I Am God

by Giorgio Faletti

  Vivien stood up, glad to do so. As they left the office they heard Bellew’s voice: he was already on the phone, getting them what he had promised.

  They walked downstairs. Russell was in front of her, and Vivien could smell his eau de cologne. She remembered his lips in the hollow of her elbow and his hand in her hair. Then she remembered the blinding flash and the thunderous sound that had abruptly pulled them out of the time and space they had carved out for themselves.

  After the blast they had dressed quickly, saying nothing. They had gone into the living room and switched on the TV. After a few minutes’ wait, Channel One had interrupted its broadcasts with news of the attack. They had continued hopping from one channel to another as the news was updated minute to minute. The magic there had been between them had vanished, lost in the flames now leaping on the TV screen.

  Bellew had sent them a text. A few words only: 7.30 tomorrow in my office.

  There wasn’t much more to say. Both she and the captain knew there was nothing they could do right now, except wait a few hours. The night had ended and the light through the windows had surprised her and Russell sitting on the couch, concerned and incredulous, close without touching, as if what they were seeing could come out of the screen and contaminate them.

  As she descended the stairs, responsibility gripped her chest. The lives of so many people depended on her, on what she would do in the next few hours. It made her a little dizzy, and she was happy to reach the bottom of the stairs.

  As soon as he saw her come through the door, a uniformed officer held a sheet of paper out to her.

  ‘Here it is, detective. It’s a cell number, if that’s OK. The man’s name is Chuck Newborn and he’s working on a big site in Madison Square Park.’

  Vivien was grateful to code RFL, which was making everything move at a speed she wasn’t accustomed to.

  They left the precinct house and walked to Vivien’s car. Silently they climbed in, both lost in their thoughts. After switching on the engine but before heading out, Vivien gave voice to hers.

  ‘Russell, about last night …’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I just wanted to say that I …’

  ‘I know. That you don’t want complications.’

  That wasn’t what Vivien had meant to say. But Russell’s words and detached tone brought her up short, on the threshold of a place she could enter only if she was invited in.

  ‘That’s fine by me,’ he went on.

  She turned to look at him but saw only the back of his head. Russell was looking intently out the window on his side. By the time he turned back to look at her, he was back in the present.

  ‘Traffic’s pretty heavy.’

  Vivien put off any response to what he had said earlier in favour of more urgent priorities. ‘Now you’ll see how useful is to be a police officer.’

  She took the flashing lamp and put it on the roof. The Volvo pulled away from the kerb and set off at speed.

  They reached Madison Square Park after going west along 23rd street at a speed that had left Russell stunned.

  ‘You’ll have to lend me that gadget sometime.’

  He had gone back to being the way Vivien had known him at the beginning. Ironic and detached, friendly and at the same time distant. She had to admit, with a touch of resentment towards herself, that the previous night had been a mistake, never to be repeated.

  ‘When this is all over, I’ll buy you a police car.’

  They immediately saw the place they were looking for. To their left, facing the park, was a building under construction, not so high as to be called a true skyscraper, but with enough storeys to be imposing. There was all the activity of an anthill, in the swinging of cranes and the bustle of men with their coloured hard hats on the scaffolding.

  Russell looked around. ‘It’s a recurring number. Everything seems to be happening on this street.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He gestured to a point behind her. ‘We’re on 23rd street. Sparrow’s body was found on this street, only further east.’

  Vivien would have liked to reply that in her work that kind of synchronicity was much more common than in the plots of movies. Most investigations stood or fell by the whims of fate and the thoughtlessness of human beings.

  They parked the Volvo in front of the site. A worker wearing a yellow hard hat turned to them and protested, ‘Hey, you can’t park here.’

  Vivien approached and flashed her shield. ‘I’m looking for Mr Newborn. Chuck Newborn.’

  The worker pointed to a sheet-metal hut on the left-hand side of the building, near a large embossed terrace on the third floor. ‘You’ll find him in his office.’

  Vivien led Russell towards the temporary white-painted construction. The door was open. They climbed the steps and found themselves in a room that was bare except for a desk and a chair. Two men were bent over the desk, studying a plan.

  One of the two looked up. ‘Can I do something for you?’

  Vivien approached the desk. ‘Mr Chuck Newborn?’

  ‘Yes, that’s me.’

  He was a tall, bulky man in his early thirties, with sparse hair and clear eyes and the hands of someone who never shirks away from heavy work. He was wearing a worker’s reflecting jacket over a denim jacket.

  Vivien flashed her shield again. ‘I’m Detective Light, 13th Precinct. This is Russell Wade. Can we talk to you for a moment?’

  The man looked both puzzled and slightly alarmed. ‘Sure.’

  Vivien decided to underline the nature of the interview. ‘Alone.’

  Chuck Newborn turned to his companion, a thin, indolent-looking man. ‘Tom, go check that concrete.’

  Aware of being superfluous, the man called Tom picked up his hard hat and left without a word. Vivien was sure he considered her and Russell only a glitch in his day’s work. Newborn folded the plan and stood waiting on the other side of the desk.

  Vivien came straight to the point. ‘Have you been working for Newborn Brothers for a long time?’

