Tower: A Novel (17 page)

Put my key in the lock, night falling over my shoulder.

“We’re in love, remember?”

Fuck! I
was
losing it. The weather was getting to me. My redemption was at end. The hauntings were back. Fumbled with the lock. If Nicky could only see me now.

“I’m gonna freeze my tits off if you don’t open that lock!”

Leeza.

Forced myself to turn in spite of the spell.

Eyes had aged, if nothing else. Brightness dimmed. What had they seen? Mouth still dangerous, magical. Coat, hood, and gloves hid the rest of her. I stood frozen, not from the cold. Single tear leaked out of her left eye. Wiped it away. More intense than any kiss.

Twelve years old again. Her too, this time. No pretense in her smile. She was acting, she was pretty fucking good. Didn’t care. We circled my apartment like two tentative boxers feeling each other out.

How’d you find me?

Guessed.

No, really.

Have my ways.

Get you something to drink?

Yes… No. What do you have?

What do you want?

Lawrence Block, huh? When did you start reading this stuff?

Boston.

How’d that go?

You didn’t hear?

Hear what?

Told her about Kathleen, about the men I killed. Told her about Rudi. Realized I’d just confessed premeditated murder to a U.S. Marshal. Bright, huh? At least I hadn’t done it in writing.

Leeza was silent for a moment, weighing it out.

“Good. Hope the lions didn’t get indigestion.”

“Oh, I spread Rudi around. Tigers, snow leopards and cheetahs got some too.”

Her smile made me weak. Vanished. Her turn.

“Remember that Friday night, the call I got before we went out?”

Like asking me if I remembered my own name. Shit, remembered everything about that night. Just said, “Yeah.”

“It was Rick’s C.O.—”

“Rick?”

“My husband.”

“Husband. You’re—”

“Not anymore. Not since that night. His C.O. was calling to let me know he was killed.”

“Killed doing what?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“But—”

“Okay, it’s like this, there was a weird kind of symmetry in my life when I was living with you.”

“What?”

“Jesus, Todd, you can read but can’t you read between the lines?”

“Guess not. I’m sorry anyway.”

“The marriage was already a victim of our choices. We were all over the place, hardly ever saw each other. Love doesn’t sustain you. That’s bullshit. You have to sustain love. When you stop sharing lives the love crumbles. Pining lasted a little while, but it just turned to anger. Everything does.” Sounded like Nicky. “You start resenting even the things you used to find charming. Then there was you.”

“Is this a reading between the lines thing again?”

“I’ll have that drink now,” she said.

“Jack, okay?” Nodded.

Brought it to her. Looked at my other hand.

Puzzled, “You’re drinking beer?”

“Jack and me, we parted ways today.” Explained about Kathleen, Jack and the Red Sox.

“Love her, Kathleen, I mean?”

“Wasn’t about that.”

“It is for me.”

Didn’t speak again until the next morning.

That night in bed, held on tighter than I’ve held onto anything or anyone, our mouths close enough to breathe in each other’s thoughts. Eyes open, the both of us, for fear of slipping away. Rocking inside her, I prayed hard to that attentive God.

Woke up. Still night. The world smelling of Leeza Velez. Understood somehow about symmetry.

“The shadow of the blackbird

Crossed it, to and fro.

The mood

Traced in the shadow

An indecipherable cause.”

—Wallace Stevens,
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

F
ROM THE BENCH ON
the Promenade I looked up at the severe blue skies and out across the river where the towers used to stand and where yet another part of my heart is buried. I’m not sure how many more pieces I can spare. Sometimes I think back to my intro philosophy class at CCNY and the futile exercise of trying to prove a negative. I couldn’t do it then. Can now. This is me pointing across the river.

I have always loved cloudless, blue skies. Like rainy days too, but for me there is proof of God in blue. When I was young and all the other kids speculated about beams of sunlight cutting through the clouds as heaven-bound souls, I knew better. Souls flew on blue days so they could clearly see the welcoming face of God. Nothing has happened to me that has shaken that belief. Yet, even as I sit here, the sun warm on my brown skin, I have to confess that blue skies now come with a caveat. Things other than innocent souls fly on perfect blue days.

There are days I fall into the trap of thinking things could have been different. Sometimes the differences are on a grand scale, like if there had only been fog that morning. Other times it’s on a very personal level like when I wake up wishing Todd had tripped and broken his goddamned leg getting out of the shower that day. All are saved or some are saved, but in the end the calculus is wrong. Nothing was different. Nothing is different. Nothing is going to be different. That’s me pointing across the river, again.

Boyle’s time was at hand. Nick and Todd’s as well. From the second they chose the life, they chose their deaths. I used to talk to the men I guarded about this stuff. A lot of them were not so different than Todd and Nick, guys who, for whatever reason got swept up in the world of violence and easy money. Some were stone killers, Griffin prototypes. They were easier to understand. The guys like Todd and Nick, they never had much to say. It was as if they were at some destination, but vague on how they got there or why they had gone in the first place. The hardcases had no such puzzlements.

Anyway, Boyle had been lost without Griffin. He’d gotten sloppy. In that life, a fish-eyed killer made a better right hand than a battered copy of the Good Book. Boyle had become a blind man wielding a chainsaw who saw neither the forest nor the trees. Lacking Griffin’s sense for which trees needed culling, Boyle laid waste to landscape. Enemies were everywhere. Along with rats like Todd’s Uncle Harry, Boyle’s loyal soldiers were felled. And the case which had been faltering when Nick and Todd had gone their separate ways, was now a big fat federal RICO case.

