What You Break

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  “Good, because the bill I’m going to send you for today isn’t going to be a small one.”

  I made a stunned face. “What? I figured lunch would cover it.”

  “Figure again.”

  We both laughed at that, him harder than me.

  The ride back to his office was a quiet one. Mostly I was thinking about Maggie and how I might make things right with her. I wondered if I would get the chance. I wasn’t sure what Asher was thinking about, but I knew that at least part of the time he was wondering about how to make things right.

  46

  (TUESDAY AFTERNOON)

  Traffic wasn’t too bad, and we made it back to Asher’s office relatively quickly, which, by Long Island standards, meant in less than two hours. With a bellyful of pizza, I was feeling pretty good about how things had gone in Brooklyn with Narvaez, Dwyer, and Rumpled Suit. When you have a lot of balls in the air at the same time, even one less to worry about is a big deal. Yeah, I was feeling all right until I noticed Building 40 of the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center looming before us. Building 40, with its mass and beige brick, looking like a perverse cross between a high school, a prison, and an Egyptian tomb, was one of only a few tall structures in the borderland area between Queens and Nassau County, the others being the three buildings in Maggie’s complex.

  I tried to squeeze thoughts of Maggie out of my head by filling it full of facts, half-truths, and stories I’d heard about Creedmoor. Like how Woody Guthrie had died there and how Lou Reed had been electroshocked into deeper madness in the place in 1959. It gave a whole new meaning to “Walk on the Wild Side.” Before I got totally serious with Annie, I’d dated a woman who worked there. She told me how the full moon really did make the patients harder to manage and that by Friday the only difference between her and the patients was that she had the keys. I’d considered sharing those stories with Asher, considered making small talk to keep thoughts of Maggie at bay. In the end, I kept my mouth shut, because by trying to stop myself from thinking of Maggie, all I could think about was her. I swore I could smell her, her perfume, how it mixed with the rawness of her natural scent and how it filled the air after we fucked. It made me a little dizzy, gave me a knot in my belly, thinking that I might never experience Maggie again. I don’t think I’d ever hurt that much before just from staring at a building as I passed.

  After dropping Asher off, I thought about heading back to Bill’s to hang out and kill time before my shift. I started his way and then decided that I had real work to do and that I’d only get frustrated with Bill’s unwillingness to enlighten me about Micah Spears. It was still early enough to head back to Gyron, to talk to Carl Ryan about why Linh Trang had been called into work on a Saturday in late November. I knew from Jim Bogart that LT never made it home that night. So if I could find out when LT left work, I could narrow the time frame I had to investigate. The narrower the window between the time she left work and the time she was murdered, the easier my task would be. Maybe she had said something to one of her coworkers about where she was going after she was done. If she’d left around noon or one, she might have gone to get something to eat and I could check out the restaurants and delis in the area. If it was much later, I would check the local bars. I felt sure that if I knew where she went from work, I would have a good idea about how she had come to cross a fatal path with Rondo Salazar. If I knew where and when they crossed paths, I would almost have the why I was searching for.

  Pulling into the Gyron parking lot, I didn’t see Carl Ryan’s Maserati anywhere. That was okay. The place was still open, but it was late enough in the afternoon that management types might head home. And I had learned over the course of my time on the job that you learn more from receptionists, secretaries, and clerks than you learn from management. Management types always felt like they had something to protect. Whether it was their jobs, an image, a piece of the company, or stock options was beside the point. People with less to protect didn’t choose their words as carefully. They didn’t worry as much about saying the wrong thing or keeping things politically correct. I didn’t have a problem with Carl Ryan. He had been friendly enough and seemed fairly straightforward when I’d spoken with him, but he said what I would have expected him to say about both the company and Linh Trang.

  Lara was at reception, flipping through a different gossipy magazine than she had been the first time I’d come calling. And this time when she saw me, she smiled. It was mostly a warm, friendly smile, but there was still a hint of the lean and hungry in it. It wasn’t predatory or anything. I’d seen a lot of such smiles at the Full Flaps Lounge, and not all of them directed at me. There was a lot of loneliness in the world and a lot of lonely people sharing it. Appeared to me the cure for loneliness was so simple and so available, but very few people seemed to be able to overcome the low hurdle of jumping it. I projected myself ten years forward and wondered if I would someday be smiling at someone like Lara was smiling at me.

  “Hey, Lara.”

  “Gus. How are you? Still taken?”

  “Afraid so,” I said, though I wasn’t so sure anymore. “And still dented.”

  “You look pretty fine to me.”

  “Thanks. You’re not looking too shabby yourself, you know. You coming to the club this weekend? I’ll make sure your cover and first round’s taken care of.”

  She lit up. “I just might come. Your bartender introduced me to a few guys. I just might have to date one of them.”

  I winked at her. “You wouldn’t be trying to make me jealous, would you?”

  “A little, maybe.” She winked back.

  “Is Carl here?” I asked, playing dumb. “He said I could come back and ask around if I had any questions.”

  “Sorry. He split about an hour ago. Can I help you with anything?” She wriggled her eyebrows and smiled that come-and-get-it smile.

