Keeper (21 page)

Rubin shook his head. “I’ve never seen death like that.”

“No.” I was trying to think of something more to say, something that would make it better, when Natalie came back, smoothing her blouse and skirt.

“I spoke to Felice about it,” Natalie said. “I don’t know if it took.”

“She’s right,” I said. “It was my fault. You two get some rest.”

Rubin nodded and Natalie shook her head. “You know that’s a lie.”

“Not to Felice.”

She just shook her head again, then went to open the door. Dale set down the bag and drew his weapon once again and I drew mine, squeezing the grip and feeling the gun cock. Nobody was outside, and Natalie and Rubin went through and I approached and slid the door back, locking it.

Dale handed me a cup of coffee, saying, “You want one of the sandwiches?”

“I’m not hungry. Just leave one for Felice.”

“No problem,” Dale said. He resumed his seat on the stool, putting his feet up on a cardboard box and his back against the wall, his revolver off to his side.

I took my coffee and went over to the window. A police car was going down the block, but didn’t seem to be doing anything more than a normal cruise. To my left, Felice Romero slept, curled on the blanket by the radiator, wrapped like a refugee. Someone had put a jacket over her shoulders, and her face was cut in half by streetlight and shadow, stark and angular in repose. I walked around the room once, slowly, looking in nooks and crannies and knowing that if anything had needed to be secured, Natalie or Dale or Rubin had already done it. When that was finished I went back to the window and took a seat on a folding chair, my feet up on the sill.

My coffee lasted almost an hour, and when the cup was empty I crushed it, folded it, unfolded it, tore it, and then, its entertainment value entirely exhausted, threw it out. Sitting post, as Dale and I were, is boring. It takes a lot of concentration and a lot of energy to remain aware and focused when there is really nothing to be aware of or focused on. Thank God the rain had stopped. The only thing worse than standing post in the dark is standing post in the dark in the rain. It’s hard to stay awake anyway, but when water is beating a lullaby, it becomes next to impossible.

Around ten Dale got off his stool and headed to the bathroom. I listened to him urinate and flush and then he opened the door and went back to his seat quietly. Down on the street three men staggered off the opposite sidewalk and into the gutter. After a bit they realized their mistake and mounted the curb again with the effort of the first expedition to conquer Everest. When they disappeared around the corner I sighed, loudly, not meaning to, just trying to oxygenate my body enough to keep from sleeping.

In Rubin’s comer Felice stirred. I heard Dale shift on the stool, and I raised my hand to him, waved him back. She sat up, the jacket falling to the floor. She coughed, rich smoker’s hacks, then rose, coming over to me. Her lighter flamed in the darkness.

“How long will I have to remain here?” she asked.

“Until tomorrow. We’ve got a safe apartment, but we may not have access to it until late in the day,” I said.

“I don’t know where to go.” She didn’t say it as much to me as to herself. I remembered the blood on the carpet. I knew then that she would sell the place, and I knew she would move somewhere else, maybe outside of the city, maybe outside of the state. It seemed to me that I should share this with her, let her know that I knew and that I understood, but I didn’t.

She dragged a chair over the wooden floor and sat in it beside me. A cinder on the edge of her cigarette jumped as she knocked ash into an empty bottle. She put the bottle on the floor between her feet and remained hunched, able to reach it.

“Federal marshals are coming in,” I said softly. “They’ll want to take over your security.”

“Are you quitting?” Felice asked.

“No,” I said. “Absolutely not. I’m just saying you have a choice. You can have them protecting you.”

“I want you protecting me.”

“All right,” I said.

“No marshals. You. Natalie. Dale. Rubin.”

“I’ll tell Fowler.”

She drew on the cigarette, then exhaled, blowing the smoke over the cinder and making it flare brighter. When she spoke her voice was low and even.

“I tell you about my husband?”

“After you hired me, yes.”

“He’s an architect in Albany. We separated four years ago, just about, because my work was hurting his life. People were sending hate mail to his office, accosting his clients. They were parking outside of our house and scaring the neighbors, and he got to where he couldn’t take it anymore.” She smoked for a few seconds, silently, thinking. At the back of the room, I heard Dale shift again on the stool.

“Not to say that was all that did it,” Felice continued. “Marriages have survived worse, but they were better marriages. I used to wonder if Katie hadn’t been Down’s if we would have stayed together. Maybe without her we could have taken the strain. Probably not. It’s not so bad, now, but at first I used to miss him horribly. I’d come home to our apartment and Katie would always ask where Daddy was. She understood divorce, the concept of married people not wanting to be married anymore, but only inasmuch as the television explained it to her. She spent a few months expecting Marcus to return. But she seemed to forget about him pretty quickly. No visits, out of sight, out of mind.”

She dropped the cigarette into the bottle, and there must have been some soda or water or something left in it, because there was a sharp hiss and then the cinder went out. She picked up the bottle by its neck and swung it in a small circle, making certain the cigarette was dead. “Do you think he’s heard?” she asked.

“I’d think it’s likely.”

“I should call him.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Of course, tomorrow. How do you make funeral arrangements, do you know? I’ve never had to. I suppose you just call some funeral home and tell them where the body is and when you’d like it ready by. Give them your credit card number. Well, I’ve got time, don’t I?” Her voice wobbled. “They won, didn’t they? They’ve made my clinic a war zone and they’ve murdered my daughter and I don’t have anything left to fight with. Tomorrow. Tomorrow and then the day after, and then, after the conference, I will no longer require your services, Mr. Kodiak.”

She turned her head to look at me, meeting my eyes, and then she looked back out the window. “I am to be added to the growing list of defeated doctors,” she said. “But at least I’m still out alive. I at least have that, don’t I?” She said the last with an edge that could have cut a diamond.

