Suspension Page 11

“Good. That’s good. You’re a smart boy, Mikey,” the voice soothed. “Smart, ‘cause if I hear you tellin’ anyone, it’ll be your whole family that’ll pay: your grandma, your granddaddy, and, most of all, you!” Mike was too petrified to say anything. “I guess you got my point.” The voice chuckled. “Sleep tight, now,” it whispered and was gone. A shadow passed through the back door. It banged shut, echoing down the stinking canyon between the tenements. Mike tried to run but his feet wouldn’t do it. His knees buckled and he slid down the wall to sit in the mud.

  Chapter Six

  Caisson of the East River bridge was severely damaged

  by fire yesterday. I don’t believe any man now

  living will cross that bridge.

  —GEORGE TEMPLETON STRONG

  Mike crept up the blackened stairs, feeling his way up the walls, along the wainscoting. The only light was the occasional glow from under a door. There never had been any lights in the halls or stairways, but that wasn’t unusual for buildings in his neighborhood. He knew the stairs well though and managed only a couple of missteps before he finally reached his door. It was very late. He didn’t have a watch, but the streets were deserted and that was about as good a timepiece as he’d ever known. He didn’t want to wake his grandma, so he tiptoed through the front door, which was hardly ever locked. Mike stood there for a moment, listening to the snores of his grandparents. He knew he’d catch hell in the morning. It wouldn’t be the first time. He had run for what seemed like hours, once he’d gotten his legs under him. He hadn’t known or cared where he was going. All he could think of was getting away from that man by the jakes. His hands still shook when he thought about him. All night he kept seeing the dull reflection of that knife as it waved before his eyes. It made him weak in the knees just thinking about it. He thought about it a lot.

  Mike knew he couldn’t tell anyone about the shadow-man. He was sure that the man would know. Somehow the bad men seemed to know everything. Mike imagined them as having eyes and ears everywhere, watching him constantly. He didn’t know how many times he’d looked over his shoulder that night—more times than he could count. The night had echoed with following footsteps. Shadow-men shambled after him, always just out of sight. Mike figured he couldn’t go home. Though he knew that if they could find him out by the jakes, they could just as easily find his apartment, he didn’t want to lead them to it.

  Grandma could beat him all she wanted for staying out all night. He didn’t much care. But he was so tired now he could hardly keep his eyes open, and this was the only place he felt safe to sleep. Bad things could happen to kids who slept on the streets. He shrugged grimly in the dark. How much worse could it get than tonight? He didn’t know, but he could imagine. He rolled into bed. It felt familiar, comforting, like when his da gave him a hug. His throat got tight at the thought. He had been out all night thinking thoughts like that. His grandma and gramps were still alive, but they weren’t the same as Mom or Da or Sis. They were old. They’d be gone into the ground sometime soon. Then what? He didn’t know. Orphanages were full of boys like him. The streets were too, assuming he lived long enough to see an orphanage. Mike wasn’t sure which was worse.

  His da had said to watch for bad men. He had watched, but it hadn’t been enough. There wasn’t anywhere he was safe. His only safety was silence. The man hadn’t killed him, after all, though he certainly could have. So if he kept quiet like he’d said, they’d be sure to leave him alone, not that he had anything to tell. Mike hadn’t lied about the bridge. He reached a hand to feel his ear. Blood had soaked the handkerchief he’d wrapped around it. It was hard and crusty now. A noise out in the hall, a slow shuffling he barely made out set his nerves on edge and a cold sweat beaded almost immediately on his neck. He got up quietly to check the door. The lock was old and he doubted it could even keep him out if he tried hard enough. He locked it anyway, then, as quietly as he could, wedged a chair under the knob. It was the only way he figured to get any sleep.

  He hadn’t felt as if sleep was even a possibility, but he was out within minutes of his head hitting the pillow. Mike woke with a start, to the sound of his grandfather’s coughing. He lay there half awake for some time hoping to drift off again, but he was unable to. Though he was still tired, the things that started swirling around his head wouldn’t let him rest. He tossed for a while, trying to shake off men with long knives lurking around corners. After a while he gave it up. His grandmother was up by then, clattering pans in the kitchen. There seemed to be more banging than usual. He knew it was Grandma’s way of showing her disapproval. He pulled his thin sheet over his head to block out the noise. It didn’t work.

