The Big Fear (26 page)

EPILOGUE

NEW CONSTRUCTION

The coffee was the best part. Locked up, Leonard had missed friendship, he had missed work, he had missed all the little freedoms of his life. But he had missed coffee more than anything. During the six-month program at Moriah Shock, the closest thing to coffee that Leonard had drunk was pale gray and may have been squeezed from the mops. Now, on a bright spring day, he had a rich dark cup from the fancy place by the subway station. The whole neighborhood had changed, it seemed, overnight. Four blocks from Ebbets Field there were artisanal cocktail bars, a store selling clothing for very thin women, and the coffee place. Not even a Starbucks. Local. Fresh. New. The wave of development had swept through Leonard’s neighborhood during the winter he had spent in prison.

The program at Moriah Shock had saved him two and a half years. Leonard’s lawyer knew his way around the system, and everyone understood that Leonard had been a victim as much as anything. But prosecutors aren’t willing to just congratulate you and set you free when there are two dead cops in your wake. It sends the wrong message to everyone else. The lawyer had talked the charges down to trespassing, reckless endangerment, leaving the scene of an accident for what happened with Officer Del Rio. That was the big one. Calling it an accident. The terms of the plea could have capped out at thirty-five months. But if you’re under thirty-six months and you didn’t actually hurt anyone personally, you can swap your term for the six-month program at Moriah Shock—basically a military boot camp on the site of an old mine in Essex County.

It had all been worked out in advance, really. The lawyer had told him about it. You can’t sit down at the mess until there are eight men in order, you have to put your shoes in the same place every night, and you spend most days resurfacing country roads. But it is outdoors mainly and there are no fights. Almost everyone else was in for drugs. A couple of guys who had pled to mail fraud to make sure everyone still knew it was a prison and wasn’t rehab. And Leonard. It had been hard work, but it had been a short stint. Plus, there are worse habits to learn than tucking your sheets in hospital corners.

The feds had taken in Ells, and he was suffering through an interminable investigation by his former colleagues. Leonard had been in and out of the Shock program and the federal prosecutors had yet to tell Ells what precisely he was going to be charged with. And despite Eliot’s prediction, they never had found Veronica.

So on his first day out, he had picked up the coffee and taken it to the park. Lakeside. They had built a whole complex, ice skating in winter, sprinklers for the kids in summer. Adults milled outside with their coffee and croissants and other delectables that hadn’t been on offer in this neighborhood a year ago. On his walk over, Leonard had passed four buildings on their way up. Condos. Fifteen, eighteen, twenty-two stories.

Just past the basin, in the park proper, Leonard saw a heavy man standing by a trash can in a Parks Department uniform. The trash can rattled and clattered; delicate muffin wrappers and other upscale detritus were strewn around the sides. The man was watching something captive inside. Construction stirs up animals underground. Each time a wobbly SRO was torn down to make a new condo, everyone living there had to go find a new place to squat, the people and the vermin alike.

Standing at the edge of the basin, nursing the coffee, Leonard watched the children swarm through some game of tag, cops and robbers, prisoner. After digging ditches and running the obstacle course for six months, Leonard couldn’t settle properly in his suit. It was baggy around the waist and tight in the shoulders.

The man from the Parks Department had found a rake; he held the rake up like a whaler’s harpoon and thrust it down. The sharp shock got the attention of the rest of the parents, who momentarily glanced away from the lights of their lives to see what he was up to. The clattering returned to the can. He’d missed it. The parents turned back to Daisy and Clyde and Lillian, unaware maybe of what the man was hunting, or certain that he would take care of it before it sprang out into the world.

Leonard smiled. The rat was just the first wave. The real New York was on its way back. The garbage strike had just been a preview. Sure, the organized sabotage had played its part, but truth be told, nothing could keep the real city from blossoming out from under the prison that had been built for it. The people of brownstone Brooklyn would have to get used to graffiti and petty crimes and the occasional junkie in a doorway. There had been a stabbing in one of the bars on Flatbush just a week before, and people were beginning to clutch their bags a little tighter on their way to the subway.

Leonard recognized a boy in the crowd. Around five, bright eyes and tousled hair. He didn’t know many kids. But the face, sharper than most, stuck out. A jaw already. A slightly harder look. A little bit less joy in the eyes than the other boys. Running behind the pack as they tried to tackle some imagined monster.

The man from the Parks Department quickly flipped the can over and started banging on the edge. Inside, the sound of plastic thrashing together, tangling upon itself, tearing and rippling as the prisoner scoured for a way out.

