Specimen Days (17 page)

She went to her cubicle at nine, took her place in the chair still warm from Ed's dedicated ass. She looked over Ed's entries in the log. Three callers who claimed responsibility, all scrupulously red-tagged. Two were variations on the same idea: now you'll all be sorry (no specifics about what we should all be sorry for), and I'm not finished yet; both were vague on the subject of how they'd survived the explosion and lived to make the call. The third said he was a member of something called the Brigade of Enlightenment and that the terror would continue until the U.S. stopped allowing women to murder their unborn children.

Pete stopped by just after nine, nursing his first cup of hot coffee-flavored, sugar-free liquid candy. "How you doing?" he asked.

"Okay."

"Get some sleep?"

"A little."

He stepped into the cubicle, made so bold as to put his hand on her shoulder. She and Pete had maintained an unspoken no-touching rule since that night three months ago when they were both working late, when they'd been exhausted and discouraged enough to duck into the women's room together. Cat still couldn't say why she'd done it, she wasn't remotely interested, and yet mysteriously, unaccountably, she'd been headed to the ladies' and had nodded to him, and before you knew it she was sitting on the sink with her legs wrapped around his unpretty middle-aged ass, he because she'd allowed it, because they'd seemed at that moment like the only two people in the world, because his wife was losing her sight and his only child had become an econut in Latin America, and she because… because Pete's wife was losing her sight and his only child had become an econut in Latin America, because she'd let her own son die and she'd been taking calls for going on twelve hours, because Pete's neck reminded her of her ex-husband's neck, because this place was so ugly and silent and far from everything, because she seemed to have wanted, at that moment, to tear everything apart, to go down, to be as crazy and destructive and irresponsible as the people who called her. She and Pete had never spoken about it. They both knew it would not happen again.

"You sure you feel like working today?" "Entirely sure. Find out anything new?"

"Forensics is saying the kid was thirteen, maybe fourteen, but small for his age. Seems to have been healthy, from what they've found so far."

"I hate this."

"Who doesn't?"

"I don't just mean this. I mean
all
this."

Pete nodded wearily, warily. Cat hesitated. There was an unwritten rule in the unit. No one speculated, ever. No one waxed philosophical. It didn't work that way. No one went moony about the notable increase in callers who were under eighteen and clearly well educated or about the increase in carry-throughs, from one in a thousand to one in 650 over the last five years. No one spun out over the collapse of the family or of civilization at large; no one wondered about atmospheric gases or irradiated food or rays being projected at the earth by hostile aliens. That was the callers' realm.

Cat said, "Sorry. I'm a little tired right now." "Course you are."

She sat up straighter in her chair. "What have they gotten from the wife and kids?" she asked. "Anything?"

"Wife's hysterical. Daughter, too. Son came down from Vermont, real eager beaver, wants to be of service and get to the bottom of all this and etcetera but can't tell us shit. Dad was a decent guy. Coached Little League, paid the bills on time. My opinion? I think the son's having the time of his life."

"What's he doing in Vermont?"

"Special school for underachievers, kids who do more than the usual amount of drugs. Like that."

"That's interesting."

"We're checking into it."

"They've got the tapes in Washington?" she said.

"They do."

"And they'll be in touch?"

"Nobody's gonna nail you for missing a hint this small."

I wasn't supposed to call anyone.
Jesus.

"Unless, of course, they decide they really and truly need someone to nail, and I seem like the best candidate."

"Unlikely. Why worry about it now?"

"Thanks."

"I'll check in with you later."

"You're the best."

She got to work. It was a busy morning, which surprised no one. It always took about twenty-four hours for the callers to man their stations. After a big story hit the news, only the most labile reached immediately for the phone. The majority, the petit bourgeois lunatics, had to mull it over, settle in their own minds just exactly how the event in question belonged to them, and decide that someone in a position of authority ought to know about it. Now they were in full stampede. She got five in her first twenty minutes, three of them so unfocused that even Ed wouldn't have red-tagged them, just a trio of screamers who wanted somebody to know they hadn't seen anything yet, the worst was still to come, Judgment Day was upon us. The fourth was an English guy who wanted to tell her he'd overheard a conversation in the lobby of his building and had come to understand that this incident was part of his neighbor's master plan to bankrupt small businesses in the financial district, sorry, he couldn't leave his neighbor's name or his own name, for fear of reprisals, but given this information, he hoped the police would know how to proceed. The fifth needed to tell her that certain evidence had been planted at the site by white supremacists to implicate the Muslim faith. This one did leave his name: Jesus Mohamed, minister of the Church of Light and Love. He was willing to work with the police in any capacity they required.

She red-tagged the Englishman and Jesus Mohamed, thus setting into motion the inquiries into their lives and natures that would cost taxpayers roughly fifteen grand. She wondered if these people knew, if they had any idea, how much money and muscle they could summon just by making these calls. Better, of course, if they didn't.

Between calls she filed what needed to be filed, wrote her follow-ups, checked the mail, which was for the most part unremarkable: a half-dozen threats and one hex, written variously by hand, on a computer, and on what appeared to be a manual typewriter. The letters about the explosion wouldn't arrive until tomorrow. The day began to establish its momentum; it started feeling ordinary. This would pass, wouldn't it? The kid would turn out to have been Dick Harte's sex toy, or he would turn out to have been regular crazy (the new regular crazy), a friendless and universally bullied weirdo who'd been obsessed with computer games since before he knew how to walk. It was what else
could
it be? another disaster in a disaster-prone world, tragic but unavoidable. Life would go on.

