Colin Harrison: The Havana Room

In this mood of worried self-protection it occurred to me that I should probably get rid of my rotten walk-up apartment on Thirty-sixth Street. I called the super and said I'd like to pay for any necessary repairs, then break the lease. He laughed and told me don't bother, we rented it three days after you left. Have a nice life, mister. So I found a small sublet near my old neighborhood on the Upper East Side, one with an extra bedroom this time, and I moved in.

All this transpired in the ten days after I started work, long zombified hours during which time I was simultaneously aghast and relieved that the world remained unknowing of what was probably four murders in the private room of a Manhattan steakhouse one night the previous month, plus a possibly related death the next day, somewhere on the road to Philadelphia. Where were the bodies of Poppy, Gabriel, Denny, Lamont? Where was Jay Rainey? Then, one morning, while I was shaving, looking in the mirror, my phone rang. I'd given my new, unlisted number to the people at the office but to no one else.

"William Wyeth?"

"Speaking."

It was a detective in Brooklyn, a man named McComber.

"You know a man called Jay Rainey?"

"Yes," I said, knowing I couldn't lie about this, what with witnesses, phone records, and my name on Rainey's documents. "I served as his lawyer for a recent real estate transaction."

"When was that?"

"About three weeks ago."

"When was the last time you saw Mr. Rainey?"

"It's been a little while, two weeks, I'd say."

"Mr. Rainey is deceased."

Was I surprised? I don't know. "What happened?"

His body had been found in the waters off Coney Island, McComber said, badly decomposed. Some kids on jet skis in wet suits found him floating, a swollen figure in sodden pants and shirt, and this being the world that it is, one of the kids had a waterproof cell phone and called the police. Jay's wallet was in the breast pocket of his coat, and my cell phone number was in it.

"But you called my new apartment line," I said.

"Yes."

"Oh."

"We like to know where people are," noted McComber. "Can you identify any immediate family members for us?" he went on.

"His father died a year or two ago, and he hasn't spoken to or seen his mother in more than a decade. I'm pretty sure there were no siblings."

"Was he married?"

"No."

"Children?"

"No," I said without hesitation.

"A girlfriend?"

"He didn't really discuss that part of his life with me."

"I see." The detective paused. "Well, we have a problem."

"Yes?"

"We need someone to identify and claim the body. We had to go ahead and do the autopsy, but we need to release the body."

"I don't know of any family members."

"Could you identify and claim?"

"Uh, I guess. I mean, I've never done it-"

"We need to release the body."

"Where do I go?"

He gave me the directions. I said I had some office business but could be there in three hours.

"Can I give you some advice?" asked the detective.

"Yes," I said, anxious that he meant some legal precaution.

"Don't eat lunch."

"Oh."

"I mean it."

"Okay. Thanks."

On the way to the medical examiner's office in Brooklyn I made a side stop at Jay's apartment, keeping my gloves on. This would be my last chance, I suspected, and I would take it. Inside I closed the door softly and turned on the light. Everything was as before. I had a plastic bag with me and removed sixteen unsent letters from Jay to Sally Cowles, including a few more I found in the oxygen chamber. But I knew there was more I should find. I took my time, I opened drawers, and the trunks under the bed. I found thirty-six different pieces of paper with references to his daughter. Plus some photos. Plus some more school schedules. Plus the handout from the recital. Plus his camera, which had exposed film in it that I removed. I also found a spare set of keys, both to Jay's truck and to the Reade Street property. The truck was gone now into bureaucratic infinity, eventually to be sold at auction. I slipped the Reade Street keys off their chain, checked around the apartment once more, set the door to lock, and pulled it shut behind me. Then I locked it from the outside as well. The whole operation took an extra twenty-five minutes. On the subway I stepped off at the Atlantic Avenue station, found a trash can that needed emptying, dropped everything but Jay's letters to Sally Cowles into it, then boarded the next train. I didn't want to have the letters on me in the presence of a police officer, so I stopped in a post office, bought an envelope, and mailed them to myself at home.

I met McComber in the hallway of the medical examiner's office. He was a small, tidy man. I shook his hand.

"You were his lawyer?"

"For one real estate transaction."

"How'd you meet?"

"We met and got to talking," I said, wanting to keep Allison out of it, if only for my sake. "I needed the work, so I said yes."

"Why'd he buy the building?"

I said it was a standard commercial investment but that the question was still a good one.

"Why is it a good question?" the detective responded.

"Because he was pretty sick."

"He was?"

"He had terrible breathing problems. Very bad."

McComber sucked at his cheeks, held my gaze. Of course, he had seen the autopsy report, which, I supposed, revealed the damaged lung tissue. "What do you mean?"

"He grew up on a potato farm on the North Fork of Long Island and was nearly killed in a herbicide accident."

"When was this?"

"I'm guessing fifteen years ago. It was degenerative. It caused a slow fibrosis in his lungs."

"How do you know all this?"

"He told me, but also I could see it. He had real difficulty sometimes."

"You guys got to know each other pretty well, I see."

"He told me a few things."

"But how well did you get to know each other, is what I'm really asking," pressed McComber.

"Not like that," I said.

"You're not married."

"Divorced."

"Children?"

"I have a son, yeah."

This relaxed him. "All right, so go on."

"He just had trouble breathing."

"You know where he lived?"

All the oxygen equipment, the black-market steroids and inhalers and bottles of pills were there, to be found by the police. "Here it is," I said, giving him the address. Seem to be helpful, I told myself, be the good citizen. "Can I also give you my work number in case anything turns up?"

"Yeah, yeah."

"Anything else?" I asked.

"Did he go to a doctor?"

"I don't think so, never mentioned it."

"He was sick but didn't go to the doctor?"

I said nothing, appearing reticent.

"Come on," McComber prompted. "We got a dead guy here, we're trying to figure it out."

"Okay," I said. "I got the impression Jay sort of experimented with his medications. He said his condition was only getting worse. He used to measure his lung capacity a lot. He was very worried about it. He always had pills and medicines for his lungs with him. Basically I think he treated himself."

The detective nodded, and I sensed a tick of judgment and dismissal. Lonely guy, sick, played with his drugs, knew he was going to die.

Ten minutes later an assistant medical examiner pulled out the long refrigerated drawer three feet, and there was Jay Rainey, his head and wide chest, his skin a pearled gray, looking shrunken into the drawer, a long suture-tightened incision running from the bottom of his neck to his belly button. The medical examiner had cut him open, gutted him. It was goddamn sickening. I caught the bile in my throat, took a moment to swallow. As I slid closer I could see that his hair lay salt-thickened by the ocean, more salt dried in starry spots across his cheeks. His eyes were open but the eyes themselves were gone and I found myself remembering the heroic Roman sculptures in which the marble eyes are darkly hollowed, creating the strange sense of visionary blindness. Jay seemed similarly afflicted. You could look at him but he didn't see you. The attendant had stuffed some cotton wadding in his nostrils. Jay's mouth had fallen open, as if getting one last great breath, and I noticed that he was missing a number of back teeth, the effect, I supposed, of not having money for proper dentistry during all his lean years. His face was stubbled and he looked both younger and ancient.