Against Nature

by Casey Barrett

  “I could kill you now,” he said. The blade pressed deeper. “But that would be no fun.” I felt blood trickling down my neck and under my shirt. “First there must be fear. And suffering. Do you like to suffer, Duck? Do you like to hurt those you love?”

  I shook my head, felt the knife move with my skin.

  “I do,” he whispered, the voice, that same German accent—Oliver.

  He released his hold and pushed me forward. My forehead hit the seat in front of me. I reached for my throat, unsure if the wound was real. For a moment I doubted whether the episode occurred at all. I heard footsteps behind me, and the theater door swung open and there was a flood of light, but even that seemed like an illusion. My therapist told me in severe cases there could be physical manifestations of my disorder. The paranoia could intensify into full delusional psychosis. That must be what happened. When I looked up, the other moviegoers were staring at the credits, shifting in their seats, untroubled by any disturbance.

  It wasn’t until I touched my neck and felt the sticky warmth. I put my fingers to my lips, tasted my blood. It made me feel better. It proved I wasn’t crazy.

  Chapter 13

  On my way to Juliette’s I stopped in a Duane Reade and bought gauze and Neosporin and some Band-Aids. I’d managed to stop the bleeding with a batch of napkins from the theater, but now they were soaked red and the girl at the counter was careful not to make contact. I thanked her, apologized for the mess. She told me there was an Urgent Care two blocks south. I turned north and went into a Starbucks on the corner. There was a long line and every eye was fixated on phones. No one noticed as I dripped blood on the way to the bathroom. A fat white boy opened the door as I reached for the handle. He pushed past, left a stinking bomb behind in the small dirty room.

  I bolted myself in, regarded the cut in the mirror. It wasn’t so bad. About three inches, very thin, the blade had been sharp. I rinsed it and applied a layer of ointment, ripped and folded the gauze and placed it on, then covered the wound with two Band-Aids. I’d tell Juliette that I cut myself shaving. That’s right, I was shaving in the dark with a knife as I watched a movie. She’d believe that.

  Next stop: the nearest venue that served strong drink. All discipline was canceled after that blade to the throat. Some things can only be treated with the proper medicine. I wouldn’t overdue it, at least not until after I left Juliette and Stevie. I’d buy some breath mints on the way over, but resisting drink was no longer an option.

  I remembered the Marlton Hotel a block away, over on West 8th Street. There was a stylish bar off the lobby that would be open for lunch. It was the former home of Jack Kerouac and Lenny Bruce and plenty of other back-in-the-day coolsters. I heard it was where Valerie Solanas lived when she shot Andy Warhol. Now, of course, the Beats and the artists and the would-be artist killers had been replaced by Gold Coasters content to pay ten bucks a beer. But this was no time for judgment or nostalgia. I needed a goddamn whiskey down my throat.

  It was 1:45p.m. when I walked through the oak-paneled lobby. A fire was lit and an attractive pair of professional women lounged on plush love seats before it. I noted the light fixtures and the crown moldings. It was a fine spot. Overpriced or not, the original character was still in place; the dead voices of the past would approve. I gave myself eight minutes. Enough time for two or three belts, then a stop at a bodega for mints, then a speed walk five blocks up to the Cohens’.

  The bartender examined my face and neck with blithe curiosity. He was bearded, with slicked-back hair, dressed in a tweed suit, in character behind the meticulous bar. The bottles were lined on glass shelves before a mirror trimmed with carved-oak inlay. He tossed a cocktail napkin on the marble bar top in front of me. Didn’t ask about my bandages.

  “Double Bulleit,” I said. “One cube.”

  He nodded, turned, and poured. Placed it on the napkin and watched as I lifted it and drained the bourbon down in one swallow.

  “One more, please,” I told him. “And a Stella.”

  Another unquestioning nod and he delivered the rest of my order. When he set the green bottle and amber glass before me, I had my card waiting.

  “I’ll settle up. Don’t have much time, unfortunately.”

