The Cold Room

by Robert Knightly

  Theobold didn’t smile when he took my hand. Later on, when I asked him where he’d worked, he told me that he wasn’t a police officer. He was a Corrections Officer and his beat was the Isolation Unit on Rikers Island, home to the most violent prisoners in the system.

  I took Hansen off to the side while Anderson wrestled a folding cot out of a closet. He accepted the deal I offered without hesitation. I would babysit Aslan until midnight on Saturday. He would relieve me, then continue on until Monday at noon when Aslan was to be cut loose.

  That done, I walked Hansen to his car. He was in an expansive mood and I remember his cop-to-cop smile as genuine. ‘Helluva job you did on Aslan,’ he declared. ‘Where’d you get that good stuff on Chechnya?’

  ‘Forget Chechnya. All I did was memorize a few names. Plus, it didn’t work. Aslan kept his cool.’

  ‘Maybe so, but he definitely paid a price.’

  I accepted the compliment with a nod, then said, ‘Tell me about lootafrish.’

  ‘Lootafrish?’

  ‘The joke about lootafrish and snot.’

  ‘That’s lutefisk, Harry. L-U-T-E-F-I-S-K.’

  ‘Fine, tell me about lutefisk.’

  Hansen unlocked the door of his Ford, then turned back to face me. ‘Lutefisk,’ he explained, ‘is dried codfish reconstituted with lye, then boiled or baked until it has the consistency of Jello.’

  ‘Lye? What does lye taste like?’

  ‘I couldn’t tell ya, Harry. Lutefisk is a Norwegian dish and my background is Swedish. All I know is that the stuff has a very strong odor and there’s as many lutefisk jokes as Ole and Lena jokes. You wanna hear another one?’

  Ever the party pooper, I declined.

  At eleven o’clock, Theobold produced a tiny portable radio and tuned it to the Yankee game. The Yanks, playing out in Oakland, were at the tail end of a disastrous road trip. Going in, they’d been a game ahead of the hated Red Sox. Now they were two games behind.

  I resisted the urge to strike up a conversation, though we were both Yankee fans and at least had something to talk about. Aslan had been confined for several hours and he had to be asking himself three basic questions: what; why; for how long? Thus far, he hadn’t even been accused of a crime, much less interrogated. On top of that, the attitude I projected was utter indifference.

  At two thirty, the game over, I balled up a dirty blanket to make a pillow, then stretched out on the cot. This was familiar ground. There are cots in every precinct, kept for just this purpose.

  I woke up at eight. Not because I wanted to, but because Aslan, impelled by a pressing need to void his bladder, was rattling his cage.

  ‘You awake?’ Theobold asked.

  ‘Afraid so.’

  ‘Cause my orders are the prisoner don’t leave his cell unless escorted by two officers.’

  ‘I can see the wisdom in that.’

  I got up and headed for the bathroom, leaving Aslan to curse at my back. I didn’t mind. I was certain, now, that we’d eventually have a conversation. I used the toilet, washed my face, neck and chest, brushed my teeth with the least ratty of the six toothbrushes I found in a can on the sink. When I came out, I headed for Aslan’s cage.

  ‘Uh, detective,’ Theobold said, ‘I don’t mean to tell you your business, but you might wanna put that weapon away somewhere. Prisoners and guns, they don’t mix too good.’

  Anderson was holding the billy club in his right hand. Leather pouches containing the pepper spray and the Taser hung from his belt. Even in chinos and a polo shirt, he was a supremely menacing figure. I wondered, briefly, as I stashed my Glock in a filing cabinet, how Sarney was connected to Anderson, what favor he’d called in to secure Anderson’s services, and how he’d found this very private outpost a few blocks from the Atlantic Ocean.

  Only one explanation came to mind. I was witnessing – I was meant to witness – a display of power. Bill Sarney spoke with the authority of the First Dep. The First Dep spoke with the authority of the Commissioner. The Commissioner was obeyed.

  I smiled to myself. There was no mystery to Anderson’s presence or to this little prison we occupied. Both were readily available because the First Dep had used them before.

  When Aslan came out of the bathroom, Theobold was standing with his feet well apart, the left slightly forward. He was holding the nightstick at shoulder height, with the barrel facing backward at a forty-five degree angle.

