The Helper (21 page)

‘Hi,’ she says. ‘You’re that cop guy, right?’

‘Yeah, I’m the cop guy. Is your boss in?’

‘You gonna throw him in jail?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Yeah, he’s in. Go straight through. He’s not expecting you.’ Doyle pushes open the door to the inner office. He sees Repp bent over an open drawer of a file cabinet,
muttering to himself as he rifles through its contents. Doyle watches for another few seconds, until Repp pounds angrily on the cabinet and straightens up.

‘Hayley, do you have any idea—’

He sees Doyle in the doorway then, and he narrows his eyes. Like he’s trying to beam malevolence from his pupils.

‘You again.’

‘Me again.’

‘Do you ever bother to make appointments?’

‘Only with gynecologists. They tend to get kinda tetchy when I pop my head unannounced into their business. I thought you’d prefer the surprise. More than two people in this place
must come as quite a shock.’

‘Ha! Allow me to hold my sides before they bust open. You ain’t heard about the recession? Things are bad all round. If there was such a thing as a cop who wasn’t on the take,
you’d probably notice it too.’

‘My heart bleeds, Travis. Doesn’t give you an excuse, though.’

‘An excuse for what?’

‘Scamming old ladies. In particular, Mrs Sachs.’

Repp gives him a long stare, then waves him away. ‘Close the door on your way out.’ He turns back to his file cabinet and opens the top drawer.

Doyle sighs and ambles over to join Repp.

‘We’re not done.’

Repp doesn’t look at him. He continues to walk his fingers across the file dividers.

‘We had this conversation already. Did you forget? Or maybe you caught Alzheimer’s from banging old ladies.’

Repp’s chuckle pulls a trigger in Doyle’s brain, and he slams the file drawer shut before Repp can react. Before he can move a muscle. Or a finger. Such as the one that doesn’t
manage to escape being sandwiched between two panels of gray steel.

Repp lets out a high-pitched scream. He extracts his hand from the drawer and stares at it with bulging eyes. Spittle flies from his mouth as he yells at Doyle.

‘My finger! It’s bleeding! What the fuck did you do that for?’

‘Sit down, Travis,’ Doyle commands. To help him obey, he gives him a hand. Right in the chest. A good hard thrust. Repp stumbles backward. When the backs of his legs connect with his
chair, he collapses into it.

Repp continues to protest, his voice still higher than a soprano’s. ‘You can’t do this. You broke my fucking finger. Look at it! It’s bleeding. Hayley! Get the fuck in
here! Get me some bandages.’

Doyle turns to see Hayley in the doorway, her features contorted with a blend of amusement and astonishment.

‘It’s okay, Hayley. He’s fine. I’ll be outta here before he loses more than a pint or two.’

Hilarity wins out. Hayley has to put a hand to her mouth to stifle her laughter, then she disappears.

‘Jesus Christ,’ says Repp. ‘This is my good finger, damnit! I use this finger for everything.’

‘Spare me the sordid details,’ says Doyle. He perches himself on the edge of Repp’s desk, looming over him. ‘Now, where were we? Oh, yeah – Mrs Sachs.’

‘You can’t do this. I’m gonna report you. Your badge is gone, mister.’

Doyle picks up a glass globe paperweight from Repp’s desk and hefts it in his hand. Repp eyes him warily.

‘Stop being a wuss, Travis, and talk to me. You know as well as I do that you’re in deep shit here. This thing with Mrs Sachs stops now, understand?’

‘No, actually. Why don’t you explain it to me?’

‘You’re fleecing her. Your two-bit operation is falling down around your ears and you’re fleecing a little old lady to make some cash. You know how despicable that is, Travis?
How do you even live with yourself?’

Repp puts his finger in his mouth to suck away the blood, then takes it out again and stares fearfully at it like it’s a fatal wound.

‘You’re talking outta your ass. I never made any guarantees to her about her daughter. The only thing I did was put some doubt in her mind. If she doesn’t want me to follow it
up, she’s free to tell me so.’

‘Just a little doubt, huh? What about the photos?’

‘What about them? They were sent over by a guy who does occasional jobs for me. We think it could be the daughter. Again, no guarantees.’

‘So you won’t mind if I talk to this wonderful guy you can afford to employ in this economic recession you keep reminding me about? Get his side of the story?’

‘Sure. If you can find him. Last I heard he’d decided to vacation in Honolulu while he’s in that neck of the woods.’

