Monkey in the Middle (17 page)

‘And the prosecutor will have every reason to make me look like some kind of hippie asshole.'

‘Worse, a charlatan or an opportunist.' Epstein leans forward. ‘So, I'm asking you again. Do you stand behind the accuracy of your . . . your resurrection?'

Ratigan brings the cigar to her lips before realizing that it's gone out. She looks at the cigar for a moment, then drops it into the ashtray. ‘If the department doesn't have faith in my work,' she quite reasonably asks, ‘why did they give me the job in the first place?'

Epstein finds himself growing more and more nervous as he and Billy Boyle approach Jane Carter's apartment house in Brooklyn. He tries to hide his apprehension from his subordinate, but he can't be sure he's succeeding. Billy Boyle's expression never changes, except when he's angry. It's as if he isn't interested in his own life, as if his life runs on simply because running on is what lives do. Billy Boyle has no wife or children, no hobbies, no interests.

As they pull to a stop, Epstein entertains a brief fantasy in which an emotionally disturbed person wearing a Santa Claus hat pushes Carter in front of an oncoming A train. He visualizes every step of the process: the distant roar and rattle of the train as it approaches the station, Carter leaning over the platform's edge, the rush from behind and the shove, finally Carter's flailing hands. Like he's trying to climb an invisible rope.

Billy Boyle opens the door and starts to get out, but Epstein restrains him. ‘I'm gonna give Champliss a call, bring him up to date,' he tells Billy.

Epstein wants to add, Why don't you go ahead without me? but stops himself at the last second. More or less resigned, he taps Inspector Champliss's phone number on to the keypad of his cell phone.

‘Ratigan's gonna put the sketch in her book,' he tells his boss.

‘Her book?'

‘What could I say? She considers herself a celebrity.'

‘Did you explain . . . ?'

‘I did. I described what might happen if her sketch was pure bullshit, the unpleasant consequences. I was very explicit.'

‘What did she say?'

‘That she didn't call us, we called her. She wanted to know why we'd do that if we didn't have faith in her abilities. Myself, I gotta admit, I didn't have an answer.'

Epstein snaps his cell phone shut, opens the door and steps into a light snowfall. As he waits for Billy Boyle to join him on the sidewalk, Epstein finds himself wanting to say something. But there's nothing to be said and they walk in silence to Jane Carter's building, where Billy rings the super's bell. A moment later, the intercom to their right emits a burst of unintelligible static. Billy Boyle leans on the buzzer again, holding the button down until a man emerges from a stairway at the back of the narrow lobby. Middle-aged and stocky, the man carries an open-end wrench that has to be two feet long. He's holding the wrench across his chest, but he lets his hand drop to his side when Billy Boyle reveals his badge.

The man's name, it turns out, is Miguel Romero, and his conversation with the two cops is brief. Billy Boyle shows Romero a photo of Carter taken from Carter's service file. The photo is six years old, but Romero doesn't hesitate.

‘Tha's Lenny Carter. He moved into his sister's apartment a couple of days ago.'

‘Jane Carter's apartment?' Epstein asks.

‘Yeah, she's in some kinda home in Manhattan. A nursing home. She's got like this disease. She's like dyin'.'

Epstein thanks the man, then turns to go. But Romero's not through. ‘Do I got somethin' to worry about?'

‘Yeah,' Billy Boyle says, ‘you gotta worry that you'll shoot off your big mouth and the guy in that picture will find out we were here. If that should happen, it's gonna be Abner Louima time in Woodhaven when I shove that wrench up your ass.'

Epstein arrives home, Billy Boyle in tow, at four o'clock in the afternoon. Sofia doesn't much like Billy Boyle, but they need him to sit with the car while she and Epstein attend mass at the cathedral. In the meantime, there's plenty to do. There's a set of outdoor lights for the front door, while the tree, currently in the garage, has to be retrieved, erected and decorated. Here Billy Boyle proves invaluable, working almost by himself, so that Epstein is able to supervise from the couch next to Sofia.

