Tell No One (19 page)

Had to move.

But where?

My eyes started adjusting to the dark, enough to see shadowy shapes anyway. Boxes were stacked haphazardly. There were piles of rags, a few barstools, a broken mirror. I caught my reflection in the glass and almost jumped back at the sight. There was a gash on my forehead. My pants were ripped in both knees. My shirt was tattered like the Incredible Hulk’s. I was smeared with enough soot to work as a chimney sweep.

Where to go?

A staircase. There had to be a staircase down here somewhere. I felt my way forward, moving in a sort of spastic dance, leading with my left leg as though it were a white cane. My foot crunched over some broken glass. I kept moving.

I heard what I thought was a mumbling noise, and a giant rag pile rose in my path. What could have been a hand reached out to me like something from a grave. I bit back a scream.

“Himmler likes tuna steaks!” he shouted at me.

The man—yes, I could see now it was clearly a man—started to stand. He was tall and black and he had a beard so white-gray and woolly it looked as though he might be eating a sheep.

“You hear me?” the man shouted. “You hear what I’m telling you?”

He stepped toward me. I shrunk back.

“Himmler! He likes tuna steaks!”

The bearded man was clearly displeased about something. He made a fist and aimed it at me. I stepped to the side without thought. His fist traveled past me with enough momentum—or maybe enough drink—to make him topple over. He fell on his face. I didn’t bother to wait. I found the staircase and ran up.

The door was locked.

“Himmler!”

He was loud, too loud. I pressed against the door. No go.

“You hear me? You hear what I’m saying?”

I heard a creak. I glanced behind me and saw something that struck fear straight into my heart.

Sunlight.

Someone had pulled open the same storm door I’d come in from.

“Who’s down there?”

A voice of authority. A flashlight started dancing around the floor. It reached the bearded man.

“Himmler likes tuna steaks!”

“That you yelling, old man?”

“You hear me?”

I used my shoulder against the door, putting everything I had behind it. The doorjamb started to crack. Elizabeth’s image popped up—the one I’d seen on the computer—her arm raised, her eyes beckoning. I pushed a little harder.

The door gave way.

I fell out onto the ground floor, not far from the building’s front door.

Now what?

Other cops were close by—I could still hear the radio static—and one of them was still interviewing Himmler’s biographer. I didn’t have much time. I needed help.

But from where?

I couldn’t call Shauna. The police would be all over her. Same with Linda. Hester would insist I surrender.

Someone was opening the front door.

I ran down the corridor. The floor was linoleum and filthy. The doors were all metal and closed. The motif was chipped paint. I banged open a fire door and headed up the stairwell. At the third floor, I got out.

An old woman stood in the corridor.

She was, I was surprised to see, white. My guess was that she’d probably heard the commotion and stepped out to see what was going on. I stopped short. She stood far enough away from her open door that I could get past her.…

Would I? Would I go that length to get away?

I looked at her. She looked at me. Then she took out a gun.

Oh, Christ …

“What do you want?” she asked.

And I found myself answering: “May I please use your phone?”

She didn’t miss a beat. “Twenty bucks.”

I reached into my wallet and plucked out the cash. The old lady nodded and let me in. The apartment was tiny and well kept. There was lace on all the upholstery and on the dark wood tables.

“Over there,” she said.

The phone was rotary dial. I jammed my finger into the little holes. Funny thing. I had never called this
number before—had never wanted to—but I knew it by heart. Psychiatrists would probably have a field day with that one. I finished dialing and waited.

Two rings later, a voice said, “Yo.”

“Tyrese? It’s Dr. Beck. I need your help.”

S
hauna shook her head. “Beck hurt someone? That’s not possible.”

Assistant D.A. Fein’s vein started fluttering again. He stepped toward her until his face was right up against hers. “He attacked a police officer in an alley. He probably broke the man’s jaw and a couple of ribs.” Fein leaned a little closer, his spittle landing on Shauna’s cheeks. “You hear what I’m telling you?”

“I hear you,” Shauna said. “Now step back, Breath Boy, or I’ll knee your balls into your throat.”

Fein stayed in place for a screw-you second before turning away. Hester Crimstein did likewise. She started heading back toward Broadway. Shauna chased her.

