The Syndrome (11 page)

And then, the doorman calling from the kitchen—“Got it!” Suddenly, the lights flashed on, and a lonely trumpet accelerated from 0 to 80 decibels in half a second, pealing through the now bright air above where Nikki lay, drowned and burned in a tub of gray water. Eyes wide in a look of mild surprise.

The moths rose up in her stomach—even as the world fell away from her feet, and Adrienne, sinking, felt a flash of pain at the side of her head. And then it was dark again.

*    *    *

When she awoke, a policeman was sitting in a chair at her side, talking quietly into a cell phone. The lights were on. Her head was pounding. And she was lying on a couch, with a pillow under her feet.

“Hey,” she said, complaining and entreating, all at once. Leaning on an elbow, she sat up. Slowly.

“You hit your head when you fainted,” the cop explained.

Fainted? What ‘fainted’? She’d been standing in—the bathroom. Suddenly, she remembered the long, peeling jazz horn, and the image of her sister’s eyes flashed before her own. A sob rose in her throat.

“There was nothing anyone could do,” the cop told her. “It must have been instantaneous.”

She made a noise somewhere between a groan and a whimper. Her head dropped into her hands, and the tears rolled.

“The doorman called 911. My partner and I were just up the street.”

For the first time, she noticed a second policeman standing near the doorway, talking quietly with Ramon.

“The M.E.’s on the way,” the cop added. “And an ambulance. Though …”

The M.E.
, Adrienne thought, turning the initials over in her mind.
The Medical Examiner.
Once again, the image of her sister flashed before her eyes. She was lying in the tub, up to her neck in the ice-cold water. With an appliance—a radio or something—in the water between her legs.

She had to get her out of there.

The blood drained from her head as she got to her feet and stood, suddenly dizzy, swaying on her feet, head pounding like the bass drum in a high school band. She felt the policeman’s hand on her arm. “We have to get her out of there,” she said, and took a step toward the bathroom.

“No.” Ever so gently, he sat her down on the couch.

“She’s cold!” Adrienne sobbed.

“No, she’s not cold. She’s—” The policeman looked wildly
around, as if to find someone who could help him explain. But there was no one else. “She’s okay now,” he said. “Whatever it was, she isn’t hurting anymore.”

Adrienne awoke in her own apartment, a little after dawn. To her surprise, she was still dressed and lying on top of the covers on her bed. Just before her eyes opened, she remembered …

Getting to her feet, she went into the kitchen and made a cup of strong coffee with the plastic cone and paper filters that she used. Sitting down at the kitchen table, she thought,
That’s it. There isn’t anyone else. Now, I’m really an orphan.
Tears welled up in her eyes, and she blinked them back, almost angrily.
Who are you sorry for?
she wondered.
Yourself or Nikki?
Then she sipped her coffee and looked at the clock. 6:02. The first gray light of morning.

Her head hurt from where she’d fallen, banging it against her sister’s sink. She supposed she was still in shock, and wondered what she was supposed to do.
Make a list
, she told herself. She was big at making lists and, anyway, that’s what lawyers always did in a crisis: they made lists. Removing a pen from a Hoya’s mug beside the telephone, she found a pad of Post-its, and began to write:

1. Funeral Home

The medical examiner had said there would be an autopsy—probably in the morning. He’d given her his business card, and told her to call that afternoon. Unless something unforeseen arose, they’d release “the remains” later that day. So she’d need to find one.

2. Call the M.E.

3. She hesitated. What was 3.? Then it occurred to her that 3. was the shrink who’d killed her sister.
Duran
—that was his name.
Jeffrey Duran.

But, no. She’d deal with
that
son of a bitch later. There were more immediate priorities than revenge. So 3. was
something else. Like, a memorial service. She sipped her coffee, and wondered what Nikki would have wanted. And then she remembered: a funeral barge, piled high with flowers. They’d talked about it once, half-joking, and that’s what she wanted: a burial at sea.

Adrienne sighed. Some kind of service, something simple, but—who should she call? There weren’t any other relatives. Just her. Her and Jack.

Jesus Christ
, she thought.
Jack!

