Nightwatcher (33 page)

It takes a few seconds for him to figure out where he is: home.

He can tell by the faint stink that hangs in the air.

He turns on a lamp, recognizes both the familiar living room and the sounds that woke him: sirens and another fighter plane flying over the city. He doesn’t like the sound of the fighter planes any more than he likes the sirens. The planes remind him of what happened downtown, when the bad guys knocked down the towers.

Jerry wonders how anyone is supposed to punish them for what they did, when they’re already dead. They
wanted
to be dead. Jerry heard that on TV.

He thinks about Kristina, and he thinks about Marianne.

They probably didn’t want to be dead, but they both did bad things. Not as bad as flying airplanes into buildings, but bad. Jamie says it doesn’t matter whether you hurt one person or thousands of people. You still have to be punished.

Jerry stretches and yawns, wondering what time it is. The last thing he remembers is sitting on the couch, waiting for Jamie.

It feels late. Jamie isn’t back yet, though.

Outside, the plane’s buzzing has died away, but sirens are still wailing in the night. No, he doesn’t like that sound. He never has. For as long as he can remember, whenever he hears sirens, or sees an ambulance rushing past with the red lights spinning, he gets a bad feeling inside.

Jamie said that’s because of what happened to him years ago, when Mama hurt his head. Sometimes, Jerry wonders why no one ever punished Mama for what she did to him. Maybe someone should. Maybe Jamie should.

But Jamie keeps telling Jerry not to worry about Mama because she’s gone, so he tries not to.

Jerry gets up and walks around the apartment, around and around. He walks past Mama’s closed bedroom door a few times, and then he comes back and stops there.

He has to do something about the smell.

He doesn’t like bugs. Bugs scare him. If bugs come out of Mama’s room because it’s dirty . . .

No. That can’t happen.

Jerry won’t let it happen. He won’t. He just won’t.

Fretting, he walks away from the door, wondering what to do.

Jamie doesn’t want him to do anything, but Jamie doesn’t understand about not liking bugs, being afraid of bugs. Jamie isn’t afraid of anything.

Well, I am. I can’t help it. I was mostly afraid of Mama, but she’s gone. Now I’m just afraid of bugs. If bugs were gone, I wouldn’t have anything to be afraid of. Every day, I could just be happy
.

Jerry would be even happier if Jamie would let him go out of the house.

Maybe tomorrow. Maybe Mr. Reiss will call, and Jamie will say it’s okay to go back to work, instead of being stuck here alone with the smell and the bugs and no cake.

Then everything would be back to normal.

Jerry walks back over to the door and checks to make sure there are no bugs crawling out from underneath it.

There aren’t.

Still, he should check.

Shouldn’t he?

He reaches for the knob.

He turns it.

The door is locked.

But Jerry has a key.

He likes keys.

He goes over to the drawer where he keeps them, and he opens it and takes out his big key ring. He jingles it a little, because he likes the sound the keys make when they bump against each other. If you only have a few keys, they don’t make much sound. But if you have lots of keys, like Jerry does, they make a nice, loud sound.

It takes him a few seconds to find the right key—the key to Mama’s bedroom door.

There it is.

He holds it for a long time, looking at it and wondering what to do. He doesn’t want to disobey Jamie. But Jamie doesn’t understand what it’s like to be stuck here, alone and afraid of what might crawl out from under the bedroom door. In fact, this whole thing is Jamie’s fault. Jamie told Jerry not to leave, and then disappeared. That’s not fair. Thinking about it makes Jerry mad.

Frowning, he marches over to the door and fits the key into the lock.

Jamie will never have to know.

Jerry turns the key, and the door unlocks.

He turns the knob, pulls on it, and the door opens.

The smell is overpowering, and he wants to close the door, but he can’t, because he has to clean up.

He opens the door wider and the light from the living room falls across the floor and the bed, and he realizes that Jamie is a liar.

Mama isn’t gone. She’s right here.

Jerry can see her lying there under the bedspread, with her long brown hair spread out around her head . . . so much hair that it covers the whole pillowcase.

“Mama?” Jerry whispers.

She doesn’t move, doesn’t answer.

“Mama?”

He steps closer, close enough to see that it isn’t her hair covering the pillowcase. It’s a dark brown stain. And her face . . .

