Anatomy of Fear

31

Terri’s apartment was a one-bedroom on East Thirty-seventh in the Murray Hill section. She’d fixed it up nicely, walls painted in shades of gray, a big brown leather couch with lots of pillows. She said most of her salary went to pay for the place, but it was worth it because she loved the city.

After five minutes in her apartment I didn’t know what to say. We were both pretty uncomfortable. I could see Terri was having second thoughts, her facial muscles ticking off a whole slew of nervous expressions.

She offered me another drink, and I said yes though I didn’t want one. She got a beer out of her fridge, handed it to me, and said, “You’d better kiss me before I totally chicken out on this.”

I did.

It was going pretty well until I got my pants stuck on my shoe and practically fell off her bed. Terri helped me yank my shoe off and we laughed, which helped ease the tension until we were both naked and stopped laughing. I backed up to look at her and she tried to hide under the blanket, but I held it away and told her she was beautiful. Then we kissed and our bodies took over, and for a first time I thought it went pretty well. Afterward, she curled against me.

“Was that like a huge mistake? You don’t think I’m like some big slut now, do you?”

I laughed.

Terri slapped my chest. “I’m serious. I need some reassurance here, Rodriguez.”

“Well, for starters, how about calling me Nate?”

“Nah, I like the way ‘Rodriguez’ rolls off my tongue. Rod-riiiguezzz, see? Nate doesn’t have any rhythm.”

“How’d you get this?” I touched a scar on her shoulder.

“Bullet. Pretty cool, huh?”

“Oh, sure, Wonder Woman. That’s you, I’m sure.”

“No question,” she said. She outlined the angel tattoo on the inside of my arm. “What about this? When did you get it?”

“When I was too young.”

She rolled over and displayed her ass, which was very nice, her left cheek sporting a small rose. “Night of my high school prom. I was totally stoned. Lucky I didn’t end up with an anchor.”

I ran my fingers over the rose tattoo, and Terri leaned back against me. “I’m glad we did this.”

“Me too,” I said. “Even if you are a big slut.”

She slapped my chest again, harder, and we both laughed.

“Well, it wasn’t so bad, was it?” she asked.

I could see she needed the truth. “Bad? No. I think it falls under the heading of ‘really good’.” I pulled her closer. “But hey, I come from a long line of Latin lovers, so how could it be bad?”

“Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you, Rodriguez?”

“Oh, yeah, that’s me.”

“Well, you did okay,” she said, and curled into my side. “So, Latin lovers…” She stopped and her mood turned serious. “Earlier, when I asked about your father-”

I felt my muscles tense again.

“Talking about it can help, you know. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that?”

“A shrink or two.”

Terri ran her fingers along my arm. “I don’t want to push, but I swear I’m a good listener.”

I shrugged.

“Don’t you trust me?”

“Sure, but…” I took a deep breath, thought about the picture I’d been carrying around of myself for a very long time. It was a cartoon of a guilty little boy looking for his dad.

Terri touched my cheek. “You okay?”

“Sure,” I said, but the movie had already started to play, with all the attendant feelings I could never sort out: sorrow, guilt, grief, anger. The shrinks hadn’t helped, but maybe I hadn’t given them a chance because I didn’t want to admit all the things I’d worked so hard to bury.

“Hey, Rodriguez, talk to me, okay?”

I looked into Terri’s face, compassion in her eyes, a bit of sadness in the furrowed brow and slightly down-turned mouth, and that, coupled with our lovemaking, was enough to loosen me up, so I told her.

I didn’t go into details, but enough so she would understand.

After I finished she questioned my guilt, but I thought she was trying to make me feel better and said so.

“No,” she said. “I’m just being a detective. I like to know all the facts. How can you really know?”

“I know it in here,” I said, and tapped my heart. I swallowed a few times and blinked because my eyes were burning, and turned the subject around. “So, what about you?”

“What about me?”

“What happened with you and the feds, before this case, I mean?”

“Oh, that.” She sighed, and hesitated. “I ignored a tip line they’d set up. The NYPD was logging calls for them, which was my job. I’d logged in like a thousand, but how was I supposed to know which call out of that thousand was on the level? I didn’t assign anyone to check it out, so it became my fuck-up. And maybe it was, but we didn’t have the manpower.” She sighed again, and I wrapped my arm around her. “I got six months suspension along with six months of mandatory therapy. Like neglecting a tip line means I should be on a couch with Dr. Freud?”

