Unleashed (14 page)

"Figure what out?"

"This is what I'm talking about. You have to stop asking questions. Do you understand?"

"OK, OK."

He looked at me. "Do you mean it?"

"Yes."

"OK." He started to let go and then pulled me back toward him again and whispered, "Get a weapon." He let go of me, turned on his heel, and melted into the crowd.

I went straight to James's and Hugh's house. They oohed and ahhed over my bruised face. We sat in the yard, and I told them about my completely deranged conversation with Mulberry.

"So the two killings are related?" James asked.

"I mean, the police have not said that officially, but obviously they are. Right?"

"I guess so," James said.

"You need a weapon," Hugh said. "I happen to have a weapon."

James and I both turned to stare at him. "What? Like one of your kitchen knives?" James asked, trying not to laugh.

"Actually, it's a state-of-the-art Taser."

I nearly choked on my wine.

"You have a state-of-the-art Taser? How did I not know that?" James asked.

"Oh, I've had it forever."

"Then I guess it's not that state-of-the-art," James muttered. Hugh ignored him.

"My mother gave it to me when I told her I was moving to Brooklyn." James and I both laughed. "I think you should start carrying it," he said to me.

"You guys don't think this is just some ploy to try and get me to leave the whole thing alone?" I asked.

"Whether it's a ploy or not, you should leave the whole thing alone and start carrying the Taser," James said.

"That's extreme."

"And this situation is—" James said with his eyebrows raised and his palms up, leaving me to fill in the blank.

"Two people are dead," Hugh pointed out.

"What time is it?" I looked around for a clock.

"Almost ten," Hugh replied.

"I want to watch the news. See if there's anything on about it."

A Live Action News Alert opened with a digital American flag waving across the screen. Betty Tong, wearing garish red lipstick and a bright-pink suit, told us, in her best impression of a news anchor, that there was a serious terrorist threat against the subway system of New York City. They cut to a clip of the mayor giving a statement. His thinning blond hair was plastered to his scalp, his tie, a brilliant blue, brought out his eyes.

"We are taking this threat with all seriousness. We will be doing random searches of bags at major subway stations. There will be an increase in uniformed and plain-clothed officers on the trains and platforms." It cut back to Betty, who told us that federal officials had received intelligence about an attack over the next few days, but they did not think it was credible. The mayor, however, was taking no chances.

"I don't understand how searching random bags at subway stops is going to help. I mean, if you were carrying a bomb, and you saw the cops searching bags, wouldn't you just leave and go to the next stop where they weren't searching bags?" I asked. Hugh and James nodded and made agreeing noises.

The news cut to a "man on the street" piece where a young blond woman asked subway riders how they felt about the searches. A heavyset black woman told the camera that she was sick and tired of terrorism. A young white guy at Union Square station said he was just going on with his life and wasn't taking the threat too seriously.

"Only a week after Joseph Saperstein's brutal murder, another death in Yorkville," said Betty, setting up the next story.

"This is it," I said, leaning toward the television. Hugh turned up the volume. A young, clean-shaven reporter stood in front of Tate Hausman's building.

"Tate Hausman, a successful investment banker, an avid scuba diver, a well-liked man, took his own life late Tuesday night. He hanged himself in his home."

"What? His own life?" I said.

"A close friend of the mayor's, Hausman had struggled with depression for years." The screen showed the mayor and Tate in wet suits, face masks pushed up on their foreheads, wind playing with their hair, smiling as their boat pulled away from the shore. "His body was found this morning by his cleaning woman. The police refuse to comment on the existence of a note but say that there is no doubt it was suicide." The news cut back to the mayor.

"Tate was a good friend of mine. He introduced me to scuba diving. He helped me through law school," the mayor sighed. "I just wish I could have helped him through this. Depression is a horrible disease but treatable. I urge depressed New Yorkers with suicidal thoughts to call for help." He looked straight into the camera. "There is help for you. You just have to ask."

"He's good," James said.

"Yeah," Hugh agreed.

"His own life?" I said.

