R. Ellory - A Quiet Vendetta

‘Get me there however,’ Hartmann said. ‘Get me there before four and there’s a hundred bucks in it for you.’

Max grinned from ear to ear. ‘Hundred bucks and I’ll get you there last freakin’ Tuesday.’

The run was clear all the way to the Bridge, and Hartmann looked at his watch every three or four minutes. By the time they hit the first slow it was twenty-five after three. He was nervous already, and the mere fact that time was against him made it all the worse.

Max was no help. He insisted on detailing the idiosyncrasies and eccentricities of pretty much every passenger he’d carried in the previous week.

Ray Hartmann heard the words as they battered each other out of the way to escape from Max’s mouth, but what he was saying and whether it was of any interest was lost on him. It was just a noise, like the noise of car horns blaring at one another as the traffic ground to a halt at the entrance to the Williamsburg Bridge.

Hartmann looked at his watch for the hundredth time: three thirty-nine p.m. He swore under his breath.

‘What was that?’ Max asked. ‘You say somethin’, mister?’

‘The goddamned traffic!’ Hartmann snapped.

‘Told you so,’ Max said. ‘Took me near on an hour to make it across here last time.’

Hartmann wanted to grab Max by the throat and shake him until he collapsed. He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. He willed himself to believe that the traffic would suddenly ease up and start moving, that they would make it across the Bridge, that it would be nothing more than a right onto Baruch, left onto East Houston, right onto Avenue B and they would be there, pulling up alongside Tompkins Square Park, and he would be cramming Max’s hands with grubby ten-dollar bills, and he would be running, and there would be minutes to spare, and Carol would know that he had changed because this time… this time he had not broken his word…

The cars ahead seemed to have parked up for the afternoon.

Hartmann wound down the window and took several deep breaths. He clenched and unclenched his hands. A fine gloss of sweat had varnished his face, and beneath his jacket he felt hot and cold flushes running alternately. He thought he might puke. He could think of nothing but this tight sense of nervous impatience, desperation almost, that seemed to have assumed complete control of his mind and body. He wanted to get out of the cab and start running. He wanted to hurtle full-tilt between the lanes of cars and make it all the way on foot…

At three forty-nine the traffic started moving. They reached the end of the Bridge and turned right onto Baruch at four minutes past four.

Hartmann had lit three cigarettes against Max’s insistence that he not smoke in the cab, and each one had been left to burn almost to its filter before he threw it out of the window.

How much money he gave Max when the cab finally drew to a stop near the gates of the park Hartmann didn’t know. It could have been his life’s savings and he wouldn’t have cared. He even left his bag behind, and Max came after him, thrust the thing into his hands, and then stopped to watch as he charged across the grass towards the bandstand.

By the time Ray Hartmann reached his agreed rendezvous point with his wife and daughter it was thirteen minutes past four.

The bandstand was deserted.

Hartmann stood there, pale and drawn, covered in sweat, his bag dropped at his feet, everything inside him tightened up like a fist, ready to explode at the slightest provocation.

He swore three or four times. He scanned the people nearby. He started walking one way, and then he turned and walked the other. He saw a child with a woman, he opened his mouth to speak, and then he realized the child was a boy and the woman was old and gray-haired and walking with a cane.

He backed up against the cold concrete base of the bandstand. He felt his knees giving beneath him. He felt the sting of tears in his eyes. He couldn’t breathe. His heart was trip-hammering like it intended to overload and stop and send him crashing to the ground… and sometime later someone would find him and call the police, and the police would call the emergency services, and they would come down and find him dead and cold and stiff and…

Ray Hartmann started to cry. He went down on his knees, his face in his hands.

This is what you get for everything you didn’t do , his inner voice told him. This is what you get for being a lousy father and never paying attention, and never helping Jess with her schoolwork, and drinking when you said you wouldn’t. This is what you get for being a loser, born and bred, and no matter what you do now you will always look back at this moment and beat yourself to death about it, because this is everything that your life will ever be, and there’s nothing, absolutely nothing you can do about it …

And then there were footsteps, the sound of someone running, and for a moment he paused, instinct like radar tuned to every sound around him, and Ray Hartmann looked up, and through his tear-filled eyes he saw her…

‘Dadddeeeeee!’

He stood up slowly.

He surveyed the faces before him. He took one step forward and gripped the edge of the lectern.

It’s not here for notes, he thought. No-one brings notes to say what they have to say here. They put this here so there’s something between you and them… something for you to hold onto if you feel you’re going to lose it. If you feel just like I feel now …

‘Hi,’ he said.

There was a murmur from the gathered ensemble of people. Men, women, young and old, dressed every which way, nothing similar between them, except one thing, and that was something you could never see, and in most cases would never have guessed, but they were all here for the very same reason.

‘Hi,’ he said again. ‘My name is Ray.’

And there are times when he finds it hard to believe that he ever jeopardized what he possessed, as if only a crazy man could have failed to recognize what was here .

They came back at him then, a chorus of acknowledgements and nods of approval.

‘My name is Ray. I am a father. I am a husband. I am an alcoholic, and until a few months ago I was drinking.’

And there are times when he looks at his own reflection in the mirror and asks himself if he ever really knew himself, or anyone else for the matter .

There was a murmur of sympathy, and then beneath that a ripple of applause, and Ray Hartmann stood there, his heart beating, and he waited until the crowd had settled down before he spoke again.

‘I blamed my wife, I blamed my job. I blamed my own dad because he was a drunk too. I blamed it all on the fact that I lost my younger brother when I was fourteen years old… but the truth of the matter, and this was the hardest thing of all, was that I was the only one to blame.’

Time, he knows now, does not heal. Time is merely a window through which we can see our own mistakes, for those seem to be the only things we remember with clarity .

Again there were murmurs of consent and agreement, and once again a ripple of applause that spread through the crowd.

‘Some time ago I went home to New Orleans, and there, again because of my job, I met a man who had spent his life killing people.’

Jess speaks to him, and in her voice is the same feeling, the same emotion that she always possessed. She does not care to remember the time he was away, as if that was merely a blip on the heart monitor, and now it has passed it can be forgotten so easily .

Ray Hartmann paused and looked at the faces watching him. He wanted to be outside in the car with Carol and Jess. He wanted to be anywhere but here, but he knew, knew with all of his being, that this time he was going to keep his side of the agreement.