by R.J. Ellory
‘Eh?’ Faulkner frowns, one of those concerned frowns that indicate a degree of anxiety about another’s mental state.
‘It wouldn’t be right.’
‘What?’ Faulkner says, surprise evident in his tone. ‘But—’
‘I know, I know, I know,’ Duchaunak interjects. ‘I know it might not make sense, but I really don’t think it would be right for a man like him to die like this.’
Faulkner hesitates for a second, and then says, ‘I know what you mean, Frank . . . know exactly what you mean.’ He is quiet for a moment, and then, ‘You reckon the thing is still going to go ahead? You reckon they’re still going to do this thing if Lenny’s out of the picture?’
Duchaunak shrugs. ‘Aah, Christ only knows, Don. I still haven’t got my head around how these people think. Let’s just go up there and see what happened, okay?’
‘Okay,’ Faulkner says. ‘We go see what happened.’
Neither of them speaks again until they reach the lot behind St Vincent’s Hospital on West Twelfth and Seventh. Duchaunak parks the car, sits there for a moment without uttering a word, and then he opens the door and steps out.
‘You go,’ Faulkner says, almost as an afterthought. ‘It doesn’t need both of us.’
Duchaunak doesn’t reply. He slams the door shut and starts walking towards the hospital.
FIVE
‘A bold Sumatra,’ the coffee guy said. ‘Which is kind of earthy and aromatic. Or we have arabica, Colombian . . . the Colombian’s very good, freshly ground just an hour or so ago, kind of rich and chocolaty with a hazelnut undertone—’
Harper cut in. He felt sick, a little dizzy. ‘Just a cup of coffee,’ he told the guy, and wanted to add What in God’s name is a hazelnut fucking undertone? Are you people on drugs or what? But he didn’t say a word.
The coffee guy kind of sneered condescendingly, and said ‘Well, alright, if it’s just a cup of coffee you want then just a cup of coffee you’ll get.’
A handful of minutes later, coffee in his hand still too hot to drink, the smell of it almost turning his stomach, John Harper stood on the corner of Seventh and Greenwich and looked at the impressive facade of St Vincent’s Hospital. Christmas lights hung in some of the windows on the upper floors, and a lone pine tree stood sentinel at the top of the front steps. He had walked all the way from Evelyn’s, had considered going back but felt he couldn’t face her. Not yet; not until he’d come out here and seen for himself.
There was a smell in the air like snow. Cool and crisp. Harper clutched his jacket around his throat with his free hand and looked up at the sky. Clouds, pale and thin, scudded awkwardly towards a yellowed harvest moon. God, how he wanted a cigarette. Cursed himself for leaving Evelyn’s house without an overcoat.
Didn’t know what to feel. Thirty-six years old, and the father that had left when he was two – a father he’d never spoken to, a father he’d believed dead – was up ahead of him in the hospital, dying of a gunshot wound.
He took a step, now resolved that he would go up there and see. One foot forward, hit the edge of the kerb, and then stopped dead in his tracks. He closed his eyes for a moment. He raised the coffee cup to his lips, caught the aroma and decided against drinking it. He popped the lid, leaned to pour the contents into the gutter, and then backed up a step to put the cup in a trash bin. He folded his arms and stamped his feet. He really wanted a cigarette, just a couple of drags, just to feel that rush of sensation in his throat, his chest. Something to help him feel grounded.
He walked down the sidewalk. He went no more than three or four yards, and then turned suddenly and hurried across the road to the front of the building.
By the time he realized what he was doing he was standing beside the pine tree inside the front entrance. A small paper angel sat on the uppermost branch. A slight breeze caused its tissue-thin wings to flutter, but the angel hung on relentlessly. A man came out of the revolving glass doors and looked at Harper. The man nodded, sort of half-smiled, like there was a sense of fellow-feeling and camaraderie that naturally existed between all those who came to such places. You’re here because someone died, it said. Or maybe someone is going to die and you want to make sure you settle things with them before they go. Something such as this. Harper smiled back and went in through the doors. He stood for a moment and then located the reception desk to the right.
The duty administrator possessed the face of someone who spent their life sympathizing.
