Another Part of the City

5

Put Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village together, Reardon thought, and they’d be a fair-sized town in some parts of the country. That was the amazing thing about this city. You tried to explain to somebody from Brindleshit, Wyoming, that you could tit his whole damn town into any given New York neighborhood, and he sucked wind through his teeth and looked at you like you were crazy. The two housing developments on the East River ran north and south for a total of seven blocks, almost a third of a mile, and then another three blocks — longer blocks because they were running east to west — between First Avenue and the river. Red brick buildings — well, they looked more brown than they did red — bordered on the north by Bellevue, where Kathy had done her nurse’s training, and on the south by another conglomeration of buildings that formed yet another town-sized development; the Jacob Riis Houses, the Lillian Wald Houses, the Baruch Houses. Choice waterfront real estate for the lower middle class. When he was living in Stuyvesant Town, it wasn’t too bad a commute to the station house. Walk up Fourteenth Street to the IRT subway stop on Third Avenue, take the downtown local to Canal — only four stations away, Astor Place, Bleecker, Spring, and then Canal — walk up the block to Elizabeth Street, and there you were. Your home away from home.

This apartment, the sound of tugs on the river. Greenpoint on the other side, a glimpse of the Queensboro Bridge farther uptown — the cops in this city remembered the names of the bridges by putting them in alphabetical order, starting with the Brooklyn Bridge, farthest south, and then the Manhattan, and then the Williamsburg, but the system went to pot when you got to the Queensboro on Fifty-ninth Street — this apartment used to be his home. It no longer was. Kathy lived here now. And his daughter. When she wasn’t with her goddamn grandparents in Jersey.

“I shouldn’t have let you in,” she said.

It was seven-thirty in the morning. A bleak gray Thursday, the eighteenth day of December, a week before Christmas. She was dressed for work, except for her shoes. She was sitting in what used to be his favorite easy chair, lacing up her flat white shoes.

“My lawyers told me...”

“That’s just what I want to talk about,” Reardon said, “your lawyers. Martin tells me they’ve got a signed court order...”

“I don’t know about a court order,” Kathy said. “I’m leaving this entirely to them. Bry. And I wish you would too.” She gave the lace a tug on the word “you.” She had a habit of emphasizing language with gestures, adding force to vocabulary.

“No. I’m not leaving it to any lawyers,” Reardon said. “Not where my daughter’s concerned.” He hesitated and then said. “Have you put a private eye on me, Kath?”

“Of course not.” she said, and rose, and went into the kitchen. A pot of coffee was brewing on the stove. She poured herself a cup. and did not offer him one.

“Then how’d they find out about my testimony yesterday?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Sipping at the coffee. Probably went against her grain not to be able to extend a hospitality that was second nature to her. But making a point. This is my home now. You do not belong here. The coffee is mine. The cups are mine. You are not wanted here.

“They’re claiming I roughed up a punk who raped...”

“I don’t want to hear it,” she said.

“They’re claiming I’m a violent man who’s harassing...”

“You are harassing me!” she said. “You come in here at seven in the morning...”

“Seven-thirty...”

“Yelling and screaming... I’m not even awake yet!”

“The hospital told me...”

“You shouldn’t have called the hospital.”

“I had to talk to you.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“There’s the fucking court order to talk about!”

“I told you I don’t know anything about a court order.” She put down the coffee cup, went to where her cape was draped over a chair, her nurse’s cap lying on the seat. She picked up the cap, pinned it to her hair. “I have to go,” she said. “I’ll be late.”

“The court order says I can’t see you or Elizabeth anymore,” Reardon said. “Why’d you do that, Kath? Do you really hate me that much?”

“I don’t hate you,” she said.

“Then why’d you do it?”

“I didn’t do anything, damn it. I’ve been leaving it to the lawyers. If they asked for a court order...”

“They did. And they got it.”

“I’ll tell them to tear it up, okay? Or whatever the hell you do with something like that.”

“No, it’s not that simple.”

“What do you want from me, Bry? I’ll call my parents, okay? I’ll tell them you can see Elizabeth no matter what the order says.”

“Fine,” he said, and paused. “Did you know about that order?”

“I told you I didn’t.”

