I squatted down near him and untangled his foot. I had to take one of his sneakers off first because the long laces were caught in the undergrowth.
“OK?”
Billy rubbed his foot. “Yeah,” he said. “I think I heard something snap, maybe one of those little bones, you know?” He looked up at the sky. The sun was going. “We didn’t get in much fishing.”
“No.” I sat, still holding his sneaker.
“I can’t go back to Florida,” said Billy. “You know that, right, like I just can’t do it, Artie.”
I didn’t tell him that Florida probably wasn’t an option anymore. I didn’t tell him he’d be tried as an adult this time and locked up for the rest of his life if he was lucky. There would be no friendly shrinks, or appreciative teachers, or hospital wards where clouds were painted on the sky-blue walls.
“I understand,” I said.
I got out some cigarettes and gave him one, and for a while – it must have been a minute or two at least – we smoked together sitting on the ground in the woods, Billy leaning a little against me, but not complaining about his ankle.
“You think my mom and dad are back by now? From London?”
“Probably. They said they’d be back today.”
“Oh.”
“The girl is OK? Luda, I mean? They found her and everything?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
There was a noise behind me, and I turned fast, but it was only a dog.
“How come you’re wearing a gun?” Billy said.
“What?”
“Under your jacket. Your jacket opened and I saw it.”
“I’m a cop,” I said. “I always wear one.”
“You didn’t have it before.”
“No.”
“Artie? I think I might need your help to get back to the house, I mean my ankle kinds of hurts.”
“I have the car,” I said. “It’s up on the road.”
“Should we go?”
“In a minute. It’s nice here. Let’s just sit for a minute, OK?”
“OK.” Billy looked like a young teenager instead of a half-grown man. “I was wanting to ask you about the little plane that crashed on the beach. Did anyone ever find out what happened?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Sometimes stuff is just accidental, you know, and there’s no reason.”
“Right,” said Billy. “Like magic.”
I handed Billy his other shoe and he tried to put it on, but his foot hurt too much. Holding the sneaker, he tried to get up and then fell backwards. I helped him. On the way back to the car, he leaned on me, hobbling on the one foot, keeping the other one off the ground.
We got to the car, and he leaned against the hood, breathing hard from the effort.
“Is there something you want to ask me?” said Billy, and for the first time I realized how sweet his voice was; the actual sound of it was sweet.
“What do you want me to know?”
“I need you to know everything about me, Artie. I need you to feel OK about me no matter what.”
I couldn’t speak.
“You can ask me anything, you know, I mean I could tell you anything, and you wouldn’t get mad, right?” Billy said.
“Yes.”
“So ask,” he said.
“Did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“The baby.” I’d have traded an arm or a leg or ten years of my life not to have to ask, much more for not having to hear the answer. “The freezer. Out back at Mike Rizzi’s coffee shop.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Yes.”
When we pulled up at the house, Tolya was still waiting. He was sitting in the chair on the front lawn, the butt of a cigar in his mouth, and as soon as I hit the brakes, he got up and waved. I got out of the car.
Leaning on me, Billy got out of my car, and Tolya put out his hand and Billy shook it. We sat down in the three chairs on the front lawn. Tolya and Billy talked a little bit about fishing and Tolya described how he had once gone way out to sea on a fishing boat off the coast of Cuba, and another time for salmon in Alaska. He told Billy that there were some great places in Russia for fishing; he painted him a picture of it, the wild places, the virgin lakes, the big rivers; Tolya said that maybe they could take a trip, him and Billy.
Summer was best, Tolya said, standing up on the ragged lawn and pretending to cast a line into a river. He could show Billy where he grew up and where I grew up. We could all go fishing.
Billy said he’d like that.
“You have your things with you?” Tolya asked.
“Sure,” Billy said. “I brought most of my things with me here.”
“We can buy whatever else you need,” said Tolya.
“Maybe you should get packed,” I said.
“I am packed,” Billy said to me, “I’d like to see where you went fishing with your dad, Artie, with my grandfather. To that river you told me about.” His face was alive with anticipation. “We could all go.”
Tolya nodded. I stuffed my hands into my pockets to keep them from shaking too much. No words seemed to come out of my mouth when I opened it, and I had to turn my back to Billy so he wouldn’t see my face.
“Great,” Billy said. “It’s great, Artie, right?”
I turned around and, not looking at his face, noticed that the laces from the one sneaker he wore were trailing across the lawn.
“Yeah,” I said. “Go on, get your stuff.”
Smiling, he hobbled across to the house.
I said to Tolya, “I can’t do it.”
“I know,” he said. “That’s what I’m here for.”
“Don’t tell me, OK, not now.”
“Yes,” he said.
I gave Tolya back his gun.
While Billy was still inside packing – I could hear him there, whistling something that had no tune – I got into my car and slowly, trying not to make much noise, backed out of the drive. I hoped Billy would come out of the house so I could see him before I left; I hoped like hell he wouldn’t.
He didn’t come out. When I got to the main road, I turned the car around and, trying not to look back over my shoulder, hit the gas and headed back to the city.
ALSO AVAILABLE IN ARROW
Red Hook
Reggie Nadelson
It’s a late summer Sunday in downtown New York City, and Artie Cohen is getting married. Watching the sun rising over the East River, he’s content.
A message comes in from an old friend, Sid McKay, asking Artie to come out to Red Hook in Brooklyn. It’s his wedding day, but Artie owes Sid, so he goes. On arriving he finds a dead man spreadeagled in the water off the old docks. When Sid eventually shows up, he’s scared, edgy and evasive, Artie suspects he’s holding something back.
Even at his own wedding party, later that day, Artie can’t stop thinking about Sid. Why has the death of a vagrant spooked him so much? It’s not his case, but the more he digs, the more it drags him in, implicating – and threatening – his closest friends . . .
‘It’s rare that crime writing should so passionately and precisely examine its own time. Its also reassuring to find a writer who is so magnificently up to the job.’ Literary Review, Book of The Month
‘Artie Cohen is the detective New York deserves: smart, wounded, emotional, haunted, and not as tough as he thinks. Reggie Nadelson’s Cohen books get better and better’ Salman Rushdie
Also available in Arrow by Reggie Nadelson
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Reggie Nadelson
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