Leonard suddenly remembered where he had seen the boy. At bring-your-child-to-work day at DIMAC. It was Christine Davenport’s son. The one whose room he had been through looking for evidence. The one who had fled town at his mother’s advice. Just before she was killed. It explained the sad look behind the bright eyes. Leonard scoured the parents across the basin’s edge. A lithe, frumpy man, holding his own cup of expensive coffee, was staring hard at the boy. Protecting with his gaze, worried that he would lose anything more, after having lost so much already. Davenport’s husband. A professor of something. They had moved out from Manhattan to Brooklyn. A fresh start probably. A new place to live. A little peace and quiet.

Leonard was staring at the father when the man from the Parks Department lifted the trash can, holding a broom and a dustpan as though he would scoop the vermin up. Instead, the thing sprang over his arm and scurried lithely atop the concrete basin and among the children, determined to get back somewhere dark and wet and comfortable. The children parted, screeching, looking for mommy or daddy or the nanny. Only the Davenport boy didn’t leave. The rat too, stopped, just a foot in front of him. The boy stared down silent as the little beast looked up at him, sniffing. The boy lowered his eyes and swatted at the rodent, proving that he wasn’t intimidated and would not be afraid. The animal cowered and turned, fleeing toward a drain or corner or some safe haven from these broad-shouldered beasts.

Leonard looked up from the standoff at the father. He had been watching too. His eyes were wet now, but it was impossible to tell if he was crying with the pain of loss or with pride for his boy. Sensing he was being watched, the man snapped up and met Leonard’s stare. He nodded. The two men watched each other as the scene returned to its ritualized chaos. They both knew that this was only the beginning.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I decided to write this book over the course of two lunches at the Mexican restaurant where the Vinyl Diner used to be on Ninth Avenue: the first with Claire Lundberg and the other with Loren Noveck. Claire and Loren both encouraged me to take the leap from writing plays to writing a book, even though I would bet that at some point over the past four years, listening to me pull my hair out and ask if they would look at just one more draft, each of them wished she hadn’t. They gave sharp notes and strategic counsel and never once complained. I cannot thank them enough.

So many friends read drafts of this book and helped make it better. I am deeply in debt to Tennessee Jones, Jeremiah Grünblatt, Robin Hessman, Jonah Goger, Wade Carper, Alexander Boldizar, Maura Teitelbaum, Amy Wagner, and Andrea Stolowitz, all of whom improved this manuscript immensely. Some of the themes in this book were hashed out more than a decade ago in late-night sessions with Joel Arberman, and I’m in debt to his creative brand of paranoia.

I have also benefited from strategic advice and insight from authors who have been down this path before. Jane Cleland, Joan Sullivan, Jenny McPhee, and Justin Peacock all helped guide me through a new and unfamiliar world. I am additionally grateful to Christian Parker, Nancy Dalin, and Wendy Blum for their helpful comments and support along the way.

None of this would have happened without the efforts of Kim Witherspoon and Monika Woods at InkWell Management, who not only helped guide the book through three more drafts after I thought I was done, but who gave their all for an untested novelist. I am especially grateful to Alison Dasho at Thomas & Mercer for her faith in the book, to Kjersti Egerdahl for shepherding as it continued to grow and change, and to Alan Turkus for his guidance and leadership. Thomas & Mercer has built an extraordinary team: I benefited enormously from Charlotte Herscher’s terrific insights, Jennifer Blanksteen’s attentive eye, and the precision brought by Nicole Pomeroy, Evan Edmisten, and Daniel Born. Mark Ecob designed a cover that beautifully evokes the book. I’m greatly indebted to Jacque Ben-Zekry, Dennelle Catlett, and Sarah Burningham for their work promoting the book, and to Sarah Shaw and Tiffany Pokorny for their support along the way.

Special gratitude goes to those I worked with at New York’s Civilian Complaint Review Board: my experience working with Franklin Stone, Florence Finkle, Shari Hyman, Eric Dorsch, and many others formed the backbone of this book. My parents, Susan and Claude Case, encouraged my creative work but more importantly taught me to look carefully and critically at the world. Most importantly, I want to thank my wife, Claudia Case, for leaping forth with me on this and so many other adventures. Without her love, support, and friendship, I would be nothing.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Photo © 2015 Trevor Williams

Andrew Case is a seasoned playwright and author of the stage plays
The Electric Century
,
Pacific
,
The Rant
, and many others. He has been a member of the New American Writers Group at Primary Stages, a participating playwright at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, and a member of the PEN America Center.

For nearly a decade, he served as an investigator, spokesman, and policy director at the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which investigates allegations of misconduct against New York City Police Department officers. His scholarship on police oversight has appeared in the
Columbia Human Rights Law Review
.

Andrew lives in Flatbush, Brooklyn, with his wife, Claudia, and their two children.
The Big Fear
is his first novel.