J Bertrand - Back on Murder

“Tony, you still there?”

“I’m thinking,” he says. “The thing is, I need to talk to this guy.”

“I can hold on to him.” I glance at Rios, who’s hanging on every word. An involuntary shiver runs through him.

“Really? I could be down there in, like, fifteen maybe thirty.”

“Just meet us downtown,” I say. “I’ll have him transported and you can spring him when – ”

“No, no, no. Don’t worry about it.”

“You sure? It’s no trouble.”

He rubs the stubble on his chin for me, so I can hear the friction. “Do me a favor, okay? Cut him loose and tell him to call me as soon as he’s out. Put a scare in him, too. If my phone doesn’t ring, I’m gonna look him up. You tell him that.”

I palm the phone and repeat the message to Rios, whose relief quickly dissipates.

“Matter of fact,” Salazar says into my hand, “go ahead and put him on the line.”

I put the phone against the kid’s ear. After a minute or so, the tinny rumble of Salazar’s voice comes to a halt, and Rios lets out a subservient grunt. Remembering the fight he showed out in the corridor, though, I imagine this attitude won’t last once the zip ties come off his wrists. If Salazar gets his call back, I’ll be surprised.

Not my problem. I take the phone back, get through some final chitchat, then end the call.

“Turn around,” I tell Rios, then I fish a lockback knife out of my pocket and slice the restraints off. “Next time, just so you know, don’t flash the card in front of anybody. Pulling it out like that in front of Coleman, you basically blew your cover.”

I slip Salazar’s card back, then hand him the wallet.

As soon as we emerge into the corridor, Coleman proves the wisdom of my advice. He gets a funny look, seeing I’ve freed his buddy’s hands, then his eyes follow the kid’s progress, crazier with each step. When Rios passes him, he springs for the kid. It takes six men to hold him back.

“Frank!” he shouts. “Frank! Why they lettin’ you go, man? Why? ’Cause you workin’ for ’em, that it?”

Rios keeps walking, shows a little swagger.

“I’m tellin’! You hear me? I’m tellin’, man! Everybody gonna know. You dead! You hear me? Frank! You dead!”

Sonia pops through the side door, a finger over her lips. “You wanna keep it quiet down there? We’re trying to arrest some folks in here.”

“You heard the lady,” I tell Coleman. “Anyway, you’ve got your own problems to worry about.”

The big man deflates as my reminder takes effect. He hangs between the officers, letting his weight drag him down. Finally they release him to the floor, where he curls up, ducking his head between his knees. From the jerk of his shoulders I think he’s starting to cry.

That’s the last thing I want to see. I head back to the door, where Sonia’s waiting, and pause before going inside.

“It’s just getting good in here,” she whispers.

With a glance back at Coleman, I pull at my golf shirt, stripping it over my head while straightening the white tee underneath.

“You know what? I’m done.”

I hand Sonia the shirt.

She hisses my name a few times, but like Rios I just keep walking.

With a swagger in my step. It’s nice to have some for a change.

This is not my beautiful house. And this is not my beautiful wife. But with apologies to David Byrne, it is. And she is. But things aren’t always what they seem.

The house is in the Heights, a creaky old thing from the late Victorian, lovingly restored over the course of the past fifteen years. I’ve forgotten more about dentil molding than I ever wanted to know, and can disassemble and oil a mortise lock blindfolded.

The wife, Charlotte, is in the wholly anachronistic kitchen, perched on a Carrera marble countertop, staring hard at her foggy reflection in the stainless refrigerator door. Like she’s expecting it to wave.

“What’s wrong now?” I ask.

Five minutes through the door and already I’m putting things badly. Adding that “now” like a barbed hook at the end of the question. Implying there’s always something. But this time of year there is. Every September we become strangers again, Charlotte taking refuge in her prescriptions and me in the company of unfamiliar faces, blank canvasses of skin, out after dark, testing myself in a city that sweats all night. This distance is predictable. We anticipate its ebb and flow. But somehow knowing it will come never quite prepares us.

So I’m short with her, but the fact that she doesn’t rise to the challenge – no flush on the ivory cheeks, no fire in her coal black gaze – means there really is something wrong. I go up to her, putting my hand on her denim-clad thigh.

“Charlotte? What’s wrong, baby?”

She wipes her dry eyes with the back of her hand. Her way of letting me know that, while she isn’t crying, she’s considered the possibility.

“You have to talk to him.” Her voice comes out in the quiet, measured flow characteristic of her ultimatums. A reasonable tone, but brittle as a sheet of ice over a running river. “If you don’t do it, then I will.” The surface cracks. “But it ought to be you, Roland, because you’re the man here.”

Charlotte walked down the aisle with an unspoken list of male responsibilities – pumping gas, putting out the garbage, going to the door when someone knocks – which has only expanded over time. The one thing not on the list, because she does it so much better than I do, is bringing home the bacon. She’s so valuable to her law firm, she works the hours she wants, from wherever she wants, redlining contracts phrased in language so obscure that reading over her shoulder gives me headaches.

I flick a lock of chestnut hair behind her ear, letting my finger brush her cheekbone. She recoils ever so slightly.

“It’s Tommy you’re talking about?”

“Who else? This whole thing has gotten way out of hand.”

My big plan for the evening looks hopeless all the sudden. Sharing my good news, dragging her to Bedford, the new restaurant she’s been talking about, where I’ve already managed to secure last-minute reservations. Bringing her home, leading her upstairs and lighting a candle or two. After that, who knows? Ending up in bed these days requires ever-longer campaigns, and this one isn’t off to the best of starts.

“Let’s not talk about him,” I say. “There’s something I want to tell you.”

She raises her eyebrows, incredulous. “You haven’t even heard what happened today. I can’t believe you’re shutting me down like this, Roland. You’ve got to do something.”

I sigh, then slink over to one of the matching barstools, hoisting myself into a listening posture. But Charlotte doesn’t want a grudging audience. My gesture gets nothing out of her but a roll of the eyes.

“So what happened today?”

No response. She gives her rarely used mixer a pointed glance, anything not to make eye contact.

“I’m listening, baby. Tell me what happened.”

Taking a deep breath, she launches in. “So I’m sipping my coffee out on the deck this morning, going over my mental checklist, all the things I had to get done today. And as I’m sitting there I notice a beer bottle on the ground. I start looking, and there’s bottles all over – under the bushes, sitting next to the grill, tucked inside the planters. And cigarette butts, too. Everywhere.”

“Tommy had a party, in other words.”

“It must have been some kind of blowout, too.”

“So you went up and talked to him?”

An imperceptible headshake. “That’s your job. He won’t listen to me. We already know that. But I will not be cleaning up after him.”