“Just a store. Doesn’t matter.” He paused. “It’s nice talking to you.”
“Yeah, you too,” Jeff said. “You sound like a nice guy.”
“Thanks.” Another pause. “I guess they won’t be saying that, this time tomorrow. After I’ve done it.”
Their conversation became long and meandering. Small talk. Jeff telling him where he’d gone on his last vacation—it was a fishing trip and he’d caught a muskellunge that was nearly four feet—the first paper he worked for, a girl he once dated whose father was in a TV series. Anything to keep the guy on the line.
Back at his desk, Larry had been telling Durkin that the guy on the phone with Jeff just lost his job, and his wife, and he might be from Pennsylvania, although that was just a guess.
“That’s not a lot to work with,” Durkin said.
“I know. It’s all Jeff’s got right now. Can’t you just trace the line?”
“That’s not as simple to set up as they make it look on TV. Be a lot easier if your guy could just get us a name. Get Jeff to be his friend.”
“He’s doing that.”
“Yeah, well, tell him to stick with it. Really sympathize. His name’s Tim, right? Tell him to use his name a lot.”
So Larry wrote another note to Jeff that said COPS REALLY NEED NAME and CALL HIM TIM A LOT and BE LIKE A FRIEND. He knew that was only going to prompt Jeff to roll his eyes again, like he couldn’t figure out this shit on his own.
Larry looked back at the radio room, saw Jeff still on the phone. He ran back, tossed the note in front of Jeff, and shrugged, as if to say, “I know.”
To Tim, Jeff said, “I guess I don’t see how killing a bunch of people is going to make any difference, Tim.”
“It’ll make a difference,” Tim said.
“Yeah, but how? You walk in, start shooting all over the place, you’re probably going to hit some kids and moms and stuff. How’s that making your situation any better?”
“It makes an impact,” he said. “It makes a statement.”
“What if you end up shooting me? I mean, here we are talking, we’re making a connection. We’re getting to be friends over the phone, and then tomorrow, I’ll go into some place to get a burger and fries and you’ll walk in and shoot me.”
“Where do you usually go?” Tim asked. “I’ll pick a different place so it won’t be you. Or maybe you should just stay home tomorrow.”
“You’re missing my point, Tim. If it’s not me, it could be someone else you know. Some acquaintance. Maybe some friend you had in school, you walk in and end up killing his mother or his sister or something. You don’t want to do that.”
Tim went quiet, as if considering what Jeff had to say. “That’s kind of what my psychiatrist says.”
“Well, there you go,” Jeff said. “I don’t even have a degree or anything in psychiatry and I’m as smart as your shrink.” He tried another laugh. “Pretty good, huh? Maybe I should be charging you for this call. That’s a joke.”
“I guess what you’re saying is common sense.”
“I mean, Tim, come on. Why’d you phone in? Why’d you call into the newsroom to tell me this?”
“I guess…I don’t know.”
“I think you do. Come on. Think harder. You called the newsroom, didn’t know who you’d get, but you got me, and we’re talking, and you know why you did this?”
“You tell me,” Tim said.
“You wanted me to talk you out of it. That’s why you called. You wanted whoever picked up the phone to talk you out of it.”
Jeff glanced at the row of clocks that hung high on the newsroom wall. There was half a dozen of them, showing the correct time in London and Munich and Jerusalem and Beijing and Los Angeles. The sixth one was local time, and it read 3:14 a.m. Jesus, Jeff thought. He’d been on the phone with this guy for more than two hours. And that coffee Larry’d bought him was already looking for a way to escape. What was it they said about coffee? You only rented it? Jeff really needed to take a piss, but there was no way he could end this call and go strolling off to the bathroom.
He eyed the trash can under the desk. If he had to, he’d take a piss in that.
Jeff wrote down more notes on his pad, then waved at Larry. This time, Larry was already looking in his direction. He sprinted across the newsroom.