“You told me a lot of things, Kath.”

“Bry, I’ve got to leave.” Putting on her cape, not looking at him, she said, “Please don’t come here again.”

“I used to live here,” he said.

“You don’t anymore.”

Reardon sighed. “Okay, call them,” he said.

“When I get to the hospital,” she said, and looked at her watch. “I’m already late.”

“Tell them I’ll be there this afternoon. As soon as I’m out of court.”

“I’ll tell them.”

“I miss her, Kath,” he said gently, and paused again. “I miss you, too.” Ignoring this, she went to the door, opened it. and waited for him to go out of the apartment before she locked the door behind her.

In the hallway, she said, “I hope I can catch a taxi.”

It was cold even in Phoenix. The forecasters said an Arctic front was sweeping down over most of the country. The sun was shining here, but it was cold. For Phoenix, anyway. Thirty-four degrees. The rambling house had not been built for such weather. The mean maximum wintertime temperature was supposed to be sixty-five degrees. Thirty-four was incredible. The house was centrally heated, but somehow psychology worked against reality when the temperature dropped so low. It wasn’t supposed to be this cold here. When it got this cold, there seemed no way to keep the house warm, empirical knowledge to the contrary. Expectations, Olivia thought. Tell someone you’re serving him pineapple juice, hand him a glass of fine white wine instead, and he’ll spit it out because he was expecting pineapple juice. The black eggs. Somewhere, she forgot where, chickens laid eggs with black yolks. The locals ate those eggs, but nobody else would. They expected yellow yolks. The black-yolked eggs tasted exactly the same, but sorry. Expectations.

The house she’d grown up in could have been designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, would have been designed by him — money was no object — if he hadn’t been busy with a hundred other projects when her father approached him. Low and rambling, with massive stone walls and large areas of glass, it sprawled over the Arizona landscape as if it were a part of it, there when the land was being formed. Arid land for the most part, though through the large pane of glass in the study Olivia could see a dozen or more horses grazing in a meadow that glistened like an emerald in sand. Beyond that, the open mouth of the abandoned copper mine, inoperative now, but a reminder. The study was distinctly Western in flavor, the furnishings and carpeting echoing the earth tones of the landscape, the several pieces of Sarge’s pre-Columbian sculpture — the major part of his collection was stored in New York — emphasizing the brownish-red tones.

Andrew Kidd sat behind a desk in that study.

He was in a wheelchair.

He was wearing a blue robe. A blanket was over his lap. His face was pale, his blue eyes rheumy, the skin on his hands virtually translucent, strewn with liver spots. Sunlight touched his bald head as he looked over the papers on his desk. Seventy-eight years old. Olivia could remember when they used to ride the fields together, his blond hair blowing in the wind, his hands strong on the reins.

“You’re not drinking your tea,” she said.

“I don’t like drinking through a straw,” he said.

“It’ll take the chill off. Daddy.”

“You get old, it always seems too cold. Why do you suppose that is?”

“It is cold,” she said.

“Not as cold as it seems. I hate being old, Livvie.”

“You’re not old.”

“Too damn old,” he said. “Where the hell did the time go?” He glanced through the window, where in the distance the ugly copper mine dominated the horizon. “I came out here in 1922 without a cent,” he said, “started working for the railroad. Won this patch of godforsaken land in a poker game, thought it was worthless, would’ve preferred a hundred dollars in cash instead.” He nodded, remembering. “Who’d have dreamt there was copper on it?” He nodded again. “I’ll never plow that first mine under as long as I live.” He turned to her. “I hope you’ll leave it there after I’m dead, Livvie.”

“You’re the only one in the world who calls me Livvie,” she said.

“You’re the only one who calls me Daddy. Something old-fashioned about ‘Daddy.’ And nice. Sarge calls me ‘Father,’ Jessica calls me ‘Pop.’ Everybody else calls me the Captain, started calling me that when I bought out Lambert Shipping forty years ago. The Captain. Sarge resents it. Thinks I named him Sargent to keep him in his place, the captain and the sergeant. He’s wrong. I named him after the painter. John Singer Sargent, best portrait artist who ever lived. Little did I know my only son would turn out to be a collector. Was he upset?”