“Where are you going?”

“I quit,” Hester said.

“What?”

“Find him another lawyer, Shauna.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I am.”

“You can’t just walk out on him.”

“Watch me.”

“It’s prejudicial.”

“I gave them my word he’d surrender,” she said.

“Screw your word. Beck’s the priority here, not you.”

“To you maybe.”

“You’re putting yourself before a client?”

“I won’t work with a man who’d do something like that.”

“Who are you kidding? You’ve defended serial rapists.”

She waved a hand. “I’m out of here.”

“You’re just a goddamn media-hound hypocrite.”

“Ouch, Shauna.”

“I’ll go to them.”

“What?”

“I’ll go to the media.”

Hester stopped. “And say what? That I walked away from a dishonest murderer? Great, go ahead. I’ll leak so much shit about Beck, he’ll make Jeffrey Dahmer look like a good dating prospect.”

“You have nothing to leak,” Shauna said.

Hester shrugged. “Never stopped me before.”

The two women glared. Neither looked away.

“You may think my reputation is irrelevant,” Hester said, her voice suddenly soft. “But it’s not. If the D.A.’s office can’t rely on my word, I’m useless to my other clients. I’m also useless to Beck. It’s that simple. I won’t let my practice—and my clients—go down the tubes because your boy acted erratically.”

Shauna shook her head. “Just get out my face.”

“One more thing.”

“What?”

“Innocent men don’t run, Shauna. Your boy Beck? Hundred to one he killed Rebecca Schayes.”

“You’re on,” Shauna said. “And one more thing for you too, Hester. You say one word against Beck, and they’ll need a soup ladle to bury your remains. We clear?”

Hester didn’t reply. She took another step away from Shauna. And that was when the gunfire ripped through the air.

I was in mid-crouch, crawling down a rusted fire escape, when the sound of the gunfire nearly made me topple over. I flattened myself on the grated walk and waited.

More gunfire.

I heard shouts. I should have expected this, but it still packed a wallop. Tyrese told me to climb out here and wait for him. I had wondered how he planned on getting me out. Now I was getting some idea.

A diversion.

In the distance, I heard someone shouting, “White boy shooting up the place!” Then another voice: “White boy with a gun! White boy with a gun!”

More gunfire. But—and I strained my ears—no more police radio static. I stayed low and tried not to think much. My brain, it seemed, had short-circuited. Three days ago, I was a dedicated doctor sleepwalking through my own life. Since then, I had seen a ghost, gotten emails from the dead, had become a suspect in not one but two murders, was on the run from the
law, had assaulted a police officer, and had enlisted the aid of a known drug dealer.

Heck of a seventy-two hours.

I almost laughed.

“Yo, Doc.”

I looked down. Tyrese was there. So was another black man, early twenties, only slightly smaller than this building. The big man peered up at me with those sleek up-yours sunglasses that fit perfectly with his deadened facial expression.

“Come on, Doc. Let’s roll.”

I ran down the fire escape stairs. Tyrese kept glancing left and right. The big guy stood perfectly still, his arms folded across his chest in what we used to call the buffalo stance. I hesitated before the last ladder, trying to figure out how to release it so I could reach the ground.

“Yo, Doc, lever on the left.”

I found it, pulled, and the ladder slid down. When I reached the bottom, Tyrese made a face and waved his hand in front of his nose. “You ripe, Doc.”

“I didn’t have a chance to shower, sorry.”

“This way.”

Tyrese did a quick-walk through the back lot. I followed, having to do a little run to keep up. The big man glided behind us in silence. He never moved his head left or right, but I still got the impression he didn’t miss much.

A black BMW with tinted windows, a complicated antenna, and a chain frame on the back license plate was running. The doors were all closed, but I could feel the rap music. The bass vibrated in my chest like a tuning fork.

“The car,” I said with a frown. “Isn’t it kind of conspicuous?”

“If you five-oh and you looking for a lily-white doctor, where would be the last place you look?”

He had a point.

The big guy opened the back door. The music blared at the volume of a Black Sabbath concert. Tyrese extended his arm doorman-style. I got in. He slid next to me. The big guy bent into the driver’s seat.

