How could either of us possibly sleep?
All I wanted was to leave that place. Leave town. Leave my own skin and bones and my broken heart behind.
That day I drove beyond downtown to the abandoned Port of Albany. I pulled up to the edge of the dock, so that all I could see out the windshield was the river, running gray and flat in the cool, damp morning. A layer of gray fog hovered above the water like a mustard gas that threatened to poison everything within its reach. Opening the glove box, I pulled out the semiautomatic I stored there. I pulled back on the slide and cocked a round in the chamber. I stuffed the barrel in my mouth. The gunmetal tasted sour against my tongue. It scratched the soft skin on the roof of my mouth. I began to cry, weep, the tears running down my face onto the pistol barrel, onto my lips, the gunmetal taste now seasoned with my own salt.
I knew I couldn’t possibly escape. That no matter where I went, the memory of my infidelity and the constant pain of my dying boy would torture me. What I wanted was peace and a forever long sleep, free of dreams, free of nightmares, free of broken hearts. I yearned for that one final, split-second explosion of triggered primer and detonated gunpowder, the bullet burrowing its way through soft tissue and bone. The result would be painless and immediate. In a flash of brilliant white explosive light, I would simply cease to exist.
But in my head I saw only Ellen and Henry and I knew they needed me. I was so sorry for having wronged them that I couldn’t possibly pull the trigger. Not now. Not when I had already been so selfish.
Pulling the barrel back out of my mouth, I got out of the truck and stood on the far edge of the pier. So close to the water, the tips on the steel-toed engineer boots hung over the edge. The seagulls flew in and out of the fog, and a fat green fish jumped out of the water, snatching an insect out of the air. It landed with a quick and decisive splash. For a brief moment, I found myself smiling. I don’t know why exactly I was smiling. But I was smiling all right, and it was the first sign of life in an otherwise dying man.
I tossed the gun into the river. It made the same sound as the fish had. But this time, the water drowned it with all the indifference of a buried casket.
Later that night I went home and made love to Ellen for the first time in a year. It was something I had to do. Something I needed to prove to myself and to Ellen. I slept in my own bed not as a stranger, but as a married man who held onto his wife’s hand the entire night.
Now, if you don’t believe a word of what I’m saying…if you don’t for a moment believe that Ellen would welcome me back into her arms as fast and apparently thoughtlessly as she did, you’re wrong.
Dead wrong.
Because not only did she take me back, she never asked me where I’d been the previous night. Not once. Maybe she assumed I’d slept on the job-site again, or maybe she just didn’t want to know where I’d slept. That was a good thing, because so often in ignorance, we find peace, even if only for a little while. Because although the desperation now resided with that semiautomatic at the bottom of the Hudson River, the fear did not. One day soon, the fear would come back to haunt us, and the peace would be gone forever.
What I’m trying to say is, I knew that if Ellen ever made me confess my actions, she’d walk out on me. Probably for good. Maybe she harbored the same exact fear. Because, in the end, she just accepted me back into her bed like nothing bad had ever passed between us. Her strength was remarkable. It was matched, measure for measure, only by my weakness.
Patty called me, of course. Called me many times. Countless times. And I ignored the calls. Every single goddamned one of them. What the hell else is there to tell you, other than she and Brian split up two months later. Something that caused me further heartache and guilt. But not enough to cause a personal setback or to once again send me on the downward spiral toward total and irreparable collapse.
One month after that, we were set to implode the warehouse in Alphabet City. It was one of our first real big breaks in New York City. It seemed like the entirety of lower Manhattan came out to witness the spectacle. So did the major media. We sold Master Blasters T-shirts and vendors sold red and black Master Blasters ice cream with chunks of debris (cookie dough) in it. It was a carnival atmosphere, until Brian took his own life in the implosion, and I barely survived with my own.
A nine-year-old Alison Darling was there to witness the whole thing. So was my dying boy.
_ _ _
I decide to give the Google results one final scan before calling it a night. The second obituary is located about halfway down the page. It’s for Patricia Darling, 44, who, not unlike her late husband, was lost in a tragic accident at her home in Albany.
“What’s Patty dying from?” I ask.
“Cancer,” she says. “It’s in her liver and her lungs.”
Heart jumps into my throat. Inhaling a breath, I pull out my cell phone. My hand trembles as I punch the number in for Miller. His answering service comes on. I don’t bother with leaving a message before hanging up. I need to speak with him about Alison’s lie in real-fucking-time.
A quick glance outside the glass door reveals darkness. If the homicide detective is good to his word, it makes sense he’s not picking up his phone. He’s checking out my house in the wooded outskirts of Albany, like he promised.
Stand. Dizziness kicks in, like there’s not enough oxygen reaching my brain. I stare into the picture window and see not my own reflection, but instead, Alison’s.
“You lied to me, you bitch,” I say aloud, like she were truly standing inside the room. “You lied about your mother.”