“Abortion. Abortion. Abortion.” She lit another cigarette. “It’s the only word I know that doesn’t turn into nothing when you say it over and over. Oh, my God, they killed my daughter because of what I do . . . because I believe ... oh, God ... oh, my dear dear God. . . .” The cigarette dropped from between her fingers, bouncing on the floor, showering red flares into the darkness that flashed and disappeared, extinguished as if they had never been.

Natalie and Rubin returned a little before midnight. Felice was asleep, and Dale and I moved quietly to let the others in, unwilling to disturb her rest. For a while it had seemed she would never sleep again, but when she had calmed I’d led her back to the blanket, saying, “Tomorrow will be better.”

“No,” she had said. “Tomorrow will be the same.” After everyone was inside we gathered at the far end of the room, away from where the doctor slept, and huddled like a football team planning defensive strategy. Rubin looked better for the rest he had received, as did Natalie, and frankly I was overjoyed to see them. From thirty blocks away I could hear my bed calling.

“I really want to move her,” I said to Natalie. “So if the safe apartment Sentinel has frees up early, let me know.” 

“If we can’t get it until late, you want to take her back to Gold Street, return her to familiar surroundings?”

I nodded. "I’ll be back by eight. One of you can go down to her apartment and check it out then.”

“We can get police protection, can’t we?” Dale asked. “Cops,” Natalie said. “No damn good.”

“But better than nothing,” he said.

“Felice doesn’t want us being replaced,” I told them. “So we’re going to have to work with the marshals when they show, because they certainly won’t go away. That may be for the best, getting them to do some extra coverage.”

Everybody nodded, and we got ready to leave. Before Dale and I left, I walked over to where Felice was sleeping and spent a minute or two watching her.

She slept with grief as her lover.

My futon was waiting like an escort service’s best bet, comfortable and almost comforting. I was pulling back the sheets when the phone in the kitchen fang.

I didn’t swear too much.

It was Alison. She said, “Hey, you. How you doing?”

“I’m all right,” I said. It was a lie, but I didn’t think it mattered.

“I’m so sorry, Atticus. I am so sorry for you and for the doctor. I called around eight and Rubin said you’d be back before one, so . . . well, I wanted to talk to you.”

I sat on the windowsill. The apartment was pleasantly cool. I liked the darkness. “I’m glad,” I said. “I tried to return your call this afternoon but you were at lunch.”

“Yeah,” she said.

It seemed like she wanted me to say something more, but I was too tired to come up with anything. I let the silence grow for a while, then said, “How are you doing?”

Alison made a clicking noise, then said, “I’m okay, I’m . . . no, I’m lying. I really need to talk to you, but this isn’t . . . well, this doesn’t seem like the best time.” 

“No, it’s all right,” I said, looking down at the alley. “What’s up?”

She sighed, and that’s when I realized exactly what was happening on her end of the phone. A squadron of stunt butterflies started aerial maneuvers in my stomach.

“I’ve been thinking about us,” Alison said. “Jesus, this is . . . this isn’t how I wanted to do this. I’ve been thinking about us, Atticus, and I don’t think ... I mean, I don’t want us to see each other anymore. Not like we have been.”

The pause sat there like roadkill for almost a minute before I said, “I’m sorry if I haven’t been there for you, Alison. If that’s—”

“That’s not it,” she said. “I mean, it’s not just the abortion, it’s that ... I like you a lot, you know that. I even love you, you know, but after the abortion I started thinking about us, I mean, really about us. I couldn’t see a future together, you know? Us as parents? You and me? And I realized that . . . that you’re not the man I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.”

“Oh,” I said.

“I’m really sorry,” Alison said. “This isn’t how I wanted to do this.”

“Yeah, your timing leaves a lot to be desired.”

“You said you were doing fine.”

“I lied,” I said.

We shared the silence for a few more seconds. Then Alison said, “I had to tell you this, you understand, don’t you? You wouldn’t want me to lie to you, not about this.” 

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me, too, Alison.”

More silence.

“You can give me a call, you know? Whenever you want. We’re still friends.”

“You bet,” I said.

She caught the tone, and hers changed, too. She said, “Well, good night, then. You take care.”

“You, too.”

I listened to the dial tone. Then I rose and replaced the receiver in its cradle. I looked at where the phone sat on the table, next to the answering machine, next to where I had dropped my pager and my gun. The phone was matte black, nothing more than a shadow in the darkened room.

I picked up the unit and threw it against the wall as hard as I could. The cord snapped, the cable whipping back and clattering on the table. The unit itself hit the wall at an angle, first the base, then the receiver. Then it fell to the floor.

From the next apartment, somebody shouted at me to knock it the fuck off.

“I own a gun,” I said loudly.

Then I went to bed.

Sleep was elusive. I spent a long time staring at my ceiling and listening to the city. The caffeine I’d ingested had run its course hours before, but still my pulse bucked and, try as I could, it seemed I would never sleep.

Then I was dreaming.

I come through the door of Crowell’s apartment with the HK in my hand, low, careful, knowing that I am going to shoot somebody. But it’s also Romero’s apartment, the way locations can be only in dreams, and as I start up the stairs to the main floor I hear a step. Crowell turns onto the landing above me, raising his right hand. There’s a book in his other hand. I sight and fire three shots, a simple line from his stomach to his throat, and he dies with the book falling from his hand, bouncing each step to my feet, where it lies open. It’s a Bible, but it’s a story about the Incredible Hulk. Katie’s voice calls, “ ’Cus? ’Cus?” There’s another sound I can’t identify, a thin curl of sound like music.

I continue up, and at the main floor hear movement from the landing above and swing my gun without looking, firing another shot. I keep going, I don’t care. Out of the kitchen comes Barry and I shoot him before he can throw anything at me. He dies gracefully, without bleeding, without pain.