by R.J. Ellory
Annie nodded. ‘I get the impression he’ll figure more and more as the thing goes on, but I’ll have to wait and see, won’t I?’
David flicked through the pages once more. ‘You think this thing is about real people?’ he asked.
‘I do,’ she said. ‘That’s the way I felt when I read it, and then maybe I tried to convince myself that it was fiction.’
‘Convince yourself, why?’ David asked.
Annie frowned, hesitated. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Maybe because it made me feel uncomfortable. I got to thinking about why Forrester wanted me to read it, and after that I started wondering whether there was some connection between the story and my father. Like Johnnie Redbird was my dad or something.’
Annie looked at David as if for an opinion. Did she really think that? That someone so brutal could have been her ancestor, her blood? And then there was the other question, the question that had been raised when Sullivan told her the story and she had imagined her father was there. In that moment her father had worn the face of Robert Forrester and she couldn’t shake it off. She was confused, none of it made sense, and yet there was something compelling about it. It was now not just her interest in the story itself, but the fact that she felt she had to find out what happened.
‘Hell of a life though,’ David said. ‘Even though it was horrifying, it still makes me feel that I could have spent my time doing a great deal more.’
Annie smiled to herself, could hear herself saying exactly the same thing. Maybe that was it; maybe that was where the real truth lay: she had attempted to convince herself it was unreal because she would feel her own life so much less challenged. Her life had been empty compared to these things.
‘So you’re going to meet him again tomorrow night?’
‘I am,’ Annie said. ‘I want to find out what happens.’
‘Can I read it too?’
‘Sure you can … but you’ll have to come over.’
David smiled, put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her tight. ‘I was figuring on staying for the duration,’ he said.
‘Staying here … while I’m at work?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m joking,’ he said. ‘I need to get my things sorted out at the apartment.’
‘Stay tonight,’ Annie said. ‘You can do that?’
‘Of course. I wanted to stay tonight.’
‘I’ll go into the store, and then maybe around eight or nine tomorrow night you could come over and read the next chapter.’
‘That’s a deal,’ David said. ‘I’ll bring something to eat. What d’you like? Chinese? Thai?’
‘Chinese is good,’ Annie said. ‘Noodles and fried rice, and get some ribs and things.’
‘Especially the things,’ David said.
‘Right, mustn’t forget the things,’ Annie replied.
She tidied the pages together and set them aside on the table.
‘So what now?’ David asked. ‘You wanna watch some TV or something?’
Annie shook her head. ‘Or something sounds good.’
‘Kinda something?’
‘You know exactly what kind of something, David Quinn.’
‘The well and truly kind of something?’
Annie rose from the couch, took his hand and pulled him upright. She put her arms around his waist and laid her head on his shoulder.
David moved suddenly, unexpectedly, and before she knew it he’d picked her up and was carrying her towards the bedroom.
She started laughing, tugging his shirt out from his waistband at the back, then struggling to unhook the belt around his jeans.
‘Easy tiger,’ he whispered.
‘Fuck easy,’ Annie O’Neill replied.
EIGHTEEN
Monday morning it was raining again, the sky almost dark. They rose, David showered, and after she’d watched him stand in the bathroom drying his hair with a towel she was struck by a thought.
She went into her bedroom, opened the lower drawer of her dresser, and from beneath the clothes she took a book. Searching hurriedly to find some paper she felt somehow excited, as if she was doing something that meant a great deal more in spirit than it did in action. She wrapped the book carefully and then returned to the front room.
She called a cab for David, and as he stood ready to leave she handed the book to him.
‘What’s this?’ he asked.
‘Breathing Space,’ she said.
‘Breathing space?’
‘The book I told you about … the book my father gave me.’
David smiled, shook his head. ‘I can’t take this Annie –’
‘Just to read,’ she said, ‘not to keep. I want you to read it.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘If I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t give it to you … but take care of it David, and make sure you give it back.’
‘I will,’ he said. ‘Of course I will.’
He held the book for a moment, and then he leaned forward and kissed her. ‘Thank you,’ he said.
And then he left, and after she’d seen him down to the street and watched the cab disappear at the junction, she went upstairs. She stood for a while in the kitchen considering what she had done. She had given perhaps her most precious possession to this man. It had been an impulse, a momentary reaction to what she had been feeling, but in hindsight – despite her fleeting reservations – it had nevertheless seemed right. It was part of her life, part of whatever her father might have meant to her also, and perhaps in some strange fashion this was her way of sharing this relationship with her father. Though the book in and of itself possessed no great significance or meaning, it nevertheless was a part of her. And she had shared it. This had to mean something. What, she wasn’t sure, but it had to mean something.
Annie made some tea, and then went to look in on Sullivan. He was sleeping and she did not wake him but returned to her apartment to get ready for work.
A half-hour later she looked in on Sullivan again, found him seated at his kitchen table in a robe.
He smiled at her – such warmth, such a sense of self-satisfaction – and then said, ‘You got my present?’
‘I did … and I must say you are a man of your word, Jack Sullivan.’
‘And you, Miss O’Neill, are a woman of tremendous vocal capacity.’