“A little.”

“Well, he shouldn’t be. I wasn’t about to divest the firm of anything, not for a small-potatoes deal like this one. What’d he realize on the sale, anyway?”

“A bit over thirty-six million.”

“And the margins worldwide? What’ll they be costing us?”

“Just about that.”

“Well, he can buy his pictures back after Christmas. Hundreds more if he feels like.”

“I’m sure he knows that.”

“How’d Jessie take what you told her?”

“Badly.”

“She isn’t worth a hill of beans, that girl, as much a nitwit as her mother was, dancing her life away, whoring it away. Only worthwhile thing about her is her signature. Didn’t much like your calling off her trip, huh?”

“Not much, Daddy.”

“Hell with her. Shoulda whipped her little ass ages ago, taught her how to sit on a raw bottom. Taught Sarge, though. That time in the bathroom with her.” He shook his head. “His own sister naked as a sparrow, and him sittin’ on the crapper watching her, all eyes. Blistered his bottom till he couldn’t walk straight. The shame of it.”

He scowled, remembering. And then his face softened.

“You’re all I’ve got, Livvie. I love you to death.”

“And I love you,” she said softly.

“Ah. I hope so,” Andrew said, “I hope so.”

He looked through the window again, toward the copper mine in the distance.

“Do you think I’m greedy?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, and smiled.

“There’s my girl,” he said, returning the smile. “Never lies to me, does she? I’m greedy, you’re damn right. You and I both know what’ll happen to the Kidd oil interests after Christmas Day. So why am I bothering with this other crap? Why make Sarge unhappy? For a lousy three, four billion worldwide? If indeed we net that much in the long run? Peanuts compared to what we’ll realize on the oil alone. But I can’t be bothered with Sarge’s... do you know the story about the Texas oil man and the Chicano?”

“No,” she said.

“This Texas oil zillionaire...”

“Like you.”

“Yes, except I’m in Arizona. This Texas oil zillionaire is sitting at the back of a little chapel, praying, when this little Chicano comes in, goes to the altar, looks up at Christ on the cross there, and begins praying out loud. ‘Lord,’ he says... I wish I could do a Spanish accent, Livvie, but I can’t... ‘Lord,’ he says, ‘I really need your help. My wife just gave birth to our fifth baby, and she’s very sick, and my son is in jail, and my daughter is a prostitute, and if you could find a way for me to get five hundred dollars, I would be very grateful. Five hundred dollars is all I need, Lord, that’s all I’m asking for, can you please help me?’ Well, the big Texan goes up to the altar, and he hands the little Chicano five hundred bucks, and he says to him, ‘Here, don’t bother Him with that shit.’ ”

Andrew burst out laughing.

“So what Sarge must be wondering is why I’m bothering with this shit. Well, if he should ask you, Livvie...”

“I don’t think he’ll ask me.”

“I’m saying if he should. You just tell him it’s greed. Good, old-fashioned greed. I want it all Livvie, whatever I can lay my hands on. Before I die, I want to...”

“I don’t want to hear you talk about dying,” she said.

“We’ve all got to go sooner or later.”

“Not you.”

“No?” he said, smiling. “What’ll you do? Have me stuffed and put me in the living room?”

“Don’t joke about it!” she said angrily.

“There’s what I mean, Livvie. The Kidd iron, the Kidd temper. We’re alike, you and I, peas in a pod. God help anyone who ever tries to stand in your way.”

She came to him, put her arm around his shoulders.

“Shall I pour you some hot tea?” she asked gently.

“No, I think I’d like to rest now,” he said.

She adjusted the blanket on his lap.

“I love you, Daddy,” she said.

“Yes, yes,” he said, patting her hand. “My darling girl. My dear darling girl.”

The jury in the Jurgens case came in at eleven o’clock that morning.

Reardon, sitting at the prosecutor’s table with Koenig, watched the faces of the twelve men and women as they filed into the jury box, trying to read what was on them. Judge Abrahams turned to them as soon as they were seated.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” he said, “have you agreed upon a verdict in this case?”

“We have,” the foreman said.

“Please return the papers to the Court,” the clerk said.