  He shrugged, went to swipe it. I sipped the second whiskey a little slower. Savored the warmth it brought to my belly, the calm it delivered to my mind. I rinsed each sip with a pull of Stella. I checked my phone. It had been six minutes since I walked in. I was no longer feeling so out of control. I gave myself two more minutes to finish, signed the tab with a five-dollar tip, slid from my stool, smiled at the ladies by the fire as I passed, and returned to the streets with a comforting haze.

  The sun was shining and the day had warmed. Spring was springing. Well-dressed women walked expensive dogs down Fifth Avenue. Couples walked, hand in hand, oblivious to all but their happiness. A pair of European men in tailored suits laughed and smoked in front of the Salmagundi Art Club. They all felt like extras in a movie version of my reality.

  I bought the breath mints at a deli and added a Gatorade for hydration. Wondered if Juliette might smell it on me despite the mints. Showing up with whiskey breath and a sliced neck, eager to reunite with my lady and her son—Real nice, Duck.

  * * *

  The Cohens lived in one of the few new apartment buildings with a degree of taste. At least the windows weren’t that same infuriating geometric pattern—one large rectangle, one narrow rectangle, one square in the lower corner—that appeared to be de rigueur for every steel-and-glass disgrace being slapped up these days. Their building at 12 East 13th Street offered some red brick between the oversized square-paned windows. It was still too contemporary, with pretensions of artistic vision, but it was hard to argue with the interiors—or the private parking places that came with every residence.

  The doorman’s look was not happiness to see me. Ernie was his name—a short, courtly fellow with a bright smile of crooked teeth, which he flashed for every tenant. I was always friendly to him, but he seemed to see through me. The boyfriend interloper of the attractive divorcée Ms. Cohen, I was tolerated with fake cheer in her presence. Alone I was welcomed with the indifference shown to a Seamless deliveryman. I also made the mistake of calling him Bert once on our way in, after a few bottles of wine, and I don’t think he ever forgave me.

  “Ernie, my man,” I said. “Long time, how you been?”

  He ignored my outstretched hand, ignored my neck wound. “She’s expecting you,” he said, without looking up.

  “Thanks, good seeing you too, buddy.” I slapped the desk on my way past just to make him stiffen.

  Each apartment was its own floor, with the elevator opening onto a glassed foyer. Juliette was not waiting by the entrance. I called out for her and got no reply. Peeked my head into the long living room, found it empty. I kept calling her name until I found her seated at the kitchen island, staring down in silence.

  “Juls? It’s me, everything okay?”

  She looked up. Her face was tear-streaked with terror and blame. Her body shuddered as she pushed a piece of paper toward me.

  “I just got back,” she said. “This was waiting downstairs with Ernie. It was sealed and addressed to both of us.”

  “To you and me?”

  If she noticed the bandages on my neck, she didn’t mention it. She showed me the torn envelope it came in. On a typed label, it read: To Ms. Juliette Cohen (and Mr. Duck Darley), Residence 4

  I picked up the letter. It was typed and printed on thin white paper:

  Dear Ms. Cohen,

  Please share this note with your friend, Mr. Darley.

  Your son, Stevie, is a good boy, isn’t he? So smart, so full of promise, I’m sure he’s an excellent student at his school on East 16th Street, where he arrives each morning by 8:25am, and where he leaves each afternoon at 3:10pm, picked up by his nanny. On Tuesdays I hope he enjoys his afterschool piano lesson. On Wednesdays I understand his swimming is coming along nicely,
with the help of your friend, Duck. (I do hope he’s reading this, as well!) It would be a shame if Stevie did not come home one day, wouldn’t it? I know how busy you are, Ms. Cohen, with your lunches and your photography course, and the good work you do with the Whitney Museum. You and your son seem like lovely people, leading lovely lives.

  Do be careful, won’t you?

  It was unsigned. I set the letter down on the counter. “Do you like to suffer, Duck? Do you like to hurt those you love?” Adrenaline fired through me, the effect of the drinks vanished.

  “Who left this?” I asked.

  “Ernie said it was some kid, looked like a student from across the street at the New School.”