“So how was he?”

“Who?”

“Freud.”

“Better than you.” Terri laughed and hit me.

“Do you always hit?”

“Only when necessary,” she said. “According to the NYPD shrink, everything I’ve been doing in my life, from becoming a cop to ignoring the tip line, is all due to my selfish son-of-a-bitch father. Apparently I was trying to get his attention.” She gave me a look. “Guess we both have father issues.”

Then she told me what it was like growing up on Staten Island, the daughter of Old World Italian Americans who thought she should marry and live next door with her Italian husband, three and a half kids, aluminum sided house, and aboveground pool.

“I figured since I didn’t like aluminum siding I’d skip the whole thing.” She laid her head on my chest. “I can feel your heart beating, Rodriguez. Good to know you have one.”

“It’s a loaner,” I said.

“So you consider yourself Catholic or Jewish?”

“Both. Neither. My mother’s parents were Polish Jews who decided the Lower East Side was a lot better than Eastern Europe’s pogroms. My father’s parents exchanged Puerto Rico’s Mayaguez for Manhattan’s El Barrio. I tried Judaism on for about a minute, went to temple a couple of times, put the yarmulke on and all, but it wasn’t for me. Same thing with the church, all those smells and bells. I guess my religion is New York.”

“You like being back in action?”

I stroked her leg. “You mean in the sack?”

“No, asshole. I meant as a cop.”

“I knew exactly what you meant, and yeah, I like it. I like it a lot.”

“And you’re good, a natural.”

“Thanks.” I was flattered. “But I like being a sketch artist too.”

“And a great one, no argument there.”

I shrugged with false modesty. “So tell me about you and Denton.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I’m interested?”

“I don’t remember asking you about your past with other women.”

“There weren’t any. You were my first.” I smiled, but she had already rolled away from me and wrapped the blanket around her.

“So what do you want to know-how many times we did it, or what sort of lover he was?”

“Forget it. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was a sore spot.”

“You think I fucked Denton to get ahead, is that it?”

“I never said that.”

“But you’re thinking it.”

“I’m thinking that you’re overreacting.”

“I am not overreacting. And by the way, one fuck does not entitle you to my entire sexual history.”

“I didn’t ask about your sexual history. I asked about Denton. And I said I was sorry.”

“This was a mistake,” she said. “You should go.”

“Oh, come on. Get over it.”

“Why?” Terri’s features screwed up with anger. “Because you say I should?”

“Just forget it.”

“Forget what-that you’re telling me how to feel or interrogating me about my sex life?”

“Forget it all.” I stood up and tugged on my pants. “Forget I ever came here.”

“Were you ever here?”

“I thought I was, but I guess not.” I reached for my shirt and continued to get dressed, the whole time waiting for Terri to stop me, but she didn’t.

Why the hell did I do that?

Terri Russo flopped onto her bed and tried to answer the question.

Do what? Invite him home, or throw him out?

She couldn’t come up with an answer, but it didn’t matter because clearly it had been one more mistake in a long line of mistakes, always with men. But damn it, she’d thought Rodriguez was different.

She traipsed into the bathroom, wound her hair into a ponytail, washed her face, and stared into the mirror thinking when it came to men she just never got it right. Maybe what that cop psychiatrist had said was true, maybe her father had screwed her up for life-and love.

“What a jerk,” she said to her reflection. She didn’t need anyone to point out that she had just broken one of the cardinal rules-Do not sleep with someone you work with-for the second time.

And now what? For starters, how was she going to deal with Rodriguez on the job? Like it never happened? Too late for that. And damn it, she liked the guy. She slammed her towel into the hamper so hard the wicker basket toppled and fell.

Had she slept with Denton to get ahead?

No. She’d been telling the truth when she said she didn’t know Denton was on his way up. Or did she?

And what about Rodriguez, the sketch-artist cop with a special talent? Was she using him too?

Terri got back into bed and dropped her head onto the pillow though she knew it was going to be a rough night. Rodriguez had stirred up too many questions that she couldn’t answer.

