Come Out Tonight (10 page)

So, I thought, after hanging up: if Sherry’s parents had come in for her birthday, and taken her to dinner that night, they might have been the last ones to speak to her before she was assaulted.
 
However, what that had to do with the attack on their daughter, I didn’t know yet.
 
Could there have been an argument, something that disturbed her enough to send her back to the loving arms of Henry?
 
Could she have been followed in the dark?
 
And why would the Pollacks keep mum about being in
New York City
?
 
Anyway, all of this was total conjecture until I determined whether they were there at all for the night in question.

I figured I could use some fresh air.
 
I borrowed a Crown Victoria from the precinct’s fleet of four, headed through the Park to
FDR Drive
, over the
RFK
Bridge
and on to
LaGuardia
Airport
in
Queens
.
 
I was driving the wrong way out of the city, just when most of the traffic was coming in, so the whole thing took about half an hour.
 
I parked in short term parking as close as I could get to the Central Terminal.
 
Air Tran was in Concourse B.
 
I took the escalator up.
 

It was easy.
 
True, there weren’t a lot of agents.
 
The latest rule is to check yourself in on one of those computerized check-in stations.
 
I found one young black woman behind the console who was busying herself at not being busy, overseeing several customers who were doing all the work.
 
I flashed my badge and got immediate service.
 
Too bad for the old guy on the end who couldn’t work the machine.
 
He was on his own.

“What can I do for you, Officer?” the agent asked.
 
The badge on her navy blue blazer identified her as
J’ Quaelah.
 

I explained that I needed to see the passenger list of their red eye flight from LA to LaGuardia on the evening of May 1.
 

“Let me check with my supervisor about accessing the flight manifest,” she said, and disappeared.
 
Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed as I waited for her.
 
After awhile, I went over to the old guy at the end, who was still struggling, and offered my services as surrogate airline agent: walking him through the Q&A, helping him to lift his bag onto the scale.
 
Just as I had gotten him squared away, the agent reappeared.

“I’m sorry for the wait,” J’Quaelah said, getting back behind her console. “My supervisor told me to give you any information at our disposal.”
 
She pressed a few keys.
 
“That would be from the flight leaving LAX May 1 at 11:05 p.m., going through
Atlanta
, arriving LGA 8:30 a.m.?”
 
she asked.
 

Yes, I nodded.
 
“Anyone with the name Pollack?” I asked.

“No,” J’Quaelah said.
 

The answer was also no to any other red eye flights from other airlines on that date or for the other
New York
airports.
 
So, if they hadn’t flown a private jet, they hadn’t come that night.
 
I walked slowly back to the parking garage.
 
I’d get Ricardo started looking through small plane registries coming into
New York
area airports that night, but I doubted he would find anything.
 
And I had a hunch that when I’d called Phillip Pollack’s cell, the traffic noises I’d heard in the background were
New York City
.

*
   
*
   
*

I got back to my apartment around five to find Julian kicking back on the sofa in front of my TV.
 
“I let myself in,” he told me, unnecessarily.
 
Behind him I could see three matched Louis Vuitton bags parked in the hallway that led to the bedroom.

“You never gave me back my key, as you said you would,” I said, unobtrusively kicking my beat-up canvas tote beneath the sofa table.

“You never changed the lock, as you said you would,” he answered, smiling.

“Touch
é
,” I said.
 
Repartee was one of the things we still enjoyed with one another.

Julian’s dark hair was longer than I remembered, and he hadn’t bothered to shave today.
 
But under the ripped jeans and waffle-weave T, I could see he was lanky but muscular.
 
He looked good: too good for me, who was pushing forty and never had much inclination to do much with what I had, anyway.
 
I wondered whether he was frequenting the gym.
 
It wouldn’t be beyond Julian to be without an apartment but to still own a gym membership.
 

In any case, he wasn’t dressing up for me.
 
It just wasn’t that way with us anymore.
 
We knew each other too well for artifice.
 
We’d been through all the wars that men and women wage.
 
I remembered how he could go for days without showering; he’d seen me when I got out of bed in the morning, my hair flattened to my head and a pillow crease on my cheek.
 
I knew how smart he was, but how without compunctions when it came to getting ahead.
 
He’d seen what a stickler I could be at work, but what a pushover at home.
 
With all we had learned about each other, we knew full well to keep out of each other’s hair.
 
But it never seemed to stop us from getting entangled in it over and over again.
 

I sat down on the wing chair across from him and kicked off my shoes.
 
“So, why do you not have a job?” I asked.

“Still get right to the point, don’t you, Donna?” Julian grinned.

“It’s my job,” I said.
 
“And you’re trying to put me off the track.
 
Just answer the question.”

“You’re not at the precinct, Donna.
 
Don’t interrogate me.”

“You’re staying at my place.
 
All I’m trying to do, Julian, is to get a sense of why you’re here.”

He sighed.
 
“You think I want to be out of work?
 
Wall Street’s just recovering from the biggest dip since the great depression.
 
Anyway, I’ve got a few interviews lined up.
 
Goldman Sachs at the end of the week.
 
They’re hiring again, and I still have connections there.”