Jeff’s note read: WORKED RETAIL. WONT SAY WHERE. SAYS HE’S STILL GOING TO DO IT. SEEING A SHRINK. SOUNDS LIKE MAYBE HE’LL DO IT AT LUNCH TIME WHEN PLACES BUSY.
Larry read the note, nodded, went back to his desk.
He placed another call to Durkin, read him Jeff’s note.
Durkin said, “What was that part about a shrink?”
“Just what I said. Seeing a shrink. So I guess Tim is seeing a psychiatrist. Sounds like the kind of guy who should be seeing a psychiatrist.”
“We need that shrink’s name. Tell Jeff to ask him what his psychiatrist’s name is.”
Larry scribbled GET PSYCH’S NAME, ended the call, and ran back to the radio room. He handed the slip of paper to Jeff, who glanced at it, nodded, tossed it aside.
“This is for all the people who’ve cheated me and betrayed me,” Tim said. “Like my wife and my manager and everyone. My parents, too. They were never there for me when I needed them. My father, he never gave me credit for anything. He was ashamed of me. He was this big college football star. I was never any good at sports.”
“Me, neither,” Jeff said. He told a story about how, of all the things he had to do in phys ed, he was the absolute worst at lacrosse. “They wanted me to catch a tiny little ball in a tiny little net at the end of a fucking stick. Was not going to happen.”
“I hated all of it. I’ve never been very coordinated. Whenever they’d pick teams, like in gym, I would always be picked last.”
“I hear ya,” Jeff said. “I like to joke that when they got to me, they’d see if they could get someone from another school.”
That actually prompted a chuckle from Tim.
“You know what?” Jeff said. “Here’s an idea. Why don’t you come down here, to the paper, for when I get off at six? We’ll go get some breakfast, talk this out. There’s a really good diner close to the paper, open twenty-four hours. They do a great omelet. My treat.”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“It’d be a trap.”
“What?”
“A trap. You’d tell the police and they’d come and get me.”
“No, man, it’d just be to talk. How long have we been talking? I feel like we’ve developed a level of trust between us. Look, I won’t lie to you. I don’t want you to go into a burger joint today and shoot a whole bunch of people to death. So, yeah, I got an agenda. But that’s it.”
“I don’t think so. I have to do what I have to do.”
“Okay, so, you know what I would have to do.”
“What?”
“Soon as you get off the line, we’d have to put out a warning. Tell everybody not to go to their favorite restaurant today because we got a tip someone was going to walk in and start shooting. So, even if you were still going to do this, there wouldn’t be anyone to shoot. Everyone would be on guard, you know what I’m saying?”
“I guess you would have to do that,” he said. “I wouldn’t blame you for doing that.”
“Thanks.”
“So I’d just have to make it another day. Maybe next week.”
“No, no. You’d have to call the whole thing off.”
“I have the guns,” Tim said.
“Yeah?”
“Like, more than one. So if I run out of bullets with the first one, I can switch to the other. It’ll take the police a while to get there. I think I can kill a lot of people by then.”
“Jesus, Tim, if I can’t talk you out of this, think what it’s going to do to my conscience.” Jeff paused, thinking. “I’m gonna have a lot to unload on my own psychiatrist next time I go.”
“You’re seeing someo
ne, too?”
“I thought everybody had a shrink,” Jeff said. “Who isn’t fucked up, you know what I mean?”
“Yeah, we all got problems.”
“Be a small world if we were both seeing the same head shrinker,” Jeff said. He grabbed a section of newspaper at random, scanned the page for a name, any name. He spotted an entertainment piece about that sitcom that takes place in a Boston bar. “I’m seeing Dr. Danson. Any chance that’s who you’re seeing?”
“No, I’m seeing Dr. Willoughby,” he said. “He’s nice, but I don’t think he’s really doing anything for me.”
Jeff wrote DR. WILLOUGHBY on his notepad and started waving it in front of the glass. Larry came running, ripped the note from Jeff’s pad, ran back to his desk and dialed.
“Durkin.”
“I got a name,” Larry said. “The psychiatrist. The one Tim’s seeing.”
