Man of the Hour

by Peter Blauner

  “How about the governor’s visit? Anybody say anything about that? You know, he’s a Republican, but he’s got some views on abortion that aren’t too popular with some of the Right-to-Life people.”

  “No, I didn’t hear anything like that. But then I don’t get involved talking about politics.”

  “Yeah, right,” Kelly interrupted. “Just cut to the chase and ask her if she knows about any of the usual bomb-throwers. She’s an Arab, isn’t she?”

  Oh, there he goes. Noonan frowned. The man had been a burden since this case began, slipping off for drinks throughout the day and getting wobbly and dull-headed by the end of the shift. They’d be packing him off to go dry out with the God Squad upstate any day now. And then there’d be a new partner Noonan would have to fill in from scratch on the case.

  “No,” Elizabeth said, overlooking the insult with carefully measured patience. “I don’t know anybody like that.”

  “I see.” Noonan scratched his temple and noticed Kelly yawning. “You know, we’re just looking for anything out of the ordinary. Like one of your classmates was telling us something your teacher said in class a couple of days ago about wanting to be a hero.”

  “Is that unusual?”

  “Well …” He sipped the coffee and shifted around in his seat a little, trying to find the right angle to come at this. “Didn’t he say something about how he’d always wanted to save somebody’s life?”

  “Well, he talked about being a lifeguard. But that’s what he’s teaching this term, ‘Heroism in Literature.’” She sat up straight with perfect posture, but Noonan noticed the white socks moving under the coffee table a little, like bunnies in the grass. “Why do you ask about that?”

  Noonan glanced at Kelly but got no reaction from him. Was he asleep, sitting there with his head thrown back and his mouth half open?

  “It’s just, you know, you wonder if a remark like that puts ideas in somebody’s head.”

  She paused for a moment to ponder that, putting her hand over her mouth. “So you think somebody from our school put a bomb on the bus?”

  “At this point, we don’t know anything. We’re just looking at every possibility.”

  “God.”

  “You sure you don’t know anybody who’d do something like that? Somebody who’s really been upset about something lately.”

  She lowered her hand to her chin and flecks of gold showed up in her brown eyes. “Um, no. I can’t think of anyone like that.” She smiled shyly.

  Kelly yawned again and stretched his arms, looking at the watch on his hair-blackened wrist. “We gonna spend the night here or what?” he asked Noonan. “We got seven more interviews. The department says no more overtime for the rest of the year.”

  Noonan bared his teeth at him for just a second before he turned back to Elizabeth Hamdy. “We won’t take up too much more of your time,” he said. “I was just curious, though. Why was it that you were absent Tuesday, anyway?”

  He noticed she was looking at a pair of Rollerblades by the video-game-playing little sisters in the corner. Under the glass coffee table, her toes were curling and uncurling like they couldn’t wait to get inside the skates.

  “I had a really bad headache,” she said. “I stayed home.”

  “Probably too much Arab coffee,” Kelly said, rising and stretching again. “You ask her about the bag?” He blinked at Noonan.

  Noonan shook his bald head and looked up at the ceiling. It was the third time today Kelly had revealed too much with his questions. It was inevitable; he had to get another new partner.

  “Right,” he said, his hand forced and his rhythm thrown. “We just wanted to check. Does Mr. Fitzgerald have a Jansport book bag?”

  “I think so. Almost everyone does.” The feet stopped moving under the table. “Was there a bomb in a book bag?”

  “We gotta go.” Noonan stood and dropped his card on the coffee table. “Give us a call if you think of anything you want to tell us.”

  18

  THE PUBLICITY ONSLAUGHT had continued all through Thursday afternoon and into the early evening.

