I Am God

by Giorgio Faletti

  ‘I am God.’

  Vivien had reached out a hand to the radio and switched to the usual Manhattan police frequency. She repeated the message she had previously transmitted, but with modifications.

  ‘Calling all cars. This is Detective Vivien Light of the 13th Precinct. Proceed as quickly as possible to the Fashion District and surround the block between 31st and 32nd Streets and Seventh and Eighth Avenues. The suspect is a male Caucasian, tall with dark hair. He is wearing a green military jacket. He may be armed and is very dangerous. Contact me as soon as you have anything.’

  From the cellphone came the subdued voice of Father McKean. ‘Vivien, are you there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘Thanks. You were great. I’ll call you later.’

  Vivien collapsed back in her seat. She made a disheartened gesture to the driver. ‘You can stop. There’s no hurry now.’

  As the driver pulled over, the captain put his head between the front seats, so that he could look Vivien in the face. ‘What’s happening? Who was that on the phone?’

  Vivien turned to look at him. ‘I can’t tell you. The only thing I can tell you is that we have to wait now. And hope.’

  Bellew sat back down. He had realized that something had gone wrong, even though he didn’t know what. Vivien knew how her chief must be feeling right now, because it couldn’t be so very different from how she felt. In the car, nobody had the courage to speak.

  A voice came over the radio. ‘Officer Mantin from Midtown South here. We stopped an individual answering to the description and wearing a green military-style jacket.’

  Vivien felt relief wash over her like a wave. ‘Great, boys. Where are you?’

  ‘At the corner of 31st and Seventh.’

  ‘Take him to your precinct house. We’ll be right there.’

  Vivien made a gesture to the driver, who moved the car away from the kerb. A hand came from the back to rest on Vivien’s shoulder.

  ‘Great work, detective.’

  That compliment lost all meaning the next moment. Another voice came over the radio, bringing confusion and despair back into the car.

  ‘Car 31 here, from Midtown South. This is Officer Jeff Cantoni. We also stopped a guy answering your description.’

  They didn’t have time to wonder what was happening because a third voice now drowned out everything else.

  ‘Officer Webber here. I’m on Sixth Avenue at the corner of 32nd Street. There’s a veteran’s parade going on. There must be two thousand of them, all wearing green military jackets.’

  Vivien closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands, taking refuge in a darkness in which it seemed the sun would never rise again, and allowed herself to cry only when she and that darkness had become one.

  CHAPTER 35

  Vivien emerged from the elevator and slowly walked along the corridor.

  When she reached the door, she took the keys from her pocket and inserted them in the keyhole. As soon as she had given the lock a first turn, the door opposite opened and Judith appeared. She was holding one of her cats in her arms.

  ‘Hello there. You finally came back.’

  Vivien’s mood at that moment didn’t allow for intruders. ‘Hello, Judith. I’m sorry, I’m in a great hurry.’

  ‘Don’t you want a coffee?’

  ‘No. Not now, thanks.’

  The old woman looked at her for a moment with a mixture of commiseration and reprimand. ‘What can you expect from someone who thinks only of tips?’

  She closed the door in Vivien’s face with a self-satisfied expression. The lock clicked shut, isolating her and her four-legged friends. At any other time, the woman’s eccentricity would have moved and amused Vivien. But right now, she had no room for any feelings that weren’t anger, disappointment and regret. For herself, for Greta, for Sundance. For Father McKean. For all the people that madman had allowed to live before he unleashed another inferno.

  After their failure had been confirmed, Bellew had been silent for a long time, afraid even to look at her. They both knew what would happen. By the next day, the whole of the NYPD would know about the fiasco. As the captain had predicted, the commissioner would demand explanations – and maybe resignations.

