New York Nights [Virex 01]

by Eric Brown

  He stood in the freezing square, reaching out in a futile gesture of entreaty. He was aware of the hostile stares of the homeless. He turned, looked for the car. As he made his way across the square, he wondered if he was going mad. He slipped into the driver’s seat and turned the heater up to full, warming himself. Something had happened to his head in virtual reality. Something had reached in, dislodged a memory buried deep in his subconscious.

  He considered what the phantom had advised. He started the Ford and drove, found himself heading across town, and then accelerating across Queensboro Bridge to Long Island and taking Highway 495 through Queens. Kilometres to the south, JFK airport glowed like an old pinball machine in the night. Above it, the lights of approaching planes formed a vast corkscrew holding pattern in the darkness. He stayed on the highway for an hour, his the only vehicle in sight, accelerated and sat back as classical music played softly on the radio.

  It was years since he had last been this way, and when he had visited his father he’d arranged to meet in a restaurant in order to avoid the house. It wasn’t as if the house was the original, either: it had been re-built, to a different design, in the same lot, soon after the fire. Halliday had never liked living there after that: the new house seemed an impostor, with none of the charm of the original; the new timber possessed by creaks and groans as it settled, which Halliday had ascribed to the movement of a restless ghost.

  He turned towards the coast on Highway 97 and, twenty minutes later, slowed as he passed through Blue Point and the row of grand sea-front mansions to his right. His father lived three kilometres further along the coast road, in a wild tract of marram grass and dead trees backing onto the dunes of the foreshore. Halliday practically crawled the last mile or two, as if his conscious self was reluctant now to go through with what his subconscious had set in motion.

  The house appeared, suddenly, to his right. His first thought was that this gaunt, dour building could not be the home in which he’d spent the last three years of his youth. It had burned down again, surely, and been replaced. It seemed much smaller than he recalled.

  He halted the Ford across the street and sat staring out at the house and, beyond, the dead copse where he had played with his sisters.

  The sky was paling towards the east as the sun rose over the sea, throwing the house into stark silhouette. Halliday waited for some sign of life from within. His father had always been an early riser, conditioned by a lifetime of military service. At six, a small rectangle of orange light appeared in a downstairs window. Halliday waited five minutes, then another five, before at last forcing himself to leave the car.

  He walked across the unfenced lawn and moved around the house, rather than ring the bell on the front door. He would sooner appear at the kitchen door, as if this might make his visit less formal. He paused at the corner of the house and stared along the length of the back garden, to the oak tree which he had climbed as a boy. He had loved the tree, had felt close to some essence within it - a feeling beyond his power to express in words and which, therefore, he had kept to himself.

  The oak was dead, now. He approached slowly, like a mourner to the grave of a friend. It still towered over him, majestic in size if nothing else, but its trunk had split and many of its branches, pulpy now, had broken off and fallen to the ground.

  He had vivid memories of hiding in the leafy boughs of the oak, while Eloise and Sue had danced around the garden and tried to find him. Eloise had always been his favourite, for no reason he could recall, and to his abiding discomfort to this day. They were twins, though not identical: Eloise had been fair and tall for her age, Sue dark and small. He had wanted to like them equally, but was always, inexplicably, drawn towards Eloise, even though he was distressed by Sue’s pain at his bias.

  He was startled by a shout

  ‘What the hell are you doing out there in the freezing cold?’ It was his father’s peculiar ability to be able to disguise even concern in admonition.

  Halliday turned and walked towards the house.

  His father had already moved back inside. Halliday climbed the steps and pushed open the screen door. He felt almost numbed at the thought of what he had to ask his father, considered even now just making some excuse for the visit and leaving as soon as possible.

  ‘You find your way here okay?’

  Was it a dig at the fact that he had not visited for so long? He shrugged. ‘The roads were quiet. It was early.’

  ‘Fix yourself a coffee and come through to the front room,’ his father said, and disappeared through the door.

  Halliday looked around. The effort of pouring a coffee seemed almost beyond him. He wanted to hurry through the kitchen door and drive away.

  He thought of Eloise, and what her ghost had said.

  He found a cup, poured a black coffee from the percolator and carried it through. The front room seemed little changed from when he had lived here; it possessed an eerie fin de siecle charm, like an exhibition in a museum. He looked around and could see no modern appliances, no computers or wallscreens. The only concession to modernity was the small portable com-screen on the coffee table before the ancient gas fire.

  His father, like the room, seemed hardly to have changed at all. He sat on an upright chair, thin and steel-grey and unbending as the blade of a sword.

  Halliday perched on the edge of the sofa and sipped his coffee.

  ‘If you’re here about what you mentioned the other night. . .’ his father began.

