by R.J. Ellory
There was silence for a little while. Cathy could hear the sound of her breathing, feel the beating of her heart.
‘You hear me?’
‘I hear you, Walt.’
‘I make any fucking sense to you, or am I just another piece of furniture?’
‘You aren’t furniture Walt. You aren’t ever going to be close to furniture. I hear what you say.’
‘And?’
Cathy looked up, smiled and frowned simultaneously. ‘What d’you want me to say?’ She laughed. ‘You want me to call him and ask him to marry me? I heard what you said, Walt. I listened. I paid attention. Lot of shit is going to go down before I have to think about what I’m going to do.’
‘Sure as hell it is, but when it starts it’s going to be fast. It’ll be over before you know it, and then you’re going to be high and dry. You have to make a plan, Cathy. You have to think about what you’re going to do, and have your options worked out.’
‘You going to be my career counsellor?’
‘Smartmouth all you like sweetheart . . . this is a brutal fucking thing that’s going to happen, and once it’s done Edward is not going to be around to protect you from the backlash.’
Cathy raised her hand. ‘I got it, Walt, I really do. I have my ideas, okay? I got into this trouble by being impulsive. I got some things worked out—’
‘And John Harper . . . he figures somewhere in the things you’ve worked out?’
Cathy smiled. ‘I’m going to tell you? You’re a gambling man. Walt. You get a hand you keep it tight until it’s ready to show, yes?’
Freiberg smiled. ‘We’re done with this,’ he said. ‘I get the feeling my little lecture was unnecessary.’
‘I’m going to do what I have to do, Walt. Don’t worry about me.’
Freiberg raised both his hands. ‘Conversation is over,’ he said. ‘You call the hotel, find out where he’s at . . . if he’s there go see him and we’ll arrange a meet. I want to know what the deal is with this cop . . . I want to know whether he’s chasing John the way he chased Edward.’
‘You’re a good man, Walt Freiberg,’ Cathy said. She leaned forward, held his face between her hands. She kissed him once – gently, as a daughter would kiss a father – and then she let him go.
‘Go make the call,’ Freiberg said. ‘Go make the call and we’ll see what damage has been done.’
THIRTY-SEVEN
For some reason Harper mentioned Garrett. Why, he didn’t know. Perhaps it was the house, the fact that all his memories of Carmine were encapsulated within the events of that day. When Harper said his name he could see how swift and merciless the reaction was. Evelyn stopped dead in her tracks, had started to speak of Duchaunak, of Edward Bernstein, of why these men had become adversaries, and later Harper wished that the thought of Garrett had never come to mind.
‘They’re crazy people,’ she said quietly. ‘All of them. Edward Bernstein, Ben Marcus, Albert Reiff . . . all of them . . . as crazy as it gets.’
Harper leaned forward. ‘How do you know these things Evelyn? How do you know what happened, about all these people, their names, what they did . . . how do you know about all the people who’ve died?’
She smiled. It was a smile tainted with sadness and regret. It was the expression of a woman discovering a painful truth she had long expected, and having expected it had somehow reconciled herself to it before its arrival. ‘Because of Garrett.’
‘Garrett?’ Harper asked. ‘But Garrett is dead.’
‘I know, sweetheart. I know he’s dead, but you mentioned his name and there he is, right there in front of me.’
Harper frowned. ‘I don’t understand, Evelyn. I don’t understand what Garrett has to do with this.’
‘You ever wonder why Garrett killed himself? You ever ask yourself that?’
‘Endlessly,’ Harper replied. ‘I was twelve years old for God’s sake. I can close my eyes even now and see him . . . I can see the room . . . everything. Of course I’ve asked myself why he did it.’
‘You ever wonder if it wasn’t a suicide?’
Harper said nothing. He remembered Duchaunak asking the same question, and the thought of Duchaunak reminded him that Evelyn had started telling him about Edward Bernstein, what had happened to start the cat-and-mouse game.