  “Probably paid a few bucks to drop it off,” I said.

  Juliette looked up, confused. “What? What are you talking about, Duck? Paid by whom? Who would do this?”

  “Juls, it’s okay, it will be okay. I’ll find him. Nothing will happen to you or Stevie, I promise.”

  My words shook her from her stupor. She stood and her face split into hysteria. “Nothing will happen?” she shouted. “Someone is threatening my son! Because of you . . . because of something you’re involved in! And you tell me it will be okay, you’ll find him? Who, Duck? Who the fuck would send something like this?”

  She flung herself at me, her fists lashing at my chest. I caught her by her wrists and did my best to restrain her. “Please,” I heard myself saying over and over. “Please, Juls, let me explain. Let me talk, okay?”

  “No,” she said as her attack waned. “I don’t want you to talk. I want you to leave. I’m calling the police.”

  She reached for her phone on the counter. I put my hand over hers. “Juls, wait.”

  “Don’t you touch me,” she hissed. “Explain it to the police.”

  “Let me call,” I said. “There’s someone in the department, a detective I know. She’ll be able to help us—faster than anyone else.”

  I removed my hand. She looked into my eyes with revulsion. “Then call,” she said. “Call your detective. Get her over here. Now.” Then the panic returned. “My God, I have to call the school. Why haven’t I called the school? I have to get Stevie, what if . . .”

  While Juliette dialed, I tried Detective Lea Miller on my cell. When it went to voice mail, I sent a text: Lea, it’s an emergency. Call me asap. Kid I know is being threatened. Must be connected to Kruger murder. Need to reach you. Please.

  I set down my phone and listened to the temporary relief in Juliette’s voice as she was assured that Stevie was safe in class. She told the school that she would be over to pick him up early.

  When she ended the call, she looked back at me. “What did your detective say?” she asked.

  “Left a message, I’m sure she’ll call back any second.”

  She reached for her purse on the counter, stuffed her phone in, and moved for the elevator. “I’m going to get my son,” she said. “That detective better be here when we get back. If not, I’m calling 911.”

  Left alone in the apartment, I read the letter again. Its precise, mocking tone, the pride it took in its intel, seemed aimed at me. I remembered the first warning I received at the bar before our sidewalk altercation. That white-supremacist punk with the 1488 tattoo on his knuckles, what had he said? That some things weren’t worth it . . . before spray-painting those same hate-filled numbers across my front door while I was away. There was Carl Kruger’s death by javelin, while I lay unconscious on his barroom floor, then the knife to my throat in the theater, and now this threat to Stevie. They were taking sadistic pleasure at my expense. I felt like a voodoo doll, with pins being inserted at various points of pressure. Why was I being tortured while others were being killed?

  I went to the living-room windows and looked down at the street as Juliette rushed from the lobby doors and turned east toward her son’s school. For a moment I felt a need to go after her, to follow behind and make sure nothing happened to either of them on their way back. But I stayed put. I needed to get Lea here in a hurry.

  At least I knew I wasn’t paranoid. There really was no such thing. Someone had been following me. They were watching Stevie and Juliette. They wanted me to feel the pain and the panic of their looming presence. If I continued to approach, so would they. Ever since Cass reached out, the night I read her text in Juliette’s bedroom, when she shattered my delicate domestic bliss, there had been someone watching. It started with Cass. I needed to reach her. If they were preying on the people I cared most about, she would be the first target. As I reached for my phone, it lit up—Detective Miller responding to my text.

  “Start talking,” she said.

  “Lea, thanks for getting back. I need your help.”

  “I said start talking, Duck. I asked you to be honest with me, after this mess with the Kruger murder, and you weren’t. And now you need my help, so start talking.”

  “I wasn’t lying,” I said. “I don’t know how any of this is connected, but I’m being threatened, and now so is an eight-year-old kid. He’s the son of a woman I was seeing.”

  I heard a sharp exhale through her nose. Either expelling a flash of jealousy, or more likely a snort of disgust. “How was he threatened?” she asked.

