Кен Бруен - Tower

Put my key in the lock, night falling over my shoulder.

“We’re in love, remember?”

Fuck! I was losing it. The weather was getting to me. My redemption was at end. The hauntings were back. Fumbled with the lock. If Nicky could only see me now.

“I’m gonna freeze my tits off if you don’t open that lock!”

Leeza.

Forced myself to turn in spite of the spell.

Eyes had aged, if nothing else. Brightness dimmed. What had they seen? Mouth still dangerous, magical. Coat, hood, and gloves hid the rest of her. I stood frozen, not from the cold. Single tear leaked out of her left eye. Wiped it away. More intense than any kiss.

Twelve years old again. Her too, this time. No pretense in her smile. She was acting, she was pretty fucking good. Didn’t care. We circled my apartment like two tentative boxers feeling each other out.

How’d you find me?

Guessed.

No, really.

Have my ways.

Get you something to drink?

Yes... No. What do you have?

What do you want?

Lawrence Block, huh? When did you start reading this stuff?

Boston.

How’d that go?

You didn’t hear?

Hear what?

Told her about Kathleen, about the men I killed. Told her about Rudi. Realized I’d just confessed premeditated murder to a U.S. Marshal. Bright, huh? At least I hadn’t done it in writing.

Leeza was silent for a moment, weighing it out.

“Good. Hope the lions didn’t get indigestion.”

“Oh, I spread Rudi around. Tigers, snow leopards and cheetahs got some too.”

Her smile made me weak. Vanished. Her turn.

“Remember that Friday night, the call I got before we went out?”

Like asking me if I remembered my own name. Shit, remembered everything about that night. Just said, “Yeah.”

“It was Rick’s C.O.—”

“Rick?”

“My husband.”

“Husband. You’re—”

“Not anymore. Not since that night. His C.O. was calling to let me know he was killed.”

“Killed doing what?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“But—”

“Okay, it’s like this, there was a weird kind of symmetry in my life when I was living with you.”

“What?”

“Jesus, Todd, you can read but can’t you read between the lines?”

“Guess not. I’m sorry anyway.”

“The marriage was already a victim of our choices. We were all over the place, hardly ever saw each other. Love doesn’t sustain you. That’s bullshit. You have to sustain love. When you stop sharing lives the love crumbles. Pining lasted a little while, but it just turned to anger. Everything does.” Sounded like Nicky. “You start resenting even the things you used to find charming. Then there was you.”

“Is this a reading between the lines thing again?”

“I’ll have that drink now,” she said.

“Jack, okay?” Nodded.

Brought it to her. Looked at my other hand.

Puzzled, “You’re drinking beer?”

“Jack and me, we parted ways today.” Explained about Kathleen, Jack and the Red Sox.

“Love her, Kathleen, I mean?”

“Wasn’t about that.”

“It is for me.”

Didn’t speak again until the next morning.

That night in bed, held on tighter than I’ve held onto anything or anyone, our mouths close enough to breathe in each other’s thoughts. Eyes open, the both of us, for fear of slipping away. Rocking inside her, I prayed hard to that attentive God.

Woke up. Still night. The world smelling of Leeza Velez. Understood somehow about symmetry.

From the bench on the Promenade I looked up at the severe blue skies and out across the river where the towers used to stand and where yet another part of my heart is buried. I’m not sure how many more pieces I can spare. Sometimes I think back to my intro philosophy class at CCNY and the futile exercise of trying to prove a negative. I couldn’t do it then. Can now. This is me pointing across the river.

I have always loved cloudless, blue skies. Like rainy days too, but for me there is proof of God in blue. When I was young and all the other kids speculated about beams of sunlight cutting through the clouds as heaven-bound souls, I knew better. Souls flew on blue days so they could clearly see the welcoming face of God. Nothing has happened to me that has shaken that belief. Yet, even as I sit here, the sun warm on my brown skin, I have to confess that blue skies now come with a caveat. Things other than innocent souls fly on perfect blue days.

There are days I fall into the trap of thinking things could have been different. Sometimes the differences are on a grand scale, like if there had only been fog that morning. Other times it’s on a very personal level like when I wake up wishing Todd had tripped and broken his goddamned leg getting out of the shower that day. All are saved or some are saved, but in the end the calculus is wrong. Nothing was different. Nothing is different. Nothing is going to be different. That’s me pointing across the river, again.

Boyle’s time was at hand. Nick and Todd’s as well. From the second they chose the life, they chose their deaths. I used to talk to the men I guarded about this stuff. A lot of them were not so different than Todd and Nick, guys who, for whatever reason got swept up in the world of violence and easy money. Some were stone killers, Griffin prototypes. They were easier to understand. The guys like Todd and Nick, they never had much to say. It was as if they were at some destination, but vague on how they got there or why they had gone in the first place. The hardcases had no such puzzlements.

Anyway, Boyle had been lost without Griffin. He’d gotten sloppy. In that life, a fish-eyed killer made a better right hand than a battered copy of the Good Book. Boyle had become a blind man wielding a chainsaw who saw neither the forest nor the trees. Lacking Griffin’s sense for which trees needed culling, Boyle laid waste to landscape. Enemies were everywhere. Along with rats like Todd’s Uncle Harry, Boyle’s loyal soldiers were felled. And the case which had been faltering when Nick and Todd had gone their separate ways, was now a big fat federal RICO case.

The shame in all of it was that Boyle’s worthless stinking life was to be spared. In exchange for his testimony and full cooperation, the prick was getting the full Sammy the Bull treatment: a few years in federal prison done in isolation and the rest of his time in Witness Protection. Sometimes you won’t find justice anywhere in this world but in the dictionary.

Both Todd and Nick had been called back to give their depositions and to give testimony against the men Boyle had ratted out. For the most part however, they were there to give credibility to Boyle’s testimony. It had come the full circle. In the end, they were still working for Boyle. Ironic? There was enough irony in the situation to gag on. After Boyle did his federal bid, it would be my employers, the U.S. Marshals that would be protecting his sorry ass. Even now, they had him stowed away in some cheap hump-and-run motel out in Sheepshead Bay.

Nick had been a lot more pleased with his recall than Todd. While Nicky had gone almost mad with the joys of small town Kentucky, Todd and I had settled into a happy life in Milwaukee. I was still on leave from the service and Todd... Well, he was still in limbo. He was a detective, but in name only. No matter what he’d done to bring Boyle and Rudi down, he was still the kid, the cowboy from Kennedy Airport in his heart. Oh yeah, there was this one other detail — I was pregnant, very pregnant.