by Rob Hart
After it’s all done he takes a deep breath, looks up the road. There’s smoke drifting above the tree line. I can smell it from here. Another memory of my dad. The way he could take a whiff of a fire and tell you exactly what was burning.
Polyester couch.
Lacquered furniture.
Garbage disposal.
My sense of smell isn’t that developed. All I smell is campfire, maybe a hint of chemical underneath.
“Tomorrow,” Perry says. “You come down to the station. I want a full statement. On the record.”
Not a request.
“Sure thing,” I tell him. “So that’s it.”
“That’s it.”
“Little surprising.”
“Why?”
“Figured I’d be leaving here in cuffs.”
“Most of what you say tracks,” he says. “Anyway, Reese vouched for you.”
That brings a smile to my face.
“According to Reese you’re a good kid trying to do the right thing,” he says, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t trust you. You haven’t earned it yet. But I trust Reese and that can be good enough for now.”
I like Perry. He could very easily fuck me on this, and he hasn’t. Not really par for the course in my experience with cops. I stick my hand out to him. He regards it for a moment before grasping it in a meaty palm. Gives it a solid pump and nods.
“See you in a few.”
“Yeah,” I tell him. “You will.”
I step into my empty apartment. Find the futon Bombay said another tenant was getting rid of and offered to drop off for me. It’s nice. Wood, and stable. The mattress is a little lumpy, but hey, free bed. And free couch.
I lay down, breathe deep through ragged lungs.
It’s done.
Spencer is safe. So is Ginny. Things are settled with Athena, and Kid Vicious isn’t going to hurt anyone.
It didn’t get done pretty, but it got done.
I laugh at the popcorn ceiling, then tear up a little. My body releasing the tension that’s been building up over the past few days. I feel sick. I feel like I could sleep for a year. I feel so good right now. I pull out my cell phone. Call Reese’s office. After a few rings it goes to voicemail.
“Spencer is safe. Figure they took him down to SIUH. And the thing with Kid Vicious is over. Went up in flames. Big house fire on the south shore. Can’t miss it. So… thanks for putting in a good word with Perry. You’re the only reason I’m not in lockup right now, probably… Talk to you soon, I guess?”
I hang up. Put my head back. I’m dozing off, my face coated in drool, when there’s a knock at the door. I stumble over and open it, find Bombay and Lunette, holding a pizza box and a six-pack, respectively.
“Housewarming?” Lunette asks. Then she scrunches her nose, sniffs. “You smell like a burning laundromat.”
“Long story.” I look around the empty apartment. “Shouldn’t we wait until I get some furniture first?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Lunette says, putting her free hand to her chest, adopting a look of mock insult. She turns to Bombay. “Apparently we went to the wrong apartment. The Queen of fucking England here would rather wait until the chaise is delivered.”
“Whatever,” Bombay says. “More pizza for us.”
“You assholes,” I tell them, stepping aside. They come in and walk to the center of the living room, where they sit on the floor, flip open the pizza box, lay out some beers. For a moment I feel like maybe I want to skip the pizza—I’m a little run down on the whole pizza thing.
But then I realize I will never be tired with pizza.
We eat and we talk. Not about heroin, not about missing people, not about whatever melodrama is currently vexing me. We just bullshit.
It’s nice to bullshit.
By the time the box is empty all I want to do is sleep for a hundred years, so for as much as I want to stay here, do this, be with them, I ask if they’ll leave. They agree to move the party next door. As they’re prepping to leave I fall onto the futon. I don’t even hear the door close.
The snow has stopped and the roads are mostly plowed. Still, it’s slow going to SIUH. I was hoping to get there early, for the start of visiting hours, but Perry wasn’t messing around. It was a long interview. Dude is thorough. But hey, he did not put me in jail, so there’s that.
By the time I make it, the parking lot is full. It takes me forever to find a spot on the street. The few spaces that are dug out and empty have parking cones or garbage cans in them, neighbors staking claim to their work.
After twenty minutes of circling I give up and drive out of sight of Hylan Boulevard, deeper into the suburban streets until I find a spot, and make the long walk to the hospital. Step inside and head for to the waiting room on the second floor where Reese said she would meet me.
When I step off the elevator she’s sitting in one of the green hospital-issued torture devices that passes for a chair, a cup of coffee in her hand as she skims something on her phone. On the seat next to her is another cup of coffee.
She glances up. “Black, right?”
I sit, pop the lid off, let the steam spill out. Take a sip. Terrible and just right.
“Thank you,” I tell her.
“So what happened?”
I run her through it. Tracking them to the house. Not having a cell phone signal. Being forced to act. My statement to Perry. When I’m done we sit there in silence a bit.
“That was real stupid,” she says.
“I know.”
“But Spencer’s alive,” she says.
“That’s all that matters,” I tell her, sipping my coffee.
She puts her coffee cup on the floor by her feet and sticks her phone in her purse. Turns to look at me. “You really want to do this?”
“I do.”