  “You are persistent, Lara. I’ll give you that.”

  “Girl’s gotta do what she’s gotta do. How else do you think I rose to this high office?”

  “Pretty and funny. As a matter of fact, I think there might be something you can do for me.”

  She tilted her head and smiled. “Like?”

  “Linh Trang was here the day she was killed. It was a Saturday, the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Were you here that day?”

  Lara made a face. It was part confusion, part disappointment, and part . . . I wasn’t sure what that third component was.

  “When I make a face like that,” I said, pointing at her, “my therapist always says to put it into words.”

  “Therapist? What does a man like you need a therapist for?”

  “My son died suddenly a few years ago and I’ve been struggling with things ever since.”

  I couldn’t quite believe I heard those words coming out of my mouth so easily. For a year, two years after John died, I couldn’t bear talking about it. Hell, I could barely put one foot before the other. I hated when people brought his death up or expressed any kind of sympathy or sorrow. Now, here I was, telling a woman who was pretty much a stranger about my therapy and about John. Then I felt a little sick at the thought that I had said those things not because my therapy was working or that I was finally accepting the reality of the world without my son in it, but because I was trying to manipulate Lara. Christ, I thought, I hope that isn’t it. Then I laughed at myself inside for that, for thinking of Christ and hope.

  Lara looked as if I’d kicked her in the belly.

  “Oh, God, how terrible. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay, Lara. I promise. I am better now. So what was that face you made just before about?”

  She exhaled, making a kind of resigned sigh. “Linh Trang was killed on a Saturday, Gus, right? So, no, I wouldn’t have been here. There’s no need for a receptionist on Saturdays. To tell you the truth, Gus,” she said, putting aside her magazine and leaning forward as if she was goin
g to tell me a secret, “I don’t even know why they need a receptionist at all. We get maybe five calls a day and half of those are solicitations.”

  “But you told me about that big account you guys landed last year. Carl says the business is doing good and he’s driving around in a Maserati.”

  She made another face. “Yeah, I guess, but it ain’t like it used to be when I first started here. Back then the phones were always ringing and the floor . . . the floor was busy. Now”—she shrugged—“not so much.”

  “Well, a lot of the business must be done over the Internet these days, so the phones wouldn’t be as busy.”

  “I guess.” She was unconvinced. “I don’t know. I guess it’s because so many of the old-timers here, the guys who were around even before I started, are gone. Like I said, this place used to be humming. Now I don’t know most of the guys, especially the ones who work in the box. They—”

  I cut her off. “The box?”

  “That’s the area on the factory floor with all the warning signs and stuff.”

  “Yeah, I noticed that the last time I was here. What’s all that about?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It’s some special manufacturing process using plasma cutters and lasers and stuff. The things in there use all these exotic gases and there’s all special shielding. But it’s whatever we do in there that pays my rent and helps pay for my daughter’s treatment.” Seeing the confused look on my face, Lara said, “Bella’s autistic. She’s why my asshole husband left me. It’s why they all leave in the end. I used to be afraid to tell the men I dated. I would always go to their houses or to motels at the end of the night, but they would always find out about Bella. No one wanted that responsibility. I can’t blame them. I don’t want it sometimes. It’s hard. It’s really hard.” Then she caught herself. “I’m sorry, Gus. I didn’t mean to go there.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “See, my can’s pretty dented, too.”

  I moved the conversation back to where it had been earlier. “So you’ve never been inside the box?”

  She shook her head. “No. Too dangerous. I got curious once, a few months ago, and Carl nearly bit my head off. He was screaming at me about insurance rates and what would happen if there was an accident. I guess I couldn’t blame him. I don’t even go on the floor anymore. Not worth getting yelled at.”

  My curiosity about the box was over.

  “So you don’t know why Linh Trang would have been here on a Saturday?”

  “I guess because she had a lot of work, but I don’t see how, really. She was so bored all the time, claiming there was never enough for her to do. Who knows? Maybe she was getting some end-of-year stuff ready. Usually only Carl and a few guys come in on Saturdays to get the shipping pallets prepped for the week, so you’d have to ask him.”

  “Maybe you’re right about the end-of-year stuff. I’ll ask Carl when I come back.”

  I looked at my watch.

  She said, “You have to go?”

  “I do. I’ve got to get back to the hotel. Remember, if you can think of anything that can help me or if someone here says something that might point me in the right direction, call me at the Paragon. They’ll connect you to me or take a message.”

  “Got it.”

  “So I’ll see you Friday night?”

  “Count on it.”

  “If I’m not working the door, tell the guy that Gus says you’re a special friend and he’ll understand.”

  “Am I?”

  I was confused. “Are you what, Lara?”

  “A special friend.”

  “I think so, Lara. I think so. Would it be all right if I left the way I did last time, walking through the shop? I’d like to talk to some of the guys.”

  Lara’s demeanor changed again. I could see she didn’t want the responsibility, but I didn’t come to her rescue.

  “I don’t think so, Gus. I’m sorry. Carl’s the only one who can let you do that. Like I said, I have to protect my job and—”

  “Forget it. I’ll come back soon. Tell Carl I was here. Okay?”