‘Uh-huh. And what about Pinter?’

Repp tears his gaze away from his gashed finger and furrows his brow. ‘Who?’

‘Now who’s the one with the memory of a goldfish? Pinter. Works for Invar Insurance? Said he saw Patricia Sachs at the Port Authority Terminal?’

‘Oh! Oh, him, yeah. That was two years ago. I haven’t heard from him since then. I don’t think he even works for Invar anymore.’

‘That’s real convenient, Travis. So what this all amounts to is a couple of crappy photographs and your word, with anyone who can back it up currently unavailable for comment.
That’s what you have, right? That’s what you think is good enough for Mrs Sachs to send you on a holiday to Hawaii?’

‘I don’t think anything. That’s for Mrs Sachs to decide. Like I say, if she wants out, that’s fine with me.’ He sucks his finger again. ‘You know, I think
this is gonna need stitches. I’ll probably need a tetanus jab too. I should sue your ass.’

Doyle shakes his head in disgust. ‘How many others are there, Travis?’

Repp smiles. ‘Nine. I got nine other fingers.’

Doyle slams the paperweight down on the desk, causing Repp to jump in his chair. ‘Not for much longer, Travis. I’ll ask you again. How many others are there like Mrs Sachs? How many
schemes like this you got going?’

‘All right, you got me. Thirty-seven. Last week I sold the Brooklyn Bridge to a Texan billionaire who’s looking for a new water feature in his backyard. I mean, Jesus, what kind of
answer do you expect from me? I’m legit, get it? Maybe I’m not rich or successful, but at least I can sleep at night. Can you? Is everything you do so lily-white that you don’t
hate yourself sometimes?’

Doyle doesn’t want to answer that. Doesn’t even want to think about it. He tells himself that this isn’t about him. It’s about Repp. And everything about Repp and his
setup tells Doyle that this is a con. Mrs Sachs is being given false hope, with the added indignity of having to pay handsomely for the privilege.

But he can’t prove it. Not without an extensive and costly investigation into Repp’s background and practices. His squad isn’t going to be interested, not when a bunch of
serial murders has just landed on its lap, thank you very much, Detective Doyle. And the District Attorney’s office and the judges he would need to approach for warrants are just going to
tell him to act his age. All he can do for the moment is hope that his strong-arm tactics are enough to make Repp think twice about continuing with his foolhardy scheme.

Doyle gets up from the desk. ‘Don’t pack that grass skirt just yet, Travis. Think about what you’re doing to that poor lady. Try imagining she’s your own
grandmother.’

‘My grandmother is dead. And when she was alive she was a bitch.’

‘Okay, so picture her coming back to haunt you. Either way, I want you out of Mrs Sachs’s life, and especially out of her wallet.’

Doyle moves to the door. ‘Next time, it won’t be your finger in that drawer. It’ll be a much smaller part of your anatomy. Take it easy, Travis.’

As he walks through the outer office, he winks at Hayley and she goes all coy and giggly.

What I take from one I give to another, thinks Doyle. It’s nice to keep things in balance.

‘Which would you rather be – a clown or a fish?’

‘What?’

‘A clown or a fish? Which one would you rather be? If you could only be one.’

Doyle considers the question with the seriousness it surely deserves. Such matters cannot be regarded lightly.

‘Okay, well I think probably a clown. Because then I could take off my outfit and make-up and become a normal person.’

Amy shakes her head vigorously. ‘No. You can’t do that. Whatever one you choose, you have to stay like that, for the rest of your life.’

‘Oh. Well, that’s different. A clown or a fish?’

‘Yes.’

‘What about a clownfish?’

‘A what?’

‘A clownfish. You know, like Nemo.’

‘Oh, okay. But that’s still just a fish. Is that what you want to be?’

‘Yes. A fish. Because clowns are scary, and I wouldn’t want to scare you.’

Amy beams at him. ‘That’s a very good answer, and so you can have a prize.’

‘A prize? For me?’

‘Yes.’

She reaches for a tin box on her nightstand. She calls it her Shiny Box. Anything shiny, glittery or of perceived worth in a child-centered value scheme goes in here. The hinges creak as she
lifts the lid and takes something out. She hands it to Doyle. A button. It has ‘Captain Awesome’ written on it in lightning-yellow letters on a pale-blue background.

