Manhattan Nocturne

by Colin Harrison

  “Indeed you were, and so was I. Now I must ask you three questions.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Do you know of any copies of this tape?”

  “No.”

  “Was Caroline Crowley sending me the tape?”

  “No.”

  “Who was?”

  I explained who Mrs. Segal was, her innocence in the whole thing.

  “Did she see the tape?”

  “That’s the fourth question.”

  “Indeed, I think I have a few more. I think you might indulge them, as I will later indulge you at this lunch.”

  “Fair enough. No, Mrs. Segal hasn’t seen the tape. Who knows if her husband has, but he seems pretty scrambled.”

  “He’s how old?”

  “He appears to be at least eighty.”

  “I won’t worry about him, then.”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “Did you show the tape to Caroline Crowley?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I figured the sooner I got it out of my hands, the sooner I could get my life back.”

  Hobbs nodded.

  “Your man shot my son, Hobbs.”

  He picked up his fork. “I’m going to try my shrimp. Now then, last question. Did you look at this tape?”

  “Yes.”

  We stared at each other.

  “I’m quite a lovely sight, aren’t I?”

  I said nothing.

  “You can see why I wanted it back. A matter of privacy, I guess. A certain pride, nothing more.”

  I nodded.

  “Being the gentleman that I am, I have something for you,” Hobbs said. “Two things, actually.”

  He reached into his bag and pulled out a videotape. Simon’s writing: TAPE 15. The Fellows tape.

  I took it from him.

  “May I?”

  I slipped the tape into his portable player. There it was: Tompkins Square Park, the protesters, the police. I hit the fast-forward button, wanting to be sure that the key segment was still there. It was. Fellows toppled like a tree, the assailant fled. I stopped the tape, rewound and ejected it, and put it in my briefcase.

  We ate heartily then, Hobbs and I, and then followed dessert with coffee.

  “And now the last thing, sir.”

  This time he drew an envelope from his breast pocket.

  “We’ve had this for quite some time, but in the spirit of all’s well that ends well, I thought that I should give it back.” He handed me the envelope. There was something small and hard in it; I laid it on the table without opening it.

  “As you might imagine, we gained access to Caroline Crowley’s apartment. Looking for the tape, of course. I don’t know whether or not she suspects this.”

  “She does.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me. Women usually know things like that. We had a look at all her keys, searching for a safe-deposit box, another apartment, car, whatever, and we identified all of them but this one. I no longer need it and thought it should go back to her.”

  I opened the envelope. One tiny key, nondescript, flat and old. Three little holes instead of one. It was toothed on both edges. I knew enough from messing around in my father’s barn as a boy that this was a key to a small padlock. I had been in every room in Caroline’s apartment and had seen nothing that might match it. The key was intriguing enough—unidentifiable enough—that Hobbs’s spooks had confiscated it. Perhaps they were amateur lock experts in their own right, if they so easily broke into apartments.

  “Not a house key, I should think,” Hobbs said.

  We left then, he and I, some of the other patrons watching him walk slowly, and when we stepped outside, a limo was waiting. Hobbs handed his bag to the driver and turned to me.

  “Every loose end tied up, I believe, no?”

  “Believe so.”

  He stepped into the car and the driver shut the door. My curvilinear reflection became his face as the window went down.

  “Incidentally, Miss Caroline kept the key above the refrigerator, in a cupboard.” His thick face looked up at me, green eyes bright, lips still wet from lunch. “Quite an odd place for a tiny key, I would think.”

  Then he was gone.

  I called Hal Fitzgerald from the corner. “I have the tape.”

  “Porter?”

  “I have it.”

  “Good, that’s very good.”

  “Just tell me where I can take it.”

  “Well, let’s see, uh—you’re in Midtown?”

  The cops’ technology was getting good.

  “Yes, I—”

  “Corner of Sixth Avenue and Forty-fourth?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hold on. We’ll have a car come around.”

