Cop Job (12 page)

As I crested the hill in Queens that gives you the first glimpse of the Empire State Building, I called Nathan.

“Nothing yet,” he said. “She’s still in there and they won’t talk to me.”

I put the phone in my lap and took a breath. Then I got back on and said, “Don’t piss ’em off.”

“I know. I’m just the boyfriend.”

“Did you talk to the detective?”

“Yeah. He asked me if I did it. I guess he would.”

“Did you?”

“I guess you’d ask, too. No.”

There was no rancor or defensiveness in his voice.

“Any ideas?”

“No. Things were going well, but we weren’t at the confess-and-tell-all stage. There’s a lot about your daughter’s life I know nothing about.”

You and me both, I thought, but didn’t say.

“Call me if you learn anything,” I said. “You have my number.”

“Mr. Acquillo,” he said.

“Better if you call me Sam. Everyone else does.”

“Sam, she could die. One of the nurses told me.”

“I figured that.”

“Allison told me you’re a dangerous man.”

“She exaggerated.”

“You’re not going to let this stand.”

“I’m not.”

When most of the traffic is home in bed, you can get into Manhattan and across town pretty quickly. The hardest part was finding a legitimate place to park the car at the curb. I had to choose between a no-parking zone and the parking garage. Better judgment told me to take the garage, and an extra five minutes probably wouldn’t change anything.

It didn’t. When I got to the emergency waiting room Allison was still in the OR and Nathan Hepner was there with his head in his hands. He looked up as I approached, his face rigid with worry. He was a skinny guy with a giant ball of soft curly hair that seemed better suited to a young child.

He shook my hand. It was an icy grip, with a slight tremor. I looked closer at his face. It was too pale, even for a city kid. I took his hand back and checked his pulse. He wobbled on his feet.

“Are you dizzy?” I asked him.

“A little.”

I sat him down and told him to put his head between his knees. I went to the desk nurse and told her I had a guy in shock. She looked at me like I’d just vomited in her lap.

“What makes you think that?” she asked.

“Get somebody out here.”

“The staff is . . .”

“Any nurse will do.”

“All the nurses are busy,” she said.

“How do you know that? You haven’t even asked.”

“I don’t have to ask. I’m here every night.”

“Are you a nurse or just a receptionist?”

“I’m an RN, but that’s not the point.”

“An RN and you won’t take thirty seconds to . . .”

She glared at me.

“I’m sorry, but . . .”

I leaned into the hole in the glass that divided us, and whispered, “No, you’re not. You’re not sorry. You don’t care if this kid lives or dies. You’re an angry worm besotted with the misery of your failed existence. You have power over me, so you use it to frustrate my attempt to ease the suffering of an innocent person. I have nothing but contempt for you and all your ancestors whose decrepit genes tragically contributed to the forming of such a base and meaningless piece of garbage posing as a human being.”

Then I went back to Nathan, who luckily was looking a lot better. I felt his forehead, which had nearly warmed to room temperature.

“Cover your mouth and take longer, deeper breaths,” I said. “You’re hyperventilating.”

“I always wondered what that was,” he said through his hands. “I thought it was a fake disease.”

A security guy walked into the waiting room and approached the desk nurse. He was tall, black, and exuded dignified calm. Former military, I thought. After a moment with the desk nurse he came over to where we sat, both his thumbs tucked inside a black leather belt laden with communications equipment and ordnance.

“Everything okay with you tonight, sir?” he asked.

“Yeah. We’re good. My daughter, his girlfriend, is fighting for her life in the OR, so we’ve been better. How’re you doing?”

“I’m well, thank you. Sorry about your trouble,” he said.

“We’re desperate for information about her condition, of course, sir,” said Nathan, “but Nurse Ratched over there thinks it’s fun to keep us in the dark. I don’t know how hard it would be to just say ‘she’s gonna make it,’ or ‘she’s not gonna make it.’ ”

“What’s the girl’s name?” he asked.

“Allison Acquillo,” said Nathan, spelling out the last name.

He nodded slowly.

“I can poke around, but I’m expectin’ you to be here quiet and calm when I get back with a report.”

“Absolutely,” said Nathan.

