Derailed

TWENTY-THREE

Under the West Side Highway.

One week into the new year.

I was sitting next to Winston in a rented metallic blue Sable with leather seats. Winston had his eyes closed.

I could see a lone tugboat chugging its way up a Hudson River so black, it was as if it weren’t there. Just an empty black space where the river ought to be. It was cold and sleeting; thin slivers of glass were exploding onto my face through the open window.

I was shivering.

I was trying not to think about something. I was trying to stay calm.

There was a hooker standing on the corner across the street. She’d been standing there ever since I entered the car.

I was looking at her and wondering where her customers were.

A fair question, since it was only a little past ten, and she was wearing a sheer red negligee and shiny black boots. She’d been dropped off by a Jeep with New Jersey license plates and was waiting for some other car with New Jersey license plates to come along. But it had been ten minutes and she was still stuck out there in the sleet. Doing nothing much but looking across the street at the blue Sable, which didn’t seem to be moving, either.

She looked as if she were freezing. She had a small fake fur wrap around her shoulders, but other than that nothing, lots of pasty white flesh out there where her customers could see it and put a price tag on it.

But where were her customers?

The insurance salesman from Teaneck, the broker from Piscataway, the truck driver on his way to the Lincoln Tunnel?

I was under the West Side Highway because that’s where Vasquez had told me to meet him.

Do you have the money? he'd asked me.

Yes, I did.

You’ll meet me ten o’clock at Thirty-seventh and the river.

Yes, I would.

You’ll tell nobody — understand?

Yes, I did. (Well, maybe just one other person.)

You’ll show up alone.

Yes, I would. (Well, maybe not exactly alone.)

How long had the hooker been standing there without a customer? I thought again. How long, exactly?

Then she began to walk over to me.

In the middle of the street now, closer to me than away from me, so I knew that she wouldn’t be turning back. Her boot heels echoing as she made a beeline for the blue Sable that had been sitting there all this time without moving an inch.

“Want a date?” she asked me when she reached my window. I could see actual goose bumps on her breasts and legs, because her breasts were only half-hidden by the red negligee and her legs were naked save for those calf-length boots.

No, I didn’t want a date. I wanted her to leave.

“No.”

“Uh-huh,” she said. Her face was young but old, so it was practically impossible to tell her age. Anywhere from twenty to thirty-five. “You got a cigarette?”

“No.”

But there was a pack of cigarettes sitting on the seat between Winston and me — Winston’s cigarettes. She could clearly see them there, one or two cigarettes even peeking out of the torn wrapper.

“So what are those? ” she asked me.

“Wait a minute,” I said. I reached for the pack, but when I picked it up I got a piece of Winston’s brain matter on my hand — the pack was smeared with it. I pulled one cigarette out anyway and handed it to her through the window.

“Thanks,” she said, but she didn’t sound as though she meant it.

Then she asked me for a light.

“I don’t have one.”

“What about him?” She meant Winston, who still had his eyes closed.

“No,” I said.

“Maybehe wants a date?”

“I don’t think so.”

“What’s wrong with him? He drunk?”

“Yes, he’s drunk. Look, I gave you a cigarette, so . . .”

“What good’s a cigarette without a light? What am I supposed to do — eat it?”

“We don’t have a light, okay?”

I saw the reflection first — a flickering puddle of red in the middle of the street and then the sound of tires crunching glass.

A police cruiser.

“Get out of here,” I told her.

“What?”

“Look, I just want to be left — ”

“Go fuck yourself,” she said. “You don’t go telling me to get outta nowhere. Understand?”

“Yes, okay . . . I just don’t want a date, okay?” trying to be nice now, trying to be polite about this so that maybe she’d go away. Because Winston still had his eyes closed, and the police cruiser was almost up to our car. And the hooker — she wasn’t leaving, now that I’d made her good and mad at me.

“I’ll stay where I damn please,” she said.

And the cruiser rolled right up to the car; and the side window rolled down.

I expected the policeman to yell at me. Tell me to get out of the car, maybe — me and Winston. I expected the policeman to get out of the cruiser and shine a flashlight into the front seat, where he’d notice that Winston had his eyes closed and, if he looked closer, something else. That half of Winston’s head was gone.

“Hey,” the policeman said.

“Hey yourself,” the hooker answered. Like old friends.

