Mission Flats (28 page)

‘Ben, get out of the way!’ Gittens ordered.

I looked at him.

Braxton went over the railing.

Dizzy, I slumped to my knees.

Braxton clung to the rope for a moment, swinging, legs scissoring.

Gittens fired at him but missed.

The gunshot boomed through the empty church.

Braxton dropped onto the red rug below. He splayed on his knees but quickly scrambled to his feet and sprinted under the catwalk, where Gittens did not have a shot at him.

Gittens scurried around the platform to find him, but there was no chance. He had no line of fire until Braxton bolted through the door, and at that point he did not even take the shot. Instead Gittens put up his gun and, across the shadowy dome, glared at me.

PART THREE

‘Let no one, unwise and unlearned, presume to ascend the seat of judgment, which is like unto the throne of God, lest for light he bring darkness and for darkness light, and, with unskilful hand, even as a madman, he put the innocent to the sword and set free the guilty, and lest he fall from on high, as from the throne of God, in attempting to fly before he has wings.’

Bracton,
On the Laws and Customs of England

Circa
A.D.
1250

28

Failure is a fixed point, a mooring in the current that keeps hauling you back. Back to
this
place, to
this
time. Back to the moment of error, when all the branchings of the stream radiated out in front of you and the choice was still yours. You return as a spectator, melancholy, reproachful, to say,
This is what I should have done
or
This is what I should have said.

Twelve hours after my encounter with Braxton, I awoke in a hospital bed, plagued by reproaches. Should I have told the Bostonians about my mother from the start? Was I ridiculous to then go after Braxton alone? Or was I just desperate to prove that Braxton – or anyone other than me – was guilty of Danziger’s murder?

Outside, there was quiet bustling in the hall. Smells blended in the air, the distinct hospital potpourri: ammonia, bleach, alcohol, urine. I lay still, pretended to sleep. A bubble of respect surrounds sick people as they sleep, and I was anxious to preserve that privacy while I sorted through the events of the afternoon.

The church with its nippled dome. Teetering toward Braxton, clasping his arm, then letting him go so he could slip down that makeshift rope and dash out of the church.
I recalled:
When it was over, cops swarmed the building. Skittish, on high alert. Afraid to move me, they took turns kneeling and looking into my eyes. They parroted doctorly advice, much of it contradictory, ‘Don’t move’ then ‘Can you move?’ Two EMTs arrived and, after a bewildering quiz to establish my brain was still essentially intact (’What day is today? Who is the president?’), they helped me to my feet and escorted me out. On the sidewalk, someone handed me a towel. I caught my reflection in a car’s side mirror. My ear, neck, and shoulders were smeared with blood. There was no sign of Braxton.

In my hospital bed, I walked through these events over and over, shuffled and reordered them.

A man cleared his throat to announce his presence. I struggled upright to find John Kelly sitting by the foot of the bed. There was a pen in his long fingers,
The Boston Globe
Sunday crossword on his lap. He wore little half-glasses that made him look rather old and distinguished.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Visiting a friend in the hospital.’

‘Right, but . . . haven’t you heard? I killed Danziger. That’s what everybody thinks.’

‘Yes, I did hear that.’

‘You don’t believe it?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t believe or disbelieve it. I don’t have enough information.’

‘So you think I might have?’

‘There’s that possibility.’

‘That I’m a homicidal lunatic’

‘I don’t think you could be. I don’t believe you could do it, Ben Truman. But I may be wrong. We’ll see how it goes.’

I grunted,
hunh.
Kelly returned to his crossword puzzle.

I slipped in and out of sleep. When I awoke again I asked, ‘What time is it?’

‘Almost two.’

‘What hospital is this?’

‘Boston City. They kept you here overnight for observation. You’ll be out in the morning. How do you feel?’

‘Like in a cartoon. You know, when someone gets hit with a frying pan and his head vibrates and he gets those shaky lines around him?’

Kelly squinted.
What?
‘They gave you something for the pain. It’ll make you drowsy’

I sank back into the pillow. ‘Braxton helped me.’

‘He decided not to kill you. It’s not the same as helping you.’

‘No. I fell over the rail. I was going to fall. He pulled me back.’