  ‘Turn around and put your hands on the wall,’ he said.

  Aslan stopped in his tracks. He looked at Anderson for a moment, wary now. In his Chechen world, the police had almost unlimited power to deal with problems. Commonly, they were problems themselves, there being no clear line between cop and criminal to cross. More like a barely defined no-man’s land where bands of predators competed for scarce resources.

  ‘I ain’t gonna tell ya but one more time, boy. Turn your ass around and put your hands on the wall.’

  Still in control, Aslan slowly complied.

  ‘Now move your legs back and apart.’

  Again, slowly, Aslan did as he was told.

  Anderson tossed the nightstick to me, then searched Aslan. Good thing, because he found a throwaway razor in Aslan’s sock.

  The strip search that followed was too gruesome to watch. Open your mouth, raise your arms, lift your penis, lift your testicles, bend over, pull your cheeks apart. At some point, the ritual exceeded Aslan’s tolerance for humiliation and he groaned with frustration.

  ‘What, you are getting big hard-on for once in life?’

  Though I assume Aslan was speaking to Theobold, he was looking back at Harry Corbin. I ignored him, as did Theobold, who proceeded to search each of Aslan’s garments, including a pair of boxer shorts bearing a likeness of Pamela Anderson on each buttock.

  ‘Get dressed.’

  Theobold backed away, then reached for the nightstick. I gave it to him and he resumed the stance he’d taken before Aslan emerged. ‘Now ah’m gonna tell ya somethin’, and I want you to listen hard,’ he said. ‘You try to get over on me this one time? I don’t take it personal. I figure that’s jus’ the way it goes. You don’t know me. I might be a chump. But that’s one time. You hear what I’m sayin’? Cause if you do it again, I’m gonna beat your white ass all over the room.’

  A few minutes later, when Theobold settled in for a nap, I made breakfast for Aslan and myself. Sandwiches, ham and cheese, and mugs of instant coffee lightened with some kind of non-dairy creamer and heated in the microwave. The coffee was terrible but I drank every drop.

  As for Aslan, he didn’t complain. He drank, he ate, he laid back on his cot. Then he suddenly popped up.

  ‘I wish to make phone call.’

  I ignored him for a moment, but not because I wanted to prolong the agony. I needed time to suppress a rush of satisfaction. Aslan’s pressure cooker had finally sprung a leak. It was nine o’clock on Saturday morning, a few hours before his workers were due to be picked up at their jobs.

  ‘Look, Aslan, the way it’s workin’ out, you’re here until we decide to cut you loose.’ Far from confrontational, my tone was sympathetic. ‘I think you already know that.’

  I settled into a straight-backed chair and picked up a two-day-old copy of the Daily News. Aslan held his peace for a good two or three minutes, enough time for me to blow through a story about an accused rapist who’d escaped from a midtown precinct and was still at large.

  ‘You are knowing nothing,’ Aslan finally said. ‘You are soft American fools. When time comes, Aslan will show you how to die.’

  ‘Show Detective Corbin? Or show the soft American fools?’

  Aslan settled back on the seat and closed his eyes. ‘In beginning it made sense. Chechens hold Grozny. Chechens hold countryside. But we are now nothing. The Russians attack us village by village, burn crops, kill animals. Childrens, womans, old mens, freezing, starving. Even blind man can see end has come. But there is no stopping for great leaders. Fight must be to death.
And all the time Arabs say to put bomb in schools. Kill Russian children as our children are dead. Great leaders must listen because Arabs have money, because Arabs supply arms and ammunition. Without Arabs, great leaders would be dead.’

  Though I’d put down the newspaper, I remained silent for a moment. Then I said, ‘Did you kill, Aslan? In Chechnya? Did you kill other men?’

  ‘So soft.’ Aslan’s head shook back and forth. ‘Americans know nothing. In Chechnya, death is every minute coming. Always around corner, in next room. Each day, hear helicopters far away. Will they pass village? Shoot rockets? Will rocket hit house where I am hiding? Will Russian soldiers follow behind rockets? Will I fight free? Or will now be time when I will die?’

