Alex Barclay - The Caller

Tears streamed from her eyes. They shot open and Joe was beside her, pulling her onto his lap, stroking her hair, kissing the top of her head.

‘It’s OK, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘It’s OK. I’m here.’ He paused. ‘You’re safe. It was just a nightmare. Everything is good. Everyone’s OK.’

The relief in her eyes nearly broke his heart. ‘It was sleep paralysis again,’ she said. ‘I hate it. I thought it was gone. All these terrible-’

‘Shhh,’ said Joe. His voice was gentle. ‘It’s over now. And you’re going to come with me to the kitchen. And I’m going to make you some herbal tea. And I’m going to make myself a liter of coffee, find myself an IV line…’

‘How come you’re home?’ she said. ‘What time is it?’

‘I am home,’ he said, ‘because I missed my wife.’

‘Did you fly back to Ireland to milk some fucking cows?’ said Rencher.

‘Lattes,’ said Joe, ‘are for pussies.’

‘That’s it?’ said Rencher. ‘That’s all you got for me?’

‘That and your latte,’ said Joe. ‘With two extra muffins.’ He put them down on Rencher’s desk.

‘What?’ said Rencher. ‘I look like I need fattening up to you?’

‘You look like you need to smile,’ said Joe. ‘Where are the other guys? I’ve got more coffees to hand out.’

‘Well, in the two hours since you’ve been gone, they did the weirdest thing – they went out on police business.’

‘And I did not?’ said Joe.

Rencher tilted his head.

‘Back to your work,’ said Joe, smiling. He sat down at his desk and sighed. He pulled up the address book on his computer and searched through his contacts for Reuben Maller’s phone number.

He picked up before Joe even heard a ring tone.

‘Reuben, it’s Joe Lucchesi.’

‘Hello, Joe.’ His voice was cautious.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Joe. ‘It’s about a case I caught.’

‘Oh, OK. Good. I don’t have any update for-’

‘I know,’ said Joe. ‘I know. Look – do you remember William Aneto?’

‘Yes, that got a lot of coverage.’

‘Yeah. Well, we think we’ve linked him to two other recent homicides – another on the Upper West Side and one in SoHo a while back. Would you maybe take a look at the file, see if there’s a profile you could come up with? It’s always good to have an extra pair of eyes.’

‘Sure, not a problem. Let me swing by the office later.’

‘No, I’ll drop it in to you.’

‘Great. Joe? Do you really need my help or…’

Joe laughed. ‘I’d like your help, OK?’

Maller laughed. ‘All right. I had to ask.’

Joe put down the phone. He turned to his PowerBook and clicked his favourite icon, the pen and inkpot that opened up Pages, a programme for creating newsletters, journals, flyers, brochures. It was filled with templates in bright, shiny colours with photos of happy, smiling people. He opened his own template, VICS, and created a new file. He wondered what the software designers would think. He opened iPhoto and dragged photos onto the document, one of each of the victims taken while they were alive, their faces smiling, bored, relaxed – not battered beyond recognition. Joe wanted to look them in the eye. He wanted to do something for these three guys he could have walked past on the street or had a drink with at a bar or stood behind in line at the grocery store. Not three guys who he knew only by standing over their dead bodies.

His phone rang. He picked up. ‘Yeah?’

‘Joe, hi. It’s Mark Branham, Gay Alliance.’

‘Hey, thanks for getting back to me, Mark. How you been?’

‘Great. Busy. It’s the first anniversary of William Aneto’s death, as you know, so we’re trying to help the family rustle up some publicity. Is that why you’re calling?’

‘Kind of. We’re just talking here, OK?’

‘Sure, Joe.’

‘We think the case may be connected to a couple of other murders over the last few months.’

Mark sucked in a breath. ‘Really?’

‘It’s early days.’

‘Were all the victims gay?’

‘No. But we’re wondering if any of them hadn’t come out or maybe if they, you know…’

‘What? Gave off gay vibes? Tried it for a night? Bi now, gay later?’

Joe laughed. ‘Whatever. Maybe had two things on the go, you know?’

‘OK. So what do you think the killer was after?’

‘We’ve got a few options: maybe he likes to play rough, took it too far, got to liking it; guy is a homophobe and wants to teach the victims a lesson; or he’s just a guy whose pool of victims may be gay because that’s his circle.’

‘He could be your classic homophobe with repression issues who gets drunk and tries it out some night and blames the guy he picked up, takes out decades of anger on him. I’ve seen assaults – never murders – for that reason. Very badly beaten men. Is that what you have?’

‘Yes. Their faces were really messed up. The ME has seen it before in these kinds of cases.’

‘Not good. What can I do?’

‘Keep this quiet for now, first of all. But also, are you familiar with 3B?’

‘The club? Bed, Bad and Beyond? Yeah. William Aneto was there his last night.’

‘Yeah. I’d like to talk to whoever runs it, but don’t want a big deal made of it.’

‘OK. Well you need Buck Torrance. Promoter by night, pet accessory guy by day. Dawg On It in Chelsea. Eighth Avenue between 21st and 22nd. He’s a good guy. No drama. You can tell him you’re a friend of mine and that it’s about the first anniversary thing. If you’re asking about those other guys, you can say they were friends of the victim’s, whatever. Anyway, he’s discreet.’

‘Thanks, Mark. We’ll get to him tomorrow. How’s Kevin?’

‘He’s great. How’s Anna?’

‘Not doing too bad. You take care.’

‘You too.’

Joe left the office at seven to drop the file in to Reuben Maller. He decided to visit Old Nic on his way home; the only reason he had left for going back to Bensonhurst. He was unlikely to see a familiar face there now – almost everyone he knew had made the move to Staten Island in the Nineties. It was like all trace of his childhood had been swept away with the old storefronts. To Joe, Bensonhurst was the opening sequence to Welcome Back, Kotter; if they shot it now, nothing would be the same.

Joe took a left off 86th Street and drove a special route, past the house he grew up in, past Danny’s old house, Gina’s parents’ house. He avoided the apartment he spent three years living in with his mother and sister after his parents’ divorce. To him, that was three years of knowing his mother had cancer and a year of knowing she wasn’t going to make it. Bringing her to hospital appointments weak and unsteady, taking her home weaker.

He remembered their first visit to Kings County Hospital when he was fourteen. She told him it was a routine health check. He was embarrassed to hold her hand, but she was gripping him so tight, it would have been wrong to let her go. He waited outside the room, not knowing that inside, his thirty-six-year-old mother was being diagnosed with breast cancer. Joe was too busy worrying about being recognized; Kings County was the same place he would go to when he got into a bad fight. He used to hang outside waiting for a young intern to come on break. The same guy would always show up and shake his head when he saw Joe with a split lip or a slash through his eyebrow. Then he’d sneak him into an empty room to patch him up with his big, careful hands.

Joe knew that even to drive by the old apartment building would break his heart. He did it once and he thought he saw her walking down the front steps. Maria Lucchesi was a small, round woman. She always wore a red coat. The woman he saw was so similar, Joe had slowed the car. Then he pulled over. He remembered sitting with his head against the steering wheel, older than his mother was when she died, weeping like a child for the woman that always kept it together. One hug from his ma was bigger than anything else that was happening in his life.