“Okay, good.
 
And then you can go out and look for a place.
 
Because, Julian, you’ve got a…month here, tops.
 
I mean it.”

He stood up and crossed the distance to where I was sitting.
 
Planting his big hands around the deltoids of my upper arms, he lifted me up to a standing position.
 
I’m not a small person at 5’10”, but at 6’3” Julian looks down at me.
 
It always used to thrill me to feel small in comparison.
 
“Don’t be a bully,” he said, leaning down to kiss me.

I felt Julian’s lips rough against on mine, his arms enfolding me, embracing me, his lower body crushed hard against mine.
 
“Don’t do this,” I told myself.
 
“Do. Not. Do. This.”
 
But obviously, my body had other ideas.
 
Without any resistance, it simply melted into his: the tough, hard-boiled exterior of the Detective Second Grade who had battled her way up to, if not through, the glass ceiling of the NYPD, softening, then liquefying, dripping down Julian’s body like honey, evaporating from the heat of our fire into steam.

“God, I missed you,” he breathed, hot and heavy in my ear.

No, No came out “Yesssohyesss.”
 

We were on the floor, thrashing around, ripping off our clothing, when the phone rang.
 
For a nanosecond the detective part of me revived itself – Answer it! It could be an emergency! - but then it was gone again, submerged somewhere in my reptilian brain.
 
The phone went to voice message and who the hell cared.

*
   
*
   
*

Later, when Julian was in the shower, and I was berating myself - “Again! Donna, you fool, you did it again!” – I walked naked over to the blinking light of the answering machine.
  

There was, of course, that one message:
 
“Uh, hello.
 
This is Ryan the upstairs neighbor at
119 West 96
^th
Street
.
 
I got a message that Detective Sirken would like to talk to me about what happened to Jessica Finklemeyer.
 
I’m at home now, so if you get back anytime this evening, you can call me at 212-724-5066. Uh, thanks.”

I padded back into the bedroom to grab a bathrobe, then back again into the living room.
 
I dialed the number, and waited while it rang three times.
 
I was about to get off when someone picked up.
 
“Ryan speaking,” he said.

“This is Detective Sirken of the NYPD.
 
I was hoping to have a chat with you about Jessica Finklemeyer.
 
But perhaps it’s too late tonight.”

“Tonight?” Ryan said.
  

Down the hall the shower turned off. The hair dryer turned on.
 
I had no idea how I would face Julian when he got out.
 
Boy, did I ever want to get out of the house. “Well, tonight if it’s not too much trouble.”

A pause, then, “Well, all right.
 
I’m sort of a night owl anyway.
 
Where do you want to meet?
 
Or do we do this on the phone?”

We could have done it on the phone, but I was all for getting out, the faster the better. Preferably before Julian got out of the bathroom.
  
“I could come over right now, actually.
 
To your place. If it’s all right with you.”

“I guess the policeman’s work is never done, isn’t it?” he chuckled.
 
“Well, my address is 119 W. 96
^th
– though I guess you know it already.”

“I do.
 
Between
Amsterdam
and
Columbus
.
 
I’ll be there within the hour.”

“Okay.
 
Just ring my button.
 
I’ll buzz you up.”

I jumped back into my clothes, called to Julian through the bathroom door that I was going out, took the elevator down and grabbed the first cab going past.
 
On our way through the park, I sat back in the seat and berated myself some more in my head.
 
It was bad enough that I had allowed Julian to stay in my apartment. Bad when I’d said just a few days; worse when I willingly amended it to a month, and, finally, THIS.
 
It wouldn’t work.
 
It never had worked.
 
The guy was a hunk, but an amoral hunk, a hunk who couldn’t be trusted, a hunk who never seemed to have a dollar in his pocket, but who managed to have Louis Vuitton bags and a gym membership.
 
Why was I pathologically attracted to these hunky bad boys?
 
Was it a cops and robbers thing? Did I crave risk all the time, even in my private life?
  
Why couldn’t I go for someone dull and stable, someone a little overweight with an accounting degree or some guy four inches shorter than me with thick glasses and a hefty paycheck?
 
How about a nice Clark
Kent
type
without
the Superman alter ego?

The cabby stopped in front of 119.
 
I asked for a receipt and got some strip of paper which was half ripped from where it emerged from the meter.
 
I figured I’d submit it sometime next week, along with the half a dozen others I’d accumulated over the last month.
 
I stepped out into the night air.

The brownstone was all lit up on the bottom and at the top, with the second floor dark, like some giant all-beef patty sandwiched between two bright halves of a sesame seed bun.
 
I climbed the stoop and opened the front door.
 
The foyer was lit by a single bulb, not much – I remembered Arlene saying that that the landlord paid the utilities - but light enough to see the directory.
 
Arlene Fisher: 1A; Jessica Finklemeyer: 2A, and Ryan O’Donnell: 3A.
 
O’Donnell: that sounded vaguely familiar.
 
Common enough name though in
New York
.
 
Ryan O’Donnell.
 
I filed it away in my memory as I pushed the button next to his name. By the time I got to the inner door, I heard a loud buzz, and the door opened to my touch.