‘I’m here—’ Harper started, his voice faltering.
‘You are indeed, sir,’ the woman replied.
Harper looked at the badge on her jacket. Nancy Cooper, it read, and Harper thought of Nancy Young and David Leonhardt and the question that was neither asked nor answered.
‘I’m here to see someone,’ Harper went on. ‘To ask if I can see someone who was admitted.’
‘Name?’ Nancy Cooper asked.
‘Mine?’
‘The person admitted.’
‘Edward . . . Edward Bernstein.’
Nancy rattled her fingernails on the computer keyboard. ‘And you are?’
Harper looked at her, his eyes wide.
‘Sir?’
‘His son,’ a voice said from behind Harper.
Harper emitted a strange sound from the back of his throat, something both of fear and surprise.
‘Hello there Sonny,’ the voice said.
Harper swallowed awkwardly. He turned.
‘How’ve you been keeping?’
Older, much older, but the voice, the face, the smile – everything was unmistakable.
For a while, a handful of years after Garrett died, there was a family friend, a man called Walt Freiberg. He came every once in a while; he gave Evelyn money, brought gifts for John, called him ‘Sonny’. A drinking man, always smelled of liquor; thick neck, dark eyes, fingers swollen and red at the tips as if cauterized to stop them fraying. Laughed like an express train through a smoky tunnel. Visited infrequently until Harper reached his teens, and then he too disappeared into the maw of living that was New York.
Now Walt Freiberg stood right behind him, and as Harper turned Freiberg raised his arms and put his hands on Harper’s shoulders.
‘You’re here,’ Freiberg said.
Harper didn’t move. There were no words to express what he felt. There was too much emotion, too much feeling altogether – memories flooding back, a sense of anger, something akin to loss, something else that threatened the very structure of his body as he stood shaking and sweating and trying to keep it all together.
‘I was so hoping you’d come,’ Freiberg said. ‘I called Evelyn and told her to get you here. She was surprised to hear from me after all these years, but considering the circumstances I felt it was the right thing to do.’
‘I . . . I don’t know—’
Freiberg smiled. He pulled Harper close and hugged him. The prodigal son returned. ‘It’s okay, Sonny,’ he said, and Harper felt like a child, all of nine or ten years old, standing in the bay window of the Carmine Street house as Uncle Walt came out the back of a yellow cab with flowers for Evelyn and birthday gifts for himself.
‘He’s here,’ Freiberg said. ‘He tried to stop someone robbing a liquor store—’
Freiberg released Harper and stepped back. ‘Christ almighty . . . you look like him, John, you really do look so much like him. It’s good to see you, so very good to see you after all these years . . . such a terrible thing, such a terrible reason for you to see him, but. . .’
Freiberg’s voice trailed away. He closed his eyes for a moment. He sighed and shook his head. ‘We’ll go up now.’
Harper nodded involuntarily.
Freiberg stepped in front of the desk and smiled at Nancy Cooper. ‘We’d like to go on up and see Mr Bernstein if that’s okay?’
Nancy shook her head. ‘He’s in Intensive Care right now. You won’t be able to go in and actually see him, but they might let you into the ante-room. Third floor, turn r
ight as you come out of the elevator. Speak to one of the orderlies and they’ll find you a duty doctor.’
Freiberg thanked the woman and then, with his hand on Harper’s shoulder, guided him to the elevator.
At one point Harper slowed and stopped. He turned, eyes wide, his face pale and drawn, every muscle in his body tense and jagged.
‘It’s okay,’ Freiberg said. ‘Just go with it Sonny . . . just go with it.’
Third floor, heading right as they came out of the elevator just like Nancy told them. Long corridor, sound of shoes on the linoleum, sound of shoes echoing back from above and beside, heart beating in Harper’s chest. Felt like a kid. Uncle Walt’s hand on his elbow, guiding him, being there for him. Like when he was little. Uncle Walt coming with presents from the back of the car, and small Harper never really understanding why Aunt Ev made him feel so unwelcome. Tension in the house between them, tension you could feel.
