And Sometimes I Wonder About You

47

The first order of business the next morning was a taxi ride to Hush’s house. I called him on the way downtown.

“It’s six a.m.,” he complained.

“What time you usually wake up?”

“Four thirty,” he said, “but this is still early.”

“I’m leaving a case and I got a lotta stops to make. Can you make me some coffee?”

“Sure. Come on by.”

He opened the front door of his Washington Square Park mansion before I pressed the bell. He handed me a ceramic mug of French roast and shook my hand. Then he did an about-face and led me through a doorway on the left side of his entrance hall. We went maybe fifteen feet and came to a dead end that was also a door. This opened upon a staircase that went up one flight, ending at a second door that looked like it belonged on a bank vault. It was made from burnished black metal and had an old-fashioned combination lock. Hush twisted the dial back and forth seven times, pressed the chrome handle down, and pulled. He ushered me in and followed.

It was a small room; nine by nine by nine. The walls were no doubt reinforced and there was no window.

They were laid out neatly, side by side on the floor — three dark plastic bundles that used to breathe and laugh. Hush slammed the vault door, which plunged us into darkness, then he flipped a light switch summoning at least a thousand watts of radiance from the ceiling.

“Two men and one woman,” Hush told me. “All of them young. They were after my houseguests.”

“How the hell did they get in?”

“I left the front door open,” he said casually. “I got every inch of this house wired for sight and sound. The observation room is just off the kitchen.”

I remembered the door. I was in the kitchen with Tamara once and asked her what was in there. She said it was just her husband being overprotective.

“I waited for them to separate and I took ’em out. They all had guns. They could have killed me. They’re packed with limestone powder. I’ll get rid of the bodies tonight after everyone else is asleep.”

The limestone retarded rotting. There was no odor in the room.

“They have homing devices on them,” I said.

“Not in this room they don’t. These walls stop any wave, pulse, or radiation.”

“Like a high-end coffin,” I commented.

“Amen,” my godless friend said.

“Where did you have Liza and Fortune while all this was going on?”

“I got a panic room in the subbasement,” he said.

“Of course you do. What did you tell them?”

“I told them the truth. I said that a couple of people were nosing around and that they might try and break in. I told ’em to go down there until I was sure it was safe. Then, when it was over, I brought ’em out and said that there wasn’t anything to worry about anyhow.”

“Where are they now?”

“Asleep of course.”

“I’m sorry about this, man,” I said.

“You don’t have to be. I knew it was serious when you asked for my help. Thanks for telling me about the homing devices.”

“They insert them under the skin at the back of a thigh.”

“I’ll dig ’em out.”

There were many things that most citizens could say and feel at a moment like that. Those three Jones kids had come to kill my clients and anyone else they encountered but they never had a chance. I could have felt outraged, sick, or maybe guilty. But it was like my father said: in a business like mine, feelings are optional.

Two blocks away from Hush’s house I called the police.

“Twenty-sixth Precinct,” a woman answered on the eighteenth ring. “How can I help you?”

“Captain Carson Kitteridge.”

“What about him?”

“I’d like to speak to him.”

“On what business?”

“My name is Leonid McGill—”

“Oh. Here you go.”

The phone went mute for some seconds and then, “Kitteridge here.”

“Hey, Kit.”

“What’s up, LT?”

“You say that like we’re almost friends, man.”

“I like you,” the perfect cop admitted. “But I’d like you better in a prison cell, that’s all.”

“Can you meet me at Gordo’s boxing gym in an hour or so?”

“This is about that information you promised me?”

“Oh yeah.”

“I’m on my way.”

I picked up my pace walking north on Fifth Avenue. I’d been so concentrated on Hush that I didn’t pay proper attention to the fact that I had lost every woman I loved or lusted after. Katrina, Aura, and Marella were all off the table for me. I didn’t feel crushed or heartbroken. My losses didn’t elicit a harsh feeling, no. For a block or two I wondered what was going on inside and then, somewhere around Seventeenth Street, it struck me: it felt, once again, like I was an orphan on the streets of New York.

I had all kinds of family but I did not, and in some cases never did, belong to them. A man of my age losing love, or some adjacent emotion, was somewhere beyond grief. I imagined that my state of mind was like an innocent bystander being killed by a powerful explosion; one moment you’re standing there and the next you never were.

Gordo had shut down the gym to make preparations for the wedding. It was a crazy scene, all contradictions and outrageous juxtapositions. There were the heavy bags and speed bags wrapped in ribbons of bright colored silk; young boxers helping with organizing the flowers and placing the rented folding chairs all around the central ring.

In the ring itself Sophie, Mardi, her little sister Marlene, Tatyana, Katrina, and Aura were all futzing around. They were tying roses of all colors with ribbons of silk to the ropes, and wrapping the posts with bright-colored cloth.

Dimitri and a couple of other guys were stapling white silk sheets to the ring and arranging them so they flowed down from the raised platform.

I was amazed by the crazy transformation, but that didn’t stop me from having mild trepidation at seeing my sometime girlfriend and sometime wife working side by side. Just the fact that Katrina was there was a surprise. That made me look around the gym a little closer.

My father was there in Gordo’s office having what seemed like a very serious conversation with my mentor. I was about to go over to them when I felt the hand on my shoulder.

“Where you been, LT?” Carson Kitteridge asked.

“Stopped by the Tesla Building to pick this up,” I said, handing him a thick manila envelope filled with data and detail compiled by Bug. “In here you have all the information about everyone who does or ever did belong to the Jones Gang. There’s even information on how he has surveillance devices on every member and how to access the system. With the proper study from your tech guys you could bring down his whole operation in six hours — less. And I’m supposing you’re going to want to do just that because there’s over two hundred crimes planned over the next week.”

I don’t remember ever having seen Kit shocked. He held the hefty packet in one hand and stared.

“Are you kidding me?” he said at last.

“That’s my August of Sundays right there.”

Even though he was stunned, even though this would probably get him another promotion, even though this promised to be the greatest achievement in his career — I still saw a moment of regret for the promise he’d made me. And I have to admit I experienced a little pride that the cop felt that I was almost as dangerous as the phantom Jones.