Hark! (36 page)

 

……………………………

 

Which made her wonder if he'd already booked the flights.

So she kept surfing.

 

C
ARELLA WAS SITTING
there at the desk with his head on his folded arms, wondering why this wedding today had been so joyless for him, wondering why he hadn't danced with either his mother or his sister today, wondering why both the champagne and the music had seemed so flat today. And he thought, My father should be here today. He thought, My father should still be alive. But of course, his father was dead.

Luigi Fontero stopped in the doorway to the banquet hall's small office, looked in, puzzled, and then went to the desk, and came around it, and put his hand on Carella's shoulder.

“Steve?” he said. “
Ma che cosa
? What's the matter?”

Carella looked up into his face.

“Figlio mio,”
Luigi said. “My son.
Dica mi.
Tell me.”

And Carella said, “I miss him so much,” and threw himself into Luigi's arms, and began sobbing again.

 

S
HE WAS WAITING FOR HIM
when he got back to the apartment with the violin. He set it down on the hall table, next to the phone there, as casually as if the Strad were worth a nickel instead of more than a million. He put the blue sports bag containing the Uzi on the floor then, just under the table. Turning to her, he said, “I see you got back all right.”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “Took a taxi over from the Knowlton. Hardly any traffic at all.” She nodded at the violin case. “I see you got back all right, too,” she said.

“Indeed.” He came across the room to her, arms outstretched. “What've you been doing?” he asked.

“Surfing your computer,” she said.

“Oh?”

“Yes.”

He looked at her. Arms still stretched to embrace her, but not so sure now. She couldn't tell whether the look on his face was quizzical or amused or just what. She didn't much care what it was; she knew what she knew.

“Now why'd you do that?” he asked.

Quizzical, she guessed. The look. Or amused. Not at all menacing. Not yet, anyway.

“Oh, just keeping myself busy,” she said. “A girl can learn lots of things from a computer.”

“And did you learn lots of things?”

“I learned how much the fiddle there is worth.”

“I told you how much it's worth.”

“Seven figures, you said. Isn't that right?”

“Yep.”

“That's what the computer said, too.”

“Why'd you have to go to the computer to learn what I'd already…?”

“You didn't tell me you were stealing a precious violin, Adam.”

“There was no need for you to know that.”

“No, there was only a need for me to socialize with junkies…”

“You were free to choose your own messeng…”

“…and fuck a bodyguard, and let a chauffeur think I was
about
to fuck him.”

“Is something wrong, Lissie?” he asked, trying to look concerned and pleasant and caring.

“Oh yes, something is wrong,” she said, and reached into her handbag, and pulled out an American Airlines ticket folder and flapped it on the air. “
This
is wrong,” she said.

“Where'd you get that, Liss?”

“Top drawer of your office desk. Right under the computer.”

“You
have
been busy.”

“It's a one-way ticket to Tortola,” she said. “Made out to Adam Fen.”

“There's another ticket in that drawer, Liss.”

“No, there isn't. I turned it upside down and inside out, I looked through that whole damn desk,
and
your dresser, too,
and
all the pockets in all the suits and jackets in your closet, and there is no other ticket. There is just this one ticket, Adam.
Your
ticket. You never planned to take me with you at all, did you?”

“Where'd you get such an idea, Liss? Of
course
you're coming with me. Let me find the other ticket. Let me show you…”

“There is no other ticket, Adam.”

“Liss.”

“There
is
none!” she said, and shook the folder on the air again. “You never planned to give me any part of that million-whatever, did you? You just used me, the same way Ame Carter used me. I was just a handy little whore to you, wasn't I?”

“Well,” he said, and smiled, and spread his hands reasonably, “that's what you are, isn't it, Liss.”

Which was perhaps a mistake.

He realized this when he saw her dip into her bag again and come up with not another airline ticket, but with what looked instead like a small nine-millimeter pistol.

“Careful,” he said.