“Fire away.”
“Willoughby. I’m not sure of the spelling. I’ve got a phone book right in front of me. Hang on.”
Larry dropped the receiver, dragged over the thick yellow pages directory, and opened it to psychiatrists. “Willoughby. Willoughby. Yes!” He grabbed the receiver. “I’ve found a listing for a doctor with that name. I’ve got an address and a phone number.”
“Office address?” asked Durkin.
“I guess.”
“Not going to do a lot of fucking good at four in the morning. I need a residence. We gotta wake this doc up and talk to him. We’ve got our own resources.”
Larry heard Durkin put the phone down at his end. He had to wait for more than a minute before Durkin came back.
“Okay, thanks,” he said, and ended the call.
Larry put the receiver back on the base and said, “You’re welcome.”
He wrote GAVE COPS NAME on a slip of paper and delivered it to Jeff, who gave him a thumbs-up.
“Maybe I should do it sooner,” Tim said. “Find a breakfast place.”
“Aw, come on, Tim.”
“If you’re going to get the word out, I need to act sooner. Gotta get this done before you can issue a warning.”
“Okay, okay, listen, let’s talk about this. Let’s talk about—let’s talk about your family. Things didn’t work out with your wife, but…what about kids? You got kids?”
“No. I told you. She lost the baby before we got married. Aren’t you listening?”
“Yeah, but I thought maybe you had another one. What about parents? I know you said your dad was a shit, I heard the college football stuff, but what about your mom? She still with us?”
“Yeah. She is. But she’s in a nursing home.”
“She got all her marbles?”
“Yeah.”
“So what’s she going to say?”
“Huh?”
“When she turns on the news and finds out her son shot a whole bunch of people? How’s she supposed to go on after that? Everyone pointing to her on the street, saying, ‘See that lady? It was her son that killed all those people.’ Is it fair to do that to her?”
Tim didn’t say anything for a moment. “I don’t care.”
“Come on. She’s your mom.”
“I want her to know. I want her to have to deal with this. She’s got it coming.”
Jeff couldn’t hold it any longer. He pulled the wastepaper basket out from under the desk, stood, unzipped and let loose, just as Larry stepped into the room.
“Shit, sorry,” he whispered and stepped back.
Jeff shook his head tiredly. When he was done, he tucked himself back in place as best he could with one hand still holding the phone, listening to Tim the entire time. He sat back down and pushed the can back under the desk.
Larry re-entered the room, scribbled on Jeff’s pad NO NEWS. ANYTHING I CAN DO?
Jeff managed a grin, pointed to the can. Larry declined the offer to take it to the men’s room to empty it and instead went back to his desk. Along the way, he glanced at the wall clock. It was nearly four-thirty.
Thank God, he thought, nothing else happened tonight. The fire turned out to be nothing, and Mike had never filed a new top to the bike lane story. Council must not have come to a decision. Had there been some overnight development, there was no way he could have pulled Jeff off that phone call to deal with it. Not with God knew how many lives at stake.
His phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Durkin. Just thought I’d let you know. We found the psychiatrist. Sent a car over to his house, woke him up. They asked him, you got a patient who might be inclined to go into a crowded place and shoot up a whole bunch of people? Oh no, he says. I know just who that would be.”
“He told them? He gave you guys a name?”
“In this kind of circumstance? Yeah, he gave us a name. Tell your reporter to keep him on the line just a little while longer.”
“I will.”
“And there’s something I want to talk to you about after,” Durkin said.
“I’m here till six.”
“Okay.”
The detective ended the call. Larry ran back to Jeff with one last note: KEEP HIM TALKING LITTLE WHILE LONGER.
Jeff nodded.
Tim was saying, “Maybe not a place where people go to eat. I got a better idea. Maybe the subway. There’ll be hundreds of people down on the platform. Just before the train comes in, I can jump on the tracks. I think that’d be a good way to go out.”
“I went to one of those once,” Jeff said.
“One of what?”
