Where It Hurts (22 page)

(SATURDAY MORNING)

T
he old Mercedes didn’t exactly cut through the snow like it was on rails, but I was just happy for the lift back to my car. After Pete threw the drink in my face and left me at Malo, I’d called five different car services and local taxis to pick me up, but they all told me the same thing: Go fuck yourself and have a nice day. Those weren’t the words they used, not even close, but they meant the same thing. Three of the places had their cars off the road because of the snow and the other two were so busy that they couldn’t promise a car would get to me for three hours minimum.

When I came out of the bathroom after washing the single malt out of my hair, Mags came over to me and offered me a lift if I could wait an hour until she got off. Not that I had much choice, but I would have waited if it was sunny and seventy outside. I wanted to talk to her. Anyone who had been burned by Pete the way she had interested me. Anyone who had the sand to talk to him the way she did interested me. And I was a man who had eyes in his head. While I waited for her to dress in more functional clothing and to clean up after her shift, I helped the big man at the door break up a fight among the Three Stooges and
throw them out into the snow. It felt good not to be on the receiving end for once.

“Thanks, bruddah,” the big guy said, his hand swallowing mine. “I’m Malo.”

“This is your place?”

He shook his head at me. He kind of reminded me of those statues on Easter Island. His head was almost large enough to be one.

“Silent partners, huh?”

He smiled. It was good to see he could smile, though his eyes didn’t quite warm up. “You could say that.”

Like Rusty’s Salvage, Malo’s was owned by people who didn’t want the world to know they owned it. That used to mean the Mob. Not anymore. It might’ve been owned by the Bloods or the Crips, by K-Shivs or some celebrity who thought it would be cool to be the king. In any case, Malo wasn’t going to discuss it with me.

“You’re a long way from home, Malo.”

“Long, long way.” He left it at that, then added, “You know Pete?”

“We were on the job together. Used to be close.”

“Kinda like being close to a snake, no?”

“Not kind of. He come in here a lot?”

Malo nodded that head of his, but I could see he wanted to wrap up our chat. “You come back anytime,” he said before walking away to talk to the dancer, who had mercifully stopped going through the motions.

Fifteen minutes later I was outside warming up Mags’ car, cleaning the snow off the Mercedes coupe. It was the least I could do. Like its owner, the car was still a fine piece of work, but fraying at the edges, showing little dings and dents and battle scars.

“It was my ex’s parting gift to me,” she said of the car as we pulled out of the lot. “A kind of a pat on the head for being a good girl and going away quietly. And I was such a chump that I was happy about it. I should’ve sold it. Taken the money and run. You have any idea how much these things cost to get serviced?” She didn’t wait for an answer.
“And the parts . . . Christ! But I didn’t know. Stan used to take care of all of that. Some parting gift.”

I let her talk. As pretty as she was, I found bitterness, justified or not, really unattractive. I found it particularly unattractive in me, though it was what I had subsisted on for months at a time. She caught on.

“Sorry. Can we start over?”

“Sure.”

She took her right hand off the steering wheel but kept her eyes on the road. She offered me her hand. “I’m Magdalena. Everyone calls me Mags.”

“Gus Murphy.” I took her hand. “Would it be okay if I called you Magdalena?”

“I would love that. Gus, is that really your name?

“John Augustus Murphy.” I laughed. “Don’t ask and please, don’t call me John or Augustus.”

“Deal,” she said, taking back her hand and putting it on the wheel.

It got silent in the car.

“You smell great,” I said just to say something and because it was true.

“Not for much longer. Stan, my ex, he had my perfume blended up specially for me in Grasse, France. Some of the ingredients are horrible things, but it does smell like spring. That’s what it smells like to me, like new sweet flowers and honey, like grass and sage when you rub the leaves together in your hands. But there isn’t much left. And when that’s gone, that’s that. I can’t afford anything that doesn’t come off the shelf.” Then she caught the bitterness leaking into her voice. “Did Pete tell you about us?”

“He did, but you don’t have to tell me about you and Pete, Magdalena. There’s nothing you could say about the kind of man he is that I don’t already know.”

The car fell quiet again so that the only sound was the
thwap-thwap-thwap
ing of the wiper blades, but this time she broke the silence.

“Why so sad, Gus?”

I didn’t know what to say, so I said, “What?”

“You’re sad.”

“And you’re smart.”

“Not smart. Far from smart. But when you do what I do, when you’ve been with the men I’ve been with . . .” She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t have to.

“Maybe we can talk about it some other time,” I said, then pointed to the Third Precinct. “This is where I get off.”

She turned the Mercedes into the lot. As we sat in her car, waiting for my car to warm up, she said, “Is there going to be some other time?”

“Sure.”

But she had heard that answer many times before and didn’t exactly brighten at hearing it from my lips.

“We don’t know each other, Magdalena, but I keep my promises. Don’t judge me because I used to be close to Pete.”

“Okay.”

“Can I ask you about Pete, but not about you and Pete?”

She shrugged. “Why not? But I thought you didn’t want to talk about Pete.”