  Grandma was giving him far worse than a beating. It was the silent treatment. And for Grandma, that was as harsh a punishment as ever there was. She hadn’t said a word when he got up and went into the kitchen. She just looked at him with her big sad eyes. A little shake of her head as she turned away said more than a whole Sunday sermon. Mike wondered if it wouldn’t be better to just go back to hide under the sheet. He noticed the chair was gone from the front door. It worried him. He tried to figure a way to convince her that they needed a better lock but knew this wasn’t the time. The silence hung in the room so heavy he could feel the weight of it. The kettle on the stove suddenly started to shriek, startling him like a sudden slap in the face. Mike sat at the kitchen table wondering what would become of them. Grandma was supposed to go and claim his da’s body later. It was just him and Gramps and Grandma now, and pretty soon Gramps would be gone too, no matter what his grandmother said. She turned back to him with a cup of tea, steaming and fragrant. He took it with careful hands, feeling the warmth through the porcelain.

  “I’m sorry, Grandma,” Mike said in a small voice.

  Patricia Bucklin stood looking down at him for a moment. Suddenly she saw the blood-crusted handkerchief on Mike’s ear. “What happened to you? What did you do to yourself?”

  Mike hesitated for an instant. “I ran into the door out back, Grandma. It’s all right.”

  Patricia Bucklin shook her head slowly, clucking something about clumsiness. A deep wracking cough came from the corner, behind the curtain. It seemed to startle them both and turned her around.

  “Do you want some tea, Pa?” she said. The coughing wasn’t done, though; it went on in deep, whooping gusts. “I’ll take that as a yes.” She poured a cup, and sliced the last of a small loaf of bread on the table. One slice she silently gave to Mike, one to Gramps. She sat at the table across from Mike. He watched as she peeled an orange for herself. His da used to bring him oranges. A fine spray of juice sprang from the fruit as she tore at its skin, shimmering briefly in the morning light. It was their last orange. He knew. He had stolen it. Mike drank his tea slowly, making it last as long as he could. He did the same with the bread. He had learned to savor every morsel in the last year or so. He looked up at the tintype on the dresser, the one of his father during the war. It was hard to imagine he wouldn’t see him again. He realized that yesterday was the last time he’d wait for his da to come walking home from work. There would be no more oranges, pulled like magic from his da’s pockets, no more roughhouse before bedtime. The eyes in the tintype looked sadder now. Maybe it was the light.

  At least his da had given him the box. He fingered the small brass key in his pocket. It was a special box, just for his most treasured things. His da had given him two photographs to put in it. Why his father had told him to hide it, he wasn’t sure. He just figured his da wanted it to be special just for him and nobody else. It was special. Later, when Grandma went out to the funeral parlor, he’d take it out. He’d look at the pictures his da had given him, and he’d remember.

  The early morning sun peered over the parapet of the Astor Library. Tom’s window faced east, and at this time of year the sun was his alarm clock. It crested the top of the library at about seven, from this angle, and lanced through his unshaded window with a persistent glare that rarely failed to wake him. Only
Lee seemed to pay the sun no mind. If anything the cat welcomed the heat, her fur hot as a flatiron.

  Plenty to do today too. He needed to see Coffin and bring him his payoff. He had a few people in the tenements to check out, names Patricia Bucklin had given as Terrence’s friends. He wanted to get down to the bridge too and see what could be learned from some of the men Bucklin had worked with. “Somethin’ not right with the bridge,” old man Bucklin had said. What the hell that could be Tom wouldn’t guess just yet. More than likely Bucklin owed someone money. Tom had seen men killed for less, and he didn’t expect anything much beyond the usual motives. It bothered him that Terrence’s money was still in his pocket, but you never could tell about such things. Bashing someone’s head in can make a man skittish.