“Madam Foreman,” Judge Abrahams said, “what is the jury’s verdict?”

“We find the defendant not guilty,” the foreman said.

Harold Jurgens broke into a wide grin.

Reardon turned to Koenig at once. “Poll them,” he said.

“What for?” Koenig said.

“I want them to realize what they’ve done. I want them to feel individually responsible.”

Koenig sighed and rose.

“Your Honor,” he said, “may I respectfully request that the jury be polled?”

Abrahams nodded to the court clerk.

“Juror number one,” the clerk said. “Alice Louise Phillips. How do you find the defendant?”

“Not guilty,” the foreman said.

“Juror number two, Arthur Horwitz, how do you find the defendant?”

“Not guilty.”

“Juror number three, James Kreuger, how do you find the defendant?”

“Not guilty.”

“Juror number four, Miriam Hayes, how do you find the defendant?”

“Not guilty.”

“Juror number five, Martha Sanderson...”

She rose. Brown hair cut shoulder length. Simple brown dress with a brooch at the neckline.

“How do you find the defendant?”

Her eyes turned toward the prosecutor’s table. Her eyes found Reardon. She pulled back her shoulders, lifted her head defiantly, brown eyes boring into him.

“Not guilty,” she said, and nodded for emphasis.

Her eyes held his.

“Juror number six,” the court clerk said, “Alan Lehman...”

He was waiting for her in the corridor outside. This one he wanted to talk to personally. That fucking look she‘d given him, this one he wanted to inform and educate. As she came out of the courtroom, he fell into step beside her. For an instant, she didn’t know she was being paced, and then she turned to him with a startled little gasp and stopped dead in the marbled corridor.

“Are you proud of yourself, miss?” he said.

“What?” she said. The brown eyes opening wide, one hand coming up to the brooch at her neckline, protectively. Here she was, face to face with the maniac who’d beaten up a poor defenseless innocent man.

“It’s okay, you can talk to me now,” Reardon said, “it’s all over and done with.”

“Listen, mister...” she said.

“No, you listen,” he said. “You’ve let an animal loose on the streets again, do you realize that?”

“I don’t have to account to you, Detective Reardon, for the unanimous verdict of...”

“Took us six months to catch him, do you know that? He raped four women in that time. We finally got...”

“Listen, why don’t you...?”

“... a positive ID. plus his fingerprints all over the lady’s handbag...”

“Then why’d you have to beat a confession out of him?”

“You really believe that, don’t you?”

“I believe it. yes,” she said.

“You’re wrong.”

“I don’t like what you stand for, Detective Reardon,” she said. “If one citizen’s rights are violated, then every citizen’s...”

“Nobody’s fucking rights were violated,” he said heatedly. “The man’s a habitual offender, a rapist who...”

“Tell it to the judge,” she said in dismissal. “And watch your fucking language.”

She moved away from him swiftly, high heels clattering on the marble corridor, little ass swinging indignantly in the simple brown dress.

Under his breath, he muttered, “I hope you’re his next victim.”

An hour and a half to get here, speeding all the way, hoping his detective’s shield would serve him well if a zealous New Jersey highway patrolman stopped him, and too late to take her to lunch, anyway. “She’s already had lunch,” Kathy’s mother informed him, and then made it clear that he was not welcome to sit around the house chatting with his own daughter, this despite the fact that the temperature outside had dropped to eighteen degrees and the wind was howling.

Where do you take a six-year-old kid who’s already had lunch? He’d be working the four-to-midnight this afternoon, he had to leave Jersey no later than two-thirty, and it was already one o’clock. Could you sit in a Baskin-Robbins for an hour and a half, eating ice cream cones while outside it looked like Siberia? He settled on a roller-skating rink not far from her grandparents’ house.

Organ music filled the vast auditorium. He had not been on skates since he was eleven or twelve, but it came back to him almost at once. Elizabeth was an ace. The image of her mother, straight blonde hair and intensely blue eyes, button nose, and freckles all over her Irish phizz, wearing now a plaid skirt and a blue sweater, little Peter Pan collar showing above its crew neck. They moved well together, danced like a famous Spanish ballroom team on wheels. She was telling him about Grandma and Grandpa. Organ music swelled behind them, a tune from the forties.

