“Can I come in?”
“Ms. Davenport?”
“The very same…” She walked past him nonchalantly and leaned against the wall, as if she were waiting for something. “Since I was so, unfortunately, tied up when you came by this afternoon, I thought we could talk now. Because we certainly wouldn’t want you to miss out on any job opportunities.”
He swallowed hard. “It’s really kinda late, maybe we should just talk tomorrow. I can come back to your office in the afternoon. No problem.”
“It’s no problem at all. I’m free right now. Well, aren’t you going to take my coat?”
“Yeah,…sure…sit down.”
When she took off her coat, she was wearing a white dress, but not just any white dress, it looked almost like a wedding gown: lace and pearls sewn in the neck, and long and sweeping to the floor. The kid looked like he was gonna jump outta his pants.
“Were you…uh…coming from something?”
“No, why?”
“I mean, your dress. It looks like…well, it’s so formal…and everything.”
She sat down. “Do you have any wine?”
“No. I don’t drink.”
“Well aren’t you something? Is that because of sports? You are an athlete, right?”
“Track and field.”
“Uh…huh…so is that because of track, or,” she leaned back on the couch and closed her eyes for a moment, “is it because you don’t want the girls to take advantage of you?”
“I just don’t like the taste of alcohol, that’s all.”
“Well that really is novel these days.” She opened her eyes again and looked straight at him. “I wish I could say the same, but I have to admit that I love my champagne, but only the good stuff, Cristal, Dom. Nothing cheap for me. I’d rather drink water than even inhale cheap champagne.”
“Uh, Miss Davenport, it’s really late, and I should get back to studying. Maybe we can talk tomorrow.”
Her face broke into a smile. “You know, Calvin, you remind me of someone.” She leaned forward and almost whispered, “We were supposed to be married, seven years ago today. It’s our anniversary. Unfortunately, my husband-to-be took a wrong turn.”
Calvin was quiet with a slightly stunned look on his face.
She kept on talking as if she didn’t care whether he listened. “With someone else. But he’ll come back to me. It’s inevitable.” She smoothed out her dress, softly stroking the lace and running her fingers across the smooth pearls. “Do you believe in fate, Calvin?”
“Maybe, I’m not sure.”
“Well, I definitely do. That’s why I know I’ll have him someday. It’s fated. Really it is.”
“I believe you…but…”
“No buts, Calvin. Let’s just enjoy the time that we have together, celebrating my anniversary.” She got up and walked over to him, leaned over and then kissed him gently on the forehead.
Calvin stiffened. He looked pained.
Playfully, she said, “Don’t worry, I don’t bite.” She sat next to him on the couch. “Do you have a kiss for an old married lady?”
“Ms. Davenport, this is really not right. I mean. I’m sorry about your boyfriend and everything…but this isn’t right.”
She fiddled with a ring on her finger, a beautiful ruby, only it wasn’t on the wedding finger. “We still see each other, you know. We have an apartment, a very nice place, in Chelsea, but it’s not the same. Because he’s not mine all the time. But that will change. I know it will.”
She snuggled closer to Calvin on the couch, and looked at him with the saddest eyes… as if all the pain she’d ever known in her life was reflected in them.
“I’ll go,” she said slowly. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable…”
But just as she was about to get up, the door swung open, and that loud-assed jock Kowalski walked in the room. His eyes pop out of his big head. “Well…hello…Miss Davenport. Didn’t expect to see you here.”
“I’m leaving.” She got up as abruptly as she’d come, slinging her coat over her shoulders and brushing past Kowalski, without looking back.
The kid had stopped talking, but I could still see the outlines of their figures in front of me, like ghosts leaving a faint trail.
He cleared his throat, and looked me dead in the eye again. “So that’s it. That was the last time I saw her.”
“Pretty interesting.”
“No. Just sad. She was very sad.”
“And so my guess is that Kowalski then spread it all around campus.”
