S Rozan - Absent Friends

But not so busy that she didn't respond when Leo called her name.

“Stone.”

“The Harry Randall homicide.” Instantly she answered. She'd practiced this in her head, over and over through the day, through the night as she lay awake on the pull-out couch in her unrecognized apartment. (What had she been thinking, buying this carpet? Didn't those curtains ever shut out the light? Did the refrigerator always hum and stop like that? It must be the noise, that must be why she couldn't sleep.) The Harry Randall homicide. She worked on this phrase with the precision and persistence she brought to all her writing. Words, she had always believed, made thoughts visible. Nothing was so gossamer or so incarnate, so transitory or so steadfast, that words could not reveal its secrets. Even the incomprehensible, even the unfathomable. Even this, Harry's death, could be made comprehensible by the right words.

“I was on Staten Island this afternoon,” she said, “to talk to a couple of people.”

“You have anything new?”

Leo wanted a piece. Laura's heart skipped. “I will by deadline, Leo.”

Raised eyebrows and traded looks told her how intensely the group was following this exchange. Within minutes of her leaving Leo's office yesterday, the substance of their meeting and its outcome had flash-flooded through the newsroom: Stone has a crackpot theory that Randall didn't jump. But Leo signed on; what the hell does that mean? He's probably just humoring her. Because, you know, of her and Harry. Leo? You must be crazy. Then Jesselson's piece ran this morning, and agnosticism replaced atheism: might be something there, I mean, Leo's got Jesselson on it, too, let's see what comes next.

Leo grunted, a sign he'd heard Laura and that was all for her. But before he could draw down on his next target, words from the other side of the room: “Laura? Write this down.” Hugh Jesselson, rumpled in gray slacks and wrinkled white shirt, propped up the far wall. “Angelo Zannoni. Sergeant, retired, 124.” Glancing at a three-by-five card in his hand, he pounded out a phone number. Laura scribbled it down, then looked at him inquiringly. “Arresting officer,” he said. “Mark Keegan, 1979. Expecting your call.”

Laura smiled. “Thanks, Hugh.”

Jesselson shrugged. “Thanks for yesterday.”

A snicker wiggled around the room. Laura flushed. Jesselson's mouth turned up at the corner, which didn't help.

It had been Laura's idea to run this morning's story on the investigation of Harry's death under Hugh Jesselson's byline. “We can make it look like the cops care. Maybe scare someone out of the woodwork. Let Hugh have it,” she'd argued to Leo. He sat lodged behind his desk, rendered as close to wordless as she'd ever seen him by the spectacle of a reporter offering a front-page byline to someone else.

Jesselson, summoned by sapphire, read her copy. “Doesn't sound like me,” he'd objected.

“Rewrite it,” ordered Leo.

So he had, and Hugh Jesselson, after eight years with the New York Post and six at the Tribune, had finally made the front.

Meeting concluded, reporters and editors went back to work. Laura dropped into her chair and dialed the number Jesselson had given her.

Four rings, then a growled “Hello.”

“Angelo Zannoni?”

“Who the hell is this?”

“Mr. Zannoni, I'm Laura Stone of the New York Tribune. Hugh Jesselson suggested I call you-”

“He suggest you call me at suppertime?”

Laura glanced up to the newsroom clock. The hour hadn't occurred to her, and in the face of the important work she was trying to accomplish, she was surprised to find time mattering to anyone.

“I'm sorry if-”

“Yeah, sure. You want to come out here?”

“Yes. Yes, if that would be-”

“1491 Fitzgerald, Pleasant Hills. Think you can find it?”

“Yes, I-”

“I'm here.”

Laura took the receiver from her ear, replaced it on its console. She might as well; Zannoni had already hung up.

October 31, 2001

“It was Jimmy, wasn't it?”

For the second time since she'd entered Flanagan's, Marian felt conversations stopping and eyes turning their way. This time she was wrong, though, and she knew it immediately. The beat of the music continued, the talk and the laughter. No one had heard her words but Tom; no one's eyes burned, no one stared silently, but Tom.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“It was Jimmy who killed Jack.” She'd never said this before, though she had somehow always known it, known it since Jimmy stumbled, wordless, through the first numb days, sweated and could not lie still beside her through the first sleepless nights. She had known it and never said it and now she was terrified that dragons and fire-spitting serpents would come screaming down from the sky, that the enclosing, sheltering walls would crash down and bury her in endless, crushing darkness.

“You're shivering.” Tom's hand was on hers. What would Vicky think? Marian wondered, absurdly. But Vicky and Tom weren't together anymore, hadn't been for years, so why would it matter? She'd just slip her hand out, pretend she wanted to lift her wine to her lips (and drinking wine was not a bad idea right now, her glass was almost empty, where was the waitress so she could order another?); or she could turn her cold palm to Tom's warm, strong one and hold tight to him, and that was what she did.

“Marian…”

He said no more. She reached for her wineglass with her free hand. As she took an emptying sip, Tom signaled the waitress and another was on the way.

“Marian, why are you saying this?”

“Because it's true. I know it is.”

“Did Jimmy tell you that?”

“Jimmy's dead.”

She couldn't think why she'd said that. Tom knew. Everyone knew, everyone in New York, even people who had never known Jimmy, everyone knew he was dead. They had all mourned him as they had mourned all the heroes, until Harry Randall told them Jimmy was not a hero, and broke everyone's heart, and her heart all over again.

“Marian. Back then. What did Jimmy say?”

Tom was leaning toward her. Suddenly she was irritated with him. “Jimmy never said anything. You knew him. He'd never say anything.” She pulled her hand from Tom's. She found her new wine arriving, which was a good thing, because her mouth was dry and her face felt hot. The waitress took her other glass away. But she had emptied it anyhow, there was nothing there anymore, who cared? She reached for the new one and took a luxurious swallow, nothing to do with Marian Gallagher's sensible, moderate ways.

More beer had been delivered for Tom, too. He picked it up, drank, and put it down. Blue eyes steady, straight at her, the way he used to look at them, at each of them and all of them, ever since they were kids.

In Marian's experience (and her experience was vast: meetings were her medium, conversation her métier) most people, if regarding you in extended silence, were not seeing you at all. Their minds wrestled with whatever concerned them, their eyes did not focus, you were not really there to them. But not Tom. Whatever he was concentrating on, if he looked at you he saw you, he considered you and measured you and worked you into his plan. Across the table from Marian he sat now like that, as he had so many times in their childhood, Tom thinking something up, how to get out of something or get into something and the rest of them sitting quietly, waiting for it, waiting to be told their parts.

But the world had changed, and Flanagan's had changed. The noise of the crowd was setting Marian's nerves on edge, and she didn't want to sit and wait, not now. “Jimmy was there that night, wasn't he?” she asked Tom, thinking it might be easier for him to answer that, thinking maybe, maybe, he could tell her that wasn't true and then the other thing wouldn't be true, either.