Pete Hamill - Brooklyn Noir

A light switched on, hidden by the curtain but near the head of the bed. McQueen stood and waited.

“Ms. Taylor? Hello?”

The voice was sleepy, possibly sedated. It was a gentle and clear voice, yet it held a tension, an edginess. McQueen imagined he had awoken her and now the memories were flooding through her, the reality of it: yes, it had actually happened, no, it hadn’t been a dream. He had seen it a thousand times: the burglarized, the beaten, the raped, robbed, shot, stabbed, pissed on whole lot of them. He had seen it.

“Detective? Did you say ‘detective’? Hello? I can’t see you.”

He stepped further into the room, slowly venturing past the curtain. Slow and steady, don’t move fast and remember to speak softly. Get her to relax, don’t freak her out.

Her beauty struck him immediately. She was sitting, propped on two pillows, the sheet raised and folded over her breasts. Her arms lay beside her on the bed, palms down, straight out. She appeared to be clinging to the bed, steadying herself against some unseen, not possible force. Her skin was almost translucent, a soft glow emanating from it. Her wide set eyes were like liquid sapphire, and they met and held his own. Her lips were full and rounded and sat perfectly under her straight, narrow nose, her face framed with shoulder-length black hair. She wore no makeup, and an ugly purple-yellow bruise marked her left temple and part of her cheekbone. Yet she was the most beautiful woman McQueen had ever seen.

After almost three years working the richest, most sophisticated square mile in the world, here, now, in this godforsaken corner of Brooklyn, he sees this woman. For a moment, he forgot why he had come.

“Yes? Can I help you?” she asked as he stood in her sight.

He blinked himself back and cleared his throat. He glanced down to the blank page of the notepad in his hand, just to steal an instant more before he had to speak.

“Yes, yes, Ms. Taylor. I’m Detective McQueen, six-two detective squad. I need to see you for a few minutes. If you don’t mind.”

She frowned, and he saw pain in her eyes. For an instant he thought his heart would break. He shook his head slightly What the hell? What the hell was this?

“I’ve already spoken to two or three police officers. I’ve already told them what happened.” Her eyes closed. “I’m very tired. My head hurts.” She opened her eyes and they were welled with tears. McQueen used all his willpower not to move to her, to cradle her head, to tell her it was okay, it was all over, he was here now.

“Yeah, yeah, I know that,” he said instead. “But my partner and I caught the case. We’ll be handling it. I need some information. Just a few minutes. The sooner we get started, the better chance we have of catching this guy.”

She seemed to think it over as she held his gaze. When she tried to blink the tears away, they spilled down onto her cheeks. She made no effort to brush them away. “All right,” was all she said.

McQueen felt his body relax, and he realized he had been holding himself so tightly that his back and shoulders ached. “May I sit down?” he asked softly.

“Yes, of course.”

He slid the too-large-for-the-room chair to the far side of the bed and sat with his back to the windows. He heard rain rattle against the panes and the sound chilled him and made him shiver. He found himself hoping she hadn’t noticed.

“I already know pretty much what happened. There’s no need to go over it all, really. I just have a few questions. Most of them are formalities, please don’t read anything into it. I just need to know certain things. For the reports. And to help us find this guy. Okay?”

She squeezed her eyes closed again and more tears escaped. She nodded yes to him and reopened her eyes. He couldn’t look away from them.

“This happened about 11, 11:10?”

“Yes, about.”

“You had gotten off the train at the 62nd Street subway station?”

“Yes.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

“What train is that?”

“The N.”

“Where were you going?”

“Home.”

“Where were you coming from?”

“My art class in Manhattan.”

McQueen looked up from his notes. Art class? Rizzo’s inane preamble resounded in his mind. He squinted at her and said, “You’re not originally from Boston, are you?”

For the first time she smiled slightly, and McQueen found it disproportionately endearing. “No, Connecticut. Do you think I sound like a Bostonian?”

He laughed. “No, no, not at all. Just something somebody said to me. Long story, pay no attention.”

She smiled again, and he could see it in her eyes that the facial movement had caused her some pain. “A lot of you Brooklynites think anyone from out of town sounds like they come from Boston.”

McQueen sat back in his chair and raised his eyebrows in mock indignation. “‘Brooklynite?’ You think I sound like a Brooklynite?”

“Sure do.”

“Well, Ms. Taylor, just so you know, I live in the city. Not Brooklyn.” He kept his voice light, singsong.

“Isn’t Brooklyn in the city?”

“Well, yeah, geographically. But the city is Manhattan. I was born on Long Island but I’ve lived in the city for fifteen years.”

“All right, then,” she said, with a pitched nod of her head.

McQueen tapped his pen on his notepad and looked at the ugly bruise on her temple. He dropped his gaze to the splinted, bandaged broken fingers of her right hand.

“How are you doing? I know you took a bad fall and had a real bad scare. But how are you doing?”

She seemed to tremble briefly, and he regretted having asked. But she met his gaze with her answer.

“I’ll be fine. Everything is superficial, except for the fingers, and they’ll heal. I’ll be fine.”

He nodded to show he believed her and that yes, of course, she was right, she would be fine. He wondered, though, if she really would be.

“Can you describe the man to me?”

“It happened very fast. I mean, it seemed to last for hours, but… but…”

McQueen leaned forward and spoke more softly so she would have to focus on the sound of his voice in order to hear, focus on hearing the words and not the memory at hand.

“Was he taller than you?”

“Yes.”

“How tall are you?”

“Five-eight.”

“And him?”

She thought for a moment. “Five-nine or — ten.”

“His hair?”

“Black. Long. Very dirty.” She looked down at the sheet and nervously picked at a loose thread. “It… It…”

McQueen leaned in closer, his knees against the side of the bed. He imagined what it would be like to touch her. “It what?” he asked gently.

“It smelled.” She looked up sharply with the near panic of a frightened deer in her eyes. She whispered, “His hair was so dirty, I could smell it.”

She started to sob. McQueen sat back in his chair.

He needed to find this man. Badly.

“I want to keep this one.”

McQueen started the engine and glanced down at his wristwatch as he spoke to Rizzo. It was 2 in the morning, and his eyes stung with the grit of someone who had been too long awake.

Rizzo shifted in the seat and adjusted his jacket. He settled in and turned to the younger detective.

“You what?” he asked absently.

“I want this one. I want to keep it. We can handle this case, Joe, and I want it.”

Rizzo shook his head and frowned. “Doesn’t work that way, kid. The morning shift catches and pokes around a little, does a rah-rah for the victim, and then turns the case to the day tour. You know that, that’s the way it is. Let’s get us back to the house and do the reports and grab a few Zs. We’ll pick up enough of our own work next day tour we pull. We don’t need to grab something ain’t our problem. Okay?”