  ‘Listen,’ I said when he finally slowed down, ‘what happened yesterday, at Formatech . . . well, you shouldn’t take it personally. I was only trying to provoke you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I wanted you to swing on me so I could arrest you for assaulting a police officer. But you didn’t bite.’ I spread my hands, as I stole a glance at Sergeant Anderson. Though his eyes were closed, Anderson’s breathing was shallow, his chest almost unmoving. He was obviously awake. ‘That’s life for a cop, right? Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  I let the silence build, hoping Aslan would speak first. Instead, he laid back on the cot with his cuffed wrist behind his head, then closed his eyes.

  ‘My interest,’ I finally said, ‘is not in Barsakov. Barsakov was a scumbag. My only interest is in Mynka.’

  Aslan’s eyes popped open when I said her name. He sat up and grinned at me. ‘What is Mynka?’

  ‘Mynka worked for Domestic Solutions.’

  ‘Of this company I know nothing.’

  ‘So, you weren’t there when she was butchered? You realize, of course, that we found traces of her blood in that bathroom.’ I stood suddenly. ‘Say, I’m ready for another cup of coffee. How about you?’

  I watched Aslan’s eyes look up and away. He knew all about the blood, of course. Now he knew that we’d found it. Not a great spot for him. I unlocked the door of his cage to retrieve his mug. As I leaned in, his hands balled into fists. But he didn’t come at me, not when I took his mug, or when I replaced it a few minutes later.

  ‘So, where were you when Mynka was butchered?’ I asked. ‘If you weren’t at Domestic Solutions.’

  Aslan thought it over, then his lips slid apart to form an expression vaguely resembling a smile, a smile that didn’t come within a light year of his eyes. ‘Yes, now I am remembering very well. At this exact moment, I was on rocket ship to moon.’

  I didn’t respond and he simply continued on. ‘Womans. In America is all womans. This is why you are soft. Let womans tell you way to have your life.’

  ‘It’s different in Chechnya?’

  ‘In whole world, womans is nothing. Always on men they live. Father sells girl for bride money. Uses bride money to buy wife for his son. Woman with no man for protect her is better off dead.’

  I pretended to consider this deep insight for a moment, then said, ‘I had a lieutenant once, name of Martha Golson, a real ball buster. All her detectives were men and she was convinced they were out to get her.’ I laughed. ‘And ya know what, Aslan? She was right.’

  This was a complete lie, but my only goal, at that point, was to keep him talking.

  ‘When lieutenant say jump, you are saying, how high?’

  ‘Hey, the boss is the boss.’

  Aslan tried to stand, only realizing, when the cuff on his wrist pulled tight, that standing wasn’t an option. ‘Never in life,’ he told me, ‘have I had woman for boss.’

  ‘What about your customers? Some of them must be women? And from time to time, one of them must have called to chew you out. Remember, the customer is always right.’

  Aslan started to speak, then stopped abruptly. ‘I am knowing nothing of this.’

  ‘Nothing about Domestic Solutions?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘C’mon, Aslan, don’t kid a kidder. I have witnesses who saw you empty the warehouse on Eagle Street. You’re the one who packed up the furniture, the filing cabinets and the clothes. You packed them into a van that got torched the next day. But like I said, that’s not what I’m here about. Barsakov is somebody else’s case. My only interest is in who killed Mynka, and that wasn’t you.’

  Was I offering a deal? Had I brought him to Far Rockaway for that very purpose? Aslan had sold out his comrades to the hated Russians. Why would he hesitate to sell out one of his customers? But Aslan was smart enough to anticipate the only deal I had to offer, and that was not immunity for Barsakov’s murder, the only deal he was prepared to accept. Slowly, he raised his head to stare into my eyes. I stared back at him, at a pair of black holes that might have been looking forward or backward, or at nothing at all.

  ‘If go back to Russia,’ he said, ‘then I am sent to prison. Russian prison? This is very bad place. Better in soft New York prison. Here they are not putting you to death, even if you are killing a policeman.’ He hesitated long to produce a second smile, this one amused. ‘Next time we are meeting, I will be ready.’

  And that was that. Aslan fell back on his cot and I was unable to rouse him. After a few minutes, I picked up the Daily News and began to read. My hope was that Aslan would re-think his position during the fifteen hours we’d remain together. If he didn’t, it was on to Father Stan.

  Six hours later, with Theobold up and about, I approached Aslan’s cell. ‘I’m gonna take a little walk, stretch my legs. You wanna use the toilet, now would be the time.’