Annie felt herself blush.
‘It’s good Annie, don’t hide it. I’m very happy for you.’
‘And I am happy for me as well.’
‘So tell me, what’s he like?’
Annie sat down across from Sullivan. Her expression was thoughtful, her words slow and measured. ‘I think … I think he’s okay Jack, you know? For a little while I felt kind of threatened … I don’t know, maybe threatened is too strong a word. I think in some ways he’s very similar to me.’
‘A sad lonely old lush –’
‘I’m being deep and meaningful, cut it out,’ she interjected.
Jack Sullivan nodded, didn’t say another word.
‘I think he’s had some difficulty relating to people … at least that’s the impression I get. His job takes him away from any kind of stability.’
Sullivan raised his eyebrows.
‘Marine insurance investigation … all manner of barren and desolate places for weeks at a time. Stayed in hotels a lot, that kind of thing.’ Annie leaned forward. ‘I went to his apartment a couple of days ago, up near St Nicholas and 129th. I think he’s been there some weeks, and it looks like someone’s literally just moved in, everything in boxes stacked against the wall. He had his bedsheets and a few items of clothing, stuff to make a cup of coffee, you know? Exactly what you’d find in a Holiday Inn or something.’
Sullivan was nodding. ‘I’ve met people like that … hell for years I was a person like that. Everything’s always on the move, nothing ever stays still, and you get restless if you’ve got nothing to do or nowhere to go. Some people never grow out of it.’
‘I think he’s trying,’ Annie
said. ‘I get the impression he wants some stability, something he can go away from and come home to.’
‘And that would be you I guess?’
Annie shrugged.
‘Do you want it to be you?’
‘I don’t know Jack,’ Annie said, and smiled. ‘It’s a little early to tell if this is going to be anything of substance.’
‘But it feels right?’
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘It feels right.’
Jack Sullivan reached and closed his hand over Annie’s. ‘I want it to be right,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I feel like you should’ve been my kid, you know? And if there’s any trouble –’
Annie started to smile. ‘Trouble? There won’t be any trouble. I’m all growed up now, Pa.’
‘Hear me out,’ Sullivan said. ‘If there’s trouble … if anything doesn’t seem right you come tell me, okay?’
‘Okay,’ Annie said, and her smile was gone. There was a flash of anxiety in her eyes.
‘Don’t read anything into it,’ Sullivan said. ‘I don’t know the guy from Adam, and hell, if there’s anyone’s judgement I trust it’s yours. If it feels right then that’s good enough for me. Forget I said that, okay?’
Annie smiled again. ‘Okay.’
‘So go to work, and try to think about earning a living for a little while.’
Annie rose. She leaned forward and kissed Jack Sullivan’s forehead.
‘Take care,’ she said. ‘And thank you.’
Sullivan nodded. ‘Go,’ he said.
She reached the door, turned back. ‘Forrester comes this evening. You wanna come down there?’
‘Hell I forgot … I made an arrangement to see someone.’
‘It’s okay. He’s harmless enough. I didn’t think it was necessary for you to come anyway.’
‘Sure?’
‘Sure,’ Annie replied. ‘Later, alright?’
‘Later.’
Annie slipped out and closed the door behind her. Sullivan looked marginally better, but she knew that give him a couple of hours he’d be clawing the walls for a drink. Nevertheless she knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t, not now he’d agreed. Sullivan would no more break a promise than run naked through a shopping mall.
The route she took was the same as ever, but the attitude with which she walked it was different. There was a light at the end of the tunnel, and behind her the dark passageway back into loneliness seemed to be closing up faster than a bullet. People looked different, they sounded different, and when she stopped at Starbucks for a mochaccino there was a tangible reluctance to leave the warmth, the gathering of people, the sound of humanity within.
Once inside The Reader’s Rest she busied herself with reorganizing the stacks of hardbacks near the door. Those stacks had always bothered her, as if they presented an automatic barrier as soon as someone stepped inside. She made good headway, more than she had in weeks, and the place began to lose a little of its claustrophobia. John Damianka came down at noon, surprised her by making no comment regarding her absence, an omission that was explained when he told her how well things were going with Elizabeth Farbolin from the International Center of Photography.
‘Had lunch together pretty much every day last week,’ he said. ‘And seems the more time we spend together the more time we want to spend together.’
‘That’s the way it should be,’ Annie told him.
‘Never has been before,’ John replied.
‘There’s always the one,’ she said. ‘Maybe you’ve been lucky enough to find her.’
‘Nothing to do with luck,’ he said. ‘Sheer bloody-minded persistence if you ask me.’
She smiled, she nodded, she thought of David, and she managed her way through half the mayonnaise-drenched sub John had brought before finally conceding defeat.
The afternoon dragged, and by the time the hands of the clock crawled around to five she was wishing away the next two hours until Forrester’s arrival.
She turned the store sign but left the front lights on, retreated to the back kitchen where she made fresh coffee and sat thinking of where her relationship with David would take her.
A little after six there was a sound out front. She got up and went to see who was there. She figured perhaps it was David, and she couldn’t help but notice that her heart rose a little.
