City of the Sun

NINETEEN

Paul left a client’s office on Jackson Place, having sold a three-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar whole life policy, and walked toward South Street, where he ’ d parked. A small sea of people, mostly parents and grandparents, with their children and grandchildren, filled the streets. They moved toward the Fieldhouse on Pennsylvania, which was lined with an even larger crowd. Paul smelled the fecund odor of hay and animals and urine even before he reached the edge of the crowd and saw it. The circus was in town. He stood and watched the “Pachyderm Parade,” a line of elephants, trunk to tail, bearing female riders in red, white, and blue sequined leotards, as it moved up the street. Children in the crowd called out in enthusiastic greeting; the elephants trumpeted randomly in return. The sight stilled Paul. He ’ d brought Jamie here several years back. Not to the parade when the circus had just arrived, but to the show itself.

He was paralyzed by memory as the elephants ’ wrinkled brown-gray hulls trundled by. The circus had been a dubious proposition for him and Jamie. When Paul was a kid, he ’ d never liked them. There was something disturbing about the volume and commotion. He ’ d loved animals, but there was a frustrated, pathetic quality to the ones in the show. The drugged, impotent cats were sadder than anything else. Only the horses, white with flowing manes, which ran around the ring with riders standing on their backs, were really worth seeing. But he hadn ’ t wanted to project his prejudices on his son. Perhaps his boy would appreciate what millions of other kids did about the circus. So they had come, just the two of them, to the matinee show. Jamie, about five years old at the time, had held Paul ’ s hand and whipped his head about at the crowds and the barkers selling cotton candy, green glow-sticks, and souvenirs.

They ’ d found their seats and then it started. There was one mad portion, early on in the spectacle, when scores of clowns burst into the ring and began circulating up through the screaming, glow-stick-waving crowd. Many of the clowns carried tall, fake cakes in outstretched hands. Wild music played and the clowns staggered around, comically losing and regaining the balance of the cakes, much to the delight of the youngsters. One particular bald, white-faced, red-nosed fellow, in the classic plaid hobo ’ s outfit, came running down their row shaking hands with the kids. As he approached, Paul felt Jamie curling into him. All of the kids reached out for the white-gloved hand the clown offered, only to have their arm pumped up and down until it seemed the children ’ s laughter would never stop. Jamie burrowed in deeper under his arm as the clown drew nearer, hiding his face completely in Paul ’ s chest when it was his turn. The clown danced around for a second, trying to entice Jamie into a handshake. Jamie was intractable, though, and eventually the clown ran off.

As soon as he ’ d gone, Jamie peeked back out and looked around.

“It ’ s okay, son, I ’ m not a big fan of clowns, either,” he ’ d said, admiring his son ’ s stubbornness.

“No.” Jamie had shaken his head. “I want one with a cake.” None with a cake showed up and the bit ended, and then the tiny poodles came out to jump and flip. Jamie never explained why he wanted to shake one clown ’ s hand and not another ’ s. Paul hadn ’ t asked. He had been content, then, to not understand everything about his mysterious and fascinating boy.

Paul stepped back out of his memories just as the last of the elephants, and an Uncle Sam on stilts bringing up the rear, passed by. He looked at the crowd, at the children bundled against the cold March. The sky was slate gray, as if the sun had just quit. He felt the chill of evil lying over it all and knew no amount of coats and mittens would make these children safe. Despite the cold, he found himself soaked in sweat, his chest heaving with emotion. This was his life now, the sun frozen over and dark as day.

Bullshit and bravado were a quarter of the gig when it came to police work. This was according to Behr ’ s experience. Paperwork and eating shit were another quarter. Taking care of yourself, staying sharp and busy, and sitting on your ass the right way made up the rest, save a sliver for luck. Behr had witnessed it to be true many times in his career, and today was no different as far as the first bit went. Nye and Feeley hadn ’ t wanted a piece of him or his problems. They had left, loudly but peacefully, suggesting he come clean or, better yet, drop off the face of the earth for a while. He had a moment ’ s satisfaction at their frustration as they carted his computer away, but the fact was, his case had gone down the dumper.