There was a key to Nikki’s apartment hanging from a hook under the cabinet next to the sink, where she liked to keep her keys so that she’d never have to look for them.
The poor dog!
Adrienne thought.
What about him? What’s going to happen to him?

She left her apartment at 6:35, and walked east on Lamont toward 16th Street, where she could expect to find a cab. The day was brightening now, as early risers came out of Heller’s Bakery, attaché cases in one hand, cups of coffee in the other. Half a dozen people waited at the bus stop, while a ragged Hispanic man snored in the doorway of Ernesto’s Taquería.

It took her a while to hail a cab, but the ride was a quick one, with the cabbie heading west on Porter, then south on Wisconsin to M. She got out in front of the Watermill, half expecting to find a fleet of squad cars, but there was nothing unusual to mark her sister’s death. Just people leaving for work, oblivious to the tragedy of the night before.

She didn’t know the doorman on the morning shift but it didn’t matter. He was reading the sports section of the
Post
, and merely nodded to her as she passed. The elevator doors opened with a cheerful
ding.
And then she was on the third floor, walking down the silent corridor toward her sister’s apartment.

She had almost expected the doorway to be crisscrossed with yellow police tape. But there was nothing. Just the door itself—and her, standing in front of it, looking blank. Only a few hours earlier, they’d carried her sister out on a gurney, her
body covered by a sheet. She remembered the water dripping on the floor, a little trail from the bathroom to the front door, but it was gone now. Evaporated. Like Nikki.

She fumbled in her purse for the key and, finding it, opened the door. Standing on the couch, the dog unleashed a stuttering bark that seemed to go on and on, half-warning, half-howl. “Jaa-ck,” she said, kneeling to scratch behind his ear as he wiggled over to her side. “Where’s your leash?” she asked. “Where’d it go?”

Jack cocked his head, and looked insane, his stubby little tail quivering at attention.

She tried to think where Nikki would put it. There was a closet a few feet from the door, and she opened it. Looked inside. A couple of coats, hanging from hooks. An armload of dry cleaning, still in its plastic bags. A couple of belts. Her sister’s Rollerblades.
Things. There were so many things. So many … personal effects.
For the first time, it occurred to Adrienne that she would have to do something with it all. The furniture, the clothes, the skates …

Maybe the leash was in the kitchen.

Crossing the living room, she went into the kitchen and glanced around. No leash. No dirty dishes. Nothing. If anything, the room was a lot tidier than usual, as if Nikki had cleaned up before she’d killed herself. Even the refrigerator door, a sort of tchotchke art gallery, was empty. Or almost so. There was an envelope pressed to its surface by a magnetized effigy of Tanqueray gin. And Adrienne’s name was on it in big, block letters.

Removing the magnet, she took the envelope to the counter in the middle of the room, and sat down with it in front of her, fearful of her sister’s last words. After what seemed a long time, she opened the letter, and with a sigh, saw that her fears had been groundless. The envelope contained her sister’s last will and testament, a potted document that she’d downloaded from the Internet. Across the top was a four-color, banner-ad with the words:

Beneath that was the declaration that

She didn’t want to read it now, though she saw at a glance that she’d been named her sister’s executor. Which wasn’t surprising. Who else did Nikki have?

Who, indeed?

There must be an address book, somewhere
, Adrienne thought. A Filofax or PalmPilot, some way for Adrienne to get in touch with Nikki’s friends (if she had any). Maybe she kept it on her laptop, Adrienne thought.

A cold nose nuzzled her ankle, reminding her of the missing leash. Getting to her feet, Adrienne returned through the living room to her sister’s bedroom—which, like the kitchen, was quite tidy: bed made, clothes put away. Going over to the closet, she opened the door to see if the leash was hanging there, and her eye was immediately caught by a lime-green, plastic case that she’d never seen before.

Too big for a laptop, and too small for a guitar, the case was rectangular without being square. Curious, she hefted it and was surprised by its weight.
Camera equipment?
Removing the case from the closet, she carried it to the bed and set it down. A pair of combination locks flanked the carrying handle, but they were no obstacle at all. Nikki bragged about using the same combination on everything, one she’d never forget: 0211, her birthdate. Or, if it was a computer password, 021170, which was just the same, but with the year.