  He figured he’d start at the tenements. The list was short, and unlike the construction site, he knew who he was looking for and where they were. After that, he’d get down to the bridge. With a bit of luck, that part of his day would be short and productive. It would be nice to solve this one. So many cases weren’t solved in this city. It was that and the Bucklins too. He felt the need to ease their pain, if he could, and maybe feel that he did something for Mikey in the balance. That would be good. Perhaps in a few days he’d go and see how they were getting on. He had a fistful of other cases, though no other murders, so this one went to the top of the list. He’d have to get over to Bellevue Hospital sometime today too. The city morgue was there, down in the basement. Bodies were kept in a cold, thick-walled room, a fine spray of water directed on the corpses to keep them fresh. The city would advertise for any relatives if none turned up immediately. If no one came forward they’d keep the clothes hanging by the body for identification. Around a third of the bodies went unclaimed.

  When he got off tonight, he was planning to see Mary. Tom remembered when he first met her. Perhaps that was the wrong word, he thought. Arrested was actually the word. He and Sam and a half-dozen patrolmen had been assigned to one of the regular busts of houses of ill repute. It had been Mary who opened the door. She had her hair down, and it gave her a wild, sensual look that was emphasized by the thin, low-cut cotton shift she wore. It was plain to every man on her front stoop that morning that Mary was quite naked under that wonderful cotton. The light in the hall behind her framed her in a soft halo.

  “I suppose you must come in, gentlemen,” she had said evenly. “Do you have time for coffee?”

  Tom and Sam sometimes still shared a laugh over how the eight of them had stood staring as Mary turned and walked back into the front hall, her hips doing a mesmerizing dance. “Do wipe your feet, gentlemen, won’t you?” she had said over her shoulder. They drank coffee in her parlor. By the time second cups were poured, they were chatting like old friends. She actually had them laughing at her stories of famous but unnamed clients. Mary was discreet, after all. Tom recalled how he sat in her parlor, sipping her in along with her coffee. Odd, how after they had exchanged glances for the second or third time, she seemed to avoid his gaze, and she pulled a shawl down from the back of the chair and covered her shoulders. He could still remember the sidelong look she gave him as she did it. The men had been disappointed.

  They had to take her in but she and her girls were out in a day. Three evenings later he found himself knocking at her big oak door. A young woman had answered, and led him into the parlor. He would never forget what Mary said a moment later when she padded into the parlor, soft as snow. “You’re late. But then I thought you might be.”

  That was nearly two years ago, before she moved her business uptown to Twenty-sixth Street. From the first she had treated him like a beau, not a customer. Tom had always treated her like a lady. She must have had the same sorts of fears he did, but it didn’t show. It was as if her business was just business. She may as well have owned a hat store. Her business still disturbed him sometimes, though less now than it had at first. Actually, it wasn’t the business … it was her part in it. He knew she still entertained clients with special needs. They were few but, almost without exception, either wealthy or influential. These longtime patrons of her arts paid handsomely for her discreet attentions and had the side benefit of offering connections to the powerful that could be beneficial in her line of work. At times when Mary had been with one of her clients, their need for each other seemed almost frantic. Tom tried hard not to analyze it too much, just accept it. But there were other times when the bad feelings would come. There were her sadnesses too that spoke to him in an unknown language. Being with Mary was the most difficult thing Tom had ever done … and the most wonderful. Things with Mary were getting complicated. Emotions tended to do that. He supposed that was where they were in their relationship: getting complicated.

  “Well, Lee, old girl, time to start the day. You’ve got mice to catch, naps to take, and my furniture to scratch, so you’d better get at it.” Lee didn’t move. When Tom got out of bed, she raised her head and watched him with blinking eyes as he stood in the light of the widow. He looked down at the front portico of the library and wondered about the woman he saw there last night. She dressed well, carried herself with confidence. Not too flashy, but speaking of taste and an understated elegance. She was obviously a woman of breeding, and some wealth as well, judging by her carriage—an attractive combination for an ambitious man such as himself. It surprised him that he would be worthy of notice to a woman like that. She had noticed, though. She had indeed. He gazed absently at the trees lining Lafayette Place as he thought of her smile.