‘Well?’ Evelyn prompted. ‘Did that thought ever cross your mind?’
‘Duchaunak asked the same thing,’ Harper said.
‘Seems to me Frank Duchaunak may have his own agenda. Who knows where his loyalty ends and his obsession begins. You ever consider that? That he might have an awful lot more to do with these people than he’s saying?’ Evelyn shook her head. ‘Regardless, Frank Duchaunak, whatever kind of crazy he might be, is not a stupid man.’
‘So Garrett was murdered? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘I’m not saying anything, John . . . I’m suggesting that there might be a different set of events and facts to explain what happened to my husband.’
‘You think he was murdered?’ Harper asked.
Evelyn smiled. ‘The jury’s still out.’
‘But you consider there is a strong possibility that Garrett did not commit suicide?’
Evelyn sighed. ‘I was married to him. I married the man because I loved him. I am not an impulsive or spontaneous woman. I married him because I believed he was a good man, and though there may have been mistakes, though he might have been involved with people he shouldn’t have been, even involved in things that were not right, he was still a good man at heart. I also believe I knew him well enough to know he wasn’t one to bail out when things got bad. I don’t believe that he was the kind of man who would kill himself to avoid facing the truth.’
Harper stubbed out his cigarette. He rose from his chair and walked to the window. ‘So what are you saying, Evelyn? What are we actually saying here?’
She turned towards him. ‘I’m saying that nothing is exactly what it appears to be, John. I’m saying that there has been a great deal of loss and hurt and pain connected with my life. Your father is the same. He chose to do something with his life, and though I don’t believe he regrets his decision I still believe that where he is now is testament to the hard reality of such a life.’
‘He was shot in a liquor store robbery Ev . . . a random thing, a random shooting. Hell, it could have been anyone there—’
‘Could have been, John, but wasn’t. Edward was there, right there when someone came in to commit a robbery. Seems to me that those who live by the sword—’
Harper stopped her. ‘Don’t give me the lecture, Evelyn. The last thing I need right now is some cliched religious quotes. You’ll be telling me it’s karma next—’
‘Maybe it is.’
‘So what is the deal with these people then? Garrett died . . . how many years ago?’
‘Twenty-four.’
Harper threw up his hands. ‘Twenty-four years. Jesus . . . quarter of a century, Evelyn. I seem to be missing something here. He died twenty-four years ago, and yet you know all about these people, all these things they’ve done—’
‘I don’t know everything, John, not even half of it I’m sure.’
‘But you know something, right?’
‘I read the newspapers. I watch the TV. I listen to what people say . . . I just pay attention. For God’s sake it isn’t that hard to find out what happens in this city—’
‘Bullshit, Ev, that’s just so much bullshit. You know about these things because you want to know about them. You read the papers and watch TV? Not a hope. You don’t find out things like that without doing something to find out.’
‘Okay, okay. Enough, John. You’re right. I know about them because I made the effort to find out.’
‘But why? Why would you want to know this stuff?’
Evelyn sat stock-still. Her eyes were bright, fierce almost. Her hands were clenched, her whole body rigid with suppressed emotion. ‘Because these are the people that took my life away John.
These are the people that took away my sister and my husband—’
‘You don’t know that, Ev. You said that you didn’t know whether or not Garrett was killed . . .’
‘I know enough, John. I know that Garrett is dead, your mother too. Whether they were murdered or they killed themselves doesn’t even matter now. The truth is simple, even simpler in hindsight than it was at the time. If Edward Bernstein had not been part of our lives, if they had never met him, never been involved with him, then they would both be alive . . .’
‘You don’t know that, Ev. How can you possibly know something like that?’
She smiled, a tense and awkward smile. ‘Because I know Edward Bernstein. I know what he’s like. I know what he’s capable of—’
‘What he’s capable of? What the hell d’you mean, what he’s capable of?’
