Pete Hamill - North River

“Stay here,” he said, and went out to the waiting area.

A short barrel-chested man in a gray fedora and an open overcoat was standing with fists on his hips. Delaney thought: Another movie version of J. Edgar Hoover. Another bullshit tough guy. Two more men in fedoras and open overcoats stood behind him, dressed like Callahan. One of them was holding a furled upright stretcher.

“Who’s in charge here?” the short guy said.

“I am,” said Shapiro, flashing his detective’s badge. “Danny Shapiro, New York Police Department. Who are you?”

“Tillman,” the short guy said in an annoyed voice. “FBI.”

“I showed you my tin,” Shapiro said. “Where’s yours?”

Tillman said, “Christ,” reached inside his coat, and removed a wallet displaying a card with his face on it.

“Welcome to Horatio Street,” Shapiro said.

“All right,” Tillman said. “What happened here?”

“Simple,” Shapiro said, glancing at Delaney. “This guy on the floor broke in here — you can see the open window on the second floor. He’s an FBI agent, but it looks like he’s got no warrant. And he starts picking the lock to Dr. Delaney’s office.”

“That you?”

“That’s me,” Delaney said.

“Where were you?”

“Having dinner with my grandson at Angela’s restaurant. Right around the corner.”

“And then?” Tillman said.

Shapiro continued: “The woman who takes care of the boy, Rose Verga, was upstairs in her room — she’s off Sundays. She’s taking a nap. Then she hears something. She picks up a baseball bat and comes down the stairs. Very quiet. She sees this guy, he turns, like he’s reaching for a rod in his belt, and she hits him in the head. That’s all.”

Tillman shook his head, his eyes moving from Shapiro to Callahan to Delaney and back to Shapiro.

“All right,” Tillman said, indicating Callahan. “The special ambulance is outside, it’ll take this guy away.” He nodded at the two men, and they unfurled the stretcher and went to Callahan. Then he said to Shapiro: “Where’s the woman?”

Delaney showed him into the office. Rose looked oddly defiant now, holding the boy close to her. He identified himself and asked her name. She told him.

“All right, Miss Verga, here’s what I want you to do,” Tillman said. “I want you to stay right here tonight, in this house. I could put you in a cell tonight, but that wouldn’t help anything. I want you down at federal court tomorrow morning, got that? You know where it is?”

“I do,” Delaney said.

“Don’t try to run away,” Tillman said to Rose. “You’ll be in big trouble.”

“Okay,” Rose said. Carlito was squirming.

“At federal court, you go to room 110. I’ll be there. We’ll take a statement. You can have a lawyer with you if you think that’s necessary. Depending on what happens, you might face criminal charges. You understand me?”

“You mean if something bad happens to Callahan?” Delaney said.

“Something bad already did,” Tillman said.

He stepped into the hall. Callahan and the stretcher bearers were out of the house. “Good night, gentlemen,” Tillman said. And he was gone.

Delaney faced Shapiro. “New York one,” Shapiro said, “Feds nothing.”

Then he was gone too. Delaney locked the door behind him.

At the sound of the gate slamming, the office door opened and Carlito ran out, with Rose behind him. Rose still seemed alarmed, as if prepared for sudden flight.

“That’s it?” she said.

“Until tomorrow morning at the courthouse,” Delaney said. He noticed that her face had hardened and her eyes were full of fright. “I’ll go with you.”

She came to him, and he put his arms around her. If fear had an odor, it was rising from her. She felt smaller and oddly younger.

“Don’t cry, Rosa,” the boy said.

For the first time in years, Delaney wanted to dance.

“Now…,” Rose said.

“Now everybody needs a good night’s sleep.”

Rose and the boy started up the stairs. Delaney went first to his office, looking for a business card.

The vast sea was empty and scarlet. The immense wave rose and rose and rose, carrying Delaney with its surging power, and then crested, held, seemed frozen, and then fell, dropping straight down into a darker crimson trough, and the trough was not empty. Tinpot helmets bobbed everywhere, going under then rising, faces contorted under the helmets, all mouths open, dozens of them, hundreds, drowning in the blood-red tide. He could see Eddie Corso without a helmet, his eyes glittery with fear, close enough to see and hear but too far to reach. There were dozens of soldiers whose faces he knew, but the only name he could remember was Eddie Corso’s. He began to see others: Knocko and Zimmerman and Mr. Lanzano. Packy Hanratty. Angela. All wearing helmets. All except Eddie and the boy. He was in the crimson water too, his eyes wide, full of terror, and Delaney tried to swim to him, calling Carlito! Carlito! Carlito! Delaney’s legs seemed to weigh three hundred pounds, and his right arm was useless, and he could not reach the boy. Carlito! Carlito! Carlito!

And then he was awake, and Rose was sitting beside him on the bed, caressing his sweaty face. Rose. This time not an illusion, not a scribble of dream or desire. Real. With her odor of flowers. In a bathrobe in the dark.

“You okay?” she whispered hoarsely.

“Yes,” he said, feeling a tremble in his voice. “Yes. Sure. Just a bad dream.”

“You were calling the boy.”

“Did I wake you up?”

“No, I wasn’t asleep.”

“I’m okay,” Delaney said.

“No, you’re not.”

She stretched out on top of the covers and pulled him close, her right arm across his chest. He could hear her breathing, cool and steady. A vague aroma of basil was now mixed with the smell of flowers.

“It wasn’t just Carlito,” she said. “I know. I couldn’t sleep with worrying. About going away. About living somewhere without the boy.” A beat; then, in a reluctant voice: “Without you.”

“Don’t go away,” he said.

He wanted to hold her face, to kiss her cheeks and brow and lips and neck. But he was afraid. If I cross this street, he thought, if I open this door, where will it lead? Will I ruin something? Everything? Will I force her to choose flight?

Thinking: Don’t play with her.

Thinking: Don’t take advantage of her goodness, her sense of unworthiness, her confusion.

Thinking: She came to me. Full of her own needs. Perhaps even acting out a farewell.

“It’s cold here tonight,” she said, and lifted her arm from his chest, and touched his face, and sat up.

Thinking: Don’t go. Please don’t go.

She folded back the blanket and sheet on her side of the bed and slipped in beside him. She bent her leg and slid it over his thigh, infusing him with warmth, while her hands moved to his face and neck. Her breathing was thicker. He realized in the dark that her bathrobe was open, and he could feel her breasts, pliant and full, and her hard nipples. And then it was hair and flesh and tongue, then it was sounds without words, then it was belly and bottom, and hands moving, and legs, and softness and hardness, and muscles taut, then it was wetness and then entry into deep endless warmth.

“Dottore,” she whispered.

“Rosa.”

JUST BEFORE EIGHT-THIRTY IN THE MORNING, THEY BOARDED THE local train going downtown to Chambers Street. Rose was dressed in the same black clothes and stretched boots she wore to St. Patrick’s, but her face was bare of powder. She was hatless, her hair held tight with oyster-colored clasps. Walking beside her to the station, Delaney absorbed her tense silence. Monique had arrived early, after Delaney’s call. The patients would have to wait. But the tension was surely not about the boy. It was about everything else.