  First, the mayor’s office called, asking David to come to City Hall on Wednesday morning to get a special award presented by the mayor and the governor. Then Diane Sawyer’s people called, asking if he’d be available for an interview that same afternoon. Oprah Winfrey’s people wanted him in Chicago the next Friday for a panel on “Profiles in Courage”; “Grace Live!” in L.A. wanted him for the next Thursday; an agent named Mark Feinberg called from International Creative Management, asking if David already had representation for book and movie deals. And finally, Nightline wanted him for Monday, not to talk about the explosion itself, but to talk about why the story was attracting so much attention. A meta story.

  He stopped answering the calls just before eight so he could race off to Sam Hall’s memorial service at Christ the Redeemer Baptist Church in Harlem. The governor, the mayor, and the police commissioner had already paid their respects and left by the time he arrived. He walked quickly past the two remaining camera crews on the sidewalk out side, not wishing to take part in the grief-as-public-spectacle phenomenon.

  The church itself was modest, not much more than a storefront with wood-paneled walls, a water-stained ceiling, and a Casio keyboard instead of an organ up near the pulpit. But after a day in the spotlight, it felt like a sanctuary to David, a place where you could sit and contemplate the meaning of death in privacy and silence.

  This day shouldn’t have been about him, he decided. It should have been about Sam. David was sorry he hadn’t gotten to know him better in life. He took a seat in the last pew, noticing how many of the five dozen people present bore some family resemblance to the dead man. Some were the spitting image, others just had one or two of his gestures; it was as if parts of his spirit were scattered around the room.

  “None of us can know the hour or the day,” the preacher was saying.

  David felt pressure on his upper arm and turned to his right.

  “How you doing tonight, partner?”

  Detective Noonan gave a low, sandpapery chuckle and shook David’s hand.

  “Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t see you when I sat down,” David whispered as the pew creaked under him.

  “That’s all right.” The detective laughed again, but it sounded just a little forced this time. “But I feel like you’ve been following me around all day. Every time I turn on the radio or pass a television, you’re on it. I tell you, twenty years of police work, I never had press like that on all my cases combined. And let me tell you, I caught some big cases.”

  David banged his knees together, feeling as if he’d been admonished. “I know, really, it’s out of all proportion. It’s got nothing to do with me or even what happened. It’s just the news cycle.”

  “Right. Of course.”

  David thought he could still hear a little crackle of resentment behind the words.

  “Anyway,” Noonan said quietly, “I was wondering if you had time to answer one or two more questions. Just things we needed to clear up.”

  David noticed people in the row ahead of them turning around and looking annoyed. “Sure,” he said. “But maybe we ought to step outside and not interrupt.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Good idea.”

  David followed the detective out of the church and back out onto the sidewalk, where a familiar-looking black-haired girl was waiting.

  “Hi, David.” She approached. “Judy Mandel, from the Trib. I was wondering if I could …”

  “Get outta here!” Noonan swung an arm at her. “I thought I told you to call LeVecque.”

  She lowered her chin like a fighter. “It’s a public sidewalk, Detective.

  “Fuck it, come on.” Noonan grabbed David’s elbow. “We’ll talk in my car again.”

  As he led David across the street and let him in on the passenger side, Judy Mandel remained on the sidewalk, taking notes and watching them.

  “Pain-in-the-ass broa
d.” Noonan slammed the driver’s door and looked at David. “Should I cruise by the bodega and get you a soda or something?”

  “No. Are we going to be long? I thought you only had a question or two. I have to go home and call my son before his bedtime.”

  Noonan’s eyes looked at him with a blank intensity. “He doesn’t live with you?”

  “Uh, no. His mother and I are sort of getting a divorce.” It was something he’d tried to avoid putting into words, as though saying it made it real.

  “Is that so? I didn’t know that.” The detective took out his notebook and began writing notes against the wheel again. “That’s interesting.”

  “Why’s that interesting?” David felt a twinge in the back of his neck.

  “It’s just interesting, to know people’s backgrounds. It’s a nice part of the job. Getting to know people.”

