Come Out Tonight (37 page)

“Mrs. Levinson,” I said, trying to shush her.
 
“I was here.
 
Maybe the door was just stuck.”

“Oh, no,” she insisted.
 
“You had the little sign turned so that it said ‘Closed.’
  
I know because I put my glasses on just to make sure.”

By now Carl had come down to the front.
 
His eyes were on me, not her.
 
“Henry,” he said.
 
“I left you here at six o’clock.
 
When did you leave?”

“Um, 9:55?” I said.
 
“I don’t really remember, Carl.
 
I mean, it could have been five minutes before.
 
I’m sorry if...”

“Oh no,” Mrs. Levinson said again.
 
“It was definitely a little after eight when I came.
 
I don’t go out any later than that.
 
Lots of crazies out in
New York
at night.”

“I’ll deal with you later,” Carl said and turned to Mrs. Levinson, apologizing for her extra trip and telling her to take a seat; he’d do up her Fosamax right away.
 
Ten minutes later he handed it to her along with a package of Luden’s cough drops.
 
“Take care now,” he said.

The moment she was out of the store, he was back to me.
 
“Henry, did you or did you not leave the store early Thursday night?”

“Well,” I said.
 
“It might have been a few minutes....”

“Henry, I’m not taking any bullshit.
 
When did you close the store last night?”

“Um, Nine...”

“I said no bullshit.
 
I believe Mrs. Levinson on this one. She said she was here at eight.”

“She said she was here a little after eight.”

“Don’t quibble.”

“I closed up at eight.”

Carl gave me a long sad look. “You’re fired,” he said.

I couldn’t believe it.
 
He fired me.
 
“You don’t mean that, Carl.”

“Henry, I told you one more time and this is it.
 
Get your stuff and get out.”
 
His face was pale but determined, the face of someone who wasn’t ever going to back down.

I thought what the hell, what did I do?
 
So, big shit, I closed up a little early. And nobody would ever have known the difference if it weren’t for that old fart Levinson who probably couldn’t read, anyway, and who might have been there at nine or ten, for all anyone knew.
 
Or maybe she came Wednesday night.
 
And here I was busting my butt for the past two years, but Carl took the old fucking bitch’s side of it.

I looked at Carl’s face, and suddenly, I didn’t see a friend and all-around good guy.
 
I saw a big, fat son-of-a-bitch.
  
I don’t know what came over me.
 
I just hauled off and punched him in the face.
 
Then, as Carl was holding his bloody nose, groaning in pain, I sauntered down the aisle, my arm outstretched, dumping everything I could reach onto the floor: Advil, Lubriderm, Maalox, Aveeno Oatmeal Bath, Milk of Magnesia, Oil of Olay, Colgate toothpaste, the whole fucking drug store on the floor, and it felt totally awesome.

I went looking for a bar, but it was too early.
 
I ended up in
Central Park
, chasing squirrels and climbing rocks in the rain.
 
Lunch time, I bought a hot dog with everything on it from a cart.
 
I walked down to the pond, rented a row boat and rowed out to the center, where I sat for forty-five minutes paddling the boat in circles.
 
I walked along Central Park West, past Tavern on the Green, and the zoo. What started out freedom and high spirits
 
deflated hour by hour until by five o’clock,
 
I found myself sitting on a park bench staring at the ground, cold, wet and depressed.
 

By now it was getting dark.
 
All I’d had to eat for hours was one hot dog.
 
I crept out of the park, and stumbled along the periphery for a bit until I found a bar.
  
I found a stool and a bowl of peanuts and ordered scotch.
 
There I sat for about two more hours until I fell off the stool.
 
Then I staggered home, took two Somnolux and fell into bed.
 

 
*
   
*
   
*

And that’s it.
 
Nothing else happened until I suddenly wake up this morning in jail.
 
I open my eyes, expecting to see my bedside lamp and blue wallpaper, and see instead a blinking fluorescent bulb and flaking cinder block.
  
My bed’s turned into a lumpy cot.
 
My room’s become a dirty cell with a cement floor.
 
This has got to be a dream.
 
I rub my eyes to make it go away, but it’s still here.

I stand up, walk across the cell and rattle the cage.
 
“Hey!”
 
I shout.
 
Across the way I hear “Shut up” in a couple of languages.
  
A big burly cop comes sauntering down the aisle.

“What?” he says.

“Where am I?” I ask, looking around.

“Heaven.
 
Whatcha think?”

“Am I dead?” I ask.

The cop laughs and starts to walk away.

“Am I in jail?”
 
I shout after him.

He spins around, faster than you’d think a big guy like that could move. “Whassamatter with you, Jackman?
 
You going for an insanity defense?
 
Yeah, you’re in jail.”
 

I rattle the cage again.
  
“What’s the charge?”
    

Across the way, someone’s cursing me in Spanish . The cop gives me a quick rendition of what I was supposed to have done.
  
I supposedly broke into a nursing home and tried to smother some nice lady in her sleep.
  
They caught me red-handed, lowering a pillow over her face.

“I didn’t do it!”
 
I shout, but all the cop does is snicker.

“Yeah,” he says, turning away.
 
“No one does.”