  ‘Since I was a boy. My father and my uncle started the business, and I started working here when I was eighteen. My cousin arrived straight after college. He’s in charge of administration. Now the old guys have retired and the two of us run the business.’

  ‘Were you around when Major Mistnick’s house on Long Island was built?’

  In Chuck Newborn’s mind alarm bells must have gone off. He didn’t have to search long and hard in his memory to know what the detective was talking about. ‘Yes. A weird business. A year later—’

  ‘—the house blew up.’

  The man raised his hands. ‘There was an investigation. The police questioned us. We were cleared of any wrongdoing.’

  ‘I know, Mr Newborn. I’m not accusing you of anything. I’d just like to ask you a few questions concerning that period.’

  She gave Newborn a few moments to calm down before continuing with her questioning. ‘Do you remember if a man named Mitch Sparrow worked on that site?’

  ‘The name sounds familiar, but I can’t put a face to it.’

  Vivien showed him the photograph she had been given by Carmen Montesa. Even before the man spoke, the expression on his face made it clear that his memory had been jogged.

  ‘Oh, him. Of course. He was a good guy. Crazy about bikes, but a good worker.’

  ‘You’re sure about that?’

  He shrugged. ‘In those days, Newborn Brothers wasn’t how it is now. We dealt mostly with renovations and small buildings. We didn’t have so many workers. They were great days, and I remember them well.’

  The man made no mention of his former worker’s disappearance. Vivien suspected he didn’t know about it. She preferred not to add a new element to the interview for the moment.

  ‘As far as you were aware, did Sparrow have any particular friends, anyone he spent a lot of time with?’

  ‘No. He was a quiet guy. He’d finish work and go straight home to his wife and son. They
were all he ever talked about.’

  ‘Did anything strange happen on the site? As far as you can remember, any particular episodes, any people that attracted your attention?’

  ‘No, not that I recall.’ Then he gave a half-smile. ‘Apart from the Phantom of the Site.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘There was this one guy with scars all over his face and hands. A real monster. Everyone thought they were burns.’

  At these words, others words appeared in the minds of Russell and Vivien.

  Newborn lowered his head and looked at his hands, embarrassed perhaps by what he was about to say. ‘You know how cruel you can be when you’re young. My cousin and I used to call him the Phantom of the Site, like the Phantom of the Opera.’

  ‘Do you remember his name?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘Do you have copies of the pay slips?’

  ‘This was almost twenty years ago. We aren’t required to keep records all that time.’

  Vivien assumed the most reassuring tone she could muster. ‘Mr Newborn, I’m not with the IRS. I’m here for an extremely important reason. Any detail can be crucial, even the most insignificant.’

  Chuck Newborn decided to come clean. ‘In those days, to keep costs down, we used to hire workers off the books. It wouldn’t be possible now – the company’s too big for that kind of thing. But in those days we were forced to do it to survive. These guys I’m talking about were paid in cash, no questions asked, no paperwork.’

  ‘Do you remember any other details about this man?’

  ‘My father talked about him one evening at dinner. He’d just showed up and offered his services, for a price my father and uncle liked a lot. Plus, he was really good. As they were standing there talking the guy calculated, just by looking, how much iron and concrete was needed for the foundations.’

  ‘And did he ever work for you again?’

  ‘No. Immediately after we finished the Mistnick house he left.’

  Vivien was worried she was going too fast. She granted Newborn, who had been getting increasingly nervous as the conversation proceeded, a moment’s pause.

  ‘And what can you tell me about the accident?’ she next asked.

  ‘One night the house just exploded, killing the major and all his family. Or to be more precise, it imploded. Just crumpled in on itself. There was hardly any damage to the surrounding houses.’

  Vivien looked at Russell. Both of them had thought the same thing. The man had shown the same fiendish skill in calculating the quantity of explosives to plant and how to set them off as he had earlier shown in calculating the amount of iron and concrete for the foundations.

  ‘Did you mention him to the police at the time?’

  Guilt fell like a shadow over Chuck Newborn’s face. ‘I’m afraid not.’

  The reason was obvious from what he’d said earlier. Mentioning the man would have been the equivalent of handing himself in to the IRS, with the inevitable consequences. Vivien felt anger come over her like a gust of hot air.

  ‘Didn’t it occur to you there was something suspicious about the man’s behaviour, given the circumstances?’

  Newborn bowed his head, unable to find a plausible excuse for what he was being accused of.

  Vivien sighed. As she had done with Carmen Montesa, she took a business card from her bag, wrote her cellphone number on the back and held it out to the man.

  ‘We’re through for now. Here are my numbers. If you remember anything, let me know, any time.’

  The man took the card and looked at it for a moment, as if afraid it was an arrest warrant. ‘I will, don’t worry.’

  ‘Goodbye, Mr Newborn.’

  He said something in reply, but in such a low voice they barely heard him. Vivien and Russell walked to the door and went out. Neither of them could prove it, but deep down they were both sure that the man with the burned face who had been called the Phantom of the Site as a joke was the person they were looking for. They walked down the steps and headed for the car, leaving Chuck Newborn alone with the feeling that he’d done something terribly wrong, even though he didn’t know what it was. It would have been easy enough to tell him, if they had been able to. It might not have been so easy for him to accept.