  Halliday shook his head. He let the silence stretch. He wanted to ask why he had been such a disappointment to his father; if it was because he had failed to follow him into the Marines. He had seen his destiny in doing something as an individual, not as part of a collective fighting force. He had completed two years at law college, but the study was beyond him. He had dropped out and, as if to appease his father, had applied to join the New York Police Department, or perhaps it was because, after two years of fruitless study, he craved excitement and saw the police as a potential source of adventure.

  Of course, neither had his father been that much impressed, nor had he found the life of a New York cop that thrilling.

  When he left five years later to join Barney at the agency, his father had found this a reason to snipe. ‘At least in the police you were providing a public service.’

  ‘And in the agency we’ll be finding missing people. It’s what I was doing with the force.’

  ‘But now you’ll be doing it for clients who pay,’ his father had argued. ‘Clients who can afford to pay.’

  ‘We’ll also be taking on old police work.’

  His father had refused to listen at that point; as far as he was concerned, he had already won the argument. He had managed, yet again, to demean his son.

  Halliday looked up from his coffee. ‘I’ve been having hallucinations,’ he began, without thinking how his father might react. It was as if he were speaking to the wall.

  ‘I’ve been seeing a ghost for the past couple of days.’

  His father leaned forward, and Halliday thought he detected an edge of concern in his tone. ‘You aren’t ill, Hal?’

  ‘I’m okay. It’s just that I’ve suppressed something for so long - kept it buried. And now it’s coming out. I keep seeing Eloise.’

  ‘I knew it. I knew it was about her.’

  He looked straight at his father. ‘What happened? What happened that day?’

  His father pursed his lips like an ancient, reluctant turtle. ‘I told you, it’s too painful to recollect. I don’t like thinking . . .’ He shook his head in bafflement and pain. ‘How could you?’

  ‘Because I need to know! Don’t you think her death was as painful for me as it was for you?’

  ‘I don’t know that. How can one quantify grief?’

  Halliday didn’t reply, could not begin to do so. The silence stretched. ‘What happened, Dad? Please tell me.’

  His father looked across the room at him, and it occurred to Halliday
then that Eloise had inherited his bright blue eyes. ‘You don’t remember anything, Hal?’

  ‘Nothing specifically. I recall a fire, no more. Then I recall, days later, you telling me that Eloise was dead.’

  His father was nodding. ‘I. . . I often wondered what you remembered. I could never bring myself to ask you. I didn’t want to stir the memories, the pain ... for either of us.’

  ‘I remember absolutely nothing of the day itself. All I have is an image: the image of the house, burning.’

  His father allowed a long silence to develop, but it was always somehow obvious that he intended to go on, explain what had happened all those years ago.

  At last he said, ‘It was a gas explosion, Hal. There was nothing we could have done to prevent it, nothing at all. Maybe if I’d been there ... I don’t know. I’d gone down to the store, leaving you in charge. I recall you were playing chess with Eloise when I left: she was beating you, as usual. The twins were just seven, and Eloise was a damned fine chess player.’ He was sitting upright, gripping the arms of the chair as if someone had threatened to take it away. ‘I was coming back from the store when I heard the explosion, and, you know, I thought nothing of it - how could I have known? Even when I saw the smoke billowing over the rooftops . . . And then I realised that it might be our house, and I drove like a maniac, and even before I turned into the street, I knew.’

  He stopped and swallowed. His hands were shaking. Halliday looked away, through the lace curtains. His father said, ‘I found . . . Susanna was lying on the lawn. I thought she was dead at first. She was bloody, her left leg broken in three places. And then I found . . .’

  ‘It’s okay. You don’t have to go on . . .’ He wondered if this was the reason why his father had resented him for so long? He, Halliday, had been blown clear of the house, had somehow survived, while Eloise had perished.

  ‘No, you don’t understand,’ he went on. ‘You see, after finding Susanna, I ran towards the house. I thought you and Eloise ... I thought you were still in there. Half the house had been blown away, the other half was blazing. And then I found you: you were coming down the staircase of the little of the house that remained, bloodied and battered, and you were carrying Eloise.’

  Halliday felt his pulse quicken. He tried to remember, wanted nothing more than to recall the experience. Again, the only image that returned to him was that of the house on fire, as seen from the lawn.

  ‘You came down the stairs and you carried her out in your arms, and then sat on the lawn and watched the house burn down.’

  Halliday shook his head, bewildered. ‘I carried Eloise out? But what. . . what happened to her?’

  His father controlled his voice, marshalled his emotions. ‘Eloise died from smoke inhalation later that day. I thought ... I told myself that perhaps if I’d been there, perhaps maybe I would have been able to save her.’

  Halliday thought of the boy he had been then, the boy who had carried his sister from the burning house, perhaps even thinking that he had saved her life, only to learn later that she had died.

  ‘You had a few cuts and bruises, nothing major. The doctors questioned you about what had happened, but you were too shocked to speak. I . . . after that, I could never bring myself to talk about it.’ His father stared at him across the room, and Halliday saw the silver light of tears in his eyes.