Calvin nodded grimly. “Yep. It got back to the dean, and they were going to fire her, but I wouldn’t talk. I felt sorry for her. She was obviously hurting badly. I didn’t want her to be out of a job, too. I mean, she didn’t hurt me or anything, so I just let it go.”
I wished sometimes I could be that philosophical about shit. “You just let it go…”
“Yes…”
“Do you know who she was talking about? The guy she was supposed to marry?”
“No. I don’t know. She didn’t mention his name.” He screwed up his face.
“What?”
“Well, there was one other thing. When she was leaving, really fast and everything, when Kowalski barged in…she said goodbye, Clive, to me. I figured she’d just forgotten my name. I didn’t really know her that well and Clive, Calvin, they’re kind of similar.”
Not really, especially if you know the deal like I did. But no need to clue him in on it.
“Well, Calvin, you’ve been real helpful…and I want to ask you one more thing.”
“Yeah.”
“If she ever contacts you or you hear from anybody where she is, you tell me right away, okay? There’s a dead man that we believe she was involved with, and she may know who did it.”
Normally you would’ve thought if you told a kid something like that he’d be a little uncomfortable, but not this one, he just stared me straight in the eye without blinking. “Sure thing, Detective. I’ll call you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Detective Bob
Laurel Marie Davenport. Her whole life was spread out in front of me. For once. the boys in blue had been able to haul ass. Now if they could just find her. I got it all: personnel records, school records, parents, the whole thing.
Forty-two, married once to a Lani Hillgrove in 1972… I made a note to myself, track down this guy…talk to him…divorced…1980…Same year Clive was married. No children.
She was adopted. Records sealed by court order. That’s how they did it back then. Adopted parents deceased. Raised in Cleveland, Ohio, no siblings. A loner in college, not in any organizations. From school records, she didn’t seem to have many friends, asked to live alone each year. Taught school for a year in Hendersonville, Mississippi, then a series of odd jobs until she came to New York in 1980. No job records from 1980 until ’85 when she started at city college. Permanent address, Clive’s place in Chelsea under her name from 1980, until she disappeared.
So they took up right away. Right after he married his wife. Damn, he took care of her, too. The rent on the place that I saw couldn’tve been cheap. And for somebody who didn’t have a steady job for almost five years, there’s no way she coulda hung there without Clive stoking the checks.
So what next. Find her. Talk to her. Maybe book her. Talk to the ex. I was writing all this down, minding my own business when I felt somebody looking over my shoulder.
“You look like you need a cup of coffee.”
I looked up and met Margie’s eyes. Before I could say anything, she handed me a Styrofoam cup of coffee, light cream, heavy sugar—she still remembered.
“Thanks.” It had gotten kind of quiet around me. Every cop in the place’s eyes were on me. Probably taking bets on what I was gonna do next. But I wasn’t gonna play into their hands. I was gonna stay cool. “Sit down.”
Margie looked a little surprised that I was so pleasant. I guess she half expected me to bite her head off.
“How’s the case going?”
“It’s going.”
“Do you have any good leads?”
“A couple, an ex-girlfriend, maybe a business partner who knows something. I’m making progress.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear that.” She didn’t sound like she believed me.
“Well.” She bit on her bottom lip.
“Well.”
“So how’s the apartment?”
“Mrs. Cooper’s still playing that opera shit at eight in the morning on Sundays, and the Fein kids are still running around on top of us at all hours of the day and night, but other than that, I guess everything’s the same.”
She smiled. It had been a long time since I’d seen her smile.
“What about you, did you get your own place yet?”
She shook her head no as she sipped her coffee. “Not yet, but I did move out from my parents. They got a little hard to take after a while.”
Trying not to sound too curious, I asked, “So where are you living then?”
“With my sister in Flatbush.”
I tried to sound nonchalant. “You can do better than that, Margie. You could move back with me. I got plenty of room.”
She smiled again, but firmly. “I appreciate the offer. But I think we should just leave well enough alone.”
