Hope to Die

NINE

He gets in the car and starts driving, with no destination in mind. He just feels like a drive, that's all.

And the car's so clean it's a pleasure to be in it. He's a neat person, he keeps his car neat, inside and out, and frequently runs it through a car wash. But he just recently had it detailed for the first time, and when he got into it he'd have sworn it was fresh from the dealer's showroom. It even smelled like a new car, and he's since learned how they managed that. There's this product, comes in a spray can, called New Car Smell.

They think of everything.

He's not paying attention to the route, because if you don't know where you're going, what does it matter how you get there? On Canal Street he sees the signs for the Manhattan Bridge, and he crosses into Brooklyn and drives south on Flatbush Avenue, and now he knows where he's headed.

If you just wait, he thinks, you find out where you're going.

And you get what you get.

And isn't it traditional, returning to the scene of the crime? And he's done it before. Twice, since that evening, he's found himself walking across that block of West Seventy-fourth Street. He's slowed as he passed the house, but hasn't wanted to linger, hasn't cared to invite a second glance. Still, people will stare at the house for perfectly innocent reasons, won't they? With all the news, all the media coverage, the house has become a notorious site. It hasn't reached the point of tour buses cruising by, the drivers rattling off the gory details over their loudspeaker systems, and it wouldn't come to that, not in this city where there was always a fresh outrage to erase the memory of the last one.

Still, why tempt fate? On his second walk past the house, he'd been tempted to browse the ground-floor antique shop, maybe buy something for a souvenir. And what could be more innocent than to patronize a retail establishment? But no, he let it go.

He keeps one hand on the wheel, reaches to his throat with the other. Puts a finger inside his shirt collar, touches the thin gold chain around his neck.

The best souvenirs, he thinks, are ones you don't have to buy.

He turns right off Flatbush onto Cortelyou Road, turns left again on Coney Island Avenue. He drives to the house where it happened, and coasts right on by when he notices a police cruiser parked illegally two doors away. There's no one in it, and there could be any number of reasons to park a police car beside a hydrant on that particular block. There are a good many homes and apartment houses within walking distance, and a cop might have cause to visit any of them. There didn't even have to be a crime involved, or a complaint. He could just be visiting a girlfriend, or a favorite uncle.

He circles the block, parks legally a few doors down the street where he can watch the house. He's got his eye on it when the door opens and two men come out, the younger one looking Brooklyn-debonair in a boisterous Hawaiian shirt and dark trousers, the other older and more conservative in his dress. The two men shake hands, and then the younger man- and yes, he looks like a cop on vacation, a cop on his day off- gets into the police car and pulls away from the curb. The older man watches him go and heads back into the house.

The landlord, making sure he can rent out the apartment again without destroying evidence? Some city employee, some political functionary?

Or maybe the next tenant, concerned about building security. Except he looks wrong for the neighborhood.

The landlord, he decides. But it doesn't concern him, not really. He doesn't live here, and there's really no reason why he ever has to return to this neighborhood.

It's not like Seventy-fourth Street, where he has ongoing interests to consider.