Evelyn shook her head. ‘You don’t see it do you? Christ, I couldn’t even begin to explain what these people have done. I don’t know . . . it’s not fair on you. It’s not fair to bring you here and open up this can of worms. This is exactly what I prayed would never happen. This is why I never told you about him, why I never mentioned his name, why I told you he was dead for all these years. This is a life that I never wanted to see you become part of—’
‘I’m not part of anything, Ev—’
‘No, you’re not, and because you aren’t you’re alive and well, you have a job, you aren’t dead or in jail or—’
‘Or anything,’ Harper said. ‘I’m not anything, Evelyn . . . I’m no-one. No roots, no family, no history, nothing. I live down there in Miami on my own. I have a dead-end, meaningless job—’
‘Meaningless? You wrote a book, John. You wrote a book, a very good book if you want to know my opinion. And now you write for a newspaper. You don’t rob banks or carry a gun. You don’t spend half your time looking over your shoulder to find out which of your closest friends is going to kill you.’ Evelyn stopped talking. She looked at Harper and shook her head. ‘You don’t get it, John, and I don’t know that you ever will. I don’t even know that I want you to get it. This is a bad business. These are dangerous and unthinking people. This Walt Freiberg . . . Walt Freiberg is a man who possesses no heart, no soul, nothing as far as I’m concerned. Walt Freiberg is a horror . . . an absolute horror of a human being—’
Evelyn paused to catch her breath. Her hands were shaking, her eyes rimmed with tears. She looked crushed, defeated.
She took a deep breath and held it for a moment. Shaking her head slowly, she rose from her chair and held out her hand towards Harper.
Harper stayed exactly where he was.
‘I never wanted this life for you, John . . . never wanted you to be part of it, never wanted you to even know of it. I always said I was sorry that you left for Florida, and I was . . .’ Evelyn took another step forward, reaching out her hand even further. ‘I was sorry to see you go, but at the same time it gave me a great feeling of relief. At least in Florida there was a chance you would never become involved in this life.’
Harper stepped back, and back once more until he was stopped by the counter. He moved to the right, began making his way towards the door.
‘Don’t go, John,’ Evelyn said, a note of pleading in her voice.
Harper shook his head. ‘I’m going, Evelyn, I have to get out of here—’
‘No,’ she said, and tears started to well from her eyes. ‘Stay here with me, John . . . stay here and we can protect each other from these people—’
But Harper stepped past her and took his jacket from the back of the chair. ‘I’m going, Evelyn. I’m going back to the hotel to take some time to think about all of this. I don’t know what to believe. Did my mother kill herself? Was Garrett really murdered? Who the hell is Cathy Hollander and Walt Freiberg and what the hell do they have to do with me?’ He gritted his teeth, raised his fist as if he was preparing to put it through the door. ‘Jesus Christ! You’re right, Evelyn. I suppose I did have a life. I may not have had much of a fucking life, but it was something. I was down there in Miami minding my own business . . . Christ, I was on the way to a fishing tournament when the paper called me—’
‘John . . . please—’
‘No, Evelyn. Enough is enough. I’m leaving now. Don’t say anything else. I’ve heard everything I want to hear.’
He hesitated for a split-second, almost as if he was willing her to challenge him.
She sat down heavily, looked at him with an expression of utter despair. Not a word came from her lips.
Harper nodded his head once, an acknowledgement of her silence, and then he left. He closed the front door silently while behind him, there in the small kitchen on Carmine Street, a room that represented all of his childhood years, Evelyn Sawyer buried her face in her hands and wept.
Harper had reached the junction before he registered any real emotion, and when he did it almost took him off his feet.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Cathy Hollander shook her head and set the receiver back in its cradle.
‘Not there?’ Freiberg asked.
‘No. He went out and hasn’t come back.’
Freiberg nodded. ‘Okay,’ he said quietly. ‘Okay, okay, okay . . .’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Leave it for now,’ he said. ‘Go home. I have some things to see to. Call him again in the morning . . . no, second thoughts, go to the hotel in the morning. Go over there and see him in person. Make sure you actually see him. Find out what this cop has been saying to him. We can’t have him falling apart on us right near the end.’