The security guy glanced at me, then left through the same door.

“What did you say to her?” Nathan asked. “The nurse.”

“Nothing. And she’s not a real nurse. They’re all back there saving lives.”

“Thanks for the breathing tip. I’m feeling a lot better.”

He looked a lot better. Enough blood had come back to his face that his natural olive skin tone had reemerged.

“Nice job with the security guy,” I said.

“I’m not a physical person. I have to be nice to get what I want.”

“Nice is best for everyone,” I said.

“Allison said you sometimes hit people.”

“Only if compelled to. It’s rarely the right thing to do.”

“It’s good to hear you say that. Because, like I said, I’m not a physical person. I’m actually afraid of people who are bigger or meaner than me.”

“You need to fix that,” I said. “It’s no good being afraid of people.”

“With all due respect, I think that’s in the ‘easy-for-you-to-say’ category.”

The security guy came back into the waiting room. He brought a young man along with him, dark like the security guard but not of African heritage. His wad of black hair looked nearly identical to Nathan’s. His eyes were alight, nearly furtive, but his face was stern and unexpressive.

“They stabilized her and relieved some pressure on her brain,” he said. “She’s unconscious and they’ll likely keep her that way for another twenty-four hours. Vital organs are working, though they think there’s some bruising of the kidneys that might affect function, though not permanently. Several fractured ribs. She’ll need plastic surgery on her face. You can see her if you want, but she won’t know you’re there.”

“Absolutely,” said Nathan.

“You go ahead,” I said. “I’ll wait for Amanda. She’ll be here soon.”

“You don’t want to see her?” Nathan asked.

I shook my head.

“I don’t. It won’t make me feel any better or any worse. And there’s nothing it’ll do for her.”

“You’re gonna see her eventually,” he said, more a question.

“As soon as she wakes up.”

“You’re not supposed to be afraid of anything,” said Nathan.

I liked that.

“I am, though,” I said. “I’m afraid of me.”

C
HAPTER
T
EN

A
manda arrived about when I thought she would. She sat down next to me and let me explain the situation as well as I could. She concentrated carefully on my words, her face serious, but calm. When I was finished, she asked, “Who could have done this?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the cops do. That’s my next stop.”

“I can stay with her.”

“She’s not waking up for a while. We need to get a room.”

“I can do that, too.”

“Thanks for that.”

I went to the window and told the desk nurse to get the security guy back. She looked unhappy, but didn’t hesitate. The guy showed up about ten minutes later. I asked him if Amanda could join Nathan while I went to do some things. He said sure, room for one more. Before they disappeared through the door, he surprised me by shaking my hand.

“Terrible thing, a child injured by the hand of another,” he said. “I been there.”

“Thanks.”

“Can make intelligent men do stupid things.”

“You’ve been there, too, I imagine,” I said.

“I have indeed,” he said.

“So you won’t mind keeping a close eye on her while she’s here.”

“We will, but it’s a big hospital. Special attention equals overtime.”

“I’ll pay it. Through you. Just tell me how much.”

“That’s interesting,” he said. “How do you know I won’t just pocket it?”

“Because you’re an honorable man. You can’t hide it.”

He grinned at me and shook his head, then he shook my hand.

“Deal.”

I had to get all the way to the street before I could use my cell phone to call the detective on the case from the card he’d given Nathan. He picked up right away.

“Detective Fenton.”

“This is Sam Acquillo. My daughter’s Allison, the one here at Roosevelt Hospital.”

“Mr. Acquillo. I talked to Mr. Hepner.”

“I know. What can you tell me?”

“The door was unlocked and the chain intact.”

“So she probably knew the attacker.”

“Well enough to let him in,” he said.

“Anything going on in the neighborhood?”

“Nothing special. And no, the neighbors heard nothing.”

“Must be well-insulated apartments,” I said.

“Yeah. And they’re all wearing earplugs.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“Investigate. Catch the guy. Help the ADA put him away for as long as the law allows.”

“You sound confident,” I said.

“It’s the only way to live, brother.”

He said he’d call me if he learned anything substantive. I thanked him, and he said the usual things about having kids of his own, like he actually meant it. All in all, I felt we’d drawn a good cop.