Sitting back down, I type the name Patricia Darling into Google Search. A Times Union piece appears. “Tragic Boiler Explosion Takes Woman’s Life.” The date on the story is June 14, 2012. A short article stating, “The badly burned remains of Patricia Darling, the wife of the late Brian Darling of the now defunct Master Blasters, Inc. demolition company, were discovered in her bedroom late last night by emergency medical and fire personnel after the old water boiler in their West Albany home exploded and caught fire. Although Alison Darling, the twenty-four-year-old daughter of the deceased, was questioned by authorities at the APD, no foul play was suspected.” The remainder of the article goes on to explain the dangers of old boilers. How without proper maintenance, they can become ticking time bombs.
I wasn’t working for the cops back in 2012. I was still working on construction sites as a demolition contractor. Taking buildings apart mechanically without explosives, using only basic tools and equipment like ninety-pound jackhammers and an old JCB backhoe. Until one day, I said to myself, “Enough is more than enough, Singer.” No more working crap jobs for crap money. Maybe the courts had taken away my license to shoot buildings, but that didn’t mean I had to give up explosives for good.
So here’s what I did.
I gave up mechanical demolitions altogether and enrolled in a year-long trade seminar at a local community college for bomb disposal. It wasn’t all the education I would require for putting down IEDs and other explosive devices. But it was enough to land me the subcontractor job with the APD. And that was fine by me. After all, the gig would be temporary until I could finally get my blasting license back.
I haven’t been at the job for very long, but I’ve learned a lot about explosives in my time as a bomb disposal man. And my gut is telling me that something doesn’t smell right about Patty’s boiler explosion death.
Digging into my pocket, I pull out the receipt I found in Alison’s trunk. The date printed on it is June 13, 2012. Once again I read the items on the list. Styrofoam, an empty bucket, a sheetrock knife, clear plastic, and a roll of duct tape.
Thoughts speed through my brain: Alison wasn’t using this stuff as packing material at all. I should have seen through the fog earlier. As a professional detonator, I should have recognized the ingredients.
Clicking back onto Google, I typ
e in all the items on the same line, separating them only by commas. When I press the Enter key with my index finger, I not only get the result of my search, I also get a picture to go with it.
What do you get when you combine Styrofoam and gasoline inside an empty bucket? A bucket you then cover for a few days with clear plastic held in place with duct tape? Ask any old Vietnam vet bellied up to the bar inside some old corner gin mill.
Napalm. That’s what you get.
Second Stage
Chapter 20
Ellen has no idea what awaits her.
Henry has no idea what awaits him.
It’s almost too easy.
But it’s only seven in the evening, Alison reminds herself while driving back to her lab. Eventually, the wifey will want to do a little practicing on the piano. She’s been away for a week, after all. A professional piano player and teacher will need to practice. It’s what she does. It’s who she is. As a skilled pro, she might not make much in the way of mistakes anymore. But all it will take is playing the wrong song and it’s, Boom Boom! Out Go the Lights! The lights and, in this case, a finger or two, or perhaps even a hand.
At least, that’s the way she wired the piano while the two floated around never-never land during their afternoon naps. All it took was a little non-electrical motion-sensitive shock tube detonator she’s stored inside the metal casing of her e-cig device, and a one-quarter-cc drop of the transparent super liquid-thermite from her pen.
But this time, the explosion won’t be triggered by touch or heat alone. This time the explosion will be triggered by a specific number of touches. If Ellen fingers the black C-minor key on the black baby grand one hundred times, she won’t get the chance to “Play it again, Sam.” Most of her hands will be spattered all over the living room wall behind her.
Why bother to trigger the super nano-thermite explosives this way?
“Well, I’m not against giving a person a fighting chance,” she says aloud while turning into the parking lot of the Albany University nano-tech lab. “This isn’t about shooting fish in a barrel. It’s all about the challenge. All about the fun.”
Besides, she’s got her money on Ike returning home not tomorrow, but tonight. That’s what a concerned family man would do. He wouldn’t use tonight as a get-out-of-domestic-jail-free pass. But once he figures out the Suburban tire didn’t blow from normal wear and tear, he’ll do everything in his power to get home quickly.
Get home tonight.
She enters her keycard at the door, stares directly into the electronic retinal security scanner. The front steel and glass door opens. Inside the smooth marble finished lobby, a uniformed security guard sits at the big round reception desk playing a game of electronic cards on his laptop.
He looks up at her. “Don’t tell me you’re working late again, Ms. Darling?”
He’s a late-middle-aged man whose wife died a long time ago. Now his new wife is his work and his cards. His lonely nighttime existence.
“Always working, Stanley,” she says, while pulling a pair of leather gloves from her pocket, slipping them on. “I’m standing on the bottom rung of the ladder. I gotta work my way up.”
“You know something, Ms. Darling?” Stanley poses.
She stops, turns to him. “What is it?”
“Why isn’t a pretty girl like you married?”
She smiles, recalls her foster father chasing her through the woods in the night, recalls her pregnancy. Recalls the fear of being alive inside a cold-as-ice city and an explosively hostile world.
“My guess is I haven’t met the right man, Stanley,” she says. “Why? Don’t tell me you’re proposing.”