“That’s not what you said ten years ago.”
She pressed the lid onto her coffee cup. “Ten years ago I was eighteen. Now I’m closer to thirty than twenty. So things change.”
“Margie…I…”
She leaned over and said softly, “I still love you, Bob, but I can’t live with you.”
What could I say to that? That I still loved her and wished she’d come back, that we could work out whatever needed to be worked out. But I wasn’t about to bare my soul in front of a room full of cops. I wondered when it had been really over. I mean, we’d had fights and all for a while. But the day it was really finished. The day I knew there was no turning back. The day of Dad’s funeral…the smell of death…ironic…
“C’mon Bob, we should go.”
Margie tried to lead me away. I looked at Dad’s fat, pudgy face, one more time. They’d cleaned him up for the funeral. My dad lying there, even in death, it seemed like they couldn’t get the scowl off his face.
I swished the coffee around in my cup. It’s later now. We’d been in this diner for about an hour not saying much. I don’t know what it is about funerals, but it seems like you never want to talk much after they’re over, and this time was no different.
“So are you okay?”
Margie looked over at me. I shrugged. “Sure, why not, knew it was coming. B’sides, my dad and me wasn’t exactly best buddies.”
“Maybe, but he was your father. There had to be some good times.”
“With him, shit, what good times? It was a living hell as long as I could remember.”
“Bob, at least try and forgive him for it. ’Cause I bet he suffered as much as you did.”
“Yeah right.”
“I’m serious. You’ve got to try and make peace with your feelings. I’m just sorry you two couldn’t talk and come to some understanding before he died.”
I looked the other way, not really wanting to have this discussion.
“Bob, a part of you is him, whether you like it or not. When you hate him, you’re hating yourself. You’ve gotta get outta this. You’ve gotta move on with your life.” Silence. “We’ve got to move on with our lives.”
I knew what she was talking about: marriage, kids, always the same.
“Margie can’t we lay off the marriage shit for one damn day? Please!” I regretted my words as they were coming out of my mouth, but it was too late.
She threw the napkin down on the table, looking at me without blinking. “You know what, Bob, this isn’t about marriage anymore. It’s about you not liking you. Because of your father, or whatever, I don’t know. All I know is I can’t be here ’til you figure it out. You’re always talking about you don’t want to be like your dad. Well, guess what? You are! You’re emotionally distant, angry and hate everybody and everything, but especially yourself. How can I love you if you don’t even like yourself?” She pushed away from the table, slowly grabbed her purse, and walked out without giving me a second glance.
A few weeks later, her shit was piled up on the sidewalk. And now she’s a cop. In my precinct. In my damn face. Every day.
“Bob, you’ve got to stop being mad, at me, at Internal Affairs, at everything.”
I turned back around, shaking off the past and exploding with all the anger and hurt I’d kept in since that day she’d left me. “Don’t start that shit again. What have I got to be pissed about, right?” I tried to laugh it off, but she just changed the subject.
“That’s not why I wanted to talk to you.”
“Well that’s good to know. I’m kinda tired of hearing about what’s wrong with me all the time.”
She ignored my temper tantrum. “Bob I wanted you to know that if you need any help on this case, I’m here for you. I know I’m a rookie, but I’m still your friend, despite everything that’s happened.”
“Look, I don’t need any help.”
She took my hand and said softly, “The guys around here talk. They’re saying you’re over your head on this one. That you’ve lost your touch.” Her words were cutting through me, but I was really too stunned to say anything. “I know it’s probably because of what you’ve been going through, or we’ve been going through the past few months. It’s been hard on me, too. I just wanted you to know that I’m here.”
She squeezed my hand. “I can’t stand to hear them talk about you that way. I know you’re the best. You’re better than any of the guys around here it’s just…”
I don’t know what happened, but I couldn’t stand anymore of her pity. I’m Bob Greene, I don’t need her fuckin’ sympathy…I don’t need it!