“Jumper, in the subway. Man, that is not the way you want to go out. He was in pieces.”
“But it’ll be fast,” Tim said.
“They’ll be looking all over the place to find all your bits,” Jeff said.
“You’re not scaring me. But I appreciate you talking to me. I’m gonna go now.”
“No man, hang on. Let’s keep talking. Can I tell you something?”
“What?”
“I just took a piss in a trash can.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did. Whipped it out, took a whiz right here at my work station. Good thing you called in the middle of the night. Doing that in the day, women around, that could get me in a little trouble with personnel, you know?”
Tim chuckled. “That is pretty—hang on.”
“What?”
“There’s someone knocking at my door. Let me just see who it is.”
Jeff could hear Tim put the phone down. In the distance, some indistinct talking. And then, fumbling, someone picking up the phone.
A different voice. Female. She said, “It’s over. Thanks for your help.”
And then she hung up.
That was it.
Jeff put down the phone. “Jesus,” he said, putting his head down on the table.
Larry saw him hang up and ran over.
“What happened?” he asked.
“I guess it was the cops. They knocked, he answered, it’s over. Christ, I’m shaking.”
Larry found that he was, too. “Man, what a night. Holy shit. You know what you did? Do you know?”
Jeff looked at him blankly. “If you mean taking a piss right here, yeah, I can kinda smell it.”
“You fuckin’ just saved a whole bunch of people’s lives.”
Jeff offered another one of his familiar shrugs. “I don’t know. Fuck. I am totally wired.” He ran his fingers through his hair.
The phone on Larry’s desk was ringing. Larry ran back, snatched the receiver up.
“It’s done,” Durkin said. “Just wanted to thank you guys, and ask you a favor.”
“What’s that?”
“Sit on this one for a bit? I mean, I know I can’t tell you what to print and not to print, but this guy, he got inspired by that mass shooting, and you wonder how many others might be feeling the same way. Just…sit on it. Talk to your dayside editor. This guy’s probably going to be taken for psychiatric assessment. He’s probably suicidal.”
“
I’ll leave something in my turnover note,” Larry said.
“You guys did good. You did real good. I might actually stop hating your paper so much for how you cover the cops.” He paused. “Nah, I’ll still hate ya. Gotta go.”
Durkin ended the call.
Larry realized Jeff was standing right there next to him.
“Where the fuck do you get a drink at five-thirty in the morning?” he asked.
“I happen to know where the photogs keep a bottle in the darkroom.”
“Lead the way.”
* * *
“And that’s what happened,” Larry said. “A crazy night. Jesus, look at the time.”
“Did you ever find out what happened to the guy?” Frank asked, still sitting on the stool next to him.
Larry shook his head. “No, never did. We ended up not doing a story on it. Partly, we thought it would be blowing our own horn too much. ‘Paper saves city from massacre.’ Nah, this was one of those times when we went along with what the cops wanted.”
“What do you think happened?”
Larry tried to get the last drop out of his beer glass. “I don’t know. Maybe he got the help he needed, turned his life around. Or maybe he had just one fuckup after another. Someone like that, who knows. Do they get their life together, or do they get worse and worse?”
“You know what I think happened?” Frank said. “I think that arrest, it was like the first domino. He got dragged into the system, never got the help he wanted. Things got worse and worse for him over the years. In and out of institutions, maybe some time in jail. My guess is, he was having a bad night, that he never would have gone and killed all those people, that he just needed someone to talk to, and he happened to connect with this Jeff guy, started to think he really was a friend, that he honest-to-God actually gave a shit about him, and had no idea that he and his editor were working behind the scenes with the cops to get him, to betray his sorry ass.”
Larry, slightly glassy-eyed, took a closer look at his drinking partner.
“And by the way, my name’s not Frank,” Tim said. “And Jeff asked me to pass on his regrets about not being able to make it tonight. Took a long time to track down the two of you.”
And that was when Tim reached inside his jacket for something.
Nothing Good Happens After Midnight: A Suspense Magazine Anthology Page 13