“Oh yes, careful,” she said, and waved the gun recklessly in the air. “Know what else I found on your computer, Adam? I found…”

“I can assure you, Lissie, there
is
another ticket in my desk. Let's go look for it, shall…?”

“No, I don't think so.”

“We'll look for it togeth…”

“No, we
won't
look for it together because it doesn't
exist.
Would you like to know what else I found?”

He said nothing.

He was wondering how he could get to that blue sports bag under the hall table, wondering how he could get his hands on the Uzi in that bag before she did something foolish here. He was not eager to get shot again. It had taken too long for Dr. Rickett to fix him up after the last time a woman shot him. He did not think she was going to shoot him, but he did not like the way she kept tossing that gun around so negligently.

“I found a file titled ‘PROSPECTS,' ” she said, “and another one titled ‘BUYERS,' which had some of the same names and addresses in them, little bit of duplication there, Adam? Little redundancy?”

He said nothing.

He was wondering how he could back slowly away from her, toward the sports bag, without tipping his hand. He certainly did not want to get shot here. Not again.

“I'm figuring these are the names of people who might care to
own
that little Stradivarius across the room, Adam, am I right?”

He still said nothing.

“Names and addresses of all those prospects and buyers, I don't think they'd give a rat's ass
who
they bought that fiddle from, you or me, so long as they get their hands on it, am I right?”

“Backups, Liss. Merely backups. In case the fiddler refuses to pay the piper.”

“Meaning?”

“We'll offer the Strad to Sallas first. If he pays what we want for it…”

“We?”

“Of course, Liss. You and I. We. Us. If he gives us what the fiddle's worth, it's his again. If not, as you surmised, there are all those redundant prospects and buyers out there. Can you imagine such people in this world, Liss? People who don't know how to play the violin, who don't care at all about music, people who just want to own something beautiful and precious.”

“I can imagine them, yes.”

“Like you,” he said, and tried a smile. “Beautiful and…”

“
Bull
shit!” she said, and waved the gun again.

“Careful with that thing,” he said, and spread the fingers of his right hand on the air, sort of patting the air with them, urging caution.

“What I'm going to do right now,” she said, “is buy myself a ticket to Paris or London or Rome or Berlin or Buenos Aires or Mexico City or Riyadh, where all these backups seem to live, and see which one of them might care to take this fiddle off my hands. I feel sure…”

“Why don't we just do that together?” he suggested.

“No, why don't we just
not
do that together!” she said, and rattled the gun on the air again. “I want to be on that plane alone. Without you, Mr. Fen. Just me and the Strad, Mr. Fen. And then I'll see about all these violin-lovers all over the world. Maybe they'll be willing to pay a handy little whore even
more
than…”

“I never called you a…”

“Oh, didn't you?” she said, and waved the gun at the floor. “Lie down, Adam. Face down. Hands behind your head. Do it!”

“Liss…”

“
Do
it! Now!”

“You're making a big mis…”

“I said
now
!”

He turned swiftly and moved closer to the hall table, and then got down on his knees, and then lowered himself flat on the floor, positioning himself so that his head and his hands were close to the hall table. He could feel her presence behind him, the gun level in her hand. If he did not make his move now…

In that next crackling instant, she realized he was reaching into the blue sports bag on the floor under the table, and she saw what was in that bag, saw his hand closing around the handle of the automatic weapon there. And in that same crackling instant, he saw from the corner of his eye the little gun leveling in her hand, steady now, no longer uncertain, and he tried desperately to shake the Uzi loose of the bag before…

Almost simultaneously, they thought exactly the same thing:
No, not again!

She meant getting fucked by yet another pimp.

He meant getting shot by yet another woman.

Actually, she did manage to say just that single word aloud, “
No!
”, before she shot him in the back the same way she'd shot that other pimp, Ambrose Carter.

Twice.

The same way.

I
N THIS CITY
, there are beginnings, and there are sometimes endings. And sometimes those endings aren't quite the ones imagined when you and I were young, Maggie, but who says they have to be? Where is it written that anyone ever promised you a rose garden? Where is it written?