The shame in all of it was that Boyle’s worthless stinking life was to be spared. In exchange for his testimony and full cooperation, the prick was getting the full Sammy the Bull treatment: a few years in federal prison done in isolation and the rest of his time in Witness Protection. Sometimes you won’t find justice anywhere in this world but in the dictionary.

Both Todd and Nick had been called back to give their depositions and to give testimony against the men Boyle had ratted out. For the most part however, they were there to give credibility to Boyle’s testimony. It had come the full circle. In the end, they were still working for Boyle. Ironic? There was enough irony in the situation to gag on. After Boyle did his federal bid, it would be my employers, the U.S. Marshals that would be protecting his sorry ass. Even now, they had him stowed away in some cheap hump-and-run motel out in Sheepshead Bay.

Nick had been a lot more pleased with his recall than Todd. While Nicky had gone almost mad with the joys of small town Kentucky, Todd and I had settled into a happy life in Milwaukee. I was still on leave from the service and Todd… Well, he was still in limbo. He was a detective, but in name only. No matter what he’d done to bring Boyle and Rudi down, he was still the kid, the cowboy from Kennedy Airport in his heart. Oh yeah, there was this one other detail—I was pregnant, very pregnant.

Todd had pleaded with me to stay at his dad’s house. “Makes my dad happy, watching over you and the kid,” he said, rubbing my belly. “You are the only things that have made him smile in years.”

“I’m coming with you,” I said.

“But—”

“I want to meet Shannon. I’m coming.”

He’d lived with me long enough to recognize I couldn’t be swayed once my heart was set on something. Even I couldn’t do much about it. When we were living together in Philly, I tried to not fall in love with him. I knew it was the wrong thing to do, but it didn’t seem to matter. Then I tried staying away.

The plan was to meet Nick and Shannon for coffee on Chambers Street and then walk down to the Trade Center together. But as Todd kept reminding anyone within earshot, Nick operated on a different schedule than the rest of the known universe.

“There’s Eastern Standard Time, Greenwich Mean Time, and Nick Time. Fuck!” he said, exasperated. “Let’s go.”

As we got near Vescey Street, somebody started yelling, “Hey, Detective Rosen, slow the fuck down.”

Nick was darting through the crowd, a pissed off looking red head trailing a few feet behind. Todd tried to keep going, but I yanked his arm and we stopped.

“Yo, bro, I’ve missed you.” Nick embraced Todd and whatever anger there was melted away.

“Ah fuck, me too. Christ, it’s good to see you, man.”

I introduced myself to Shannon.

“Look at you!” Nicky said, rubbing my belly. I didn’t mind. You get used to it after awhile.

Shannon was more reserved. She hadn’t had the months with Nick that I’d had with Todd. The ground upon which she walked was less stable. And my guess was that as much as she loved her boy, she had to suffer mixed feelings in the presence of a pregnant woman, her heart a jumble of resentment and concern. I didn’t much like how she was looking at Todd. She seemed angry at him somehow, as if she blamed him for taking Nick away from her. I don’t know, maybe I was reading too much into it. She had to know that, in his way, Todd had saved Nick’s life. For that, I suppose, she hugged him fiercely.

Todd checked his watch. “Shit, it’s time we get up there. Come on.”

I gasped in pain. I mean pain like I was shot. Shannon grabbed my arm and held me steady.

“What is it? Todd asked, latching onto my opposite arm.

I’m gonna have a fucking baby right here in the fucking street.
“Nothing.”

Shannon said, “Bullshit! It’s a contraction.”

“I’ll be okay,” I lied. “They’re just Braxton-Hicks contractions, like a false start. I’ve has these on and off for weeks. You guys go on ahead. Get this stuff over with already. I don’t want it hanging over our little boy’s head.”

“Little girl,” Todd disagreed.

“Go!”

“Go!” Shannon seconded. “I’ll take care of her.”

“You sure?”

“She’s in good hands, bro,” Nick said, leaning over to kiss Shannon’s forehead.

“Okay,” Todd agreed, but not eagerly.

I watched until they were swallowed up by the thickening crowds.

“They’re gone, right?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Good, get a fucking cab.”

“Shit!”

Shannon had seen my skirt soaking through and the puddle at my feet.

Ten minutes later, as the cab jerked along West Street, Shannon said something about me looking fully dilated. I was way too busy screaming “Fuck, it hurts!” to remember exactly what she said. The shadow of a giant bird darkened the cab’s windows.

“What’s that noise?” I remember asking that.

The sun warms my face only so much these days and I grow weary of pointing across the river. I never get tired of looking into the depths of the blue sky. One day, I too will float weightlessly to heaven and see God’s eager face. “Come on Nicky, let’s get back to the house.” There had never been any argument. If the baby was a boy, we were going to name him Nick. And Todd was clear that if it was a boy and if we named him Nick, that he would always know why and never have to question who he was.

Thanks to Reed and David, brothers in so many ways.

Thanks to David for believing. To Phil Spitzer and David Hale Smith. To Al Guthrie. To Peter and Ellen. To Rosanne, Kaitlin, and Dylan. To Ken for giving me this chance.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2009 by Ken Bruen & Reed Farrel Coleman

cover design by Jason Gabbert

ISBN 978-1-4804-0594-3

This 2013 edition distributed by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media

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