  David leaned back against the door, touching the handle and making sure he knew where it was. He had a headache and a dry throat from having done so much talking today. “Anyway,” he said. “What can I do for you tonight? I was surprised to see you here.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s standard.” Noonan turned on the car’s dome light. “You always try to stop by the service. You never know who’ll turn up. Sometimes it’ll be the perpetrator.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.” Noonan turned to face him. His eyes were deep-set and the green vein in his temple was throbbing again. “People can’t help themselves. They have to see how things turned out.”

  “And did anybody suspicious show up?”

  “Not as far as I know.”

  There was a pause and David realized the car still stank from carbon fumes. He tried to roll down the window but discovered the button didn’t work. The speaker was still hanging off the door.

  “So how else can I help you, Detective? I’m sure you’re under a lot of pressure.”

  “Oh yeah. Forget about it. Everybody’s looking to take this case away from us.” Noonan half-smiled and turned back a page. “So I just wanted to ask, did you by any chance have a black book bag with you at school Tuesday?”

  David had to stop and think carefully. In telling the story so many times the last two days, he’d begun to emphasize certain details and subtly drop others. But now he was in danger of remembering the story he’d told better than he remembered the actual experience.

  “Yeah,” he said after a few seconds. “I think I did. In fact, I know I did. I remember, I was carrying all these library books for my son and I got sick of lugging them around.” Again, he didn’t mention how hungover he was on Tuesday.

  “Okay! See, you didn’t mention that before.” Not even a rebuke, really. Just a point of friendly interest. “Do you think you left it on the bus before it blew up?”

  Again, David tried to recall the exact sequence of events, but he was too tired and there were too many things cluttering up his brain. Television interviewers, Oprah’s people, book deals—maybe he could finally get his novel, The Firebug, published, if only by a small press—and Arthur. What about Arthur? He needed to hear that sweet voice before he’d be able to sleep properly tonight.

  “David?” the detective prompted him.

  “What?”

  “Do you think you left that bag on the bus?”

  “Um, yeah. I’m sure that’s right. I’m remembering it. I left it right next to Sam. He didn’t mind.”

  He looked out the window and saw the girl from the Tribune, Mandel, still standing there, watching them and taking notes from across the street. As if the very fact that they were talking were newsworthy.

  “’Cause, you know, the bomb squad guys found what looks like part of a Jansport book bag in the wreckage,” the detective was saying. “You think it could be yours?”

  “Um, yeah, why not? If I left it on the bus.” David looked at the dashboard clock and saw he had less than twenty minutes to call Arthur before his bedtime.

  “Of course. We’re just checking everything.”

  David looked back at Noonan and for some reason the image of a cell door slamming came into his mind.

  “So do you think you might have left that bag anywhere before you got on the bus?” Noonan asked. “Like, would somebody have had a chance to put anything in the bag without you knowing it?”

  “Well, I was in the bathroom, but … Wait. Are you saying somebody put a bomb in my bag?” Just the idea of it struck David as a gross violation. He felt himself getting angry all over again, remembering the vicious force of the destruction.

  The detective started to laugh, a hoarse ragged wheeze. “No, no, no, no, no. Nothing like that. It’s just these bomb squad guys, they want everything tagged and identified. You know? So there’s no extraneous bits lying around. They want to be able to focus on the real cause. You understand that, right? We’re waiting to get all the evidence back from forensics.”

  The answer left David feeling like the world was just slightly off-center and not at all what it appeared to be. “So who did this, anyway? Are you any closer to finding out?”

  “We’re narrowing it down in a hurry.” Noonan smiled and the vein stopped pulsing. “Don’t worry. We’ll get the guy.”

  “Is there anything else I can do to help you?” David looked over at his door and was surprised to see Noonan had locked it while they were talking.

  “Nah. I’ll let you go for now.” Noonan laughed and popped the lock. “But we’ll talk again soon. You can tell me what it’s like to be such a big shot.”

  19

  ELIZABETH’S FATHER WAS TELLING one of his stories again at the dinner table, but she was having trouble focusing on the words.