  “I will.”

  I waved bye and told her I’d see her at Full Flaps on Friday night.

  Walking to my car, I took a mental snapshot of Gyron’s building and wondered if there was something I was missing. Was I looking in the wrong place for the first falling domino that led to LT’s murder? If I was, I was fucked because I had no idea where else to look.

  47

  (WEDNESDAY, LATE MORNING)

  My shift on the van had been like many in my time at the Paragon, like many of my shifts on the job: filled largely with downtime, empty minutes, and coffee. I had spent a lot of my adult life in between, waiting. I’d had to learn to wait without the stress of anticipation, without wondering what was coming next. To survive twenty years on patrol you have to teach yourself to take what comes when the dispatcher’s voice calls your number. I thought I had mastered the skill, that it would serve me well in my retirement. I would just relax, free of expectation, free of anticipation. And it worked for about a year. Then one day the hospital called and I was reminded that there was no such thing as that kind of freedom. There is always something lurking around the corner. Always.

  At the Paragon, my potential stress was limited. My stresses were like those of an old elevator operator. The route was easy to learn and my duties confined to pickups or drop-offs at the airport and the Ronkonkoma station. It was comforting to know that the next call wouldn’t entail approaching a car with tinted windows on a dark street in the rain or walking into a living room where a woman with a black eye and bloody broken nose was still holding the kitchen knife with which she had resectioned her husband’s intestines. I suppose it was why I had taken the job at the hotel in the first place. That and the free room. But there is no such thing as insulating yourself from the world. Annie used to just show up at the hotel at odd hours of the morning, unannounced. She would come to fight, to fuck, or both. She came to do something, anything, with the pain and grief. Then months would go by without her visits. I didn’t miss those post-midnight visits, not for a second. Still, even without them, there was no escaping intrusion, because I never knew when darkness would hitch a ride from the airport the way it had when I picked Mikel up from MacArthur.

  I woke up thinking of two women, missing them. Maggie, of course, for a thousand reasons, but I was also thinking of Aziza. Aziza was a Pakistani girl who had worked at the Dunkin’ Donuts shop at the railroad station. I had seen Aziza almost every van shift I’d worked at the Paragon and we’d developed an odd kind of bond, a silent understanding between near strangers. We knew nothing about each other outside of the donut shop, but what we knew of each other, we knew perfectly. I knew that she was young and painfully shy. Still, she would nod, smile a gap-toothed smile at me whenever I’d walk through the door. She didn’t nod at everyone or smile for anyone else, not while I was around. I know. I watched. What did she know of me? My coffee order, she knew that. She knew she didn’t need to ask it. She knew to put the change directly in her tip cup. It was a ritual, a brief dance of the shy and the lost, something for two humans to hang on to when at least one of them desperately needed even a small reason to hold on.

  One day last month I walked into Dunkin’ Donuts and Aziza was gone. Gone with her was her shy nod and smile. Gone was our dance, forever. Khalid, the night manager, a fleshy, brooding man who had always eyed me with deep suspicion, told me that Aziza had gone back to Karachi to be married. He smiled as he said it. It was the only time he had ever smiled at me. He hasn’t smiled at me since. Was I thinking about Aziza because I’d stopped in for coffee last night, waiting for a guest to get off the train at Ronkonkoma? Yeah, maybe. But I didn’t think it was that simple, especially since I was thinking of Maggie, too. I guess what I was really thinking about was loss. I thought a lot about it.

  When
my cell buzzed, I didn’t jump to grab it. I considered not bothering with it at all, but scooped it up on the way to the bathroom.

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re an enthusiastic bastard. Don’t make me sorry I called.”

  I stopped talking.

  “Maggie? Magdalena!”

  “Well, you haven’t forgotten my voice in two days. I guess that’s something.”

  “I was just thinking about you,” I said, my voice cracking. “You’re all I’ve been thinking about, really. I’m a jerk.”

  “You expecting an argument from me?”

  “I’ll take anything you’ve got to give to me. I miss you. I really miss you.”

  “Then you should’ve married me when I offered.”

  “But you’d still be gone.” And you’d still be in danger. I kept that last part to myself.

  “I know,” she said, this time with some ache in her voice. “I miss you, too, a lot. I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t want to be away from you for so long. You’re the first good thing—shit, the only good thing—that’s happened to me since my marriage broke apart. I wasn’t really alive again until I met you at the club that night.”

  “I know all about that, Maggie. All about it. But don’t come home. You need to do this for yourself and for us.” I heard the words come out of my mouth, though I couldn’t believe I was saying them. “Look, I’ll be here when you get back, whenever that is. I don’t want you to resent me for making you lose the one thing you’ve always wanted. Bitterness ruins everything, and I don’t want that again.”

  “But it’s lonely here, Gus.”

  “The rest of the cast and crew will be there in two days. And I may not know anything about acting, but I’m guessing you’re having a bad case of nerves.”

  “Since when are you an expert on me?”

  “Since the minute we met.”

  She laughed. I don’t think I’d been that happy over a sound since I heard both of my kids cry at birth.