Pete Hamill - Tabloid City

He steps forward, his feet making a squishy sound, and lays a free hand on the icy windowsill. His breath expels a small cloud of steam. Finally he leans forward and looks down. Four stories.

He sees the naked body of Glorious on a carpet of rubble. Her luminous brown skin glistens from the rain. She does not move. In the crook of her left arm is a tiny child. Like a doll. The child does not move either.

Malik jerks backward, then falls hard to his knees. He faces the empty sky, and begins to howl.

2:29 a.m. Sandra Gordon. Her apartment.

She’s awake again, out on the balcony, high above the glistening street. The plants are all dead, or dozing through winter. She’s wearing the heavy down coat that Myles Compton bought her that cold spring day a few years back, explaining that it was to keep her Jamaican blood at room temperature. She laughed then. Jamaican blood. Why not New York blood? she said. I’ve been here longer than I ever lived in Jamaica. Longer than you, Myles, ever lived here either.

Now he’s gone, lugging his credit default swaps and his derivatives or whatever the hell he was into. Gone. A fugitive now like ten thousand other rich grifters. He won’t call me, she thinks. He won’t e-mail. He won’t do anything that will help them track him down. For sure, she thinks, the people on his trail will be listening to me too. Gotta change this number. The e-mail address too. They’ll catch him anyway. The Feds. Interpol. The Bulgarians. Whoever. Ah, Myles.

Where are you, Myles? She turns and slips back into the dark living room, sliding the balcony door shut. She unzips the coat and drops it on the carpet.

Thinking: I can’t ever do this again.

2:31 a.m. Ali Watson. Patchin Place, Greenwich Village.

He turns left off Sixth Avenue onto Greenwich and sees an open spot along the curb on the right. When he was young and tending bar in a joint called Asher’s, the summer after he took the cops’ test, he often walked past this spot when the little park was one of the saddest buildings in the city: the Women’s House of Detention. Day and night, women in the House of D. would yell down from their cells to young men or older women who were holding babies for them to see. Most of the women in the cells were caught hooking or dealing drugs. Their mothers were scolding them from Sixth Avenue. Many men on the sidewalks were really only older kids. You take care a’ him, Buddy. Feed him good, Momma. No crap now, JoJo…

The building is now gone: replaced by a park, and on an angle through the wet leafless trees Ali Watson can see two fire engines, three police cars, a gathering of people in black silhouette. He can see the helmets of firemen bobbing in and out of the handheld lights. He pulls down the sun-blind mirror, with its NYPD placard facing the street side, clamps his badge on the top of his coat collar, gets out, pats his cell phone, locks the doors. Thinking: Jesus fucking Christ.

The rain has stopped now but the street is wet and glassy, reflecting a garish mixture of red lights and brights. And there in front of him is Patchin Place, a gated dead-end street between Greenwich and 10th Street, where he has so often dropped Mary Lou or picked her up to go home. The iron gates are open, hoses on the ground. Other residents of the small dead-end street are outside the gates, flanking the entrance, coats pulled tightly over nightgowns and pajamas, drinking coffee, smoking. All alone, a fat bare-legged white guy with a coat on top of a bathrobe seems to be eating a bowl of cereal. Watching. In a separate cluster, men and women aim cameras or cell phones, scribble notes: the reporters. Ali’s breath is coming in tiny gasps. The front door of the house is open. Hoses snake from fire hydrants up the few steps into the Harding house. Three windows are open on the top floor. Lamps move in jerky patterns inside all floors. The air is gritty with smoke and ash.

Oh, Mary Lou. Let them tell me you’re at St. Vincent’s. Let me know that you’re okay .

He walks to the front gate. He sees that each corner of the short street is blocked by a squad car with its red dome light turning. A lieutenant from the Sixth Precinct, a guy named Brennan, spots him. And comes up to him, taking his arm.

— Hey, Ali, he says softly.

— How bad is it, Joe?

— Pretty bad.

Mary Lou. Mary Lou. Let me drive you home now.

— Exactly how bad?

— Two dead. Then the fire after.

— Is—

— Yeah.

Brennan hugs Ali, tries to move him away from the house. Ali sags, then stiffens. The reporters, some street cops, an old lady in a man’s overcoat: all are now watching. Tiny orange digital lights flicker like eyes. Ali gives Brennan a soft push and starts for the steps.

Just as a man in a civilian overcoat, a fedora, collar up, steps out of the building onto the top of the small stoop. Ray Kelly. The commissioner. He sees Ali, removes gloved hands from his pockets. There are two other cops behind him, blocking the narrow doorway. The odor of burned wood and fabric is stronger here. But clearly the fire is out. Kelly comes down the steps and goes directly to Ali Watson.

— Don’t go in there, Ali, Kelly says softly.

— For Chrissakes, Ray. It’s my wife!

— I know. That’s why you’re not going in.

— I gotta—

— It’s an order, Ali. Come on. We’ll take a walk.

2:32 a.m. Sam Briscoe. His loft on Greene Street, SoHo.

The phone rings in the darkness. From his bed, Briscoe glances at the night table. The bright green phone with caller I.D. From the paper.

— Sam here.

— Mr. Briscoe, it’s the desk and—

— Put him on.

Briscoe sits up, swings around with his feet on the floor. Then he hears Matt Logan’s voice.

— Sorry to bother you, Sam. But we got a big one.

— Tell me.

— A double homicide in the Village. One of them we think you know. Named Cynthia Harding and—

— What?

— And her secretary, a black woman named Watson. Mary Lou Watson. Her husband’s a cop. Fonseca’s at the scene. No details yet. How they died. Suspects. Nada, Sam.

— Call Helen.

— She got here ten minutes ago.

Briscoe switches on the lamp.

— The paper’s locked up, Logan says. Maybe we can do a wrap, front and back.

— Yeah. Call Billygoat at the plant. See if we can do the wrap. Have Helen write the lede. Fonseca can write the scene. The clips should have a lot of stuff on Cynthia Harding, charities, the public library. Two husbands.

— Right.

— One more thing, Matt. Tonight she had a small fund-raiser at Patchin Place. For the library. I know because I was invited, but couldn’t go. See if Fonseca can get a guest list, then you know what to do.

— Right.

— I’ll get dressed and head to Patchin Place for a bit. Maybe call in a few things. Then I’ll come to the paper. And Matt? One more thing.

— Yeah?

— Tell Helen she can smoke.

Briscoe hangs up. Mumbling in the emptiness of the loft. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. Cynthia? Dead? Christ Allfuckingmighty. No. It’s bullshit. No. Wrong address. But Matt has Mary Lou’s name too. Oh, Cynthia… If I’d gone to the party, maybe I’d have picked up something, something wrong in the rooms, something about the guests or the mood. But hell: Cynthia’s a grown-up. She knows what to look for too. So does Mary Lou. She sees like a cop. Like her husband, Ali.

Briscoe moves quickly to the bathroom, splashing water to wake himself up. Dries himself while looking out the back window. The rain is over. Cynthia? Cynthia dead? His heart is beating furiously. His stomach contracts, expands. Cynthia. My Cynthia. He sees fragments of her face. Many angles, always shifting, depending on age, emotions, the light. He sees the intelligence in Mary Lou’s eyes. And her permanent skepticism. But Cynthia… Oh Jesus fucking Christ.