  If Newborn Brothers hadn’t been so determined to cut costs, the man would have been arrested, and years later hundreds of human lives might have been saved.

  CHAPTER 26

  Russell and Vivien were back on the street.

  The sky had turned blue again and the city had absorbed the latest outrage. Madison Square Park looked the way it usually did on a fine spring day. Senior citizens in search of sun, and dogs in search of trees. Mothers with children still too young to go to school and adolescents too lazy to want to. In the middle, a mime dressed up as the Statue of Liberty waited motionlessly for someone to throw coins in the can on the ground in front of him, at which point he would respond with a couple of movements. As she looked at the familiar scene, Vivien had the feeling that one of these people would suddenly turn to her and reveal a face ravaged with scars.

  She stopped Russell, who was already walking towards the car. ‘Are you hungry?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘We ought to eat something. We have time now, while we’re waiting for results, but there probably won’t be time later. I know from experience that a rumbling stomach isn’t good for concentration.’

  At the corner of the park, on the other side of the street, was a grey-painted stand serving hot dogs and hamburgers. In its very simplicity it had a certain elegance and did not jar with the natural setting. Vivien indicated a line of people.

  ‘The guides say it’s the best in New York. At lunchtime the line stretches all the way to Union Square.’

  ‘OK. A hamburger would be fine.’

  They crossed the street and joined the line. As they waited, Vivien expressed in words what they had surely both been asking themselves.

  ‘What do you think about what Newborn said? The man with the scars, I mean.’

  Russell took a moment before coming out with his conclusion. ‘I think he’s our man.’

  ‘So do I.’

  Those words sealed their fate. From that moment on, this was the lead to follow, with all the means they had at their disposal. If it turned out to be the wrong one, then, rightly or wrongly, they would have the deaths of many people on their consciences.

  In the name of the Father …

  Almost without realizing it, Vivien found herself at the window where the orders had to be placed. She ordered two cheeseburgers and two bottles of water and paid for them. In return she received a small electronic receiver that would inform her when the food was ready to be collected.

  They moved away from the stand to a nearby bench. As they sat down, Russell had a slightly downcast expression. ‘I promise you this is the last time.’

  ‘The last time for what?’

  ‘The last time you pay for me.’

  Vivien looked at him. He was genuinely sorry. She knew how humiliated he felt, and that was a remarkable thing in itself. The last trace seemed to have gone of the man that Russell Wade had been until a few days earlier.

  It had happened abruptly, like an evil spell taken away at the utterance of a magic word. Unfortunately, the other person who seemed to have vanished without a trace was the man she had spent the night with.

  She told herself it was stupid to regret something that had never really existed. She lowered her eyes to the object she had in her hands, which was the size of an old TV remote control.

  ‘It must be something like this he uses.’

  ‘Who does, and to do what?’

  ‘The man who set off those bombs. It must be a gadget like this that he used to send the impulses that set off the explosions.’

  As she was looking at that innocuous device of plastic and Plexiglas, which in another situation might become a lethal weapon, the receiver buzzed, almost making them jump.


  Russell stood up and took the receiver from her hands. ‘I’ll go. Let me do that at least.’

  Vivien watched as he presented himself at the window, handed over the receiver and got a tray with the food in return. He came back and placed the tray on the bench between them.

  They unwrapped the hamburgers and started eating in silence. The food was the same, but the atmosphere was very different than when they had eaten together in Coney Island, facing the sea. When Russell had confided in her and she had been sure she understood him.

  Now it occurred to her that she had only understood what she wanted to understand.

  It depends on which wolf you feed more …

  The ringing of her cellphone jolted her out of these thoughts. She looked at the number on the display without recognizing it.

  She took the call. ‘Detective Light.’

  She heard a familiar voice. ‘Hello, Miss Light. This is Dr Savine, one of the doctors treating your sister.’

  The voice and the words brought images flooding into Vivien’s mind. The Mariposa Clinic in Cresskill, Greta gazing into the distance with sightless eyes, white coats that meant both safety and anguish.

  ‘What is it, doctor?’

  ‘Unfortunately it isn’t good news.’

  Vivien waited in silence for him to continue, instinctively clenching her fist.

  ‘Your sister’s condition has suddenly worsened. We don’t know exactly what to expect and so I don’t know exactly what to tell you. But it isn’t looking good. I’m being honest with you. You told me that was what you wanted, right from the start.’

  Vivien bowed her head, and let the tears run down her cheeks. ‘Of course, doctor, and I’m grateful. Unfortunately I can’t be there right now.’

  ‘I quite understand. I’ll keep you informed, Miss Light. I’m very sorry.’

  ‘I know. Thanks again.’

  She hung up, and rose abruptly from the bench, turning her back on Russell and wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. Her first impulse was to drop everyone and everything, take the car to see her sister. But she couldn’t. For the first time in her life she cursed her work, the duty that confined her like a cage, the significance of her shield. She cursed the man who, in his madness, was keeping her away from the person she most loved and making that person seem ever more distant.