From time to time, when Billy Boyle is distracted, Epstein lays the palm of his hand on Sofia's abdomen. Jonathon is awake; his little fists and heels thump against his mother's belly. Suddenly, Epstein finds himself wondering if Jonathon has any sense of ‘out there'. He wonders if birth comes as a complete surprise to newborns. He imagines the pain they must feel as they move through the birth canal. Epstein has assisted at two births in his capacity as a police officer. He's observed the process up close and he knows it can't be any easier for the kid. Intelligent design? Yeah, right.

When Billy Boyle plugs in the lights for the first time, Epstein's heart takes a little jump. He turns to his Sofia and finds her smiling. She lays her head on his shoulder and strokes the back of his hand.

‘Jonathon's first Christmas.'

Epstein doesn't argue the point. He loads a CD into his stereo – traditional Christmas carols performed by the choir of King's College in England – and sets the volume low. Then he fetches a bottle of non-alcoholic wine and a bottle of Chivas. Sofia gets the wine, Billy and Epstein the scotch. All appear satisfied with the moment, especially Epstein. As the choir sings the opening notes of
Away in a Manger
, he again visualizes Jonathon's first real Christmas, a tree tall enough to brush the ceiling, presents piled on presents, brilliant red poinsettias on every horizontal surface. He even imagines an enormous stocking hung above a fireplace he doesn't have.

Pleasant thoughts, no doubt, but the realities are not so easily shelved. After a second drink, Epstein's thoughts inevitably darken. He admits that maybe he's already trashed his dreams, that maybe the bullet's already in the air and maybe he's walking right toward it. And for what? For money he's already spent? How stupid can you be? And what was he thinking all those months ago when Billy Boyle first pitched him?

Epstein finally answers this question as he and Sofia listen to the choir at St Patrick's sing
O Little Town of Bethlehem
. He's always liked this particular carol. The hopes and fears of all the years? A lot of weight there. But Epstein's not listening to the carol. There's another voice out there, far more insistent, a voice telling him that true criminals don't consider consequences, only rewards, no matter how often they're punished. Telling him that's not his fate, no way. If he can just wriggle off this one little hook, Solly Epstein will be a good boy forever.

Twenty-Two

C
arter begins his Christmas Eve at 8 a.m. with a stack of pancakes, a half-dozen sausages and a cubed mango. He eats slowly, knowing he probably won't eat again for the next twenty-four hours. Finished, he washes and dries the dishes, then heads off to the living room where he works out for the next hour.

Carter's routine – calisthenics mostly – is necessarily restricted by the heavy furniture, but he makes do. He doesn't think about much of anything as he goes about his business. That's because he knows what's coming and he's not frightened by the possibility that he'll finish second. No, what Carter seeks is focus and his workout doesn't conclude until he finds it, a razor's edge of heightened reality that leaves him as alert as a jack rabbit in a den of rattlesnakes.

Carter's on his way out of the building when he comes upon the super, Miguel Romero, polishing a brass rail in the first floor hallway. Miguel's there to corner residents who haven't yet tipped him. Or so Carter, who's already tightened the man up, assumes. Carter has known Romero for twenty years.

‘Merry Christmas,' Carter calls.

‘Hey, Lenny, slow up a minute.' Romero waits until he has Carter's full attention. ‘Las' night, two cops, they're askin' about you, man.'

‘Asking what?'

‘They show me a picture, ask if this man lives here.'

‘And what did you say?'

‘Wha' could I do? If I lie to them, they're gonna find out anyway.'

‘And my sister? Did you tell them about Janie?'

‘Wha' could I do?'

Romero looks into Carter's eyes, then backs off several feet. But he's reading Carter all wrong. Carter takes out a roll of bills and hands Romero a twenty.

‘Did you get their names by any chance?'

‘The
maricón
with the fucked-up face didn't say his name. He's jus' tellin' me what he's gonna do if I speak to you. The other one, the older guy, his name was Epstein. I'm thinkin' he tol' me he was a lieutenant.'

