by Alan Hruska
“Right,” Horace says. “It wasn’t true.”
“What is true?”
“I didn’t see anything. I heard gunshots and hid.”
“So who paid you to say it was Elena Riles?”
Big sigh by Horace. “Her sister. The older one, Constance.”
Tom says, keeping his voice even, “Were you surprised?”
“No, man. I asked her for it.”
“Just went up to her and asked?”
“I’ve known her since she was a baby. Nasty kid. Just got nastier. At thirteen, she already hated her father, and Elena even more. Because they loved each other and not Connie.”
Reappraising this guy rapidly, Tom asks, “So you knew she, Connie, was responsible?”
“Not then, no.”
“Okay,” Tom says. “From the beginning, one step at a time. Right after the shooting, you figured out that Connie, whether or not she was responsible, would like to cast blame on Elena?”
“I wouldn’t say, ‘figured out.’ I just kind of guessed it was possible.”
“So you approached her, Connie Riles, for money, is that what you’re saying?”
“Right. At the time, I needed money bad.”
“What made you think she’d give you any?”
“I took a chance, but it wasn’t that big a chance. As I said, I knew she hated her sister. If she went for the deal, then I’d guessed right, and I had my money. If she didn’t—well, look at me, I’m just foolin’ around. Not so nice, so what?”
“How much did you ask for?”
“Twenty thousand dollars.”
“Which she gave you?”
“Next day. In cash.”
“When did you learn Connie herself was responsible for the murder of her father and the kidnapping of her sister?”
“Same time.”
“She actually told you?”
“That’s right,” Horace says. “I mean, who am I? A janitor. And let’s face it, I took the money. I talk, I got lots to lose, so it’s a safe brag for her. Also, pretty obvious when she paid so fast she was tied up in it somehow, so she wasn’t telling me that much.”
“Pretty cagey of you, Horace.”
The janitor shrugs.
“Except for one thing,” Tom says.
“Yeah, well, I figured that out too.”
“Your false statement accused an innocent person.”
“There was wiggle room. I said I ‘thought’ it was the woman in the photo.”
“And you planned to take that back? Confess it wasn’t?”
“When it mattered, yeah,” Horace says. “Like now.”
“Have you spent the money?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“How you feel about that?” Tom asks.
“I needed to spend the money. To live, I needed to spend it.”
“And to live with yourself?”
“That’s why I’m here, man.”
FIFTY-FIVE
It’s a charity event at the Colony Club: two hundred rich people in their finery, standing around or shuffling about, trading chitchat, holding drinks. Mike Skillan arrives late. Dottie is introducing the mayor, but heads turn Mike’s way. He is the flavor of the moment. Though the press conference isn’t scheduled until the following morning, no one is unaware of what Mike has reputedly pulled off. Or the deliciousness of it. Society queen paying assassins to murder her father! Notorious gumshoe ringmastering the crime! High-ranking G-man sabotaging the investigation! And Dubai slithering beneath it all!
Mike is mobbed when the speeches end. The mayor, an ungainly man with a stately nose and preoccupied stare that always roams elsewhere, clasps Mike’s hand and rushes off to the next party. Dottie finally pulls her husband into a corner of the room.
“So you’ll make the announcement, right? I mean you personally.”
“Of course,” he says.
“And who will be your Boswell on this—Joe?”
“Boswell?”
“Someone has to tell the press how brilliant you were.”
“I wasn’t particularly.”
“Of course you were,” she says. “But you can’t be congratulating yourself. And the mayor will be in Albany tomorrow. I’ve already asked him.”
“Cool down, baby. This wasn’t my play.”
“What are you talking about? You’re the fucking DA.”
“Acting,” he notes.
“Not after this! That’s what I’m saying. Mayor’s ready to remove that stupid qualification.”
“This was a one-man show.”
“You’re saying Weldon?”
“Yes,” he says. “Brash, arrogant son of a bitch. Took crazy risks—pushed me in with him—but it worked. In short, brilliant.”
“So who had the judgment to let him do it, huh? Who? That’s leadership. In our world, the credit goes to the boss.”
“This kid doesn’t live in our world.”
“No?” she says. “Well, it’s time for him to move there.”
“Tell you what, baby. May be time for me—us—to move a bit closer to his.”
Every day, every hour, Indian summer in New York brings a different look and feel to every street. In Red Hook at six-thirty, with the sun low off the water, Bowne Street is sultry and hot. It appears to Tom like a Hopper painting, with colors so deep they seem melted into the stones.
Bowne Street is now home for Tom, so it’s the last leg of his walk from the subway. The houses line up: fronts somber, backs blazing. On the stoop of his building, a young woman in a summer frock sits motionless, looking his way. He hopes it’s Elena; in three steps he sees that it is. He eases down beside her, without causing any noticeable change in her contemplation of the sidewalk.
“When I was six,” Elena says, “Connie was thirteen. I loved a cat, so she killed it. Sprayed it with lighter fluid and set it on fire.”
“That’s a horrible story,” he says.
“Got lots of ’em,” says Elena.
“Including today’s.”
“Today,” she says. “Well, today was extreme. And a surprise. Even for Connie.”
They sit in silence, until Elena says, “So today I learned how my father got murdered. Banner day.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why should you be?” she says. “Just doing your job. I had to know. Eventually. Might as well’ve been this morning. Might as well’ve been you pumping out the whole mess.”
“Still,” he says.
“Forget it. I mourn here and there. In my own way. I’ll get over it.”
“You have reason to mourn. I understand that.”
More silence.
“And you?” she says. “What are you going to do now?”
“With my life?”
“Let’s start with your job.”
“I think I might stay a while,” he says. “With what I’m now doing.”
“Yeah,” she says. “You’re pretty good at it. By the standards of that office.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s not a compliment.”
“I got the nuance of your statement,” he says.
“Nuance?”
“And what about you?” he asks.
“I think I’ll run the company,” she says. “With Sofi. We’re going to merge.”
“Good idea.”
“Yeah. We worked it out today. Over lunch. While you were handing out deals.”
“There was,” he says slowly, “a bit more involved than that.”
“Some,” she says, not giving much.
“You’re never going to forgive me, are you?”
“Me? Never.”
“The deals were not as generous as you think.”
She says emphatically, “Any deal, in these circumstances, was generous.”
“It’s the way that office is run, Elena. Has to be run.”
“Great. So you should do well there.”
“Okay,” he says. “You don’t like it. Not much I can do.”
> “No.”
“Can we live with it?” Tom asks.
“You and me?”
“We are the people I care about,” he says.
She blows her cheeks out. “You think I don’t?”
“So what are we doing, El?”
“Tonight?”
“I had in mind more than one night,” he says.
“How many?”
“All of them?”
“That’s a lot of nights,” she says.
He spreads his hands to acknowledge it.
“Well,” she says, “I don’t see much alternative.”
“You could sound happier about it.”
“Is that me?” she says. “Look hard! Is that me?”
He does look and smiles. “So shall we go upstairs?”
“I suppose you want to have sex again,” she says.
He blinks, as if stunned, and she laughs.
“I didn’t come all the way out here, idiot, so I could spend another hour going back on the fucking subway.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alan Hruska is the author of the novels Pardon the Ravens and Wrong Man Running, the writer of several plays produced in New York and London, and the writer and director of the films Reunion, The Warrior Class, and, most recently, The Man on Her Mind. A New York native and a graduate of Yale University and Yale Law School, he is a former trial lawyer who was involved in the some of the most significant litigation of the last half of the twentieth century. It Happened at Two in the Morning is his third novel. Hruska resides in New York City.