  “I can bring it to you if you want.”

  “No,” Hal said. “We’re, uh—hold on, Porter.” He was covering the line. “No, if you’ll just wait a minute there. It’ll be an unmarked car. About four or five minutes.”

  I waited. The sky looked like snow. There wasn’t much traffic. The light changed twice, and then far down Sixth, I saw a black sedan traveling at high speed, a flashing red light behind the windshield. The car pulled slightly past me and the door opened. I bent down and looked in—looked into the roiling dark eyes of Rudulph Giuliani, mayor of New York City, avenging archangel.

  “Mr. Mayor.”

  Eyes burning, mouth an inverted smile, he put his hand out. I put the tape in it. He nodded, glanced at his driver.

  “Go,” he commanded.

  And they surged forward into traffic.

  But I wasn’t done with Hal. I stepped onto the curb and called him back.

  “Hal, one more thing I have to talk about with you.”

  “What?”

  “I’m coming downtown. Meet me outside.”

  I got a cab on my first try.

  “You ain’t Porter Wren?” the cabbie said. “The guy who writes for the paper?”

  “You got it.”

  “I think the column is sagging a bit,” he told me. “You got to hit one pretty soon, you know what I’m saying?”

  “I do.”

  “I mean, that thing about the guy who killed his girlfriend, diary of a crazy man, something like that, with the wedding dress and everything, that was okay, you know.”

  “Not my best work.”

  “Well, I’d have to agree there.”

  “Give me another shot—maybe I’ll surprise you.”

  “Sure, no problem.”

  Then I was standing outside police headquarters, with Hal coming down the granite steps without his overcoat on, wind blowing his hair, looking excited. He had delivered as promised, if a little late, and now his scorecard would look very attractive indeed.

  He shook my hand. “The mayor is pleased.”

  And so, evidently, was Hal. The mayor’s pleasure was a form of currency, convertible into at least one promotion and therefore into a marginally higher salary; Hal had delivered not just a videotape but a little extra cash for his kids’ tuitions, a few trips to Atlantic City with the wife, maybe a couple of monogrammed shirts for himself. Now was the time to press my claim.

  “I’ve still got a couple of conditions, Hal.”

  “Now, wait—”

  “No, you wait, goddammit.”

  We stood there staring at each other, two guys in the cold.

  “I’m the guy who got kicked in the balls to get this tape, the guy who had his house torn up by your cops and had his boy shot and his wife leave the city, Hal. I’m in a bad mood. I have a few conditions, Hal, and you’re not going to mind any of them. One, I get to break the story—tomorrow. Two, I’m not mentioned when you get asked about how you got the tape. Not now, not ever. It was mailed in anonymously. Three, you send some detectives to get this guy and do something very bad to him.” I held up the slip of paper, which had Phil Biancaniello’s name on it.

  “One and two are no problem, three I don’t get.”

 
; “This guy shot my little boy.”

  Hal smoothed his tie in the wind. People walked past.

  “This is my little boy, Hal.”

  “We can’t kill the guy—it’s not like that.”

  “Just even it out. Have him pay the bill.”

  We just stood there for a while, then he nodded, looking me right in the eye, which men generally do only very carefully, and I knew that it would be taken care of. Maybe not that day, or not even very soon, but eventually. You have to have faith in the police department, and I do.

  I could have left it there. I could have walked away from anything else. Sent the key to Caroline, taken a vacation, flown to California, driven a rental car to Lisa’s mother’s house, arrived as a great surprise, and started to cut my losses. But I didn’t. There were too many questions piling up in my head, like the light but persistent snowfall that had started. I called Caroline and said I had some good news for her.

  “Why don’t you come up to the apartment?” she asked brightly. “We’ve just come back from a reception.”

  “You and Charlie?”

  “Yes. At Charlie’s bank.”

  This talk was for him.

  “I can come another time.”

  “No,” she protested, “I’d like for you to meet him.”

