desk. It would have been professional to draw her out on the matter, to subject her motives to a degree of scrutiny, but whether the theft of his business card had been inspired by a teen crush or telepathy, he didn’t want to revisit the image of finding something in a pocket. Nick had barely spoken to Esposito since he’d found the flowers, but he’d spent much of the day out of the office, at the hospital and the Barry apartment. Mr. Barry’s prognosis was poor, but Nick had found a phone number for a sister on Long Island, relieving him of his medical and funeral duties. “Thank God for you,” she said. “What a blessing to have a policeman in the building.” It had been a long day.

“What’s up, Grace? How are you?”

“Good. Good, I guess. How are you?”

The question seemed devastatingly intimate, rudely direct.

“Detective?”

“Yeah. Sorry, Grace—I was distracted. Busy here today. I’m fine.”

“Anyway, I was calling because you said the other detectives would call.”

“Didn’t they?”

“No. So … is it like … you, for me?”

She’d meant to ask if Nick had been assigned to the case, he knew, but he couldn’t answer, the way she’d asked. Grace tried again.

“I mean, you’re the one who has to get the one … for what happened?”

“Sure, Grace. Not just me, but I’m involved, and you can call to talk about it, if you have anything to tell me about it, anytime.”

“That’s what I figured. Anyway, the guy—you know, that guy—he came up to me last week, when I got off the bus, right by school. He said ‘Hi!’ ”

“He said ‘Hi’? Anything else?”

“No. There was a police car on the corner, and he walked away.”

“Did you tell them?”

“No. I was surprised. I couldn’t really think. I just ran to school quick.”

“Next time, tell them, Grace. Anytime.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s why I called you. It happened again yesterday. He just popped up on the street, in the same place. This time, I was going to the bus—but I was leaving school. He said he wanted to take me out to the movies. I said I’d think about it. I said I couldn’t go till Friday, because of school. Ugh!”

“Friday. That’s tomorrow.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Sorry. Grace, are you at home now?”

“Yeah.”

“Let me call you back in a little bit. I have to figure how we work this out. Did you tell your father about this?”

“God, no! He couldn’t handle it. He’d
completely freak
! He’s nicer now, but he cries a lot…. He doesn’t bother me as much anymore. I kinda feel bad for him. You don’t have to tell him, do you?”

“I will, at some point. He’s still your father. Maybe not right now. Like I said, I’ll call back soon. When does he get home?”

“Not for, like, two hours. I’m not allowed out, but it’s okay. I have a lot of homework.”

“Okay, Grace. Stay put.”

“Okay, Detective. And thanks for talking to me. Bye!”

When Nick put down the phone, he walked into the lieutenant’s office and closed the door. All he intended was to tell him about Grace, to ask him to call Special Victims, boss to boss; either team could work the case, but one of them had to get started. It couldn’t float in administrative no-man’s-land for another day. The lieutenant looked at him, then closed the blinds of the single window, so the rest of the squad couldn’t see the conversation. As the blinds went down, Nick saw Esposito pick
up his coat, tap Napolitano on the shoulder, and head for the door. Napolitano hurried behind. Nick was confused by the reaction, at first, then embarrassed. When someone went for a private conference with the lieutenant, it usually meant that there was a complaint to be made, an accusation that required the attention of the chain of command. This wasn’t what Nick had intended, but he wasn’t inclined to offer reassurance. What would he tell Esposito?
If I give you up, it won’t look like this. You won’t see it coming
. Lieutenant Ortiz took his seat and leaned across his desk, folding his hands, cracking his knuckles. From the lieutenant’s pained, concerned expression, Nick saw the second misapprehension. His partner thought he was a rat, and now his boss was afraid he might kill himself. He could not object to the substance of the accusations, only their timing, their relevance to the issue at hand.

“Are you all right, Nick? If you need to talk, I’m glad … you’re talking.”

“Are you kidding me? No, Lou. This is what I got….”

When Nick told him, he could see that the lieutenant was intrigued and relieved at the same time. He said he’d make a call, find out what was happening. Nick went back out and found the men staring intently at him, as if he were about to commence the reading of a will. Was Esposito in Mexico yet? He and Nick were now doubly divided, over the Cole machinations and Daysi. One was a major crime, the other a sneaky little indiscretion, but Nick wasn’t sure which troubled him more. Yes, he was. He thought about calling Esposito, then held back. He went to his desk and sat down.

Garelick studied him before he ventured conversation, cautious in his approach. “It’s supposed to snow tomorrow. Tough trip in for me. You, I guess it won’t matter. You want coffee, Nick? I’ll make a fresh pot….”