"I'm gonna roll a joint. I can't watch this shit sober," Hugh said. James and I nodded and made agreeing noises. By the time we were smoking, a man named Storm Jenkins was telling us about the heat wave on its way to the tri-state area.

"Great," James said, lungs full of smoke. He exhaled. "That should just about blow out the power grid." Hugh started laughing, then I started laughing, then James started laughing. As Storm finished off the five-day forecast, we were all laughing so hard we weren't making any sound. We just rocked back and forth trying to breathe.

Questions, Declan, and Chinese Food

"What happened to your face?" Marcia stared at me as I entered the run.

"Oh," I brought a hand up to the bruise, touching it lightly. It hurt. "I fell down."

"Are you OK?" Elaine asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Better than Tate Hausman, anyway."

Fiona picked up the ball that a French bulldog named Chompers had dropped at her feet, and threw it. Chompers flew after the ball.

"Do you really think he killed himself?" I asked.

"I seriously doubt that," Fiona told me. "The man was a complete egomaniac. As far as I know, egomaniacs aren't exactly the suicidal types."

"Maybe he was confident on the outside but really scared and sad on the inside," Elaine suggested. Chompers got hold of the ball, despite its best efforts to bounce off his nose.

"If you ask me, he was murdered," Fiona said.

"What makes you think that?" I asked. Chompers, tail high, ears perked, made the rounds of the run showing off his ball.

"I think he was killed by one of his many women," Fiona said, turning to me. "He was a total slut." Snowball noticed Chomper’s satisfied look and launched herself at him, trying to wrest the ball away. "The way he treated women, he deserved what he got."

"That's harsh," Elaine said.

"Not everyone is as sweet as you, Elaine."

"And not everyone holds onto a grudge as long as you, Fiona," Marcia said.

"What did he do to you?" I asked Fiona.

Chompers was not giving up the ball, and Snowball began to bark in an attempt to intimidate him.

"I dumped him," Fiona said.

"You two dated?"

"Hardly," Fiona forced a laugh. "We hooked up one night, but that was it. He was too much of a slut for me."

I looked over at Marcia who turned her attention to the dogs. Chompers returned with his ball and dropped it at Fiona's feet.

"Was he sleeping with Charlene?" I asked.

"I don't know," Marcia said. "But he was also a member of the Biltmore Club."

"Seems like it's a dangerous group to be a part of all of a sudden," Fiona said with an unattractive smile.

"What about you, Elaine? Do you know?" I asked.

Fiona threw the ball again, and Chompers hurried after it.

"I...I think. I don't know." She started to twist a strand of her hair around her finger. No one said anything. It took only about ten seconds for her to become overwhelmed by the silence. "I hate to guess at something like that. But," she stopped and looked out to the river, "I think Charlene was sleeping with a lot of people."

"What makes you think that?" Marcia asked.

"One time when I was at her house, the phone rang and she went into the bedroom to talk. Her address book was sitting on the kitchen counter, and I was getting a glass of water, which she told me I could get, and I knocked it over," Elaine said speaking very fast, "and the water spilled onto her address book, and I had to put paper towels on it to stop the ink from dissolving, and I saw—"

Chompers returned. We ignored him. "Go on," Marcia encouraged.

"There were lots of men's names. Men from the neighborhood. And their numbers and all these little symbols next to the names."

"What kind of symbols?" I asked.

"Like smiley faces and dollar signs and Xs and Ys. I don't know. It looked complicated."

"Was Joseph Saperstein's name there?" Chompers began to whine, gesturing to the ball.

"I only saw the 'H' page and Tate Hausman was there."

"What did his name have next to it?"

Elaine swallowed and looked around the run nervously, then said in barely a whisper, "A hangman's rope."

###

A
hangman's rope, a hangman's rope
, I thought over and over again as I opened Charlene's door. Oscar meowed at me. He needed to be fed, his litter needed to be changed, and I wanted to take a look around for a certain black book.

Stepping into Charlene's living room, I knew I would never find it. Someone had searched the place before me. The books were off the shelves, the couch torn apart. Pots and pans spilled out of the kitchen cabinets. I walked into the bedroom. The bed was stripped, the pillows punctured, the closets emptied. Oscar pushed himself up against my leg, arched his back, and cried. I scratched the top of his head. He squeezed his eyes shut and purred.