  Here was an opportunity to understand Caroline better; perhaps that was what she was offering. Perhaps not.

  Napoleon was there, reading a different crime novel. He looked up.

  “Are the good guys winning or losing?”

  “Losing.”

  Upstairs, Caroline had opened the shiny black door for me to enter, and, not knowing what she had told Charlie about our involvement, I remembered to walk in as if I had not spent many voluptuous hours there already.

  And there he was, in a suit that made him look like a senator, putting a log on the fire in the living room. He stood up, and I suddenly saw the future—forty years of big money.

  “Hey, you must be Porter.” He smiled easily as we shook hands. “Charlie Forster.”

  “I understand you were just at a reception,” I said politely, making a point to remember Charlie’s last name.

  “Yes, we—our bank—was announcing a new—”

  “I’ll be out in a minute,” called Caroline from the kitchen. “Porter, what do you like to drink?”

  “Oh, can you make a good gin and tonic?”

  I sat on the big white couch next to a silk purse. “I’ll try,” she called back.

  “You follow the Kicks?” I asked Charlie.

  He was poking the fire now. “Sure. Absolutely. I just went the other night with a couple of Japanese clients. We—the bank—has a pretty good box.”

  “Does Caroline like the games?”

  He gave a wince of thought. “Not really. I took her to one or two, but she didn’t seem interested, really.”

  “Not interested in what?” She walked into the living room with the same silver tray I’d seen before, but this time, instead of nothing, she was dressed: long-sleeved black velvet dress, diamond bracelet, Cartier watch. Her earrings were diamond, her shoes high-heeled pumps, her hose the color of champagne. Her hair was up in what I think is called a chignon. “What am I not interested in?”

  “Just the basketball games, the players and teams, all that,” said Charlie. “I was telling Porter I went the other night.”

  “He’s right.” She sat down and turned to me. “Charlie knows everything about me.”

  “A very good way to begin a marriage.” I didn’t dare look at her, so I sipped my drink.

  Charlie was checking his watch.

  “Now, Porter, you don’t know it,” Caroline said, “but this happens to be a bit of a celebration. Charlie was made vice-president today.”

  “Congratulations.”

  He gave a nod. “Thanks—it’s really not such a big deal.”

  “You’re pretty young to be a vice-president.”

  “Well, they throw the titles around, you know.”

  “We’ve been looking at houses,” Caroline announced. “Mostly up in Connecticut.”

  “Some beautiful places up there,” I agreed.

  “I grew up in Litchfield,” Charlie said. “So—well—I guess I don’t want my kids to grow up in the city.”

  “Mmm.”

  She lit a regular cigarette. “Porter has two children.”

  “Yes?”

  “Girl and a boy.” I looked at Caroline. “I can’t remember if you told me where you grew up.”

  “Oh, I grew up in a little town out west.”

  Charlie checked his watch again.

  “Well, it’s late,” I said, “so I should probably—”

  “Oh no, no,” Charlie laughed. “That’s not—I’m waiting for a call from our Beijing office. I may have to go back to the office. We’re structuring the debt on a new truck factory.”

  “You can stay and talk a little while?” Caroline asked me.

  “Maybe half an hour.”

  Charlie frowned, still thinking about his international phone call. “He might have tried my office.”

  He got up and went into the kitchen.

  “Nice guy, your fiancé.”

  “The nicest.” She smiled. “How’s your drink?”

  “Tastes professionally made.”

  I looked at her blue eyes, then her dark eyebrows, then down her nose, and then her lips. Then her eyes. “So—”

  “You have some good news?” she said.

  “For you, only the best.”

  “You keep charming me, I’ll leave a wet spot on the couch.”

  But here came Charlie. “Well, their deputy minister of heavy industry met with our guy last night, last night in Beijing, I mean, and it’s all done. I have to get the numbers to them right now, sweetie.”

  I actually liked him.

  “You really have to go?” said Caroline.