“Not about him. About . . . you know what? Forget it. I’m glad I met you and I don’t want to spoil it. Pete’s spoiled enough things in my life.”

Her face lit up and I was caught completely off guard when she leaned into me and kissed me hard on the mouth, opening my lips with hers and sliding her tongue on top of mine. At the same time, her left hand was on my thigh. I can’t say that I didn’t kiss her back or that I yanked her hand off me. But when the kiss hit a natural valley, I moved my head back and slipped my fingers into her hand.

“Didn’t you like that?”

“Very much.”

“But . . .”

“But I think there’s something the both of us need and maybe even want more than being together.”

She pulled back, looking confused, but not hurt. “What’s that?”

“A friend.”

She seemed to relax and let her head fall against my shoulder. “I could sure use one of those, but does that mean never?”

I said, “It means let’s see what comes.”

“The future’s never been very kind to me, Gus.”

“Or the past to me. That leaves us with now, I guess. And I could really use a friend in my life. Besides, look at me. I’m a mess.”

“A handsome mess, but you look like you could use some fixing up.” She touched the bandage on my head. “Does it hurt?”

I felt a big smile on my face. “Not just now, no. I could really use a shower and some sleep.”

“Nice shower and bed in my condo.”

“Magdalena!”

“Can’t blame a girl for trying.”

We exchanged cell phone numbers. She waited around until most of the snow had melted off the glass. Then I watched her pull onto Fifth Avenue and disappear behind a swirling curtain of white flakes.

(SATURDAY MORNING)

F
elix’s eyes got big at the sight of me as I trudged through the doors of the Paragon. The lobby was busier than I’d ever seen it. In spite of the line at the registration desk being twenty deep, Felix waved me over to talk to him.

“What has happened to you, Gus?” he asked, typing a guest’s info into his computer. The guest, a skeleton with a suntan and a Delray Beach golf hat on his gray head, was impatiently clacking his tongue against ill-fitting dentures.

“Long story. What’s the line about?”

“Canceled flights. We are nearly fully booked.”

“Kurt Bonacker will be happy.”

“Yes, I believe he is in his office popping the Champagne corks.”

“Felix, you made a joke.”

He smiled in spite of himself.

“Is this going to take much longer?” Mr. Delray Beach whined.

The smile disappeared from Felix’s face. “Just one more moment, sir.”

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll let you get back to your work.”

“Wait, Gus. One more thing. It is the reason why I called you over.”

“What is it?”

“Slava is waiting for you in your room. He needed a place to sleep. I was not sure if that would be okay with you, but you did not answer your cell phone and we did not have a spare room for—”

“No problem, Felix. It’s fine. Thanks.”

Slava, looking as disheveled as I felt, as I must have looked, was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding my son’s framed photo in his hand. It was the shot of John Jr. at thirteen, spinning a basketball on the tip of his index finger, a proud smile a mile wide across his face. It was my favorite picture of him. Even though he had grown into a really handsome young man and an accomplished ballplayer, it was John at this age that I held on to. John with braces on his teeth and a bit of acne on his slightly pudgy face. This was my son on the verge of all of his firsts, on the verge of growing into his manhood. A thing he never got to finish. I wondered if any of us ever finished.

Slava held the photo up to me. “Is your boy?”

I nodded. “John Jr.”

Slava put the frame back on the nightstand. “He is dead, no?”

Those words took the breath out of me because in two years I don’t think anyone else ever had the courage to say them to me. They had said words that meant the same thing—gone, passed away, perished, left us, no longer with us, a thousand different euphemisms—but I can’t recall someone just saying the word “dead.” I didn’t know whether to cry or to kiss that ugly Polack for his bluntness. I did neither.

“Two years.” I pointed at my chest. “He had a heart defect that never showed up in tests. One day he was playing basketball . . .”

“He is where it hurts in you.”

“He is where it hurts.”

“It never will leave you, this hurt,” Slava said, touching a big beefy hand to his own chest. “Never it is leaving, but it is good to be remembering.”

Slava was full of surprises, a gorilla with the instincts of a cop and the soul of a poet.

“I remember.”

He changed subjects. “What is happening to you after the police are taking you away?”

“Nothing,” I said. “They threw me in a cell overnight and then had an old friend of mine read me the riot act.”

A puzzled look spread across his face. “What is riot act?”

“He warned me to drop it or worse was going to happen to me than what happened last night.”

The confusion vanished. “Are you dropping it?”

“Fuck no.”

Slava clapped his hands together and pulled two airline bottles of vodka out of his jacket pocket.

We drank them down.

“And what happened to you?” I asked.

“Also nothing. They tell cop I am having panic attack, not heart attack. Then I go away.”

“You might’ve saved my life there, Slava. I owe you for that.”

“What is expression in English? Someday maybe you are returning the favor for me.”

“Okay.”

He stood and offered me his hand. When he took mine in his, there was nothing casual about it. It was nothing like shaking hands the way I had earlier with Malo or Magdalena. This was a blood oath. And when Slava stared into my eyes, I knew this was a pact not to be treated lightly.