A battered photo album lay open on the floor. I sat on the carpet and pulled it to me. Oscar climbed into my lap, pushing himself up against the album, insistent that I pay attention to him and not it. "Come on, Oscar," I said, trying to push him away. He pushed back, his purr turning into a rumble. "Fine." I held the album up, making room for him on my lap.

The album started at the beginning of Charlene's life. Charlene slept in her exhausted, smiling mother's arms at the hospital. Charlene took her first step on brown carpeting next to a big blue chair. Her hair came in red and curly soon after she got out of diapers. A picture of her parents showed her father as an older man, his collar turned up against a wind that played with her mother's hair and pushed autumn leaves around the frame. By the time Charlene was starting kindergarten, the first in a series of school photographs, her father was gone. He was there for the vacation on the beach, and the Christmas Charlene got a stuffed pony, but he was out of her album soon after. Oscar's paw reached up and played with the edge of the book as the years of Charlene's life passed.

Discolored rectangles marked the places of missing photographs. The album ended with Charlene in braces, her hand by her face. It was a posed photograph, probably taken for school. I flipped back through the book noticing that there were no family portraits. No signs of brothers, sisters, aunts, or uncles. Only Charlene and her parents. I wondered who had been removed.

I changed Oscar's litter and filled his bowls. He followed me around the house begging for love. He looked desperate. I bent down and gave his head one more firm ruffling before letting myself out. I could hear him wailing as I walked down the hall.

––––––––

T
here was a new doorman at the Sapersteins' building. He was tall and black and wrinkled. "What happened to Julen?" I asked.

"I don't know, ma'am."

"Uh, you don't need to call me ma'am."

"Miss, then," he said.

"Just Joy will do. I don't live here or anything. I walk the Sapersteins' dog."

"The Sapersteins?" He was curious.

"You really don't know what happened to Julen?"

"I heard he was fired."

"For what?"

"Sleeping with Mrs. Saperstein."

"Right. That is the kind of thing that gets you fired."

"It certainly is."

"Do you have his phone number?"

"I don't, but you could ask in the office."

"Where's that?"

"Third floor. Apartment 302."

"I'll try that. Thanks."

Inside apartment 302, a slightly overweight woman sat with her ankles crossed behind a large, dark, wooden desk. "Can I help you?"

"I was hoping to get some contact information for Julen, the doorman." At the mention of Julen's name, the woman stiffened.

"He is no longer employed by this building."

"I know that. I was just thinking that you might have his phone number on record."

"Why do you want it?"

"I just wanted to see how he's doing, what with losing his job and all. That kind of thing can be rough."

She looked me up and down. I smiled my nice-girl smile.

"It's not policy to give out employee information," she said.

"But he's not an employee anymore."

That stumped her.

"But he was," she said, uncertain.

"But you fired him."

"I didn't fire him."

"Right, but the building did."

"Yes, the building did."

"So you could give me his phone number then." She stared at me for one more long second and then turned to a wall of filing cabinets made of the same dark wood as her desk.

She wrote the number down on a sticky and handed it over.

"Thank you so much. I really appreciate this," I said.

She smiled for the first time. "Tell him Jessica says hi?"

"I'd be happy to."

When I went to walk Toby, he greeted me at the door and so did Mrs. Maxim. She was tall, blond, leggy and only a year or two older than me. "Hi, it's great to meet you," she said, her voice full of bubbles. "My little Toby-Woby has told me all about you, haven't you, boy? Yes you have." She reached down and mushed Toby's face while she talked. He appeared to love it.

"It's nice to meet you too, Mrs. Maxim."

She giggled. "Call me Pammy. Everyone else does."

"It's nice to meet you, Pammy."

"Are you OK?" she asked, pointing to the bruise on my face.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I fell down is all." She shrugged, then turned and walked toward the kitchen. I followed. The bottom of her butt cheeks crested her shorts with each step.