I swept my hand over my desk and knocked over the cup of hot coffee, over everything, like a river of blackness, covering my notes. “God damn it. Look what you made me do!”
A loud applause sounded from behind me. All the guys making fun of me. “Way to go, Greene.” Laughter. Sarcasm.
Somebody in a fake falsetto said, “Yo…you think he’ll snitch on her?”
Somebody else imitated the Captain, “Better call Internal Affairs. Looks like this shit might get ugly!”
Callahan, that fat Irishman from Queens, turned to Margie, cutting his eyes at me and saying, “Better watch out, little lady, hangin’ with him could be dangerous to your health. You could end up behind bars, like his partner.”
“Ex-partner!” somebody shouted out.
“Sorry, his ex-partner.”
I could feel the hatred swirling all around me. Like the stench of a dead body, getting into the walls, the floor. ’Cause once a corpse’s been in a room for a coupla days, you never really get the smell out. That’s how this was, seemed like no matter how much time passed, this hatred they all had for me was always around, just circulating, never really gone. My head was splitting. I couldn’t move.
Margie turned red, saying quickly. “Wait, I’ll get a towel.”
I wanted to tell her to forget it, you’ve done enough. But I couldn’t say anything.
That night, I’m lying in bed thinking about my life. Wondering how it got to be so screwed up. I didn’t even feel like any Jack. I just wanted to sleep and never wake up. I closed my eyes, wishing that if I had to wake up, everything would be different. I started drifting into sleep. Thank God for sleep. I began dreaming. Images were floating past me. My apartment, only it was filled with this warm light, which was strange ’cause my place was usually so dark, being on the back of the building. I was walking around and everything looked familiar but different.
I realized it was because she was back. Margie. I didn’t see her, but I sensed her near me. I was pissed. She was right about that. I don’t know why. I’m thinking, why did it take he
r so long? Why didn’t she come back when I wanted her to? Then I saw her in front of me, but far away, holding out her hands. I was so happy I ran to her, but as I got closer, her face changed, and she was gone.
It was him. Clive. His hands were folded like he didn’t approve. I wanted to cry out Margie! But I can’t, no sounds are coming out of me. But my eyes are opened again. The other eyes. It’s like the first time that Clive came through me. I’ve lost myself and I’ve become him. I’m seeing what he sees and feeling what he feels as it happens playing out through him. His life is rewinding like an old tape that won’t stop. Just as it happened back then.
Through Bob’s eyes as Bob experiences Clive’s life in real time.
He yanks my arm, pulling me after him. I try to resist, trying to find Margie, but the harder I fight, the more he pulls me. I feel like he’s gonna yank my arm out of the socket, he‘s pulling so hard. We‘re passing by streets, dark, narrow alleyways, places that look familiar, but I don’t know why. Then I realize I’m in Brooklyn, the seamy underside of Brooklyn, way out where the cops don’t like to go. We‘re in a little bar, a dive. He’s pulling me to a table. Two men are sitting there. One’s in his early twenties, red hair, big guy with a pinkish red face. The other man looks like a typical wiseguy if I ever saw one. Looking all around, intense. They’re arguing. I‘m trying to hear what they‘re saying. Clive pulls me closer to their table. Now I can hear and see everything clearly.
The red-haired guy looks like he’s trying to threaten the other guy. Not smart. You don’t talk like that to this kind of guy, if he’s who I think he is.
“We don’t have the money now, but you’ll get it, ok, just lay off of me…”
The wise guy leans forward. “That wasn’t our deal. We get the money when you promised, or we take the gig. It’s real simple.”
The red-haired guy looks like he’s about to go ballistic now, shouting, “Do you know who my father is…well do you?!”
And now the wiseguy type takes the other guy by the collar saying real low, but like he means serious business…”You ain’t your father, remember that, asshole. If it weren’t for who your old man was you wouldn’tve gotten shit from us. It’s outta respect to him that we even talk to punks like you.”
A Dead Man Speaks Page 19