“What we are doing now, Gus?”

“Nothing today. With this weather, I think we’re okay for a while. Go home and clean up. Get some rest. It’s what I’m planning to do.”

He didn’t argue with me. “I am going.”

“Are you on tomorrow night, Slava?”

He nodded.

“Can you come in early if you have to?”

He smiled that gap-toothed smile of his.

“Okay, we’ll talk.”

When he left, I clicked the privacy lock behind him. The shower was singing a siren’s song to me, but there was a call I had to make first. A call I should have made days ago.

(SATURDAY, LATE AFTERNOON)

C
asey didn’t answer her phone the first few times I tried her. Frustrated, I finally gave into the siren’s song of a long hot shower and sleep.

I dreamed of my son, but not how I had dreamed of him so many times in the past. There was no guilt involved, no anger. Not on my part, anyway. John wasn’t angry, I don’t think. Mostly, he seemed frustrated at me in the way a teacher might be angry with a favorite student who just wasn’t getting the obvious lesson. We were in Brady Park, where I’d been with Al Roussis only a few days before. John was standing beneath the backboard support on the main basketball court, pointing to where Al and I had stood in the far corner of the park. At first John’s pointing was just that, pointing. Then, as I failed to understand what he was pointing at or why, his gesturing became more animated, more insistent. The gestures spoke for John,
Come on, Dad. Come on. The answer is there. Right there!

I know I asked him what I was missing, but when he opened his mouth to answer, his words were drowned out by the deafening honking of geese. Suddenly, in the sky above us, a thousand geese, ten thousand, a million. So many they blotted out the sun. Then one dropped
out of the sky. Then another and another until it was raining dead geese. After the rain stopped and they were gone, the sun shone again. The corpses of the geese that only seconds before had littered every inch of the park were gone, too, but for one. It lay beneath a pile of leaves, neck snapped. When I looked up, John was walking away toward the far corner of the park. I called after him. Ran after him. Couldn’t catch up. Then a buzzing sound filled up the empty spaces in my dream. I was no longer dreaming. I was awake, grabbing my cell phone off the nightstand.

It was Casey. I asked her to hold on for just a second as I tried to orient myself. I saw that it was still snowing, but without the ferocity of the morning. I drew the shades and sat back down on the bed. I clicked on the TV and muted the sound.

When I got back on the phone, Casey said, “I see you worked your way down the list of things to do and finally got around to me.”

“I guess I deserved that.”

“Look, Gus, one of the reasons I’m divorced is I got tired of being a second thought,” she said, a mixture of anger and hurt in her voice. “No one lives to be someone else’s next best option.”

“I’m sorry. I know I should have called sooner, but I got caught up in some stuff that . . . it’s hard to explain.”

“Try.”

“I’m not sure I can and I’m not sure you want to hear.”

She wasn’t buying it. “Don’t treat me like that, like you know better for me. I’m a big girl. I’m all grown up. I tie my own shoes and cut my own meat and everything. I’ll let you know if I want to hear.”

I didn’t answer immediately because I was drifting, thinking about how we scar each other. About how Annie and I had scarred each other. About Magdalena’s obvious scars. No one comes out the other end of any collision unscathed or, at the minimum, unchanged.

“I spent last night in a jail cell.”

There was silence on the other end of the line. I’d shocked her. I suppose that’s what I meant to do.

“Why? I mean, what did you do?” she asked, her voice thinner, unsure.

“I got pulled over on the Sagtikos and the cops planted five packets of heroin on me.”

“Oh, my God!”

“See what I mean, Casey? It’s complicated.”

“Can’t you go to the . . .”

“To the police? Is that what you were going to say? Can’t go to the police when they’re the ones trying to screw with you. There’s something I’m doing that they don’t like and they’re willing to go a long way to stop me. Until last night, I wasn’t sure how far.”

“Gus, I . . . I don’t know how I’m supposed to react.”

“There is no how, no playbook about this stuff. I like you. Tuesday night was great. Being with you was amazing, but I may not be who you thought I was. And that’s okay. I didn’t come into this with expectations. You did. That nice, quiet guy with the empty heart you saw at the club on the weekends, he’s a guy you created in my image. Now you’re dealing with who I am. And if I’m a disappointment, I’m sorry because I like you and because you can really cook.”

She laughed, but not hard enough.

“Casey, let me make this easy for the both of us, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Let me finish this thing I have to do and then, if you feel like you want to try this again, we can. Besides, you’re better off keeping your distance from me until this thing blows over. Then, if you feel like you’re not up for it, we’ll always have that one night.”

There was a palpable sense of relief from her end of the phone. That was answer enough, but she said, “I’m sorry, Gus.”

“Don’t be.”

She blurted out, “It’s Jocasta.”

“What is?”

“My name.”

“It’s different.”

“No one wants to be that different when they’re growing up,” she said.

“Your secret’s safe with me, Casey.”

And that was that. I didn’t fool myself that there would be a future for us, but I wasn’t sad about it. I’d learned an unexpected lesson. Not only wasn’t I who Casey thought I was. I wasn’t who I thought I was.