The call came a little before ten-thirty. It was patched directly to her caller had asked for Cat Martin. She figured it was one of her regulars. She had a handful who called at least once a week, and twice that many who called sporadically, when they went off their medication or the moon was full or the papers (they were readers, these people) had featured something doomish that could conceivably have been somebody's fault. Antoine always called about anything that inconvenienced commuters (automotive industry's conspiracy to eliminate mass transit); Billy could be counted on whenever anything appeared about hostile conditions on other planets (ongoing attempt to disguise the fact that the aliens have been here for decades and are being tortured in government internment camps). Antoine and Billy and the others had been checked out long ago. Antoine lived on monthly disability in a rathole in Hell's Kitchen; Billy was a sanitation worker on Staten Island. The regulars tended to love patterns. They scanned the news every day for further evidence. She couldn't blame them, not really. Who didn't want more patterns?

She picked up. "This is Cat Martin."

"Hello?"

Adolescent white boy. Her synapses snapped.

"Hello. What can I do for you?"

"Did you talk to my brother?"

Cat pushed the green button. The readout was a 212 area code.

"Who's your brother?" "He told me he called you."

No, not adolescent. This kid sounded young, nine or ten. His voice was serene, even a bit aphasic. Drugs, probably. A few of his mother's OxyContins.

"What's your name?"

"Did you talk to him? I'm sorry, but I need to know."

"When would he have called?"

"Last week. Tuesday."

Shit. This was something.

"I'd have to check the records. Can you tell me his name?"

"We're in the family. We don't have names."

Keep him talking. Give the guys as much time as you can.

"What family are you in?" she said.

"He told me he talked to you. I just want to make sure."

"Are you in trouble? Can you let me help you?"

"I was wondering. Can you tell me what he told you?"

"If somebody's hurting you, I can make them stop."

No, no statements. Phrase everything as a question. Keep him answering.

"I didn't know."

"What didn't you know?"

"I thought he was just going to put the bomb somewhere and run."

"Can you tell me about the bomb?"

"Did you tell him not to do it?"

"Who's your brother? What do you think he did?"

"I shouldn't have called. I'm just scared. Sorry."

"Won't you tell me what you're afraid of? Won't you let me help you?"

"That's nice of you. But you can't." "Yes. I can." "Are you happy?"

What
the fuck?
No one had ever asked her that particular question.

Cat said, "I think you're
un
happy. Is somebody making you do something you don't want to do?"

"You'd do the same thing. Wouldn't you?" "What is it you think you and I would do?"

"We're all the same person. We all want the same things."

"Can you let me come meet you? Don't you think we should talk in person?"

"Nobody really dies. We go on in the grass. We go on in the trees."

He was spinning out. Cat kept her voice calm.

"Why do you think that?"

"Every atom of mine belongs to you, too."

Click.

She paused a moment, to be absolutely sure he was gone. By the time she'd risen from her chair, Pete was in her cubicle.

"Fucking A," he said. "What the hell?
Brothers?"

"He was on a pay phone. Way the hell up in Washington Heights."

"Are they there yet?" "On their way."

"Mm."

"There's that line again. 'We're in the family.'"

"Is it from some rock band?"

"Not that we can find. We're still on it."

"They're checking movies, TV shows?"

"They are, Cat. They're good at this."

"Right."

"What was that he said at the end?"

"I'm not quite sure. I think it was from Whitman."

"Say what?"

"I think it was a line from Walt Whitman.
Leaves of Grass."

"Poetry?"

"That would be poetry, yes."

"Fuck me. I'll check in with you later," he said. "Right."

Pete barreled off. Cat had to stay put in case of a callback. No other calls for her unless she was specifically asked for.

Thirty minutes passed. This was part of what she hadn't expected the downtime, the hanging around. When she went into police work she'd seen herself careening around in unmarked cars or touching down in helicopters. She hadn't anticipated so much waiting by the phone. She hadn't pictured a life that would so closely resemble working for a corporation, dutifully performing her little piece of it all.

Every atom of mine belongs to you, too.
That wasn't quite right, but it was close enough. A kid who quoted Whitman? Cat was probably the only department member who'd recognize it; she was without question the only one on the premises who'd read Winnicott and Klein, Whitman and Dostoyevsky. For all the difference it made.

Did you talk to my brother?
Jesus fucking Christ. One kid self-detonates and his little brother calls to check up on him. A picture was emerging there was that, at least. A missing kid with a younger brother-assuming it was true, and who knew? would be much easier to track down. Were they the sons of cultists? That was more of a rural thing, messianics who raised children deep in the woods, taught them to hate the sinful world, and congratulated themselves for doing God's work. It was more Idaho or Montana, these righteously murderous families who'd gone off the grid. But the five boroughs had their share, too. Hadn't they just arrested a guy who'd been keeping an adult tiger and a full-grown alligator in his one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn? They were everywhere.

She could have kissed Pete when he finally returned. "What's up?" she said.

"Phone's on the corner of St. Nicholas and 176th. Out of the way. No kid on the scene, no witnesses yet."

"Shit."

"You're okay?"

"Yeah."

"I'll check back again soon."

"Thanks."

She was sequestered now. She was bound to her cubicle, on the off chance of a callback. Momma is waiting. Call her. She'll never leave you alone.

The morning passed. Cat did some filing, caught up on her e-mails. She had one caller, at eleven forty-five, asking for Cat Martin, and her short hairs stood up, but it was just Greta, her only female regular, calling to tell her that the explosion had been caused by the unquiet spirit of a slave girl who'd been murdered on the site in 1803 and that the only way to appease her was to go there immediately and perform the rite of extreme unction. Greta lived on Orchard Street, had been a seamstress for more than fifty years, had eight grandchildren, was probably a nice person.

We all want the same things.
She kept hearing the kid's high-pitched, tentative voice, his strange courtliness. There was how to put it an innocence about him. Subject matter aside, he had sounded for all the world like a decent, ordinary kid. That was probably drugs, though. Or dissociation.