“I understand someone sent you a note,” Hawes said.

“I get notes all the time,” Honey said.

“This note was an important one,” he said.

They were in her apartment. The apartment on the seventeenth floor of the building where Eddie Cudahy had taken a potshot at him on Wednesday morning, the second day of June.
Several
potshots, in fact.

It was now three o'clock on the afternoon of the twelfth, ten days and some eight hours later, but who was counting? Hawes had already arrested, questioned, and booked Eddie Cudahy, but Honey Blair was still in her nightgown and peignoir, trying to look innocent when she knew exactly which note Hawes was talking about. He was talking about
the
Note.

“According to a man named Eddie Cudahy,” he said, “who works for Chann…”

“Yes, I know,” she said.

“You know
him
…?”

“Vaguely.”

“…or you know the
note
I'm talking about?”

“Both.”

“Why didn't you tell me about it?”

“Because Danny decided not to broadcast it.”

“Who's Danny?”

“Di Lorenzo. Our Program Director.”

“That was withholding evidence,” Hawes said.

“Well, it certainly wasn't truth in broadcasting,” she said, and smiled.

“This isn't funny,” he said. “The man was trying to kill me.”

“Yes, well, me too, you know.”

“No,
not
you too.

“Well.”

“He specifically wrote…”

“I know.”

“…that he didn't know you were in that limo. He was after
me
, Honey. Me and me alone.”

“Well, probably. Yes.”

“So why'd you suppress that note?”

“I didn't. Danny suppressed it.”

“But you went along with it. You went on the air every night…”

“Well, yes.”

“Why, Honey?”

“Be good for my career,” she said, and shrugged.

“But bad for my health,” he said.

“Well, that too.”

“Uh-huh,” he said.

They looked at each other.

“This note,” he said. “Was it handwritten?”

“Yes.”

“Where is it now?”

“I have no idea.”

“I'll need it.”

“Why?”

“For evidence. We've charged Cudahy with attempted murder.”

“That's a shame. He seemed nice.”

“Murder would've been a bigger shame,” Hawes said.

They kept looking at each other.

“Why don't we go back to bed?” she asked.

“No, I don't think so,” he said.

“Cotton…”

“See you,” he said, and walked out.

 

T
HEY WERE ON THE
thin edge of ending it here, and they both knew it. Sharyn had lied to him, and Kling had followed her like the detective he was, and both transgressions were grounds for packing toothbrushes. So they sat together in his apartment, silent now, Sharyn having explained (sort of) and Kling having defended (sort of), each waiting for more because each still felt betrayed.

Someone had to break the silence here.

If this thing was going to work here.

They both knew they
had
to make this thing work, because if it couldn't work right here, between this white man named Bertram Alexander Kling and this black woman named Sharyn Everard Cooke, then maybe it would never work anywhere in America between any two people of different colors. It had got down to that between them; thinking of each other as two people of different colors. But someone had to break the silence here, someone had to reach across this widening chasm.

So, reluctantly, but like the good detective he was, he weighed in his mind which had been the heavier offense, lying or following someone you were supposed to love, and he guessed his breach had been the greater one. So he cleared his throat and looked across the room to where she sat turned away from him in stony silence, arms folded across her chest, and he said, “Shar?”

She did not answer.

“Shar,” he said, “I'm sorry, but I still don't quite understand.”

“What is it you don't
quite
understand,
Bert
?” she said.

“If Jamie Hudson
really
wants to marry this Julie person…”

“She's not this Julie
person.
She's a woman named Julia
Curtis
, who happens to be a physician, just like Jamie and…”

“Oh, forgive me, a
physician
, please, do I need an appointment here?”

“Go to hell, Bert.”

“How was I supposed to know she's a doctor? I see the three of you running around like spies in…”

“Yes, go to hell.”

“If he wants to marry
her
, why's he meeting
you
?”

“He asked me to talk to her.”

“Why?”

“Damn it, she's not
sure
!”

“Not sure of
what
, damn it!”