Jerry opens his mouth and screams.

“F
inally—a lucky break,” Rocky announces, and pulls up at the curb in front of an Italian deli where he’s been a regular for years.

“What are you talking about?” Brandewyne asks.

“Murph and I have been coming here for years. It’s about time this place opened again. It’s been closed since Tuesday.”

“Just like everything else. I thought you meant a break in the case.”

“Hey, I’ll take what I can get. Coming in?”

“Nah.” Brandewyne is already climbing out of the car, but she’s lighting a cigarette.

“Want anything?”

“Pack of Newports.”

“I meant food.”

“Eggplant parm hero, and don’t forget the Newports. Here—” She pulls a twenty out of her pocket.

“It’s on me.”

“You hate cigarettes. You don’t have to support my habit.”

“It’s okay. This time. You can owe me one.”

“What’s yours?”

“My what?”

“Your habit?”

“Food, Brandewyne, but I need to lose weight, remember?”

“Besides food.”

“Whiskey.”

“I’ll buy you one, Manzillo. Johnnie Walker Blue, if we solve this case.”

“I won’t hold my breath for that.”

“For me to buy you expensive whiskey, or for us to solve the case?”

“Either one.”

Rocky leaves her on the sidewalk with her cigarette, a faint grin playing at his mouth. She’s not Murph, but she’s growing on him.

Inside, he’s pleased to see his friend Richie D—short for Di Bernarducci—behind the counter, a clean white apron over his Yankees pinstripe jersey. He likes to break Rocky’s chops about the Red Sox the second Rocky walks in the door, but today, he greets him with a warm handshake.

“Hey, Detective Manzillo, it’s good to see you. I been worried about you. Where’s Detective Murphy?”

“On the pile. His brother’s missing.”

“Jesus. Everybody’s got somebody missing.” Richie’s triple chins jiggle as he shakes his head. “My nephew Vince, he’s with the PAPD, but he was off duty when it hit. He’s pretty broken up about it, though.”

“I’m sure he is.” Rocky heard that the Port Authority Police Department is missing at least three dozen officers.

Every time it hits him again—the staggering crisis in this city, his city—he’s stunned all over again.

He’s always pretty good at compartmentalization; you have to be, if you’re going to do what he does. But on this day, tragedy seeps into every corner of his world, blurring boundaries, permeating every line of thought, every conversational thread.

“I didn’t know if the bridges or tunnels were even open the last few days, so I didn’t bother trying to get in here till now,” Richie tells him.

“Where do you live, Jersey?”

“Nah, out on the Island.”

Rocky is about to lighten the mood by teasing that Richie’s probably the only Yankees fan living out there in Mets territory, but then he sees the somber expression on Richie’s face.

“There are a bunch of firemen missing from my town, and a bunch of brokers, too. Guys—women, too. They got up in the morning and went to work and they’re never coming back. Who would have thought this could happen?”

Rocky remembers talking about the Island—Long Island—with great disdain when he was younger, twenty-five, thirty years ago. Some of his old friends were picking up and moving away from the Bronx, moving out to the Island or up to Westchester. They wanted to settle down and raise their families where it was safe, they said.

Rocky thought they were a bunch of pansies and told them so. He informed them that they could try all they wanted to shield themselves from the bad stuff, but the bad stuff would find them if that was their fate.

“I hate to break it to you,” he said, “but the bad stuff can still walk right through your fancy front door if it wants to.”

Yeah, the bad stuff will get you, no matter what, if your number is up. Rocky truly believed that. Still does. Happens all the time.

He thinks of Kristina and Marianne, probably convinced they were safe in their own apartments, and of all those people who died because they went to work on a Tuesday morning.

Jesus. If he were a different kind of guy—the kind who lets things bother him—he’d be so depressed right now he’d want to crawl into bed and stay there for a year.

But that’s not me. I gotta do something. Whatever I can.

He’ll leave the terrorist hunting up to Vic, but he’s going to find this Nightwatcher son of a bitch and put him away for a good long time.

“I need an eggplant parm hero for my friend out there,” he tells Richie, “and what’ve you got for me?”

“Whatever you want. You’re my first customer since I reopened. Where the hell is everybody?”