See, she thought to herself. It should be rising into love.
But it was not David. A young man in dark blue pants, a windcheater and a baseball cap with a red-and-white logo stood in the lee of the door. In his hand he clutched a large envelope.
‘Miss O’Neill?’ he shouted through the locked door.
She nodded.
‘Package for you.’
She frowned, opened the door, and after signing for the envelope she closed and locked the door behind the courier.
She went to the counter, turned the envelope over, and there in bold letters was printed her name, the name of the store, and the date beneath.
She opened the envelope, upended it, and from within slid a sheaf of papers and a handwritten note.
Written in the same block capitals was a simple message:
MISS O’NEILL. APOLOGIES FOR MY ABSENCE. BUSINESS CALLS ME AWAY. IN ORDER TO NOT DISAPPOINT YOU ENTIRELY I HAVE ENCLOSED THE NEXT PART OF OUR MANUSCRIPT. I SHALL SEE YOU IN A WEEk. YOURS, FORRESTER.
Our manuscript? she thought. When did it suddenly become our manuscript?
She straightened the sheaf of pages, a little relieved that she wouldn’t have to wait another hour but at the same time a little disappointed by the fact that she wouldn’t see another letter from her father. Disappointed also that she wouldn’t see Forrester. She had warmed to him, sensed his desire to involve himself in something, and was somehow pleased that he had chosen her. But then it had never been a matter of choice. He had known her father, and for whatever reason he had decided to seek her out and share with her something that he felt she might appreciate. They had founded a reading club, this man and her father, though she couldn’t help but think there was something very unusual about the way it had been organized.
Tempted to start reading immediately, she refrained, collected her coat, her scarf and gloves from the back kitchen, turned out the lights and left for home.
The rain had eased off, but the streets were still wet. Thanksgiving seemed but a handful of weeks away, Christmas would follow faster than ever, and she felt a deep sense of relief that this year she would not be spending it alone.
Sullivan was out, evident in the silence and lack of lights from his apartment. She let herself in, tossed her coat, scarf and gloves onto the chair behind the door, and before settling to read she made some tea.
From the window she could see shapes moving in the building opposite. She figured she would have to get a curtain, and then thought To hell with it, just don’t make a habit of wandering around naked.
She sat at the table in the front and began reading.
NINETEEN
So after I went to Rikers Harry Rose left Queens, stayed a little while in Long Island City, and then moved once again into Astoria. His reputation – whatever it may have been in Queens – did not precede him into a new city, and despite the money, despite the history, Harry found himself starting all over again. He was eighteen, and as far as the dealers and cardsharps, the bookies and runners were concerned, he was just another wiseass kid trying to make it good in a grown-ups’ world.
Astoria was different from Queens in many ways, neither better nor worse, merely different. There seemed to be more money, and thus the money he carried bought Harry less influence. He took a three-room apartment on Shore Boulevard overlooking Ralph Demarco Park, and late at night, leaning from the back window of his bedroom, he could see the North and South Brother Islands, and he knew that had he been able to lean a few feet further he would have seen around Bowery Bay to Rikers where I was holed up. Through May and June, even into the early part of July, Harry couldn’t face the prospect of going do
wn there, and he set his mind to working his way back into the world.
He was now alone, and though alone was never good it nevertheless gave him some freedom. He could be where he wanted to be when he was needed, and he took advantage of that flexibility. He started the card games and running bets, establishing a small operation from a single bench in Ralph Demarco Park where those with greenbacks to spare could pay them over and place their odds. He paid on time, always to his word and bang on the nickel, and the reputation he had forged as a younger man came back – slowly, but it did come back, and within five or six weeks he was turning around ten or twenty thousand dollars a week. He ran a sideline in recommendations for some of the more up-market hookers, and from them he earned a commission and a blow job whenever he needed one. He became a face, the face carried a name, and people started to remember him and count him as one of the players.
By the start of the summer Harry was back on form. He bought a car, and with that car he traveled further afield, used some of the money he was earning to invest in gambling houses and bars. He let the crazies smoke their weed and shoot their shit out back, but he charged them rent by the hour to sleep it off and put a man at the top of the alley to shout when the cops came cruising. He was safe, he was quiet, he kept his word and shut his mouth, and when he felt that he had arrived he started once more to think of me.
He convinced himself that I didn’t need him visiting, but he knew it was a lie, and finally – his nerves steeled against whatever he would find – he made the trip. It was a bitter day despite the season, and from the East River through Hell Gate the wind came like a tornado of razor blades and cut into his face as he stood on the deck of the ferry, his heart like a dead man’s fist in his chest, his nerves ragged, his mouth dry.
The sounds and smells of the penitentiary were as bad as he had imagined. The bitter-sweet taint of cheap disinfectant mixed with the cloying stench of a mass of men crammed into tiny cells, all living out of each other’s pockets. Harry could smell the fear, and inside of that the frustration, the interminable boredom, the hatred and resentment, the guilt and the innocence. All of these things rolled together and pumped through the building by a noisy air-conditioning system that probably carried more dust and infection than anything else.