  He was already pulling his coat out of the closet. I stood and shook his hand. “I was hoping to ask you all sorts of questions about your work,” he said.

  “I’ll come down with you.” Caroline turned to me. “Don’t go anywhere.”

  There were two meanings to this statement: don’t snoop around, and don’t leave, and I planned to do both, in that order. As soon as I heard the elevator outside in the foyer, I went directly into the kitchen. I stood on a stool and opened the cupboard over the refrigerator, which for a refrigerator had a surprisingly clean top, no doubt a testimony to the quality of the cleaning service. It was a tough reach to the cupboard, and finally I just sat on top of the refrigerator and opened the cupboard door. Crockery was piled on the two shelves, and I gently extended my hand toward the back, as if I were reaching into the mouth of a lion. I felt along the left side of the cupboard under the top shelf. There I felt three tiny nails in a tight little triangle. Did the key fit them? I pulled back my hand, found the key in my pocket, then reached in again. Yes, the key fit. I could do it by feel.

  I returned to the living room and stood at the window. Caroline came in, her hair veiled with melting snow.

  “He seems like a nice guy.”

  “He is,” she said sadly.

  “Do you love him?”

  “That’s a hell of a question.” She picked up her drink, knocked it back. “I love his goodness. But no, I don’t love him.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “No.”

  There was, I understood, something about Caroline that allowed her to invent herself out of one situation and into another. Maybe she was just getting older and worried that only a certain number of trains would pull into the station. Maybe I had no idea what the truth of the situation was—yes, that was it.

  Why does a woman keep a key on three nails in the back of a cupboard above the refrigerator? There were easier places to hide such a thing.

  “You have a column for tomorrow?” she said.

  “I’m having some problems.”

  “Am I one of them?”
r />   “You are all of them, in one way or another.”

  This pleased her.

  “Well,” I began, “it’s time for the big news.”

  “Tell me.”

  “You’re free to marry your vice-president without interference from the fearsome billionaire.”

  She studied my face. “What do you—”

  “I found the tape.”

  “How?”

  I told her the whole story, leaving out my conversation with Billy Munson and the fact that Hobbs had slid a key across our table that happened to correspond with the three nails in her kitchen cabinet.

  “I can’t believe it,” Caroline said. “Little old Mrs. Segal was sending the tape?”

  “She needed money after being sued by the Korean guy.”

  “You told Hobbs this—the whole thing—how it wasn’t my fault?”

  “Certainly.”

  “And he believed you.”

  “Pretty sure.”

  She pressed her hands together as if praying, and her face brightened. “Oh, yes! Yes! That is so good. I was so worried he was going to do something to me or get Charlie fired, something like that.”

  “No, he was very civilized.”

  “Do you have to go home?”

  “My wife took our kids to California.”

  “Why?”

  I told her about Hobbs’s men breaking in, what they did.

  “I want you to think about something else for a little while,” Caroline said.

  We forget, I think, how quickly we come to know another human being—if not his or her history or secrets, then at least the basic physical nature, the habits of his eyes, the way she walks, the pauses of speech. I was reminded of this as I lay in bed waiting for Caroline to emerge from her bathroom; we had spent no more than about twenty-five hours together, but already listening to her on the other side of the door, I could swear that I knew exactly when her diaphragm went in—heard the slight grunt she made, a cough almost, followed by a deep breath—knew a few minutes later when she had traveled far away from me and when she was close, riding my breath. That evening was the last time we were to have sex, and I don’t think I am fooling myself to say that I knew it and that I paid what extra measure of attention was possible. Here in front of me in the shadowed gray of the bedroom were Caroline’s neck, her breasts, her cunt, her belly, her eyes—shut, open, shut—and her hair, gray against her gray skin. We were comfortable enough that much of it took place at a great distance from each other; I don’t recall what was said or if anything was said at all. We moved slowly, perhaps even with a sad reverence for the things that lay just beyond our perception. We were almost done, and I think she knew it, too.