And then, suddenly, Walt Freiberg slowed down as they neared the end of the corridor. To their right was a wide window, must have been eight or ten feet, and through it Harper saw a man in a suit talking to a doctor.
‘What the fu—’ Uncle Walt started, and then he said ‘Stay here, John . . . just stay right here a minute.’
Harper was rooted to the spot. Couldn’t have moved without external motivation had he even known where to move. A thought: after his break-up, the one with Nancy Young, he felt hollow. Just that; nothing more; just hollow. Felt like a shell of flesh with nothing inside. Felt like that now. Felt like he’d woken suddenly from a bad nightmare, a real bad nightmare, and realized that he hadn’t been sleeping at all. Understood that everything he’d imagined was real.
He turned slightly, just his neck because he was incapable of moving much more than that, and he saw Walt Freiberg saying something venomous to the man in the suit. The doctor had taken a couple of steps backward; he looked almost threatened, and the man in the suit stood there listening to whatever Walt was saying, and every once in a while he sort of side-glanced towards Harper. He frowned, just a fleeting shift in his expression, but Harper registered nothing. Because there was nothing to register. Because he was hollow.
Walt kept on talking. He even raised his hand and pointed his finger. The man in the suit looked away, and then he looked down, and then he held a momentary expression like he’d been caught doing something bad. He looked like a man ashamed.
Walt stopped talking. The man in the suit said something – not very much at all, but something – and then he started towards the door at the end of the wide window. He came out. He walked towards Harper. He stared at him, didn’t avert his gaze. He frowned, tilted his head to one side, and he opened his mouth to speak. ‘You look like—’
Suddenly Walt Freiberg was beside Harper.
‘Don’t say anything,’ Freiberg said, and Harper didn’t know who he was talking to. Wouldn’t have mattered much anyhow: Harper had nothing to say.
‘Go do your job,’ Walt said. ‘Jesus man, can’t you have just a little compassion. Go find out who did this thing, huh? Isn’t that what you’re paid for?’
The man in the suit looked over his shoulder at Freiberg. He didn’t respond. He turned and walked past Harper without a word.
Freiberg walked after him, just two or three steps, but Harper sensed the territorial thing. Freiberg was seeing the man away, making sure he didn’t get halfway down the corridor and turn back.
‘Come on,’ he told Harper, and then he was guiding him once more, walking him through the doorway at the end of the window.
The doctor still looked unnerved and ill-at-ease. ‘I’m sorry sir—’ he began. ‘I didn’t—’
Walt Freiberg raised his hand. ‘It’s okay doctor. No harm done. You were doing your job . . . which is more than can be said for that asshole.’
The doctor seemed simultaneously concerned and relieved. ‘I’m actually unable to let you into the room,’ he said. ‘There’s a window to the side. You can see him from there, but in his present condition I am maintaining a strict policy of no visitors. His vital signs are too weak for any non-medical contact at all.’
Freiberg nodded. ‘It’s okay doctor, I understand. It will be fine if you just let us through to see him, right John?’
He smiled as he looked at Harper. Harper smiled back without awareness of what he was doing, what he was smiling at.
The doctor seemed satisfied. He stepped past them and opened another door.
Freiberg led Harper through and down a narrow corridor to the end. To the left was another window, smaller than the first, and as Harper drew to a stop, as he stood beside Uncle Walt and looked through the glass, as he saw the old man lying right there before him, tubes in his nose, his mouth, wires and lines and machinery humming and buzzing and making green jagged lines across black screens, he realized that the man before him was a father he had never known, had never really been aware that he didn’t know . . . Everything that had happened in the last thirty-six years came back to him, everything he had experienced alone and yet now felt he’d been meant to experience with this dying stranger. As all of these things crowded up against him, pushing the walls of the corridor into him claustrophobically, he believed he was actually feeling nothing at all.
The machines hummed and buzzed and clicked. They drew their jagged green lines across black glass screens.
Harper felt the tension in his own chest rising and falling.
It was the only thing that told him he was still breathing.
*
Standing half a block down the street, looking back towards St Vincent’s, Frank Duchaunak buried his hands in his pockets and exhaled. Condensation issued from his mouth.