  He shook his head. ‘I never realised. I never knew what had happened, just that Eloise had died.’

  His father smiled. ‘I hope that knowing exorcises her ghost, Hal.’

  Later, on the steps as his father was showing him out, he said, ‘Do you see much of Susanna these days?’

  Halliday shook his head. ‘No. No, I haven’t seen her for years.’

  ‘Well, if you do . . . will you tell her to drop by?’

  He nodded. Hesitantly, almost embarrassed of making the move, of chancing a gesture that might be turned down, he reached out and shook his father’s hand.

  At that moment, Halliday had the sudden urge to say that he had met someone, to tell his father about Kim and how much he loved her. Then the moment was over, and he was colouring at the thought of it as he stepped from the porch and hurried across the lawn. He crossed the road to the Ford and ducked inside. As he pulled from the kerb and U-turned, he looked up. His father was standing to attention in the porch, as stiff as a sentry on guard duty, his right arm raised in a wave more like a salute.

  As he drove back to the city, he considered everything that his father had told him. He wondered, briefly, if his knowledge of what had happened would now indeed exorcise the ghost of Eloise. He stared out at the cold, iron-grey road ahead, and it came to him that even now he did not know the complete truth of what had happened on the day of the fire.

  He passed the airport, the runway beacons now pale in the light of the new day. He wanted nothing more than to sleep, and maybe later go down to the street and bring a take-out back to the office.

  As he motored across Queensboro Bridge, it occurred to him that perhaps his father’s resentment across all these years was the result of his not being there when the house blew up, and the fact that his son had been on hand to try to rescue Eloise. His father resented him for having been there, instead of him.

  He shook his head, and attempted to push all thoughts of his father from his mind.

  He was turning off the bridge when his communicator buzzed.

  ‘Hal? Jeff Simmons here.’

  ‘Jeff. What is it?’

  ‘Listen, Hal. That Latino guy who attacked you the other night

  Hal sat up. ‘You got him?’

  ‘We’re onto him, Hal. A traffic cop spotted him walking up Broadway about twenty minutes ago, recognised him from the pix we commed up from your description.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘Heading uptown on foot. On Second Avenue, coming up to East 14th Street. I’m right behind him in a car. If you want to get yourself down here, you can be in for the kill.’

  ‘We want him alive, Jeff.’

  Simmons laughed. I was speaking metaphorically, Hal. Don’t worry, we’ll bring him in alive and kicking.’

  Halliday turned and headed uptown, the city streets deserted but for the occasional tour bus, yellow cab and patrolling cop car. The grates steamed in the icy morning air and a patina of frost covered every flat, exposed surface.

  ‘How many men you got with you, Jeff?’

  ‘Enough. And a squad of drones, too. We don’t want to go for him on the street. If he’s still armed as he was the night you met him, we don’t want to risk civilian injuries. We’ll wait till he’s contained, then move in.’

  ‘You called Barney?’

  ‘First thing. He’s on his way. Listen, I’ll call you back in two minutes. We’re still on Second Avenue heading uptown, just passing through Stuyvesant Square. Be in touch.’

  Halliday accelerated along the almost empty streets, the skyscrapers and high-rises of Manhattan towering before him, grey and cold against a pewter sky. In contrast to the deserted streets, the sidewalks and doorways were populated by the legion of the displaced. He wondered how long it might be before they claimed occupancy of the actual roads.

  He thought about the sighting of the Latino. If they managed to get the guy alive, find out who the hell he was and his motives for the attack the other night, then the pieces of the puzzle might fall into place. They might not be that far off discovering the whereabouts of Nigeria and Villeux.

  His com buzzed. ‘Hal, he’s passed through the Square. He looks like he’s in a hurry.’

  ‘Does he know you’re onto him?’

  ‘No way, Hal.’

  Halliday turned onto Second Avenue. ‘I don’t have to tell you to be careful, Jeff. Brief your men on the weapons he packs.’

  ‘I’ve told them about the cutter in graphic detail. There’s just one thing.’

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘I don’t get it. Why’s he still in the guise of the Latino? He’s wearing
the chu, okay? He must’ve known you could give a description of him from the other night, right?’

  Halliday thought about it. ‘Wrong, Jeff. Far as he’s aware, he threw me over the building. I’m history. I didn’t live to tell anyone about him.’

  ‘What about Kia Johansen? Didn’t she see him?’

  ‘Obviously he thought not, or he wouldn’t be still wearing the same disguise.’

  At the other end of the line, Jeff Simmons conferred hurriedly with someone. ‘Right, okay! Hal, he’s just entered the Astoria Hotel on the corner of Second Avenue and East 23rd. Okay, there’s a hamburger joint across the street: see you outside.’

  ‘I’m about two minutes away, Jeff.’