He sat motionless in his living room for a long time, until the sound of the alarm bleeping from the bedroom stirred him. He willed himself up, shut it off, and got fully dressed. Thoughts of what to do next were slow to come and sluggish upon arrival. Tad Ford had been shot dead at home. After talking to Behr. And he had missed it. He could try to be heartened, that he ’ d applied pressure and someone had made a move. But enthusiasm like that was for beat cops in their twenties or detectives just out of the bag. In order to take the next step in this case, he now faced having to unravel a murder. No. Not in this world. Ford could ’ ve been popped for a dozen reasons. He and his crimes might have been miles away from Jamie Gabriel ’ s disappearance in the first place.

Behr got his keys and went out to his car. He had never been particularly good at starting over. The problem lay in letting go of the labor and results he ’ d already put forth. They were gone now. They no longer existed, that time and effort. If the decision was not to abandon the case, then there was no choice other than to pick up the strands and begin again. It was unfair that work done well could come to nothing and had to be done again. But like time and effort, fair only existed in the past. Behr headed toward Tibbs, where he ’ d gotten on the scent in the first place. He hoped he ’ d find inspiration there. He didn ’ t know where else to go.

Paul sat on the curb a few feet away from his car. He crossed his arms against the wind. He didn ’ t deserve what had happened. No family did. But he was plagued by a secret knowledge. He hadn ’ t wanted a child. He ’ d believed that this world was no place for a baby, for any innocent life. He ’ d had doubts about his own ability to raise a kid. He ’ d had greater doubts as to why he should. His vanity didn ’ t run toward re-creating in his own image, and that ’ s what having children had felt like back then. But Carol had pushed him on it. She had a certitude he ’ d envied. It was time, she ’ d said. He ’ d held her off, month upon month. He ’ d dug in and grabbed a season here, a quarter there, using various reasons. A move. The need for more money to come in. A trip that would be easier to take if she weren ’ t pregnant. He ’ d been waiting for his own sign, an annunciation that he should have a child of his own. Finally, after a good year and a half had passed, he ’ d realized there was no mystical sign coming for him. He had talked about it with his own father. It doesn ’ t work that way for men, his father had said. You only figure out what ’ s important about it later.

“How do you know if you ’ re supposed to do it? And when?” Paul had asked.

His father had just smiled. His cigarette-stained teeth barely showed behind his lips, but his eyes had twinkled in a way Paul had never seen before. He knew the answer then though his father hadn ’ t said the word. Faith.

Even after they had conceived, after Carol had come out of the bathroom giddy with excitement, holding the stick with the line that had turned blue, the idea of it hadn ’ t clicked for Paul. Even after the doctor confirmed the test, and Carol started to grow and get sick in the mornings, Paul hadn ’ t felt sure about what they ’ d done. But three months in they had gone for the first sonogram. The room was small and dark. An exam table covered by a paper strip and carts full of equipment awaited them. A nurse came in and moved the sensor over Carol ’ s gel-covered belly and Paul turned toward the monitor. There, in the pitch darkness that was her womb, was a tiny figure outlined in gray, and the hummingbird pulse that was his heartbeat, like a ray of light that came piercing the blackness. There was life. There was Jamie.

Then the nurse put away her sonogram sensor and placed another instrument against Carol ’ s abdomen. This one emitted a washy liquid background noise that filled the closetlike space of the exam room. Sitting there on the curb all these years later, Paul could still hear it, the sound of his son ’ s heart coming through the Doppler, a rhythmic swishing, an insistent hammering. His doubts had vanished in that moment.

This was where Behr had said it happened, Paul thought of the spot where he sat on Tibbs. He looked up and down the street. Could he go door to door knocking, gauging those who answered? If they looked suspicious, could he push his way in and search those closets, attics, basements, and crawl spaces for his son or any clue that he had been there? Why couldn ’ t he? It seemed possible and yet impossible at once. The front doors lining the block were like a crooked, mocking smile. They would shut him out for all time.