Adrienne spun the little brass wheels until the numbers matched on either side of the handle, then sprung the locks, and opened the case.

What she found was so unexpected, and so strange, that it took her breath away. Parts of a gun—a rifle of some kind—lay in foamed compartments that seemed to have been specially made for it. There was a long blue barrel, a matte-black plastic stock, a telescopic lens.

And … nestled into the foam below the scope was a carefully-machined, perforated metal tube, that was threaded at one end. Though she’d never seen one before (except, perhaps, at the movies), she knew at once what it was, or must be: “a silencer.” Almost as a reflex, she slammed the case shut as if to hide its contents, and spun the little wheels of the combination lock. Then she carried the case back to the closet, and put it back where she’d found it.

For the second time in a day, she felt shocked and guilty. Shocked that Nikki had killed herself, and guilty that she hadn’t saved her. Shocked, again, to find a rifle—and not just any rifle, but
such
a rifle—in her sister’s closet. And then the guilt welling up—again—at the recognition of her own prurient curiosity.

She closed the closet door with a sigh.
Stop it
, she said to herself.
No one could have saved Nikki (except, perhaps, her shrink). Nikki was doomed. Had always been doomed. And as for going through her sister’s things, she was supposed to do that. She was the next of kin. The executor. And the only survivor. If not her, who?

But it was so bizarre
, she thought, looking around to see where else the leash might be.
A gun like that … you didn’t buy a gun like that for self-protection. And whatever else Nikki might have been, she certainly wasn’t a hunter, so … it must be someone else’s. But whose?

Returning to the living room, she glanced this way and that, having already decided in the back of her mind that she could substitute a length of cord for the leash. Noticing Nikki’s desk for the first time, she went over to it and, much to her surprise, found what she was looking for in the top drawer. The leash itself. And on the desk, Nikki’s laptop—with, she supposed, an address book in one of its folders.
(Didn’t Microsoft Outlook have some sort of “contact” list?) She’d take it with her when she left.

Closing the desk drawer, she turned toward Jack who suddenly let loose a prolonged and startling bark—then launched himself at the door. To Adrienne’s surprise, she saw the doorknob turn and felt a sizzle of apprehension, followed by a defensive need to explain her presence. At such an early hour. In her sister’s apartment.

The door swung open, and a man loomed in the entrance, then dropped to a squat and clapped his hands as the dog flew at him.
“Tranquilo, Jack, tranquilo!”

Ramon.

Adrienne cleared her throat as the doorman rubbed the dog’s head with his knuckles, talking to it all the time. But he didn’t seem to hear her, and so she raised her voice.

“Hi.”

He looked up, startled to find that he wasn’t alone. Seeing Adrienne, he straightened and, with a look of embarrassment, smiled. “I was worried about the dog,” he told her, closing the door behind him. “I thought maybe I’d feed him, y’know? Take him for a walk …”

Adrienne nodded. “Me, too,” she said.

Ramon shuffled his feet. “Well …” He glanced around, uncertain of what to say. “You’re here, so—”

“I really want to thank you for last night,” Adrienne said. “I—I really lost it.”

Ramon nodded. “It was terrible,” he admitted. “The most terrible thing I’ve ever seen.”

“I know.”

“I’m just the doorman, but—this lady was my friend, y’know? We used to talk sometimes.”

Adrienne nodded.

“So, I guess you’ll have a service—” Ramon suggested.

“I suppose so.”

“And maybe you could let me know?”

“Of course.”

“’Cause I’d like to be there.”

“Okay.”

The doorman stepped toward her and, taking out his wallet, produced a ridiculously expensive business card. In the upper right-hand corner were the masks of tragedy and comedy, embossed in gold. In the middle was his name—
Ramon Gutierrez-Navarro
—and a telephone number.

“I’ll call you,” Adrienne promised. “In fact, that’s one of the reasons I came by. To look for an address book. So I can let her friends know … what happened.”