He laughs, turns back to his laptop and his never-ending game of electronic solitaire. Reaching into her jacket, she slowly slides out her e-cig device.
“Well, forty years ago, I might have done exactly that,” he says, shifting some cards around on the screen.
“Too bad,” she says, sliding a fresh stainless steel cartridge into the e-cig device. “I might have said yes.” She approaches him. “Oh, I almost forgot, Stanley. I brought you a present.” She hands him the device. “I know you can’t smoke inside the building, and what a pain it is to keep heading outside every five minutes, especially when you’re the only one on duty. So I thought I’d give you the gift of indoor-friendly tobacco.”
Stanley’s face lights up as he takes the e-cig in hand.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he says. “How’s it work?”
She shows him.
“Brand new cartridge is already loaded,” she adds. “Flavor contains just a hint of strawberry.”
“My favorite,” he says, switching the device on so that a blue light illuminates at the device’s head. He brings the tube to his lips, inhales.
She goes to the elevator, presses the going-down button.
“Doc,” Stanley says, exhaling blue vapor along with his words, “you’ve made my night.”
“Glad to be of service,” she says at the precise moment the e-cig explodes in Stanley’s face, obliterating his entire lower and upper jaw.
Boom Boom…Out Go the Lights…
The elevator arrives. She goes to it, steps casually inside.
The door closes. She slides her ID card through a reader that will allow access to a subbasement level that isn’t identified on the elevator’s enunciator panel. When the door slides opens, she walks out into a brightly lit corridor, walking its narrow length until she comes to an area enclosed by another steel and glass door.
She once more slides the ID through the digital reader and stares obediently into the retinal scanner. The solid, bullet/explosive-resistant door opens. A few doors down is another solid metal door. This one says, EXPLOSIVES. Authorized Personnel Only.
Taking hold of her semiautomatic, she aims for the security camera, presses the trigger. Then, sliding her keycard into the door, she opens it and steps inside. Surrounded by all manner of explosive components, from det cord to computerized detonation systems, she retrieves her smartphone and thumbs a number on the speed dial.
“How much longer?” says the Chinese-accented voice. “I am growing impatient while you carry on with this charade of personal vengeance.”
“My personal business is exactly that and it will be accomplished before the dawn and the Wellington Hotel implosion. You can pick me up at our designated rendezvous. I trust I won’t require a passport or visa?”
“You have to ask, Dr. Darling?”
“That’s what I thought,” she says. Then, “You know, I really am going to miss the country of my birth.”
“You will be wealthy beyond your wildest dreams. You will be treated like a hero in the People’s Republic. Just keep that in mind.”
But that’s not what’s on her mind right now. What’s on her mind is revenge, and making sure Ike Singer and his entire family know the precise meaning of payback before their bodies are blown to smithereens.
Chapter 21
Standing up from the table, I pull out my phone, dial Tian from the garage.
He answers.
I ask, “How much will it cost me to get my vehicle back tonight?”
“Jeez, I’m already drinking beers,” he says.
Oozing over the phone, the sound of beer bottles clinking, jukebox music playing, men and women laughing, yelling, carousing.
“I need that new wheel tonight.”
Exhaling. Sighing. “I suppose I can get it if I call a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy. But Jesus, Mr. Singer, it’ll cost you.” He pauses, maybe to steal a swig of beer. “Why don’t you rent a car you wanna get home that bad?”
“By the time I do that, you can have my ride ready, and I’d rather not have to come back here tomorrow. I have a sick kid who needs my attention. You said it will only take you an hour to put it all together.”
“You make the repair tonight, now, ASAP, I’ll make it worth your while. Understand?”
“Understood. Meet me in front of the garage in twenty minutes.”
Hanging up, I head back up to the room, drink one more beer. Once again I try Miller’s number. Once again I get his message service.
“Miller, it’s Singer. Call me when you get this. I’m coming back tonight.”
Cut the connection.
Slipping into my jacket, I close the door behind me, leave the Motel 6 without checking out.
Chapter 22
As promised, Tian is already in the garage with the overhead door open, the bright white light from the ceiling-mounted fixtures spilling down on the oil-stained concrete floor.
“You must really wanna get home, Mr. Singer,” he says, detaching the old, damaged brake drum from its axle, setting it down. “I could have saved you a grand or more if you just waited until morning.”
“It’s not about the money,” I say, bending, picking up the drum, examining the spot where a tiny amount of explosive material appears to have detonated, leaving a black scorch mark, the metal having melted and warped inward, like it were constructed not of strong steel alloy, but flame-heated candle wax.
Phone rings.
“You’ll store this for me in the back along with the damaged rim when you’re done?” I say, retrieving the phone.
“It’s your dime. I’ll gift wrap it in latex you want.”
Eyeing the cell’s digital display.
Miller.
“Jesus, where you been?” I say, stepping outside, phone pressed against my ear.
“And hello to you too, Singer,” Miller says. He’s back in his car. I can tell by the sound of his voice, the background noise that accompanies it.
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