The sound of a car passing was distant in his ears. In rebound effect he heard a door slam and feet land on the pavement. A dark shadow crossed over him.

“You might not want to sit here too long, we got thunder bumpers coming in.”

Paul looked from the large boots that had stopped before him, up the endless legs and broad torso. He tilted his head to see Behr ’ s face. He nodded and looked off over the big man ’ s shoulder at the angry clouds that loomed in the sky. Neither man said anything for quite a while. They merely absorbed the street, the smell of coming rain in the air.

“Why do you do it?” Paul asked, aloud it seemed.

“It ’ s what I know now. One foot in front of the other. Automatic.” Behr thought for a moment. “Originally, because I wanted answers, I guess. I knew they were out there, that I could find them if I worked hard enough.” He fell silent, and Paul considered what he had heard. “Now I see that I can ’ t know, not really. Especially the why. I see that now.” Behr leaned back against Paul ’ s car and looked up at the clouds.

Paul climbed to his feet. It was hard to talk, but he wanted to. “It ’ s my fault, you know. I always believed in a work ethic. That it wouldn ’ t serve him well to have it too easy. It was my idea, his job delivering papers.” Paul had finally said it, what he ’ d believed but had been unable to voice since the first moment Jamie had gone missing.

Paul glanced to Behr and saw pain in his eyes and an understanding of guilt that was perhaps deeper even than his own.

“I can ’ t tell you much about fatherhood — my term only lasted seven years.” Behr spoke, his voice rough-edged as fresh-quarried limestone. “All I know is that you make ’ em and raise ’ em. You love the hell out of ’ em. But they live in the world and every day it takes a piece of ’ em. Until maybe there ’ s nothing left.”

The landscape Behr ’ s words created was too bleak for Paul to endure. “But we ’ re their fathers. We ’ re supposed to protect them.”

Behr knew he was right. He nodded, a longtime resident welcoming a newer arrival to his neighborhood. The two sonless fathers rested a moment in their defeat.

Paul finally broke it. “Are you here looking for more clues?” he wondered with guarded hope.

Behr shrugged. “A lot ’ s changed since yesterday.”

Paul looked to him.

“You want closure,” Behr said, his voice harder now. “But there is no closure, not in something like this” — and he added the rest, perhaps cruelly, but necessarily, he believed — “when a murder is involved.”

Paul had mulled the idea already, so Behr ’ s words didn ’ t stop him. “Is that what happened to your son?” he asked.

“No.” Fat drops of cold rain began to fall. Paul flipped up his suit jacket collar against it. Behr did nothing.

“I meant what I said. I want to be a part of this thing. I will hire someone else if that ’ s what it takes.” Paul ’ s words weren ’ t a threat. In that instant they became a stark reality. And Behr recognized in the same instant that he didn ’ t want off it.

“You ’ re putting me in a position here,” Behr said, rubbing his chin. It was axiomatic not to take employers along on cases, on the endless stakeouts and the dead ends, lest they confuse surveillance with just sitting around. A chilly wind joined the accelerating raindrops that now splattered on the street between them.

“I won ’ t bring any expectations, if that ’ s what you ’ re worried about.”

Behr looked at Paul and nodded as if that was his concern and not what he had seen on the Web sites. Behr knew those images would destroy the man across from him. “Why do you want to put yourself through this?”

“I can ’ t give him my love anymore. The only thing I ’ ve got left is my labor.” Paul sounded like a preacher when he said it, and while Behr hadn ’ t known the man to be religious, he understood the flame of loss and the changes it wrought.

The rain began to teem, but that wasn ’ t what convinced him. “Don ’ t wear aftershave. I can ’ t be in the car all day with the smell.”

“I don ’ t use it.”

“Good. I ’ ll pick you up tomorrow, when you ’ re off work.”

Paul nodded and both men moved to their cars to get out of the rain.