  Vivien was ready to hand over her gun and her shield if she was asked to. She had done the best she could, but it had all gone belly up. It was the fault of chance, but above all it was her fault, her carelessness. She hadn’t remembered to turn on a damned phone in time. The fact that it had happened when her sister had just died was no excuse. She was a police officer and her personal needs and feelings had to take second place in a case like this. She hadn’t been able to do that, and she was ready to take the consequences.

  But if other people died, she would have to live with the consequences for ever.

  She walked into the apartment of a sick, desperate man who for years had gone by the name of Wendell Johnson. She found the same bare surroundings, the same sense of hopeless solitude. The grey light coming in through the window made everything seem flat, drab, devoid of life and hope.

  She wandered through the apartment, waiting for it to speak to her.

  She didn’t even know what she was looking for, but she knew there was something unexplored here, like a suggestion whispered in her ear that she hadn’t been able to understand or decipher. She just had to calm down and forget all the rest if she wanted to remember what it was. She moved the one chair from the table into the middle of the kitchen, sat down with her legs apart and her arms resting on the rough fabric of her jeans, and looked around.

  The telephone rang in the pocket of her jacket.

  Instinctively, she felt like turning it off without even looking to see who the call was from. Then, with a sigh, took the call. She heard Russell’s excited voice.

  ‘Vivien, at last. It’s Russell. I found him.’

  The line was not very good and Vivien couldn’t hear him terribly well. ‘Calm down. Speak slowly. Who did you find?’

  Russell started enunciating the words clearly. And at last Vivien understood what he was talking about. ‘The real name of the man who passed himself off as Wendell Johnson all those years was Matt Corey. He was born in Chillicothe, in Ohio. And he had a son. I have his name and his photograph.’

  ‘Have you gone crazy? How did you manage that?’

  ‘It’s a long story. Where are you now?’

  ‘In Wen—’ She broke off. She decided to give Russell the benefit of the doubt, until she had proof of the contrary. ‘In Matt Corey’s apartment, on Broadway, in Williamsburg. And you?’

  ‘I landed at La Guardia fifteen minutes ago. Right now I’m on the Brooklyn Expressway, travelling south. I’ll be with you in ten minutes.’

  ‘Okay. Come as fast as you can. I’ll wait here.’

  She tried to sit down again, but she had the feeling that her legs would soon start to bump together from sheer nervousness and she wouldn’t be able to sit still.

  She stood up and took a few steps around an apartment she knew by heart now. Russell had succeeded where she had failed. She noticed that there was no anger or envy in her. Just relief and admiration for what he had managed to do. She didn’t feel humiliated. And she immediately realized why. It was because he wasn’t just any man, he was Russell. The worm started gnawing at her again, heedless of her impatience. You felt pleasure at someone else’s success only when you loved them. And she realized that she was completely in thrall to that man. She was sure that sooner or later she would get him out of her head, but it would take a lot of time and a lot of effort.

  She hoped, with a touch of self-mockery, that looking for a new job would keep her sufficiently busy. She went into the bedroom, switched on the light and for the umpteenth time looked around that apartment.

  It hit her at the speed of light, the speed of thought.

  No pictures on the walls …

  When she had been with Richard, her former boyfriend,
she had learned all about artists. He was an architect, but he was also a reasonable painter. The many pictures hanging in their apartment demonstrated that. But what they also demonstrated was the natural narcissism all artists seemed to possess. Often in inverse proportion to their talent. What seemed strange to her was that this man, this Matt Corey, had done all those drawings and over the years had somehow avoided the temptation to put even one of them up on the wall.

  Unless …

  A couple of steps, and she stood in front of the rack. She took the big grey folder from the lower shelf, opened it, and went quickly through the drawings done on the unusual medium of transparent plastic …

  * * *

  Constellation of Karen, Constellation of Beauty, Constellation of the End …

  … until she found the one she was looking for. The bell rang just as she was taking it out of the pile. She placed the drawing on the rough wooden surface and went to open the door, hoping it wasn’t Judith with more complaints. But it was Russell, looking dishevelled, with a couple of days’ growth of beard, his hair unkempt and his clothes crumpled. In his right hand he held an object that looked like a rolled-up poster.