I walked home to burn off my anger. I had asked about Denton because I was curious to know why she’d slept with him. Yeah, it was the wrong thing to ask, but I still thought she’d overreacted. It made me realize I didn’t know anything about Terri Russo, except now I knew what she looked like naked and how she smelled, and I liked both of those things.

But the fight had set off a little paranoia and I started to wonder if she really liked me or had an ulterior motive for taking me home. But what? Clearly I wasn’t powerful, like Denton. I couldn’t help her career. Or could I?

I didn’t know what to think except now I wished I hadn’t told her about my father. There had been a moment, obviously a weak one, when I wanted to tell her, a way to get some of the grief and guilt off my soul and share it with someone I was starting to like. Now it felt like a mistake, all the feelings about my father I had worked hard to suppress bubbling to the surface.

Shit.

Plus, it was going to be really weird to see her at the precinct. Didn’t everyone know that sleeping with a colleague was a huge mistake? Obviously, not me.

I headed crosstown, stores and offices closed up for the night; streets that overflowed with people during the day, now desolate. An icy drizzle had started and my old leather jacket, already worn and edging on shabby, was going to get soaked and go over the edge, but nothing I could do about that. I turned the collar up and as I did, the man in the long coat and ski mask slid into my mind. I rounded Thirty-ninth Street with the feeling that someone was behind me, but when I turned to look, there was no one there.

I shivered and blamed it on the cold. I’d never been scared in the city. It had been my home for too long. I told myself I was being ridiculous, that it was the result of working a triple homicide, having my father on my mind, and my emotions stirred up by Terri Russo. I passed a few delis that serviced the fabric-and-button industry, all closed, and quickened my pace.

There were people on Eighth Avenue-late-night commuters on their way to Port Authority, winos and junkies going nowhere, a few businessmen skulking out of porn shops-and I was happy to see them all, even the Hispanic transvestites stumbling out of Club Escuelita on my corner. Three of them huddled together under the street lamp, passing a joint, adjusting their minis and tank tops.

“Hey there, guapo,” said one, and the rest joined in, whistling and hooting, offering sex and a good time-though black stubble pricking its way through smudged pancake makeup was never my idea of a good time.

I told them I was tired and they called me a mentiroso but left it at that, and I was relieved. Despite the makeup and heels, the Escuelita crowd were not sissy boys. Most of them sported prison-made tattoos and packed shivs. The week I’d moved into the neighborhood, there had been a stabbing in front of the club, and someone had created a makeshift altar-plastic flowers, pictures of saints, candles, writing on the wall, “In Memory of Angel”-to mark the spot, along with bloodstains that permeated the porous concrete and survived for a week before heavy rains washed them away. Now it felt like an omen, a prediction of murder. I shook it off and told myself to get a grip.

After Escuelita there was nothing-a couple of empty parking lots and deserted office buildings, including mine. For the first time since I’d moved in I wished I were not the only resident in my building.

I had just made it to the entrance when I had the feeling of being watched for the second time. I cast a look over my shoulder and could have sworn I saw something, a figure or a shadow, but wasn’t sure if I was confusing reality for all the images I’d stored in my brain over the years.

Inside, one of the two entry lights had burned out, the back half of the lobby in shadow. I unlocked the elevator and rode up to my floor.

I was too hyped to sleep, got a beer out of the fridge and considered giving Terri a call, but was in no mood to apologize. I sat down at my drawing table, flipped on my high-intensity lamp, opened my drawing pad, and started over. This time with no coat or ski mask. Just a face. But where was this new information coming from? I had no way to judge it. Was this the man we were hunting, or was I inventing him?

I’d have to show it to Terri and the witnesses, but there still wasn’t enough of a face to identify. Even if there was, none of the witnesses had seen the guy close up, some not at all.

The lamp above my table hurt my eyes, but I waited a few minutes to see if anything else came to me. When it didn’t I turned off the light and sat in the darkness thinking about Terri Russo, my father, and the face I’d just drawn that was shimmering as strongly in my mind as it had on paper.

From across the street he watches the light die in the window. An afterimage of yellow orbs dance in front of his eyes, then fade to black as he makes his way toward the Times Square subway station thinking about the images he has collected and recorded in his brain and what he is going to do with them.