“Give ’em time, Richie. They’ll come back. People are rattled.”

“You been down on the pile?” Richie asks, turning away to pour Rocky an extra large cup of coffee without asking.

“I was, but then I got pulled off for a case.”

“You mean a homicide?” Richie shakes his head. “You gotta be kidding me.”

Rocky shrugs. “Life goes on.”

“You mean death goes on.”

Rocky accepts the coffee and takes out his wallet.

“Put that away. It’s on me,” Richie tells him. “Sandwiches, too. What’ll it be, besides the eggplant?”

Rocky thinks of the stuffed pork chop dinner Ange has waiting back at home. God only knows when he’ll be able to eat it.

“Thanks, Richie. I’ll take a Sicilian.”

“You got it. Extra cappy, right?”

“You bet.”

Rocky’s phone rings as he’s sipping his coffee and watching Richie layer a nice thick pile of thin-sliced capicola on an open hero roll.

He steps away from the counter to answer it. “Yeah, Manzillo here.”

“I got something for you,” Vic tells him. “Ready?”

“Yeah, yeah, just gimme a sec.” Rocky sets his coffee on the counter. His notebook is out in the car. He grabs a pen that’s sitting by the cash register and a napkin to write on. “What’cha got?”

“Dale Reiss. He and his wife are staying with the wife’s sister in Jersey City.”

“You sure? How do you know?” Stupid question, but Rocky can’t help asking it.

“I know, okay? The sister’s name is Jacky McCann. I’ll give you the number.”

Rocky jots it down. “Got anything on Jerry yet?”

“Not yet. I’ll get back to you when I do.”

“Thanks, Vic. I—”

“Owe me. Yeah. I know.”

Rocky can’t resist busting his chops. “I was gonna say I gotta go—my sandwich is ready. I’m down at Di Bernarducci’s on Broome.”

“Smart ass.”

“You know it.”

“Good luck, Rock.”

A few minutes later, Rocky steps out onto the street with the sandwiches, two coffees, a pack of Newports, his cell phone, and the napkin with the phone number scribbled on it.

Brandewyne is lounging near the car, smoking.

“You want to help me out here?” he calls. “I kinda got my hands full, and we need to get moving. We just got a break.”

“You mean besides the deli being open?” She stubs out her cigarette and reaches for the two coffees.

He fills her in quickly and takes a bite of the sandwich—extra cappy
and
extra roasted red peppers, just the way he likes it—before brushing the crumbs from his hands and dialing the number Vic gave him, glad things are finally starting to look up.

M
ack takes a long last drag on his cigarette as he rounds the corner onto his block, sucking the smoke deeply into his lungs. He holds it there as he tosses the butt onto the sidewalk and stops walking to grind it out with his heel.

Damn, that’s good. Too good.

Having chain-smoked his way through a good portion of the pack he bought at the newsstand up by the park, he was planning to throw away the rest.

But why? Why not just take up the habit again? He only quit for Carrie. Exhaling tobacco into the damp night air, he’s struck by the dismal irony that she might very well have died of smoke inhalation—and that might have been the most merciful way to go, given the alternatives.

But maybe she was blown up in the initial explosion, or maybe she was burned alive before the fumes could smother her. Maybe she was one of the people who made the agonizing choice to jump from the tower. Maybe she crawled outside to a ledge, desperate for air, and fell. Or maybe she clung to life in that torture chamber until the collapse crushed her body.

Walking on toward his building, Mack reaches into his pocket and takes out his keys. Carrie’s gold wedding band dangles from the keychain; he fastened it there for safekeeping, uncertain what else to do with it for now.

It wouldn’t feel right to wear it around his neck on a chain, as his father wore his mother’s at first. Last month, the nursing home staff suggested that Lynn take it back, lest Dad lose it or have it stolen while he’s in the throes of dementia.

Picturing his once-robust father trickling drool and wasting away in a wheelchair, Mack wonders if there’s any merciful way to exit this world.

If there is, he sure as hell hasn’t seen it.

He trudges up the steps and is about to unlock the front door when it’s thrown open in front of him. Something—someone, a female someone, seemingly running for her life—barrels into him full force.

Mack teeters, almost falling backward off the stoop.