  She thought two things simultaneously: that he was very handsome and that she was a fool.

  She took him by the arm and pulled him into the apartment before the door opposite could open. ‘Come inside.’

  Vivien closed the door again immediately, the noise of the lock covering Russell’s excited voice.

  ‘I have something to show you—’

  ‘Just a minute. First check something for me.’

  She went back into the bedroom, followed by a puzzled-looking Russell. She picked up the plastic sheet with its blue surround, on which the artist had drawn what according to him was The Constellation of Wrath. The drawing consisted of a series of white dots supplemented here and there with little red dots.

  As Russell looked on curiously, she went to the map of New York hanging on the wall and placed the drawing over it. They matched perfectly. But whereas the white dots appeared to be placed at random, some lost in the river or the sea, the red dots were all on dry land and had specific geographical locations.

  In a low voice, Vivien said to herself, ‘It’s a memorandum.’

  Still holding the drawing against the map, Vivien turned her head towards Russell, who was now standing beside her. He was starting to understand, even though he had no idea how Vivien had got there.

  ‘This Matt Corey had no artistic ambitions. He knew perfectly well he didn’t have any talent. That’s why he didn’t display a single drawing. The only reason he did them was to conceal this map. I’m sure the red dots correspond to all the places where he hid the bombs.’

  She moved the plastic sheet away, and when she looked again at the map of the city, she could feel herself turn white. She was unable to restrain an anguished cry.

  ‘Oh, my God!’

  Vivien hoped she was wrong. But when she again placed the plastic sheet over the map, her impression was confirmed. She checked it again and again, running her finger over the sheet, going so close to it, she was almost touching the wall.

  ‘There are bombs at Joy.’

  ‘What’s Joy?’

  ‘Not now. We have to go. Straight away.’

  ‘But I—’

  ‘You can tell me on the way. Right now, there isn’t a minute to lose.’

  Vivien was already at the door. She held it open until Russell joined her.

  ‘Hurry up. Code RFL.’

  As they waited for the elevator, Vivienne felt more lucid than she’d ever felt in her life. She didn’t know if it was the situation, or the pill Dr Savine had given her. Right now, she didn’t care. She tried to remember the exact words the man in the green jacket had said in the confessional.

  Holiness is in the end. That is why I shall not rest on Sunday …

  That meant that the next attack was planned for the following Sunday. That gave her a little breathing space, if her theory about the drawing proved correct. But where Joy was concerned, she couldn’t afford to run any risks. It had to be evacuated as quickly as possible. She didn’t want to lose her sister and her niece in one day.

  They went out on the street and ran to the car. She heard Russell panting behind her. He seemed to be physically exhausted. He would have time to rest during the journey to the Bronx, Vivien thought.

  She tried to call Father McKean but his telephone was off. She wondered why. He must surely have got back to Joy from Saint John’s by now. Maybe after what he had been through in the confessional he didn’t want the telephone to be anything but an inanimate object buried deep in his pocket. She tried calling John Kortighan’s number, but it just kept ringing.

  As she drove along the streets as fast as the traffic allowed, Vivien turned to Russell, who was gripping the strap above the window with his right hand. Driving, at that moment, was a simple animal fact, a question of habitual gestures, of nerves and reflexes. Curiosity was one of the few human traits remaining to her.

  ‘So what did you find?’

  ‘Don’t you think you should concentrate on your driving right now?’

  ‘I can drive and listen at the same time.’

  Russell tried to summarize the story as best he could. ‘I can’t really explain exactly how I did it, but I managed to discover the name Matt Corey. He was the Little Boss in the photograph we saw at Hornell. He fought alongside Wendell Johnson in Vietnam. For years, Matt Corey was believed dead, whereas in fact he’d assumed his friend’s identity.’

  Vivien asked the question that interested her the most. ‘What about the son?’