“They’re okay, you know,” Elizabeth said, “it’s just that they’re so old. Dad.”

“Well, they’re not that old, honey.”

“No? I’ll bet Grandpa’s at least forty.”

“At least,” Reardon said, smiling.

“They don’t like to do anything, you know what I mean? We just sit around on our asses all day.”

“Watch the language, honey.”

“What’d I say?”

“Skip it.”

“So why do I have to be here?” Elizabeth asked. “I’m missing school and everything, Dad. I mean, did Mommy have to go back to work?”

“It’s what she wanted, Liz.”

“Are you out of money or something?”

“No, we’ve got enough money.”

“ ’Cause I thought we were rich and everything. I mean, detectives make lots of money, don’t they?”

“Millions,” he said.

“Well, not millions maybe. But hundreds and thousands of thousands.”

“From the graft alone,” Reardon said.

“Sure,” Elizabeth said. “So why’d she have to go back to work?”

“Honey...” he said, “let’s get a hot chocolate, okay?”

They skated to the railing, and then through the opening onto a carpeted floor. At the concession stand, he ordered a hot chocolate for Elizabeth, and asked her if she wanted anything else. She said she was still stuffed from lunch. He was ravenously hungry, that damn court appearance this morning, that little twerp Samalson or whatever her name was. He ordered a cup of coffee, two hot dogs, and a side of French fries. They sat at a table with benches, near the concession. The organ player was attempting rock now, a bad mistake. The place was virtually empty at this hour; Reardon guessed it wouldn’t fill up until school broke.

“How’s the hot chocolate?” he asked.

“Yummy,” she said.

They were silent for a moment. The organ player was slaughtering a Stones’ tune. A lone skater on the floor twirled like a break dancer.

“Honey,” Reardon said, “there’s something I’ve got to tell you. I want you to be a big girl now, and try to understand.”

“I am a big girl,” she said. Chocolate rimming her mouth. God, how he loved her!

“I know that.”

“Bigger even than Suzie, and she’s seven.”

“Yes, sweetie. So please try to understand what I’m going to tell you.”

“Sure, Dad.” Her face suddenly solemn, blue eyes wide.

“Liz... your mother and I are separated.” He looked into her eyes. “Do you know what that means?”

“No, what does it mean?” she said. That innocent face. Christ!

“It means... it means we’re not living together anymore. All those stories she told you about me having to go down to Miami on an extradition case... they weren’t true, Liz.”

“Then where were you, if not in Miami?” Her eyes puzzled.

“In a hotel. In the city. In New York. I’ve been living in a hotel, Liz.”

“Where?”

“On Twenty-sixth and Broadway.”

“Can I come there sometime?” she asked.

“I don’t think you’d like it much, Liz.”

“When will you be going to Miami?”

“I’m not,” he said. “That was a lie, Liz. I’m not going to Miami at all.”

She stared at him.

“Liz... your mother and I are getting a divorce.”

“Oh,” she said.

The single word. Nothing more. Everything in that single word. And in her wide blue eyes.

“Do you know what divorce means?”

“Yes,” she said. “Suzie’s divorced.”

“Her parents,” he said.

“Whoever,” she said. She was thoughtful for a moment. Then she asked, “Is that why I’m in New Jersey?”

“Until the lawyers work it out, yes.”

“Work what out?”

“Well, the alimony payments, and child support, and... there’s a lot to be worked out, Liz.”

She nodded.

The organ player started “Tennessee Waltz.”

“Who will I live with, Dad?” she asked. “After the divorce, I mean.”

“Mom, I guess.”

“I want to live with both of you,” she said.

“Well... honey. I’d like that, too, but...”

“I love you both,” she said, “and I want to live with both of you.” Another nod. A child’s simple logic. You love two people, you live with both of them. Period.

“Honey.” he said, “that won’t be possible.”

“Why not?”

“When two people break up...”

“Well, why do you and Mom have to break up?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t know, darling.”

She looked into his face. She must have seen something on it — his pain and confusion perhaps, although he was trying very hard to hide it — because suddenly she threw herself into his arms. He held her tight, squeezing his eyes shut, clinging to her desperately.