  “Did you know I was sixteen the first time I saw a Jew?” He smoothed back his mustache. “It’s true. Three of the soldiers walked into the shop where I was working. I’ll never forget that one of them had clear blue eyes. I’d seen blue eyes before, but never quite that color. Like the blue of the sky or the bottom of the ocean, I tell you. They were beautiful, those eyes, but they scared me to death. Remember, we thought the Jews were going to kill us all. And so he stepped forward, this one with blue eyes, and pointed to a bag of beans. Then he gave me a fistful of Israeli money. And I didn’t speak his language and I didn’t have any idea how much his money was worth. But right then I wanted to give him all the beans in the world.”

  He chuckled and Elizabeth touched his hand. Normally, she loved hearing his stories of life back home. All the beans in the world, crossing the river, and childhood disappearing over his shoulder. Little touches of poetry from a deeply prosaic and practical man. But tonight, something was coming between her and her enjoyment.

  Across the table, Nasser was boiling again. Grimacing at his food and shooting recriminating looks at both his father and stepmother.

  Elizabeth’s two half sisters were oblivious at the other end of the table, whispering to each other behind their hands. The sprites. Leslie, the older at twelve, was skinny and blue-eyed like her mother; Nadia, the ten-year-old, was round like her father and sallow like her older half brother.

  “You’re excused,” said Anne, their mother. She was forty-four and as dour as a winter morning in Dublin. “But don’t be turning up the TV too loud either,” she told the girls. “The rest of us are still eating.”

  The two of them bounded out of the room and a certain heavy spirit came in to replace them.

  “So why do you let them do this?” said Nasser, turning to stare at his father and deliberately striking the edge of his plate with a fork.

  “What?” Father dug into his coosa b’leban, a zucchini stuffed with minced lamb and rice sitting in a yogurt and garlic sauce. Elizabeth could tell he was unhappy because his wife had made it without mint again, but didn’t dare say anything to her about it.

  “Why do you let them go watch this MTV in your bedroom?”

  “It’s all right,” Father said, though he didn’t sound entirely sure. He wasn’t like other Arab men in that way, laying down hi
s word as the absolute law.

  “You know what this is about.” Nasser wagged a finger. “You should have this removed from your cable TV box immediately. I have a friend who can do this for you.”

  Elizabeth rolled her eyes again and her stepmother put a sharp elbow down on the table. Nasser ignored both of them, holding down the citadel at his end of the table.

  “This is how it starts,” he said. “With the small things. The television.” He waved at the bedroom. “The food prepared the wrong way.” He pushed away his plate. “And the matters of dress.” He glared at Elizabeth.

  She glared right back, wondering what was causing him to turn on her so suddenly. There’d been a different feeling during their ride up the Belt Parkway the other day, a kind of closeness. But now it was gone and he was full of cold fury. She thought of his friend Youssef behind the wheel of the red Plymouth, giving her that look. She imagined his breath would stink from old vegetables. Possibly Nasser had been spending too much time with this man.

  Meanwhile, Anne was drumming her fingers on the tabletop.

  She and Nasser had never gotten along. Their troubles had started back when he was seven and Elizabeth was just two. All the relatives talked about how Nasser screamed curses at her in Arabic on the day she married Father at the mosque on Bond Street. And from then on, he just became harder and harder for Anne to handle—defying her at every turn, hitting her when she tried to take him to school in the morning, refusing to look at her or take her hand when crossing the street It was understandable, considering the boy’s mother had just died, but nevertheless unbearable to be around. And then there was the time Nasser ran into the Bay Parkway traffic trying to get away from Anne and almost got hit by a car. Eventually, everyone agreed it was best that he go back home to live with relatives for a while. Somehow Bethlehem was easier on the boy’s nerves than Brooklyn.

  “If you don’t like the way the food’s done, the kitchen’s wide open to you,” Anne said. “You can take your best shot.”