  “We got a letter, left with their doorman,” I said. “It detailed his school schedule, said it would be a shame if he didn’t come home one day. It was addressed to both of us—to his mom and to me.”

  “Where is the kid now?”

  “At school on East Sixteenth. The mom, her name is Juliette Cohen, she just went to pick him up. The school said he was fine.”

  “And where are you?”

  “At their apartment, 12 East 13th Street. Can you come by?”

  “I’ll see if I can send someone over.”

  “Please, Lea, can you please come by? I was told that if you weren’t here by the time they got back that she would call 911.”

  “Jesus Christ, Duck. I’m investigating a murder.”

  “Right, a murder that might be connected to threats being made to an eight-year-old boy—whose mother has enough money to launch a full-on manhunt.”

  “Un-fucking-real,” she muttered. “Where are you again?”

  “12 East 13th. Thank you, Lea.”

  “You call me by my first name in front of that woman and I’m turning around, that clear?”

  “Thank you, Detective Miller.”

  Chapter 14

  The kid did not run into my arms, or offer a high five, or even a smile in my direction. Seeing me there, back in his kitchen, sipping his sparkling water, Stevie gave me a hard look—a rich eight-year-old’s version of hard—and put his head down and went straight for his bedroom. Down the hall his door slammed shut. I looked at the two women arriving in his wake.

  Ernie had refused to allow Detective Miller upstairs until the lady of the house returned. They entered together, an unpleasant energy between them, collectively directed toward me. Neither spoke. Juliette walked past and indicated the letter on the island.

  “This is it,” she said. “It was left at the front desk around one thirty this afternoon. I received it when I arrived home, about fifteen minutes later.”

  Detective Miller glanced around the moneyed space, offered me a professional nod, and joined Juliette in the kitchen. She examined the letter without touching it.

  “Your doorman said it was left by what looked like a college kid?” she asked.

  “Probably paid a few bucks to drop it off,” I said.

  Lea looked at me like a disruptive student. “What happened to your neck?” she asked.

  I shrugged.

  “Ernie said he looked about nineteen or twenty years old, white with longish blond hair,” said Juliette. “He was wearing jeans and a hoodie, a backpack over his shoulder. He told Ernie that he was asked to drop it off. Left the letter on the front desk and turned and walked out before Ernie could ask him anything. All deliveries usually must be signed for,” she added.

  �
��We’ll try to help your doorman ID him. Mr. Darley is probably right. Whoever wrote this likely slipped the kid a few bucks and asked for a favor. Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll recognize the face coming out of class.”

  “And then?”

  “Has anyone else touched this letter?” asked Miller. “Besides you and Mr. Darley?”

  “No. Just Ernie, and the kid who delivered it, but I guess that was only the envelope.”

  “We’ll have both dusted for prints. But seeing the printed label and the fact that it was typed, it seems probable that precautions were taken.”

  “Which means you have little to go on. Which means my son is being threatened and the police won’t be able to do a goddamn thing.”

  Miller indicated toward the family room. “Could we sit?” she asked. “I’m going to need you both to walk me through everything.”

  “Duck can walk you through it,” said Juliette. “I want to hear it myself. I have no idea what’s going on here and I expect some answers. I expect both of you to fix it very fucking quickly.” She was finger-pointing now, the octaves rising with every syllable. “I want to know who wrote this. Whoever it is will live to regret it, I can promise you that.”

  In the face of danger, some will wilt and seek protection. Some will weep and want to hide. Others will respond with fury and indignation. Juliette Cohen was not a wilter. She was a woman confident in her place in the world. The divorce settlement might have made her financially invincible, but Juliette had been a fearsome lady long before her marriage. Born in Greenwich and forever gorgeous, the woman knew the score. She also knew how to settle one. But everyone has her soft spots, and when kids come into the picture, no one is as invulnerable as she projects. I knew the cursing fury would give way soon enough to helpless fear. So did Lea. She didn’t react to Juliette’s demands. She just turned and walked toward the family room.