Carter hauls his laptop to the Cabrini Nursing Center in a leather backpack. He wants to get right to work, but he hasn't missed a visit with Janie in over a month. Plus, it's Christmas Eve. Carter isn't overly sentimental, but he suspects that Janie, what with her religious beliefs, really cares. And he's right about that. His sister's fully awake when he arrives and her eyes widen ever so slightly when he enters her field of vision. Carter thinks that she'd smile if she could. Nobody wants to be alone on Christmas Eve.

Almost before Carter can say hello, he's interrupted by a nurse's aide, a woman named Camilla. Janie's turn for a wash-up, Camilla explains. So sorry, I'll be as quick as I can.

Carter has been through this before and he quickly retreats to a window at the end of the corridor outside Janie's room. Instinctively, he checks the windows and the rooflines of the buildings across the street for snipers. Only when he's satisfied does he turn his eyes to the many pedestrians on the sidewalks flanking Avenue B. He wants to imagine that all their Christmases are joyous, as he did when he was a child torn by envy. That's not possible any more. Carter's fought in too many wars to believe that calamity is a respecter of seasons. Or that a time of birth is not a time of death for someone somewhere. In fact, Carter's becoming more and more certain that death will visit him before the day is done, that he will be an agent of death, or its victim.

Twenty minutes later, Camilla steps into the corridor. ‘Merry Christmas,' she calls.

‘Merry Christmas,' Carter dutifully replies before rejoining his sister.

As usual, Carter finds himself initially tongue-tied. What do you say to someone who can't respond, especially when the simple truth is off the table? His salesman bit won't do anymore, that's a given, but he can't stand here for the next two hours with an idiotic grin on his face. Finally, he settles on an incident he witnessed nearly a month before, pretending that it happened on the ride over.

‘Check this out. I'm on the bus this morning, the Q11, riding up Woodhaven Boulevard to the J Train. The bus is more crowded than you'd expect and some passengers are actually standing. That's most likely because it's Christmas Eve and everybody's playing catch-up. Anyway, at the stop just past Forest Park, we come up on a woman in a wheelchair, accompanied by a nurse's aide. Now forget about Christmas spirit. When the driver leaves his seat to let down the wheelchair platform, passengers are already grumbling at the delay, especially the ones sitting on the seats reserved for handicapped passengers. The driver, he's probably used to the complaints because he just goes about his business. He lowers the platform, waits for the wheelchair to be loaded, then attempts to bring the platform back into the bus. I say “attempts” because the platform rises about three feet and then stops. Now it won't go either way, down or up, and the poor woman is dangling in her wheelchair, screaming her head off. The driver, he does his absolute best to fix the problem. He presses the button over and over. He tries to yank the platform down, push it up. He even jiggles the wires under the platform. But nothing works and he finally has to call his dispatcher.'

Carter leans forward and narrows one eye, again imagining a smile he cannot see. ‘Now, if the passengers were upset before, they went nuts when the driver told them to leave the bus. Yeah, that's right. The bus wasn't going anywhere until a mechanic arrived, so every single passenger had to wait in the cold for the next bus, which would be as crowded as the one they left. Janie, the language was unbelievable. GD this and f-word that. Myself, I felt like getting off the bus was an act of charitable giving, totally in tune with the season. But I have to admit that I was a might peeved when a mechanic showed up five minutes later and fixed the problem within a few seconds. And I was even more pissed when the bus took off with only the wheelchair woman and the aide on board. The man standing next to me was so mad he was shaking.

‘“Ya know,” he told me, “bein' as we're the one's who pay for the fuckin' gimp ramps, you'd think the goddamned city would have more consideration.”'

Carter's hoping to keep the conversation light. He has a lot on his plate. But his sister's not buying. She blinks several times, initiating a conversation. Resigned, Carter dutifully works the alphabet,
A
to
K
,
L
to
Z
. Janie wants him to read from the bible and she's very specific about the book and the particular verses. Carter is required to jump from letters to numbers, then to negotiate the difference between Isaiah 1:5 and Isaiah 15. Progress is slow, but Carter's persistence is eventually rewarded when the details finally emerge.

Nevertheless, as he reads the passage, he finds himself wishing they hadn't.

‘Why should ye be stricken any more? Ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick and the whole heart faint. From the sole of thy foot even unto the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises, and putrefying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.'