  “Don’t know, Lee,” he said to the snoozing cat. “Can’t spread myself too thin. Does no good to be sniffing after a woman I’ll never have either. Just gets a man distracted. Got Mary to keep me happy. That’s enough for any man,” he went on with a satisfied grin. “Most men would call me a lucky son of a bitch. They’d be right, I reckon.”

  Tom went into the bathroom and poured some water into a basin to wash and shave. He stropped his razor and worked up a lather with his shaving brush on a cake of soap. Rubbing the brush around his face like he was waxing a floor, he had himself lathered in short order. He pulled at an ear to tighten the skin and drew the razor from ear to chin. Mary liked watching him shave. She would sometimes lean loosely against the doorframe to the bathroom and watch with a wistful smile on her face like the Mona Lisa. He had asked her about that once. At first she had gone quiet on him, shutting him out with a long silence. Tom was getting to know those silences. He bided his time. He let her have her thoughts to herself, knowing they’d flower better if left unwatered by him.

  “About the only happy memory I have of my father,” she said at last, “was watching him shave when I was little.” She’d told him she thought it was icing, until she’d decided to taste it. She had grimaced like a little girl and stuck out her tongue.

  “I cut myself with his razor,” she had told him. She had come close behind him and peered into the mirror around his shoulder, to show him the scar. “See this little scar on my chin?” She pointed to the left side of her chin. “I was maybe ten. I didn’t think it could cut me so fast.” Mary had paused, her hand held up to her face. “I remember how red it was, the blood, I mean. Funny how things stick in your head; the red blood … white shaving cream.” Tom rinsed the soap off his own razor and splashed some water on his face. He rubbed himself hard and came up looking into the mirror, remembering.

  “So that’s how I got my little scar,” Mary had said in a small voice. She hadn’t been smiling when she finished. Tom remembered the way she had held onto him from behind, her head on his shoulder. There was a well of sadness in Mary.

  Tom wanted to heal her. That was part of it, part of Mary and him. She could be so smart and sexy, so loving. But the sadness crept through now and again to remind her of what had been. It was his sworn enemy and Tom battled it regularly, though it mocked him sometimes when all else seemed right. Tom lived for the day when he would see her sadness for the last time. For now he’d take it a day at a time and measur
e his victories in smiles.

  Tom locked the front door as he went out. Even on Lafayette Place you couldn’t be too careful. Of course, cops lock doors like accountants watch decimal points. It was just something they did. Tom walked north up Lafayette to the corner, then east by the little park in front of Cooper Union. Old Abe gave his “Right Makes Might” speech there back in ’60. It was the start of him being taken seriously as presidential timber. They say he had gone to McSorley’s afterward, but none could say for certain if he drank a pint of ale or not. How it was possible to go to McSorley’s and not drink a pint or two, Tom had never been able to prove personally.

  He climbed the steps to the Astor Place station on the Third Avenue El. He got on the El when it rumbled in, heading south with the rest of the morning crush. Riding the El could be a little nerve-wracking. The whole structure seemed too insubstantial to be supporting trains or the masses of passengers they carried. In fact, the whole thing shook rather alarmingly when a train went by. The little engines chugged and belched black soot back on the cars behind. On a fine spring day like this, with the windows open, the smoke and soot could make catching a breeze an iffy thing. Tom saw one woman dabbing and wiping at her dress in a foolish attempt at getting the black off. It was far better to fan it off, as everyone knew. The noise made conversation a shouting affair.

  Tom figured he could usually tell which conductor was at the controls from how far the train leaned on the bend at Cooper Square. Today he thought it was the short fat one, with the smudged derby pushed back on his head. When he got off downtown he looked ahead at the engine, but it looked like he had missed his guess when a thin face with a mouthful of chaw popped out of the engineer’s window and spat on the platform. He hoped it was not an omen.

  In a few minutes Tom was walking up the steps to 300 Mulberry Street, Police Headquarters. The building was showing signs of overcrowding. It had been built in ’63 and was showing its age. Tom took the stairs two at a time up to the second-floor headquarters of the Detective Bureau.