Mom and Pop come down later with their friend, Jerry the lawyer.
 
Pop looks old and sad; Mom’s so wired no one can get her to shut up.
  
Nothing works until Pop scrunches her face with his hand and tells her if she doesn’t shut up, her son is gonna get life. That shuts her up.
 
Me, too.

But Jerry the lawyer says not to worry.
 
He’s already questioned my girlfriend Sherry, who’s a little hazy about the pillow incident.
  
She doesn’t even remember who attacked her the first time.
 
She said the detective just got her to say that to force my hand.
 
And she guesses it did.
 
She’s sorry to have tricked you, Henry.
  

“Well, I wasn’t there,” I insist.

“We’ll have to do better than that, Henry.” Jerry says.

*
   
*
   
*

A few hours later, the big burly cop is escorting me into this small side room.
 
No one’s inside.
   
I’m walking around now and looking at myself in this big mirror.
 
Mirror, sure; it may be a mirror to me; to the guys behind it, it’s clear glass.
 
They’re probably watching me right now.
  
I stick my tongue out at them.

Detective Sirken comes in, all decked out in her fake smile.
 
“Mr. Jackman,” she says.

“Detective Shitken.”

The smile disappears for just a second, then bounces back up.
 
We stare at each other.

“I want my lawyer,” I say.

“If you wish.”
 
Sirken goes out the door and comes back in.
 
“He’s on his way.”

We sit there for a few minutes doing nothing much.

“I’m not asking you to say anything.
 
But you can’t dispute the fact that we caught you in the act.”

“In the act of what?” I ask.

“C’mon,” Sirken says.
 
“You acknowledged that last night.”

“I did not.”

Sirken laughs.
 
“It’s on record,” she says.
 
“What I want to know is why you wanted Sherry dead.”

Why is she even asking me this?
 
“I want my lawyer,” I say again.

“Fine.
 
We’ll wait.
 
He was just pulling into the parking lot when I called him.”

Five minutes later, Jerry Sussman, shiny pinstripe suit and Andiamo briefcase, comes in.
 
“Hi Henry.
 
How ya doin’?” he says and goes to sit down next to me.
 
Jerry’s a good guy; he’d come to your rescue whenever you needed him, if he had to fly to
Uzbekistan
.
 
He’s just not such a hot lawyer is all.

“So,” Sirken says again.
 
“Why were you trying to kill your girlfriend?”

“Don’t answer that,” Jerry said.
 

“Why shouldn’t I answer that?” I ask him.
  
“I wasn’t even there last night.
 
Why would I want to kill Sherry?
  
I love her!”

“Henry, we caught you red-handed!
 
You can’t deny you were there.”

Jerry leans over to me and whispers, “You can’t deny something when they catch you in the act.”
   

I sit there dumbfounded.
 
“What act?
 
I wasn’t there.”

Sirken looks a little dumbfounded herself.
 
“I’m not going to argue the point.”

“Is Sherry all right?” I ask.

“She’s fine.
 
We had her room staked out ever since you snuck in Thursday night.”

“I didn’t sneak in.
 
The doors were open.
 
I just stayed after hours is all.”

“Henry,” I hear Jerry saying in the background.
 
“Don’t volunteer information.”

“I don’t have anything to hide.”

“Well, Henry,” the detective says.
 
“We’ll see about that.
 
Let’s go back to July 6.
 
What were you doing in Jessica Finklemeyer’s apartment that night?”

“I wasn’t there,” I say to the mirror.

“We’ve got a positive ID on you that night.”

“What?”

“The first floor neighbor in Jessica’s apartment building agreed to a photo lineup.”

“Arlene,” I whisper.

“Henry, don’t volunteer information!” Jerry hisses.

“Yes, Arlene.
 
She ID’d you out of hundreds of photos.
 
She swore you were Jessica’s boyfriend, and that you were there the night she was killed.”

“She said she wouldn’t tell anyone,” I whisper to Jerry.

“Be quiet,” he says.

“So you know Arlene?” Sirken’s saying.

“Yeah, but...,” is as far as I get before Jerry interrupts.

“I never knew Jessica!” I shout over him. “I wasn’t her boyfriend.
 
I only met Arlene when I came to see Ryan!”

Jerry looks disgusted.

Sirken is looking pretty pleased with herself.
 
“So what is it that Arlene promised not to tell anyone, Henry?”

I guess she heard me.
 
“She said she told the cops that the boyfriend always came at night but she’d never seen his face.
 
And she promised never to say anything different.”

“Why did she tell you that?”

“Don’t even think of answering that one!” Jerry shouts.

I pause and then say anyway, “Well, she thought I was the boyfriend, but I told her I wasn’t.”

“Do you even want me here?” Jerry asks me.
  
“I could be back at the office, doing something productive.”

“I don’t have anything to hide, Jerry.
 
I’m not the boyfriend.”

“Henry, Henry,” Jerry says, pulling at his hair.
 
“Don’t you see?
 
They think you are.”

“Okay,” Sirken says.
 
Let’s go back to Sherry on the night of April 30.
 
Isn’t it true that you waited till the morning before you called 911?”

“I was sleeping.
 
I only discovered that Sherry was hurt when I woke up.”