Cathy Hollander nodded.
‘You can handle this?’
Cathy smiled. ‘I could handle Edward,’ she said.
‘So be it,’ Walt Freiberg said. ‘John Harper is your responsibility from this point on.’
Cathy Hollander tried to smile. She found she could not. She wondered where this thing would end; if indeed it would end. She wondered, when all was said and done, if she would be alive to tell the tale.
‘It’s going to work out,’ Walt Freiberg said, and he reached out and took her hand.
‘Promise?’ she asked.
Freiberg smiled; shook his head. ‘Never promise anything Cathy,’ he replied. ‘Promises—’
‘Were made to be broken, right?’
‘Right.’
Cathy squeezed Freiberg’s hand.
‘Now go,’ he said, his voice almost a whisper. ‘There are things that have to be done.’
Looking like he’d walked from an auto smash, in itself nothing short of a miracle, Frank Duchaunak, cold and bitter, hands buried in his overcoat pockets, stood on the corner of Hudson and West Broadway watching the front entrance of the Regent. The urge to go up there, to stand in the corridor on the tenth floor, was almost overpowering. He wanted to see John Harper, wanted to find out what was happening, what he’d been told to do, what Freiberg had asked of him, because he knew there would be something. Frank Duchaunak knew there would be something.
After leaving the precinct house he’d considered making a trip to St Vincent’s. Instead he’d called, learned that Lenny Bernstein was neither better nor worse. The man was in a coma, as good as, and nothing had changed since the day before.
And thus he’d walked out here, out to Hudson, out to the hotel where he believed John Harper was hiding from the world.
Three or four times he’d started away from the facing sidewalk, even made it as far as the curb, but then he’d turned back. He was a man torn between two opposites: his duty and his intuition. Duty dictated that Harper was off-limits, not only from the viewpoint that Duchaunak was suspended, but from the viewpoint that Harper himself had in no way violated any law. No matter the crime, there was no law that provided for random investigation of a perpetrator’s relatives. Against this was Duchaunak’s intuition, of such conviction it pained him. Walt Freiberg was keeping Harper in New York for a reason. A specific and definite reason. Walt Freiberg never did anythi
ng without rationale or motive. Not ever.
Finally, unwillingly, Duchaunak started walking away from the Regent. Had he waited a further ten or fifteen minutes he would have seen Harper himself, head down, hands buried in his coat pockets almost in mimicry of Duchaunak, walking the street as if drawn by something. His movements were automatic, unthinking, and he seemed to be fighting with something that pulled him in the opposite direction. Had the detective seen him he would perhaps have been unable to approach him. Perhaps not.
Duchaunak went home. Once inside it started to snow again. He sat and watched from his window, much as Cathy Hollander, much as John Harper, all of them looking out into the same city. Different lives, different perspectives, different reasons.
Three blocks west of Carmine, corner of Washington and Leroy, a man called Charlie Beck flicked a cigarette into the gutter, and then entered a narrow doorway to his right. A faded awning read West Side Boxing Academy. He shrugged off his coat and handed it to a man standing in the foyer. They exchanged acknowledgements without words, and then Beck walked through a second door into the gym. Place smelled rank – old sweat, dried blood, much pain. He raised his hand to Walt Freiberg who was standing against the back wall sharing words with a fighter. Beck waited until the fighter had walked away, back towards a makeshift ring at the far end of the room, and then he sauntered across to Freiberg, smiling as he went.
‘We’re good?’ Freiberg asked.
‘Good as Wenceslas,’ Beck replied, and then he grinned like a fool and shook Freiberg’s hand.
‘What have we got?’
‘M-16s. Got some .45s, .38s, few other bits and pieces.’
‘Vehicles?’
‘Spoke to Henry Kossoff and Victor Klein. We’re going to use E-250s, four of them. Black.’
‘And after?’