“That she
wants
to marry a black man!”

“So what are you, a marriage broker all of a sudden?”

“No, I'm Jamie's friend. The girl has serious doubts. She loves him, but her entire life…”

“Oh, I get it. You're the shining example, right? You and me. Black woman, white man, you're supposed to show her it can work, is that it?”

“You still don't get it, do you?”

“No, I'm sorry, I don't. Are you sure that's the
only
reason she won't marry him? Because he's black and she's white? Or is there…?”

“She's black, too,” Sharyn said.

“What?”

“I said she's black. We're all three of us black. Jamie, Julie, and me. We're all black. Get it now?”

He let this sink in. She watched him letting it sink in.

“She looks as white as…”

“Yes, Bert?”

“She looks white,” he said.

“White enough to pass ever since she turned sixteen. She left home, left the south, went to Yale Med. She's afraid if she marries Jamie, she'll lose her white practice, lose everything she's worked so hard for all these years.”

The room went silent again.

“You should have told me,” he said.

“I'd have broken her trust.”

“How about
my
trust?”

“How about mine, Bert?”

She said his name softly this time.

“You shouldn't have followed me,” she said.

“You shouldn't have lied to me.”

“Here we go again,” she said.

There was another silence.

He wondered if they could ever again breach the silence.

“Whatever happened to
SHLEP
?” he asked, and picked up the needlepointed pillow, and held it against his chest so she could read it:

“I should've had them put a
T
on the end,” she said. “For Trust.”

“Sharyn…”

“You don't trust me, Bert. Maybe it's because you don't love me…”

“I love you with all my…”

“…or maybe it's because I'm black…”

“Sharyn, Sharyn…”

“But whatever it is, the
T
's missing, Bert. It should've been
SHLEPT
. Maybe that's what it should be now,” she said, and took the pillow from his hands. “
SHLEPT
. Past tense.”

He looked at her.

“Should it?” he said.

“I don't know,” she said. “Should it?”

F
OR
E
ILEEN AND
W
ILLIS
, this was still the beginning, and this was still Saturday, the start of a weekend off for both of them, and so they were still in bed together.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“About?”

“Us?”

“Oh.”

“You. Me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Does that mean ‘Uh-huh, I think this will last forever, we'll get married one day, and have kids, and…' ”

“Uh-huh.”

“Or does it mean ‘Uh-huh, I understand your question, and I'm thinking about it'?”

“It means ‘We'll see,' ” she said. “But meanwhile,” she said, and rolled over into his arms, and kissed him on the mouth.

Under her lips, Willis grinned.

 

O
LLIE SAW HER COMING UP
the street in her tailored blues, the nine on her right hip, the weight of it giving her a sort of lopsided gait, long black hair tucked up under her cap, silver shield pinned just above her left breast, eyes casually checking out the perimeter as she came sailing toward the diner, good cop, he thought, beautiful girl, he thought, woman. Her name tag, white letters on black plastic, read: P. GOMEZ. Who'd have thunk it? he thought. Gomez.

Her eyes lit up when she saw him, who'd have thunk
that
, either? The sun was shining, her eyes sparkled in the sunlight. Beautiful brown eyes. Patricia Gomez. He almost shook his head in wonder.

“
Hey
, Oll!” she said. “What're
you
doing here?”

Oll, he thought. Only person in the universe who calls me Oll. Not even my sister calls me Oll. Not even my
mother
called me Oll, may she rest in peace. Oll.

“Thought we could have a late afternoon snack together, ah yes,” he said.

“Hey, that's terrific!” she said.

He knew she'd just been relieved on post. Knew that before she headed back in to change out of uniform, she usually stopped for a cup of coffee either here or in the coffee shop up the street. He knew all this. He prided himself on being a good cop.

She opened the door to the diner, holding it open for him to follow her inside. The proprietor knew her, of course, made a big fuss out of showing
Officer
Gomez to a fine booth in the corner. She took off her cap, hung it on one of the racks flanking the booth. Her hair was all pinned up, like.