‘Why, thank you, Amy.’ He pins it onto his shirt. ‘Now I really feel important.’

‘Good. You can borrow it for one week.’

A whole week. Doyle feels supremely honored.

He tucks Amy into her bed, kisses her goodnight, then goes into the living room. Rachel is there, languishing on the sofa and watching an old movie. Black and white, with lots of clipped British
accents.
Brief Encounter
, maybe.

Rachel glances up at him as he enters. ‘What’s that?’ she asks, gesturing to the same point on her own chest.

‘I got a promotion. I made captain.’

‘Does that mean I have to salute you now?’

‘Absolutely. And you have to do everything I say, at all times.’

‘Pah! In your dreams, mister.’

She turns back to the television. Doyle stands behind the sofa, watching it with her.

‘Is this gonna make you cry?’

‘Probably.’ She points down to a cardboard box on the rug. ‘I have tissues at the ready, just in case. You want to join me?’

‘Does it have any car chases?’

‘No.’

‘Any gunfights? Explosions? Martial arts? Babes in bikinis?’

‘No to all the above. Stop trying to be so stereotypically male. You know you like a good cry as much as the next woman.’

‘I do not.’

‘No? What about
ET
?’

‘That’s an exception.’

‘Uh-huh? And I suppose
Free Willy
is an exception too. And that movie where all the people come out of comas.’

‘
Awakenings
. All right, enough already. I admit I’m in touch with my feminine side. There, I’ve said it.’

He regrets it when he sees the look of amusement on her face.

‘My God, Cal. Next you’ll be telling me you like musicals too. Is this just the tip of the iceberg? Are you wearing my underwear?’

‘Hey, I can still be tough too. You should’ve seen me today.’

‘Why? What’d you do? Claw someone’s eyes out? Pull their hair?’

‘Ha! Very funny. You mind stopping with the insults now? I went to see that private investigator. You know, the one who’s conning old Mrs Sachs?’

‘Is he still doing that to that poor woman? I hope you smashed his kneecaps, that bastard.’

Doyle stares at her. He was about to tell her how he got his message across to Repp, but saying that he made the man’s finger bleed doesn’t seem to match the level of vengeance that
Rachel expects.

Their conversation is interrupted by the chirrup of Doyle’s cellphone. He checks the screen, sees that there is no caller ID. Kills the call.

‘Who was that?’ asks Rachel.

‘Nobody.’

She gives him a searching look that feels to him as though it’s penetrating his skull and tearing its way through his mental database.

‘By
nobody
I guess you mean
somebody
, but somebody you don’t want me to know about.’

‘I . . . no. That is, it’s not that I’m keeping it from you, it’s just that it’s not a call I want to take. And I don’t just mean now, because you’re
here. I mean
ever
.’

He can see the questions scrolling across her eyes. Like a Las

Vegas slot machine. Which one will come to rest there first?

She says, ‘That has to be one of the biggest loads of garbage I’ve ever heard you speak.’ She pats the seat next to her on the sofa. ‘Come here, Cal. Sit down.’

He doesn’t want this discussion, and it’s like he’s walking through treacle as he comes around the sofa and then lowers himself onto it. He feels like a kid who knows
he’s about to get that birds and bees lecture.

She grasps his hand in hers, but it’s some time before she speaks. The earlier levity has become a fading memory.

‘Cal, what’s going on? You haven’t been yourself for days. All these phone calls you don’t want me to hear, it’s driving me crazy.’ He stares into her eyes,
not knowing what to say. Feeling that he wants to tell her everything, but not wanting to put her in that uncomfortable position. And the longer he sits there in silence, the more he senses her
distress building.

It is left to her to break into that silence, and when she does there is a tremor to her voice and a pooling of water in her eyes that threatens to overflow and cascade down her face.

‘I just want you to tell me that . . . I need to know that . . .’

He studies her face, trying to read her. Trying to finish her sentence for her.

And then it hits him. He understands. And he hates the fact that he can understand. It shouldn’t be able to enter his mind. Shouldn’t be able to sneak into Rachel’s head
either. Their relationship should be stable enough to fend it off.

But there it is, and all because of what happened with Laura Marino, his ex-partner. Or rather, the thing that didn’t happen with Laura Marino but which seems to have established its own
poisonous existence in their past.

He clasps Rachel’s face in his hands. ‘Rachel, listen to me. I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong. This has nothing to do with another woman.’