  ‘He’s not in Chillicothe any more. His name is Manuel Swanson. I don’t know where he is now. But he used to have artistic ambitions.’ He lifted the rolled-up poster he was holding in his left hand. ‘And I managed to get hold of one of his posters.’

  ‘Show me.’

  All the while he had been speaking, Russell hadn’t taken his eyes off the road. The Volvo was weaving in and out of the other cars, some of which had slowed down and pulled over to let them pass.

  ‘Are you crazy? We’re going at almost a hundred miles an hour. We’ll crash and there’ll be a pile up.’

  Vivien raised her voice. ‘Show me, I said.’

  Maybe she’d raised her voice too much. She had done that once before and regretted it.

  Reluctantly, Russell unrolled the poster. Vivien threw it a glance, her eyes drawn instinctively to the words in red block capitals below the photograph:

  THE FANTASTIC MISTER ME

  She went back to concentrating on her driving. It wasn’t until they hit a stretch without other vehicles that she looked again, this time at the photograph. And her heart gave such a strong thump, she was sure that a second one would break it.

  She couldn’t stop now – she had to keep driving. She found herself murmuring an invocation. ‘Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.’

  Russell rolled up the poster and threw it on the back seat. In spite of the noise, he heard it falling to the floor behind his seat.

  ‘What’s the matter, Vivien? What’s going on? Do you want to tell me where we’re going?’

  Vivien’s only reply was to increase speed, pushing the accelerator as hard as she could. They had just left the bridge over the Hutchinson River behind them, and the car was now proceeding along Route 95 with all the speed its engine allowed.

  To relieve the anxiety that was tearing her chest apart, Vivien had decided to satisfy Russell’s curiosity. She still hoped and prayed she was wrong, even though she knew she wasn’t.

  ‘Joy is a community for drug addicts. My niece is there, my sister’s daughter. My sister who died last night. And there are bombs there.’

  Now that she had finally given vent to her anguish, Vivien felt the tears coming. There was a knot in her throat and her voice cracked. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

  ‘Damn.’

  Russell did not ask for any fu
rther explanation. To clear her head, Vivien took refuge in her bitterness about life. Afterwards, when it was all over, she knew this anger would turn to poison, if she couldn’t get rid of it. But right now she needed it, because it had become her strength.

  When they got to Burr Avenue, Vivien slowed down and removed the flashing lamp. She didn’t want to arrive in a blaze of lights and sirens. She threw a glance at Russell. He was sitting in silence, unafraid, but not wanting to trespass on what for now was a space reserved for her. She appreciated that. He was a man who could speak well but knew when it was right to keep quiet.

  They turned onto the unpaved road that led to Joy. She did not drive the Volvo right into the parking lot as she usually did. Instead, she pulled up on the right, in a lay-by hidden from sight by a group of cypresses.

  Vivien got out of the car, and Russell did the same.

  ‘Wait here.’

  ‘No way.’

  When she saw that he was determined and that nothing in the world would persuade him to stay by the car, Vivian resigned herself. She took out her gun and made sure there was a round in the chamber. It was a habitual gesture for her, one that meant security, but it made a shadow fall over Russell’s face. She put it back in the holster.

  ‘Stay behind me.’

  Vivien approached the house by a different route. Making their way through the bushes and hugging the edge of the garden, they reached the front of the building, and seeing that familiar facade Vivien felt a pang of anguish. She had brought her niece here full of confidence. And now this house where so many kids were finding a new hope in life could be transformed at any moment into a place of death. She walked faster, while remaining as cautious as ever. Near the house were two kids sitting on a bench. Vivien saw that they were Jubilee Manson and her niece.

  Keeping in the shadow of the bushes, she leaned out and waved an arm to attract their attention. As soon as she had it, she put her index finger in front of her mouth to silence them.

  The two kids got up and came to her. Her imperious gesture and her attitude made Sundance instinctively lower her voice. ‘What is it? What’s happening?’