I couldn’t understand much of what the rapper on the CD was saying, but he was clearly pissed off with “da man.” I suddenly understood.

“This here is Brutus,” Tyrese said.

He meant the big-guy driver. I tried to catch his eye in the rearview mirror, but I couldn’t see them through the sunglasses.

“Nice to meet you,” I said.

Brutus didn’t respond.

I turned my attention back to Tyrese. “How did you pull this off?”

“Coupla my boys are doing some shooting down a Hundred Forty-seventh Street.”

“Won’t the cops find them?”

Tyrese snorted. “Yeah, right.”

“It’s that easy?”

“From there, yeah, it’s easy. We got this place, see, in Building Five at Hobart Houses. I give the tenants ten bucks a month to stick their garbage in front of the back doors. Blocks it up, see. Cops can’t get through. Good place to conduct bidness. So my boys, they pop off some shots from the windows, you know what I’m saying. By the time the cops get through, poof, they gone.”

“And who was yelling about a white man with a gun?”

“Couple other of my boys. They just running down the street yelling about a crazy white man.”

“Theoretically, me,” I said.

“Theoretically,” Tyrese repeated with a smile. “That’s a nice big word, Doc.”

I laid my head back. Fatigue settled down hard on my bones. Brutus drove east. He crossed that blue bridge by Yankee Stadium—I’d never learned the bridge’s name—and that meant we were in the Bronx. For a while I slumped down in case someone peered into the car, but then I remembered that the windows were tinted. I looked out.

The area was ugly as all hell, like one of those scenes you see in apocalyptic movies after the bomb detonates. There were patches of what might have once been buildings, all in various states of decay. Structures had crumbled, yes, but as though from within, as though the supporting innards had been eaten away.

We drove a little while. I tried to get a grip on what was going on, but my brain kept throwing up roadblocks. Part of me recognized that I was in something approaching shock; the rest of me wouldn’t allow me even to consider it. I concentrated on my surroundings. As we drove a little more—as we dove deeper into the decay—the habitable dwellings dwindled. Though we were probably less than a couple of miles from the clinic, I had no idea where we were. Still the Bronx, I guessed. South Bronx probably.

Worn tires and ripped mattresses lay like war wounded in the middle of the road. Big chunks of cement peeked out from the high grass. There were stripped cars and while there were no fires burning, maybe there should have been.

“You come here much, Doc?” Tyrese said with a small chuckle.

I didn’t bother responding.

Brutus pulled the car to a stop in front of yet another condemned building. A chain-link fence encircled the sad edifice. The windows had been boarded over with plywood. I could see a piece of paper glued to the door, probably a demolition warning. The door, too, was plywood. I saw it open. A man stumbled out, raising both hands to shield his eyes from the sun, staggering like Dracula under its onslaught.

My world kept swirling.

“Let’s go,” Tyrese said.

Brutus was out of the car first. He opened the door for me. I thanked him. Brutus stuck with the stoic. He had the kind of cigar-store-Indian face you couldn’t imagine—and probably wouldn’t ever want to see—smiling.

On the right, the chain-link had been clipped and pulled back. We crouched through. The stumbling man approached Tyrese. Brutus stiffened, but Tyrese waved him down. The stumbling man and Tyrese greeted each other warmly and performed a complicated handshake. Then they went their separate ways.

“Come in,” Tyrese said to me.

I ducked inside, my mind still numb. The stench came first, the acid smells of urine and the never-mistaken stink of fecal matter. Something was burning—I think I knew what—and the damp yellow odor of sweat seemed to be coming from the walls. But there was something else here. The smell, not of death, but of predeath, like gangrene, like something dying and decomposing while still breathing.

The stifling heat was of the blast furnace variety. Human beings—maybe fifty of them, maybe a hundred—littered
the floor like losing stubs at an OTB. It was dark inside. There seemed to be no electricity, no running water, no furniture of any sort. Wood planks blocked out most of the sun, the only illumination coming through cracks where the sun sliced through like a reaper’s scythe. You could make out shadows and shapes and little more.

I admit to being naïve about the drug scene. In the emergency room, I’d seen the results plenty of times. But drugs never interested me personally. Booze was my poison of choice, I guess. Still, enough stimuli were getting through that even I could deduce that we were in a crack house.