‘I’m sure he did what he thought he had to do. Let’s not go give him any medals.’

‘Right. Mr Kelly, why did you . . . ?’

‘Why did I what?’

‘You keep disappearing. I needed you. Where do you go?’

‘To my daughter’s grave.’

I remembered the pale little girl with the cowl of black hair in the photo in Kelly’s living room. ‘Theresa?’

‘Theresa Rose.’

‘Caroline’s . . . ?’

‘Caroline’s little sister, yes. She was not like Caroline, though. She was more delicate. More gentle.’ He smiled. ‘Not that Caroline isn’t delicate and gentle.’

‘She won’t talk to me, you know.’

‘Can you blame her?’

‘No. Well, at least you’re here. You don’t think I did it, do you?’

‘I just told you.’

‘Tell me again.’

He slipped off his glasses, wiped his eyes with his thumb and index finger, then put the glasses back on with a soft sigh. ‘I don’t think you could have done it.’

‘Good. Because I didn’t do it.’

My eyes closed.

When I woke, I said, ‘How did Theresa Rose die?’

‘Cancer.’

‘How old was – Do you mind talking about it?’

‘No, it’s alright. She was eight when she got sick, ten when she died.’

‘I’m sorry’

‘Cancer devours you, did you know that? It’s a living thing. It feeds on you so it can grow.’ For a moment Kelly seemed lost and ineffably sad. ‘Well, it’s not an excuse. You’re right. You were my partner, I should have been with you. It’s the First Commandment. I’m sorry.’

‘How often do you go to her grave?’

‘I try to stop by every day, if I can.’

‘What do you do there?’

‘Just sit.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it makes me feel she’s closer.’

Since the funeral, I’d never gone back to my mother’s grave. ‘Doesn’t it just make things worse?’

‘It gets better with time, Ben Truman. It never quite goes away, but it gets better.’

It was not clear what part Theresa Rose Kelly played in her father’s decision to come to my bedside that night. But I thought she was part of it. An impotent father’s urge to protect. To defend me, his ward, against the latest arbitrary supervening danger.

By this point Kelly and I were both getting uncomfortable with the topic of dead relations, and an awkward moment passed between us. To fill it, I asked how he was doing on the crossword puzzle.

‘Oh, this. I found it in the waiting room. I’m awful at these. You know a four-letter word for
kiln,
begins with
O
?’

‘Oven.’

‘Doesn’t fit.’

‘Oast.’

‘Oast?’

‘O-A-S-T’

He gave me a skeptical look uncannily like one of Caroline’s. ‘Go back to sleep, Ben Truman.’

‘O-A-S-T Just fill it in, trust me.’

I lay back down in a sleepy fugue, and at once doubts began to swarm. Maybe I had dreamed the whole incident in the church, or at least mis-perceived it. Was Gittens really going to kill Braxton? What proof did I have of his intentions? That’s the core problem with history: Events can only be seen through a cracked prism, the faulty perceptions of witnesses. Historical truth, if it exists in the first place, is immediately lost in a fog of bad eyesight, bad memory, bad reporting. Great topic for a dissertation, if I ever do write one.

I shook the doubts away. I’d seen it alright. I knew what Gittens had planned, and I’d released Braxton rather than abandon him to Gittens. I’d saved Harold Braxton.

‘Can I tell you something, Mr Kelly? I thought Gittens was going to . . .’ But in that moment I reconsidered it. My head ached. I must have been wrong about Gittens. It was impossible. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Try to sleep, Ben. I’m going to sit here awhile.’

I wanted to thank Kelly for coming. He was the only one. I wanted to tell him how much I appreciated his being there. But the words stuck in my throat and I gaped at him stupidly, like a boated fish gasping for air.

‘It’s alright, Ben, I know. Just get some sleep.’