A few feet to his left Don Faulkner sat in the car, engine idling, window down.
‘Get in the freakin’ car, Frank . . . it’s goddamned cold.’
Duchaunak turned and looked at him. ‘Freiberg was in there.’
‘Walt Freiberg?’
Duchaunak nodded. ‘The very same . . . and someone was with him, someone who looked like Lenny.’
‘You think he’ll die?’
‘Fuck knows, Don,’ Duchaunak said.
‘Frank?’
Duchaunak looked at his partner.
‘Get in the car, will you?’
‘I don’t want him to die like this,’ Duchaunak said. ‘Not after all this time . . . after everything we’ve gone through to get here. It can’t end like this . . . it wouldn’t be right.’
Faulkner didn’t reply. He wound the window up, sat watching as Duchaunak stood there for a further two or three minutes. Faulkner couldn’t see clearly, his own breath was misting the glass, but it seemed like Frank Duchaunak was talking to himself.
‘Jesus,’ he whispered eventually to no-one but himself. ‘Jesus Christ almighty. What the fuck do we do now?’
Evelyn Sawyer stands at the top of the stairs. Her house is silent.
‘You heard him?’ she asks, as if to no-one, and does not wait for a reply.
‘He was here. You heard him, right? You should have seen him . . . looked so much like Edward you’d have figured him for a ghost. I wanted you to hear him . . . hear his voice, you know? Wanted you to know who he was so you’d understand why we made this agreement. If anything happens to him . . .’
Her voice fades. She lowers her head and closes her eyes. ‘Well, if anything happens to him . . .’
She never finishes what she planned to say. She turns and makes her way back down the upper hallway to the head of the stairwell.
The house on Carmine is silent once more.
SIX
Harsh wind. Walking down the back steps of the hospital, leaning against Walt Freiberg. Wind almost blew him over. Uncertain steps. Tears in his eyes. Difficult to see. Nearly lost his footing on the last riser, but Walt was there, Walt was there to hold him up. Said nothing, just felt Walt’s hand hold him tighter, and regained his balance.
Passenger door of the car opened as Harpe
r and Freiberg approached it. Someone came out and started towards them. A woman. Long hair, dark, blowing wild in the wind. Hard to see her face clearly through his tears. And then she was there beside Harper, there on the other side, and she and Freiberg led him like a lost soul to the back of the vehicle. The girl opened the rear door. Harper climbed in. Didn’t say a word; couldn’t find any. Had been looking for half an hour but there were none inside.
Girl came in beside him and he shuffled along the seat. Walt climbed in on the driver’s side up front, and then all the doors were closed and the wind had stopped blowing and for a brief moment there was silence.
‘This,’ Walt Freiberg said, glancing over his shoulder and smiling at the girl, ‘is Cathy Hollander. Cathy is a good friend of your father’s. She came over with me.’
Harper turned as Cathy brushed the windswept hair from her face. His heart missed a beat. Whatever he might have said died a quiet death somewhere between his mind and his mouth. He felt his eyes widen. His mouth was dry.
Cathy frowned, tilted her head, kind of half-smiled.
Harper continued to stare. A knot of emotions, tied so tight it could never be unravelled. Would take a sharp blade to sever it cleanly and release him. Harper blinked twice, blinked in slowmotion like a lizard. Almost heard the sound of his eyelids closing, opening once again. Cathy Hollander. Cathy Hollander.
Harper felt as if he’d taken a swift roundhouse to the solar plexus. Nothing much left of him but wishful thinking and absent words.
‘It’s unnerving,’ she said. She looked at Freiberg. ‘Jesus. . . this is a little freaky, Walt.’
Harper shook his head. He had difficulty taking his eyes off her. He frowned. It was pretty much the only change of expression he could manage.
‘You look so much like him,’ Cathy said. ‘You look so much like him it’s actually quite unsettling.’
Harper looked at Walt, did so simply to change the direction of his gaze. Walt smiled. ‘We’re going to go eat . . . it’s good to eat at a time like this. We’re also going to call Evelyn and tell her you’re okay, that you’re with us and we’re going to take care of you tonight.’