She nods. “You’re going to come to my office three days a week. You’re going to do the menial shit I don’t like doing. That means data entry. That means vacuuming. That means scrubbing the toilet. That means going out to get my coffee when it’s raining and I don’t feel like getting wet. I’ll keep you in coffee but I’m not even going to pay you just yet. I need to know you’re serious. You do that for three months, I’ll believe you’re serious.”
“Deal.”
“Really?” she asks. “I figured there’d be some pushback on the salary. Or lack thereof.”
“Good thing I’m serious.”
She smiles. “Reason I wanted you here was because Spencer’s parents came in. Figure you’re the one who found him, you ought to be around for this. It’s the best part of the job. Telling the parents their kid isn’t dead.”
She stands up and gathers her stuff. As she does that I pull out my list, cross off two more items.
Find a place to live?
Get a job?
Find Spencer Chavez again
See my mom
Check on Crystal
Before I can spend too much time falling down a sadness hole concerning the last item, she turns to me and throws an eyebrow. “You coming?”
“Yeah.”
I cram the list in my pocket. We walk down the hall, lit so white the walls glow blue.
“Thank you,” I tell her.
She shrugs. “I think you might be good at this. Long as you stop doing stupid shit.”
“Stupid shit got me this far.”
“Don’t push your luck,” she says.
“Fair enough.”
We turn into Spencer’s room.
And everything goes sideways.
The room is dim, the curtains drawn. He’s lying in bed, his hair slicked back, face clean. IV in his arm and he looks pretty good for someone who got shot. The couple standing over him—mother and father—are all smiles and joy at having their son back, after long enough they probably assumed him dead.
They look nothing like the couple in the lobby of Ginny’s building.
People can convince themselves of anything. They can sort through fac
ts and pick and choose the ones that suit them. Sometimes they can do it with things that aren’t even facts.
Here’s a fact: Pretty much from the beginning of this I figured Ginny’s intentions on this weren’t altruistic. It was the way the pieces didn’t always fit together, but also, it’s Ginny. I was so desperate to prove working for her wasn’t backsliding that I focused on the only thing I could.
The part of the job that was most easy to defend.
Finding a missing kid. Helping out a family.
Because who can argue that those are good things?
Looking at this now, on the other side, clear-eyed, I know what the goal was. I knew the whole time. But I want to hear it from her. She’s going to look me in the face and she’s going to tell it to me. No more games.
Night is falling as I approach her building. The block is empty. Funny how that happens. New York is supposed to be the city that never sleeps. But there are plenty of pockets where humanity disappears. And then, anything can happen. Anything does.
The SUV is parked at the curb, silent. When I’m within ten feet of the door, Samson steps out. He closes the door and the two of us stand there. His leather duster whipping a little in the wind, the air slicing our exposed skin.
“I need to see her,” I tell him.
“She’s resting.”
“I don’t care.”
He takes off his glasses, folds them up, puts them in the inside pocket of his coat. Then he takes his coat off, balls it up, and puts it on the hood of the SUV. “You’re not going in.”
“You really want to do this?” I ask.
Fingers tingling. Heart racing.
“I know you saved her life,” he says. “If you think that’s going to make me take it easy on you, it’s not.”
“So it’s like that?”
“It’s like that.”
“I really thought we have a shot of being friends,” I tell him.
“You never were as smart as you gave yourself credit for.”
The two of us stand there, squared off. I can smell the leather of his coat on the wind. I glance up and down the block. Just the two us.
I smile at him. He smiles back. It’s a little funny to smile at each other like that. Not like we’re friends, but like we’ve finally reached a mutual understanding.
And we charge.
As I step off the elevator I do my best to hide the limp.
The apartment is dark. The museum closed for the evening.
I hear footsteps on the other end, and then Ginny appears. She’s put back together—a simple blouse and pencil skirt, subtle makeup, blonde wig. Like she’s going out for a drink, not to work. The armor gets a little more ornate when she’s going to work.
She stops when she sees me, confused.
“Ash,” she says. “I didn’t expect you.”
“We need to talk.”
“I supposed we do,” she says, moving toward the couch, falling into it and kicking her stockinged feet onto the coffee table. She nods towards a duffel bag on the table. “The rest of your money. I was going to have Samson bring it to you, but you can take it now.”
I sit on the couch across from her. For a moment I can’t even bring myself to speak. It hurts too much. And not just the recent body blows.
I mean all of this, and how it’s about to change.
That hurts more.
She sees it in my face. Her expression switches from bemusement to concern.
“Ashley?” she asks. Her voice sounds almost like a remember it. The higher register disappearing.
“I met Spencer’s parents. At the hospital.”
She looks at her hands in her lap. She’s taken on the demeanor of a child who got caught pilfering sugar from the pantry. “I see.”
“Tell me.”
“Ash…”
“Tell me. All of it. You owe me that much.”
Ginny nods. Stands. I keep my eye on her. Because she’s gone from reprimanded child to caged animal. Like she’s afraid of me. And maybe she should be. She probably has a gun stashed around here somewhere. Home protection. Any sudden movements on her part, any opening drawers or lingering too long near a piece of furniture, and I’m going to have to move.