I felt more that way when I got to Allison’s apartment. The door was open, and inside was a pair of CSIs guarded by a short jerk in an NYPD uniform. I didn’t actually know he was a jerk when I first saw him, but sometimes first impressions are pretty accurate.

“Nobody goes in,” he said, thrusting out his lower jaw to reinforce his position.

“I’m her father,” I said. “The girl that was beat up.”

“Allegedly,” he said. “And nobody includes you.”

“There’s an interior fallacy in that statement. ‘Nobody’ is the word for ‘not a person.’ Would ‘anybody’ then be allowed?”

He might have thought about that if thinking was something he normally did.

“It’s a crime scene, pal. Move it along.”

“Can I talk to them?” I asked.

“What part of ‘move it along’ don’t you understand?”

“All of it.”

He put his face up closer to mine, though it meant he had to tilt his head back and rise up on his toes.

“Not everyone’s afraid of hurtin’ civilians,” he said, quietly.

I moved my personal space back away from his invading breath and took out a little notebook I kept in my back pocket. I wrote my name, cell phone number, and Amanda’s e-mail address on one of the sheets, tore it out, and folded it four times. Then I yelled “Hey!” at the closest CSI. She turned and I flicked the paper like I used to do with baseball cards as a kid. It hit her in the breastbone, but she was quick enough to slap it against her chest.

The cop shoved me across the hall and pinned me against the wall with his right forearm.

“Listen, fuck,” he started to say, but I yelled over him to the lady investigator.

“I’m the girl’s father. Anything you can tell me I’d appreciate.”

The woman looked a little confused, but held on to the folded paper. The cop gave me another shove, then let go so he could shut the apartment door.

“Ten seconds to get out of here before I start clubbing you to death,” he said.

So I left. I assumed this was all a waste of time and an unnecessary provocation of the cops, people I wanted on my side, but if I didn’t do something I thought I’d rip my own skin off my body.

And yet I knew the worst was yet to come. Shock had flooded my bloodstream with deadening biochemicals, protective natural narcotics designed by nature to blunt the agony that a little time might make easier to control. When the wiser parts of the mind could take over and force the animal parts back into the dark.

This is what I was thinking as I hunted up a late night bar, with its promise of my preferred soothing agent, something clear, cold, and harsh on the throat. A bridge to daylight, when I might be able to imagine a future of something other than madness and fury.

I
WAS
looking at the ceiling of the hotel room, having watched it emerge with the meager sunlight that slunk in from the city outside, when my cell phone rang. Amanda stirred on top of the bed, like me, still in her clothes. I brought the phone into the bathroom. It was Nathan.

“They’re going to start bringing her out of the coma this afternoon. Doesn’t mean she’ll wake up, they just won’t be forcing her to stay under.”

“What else?”

“Don’t expect her to remember anything. The doc told me trauma like that wipes out big chunks of memory, usually of the traumatic event itself.”

“Anything else?” I asked.

“That’s it. I’m lying down now on a gurney out here in the hall. I hope to sleep a few minutes before they make me go back to the waiting room.”

I hung up the phone and called Detective Fenton. It almost surprised me when he answered.

“Anything?” I asked.

“Sort of, though it won’t make you feel any better.”

“What.”

“They took her computer. Not her purse, or any other stuff in the apartment, as far as we can tell. There was a nice digital camera and other fancy gear that’s like candy to your average home invader.”

“So it was just about hurting her,” I said. “And hiding something.”

“Not just hurting. The hospital people said she would’ve died if the boyfriend hadn’t gotten her to the ER when he did. Hard heads must run in the family.”

Busted-up heads, anyway, I thought.

“And they targeted her specifically. It wasn’t random.”

“That’s my opinion based on experience, but nothing I could prove in court. It was somebody she knew well enough to buzz into the building and let into the apartment. That could be anyone from a close personal friend to a delivery boy. People aren’t as careful as they ought to be.” Spoken as if he knew Allison like I did. “Nobody else in the building was bothered. We’re running prints. That’ll take awhile. And checking blood, but that’ll take even longer. It’s not going to be a quick collar, so I’d get used to the long haul.”