  Aslan didn’t so much as blink and I took off, walking down a flight of stairs to emerge on Edgemere Avenue. The air, pushed by an onshore breeze, smelled of the Atlantic, only a block away. Behind me, the Ocean Bay Apartments, 1395 low-income units shoehorned into twenty-four buildings, dominated the landscape. I stared at the development, at the prison-block architecture, featureless, forlorn. In fact, it reminded me of Rensselaer Village, except that apartments in Rensselaer Village rented for five times as much.

  I stood outside the door for a few minutes, then found a patch of shade. There really wasn’t anywhere to go. Gang dominated, this piece of Far Rockaway was the land of the 99-cent store, of decaying bodegas that survived on sales of loose cigarettes, lottery tickets and five dollar bags of reefer, of liquor stores where several inches of bulletproof plastic separated the owner – and his merchandise – from the customers. Our own little haven, with its wire cage, was above a laundromat that had a good inch of standing water on its concrete floor.

  But I hadn’t come outside to savor the atmosphere. I wanted to call Adele and outside was the only private place to do it. Adele knew what I was up to with Aslan, knew that I’d take a shot at him before the day was done, and I was more or less obliged to report. Still, I don’t recall the conversation we had in any detail. A good piece of my brain was still upstairs with Aslan, reviewing our conversation, formulating tactics. I was rearranging the cards in my deck, but no matter how hard I shuffled, they were the same cards I’d already played. I told that to Adele, and she didn’t argue the point. My primary goal, she reminded me, was to keep Aslan out of circulation for the weekend. Breaking him was always the longest of long shots.

  As it turned out, Aslan didn’t talk, not even to complain. He ate what we fed him and he used the bathroom when it was offered. But he did not talk. Toward the end, I found myself admiring his discipline. We couldn’t hold him forever and he knew it. I glanced at my watch. Hansen Linde would arrive soon. Without doubt, he’d take a shot at Aslan, as I’d done. But the only deal on Hansen’s table was deportation, a deal Aslan would never accept.

  That left it up to the priest.

  I was dog tired by the time I got home at one o’clock, too tired to eat or shower. Too tired, thankfully, to weigh gain and loss, or to contemplate failure. Nine hours later, when John Coltr
ane’s soprano sax announced an incoming call, I was already half awake. I thought it might be Adele getting ahead of the curve, but it was Sister Kassia.

  ‘Father Stan’s coming back early, at two o’clock,’ she said. ‘He wants to see you.’

  Nothing ventured, nothing gained. That’s what I’d told Aslan. I felt my heart jump in my chest.

  ‘Can I assume he’s not dragging me out to Maspeth just to brush me off again?’

  ‘Harry, Father Stan doesn’t have a mean bone in his body.’

  I took this as an affirmative response, though I didn’t know exactly what she meant.

  ‘Our deal,’ the nun continued, ‘I assume it remains in effect.’

  ‘Sure, Sister, if the women are still around. But six days is a long time. They might be anywhere by now.’

  ‘And that doesn’t bother you?’

  ‘Yeah, it does, but I plan to console myself with Mynka’s killer and Aslan Khalid.’

  When I entered Blessed Virgin, Father Manicki was in the confessional. A wheelchair sat just outside, flanked by a man and woman, both middle-aged. When I approached, the woman asked, ‘Are you here to confess?’

  ‘No, I have to see Father Manicki about something else.’

  The man laughed. ‘That’s my mother in there. Every coupla months she decides she’s dyin’ and she has to confess before it’s too late.’

  ‘Swear to God,’ the woman said, ‘the woman’s eighty-eight years old and she ain’t been outta this wheelchair in ten years. What could she possibly be confessing?’

  I had no idea and I headed off to a pew at the rear of the church. But I was too restless to sit still. Within minutes, I found myself tracing Blessed Virgin’s outer walls. This wasn’t the first time I’d been in a Catholic church. Like every other New Yorker, I’d toured St Patrick’s cathedral on Fifth Avenue. But you could have put Blessed Virgin in one of St Patrick’s chapels, and while the stained glass and the statuary at the cathedral were exquisitely crafted, the artwork at Blessed Virgin was as humble as the church itself. Nevertheless, I found myself drawn to a series of small paintings arranged at intervals on both sides of the church.