“How you doin’, Candy?”

“How d’ya think,” she said.

“Great night to work, huh?”

“You got that right.” Just making conversation, one pal to another.

I was sitting there listening to them. But I wasn’t actually hearing them.

I was remembering.

When I’d arrived at the pier, I saw Winston sitting in the rented blue Sable, just as he was supposed to be. I watched him sitting there for ten minutes, then fifteen, before I noticed that a window was open. That Winston wasn’t moving a muscle—hadn’t moved his head in all that time. Hadn’t lit a cigarette, hadn’t coughed, or yawned, or scratched his nose. Stock still, still as a still-life: Man in Blue Car. Something was wrong. That open window, for instance — the sleet blowing straight in. Why was that?

I crossed the street finally to take a quick look, quick because I was expecting Vasquez any minute, and I was supposed to have come alone. Winston’s eyes were closed as if he were sleeping. Except he didn’t appear to be actually breathing. And the window wasn't open; it was broken.

I got into the car and tapped Winston on the shoulder, and Winston ignored me. And then I leaned across the front seat to get a better look at Winston’s hat, which was when I realized that it wasn’t a hat. It was pulp. Half of Winston’s head was gone. I threw up — my vomit mixing in with the various pieces of Winston’s head. And I was about to run out of the car screaming when I saw the hooker being dropped off by that Jeep. So I stayed put.

Did you see anyone get in or out of the car? they'd ask her.

And she’d say no.

Unless she decided to walk across the street and ask for a cigarette.

The Sable was starting to smell. Even with the broken window letting in steady gusts of frigid air.

“You’re keeping safe, right, Candy?” the policeman was saying.

“You know me,” she said.

No one had bothered to say anything to me yet.

I was tempted to turn the ignition and take off. There were two problems with that, of course. One was that Winston was sitting behind the wheel. And the other was that the policemen, who so far were still ignoring me, would more or less have to notice me if I suddenly gunned the engine and took off.

But now, finally, one of them did look inside the car.

“You,” he said.

“Yes?”

“You conducting a transaction with Candy here?”

“No. I just gave her a cigarette.”

“Something wrong with her?”

“What? No . . . she’s fine.”

“That’s right, Candy’s a honey.”

“I just was . . . having a smoke.”

“Are you married?”

“Yes.”

“Your old lady know you go around looking for hookers?”

“I told you. I was just — ”

“What about your buddy here? He married, too?”

“No. No . . . he’s single.” He's dead.

“Both of you out looking for hookers and you aren’t doing any business with Candy? Why’s that?”

“Officer, I’m sorry if you misunder — ”

“What are you apologizing to me for? Tell her you’re sorry. Freezing her ass out here and you two guys don’t give her the time of day. What’s with your friend over there?”

“He’s . . .”Dead, Officer.

“Maybe you should show Candy some appreciation.”

“Sure.”

“Well?”

“Oh . . .” I fumbled for my wallet. My hand was shaking so hard, it was difficult to actually get it into my back pocket. I finally managed to grab an indeterminate bunch of bills and held them out to her.

“Thanks,” Candy said listlessly, taking them and stuffing them into the top of her negligee.

“What about him?” the policeman asked. “What’s your name?” he asked Winston.

Winston didn’t answer him.

“Isaid, What’s your name?”

Winston still didn’t answer him.

I was picturing myself in the back of the police car, being driven downtown — wasn’t that the expression? I was picturing myself being booked and fingerprinted and given one call. I didn’t even know a lawyer, I thought. I was picturing facing Deanna and Anna through a scratched plastic partition and wondering where on earth to begin.

“Okay. Last time,” the policeman said. “What’s your name? ”

And then.

A sudden crackle, and a staticky voice broke through the excruciating silence like a clap of thunder on an oppressively humid afternoon.

“. . . we have a . . . uh . . . ten-four . . . corner of Forty-eighth and Fifth . . .”

And suddenly the policeman was no longer asking Winston what his name was. He was saying something to Candy instead—“Catch you later,” it sounded like. And the police car left—just like that, vroooom, gone. Mere seconds from discovering a man with half a head and another man sitting calmly next to him in a front seat covered with vomit and brain matter, and it was suddenly, inexplicably, over.

And finally, at last, I could let it out.

I could cry for Winston.