“I want the island,” she says. “Of course I want it. It’s the biggest market in New York City right now. How could I not want it?”
“So you used me, for what?”
“I didn’t use you. I paid you. I employed you. Like before.”
“No, not like before. I didn’t know all the facts.”
“You think you ever knew all the facts?” She circles the couch and stands in front of me. “Here’s the truth. You coming home was a stroke of luck. I sent Spencer in there to get intel for me. Only thing is, I was dropping him into a pot that was about to boil over. Brick and Kid Vicious were about to go to war, and neither side was too fond of me. So he got jammed up. When I heard you were coming back, I was thrilled. You were exactly what I needed.”
“And what’s that?”
“The kind of person who’s going to find Spencer for me, but want to destroy the drug trade along the way.” She gives me a look, smiles. “I know you, Ash. You like to play this game, like you have ‘morals’.” She throws air quotes around the word. “I knew you’d go in there and bang shit up enough to clear a path for me.”
“That couple in the lobby?”
“They own the bodega down the block,” she says, smiling, triumphant. Her voice taking on an edge, filling the space. “I paid them a few hundred bucks to stand there and look sad. It is so easy to play on your sympathies. I figured that’s all it would take to get you to move on this. And I was right. Thank you, by the way.” She nods toward the bag. “I threw a little extra, to make up for your troubles.” Her voice takes on a condescending tone. “Because you did such a good job.”
I clench my fists. Totally involuntary, anger coursing through my veins, making my muscles taut. She makes note of this.
“Should I call Samson in here?” she asks. “Or should we go a few rounds? Last time we threw down, it didn’t end too well.”
“I wouldn’t worry about Samson just yet,” I tell her, which causes her to raise an eyebrow. “As for you, last time I’d been up for three days on a bender. It wasn’t exactly a fair fight. Not to say you wouldn’t get your licks in, but I’m running closer to full speed right now. You really want that?”
She doesn’t have to say it. The way she stands frozen in place explains it well enough.
I stand up and she takes a step back. I consider the duffel bag but leave it. I’ve taken enough of Ginny’s money. Tainted with the blood of innocent people. People like Timmy. She didn’t kill him but she’s indifferent to his fate. She wants to be the one handing out death in little glassine envelopes.
People can convince themselves of anything.
Like they can’t change.
Their lives come to resemble cages, so it gets to be where everything you look at, it’s like you’re looking through bars.
Thing is, most times all you have to do is open the door and take that first step out.
“When I leave this room, we’re enemies,” I tell her, my heart twisting in my chest. “Staten Island is my home now. I’m not going anywhere. And I’m not going to stand by while you hurt people.”
Her voice drops to nearly a whisper. “Ash, darling. I am a very dangerous enemy to make.”
“Me too.”
She scoffs. “You think you’re a hero now or something?”
I want to give her a clever answer to that, but I can’t think of anything.
She averts her eyes from me, takes out her phone. Clicks at the face of it and puts it back in her pocket. “I’m sorry that you feel this way.”
“So am I. Truly.”
And that’s not a lie.
I didn’t stay in touch with a lot of people from high school. Ginny and Bombay are it. It’s special when something lasts that long. When it’s something you want to c
arry with you. But then it runs out. Doesn’t matter the circumstances. It’s sad when that happens.
I turn toward the elevator, leave the duffel on the table.
“Ash.”
I stop.
“Do you regret it?”
She’s asking about the locker room. I turn and it looks like Ginny might be approaching something akin to tears.
“Are you stalling?” I ask. “Giving Samson time to get up here? He’s not on his way.”
Her eyes go dark. “What did you do to him?”
“Put him through the windshield of your car.”
Ginny goes ramrod straight. For the first time in my entire time knowing her, she is rendered speechless.
“Use the money I’m not taking to fix it,” I tell her. “We’re more than square.”
We stand there for a moment, the air heavy with history whistling out of the room, like air out of a balloon, into a vacuum.
“See you around, Ginny.”
I step into the elevator and press the button. My shoulders stay clenched until the doors close and I’m sure I’m not going to catch a bullet in the back.
Morning breaks. I slept well, even though I probably shouldn’t have. I made an enemy of someone no one wants to make enemies with. I like to think Ginny won’t come after me, that years of friendship might mean something.
But I like to think a lot of things.
I cross the hallway to Bombay’s, let myself in, find him sitting on the couch in his boxers and a t-shirt sipping a cup of coffee. Lunette is on the chair in the corner, wearing a bathrobe. I pour myself some coffee, sit down on the couch next to Bombay. We watch as a pretty couple trades witty banter as they tear down drywall in their soon-to-be dream home.
Neither of us talk.
We don’t have to.
Sitting in that silence is the most settled I’ve felt since I got home.
I want to say this to Bombay and Lunette, to tell him how much it means to be sitting here with them. I don’t say anything. I don’t know what to say. I want to enjoy it.