In the dream, I floated on Lake Mattaquisett. Above me was a cloudy sky. At the periphery of my view, the green hillsides around the lake, all mossed over with pines. At some point I could no longer feel the water under me. It must still be there, I assumed; I was still floating on something. But I couldn’t feel it. I rolled onto my stomach. The lake surface pillowed under me as it would under the feet of a water bug – a film of surface tension just strong enough to support my weight. But beneath me, the lake water had disappeared. I could see all the way down to the sunlit lake bed, where crabs and bottom fish scuttled about on dry stones. Fish fluttered past, their tiny fins flapping audibly in air. I knew if I moved, the soap-bubble surface that held me up would burst. So I concentrated on lying still. Hanging there, breathless. My arms and legs began to ache. Soon I would have to move. The floor of the lake became dark and weedy, a treacherous place of sea insects and eely, chomping creatures, and my ability to hold still was sifting away.

Now, let me say right off the top that I don’t much believe in reading Freudish significance into dreams. I write them off to biochemistry – enzymes react with brain meat; random images are unintended by-products. So interpreting dreams seems to me an act of faith, like seeing the face of Jesus in your meatloaf. The interpretation reveals more about the perceiver than the thing perceived. But the raw emotions triggered by dreams are no less real. Enzyme hits brain meat, sizzles – and dreamer feels fear or sadness or vertigo or any number of things.

When I woke up, the anxiety of the dream lingered. I felt threatened.

I leaned up on one elbow. My head throbbed. The room was dark.

There was a shape at the door. A man I did not recognize. Short, neither thin nor fat. He moved into the room with arms half extended, like a lobster’s claws.

‘Who are you?’ I said.

He stopped.

I groped for the light. ‘Who are you?’

It was a cop, in uniform. ‘My name’s Pete Odorico.’ The name rhymed with
Oh for Rico.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘You screamed.’

He took another step toward me. The equipment on his belt rattled.

‘Just stay where you are.’

‘I’m a cop.’

‘Everyone’s a cop around here. Do me a favor, stay put. What are you doing in here?’

‘Watching you.’

‘Watching me? Who told you to watch me?’

John Kelly came into the room. ‘Ah, I see you’ve met Peter.’

‘Who the hell is he?’

‘He’s a friend.’

‘Of whose?’

‘Of mine.’

‘Well, I don’t know him.’

‘He’s alright, Ben. I worked with his dad. I’ve known Peter since the day he was born. I asked him to stand guard tonight.’

Pete Odorico shot me a sour look. ‘Hey, pal, I’ve been off duty since midnight. You don’t want me here, I’m happy to go home to bed.’

Kelly patted his shoulder. ‘You’ll stay till sunup,’ Kelly informed him.

The officer studied me for a moment, then said, ‘What was the dream?’

‘Never mind the dream.’

‘Maybe I can help.’

With that, Kelly snaked his long arm around the policeman’s shoulder and ushered him back to his post in the hall. When he’d shut the door, Kelly said of the forty-year-old cop, ‘He’s a good kid.’

‘You posted a guard? Why?’

Kelly considered it a moment. ‘Because something doesn’t feel right.’

29

Friday morning. At seven-thirty there was a polite, brushy knock at the door, and Caroline came in, carrying a shopping bag. ‘Good morning,’ she said. Surprised to see her father, she made a face. ‘Sorry to wake you.’

‘No, no,’ I said.

‘How’s the
cabeza
?’ She made a shampooing motion at the back of her head.

‘I’m okay.’

I scrunched the blanket in my lap to cover a daybreak hard-on, which threatened to poke its head out of the sheets like a squirrel. The tumescence was less a matter of sexual excitement than simple hydraulics, the usual wind-sock action of sleeping men. But it triggered memories of Caroline’s body, which only made things worse. I studied her outfit, tried to see through it. She was wearing another vaguely bohemian skirt suit, this one with a five-button jacket open at the throat. There was nothing provocative or revealing about it. The skirt was hemmed an inch below the knees. The jacket revealed just a narrow V of skin with tiny, lovely freckles.

Caroline started unpacking some new clothes from the shopping bag. There was a halting quality in her movements, as if she did not want to be here, as if the whole errand was distasteful to her.

‘I didn’t expect to see you here,’ I said.

‘I didn’t expect to be here.’

‘But you had a change of heart?’

‘No,’ she sniffed. ‘It seems you have a new friend.’

‘Oh?’

‘Harold Braxton is asking for you.’

‘What?’